Be Prepared [Private]

Upon becoming a genin, Riku immediately set about taking on missions to bolster her family’s income. Taji insisted she help with patience while Anzu encouraged her to continue practicing her ninja skills.

Early in the morning, when it was chilly, Riku liked to find empty training grounds and practice jutsu. New techniques were hard to come by, but some pestering of the Academy instructors provided a few leads with some low level techniques. She amused some of them enough to warrant attention.

The first technique she would try, however, was something that had been demonstrated in the Academy a few times.

Riku took a few deep breaths to concentrate on her chakra and focus on the moisture in the air. “Hiding in Mist Technique,” she whispered, forming the seal of confrontation. Her chakra permeated the air surrounding her, thickening the humidity to form a thick fog.

A smile crossed her face at the easy success, but Riku wasn’t about to stop there.

The blue haired genin let the mist clear, taking the time to mold her chakra carefully. Once the mist had thinned a bit, she flipped through four hand seals: tiger, ox, tiger, rat. The sensation that followed resembled throwing up; the thick chakra she’d gathered crawled up her throat and spilled past her lips. Gagging, Riku actually did throw up. She wiped her lips and waited for the uncomfortable sensation to pass before trying again.

This time, she channelled her chakra faster to force the water out in a thick stream. It fell against the ground harmlessly, but for now that was good enough. The acidic taste in her mouth cleared away. Although Riku would have liked to keep trying the technique, she didn’t want to run out of chakra.

Water Release: Gunshot was easier than Water Release: Water Bullet Technique. Rather than sustaining a stream of water, she could spit out large chunks of it, and, with a little focus, aim at the battered training dummies in the vicinity, The water splashed against the dummies, causing them to shake, but didn’t do a lot of damage. This was fine, Riku didn’t want to tear up the training ground.

She formed the tiger seal for the most complicated technique of the day: Water Clone Technique. The blue haired genin furrowed her brow in concentration. Her head was beginning to hurt when finally, another copy of herself formed from the water left over from Riku’s previous jutsu.

“Well this is an interesting development,” Riku mumbled.

The clone, Riku found, was weak. She slapped it and the poor thing only had enough time to look shocked before collapsing into a puddle. Tilting her head, Riku formed two more clones. Unlike the basic technique taught in the academy, these clones could pick things up and even perform techniques.

Grinning, the blue haired girl began to do what she liked best: experiments.

One clone ran from her at Riku’s command until it could no longer be sustained. The remaining clone helped her measure the distance. Then came a race, the clone was much slower than Riku herself. An arm wrestling contest revealed that it was also weaker. Riku accidentally broke this clone in the process.

With a shrug, the blue haired girl generated more water clone of herself. She pulled out her notebook and jotted down her previous observations. Then, Riku decided to move on to their ability to perform ninjutsu.

“Try Body Flicker Technique,” Riku commanded her clones. She didn’t know this one yet, but it would be interesting to see them try. The clones dispersed themselves in the attempt. “Damn, I’ll have to do that one myself,” the blue haired girl muttered before resuming further testing.

Once she was satisfied with her initial findings, Riku began to try to channel chakra while sprinting from one end of the training ground to the other. Hands in the proper seal, the blue haired genin dashed one way and then the other. The first speed burst made Riku trip and fall, but that was fine. She stood up, brushed herself off, and grinned.

Riku prepared to try again, but a wave of dizziness reminded her that her chakra was still quite limited.

“Damn,” Riku cursed just before she blacked out.

707 words

Jutsu Training:

The next time Riku went out to train, she had her mind set on genjutsu. She needed to know at least one to round out her skill set, maybe two. The first thing the blue haired genin wanted to try was the Hell Viewing technique. To do that, she needed a test subject. Fortunately for Riku, her scruples were few and thus the blue haired teen had no problem sneaking around the training grounds in search of a victim.

Riku decided to stick to the forested training grounds because the trees made for good cover, allowing her to focus on her genjutsu and not so much on concealing herself. Creeping through the foliage, Riku followed the sounds of somebody training.

A white haired boy who had been in Riku’s graduating class was throwing kunai and shuriken at targets posted up on the trees. He had been an arrogant boy and all too willing to gossip about his blue haired classmate. With a predatory smile, Riku made a few hand seals and then waited.

The boy, Maru, frowned when some leaves fell. Was someone there? When he couldn’t see anyone through the dense foliage, he went back to training.

[//Thread Exit]
About a minute later he froze, body going rigid.

Satisfied that her work was done, Riku went to try out her technique on another unsuspecting victim.

224 words

Jutsu Training: