Allusion of illusions [P,NK]

Kieru had found his clearing in a nearby forest. Easily, it measured 30 meters in radius and would allow him enough space to comfortably practice his techniques, albeit he was only going to use genjutsu anyway and that wasn’t in the slightest… on the destructive side. Armed with nothing in particular, he walked to the center of the clearing and sat cross-legged preparing to figure out what he could do to train some more genjutsu. Firstly, Kieru tensed his veins around his eyes and promptly activated his byakugan. His reasoning behind doing this was to be able to read the effects his techniques had on the chakra networks of whatever he was testing. Aside it’s being a simple security measure as well, he could also collect data by closely observing the chakra network, chakra points, and tenketsu. Now, he had no targets to actually practice his techniques on per se. However, he didn have a supplement to this as well. Kieru, utilizing his ability to accurately see chakra and its real-life counter-part could simply create a simulation of any scenario he wanted to test within his mind, thus making his training capability directly proportional to his imagination within the mental zone he called “the testing room”.  His first major technique would be the Mist Servant Technique. It wasn’t anything too spectacular and merely a D rank jutsu but hey. Everyone must have an origin. He reviewed the few hand signs before leaving his house. They were Boar and then Rat, a very simple combo fitting that of the jutsu’s nature.


“Time to begin.” Kieru said closing one eye to further paint the image in his mind. He created a forest and a clearing quite similar to the one that he was currently in. Within it, he placed a target not too far ahead of him, a ninja shrouded in darkness with a blanked out face. This would be his testing dummy for his first slew of genjutsu techniques that were better than academy standard. – The purpose of the Mist Servant Technique was to create 10 clones that are merely illusions that appear around the target’s surrounding area. These ghost like clones of the user then move towards the target at a slow pace. Similar to normal clones, they do vanish upon being attacked. In the hands of most ninja Kieru knew from the academy, the technique would have been quickly judged to be of rudimentary quality. Though Kieru knew well that the worth of a technique is also directly proportional to how the user employs it in his or her battles. By that logic, he could surely make such a simple jutsu into something that could possibly win him a fight someday. Kieru lifted his hands and performed the sands rather quickly. Scanning the simulation, he looked for a sign of the clones, more specifically a chakra representation of them moving around the target. Only one clone appeared and it looked rather wonky as if it belonged in some horror novel about zombies that were even brainless for zombies. “Ehh, first try surely wasn’t meant to be perfect anyway.”
As Kieru often did when he trained, he used his other eye fully aware of the material world to write notes into a nearby notebook that he had brought. In it, he would keep logs of all of his attempts when trying to learn a jutsu, technique, or understanding something that is very complicated. He grabbed his pen and marked down the 1^st entry. “Attempted, hand seals successful, result = 1 clone of odd proportions.” Then placed the notebook back to the ground and returned to scanning the simulation. Using a bit of mental focus, he changed it back to its original starter position. This had to be done because the target shinobi still reacted to the appearing of a single clone. In fact, he assumed a battle stance and prepared to strike. This was pre-coded to occur because Kieru suspected he’d often fight people that were more about fighting than running. In the case, he should be prepared for that as the natural reaction. And if it happened to be that someone were to run from him, it would be a lot easier handling that than aggression if he had to choose one to be accustomed to.
He lifted his hands once more and performed the two seals. Now, he focused on the formation of the clones within his mind and imagined one of his old stories that he had read when he was young called “Demonic Tools”. A small novel on ghosts that were capably of fulling manifesting themselves in the mortal world. The seals were completed and immediately, he could see chakra signatures lurking below the ground just slightly, they began rising and moving closer and closer to the surface where they would inevitably come into contact with the simulation target. At first, there were 3 signatures. This then changed to 4 and alerted Kieru that his technique was becoming more and more refined. The moment the clones revealed themselves, the ninja stood in a slight awe and drew his weapon. Kieru ended the simulation there and went to write down another entry in his notebook. Being such an easy jutsu, he quickly exceled at getting the proper amount of chakra and mentality in order to create the genjutsu.
After finishing, Kieru returned to the simulation after first resetting it back to base-settings and then formed the hand seals for a final time. At this point he was rather sure that this would be his final attempt and having the technique work wouldn’t be all that difficult. Side note, this should be an important moment to mention that sees into the target’s chakra network to understand what they are seeing and what they are aware of. This makes learning any genjutsu much easier because there are two reference points to edit and work from instead of the sole user.
Anyway, the seals are formed and this time 10 clones form sealing the deal that the genjutsu worked. The ninja reacted as expected though slightly more shocked this time around and looked over to his weapon before drawing it. That jutsu was done. Thus, it was onto the next, a technique called the Hazy Genjutsu. As expected, the names essentially tells exactly what the technique can do. Though, Kieru supposed that most genjutsu were hazy anyway, so that made little difference. Regardless, the purpose of this genjutus was to warp the target’s perception of reality and make them believe they are trapped within a forest of tall trees and such resembling that of the Amazon. Unlike the last jutsu that he had learned, this one required only a flat palm being stretched outwards toward the target for it to be initiated. Kieru specifically liked having a variation in the required starting motion of all of his genjutsu (assuming they required one at all) to make sure that opponents could not expect exactly what he was doing most of the time. Kieru focused on the material world for a moment and quickly jotted down a new entry somewhat introducing the next jutsu he was going to do. Next, he reset the mental simulation that he had and prepared a different background image. Before it had been a blank white background and now it was an old city of ruins. Despite it being an old city of ruins, he’d still be able to tell if it worked or not simply by watching the chakra network of his simulated target. Firstly, Kieru created an entity for which his consciousness could possess and from there, he would be able to perform the required hand motion of extending his flat palm outward toward the opponent. He did so and found that his opponent had little to no change within his chakra network.


