Trying to Tame Lightning

Thunk! The shuriken embedded itself in the training dummy's left arm stick. It would have been an impressive throw...if it had even been the dummy that Mara had been aiming for. She had yet to fully manage the weapon. It weighed a bit more than the training toys she'd been playing with for a long time. It'd take a bit of getting used to.

Not to be deterred, she reached her hand into her waist pouch and grabbed a kunai. She twirled it around her fingers and into place before hurling it at her target. This projectile found its mark, connecting with the head of the dummy. Much better, she thought to herself.

A handful of throws later, she'd managed to nail her target with the other kunai and got...closer with the shuriken. That one would need some more work. Walking across the dirt patch, she retrieved the various scattered projectiles, stowing them away in their new pouches. The target practice was only part of the reason she'd come here today.

The earliest rays of sun began to filter down the street, serving to remind Mara just how early it was. She couldn't help it. Sleep had been elusive since receiving her headband yesterday, so she'd decided to wake up early and make her way here. She hoped her target training hadn't been too noisy for the people who lived nearby. But now, with the first rays of daylight entering the village, she decided she could try something a bit noisier. Or a LOT noisier. Jumping back to her place rather than walking, she landed in a determined stance. She untied her crisp new headband strap, removing it from her waist and securing it around her forehead. It was time to get serious.

Her first move was going to be completing a technique she'd worked on for the last few days. She had a very specific technique she wanted to manage, the legendary lightning based Chidori. Right now though, she wasn't up to the task. Not by a long shot. She had nowhere near the chakra control, and honestly, nowhere near the stamina. But it was a goal she'd strive for.

She sprinted forward, then suddenly upward as she scaled the side of the large tree in the training yard. She planted her feet. Her hands formed the snake hand sign, and with a burst of chakra, numerous sparks shot out of her outstretched palm showering the training in light and sound. It was a fairly minimal technique. It wouldn't achieve much damage, if any. But it would make a good distraction.

To an outside observer, it looked as if she had simply fired the sparks and stood there. But then...

Thunk! A kunai embedded itself in the training dummy. A moment later the illusion dropped. Where Mara had been standing, a wooden training board now balanced. The real Mara had leapt away from the tree and hurled the kunai. It had been a simple tactic honestly. Use the sparks as a distraction while she pulled off the substitution. She smiled in satisfaction, proud to have hit her target. And then she collided with a stray branch and fell unceremoniously to the ground.

"Very smooth, Mara," she chided herself. She was glad it was so early. Otherwise, someone might have...

Uproariously laughter came from one of the neighboring windows , from a small child who had obviously been watching. "I'd like to see you try that!" Mara shouted back at him, only partly realizing that she was arguing with a 5 year old.

She rose to her feet, brushing the dirt off herself a bit dejected. His opinion shouldn't get to her. Why did she always let them get to her? No matter who it was or how valid there opinion, Mara never handled ridicule well. It always cut right through her, immediately finding its mark.

Annoyed with herself, she kicked a rock harder than she meant to. It sailed forward, made contact with the fence, and suddenly flew back in her direction. It was traveling too quickly for her to do anything other than dodge...unless. Rat - Boar. Her hands completed the hand signs with just enough time.

The stone, which had been hurdling toward her face, suddenly appeared to slow down, as if moving through water. In fact, the whole world seemed slower and noises were a little more distant. Should she catch the stone? It was so strange having the time to even consider her response. She moved her hand upward, quickly but still much more leisurely than expected. She'd finally managed to use the Flicker Movement technique, slowing the passage of time for herself. It was incredibly easy to just position her hand and wait for the rock to catch up. And then it landed solidly in her palm with a satisfying thud. Ok...that was cool.

The world rushed back in all at once. The kid's uproarious laughter filled her ears again. She'd been lucky she'd put so much prior training into the technique. She easily could have given herself a broken nose. I better get a handle on my emotions before I hurt myself.

At a light jog, she made her way over to where she'd set down some of her stuff. A small notepad emerged from her sack, and she leafed through it, passing the sections as she turned the pages.

Fire Release...Water...Wind... No, those weren't relevant at the moment. She had only demonstrated an aptitude for Lightning Release, but nothing else yet.

Finally she settle upon the section with the techniques she'd wanted to try out. Raiton: Jibashi. This one could be pretty useful, if she could actually get it to work.

Finally feeling prepared, Mara rose to her feet and took a place a few meters away from the training dummies. If this worked, she’d summon a current far more substantial than the sparks she’d produced earlier. She ran through the technique in her mind several times before cracking her knuckles in preparation.

