Growth and Progress [NK/PRIV]

The Uzumaki smiled at Amber's congratulations, nodding her head as she thought about a new technique to learn. Chakra Scalpel would be ideal but whenever she even tried the technique simply exhausted her. So to start, she should begin with a technique like Chakra Absorption! That move would allow her to absorb an opponent's chakra through it and would hopefully be able to keep her in a fight seemingly indefinitely. The issue was of course the ability to touch an opponent without herself getting injured in the process. Of course that would take planning and effort, but she had time for that. First she needed to actually own and be able to effectively use the technique which would be an issue in itself. Nothing she wouldn’t be able to handle of course but the young Uzumaki would have to put in some major work to get it done. The jutsu itself was simple in concept, use your own chakra to flow into their bodies while having it flow back into your body to be absorbed. It was a simple ability that the girl was sure would come in handy. Looking up at Amber, she grew just a bit jealous at the girls use of jutsu, seeming to be able to control her very shadow with very little effort. The Uzumaki didn’t want this to be a contest but on the other hand she knew that she was a very competitive person. Biting back those thoughts she began concentrating on the task at hand, not wanting to mess this jutsu up like the last one.

Kama concentrated to herself, feeling her chakra flow through the 8 gate points and dispersed through all of her tenketsu, trying to get a feel for the flow and power that her own energy naturally had. Her chakra color was red, like her hair, and had a soothing touch to it. With this kind of chakra, of course she was meant for medical techniques like this one, but mastering the flow of energy inside her was no easy task. She tried to imagine it like a river, ebbing and flowing at her command but usually all on its own with a mind of its own. She directed that energy down towards her hand, not unlike her other medical jutsu, and imagined how the flow would go. It needed to push up on one side, then gravitate back towards the other side of her hand and back into the girl's body to restore it with an opponents energy. This had seemed a lot more simple than before she started, but of course, things were never as easy in practice then when theorised outloud. Her hand radiated chakra, but had yet to ignite with the flowing red energy that lived deep within her. The Uzumaki kunoichi tried to imagine her chakra like a spiraling wheel, and that turning it one way had one effect, while turning it the other lowered her power. With this concept, if she could control the energy by spinning this mental wheel, then she could easily control the power of her energy.

With that in mind, she began attempting just that, creating a wheel of red in her mind not so different from her clan symbol. The spiral of her clan was said to have great power in itself and Kama really needed it to serve her now. If she was going to be strong then she needed to be able to master and learn techniques like this in no time at all and possibly even in combat situations. Soon she would be doing missions and the like and couldn’t afford to be a burden on her team and allies. She began spinning the conceptual wheel a bit faster, asking the flow to come out heavier and move the energy within her at a faster pace to make the river o f chakra on her hand much stronger and carry more force along it. If she could sustain herself off of an enemy's energy then there was no telling how far she could go in a battle. So she continued gently turning the wheel in her mind, creating a faster and faster flow, trying to keep conscious of the amount of energy.

The technique had yet to be doing anything yet of merit but she was at least getting down the  basics of how to cast and use it, as well as the chakra needed to be used and the balance that went along with that. It was a difficult and slightly slow process but that didn’t mean she could just stop here. She knew she was getting closer and the Uzumaki just needed to focus the chakra a little more, almost into a rounded edge over her fingertips that flowed up and then back down back into her body. It was a little like looking left and right at the same time, but even with this being extremely difficult it was far from impossible. As long as she didn’t blow out the amount of chakra she was using and injure herself, she could just keep slowly ramping it up forever until she got the exact formula down. The Kunoichi strained for a bit, closing her eyes as her mental wheel turned a bit more, releasing a little more energy and a little more force. Her chakra was flowing just a bit faster than it normally did at this point, but nowhere near enough to make the technique work. Using her chakra like this was exhausting of course, but this would ultimately train her stamina as well, which the Uzumaki could deal with. What she couldn’t deal with was her arm going slightly numb. The girl had mixed up the balance somewhat and now was trying to correct it, not doing a bad job but the slight damage to her arm was done, though not too debilitating it may be. She began powering down her chakra, spinning her wheel the other way to lower the energy flow as she decided to take a small break.


WC: 1,000


Chakra Absorption: 1,000/2,000

The girl began to practice once more, and as she did the look in her eyes changed. where once there was a calm almost goofy red haired child, now the Demon of chance could see a sense of resolve to finish her task that seemed almost uncharacteristic. Of course, she didn't know the girl well enough to understand what was or wasn't characteristic of her. they'd spoken a hand full of sentences to one another in the two instances in which they'd trained, the second being right now. It may actually be helpful to fix that problem.

