Morning? X.x (private, Eren)

Kohei grumbled.

He didn't sleep well.

That was normal, and by this point, his usual grumbling was reduced to a low mutter, barely audible, but not comprehensible.

His head hurt like he had a hangover, or like he slept on a rock. Since he didn't drink, the piece of wood he had slept on must have been petrified. At least there weren't splinters in his hair, thank god for sandpaper and jutsu crafted materials.

He honestly wished he had someone to help him this fine morning to catch animals to eat, but there was just Eren, and it wouldn't be nice to make her help him out like that, unless she was a lot faster and tougher than she looked.

At least he had knowledge of a fair few ninja techniques, one of which was the shadow clone jutsu. It used to be forbidden but was now seen as a highly useful technique, since it lets one duplicate themselves to grab many experiences at once.

Well, he had something of a start, perhaps.

He held on to the railing of the stairs. Actually, he thought better of it and walked all the way down. If he got too tired then he could just sit down without worrying about falling over.

He began to condense his Chakra, kneading it within his stomach, slowly stretching it and letting it take shape.

The wild boar stood still beneath her outstretched hand. "Ephemeral complete," she whispered, trapping the animal in a genjutsu. Every living being had some iota of chakra, and her experiment just now proved it. She wasn't fully aware of what she had made it see, a violent storm, flashes of her own past, perhaps vibrant scenes of torture and other horrors (and what was honestly the difference between the second and third?), but it mattered not. She grabbed the boar by its tusk and started dragging it slowly towards the place where the duo slept. Walking out of the dense forest, across the not so busy street, and into the ragged building, she waved at her partner in crime. She closed her eyes and focused on the genjutsu control, her inner chakra levels rising and falling as she attempted to paralyze the boar. It took a long few minutes, but eventually- something clicked. She opened her eyes and the animal was standing perfectly still. She smirked for but a moment before turning to Kohei.

"Is this big enough for your tastes?" she asked jokingly, patting the flank of the boar twice. She shook her head for a bit before opening her mouth to speak once more. "What is our next plan? I have a feeling that we should train up a bit and lay down low before taking another mission." Eren said. The rest looked pretty high-ranked. Those were for bigger fish to tackle, not small fries like them.

[WC: 249
Total WC: 249]

(Exit, claiming 249 words towards ephemeral)

If he knew she already thought of him as a partner in crime, Kohei would have been taken aback. He could have sworn he had burgled that kingpin's house solo, without help. Sometimes he took things too literally.

She would find him emitting a frightening glare, such being directed at his doppelganger. Yep, while she was gone, he had been condensing that chakra into another image of him self. Truth be told, she had missed a lot of more entertaining iterations of his unskilled attempts, their twisted appearances mocking his efforts, occasionally bringing forth a wry smile on Kohei's face at the subtle implications of a particular caricature. How many attempts had he made? He had lost count. But either he was making them very quickly, or Eren had been gone quite a while.

Speaking of Eren....

He wasn't sure what to think of her. The situation unnerved him a little bit on multiple facets. He didn't think it could be boiled down to one specific thing. The mask almost didn't factor, in comparison.

For one thing, he didn't know her capabilities. While she probably used some sort of nurse on him the previous night, albeit in a non harmful manner, he didn't know the full scalding that technique. Was she sure of herself when casting it? Or unsure? She could have moved away from him because she was not sure of her technique, or because it was a matter of principle? Honestly, it could be either, she could be similar to Kohei who was largely a weakling, aside from his capability to do much with his internal energy. He might ask later, but he doubted she would give him a real answer, why should she anyway?

Additionally, neither had their guards up enough. Ok, fine. Kohei was abnormally suspicious of people, and was normally lax about his trust. But last night he hadn't defensively his back to the wall! Sure, such tactics did not do much when ninjas could boast those walls away, but it did help, and it let him sleep better at night. Likewise, Eden seemed too trusting. He didn't know many women who would have just slept in a small building near a complete stranger, just like that. Maybe she knew he wasn't likely to be trouble, and she was probably right about that point. Maybe she was stronger than he thought, though she didn't move very quickly, even in her more energetic state. An actor, perhaps? Speaking of acting, she was skinny enough to almost look like a boy. Surgery? Weird hobbies? God, this uncertainty hurt his head. For all he knew, she was a spy trying to clean information to prep a raid.

He rubbed his temple with both hands, the attempt at a clone dissipating as his focus had been away for quite some time.

Probably the most unnerving thing about this, was how quickly she had warmed up. Not like Nouri was a monster yet, or even a common thug, but still. She acted like sleeping in the same building was completely normal or something. Man, he had only meant that robbery to get some grub. It seemed she was capable of procuring supplies without clubbing people, in a decidedly more subtle and stealthy method. But here she was with breakfast. Lunch, dinner too. Probably meals for several days if they played the cards right. But seriously. Even before he had become a missing ninja, he had always been a loner. He normally didn't relate to people, he found them interested in boring things, shallow, often useless on the job. He only talked to people professionally, with very few exceptions. So despite his talkative and inquisitive inner nature, his focus on landing a good job and making everything run smoothly had left him with a social circle the size of a mark seal.

