Not Supposed to be Real

Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:22 am

Mara Asano jolted awake, barely containing a scream. She had awoken suddenly from a terrifying dream. Her body was drenched in sweat, as if she had just run a full lap around the village at a sprint. Her heart was racing. Her skin clammy and cold.

It was the fourth time this week that she’d had such an awakening. Every night it had been the same dream. Mara wakes up in essentially the same position, facing toward the window. But instead of finding her room calm, she sees a man outside her window. A man watching her through the window, trying to get in. When he saw her awake, he'd look in for a moment, then flee.

Mara had had this dream several times, but this time it had been worse. This was the first time she’d seen him attempt to open the window. He’d failed though, she thought. But it had still been unnerving enough to immediately wake her.

Her eyes shot to the window reflexively. There was no strange man. The lock was fastened. It had simply been a dream. With a relieved sigh, she lied back down. But even as her head nestled into the pillow, she knew she wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight. She was too wired now. Was she eating something to trigger these dreams? If she was, she really needed to stop.

Groaning with frustration, she sat herself up and rubbed her eyes. Insomnia wouldn’t serve her very well at the Chuunin Exams. Of that she was certain.

Trudging lazily to her feet, she decided to make the most of her unplanned time awake. After sluggishly changing into a tight-fitting set of training clothes, she grabbed her violet cloak and began strapping her various pouches on. The first light of day had started filtering in, as she wanted to make the most of it.

A few minutes later, she was out the door and on her way for the ragged mountain side. She'd spent several days training there over the last week or so. After she'd manifested the Hell Stab technique, she'd leveled a few thin rock columns, as well as a good number of saplings.

Today was no different. She was once again making her way up a treacherous rock face, searching for an ideal location to expand on her previous training.

She was trying to develop a more elusive technique today, if she could manage it. The Chuunin Exams were just around the corner. She’d actually be leaving the village in mere days. So time was of the essence to learn this new technique, her strongest yet.

She made it onto a small plateau along the mountain side, a brief respite from the aggressive climb of the slope. It was a peaceful tucked away patch of trees, dusted with the last of the weekends short lived snow. Mara once again found herself frustrated by how often she was destroying peaceful little cutaways. It’d have to be a thing she’d get used to. She took a few minutes to admire the scene. Might as well take it in before she messed the place up. A breeze came through, lifting little its of snow off the trees and into the air in a dramatic flourish.

After a few brief moments, she Setting down her sack, she was startled by the sound of a crunching footstep behind her. She spun in an instant, already grabbing a kunai to hurl at her target.

“Geez, Mara! Calm down!” The soft voice of her friend, Idrina, cut through the aggressive action. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Mara’s stance relaxed and she placed the weapon away. “Are you trying to get killed? You can’t just sneak up on me like that. Especially not out here!”

Idrina’s voice remained a bit indignant. “Sorry. I just couldn’t catch up to you on the climb. You left in such a rush, I wanted to make sure everything was ok. When I realized where you were going, I ran home to get my training gear.” The girl’s voice softened. “Is everything, alright?”

Mara sighed, plopping down on a nearby log. “I think so. It’s probably just the stress of the exams. But…”

“But?” Idrina’s eye brows rose behind her glasses quizically, as she came to sit next to her friend.

“But I’ve been having these weird dreams. Really weird. They’ve got me all out of whack.” Mara fidgetted as she answered. Trying not to picture the image of the man outside the window.

“It’s not unlike you to have nightmares,” her friend replied. “But I’ve never seen you visually disturbed by them like this. If it’s ok...can I ask what they’re about?”

Mara nodded, albeit reluctantly. “Basically, I wake up in my bedroom like normal. But something draws my eye to the window and…” The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she tried to press on with the story. “And there’s a man out there. Like...right outside my window, clinging to the side of the house. And he’s trying to get in, I can tell. But for whatever reason he can’t get the lock open. And then he sees me, makes eye contact, and leaves. And then I wake up terrified.”

Idrina whisteled out loud, visibly a little disturbed. “Wow. That one is a doozy. I think you’ve been reading too many horror novels.”

“I haven’t been reading any!” Mara protested, jumping to her feet. A small bird that had been nearby fluttered away frantically. “I think it must just be the stress of the exams getting to me. My head is probably just full of anxiety, and it picked a unique way to manifest itself.’ She shook the thoughts away. “Anyway, enough about that. Why did you follow me all the way up a mountain?”

“To help you train, silly!” Idrina’s face made it clear how ridiculous she thought the question was. “You’re heading out for Konoha in just a few days. And if I know you, you’re going to make one last push to learn that jutsu before you go. It’s been you focus since your first days in the academy. I can’t imagine you’d be satisfied heading off to the exams without it.”

Her friend was right, of course. Almost from day one of her ninja training, Mara had been laser focused on learning one specific jutsu. It had been the focus of several of her previous trainings, learning numerous stepping stone techniques. It had been her main goal leaving the houae this morning. She’d set out to finally achieve the lightning technique, Chidori.

It’d be no small feat. The Hell Stab technique that she’d been so proud of was like a scaled down version of this one. And its chakra consumption was scaled down as well. Honestly, Mara wasn’t sure if she’d be able to manifest the technique in the first place, let alone sustain it long enough to hit something. But she wasn’t going to head home until she’d managed to at least come close.

With a conciliatory nod, Mara smiled. “Yes, I’m going to try and learn the chidori today. If I can pull it off. It’s a pretty overwhelming jutsu, so I’m keeping my expectations low. I just want to try and pull it off. Being able to use an A-Rank jutsu in a pinch could mean the difference between passing and failing. And I’d definitely prefer passing.”

Honestly, she wasn’t willing to consider failure as much of a possibility. For the Chidori or for the Exams. She didn’t have room to fail. It’d prove her father right and she wasn’t about to let that happen.

Idrina must have recognized the fire in Mara’s eyes because she leapt to her feat with similar determination. “Then we’re not heading home until you learn that Chidori.” Idrina spun to set off to learn the technique before realizing she didn’t have a plan. Instead she began leafing through Mara’s notes. “Ok, so how do we do that?”

Mara paced for a moment. “Well, that’s the problem. It actually doesn’t require all that many hand seals. Honestly, I’ve learned more for weaker techniques. And it doesn’t require much other preparation.” She paused for a moment. “It does, however, require a boat load of chakra.”

“So what’s your plan then?” The spectacled girl asked. “I imagine you’re not going to sit here and just concentrate all day.”

“No,” the blonde returned with a laugh. “I’m going to work on my Hell Stab and try to evolve it from that. And since you’re here, maybe we can try to test it out after I can manifest the technique.”

“I don’t really feel like getting hit by you, Chidori,” Idrina replied. “It’s basically a blade, in case you forgot. It would be a little fatal.”

“I wouldn’t hit you with it. Just targets. But sparring with you would let me test it out in action,” Mara responded. “It doesn’t do me much good if I can only do it while standing still and concentrating.”

“True enough,” Idrina replied, idly reading from the page of notes Mara had scrawled. After a moment, she looked up in anticipation. “Alright, so show me that Hell Stab you were talking about.”

Stepping away from her friend and sweeping, Mara swept her cloak out of the way and behind her shoulders.

This Jutsu was still a bit disorienting. She wasn’t used to the lack of hand seals yet. She held out her right hand and after a moment of concentration, a blue chakra aura surrounded her hand, with small snakes of electricity traveling along it. “Heeyah!”

With the chop of her hand, the young Asano sliced straight through a low hanging branch. The fairly thick limb slammed to the ground in a satisfying way. “How was that?”

Idrina clapped. “Very impressive! And a good stepping stone for you Chidori hopefully!”

“Hopefully, Mara replied. Her mind was already on the next technique. “Alright, Mara. No time like the present.”

She extinguished the Hell Stab then cradled her right hand. This one would be a lot more taxing. First, she’d have to release the appropriate hand signs.

Ox - Rabbit - Monkey

Cupping her hand with the palm upward, Mara concentrated every bit of her chakra on the center of her right palm. It was exhausting just picturing it. But as more and more chakra focused on that point, it began to become visible.

At first it appeared as small ball in the center of her hand, not unlike the Rasengan. But it was too small and without rotation. Soon the orb of concentrated chakra grew and warped in various directions. It was taking shape, but it was slow going.

Mara felt herself breaking out in sweat. Every moment of this was taxing work. She infused her weird ball of chakra with her lightning element. The effect was almost immediate. The chakra expanded in strange, violent angles, before exploding away from her hand. The resulting effect was a blindingly bright center of energy, with bolts of electricity licking against her and the objects around her. The noise was so impossibly loud. It sounded as if thousands of birds where chirping all at once, but from the palm of her hand. The small cutout in the mountain that they occupied only served to further amplify the sound.

Mara looked up at Idrina, with a look of pure satisfaction. Bathed in the bright white glow of the Chidori, Mara’s face took on a determined edge. She’d managed to create the technique. Now she wanted to see what it could do. She swept her arm out to her side, planted her feet, and launched herself forward toward a particularly large tree trunk.

Rushing forward, she felt as if she was moving at blinding speed. It didn’t feel intentional. If anything, she felt out of control, rushing headlock toward her target. Her feet weren’t in control of the motion. She was barely keeping up as she moved at even more blinding speeds. But only an instant later, it was over. “Chidori!”