"So I assume you're a ninja of the village? Have you lived your whole life within the village hidden in the stars? Also... That's what it's called right? I was given a very vague description of this place when I was assured I would find a teacher who could help me in my path. I think that's what they called it though." Meeting the intensity of the other girl's gaze she began once more to form her seals, the stuttering strugle seeming more simple as her concentration was placed fully on the task at hand. This jutsu would be more important than probably anything else she could ever learn. Over and over she formed the seals, Bird, rat, ox, monkey, rat, snake. Faster and faster until she could feel her fingertips shift uncomfortably, threatening to miss their mark. THe more she went through the long list of contorted movements the more chakra she summoned, pooling the pure blue energy of her suiton chakra upward higher and higher. Where it had once been set at her sacral, pooling within her groin area and feeding on the fueling passions the power now found itself at her solar, and past that. It poured like a great river up her chest and around her collar bones, shifting at the slender curves of her shoulders to flow up to her neck, finding it's next position in her throat chakra as the perfect place to prepare power. Bird, rat, ox, monkey, rat, snake. Over and over she formed the seals, waiting for just the right combination. she missed the ox, turning her pinky just a bit too far and her hands slid from each other. Her bird seal crumpled with the force of her hands clashing together. She missed reforming the rat seal. She missed forming the rat seal again.

"What brought you to the decision to become a ninja? Since my youth I always found it a bit frivolous to sacrifice your time and inevitably your life to fight for a man sitting in a large office, getting paid to tell others what to do. It seemed slightly less rediculous once I'd gotten a job of course, as that ended up being half of what I was doing anyway, but I don't know. It never really seemed like the kind of thing someone would rationally choose yanno?" The rhythm of her seals was getting better. She broke formation less and less. One seal every rotation became every other. Every other became every third. Finally she felt confident that she had the new seals memorized at a level that would allow her jutsu to work, and with a pulse of her chakra she attempted to activate the jutsu. It... DIdn't work.

What's going on. I know I was doing the seals right. Was I being too forceful again? That seems to be my habit. Maybe it requires a different chakra point. She went through the list of active chakra points, and the general effects that they had. The root chakra: Powerful grounding mechanism. Through the root one could raw in energy from the ley lines, and through control of the root their footing would never waiver. The sacral chakra: holder of the passions. Asside from it's assumed use due to positioning this was a wild fire chakra point that would grant the extra edge in battle. The sacral is the activator for the blade slicing through flesh just before your opponent's connects. The heart: The heart chakra is the essence of the soul. It is the birth place for your chakra, and the creation position. Just as your heart pumps blood through the body the Heart chakra draws and filters your energy into exactly what you need. The solar chakra: The solar chakra works well as a grounding force, just like the root. The solar chakra was said to promote balance and provide a heartiness in battle that could stave blades and weaken damage. The throat chakra: The throat chakra controles sound based techniques and the artistic flow of energy. Through this the user can create great masterpieces using their powerful energy. The crown chakra. The highest point of chakra. She wasn't sure of its effectiveness asside from aural cleansing and projection. She knew were there some darkness in your chi that a cleansing ritual would begin at the crown, and through it one would flow pure clean energy downward to connect the other chakra points. Counting in her head she stopped for a moment. That was only six.

What am I missing, she thought to herself, counting through each point. that's when things became all too clear. The final chakra point, and the same one that she activated heavily when learning to harness the power of sensory jutsu abilities like this one was the third eye chakra. The third eye chakra was integral in scrying techniques and seeing past the veil. It was also the most important in seeing through illusions, and in quelling the power of the heart to see through distrust.

She formed the seals a final time, slowly. Much more slowly. Each seal seamed meticulous. With the final seal formed she held it, Drawing her power upwards from her throat chakra to her third eye, and dark rain clouds began to appear. "I did it. " Her words were swept up by the initial deafening roar of the rain as it began to flood downward. Anyone and anything not within shelter found itself soaked in seconds as her powerful rain began to blacken the streets and turn the hard packed dirt training area to mud.

(3823)

Kama began trying again, once more imagining the spiral wheel in her mind's eye, and seeing it turn. It shined a brilliant red that mimicked both her hair, chakra and perhaps her spirit. She wouldn’t have to practice too much longer, she was sure she could get it this time with just a little more effort and control. Control was a useful lesson she was beginning to learn these days. Controlling herself from her destructive competitive habits, control from fighting, controlling her chakra. Control seemed to rule her life at this point but that wasn’t a bad thing. As long as she kept up on it, and found her boundaries in life she could control that as well. Never slipping from her path and becoming a shinobi others could look up to as a shining example. Her chakra began flowing with a little more force, the wheel spinning just a bit faster and with that spinning came intensity, even in her gaze. She was determined to get this right, no matter how difficult or troublesome. There were much harder techniques out there to learn. Much more dangerous techniques that could hurt her if she screwed them up. She couldn’t afford not to learn how to keep her chakra balanced and focused. As she thought this, her chakra began to glow a little brighter on her hand, the wisps of color finally showing as her inwards chakra was rotating and moving like a fast flowing river during a storm. This also meant she was burning through energy, but that didn’t mean much for the girl, for she was determined to succeed.

The Kunoichi of the Stars looked over to Amber as the woman spoke, Kama’s chakra still flowing but her eyes softening just a bit to not look like she was angry or anything at the woman. Her questions were natural, and almost seemed like small talk wich the woman hadn’t seemed comfortable with in their earlier meetings, but perhaps in the time between that she had gotten a fair bit more used to people. Things could change in weeks or even days, so it wasn’t hard to believe the woman could deal with one thirteen year old girl. Kama smiled, her outlook returning to the more friendly tone even as her insides stayed the same, the mental wheel of hers still turning and flowing her chakra at high speeds and power. She didn’t want to seem like she was having any trouble, but to be honest the Uzumaki was getting tired and a bit weak though she may not be showing it outwardly. This technique was just a little farther past what her body was used to and no matter her determination it was still going to take its toll whether she accepted it or not. She was lightly perspiring, the glow on her hand becoming much brighter as the technique edged closer and closer to completion, though she slowed her pace to be able to concentrate a little more fully on Amber.

