No Sleep (p/solo)

Kyo woke up early in the morning remembering with a flood of memories from his last mission. He wasn't nearly as strong as he thought and his experience with real fights was slim. Had that ninja used another jutsu, he could be dead right now. Even worse was the little the thief gave for his reasoning and the impact it gave all over Kyo. He had fallen from the man he once was and became much too prideful like the traitor he fought. Maybe all he wanted was to be noticed and maybe he wanted to be respected by others so he could respect himself. The truth was, he needed to humble himself to others because chances are they felt the same way as him. The epiphany spread and ebbed throughout him as he sat on his bed day dreaming. No amount of words could describe the mental reboot going on inside of his head. He meant to sleep in, but now he just couldn't sleep. All he wanted to do was become stronger and that was all that existed within his head now.
Flashbacks of Reo came in waves as the lessons he threw aside became some of the most valuable lessons to him. It was all coming into focus and he wanted to set his dreams in a different direction.
Kyo didn't want to let his ego weigh upon the shoulders of others, but instead he wanted to settle his ego within himself. He didn't want to be a light, because he was no hero. He was too weak for such a word. Kyo wanted to become a shoulder and not a light. To blind others and shine was just a fleeting dream. He clenched his fists as he realized it was his turn to be the shoulder for others. Kyo wanted to become a hero like he dreamed of. He wanted to make people feel safe and protect the ones who needed it most.

Rustling out of bed, he quickly went through his morning routine with his body craving more and more power. Everything in him wanted to never see a close call like that again. He was going to become the strongest he could ever become. Kyo was going to become a great ninja to his village and use his power to shield the village from harms way. The cause burned him up inside and he realized he needed to learn many more jutsu to do such a task. It was his time to shine and his time to grow as a ninja of the leaf. Most importantly, it was his time to become a hero for all.
Kyo rushed down stairs with a red muscle shirt covered in a flame design on and a pair of black, gym shorts. Today was going to be the day he turned his mind to a sponge and opened it to tall. Today he was going to learn as many techniques as he possibly could to become more than a one trick pony with his powerful technique. It was time for power and strength. It was time to go beyond. It was time to go plus ultra, or, uh, above and beyond?

He ran over to the familiar clearing in the woods to be completely alone for his dangerous training. The techniques he had planned for today would be lethal to people caught in the crossfire and even deadly to himself possibly. Kyo had gathered instructions for various techniques other ninja told him about or he had researched in the library. This list was only of the jutsu he deemed fit for learning from child's play to extremely difficult. He was overly optimistic about the amount of techniques he had wanted to learn, but it wasn't blind optimism. Kyo set the bar high so he can have fun trying to reach it. A challenge to him was an opportunity to grow faster. He was pumped up all over as he reached a large clearing in the woods to train in.

"First technique. Rock Section Cane."
Seeing as he had already done something similar to this e-rank technique during his fight with the thief, he didn't expect much difficulty. His chakra was so well conditioned to ninjutsu from his bloodline and chakra training that this was a technique he saw himself doing first try.
He used a sliver of his chakra with a half tiger hand seal and effortlessly created a cane of rock from the earth in front of him. Kyo then picked up the cane and saw it was relatively strong for a beginner level technique. It seemed as though it would take a lot to break such a cane in half, but that had to be due to the amount of control he had over his chakra.
"Done. This is much more boring than I thought. Maybe I should step this up a notch and go into the more dangerous territory."
He began to smile to himself a he flipped through his journal to Reo's teachings on the lava element and how to learn it one day. This was where it became dangerous and possibly lethal to himself, but the danger would be worse towards his enemies. Kyo smiled as he read the notes. A fire inside of him awoke as he tried to imagine how such a combination between fire and earth could be possible. Fire's nature was flashy, destructive, and short lived with no defense. Earth's nature was mostly boring, defensive, and long live with amazing defense. The combination between the two is somehow lava and this confused Kyo to no end. He read the notes on how to preform it, but he was trying to understand how he should be controlling his chakra and how to visualize it. Lava was the child of earth, a liquid that cools back to earth, and an element he saw having no defense. Was he using it to paint earth structures with the earth side or was he using it to for the fire side of the advanced element to consume others into it.