Her hand slammed into its target with such force, she was sure it’d break. But it didn’t break, the tree did. Her Jutsu pictured straight through the bark...and the trunk...and the bark again. It pinched a hole clean through the tree and out the other side, splintering wood in all directions.

As the dust trail she’d kicked up faded, Mara was left standing there with her hand in the open air on the far side of the trunk.

“Oh my god!” Idrina exclaimed, sprinting up the stretch of ground Mara had crossed in an instant. She seemed comically slow by comparison. When she finally skidded to a half next to Mara, she ducked her head back and forth, looking from Mara’s shoulder, to the tree trunk, to her hand. “You...you punched right through it!”

“Yeah…” Mara retrieves her hand cautiously from the tree, a little worried it would collapse. She looked at her hand in disbelief.

“I mean, you punched straight through it!” Idrina called out, looking at her through the hole. “This isn’t like the kunai trick, where you just got it to stab in a little deeper. Hell, even your Hell Stab could only manage branches or a few layers of bark. But this…” She gazed at the hole in amazement. “This was a whole tree! And a big one!”

“I know,” Mara said, noticeably less entertained. “But I had no control over it. The second I rushed forward, I was locked on that path. I’m glad you weren’t in the way because…” Mara stopped herself from finishing the thought. “I’m going to need to be very careful with this. At least until I have a better handle on the technique.”

Idrina nodded, clearly having paid no attention to Mara’s words. She was still distracted by the size of the hole. M“Shall we begin the sparring session then?”

—

Mara climbed the last rooftop on the way home, absently running through the drills in her mind. She could hear Idrina a few yards back, struggling to keep up with her friend. She was tired. Very tired. They’d sparred briefly, but Mara had only managed to summon a Chidori one more time. She’d been exhausted after that, wholly incapable of performing the Jutsu again. In fact, she’d been exhausted ever since. This was the best she’d felt in hours.

It was late now. The sun has set and the light has faded some time ago. Now it was nearly pitch black, only the light of the crescent moon lighting the way, casting long dark shadows across the rooftops. She’d been about to sprint down the long rooftop when something froze the blood in her veins, rooting her to her spot.

A few dozen yards ahead was the familiar face of the Takashi homestead, the wall with her window facing toward her from the third story. But all wasn’t right. Perched just outside the third story window was a shape that shouldn’t ordinarily be there. A shape that couldn’t be there. A shape that made every hair on the back of Mara’s neck stand on end.

Perched outside her window was the shape of a man, with his face pressed to the glass, fidgiting with the lock.

Mara needed only a second to think. She pulled her cloak’s hood over her head and slid back into the shadows. As Idrina caught up, she grabbed her friend’s wrist with vice like tightness, not letting her move any further.

Idrina shot her a look and open her her mouth to reply, but Mara clamped a hand tightly over her friend’s mouth. She hadn’t spotted it yet. She didn’t know.

Asano’s eyes had an icy intensity, their usual warmth gone. She stared into her friend’s eyes, commanding silence. Then, she gestured toward their home.

He was still there, moving about a bit frantically. She wasn’t there this time, and he clearly was confused.

The fact that her nightmare was real was so intense, she barely felt it. He couldn’t be real. And yet, there he was. Mara couldn’t even begin to process that information and experience the associated terror. So she simply didn’t. Her mind went into analytical mode. Who was this man? Why was he trying to get in? And why couldn't he?

Those were all excellent questions that she’d ask later. For now, she kept an impossibly tight hold on her friend’s mouth and wrist. Idrina’s eyes had gone wide, terror filling them. She’d never even considered the chance that Mara hadn’t been dreaming. To be fair, neither had Mara. But the girl hadn’t been prepared and looked like her glasses were the only things keeping her eyes inside their sockets.

Finally confident she wouldn’t scream, Mara pulled her hands away, Keeping a finger in front of her mouth. She studied the man. He was in all black. He has long, somewhat messy hair. He had that horribly clean face. And importantly, he was alone. But why was he here?

After a moment or two longer, he seemed to decide to depart the house, slinking along the shadows toward the outer wall of the village and out of site.

Idrina’s terrified voice cut through the air like a knife. “W...w...what was that? Who was he? What was he -“

Mara cut her off, her voice as frigid as the night air. “Go home and check on your family. Make sure they’re ok. I have a feeling they will be. I’ll be back when I can.”

“But...where are you going?” Idrina was near a breakdown.

Mara didn’t have time for that. She was already falling behind. “I’m going to follow him. I need to know where he’s going.”

“What?! No you can’t!”

Mara hadn’t waited for permission. She took off in the direction her stalker has disappeared in, racing as quickly as she could keep silent. She made it to the edge of town and barely even second guessed her decision to leap down into the trees. She raced through the treetops after him, knowing that any hesitation could mean losing him.

