Practicing the clone jutsu (open)

The first day at the academy ended, and Kouichi was excited to practice the clone jutsu on his own. The next day dawned faster then he could have imagined. After he got dressed the early next morning, Kouichi ran quickly out the door and made his way towards the training grounds. As he approached, he noticed there was hardly anyone around. "Looks like I have the training grounds to myself." he said. Kouichi went in the center of the room and started making the three hand signs he had learned. Ram--snake--Tiger.


TWC: 91

It was a nice day. It really was a nice day. Or it seemed more so because Nero had to do some work at the academy. Anyway, there was still time before he had to bury his head into paperwork, taking over some weight of his previous teacher's shoulders. "Wait, what?" Nero thought, "Am I early? Really?". Suddenly his face that was exhausted by the expectation of the work alone, woke up and he smiled. He closes his eyes and took a deep breath "Maybe it will be alright...". He walkes out to a part where he could train, so all this time he had wouldn't go away useless. When he found a nice spot, he realized it was taken by someone already. It was too late now, Nero couldn't pretend to not exist. He walked closer. "Hey kid." he said to the kid, who nero assumed was a student, standing there, "Isn't it a little bit early to be training?". He smiled and started stretching, getting ready for the training he was about to do himself.

Three days.

Asami had not been home for three days; there was nothing there for her anymore. Her triumphant return to Kirigakure had been overshadowed by the loss of her parents. Shortly after their daughter left for Konohagakure, Ai and Kenchi Miyamoto departed on a merchant ship for the mainland with the intent of surprising Asami in Konohagakure during the exams. Their ship, however, never made it through the straits where a summer storm condemned the crew and all but a few lucky souls to the bottom of the sea—her parents were not among the lucky few.

Whatever vague hope for normalcy the young chuunin had yearned for upon her return to Kirigakure died with her parents. She could not bring herself to stay in the empty house and so she returned to a building she knew well, the ninja academy. Taking up residence in the small library there she lost herself in books. At first, the sentences seemed to go on and on forver—she had never been much of a reader—and many of the pages were spotted by tears. However, as the hours turned to days she soon lost herself in the pages of fiction and non-fiction alike and the tears ceased to flow as reality set in.

She couldn't very well stay in a cramped library all day and night for the rest of her life.

And so, on the third day, the chuunin emerged from her self-imposed exile. Wearing sweatpants of black and T-shirt of gray the only part of her outfit that indicated her status as a kunoichi was the gleaming headband of Kirigakure hanging limply from her neck. Oh, and then there was also the mess of bandages that covered the left side of face hiding a nasty gash she had earned in the chuunin exams. On top of it all, her normally pale skin was made to look all the paler by the dark bags under her eyes that had formed for want of sleep.

Stepping out onto the porch of the academy that overlooked the training grounds, Asami cast an uninterested gaze at the two brave souls who had come to such a place so early. She knew neither the taller boy or the shorter one, but they were both obviously Kirigakure shinobi. After all, who else would have been so at ease in the heart of Kirigakure?

For now, she would remain only as an observer as she leaned back onto one of the slim support beams of the porch. Even her once boundless curiosity had left and she now had no interest in finding out more about the two figures. Strange how that works, the fragility of human emotion.

---
TWC: 451

Kouichi looked at Nero with a smile. "Good morning sir." he replied. "I wanted to practice a jutsu I learned in class, and I thought I would get up early and have a head start." He then went back to the hand signs. "Okay" he said to himself. "The signs are:  Ram...Snake....and Tiger...." After he made the hand signs and tried to focus his chakra, Kouichi said, "Clone Jutsu!" His stomach grumbled, causing him to loose focus. In a look of surprise, he realized he didn't eat breakfast yet. He then sat down for a minute, took a snack out of his backpack and started to eat.

TWC:200

Nero could sense a third chakra signature, but didn't pay much attention to it. "What are the chances it's a sadistic assassin here to kill us?" he thought, as he focused on the person who was standing right in front of him. "Morning." he answered to the kid. Then he watched the student stop his training for a snack. "Wait what are you doing? You're gonna give up after two tries? Okay, I mean you could have been here for hours before I walked in; but still kid, if you want to impress people you've gotta train harder... Not that I'm an expert or anything but still...".  Then he pointed at himself, saying "Nero, by the way.". 

He then proceeded with his own training. He used the same technique once again, this time trying to create a 6-inch portrait of himself. It came out as a plain tablet. Nero was disappointed but he tried to hide it; "Now that I've created a plain tablet as I've intended, I can move on with my training." he said, verbally so that others may hear him, but silent enough so that they might think Nero was talking to himself. He then started forming some hand seals randomly, only to stop himself shortly after, to speak again, "You know..." he said, looking at the kid, "Training with a teacher - even a bad one - makes things a lot easier...". He then looked around. "Shame there's nobody here.". He then made the Ram, Snake and Tiger seals with his hands, and made a clone of himself. The clone stood blandly in front of Nero; so still that it looked like a glitch in the matrix. He then formed more chakra in his hands, and created a kunai from ice. He looked at the clone of himself (that looked like a life-sized statue, since it looked frozen in time) and said "Catch.", passing the kunai to it. The kunai went through the clone, and dispersed it. "Oh right..." Nero mumbled, and he thought "I've got to work more on the mechanics I guess...".