“Well when we met before I was technically still just a student learning at the academy and trying to get all the jutsu and techniques for the genin exam. I just recently passed that exam though and became a full fledged ninja. That's what the headband means. Not every warrior of Hoshigakure is a ninja, but the ones that are will usually be wearing one of these somewhere on their body, though the forehead is most typical I think. As for if i’ve always lived here...no I haven’t. My family adopted me when I was left on their doorstep, and the only thing left with me was a card with my name on it. I think my homeland, where I originated from, was somewhere filled with snow. My earliest memories are filled with snow at least...”
The girl had seen people wear their headbands it along the neck or use it as a hair tie, but Kama herself believed more in the old fashioned up front approach of using it as a forehead protector. Besides that, it would suck to be struck in the head without a metal plate blocking the blow. The headband made sense to be well...a headband. Ambers next question was a bit tougher to answer and a little more personal. Amber herself appeared to be a ninja though she had no headband or markings Kama recognized as a clan or village symbol, so that same question could go for the older woman as well. The Uzumaki wasn’t going to ask just yet though, as she felt that’d be impolite.

“Well when I was first brought here there were no ninja’s. It was only very recently that an academy was built and people from the town or even outsiders were allowed to train to become a shinobi. The Missing Ninja and Outlaws around here were getting to a dangerous point that they couldn’t be left alone, and the best solution to fighting those with Ninjutsu is to train others to be able to use ninjutsu. The idea of ninja being created to defend the people of this village, to defend my family and the innocent citizens..I guess I just felt a calling to it. Someone a very long time ago...I don’t remember their face or name, but they told me to protect my village the best I can. So I guess maybe those words just stuck with me. The politics around here might get stale, and i may end up getting sent on boring missions that serve little purpose, but if my village needs me...I’ll be here for it.”
Her answer may not seem rational, and perhaps the ideals of it weren’t. No sane person would put their life on the line for some buildings and walls but that's what being a shinobi was about. You had to see the village as something to protect and maintain. To help its citizens and townsfolk as well as your comrades in arms. The Uzumaki would defend that with her life if she had to, though she did hope it wouldn’t come to that. The best way to avoid death was practice, and so she continued increasing her chakra. The tenketsu in her forearms would be brightly lit red if anyone was looking at her as she poured even more energy, the technique finally forming correctly as a wave of energy around her hands that seemed to flow both forwards as well as backwards. She smiled at this success, dropping the technique for the moment just as the rain started and Amber muttered her success. The Uzumaki looked down at her kimono that quickly became soaked with a sigh, the girls wet hair sticking to her forehead and the ehadband on it. "This is neat Amber but...a little warning would have been nice..."




WC: 1,000


Chakra Absorption: 2,000/2,000

She listened intently as the girl spoke, learning more than a bit about the ins and outs of the ninja world from their short convorsation, and more then she'd learned from her entire time in the village hidden in the leaf. She had been extremely young when she'd moved away, and the ninja world seemed so uninteresting. As she described her history, talking about being an orphan and having been picked up within hoshi, something stuck out. She hadn't realized until after she'd said the words, but she recognized the place the girl talked of.

"Yukikagure." The word felt foreign on her tongue, even as broken memories filled her mind. as the rain soaked through her unfortunately small and very not warm outfit it almost seemed like the ever present patter of rain shifted. Through her perception she was brought back to a memory of a happier time, the small flakes of snow freezing her open shoulders. It was the first day she'd entered the village hidden in the snow. She could see the excitement on her mothers face as she greeted a large group of people who quickly ushered them into one of the red clay houses. A woman in her mid thirties scooped the small girl up, wrapping a warm cloak across her shoulders and they made small talk, speaking of everything and nothing at the same time. They spent hours that night catching up, while amber played off in the corner.

"Um. Sorry I think I zoned off a bit but I think the place you're talking about.... Is Yuki. she closed her eyes. There wasn't much need to keep them open, both with the memories flooding past her consciousness, blurring her vision and sweeping her thoughts away from reality to experience the life she hadn't remembered, and because with the powerful perception granted by the rain tiger at will she would easily be able to see what was going on around her. At least that was the assumption. The world was black behind her closed lids. She reached out just as she had with her chakra sensory but nothing lit up. She knew she could just use her skill in sensory to see what was going on around her but that just wasn't the point.

"Interesting. " Whoever had given her that quote was an idiot. Pure and simple. What kind of simple, vague bull shit was that?! Still it seemed to push the girl to learn and train, and as a girl herself who needed to learn and train to become a ninja... She wasn't really in a position to talk. Once more she reached out to the rain around her, pushing her concentration further. She thought about the clouds above, and the formation of water that was preparing to fall to the earth. She could feel it, though only barely. She knew this wasn't natural because she had personally created the storm. She also knew that her chakra was laced into every single drop. Having this knowledge and knowing how to use this knowledge seemed to be two very different birds. LIke one that flies and one sitting on the ground with it's head in the sand. ANd it's eyes closed. Sleeping.

