Mastering the Fundamentals

The dark-haired physician grit his teeth, cautiously directing his chakra flow toward his hands. Ordinarily, this was not a terribly difficult endeavor. Shinobi and kunoichi learned to perform handseals during their earliest days at whatever academic institution happened to be present in their village. In Kirigakure, that institution was the Grand Academy. After resigning his position at Kirigakure General Hospital in what some called a "hostile" manner, the genin had little recourse but to rely upon the income from missions to put food on the table. Missions required jutsu. Jutsu required handseals and chakra control. So, he started with those.

Issei had spent a far longer time in the Academy than most of his brethren. He'd entered almost a decade older than the rest of the class, then remained a student throughout the First Mizukage's wars of aggression. It wasn't until the fourth iteration of the village's famous Blood Games - hidden among the leaves of the recently-subjugated Konohagakure - that the man had earned his forehead protector. Even then, his participation was more out of necessity than a personal feeling of readiness for promotion. He'd let opportunities pass him by, focusing on the fundamentals - believing the basics would be his saving grace.

He had honed the basics within the walls of the Academy, so it was to the Academy that the physician had returned when it became clear that it was the basics which required a bit of tender, loving care. Thus, the man had sought out a certain sensei from before the war against the Hidden Leaves - a specialist in chakra manipulation. Minako-sensei was undoubtedly getting on in years, but she remained one of the few kunoichi and shinobi that the Yuki scion trusted with almost no reservations. The 'almost' was due to her consistent prioritization of the village over their students.

It whistled before he felt it. With a sharp 'crack', the physician - a grown man of nearly three decades - felt a hot, cutting pain rip through the back of his right hand. "Straighten your fingers, boy! That's the shoddiest ram seal I've seen in sixty years of teaching." Issei grit his teeth against the tears that rose behind his eyes, forcing them down as he flexed his fingers and reformed the sign of the ram. The circulation of chakra through the meridians that led to the seal washed away some of the pain, but what remained was definitely a sore reminder.

Minako-sensei was perhaps... just a little too old-school for most of the students, these days. Her pupils did not have the fastest progression or the highest test scores, nor did her tutelage carry the most prestige among the Academy instructors. For most who passed through the gates of the esteemed educational institution, the sheer pain involved in the woman's training didn't balance out what many considered dubious benefits - at best. Advancement to the rank of genin was contingent upon proving that one had a sufficient grasp of basic subjects, proved competent at chakra control, and could reliably perform certain jutsu.

However, there was one point that none could contest - Minako's students were the most level-headed, the least likely to fumble a handseal under pressure, the most likely to survive situations where they were forced into action with little planning and even less preparation. And that... that was more than worth a bit of pain to the physician. Though, he would prefer that she avoid injuring his hands. A surgeon's hands were their lifeblood, precision tools which allowed them to perform miraculous feats of healing. Shinobi and kunoichi were similar. Their hands allowed them to perform handseals, which allowed the use of jutsu.

It was why he'd tried to smash that thief's hands.

Of course, Issei's efforts weren't terribly effective. He'd had little recourse but to slam the mortar bucket into his target repeatedly, in the hopes of mucking up whatever seals the man might've been attempting. It was then that he had resolved to expand his repertoire of jutsu beyond the Academy basics. Of course, his next thought had been that using two hands for his jutsu was an indescribable vulnerability. As a medical practitioner, he was intimately familiar with a myriad of ways that he could easily lose the use of a hand.

So, he found himself here - in Minako's basement training room, getting his knuckles rapped with a ruler for the sake of learning to perform seals one-handed. With just a hint of trepidation, the physician slowly began to contort each of his hands. His left shifted from the half-steeple of the bird seal to the curled fingers of 'rat', as his right hand transitioned from 'ram' to 'hare'. Issei had gotten the hang of the simpler transitions some time ago - 'ram' to 'tiger' and 'rat' to 'serpent' chief among them. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too terribly long before he got them down.

