Wabbit Season Pt 3

Kaori returned to the spot the next day, the rabbit nowhere to be seen. It had gone home with her the previous day of training, but was gone in the morning. She didn't mind, it was a fickle enough creature. But maybe she'd see it this time.

Her previous day had been really good in terms of getting her trained up, but surprisingly, she didn't feel tired. She felt invigorated and like she hadn't in a long time. Energy levels had been massively increased, and she was ready to begin.

After all her retraining, she felt like it would be possible for her to actually begin to learn some of the higher level techniques out there, so she'd put in for some scrolls outlining the bigger techniques, checked them out and was now going to begin practicing with them. The first on her docket was the Shadow Clone technique.

It was a good one to learn, she'd give herself a sparring partner. Of course, she couldn't go all out against it, but it would let her train against someone. Part of her issue doing some aerial maneuvers the other day was that the dummies were rooted into the ground.

Going over the scroll, Kaori formed the hand seal, made a clone, and poked it. She'd done it successfully! 1 Shadow Clone, right up!

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Learned "Shadow Clone" [200/200]

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

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Perfect! A Shadow Clone meant that it was possible for her to use techniques that were that level. Of course Natsuki had been able to teach her some stuff, so she knew she wasn't too far off from being able to do that sort of thing on her own as well, but it was nice to know she could do things without someone else having to teach her, at least of Jounin level techniques.

Time to put in some work on the doton technique learning though. First things first, she needed some large areas of Earth. Luckily, the inside of this building was made with actual terrain just suited for practicing jutsu like this.

Moving Earth Core was a pretty nice jutsu for surprise traps or elevation changes. Learning that was vital. Going through the hand seals for it, she put her hands on the ground, flooding her chakra into the earth. The ground shook and then it began to rise with her on it, moving upwards and creating a giant plateau.

"Fuck yeah, this is amazing!" Kaori was proud of herself. The best part of it was that she didn't even need to use all that much chakra to make the thing, and in so doing, she didn't need to maintain it either.

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Learned "Moving Earth Core" [200/200]

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

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'Bunny Arrival' :

The rabbit hopped up to her, looking around at the surroundings like it was surprised with how high they'd just been raised up. It looked at her, skeptically. Kaori laughed, and pulled out a carrot she'd brought for it, handing it over to the rabbit, petting its fur while it nibbled at the carrot.

"Hello there little buddy." she said. Good to see it was still just hanging around. It seemed like it enjoyed being around. The other Kaori, a shadow Clone version of herself poofed into a cloud of smoke, as she let the chakra in it return to her. She didn't need it at the moment, just wanted to know that she could make it.

There were some more things to work on before she started to make use of the platform she'd made. The Earth-Style Wall was a good one to learn, more wall techniques that were stronger than the others she knew. Flipping through the hand seals for it, she familiarized herself with the technique's normal usage.

In front of her, an incredibly dense rock wall grew out of the ground. Perfect! Kaori was pleased with how fast she was learning these techniques. Each new thing took a while to get down perfectly, eating into the day, but she was going to push forward with learning as much as she could. The Chuunin Exams were coming up soon, and she knew the competition was going to be rough. People like Mae and Hibiki and Natsuki were all skilled in their own way, and she was sure the other competitors might have some tricks up their sleeves too.

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Learned "Earth-Style Wall" [250/200]

There was a technique that Kaori had seen that would help her fight against someone like Mae. She'd thought about trapping her in the ground or something like that, but what if she needed to actually make her unconscious for it to count as a win? She didn't know how the Exams would be proctored, but they might be in the mindset of someone not being out until they quit or are unconscious.

That's why this one was a perfect jutsu to master. A nice trap of Doton that sustained itself by draining chakra from the captives inside. While she'd like to test out the particular amount that it did that, Kaori wasn't about to test it on the rabbit, and she didn't want to drain herself by sustaining it for a while either.

However, Earth Prison Dome of Magnificent Nothingness was still a wonderful jutsu to learn in principle. Especially because the more people got caught in it, the more chakra got drained. That made this a wonderfully self-sustained jutsu. It repaired itself with the chakra of those inside, while also restoring her own chakra. And since she was so good at Doton, she'd be able to even with 1 person begin regaining her own chakra supply.

