Stressed and Overwhelmed: Underground Punk'd

The bright haired child sat panting atop a small pile of loose dirt in the middle of an open section of the training grounds, a pile of eight kunai sitting next stacked next to him as he watched other shinobi hone their various skills and techniques. Satomi had been so busy chasing more advanced justsu and that he fell into the same trap as many others, as he'd let the basics slip through his fingers.

It had been quite some time since he had last seen the training ground, his preference to slip away to the nature reserve to train in peace and quite surrounded by earth and stone to train his elemental justsu had him neglect the place where he first learned the basics of his martial skills. Well today was all about reclaiming those skills, his arms and legs looked worse from wear after a free for all brawl with a gaggle of shadow clones. The spastic sparring match would grant the child a new appreciation for how far he'd come in physical ability, but he still worried how he'd fair if he was forced to trade blows with a taijutsu specialist. Satomi could almost hear the that winding sound video tapes made as he mulled through the battle, his bruised and battered arms a testament to his attempts at picking up a little taijutsu of his own. Even if in all likely hood that he wouldn't share the strength needed to return a meaningful strike of his own, at least he could project himself without having to resort to most costly jutsu before he needed to. He played the motions over and over in his head, each moment slowing to a crawl as a shadow clone attempted to strike him. It was all about quick reaction time and even quicker movement, something he recalled reading once during a brief interest in Konohagakure as his left arm rose to meet one of such attempts from a clone. Catching the punch to the outside of the arm of the attached fist in mid-stride he swept his own arm away from his body to push the arm across its owners body while stepping through to throw the copy Satomi off balance. This would be repeated in a barrage attack, the shadow clones repeatedly attacking him in rapid succession.

It wasn't all success for the young genin however, as his face could contest to, his cheek throbbing in pain as the moment of pale fists pummeled his beautiful face. Satomi would have thought carbon copies of himself would have been more mindful of the goods, but apparently they were every bit as serious about training and just as determined to see their originator reach potential. Unfortunately this left the child with a swollen eye and lip, his pretty boy features lost to his temporary disfigurement. Satomi was merely being melodramatic as he gently palpated the area with his fingers, cringing as he reached a particularly tender spot, but in reality the bruising and swelling was minimal and barely noticeable on his face. It did however lend some encouragement for Satomi to quickly improve his blocking skills to prevent himself from being knocked for a loop, bolstering his more basic defensive skill—he'd have to see how well it played when used in conjunction with his other Earth Spear jutsu.

Satomi's arms on the other hand were very visibly battered and spotted with purple and yellow rosettes, it hurt to even allow his muscles to flex. This wasn't going to do if he were to continue to train today, fortunately necessity was the spice of life and a similar incident had lead the genin to adopt some basic medical jutsu. Satomi's hands quickly sped through the required seals, the soft aura of chakra radiating from his hands only lasted but a moment as he allowed the justu to fade. It had suddenly occurred to him that the hand signs were rather cumbersome and costly in dire situations, granted being able to recover from superficial wounds weren't exactly high priority in the field—okay so he was just feeling exceptionally lazy.

So lazy in fact that he'd rather put more effort in figuring out how to forgo the hand seals themselves than it would take to just do them and get it over in the first place as he began to focus his chakra into his hand. It was arguably one of the first jutsu many early genin pick up for it's usefulness and as such Satomi, having gained quite a bit of control over his chakra had little problem sufficiently collecting his for this basic jutsu. The hard part was getting it to do what he wanted as his left hand began to emanate a faint glow, so far so good as he placed the hand over his opposite arm and closed his eyes to focus his concentration. His mind taking a visual dive under the surface of his skin, penetrating the microscopic world to sense out the very cells that his body was produced form. Satomi's imagination helped by a movie that his father once insisted on sharing with him about a medical-nin who used an experimental jutsu to travel inside the body of a patient to save them from terrible death. Regardless, with his understanding of the basics of the human body and of the jutsu itself Satomi attempted to reach out to his cells with his chakra alone. With no hand seals to regulate the flow it was a trial to balance the physical and spiritual while not trying to use too  much or not enough. It wasn't particularly stressful, but Satomi still found himself gnawing on his bottom lip as his brow twitched. Gradually he could feel a tingling in his arm grow, one eye opening and then the other as he dared to witness his arm melting off the bone. Fortunately that wasn't the case as what he saw was evidence of his cells, charged by chakra, working extraordinarily fast to shrink the swelling and heal the bruises covering his arm as he moved his hand gently across the surface of his skin. Flexing the fingers of his right hand with a proud smile, he proceeded to repeat the process with his left arm before touching up the rest of his body after being armed with both hands. Being able to immediately begin the healing process was definitely a vast improvement in the young genin's opinion.

