Eye of the Needle (solo training)

All missing mints have to look good if they are to be taken seriously. Indeed. You read that right. Likewise, all missing nin need to look good as well, if they intend to be taken seriously. Of course, the former is definitely only correct because of an evil entity named “Autocorrect”, and the latter HAS to be true, why else would there be missing ninjas like Maku. Those good looks were the deciding factor between scary people like Maku who everyone took seriously, and other s rank missing ninjas like Mitsui who were ridiculed for relying on wimpy tactics like beating genin in bar fights. Mitsui was hardly good looking by, that could have had a lot to do with it as well. Nothing to do with the way the names roll (or struggle) off the tongue, or anything.

Alright, enough fourth wall breaking, at least until the narrator finds a way to break the sixth wall, because breaking fifth walls is only for scrubs.

Speaking of good looks, Kohei was in search of hair gel. Not a much for styling, he was hardly a fashionable kind of guy.  Rather, he wanted to use the hair gel to improve the strength of his intended hair techniques. Admittedly, this was a little bit early to say the least, meaning that Kohei needed another reason to be here. Yep. He had one.

He stood in the middle of a secluded area, near the contract center where he had grabbed an assignment recently. From a few minutes ago, actually.Now, he was by himself, having swept the area, checking for others already, and finding none. His current goal was to train some hair oriented jutsu, for reasons he would mull over later. Well, not all were hair jutsu, that was an unfair characterization, but it was some what accurate still.

He thought about multiple things, alternating between the two of them fairly rapidly due to his some what scatterbrained mind. At the moment, he was consolidating a bunch of his chakra, using it to form needles with the help of moisture in the air, and then launching them at a target. It was some what mindless, really, he was trying to practice it enough that he could do it with nary a thought. Well, ok, he needed to hold a tiger seal with one hand, but for the most part, he was able to focus on creating and launching needles as perfectly as possible with as little effort as possible. He needed to be able to make a good thousand of these, otherwise the technique would sort of take up another jutsu slot or such, and it would not have the effects he wanted. Hem hem. For now, he was limited to one at a time, though they were summoned with increasing speed.

While he was training, his mind shifted, and soon he was absentmindedly flicking water needles at his pincushion looking target, while musing about how he came to be here. Ever heard of the Claws of Grima? I bet you haven't. Because they are supposed to be secret, silly! And no, that's not “jaws”. Well, let's just say Kohei happened upon an old enemy from the village that labelled him a missing ninja. Kohei won the fight, and extracted somewhat painfully (for his prisoner) information as to who was he bring him. As it so happened, there was a name to the organization that was determined to see Kohei dead, for being a former Tengakure ninja. That's where “Claws of Grima” come in. They had been trying to eliminate Tengakure for years, as part of a general world wide domination strategy. Kohei, as an envoy to the village they had based themselves in, had heard snippets of information here and there about their plans. Junior ninjas could be so loose lipped when they hated their assignments and their superiors. A bit of plied drink never hurt either, similarly a sympathetic ear. Kohei hadn’t even needed to wait for them to be drunk, before subtly questioning them, most of the time. It’s generally a bad idea to suppress your underlings too much. They all need to vent.

He realized he was launching pebbles of water at the target, a hole filled tree trunk that looked so holey that it could be a religious icon. Crap. When did his attention slip so much? Obviously he needed to put more effort into this, those needles were tiny, and blunt, and completely wrong! He grumbled under his breath, as he promptly repaired hsi technique, beginning to send more water needles at the tree trunk, this time they were more properly shaped. At least he had been still launching things at the tree, last time he tried the exercise, he had stopped launching things completely, the area around his previous target beginning to dry out.Yuck. The water needles were a more complete size still, at least.