In front of her, she made a perfect rendition of the jutsu.

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Learned "Earth Prison Dome of Magnificent Nothingness" [200/200]

Kaori consulted her scrolls for the other things that she'd need to do first before beginning her cave training. There was a technique that she saw that was weird. A sticky mud summoning thing to trap people. That could come in handy as a trap but only because she didn't need to use hand seals for Doton, so she could surprise someone while using Taijutsu.

Of course, she couldn't rely on that, and once that trick was used on someone, it wasn't going to be able to be used again. Well, it could, but not with the same element of surprise.

Kaori didn't like to rely on Sealless Ninjutsu, it wasn't a good thing for her to give up all her tricks. To be fair, she didn't even know if she'd use all of her tricks during the exams, at least publicly. Once they were on display, people would know about them. There was some good in keeping them hidden as long as possible, especially for someone like her.

Kaori's technique worked though, and the air opened up with a bunch of mud pouring down over a dummy. Wonderful, she could move on to new things.

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Learned "Sticky Earth Drop" [200/200]

After taking a short break to refresh her chakra levels, Kaori was ready to begin training again in earnest. Time was ticking down to the beginning of the Chuunin Exams, and if she wasn't at the top of her game from the get-go, she wouldn't be winning. The promise of a promotion to Special Jounin and learning some high level stuff really got Kaori's blood pumping; in a good way, of course. She was pretty excited. That, and she'd gotten to learn and use so many techniques that she was confident she'd make a competent Shinobi.

Even a match for the average Jounin, Kaori's confidence in her own abilities were only matched by her surprise for the skill levels and talent of some of the other participants. Of note, there was Mae, Natsuki, Innocence, and Hibiki. She didn't know any of the other entrants personally, but Sera had arrived late, so likely unreliable. Nao maybe, Hyuuga were powerful enough. Nakaba was a puppet user, she could deal with that easily enough.

But Natsuki had already mastered some high level techniques and taught her some, that meant he at least had a little more training to start out with, so he was likely on her level. Mae wasn't going to be much of an issue, but if nobody could damage her, she wouldn't be losing in a 'duke it out' contest. Hibiki on the opposite end was a Doton and Steel user with a lot of strength behind her punches, so she'd be able to take out some people in one or two solid hits.

Innocence was only of note because of her relation to Nyguyen Uchiha. It would be cathartic to beat her down.

Ruminating was pointless though, so long as she trained herself up as much as possible, she'd be able to win any scenario she found herself in, right? She had the advantage right now of having a wide arsenal of abilities to pull from, a decent physical prowess, and was already planning on how to beat each of the people she'd met.

That didn't mean she was ready to stop training though. On the contrary, she was beginning to get into the swing of things with the training. All of the Doton she could learn were beginning to clear up, but there was a threshold beyond what she was learning now that she might even be able to push into if she played her cards right with these training sessions.

Always be pushing yourself, that was how she could improve.

Flipping through the hand seals and doing the chakra movements as the scroll showed, Kaori began to practice the Tunneling Technique. While it wasn't useful for combat in a way that mattered (she could just use Hiding Like a Mole if she wanted to remain underground), it did give her a tunnel with which she could practice some of the other jutsu that she needed to learn.

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Learned "Tunneling Technique" [200/200]

Before she went down into the tunnel to practice though, Kaori turned to one of the walls she'd created earlier. A useless technique she was about to perform, but it was all in the interests of self improvement. Rock Collapse was good to destroy Doton jutsu, that much was sure, but she might as well just use a different offensive technique to achieve the same results. That said, it would be kind of interesting to mess with some Doton users by just punching their techniques and destroying them seallessly, so that she appeared to be a lot stronger than she was.

Besides, she could see some use for it, although using it offensively in the exams might be difficult, she wasn't going to always be in the exams either. In the real world, it could come in handy here or there, so there was no real harm in learning it.

When practicing a technique, she always began with the hand seals, even though she didn't need them, and this was no exception. It had many, but she didn't mind that. That just meant that she would almost never use it with seals unless she was maintaining some sort of image.

She watched as her Earth Wall crumbled, smirking. A smashing success.