I know this is what I need to do. I just need to figure out how to do it, she thought to herself. Calming her body she allowed her mind to wander, watching the scenes of the odd village hidden in the snow for a moment, but as the convorsation shifted the memories began to fade until they were but a dull after thought in her racing mind. that was the problem. She was trying to do too many things at one time. that meant she needed to force the things in her concentration to happen so that she could shift focus. Instead, she simply didnt. She didn't do anything for several seconds. Instead she just allowed the water to rush across her soaking wet form, and took in the sounds it made as it crashed against the muddy training ring. she felt her feet sinking gently into the now soft earth, and as she did a small flash of blue appeared in her vision. IT was like a single drop of rain had caught the very edge of her sensory, sudden and fleeting, but it was there. Every few seconds she'd see another slight flash of bright blue light like a lamp shone upon a small circle of the ground. She could see half of a bench, two planks of one of the wood sided buildings, the top of the red haired girl's head. With every passing second her vision grew, more and more droplets infused with her chakra granting brief moments of vision to the black void behind her closed eyes. It was honestly rather beautiful.

"Oh. HEy... Im going to create a heavy rain storm. heads up." Shifting her body she reached forward to grasp the small metal charm baring her clan's crest. it took her a moment to untangle it from the other, a well worn silver charm with barely there flecks of red in a symbol that she didn't recognize,. but once the task was done she set them neatly against her skin, the hyuuga crest under the neckline of her grey tank top and the nara symbol directly in the center of her chest where she assumed her solar chakra began. Her vision had sifted from barely there spots of bright light to a strange almost melodic tone drawn in the dark void. she could see cascading lines of bright light that showed her larger and larger pieces of the world around her with every second, yanno like one of those rhythm games with the bars that go down and you have to press them.... except not because phones dont exist and as such neither do rhythm games. Whatever it looked like it was incredible. It was like for moments in time the world was a fireworks display opening up just for her.

(4829)

The Uzumaki girl wasn’t very impressed by the watery torrent and the fact that she’d likely have to thoroughly clean her outfit when she got home. There was no telling what unnatural rainwater would do to the threading, even as good as the outfit was. She tried to rinse her hair by squeezing the water out but only managed to hurt herself by pulling a bit too hard. For now she’d just have to ignore the weather effect and move on with her time, not wanting to skip out on more training. In all honesty though she was exhausted. She didn’t know what else to do really and honestly just wanted to take a nap. But continue training she would. The Kunoichi was sure she had at least one more technique in her, though this one was even harder than the last. The poison mist technique created a powerful poison that could kill with seconds if someone so much as breathed it in. Its power wasn’t unrivaled of course, but breathing it in was dangerous and could easily cost you your life. Kama herself wasn’t sure she wanted to learn it, but knowing it was going to be important for her viability in a combat situation until she could figure out how to perform the chakra scalpel technique. Her taijutsu was alright and chakra absorption could help, but the girl honestly needed a trick to play and this was the best she was going to get at this very moment until she improved.

This technique also didn’t require hand seals and was simply about molding one's chakra into a deadly mist that would kill on inhalation. A simple concept but one that was extremely hard to produce. She hadn’t met a ninja yet that she knew could use it though she didn’t doubt their existence. She was hoping she would be able to get it it down as soon as possible to be able to take on combat missions when she was cleared for them but for now, it’d simply be to have and master it into a powerful weapon. Once again she formed her chakra into a spiral wheel in her mind and focused chakra inside her belly, closest to the tenketsu connecting to the gate of closing. With luck she would be able to get this jutsu within a few minutes at her current rate. Though there was also the possibility she would simply fall unconscious.

Within her she imagined a toxic red cloud of her chakra, not dissimilar to the rain tiger technique that Amber was showing, but this time less rain and more toxins. She spun that wheel within her psyche and poured chakra into her belly, forming and mixing it in deadly amounts and adding her medical expertise to make it toxic and volatile. She didn’t understand the exact science for it, but somehow she just had a kind of feeling about how to do it. Like this was a type of thing that came naturally to her. In that same vein she didn’t quite understand chakra absorption or medical jutsu but somehow she was able to just wing it. She perhaps wondered if her bloodline was involved at all, making her be able to sense things out with natural instinct and talent. The uzumaki had never felt very talented but there was no doubt she had at least some small ability. With that said, the chakra she was forming within herself was nowhere near the correct amount or the right toxicity to be poison enough to infect anyone. Though it wouldn’t make for a bad distraction it unfortunately wasn’t going to defeat any enemies of hers and most certainly wasn’t going to win her any prizes in a strength competition. There were a few extremely useful medical jutsu that she could learn, but most of those were currently beyond her sadly and this was the only one she felt she could understand, besides chakra absorption that she had already learned.

At that moment she heard Amber whispering Yukigakure, the woman having spoke near the start of this poison training and taking a couple seconds for Kama to realize what the woman had said. The words had meaning to the young Kunoichi as a village that had been destroyed by a very powerful missing ninja. The Uzumaki watched the girl for a moment as she zoned out, soon coming back into focus, claiming the land Kama spoke of was perhaps Yukigakure. “That's possible I suppose. I never really thought about it. That village was destroyed by a Missing Ninja with exceptional power, so it would make sense that a survivor might have fled here but...that isn’t the only land filled with snow. I wouldn’t mind traveling there sometime though and exploring to see if there was anything that sparked my memory.”