Kyo sat down and mediated on the thoughts of what lava really was. He imagined earth and fire getting along in a 50/50 split. Earth was used as the base super heated by the fire until it was molten rock that had a kind of syrupy consistency he imagined. The nature behind this had to be a balance between being grounded and being passionate. This was the nature Kyo wanted to adopt just this morning meaning this wouldn't be so hard. He stood up and reread the notes on how to create lava before beginning.
He took his rock section cane into his hand and focused katon chakra through it. It had to start burning up from the inside to the outside and Kyo began to coat his hands in a protective chakra layer to protect him from the heat. Kyo focused on fire and earth all in one through his hands racing the chakra in an erratic way to heat up the stone and then using his chakra to entrap the heat to keep it stuck within the cane. This was what his uncle taught him, "the oven technique." He was going to let the heat entrapping barrier around it help him melt the cane down at extremely high temperatures. With a massive burst of katon chakra through the cane, it began to have the chakra inside of it racing back and forth at extremely high speeds. He felt the heat tripling by the second and threw the cane onto the rocky floor only to watch it miraculously become a pool of lava.
"Well this is difficult. If I hadn't had my chakra network opened from my clan's bloodline, I wouldn't have been able to control it well enough to melt that rock. Now I also need to figure out to create this from my hands without killing myself."
The challenge presented made him frustrated and excited at the same time. It was time to focus with everything he had on creating this extremely unique element. He took a stone from the ground and clutched it into his hands. Quickly, he rushed the chakra into it and created a layer around it to speed up the heating process. Kyo then threw the stone with all his might and watched it turn to a spray of molten rock mid throw. He was starting to get faster and understand it all better. Now was time to create the lava from his hands.
Kyo focused onto his right palm and created both earth and fire at the same time with a larger focus on fire. For a second lava peaked out and glowed from his palm and then all of a sudden he felt a burning sensation and tried to increase the protective layer he placed on his skin. He focused through the burning feeling until he was safely protected from the lava in his palms. A bit horrified as you could imagine, he turned his palm to the ground out in front of him and was sure to safely let it burn into the rock below.
When it was all over with it, he felt a good amount of control over this new element, but was still partially afraid of what it could do. Could he spar with such an element without ending up putting his opponent inside of a hospital or grave? This was a serious element he was dealing with and one that actually terrified him slightly. Still, Kyo could only think that with an element like this the damage would outweigh the danger. He imagined what would happen if he created a mass of lava into a person's stomach or mouth. With medical ninjutsu, he could cause someone to become a pool of lava. He smiled wildly with his red eyes glowing as thoughts raced. This element was for killing not for messing around, he thought.
Now wasn't the time to be messing around however. He was going to try to learn an advanced technique like never before seen. Kyo read instructions on a jutsu called "Swamp of the Underworld" that he was just itching to learn. You see when Kyo reads about jutsu that can kill people he gets an itch inside of him to learn them. Imagining a swamp capable of killing an entire group of people, made him crazy all over. This jutsu was brutal and dangerous as ever. Combined with jutsu such as his great dragon flame technique, this was just downright overkill for whoever was unlucky enough to be in the center of it all. His heart raced as he read over the powerful earth technique and thought of suffocating traitors within it. It was a beautiful picture he could paint before him and he believed he was up to the task of learning it.
He warmed up be practicing levitating rocks with a growing sense of impatience to create this swamp. Such a technique made his blood boil, but earth was an element that demanded patience from him and an element he had to respect. He swung around rocks through the air with chakra alone and got a feel for the element all over again. Kyo got childlike wonder at the powers he grew to obtain. With just his chakra, he could feel the earth below and take control of it. This power was his to grow upon up to such a powerful technique as swamp of the underworld. He couldn't wait any longer. This was his chance to be on top of all and to be the greatest.
