Training Continues! The Culling Games Approach!

Yukio walked into the training area once more, the warm afternoon sun beating against his back. His regular attire had been shed and in its place he wore only a light pair of trousers, for today he intended on trying something that was quite...new. His lithe physique stood in stark contrast to someone like his companion Tenshi Uchiha, whose body was a clear display of his immense strength. To shinobi, Yukio was clearly one who focused on the arts of Ninjutsu, versus those of Taijutsu or Bukijutsu. Today, he was prepared to start expanding his repertoire of techniques. His focus had been fully on Ninjutsu, but there existed many other types of techniques, and none were quite so famous as the Space-Time techniques made famous by his own clan founder, Tobirama Senju. He also had a secondary goal, which was the reason why he had eliminated the clothing for his upper body. He had successfully stepped into the final realm of his Curse Mark, and now it was time to push it to its limits and see just what the mark could do. He fairly trembled with excitement as he considered the power contained within that small seal sitting over his left breast. It was a shame he'd probably have to fight Tenshi in the Culling Games, because he did owe him quite a lot.

He entered into the center of the empty training area, just a small cleared circular area, mostly barren dirt except for a few patches of stubborn grass here and there. A small cluster of trees sat off to the far edge of the yard. Yukio stopped and closed his eyes, feeling his own beating heart and the slightly off-beat rhythm of the Curse Mark directly above it. He could sense the power contained within the mark, straining to be released and used. Yukio willed it to unleash itself in its most potent form and a violent change overtook his body. His skin darkened to a mottled gray, his eyes turned black, and his iris became a deep golden color. A black shape took form on his face, starting at the top of his nose and extending between his eyebrows on to his forehead. This shape was a highly stylized tree. But the most shocking change was along his back - six writhing appendages, like vines, erupted from his back in two columns on the left and right of his spine, equidistant from one another. They were 5m long, 30cm thick, and each was prehensile and could be controlled independently. Yukio was shocked by the sudden rush of information his brain was receiving from these new appendages, but as he moved and controlled them, he soon found them intuitive to use. In addition to all these changes, his body was suddenly filled with Vigor and Chakra (+90 to each stat). It felt as if his techniques and jutsu would be more powerful than ever with this newfound change. Yukio began with some light exercising, incorporating his new vines into the routine. Once he was warmed up and felt comfortable with the 2nd Stage of the Curse Mark transformation, he used his increased chakra to begin forming a condensed ball of chakra. He thought back to when Space-Time jutsu were first explained to him. The lecturer had the students hold a large sheet taught, and he dropped a heavy metal ball into the sheet. It rolled into the center and deformed the sheet, even as the children held it as tight as they could.

”This sheet is space, and the ball you see, is representative of any object. Our planet, the moon, the stars in the sky, or even you and I.” He took out another series of small marbles and threw them at an angle to pass the central ball. These marbles were warped and turned back toward the ball due to the sheet being pulled. They spun and spun around the metal ball until they finally collided with it. ”What you’ve just witnessed is a good approximation for what gravity is. It is the force that all matter exerts against all other matter. When we stand on a planet like our own, we witness objects falling to the ground. That is gravity. If you were able to be in the void of space, you would notice the attraction of much smaller objects towards one another. It is important that you understand this. Gravity,” the man continued his impassioned speech, all the kids paying close attention, ”warps space and time around itself. So too can chakra, if you can learn the delicate and exact art that Space-Time jutsu utilize.”

As he continued to increase the density of the ball of chakra, he extended his senses out into the world around him, paying careful attention to how the ambient chakra warped and curved toward the super dense chakra he was creating in his palm. Using his other hand, he created a flow of chakra and watched how it bent and shifted. He trained in this manner for several hours, until finally he felt something click – the chakra ball in his hand collapsed into a much smaller area, and a vicious sucking sensation began pulling at everything around it. As dirt and debris started to flow into the apparent Singularity, Yukio began to worry. The effect seemed to be spreading. His thoughts quickly turned to panic – would this expand and consume the entire village? What should he do!? Gathering his wits, he placed both hands around the darkened sphere, which itself was no bigger than about 30cm, and began to coerce the hyper-dense chakra to expand. If he could reduce the density, he could hopefully undo the gravitational forces at work. Sweat beaded along his brow. The Curse Mark Transformation had long since faded and Yukio could tell that he couldn’t quite use it at its fullest potential yet. However, he may be able to eek even a portion of its full power out, so he called on it once more. Once again power burned its way through his body as he began to transform, but this time it was only partially successful. The right half of his body turned the mottled gray he was previously, and only the three tendrils on the right side of his spine were created. Yukio immediately used those tendrils to anchor himself to the ground to avoid being pulled into the singularity himself. As the power of the Curse Mark once again flowed through him, he urged his chakra to obey, to infiltrate this singular point and force it to expand. It felt like trying to pull the Earth while standing upon it. The forces acting on this phenomenon were extreme. The wind and dirt whipped through the air, stinging Yukio’s eyes and forcing him to wince and grit his teeth in pain. He struggled for what felt like hours, but in actuality was probably only a full minute or two, when he finally felt something give way. Slowly, ever so slowly, the dense singularity of chakra began to lessen. He continued to strain against the immovable force and the expanding field of gravitational forces began to shrink back in on itself. Finally, after an actual struggle of eleven minutes, the singularity dissipated into nothingness. The only sign of its passing was a perfectly circular impression in the training area that had a uniform disturbance throughout. Yukio collapsed onto the ground, leaning back on his hands as he panted and sweat dripped down the majority of his body.

