The Wooden Dummy

Sento slammed his door shut behind him as his hands fumbled into his pocket for his keys, he was leaving to go train and nobody was home, so it was good practice for one to remember to lock their doors behind him. Sento’s tongue stuck out as he focused on finding the keys in the mess of lint. It looked a bit ridiculous for his tongue to be out like that but he couldn’t help it, when he was concentrating it seemed to do it on its own. A bit of a bad habit he developed as a child that he just couldn’t seem to get rid of.

His tongue however seemed to find its way back into its mouth where it belong when his finger touched the metallic surface of his key ring. He let out a brief smile as his arm pulled back and brought the set of keys out into the open air before inserting it into his lock and twisting it. Not stopping until he heard the satisfying click of the metal locking itself into position and knowing that he had successfully secured his house and possessions.

Then the inexperienced gennin tried to pull the keys out of the lock only to feel his arm forced to stop as they key refused to come out. “The hell” He’d mutter as he jiggled the key, and pressed his feet against the door pushing with his feet and pulling with his arms, all the while hanging on the side of his door. “I hate keys! I hate keys!” He’d say before the damn thing finally popped out and caused him to fall into the dirt road on his back. But not before he had heard a slightly less satisfying click.

Intrigued Sento lifted himself off of the ground and rose to his feet before walking back up to his door and twisting the handle. As he did so the door opened with ease as if it had never been locked and he slammed it back shut in irritation.

“Fuck it” the yellow eyed gennin would say as he wiped the dirt off the green and black jacket making sure it remained clean as usual. He walked off as he left his home unguarded and unprotected, it wasn’t like he had many valuables in the house anyways… And he’d be damned if he spent more time trying to figure out that god forsaken lock.

Sento’s path to the training grounds would be a long one, and he’d be doing it all by his lonesome, unfortunately his house was nowhere close to any of the training grounds and the nearest one was about a twenty minute walk away. He had recently found however that the plentiful walks to and from the village where giving him a much better knowledge of Konoha’s streets as he found himself getting more and more used to his surroundings. He rarely got lost anymore although getting lost never really irritated him, he loved to explore and getting lost gave him the opportunity to do just that.

The path to the training ground in itself was beautiful, the stone brick sidewalk with grass peaking and growing through the stone due to years of wearing it down gave it a beautiful look that was somewhere between manmade and nature. A perfect balance between the two. The green of the grass was well contrasted by the large red wooden walls to the village that protected the civilians ran against it with orange shingles lining the top of it to deter any harsh whether from damaging the wooden walls.
As he continued to walk on the stone brick path parallel to the bright red wooden wall he began to whistle rhythmically to soothe himself, it was another one of his odd habits such as sticking his tongue out when he had to concentrate or moving his head side to side when lost. These little mannerisms were a part of him and he made no attempt to control them.

Finally after a bit of walking Sento’s bright yellow eyes watched as the training ground appeared over the horizon in the distance. A small smile would appear on his face as he began to stride forwards with a new bit of excitement adding extra power to his already rapid movements. And the training ground began to come nearer and nearer until finally the white haired senju found himself standing square in the center of the clearing in the woods. He took a bit of time to look around staring at the scenery that he guessed not many gennin took the time to take in.

Konoha was blessed with beautiful trees and flowers all blooming in the spring time, winter had left and and with it the biting cold that often suppressed these beautiful plants. Allowing them to finally spring free. As a Senju, Sento felt a bit more connected to such things than the normal gennin from the village, and with his recently obtained knowledge of his clan's kekkei genkai, he had a pretty good understanding as to why. Or at the least a decent guess.

Clearing his mind of the beautiful scenery around him he would now focus his mind on the task at hand. And speaking of hands his would now reach into his lower left weapons pouch to pull out a book he had recently checked out from the grand Konoha library. Only this time he had been a lot more careful around the stairs. He shuddered as he remembered his previous encounter with the marble stairs in the bright blinding sun of the village hidden in the leaves. He had been unable to see and had fallen down the long stretch of stairs before crashing into a rather rude man at the bottom of them.