Boar → Ram → Snake → Horse → Dragon. She held the dragon sign, focusing all of her attention on the task at hand. She channeled her chakra into her hands and felt a sudden surge of energy. Her fingers tingled but the electricity didn’t leave her hands. After a moment, the feeling passed and Mara was left frustrated and a bit drained. Well, that wouldn’t do. She’d mustered the chakra, channeled it into her hands, and tried to expel it. But she’d received no result. Perhaps she wasn’t paying enough attention to what happened once it reached her hands.

She took a deep breathe and set her feet again. Boar → Ram → Snake → Horse → Dragon. Once again, the chakra surged through her body. The tingling feeling moved down her arms and into her hands, but she kept focusing. Keep it flowing. Down your fingers and out of your body, she thought to herself. This time, she kept the visualization going.

Between her fingers a timid arc of electricity jumped back and forth. She groaned with exertion. “Come on!”

Not even waiting for it to fully dissipate, she wove through the five seals again. This time, she got a bit more of a result. Several stray streams of electricity arced away from her hands, licking the ground or the nearby tree. But aside from a few scorch marks, it didn’t accomplish much else. It was better, certainly. But it wasn’t a furious torrent of electricity by any means.

She was feeling rather spent. At this rate, she was going to run out of chakra and pass out before she managed to do anything!

The sun was visible in the sky now and the sounds of the city filled in around her. There’d surely be other students arriving at the training grounds soon and she wouldn’t be able to continue failing in private. If she was actually going to learn this technique today, it would be now or never.

“Why don’t you stop wasting everyone’s time. They know you’re useless.”

The voice hadn’t come from anyone’s mouth, but it echoed so clearly in her mind, it may as well have. Her father’s words emerged from the shadows of doubt in her, just as it always did. There had been a time in her youth where she displayed impressive chakra abilities, so much so that her father had grown bitter and jealous. But he’d managed to sand that edge off of her somehow. Perhaps it had been the verbal denigration, or the fact that he held her back several years. She might never have a clear answer. But regardless of her understanding of reason, the fact remained that she was struggling with almost every technique she attempted. The girl, who had once made static leap between her fingers for fun, now couldn’t pull off a basic jutsu without a bit of a struggle.

She hated her father. She wasn’t supposed to, but she did. She’d never been able to be what he wanted. She’d been too talented. And once he’d suppressed that, she’d become too weak. And she wasn’t her brother, so clearly that was her fault.

Mara wasn’t fully aware of her posture. She was turned too far inward to realize the fact that she was clenching her fists so tightly her knuckles had turned white. She didn’t realize how her shoulders had hardened into a sharp and standoffish position. She certainly didn’t notice the way her eyes seemed to darken, except for the iris which stood out even more starkly against her dark stare. And she was wholly unaware of the tiny arcs of electricity jumping between her tightly clenched fingers.

Her eyes had locked onto the middle dummy, its own stupid featureless head melding with her father’s in her mind. Had he successfully robbed her of her abilities? Was everything she tried to learn going to be this hard?

In a burst of blind fury, she wove the handsigns once again, certain this would fail just like her previous attempts.

Boar.

In her mind, an image of his angry furrowed brow materialized, screaming something about the garden looking messy.

Ram.

She visualized his look of jealous rage when she’d started showing signs of lightning proficiency.

Snake.

She heard his booming voice forbid her from attempting anything related to jutsu.

Horse.

She remembered the sun setting below the city walls on the day he’d forbidden her from attending the academy.

Dragon.

She remembered the look of shock on his face the day she left home. She could never decide if it was contempt or satisfaction.

She let out an angry howl, one that filled the training grounds, echoing off the nearby houses and resonating in her ears. And then there was a brilliant flash, followed by a small boom. Torrents of lightning leapt from her finger tips and tore their way across the training ground. She had let her emotions run wild and as the power leapt from her hands, she had no ability to confine or restrain it. Nor did she have any desire to.

The lighting spewed from her hands like the scream from her vocal chords, almost painful on the way out, but satisfyingly raw. The lighting struck the training dummy with shocking force, shredding bits of its cloth wrapping, scattering stuffing, and blowing through its support beam. Her electrical assault stayed with the padded torso all the way through its arcing journey to the ground.

