Quell The Flame [Solo/Training]

Satomi took a deep breath as he tried to shift his focus inward, with his own ability to perceive chakra he concentrated on feeling out his own. It didn't take much for him to begin to feel the aura of chakra radiating inside his body, the ethereal force in which all jutsu was possible had swelled greatly within the young genin since he had started training extensively for the chuunin exams and it was evident in its strength. His chakra would rapidly build as he summoned it up from its source and into his hands as if he were to about to perform a jutsu with it, but he would instead allow it to dissipate and return to circulation. It was easy to raise the concentration of Chakra in his body, but what he needed to do was to suppress it. Resting his hands flat on the table, Satomi took another quick glimpse at the clock to note the time before he closed his eyes with another deep breath. This time he counted to ten in his head before slowly letting it out to another ten-count. As he allowed the expended air to pass out over his lips he tired imagining a ball placed at the center of his chakra network, the ball was approximately sized to how the ninjutsu expert envisioned the strength of his chakra. He would then imagine the ball growing as he summoned his chakra through his body to his hands and shrinking again as he allowed it to settle again. It was abstract to say the least, but it worked for the imaginative child.

He would continue to experiment with his chakra using this metaphorical ball, using it to grow more comfortable with his understanding as he just generally got more comfortable as he slumped lazily back against his chair. The minute hand would jump another half hour without the boy's careful eye to keep it in check, or rather because he lost track of the time as he grew more and more engrossed in the nature of controlling his own chakra. The boy would take another slow breath, this time he would hold it in as he tried to center his mind and focused on his chakra as he allowed the metaphorical ball to expand with a surge of energy.

Catching the ball with his hands in his mind he would imagine it between his hands, the child would then squeeze the ball within his mind as he tried to shrink it as his chakra. It wouldn't be easy as his chakra fought against the attempt to contain it, the boy and the essence of his justu power would go back and forth for several minutes as he attempted suppress the flame. Calming his mind to center his thoughts and control his breathing and heart rate, the genin would eventually gain the upper hand as he forced his will on his chakra to settle his it back to normal before pushing it even further to halve its apparent state. It wasn't exactly the initial goal he had in mind, but any progress was welcomed by the child as he slumped further down into his chair, letting out an almost exhausted sigh.

Turning to look at the clock he frowned at the realization that he had worked more than half the day away in the archives researching a few curiosities he'd acquired, perhaps it was time for some fresh air. Satomi would stand up and stretch his arms high above his head with a blissful groan as his muscles thanked him. He then pulled  his head to the left and then all the way to the right as he stretched his neck before he shuffled off aimlessly. With no true destination to speak of, Satomi just lumbered off into the village to let his mind wander off without him to get lost in the bustling village. It wouldn't be too long before his thoughts did return to him however, there wasn't a reason he couldn't enjoy the scenery and train his chakra at the same time. Suddenly that little ball returned to mind, again standing in as a tool to visualize his chakra. There it retained its half-size state, giving him an almost normal genin level to anyone willing to pry. It seemed as if though he really had been able to successfully suppress his chakra, at least somewhat successfully anyway, It still wasn't good enough though, if he wanted to hide his intention from those who had the ability to read his chakra it would have to appear effectively nonexistence.

Reaching into his mind he imagined his hands around the ball again, gently he would began to coax it into a smaller and smaller form as he mindlessly wandered through the village streets only taking time to smile and wave at the few people who greeted the adorable child. The powerful force of his chakra did everything in its power to fight back against the attempt to conceal it, throwing a fit as the ball pushed back against his hands and even expanding several times as it would not be denied its right to be on full display. Now whether his chakra simply grew tired of fighting or realized that Satomi was even more stubborn and determined than he would allow his chakra to be the battle going on inside his mind and body would come to an end. Satomi's chakra would admit defeat and the ball would disappear into his hand before as if he were performing a magic trick it would seem to vanish all together. His chakra was so small that even Satomi had a hard time sensing it at first, only minutely aware of its existence by instinct. It was there though, hiding in plain sight just like a shinobi. He'd note it as a second accomplishment today along with all the research he had conducted.

He needed something to test it on... something and someone. A mischievous smirk stretched boy's lips as he recalled a jutsu from his brief interest into genjutsu, just maybe it would make for a good prank. Sneaky child scanned the streets as he aimlessly patrolled them, his eyes looking for his unwitting mark as he calmed and silenced his chakra in preparation. It wouldn't be long before he spotted a rather quirky gentleman manning what appeared to be a cart topped off with cabbages, a crude handwritten sign hung over the side of the cart only confirmed the curious choice of vendor fare. Satomi shrugged as he slipped away between a pair of buildings to take refuge in the shadows it provided, his eyes gleamed with excitement as he locked his gaze on his target. Of course he didn't need eye contact for this particular genjutsu to work, but it was always a good idea to keep your eye on your mark to make sure a prank goes off as intended. Satomi was a professional prankster—or rather he liked to fancy the ideas that he was.