He then mentally complained about the balance of the universe. "What do they even teach this at the academy for? This is useless, it just creates an image, and it isn't even Genjutsu, how can I even make this remotely useful? What the hell, Ninja Academy? It's literally unusable. Why don't they teach kids (and me) the more useful techniques like the ice creating thing. I mean I get that the Ice creating thing is probably a Yuki thing and not applicable to all of the students, but there's gotta be some useful ninjutsu equivalent of that that uses other elements, maybe none? Like the fireball thing? Though that doesn't help me either. But they could at least teach us the Rain Dance Technique. This is Kiri. I mean they don't need to, it rains all the time... Oh maybe they should teach us the 'Show us the sun!' technique. Oh that's a good one Nero.". He then nodded with a smile, super proud of himself, and he took out a notebook from his backpack and wrote it down, 'Show Us The Sun Technique'.

Don't know if this is needed in a thread like this, but...:

Kouichi took a second to watch Nero, focusing on his technique. After seeing him use his jutsu, Kouichi had a bit more confidence. He stood up and tried his clone jutsu again. Ram, snake, tiger. "Clone Jutsu!" he said. Again, nothing happened. He then knew he had to focus and not get distracted. He sighed and closed his eyes, clearing his mind of distractions. Even though he couldn't do it the first 2 tries, Kouichi didn't want to give up. He was determined to keep trying even if it took him all day. A few hours passed, and Kouichi was starting to get exhausted, but that didn't stop him. One last time he made the hand signs and focused his chakra. "Clone Jutsu!" he yelled. A clone appeared in front of him, then disappeared. Kouichi's face turned into excitement. "I did it!" he yelled happily. He looked at Nero who was still practicing. "Did you see that?" he asked.

TWC: 359

Watching with the two figures with the same detached interest a child might watch a line of ants on a hot day, Asami did not move from the porch. Instead, she suppressed a yawn and checked the path of the taller one's strange kunai. For a shinobi he really should have been more careful, throwing a weapon through an illusionary clone was far from safe without something to stop the weapon behind it. In this case, however, the taller walls around the training ground prevented any collateral damage from occurring as the kunai shattered against the stone and slowly melted away into nothingness.

With neither reason nor inclination to join her fellow villagers in the training grounds, the chuunin would continue to remain aloof. Since returning to Kirigakure she found she rather enjoyed the role of passive observer to that of an active participant like she once did. Times, for Asami anyway, had well and truly changed.

---
TWC: 608

Nero let the ice tablet go from his hand, it shattered into nothingness as soon as it touched the ground. He looked around, bored. The kid was still training the clone technique. He had finally done it. "At least he seems happy..." Nero thought and answered the kid's exclamation, "Yeah, kid. Congrats.". It might have sounded more strict than he had hoped for. "Wow that kind of made me sound like an asshole." he thought, and answered the kid again, "Oh yeah, I saw it.". "Okay now I totally sounded like an asshole.". Nero took out a shuriken from his pocket then, and started spinning it on his fingertips. He looked around. He could still sense a presence, but didn't know the direction of them. "It's probably nothing." Nero thought, "Maybe even somewhere else entirely and I happen to be sensing them.". He looked at the academy once again, "I wonder what the time is... Anyway, the inside can't be more boring than here, I'll move on. Got work to do anyway.". He put the shuriken back into his pouch, and walked towards the inside of the academy, "See you 'round later kid." he said finally as he did so. If he felt the chakra signature move closer to the boy, he would assume it might be an attack, and come back.

Even if he was already bored to start with, he gradually became sadder with each step he took towards the work he was about to do. His walking motion changed from a strong young man's to a dying old man's in a matter of seconds. An after that time, he was inside, still close enough to feel the presence of the boy and one extra chakra source; but far enough that it would be his only way to sense the training place. "Why did I say yes to this to begin with?" Nero asked himself with a frown on his face, as he disappeared into the building.

[EXIT, WC: 1036, Claiming
Bull Rush (1000/1000) and 36 words (wow, that many?) towards Yuki Physiology]

Approved

With her back still to the support beam, Asami slumped down onto the porch with the finality of one who had not slept in days. Sure, she'd spent days without sleep as per Kirigakure's academy training, but this time it felt different. It felt as if every fiber of her existence wanted to quit and fall away into nothingness. It was not a fatigue that stopped with muscle and bone either, but rather one that pierced deep into the young girl's conciousness—her very mind ached and pulsed in an uncontrollable frenzy of painful thoughts and horrible futures. She wanted to be done.

Soon Morpheus' sweet embrace came to her and she fell into a fitful sleep. Once more she found herself among the trees of Konohagakure. However, instead of facing down foreign shinobi she was simply walking. Walking through a landscape of endless green, she felt at peace. After what felt like hours, the green began to fade to black and she found herself falling and falling. It never seemed as if she'd stop until, at long last, she hit the invisible earth with a bone-crunching thud.

She awoke in a cold sweat, hours had passed.

The training grounds had long since filled with people. And though a thick layer of mist had set in, she could still hear the clash of cold steel and the yelps of defeated opponents. Standing once more, the chuunin returned to her small alcove in the academy. She could wait for another day before going home. Hell, she had all the time in the world... Plus, she still had more books to read, she couldn't very well leave until then, right? She was definitely not putting off the idea of sleeping in an empty home, that would be silly and chuunin were never silly.

This was the life the chuunin now lived. A life in which even sleep became a struggle and life a walking nightmare. Though the girl did not know it herself something had to give. Either she would have to adapt to her new reality or her new reality would break her and leave her as nothing more than an empty husk. Of course, only time would tell whether she could shape up. However, one thing was certain, Asami's life had come to a turning point. A point after which she would never be the same.

['Exit', TWC: 1004, +5 stats and 1004 words towards learning Cosmic Siblings]