The First Rehearsal

The rain splattered against the plasticine hood of the girl’s raincoat, the sky a dreary and muted grey. The sounds of the village carried better than the lights in the rain, everything little more than a blur once it got a few feet away. A year ago, Minami would’ve been cooped up inside the family shop or residence during such a downpour but not today. Instead she found herself in entrance of the general training area. From what she heard in the distance, Minami could guess she wasn’t the only one working in the rain, though she wasn’t doing anything nearly as fancy as suiton.

As a fresh Academy student, Minami had suffered from a bit of a shock when she compared herself to her peers; so many of the children in her class and the others of the same year were miles ahead of her in experience with the ninja arts. Even playing catch up as she was, Minami was happier than she could recall. After all, she’d finally be free of the life her family had expected of her. No mere shop girl anymore, she was going to be a kunoichi!

What that meant, however, was hard work. She wasn’t content to merely being praised for her efforts as she went for someone with no background. The young Kurage had much higher ambitions than that. Her eyes practically gleamed as she kept at her pace, flicking her hand outwards. Sensei had commented on it more than a handful of times by then; even for someone wearing glasses, Minami’s level of accuracy was higher than most kids her age. The downpour simply provided the perfect backdrop and challenge for her to push herself.

Her rain flecked glasses may have distorted her vision, her fingers may have been clumsy, yet still Minami flicked and flung the four sharpened needles (on “loan” from the training room in the Academy) at her target incessantly, always making note of just how far from the bullseye she was from the environment’s effects when retrieving them. The basic senbon were fine, it was sure, but something in the heft of number three felt slightly off to her. She wondered if they were deliberately hammered out, or made from a master mold with molten metal and filed down. Crafting a blade was one thing, but crafting what for all intents and purposes was the child of a spear and a sewing needle? She couldn’t help but be fascinated at the thought.

Perhaps a visit to her Aunt Satsu? Not blood related, but an old enough family friend to have been around for as long as she remembered. Satsu was a metalworker by trade, and responsible for the first few weapons that ever passed Minami’s pudgy little fingers in childhood. She was far from a legendary blacksmith making mythic blades, that was true, but Satsu’s practical eye and steady hand had crafted countless tools for shinobi and civilian in the city a-like. She’d even taken a brunt of yelling from Minami’s mother when the girl firs began playing with weaponry for real with a grin.

As much as she fantasized about flicking a blade through a man’s stomach like Lady Snowheart, Minami knew that would take hard work. Bukijutsu (and by extension Kenjutsu) weren’t given nearly as much focus in the Academy as the three basic pinnacles of the shinobi way: her taijutsu skills were only passable at best, and her genjutsu training really boiled down to being able to break one. It was ninjutsu where she’d been finding her stride outside of throwing things around. As she darted a needle into the target, she flicked her fingers together absentmindedly, rehearsing the hand seals so they’d be second nature to her.

Weaving them together, she flared her chakra and focused. It was one of the most basic jutsu available to any shinobi, and she’d been practicing for weeks to get it down as quickly as she could. Not a single clone, but two, flared to life. She knew they were little more than falsehoods, and she was breathing hard from it all the same. By some accounts they were bending light to make the projections of her, by others merely a strange bridge between ninjutsu and genjutsu; regardless, the copies were almost perfect clones of her. Almost, mind you, because neither could replicate the constant downpour of water on her and around. The rain drops fell through them, rippling the puddles in a brilliant staccato.

Still, even with their flaws she’d done it. Two clones in a single cast, something most of the other kids hadn’t even thought of yet, regardless of the family they had come from. She smiled darkly to herself before letting out a giggle. The clones pantomimed the action as she thought of it, though neither could produce a sound or interact with the world around her. She dismissed them as she threw a v for victory pose into the air.

The sound of a nearby sparring match turned vicious, and the girl scurried to collect her pilfered senbon to return to the school. If the sounds of roaring waves were any indication, that was one fight she did not want to get caught in the crossfires of. She slinked off into the deepening gloom, wondering if her mother would keep her dinner warm for when she got home. It was a fool’s errand to even worry, Minami knew that. For all of their disagreements about her choice to go to the ninja academy, her mother was her mother, which meant at least a bowl of warm soup on a rainy day was in store for her.

The rain from the night prior still pooled in massive puddles around the place that afternoon. Minami had managed to cut her jog from the Academy to the training grounds down by a minute, a sign that she was improving, even if she was winded and slightly muddy from the exertion. It made the perfect training scenario though when she entered one of the pockmarked sparring zones, currently devoid of anyone, and spotted a curious thing indeed. Seven wide puddles, unknowingly deep, were scattered about the battleground. The result of the match she’d heard last night, undoubtedly.

Sensei’s words ringing in her ears, the girl approached the nearest one with a steady breath. She pooled her chakra into her feet, applying it as a steady coat at the soles. It was child’s play for some, but Minami had to suppress a gulp as she stepped out into the puddle. Her foot nearly sank into the mire before she steeled herself and took the proverbial leap of faith, bringing her full weight to bear.

She didn’t sink.

It wasn’t elegant or effortless, to be fair, but Minami stood there, staring at her own reflection in the muddy water and failed to suppress a grin. Each day that passed with a small victory, even in something as simple as chakra control to perform the water walking technique, put her a step closer to her dream. Several steps, to be fair, as she darted around the puddles and did her best to keep her footing.

Minami took a breather from her water-walking (or more accurately running) laps to sit down beneath a shaded tree on an impromptu bench. It was molded right out of the earth and she paused to wonder who had formed it. Doton, Earth Release? The only elemental release they ever really mentioned in class was Suiton, based purely on where they were lived, so she had to wonder how people explored and learned other elements.

Even if her feet were hurting her and her lungs felt like fire from the jogging, Minami couldn’t afford to idle away too much time. She’d needed to return the senbon she “borrowed” that morning before the Academy took note of them missing, though she had a sinking suspicion someone had caught onto her game. So Minami left them be and brought her strangest ninja tool with her, something that didn’t even look like a ninja tool at all.

The Lady Snowheart doll had been her constant companion for three years, or really as long as she could remember. Who cared if she was going to school? Minami was going to take it with her. It also afforded her a practice dummy for her newfound passion-project: kugutsu.

The library books and scrolls had tips and tricks for varying ninja arts and strategies just waiting at people’s fingertips, though half the class seemed content to just go on their business everyday. Minami, fortunately, was a member of their numbers. She’d read two volumes and had her eye on collecting another on the art of ninja-puppetry the next day. The fact it had been born from theater arts long ago just struck a chord with the girl and all her flights of fancy. What better way to play into a drama than to use a dramatic art.

She focused her chakra into her fingertips and connected the strings to the various joints of the doll, preparing what was going to be an even more difficult task.

If there was anything that came a little easier to Minami than others, it was her dexterity and multi-tasking; her accuracy in projectiles classes came less from raw strength or speed than from the grace she’d found in her own fingers. Even as the doll fought to limp across the damp ground and grass, the girl’s fingers danced along.

A tug of the left pinky too sharply brought the entire leg backwards, but the slightest twitch could shift it. Curling her right middle finger quickly and straightening it out made a fair head bob, causing the doll to nod at her. Minami’s eyes, hidden behind her glasses, gleamed. She’d been hoping her guess had been right, and though she’d mostly just practiced with chakra strings and pulling stones and twigs around with them Minami found the doll almost easier to move. She also paused and flung her hands out, watching the entirety of the doll move into the air and descend slowly; it was ethereal, and made her wonder if some puppets ever touched the ground at all.

She knew that she’d need to head back soon for dinner; she’d caught more than an earful with how late she’d practiced into the evening the night prior. Even if she was a kunoichi-in-training, she still lived underneath the family’s roof and needed to respect that. It might have grated her at times, but at least Minami had a warm meal and bed at home.

