How it began (p)

A silver beam of light shined off of Kyo's brand new Konoha headband as he looked at in a daze. He had just finished his Genin exam and walked out from it proud as can be, but now all he saw was how much he was lacking. Thinking about the many grand kages, he held the headband which dangled to strips of cloth from either side tightly. The amount of power out there was astonishing to the say the least. An s-rank ninja could destroy an entire village with ease if nobody came to stop him. The amount left for Kyo to grow made him feel as if he were a tiny torch compared to an entire forest fire. He could take out common bullies, but compared to the other Genin he wasn't worth a second glance.
His fingers pressed tightly against the headband as he thought of all the people out there who could be planning to take down Konoha. Missing ninja such as the ones from the akatsuki couldn't see him as more than a common civilian. His mind wondered and argued for power. Every inch of his body became pumped up as he thought of how to mold it. This power would be his to control. Kyo thought to himself that there wasn't a limit to how strong he could become. When he ran out of jutsu to learn, he would just start perfecting them or making new ones. He would seize his life and this world, Kyo believed this dearly.
His nerves ached as he threw clothes into his duffel bag and hastily made it down the stairs. Kyo's Mom was the first face he saw and she showed only her greatest, motherly grin.
"Are you going on your first mission? I heard you passed your Genin exam!"
Kyo looked at his mom with a slight frown as he knew every word she was going to say before she said it.
"Mom, since when did you ever care?"
With the open and shutting of the door, his mom's face grew exhausted and aged. Truth was, he had already seen what she was capable of on a regular basis and hardly forgave her for it. Behind that pretended excitement was just another person who gave up on him. She was trying, but he knew she was just trying to be polite.
As he walked out, Kyo began to smile brightly.
"When I get enough ryo, I can buy my own place and get the hell out of here."
With his nostrils flaring and his duffel bag on shoulder, he began to quickly walk to the training grounds.


Kyo looked around for other ninja around the training grounds and was surprised to see nobody. It was just him here to train his heart out and there wasn't a single jutsu he was planning to train today. Today, he wanted to build up his base, his body to handle the strain of five elements it had to be able to use in the future. He knew his work was ahead of him, but still he smiled happily at the challenge.
"Today is my day. I am the greatest. I am the greatest. I will be able to unlock my potential. I am the greatest. I am the greatest..."
He repeated these encouraging lines until he was pumped. Now it was time to spend the day unlocking his full potential, he thought.
The young genin gathered up a rock, a bowl of water, and a tree branch. Carefully, he set down these three items in a row before him and made a small flame on his finger tip to set the tree branch on fire. Everything was in place, this was his glimpse into the future before him. Earth, water, and fire were the elements he would have to form into the boil and lava element. He knew his destiny as Reo had told him long ago.
He meditated around each one and focused on his chakra network, the ebb and flow through his body. Kyo thought of the earth below him, the stillness of the water, and the burning of the tree branch slowly turning the branch to nothing as it fed. Each element was so different and unique. Earth was solid, water was liquid, and fire was gas. Earth was below him at all times and hid various minerals, clay, and dirt. Water was still and somewhat relaxed to Kyo. It reminded him of Reo still, but also reminded himself as flexibility within oneself. Fire was what he knew best. Fire was a brilliant light that consumed anything it got attached to. It is a beautiful element capable of destroying entire villages if left unchecked. Fire was beauty.

When he felt a sort of connection to every element laid before him, he threw a fist into his hands and smiled.
"Now its time to rip my body into pieces."
Throwing down the zipper on his duffel bag, he revealed a pricey set of weighted training gear for just about every bit of his body. Kyo put each piece onto himself while outlining what he was going to do to himself.
"Chakra is physical, spiritual, and natural energies within the body. Time to hit on every single one at once."
Kyo opened the palm of his hands and focused his chakra into the center. Within seconds, he manipulated it correctly to produce a small flame in both hands he intended to hold as long as he possibly could. This was going to be his body's reincarnation.