The eager child was quick to his feet again, stamping both on he ground as he relished the rejuvenated feeling of his spotless porcelain skin. His gap-toothed grin couldn't be broader as he leaned over to pick up a kunai from the pile and tossed it gently into the air, allowing it a few rotations before safely catching it by the handle.

“Right lets get this going!” The genin chriped as he spun quickly, whipping his arm around with his body. Using the added momentum to sling the weapon through the air, the point striking with impressive accuracy at the center of a nearby target mounted to a thick wooden post. Satomi had initially started his morning with a little target practice to test his viability at range should he be left without his jutsu, needless to say he hadn't exactly lost his edge since graduating the academy, but it definitely had room for improvement. Snatching up another dagger, he gently traced his finger along the broad end as he drew his arm back before letting the weapon fly. The genin's out burst and celebratory jump signaling another success, though it was admittedly outside the center zone.

After expending all 8 kunai he'd have to walk over to collect them from the target before returning to his previous position, dropping them at his feet to repeat the process for a good part of an hour before exchanging his kunai for his shuriken. It was a little easier to work with the smaller star-shaped blade as they fit nicely in his weapon pouch and didn't crowd much. He however didn't have nearly as many as he did of his kunai, forcing him to make the trip to collect them more frequent. As his arm tired his aim began to grow poor and it became harder to throw the weapons with the same power behind them as he continued, this finally came to ahead as one of the stars clanked loudly as it struck the target at a less than idea angle. Bouncing off the canvas covered targets, the shuriken tumbled back before letting out a muffled metallic clink as it came to a stop in the dirt below the target and post. While Satomi's furrowed brow clearly marked his disapproval, there was at least one another that seemed quite amused by this failure. A certain crow perching her pudgy self atop the target with an insultingly sarcastic 'aho'.

Shaking his head, Satomi quickly took am and chuckled his remaining shuriken at the target with all the strength and steadiness he could muster. The multiple bladed instrument striking the target barely a few centimeters from the top of the broad post. It was more than enough to cause the desired effect as the crow flared it's feathers and fluttered frantically with a chorus of shrill caws and squawks, needless to say she wasn't a very pleased little birdie. Their relationship probably wasn't a helpful one and forged through mutual stubbornness, but nether of them seemed to bothered by it as the crow settled back atop the post as it was Satomi's turn to let out a sarcastic cackle of his own as he strolled over to collect the shuriken. He would reach into his back satchel to puck a piece from the pastry that typically accompanied his lunch and offered it to his avian frenemy who in turn greedily accepted the gift and pat upon the head.

“You're looking well fed today.” Satomi giggled as he pocketed the throwing weapons back into their respective pouch.

“And you're a bad shot.” The genin froze instantly, his senses all on high alert as he quickly spun around to peer behind him before shooting his gaze to the left of him and then to the right before turning back around in utter confusion.

“Huh!? Who just said that?” Satomi's eyes continued to scan the immediate area to no avail before turning his gaze sharply towards the bird before him, his brow furrow with an accusing stare. The black feathered avian simply stared back with a beady gaze of her own as it bellowed out a shrill crowing. “Of course birds can't talk.” The child balked as he cautiously backed away from the target post, his eyes never leaving the bird as if he expected to be proven wrong. In that moment the crow decided the time was best suited to start a length preening session, her break working through the nearly light absorbing feathers while casually resonating with a quiet coo.

Satomi on the other hand was at a loss for what to do next, finding himself rather fulfilled for the day. He however would felt guilty that he'd not at least practice up to lunch. His eyes casually scanned the training grounds in hope to be inspired when his eyes fell across a jounin tossing practicing his own aim on another set of targets. At least that's what he thought before the jounin's hands quickly met in front of him just after taking aim and throwing another shuriken, his hands were hard for Satomi to follow as the shinobi formed what he assumed were hand seals before announcing his intention.

“Shuriken Shadow Clone!” His voice was as clear as day as Satomi's eyes widened with the sudden appearance of a dizzying number of additional shuriken, he couldn't count them all as the spun rapidly through the air towards the line of five targets. Fortunately there was a backboard not far behind the posts to catch the swarm that sailed pasted the target, the resulting sequence of rapid thudding sounded like an angry party of woodpeckers.