In truth the name sounded more familiar the more she thought about it, though the young Uzumaki didn’t say this out loud. She didn’t know for certain if it wasn’t just her mind playing tricks on her and refused to be lead into a situation that would cause her needless pain. Such a journey would take a massive amount of time and effort as well, and the permit to leave likely wouldn’t be easily given to a genin of course. So Kama wasn’t going to worry about it  for the moment, it was easier to focus on the here and now. Especially this poison technique that she needed to master. Inside her body she had almost a spiraling ball of red chakra, though it wasn’t exactly a mist or even too corporeal and wasn’t anywhere near what she needed for the technique. Molding her chakra in such a way as to turn it into a mist was proving to be kind of a pain as she had never dispersed chakra like that before, at least not in a way like this. Even chakra cleanse was more of a bunch of particles and nothing that had to stick together finely. The girl had her work cut out for her.


WC: 1,000


Poison Mist: 1,000/3,000

Through her powerful sensory she could see the world one droplet at a time. It was remakrable. It was like experiencing life anew for the shinobi. No. She wasn't yet a shinobi. To suggest she was a ninja would be to suggest that she had or would belong to a village. That wasn't a goal she had ever had. Her task was much simpler. She needed to protect the world, not just a single village. It seemed so ridiculous to her, even with her knowledge as the Demon of chance. The fact that this girl who was meant to be her first sought to protect felt incredibly off. It had never been her path to protect anything but herself. Her life was a story of loss and vengeance. At least it was until the cleansing. Everything was so different now since she'd taken the steps to remove the powerful omega from her body. Moreso things had changed since she made the misguided decision to place it within the infallible God of water. She never expected that he, or any of her "allies", a term that she used incredibly loosely, would have the gall to actually go against her. Sure a large margin of them were stupid, but that was suicide, and yet there they were. Three times she'd narrowly escaped death. He'd followed her through six different worlds. She wasn't sure if he could follow her here, but if he did she prayed to the goddess of all things that she would be ready.

Maybe that was why her place holder had decided to take up a path that would involve protecting the world. It was incase of a much more grave threat that she'd taken up arms. Still, that would be far in the future. She was still fairly young within this body, and had far too much to learn to go off galavanting around the world in search of retribution. "I'm not sure why but I think I lived there too. Assuming of course that you're from Yuki. I only have broken memories of the place. A bright meeting between my mother and some family, Creating intricate needlework for my mothers shop.... And the look on her face as she lied still in the snow. Thankfully I wasn't there win Yuki fell, but I saw the after effects. that isn't a place that you want to visit. " Even with her barely there broken memories she knew the horrors that land had seen. She hadn't known at the time that it was a powerful missing ninja. She assumed it was an army by the volume of damage that had been dealt. If this was the power one single person could hold she had quite a bit of work to do.

She turned her full attention back to her sensory. It wasn't that she needed to, the Rain Tiger at Will jutsu was giving her the information without any significant concentration. Through it, and with the control she was slowly learning, she could see every subtle shift in the girls form. She could sense anyone in the area walking through the gardens, and any creature in the immediate area who was above the ground. It was remarkable. She watched through the rain as a couple sat under a large umbrella. She could only tell it was a couple because of the strength and slenderness respectively of a set of arm that sat hand in hand against one of the stone fountains. That, she realized, was a major issue that the jutsu seemed to have. it could sense the movement of anything within an incredibly large radius, but were it sheltered from her rain she could only see what sheltered it. It made sense. The way the jutsu worked, she simply put her chakra into a rain cloud and allowed it so how her the world around her. This meant that being able to close her eyes and still fight would be a tricky thing.

"So what's your ninja way? I've heard the young ninja of the village giggling and talking about the importance of their ninja way... It made it sound like that was a unified thing all shinobi needed. Is that true?" If she'd had to choose, based on the path her life had gone in she knew that hers would be simple. A single word would define her path: survive. In her youth, the path would look like a trail of rushed foot prints shifting away from the area of danger. Upon her second world it would shift to a defiant stance in the dirt, and the resolve to cut down whatever stood in her path and threatened her safety. Fromt here things got messy. She'd taken up the Kill or be kill mantra so long ago, but truthfully that wasn't exactly the path she'd taken. It was more just kill for the potential to be killed. She'd taken the lives of so many just out of the chance that they could come back to harm her. She'd taken a multitude of lives that had little chance of gaining the power to stop her. She'd embraced the strength of the omega, the power and the mana, and the hatred, and with it she'd cut a path through this world so wide that it shattered globes. She'd killed for safety, she'd killed for neccesity, and she'd more then once made the decision to kill solely for fun. Then she got sorrow.

THrough the power of her new sensory she reached out once more, searching for a very particular energy frequency. She'd wasted so much time in training that she'd forgotten that she had an important task. Her scythe laid hidden somewhere in this village and she knew without regaining its strength soon she could hear the whispers of corruption and be tempted to take a less then savory path. That was a path she could never walk again. Her first sweep found nothing. There were a few stray animals flying through the sky, the lone person walking about the gardens here and there, but no sign of the calming energy of the scythe of sorrow.