”Okay…should’ve found…someone…to help with this.” He spoke aloud to no one, as he was still alone in this particular training yard. ”Now the question is, can I do that again, perhaps faster and with less arduousness?” The young Senju smirked at his use of the word arduousness. He stood up after a few more minutes resting, brushed himself off, and went right back to work trying to break the laws of physics with an application of chakra and brute force. By the time the sun was beginning to set, he had managed to reproduce and dissipate the singularity effect another time, although it was still bloody difficult to manage. He returned home, cleaned himself up, ate a quick dinner by himself as his parents were both out on missions, and fell into his bed. He was asleep before he managed to cover himself with his blanket.

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The next day, Yukio was in the training area, planning something a little different. Yesterday’s foray into Space-Time Jutsu was successful, but now was the time to focus on his Wood Techniques. After the punishment Tenshi dished out to him, he realized he had no way to deal with a large Golem like technique himself. Sure, he had his own Golem’s, but a way to essentially seal one away would be much preferred. Yukio dove into the Senju Clan library, searching through dusty scrolls to find something, anything, that would work. And as luck would have it, he discovered it. An ancient technique, said to be from the founding of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, called “Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands.” Yukio scoffed as he read the name. ’Who the hell comes up with these names? Hashirama forgive me, this a terrible name. At least ‘Advent of a World of Flowering Trees’ makes a little sense!’ Yukio read through the scroll, memorizing the hand seals and chakra usage required for the technique. It also mentioned the jutsu could be utilized through his Wood Human technique, which was perfect. He would have a way to practice the technique against his own golems.

He left home after completing his morning routine. He saw his mother briefly; she had returned from a mission late last night and collapsed straight into her bed. He made a fresh pot of coffee and laid out some fruits and oats she could eat once she woke up. He entered his favorite training yard and immediately prepared himself for practicing this jutsu. He began by simply running through the seals, Boar → Dog → Bird → Monkey → Ram → Monkey → Tiger while building up chakra. He continued doing this sequence until he was positive he could do the chain of hand seals at speed. Once he accomplished that, he began using the sequence and initializing his chakra, ensuring he could do both at speed. This came much faster, as he was very used to working with his large chakra reserves. Finally, the time came to try the jutsu. Putting everything together, Yukio ran through the hand seals and released his chakra.

Nothing happened.

Which was kind of what Yukio had expected. When self-studying, one usually did not get something correct on the very first try. So, he continued to practice, until eventually he noticed a pale green glow emanating from the palm of his right hand. Looking at his palm, he saw a faded kanji just as the scroll had described. Nodding his head in satisfaction, Yukio continued, building energy and strength each time he utilized the jutsu until he could no longer detect any kind of change in its strength. With this third step completed, he moved on to the fourth step in his training regimen. He assumed a sitting meditative position and focused inward. He felt his chakra as it flowed throughout his body, yearning to bring life into the world via his clans unique Kekkai Genkai. Yukio was a progenitor, one of the Senju with pure, untainted Senju DNA coursing through his veins. He felt certain that, if the records hadn’t been lost to the Cataclysm, his family could have traced their ancestry directly to Hashirama himself. This lineage afforded Yukio a power that few others had, even those like Tenshi who could utilize Senju techniques due to an organ transplant and implantation of DNA. The Wood Techniques he utilized could all be used with a single hand seal, the Snake seal. While doing so required a bit more chakra than normal, it allowed him to utilize his Wood Techniques very quickly. His goal now was to do the same for this new jutsu.