Satomi's fingers twitched as his slaw jaw expression firmed up and morphed into an enthusiastic smile as he fought the urge to vocally express how awesome what he saw just was. In stead he would just stand awkwardly and watch the senior shinobi practice the jutsu over and over. Each time he tried to catch an additional hand seal used in the jutsu until he was sure he had 5 distinct seals.

“Ram, Rat... Bird, uh... Boar, Tiger.” The young genin mumbled under his breath to himself as he mimed through the seals as he ran through the order. He would continue mimicking the seal set as he practiced getting them down without stumbling on any of them, having more recently learned the importance that hand seals played in a jutsu he wanted to be extra careful not to flub them when it would count.

Knowing hand seals were were only one part of the equation however, he still needed to apply chakra—the life of any jutsu. Satomi would peel his eyes away from the jounin to face down his own target before shuffling slightly to his left to align his body with a set of three targets, perfectly positioned with the center target post. Satomi had ample experience with his own Shadow Clones, so he was feeling overly confident that he could perform this jutsu as well. If only he knew that it was actually a step above his clones despite the fact that it was used on inanimate objects, which are objectively less complex than a human being. Perhaps it was the quantity of the clones produced that made it such an advanced jutsu, but regardless the child had no idea what he was in store for him as he reached into his pouch to pluck a shuriken from his weapon pouch on his left thigh.

Satomi would take a deep breath, drawing in a lungful of arid Haven air as his toes and fingers tensed reflexively as he stared down the targets. The little fat crow didn't appear to have much confidence in the genin's ability as it continued to preen itself on atop the center post as Satomi ready himself, giving the Shuriken a spin on his index finger as she slipped the digit through the center ring of the throwing blade. The child confidently blew a lock of blonde hair out of his face as he took aim, drawing his arm back before belting the star-shaped blade downrange. It wasn't graceful, but he did manage to get his hands together in time to form the first seal quickly after release. Where it all fell apart was trying to formed the seals that followed in the time given before the projectile would reach its target, the pressure of getting the correct seals in the short time was a bit much for the genin to overcome as he stumbled over his own hand movements. Then it was all over as the sound of the sharp metal being stopped by the target reached his ears, the shinobi just shooting a target a disappointed stare.

“Okay! So maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.” Satomi allowed himself to chuckle at himself, an embarrassed laughter to lighten the mood as he rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand as he reached into his pouch again to grab another blade to practice with. So it was back to step one and a half as he lined himself up with the target again, allowing his chakra to simmer as he refocused his efforts on the hand seals themselves again. Only this time he'd add the throw into the mix without actually attempting the jutsu to make things easier for him. So I'll just increase the difficulty gradually, I wish I would have thought about this before...

The next few throws had similar success or lack there of, but at least he could now pinpoint his flaws as he took his time. It didn't take long for his brain to adopt the net combination of seals as second nature, completing them in a moment from the time a shuriken left his hand, the jutsu however was still rendered null without the necessary jutsu to power it. As confident as he felt he would make it through a few more rotations, throwing and collecting his blades with while adding the hand seals behind them. Satomi began to feel the stress on his arms, his overworked threatening to cramp up on him through the last set, each throw causing the child to wince.

“You know what? Lunch time!” Satomi chuckled the last of his his five shuriken before letting his tired arms fall to his side. After a cursory glance, he decided that his shuriken were safe enough to be left on their own as he made sure all his kunai were accounted for before picking out a nice tree to flop under for lunch. Luck for him that his arms still had a pretty decent range of motion and he was able to reach behind him to fish out his favorite yellow bento box and place it in his lap before opening it to reveal today's menu: Barbecue beef and grilled vegetables. The smell was practically intoxicating as the sharp yet sweet scent of the barbecue wafted into his nose with just a subtle hint of char from the perfectly grilled feast. Satomi could barely show his manners before he dug in, muffled sounds of bliss from the child a solid compliment to the chef, that chef was of course none other than his own father.

Satomi suddenly perked up from his lunch, a single brow raised as a sharp metallic clank rang in his ears. The waited for a moment to see if the sound would repeat itself, but after another minute he returned to his dining experience. Barely having time for another bite he was again disturbed by the same sound, this time however he managed to catch the little culprit on her trip back to the target. Landing atop the target, the 12” feathered critter leaned  over to take one of two remaining shuriken in her beak before giving her head a firm shake while tugging at the star-shaped hunk of metal. Satomi watched silently as he watched the bird slowly, but steadily work the weapon out of the target. Struggling for a moment to not drop it as the crow took to the air and slowly glided over to the genin, dropping the shuriken onto a small pile with the other three she had already collected for him before returning for the last one. He had never seen anything like it before—sure the greedy glutton of a bird would bring him random shiny objects every more—but he'd never seen her or any bird fetch something before.