WIth her second sweep she felt something. It started as barelly a whisper in the back of her mind, but as she honed in on what she felt she could see a small tendril of energy creeping out from a building on the edge of her sight. She made a mental note of its position.

(5910)

Kama considered and supposed it was possible but again she wasn’t a hundred percent sure on the matter. Yukigakure was supposed to be a dangerous place now that the snow had fully retaken the land and the beasts of the region ran wild. The Uzumaki girl was interested to hear about Amber's parents and what they did, and saddened to hear about their deaths. There was nothing the girl could say that would make it any better though, and the death of a loved one rarely got much easier even as time went by. “Even if it's not a place one would like to go...I think it’d be important. You’ll never truly know unless you visit and for that matter neither will I...but the time for that is probably not soon i’ll admit.”
The horrors of the attack were likely not something she’d want to visit until she had much more experience on her and the capability to deal with such things. She did need to see, and Yukigakure was a lot closer than the land of iron, of that she was at least fairly sure. The uzumaki had never been very good at studying which likely explained her issues with learning techniques she had simply skimmed over or half read. She just didn't comprehend stuff like that so easily, it wasn't really her fault was it? It was whoever wrote those damn books that were to blame. Would it have killed them to add pictures?

The whirling ball of chakra inside her continued to form and be molded by her chakra, shifting forms and shapes at a whim as the girl began to try to shift it into a more mist like shape with little success. She didn’t know exactly what to do here as the cloud shifted and swirled about inside her. It wasn’t uncomfortable or anything, being her own chakra, she just wished she had some response to figure out how to make it an effective technique to use. So far she would just be spitting some slightly volatile chakra at an opponent that likely wouldn’t accomplish much for her at all, not to mention that the jutsu itself was beginning to tire her even further with every little bit of chakra she added to control and shape it even further along. There was definitely some real problems being faced here and she just wasn’t quite sure how to change or fix them. The Uzumaki Genin knew that the jutsu needed to be more particle like to represent a miss and needed to be fatally toxic to her opponents, or at least enough to knock them out and render them unable to fight. At worst she was just going to poison herself and render the whole point mute and likely need a couple days rest. That wouldn’t be a productive way to train at all so she was better off just finishing the technique here and now and not screwing it up and injuring herself or amber.

As the young Kunoichi continued to concentrate Amber asked the girl an odd question, on what Kama’s ninja way was. The girl herself wasn’t sure and the concept wasn’t something she was overly familiar with. Her classmates would talk and brag about theirs but the Uzumaki herself had never taken much from it. The goal of a ninja was to protect their village and people and wouldn’t that be every ninjas way so to speak? Though the way the village ninjas talked about it, it was almost a personal mission or the way of one's beliefs. It was probably popularized by the ninja outsiders who came from other villages or villages that had been destroyed as Hoshi nin likely wouldn’t have heard of such a thing by themselves. To answer the question though, Kama wasn’t positive she could give a worthwhile answer that would explain to Amber what that meant. “My ninja way? The kids in my class used to talk about that sort of thing but i’m not sure I ever understood it. For some it's just how they live their life and others it's like a purpose or mission they endure. I think my goal of just wanting to protect the village may be a bit too vague for that sort of thing. I want to be the best in the village someday, but I don’t know if that really counts either. So I guess maybe i’ll simply find it along the way? Thats sort of what I hope anyway.”
The girl kind of sighed, not really liking her own answer but not really having a better one to give. This was the best she knew and until she found whatever her ninja way was going to be, her answer was just going to be this boring one.

Next Kama considered that it was probably perfectly fine to ask her own questions. She had rather fairly answered her life story for Amber and felt that she was only owed the same respect back. Though the Uzumaki didn’t plan on pushing it too far if it was something the girl didn’t want to talk about. Kama wasn’t one to but in on people's lives and force them to feel stuff they didn’t particularly want to revisit. “So if you're from Yuki..how did you get the power to move shadows and stuff? Was that particularly common? Myself..I should have the ability to summon chains of molded chakra but I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. I mean you don’t seem to be a village ninja but you can do some pretty amazing stuff.”
The shadow manipulation and even the elemental jutsu of water were more than enough to impress the young shinobi who had not begun her training to learn her element and had yet to figure out her bloodline abilities. On that matter she still hadn’t quite got that poison mist thing down either, though she felt the ball of chakra get lighter which she supposed meant the particles were beginning to change how she wanted them, she just had to figure out how to get them to stay that way.

“Most people from clans around here don’t like to talk about them or hide their abilities. There's people out there who go around stealing bloodlines and transplanting them into themselves with medical jutsu for their own gain. A lot of outsider ninja here are from villages that were destroyed and may have been hunted for their unique abilities. As an Uzumaki my bloodline traits don’t pass well to a person that tries to steal them, so i’m not that worried about it but still...it’s kind of a worrying thing to think about.”
This brought up the other day when she had been kidnapped and forced into a wagon. Sure she had escaped with her own ingenuity but it would have been bad if she had remained trapped and somebody had tried to steal her dna. She supposed even if the traits didn’t pass along well maybe she shouldn’t advertise it but she wanted to be proud of the Uzumaki name and fight for her people. As far as she knew the clan was scattered to the wind and she would honestly like to find out how to fix that. Those people would be the closest thing she had to blood family and Kama wouldn’t mind meeting them. The Uzumaki did sometimes think her bloodline would awaken much easier if she had a clanmate to describe the process to her rather then making her figure it out on her own.

