Water We Waiting For?

The wind blew through Sera’s long blonde hair as she stepped up to the grand training grounds yet again. She had spent a good amount of time practicing out in the outdoor section of the grounds, but hadn’t spent too much time in one of the many indoor facilities. There were several buildings spread across the massive area with their own specialties housed within. She had previously used an archery course, but there today she wanted to give an indoor pool a try.

Sera stepped through the doorway of the aquatic facility and was met with the smell of chlorinated water; used to keep the water clean. There were several bodies of water around the facility marked with signs for a variety of uses. Some were to be enjoyed as pools to swim in, while others were to be used to practice ninjutsu with. Today she planned on tackling the building from every which way and practicing all of the water related training tasks. Well, she couldn’t cast water ninjutsu, or manipulate the element, so that was out, but besides that! Sera a bag of spare clothing that she brought with her and gave herself a nod. It was always nice to be prepared.

The member 'Sera' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

The first matter of business was to set her clothing bag aside and put it away in a locker. Sera entered the women's locker room and chose a random locker to stash her clothing bag in. She removed her shoes and stored them inside her bag. There weren’t any locks to secure the locker with, but trying to steal someone’s belongings in a facility designed to train shinobi was a rare occurrence. Sera looked at herself in a mirror and gave herself finger guns and a wink before she left and got ready to do some training! She stepped onto the tiled floor of the facility and walked over to the nearest pool.

The pool was about half the length of a normal swimming pool, but that was fine for Sera’s purposes. She wasn’t planning on swimming here, but rather just walking on water. It had been awhile since Sera had needed to actually walk on water for a mission, and it didn’t come up as an everyday thing while wandering the streets of Konohagakure. She stepped onto the pool’s surface, releasing chakra from the bottom of her feet as she did so. The weird sensation of standing on a liquid gave Sera some mental tinglies, but there was no issue as she began to walk across the water’s surface.

The member 'Sera' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Step after step, Sera crossed the pool with ease, and would then start to pick up the pace. When first walking on water, the sensation feels delicate, and there’s a hesitancy to put your all into movement, but if you put the right amount of chakra to compensate, then there should be no issue. As she ran at full speed to the opposite side of the pool, Sera would stop suddenly with inches between the wall and her heel and launch herself back to the other side. Breathing slightly heavy, Sera dashed across the water and jumped out of the pool back onto the tile floor. Once again, she would use chakra manipulation with her feet in order to avoid slipping on the tiles.

Okay, I’ve still got it. Peace of cake.

Sera pulled her right arm across her body and pulled; stretching it out before repeating with her other arm. She bent down and touched her toes with ease. When she was growing up, she wasn’t inherently flexible and needed to work pretty hard to be able to touch her toes. Flexibility was a trait she needed to maintain in order to keep her ability to shoot an arrow from a variety of positions.

The member 'Sera' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

After stretching and practicing her ability to walk and run on water, Sera surveyed the rest of the training facility to see what else she could do. There was always the option of swimming, but if she planned on experimenting with some raiton ninjutsu, it was probably for the best if she weren’t soaking wet. Or maybe that would be a good idea? Sera put her hand to her chin and mulled it over. It's not like she would be unable to use her techniques while it was raining right? Surely she must have used a lightning technique in the rain and not electrocuted herself. That would stand to reason that it should be fine to do the same here. Though probably not while she was fully immersed in the water. No swimming and using lightning at the same time, she would make sure to get at least to the water’s surface first.

With the deliberating out of the way, Sera found a longer pool designed for swimming and would jump in head first. Since she had stretched before, it would be a shame if she didn’t get her muscles a good workout. Her past experiences showed her that she should be able to move a little faster.

Diving into the pool was like a breath of fresh air, but without the literal air. Being surrounded by water transported Sera to another world. There was something to the floatiness of being in water that allowed Sera to feel so free. She had always dreamed of flying through the air and drifting through water felt like the next closest thing. Sera was grateful she had tied her hair back, because otherwise it would be all over the place. Although she wished she could just float in the water for a while longer, the demand to breathe called to her, forcing her to the surface. She took a deep breath and began to swim forward with free style. The blonde shinobi glided through the water, and when she reached the other side of the pool, would flip her body and push against the poolside to reverse directions. Sera would continue to swim a few laps while just being one with the water.

Sera lifted herself out of the pool just as she was starting to get out of breath. Swimming worked out the whole body and her muscles were sore all over. Some people didn’t like this feeling, but to Sera it was a sign of progress and felt productive. She smiled as she stretched again, not wanting to cramp up while performing the next activity. When she grew up there were several kids her age that scoffed at her for wanting to swim, saying that running was the better exercise. It was definitely true that running had more applicable uses in the day-to-day, but swimming was a better work out overall. It was like running, but without the breathing! Sera grinned as she remembered her favorite argument and began walking over to a new room in the facility.