Her yell lasted a few fractions of a second longer than the lighting did. When it was done, she slumped down to her knees, mostly from the sheer exhaustion. After a moment to compose herself, she realized she actually felt a bit better. Sure, her throat was burning a bit and everything smelled like it was burning and her hands felt like jelly. But she’d gotten an emotional weight off her shoulders. And better yet, she’d actually pulled off the jutsu! It hadn’t been a weak stunning shot either. The attack she’d hurled at the helpless dummy either. That had been a full-fledged lightning attack!

Wait a minute…everything smelled like it was burning? Her eyes immediately rose and found the dummy, now engulfed in flame. The stuffing, it turned out, was rather flammable. And so was the pile of straw it had landed in. “Uh oh…”

She raced to her feet, running toward the fountain nearby, only too realize she didn’t have a bucket or anything to put it out with. A glance over her shoulder revealed flames licking farther into the training grounds.

“No no no no no!” Damn it, why couldn’t she have been water proficient?!

Finally spotting a nearby water bucket in front of a home garden, she grabbed it and raced for the scorching mess. She ignored the yell of protest from the woman who had been tending to said garden. With a flourishing arc, she sent the contents of the bucket raining down on the dummy, splashing out the flames. She stomped the last few embers out.

As the smoker rose from the now extinguished wreckage, Mara felt herself start laughing. A genuine hearty laugh. She flopped to the ground in relaxed seated position. Never a dull moment for Mara Asano!

Surveying the damage, she congratulated herself. Maybe she’d be alright after all. Maybe she still had the skills she’d need to be successful as a shinobi. But that would have to wait, she was hungry and exhausted, and she was pretty sure that even a basic jutsu would make her pass out for a week at this point.

She collected her bag and notepad and made her way out of the training grounds. She passed a group of young students and their instructor on the way. She’d made it half a block down when the voice of the instructor echoed her way. “What the hell happened here?!”

Mara chuckled to herself. Maybe she should practice somewhere a bit less destructible next time. Regardless, it had been a productive morning. She broke into a run in the direction of home, transferring her headband back to its usual place at her waist, letting her hair fly freely in the rushing air. Her hair had been marked her as a bit of a black sheep in her family. Or a blonde sheep, she supposed. But she had always been fond of the bright color.

Idrina would probably be awake by now, and Mara was more than ready to brag about how she had bravely slain the training dummy.

[Exit. WC: 2424. Claiming:
12 Stats (Health 1, Chakra 3, Stamina 3, Speed 3, Strength 2)
248 to learning Flicker Movement (1000/1000)
2000 toward learning Raiton: Jibashi (2000/2000)
176 toward learning Chidori (176/4000)]

Hiya! This was a good read!

A few small things though, to learn C rank jutsu you need 20 points in chakra, and to learn the A rank Chidori you will need 50 points in Chakra to learn.

You are approved of the stats and Flicker movment if you still want to be, or you can rework your claims if you wish, the choice is yours.

Edit 1: Also, if you wouldn't mind adding a link to your stat page in your signature, that would be awesome.

Ok, good to know. I hadn’t put that together yet.

I’m definitely fine with repurposing my extras to something other than Chidori. Would it help if I assigned the points to get me to 20 Chakra? Or I could split it in half to get the 5 points before the Jibashi segment. It’d just be a pretty major rewrite since the technique was so central to the post.

Sure, as long as you have the requirements at the end of this thread it works for me. So I can approve you for the C rank that way.

Perfect!
Ok then it’ll be:

12 Stats: 1 health, 5 chakra, 2 stamina, 3 speed, 1 strength. 
Same Justus but the 176 toward storage displacement instead of Chidori (176/1000)

There you go!


Approved!

"And then, I accidentally lit the training dummy on fire." Mara smiled with pride as she related her previous shenanigans to her friend Idrina.

Idrina squinted suspiciously at her through her thin framed glasses. She had to admit, her blonde friend's account was supported by the presence of a fresh new dummy. But given how much Mara had struggled with even basic jutsu, it did seem implausible. "So you're telling me, you left the house in the morning only able to shoot sparks and you came home hurling lightning?"

After a moment's hesitation, Mara nodded her head. "Essentially, yes. I've gotten a little better at controlling the force of it though. I can show you how I did it! And my cool new reaction time jutsu!" She was beaming, practically leaping off the bench to demonstrate.

Her enthusiasm must have been enough. "Fine,

A mere moment later, the two were inside the training grounds.

Mara reached into her pouch and retrieved a kunai, handing it over to Idrina. "Ok. Any time after I give you the cue, throw that kunai at me."

Idrina raised her eyebrows unconvinced. "Mara, this is a real kunai."