It wasn’t long before they came to a rock face. Her stalker, the literal man of her nightmares, was skittering up the rocks almost inhumanly. “No!” It was a shout in her mind, but not even a whisper escaped her lips.

In order to continue her pursuit, she’d need to leave the cover of the trees. She couldn’t risk that. She’d be seen to easily. It had already been foolish to leave the village and travel so far away as it was. She could have been spotted and captured, or worse. She had little choice but to turn back now.

Her pursuit hadn’t been entirely in vain though. Whoever this man was, he clearly was operating outside of Kumo. She had seen no evidence to indicate he knew of his pursuer. Which meant she’d followed him back along his intended path.

But what could all this mean? Who was this man? What did he want with her? And why couldn’t he enter her room? She was grateful for his failure, but her analytical brain was confused by it.

She watched him disappear from site before turning around to head home. Who outside the village even knew she existed? Was it just a random house thing? If so, why wouldn’t he target other houses?

She raced back through the trees, her mind lingering on the man. On his horrifying visage in her mind. He’d been real. Which meant...he’d been watching her for at least four nights this week. And this had all been real…

It was almost too much for her to handle. In fact, it was too much. So her brain just didn’t process it emotionally.

She scaled back into the village and headed right to her home to find every light on in the Takashi household. She’d barely dropped onto the street for a second when Mr. Takashi grabbed her by the arm and raced her inside.

“Are you insane?! Why would you race off after him?” Mr. Takashi sounded more stern than Mara had ever heard him.

“I just needed to know,” she replied, surprised by the even tone of her voice. “He’s from outside the village. He climbed the western face of the mountain before I lost track of him. What if he-“

“What if he had kidnaped you?!” Mr. Takashi replied in a far more emotional voice than Mara. “Or killed you! You have no idea what a madman like that could do!”

Mara’s brain still wasn't processing emotions yet, so she stuck to logic. She furrowed her brow abs looked straight at Mr. Takashi. “Why couldn’t he get in?”

The older man looked taken aback. “What?!”

“He couldn’t get in,” Mara continued. “He’d made numerous attempts, but could open the window. A man that capable of clinging to a wall should have been able to open the window. It doesn’t make sense unless…”

She looked directly into the man’s eyes. “Unless there was something stopping him from opening it. Like a seal.” Mr. Takashi’s expression revealed her suspicion to be true. “Mr. Takashi, why is the house sealed? Did you...did you know someone would come for me?”

His eyebrows shot up in astonishment. She had her answer immediately. He looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. She was too smart for her own good sometimes. But there was something else too. Genuine fear was hiding behind his sting demeanor. Were they in danger? Was the whole family in danger? For her? How long had this been going on? “Mara, please. There are things you aren’t ready to know. You need to stop asking these questions.”

That reply completely caught her off guard. What did she need to know? And why wasn’t she ready? “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Mara,” Idrina’s father pleaded. “Not tonight. I’ll explain everything to you. But tonight I need to make sure the seals are in place. Please, just go to bed for right now. And let Idrina know you’re home. She’s been scared out of her skin since you left. Go to her and let her know you’re home.”

Idrina. She’d almost forgotten about her life long friend, who she’d abandoned terrified and shivering in the shadows across the street. Mara had been so driven for answers, she hadn’t considered the state she’d left her friend in. That had been callous of her. Her friend had obviously made it home, but she was likely delirious. “Yes, Mr. Takashi. I’ll check on her now.”

He nodded. “Good. And stay inside. He turned to his son. “Ton, with me. We need to reinforce the seals.”

“Yes, dad.” Ton raced out the door behind his father.

Mara was left alone and headed upstairs to find Idrina. She’d barely crossed the top step when her friend nearly tackled her, squeezing her tightly around the chest so that it was almost hard to breathe. “Oh god! I thought he’d gotten you! I should never have let gi after him. I should have made you stay and-“

“It’s ok, Idri, I’m home. I didn’t get close enough for him to see me. But you’re right, I shouldn’t have gone. That was careless.” Mara hugged her friend tightly. She wasn’t sure which of them needed it more. She only now realized how violently she was shaking. She’d surprised her emotions during the journey. Now that she was feeling them, she felt unsteady and out of control. From outside, she could hear the voice of Mr. Takashi, directing Ton on how to seal the house.

What secrets did they know about her that she didn’t? The question terrified her.

“What’s going on, Mara?” Idrina’s voice sounded a bit calmer now, though still far from steady.

“I don’t know,” Mara said, shaking her head but maintaining the hug. “But I think your dad does.”

[WC: 4005. Claiming:
20 Stats (+20 Chakra for 50 total)
4000 words toward learning Chidori (4000/4000)

Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:28 pm

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Not Supposed to be Real

Not Supposed to be Real

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