With his focus still within, Yukio ran through the hand seals of the technique once more, focusing on where and how his chakra built and focused throughout his chakra network as he did so. He repeated this step several times, memorizing what it felt like at each stage for each hand seal. Once this was done, he proceeded to remove the next seal in the sequence, on and on, until finally, the only seal he needed to use was the Snake seal. Yukio opened his eyes and looked at his right hand. With his left, he formed the Snake seal and watched as his hand emitted a warm green glow, and the kanji for “sit” was emblazoned across his palm. Smiling, he nodded to himself and stood up. Now for the practical portion of the exam.

Yukio stepped towards the cluster of trees and formed a single Snake seal and smiled as a Wood Dragon was formed from the wooden boughs. It would never stop being awe inspiring to watch his element at work. He telepathically commanded the Wood Dragon to come close and bow its head to him and the magnificent serpent moved to obey immediately. Once the head of the dragon was within his arms reach, Yukio formed yet another Snake seal and activated the Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands technique, placing his hand where the forehead of the Dragon would be.

Once again, nothing happened. This time, however, Yukio was not expecting it. ”Huh.” He mused aloud to himself. ”Kakuan must need to be at a greater power than the target in order to cancel it out. I guess that makes sense, the destabilizing chakra would be easily defeated otherwise. Alright, let’s try that one more time.” Prior to activating Kakuan again, Yukio started with his Ninjutsu Amplifier technique, which allowed him to channel more chakra and power into his next jutsu. Once that was done, he reactivated Kakuan and pressed his hand to the Wood Dragon’s head. The serpent immediately crumbled to dust and Yukio felt a backlash within him, as if he was unable to summon his Wood Dragons at the present moment. In fact, it felt like it did when he sustained them for as long as he possibly could, and his body and mind simply didn’t have the bandwidth necessary to redeploy that jutsu again, regardless of whether or not he still had the chakra reserves. ’Interesting! It forces a sort of internal cooldown on the jutsu it deactivates, similar to if the body ran the technique for too long. That is definitely handy.’ Yukio paused for a brief moment, enjoying some snacks he brought from home to help regain some of his lost strength, before jumping right back into the training with gusto. This time he summoned a Wood Clone, who appeared from a tree nearby and approached the young Senju clan member. Yukio activated Kakuan again and pressed it to the forehead of the clone, who immediately crumbled to dust. He once again felt that strain within him, as if he would not be able to utilize his Wood Clone technique for a brief time. Smiling, Yukio summoned one of his strongest creations, the Wood Human. The colossal golem was 50m tall and 20m wide, it towered above him and the protective walls of the training ground. Yukio ran up the golem, realizing that he couldn’t control it if he wasn’t touching it, but he also couldn’t reach its head from the ground. Once on top of the Golem’s head, he directed it to lean its head down to the ground and then he activated the 2nd stage of his Curse Mark once more. Power erupted from him as his skin melted into the gray black coloring it was before. The six writhing vines burst forth from his back, and the whites of his eyes filled with black while his iris turned a deep golden color. The stylized tree tattoo spread across his forehead and down the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. With the power of the Curse Mark flowing through him, he activated Kakuan once more, placing his hand upon the golem’s head. It too immediately crumbled to dust and Yukio fell the short distance down to the ground.

”Well, that seems to work exactly as I want it to. Hopefully it’s enough against whatever I face in the Culling Games.” Yukio trailed off, thinking of his punishment from Tenshi again. He had been severely outclassed. Now, he had his own Golems to use, and he was certainly stronger, but he still wasn’t sure if it would be enough. There was no sense in worrying over it. He would perform to the best of his ability and that would be it. Yukio looked out over the training area. It didn’t look too bad, just covered in an immense amount of dust from his wood techniques. He used a bit of earth chakra to stir up the ground and bury the dust beneath the earth, wiping any evidence that he was here. Nodding his head in satisfaction, he stood up, dusted himself off, and set off back into the town proper. Today had been an excellent day of training, and he had a day soon scheduled with Tenshi to train as well. ’That damn Uchiha, he was much better at Wood Release techniques than I was when we fought. I’ll show him when we meet in the Culling Games though, I will be the greatest Wood User this world has seen, the second coming of Hashirama Senju himself!’ Yukio stared into the middle distance, vowing to himself and his ancestors that he would make this come to pass. He thought back to his time in the Land of Nightmares, where he had first glimpsed an image of the magnificent World Tree. ’Soon.’

[EXIT

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This post was written before I had started training with some people, so while I describe learning specific Techniques here, the WC gained will not be used for those techs, as I will be learning them from others with the ATF discount. Apologies, and if this is not allowed please let me know.

WC: 3,000
25% Max stat discount applied
--1,313WC to Wood Release: Wood Armor -> A-Rank
--750WC to Summoning Art: Rashamon -> A-Rank
--937WC to Ketsuretsu - 1,652/3,000 - prior claim here