"I know! Trust me, I can handle it," Mara said. Despite her friends skeptical face, she turned and faced her reluctant assailant. She'd successfully convinced her friend to hurl a knife at her. Now, it would probably be best not to get hit by it.

She felt her perception of time change even as she focused her chakra inwardly. Rat - Boar.

The world noticeably slowed around her. She frustratingly nodded slowly to ensure that Idrina saw the movement of her head. Time seemed to stretch out as Idrina slowly hurled the knife. It moved faster than the stone from last time, but she still easily moved out of the way...and then back into her position as it collided with the tree behind her.

"Color me impressed," her bespectacled friend replied. "So show me this lightning trick."

Mara retrieved her kunai, then hopped her way over to the beginning of the path, staring down the faceless, helpless torsos. She didn’t want to destroy any of the training equipment today, so she’d need to reign in how much chakra she was throwing.

Boar → Ram → Snake → Horse → Dragon. She felt the familiar tingling sensation race down her arms, but she made sure to restrain just how much energy left her hands. “Raiton: Jibashi!” She didn’t know if she actually had to say the name of the jutsu, but it certainly helped her focus on it for some reason.

Thin, but aggressive streams of blue electricity erupted from the palms of her hand. They cut through the air, racing toward the dummy at blinding speed. The stream of lightning slammed into the dummy, shaking it visibly, but doing nowhere near the damage it did last time. She imagined it would have made for an effective stun if she’d hit a live target. As the lightning leaving her hands faded, she turned to face her friend, a wide grin across her face.

Her grin faded a little when she caught a glimpse of sadness in her friend’s eyes. In her excitement, Mara had forgotten just how hard ninjitsu had been for her friend. She’d actually wondered if Idrina felt more comfortable while Mara had been struggling. Now, she’d made a show performance, demonstrating how far the divide in their skills had grown.

Idrina, for her part, kept up the appearances of a supportive friend. “That was awesome, Mara!” Her voice was genuinely supportive. “You’re getting so good at this! Have you tried expanding on it somehow?”

Mara’s brow furrowed. Expanding on it? “What do you mean?”

“Like…channeling your chakra into it or something. Like this!” Idrina picked up her own kunai and threw it at a tree. It embedded into the bark, roughly a quarter of the blade in the tree. “That was without chakra. Now this is with chakra.” She picked up another and threw it. This one went much deeper, nearly embedded up to the hilt.

“Whoa,” Mara said, noting the difference. She was impressed. Idrina might not have much skill with ninjitsu, but she definitely had skill with chakra infusion. Natsume had accomplished the same thing with paper even! “But I don’t know anything about chakra infusion.”

“And that means you can’t start now?”

Mara tilted her head. “Fair point.” She twirled a kunai in her hand. “So how do I do this thing?”

“Just treat it like it’s an extension of your hand. You know how you’d move chakra to your hand to expel lightning? Just do that with the kunai,” Idrina said.

Mara spun the kunai around her finger, then grasped it firmly in her hand. She pushed chakra into it, seeing a small spark move along its length. Keeping her mind focused, she hurled the small blade at the trunk of the tree. It stuck a quarter of the way into the tree’s bark. She’d need to so better than that.

She drew a second one, focusing again and holing her breathe and formed the handsign. Dog. She hurled the kunai again. Once again, it landed a quarter of its length into the bark. A small spark jumped between the two. Hmmm...I’ll need to remember that.

Dog. For whatever reason, she felt her chakra enter the blade more freely this time. The result was immediately noticeably. A loud sharp crackling emitted from her hand and she noticed the bright blue electricity running along its length even before she fully turned to face it. It was loud and bright. This technique might make her weapons ore powerful, but this clearly wouldn’t work for stealth. Regardless, she gave it a whirl.

She threw it, careful not to add any additional force and throw off the result. The impact was substantially louder than the previous ones. Immediately, she saw the blade sink nearly to its hilt. It wasn’t as deep as the air chakra enhanced one Idrina threw. But it was still substantially deeper than the others. Moreover, bolts of electricity leapt between the other kunai, particularly the more lightning infused one. Yeah, I definitely need to do some experimenting with that, she thought.

“Good job!” Idrina said. “Now can we finally get lunch?”

“Yeah, fine,” Mara replied. “I can swing by later.”


[WC: 1059. Claiming:
5 Stats (3 Stamina, 2 Speed)
1000 words toward learning Raiton: Kunai Cutter (1000/1000)
59 toward learning Storage Displacement (235/1000)

Will probably continue, but claiming for now.]

Approved