“Hmm… no good. Well, I’ll try something different then.” He thought before proceeding to take his hands out of the position. Kieru thought that if he were to create the mental illusion in his mind first, it would make it easier to convey to the target and into their chakra network. After all, if the technique was based on a false reality. He would need a template to go after other than the vague concept of the “Amazon”. Instead it would be much better to create an actual Amazon for more realistic practice. Quickly, he created an Amazon in his mind to practice with and replaced the shinobi target marker with a new chakra network. To do this, he would have to remember the diagram that was stained into his mind from both the academy as well as actually seeing one at least once every day when he would practice the usage of his byakugan abilities. Kieru extended the palm forward once more and this time, an irregularity within the chakra network of the target slowly arose. At first, the chakra being flowed through a few of the tenketsu near the head seemed to have been blocked. This is usually a good sign that the genjutsu itself has made contact with one’s target, something that Kieru remembered from the academy. However, if he wanted the genjutsu to take full effect on his target. It would need to travel down almost like a poison corrupting every part of the target’s body and in this case, all the chakra points possible, thus ultimately entering and warping the target’s mind. Kieru placed his hand down and focused on his own chakra dwelling within his body, chakra network, and all of his 168 tenketsu. It was like analyzing a river from a far, you can see the basic flow at a distance but are unable to understand the minute details that lie below the surface of the water. There, that is where he would need to be observing in order to seamlessly flow his target into the genjutsu. Granted that the scenery around already generally matched that of the technique, it would make using it significantly easier. Despite this though, if his own chakra couldn’t stimulate the genjutsu, then it would still be impossible for the technique to work. His way around this? Well, nothing special really. Just more and more repetition. Kieru lifted his hands again and stretched out his left palm into the cold air that he imagined.

 20 feet in front of him would be the target dressed in what looked to be old gear from some ninja he may have seen roaming around the outskirts of Kiri at some time. Or maybe someone that showed up for an assembly at the academy. Who knows? Regardless, he placed his focus heavily into his chakra flow and self-awareness as if he were diving into a pool of water that could only be defined as self. Once here, his mind began constructing the strange amazon world and gradually, he saw the flow of chakra in his target begin to become altered and shifted in a way that would denote a genjutsu. It was as if the stable river had suddenly began flowing in reverse when he could tell that the genjutsu had fully eveloped his target with significant ease. Now, it was important to see if the target would notice. Kieru’s processing is relatively good so thinking of all the possible variables that would tic the target off about knowing that the world he was currently experiencing was a genjutsu was too hard of a task. 