She stepped into a sealed chamber with a large pool with training dummies at the bottom of the water. This room was used for testing water and lightning techniques. This would be fun.

Someone had drawn faces on the dummies that lay on the bottom of the pool! Sera chuckled as she squinted and saw a series of different expressions ranging from shock and sadness, to some sort of weird flirty winky face. If her attacks destroyed the training dummies, she would need to follow the tradition and set up new ones with equally ridiculous faces. Sometimes while training, a little humor was needed and appreciated. There was a gate to allow only one person into the room at a time past a certain point. Sera imagined this was to prevent any friendly fire or accidental casualties from anyone who was too close to a technique. It could be very dangerous to be too close while training, and that could go double for mixing electricity and water.

Even though she was quite certain she was alone, Sera would look behind her and walk through the gate. She had performed multiple lightning techniques over the course of her shinobi training, but she had never attempted to perform an attack this strong before. The blonde kunoichi performed her three quick hand seals and channeled the raiton chakra within her. Feeling the tingly energy at the tips of her fingers, Sera would reach out towards the body of water and unleash the torrenting waves of lightning. As per the namesake of the technique, this was a ninjutsu developed to kill. The water exploded as the lightning hit the pool, some of it vaporizing instantly, and some of it splashing every which way. The dummies were singed, but still standing. Sera was happy she successfully executed the technique, but wasn’t excited to use it on a person.

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Technique Used/Learned:
Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder (280/250 word count)

Spoiler:

The surface of the pool of water rippled erratically as electricity pulsed through it. The lightning technique that Sera had used had mostly dissipated, but remnants still lingered within the pool’s confined waters. She was going to test it, but figured that if it still retained the power from the attack, that she was actually in danger of killing herself. THat realization forced a gulp down her throat and she shook her head to try and change her focus. Instead of thinking about experimenting and accidentally harming herself, she should be thinking of training her next technique! Another one that she had on her list could be interesting to test in this environment too. She quickly checked a scroll that explained the technique and began to form a mental image of what it should look like.

It was relatively easy to form an image for this technique since it was based on one Sera had already learned. The goal was to make a shadow clone, but created out of her lightning chakra. If she understood it correctly, it would allow her to do all the same things as a normal clone, but it would explode into electricity when it perished. Sounded pretty useful to her!

She formed the hand seals and began to channel her chakra into the image of herself just like for the regular shadow clone.  She began to swap out the regular chakra for lightning, but it didn’t seem to want to comply. The lightning chakra tried to bounce out of its “container” and explode outwards like her other lightning techniques. Furrowing her brows, Sera doubled down on the mental image of her body as the container. Don’t let the lightning escape, trap it within my own form! She coached herself mentally. The chakra in her technique suddenly solidified and she felt the feeling of success as she looked next to her to see her shocking appearance.

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Technique Used/Learned:
Lightning Release: Lightning Shadow Clone (320/250 word count)

Spoiler:

The lightning clone of Sera smiled back at her and put her hands on her hips, looking pretty proud of herself. Although the clone wasn’t the one that had created herself, they shared the initial goal, and so they could share the victory together. The clone jumped into the air in joy and ran over and hugged Sera. We did it again! The clone broke out of the hug and threw up a peace sign signifying victory. She looked over to the pool of water and then back to the original. They had both shared the same thought, brainstorming jumping in, and this was probably the best way to go about it. Sera shrugged at her clone and remarked; “I guess we should figure out how effective it is upon impact with water.” With a nod and a grin, the Sera clone would jump into the air and curl herself into a cannonball shape before splashing into the pool. A few moments passed and there was no immediate reaction to the water. The clone would look up at the original and salute to them before exploding themselves into electricity.

It was a weird experience seeing her clone disappear, especially because the thoughts and experiences they had would go into her brain once they finished “poofing”. Sera’s clone had jumped into the water and then activated a sort of self-destruct function, knowing that she would essentially end herself. Sera didn’t have suicidal thoughts, and wondered how it would differ if she existed as the clone instead of the original. She shook her head along with the thought out of it as she took a couple of steps backwards. Maybe she should save the existential crisis for later. The blonde hunter exited the testing pool and walked back out to the general facility, wondering what she could do to change up the pace. She had experimented with a couple new lightning techniques, but maybe it was time to try something new. Sera headed back to the locker room and grabbed a change of clothes and her bag and quickly changed. She then left the pool area in the training grounds, but instead of leaving, walked over to the usual wooden training dummy area. There was still more to do today!

