Need to Get Stronger (training)

Kizaru laid in his bed above the covers, staring at his new legs. He was grateful that he had been restored to full capacity, but the legs that now held him up didn't feel right. They were, after all, replacements. He had lost his real legs while on mission. It was a simple mission, completed with ease. Him and his comrades were caught by surprise on their way home.

Walking down the road, clueless to what was ahead of them Kizaru only had food and a good night's sleep on his mind. He had no inkling of an idea that they would be faced with a true monster. They were ignorant to the dangers of the outside world. Outside the safety and walls of the village, there were people with power he could only imagine. There were strong shinobi in the leaf, but he had never met a ninja like Calin. The man moved so fast that none of them could react to defend themselves. He stripped them of their possessions, but he wanted something else. He wanted to take their innocence. They say ignorance is bliss and that is saying is right on the money. Kizaru was happy not knowing what type of evil was waiting for him out there. He didn't want to be aware of just how weak he really was. But now he knew just how easily his life could be ended. He was scared.

But being scared would do nothing to fix his problem of being too weak. He would have to solve that issue himself. He would need to get much much stronger if he would ever be able to compete with a ninja like Calin. He needed to get his puppets back, but he couldn't stop there. He needed to improve his own body and skills. No matter how strong his puppets were, they would be useful in the hands of a weakling.

He looked at Kimchi who was sleeping soundly on Kizaru's pillow. The fire that Calin burned them with had singed off all of their hair, Kimchi included. The now naked monkey was lucky to be alive, a fact that Kizaru was very thankful for. Recovering alongside his little buddy made the shinobi feel a little better. He could feel their bond deepening through their mutual pain. He needed to get stronger not only for himself, but also to protect those he cared about, like Kimchi.

After getting changed into his workout clothes he headed out the door and down the stairs to the road outside his apartment. He was going to go for a run before stopping by the training grounds. Exercise was the name of the game if he was going to get physically stronger.

Running with his new legs felt awkward at first, but he was finally getting used to the way they felt. It was a strange sensation to try to explain, not feeling like your limbs are your own, but he wouldn't let that stop him. The doctors told him that he should take it easy for the time being, but he couldn't bring himself to lay in bed all day. He counted himself lucky that he at least had not lost any eyes. His two comrades were not so lucky. If he was in good health, then he should be improving. He needed to make sure he was never in that situation again. He wondered how the other two were doing. They would have to get a bite to eat sometime and talk. If he knew them, they would be just as busy as him preparing for the upcoming chunnin exams.

Before they left for their mission, Kizaru was excited for the chunnin exams. He wanted to prove himself as a shinobi, and maybe even show some good effort in front of the hokage. Now however, he was nervous. He was shown just how weak he was and he wondered how he would perform when the time came. That worry only drove him harder though. The only way to make that uneasiness go away was to keep improving. And so he kept running until his lungs were burning. The pain in his legs from running was nothing compared to the pain of a blade cutting straight through flesh and bone.

At the training grounds he finally stopped to take a rest. He leaned his back against a tree and closed his eyes for a bit. The sun felt nice on his skin and the breeze felt cool on his bald head. He hoped his hair would grow back soon. The medics could repair his body and skin, but they couldn't grow his hair back. He was just happy to be alive.

While he was there at the training grounds he would practice his chakra control. He stepped out into the field and found a few good rocks. He attached chakra threads to them all and began to move them around him. It wasn't the same as controlling a puppet, but until he built new ones this training would have to suffice. It was pretty tough to control stones. They are completely solid and don't have any moving parts. It was good training for his strength though. He flung the rocks all around him and when he was done he tossed them all into the nearby pond. Kizaru wondered if he could find some use for stones with his puppets. His chakra affinity was of the Earth element after all. He did not know how he could incorporate it, but he could think on that idea for now.

With his focus now on getting stronger, creative ideas were something that could propel him even further. Puppet crafting was an art after all. The more creative he got with his puppets, the harder he would be to predict in battle. He decided to lay back down against the tree he leaned on earlier so he could sketch.

He enjoyed sketching out ideas for puppets. He would draw mechanisms for future designs and come up with ideas for the frames he could use. Most of his designs could be considered creepy. He was always fascinated with nocturnal animals and creatures of the night. His father used to tell scary stories around the campfires when they would go out to sell their wares. Those stories always scared young Kizaru, but now he missed the way his father used to tell them. His designs often mimicked the monsters and villains from those horror stories. They made him feel closer to those happier times, even if they were creepy looking.

He finished sketching out a design for a tar spewing mechanism and closed up his notebook. It was an interesting design for sure. He wanted something to cover a wide area and slow enemies down. He needed more thought on the puppet that this mechanism would attach to. He was getting hungry and he was sure Kimchi was probably awake by now. They could both eat breakfast together if he hurried home. He could use some time to relax and think.

At least that is what he told himself. Truly, he wished nothing more in this moment than to lock his doors and curl up in bed. His wounds ached and he was tired. He had no drive at the moment to try and enjoy a normal day.

(WC 1227)

Kizaru did go home and eat with Kimchi. It was quiet but the little monkey seemed more animated than he had been lately. He was recovering well, it would just take a little time before he was back to his old playful self. The little guy was pretty shook up by the attack, let alone the damage he took from the burning. In the moment Kizaru could barely think about himself let alone the monkey, he had tucked him into his hoodie and prayed for the best. In the end he was so relieved his little buddy was still okay.

After breakfast he decided to rest in bed for a while. Hours surely passed, but he wasnt really paying much attention. The time seemed to slip by lately. He found himself anticipating going to sleep more than anything, and though he was training hard, his work ethic was severely lacking after the recent attack. He was smiling less and he spent less time focusing on his sketches. He was miserable.