Basically, he was not used to people, especially women, being friendly with him in anything outside of a professional setting. He wasn't exactly a hunk, after all. Not with that expression, even when he was, quote unquote, in shape.

She spoke, and he realized he had drifted off into his thought. F***, he had wasted some time which should have been training. He looked up, realizing she had led in a boat. Fully realizing this time, instead of half noting its presence while preoccupied. Hopefully she didn't notice, but still....

"I dunno, it might be a bit small actually. Hard to imagine you riding that, and I hope it can eat something besides people and old coats, but if it has a bigger sibling, that would do nicel.... Oh."

It hit him finally that this was definitely for a meal. That, or his stomach changed his eminence him. Either, really, or both. It also occurred to him that there was an unintended double entendre, but he was not going to follow up on it. He didn't judge, but she might think he was into really weird stuff, and then he would probably be lonely.

Wait. Since when did he care about being lonely? Obviously, he was getting soft.

"Sorry, I was preoccupied, drifted from reality more than I would like to admit. That looks like more than enough for the two of us. We should experiment with making jerky from its meat, and see how much of the rest we can use. I have one knives, we could try skinning the beast, maybe repurpose some bones. I fully admit I have no experience in these matters, though. I hope this boat doesn't understand what we are saying, I've heard of experiments that found fear leading to a worse taste, the jerky process is ugly enough as it is."

He mulled over the rest of what she said, reforming the clone he had made earlier, making it take on his likeness. Some small part of him wondered what happened to food a clone ate. It would be a waste to try it out, but he was curious nonetheless.

"Wouldn't hurt to lay low for a bit, I agree. There is a minor chance someone saw our job, or vigilance by surrounding villages has increased. I don't know that we will be ready if we encounter a patrol. And yeah, those other missions are a lot larger scale, we would need to be able to handle multiple opponents at a time. I mean, I took a look. The next weakest missions involve attacking village ninjas, and robbing caravans. A bit of a step up from mugging a sleeping stranger." He wryly smiles as he finished speaking his last sentences.

"Well, I guess we might as well discuss our capabilities, can't make a plan otherwise. I know I need to get stronger, and learn more techniques. Stuff like this won't cut it yet."

He dissolved his attempt at a clone with a simple poke on the head. Crap. He didn't think it was THAT weak.

"My point is proven I think? If you need practice with techniques like the one you used on me last night, my clone technique should be usable later. We should also consider moving locations, perhaps after taking care of the boar. Nonsense in messing up the next location, but we might be safer and better able to take contracts elsewhere. Provided there isn't a war of course."

Wait.

When did it become "we"?

It bothered him. He would take a walk and think this over, unless she stopped him.

(potential exit)

(previous WC, 1455)

It seemed that Eren was preoccupied with something. Nothing too critical or she would have said as much, probably, but the normally cheery individual was quiet. Maybe she was lost in thought. Whatever. Kohei wandered over and began focusing his chakra into another piece of thin air. This time, he wanted to make the chakra more solid, that way he could use the clone to help him with the boar.

Concentrating deeply and taking dem deep breaths, he began circulating his chakra at a rather feverish pace. It almost made him sick, but the point was for him to produce enough extra chakra to make a viable second body, one that would not just dissipate every time it got poked. Actually, he needed to make two full bodies, ones that could fight too, and maybe take more than a couple of hits to finish off.

For the heck of it, he decided to make both at the same time. Slowly, as he waved his hands through the air, a skeleton of chakra weave and make began to take shape, replicated about a meter from its original, which stood, blinking in the sunlight. Like wise, a second imitation of the original stood, transparent and about a meter from both of the others. As he frowned in concentration, and waved his hands through the air as if he were by a penniless sculptor, the two thin layers of chakra began to take shape, their insides largely hollow but their external shells largely human shaped, their features beginning to mirror those of their creator. Their features began to morph significantly as the seconds flew by, sweat beginning to drop from our easily overheated hero, dripping onto the ground.

He wasn't working fast enough, this training was going to take way too long, and he was hungry. He stole a glance at the boar, still sitting there and needing a good dressing in a butchers office. He was tempted to bring it to a town to be slaughtered, but he didn't have that kind of money, and he did have some practice with slaughtering animals. Yeah. He had some pretty weird jobs in the past when he was working through school.

Normally, there were more tools available than kunai. This was going to be awkward.

A rumbling belly reminded him to hurry up, so he stopped his beloved musing, focusing more on the task at hand. If he recalled correctly, he needed a lot of chakra so that he would not be helpless when he made his clones. Stamina for the win. The tech could probably be used for melee training, since it allowed him to gain experience much faster, by gaining experience simultaneously from both clones, as well as himself. Maybe he could develop his muscles that way, and learn how to take a hit without risking his brain cells in the process.