He rubbed his sides to sooth them of the phantom pain he was experiencing from remembering the fall as he did so. The memory was painful but a fond one, he enjoyed looking back on his little mess ups and learning from them. After the distracting memory passed Sento found himself looking at the brown leather bound book labeled “Senju Clan Secret Techniques”. It had been in a restricted section of the library and he had, had to go so far as to prove he was a member of the senju clan before they’d allow him to check it out.

But hopefully the hassle would pay off. Learning his first wood technique was the goal for the day and he didn’t intend to leave this field until he had. However his focus kept straying from the book and he couldn’t seem to help his thoughts from going astray. Mainly because he was beginning to feel tired, the walk from his house to here had put a toll on his legs, and he had spent quite a while standing in thought as well. The whole process was leaving a bit of ache in his thighs.

Looking for something to soothe the tired feeling in his legs sento began to form a dismayed look as he saw no low hanging branches or benches in the immediate area. Then his eyes focused on the nearest tree with a thick branch and an idea popped into his head. He thought of the rather useful technique he had learned not too long ago. Suiton Suidanha, an ancient water technique that could cut trees with ease. He began to wonder if he could use it to create a comfortable stump to rest on while he read up on the wood release techniques, and decided there was no point in not trying it out. Besides, there was nobody in the immediate area so it wasn’t like he was risking anybody's well being.

With a determined look on his face Sento would take a breath before raising both his hands to his chest and extending both index and middle fingers on each one and clasping his hands together to form the tiger seal. As he molded his chakra into its water state he would open his mouth to let the powerful tree cutting stream expel outwards and watched in amazement as it cut through the tree before rotating his head slightly to the right to guide the stream of water clean through the trunk, taking extra care to make sure it formed a clean cut.

As the water subsided Sento gave a satisfied gaze in the trees direction watching as the trunk began to lean to the right and gave way to gravity. A loud crunch could probably be heard from a good distance away from the toppled tree but none of that was of any concern to him, he had a bench now, and he had earned it. Making his way over to the stump he’d lower his rear onto the tree before coming to a sudden disastrous realization.

In the process of creating the bench, he had also soaked it, and now his pants were soaking wet and cold, in the brisk Konoha air. Not wanting to sit on the wet wooden stump any longer the white haired gennin would pop into the air suddenly and abruptly before landing on both feet in the grass in front of him. “Disgusting” He’d mutter as he decided the grass was as good a location as any and plopped down onto his back tucking his forearm underneath his neck to support his head, as his free hand help up the book in front of him.

The sun would bring light to the pages as he flipped through them looking to find the A rank chapter, as S rank was too high in difficulty, and B rank was too easy. He saw several techniques that interested him, something called the four pillar prison, and another called the wood locking wall technique. There was even one that allowed him to heal himself, but that sounded to far out of his skill range to even attempt. But as he stumbled onto the last listed jutsu he knew he had found what he was looking for.

“Wood Release: Wood Clone Technique”

“That sounds interest” The young konoha gennin would think to himself as he flipped to the next page that he hoped would tell him what the technique actually did. And sure enough it presented itself to him on page. The wood clone technique was apparently a way for a shinobi to fight multiple shinobi at once or to scout ahead and completely avoid any danger to one's actual self. It would surely be a useful technique in the field, especially with how clumsy Sento was known to be.

Interested in learning the techniques the white haired gennins yellow eyes would scan from left to right, left to right, over and over and over again until he found the section where the handsigns where listed. He was surprised to see that it was a simple three hand weave and really couldn't believe his luck. Suiton Suidanha was only one handsign and wood clone was only four. His A rank ninjutsu would be able to be used extremely fast in the field if he continued to practice the signs, and commit them to memory.

Intending to do just that with the wood clone technique he began to look through the symbols noting each one and repeating them aloud. Tiger, Dog, Snake. Tiger, Dog, Snake. Tiger, Dog, Snake. He’d say over and over again. When he had the words memorized he would then begin to practice making the handsigns in sequence. Which wasn’t too hard. The konoha academy had drilled the signs into their heads much like the alphabet. It was odd to think that ninjutsu hand signs were as common knowledge as the language he spoke. But hey, sento was simply a product of the world he lived in.