"Fuck being humble. I am going to be the fucking best!"
He weaved the boar and tiger hand signs as he focused on the earth he felt a few meters away from him. Putting a great deal of chakra weaved through the location, he began to strain for the quick sand like properties of the swamp and the pulling force the earth would have on others. As he focused hard and envisioned it all with the tiger hand seal held, the top layer of dirt shattered in an explosion of sand going everywhere. Even worse, a young ninja Kyo hardly noticed coming jumped down from a nearby tree branch right towards it. Kyo panicked, fearing the sand's force against the shocked boy's face and outstretched a hand with strings of chakra latching onto sand particles from one to another. Soon, the wave of sand was stopped inches before the boy and fell to the ground as Kyo breathed heavily. He hardly knew that was possible to do.
The boy, shocked by the sudden explosion still, shot down to the ground right into the sandy spot where he expected solid ground to be. The boy slipped and fell taking a nose dive while Kyo began to try to hold back a chuckle to no avail. He started just busting out laughing and couldn't help it. It was just too funny to see the kid's eyes light up as he slid across the sand.
"You alright?"
He looked as the ninja got to his feet and bowed.
"Sorry sir. Excuse me."
The ninja began to jump away before Kyo decided to see what was up.
"Hey kid, what are you up to?"
Kyo looked with a composed face at the supposed academy student's sweating face. The academy student looked left and right before looking back at Kyo will the look of a kid about to break down. As he saw this, his face softened and he leaped forwards to the boy willing to put his training on hold. Grabbing the kid's arm lightly, he asked again.
"What is going on?"
The kid's face curled up like it was about to explode and Kyo gave a reassuring smirk while feeling uncomfortable inside. Maybe this kid was running away from home or maybe he was trying to go on a mission, Kyo thought. He didn't recognize him being in his academy class and the kid had no headband either meaning he probably was either just self taught or still in the academy. Whatever the situation, Kyo couldn't help but to feel responsible for the kid. The supposed academy student looked as though he was bound to break down soon as Kyo refused to let his eyes leave the boy's. Suddenly, the boy spoke with a tone glazed in melancholy and defeat.
"I'm defecting."
Kyo's eyes widened and his stomach churned at what the kid was saying. He almost wanted to laugh again as he knew the kid was bound to be dead as a doorknob if he continued through with this, but he saw the kid's watery eyes and decided against this. The genin spoke with a soft tone of voice as he realized the life this kid was losing.
"As a Genin of The Leaf, I should take you back to prison and punish you, but as a person I can't do that. I know you don't want this and I feel you do too. Do you want to wonder every night if you could live through the night or where your next meal would come from? Do you want to be friends with serial killers that would just as easily turn on you as anyone else? Kid, if somebody is forcing you into this, I will personally make them into a pile of ashes."
He grew angry at the thought that this kid was pressured or forced into this as the academy student began to cry for real with fists clenched as Kyo always did when he was stubborn. Kyo realized this was the kid's choice and was going to shout at the kid before he was cut off.
"You know, I could never amount to anything to anyone there. Anytime I feel good about myself they always raise the fucking bar. 'Oh you became an academy student, what kind of jutsu can you do?' Nothing you fuck! I can only use one element from my disease and I could never make someone believe I was good enough. I, Hart Meijin, will defect from konoha to show all of them the power they missed out in this stupid village and you shouldn't try to fight me. I will bulldoze you and anyone else in my way!"
The kid grew fierce towards Kyo as he looked towards Kyo in the eyes. For a second, Kyo saw himself as a child before he ever lived with Reo and he realized this kid was just hurting inside (as much as he wanted to punch him).  His eyes widened as the kid went to swing at him. Kyo, without really thinking about it, hit the side of the kids arm out of the way and threw off the punch.