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Learned "Rock Collapse" [200/200]

Now onto the one that could get her injured. Kaori had been putting this one off til closer to last because she was going to enter the tunnel she'd made and collapse it with herself inside. While she wouldn't get stuck because she could easily move through the ground, she might actually hurt herself in the collapse itself, which she didn't really want to do.

Still, nothing like practical applications of jutsu to actually learn them. Books and theories were all good until you needed to pull them out of thin air, and then you were maybe successful, maybe not. She'd rather be sure she could use something than try it when she wasn't really able to.

Psyching herself up, Kaori walked down the tunnel in the plateau she'd made, going about 5 meters before she turned around and faced the light of the entrance. Preparing herself to move fast, she did the hand seals for the technique and bolted for the entrance as the tunnel began to collapse around her.

The Rock Lodging Destruction was a phenomenal trap to set off, collapsing an entire cave or tunnel, and Kaori was of course successful in learning it.

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Learning "Rock Lodging Destruction" [200/200]

With that one out of the way, Kaori only had one more Doton jutsu to learn before taking a break and picking up her Taijutsu training again. This one was similarly situational, but considering how often she'd be fighting opponents who liked to hide in the ground with Doton, there was merit in learning this one.

In truth, she probably should pick up sensory as well soon enough, so she could tell where people were in conjunction with herself, but first thing was first; Opening Earth Rising Excavation. Launching an opponent out of a volcano made of earth would be incredible.

Of course, it wasn't a true volcano, Kaori didn't have Lava Release, nor was she quite that sadistic to actually burn people to death in that manner even if she did. But still, ejecting hidden targets from underground was the way to do things. It would give her the ability to deal with other Doton Users a bit, and that was definitely her biggest issue.

It was interesting, she knew Doton wasn't a very common element in this nation, but it seemed like there were several of note around.

Doing the hand seals and performing the jutsu, Kaori was pleased to have formed the volcano. At least that part worked.

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Learned "Opening Earth Rising Excavation" [200/200]

For a while, Kaori rested to regain her strength, on top of the plateau she'd made. The bunny and her chilled in the center, resting and looking upwards as they lounged about. While she didn't mind doing a lot of training, she appreciated getting to do nothing and rest. She more or less began to let her mind wander while she drifted off.

It went through a bunch of different maneuvers while she was in her little stupor. A little bit of mental training began, something she didn't often do, as she liked to get things down herself physically, but these maneuvers weren't that much different than others she'd already mastered to begin with.

There was an Arhat Fist maneuver called Crushing Palm that was like Slamming or Shattering Palm, except angled downwards towards something on the ground. Why she needed to practice that, she wouldn't know, nor would she. The principle of it was enough for her to just imagine doing it. To be fair, the entire style was a relatively simple one, she often used it when complexity wasn't required. It was a very brute force style, and there were very few that could match the sheer output that the technique allowed.

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Learned "Crushing Palm" [200/200]

Then there was one called Smashing Boulder. As far as techniques were concerned, it was a strong punch, not much different that Shattering Palm, except that it was a closed fist punch. Oooo, so much more strength. Generally speaking, she was already capped out in the output of power she could produce with just Arhat Fist and Shattering Palm by itself, so there wasn't much reason to go higher in terms of technique power.

That had sort of been the real reason that she didn't bother to learn the higher levels of the style earlier. They were just so simple that she could have replicated them earlier if she wanted to. But if she was not dedicating herself to mastering taijutsu and everything, she'd need to at least have the techniques down in theory, if not in practice.

Kaori's focus shifted towards imagining that she was facing a boulder and punching it. To nobody's surprise, she destroyed the boulder in her mind. Neat. Next jutsu to imagine herself doing please. This one was boring and she had no reason to give Arhat Fist any more thought after this moment in terms of learning new maneuvers.

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Learned "Smashing Boulder" [200/200]

In all honesty, she had to give Konoha credit. She could utilize their fighting style just as effectively as Arhat Fist, generating both massive power and high speed strikes. That was a benefit to the Strong Fist style that she had noticed, it was very aggressive, rush down, and intense high speed attacks designed to put someone down fast.

A lot of the moves were a little flashy, but in a technical sense. They were very energy intensive and focused on generating momentum for the power or speed. There were some, though, like the Leaf Destroying Rising Rock, that generated power in one elbow by using the force of both arms.

It was a decent technique, and she could definitely see herself making use of it. She noticed that Strong Fist tended to focus a lot on spins and twists to generate force. It was something she didn't really like, since she preferred to stay mobile and able to move, whereas relying on momentum techniques meant that she wasn't able to move when and where she wanted to. At least with this one, she only had her elbows and arms to manage, which was decent enough to consider using it.

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Learned "Leaf Destroying Rising Rock" [200/200]

Then there was the Leaf Great Flash that was a good distance closer and fight opener. She didn't need to rely on body flicker for that sort of thing, but maybe she could combine them? Lots of speed, lots of power, turn it into a rush down opener. That was more of a practice thing, she couldn't just visualize that, but maybe it would work in practice.

Still, the technique itself was a decent one. She actually got up for this one, disrupting the rest of the bunny slightly as it looked at her, wondering what she was about to do. Kaori looked for one of the dummies on the plateau to target. Lining up with one that she had a direct path towards, she shifted into the style and ran towards it, launching a lateral kick at the thing to finish up her charge.

There was definitely some force behind it, and would have more if she was putting her all into it as well. She noticed that she could have transitioned into any number of other maneuvers from this position, but she didn't like a frontal assault like that. It's like Natsuki told Hibiki. Sometimes rushing down in a straight line wasn't the best idea.

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Learned "Leaf Great Flash" [200/200]

The next technique she needed to learn was Leaf Strong Whirlwind, which was distinctly different from Leaf Great Whirlwind. Kaori could laugh at the naming schemes of the village, they were a little on the nose, but she couldn't argue with the results at the very least.

She practiced the backwards kick spin technique over and over. The sound of her heel hitting the dummy filled the area for a while while she practiced and perfected putting power behind the kick. It wasn't like she was visible up here, she didn't mind doing whatever for the time being. And even if they did, she was a Taijutsu practitioner, there was no hiding that from anyone.

Taijutsu and Doton, it was obvious those were her skills, but nobody needed to know her exact skill level until it was time to reveal any of them. Tempering her strikes, Kaori began to mess around with making the attack slower and weaker, or slow but strong, or fast but weak. She wanted to make sure that she was able to use the technique as good as possible. Suitable for any occasion.

That said, it didn't take long before she felt that she was perfect at this point, at least as much as she could with training.

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Learned "Leaf Strong Whirlwind" [200/200]

Only a couple more maneuvers to learn and she'd be done with what she was capable of learning in the Strong Fist Style. Lion's Barrage was one that was like the others that launched someone up into the air. There were other techniques that did similar stuff, but she didn't mind learning how to do aerial combat.

She wasn't that big of a fan of being in the air though. Maybe it was her affinity for Doton, but she didn't actually like to be airborne. It wasn't like she could fly. If she could though, she wouldn't mind it as much. There were stories about great Iwa-nin who possessed the ability to fly. It was a shame she wouldn't be able to learn the tricks to that, dominance over air and Earth would mean that she was a massively powerful shinobi.

Even still, she practiced the combination, although she used a Shadow Clone to practice against so that she would be able to do so. It poofed on impact when she hit it, the strength was enough to overwhelm the constitution of the shadow clone, but she was able to complete the Lion's Barrage. One more.

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Learned "Lion's Barrage" [200/200]

Making another shadow clone, Kaori and the clone went to the edge of the plateau, a 50 foot drop. The bunny hopped along behind them, reading the situation. It's like it knew what she was going to do. It must have seen so many Shinobi practicing these same techniques over time, given its chosen living quarters were the wilds of this building.

The rabbit bounced onto Kaori's back, latching on. In surprised, Kaori almost stopped what she was doing, but it seemed the rabbit wanted a ride down with them. The last technique she could learn was the Peregrine Falcon Drop. It started too slow to really be useful, but picked up speed over time until you pile drive your target into the ground after picking up speed.

The strength wasn't anything more than she could manage, but it was a good way for her to practice the technique and get down from the plateau she made without having to use Doton jutsu. Although she'd get rid of the plateau in a few moments, that much was sure. Always leave a place better than you found it.