His chakra having built up more since he had passed, he was easily able to finish filling in the shadow clones that he was working on. As soon as he was satisfied with his progress and the solidness of their structures, he dissipated them so he could try again. This time when he tried to reform them, he tried to do it quicker. Andale! They needed to be formed pretty much instantly. Five minutes was better than five hours, but even a ninja snail wouldn't leave you with that much time to act.

He charged his chakra up, thinking how funny it was to be acting like an electrical device with out any form of electricity manipulation.

This time when he released his chakra, poof! A big puff of smoke reminiscent of that time he was goofing around with alternative sources of fuel for bottle rockets… and two likenesses of him, the progenitor, largely the same size, and hopefully of a similar constitution and strength. Their stamina might or might not be similar to his own, he did feel tired, and his guess was that some of the chakra he put into their very beings served as the fuel for the techniques that they used.

He wondered if they could be absorbed like normal chakra, too. Maybe he would test it out, later. For now though, there were many ways to skin a cat, err, boar. And like a certain famous fictional detective, he just so happened to have skills relevant to the situation, from a suspiciously useful past, almost as if his very past was being constantly retconned to allow for smoother interactions and decision making in the present. Very suspicious, to anyone who tried to keep track of Kohei’s past… wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

It was a fairly simple matter to lead the boar away from Eren - who seemed to still be preoccupied - into the woods. He didn’t know if she was used to blood or not. A sickening thud would be heard from the depths of the underbrush, as the boar was clubbed over the head with a large branch, recently cleaned of its branches, and shaped into a sizable bludgeoning tool. It would prove to be rather useful as a make shift hammer, later.

The boar now dead, or very securely unconscious, hopefully the former, Kohei began skinning the hide of the boar. Actually, from all the stabbing he had to do to get his kunai under the boar’s coarse and tough hide, the boar was probably dead, he counted no less than ten cuts to get his knife started under the hide. Damn, this thing was a hoary old lump. His clones, who had been previously holding down the boar in case it awoke, shifted, and began helping him cut away the hide. When the hide was mostly removed from the animal, one of the clones began gathering materials for a fire - not like they had a smoker on hand - and the other began scraping off all the fat and the bits of flesh still attached to the skin. A dirty skin would not keep very well. It would have to be an open fire, as it would take too long to build a smoke house from trees, and he did not think he should be smoking up that building he was crashing in. After all, where would they sleep? He would try to disperse the smoke a little though so it was less evident from a distance at least.

It would occur to Kohei later, that having one of the clones cut the boar to pieces, and all such messy work, might have been more efficient. It took a long while to bleed out the boar, since it was a thick bastard, and some of it got on his clothing. Admitedly, he was wearing an old set so that he could have something clean to wear later while he washed the former set, but still. Fortunately, he thought of this after the first massive blood spatter, and not much later. After all, the clones would return chakra and memories to Kohei, but not their physical state - so any messes sustained on the clones would not be transferring to Kohei upon release.

After the boar was finally bled out, the fire was nearly ready, and the boar had to be hacked to pieces. Both of the clones got the messy job of cutting the boar apart, while the original, now in an apron (and his other clothing, you perv!) strung up each piece to dangle from a nearby tree limb, the string being procured from god knows where.

When the boar was ready to cook, Kohei dispelled the clones temporarily, not needing them for the moment, and was able to see through their slightly separate memories of cutting up the boar, cleaning the skin, and grabbing firewood, the parts he had not seen, anyway. Cool. That could be useful for training, and reconnaissance, and multiple communications, and such. After the boar was largely cooked, he reformed the clones, so they could help him chop up the meat into more manageable pieces, the bones and gristle, etc. being left for the animals, along with the more unwieldy bits of meat. It was then that he realized that there was nothing to hold the boar meat with. Crap. Looks like those clones would be getting a bit more work then.

If Eren were to turn and look outside, after some hours had passed, she would find a rack made of branches, a series of hunks of wild boar meat dangling from it, tied around the bones, and ready to eat. Hopefully she had something to store them in. Some space time jutsu were particularly handy for such matters….

Himself, there was something he needed to do, unless she needed him for something, Kohei would take his leave with his squad and half the meat, maybe to return later.

Unless stopped, Kohei and his cohorts would wander off into the distance. He felt there was something he was looking for, or someone, and he was not sure what it was. Hopefully Eren could manage in the mean time, and didn’t get too depressed or anything.

Maybe if his clones did enough thinking alongside, sort of like a linked up computer network, he could determine the purpose of his life, the meaning behind his existence. Not that they couldn’t do that at the same time as brawling on the road or anything, physical exercise was pretty important too.

(exit)

(ttl wc: 3043 I think)
(this is going to sound weird, but I am not sure whether this should really count for stats, even though I make and use clones, their activities are not even like my unconventional training :/

so, tentative claim of 15 stats, but I'm not going to heavily defend it if denied, even as I try to claim the (http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t22575-shadow-clone) Shadow Clone technique, which I actually work on lol )

Seeing as you did actually train in this topic I have no problem with approving for both the jutsu and the stats