Isolation and Training

Nozomi had taken a trek up the mountain to spend some time alone and get some training in that was preferable to do alone. She'd picked what most would call a terrible day to do so, but it was perfect in her eyes. Few people would be around where she was, even on a normal day, but she was practically guaranteed to be alone today, as there was a bit of a storm going on.

The day was cold, due to the mountain environment, and Nozomi was even finding it hard to deal with. Still, with the storm around, there was plenty of water for Nozomi to use to practice her Suiton techniques, as well as harness some electricity for other jutsu. Her fight with Rin had been no big deal really, but she noticed some glaring weaknesses in the lack of her arsenal. She needed more diversity, and the best way to do that was to train.

Luckily, there was information aplenty on certain jutsu that Nozomi was keen to learn, and Suiton techniques she almost instinctually learned. Perhaps it was because of her affinity with Isobu, and that he had knowledge of Suiton ninjutsu, but she didn't suppose it mattered. Her abilities were getting stronger and stronger now that she had mostly finished her training with Honiko, and all that was really left was honing herself even further.

With Isobu once again accessible to her, her chakra reserves had increased, and with that, she'd be able to sustain her training much longer than usual. She wouldn't leave the mountain until her training was complete.

-

Nozomi had been practicing for about a half an hour at the point that she perfected the first jutsu of her training. Like a lot of Suiton jutsu she had learned, this one didn't require a water source, as the chakra was kneaded inside the user rather than utilizing a separate source of water. These were a priority to Nozomi, as she didn't always have access to water, or time to set up a water source and then utilize another jutsu afterwards.

Besides, if she fought another Suiton user, she didn't want to always provide them with water as well. She had thought about that issue while fighting Rin. If he was a Suiton user, or a Raiton user, things could have gone very differently for her. Luckily, it hadn't come to that, but at the same point, she knew that some of the other fighters in the tournament were Raiton users, and one was a Kaguya from Kirigakure. It was a chance that her next opponent might have some sort of skill that a mass amount of water would be a bad thing to have or stand on.

Kneading the chakra in her stomach, Nozomi shifted it to Suiton. Forming handseals, Nozomi moved through each one, building up more and more chakra, aiming at the mountain as a backdrop. Using the Tiger, Rat, Horse, Snake, Dragon, and a clap, Nozomi moved her fingertips to the bottom of her lips and blew out the enormous amount of suiton through her lips. The water came out as a thin stream.

The stream was tiny, but powerful, cutting straight into the rock of the mountain, slicing through it like with extreme pressure. She smiled at the damage, as well as the speed of the attack. Only the fastest people would be able to dodge it, and even then it would be difficult for sure. Nozomi knew how to lock people in. The Water Severing Wave was a fantastic jutsu, and one she would be able to use quite well.

-

Having completed the first jutsu training, Nozomi had moved on to her next jutsu. She had another suiton technique to learn, but she wanted it to be one of the later ones she used, considering the environmental changes it caused. Since there weren't many Suiton jutsu of high level she could currently learn, she had to switch to the other element she knew: Raiton.

The better thing about Raiton is that unlike Suiton, it didn't usually require a source. Suiton didn't always, but Raiton never did. Nozomi had recently discovered that utilizing Raiton was incredibly easy for her, and just like it was with Suiton and Taijutsu, she had been able to streamline the amount of chakra she used, while still maximizing the effectiveness of her jutsu. Simply speaking, Nozomi was able to cast powerful jutsu with little chakra, which was only improved due to her increased reserves of chakra.

During her first trip to Kumogakure a couple of years ago, she'd ended up fighting against some of Kumo's ANBU. During that encounter, she'd seen and gone up against some Raiton tech, and had studied them afterwards. Now that she was in a place where she didn't need to work on her physical abilities as much, she had some time to work her Raiton.

She had been working on the jutsu for a bit, trying to get the proper chakra levels used to minimize her expenditures in combat. She felt like she finally got the least amount of chakra to be efficient, while still maintaining the power of the technique, so she flipped through the signs again, aiming towards the now somewhat scorched side of the mountain wall she was using as target practice.

Boar, Ram, Snake, Horse, Dragon, Nozomi's hands flew through the hand seals, and a surge of lightning rushed from her towards the ground, a flash of light around her that illuminated the area. During the storm, of course, lightning strikes were rather common, hence another reason Nozomi had chose this day to practice her jutsu. Nobody would assume anything was odd about lightning during a storm.

Her attack had achieved what she'd wanted, boring a hole into the mountainside that was now much larger than the stream had made. She'd carved out a sizable chunk of it, which was no small feat. Of course, jutsu at higher levels obviously had the ability to terraform, dealing quite a bit of damage. Electromagnetic Murder was a jutsu that lived up to its name. Getting hit by this technique would be enough to put down most people, and if someone was strong enough to survive, the damage caused wouldn't be laughable at the very least.


Learned:
Water Severing Wave
Electro-Magnetic Murder

One of the main reasons Nozomi had come out to practice in the middle of the storm was because of the storm itself. She knew that she would be able to utilize the water from the rain as a source for a lot of her Suiton, for sure. The bitter cold of the evening was a nice deterrent as well, and the lightning was a fantastic cover for the practice of her Raiton. All of these things were true, but Nozomi had also had a thought, inspired by her use of Suiton.

Plenty of Suiton techniques required a source of water to actually form them, and in cases where the user didn't want to utilize a technique to actually form water themselves, they could use natural water, such as a lake or pond to pull from. She knew that Fuuton and Doton techniques operated fairly similarly, in that Fuuton users used the air that could be found all around them, and Doton users obviously manipulated the earth and rocks that surrounded almost any environment. There was no real reason that Katon or Raiton had to be any different though.

