Reunion [P]

Unexpectedly, Takashi began to practice the various techniques alongside him, rather than wait, and so he kept an eye on her progress as he demonstrated and explained. Quietly he felt the warmth of the bond between them grow in his chest as she exemplified her competence. Good habits and philosophies combined with a skilled teacher had done her well it seemed, and for this he was greatly gladdened.

As she began to practice on Adjustment and Feint, her movements becoming filled with a flowing grace he had once been more familiar with, Koutaku couldn’t help but admire the results of their childhood training. Truly, Takashi was swiftly revealing herself to be a standout example of what happened when the methods of the Yuganori and Iouchiryo were combined in one individual. It was frightening to consider what they might be capable of together when both of them had accrued sufficient experience and truly expanded their individual repertoires.

Smiling slightly at the thought, Koutaku let Takashi’s words pull him from reflection as she expressed her query. “Hmm, I suppose you’re right. Well, it might be worth knowing either way, as perhaps you may use some other implement to which it will actually apply.” Shrugging slightly, Koutaku flicked his wrist, a kunai appearing in his hand as he did so, its ring around his finger. Spinning it, Koutaku spoke, even as his clone began to move, cracking his knuckles and stretching a bit before drawing his wakizashi the clone continued to move towards Takashi in the interest of closing most of the distance between them. Still, Kou would remain fiercely vigilant, allowing him to alter his path should he deem it necessary.

Koutaku on the other hand remained where he stood and began to explain another set of useful shinobi arts.

“One Handed Seals, as you surely will have gathered from the name, allow you to essentially increase your ability to perform techniques with one hand busy. Furthermore, they can assist in improving your ability to multitask if both hands are free.” As he spoke he demonstrated each regular handseal, but performed with a single hand in the interest of showing her how each was properly formed in the altered style.

“It’s an essential skill that I suggest you pick up quickly alongside another.” Taking a deep breath, Koutaku focused his senses, and felt them immediately expand, “The ability to detect chakra, even without much detail, is invaluable. If not on its own, then to allow you numerous other avenues in the future. The key, I found, was to first become aware of your own internal reserves and network, before expanding that awareness outwards to its limits. It’s much easier when stationary, allowing greater sensory range, but it remains useful in either form.”

As Koutaku spoke, his clone Kou closed the distance, leaving only a scant 10 meters between Takashi and Koutaku’s duplicate.

Spoiler:

“Well, I suppose most people don’t use weapons quite so long as mine… It makes sense that techniques designed to work with standard shinobi tools won’t work with something so far out of their physical parameters--though I did spend some time in the clan archives! There are a couple of Yuganori techniques that will be useful for me, though I doubt they’ll do much for you, unfortunately…” Takashi replied to Koutaku’s initial comment, her smile suddenly a little sheepish at the prospect of not being able to offer much in return for Koutaku’s disseminated knowledge. She gave Kou a critical eye at his advance, gently wringing her hands together as she immersed them in the fabric of her scarf and let it wrap around her in its familiarly comforting layers. She took a moment or two to bind her hand with the scarf completely, preventing herself from forming handseals with it, and closed her eyes to focus on that inner well of power all shinobi drew from. Most were tutored in these arts at a point where their minds were simply too young to fully grasp the esoteric mental principles necessary to be a truly effective ninja, and a lot of the time this particular gulf was what caused shinobi to stop advancing--at least, that had been the case with the Yuganori back in Amegakure. Under Kinuko’s tutelage, the mind as an organ that needed to be carefully honed and disciplined was standard practice--and accordingly, owing to greater harmony of body and mind, Takashi had always found it very easy to both visualize and manipulate this energy within her. The handseals were merely a somatic component, a way for motion to spur the physical energies of the body into action so they might be moulded and formed into precisely what effect the user wished to create. If one had sufficient mastery of their body and sufficient mastery of their mind it was not inconceivable to think that the user might, one day, eventually be able to eschew handseals altogether--but this was merely the first of the steps on that journey, and Takashi made sure not to allow any nascent hubris to taint her mind while she was still learning. She mentally examined each of the handseals that Koutaku had made, picturing them in her mind’s eye alongside her own two-handed seals. It was easy enough to visualize the changes that one would have to make in order to execute the technique, but priming the body to be able to do so was not quite as easy as it first seemed--every time she tried initially the chakra simply eluded her now considerably narrowed grasp. She’d noticed a certain… relaxation, or at least ease of movement, in how Koutaku had performed the seals, which she still felt strangely inflexible and unreceptive to.