Not wanting to ruin the moment, Satomi quietly offered the crow another piece of his lunchtime treat upon her final return. If he didn't know better he could have sworn that the bird offered him a bow of gratitude before accepting the sweet morsel. The pair would share a meal of mutual respect, Satomi even offering yet another piece of pastry to the crow before she would take to the sky as he had come o expect. He wouldn't immediately get back to training following lunch, opting instead to rest a bit longer to give his arms a little more time to get the feeling back in them. What a strange day it was turning out to be.

Satomi lifted his head to stare across the training ground at a standing clock that had seen better days, but if it was correct it was now well into the afternoon and he was being exceptionally lazy by sitting around. Collecting his shuriken as he stood up, he stretched his arms high above his head with an obnoxious and lethargic yawn. His arms however felt much better than they had before he say down for lunch, the rested genin now rearing to go again. This time he wouldn't be holding back, it was hand seals, chakra, the whole nine yards as he lined up to the targets. Shuffling his feet in the dirt to get his footing, he let the determination gleam in his bright-eyed gaze as he drew on his chakra to focus it in his hands. His chakra flared as he lined up his shot on the center target and hefted a shuriken right for it, his fingers quickly interlocking with one another as he forms the first hand seal before quickly moving into the next and the rest.

Shuriken Shadow Clone! Satomi held in the urge to shout it aloud as to no interrupt those around him like some rude shinobi. It was nearly impossible to tell at first, but his efforts would be rewarded with a rapid thudding of multiple strikes. The child would sprint over soon after to inspect things, he could barely contain himself as he counted five shuriken tightly grouped in on the target. The young boy gleefully hopped up and down as all but one of them disappeared, each with their own puff of smoke as Satomi collected the real one. While it was no where near the magnitude that he witnessed that morning it was a start, there was no where to go but up. He just needed to focus and concentrate more, imagining an entire wall of deadly metal stars as he returned to the marked ground to position himself for another attempt.

As the afternoon continued to roll on so did Satomi, his improvement were frustratingly slow and staggered and at time it felt like he was even moving backwards, but it was hard to argue with the dramatic smoke show as 20 clone shuriken poofed away as he walked over to collect the original. It wasn't long before that number doubled as he burned through the afternoon and his chakra, a long and arduous road to perfection to say the least.

The down side of such a jutsu was that with such a drastic increase in the number of projectiles, the less sure of the accuracy he had over each clone. Of course having a massive number of them meant that he didn't exactly mean he needed to aim, he could be less picky in situations that didn't require discretion. Something he was a-okay with as he grunted with another scorcher, sending another shuriken downrange. The projectile was suddenly flanked by 99 more just like it, like angry bees they stung all at once across the three targets and the backboard. It was quiet a racket as the evening crept up on the tenacious little genin, the twilight casting an orange and purple sea in the sky above as he collected the throwing blade.

Satomi would pocket the blade with the rest of them as he reached into the pouch on the opposite side to pull out a kunai, weighing it in his hand as he refastened the pouch. It wasn't as much of an experiment as it was proving a theory as he squared off with the targets again; he imagined that if it worked with shuriken it would work with kunai as well. Honestly he figured it would probably work with any thrown weapon or object in his possession, but he wasn't about to start throwing books at people. Extending left arm out in front of him, kunai firmly grasped in his left hand, Satomi drew his arm back before throwing out the spaded dagger. A quick serious of hand seals later and one kunai would be 100 whizzing through the air on a direct trajectory for the thoroughly perforated target down range. It was like thunder as the heavier blades all made contact with the surprisingly durable wood, he never once doubted that the result would be any less impressive as he strolled over with a bounce in his step to collect his kunai and return to his initial position.

The night would slowly creep up on the over eager genin as he continued to practice with his kunai, only admitting that it might have been getting late as he sensed his dwindling chakra impacting his performance. Something that became visibly obvious as the number of kunai clones began to drop as well. As much as it pained him to not be able to continue, and it was really grinding, he had to force himself gather up his kunai one last time before making a quick inventory to be absolutely sure he had everything—including his prized lunch box—before disembarking the training ground for home.

It was a typical night at the Furukawa household with supper and nightly Shogi game, Satomi and his father shared their day with one another while the child would go two up over the father in their game. A repeat victory was always sweeter, he only hoped the next game could lead to his first ever winning streak against his father. The rest of the night would quiet and uneventful as Satomi spent the remainder of his night sprawled out atop his bed, his eyes far off in the distance as he gazed out of the window at the stars over Hoshigakure. The brighter ones anyway, the lights of the village masked the true beauty the shimmered in the sky at night. He sighed as he thought about being out in the nature reserve at night and how he first noticed the stars and how they shined, it was the same night he had nearly worked himself to death to prefect the Earth Dragon jutsu—the very same he hoped would help him earn his promotion. Even as naive as he often was he knew that a single move wouldn't be enough to do it alone and he would continue to improve and hone his skills and jutsu, not just for the chance to be chuunin, but because becoming a great ninja wasn't just going to happen.

Satomi would peacefully slip away into dreamland for once in a long while and the villagers of Hoshi would go largely unaware of the glittering beauty they had overhead as night carried on, they would go on to be replaced by a single and arguably far more important star as the sun rose to claim the day. The past night may have been calm, however Satomi's day would be anything but.

It had dawned on him during breakfast while he had his morning anxiety attack over the fact that he was one day closer to the second part of the chuunin trials that he had a single jutsu that seemed to just there. It was sort of a spur of the moment addition to a training session he had with Miyamoto one day and while it offered great mobility should he have a great need for subterranean travel—or need to hide—it didn't serve much use to him. And since he was more than happy with his progression with the Shuriken Shadow Clone technique, it was time to give more practicality to the underestimated Hiding Like a Mole technique. Having decided that he took a quick detour before training to the Hoshi archive library to find something, anything he could possibly utilize with such a mundane technique. While there were a few, one particular technique jumped out at him.

“Headhunter jutsu...” Satomi muttered with an almost menacing smile as he rolled the scroll back up and returned it before he headed back to the training grounds for a bit of playtime in the dirt as he swooped through the soil like a shark on land, disappearing and reemerging without notice—it was actually quite fun once you got use to navigating without being able to see. He may have been a little harsh with his criticism of the jutsu, though if he could tie it together with the one he read about in the scroll, it would be even more valuable jutsu.

Satomi would casually gather and place five similarly sized rocks in a wide array around  a 10 meter diameter, he'd make note of their location before appearing as if he was sucked under the surface. Even though he knew where he placed the stones, it did little good as the lack of vision while submerged in the earth made everything in every direction look exactly the same. All he had to work with is the subtle hint of the natural magnetic forces to help guide him, with enough concentration he was able to pick out the differences surrounding and if he focused even harder then he could sense something even as small as a fist size rock wasn't able to hide from him. The genin's arm exploding up through the hardened surface soil to wrap his fingers around the helpless bolder before yanking them both back under the surface with incredible speed and strength, the poor rock never saw it coming.

As Satomi searched for his next victim a mysterious hand would pick up one of the stones and replace it with smooth sphere of similar proportion, the stampede of tiny feet would quickly hurry off accompanied by a chorus of squeaky laughter and giggles. Soon after the genin's arm breached the surface again as he found his target, pulling it under ground once more. While swimming took a certain grace, moving through earth was every bit an unrefined and raw powering as his chakra helped push himself through the subterranean world as he sought out his yet another target. As he pulled this one under to it's gravely doom he was in for quite a shock as his stone produced click to alert Satomi that it wasn't what it appeared to be in time for him to let go before it ignited into a small explosion, a thick smoke quickly billowing from a small hole leading back to the surface as the child himself crawled out of the ground like a zombie out of a classic horror film.

Coughing and wheezing as he quickly crawled away from the cloud of smoke he was met with a group applause and the hoots of several very recognizable voices. Grumbling Satomi gathered himself back to his feet to follow the cackles of the little hyena right back to the source, the young genin standing face to face with the even younger first year academy students and general nuisances: The Bento Club.

“Still lame I see.” His smugness was almost physically manifested as he sneered at the genin, just the smallest smirk of self-confidence coming across on his lips.

“And I see you're still up to no good, Akito.” Satomi snapped back, venom dripping from his words. It usually took a lot to rile up the bright and happy young genin, but with the chuunin exams on the horizon he was already on edge and pushing his buttons wouldn't exactly be advisable. Of course pushing buttons was the Bento Club's specialty, if there was a button to push they would be there to push it. Today was no difference as the group of four students had a standoff with Satomi, their collective gazes a little unnerving as they refused to blink their young beady eyes. Satomi however furrowed his brow, sharpening his gaze as he glared at the group of delinquents.

