A morning obstacle course

It was another cold morning at the training ground of the Kirigakure Ninja Academy. A young man, tall, lanky, and dressed in old, dirty, leather armor sauntered onto the field. The obstacle course from the day before was still set up. This young man, Raitsu, had ran the course yesterday morning as a way for the academy senseis to gauge his abilities. It was a new method the Ninja academy was trying and there would be more tests in the days to come. Raitsu knew he could do better than he had done yesterday. He didn't want to retest for the sake of impressing the senseis or getting a better rating; he wanted to retest to prove to himself that he was better. 

Stopwatch in hand, Raitsu stood by the start line and took a deep breath. "Here we go again" he muttered to himself before pressing the 'start' button on the stopwatch and launching himself forward in a dead sprint. With his torso slightly leaning forward and his arms straight and slightly behind him, Raitsu assumed the standard shinobi running stance, keeping as still a profile as possible and his arms backwards, ready to swing forward for a strike or block with more force. The first obstacle was quickly approaching, one thing Raitsu always had on his side was his speed. 

A twenty meter by fifty meter section of bay lay waiting ahead, with logs floating on top, spaced out every three to seven meters. Some were securely fastened to the bottom of the sea, and others were free floating. The idea was that a shinobi should be able to observe how something moves in its environment and determine how to best interact with it in order to complete their mission. Raitsu though, remembered seeing some students yesterday fall into the water, losing valuable time, by rushing to the nearest log to the left. Avoiding that mistake, Raitsu rushed around making a wide circle to the right, as he had done yesterday and leaping to the nearest log there.

The pattern was clear, 'right, right, center, right, left, center, center. Flying toward the first log to the right, Raitsu landed on it for just a moment before propelling himself forward to the next log. As his foot touched down on the second log, Raitsu noticed the next center log swaying back and forth with the waves of the sea. "They changed the pattern!" he thought to himself. It was too late, Raitsu had already jumped toward the free floating center log. Landing with both feet, Raitsu instinctively kept to the same pattern he knew from before. His jump to the right was a little off as the log he landed on, sure enough, had spun and began moving forward as soon as his weight was on it. Stretching his right leg forward to make contact with the fourth log, it again spun freely sending Raitsu into the bay. The shinobi-in-training was able to hold onto the log and only wasted a few seconds pulling himself back up and gaining balance on the log. Dripping wet, Raitsu looked ahead at the next logs. "Left, center, right" Raitsu said aloud to himeslf. He knew couldn't make the jump from where he was, especially considering how his last jump from an unsecured log went. Instead he launched himself laterally to the center log in line with the log he was currently on. This time, the young man's footing found a secure hold and he rocketed himself forward as soon as he landed. Turning, when he landed on the fifth log, Raitsu jumped back to the center, again finding solid purchase on the sixth, and launching to the right toward the seventh and final log.

Raitsu stumbled a bit landing back on the ground, but quickly was able to increase his stride and pace after the bay obstacle. Cursing himself, he strode off to the next obstacle. "I should expect everything to be different" he thought, "if they changed the order of the logs, who knows what else they changed." 

Barreling ahead, Raitsu saw the tower in front of him. To climb the tower, Raitsu had to use a giants ladder, a ladder where each rung started out about a meter apart and slowly got further apart as the the ladder got taller. Raitsu was climbing the ladder almost as fast as he had been running. Once the rungs were almost two meters apart, Raitsu slowed considerably. He lacked the strength to pull himself up over and over again. Breathing heavily Raitsu struggled to pull himself up and over the last rung. "aaaggghh!" Raitsu growled, his muscles shaking as he could barely get his chin above the rung. Then, Raitsu's grip slipped and he nearly fell. Holding on with only his left arm Raitsu looked down at the ground below, approximately 15 meters below. He took a deep breath and swung his right arm up to grab the ladder. Taking deep breaths, Raitsu began swinging his body back and forth. "If this doesn't work, I might be spending the next week in the hospital instead of the academy" he thought to himself. Once Raitsu was swinging over a fourty-five degree angle of the bar, he kipped his body weight forward and used the momentum to help carry his body weight over the rung. When the rung was at chest level, Raitsu's arms and chest began shaking again. With a loud scream, Raitsu was able to pull himself up high enough to rest his upper body on the rung. "This wasn't this hard yesterday" Raitsu said to himself, realizing that perhaps he should have given himself longer to rest before trying this again. "I'm already here! There's no turning back now!"

Raitsu took barely more than a moment to rest and catch his breath before rising to his feet and stepping up to the platform on top of the tower. The tower was only a few meters wide and was square in shape, just as long as it was wide. On it were a series of circular targets both to the left and right. As soon as Raitsu stepped on the platform, it triggered a pressure plate which moved the targets back and forth along a track. Raitsu unleashed three kunai at once to the targets on his left, hitting two out of the three targets, and another two kunai went flying toward the targets on his right, both finding their mark. There was now just one target on either side of him. Raitsu, running forward to not waste any time, jumped and performed a front flip, throwing a kunai at each target mid flip. Out of the corner of his eye, Raitsu could see that both kunai found their targets, hitting dead center. He smirked and ran toward the edge of the tower.

A rope was supposed to be released so he could swing across it to the next obstacle. But where was it? A shadow swooped across Raitsu's peripheral vision. Turning, Raitsu saw a humanoid shape swinging toward him wearing a large trench coat and a shining headband with the village of the mist symbol, only with a large scratch going through the center of it, the mark of someone who left the village and was outcast. Raitsu jumped back toward his kunai in the targets, pulled one with each of his hands out of a target, and threw them at the figure swinging toward him. Each kunai hit the figure, but in non vital spots, one hit the right shoulder and the other in the stomach. As the figure swung closer Raitsu jumped at it, spun in a circle, and crashed his leg into the figure's head, sending straw flying in the air. A straw man lay on the tower floor, with two kunai in its torso, and pieces of its head spread about. The rope swung haphazardly back to the edge of the tower where Raitsu was expecting it to be before. "More changes" Raitsu thought as he took a few steps back to get a running start at the rope. 

Raitsu grabbed the rope and swung forward. At the apex of the swing Raitsu loosened his grip and let the rope slide through his hands. The rope burned his hands, but Raitsu had to time the swing properly and this was the best way. As the rope began to swing back toward the tower, Raitsu looked at his target, a small platform about half-way down the tower. Raitsu's swing landed him on the platform where he assumed a defensive stance. Another pressure plate on this platform triggered which opened a series of trapdoors on the side of the tower, each armed with spring loaded projectiles. These projectiles launched at Raitsu in random waves and volleys. The first was a series of blunted kunai Raitsu had to defend against. The young shinobi-in-training jumped, spun, and dodged all of the blunted kunai, which flew off into the distance. The next wave was an arm that extended from the tower holding a staff. The staff spun violently toward Raitsu, who tried to duck and dodge again, relying on his superior speed. After a solid smack to his upper thigh, Raitsu realized he would have to change his strategy. Taking a more secure stance, Raitsu blocked a strike with his arms and kicked the arm holding the staff, breaking the weak wood easily. Tossing the staff to the side, Raitsu awaited the last wave of attacks, his arms and leg sore from the blows they've already taken. A trap door opened and out came more blunted kunai. Just like before Raitsu jumped and spun around the kunai, effectively dodging them all. Unlike the time before, however, a second staff came spinning out of the side of the tower. Raitsu raised his arms ready to block like before, but noticed all too late another series of trap doors with more blunted kunai opening out of the tower. These blunted kunai struck Raitsu in several places of his torso, arms, and upper legs. The force from these hits sent Raitsu stumbling backwards, off of the tower.

Raitsu was able to catch himself with one hand on the edge of the platform. Hanging, he could taste the iron of his blood trickling down his face, and feel the wetness of the blood where some of the blunt kunai had broken skin on his torso. The staff above him was still spinning haphazardly, and Raitsu doubted he had the strength left to pull himself up again. He began swinging himself back and forth again, kipping himself up so that he could place his feet next to his hands on the edge of the platform. Once there, he kicked off of the tower, flipping backwards and spinning dexterously around to face the final obstacle.

Landing hard on the ground and falling into a roll, Raitsu regained his footing and re assumed his shinobi running stance, darting forward. He was tired, beaten, and feeling weak. About a hundred and fifty meters away from the tower was five pillars organized into a semi circle, each with different symbols of different jutsu hand seals. Raitsu rushed towards this final obstacle, familiar with how it operated. He struck the first one with a quick left jab and watched the symbols spin, the symbol resting on 'monkey.' Raitsu made a mental note and threw a right cross and spinning elbow at the second and third pillars respectively. They each spun and quickly rested on the 'bird' and 'snake' seals. "Noted" Raitsu thought to himself as he jumped between the last two pillars and threw kicks at each of them simultaneously. After landing, Raitsu performed a backwards handstand and launched himself back to his feet in the center of all five pillars. With a quick exhale, Raitsu began performing the random hand seals; Monkey, bird, snake, tiger, rat. Normally, a proctor would identify problems in a student's seals, but since there wasn't one available, Raitsu trusted that he had done them properly and took off towards the finish line. 

The last fifty meters of the course brought with them a deep relief for the young student. Raitsu was obviously still tired from the day before, and collapsed from exhaustion after he crossed the line. He hair was soaked, face bloody, skin sweaty, and muscles sore. Pulling the stopwatch out of his pocket, Raitsu noticed that it had cracked somewhere along the course. "Son of a bitch" he said aloud between deep breaths. 

"It wasn't bad" a voice said. 

Raitsu looked up and saw one of the senseis from the day before. 

"Now get on your feet and help me reset this course.

"Raitsu struggled to his feet, looked down embarrassed, and breathed out a "yes, sensei" before walking back to the bay to begin resetting the course for the other students today. 

[First post so I'm not sure what all needs to go after. 2,148 words for training stats.]