She breathed in and out, carefully moderating the flow of air, and she began to perform the same familiar handseals albeit only with her right hand. She practiced specifically on the most common Yuganori handseals--Dog, Snake, and Dragon--each time failing to draw upon and mould the necessary energy in order to produce a well-constructed effect. Little adjustments in stance and posture helped her more evenly distribute that energy, and as she disciplined herself with the formation of the same one-handed handseal over and over again she entered a pseudo-meditative trance. Something internally was not… obstructing the flow of chakra within her, per se, but was simply not developed enough to allow her the type of control that she was currently attempting. Though initially disheartened by the revelation, Takashi’s mind let the thought drift away almost immediately as she had finished considering it--and this time she swept herself up in the motions of the combat meditation that came so familiarly to her. In the intricacies of its motion she could feel the pathways of chakra within her swell and contract, and as she focused very specifically on those pathways it became significantly easier for her to begin the process of exercising and disciplining them. Minutes passed with Takashi reverently performing the same rhythmic movements again and again, and each time the pounding pulse of her heartbeat in her ears seemed to quicken. Before long its thrum was so dense and so loud that she could not focus on anything else, and in that state of total immersion she forced her heightened senses within, into the network of chakra that flowed within her, and found within herself a harmony that she felt equal parts thrilled by and unworthy of. Still, in that state thoughts slid off of her mind like water rolling down panes of glass and she did not have the time to so much as begin to consider the implications of those emotions before the battering ram of her pounding pulse forcibly drew her back into that state of serene focus.

She let the motions guide her, their movements a mere consequence of the mental manipulation of her internal energy. It was as if the handseals simply performed themselves on her single outstretched right hand, one after another, as the chakra within her roiled and kneaded itself under the twin onslaught of her will and her motion. She opened her eyes to look at Koutaku after a solid five minutes had passed, seemingly unaware of the length of time she’d taken, before nodding at him.

“Alright, I think I have that down enough to be able to practice it in my own time as part of meditation! What was it you said next… sensing the presence of external chakra? Extending the senses outward... Alright. Let me give it a shot.”

Once again Takashi began those familiar, flowing movements. The veils of the world began to shed themselves one by one, her mind no longer processing irrelevant information and instead using chakra to allow her to inhabit her own senses. She came to a peak of glowing awareness within herself very quickly, finding the silhouette if not the exact details of her chakra system within her senses like an effulgent beacon. She practiced extending those senses outwards gently at first, growing comfortable within the entirely alien but strangely familiar depths of her own body. Inch by inch she pushed the awareness just a little further out, coming to understand the feel of the wind, the heat she exuded, the chakra woven into the clothes she was wearing. She felt all of these things in a way totally unfamiliar to her, and a little overwhelming, but she still recognized within them that same essence of what they were--as if chakra were simply a universal conductor of information and potential. In a way, she supposed, that was true--but before she could lean into the thought any more it was consumed by new pangs of bright and hot awareness in her sensory field, her senses almost electrified at just how tactile the sensation was in her heightened state of awareness. Harmony of body and mind allowed her to feel and think simultaneously, to translate one into the other and achieve a basic level of understanding that would be expounded upon day after day. It was like the start of a new project, the first few manipulations of thread woven together into a stable pattern that would eventually come to be called cloth. Each new experience wove another thread into the agglomeration, and as she continued to allow herself to inhabit this new sensory medium and take its insights for herself it almost seemed to stitch itself into her awareness.

Chakra was not in all things. The scrolls had made it quite plain, as had Kinuko’s lessons on the matter: it was a force fundamentally born of the duality between the real and the unreal. A force that nested within man and allowed him to subtly alter the balance between real and unreal, to shift the delicate balance of the world’s constituent forces in order to create harmony. It had been twisted, so the scrolls said, into a force that allowed man to subvert the balance with its power rather than to serve it--and now, having taken the first steps to seeing the chakra available in the world, Takashi understood the temptation that could come with that kind of power. Unlike her thoughts, so easy to let go, the temptation burrowed itself within the folds of her heart. Nothing more came of it in that moment, but an indelible mark was placed upon her by the knowledge and skill that she’d acquired.

“Right. What else?” came the response from Takashi, unusually terse this time. Not so much from any inherent negative emotion, but from the overwhelming momentum that she’d found herself in possession of. Her posture was alert, her muscles tightly wound and honed. With a little manoeuvring her scarf began to unwind itself from her left hand, gently spooling itself on the ground before being picked up and wielded by Takashi. She turned her attention to Koutaku directly, wondering if there was anything else that he might like to impart upon her before she embarked upon this little test that he was so determined to deliver. She couldn’t help but wonder if there was some hidden thread of desire behind it, some little part of her friend that exulted in the sense of control being a teacher provided. She was unsure quite why that particular idea had come to her, but some nagging part of her simply would not let the shadow of the idea go.

Spoiler:

Seeing that Takashi would be taking more than a few moments to learn the described techniques, Kou settled down about 10 meters away from his adversary and leaned his cheek into a hand. Meanwhile, Koutaku decided to mirror his clone, and sat down as well. Closing his eyes, he allowed his mind to drift, even as he practiced keeping his senses entirely alert. As he did so, he recalled instances of his family members teaching him, through spars or long diatribes about the clan’s central principles. He understood now how important each of those moments had been, he knew that they were essential experiences now, and he was glad of them--though they’d been truly frustrating at the time more often than not. As his mind drifted, his senses expanded outwards to his full 10-meter range, allowing him to sense not only Takashi, but his own clone, who was just barely within his range. Smiling faintly, the Iouchiryo considered what his own next step ought to be while Takashi took hers.

Takashi...she seemed to do as one might expect from a shinobi whose current profession was that of a seamstress, a weaver. She was deliberate in her actions, even if her emotions sometimes seemed turbulent and chaotic to him--not that his own were much better. Nonetheless, it seemed that--just as when they were children--Takashi learned as a seamstress worked, weaving threads delicately with a dextrous hand such that each had its proper place. With time, strands of fabric--knowledge--grew into a greater tapestry of understanding, until they became something far more than the sum of their parts. Watching her now, deep in meditation, her chakra gently ebbing and flowing, he admired her process even if he knew he could never entirely copy it.

Tilting his head as a new thought, an idea, entered his mind as neurons snapped into connection, Koutaku raised a hand, drawing a kunai as he did so. Taking a deep breath, he focused his chakra, and swiftly it began to wreath the blade, and then fold inwards upon itself. Slowing the process, watching it with great vigilance, he waited till it finished, and then banished his work, starting anew.

This time, when he pulled upon the chakra he imagined it not as a flowing river, focusing into petal-thin layers, but instead of millions of threads, entwined to make the closed-flower of his technique. Visualizing it this way, the technique took longer to form, but he let it, the practice would become easier with repetition. However, as the folds grew in number and complexity he found that his fledgling technique began to fray at the edges and come apart. His brow furrowing, Koutaku narrowed his focus such that he knew only the pathways of energy in his body, the kunai, his hand, and the chakra that enshrouded the weapon itself. With no further stimuli from the world, gradually, he was able to find stability. Further, he found the origin of the problem, as several portions of the folded chakra had weakened at certain intersection points, causing fraying further down the line. That wouldn’t do, especially given the latent energies held within.

So it was that rather than banish the technique, unsure of the exact result of said action, Koutaku instead reversed the process, essentially pulling the chakra back inwards as he unraveled each thread from its fellows, and unwound each twist and fold within the construct. It took him roughly two minutes to go through the entire process. Gently, he roused his hearing, and sight, checked on his friend, and then once more closed his eyes and sunk deep into his own awareness.