She continued forming chakra in her belly, trying to separate individual pieces into smaller and smaller bubbles. In theory this would disperse them like a cloud if she got the bubbles small enough and be usable for the jutsu she was trying to perform. Controlling her chakra in such a way was proving to be immensely difficult even for her, and she had gotten pretty good at chakra control as of recent. She concentrated inwardly, the tenketsu around the gate of closing flaring up as she kneaded and molded the chakra, the rain around her covering up the sweat from the effort of the technique. Once she had the correct chakra and amounts it would be simple to do, but finding the way to create and form the chakra without anyone to show her was a major issue. Most of the teachers in her school had pretty much disliked her and not wanted to do any one on one time. They saw her as bratty and violent, which Kama couldn’t entirely deny, but she had always tried her best and simply had a drive to test her and others abilities. Hikari was the only one to truly show her the time of day, but The Red Demons reputation had almost ruined that for the girl as well, causing Kama to need to get Hikari to not run away so as to train the student at the time. This time she needed to do this right and with skill, and prove that she was a real shinobi and not just some kid.

The girls chakra bubbled and moved almost violently inside her, though not injuring the redhead in any amount to make her feel physical pain. The bubble effect was working, but very slowly and very inefficiently. Once she knew the exact size the bubbles needed to be she could do it just fine but for now just making them smaller and smaller was a little bit of a chore. It certainly was tiring the girl out to the point where she almost felt like collapsing. The most she could do was concentrate on her mental windmill, that spiral circle, and keep the chakra flowing in at a steady rate as she improved the jutsu. The Uzumaki genin could feel she was almost there and just needed a little bit more of a push, just one more breakthrough and this technique would be in the metaphorical bag of hers and she could take a break or something. Hiding her current physical stress was also a bit of a problem, the need to breathe heavy and close her eyes.

Even still she remained resolute, and refused to show any sign of weakness. The way of Shinobi was to show no emotion in battle and to think with a calculating and logical mind. She may not be able to do the calculating and logical part, but the young Kunoichi could keep her physical distress and emotions in check for the moment without too much hassle. She just hoped by the time she finished this jutsu that she wouldn’t just pass out unconscious and be left in the field. After all Amber had no idea where the Genin lived and wouldn’t know where to return her to. So remaining conscious was priority number one for the moment, and two was finishing the jutsu before she failed priority number one. She focused as much as she could, the genin powering through the sleepiness and exhaustion she was facing and continued molding and shaping her chakra.

The ball of energy was more and more becoming a gaseous shape, getting closer and closer to the final form of the jutsu. With any luck she would have it mastered in the next couple of minutes and not need any instruction to have done it. On some level she prefered learning things the hard way as it taught her self reliance but on the other, she understood sharing information and ability could be important in the ninja world. She smiled as the technique was finally forming, she could feel the toxic mist inside of her stomach ready to be released...and then it dawned on her that as she had just mastered the technique there was nowhere safe to release it right now. If she did the gas would cover the training field and injure Amber or at least making it look like an assault. With that in mind she rapidly backpedaled her mental spiral wheel. This effort however was a little too much for her. The girl lost her footing and collapsed, landing on her back and staring up towards the rain cloud, panting in exhaustion from the amount of energy she had been using this entire time. The rain covered up the perspiration but chakra senses could probably pick out just how low on energy the girl was. “I..was practicing an inner technique and I..overdid it hehe..”

WC: 2,000


Poison Mist: 3,000/3,000

"I suppose. I can barely remember the scene when I reentered the village hidden in the snow, but it was devastating. There were bodies everywhere. Everything was on fire. All of the tall buildings of the village had been reduced to rubble. It was like some great force swept across the land killing anyone and everyone in its wake. The scene was truly terrifying. " She thought back for barely a moment to the horrors that had sent her back to the village hidden in the leaf. She'd stayed there, deep within the forests of the Nara clan for several months quaking at the memories of what she'd seen. She remembered the look in her father's eyes when he saw her, the intense worry as he pulled her into his arms. The differences in him between when she'd left and then were staggering. She'd held resentment since her mother took her to the village hidden in snow, the few memories she'd had all of the preparations to leave. He was cold and cruel, angry and raging at her mother at the thought that she'd take his only daughter off to the lands of her birth. This man was completely different. As she spoke, she held back tears. She wasn't sure why the thought still brought her such pain. Well... She wasn't sure why it currently did. She was certain that the natural amplification the scythe of sorrow gave to her would make the scene all that much worse, but without it's power in her grip she expected a numbness that wasn't there.

Kama seemed to have the same thoughts on the concept on a ninja way that she did. They were quite alike in many ways. She took a moment to pull herself from her thoughts, regaining concentration and watching the world about her through the powerful sensory provided by her rain. She needed to begin work on the next technique that would be added to her arsenal. She'd learned a few techniques to help her percieve the world, and a couple that would help her fight, but now it was time for something more defensive. She was going to learn the technique that was trademark to her bloodline. In perfect timing she heard Kama begin to ask about her history, and more importantly about the power of her family's secret techniques.