A sudden flash of pain ripped up the back of his hand and traveled up the chakra pathway in his left arm. The physician's eyes snapped open, widening at the sharpness of the sensation. The man ground his teeth as he half-squinted at the wrinkled finger that Minako pressed against his left hand. "W-why...?" Issei hated how tremulous his voice sounded as he fought to keep from screaming. "Because you need to know what it feels like when you fail," came the soft, almost grandmotherly response. "Because even when your seal is perfect, your fingers can be forced out of place."

Issei squinted at the elderly instructor, feeling his facial muscles tense against the dull burning that drew a thin line up his arm. The old woman's wrinkles deepened as she grinned. "You should be proud, Yuki." The physician flinched, much to his own disgust. Minako's praise had always heralded the beginning of an even worse bout of training. Somehow, he suspected age had done little to mellow her out over the years. "Few have the control needed... yet you, by the kami's grace, are one of them." Issei's eyes slipped shut again. He waited. It always got worse. "Now, we begin."


The physician flattened himself against the ground as a burst of flame scoured the air above him. His chest heaved as he sought to draw breath. Issei planted one hand in the moldy dirt of Minako's basement floor and pushed himself up into a sprinter's crouch. "Serpent!" His taskmistress called sharply, whipping her hand toward his position as though slinging a kunai from the hip. A sudden burst of light and heat indicated that the genin's most pressing concern was to get out of the way. A task he set himself to with great fervor, pushing off his leading foot.

The sudden sprint seemed to have amused the devil under whose tutelage he'd been so foolish as to place himself. The elderly sensei cackled as she brought her hand around, flickering through a series of handseals that Issei didn't catch. Ram... boar... rat... something-something-something. The physician kept his left hand hovering in front of his face, half-open in a vague cross between 'bird' and 'rat', using his body to block the woman's line-of-sight to his right hand. That was the hand that was forming seals. If someone wanted to get to it, they'd have to go through the rest of him.

Of course, that was little consolation when that cackling madwoman he called 'sensei' was flinging fire like she was the kami-blasted Hokage! Just as Issei successfully transitioned from 'boar' to 'tiger' with his right hand, the old hag slung another fireball his way. To his left stood the basement wall. A floor-to-ceiling slab of solid granite that offered no cover whatsoever. To his right... stood another basement wall. The physician mentally swore at his stupidity. He'd let himself get maneuvered into the Sage-damned corner! Head pounding in time with his heartbeat, the physician sought some way out of his strategic blunder.

There!

A heartbeat later, his gaze fell upon an amphora of middling size. Just large enough... As the fireball seared toward his face, the physician's right hand sped frantically through a series of seals. Tiger... Boar... Ox... Dog... Serpent. As the fingers of his right hand flickered through the seals associated with the substitution jutsu, the fingers of his left formed the sign of the ram - giving birth to two projections that seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be indistinguishable copies of Issei. "Bold choice, Yuki!" Minako's words were replete with what some particularly uncharitable souls might have called sadistic glee.

Blessedly, his sensei's blast of fire took one of his clones through the chest rather than imposing its searing will elsewhere. It was clear that Minako's opinion of him had improved substantially since he'd graduated the Academy. Previously - though the physician had often felt that he was in danger of losing his life - the only real threat had been collapsing from exhaustion. Now, clearly, his old mentor was not pulling her punches. Of course, this likely wasn't anything resembling her full power... but it wasn't exactly nothing, either. Part of him wondered how she'd fight in earnest, in a combat situation.

The rest of him was busy wondering at how long his chakra reserves were going to last, with his lack of viable defensive options. The standard bracket of academic jutsu weren't going to last him much longer - especially if Minako kept switching up her techniques. First it was water, then fire... if the kami-blasted demoness started coming after him with earth or air, the enclosed space of the basement would be the death of him. As for lightning... The physician juked right, just barely evading a sudden spurt of crackling energy.

Blessed kami, spirits above and below, preserve me...

Approved however you may not save WC you must use or lose.

Understood. In that case, I believe that 100 WC is worth 2 AP for folks with max stats.... but I also used the 25% discount this thread, which means I am precluded from claiming that AP.