Kimchi, surely noticing his friends somber mood, decided to hop up and down on Kizaru's chest.

"Hey bud. I'm not feeling well right now. Can we play later?" The boy would ask the playful Tamarin with a quiet tone in his voice.

Apparently disasitisfied with that answer, Kimchi hopped off the bed and ran over to the closet where Kizaru typically hung up his puppets. The small monkey would always open it up and climb in there when he wanted to play with the puppets. His favorite thing was holding on to Mochi, his old bat puppet, while Kizaru would fly it around the room. The monkey also liked to play with Alucard but Mochi was always his favorite.

"I'm sorry buddy. I don't have any more puppets right now. Theres nothing to play with in there."

The little guy didn't listen of course. Instead he swung the doors open to find nothing. Kizaru could see the sadness on Kimchi's face upon seeing the empty closet. He couldn't help but feel horrible for making his little friend sad. They were both recovering together and Kimchi was just trying to take both of their minds off the incident. Kizaru knew that at least. He couldn't just lay there and be useless. After all, if he didn't have any puppets for Kimchi to play with, then he would have to make new ones. He needed them in a practical capacity too, but the motivating factor in this moment was his little yellow buddy and his sad face.

He pulled up his rickety wooden chair and sat at his desk, pencil in hand. He needed to complete the sketches for his latest design before he could begin building it. Ideas began to pour out of him as he scrawled them down on paper. Pencil moving quickly but careful to keep the dimensions correct. He always used his sketches as the blueprints for a new puppet. He tried to think about his own weaknesses and what he needed to compensate for with mechanisms. His mind kept going back to his run in with Calin. The man was certainly scary and without a doubt he was powerful. The thing Kizaru remembered about him most was the man's speed. He was able to walk at speeds faster than Kizaru could run. It was a terrifying thought to think about what would have happened if the boy had not gotten out of the missing ninja's way back then.

The speed was something that Kizaru himself couldn't come close to emulating at the current moment, but it got him thinking. If he couldn't increase his own speed, he could speed up his puppet! He began to sketch up a design for a mechanism that could channel chakra and use it for propulsion purposes. One of them probably wouldn't push the speed too much, but if he stuck four or so of them to a puppet, it could probably reach some pretty high speeds. This mechanism in tandem with the tar spewer he had drawn up earlier could be a deadly combination. He felt like he was on to something with this puppet, but he couldn't stop there. He needed to improve even more, so he needed to keep thinking about his weaknesses.

He thought a bout his techniques and the uses he could find for them and realized he was severely lacking in long distance combat potential. He planned to keep an Alucard puppet close to himself for protection purposes, so this new puppet would need to be combat focused to the max. Claws cannons, and speed would be the name of the game here. He drew long bladed claws on each hand of the humanoid puppet. He would fasten a chakra cannon in puppet's neck to launch the head if he needed even further range combat than his threads would allow.

With the blueprint for his new puppet almost complete, Kizaru just needed to give it a name fitting the terrifying creature he had drawn. The design reminded him of a horror story his father used to tell around the fires. The story of the rake. It was one of the stories that scared young Kizaru the most. The idea of a lithe, pale, humanoid creature with long claws hunting people at night was quite a frightening prospect to the small child. Even still he found it unsettling, but he took inspiration from it all the same.

"The Rake. A fine name if I do say so myself." He said laying his pencil down and wiping away eraser shavings. The blueprint was done and now he needed only to physically put his creation together. As he progressed as a craftsman, the physical part was becoming the easier half of making a new puppet. Ideas for improvements tended to take more time than the carving and snapping together. He showed the final sketch to Kimchi with a smile, "What do you think bud? Any good?"

Kimchi yelped a happy screech and gave Kizaru a thumbs up to which the boy couldn't help but laugh. With his design approved by his harshest critic, he was ready to begin the construction. He needed to run out and grab the materials and then he'd have to spend some time shaping the body parts. The mechanisms he would need a good bit of time to construct and wire, but now it would just be following the designs off the page.

(WC 1078)

A couple days had passed and Kizaru was left looking at his finished creation. The Rake was finished and ready, just in time for the Chunin exams. Its skin was pale and it was overall unsettling to look at. Of course Kimchi for whatever reason showed no fear at this puppet either. Kizaru wondered if it was because they smelled like him, or if Kimchi was just fearless. Either way it was good, because he did not want to scare his little buddy. He worked long hours on this puppet to get it completed quickly, he wanted to have something to show Kimchi.

"Ehh...why? What do you think little guy?" He wondered if he had succeeded in making something useful as a shinobi, that Kimchi could also find something fun about. He imagined the chakra jets on the puppet's back would give the little monkey a good ride. He just hoped the little guy wouldnt get all covered in the tar stored in Rake's chest.

Kimchi circled around the wooden creature a couple of times while making curious noises. He crawled up onto the thing's head and slapped it a couple of times. Kizaru couldn't help but laugh at the little monkey's very serious appraisal of his work. He attached some chakra threads and made the puppet spring to life. In that moment Kimchi's eyes lit up. He looked so happy to be home and riding one of Kizaru's puppets again.

Kizaru was thankful for his little buddy and the company he provided. Thinking about making him happy allowed the young ninja to take his mind off of recent events, and he even got a new puppet made. He was making progress again, even if he was feeling less motivated to get more skilled in combat.

(EXIT)
(WC 297)
(TWC 2602)

Claiming 13 stats
 +4 stamina, +4 chakra, +5 speed

Claiming Rake

You have 102 words leftover from claiming your puppet. Are you sure you don't want to add that extra WC to something else?

Yeah I'm fine with that

Approved then.