"Ah. Well. I didn't until very recently actually. I was born in Konoha but the ninja life was too much for my mother. I should be more clear. My father being a ninja was too much for my mother. She hated the idea that any given day he could be sent out on a mission that he'd never come back from. they fought and she decided it was best to go back to where she grew up and start her buisiness again. I went with her. " As she spoke she formed the single rat seal that would grant her access to her powerful yin chakra. Once more she would move the energy downward, funneling it through her solar point and changing its potency from suiton to the deep rich black yin and then pushing it downward past her sacral and into her root. For her shadow techniques, at least without use of the cloak jutsu that their previous clan leader had insisted was of vital importance for the clan to learn, it would always be the Root chakra that she funnelled energy into. That allowed her to activate the shadows behind her and bring them to her aid.

"When I found her dead amongst the rubble of the village hidden in the snow..... I knew it was time. I'd never had interest in learning the techniques of my clan, but I couldn't sit by and let people do something like that and so I left to meet with my father and some of our clansmen began to teach me to mold chakra. That's actually why I'm here. I was told there were teachers here that would be able to assist me with elemental manipulation in ways that my clan could not. deeper and deeper she drew the power of her chakra, pooling it in her root to prepare to understand this new technique. it was much more simple thankfully. SHe only needed one seal, which meant that activating chakra in time with her movements was going to be a piece of cake.

Stopping for a moment she pulled out her coin purse, checking it's content. She was delighted to see she did in fact have enough to get a piece of cake. that would be delightful later.

"Most people around here have to hide their abilities. From my understanding it's not allowed to perform jutsu or do other ninja things within the village proper. Something about religious nuts not liking the idea that we can manipulate energy and dont pray to their fake gods. I for one would never give money to a person so he could say i was "saved" it seems rediculous. " So this girl was an uzumaki. She'd heard that name in passing she thought. It felt like their roots dated back to the village she was born in. INteresting.

She called out to the chakra in her body, using it's strength in an attempt to move the shadows once more, but she could feel immediately that she was overdoing it. She forced a great heft of her chakra past her root, darkening the already dark shadow behind her, but lacking the finesse to actually do the job. This was becoming a habit that she would soon need to break. Just as she considered how best to fix the situation she saw the girl lose her footing, dropping to the ground. Instinctivly she rushed forward, offering a hand to help the red haired girl up.

"ONe must me mindful of their chakra reserves Amber. To push yourself past healthy limits is to die on the battlefield. Remember that if you run out of energy then you fall, and the unconscious cannot parry blades. My father said that to me on my first day of training. he was so delighted that i'd finally taken the initiative to learn how to use the power of my clan.

(6949 rain tiger trained, 849 towards next jutsu )

The Uzumaki listened to the other womans story while still lying on her back, barely bringing herself into a sitting position to look up at the woman a little more politely. Amber had been through a lot from the sound of things, been through stuff Kama couldn’t imagine but she still persevered. The Woman was obviously very strong, thats for sure. Kama could only hope to be able to push past the same circumstances herself and become just as strong. The Uzumaki  took Amber's hand and was raised to her feet, brushing herself off. The girl wasn’t exactly positive if she had the energy for chakra cleanse and really was just looking forward to a nap. “Yea the more crazy ones have been known to even attack ninja they see, and we are supposed to just try and avoid them to keep the peace. Lots of us don’t wear our headband in the village proper, but it's not always a huge issue.”
Kama herself hadn’t had a ton of issues with any of the priests or believers but the girl knew it happened. The situation was still just a bit tense. As Amber shared her quote from her father, Kama sheepishly smiled and nodded, playing with her hair. “Yea i’ll..do better next time for sure. Though I do think I need to go home and rest up a bit.”

She would wait a moment to listen to Amber's last remarks before she would wave goodbye and leave to take a well deserved rest.


WC: 300

EXIT


TWC: 7,200


Stats: 36


Jutsu Claimed;
Chakra Anesthetic
Mark Seal
Body Flicker
Chakra Absorption
Poison Mist

"That seems so odd to me. They need the protection of the ninja but those who risk their lives are forced to do so with their hands tied. I'll never truely understanding Ninja culture I suppose. " Even as she learned the arts on ninjutsu Amber didn't truely consider herself a ninja. It felt wierd to call herself that which she looked down on for so long. She was simply a fighter who harnessed the techniques available to her in order to achieve a goal. A ridiculous impossible goal that would one day get her killed. That day, however was too far in the future for her to have to worry about. SHe continued her concentration of the shadows behind her, drawing the chakra in her root to cause movement in the black void that was her clans mastery, but her command remained unanswered.

The girl's final statements brought consideration to the mind of the Demon of chance. It could easily be that she too was at a level of fatigue that stopped her from being able to fully control the powers of her clan. With a nod she watched the redhaired girl leave, picking up the well watered dish of long since put out incense and placing it back in her side bag after pouring the pool off onto the floor, and she too began to head home, off to the inn where she'd been staying. "At least now theres little chance the old inn keeper will bug me to go outside. " She smiled as the rain continued to pour down. She would need to use this trick more often.

(TWC 7219. claiming chakra infusion finished(500) shadow sewing finished (1600) rain tiger at will trained(4k) and 1119 towards shadow imitation. finally claiming 36 stats and exit. )