After setting up and tightening the straps, he began his training by running around a large rectangular shape he mentally mapped out. The flames became increasingly straining by the second in his hands and trying to keep a calm, determined mind was excruciating. He would prepare his body for the five elements, however. Kyo knew he would become the best as that was what he trained for everyday. Rough roads had to be ahead and he was going to start chasing them now. To him, this was the true start of his path of ninja.
He tested his mind by keeping the fire alive in his head while also trying to keep completely calm under the pressure of his training. Also he tested his mind by running in this loop and not daring to count a single time he ran around it. It all seemed silly and hopeless which was perfect to test his patience and mental fortitude. Every loop around the track gave him just a bit more exhaustion and his chakra was already being put to work to try to keep the flames alive as he ran. The flames danced around as the wind attempted to slaughter them. Still he kept the flames alive, kept calm and focused, and kept going as the sun dipped downwards. Sweat began to bead down all across his body as the training gear felt none the lighter. He had to have been running at half the speed he could normally with all the conditions he placed upon himself, but he kept a blind determination hoping he would achieve some kind of breakthrough.
As it turned to dusk, Kyo heaved with every step and some ninja that showed up for their own training gave him weird looks. He had to have looked ridiculous, but he kept going. A runner's high came on slowly as he ran. Each step fell to a rhythm and his mind started to lose focus on the task at hand. It suddenly felt significantly easier to do everything and his eyes began to play tricks on him. He started to hallucinate in the growing darkness of animals and figures he didn't recognize. Even weirder is how every stride grew small in his eyes. He knew there were the same distance and he knew his speed was set, but it appeared to him that he was speed walking. It began to feel to him that he could do this for eternity though his body was hurting in every spot possible. Kyo fled to his own thoughts as he ran this loop for no set amount of time and remembered the day he enrolled to the academy.

"Mom, I made up my mind. I want to be a ninja of the leaf," Kyo said with an iron will as he looked to his mom and dad with his fists clenched. His parents just looked at him in disbelief. Reasonable given that Kyo had just lost Reo not too long ago to a rogue Chuunin of konoha. His father was the first to speak to him about such a choice.
"Kyo, I know you want to be just like Reo, but that is just a matter I feel... may not be right for you in this moment. You need to fully get over Reo and decide within yourself if this is what you want to do. We support you, but..."
Kyo looked up at his father's unsure face with a saggy frown.
"Who do you think I am? Some dumb shit worshiping a picture of his uncle? I am over him. I have decided I am going to be a ninja of the life and Reo motivated me to do so."
He bit his lip as his dad struck a bad nerve with him. There was a long pause between him and his parents for awhile. Finally, his mom looked at his father for a second before turning back to Kyo.
"Don't talk to your father like that. We are just worried about hasty decisions and want to ensure you are making this one unbiased."
Kyo clenched his fists tighter.
"I just don't see the problem here. I am ready to become a ninja and have been working out for it too. Its not like you guys don't have the money for it or anything. Forgot to say a little plus to you guys..."
He smiled at them and was shaken up already by what he expected his parents to do right away.
"...I won't even be around for you to be disappointed of most of the time. I can go to the academy and you can go knit a gold scarf or something. Win win."
His father took a sigh while his mom looked pissed as she scrambled for words.
"Kyo, don't say that stuff about us. If you want to worship Reo and waste your time and our money for a shit job, then become a ninja."
As his father turned away to walk away, Kyo felt like a bomb about to go off of horrible things to say, but that was all silenced by the next words.
"Also it was always you who tried to get away from us Kyo."

WOOSH!
Kyo tripped and fell onto the ground with his weighted training gear and realized he had dazed out. His legs just failed on him as he felt a numbness all over him. Thinking of what his father's last statement was sent him back to life and back to reality. He looked around to see it was completely dark out and then he realized he could hardly walk back.
Throwing off the weighted training gear, he suddenly felt as though he weighed nothing. In fact, he felt a sort of second wind. Suddenly, he turned to look at his palms to see slight burns across the palms as he had dazed out but no sign of the fire. Maybe it was the weighted training gear, but Kyo also felt that something deep inside of him had released. His chakra felt twice as potent within his body and he realized this had to be the hidden reserve of power he had from his clan.

With the memories of his father's words, his training, and the a soreness budding over his body, Kyo limped home with almost every muscle aching in the process. The training was too intense. It was dumb luck that he didn't get an injury from his training and even more lucky was how he caught himself in that gaze. With a broken body and mind, Kyo's journey begins.

[WC: 2,028]
Training complete!
10 Stat Points Earned.
Dual Elemental Convergence Learnt. (2,000/2,000)
[Exit]

Approved