Wabbit Season Pt 2

Kaori returned from her lunch break, feeling like she hadn't in a while. There was growth, she was getting back into the swing of things. Her energy levels were topped off by the meal that she'd just had.

Now the real question. Had the bunny truly moved on, or was it watching her from the shadows somewhere? Kaori looked around, trying to figured that bit out. If it was around still, she'd want to know. Maybe it had gone on to someone else though.

Her eyes scanned the shadows, and she was reminded of a technique she'd heard about. There were several like the one she'd used to catch the rabbit, that let people merge into things. Some non-elemental Ninjutsu like the Hiding in Shadows technique could come in handy. She was more or less able to perform it as it was, but it would be a good way to look for the rabbit at least.

Forming the seals required, Kaori slipped into the shadows of the tree she was near, occasionally popping her head out of the shadows to see if the rabbit was around.

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Learned "Hiding in Shadows" [150/150]

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Nothing yet, but what had she really expected? The rabbit had proven to be fickle enough to find before. And she was just staying in place in the shadows, inhibited by her ability to move in them. Of course, she could go anywhere in the shadow she wanted, but outside of that, she'd be revealed.

There was another one though, Hiding in Surface, that acted very similarly. She knew it was the same principle, so why not try it? It was basically the same jutsu, although it was harder to move in surfaces than in Shadows, reducing speed drastically.

That's why this was inferior to the Doton related techniques that were able to be used. The benefit of learning this at least was that she could use it on non Earth stuff, which was why she focused on this one first.

Forming the Tiger seal again, Kaori willed herself to sink into the ground, not the shadows, and boom, she was hidden. Moving felt like she was going through quicksand. It was difficult to gain any sort of speed.
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Learned "Hiding in Surfaces" [150/150]

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Nothing once again, the bunny might have actually gone this time. Kaori couldn't feel too bad about it though, she'd had the companionship for a while, and had succeeded in catching it at least. But still, it would have been nice if she'd had it around again. Sometimes training like this could be boring and lonely.

It was her fault, of course, Kaori didn't like to let people see her training all out. She wanted to keep some amount of a low profile, and keep her techniques more secret than not. The fact that she was even training in public like this was difficult enough for her to reconcile, but the training grounds were certainly effective.

She could tell that the equipment here was really letting her get fully back into the swing of things. While she'd be able to do the same on her own, this was really just a faster way to progress.

Up next was for her to finish up getting a handle on the Doton jutsu that she knew of. Well, the ones she felt comfortable with learning, she knew of plenty, just wasn't sure she was ready for those just yet.

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Out of the techniques she could remember, the ones she hadn't actually had much practice with were all in the same vein as Hiding in Shadows and Hiding in Surfaces. There wasn't too much of a difference between the 3 she could remember, but they were subtle enough to warrant picking up all of them.

There was also Earth Flow River, which she hadn't quite perfected yet. She'd been planning on using that one to drag the rabbit towards her, but had decided to take an underground approach first. Good thing too, since it would have been a little difficult to catch a rabbit in a mud stream.

Earth Flow River was a good technique to create some distance, but Kaori didn't really want to create any distance, that wasn't the type of fighter she was.

Still, it never hurt to learn, so she found herself practicing the technique until she got it, creating a mudslide in front of her.

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Learned "Earth Flow River" [150/150]

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

And it was a good thing she had too! At the edges of the technique, she heard a surprised squeak as the rabbit bounded from its hiding spot. She had accidentally found it again. Grinning, Kaori saluted the bunny with two fingers, and then she was ready for round 2 of the chase.

This time her approach would be similar to how she caught it prior; she remembered that it didn't seem to know she was able to come from underground. That said, it knew now that she could do that, but that only mattered to keep it on guard. It would have no way of knowing where she'd come up from, and that was her important advantage.

To be fair, she also didn't have much in the way of figuring out where it was, she wasn't a sensory type ninja yet. So the game of cat and mouse began. Metaphorically anyhow.

Okay, so what's the next goal? Probably the worst of the 3 techniques to learn would be Hiding in Rock, because it was just worse than Hiding in Surface. It could only be used on Rocky surfaces, and was just as slow. At least it was useful in the sense that it didn't require hand seals, but Kaori didn't need to use hand seals for Doton jutsu in the first place, so ultimately it was just a bad technique for her to utilize.