"Why don't you just sit your ass down and train with me then? Nobody is here to say whether or not you are good enough except yourself. If you try to run away, I will break your legs and take you back to prison. Deal?"
The kid looked at Kyo in fear as there wasn't the slightest sign that he didn't mean a single word he said. For some reason, the kid's face mellowed out in some kind of understanding and all the kid could do was nod and wipe away his tears.
"Good. You know, specializing in one element makes you unique and capable of complete mastery over it, but the people stronger than you have just worked harder. Maybe it will take you twice the training as others to get to places you want to go or maybe just half as much, but, either way, don't let others tell you how to feel about yourself."
The Meijin was left speechless as Kyo began to get back into a training rhythm again. He weaved the boar and tiger hand signs focusing on changing the properties of the earth around 10 meters from the kid and him. Slow as he could, he changed the earth into a liquid form with considerable amount of chakra used to do so. The academy student watched in amazement as a small swap grew out in a circle on the ground that was a blood red. When Kyo was finished it was the size of his foot, but he knew this was progress nonetheless. He was going to complete this technique today even if it killed him. Worse case scenario, the kid could just come back and pick him back off his feet when he was done. The academy student lit up with excitement trying to forget like Kyo pretended to do.
"Wow man, you actually turned the ground to a liquid. What kind of jutsu is this?"
Kyo blushed with the praise for his power and grew a sharp grin. He looked at the kid with his ego expanding.
"It is the swamp of the underworld technique. An A-rank jutsu capable of drowning many victims in its grasp. It's pretty high level stuff."
He played it off like it was an everyday thing as the kid's eyes were glued onto the red, tiny swap.
"Must be hard, because you can hardly do it after all your training."
Kyo's face scrunched up as he felt like punching right into the boy's face.
"Well it's not like you can do any better. This stuff is really hard and takes time to learn!"
The academy student's face lit up and he began to laugh at Kyo as Kyo frowned slightly.
"You're a pretty funny guy. I guess I will go practice the new clone technique they just taught me."
The boy went off on his own as Kyo bit his lip as a mental bullet train hit him. He remembered the day he did the same as this boy. He remembered being just like the academy student and not feeling good enough within the system. Everything this boy went through, he too felt in some way. The destiny of trying to learn five elements was brutal to put onto anyone and was a constant frustration to balance. He wouldn't be surprised if he was rusty again with fire style techniques after finally getting down this jutsu. Still, he had to focus on here and now. Kyo walked over to the small swamp and threw a rock in it only to find it was sinking at an extremely slow rate. He needed to increase the speed it would pull people down and the depth.
Kyo healed the damage to the earth with his hand and went back to square one. He started to weave the boar hand sign with a new drive given from his encounter with the reckless, arrogant kid. It seems when he looked into some of those who lost heart, he saw pieces of himself lost within them, but he couldn't dare stop his relentless training. His own deadline of doing this all in one day was one he was going to hold himself accountable for. He weaved the tiger hand sign with a full focus on shaping the earth in his own way. The article in the library gave little theory behind what to make the earth like and how to do this quickly, but he could still improvise.
He imagined the earth being his to mold like his own future. Kyo split apart the earth at a molecular level and reformed it to become swamp like and thick. Slowly, the swap expanded outwards from the center point taxing him for every meter outwards. He tried to focus on deepening it, but lost sight of where the bottom was mentally.
In the end, all he received was failure. The swamp, when reexamined, appeared to be very shallow, but it wasn't a full failure he found out. When he stuck a stick into it, he found the swap "water" gripped onto the stick and made it immensely hard to pull out once it was into the ground. This was a minor win, but a massive stepping stone. The amount of control this jutsu would take to form would be everything he had.
He cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath as the academy student seemed to be just as frustrated as he was. It was here he got an idea of how to do this technique correctly.