Doing it in real-time however was quite the pain. Kieru possessed another physical model of himself within his strange mental reality and used it to interact with the shinobi he trapped in the genjutsu. He would need to test if it were possible for him to approach the target without him noticing. This wasn’t the case and the moment he moved to the shinobi, the shinobi responded by throwing a series of kunai. “Hmm, so that doesn’t work. Or does it… I suppose I can make it work but I would need to go about messing with how the genjutsu works. Oh wait, nevermind.” He had forgotten something rather crucial to whether or not his technique was effective. It was stated in the academy that the jutsu was also supposed to simulate them sinking into the ground by a large patch of powerful quicksand. This seemed rather stupid to be within an Amazon so Kieru wondered how someone wouldn’t be able to notice the absurdity within that. Either way, he now still had the shinobi trapped within the genjutsu. His next move was to get that chakra and focus recipe for a large patch of quicksand. Good times as always. So, he began focusing on his chakra and trying to imagine falling into a large pool of quicksand. All the feeling he could thing of began flooding him from the grains of sand turning one’s lungs to dust and the feel of grit and scrapes all throughout one’s pants and on their legs as well as the dusty smell and natural mud feeling as if he had fell into a pool a manure. Don’t question it.
Some moments passed and he began to see a very small amount of quicksand begin forming underneath his target. It existed in small clumps that weren’t capable of causing much harm to a target yet and in order to actually have the technique get the proper effect that he so dearly wanted, Kieru would be required to focus more into his chakra network to mentally paint the world that his genjutsu was going to transport the target to. Kieru took a moment and delved into the inner corners of his hmind imagining what it would be to be without all food and to be without any water. Left to his own devices within a land of grainy sand, he felt the dryness in his mouth as many sand bruises stung from the heat of the blazing sun high above that beamed down like a strange power drifting just slightly out of his field of detection. This was the feeling he was looking for, totally despair and loss of hope. Well, that’s at least what he thought others would think because he wasn’t one that often or really could ever just back down, no matter how difficult or insane anything got. Kieru was out to stick it to the end, for that was his shinobi code and ninja way. Either way, he translated this sense of burning hot sand and sinking into what would likely be a pool of despair and reacted it into his own technique. “Time for another reset.” He thought to himself before writing a lengthy report on how his jutsu process was coming along in his notebook. Sometimes it took him more time just to write in the notebook than it did to actually train his techniques. Though, he thought the documents would later become very useful to him if he ever wanted to reference something or find a similar way of training if he came across something very difficult that he had managed to succeed at in the past in some similar way.


With the genjutsu simulation reset and Kieru ready to motion his technique’s required hand gesture. The match was ready to go. Kieru vs his mental targets going against the very ability to create of his own chakra network. It would surely be a spectacle, that is, only to him because unless someone else was nearby that could read his mind. No one else would be able to see what he was interacting with. Kieru thought on that for a slight moment, the true isolation of mankind. But, a topic of such magnitude was to be left for another day. Needless to say, Kieru motioned his hand forward and stared at the tatget via his mind’s eye. The target quickly seemed to enter the genjutsu as a wave of disruptions shot along his chakra network which Kieru could easily make out via his byakugan’s abiltiies of seeing individual tenketsu and the overall chakra flow. So far, things were going smotthly and as planned. Kieru switched modes to be able to see what the target was seeing. The target was indeed in the forest that he had specified from earlier. However, the sand still wasn’t forming to the full size of a pit that it needed to be to fully freak out a possibly jounin-level ninja, jounin in his head, that is. “Shit, I’ve gotta up the anti.” Kieru thought before going zero-minded when trying to fully utilize his spatial thinking efforts to create the sand that needed to sink the target into a mellow insanity. He conjured the past memory about the desert and hot blazing sun. Surely enough, the sand began swirling out of the ground up from underneath the target’s feet. The shinobi reacted quickly, drawing his blade before realizing it was caught in the sand. “What the fuck is this?” He yelled out. “Looks like I got him finally.” Kieru thought. But just when it seemed the shinobi’s head would finally plummet underneath the hot blazing sand, the shinobi weaved some hand signs. How could Kieru tell? Well, the byakugan gives a very detailed view over the chakra system. Enough to see the individual tenketsu in the hand. Logically, he could see them form the pattern of hand seals that he knew. Leave it up to the mind of Kieru for a simulation to suddenly turn into battle prep.
 

“Well, I’ll just have to apprehend him so he can’t escape. Matter of fact, this gives me a chance to try out some new things as well. I wonder why I hadn’t planned the simulation like this earlier.” Kieru thought to himself. Of course, focusing so heavily on the creation of the sand made his brain unable to determine the actions of the target within the simulation. This meant that it would act freely upon its own will and logical nature as described by the actions it did in previous versions of the ismualtion field within Kieru’s head. Kieru prepared to counter the shinobi who was using genjutsu release. There was an easy way to do this, simply restrict his hands in the real world and that should fix the problem. Kieru walked up to the target within his mind and restricted his hands. Almost instantly, the hand seals as seen from the byakugan came to a stilted halt like a horse-driven wagon coming crashing into a tree. There was no hope for him now, he’d likely pass out and if this were a real fight, the shinobi would have been dead already maybe a good few and a half minutes ago. Add to the fact that Kieru would have no problem with that either. Hmm. Maybe he was born fit for genjutsu after all. Nah, what kind of question is that? Of course he was made for genjutsu. Kieru shut down the simulation after finally succeeding and took a short break while documenting his success into his notebook. “Successfully trained the technique as expected. In fact, it was rather easier than I expected however creating the final pieces of the genjutsu proved challenging until I fully imagined and immersed myself in my imagination of a very similar scenario.
 