That said, she needed to make sure that in any circumstance, she had the skill set to be as versatile as possible.

Falling backwards, Kaori's back sank into the ground like water, and she slipped under the surface of the ground. Hiding in Rock was fine, but she was so slow when moving through the ground that it just wasn't that useful. But she was able to at least get up to where the rabbit had been in her mind. Popping out to catch it, she realized it was gone, having moved out of the way when she went under ground.

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Learning "Hiding in Rock" [150/150]

That said, she knew something like that would happen. Kaori's next idea was to use Subterranean Voyage, since it let her move around freely, without restriction to her speed. The only issue there was that she still didn't have any sensory, but if the rabbit couldn't see her, then she at least stood a chance. Just have to remember where it was.

Kaori swapped the chakra layer around her to let her just smoothly glide through the dirt and ground. Her speed went back to normal, and she swam towards the rabbit's new location. Her hands shot out from the ground, but it dodged out of the way, her hands grazing by it.

The thing was quick, but it had begun moving before she was even out of the ground. It seemed like it just didn't stay still, and that was its way of avoiding being caught by her.

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Learning "Subterranean Voyage" [150/150]

Of course, that left Hiding Like a Mole, one of the best techniques to use. It sacrificed some speed, but allowed her to actually sense what was happening on the surface of the ground. A bunny was on the ground, the grass, bushes, trees, and other obstacles were easily sensible.

A tiny loss in speed was well worth the intelligence of where her target was. She moved underground, tracking the bunny with the technique, counting how long it took between each of the bunny's hops to change its position. Each hop, she moved closer and closer to the surface, her hands outstretched to grab it the second it landed.

And just like that, she shot to the surface, capturing the bunny once again! It kicked about in the air for a second before giving up the ruse of running. It had been caught, there was no escape again. She noted what looked like pride in the bunny's eyes as she set it down.

The damn thing was training her.

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Learned "Hiding Like a Mole"

Having caught the rabbit, Kaori set it back down and smiled. Alright, enough messing around with the bunny. She needed to get as strong as possible as fast as possible. It was time for her to begin practicing her other Taijutsu abilities, now that she'd refreshed herself on the basics of her Iwa training.

While she didn't like Konoha all that much for various reasons, it was important for her to take everything she could from their learnings and teachings. She'd let Konoha's own training empower her.

They had a martial art style known as Strong Fist, which she had received some amount of training in. It was a good style, a blending of speed and strength. She was already fairly proficient in that sort of fighting, although it was more offensive in nature than Hard-Soft was. While that was more of a counter heavy style with exploiting openings, Strong Fist was all about offensive overwhelming force.

She began to move through the various maneuvers of Strong Fist that she'd been taught.

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Learned "Strong Fist" [150/150]

First stage to start up, Leaf Gale. She attacked the dummy that was around her little area, going through a repetitive training of the kick. She wanted to get the muscle memory down. Each kick she added a little more speed and power into the blow, starting off just with the motion, and then adding in some actual force behind it. When she capped out at how hard she could do the sweeping kick, it just became a repetitive action.

Her leg was starting to feel a little numb by the time she quit, but the dummy was none the worse for wear. These things were made to withstand high level Ninjutsu, but they also felt like she was hitting an actual opponent.

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Learned "Leaf Gale" [100/100]

Giving her shin a break from the constant beating against a dummy, Kaori moved on to the next thing. A somewhat useless technique, as it left her vulnerable and airborne. Another example of how Konoha's loud, obnoxiousness was ingrained in their society. They believed that they could rush headlong into anything with no repercussions. This technique was so incredibly counterable that she would literally only use it if she was sure that it would land, or if she was intentionally baiting a counter attack so she could issue one of her own.

The technique was simple. Dynamic Entry was just a launching of oneself at the target. It was impossible to mess up.

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Learned "Dynamic Entry" [100/100]

With Dynamic Entry not actually being that difficult to learn, Kaori felt sure that she'd get a hang of this next technique just about as fast. Momentum based fighting was something she was used to doing, and while she was used to redirecting other's momentum, she had to know how to use momentum in order to actually be able to do that in the first place.

With that said, Leaf Whirlwind was a rather basic technique. She launched a high kick, used the momentum of the kick to turn and spin into a low kick, drawing her body in closer to speed up the kick, and then launch another to keep her spinning momentum as she turned.