As it turns out, one cannot simply muscle in on the existing communities, and expect things to go quietly. Someone had put out a hit warrant on a base, wanting some precious artifacts stolen, perhaps just to piss off the leadership. Seeing as it was a good opportunity to learn more about the Claws of Grima, Kohei had hurriedly snatched up the contract before anyone else could lay eyes on it. The Claws of Grima had given him pain for so long, he was going to exact a very painful revenge upon them all.

Not without some dangerous techniques to drop on them though. Silence would be best, and so would subtlety. So in other words, summoning tornadoes was really cool, but could wait. Hair jutsu would be more his usual style, and would be better for dropping people quietly. There were a number he had in mind though. Sadly, there was little time, or he would have put more time into training before hand. At least he knew that he was now significantly faster than the average person.

Speaking of which…. He began launching more water needles again, his production had flagged but not stopped. At this point, he was focusing on the water needles again, but trying to make more of them at a time. 10 was his first goal. He was getting there, inching up, by one needle at a time. Two needles. Then three. Then four at a time, making them form the corners of a square on the target.

In fact, the secrecy of the Claws of Grima meant that in many bases, such as this one, they optimized secrecy over strength. Their exact goal was not clear yet to Kohei, but they had a tendency to hire regular thugs and front as a normal gang, so that their ninja enemies would be much less likely to discover their hideouts. While there were likely to be ninjas about, especially those of the missing kind, or even a few mercenaries, Kohei could safely assume, as far as reasonable, that they would largely be “normal” people.

Enough musing about all this, it was time for some action. On the training front, that is. Don’t get ahead of yourselves, Kohei wasn’t about to undertake a more dangerous task without some form of actually attacking the opponent beyond throwing a few rocks or a kunai at them. The water needles were zipping along quite nicely now, their tips stabbing rather deeply into the poor tree trunk. Some, he was able to send directly through the holes of preceding attempts, that required no small amount of effort and concentration on his part. For the most part, he did not expect to have to be too accurate with his water needles though, as he should be able to make a round thousand of them later on. Right now? 12.

He switched targets, moving on to an old board someone had left behind a long time ago. Termites were probably the reason. Still, it provided a decently sized frame for him to puncture repeatedly with his water needles. He looked at the target, forming a mental image in his mind of what he wanted to land hits on. He launched a small series of about 5 water needles, wanting to see how accurate he could be with this.

As it turns out, he was able to form the corners of a square closely enough, the proportions were a bit rough, but manageable. The fifth water needle quivered in the approximate center of the square, before dissolving into a small collection of water drips, slowly inching partway down the board before coming to a complete halt. Ok, not too bad.

He wanted to make this more complicated though, so he could do more needles at a time, while practicing his precision. When he was done this technique, he would feel better about walking into the den of… well, lions was not the right term. Rats, maybe.

He took a deep breath, because it made reading this recount easier. Don’t tell anyone.

Alright. His next shape was going to be that of a person. He began picturing a person standing in front of the board. A former member of the Claws of Grima, actually. One that died screaming. Apparently they did not train their operatives very well. Imagining the writhing shape of the tortured victim, Kohei slowly formed up about 20 water needles at a time. Well, that did not look like enough water needles to fully outline the shape of a person standing in front of a board. He slowly held the current 20 needles up, while slowly forming more, a few at a time. He found that as time passed with these exercises, that he could make more and more needles with proportionally less concentration. Evidently, the repetitive practice was helping, since this was getting much easier now.

After about a hundred and twenty needles were hovering in the air gently, Kohei launched them swiftly at the board, the needles rapidly hitting one after another, slowly tracing the outline of the screaming thug he had in mind. If guns existed in this world, the sound resonating throughout the clearing would be eerily reminiscent of sporadic machine gun fire, as there were minor pauses occasionally between the water needles. Kohei’s concentration was not so good that he could make the needles hit with constant timing, yet. But, he was definitely close.

This was getting much easier. He eyed the sketch he had hammered into the board, and tried to imagine a inch thick line flowing around the inner edges of the pattern he had poked into the board. His next goal was to cram a whole bunch more water senbon into the area within this second shape he was now imagining.  With comparatively little effort, he was able to form up another hundred needles, the thought almost second nature. However, the second hundred and the third took significant effort again, but less than he expected. This was getting easier overall though. He kept forming more water needles. Distraction would be detrimental at this point, so he avoided getting distracted with planning about how he would break into the Claws of Grima base. At around six hundred water needles, the little fake senbon forming a small cloud at this point, he stopped making more, as sweat was dripping into his eyes and down his nose, he might not proportion the water needles very well anymore.

He was definitely getting better though.

He wanted to try one last idea to see if there were viable uses for the Water Needles. He leaned a branch against a tree, and formed up a squadron of a good twenty water needles, not the full thousand, and huddled them up into a close little pool of pokiness.
He launched.

The needles hit the branch together, leaving individual holes. The holes began to expand as the onslaught of needles continued, the holes first expanding, then joining, and finally encompassing the diameter of the branch.

As the storm of needles finished its barrage, the branch fell, cut into two approximately even pieces.

Sweet.

Needles were more useful than he thought.

Now to try it again on the big dogs. Sort of.

He turned in a slow circle, choosing a target. Ah, that tree looked good. Healthy, too. It would be a good test of his prowess now. The weakness of the water needles, was that they did not actually cover a massive area of effect, unless spread out. They would have to rely on hitting critical points, unless they were enmasse like he was about to.

He relaxed for a bit, letting his chakra build up. Then he walked forward towards the tree. It was time. This could be a truly painful execution method, brutal as well. And it didn’t leave traces, aside from the damage, as the water would melt away and evaporate, in time. There were a number of similar needle techniques he fully intended to use now, once he had practiced them enough, and they would be handy for similar situations as well. Some of course, were more than a little larger scale than this particular technique, but that was besides the point.

Preparing himself, he gathered 1000 water needles as fast as possible, forming them into a thick column. If he recalled correctly, the exact formation of needles didn’t matter, just that the needles were of a specific size and maximum quantity. Soon, a shimmering column of miniature prisms reflected light from slightly above him to his left. Staring at the tree trunk, he focused, angling all the needles ever so subtly, aiming to hit the tree trunk within a specific range.

He let fly.

The sound was loud, cracks interlaced with the general cacophony of needles hammering away into the tree trunk. Slowly but surely, the tree trunk was worn away, first the bark, then the actual pulp stripped away and destroyed. A few needles flew outside of his intended target, doing nothing, but Kohei paid them no mind, focusing instead on splitting the tree as fast as possible. There was one particularly loud crack as an entire subsection of the slice being gouged from the trunk fell to the ground, technically untouched, the wood all around it being destroyed. Eventually, enough of the wood was worn away that the remainder could not support the rest of the tree. Kohei had only a few needles left, so he launched them and scampered away to avoid the falling tree trunk….

It seemed though, that making a full thousand water needles was too stressful, Kohei needed to reduce the amount he made, though there was probably some wiggle room in terms of the sizing. Fortunately, his stamina was rather drained by this point, meaning that he did not have to concentrate much to get his water needle count down to a more usable level. He swiftly formed a round fifty needles, his energy temporarily boosted by the effects of the Wind Rejuvenation technique he had learned previously. These were larger than his previous attempts, being about half an inch or a bit more than twelve millimeters across, and six inches long or what ever the equivalent was in millimeters and centimeters, he could not be bothered to count it all up at this time. He needed to sit down though as he did this, it was that or he crawled home later.

The needles formed, he was kind of bored, and already knew they could be used as an abrasive of sorts. Sometimes it was a little annoying to misremember jutsu details, especially ones with a rather… ill suited and misleading name. Maybe he could yell out the 1000 Water needles, and make only fifty where the opponent could see, and try to trick them into thinking there were more. Meh.

(exit)

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ttl wc: 2634, claiming +13 stats and all words towards http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t23792-one-thousand-needles-of-death