Understanding the feeling of controlling the threads and the finesse required for such, Koutaku took a long moment formulating a series of new schemata for his planned technique. Then, he sent just two of the eight to his clone, and then focused on another of them. It took him several tries on each method, he had to test slight variations after all, but eventually, he landed on the third of the six he’d kept for himself to attempt. This time he exhaled all his air and sat for a second before beginning once more, his focus complete. So it was that with a slow inhalation, Koutaku called upon his inner power, drawing it from the well of essence in his stomach where it rose through his being and to the tips of his fingers. Remaining relaxed, but focused, the young Iouchiryo released thousands of infinitesimally small threads of chakra from each fingertip. Rapidly, they converged on the kunai, as if attracted to it as one lodestone to another. Wrapping about it, the threads moved crosswise and parallel to one another, first creating a shroud, and then twisting upon themselves in an uncountable quantity of curling patterns. First it was touching numerous closed blossoms as they grew, and then he collapsed them into one another before they became entirely physical. Phasing one through the other, and another though its twin, the many closed blossoms, became one of many folds. With a gentle ‘click’ in his mind, he felt the technique settle into an eminently stable form.

A small smile spread over his lips and slowly, he opened his eyes. Immediately he was struck by how much less brilliantly his technique shone. It was hardly dull, but unlike before where it had been a luminous beacon, now it was a gentle glow like some faintly shining flower in the night. Similarly, it looked less delicate than previous iterations he had attempted and he knew--with certainty--that none of his other schemata would work.

Nonetheless, trying each had been worthwhile, if only for the sake of learning. Glancing up as he heard Takashi query him for the next exercise, Koutaku held up a finger and then looked back down at his creation, raising the kunai to view it under better light. As he took stock of his unexpected progress, Kou came out of his own trance and rose to his feet. With his own proffered weapon--a wakizashi--the clone gestured. Holding the weapon out before him--arm extended forwards and to the side at an angle--such that the blade was aimed horizontally a foot or two before his chest, the clone spoke.

“If you have picked up on the former skills and techniques so readily, then this will surely be simple enough. Focus your senses upon my blade.” With those words uttered he blinked once, and with the barest amount of focus, Kou’s blade became wreathed in a shimmering sheath of chakra. Almost lazily, the energy writhed and twisted about the blade before focusing into a sort of apparition of the weapon itself, its edge similarly lethal. “This is Chakra Infusion, it is the foundation upon which Flying Swallow was built. If you are capable of the latter, then the former will easily come as well,” the clone, despite being its master’s creation, did not apologize for having taught the techniques out of order. In fact, the rather more lazy-temperamented clone seemed not to care at all about the distinction.

Further, as he began to approach her, it seemed he had no intention of wasting time waiting many minutes for her to succeed. All the while, Koutaku paid close attention to the strange formation of chakra on his kunai, pondering its exact nature and the potential uses it could serve as well as what the principles behind it--and his ability to accomplish them--could mean for his future.

Spoiler:

Takashi nodded along with Kou, the action coming innately to her as soon as she thought about it. There was a particular affinity within silk for the Yuganori, its orderly strands very easy to innately weave chakra into. It was a simple matter of creating the flow through it to produce the requisite effect, something that was only helped by that same physical structure. Of all the skills that she’d learned that day it was Chakra Infusion that came the most easily to her, like something she had always possessed the capacity for but merely needed to express in a way that was not quite arbitrary but not quite intuitive either. She briefly considered what this meant for her future projects--this knowledge would be crucial for her to develop a weapon and armour of her own. In order to weave silk worthy of being called the clan’s eclectic weapons one needed to be able to imbue it with no small amount of chakra. In order to do so, techniques like this were crucial not only in the creation of the weapons themselves but also in effectively wielding those weapons--little use was a plain silk scarf in a real battle (at least as a bona fide weapon), but a long conduit of sharp chakra that could be manipulated with extreme precision was something one would be wise to fear. Takashi had only really studied the movements in her combat meditations and sparring with her clansmen, and she had practiced plenty with an actual scarf (as indeed she had earlier against Koutaku) but the considerations necessary for the actual weapon that would be the difference between her living and dying in combat was another matter entirely.