"Hey kid, my name is Kyo Terumi by the way. How about we talk for a bit?"
The kid gave a questioning look before sitting down in front of Kyo and speaking.
"I am Hart Meijin as you know. What is this all about?"
Kyo smiled and cleared his throat before giving his plan.
"Hart, let's tell each other step by step how we will preform our jutsu and find where we keep screwing up."
He awaited Hart to go first as Hart began to smile brightly at Kyo's idea. By doing this, he knew could find the missing piece needed for the jutsu and also connect with Hart to make sure he was mentally stable and not planning to defect. The Meijin spoke out loud with no filter for his thoughts. He said exactly what he had been thinking about this whole time.
"First I weave the ram, snake, and tiger hand seals and imagine another me before me that is made from chakra. Then I move it around with each individual movement I make."
Kyo's face lit up as he stood up all of a sudden. Without saying a word, he weaved the boar and tiger hand signs with full knowledge of what he was lacking. 10 meters away from him, he imagined the earth as a limb or piece of him he was controlling. He shaped the earth as if he were trying to lift something really heavy and began to make a swamp that expanded outwards slowly. He felt the earth change up to a depth of 2 meters, which seemed to be enough to fit his needs of drowning someone.
Slowly, he expanded the earth around it with extreme concentration of the process he was repeating on every square inch of earth. The conversion was rough, but, when he imagined the earth as just another part of him, it was many times easier to do.
Hart just watched him as he did so and was lost in wonder at the sheer power the technique had. Earth around the swamp was being converted at a slow rate into more 'swamp water.' To change the earth from solid to liquid in such a massive amount, Hart imagined took amazing amounts of chakra. Kyo smiled he know simplified the technique many times over in his head. Sure it took all of his knowledge and skill over to chakra to perform, but he believed it was still possible for him to do it. He could preform this technique and it was all because of this kid's ignorance he too had.
"Hey Hart, you need to see the clone as part of yourself instead of something superficial. When you move, it moves and that was what got me hung up on my own jutsu. You actually helped me a great deal you know. Thanks dude."
Kyo, with a strong sense of confidence, tried accelerating the conversion process. He began to try pushing his limits and trying to double the speed of what he was doing mentally. Hart watched by Kyo's side as Kyo strained all over his body. Kyo began to scream out as he expanded out the swamp with everything he had. He forgot about himself and the world around him. Every bit of him was focused on the creation of the swamp and soon Kyo was shutting his eyes screaming harder.
"DAMN IT! CONVERT ALREADY YOU BASTARD!"
He pushed out with all he had acting as if the swamp were his own body. Kyo had become one with the earth itself and began to simplify the technique in his head the best he could. The hotheaded Genin poured a large amount of chakra into the earth around the swamp and began to carefully and rapidly convert the ground to swamp.
Next to Hart, he expanded the swamp to a 10 meter diameter with a 2 meter depth with immense strain to his chakra network. After this, he realized this was how far he could go with the amount of chakra he put into the technique. Anymore chakra put into the technique and he felt it would just be too much. Kyo found the sweet spot and now had a giant swamp before him.
"Tada?!"
Hart clapped at Kyo with childish wonder before stepping over to the swamp for a closer look.
"Wow Kyo, this is really neat!"
Kyo scratched the back of his head trying to act humble at his accomplishment as Hart started getting a bit too close. Kyo began to get uncomfortable as he remembered how clumsy the boy was.
"Hart, don't get too close. If you fall in, I can't really help you out of there. You will probably die!"
The Genin ran forwards and created another rock section staff to stop the academy student from doing something stupid. He feared Hart was bound to fall in as the boy began to poke his finger near the swamp.
"Jesus christ get away!"
Hart looked back at him in shock as he was holding a staff of rock and slipped backwards towards the swamp. Kyo refused to let this happen and slammed the kid as hard as he could in the side away from the swamp. It looked as though he hit a home run because the kid's ribs cracked with the force of the staff. Still, the academy student was launched enough to get back onto land. Sure Hart was panting, but he wasn't dead at the bottom of a deadly swamp.
