Like Riding a Bike.... In a Thunderstorm

Part of him felt guilt for being here, but the other and vastly more prominent part, felt more excitement than he had in quite some time. That morning when he awoke and tied the headband around his forehead was a feeling he had not felt since the day he had received it. To be honest, he probably felt more excitement this time than he did the first time, since he knew what he was getting himself into this go around. Furo passed by his mothers room and he stopped just beyond it when he realized he would never hear her voice call out to him to be safe and to have a good day as he went off to work. He paused and slapped his hand against the wall to stabilize himself.

"Don't cry," he grumbled as he balled his hand up into a fist and kept himself upright. "She wouldn't want to see you cry." He glanced into the room to see an empty bed and the sunlight pouring through the window, in a bout of irony, it was shining right where she used to sleep. How cliche that was. Nodding his head, he pushed himself forward, refusing to let the negative emotions ruin the day. He would ensure he would make her proud, and with her loss as motivation, he felt that there was nothing that could stop him.

That was, until, he decided he would run to the training area. Before he had left and had been training vigorously every day he could sprint to and from his house and the village training center and barely break a sweat. In fact, he had to take the long way home in order to feel like he was even getting a work out, but now he was out of breath halfway. Suddenly the doubt began to creep in. Was he going to be an effective Shinobi? Would the others sense his weakness and pounce on him? Trust was one of the most important things a Shinobi had to earn from his comrades and if they saw him out of breath on his way to train would they want to fight beside him?

"Shut up, brain!" Furo said to himself as he was forced to continue without thinking such negative thoughts. Those were the types of things that ended up killing otherwise talented ninja. Self doubt. It was a powerfully negative attribute that could lead to the deaths of yourself and those around you. Even though he felt like his lungs were trying to crawl up out of his chest and escape through his mouth he forced himself to sprint all the way to the training area. It was most certainly going to be a terribly long journey for him but not one he intended on quitting.

Once he arrived he had to take a break. He stopped on the outskirts of the training building and hid himself in the woods in order to catch his breath. Sweat poured off his forehead and it took him much too long to catch his breath. Reaching down he prodded at his gut and felt the flab that had formed in his absence. Being sedentary for so long had immense consequences and now he was having to face them. Today was the start of the end of those terrible decisions. When he felt he was properly presentable he emerged from the woods and made his way in.

"Yo, Furo, we thought you were dead!"

"Yuki! Wow, really good at hide and seek you are!"

"Sorry to hear about your mom, Furo!"

"You grow an extra chin while you were away?"

The conversations certainly delayed his training schedule, but admittedly, it was nice to hear from familiar faces. He had kept himself isolated for so long that conversation was, honestly, a bit difficult. Not that he was the best conversationalist in the world to start with but it was even worse now. He mostly looked at the ground, nodded his head, and offered a few yes, no, and thanks to the people speaking to him. It was hard for him to admit but he had been lacking a lot of moral support during the care of his mother. His father was as much an asshole as ever and spent most of his time in denial at his mothers health, and even still, seemed to think she was going to be coming home any day now.

After the conversations he made his way into the training area. Today was not the day for him to practice on jutsu, no, he would have to work his way up to that. Instead, he went to the room that had multiple training dummies he could use in order to practice with. Stretching, he placed the dummies in various areas around the training room to simulate a group of bandits he had to take out swiftly. His thoughts drifted back to one of his higher ranked missions, invading the bandit hideout, and how there had been multiple levels and on each level they were spread out in different spots.

Combat was never as easy as lining up targets and mowing them down. It took concentration, spatial awareness, and knowing when to cast your jutsu or use your weapons. When to be stealthy and when to be loud. Furo had many jutsu up his sleeve but he could not just go in, unleash fury, and expect to get results. It would be a long while before he was going to be combat ready again but this was the start. This was how he got back to what he used to be.

Furo slowly pulled out his katana and he took a deep breath. It felt good in his hands, maybe a little heavier than it used to be, but good none the less. He twirled it around for a bit to get used to the weight and gripped it tightly. Taking one last deep breath, he exhaled, and he got to work. He dashed forward and slashed the arm of the first dummy pretending that he had his own sword. Killshots took a lot of energy, never go for the kill shots on the first couple, disarm them so you can attack more at once. He sliced at the sword arm intending to cut the tendons of him so his sword dropped. Without hesitating he ducked down a bit to duck under the fake attack the next dummy presented and sliced at his heel to bring him to his leg. He then dashed forward again and gripped the sword tightly to form fists and jammed them into the enemies stomach before spinning around to slash at the back of the neck of the one whose leg he had crippled. Using the momentum from the swing he gutted the one he had hit but then his sword jammed.

"Dead." he muttered to himself as he grunted and pulled the sword out of the training dummies belly. He grumbled and looked around. He had placed ten of them down but had only managed to get through three of them. Only ones wounds were even fatal and the other two, while injured, would surely survive. "Not good enough." he muttered as he returned to his starting point.

Over and over again for hours he practiced. At first he could barely get through the first four smoothly but by the end of the day he was getting through almost seven of them. Breathing heavily he sheathed his katana and thought back to what once was. How this would have been a warm up for him and how now he was struggling to even get through the first phase. His skills had deteriorated greatly, much more than he had initially anticipated, but today was improvement.

Fighting the urge to walk home, he took off at a jog, he could not sprint after the days workout but he could at least jog home. He was probably overworking his body, and he knew full well, that the next day he was going to be more sore than he had been in quite some time. However, as he lay in bed that evening, he could not help but smile. It felt good to be back.

"I'll make you proud, mom." were his last words as he slipped off to sleep. He was not sure what the next day would bring but he was looking forward to it.

WC: 1409
Total Stats: 17 at 20% discount
1206 words towards Ice Release
203 towards Hidden Mist Technique

I was unaware of the discount to training so I edited it to reflect the reduction in WC cost for training stats. 

17 stats instead of 14

Approved