Anyways the boy in the green jacket spent about ten more minutes under the bright konoha sun mashing his hands together in several different patterns that they began to cramp up. When this began to happen Sento took it as a sign that it was time to switch up his training regiment and lowered his hands to his outer thighs as he took a deep breath, before wiping off the sweat rolling down his face. It was such an odd time of year, spring that is. Cold wind and the hot sun. A turning point from the freezing winter weather and the blistering summer sun.

Taking a couple seconds to regain his breath the yellow eyed senju would think back to the day he had focused on getting the wood element down and took a second to think about how he had mastered the element. It was information he was going to have to remember fondly in order to try a technique as complex as the A rank Wood Clone technique. He remembered climbing up the side of some poor civilians house so that he could position himself on a tree branch as he hadn’t bothered to learn the surface walking technique yet at the time and a faint smile appeared on his face.

Like he said earlier, sento loved to look back on his past mistakes and learn from them in order to better himself, and the surface walking technique was just one of many examples on how he had done so. But this was not the memory he was looking for at the moment. No he needed to think back to how he had felt while resting in the branch and feeling the tough bark of the tree to inspire his wood release.

Then he remembered, he had focused on the natural state of the tree, sturdy, natural, and rough. And that was what he had focused on before tapping into his chakra nature. That was the key to the wood release, of course dna also played a factor, which was why it was impossible for anybody but a senju to use such a technique. He smiled as he began to tap into his own chakra and remembered the method as to how one should summon the wood clones.

He knew that with with clones the user could make up to two, but for now he would settle for one as this was a relatively complicated clan secret, and would take a bit of effort to get the hang of much less master. A deep breath would manifest itself within him as he began to focus on the sturdiness of the tree’s and incorporated it into his chakra system.

He felt his body begin to feel healthier and more natural and his skin began to harden, his movements becoming more sure of themselves and the follow through more powerful. This typically marked that he was tapping into his clan element, the wood release, although he had never actually used a wood release technique. but hey he had to start somewhere right. “Tiger! Dog! Snake! He’d exclaim as his handsigns smashed together to form the technique. “Wood Clone!” He knew that the technique could be formed in one of two ways from the description in the book.

Option one was to make it form from a wood release technique he had already used, which was more convenient in several ways. The first of which was that he could create the clones from a longer range, and the second of which was that if spawned from a wood source the clones would be vitalized with their own chakra system instead of mooching off of his own, which would leave him with a lot more chakra and energy to perform his own techniques.

However this option was unavailable to him as he had yet to learn any wood techniques, wood clone would be his first and seeing as how he couldn’t create a wood clone out of thin air he was going to have to go with option two, the least convenient possibility of them all. This method sprouted the clones from one's body instead of a wooden source and robbed them of their chakra system splitting it evenly between the body.

Which is what he was currently experiencing as he watched a single clone sprout from his back, at first looking like a wooden dummy gone mobile. But then slowly taking on his skin and facial features, before sprouting hair, and clothes on top of its body. It was an extremely convincing mirror image of himself but he could feel the chakra in front of him trying to disperse. Sento’s lack of chakra control was making the thing hard to keep well shaped and he could see parts of the skin fluctuating.

He took no worry from this however, as he would merely practice until he could do it without the intense effort he was currently using. Starting now.

First the white haired, yellow eyed, green jacket wearing, konoha gennin would take a couple laps around his clone, making sure it featured the exact apparel and genes of its creator. After about three laps and detective level scrutiny however a smile would appear on the boys face as he realized he couldn’t spot a difference even if he had made a game out of it. He took a bit of pride knowing this as his first senju wood release technique seemed to be going quite well.

Deciding that his clone could use a little company, and that he himself could use a bit more practice with chakra control the young senju clapped his hands together in a series of handsigns before shouting “WOOD CLOOOOOOOOONE!” in order to let the clearly abundant amount of hypothetical enemies surrounding him be aware of the super powerful technique he was about to use. He was sure they would be shaking in their boots in this hypothetical attack if the situation ever came to fruition. And watched as yet another clone split from his body and he felt a large amount of chakra pull out of him with it.