Her body acting like a spinning top, she launched a series of high and low kicks. Leaf Whirlwind was an apt name for it.

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Learned "Leaf Whirlwind" [100/100]

While she was working on the lower level techniques, Kaori took a moment to catch her breath and focus on improving her Arhat Fist skills. Sure, she knew Shatter Palm really well, but there were others that made just as much sense to work on.

Approaching the dummy, Kaori got in close to it and readied herself in Arhat Fist's stance.

She stared at the dummy and then without warning, lifted her knee into the abdomen of the dummy, using her back foot to drive all her force into the blow. It was a perfect shot, of course, on an unmoving target, but the attack perfectly set her up to have her body pressed closely into her opponent-

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Learned "Rising Knee" [100/100]

-and with that perfect set up, she brought her shoulder into the dummy, slamming her foot down to push forward. If the dummy could move, it would have been sent flying, but it was well and good, she was just practicing so she'd have the combinations committed to her muscle memory. It was easy to flow into each attack if she practiced doing just that.

The most important thing about Taijutsu was practicing the same thing over and over again until it became second nature. Arhat Fist was a powerful stance, letting her bring out every potential ounce of strength she held in her body currently.

Shoulder Charge was an easy enough technique, that much was certain, but that didn't mean it was weak.

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Learned "Shoulder Charge" [100/100]

While she was already in the stance, she may as well capitalize on it to finish off the combination. The shoulder charge was clean, and the stomping onto the ground when she lowered her knee from Rising Knee meant that she she was low enough now that with an explosive rise of power, she could bring up her arm with an uppercut, putting her whole body into the blow.

Her palm slammed into the chin of the dummy. The head tilted backwards, the simulated dummy's neck bending in a way that would be lethal to many, but knock unconscious many who could survive as well. Blunt force with that level of power right to the chin was often lethal.

The dummy rattled with vibrations for a few seconds as she finished her move. The stinging in her arm from the backlash was back. Sooner or later she'd need to either train her body to withstand that better, or she'd need to always be using Earth Spear when she did things like that.

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Learned "Slamming Palm" [150/150]

With that, she was ready to swap back to Strong Fist's style. She was beginning to reach the peak of what she could learn at the moment without going home and fully resting. She saw the bunny sitting against a tree, watching her hitting the dummy. It was for the best that she wasn't using these moves on it, had she successfully struck the bunny, it would be dead on impact. Of course, that was assuming she could hit it. It had proven difficult enough to hit above ground.

Turning back to the dummy, she focused on what it was she needed to do next. Leaf whirlwind was great, but Leaf Great Whirlwind was a step up.

The problem was that she couldn't send the dummy up into the air to fully utilize the combination, but she'd do her best. It was interesting, she had to stagger the shots so that she wasn't going to send herself up either. But it didn't take her long to get that down.

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Learned "Leaf Great Whirlwind" [150/150]

Landing back on the ground, Kaori frowned. Okay, that was easy enough, but catching up to people who were already launched upwards from something might be difficult. You'd have to be faster than the launching speed.

That's probably what Shadow of the Dancing Leaf was for. She'd imbue her legs with some chakra and launch herself into the air, but she was starting to tire out slightly, and the technique failed to get her much air.

Landing, Kaori caught her breath. Okay, maybe doing everything back to back to back wasn't the best. She did need to start to wind down her training, but she could push a little bit more for the moment.

Okay, trying again, Kaori's speed increased dramatically this time, even though she had no target, she'd have caught up to any airborne person she sent upwards. Landing on her feet, the time to bring this to a wrap was almost on her at least.

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Learning "Shadow of the Dancing Leaf" [150/150]

There was only one more that she could learn at this moment before she really needed to take a full night's rest. Leaf Rising Wind. It was a similar principle to the Shadow of the Dancing Leaf, empowering a single bound, although this was to make a rising kick really strong.

Her body tensed up like a spring and she launched upwards, using the force of the launch to bring the kick to its utmost. The dummy slammed against her foot, and she felt the jarring impact travel up her leg as the dummy refused to move.

Landing back, she fell onto her butt, having successfully done the technique, but not successfully sticking the landing. The rabbit came over and bounced onto her lap, indicating that she was done for the time being. Rest was necessary and she'd be able to continue later, but for now, she was forced to not move.

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Learned "Leaf Rising Wind" [150/150]
Exit

17 Easter Bunny points