The sun felt wonderful on Sera’s skin as she walked out of the pool facility and the rest of the residual moisture from her swim evaporated off. A cool breeze balanced out the sun and she felt refreshed while she looked for her next avenue to pursue. When she had practiced new techniques earlier, Sera had tapped into a power of lightning that she hadn’t accessed previously. After she used both of her new A rank techniques, it felt like something unlocked inside of her. There was an itch inside that she felt like she needed to unleash, but it didn’t feel like it was that same sparky feeling like when she used lightning techniques. Sera’s eyes widened as she realized just what was happening inside her. Was this the awakening of a new element? She had just spent so much time in the water, so her first instinct was that maybe she had synergized with it, but the feeling didn’t seem to resonate with that. Sera looked down at her hands and felt the sun seemed to beam energy directly into her. Maybe fire was what was next on the menu?

Sera’s body felt hot as she tried to hold onto this new feeling bubbling inside of her. As she channeled her chakra, Sera could feel it raging within herself and begging to be unleashed. After she had graduated from the academy, Sera knew that she had access to the lightning element and the techniques that came with it. She spent a good amount of time memorizing techniques she could learn from that field of ninjutsu, but she hadn’t spent as much time with other elements. However, although she hadn’t memorized them, the scroll she had brought with ehr that contained the higher level techniques, still had listed some jutsu she could try out with fire. Rushing over to a training field covered in dirt without much grass, Sera consulted her notes and flipped to the katon section. She slowly and carefully formed the hand seals, channeling her new type of chakra into each one individually. In a similar way that she had cast a lightning bolt out of her mouth, she let the fire chakra build up in her torso until she let it loose in a roar!

A small, condensed fireball erupted out of her mouth like a cannonball and sailed across the training ground. In a split second the fireball made impact with the wooden training dummy and exploded into a fire tornado. The blonde kunoichi’s eyes shined in admiration and shock as she watched the flames rise into the sky before dissipating into smoke. Her hard work and passion had come to fruition and she was burning with inspiration.


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Techniques Used/Learned:

Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work: B rank Ninjutsu (264/200 Word Count)

Spoiler:

Ash began to float across the blue sky as Sera’s flame tornado fell apart, and although she wanted to stare at the beautiful destruction she had created, she also didn’t want to get any of that ash in her eyes. Sera took a couple steps back and would make sure to avoid any falling debris from the technique. Her heart was racing as she thought through the ramifications of this discovery. Her first thought was one of practicality; I can cover my biggest weakness! Sera’s eyes widened as the realization fully sunk in. Previously, she fought with a sole arsenal of lightning ninjutsu and archery techniques. Both of these things were pretty poor against enemies that could use wind techniques. Her sensei had taught her about the element cycle and how certain moves were better or worse against others. With her new ability to use fire, she could defend herself against wind attacks and then continue to use her lightning without worry!

Sera flipped through her booklet and found the next technique that stood out to her as incredibles useful. It would create multiple fireballs that seemed to emulate the same type of technique that her violent rat lightning quake jutsu was. With a pre-existing visual in mind, she formed the hand seals and focused on unleashing multiple smaller fireballs instead of one larger one. With a burst of fire chakra, Sera released a torrent of fireballs in the shape of ghosts which were all sent flying towards a rocky area of the training grounds.

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Techniques Used/Learned:

Fire Release: Demon Lantern: B Rank Ninjutsu (255/200 Word Count)

Spoiler:

The ghostly fireballs soared through the air and bombarded the rocky mountainside, each individual ball exploding into a large fiery blast. Sera had specifically chosen an area where there wasn’t much vegetation so she didn’t need to worry about causing an accidental forest fire, but it was still a bit nerve wracking to see so much fire in one place. Although it was a bit far away, with her trained eyes Sera was able to see craters forming from each explosion in the dirt. Once the last of the ghostly flames hit the earth, a roaring fire remained which stood about 2 meters tall. With a lack of vegetation, the fire was slowly getting smaller, and wasn’t spreading around the training grounds. Sera’s eyes shot up at the realization that she could test out another new technique with this flame! She dashed over to the fire and formed the monkey hand seal before jumping headfirst into the fire. There was a voice inside her that yelled at her and called her crazy for doing so, but another voice told her that it was okay. Now that she possessed the fire element she shouldn’t be afraid of it anymore. She could embrace the flames as just a part of herself. Sera stood in the fire and continued to hold the monkey hand seal, allowing her body to fade away and merge with the fire. Over the next couple of minutes the roaring flame would peter itself out and reveal Sera’s original form unharmed.