“Heh. Better they wallowing in the dirt.” A darkly dressed girl snarled as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her narrow gaze cutting clean through Satomi. Revealing a hand from her pocket she tossed an object identical to the one the genin had encountered moments ago, the smoke bomb instantly exploding to release a massive cloud of thick gray smoke. The child's eyes watered as the cackle of self-amused laughter circled him accompanied by the strange feeling of something brushing against his exposed flesh. The laughter would disperse along with the children, Satomi escaping the obstructive cloud not long after to watch the four children run off in four different directions. The genin's right eye suddenly twitched as he inspected himself, his body covered head to toe in multiple colors of paint. Despite the rainbow of colors used to cover his body in graffiti, Satomi wasn't feeling like rainbows as his chakra surged.

“You wanna play!? We'll play!” The kid cried out; the game was on. Satomi had justu in his favor as he disappeared underground, the darkness settling around him allowing him to settle and focus on his targets. The Bento Club's fleeing foot steps assisted the genin like sonar to locate them, making note of each set as he set off on the hunt.

The first victim, Naoto, the group's resident weird kid and the slowest as the ground trembled behind him as Satomi made no efforts to hide his intention on approach. The child's startled squeal echoing through the training ground as he was pulled under as if he were grabbed by hell itself, dragged down until he was just a head above land. His wild unkempt hair leaving the boy to look like a shrub as he struggled to unearth himself, using several choice words for the subterranean hunter. The next two wouldn't be much of a problem for the rampaging genin, the boy quickly catching up to them both and pulling them neck deep into the soil to leave them there to think about what they've done as he set off for the pack leader.

Akito was running in full panic by this point, his fear fueled by the shrill cries of his fallen club members. He however was the naturally gifted one of the group and fared far better at avoiding the hand of fate, dodging Satomi's attempts to drag him to the rocky abyss below. The genin aim quickly improved however, revenge was a strong motivator. All sense of smugness disappeared from the academy student, the color draining from his face as he felt something wrap around his ankle. Time seemed to all but stand still as the once cocky student's foot disappeared under the seemingly solid surface of the ground, reality would quickly catch up with the boy as he was quickly planted like the others.

None of the delinquents would be left for long as Satomi was kind enough to collect and line them up, much to his confusion the group seemed more enthralled with his rampant response to their antics than apologetic for what they had done. The genin was forced to admit defeat again at the hands of the Bento Club and send them on their way, but at least he now he knew just how dangerous of a headhunter he could be.

It still took Satomi a moment to find his composure, not use to giving into his impulses like that he was a little shocked at his own actions. He would nonetheless return to the practice range, armed with his kunai and shuriken to pick up where he had left off the day prior. With adrenaline still coursing through his veins and his chakra amped up Satomi was quick to fall right into stride, his hands moving like lightning with each throw, a barrage of projectiles appearing out of thin air to pelt the poor practice targets with an overwhelming number of deadly blades. At first it was only a hundred, but he quickly exceeded 300, his breath heavy and heart racing as he grunted harder with each throw. The shuriken a blur as it buzzed through the air, Satomi's hands forming the seals as his chakra obeyed. The lone star-shaped projectile was suddenly among a cloud of one thousand, the soft hum of the spinning blade exploding into a deafening buzz of a thousand angry hornets. The swarm struck with a thunderous chorus of dull thuds and the clangs of metal as they peppered the three targets, their posts, and the backboard. The child's furrowed brow softening and breath more shallow as he stared downrange, the shuriken rapidly exploding into their own small puffs of smoke as they were dismissed from existence. He had done it, but he didn't feel accomplished. The feeling he had, a dark feeling, he didn't like it. It felt like the stress was beginning to overwhelm him more than he wanted to admit, perhaps he would take it easy for a while. After all, rest and a sound mind was every bit as important as a strong body and spirit.

Accomplished, but not fulfilled, Satomi would take the rest of the day to walk over to Takatoshi Teppanyaki and help his father in the kitchen. If there was one thing that always managed to bring a little light to the child's gloomy world, it was his father's company and the smell of quality grilled meat. Fortunately for the overworked genin it was a pretty slow day for the restaurant, the line out the door was only twice as long as usual! Even so Satomi seemed to cheer up quite quickly as the father and child duo ran amok around the kitchen, laughter and giggles shared as the pair carried on as they contended with the success of the restaurant's new carry-out menu. For a day it was like it had been before Satomi had graduated to genin, for a day he could drown out everything that was bothering him.

Approved