Her newly enhanced senses could pick up jagged little spikes in the flow of Kou’s chakra through his weapon, minute enough to not be deliberate or detrimental--but his control was clearly not so great as to be able to make something cleanly smooth. She herself also did not possess that ability yet, her own chakra flow smooth almost purely through the chosen medium she was using to do so--she had no doubt that Koutaku’s would be similar to or better than her own if he were using it on a piece of cloth. Though the imperfections did not annoy her, per se, something about the lack of harmony genuinely did bother her the tiniest amount--a little niggle in the back of her mind that she knew she’d be able to use as potent motivation to increase her chakra control. She took a moment to examine her handiwork again, extending her senses deep into it, and she laughed a little to herself just under her breath as she remembered that she was supposed to actually be demonstrating these things for Koutaku in order to move on with the next portion of the training. She proffered the scarf gently, hands outstretched, as the telltale cerulean blue glow erupted from her fingers and wove its way throughout the scarf like a wave. The chakra seemed to have a strangely iridescent effect to it, not the usual shimmering that chakra generally seemed to impart to things but a kind of… wet refraction, almost. Something about the cloth was not wet exactly, but unusually cool and fluid to the touch--it felt strangely good in her hands, familiar and nostalgic in a way that primed her for the upcoming test.

“... I suppose we should begin, then?”

Takashi began the familiar process of properly mounting the scarf on her arms, letting its folds droop to the floor as she continued to manoeuvre herself into exactly the correct position to wield it as if it were a weapon. She finished after a few seconds and took a deep breath in to calm herself and prepare herself for the physical exertion ahead. Koutaku had said that he’d wanted her to demonstrate the newly learned skills, so she figured that she would be best served getting into a position to get close and execute a weapon swing that could be easily combined with a physical movement to demonstrate both Adjustment and Feint--she wasn’t sure if he’d want to see anything else, but he’d let her know if that was the case during the course of their spar.

Spoiler:

Seeming sufficiently satisfied with her preparations, the clone accelerated to 25 speed, making a face briefly as it realized just how slow it was going. Nonetheless, it would have to do. Closing the distance till there were roughly 5 meters between Kou and his adversary, the clone flicked his wrist, drawing forth a shuriken, before throwing it--wire trailed behind the implement. It moved at 27 speed, just fast enough to outpace him as he continued his approach at 25, its trajectory taking it directly towards Takashi’s center of mass.

As he reached 2 meters distance, the clone slipped into a sidelong posture, with his sword arm leading. Then, with a sweeping horizontal slash at 25 speed, Kou attacked, his weapon barely within range.

Meanwhile, Koutaku sat and watched the two with half his attention, while the rest remained on his kunai. Frowning slightly, the young Iouchiryo waved the weapon back and forth in small experimental swipes. Trails of chakra were left behind as he did so, causing him to raise his eyebrows slightly. Then, an idea struck him.

Swiftly, he unraveled his technique, keeping in mind the particular schema he’d used for it, and then rapidly began constructing a totally different technique in his mind’s eye. He started with a crude construct, identical in shape and purpose to a blade, but hollow and barely solid. Then, he visualized pouring even more chakra in and folding it in the same shape within the initial construct in increasingly thin sheets, each of the same form.

He paused a moment and let the energies dissipate as he considered a second set of schemata. It was something more complex, like an externalized version of forming each shell manually, with a repeating function so long as chakra was fed into it. Painstakingly--using the weaving principle he’d recently adopted--Koutaku began to create the framework for the creation construct in his mind. It was incredibly difficult, but he kept at it nonetheless.

Spoiler:

Kou’s movements at least appear to be closer to my own in speed now, Takashi thought as his movements began and he launched a shuriken towards her and began to follow it up by moving towards her. As their movement began Takashi flourished her left arm to bring the scarf draped over her arm up in a whiplike motion, sending it swiftly through the air at a slightly lesser speed of 25 but an exactly even level and direction. Though the flourishing motion would complete much more quickly than the shuriken would reach her, a surge of chakra flowed through her and infused the scarf and she used the limited cover created by the billowing fabric in the air to draw her left foot back in a small arc. Simultaneously her right hand withdrew a kunai from a specially sewn pocket in her yukata and a similar flourish was performed with the scarf hanging with her right arm, though this flourish aimed the three metres of fabric at a forty five degree angle up and to the right. The fabric here was manoeuvred in such a way that it formed a wave as it sailed up in the air, though the kunai that Takashi had withdrawn was held securely with the loop in her thumb and the blade itself pointed slightly upwards so as to fit within one of the little crests of the motion the scarf had made.