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Techniques Used/Learned:

Fire Release: Hiding in Fire Technique: B Rank Ninjutsu (252/200 Word Count)

Spoiler:

As the flames faded away from existence, Sera looked down and was pleasantly surprised that she still had her clothing on. The scroll had described the jutsu as merging with the flames, but she had no idea if it would burn away the cloth. It was probably a good thing because she would have died from embarrassment if she left the training grounds in the nude. Heat rose to her cheeks and she tried to shake the thought out of her head. Could I use this? Not the nudity of course, the embarrassment! Heat rose to her face once again as she considered the thought.

Sera formed eight hand seals and began to channel chakra within her stomach, forcing the heat from her cheeks into the building internal flames. A part of her body wanted her to release the built up energy at that point, but she wanted to see if she could hold out. The next technique involved unleashing a large amount of fire and shaping it. She had turned the form of lightning into a snake in the past, and she could do the same with this move. When the fire felt like it couldn’t be contained anymore, she opened her mouth and roared out the flames in the shape of a dragon.

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Techniques Used/Learned:

Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique: B Rank Ninjutsu (215/200 Word Count)

Spoiler:

The flaming dragon-headed fire ball soared through the air and hit the rocky cliff with a huge explosion that rocked the training grounds with a higher level of power than Sera was used to. In all her experience testing out techniques, the only one that was the same level of power had been when she concentrated a lightning beam and blasted a hole through an earth wall. While that one was more precise, this fireball was more like a force of nature. The impact of the flames created a large and rapid change in temperature and Sera could see a change in the flow of wind. A rising current flowed into the sky and the blonde hunter began to see a cloud forming above her. The fire was so intense that it was starting to affect her environment!

Sera looked around to see if there was anyone nearby. There weren’t necessarily any written rules that she knew about regarding what she was about to attempt, but it still felt a bit wrong. She wasn’t able to see anyone around after a careful search and so she began to form the required hand seals once more. The parent technique allowed her to create multiple dragon heads instead of just one, and that’s exactly what she did. Fire built up inside her torso until it was forcibly expelled outwards, but this time, she had angled her attack towards the sky itself. The multitiude of flaming dragons flew into the sky above the training grounds and dissipated before doing anyone any harm. The great change in temperature from the technique though was another story. The little cloud that the first technique ahd caused had multipeld greatly and a series of dark clouds filled the sky.  Rain began to fall and thunder could be heard rumbling above. Sera’s jaw dropped as she saw the magnificent sight. Did I actually single handedly change the weather?

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Techniques Used/Learned:

Fire Release: Dragon Flame Release Song: A Rank Ninjutsu (320/250 Word Count)

Spoiler:

Storm clouds rumbled above and the pitter patter of rain began to cascade around Sera as she stood still stunned from her technique. She raised a hand above her eyes to prevent rain from blocking her vision and she looked up to the sky. The storm clouds were centralized over the training grounds so luckily she hadn’t disrupted any civilian’s days with the technique. Hopefully the sudden change in weather and unleashing of techniques didn’t draw any unwanted attention. She averted her eyes from the clouds and looked down at the smoldering ashes of her practice session, admiring the work she had done.  There was a complicated feeling rising in her heart as she thought about continuing to train versus taking a break. Her body was aching from her swimming exercises in the indoor pool, and her chakra supply was pretty drained at this point as well. She did a slow stretch and took a deep breath, feeling the rain fall across her skin. Just one more. I’ll try one more technique and then I’ll crawl home if I need to. I don’t want to let go of this feeling and quit too early!

Sera began to form the hand seals and focus on the image of the ghostly flames from her previous technique. This new one had similarly colored bluish flames and would unleash multiple orbs at a time, but this one would condense the power of each orb greatly. Instead of barraging with a multitude, she would attack with unparalleled force. She unleashed the technique towards an earthen plateau which she believed could soak up the damage. Five orbs materialized and flew through the air at blinding speed. Sera utilized the connection she still had to the technique and was able to control their direction with her fingers. She controlled their positioning and focused them into one section of the plateau, utterly destroying it in the process. Luckily, there weren’t as many flames that were created and the rain was extinguishing that which was created. With a big exhale, Sera would drag herself away from the training grounds and make her way home. What started as a realized training session ended with a huge upgrade to her arsenal. She couldn’t wait for the chuunin exams.

[Exit Thread]

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Techniques Used/Learned:

Dark Flames Technique: S Rank Ninjutsu (377/300 Word Count)

Spoiler: