Odd uses for the Body Flicker?

The most sacred place for missing ninjas was not the bathroom. It was not the canteen where an uneasy truce existed, upheld by a rather intimidating barkeeper. It was not even the contract center - being deliberately thrown into a watermelon cart by one of the employees after an accidental collision put paid to that idea.


No.


The most sacred place for a missing ninja, was the ball court.


Thats right.


The ball court.


Where else could missing ninjas get together in the social zone to blow off steam and hormones without directly hurting each other? The rules were reflective of this - teams put the ball into baskets, different distances earning different scores. More points was good. Destroying any part of the facility was not good, and spelled trouble. However, since it was impossible to avoid anyway, personal enhancements and the like were allowed. In fact, depending on where the game was played many types of techniques were allowed, even earth ones that terraformed the landscape. That being said, the playing field always had to be fixed after each game. In a way, it functioned as a form of sparring, letting people use non-fatal and usually non-serious injury attacks with relatively little consequence. Most though stuck to the personal enhancement techniques, especially indoors.


Kohei had found his breathing technique to be very helpful here, since it harmlessly boosted his speed and reaction and situational awareness. Really handy, actually, even as his body continued to improve. He wondered if there was a maximum speed one could go, but so far nobody knew of one. However, there was a technique that he didn’t use yet, that was commonly seen with those C rank and above, from those that thought to use it anyway.


A bit of inquiry led him to the Body Flicker technique. He had heard of it, but up until now had not bothered learning it. From his understanding, it was more effective the stronger one’s body was, so there was no point in him trying to learn how to perform it earlier. Now, though….


He began experimenting at his hideout at first, using his chakra to fuel his muscles briefly. It must be a dangerous technique if it was going to only be usable in short spurts. Nothing about game balance or anything. At first he was only able to move slightly faster than normal. However, his control, distance, and speed all began to improve, and he noticed drawbacks to the technique. For one thing, he could barely track how fast he moved when he used the technique, as he got increasingly proficient with it. Another issue was that he was kind of stuck with the distance he had initially tried to reach, and the speed was such that he could not react to anything or even move until he had reached his intended destination - or as had happened one time - he had run face first into a glass wall he had not known about.


All of this was noted as he practiced relentlessly. Outside of this ball court, he doubted that the technique would be much use for anything except speedy travel and quick dodging when he was absolutely sure that the actions would be safe and not interfered with. Otherwise it would not be a safe bet at all. Well, he could try making a shield around himself or something…. He would have to see, experience would tell.


When the hideout he lived in was too small for his practices, and the outdoors was too chancy, wild animals and all, he began testing out his technique on the court. At first it was in small spurts, as he was not sure of himself and didn’t want to mess up, not in front of everyone else, both to save himself embarrassment and to prevent him from looking weak. However, as he practiced, he began to become more confident, beginning to take rather long jumps with his technique, only sometimes blocked by other players. His body was getting stronger and more importantly, faster, so his speed increases with and without the Wind Rejuvenation technique were getting better. Speaking of which, he noticed that the increase in speed was significantly greater when he used the Wind Rejuvenation technique. If he had to guess, it was because his chakra flowed more freely or something, but that was a question for a missing ninja or something.


However, it was not always the longest distance that was the most helpful for his body flickering, he discovered. At first, he was not sure how he kept being intercepted, or kept finishing in front of someone he thought he outpaced. After a while, Kohei began to realize that this was because his motions were too predictable. So he began looking for smaller opportunities. If he could use this technique in an important but unexpected way, it could prove more effective than the brute force long distance version. He started being able to segue smoothly in and out of the Body Flicker technique, increasingly capable of faking out opponents. He began using the technique for short distances where a longer one would have made sense, or taking the technique for a long distance spin where a short one would have made sense. It made him a lot less predictable and a lot less likely to run into a hurriedly constructed wall or muscle or dirt.


He ended up finding that he could travel significantly farther than merely from one end of the court to the other. Even the diagonal. Ultimately, the distance came out to hundreds of meters at a time, with a relatively short time needing to pass before his body could accommodate the strain again. He did get better at judging distances through this practice, though not by a lot. Enough though to estimate whether he could safely make a flicker in most instances. Of course, it was harder when it was involving moving objects, but the core technique of the Body Flicker, he felt he had down pat.


(exit)

(ttl wc: 1006, claiming +5 stats and http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t22305-body-flicker?highlight=flicker )