Kyo walked over to the kid and realized Hart must have been in a great deal of pain.
"Hart, I know you hate me right now, but falling into that swamp would have killed you without a doubt. Not even I can help those that fall into it and I need you to avoid this at all costs. Got it?"
Hart nodded to him as he moaned and groaned in pain. Kyo could only chuckle at the kid who probably hardly knew how lucky he was.
"K-k-kyo, why didn't you just... pull me back?"
Kyo's eyes widened as he realized he just injured Hart for absolutely no reason whatsoever. He literally could have just pulled the kid back to safety as the kid mentioned. Also, Kyo could have just ended the jutsu as well, but he didn't feel confident in his abilities to do so.
Kyo guessed the next best thing to do was trying to heal the bruises on Hart using basic medical ninjutsu on him. He weaved the boar, rat, and then snake hand signs and then put his hands over the point of impact. A flow of chakra came in slowly and effortlessly to heal up Hart's bruising and the minor damage dealt. Still, he suspected the boy had a cracked rib. At the moment removing his bruising was the best he could do.
It was also at this moment the exhaustion caught up with Kyo and he felt the chakra loss all over his body. He had overdone it a little with his training, but he also was beginning to realize he was able to expend a lot more chakra before feeling the strain of it. He knew he could get away with one or two more uses of this powerful technique before he would be done.
Hart got up clenching his stomach.
"Thanks for at least preforming some mild healing on it, Kyo, and I guess thanks for saving my life too. I think I get the clone technique now though. Making the clone apart of me is weird and a bit cheesy, but I am desperate and tired of this jutsu. I will try it out, Kyo..."
His voice cracked a little and he looked away once more.
"...Also thanks for stopping me before I made it too far."
Kyo gave only a happy, little chuckle and a big grin to Hart. He didn't want to get all emotional about the whole things and felt it could be left at just that. Hart, seeming to agree with him, walked over and weaved the hand seals for the clone technique. Kyo, right beside him, began to focus intensely on a point 25 meters away.
"We are doing this Hart. We will succeed. Picture nothing else."
He weaved the boar and tiger hand seals and rushed his chakra through the ground aiming for conversion speed. Already he picture rushing through the ground converting it and maintaining it for this technique. Kyo focused on the technique hard as he raced his chakra through the ground. The swamp was created quickly and to the right depth. He strained for control as he raced out through the ground from the starting point to make it 10 meters across at extreme speeds. Hart was watching with astonishment as Kyo realized he mastered the technique, but the academy student wasn't going to stop there. Kyo looked over after correctly doing his technique to see Hart giving the cloning technique all he had. The boy finished the hand seals and, before him, a clone of himself appeared right over Kyo's swamp. Hart felt a short lived happiness as the clone began to sink into the swap and disperse from lack of oxygen.
Hart just stood, staring at the swamp in silence as he just watched what would have happened to him if Kyo wasn't there. Kyo watched just as bug eyed as Hart.
"Uhhh Kyo, thanks for beating me in the ribs."
Kyo looked over at Hart with a worried look upon his face.
"You're welcome Hart. Let's head back to the village and get ya fixed up. I think we are done here."
Hart smiled at the friend he just made and Kyo returned the same smile. Heading back together meant the world to them both as they learned to believe in themselves over all else. Wherever the road took Kyo, he felt ready for it all with his new destructive abilities. Soon, he would be strong enough to become a Chuunin. He knew it!

[TWC: 5,401 Words]
Training Complete.
27 Stat points gained.
Finished remaining training for Rock Section Cane (135 Words)
Lava Release learnt (1,000/1,000)
Swamp of the Underworld learn (4,250/4,250)
Remaining 16 words donated to viewers like you. Thank you.

~Completion bump~

Approved