The next evening was dryer still, the puddles beginning to recede into nothingness. Minami could only muse how long it would last though; rain storms could be sudden on the island nation of the Land of Water, and swift. How many nights had she fallen asleep to the pitter-patter of rain overhead in her life? She couldn’t recall.

She found a different hideaway this time, away from the clearly defined fields, and set about to a slightly different task than usual. In her hands was a blade, though for a different kind of practice than merely trying to throw it at someone or cut them. Oh no, a musing of Satori’s crossed her mind. The rain storm two nights prior had managed to knock down more than a handful of branches, and Minami would be damned if she let the opportunity pass her by to work with free materials. They weren’t quality per se, but more so an opportunity to practice her whittling.

Hammering out metal with Aunt Satsu was fun, though learning to manipulate wood with her hands was just as important in the long run. Beyond that, Satori had a point: it was more aesthetically pleasing to see some wood in lieu of just cold metal when she worked. She made a note to thank the boy the next time she saw him.

It was fairly quick work to strip the bark and set aside the twigs and branches too green to really work with. She'd asked Satsu about some of the principles of wood-working and even brushed up on some of her tomes and went to her grandfather for advice. The more green the wood, the more sap within it, and the more flexible it was. Flexibility was fair in some things, though for most crafting purposes you wanted the strength and stability behind it first. Minami bundled many of the twigs with twin and a spare bit of cloth from her bag, making note to dry them out at home.

Out of her haul though, she found herself with a half dozen twigs that had been sufficiently dead prior to the rain to be dried enough to warrant practice, and practice she did. The girl's knife blade slowly scraped along them as she went to work.

The first spike took forty minutes to pass her muster, the next forty-five. Minami was many things, but a lazy craftsman she was not. It wasn't until the last of the sixth passed her lap that she even managed to cut them down to less than thirty minutes of work.

She would've laughed if a year ago someone had told her she'd spend hours whittling spikes, yet here she was. On a larger scale, they could've probably done some damage but as they were currently? Minami doubted they'd be good for too much on their own. Though as a part of a simple trap, perhaps a small pitfall? They'd be unpleasant for anyone to step on, if they had enough leverage sinking into feet.

Though the temptation to dig a small pit and test the trap out crossed her mind, Minami let it pass and instead used the wooden spines for more throwing practice. As expected, they couldn't pierce the target at all, either splintering off of it or merely bouncing away; she made note of their much lighter heft in her hand than a senbon might provide as well. Improvised on the fly and aiming for a tender part like someone's eyes though? They'd be rather useful.

"Or even as improvised chopsticks." She muttered to herself with a grin, twirling one of the few to survive her initial target practice between her fingers. Perhaps, with a bit of chakra, she'd be able to manipulate them further and increase their piercing capacity. There was, after all, the Lady Snowheart story where she bested a man with little more than a hair pin pulled from her coif.

If only Minami's hair could pile so majestically as that. Still, the girl couldn't hide her grin either as she left. Of all the things she'd been practicing since coming to the Academy, her impromptu crash-course in Kugutsu aside, it was her newfound obsession with crafting that molded into her with the most ease. She wanted to make beautiful, deadly puppets one day, that was true, but starting with the basics couldn't hurt anyone either.

She hadn't realized the time was getting so late, the sun sinking far into the sky. Minami groaned, snapping the wooden spines between her fingers and tossing them into some nearby brush. Her parents had asked her to mind her younger siblings that night while they, her grandparents, and Ayame attended a merchant's society meeting. She groaned internally at realizing what kind of look she'd make it home to if she were any later.

Ultimately though, as she gathered her bag and some of her things, the girl's smile wouldn't falter. She was finding her own path as a kunoichi, and if that meant she couldn't resist her craftsmanship roots so be it. She might not have had Ayame's deftness with a sewing needle, but could Ayame put a needle in a target's heart from twenty paces?

With that thought fresh in her mind, the girl darted from the training grounds, grateful merely for the chance to practice and grow.

//Thread Exit