As Kou was a scant 75 centimetres from reaching his specified point and making his attack the flourishes had begun to flutter downwards--the left scarf hung a mere two feet above the ground at its lowest point and the right was now at six feet, just a little above Takashi’s head. With another sudden motion Takashi released the tension in her muscles from earlier, bringing her right arm down in a sweep that continued her previous arc (which would see the motion end with the kunai striking the shuriken from above) saw the scarf fall directly into the path of Kou’s eyes as the shuriken reached the 8 metre mark. Her arm, and the kunai grasped by her hand, brought it down in such a way as to catch the crook between the points of the shuriken directly downward as the two paths intersected, and immediately as it did so Takashi utilised the Adjustment technique to forcibly rotate the shuriken and kunai approximately 140 degrees and then flick upwards with enough force to reorient the shuriken’s direction immediately towards Kou’s throat.

Simultaneously with that manoeuvre beginning, Takashi’s left hand twisted forty-five degrees up and with a flourish of her hand sent the scarf on her left side moving at 25 speed directly upwards Kou’s sternum. The angle of the manoeuvre, as well as the length of the scarf, ensured that its edge (still glistening with chakra infusion) threatened to intercept where his body language signaled that he was going to aim the strike while threatening to cleave vertically through him should he not adjust his own position also.

Immediately after executing these manoeuvres Takashi brought her weight around by continuing the arc of her pivot with her left foot, extending it out slightly so as to be able to react immediately to any sudden actions that he might take in response to what she’d done.

Spoiler:

Kou, watching the skillful manipulation of his adversary’s scarf, narrowed his eyes and utilized Adjustment and Feint simultaneously as he swung. Feint allowed him to stop his full body motion and reverse two steps back, and one away from the incoming scarf and its deadly edge. At the same time he continued his swing, but altered the exact trajectory such that the flat of his blade struck the redirected shuriken, blocking it. However, he continued the motion, deflecting the redirected implement as he initiated Bullseye, throwing with his offhand at about 50 speed. The second shuriken struck the first as it went upwards and forward at an angle, redirecting it down and into the scarf that had redirected it, its movement 28 speed. His sword arm continued its motion however, causing the blade to collide with the sharpened scarf.

Then, wary of reprisal--and knowing the devious nature of the scarf--Kou backed up to a distance of 7 meters in a burst of movement at 25 speed. Coming to a stop, the clone flicked his wakizashi as if ridding it of detritus, and regarded Takashi with a bland look and a tilted head. After a long few seconds of silence, Kou’s eyes narrowed, his lips upturned in the faintest of smiles, and he replied. “That was a proper showing, well done.” Then, rather casually, Kou stabbed his wakizashi into the ground.

Drawing a single kunai, Kou glanced to his creator--who was entirely lost to them it seemed--and sighed, before looking back to their friend. “Alright, the next technique is fairly simple as well. Shunshin, or Body Flicker. With a powerful surge of chakra through the body, you briefly amplify your speed at the cost of control from point A to B. It is...a dangerous technique to use in combat scenarios. Really only useful in tiny bursts, or if you’re undetected. Otherwise, it tends to telegraph your end point, allowing any skilled opponent to predict your trajectory and then use that knowledge to catch you in an unavoidable set of attacks. Nonetheless, it’s essential.”

Taking a deep breath, Kou pushed one foot back, placed a hand on his wakizashi, and then used a single handseal: Ram. Performing it one-handed, the clone blurred in place, and then vanished at 75 speed, moving 1 meter towards her, then suddenly at a 45-degree angle to the right, zigzagging, before darting inwards 1 meter at a 45-degree angle to Takashi. He came out of the motion a scant 4 meters from her, several shuriken in hand and drawn to throw at her. He followed up, sending a spray of seven shuriken in her direction, spread so small motions in any given direction wouldn’t save her from a strike, with the group of shuriken moving at 50 speed. Kou followed behind the weapons, moving at 45 speed directly towards her.

Spoiler:

Takashi also utilised a feint to eject herself (or, at least, her “weapon”) from harm’s way as Kou reacted to her strike, allowing the initial aspect of it to happen. Once he threw the second shuriken it was obvious what was going to happen--but Takashi stopped the movement of the scarf dead in its tracks and twisted her hand slightly to whip it back towards her in order to abort the entire strike. The reason for it was quite simple: both to show a working understanding of feint and its applications, but also to avoid one of her favourite scarves getting punctured by a shuriken. It wasn’t that it was difficult to repair, exactly--it was just that she could practically guarantee that the moment she sat down to actually begin some repairs at home she’d have another project foisted on her by an overworked cousin, and then another, and she was almost physically incapable of telling them to piss off and do their own work owing to how much she desperately wanted everyone to see her succeed in the same way her sister had at her age. A gentle flush found its way into her cheeks at the thought and she averted her eyes from Kou’s for just a second.

After Kou’s manoeuvring back and offering of praise Takashi whipped the scarf back around to her with a small flourish that saw the cloth spool onto the floor just a little beside her once more, and she returned the kunai to the little pocket that she’d initially retrieved it from. She considered his advice about the nature of Shunshin no Jutsu and its various applications, and also what he’d said about it being easily telegraphed when used owing to the fact that one was physically incapable of performing other actions until they’d reached their destination. It was a challenging paradigm to operate inside, that was for certain--but she was quite convinced that small moments meant to merely outspeed an opponent mid-manoeuvre would be quite useful if she could master the timing of it. As he prepared to test her on this next lesson she watched his advance with keen interest, zigging and zagging this and that way until he settled on a direction and threw a spread of shuriken towards her. She did not have to go through any thought processes to intuit the correct course of action, her right hand performing the one-handed Ram seal and moving 2 metres to her right. The arc of the spread had been designed to ensure that she couldn’t readily make a simple sidestep or pivot to dodge them, so by design it was also fairly tight and narrow, ending at perhaps a meter to each side of her--easy enough to escape from given that her speed was increased to 75 for the duration of the technique.

“A little less flashy, but… well, if it works it works! Never judge a book by its cover…” she smiled as she reappeared, scarf gently fluttering just atop the ground as it settled from the sudden force of her movement.

Spoiler:

With her sudden change in locale Kou’s eyes darted in her direction, easily following the path of her movement as she crossed the two meters of distance. Casually he altered his posture from one that was leaning forwards in a running stance, blade ready, to one leaning back. This allowed him to slide to a stop within a mere three feet, at which point he drew his left hand back towards his person and flicked each of his fingers slightly. At the same time, he moved his wrist in several clearly practiced motions, causing each of the shuriken to be pulled back on their respective wires. As they approached him, the flicks of his wrist and fingers allowed Kou to manipulate them such that he staggered their arrival. Thus he caught each shuriken with his hand and flicked them downwards on another set of wires close to his body, returning each to their rightful place in his weapons pouch.

When he was done, Kou performed a few swift handseals, recalling the two implements he’d used Bullseye with. The set of actions only took a brief pair of moments before he turned to look at Takashi. “Well done,” he said, his voice slightly less bored than before, as if he’d shed some of his earlier disinterest.

While Kou considered what to teach their student next, Koutaku had gone through a number of iterations of the technique he’d been trying to design. He was finding it a bit more frustrating than he’d initially thought it would be. Now faintly annoyed, the young Iouchiryo banished the chakra he’d been using and rose to his feet. Kou side-eyed his creator for a moment before returning his gaze to Takashi.

Taking a deep breath to dismiss his annoyance, Koutaku shelved the work he’d been doing and once more focused on his friend. “Alright, the next few techniques are similarly simple. They’re all designed for utility or, in the case of the amplifiers, they enhance the power of other techniques.” Koutaku paused a moment before continuing to explain the mechanics of amplifiers, outlining how they let one’s chakra take on a set of impressionable qualities such that it easily complimented, and then combined with a technique utilized afterward. He demonstrated a particular seal that allowed one to pull breathable air from a remote location that the seal was placed, making it possible to avoid drowning, suffocating, or inhaling toxic chemicals or other agents. Swiftly, he let Kou demonstrate a rather minor use of chakra that let one numb pain, and another that killed any scent a shinobi might give off, making certain varieties of tracking more difficult.

With a rather sudden demonstration, Koutaku even cut a shallow wound in his own arm--using Chakra Anaesthetic to not feel the pain--and then taught Takashi how to heal minor cuts and bruises with a basic application of medical ninjutsu. Finally, he finished with showing her a utility technique called the Mark Seal, which one could place on people or objects for numerous purposes. Several times during his explanation he even used chakra to throw his voice to other areas in the room. Each explanation he gave was thorough, going over the various principles that allowed each technique to function, as well as making sure that he gave her the necessary information to actually perform them.