He made a mental note right then and there that he was going to learn that wood locking wall technique he had eyed earlier before he did anything else if he wanted to make this wood clone technique functional in combat. But that was not the concern this time, for now he had to focus on his clones, he was still far from being done with them and had a lot of work to do. This time instead of checking the clone himself he’d direct his clone to do the monotonous task for him for two reasons. The first reason was that he didn’t particularly feel like doing it and the second was to ensure that his clone could actually talk. He had to be sure that every aspect of his clones worked if he wanted to be able to deceive the enemy. Not just the clones movements and fighting abilities.

He watched diligently as the two mirror images of himself walked around each other and began to turn one another around inspecting the tiny details before turning to him in unison before speaking at the exact same moment together. “He’s perfect boss, looks just like me.” The fact that both could talk relieved the white haired senju quite a bit. So far he had yet to find any flaws in his clones but there was still a couple things he wanted to test out that the book had listed off for him.

Lifting the book up out of his weapons pouch he’d toss the leather bound book towards the closest of the two wood clones before barking out a line of dialogue so that he could meet the required word count for this god forsaken jutsu. “You.. Read out some cool abilities you can do, I imagine you’re literate like me if you can talk and walk like me” He’d say as he walked over to the stump he had cut down a long while ago.

He inspected it closely as he ran a hand against its rough wooden texture somehow managing to avoid any splinters from the recently cut wood. He was surprised to find that the water from his jutsu had already dissipated and gave a slight laugh as he took joy in taking a seat, finally able to rest his legs. He stretched both arms up high before placing his hands on the back of his white hair covered head and extending his chest outwards into the air, effectively stretching his entire upper body while he waited for his clones to sift through the no doubt boring text for the super cool abilities he was hell bent on learning.

And sure enough about thirty seconds later he heard one of the clones call out to him. “Uh boss” He’d hear, but in a rather strange way. He couldn’t seem to pinpoint the location of the voice and quickly turned around to face the clones. “Which one of you said that!” He’d say out loud kind of freaked out and fearing for his sanity. And while making eye contact with the both of them he watched in amazement as the voice once more seemingly coming from nowhere as if it was his own thought ringed out in his head again.
“We found something super cool… Apparently you and… Well us can communicate telepathically like a hive mind. Our memories become yours and your memories become ours.” The thought intrigued Sento and he tried to test it out himself in response. “So like this” He’d think to himself doing nothing in particular to extend the small thought outwards. The clones merely looked in confusion for a second as if to suggest that they were confused and as Sento was about to speak up he began to think about how much of an idiot he was before the clones bursted out in laughter.

“Yah yah like that” they’d say clearly pleased with themselves for making him think he had been wrong. Sento would simply show the clone a particular finger that was not known for being friendly before asking how he was supposed to deconstruct them, the question was originally meant as an insult but sento quickly began to realize that he actually didn’t know how. “Wait guys seriously! How the hell do I get rid of you two?” He’d exclaim as he walked over to them.

The clones always wanting to serve their creator would of course begin to flip through pages and pages of text searching for the answer to his rather heavy question. They were searching for a way to end their own existence and Sento couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy making them do such a thing. After a little bit he began to feel guilty and apologized before asking them to hand the leather bound book to him. “Here I’ll do it, you guys go hang out over by the stump or something in the meantime.”

The clones would follow their creators command before they walked over to the stump and began to fight each other throwing punches at one another, the sight of himself beating himself up, was more than confusing but he decided not to pay attention as he flipped through the pages and found his answer. To desummon the clones one merely needed to form the clone seal, which was as simple as placing your index and pointing fingers on each hand into the shape of a cross.

Relieved with this information sento would wave down the clones before exclaiming. “Bye guys” And recreating the appropriate handseals. The two clones would slowly sink into the ground reverting to wood, then into a vine and slowly but surely a mere plant reaching out of the grass, and Sento watched as it disappeared into the soil, completely dispersing. The sight was simply stunning and sento couldn’t help but feel amazed at it.

However the sun was quickly setting and it was a long walk home. The white haired senju quickly decided it was about time to wrap things up and tucked the leather bound book of senju secrets back into his weapons pouch before he began to whistle and walk back to the village all by his lonesome.

WC: 4033
Requesting: 20 Stats, Wood Clone

Approved