Leaping down, Kaori wrapped her shadow clone in an embrace and they began their descent. The slammed into the ground at speed and the clone poofed. There were at least two more maneuvers she could learn, but they'd wait for the moment.

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Learned "Peregrine Falcon Drop" [200/200]

There were a couple of other things she could technically learn before she decided to call it a day for the day's practice. While Kaori had done a lot today, she wouldn't be happy until she'd completed her entire training. It was over the course of several weeks that she'd really gotten into the full swing of things again lately, but these last few days have really been a massive focus of her attention.

If she wasn't fully ready by the end of this, then she wouldn't really ever be. That's how she wanted to leave it though. Get as strong as possible under her own power. The nation of Iwagakure had to prove its own might, and Kaori wasn't about to let it be put into history as a footnote. She'd get strong, prove her might, earn Konoha's trust, and then do what she could to win back Iwa's independence while taking Konoha down a notch if possible.

It was with that in mind that she went to perfect her training of Iwa's techniques. Hard Style: Boulder Smash was just such a technique. Kaori noted the similarity between it and some of Konoha's whirlwind techniques, but she'd be able to utilize it while fighting in the Hard-Soft Style, unlike those ones. If she was going to represent Iwa's forces as a Konoha-nin, she needed to be proficient in as much things as she could to represent her home country.

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Learned open Iwa custom exclusive "Hard Style Boulder Smash" [250/250]

And finally, there was one last bit of taijutsu maneuvering to master before she could truly call it quits for the day, rest on what she had learned, and come back tomorrow with more scrolls. The only problem was that she was running low on stamina to actually perform the maneuver the way it was intended. Because it called for the Shadow Clone technique, she knew she could do it in theory, so she just studied up on the way that it needed to be performed. There were other techniques she'd done that were similar enough that she knew she had the physical ability to actually do it, she just wasn't currently able to because it was a lot of training throughout the day.

Hard Style: Great Mountain Summit was a technique that just actually overwhelmed the opponent with force and numbers. It was actually very similar to Strong Fist in a lot of ways. The two styles were almost hand in hand with each other in terms of their effectiveness, although Hard Style focused more on disorienting the opponent while damaging them, while Strong Fist was more about maximizing speed and force to take them out. The disorientation was an important factor to consider.

All said and done, Kaori was sure that she was probably one of the best trained Shinobi participating in the upcoming exams. In all honesty, her current level surpassed that of some of the Jounin she'd met in her home village at this point, as well as some of the more average Jounin from this one too.

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Learned open Iwa custom exclusive "Hard Style: Great Mountain Summit" [250/250]

Before she wrapped things up here though, she really needed to make sure that she put things back the way that she had found them. Going through her hand seals, Kaori lowered the plateau of earth she'd made, restoring the terrain back to the level it was at before. She was pretty pleased with that, and decided to take a bit of a stroll.

The rabbit hopped alongside her now, having decided that it enjoyed spending time with Kaori. She kept things interesting enough to watch, her training was practically relentless over these last few weeks.

Kaori didn't mind the company at all as she went for a few laps around the interior of the Grand Konoha Training Facility. This place was doing wonders for her, that was for sure.

The rabbit began to hop ahead of her, and Kaori was reminded about how all this had begun. She was chasing the rabbit, trying to catch it for no reason other than she'd thought she'd seen one. It had been a wily rabbit, but over the course of her training montage, she'd caught it, befriended it, and spent several days repeating that process.

It was kind of thanks to this little bunny that she'd even managed to get as far as she did in her practicing.

Wondering if it was the same bunny that had bit and stole Natsuki's Haori, Kaori would never really know the answer to that question. She couldn't speak to animals, and it might have been different. Maybe this was a family of ninja rabbits and there were different ones? They made good training partners, that was sure enough, and to be in this building? It made sense.

Whatever the case was, Kaori was getting really tired. She felt herself begin to slow down as the rabbit continued to pull ahead of her in the race they had going.

Laughing a little, she called it there. She wasn't going to improve anymore today. That ship was now more or less something she needed to let dock for a while, and she could continue more once she rested up.

"Feel free to come home with me, little buddy." Kaori said to the bunny, finding herself having grown a little attached over the course of her training sessions. With that, she set out.

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Exit