When he’d finished, falling silent a moment, Koutaku’s mind briefly drifted back to the technique he’d been working on. Before he got distracted, however, he shook his head and moved on from the thought. “Anyways, since all of those are out of the way, I can teach you something that serves as more than just a utility. Naturally, it’s of Iouchiryo design,” he gave her a small smirk, before going through the handseals.

“This...is Tobiishi(Stepping-stone),” he stated as he willed several circular platforms of blue chakra into existence, each within 2 meters of his person. They formed midair, expanding out from singular points until they created flat panes of partially translucent energy. Each was 1 meter in diameter.

Kou smirked slightly as he eyed the chakra constructs.

“Tobiishi is a technique of various uses, but primarily it allows its user a greater degree of maneuverability in the air by supplying platforms for one to push off of. With the Earth or Wind elements--once you’ve learned the technique at C rank--you can make it such that the constructs can either protect you and serve as a source for other techniques or make them impossible to interact with unless you’re doing so.” He paused a moment, his mind going back to when he’d read of the technique in an Iouchiryo book. It had been a welcome discovery.

“Notably, using wind also lets you create more platforms than average, and as you get better with the technique you can make more still. It really depends on your own ability.” Shrugging slightly, Koutaku dismissed the constructs and gestured to her.

“Give it a shot.”

Spoiler:

Takashi listened to Koutaku’s words attentively, using their closeness to extend her senses out to be able to get a feel for the chakra he was manipulating. Between his thorough explanations and the ability for her to actually sense what he was doing she very quickly registered a pattern in her mind that allowed her to create a… mental blueprint, or a design sketch, of what the technique she was going to learn needed to be. He provided the constituent details of every jutsu with enough clarity that it was very easy for her mind to work on the actually difficult aspect: the logistics of putting it all together. One after another she attempted the techniques using the same handseals, kneading the chakra internally in a way similar enough to work, and getting a feel for the simple techniques she was being taught that, frankly, were unlikely to come in useful every day--but that was another aspect of strategy. One could not simply learn which was most useful, one needed to learn things that were only useful in certain scenarios but essentially nullified the danger of those scenarios. Silver bullets, she’d heard them called before, a little nickname she thought was quite fitting for what they were--a little smile crept across her face as she continued to study and practice the techniques being taught to her.

It did not take very long at all for the two of them to mow through the majority of the list, owing to the fact that they were very simple techniques taught by a skilled tutor to a close friend familiar with their methods. There was something almost... ritualistic about the way that they worked with one another, quickly slotting into a wordless rhythm that accentuated their individual strengths. Koutaku was a deconstructor and an inventor, one who could break concepts down into their most abstract parts with practiced ease and frightening efficiency. Takashi was capable of visualising physical space, threading ideas together with their logistical and creative aspects smoothly intertwined--and whenever they worked together she couldn’t help but feel a certain… synergy. It had certainly made learning the battery of techniques pleasant and quick! Of the various enhancers that he’d taught her she couldn’t help but feel a particular affinity to the Fuinjutsu-based one, and she was able to easily iterate upon its fundamental principles in such a manner that she felt she learned it in a manner stronger than the version that Koutaku had taught her.

As he began to describe Tobiishi, Takashi felt the first snag in the rhythm that they’d established. Perhaps there was a breakdown in their normally very clear communications, but some fundamental element of what he was trying to teach her did not stick with her in the way that she wanted, and after a few attempts at the technique she barely managed to form it correctly. Takashi raised her hands in half-apology and half-frustration before taking a few deep breaths and offering her friend a sheepish grin.

“Something about this one just… isn’t for me, I don’t think. We don’t really use weapons in the same way as the Iouchiryo, and something about it just doesn’t quite resonate with me, you know? Like the first time you saw me make silk and wanted to help with the weaving process because it seemed superficially similar to wires?” Takashi’s voice was playful and energetic, clearly unperturbed by the lack of affinity for this particular Iouchiryo technique. Something about her tone suggested that she might have been technically capable of it if push came to shove, but that it was something simply not for her.

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