In today’s training, Kieru planned on learning one more technique. This one was called the Demonic Illusion: Mirage Crow. Despite having no summoning contract with crows, he would be able to activate a genjutsu that essentially turned him into a mass of crows that appeared entirely real to those within the area. At the given time, the user appears to vanish and the coolest thing about the tech to Kieru was the fact that it didn’t even require eye contact to be initiated. He simply had to look at the target and bang, the technique was in effect. With such a technique in his hands, he was sure he would be able to battle against ninjutsu users who already have a natural physical offense and defense. Naturally, the power of genjutsu comes from the intellect and when and how someone chooses to use them. Sure that goes for everything but especially with genjutsu. Regardless, Kieru prepared a new entry within his notebook titled after the name of the genjutsu. “Man, this thing is rather spectacular. It doesn’t even require hand signs, just the intent of the user.” Just the intent  of the user meant enough to Kieru. He quickly got back into position in the center of the clearing and kept one eye within his mind and the other in the material world in case anyone tried anything such as sneaking up on him or trying to scare him. The 360 vision helped as well, heh. Since this technique didn’t necessarily involve editing the actual surrounding area in terms of scenery and terrain and instead adding additional entities. Kieru could essentially load up any physical scenery or terrain to test his ability that he wanted. He decided to make a small copy of a spot in Kirigakure that was near his home. It would make for a good testing zone as it was a comforting place and highly familiar. Kieru placed a single target as the main limitation of his technique was the fact that it could only affect a single target. Though, this didn’t make it any less useful because he knew he could make ways around that or rather make use of the very disavtange and turn it into an advantage. The time for him to have to do that would come eventually in his life as a shinobi. As for now, it was just his beginning.

Kieru placed a single target high on a building that was opposite of the one his mental stood on. Simply put, he would need to save the simulation here and turn the corner of the building’s roof every time he wanted to come into contact with the shonobi. He set the shinobi to already be aggressive as that’s how he imagined this situation being played out in a real fight anyway. There would be no need to use something that shielded the user’s position unless he was already found and in relative close range of the approaching enemy that he would have to battle. Regardless of that. Kieru’s first slate of the matters was completed. He would now just need to run the mental simulation and keep his notebook at the ready for updates on his style and everything else like that. Kieru began the sim and turned the corner in order to see the shinobi who was already making numerous hand seals at what seemed like lightning speed. “Sorry, but this is going to be your end.” The shinobi said to Kieru with a deadly sharp scowl. “Sadly, but it seems the roles for the actors of this play just got reversed. Now I’m going to use my ultimate technique. Condensed demon bird poisonous touch field!” Kieru said all that junk for the target to take some level of fear into his random transformation. Or at least, what he had hoped to become a transformation. Instead, he simply turned into a black blob of no existence and he was pretty sure that the attacker could still see him since the next volley of kunai and shuriken were deadly accurate enough so to even nick some of the hairs of his mental avatar. Awkward moments like these weren’t too uncommon when training in one’s own mind. Luckily, it was still better than having to use a technique you barely know on the field. Regardless of all that, Kieru took the time to resetr the simulation so he could take another shot at it rather quickly. But before he could take another shot at the technique creation, he would need to document his recent experience into the notebook he kept by him at all times. “It went rather bad really, though the shinobi looked pretty scared to me. He must’ve thought that the junk I said before using the genjutsu was actually real. Well, to give him the benefit of the doubt. If it were real, it would be extremely deadly in most cases and I gladly steer clear of that. In the end, I turned into a mass of black blobs and no shape or form of a crow was depicted.” Kieru then reset the simulation and placed himself in the same position before reading over the last lines he had in his notebook. The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result to occur. Since he wasn’t insane, Kieru knew he would need to change up his approach if he wanted to get a different result. Luckily, he had already had an idea. Firstly, before engaging the actual target, he would think about walking through a graveyard with black crows circling around him as if they were all a single legion of vultures that have been starving for a series of years. Kier began walking and heard the shock of a crow yelling through the strong wind of the graveyard. It smelled of dark gloom and the odor that appears before a rain storm comes. Around the perimeter of the graveyard was a large forest of sorts that fully blocked Kieru’s regular vision. He then switched to his byakugan to be able to look farther out. Appearently, the forest extended indefinitely or at least as far as his byakugan could let him see and that meant it was a significant range of distance between him and the end of the forest if there were any. 

The crows circled lower and lower and began getting very close in range of Kieru. He stood strong with his chest wide as if ready to receive any blow that they could dish out. As they got closer, they eventually wrapped around him forming a close-range shield of sorts that seemed to be like black flames spinning around his torso.  The sound was annoying and extreme like a thousand birds swarming your ears. Well, that’s exactly what they were doing interestingly enough. Then something freaky occurred, Kieru opened his mouth to take in a large breathe. Instead of that however, he was gifted with a barrage of crows diving into the depths of his mouth and plunging through the cave of his throat. Quickly, breathing became something that was a myth of the past and Kieru shut down the simulation temporarily then began gagging in real life. “Holy- - shit.” He said, feeling as if he was spitting out black feathers from his mouth. Had he casted a genjutsu on himself? Perhaps that were the case, but either way. Kieru felt as if he could now understand the thing that he was trying to imitate now a bit more. Maybe, after that recent connection with them, he’d be able to then morph himself into a bunch of them and make them seem realistic. Kieru restarted the simulation and placed himself back into the same scenario hiding around the corner of the building’s roof  with an aggressive shinobi right around the corner. He knew what he had to do. First, he would conjure the image of the swarming crows into his mind once more. If he did this, he may be able to fully realize the potential of the crows despite not having the summoning contract with them.

Kieru turned the corner and stared the seal-weaving shinobi down. He looked him back as well and they crossed with dialogue shortly after. “You, I will cut you down here and now.” The Shinboi said to Kieru. “Ehh, will you now? Little did you know that while I may just be a genin, I’m truthfully of ANBU level. Now, vanish with my matter destructing black bird technique.” Kieru activated the technique and could feel the transformation happening around him. He saw disruptions in the chakra network of the shinobi and it seemed to be that he was affected by the genjutsu. But to what degree was the question. To test this, Kieru would need to get in a little closer to the shinobi. Kieru jumped from his roof to the other roof and stopped just 2 meters from the shinobi. It seemed that the shinobi couldn’t seem him. “Where’d you go you annoying rat? You think a black blob that can’t even move will stop a jounin like me?” So it would have seemed that the 2^nd part of the genjutsu did take effect and because of I, the shinobi was incapable of seeing Kieru. However, the full effect was what he was looking for. Kieru now moved behind the Shinobi and prepared a killing blow with a kunai. He could have taken him out right here and now but that would be impractical to his training goals. Now, Kieru entered even deeper into his mind to the point that he felt as if he were walking within the rings of a void that warped into itself on some planes and outwards into the nothingness. From the void appeared to him a giant crow that seemed to stand before him like a god as if judging him with large black eyes that pierced his soul like an arrow at flight on the fields of battle. “So human, what do you wish to find from utilizing my crows?” The crow asked him. At first, Kieru was rather surprised because he didn’t try to create the crow. However, the amount of focus he poured into focusing could logically make whatever he focused for less likely to occur in a natural flow or rather the natural flow that he envisioned in his head. “Well then, what is it?” “I seek the power of the crows in order to make my opponents become entrapped within a genjutsu.” Kieru spoke aloud, hearing his words bounce off some sort of wall in the distance that even his byakugan couldn’t make out. “I see, many wish for that same wish so why should I grant you and not them.” The crow responded. Kieru had to come up with something fast, something that set him apart from all the rest that wanted to his crows. “Simple, I can see through you. Even you too are just an illusion.” The moment Kieru said this, the massive crow vanished into dust and it seemed the world around him scrolled back into a normal one. He found himself behind the shinobi with a kunai to his back and the black blob burst into a mass of crows that dispersed with great noise and flapping wings. The shinobi began freaking out and back up into the deadly blade of Kieru which immediately pierced his leather armor and went directly into his spine. “Some gruesome illusion for ya. At least my technique worked however. “

And with that final illusion being dispatched, Kieru’s training for the day was completed. Now, he’d be able to engage in battle with some people around Kiri. Or rather, on second thought, he decided to wait some more. To gather more knowledge, more capability so that when the opportunity arose he could seize it like the lies of the crow that once stood before him.

[Exit]
WC: 5212 = + 26 Stat Points
Learned the following: Mist Servant Technique [1000] + Hazy Genjutsu [2200] + Demonic Illusion: Mirage Crow [2000]

Approved, In future remember that you can get a 10% WC discount from studying in the Academy library