They were one of those elements that could easily be formed using chakra, all elements had jutsu that could do that, but it was less likely that you'd encounter fire or electricity in the wild, so most jutsu of those elements just made it from scratch. However, like the other elements that could pull from sources already present, Nozomi realized that she could probably do the exact same thing with lightning. It was definitely harder, lightning wasn't one of those things that most people just saw out in the wilderness, but in Kumogakure, lightning storms weren't uncommon.

Today was just such a day. Nozomi had been working on a single technique for hours at this point, trying to perfect the timing of it. Lightning was so unpredictable and fast, it was impossible for her to work on shaping a bolt of lightning in the air after she saw it, but she still had to try. So far, she'd been unsuccessful in it, trying to tame a bolt of lightning wasn't exactly an easy task, after all.

Taking a bit of a break, Nozomi sat down and took in a few breaths to calm her mind. Meditation was something she did often with Honiko, to take a moment and just exist. Honiko liked to pray, but it wasn't something Nozomi really got, so she often used their prayer time to meditate and become one with the world surrounding her. It was because of that that her perception had become so enhanced, she held a very close connection to listening, feeling, seeing, as she'd truly been able to appreciate the value of every little thing.

It was only when she took the time to stop thinking and working on the technique that the answer came to her. She'd been trying to catch the lightning after it had formed, but that was like trying to dodge something after it was already coming your way. Nozomi, being a taijutsu prodigy as she was, knew signs to look for when fighting an opponent, and due to that, tended to be able to start dodging an attack right as it was launched, rather than after seeing it was launched. Footwork, shoulder movements, those all gave a person away, which was one of the reasons she had techniques that, unless you could sense chakra, could change her trajectory without her having to give a visual indicator until it was already changed.

Much like people's body movements, the world had indicators that let people know what was happening. Thunder, of course, was a product of lightning, the sound it made as it moved so fast, breaking the sound barrier. Of course, it came afterwards, but it was an indicator the same as the visual was. However, it wasn't the only indicator. Nozomi's perception being what it was, noticed every time a lightning strike was about to happen, a split second or so before hand, her neck hairs, arm hairs, and body seemed to charge with electricity as it shifted through the air.

That was all the time she needed. Her chakra was laced through the area already, so it was a simple matter for her. As the feeling of static built through her, Nozomi's chakra assimilated the energy, and her finger twitched as a trigger. She'd made a mental note to target a specific point, to make sure if something happened it was because of her, rather than just a coincidence. And happen it did. The lightning strike was impossibly fast, Nozomi getting a glimpse of a dragon, which bore into the ground where she wanted it to, blasting a small crater into the ground.

Interestingly enough though, it seemed that her use of the jutsu would be a one off. The storm clouds didn't appear to have any energy buildup any longer, all being used on that one attack. The rain persisted a little bit though, although it was getting brighter for sure. She probably had time to learn another jutsu before she had to call it quits on account of the weather improving. It was good to know the limits of a technique. While Kirin was incredibly situational and required a storm, it was fast, and powerful. However, it did use up the entire storm, so she would have to use it fast if she ever could. She made a mental note to think up ways to make a storm artificially, so she could use it more than once.

Learned:
Kirin

The final technique that Nozomi wanted to practice was one that she waited until last to use for a very particular reason, and was one of the reasons that she'd come so far into the mountains to use in the first place. She had used almost the exact same one in her match against Rin, however, there was a more powerful version of it as well. And with the increased power, it also had increased volumes of water, and Nozomi knew better than to use it in a populated area. She didn't want to do something that would result in her losing her current freedom to move in Kumogakure, as she rather enjoyed being able to walk through a village without being stopped by every single guard around.

So, she'd made this treck high up into the mountains on an already rainy day to avoid any people around, not only because she didn't really want anyone bugging her, but also because she wouldn't have to deal with any collateral damage and worry about hurting anyone. Even if she was being followed, it was obvious that she was training some very high level techniques, and should anyone be spying on her in the first place, they only had themselves to blame if they ended up getting injured or killed.

Rather than a snake hand sign, the Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave used the ram sign, although it was otherwise identical to the Exploding Water Colliding Wave jutsu it was based off of. Nozomi did the same thing she usually would, kneading her chakra in her stomach into Suiton, and formed the Ram sign. She then poured that chakra out, unleashing a torrent of water, much stronger and in greater volume than she had against Rin.

Previously, the range of the technique was fairly wide, with the destructive potential being 250 meters in total, 125 meters out from her in any direction, but this enhanced version was double that, and with greater speed as well. The side of the mountain was nearly carved out by Nozomi's jutsu, the water force and pressure hitting it creating a basin and cave. The run off was like an ocean, flowing down the side of the mountain. If she would have used this in her match with Rin, it would have ended it right then and there, no escaping it.

Interestingly enough, Nozomi had no urge to utilize it in her next matches though, as she'd previously noted it could be used against her, but it would certainly do as a last resort. The chakra drain wasn't all that much to her now, although it was certainly a decent percentage. She could use it multiple times in a real match, and that would be hard to face off against. She was lucky to have Isobu's natural suiton affinity, as well as her own natural Raiton affinity, as it let her set up a terrifying amount of water that she could use to her advantage.

She'd been thinking of ways to negate her own vulnerability to Raiton and Suiton's interaction, and there was a simple solution, although it would mean she'd have to maintain an upkeep of other jutsu active. It wouldn't be viable for a long drawn out match, but certainly it was a powerful foe that would be able to sustain in a drawn match against her in the first place.

However, for now, her training was complete. The rain was fully subsided now, the run off of water from her technique no longer so intense. It was time for her to go back and get some rest.

Learned:
Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave

-Exit-