Regardless Satomi would form two hand seals, the Boar seal followed by the Ray, then it all fell apart as he could instantly sense his chakra swelling as he prepared the jutsu. Though that only added to the disappointment as he waited to see if his jutsu would take affect only for the man seemed to be unphased as he went about admiring his vegetables. Satomi grumbled as he pushed his chakra back down to mask it again before making another attempt, his wide eyes watching intensely as he waited for a shriek, a cry—something. It never came, another dud for the genin.

He wouldn't be deterred however, failure was never something Satomi could admit and it drove him to continue to improve. Besides that, he hadn't performed a good prank in quite some time, it was definitely due. Satomi would hunker down and double down, he wouldn't suppress his chakra this time, he'd have to work on that later. For now he again singled out the cabbage man, the boy's hand seals were almost a blur as he performed them. A glint appeared in the boy's eyes for a moment: Determination? Mischief? Who knows with a child, but what happened next had Satomi in stitches.

Witnessed by the man alone, clones of the boy would begin to emerge from the local scenery around the gentleman cabbage peddler. From the building and neighboring vendor stalls the lumbered towards the man in a ghoulish fashion, Satomi dictating a few classic monster movie groans as they harmlessly swung their arms at the man.

“My cabbages!” There it was, the icing on the cake. One of the clones had emerged from the man's cart which prompted him to defend himself with a discarded board, the wood would just pass right through the ghostly clone and knock over the cart. Cabbages were everywhere and Satomi was all over the ground, both hands rested over his mouth to muffle his cackles. Part of him felt bad for the man, it wasn't the first time Satomi had witnessed something similar happen with the man's cabbages. Having had his fun the genin dismissed the illusion, his ghastly clone army fading into obscurity much to the relief of the cabbage vendor as he proceeded to collect his leafy wares.

Satomi would however sneak into the next street over to avoid any possible repercussions for his little prank, humming nonchalantly as he returned to his earlier lesson and pondered back on his times training with Miyamoto. He had noticed the chuunin seemed to stare at him in silence while he practiced whatever jutsu his sensei had instructed him too. At first it was just a bit unsettling, but he eventually worked out that the older boy must have been able to see his chakra and was thus able to tell him with clarity whether or not he was performing as needed. It was still unsettling after that, but for an entirely different reason. If someone could see or even feel out chakra like Satomi himself could then there would be few places for him to hide out of sight and as a shinobi, the better he could hide the better chance for a survival. That would bring him back to shift his focus to his chakra, concentrating to shrink and hide it again. He had worked out how to do that much, however it seemed to be very limited skill as it seemed that whenever he tried to perform a jutsu above a certain tiny threshold that the suppression would be broken. It made sense for that to be the case, but he would definitely need to look into a way to negate such an effect.

That would have to wait as the evening grew into night and the began to rise, it wouldn't however stop the young boy from scary a few more unsuspecting individuals with his new found love for genjutsu. It was a good step towards an interesting path he hopped to follow, several shrieks and howls of terror erupted through the cit as Satomi made his way towards his home. It was hard for the young lover of pranks to contain himself as he practiced, while part of him did feel bad, he couldn't help but feel a heavy weight removed from his shoulders as his mind grew distracted from all the stress from training. He finally had a chance to unwind and it was glorious.

Each time he selected a new mark it only got easier to focus his chakra to cast the ghostly illusion on them, but it never got any less amusing as he studying their reaction to the sudden emergence of his clones. The fight or flight response was an interesting beast and seemed hard to predict, though he did begin to take bets with himself on the matter as he picked his marks. Needless to say he owed himself some additional training time in the near future—he probably should have bet an ice cream or something.

However, as interesting as human nature was to study, he seemed to have found himself at the front door of his home. Inside his father would be waiting to play their nightly game of Shobi, it would have been so very easy for Satomi to turn his new jutsu on his old man. Satomi wasn't even that heartless though and he just smiled as he stepped through the door to greet his father and share the tales of his day while with perhaps omitting a thing or two. Maybe his father didn't need to know about his little fright night through the village and with any luck maybe he would never hear about it, maybe he'd wear a hat to hide his hair for a few days to mask his distinct blonde locks. Just in case. The rest of the night would go on as usual, dinner and a game of Shogi. Satomi's win streak over his father continued to grow; Takatoshi never prouder to be beaten at a game.

After retiring for the evening Satomi would lay in bed as he often did and stare at the shadow, his mind was more quiet than it had been in a while as he stared out the window next to his bed. For one not at least he didn't need to stress over anything, in fact it was quite possible that when all the dust settles from the chuunin exams—no matter the outcome—he'd be okay.

@ Satomi if you use max stat reduction, you cannot train Ap unfortunately. Please adjust accordingly, thank you.

There ya go! Bump bump!

Approved.