Practice is the Path to Perfection

Akiko always wished the Academy taught more Ijutsu to her, but she was biased, being taught the basics of Ijutsu chakra manipulation by her mother. Despite this she never quite perfected healing hands technique as she never had the opportunity to practice on a live target until today. While working on her Pressure Strike Technique, Akiko was switching between testing her new speed and strength limits while fueled by her pressure points. Amongst traversing the various terrain offered for training, Akiko was having so much fun.
Narrowly, she spotted an unconscious Kiri Genin crumpled near some rocks. Upon further inspection she had some minor scorch marks over her body and some blood coming from her head.

Quickly approaching, Akiko looked around for clues to no avail and began attempting Healing Hands as her medical training instructed her to. She could feel the warmth of her chakra coating her hands in a soft green glow as she’d done so many times before. Now she had to put it to use, slowly Akiko closed the distance between her and the hurt Genin. For a moment Akiko thought she was making a mistake but then it happened, she noticed the burns losing some of their redness and swelling. Emboldened, she focused on the Genin’s head cut, and the other burns. As Akiko was finishing the Genin regained consciousness.

Apparently the Genin had an accident with an explosive tag and narrowly escaped with what Akiko told her might be a concussion. She thanked Akiko before heading towards the medical center, giving her a surge of passion for her work in healing the clumsy Genin. As Akiko turned back to her Pressure Strike training she bounded off back into the thick of the training grounds, testing her boosted speed and strength yet again.

Trained Jutsu:

The next day Akiko returned to the training grounds, now focussed on her combat prowess before she was assigned to any missions where she would need to keep herself safe. She had already learned the Chakra Scalpel in the Academy, but now she wanted to hone it with extended knowledge she found on the Jutsu. Akiko started with sparring dummies and her tried and true Chakra Scalpel attacks. Knowing she lacked the precision required of a master Ijutsu fighter, she hoped his new fighting style would prove useful. Remembering the forms from the scrolls she read, Akiko slowly started incorporating more taijutsu based attacks into her typical strikes. Before she knew it she was flowing her Chakra Scalpel strikes together in a succession she had never achieved before, only missing her timing here and there. As the hours passed her Chakra dwindled, but eventually Akiko claimed her new knowledge and the first fighting style she ever liked.

Moving on to the next Jutsu she wanted to practice, Akiko returned to working with her Chakra Scalpel. This time however, she remained seated and focussed her might into the blades. Little by little she felt the length push out until falling back to normal. Her goal was to extend the blades at least a couple inches though it was proving difficult to reshape a Jutsu she was so used to. Hopping up, Akiko returned to sparring the fighting dummies while striking with the scalpels. She was hoping the flow of simulated combat would help the chakra extend, and she was right! Before she knew it Akiko had pushed the limit of her chakra scalpels by 2 inches. After another hour of training she inched her way to 4, then 6 inches total she was able to extend the blades. Unfortunately this began to feel like a hard wall for Akiko, unable to hone the chakra sharp enough past this length.

Now that she was using this new shape of Chakra Scalpel, Akiko knew she was ready to work on the final Jutsu she borrowed. As long as she could extend the chakra out, she knew she could harden it. The sun was setting soon but Akiko fought on, learning earlier that she could shape the Chakra Scalpel easier when in use. Her goal now was to harden the scalpel into something more damaging, but also something she could defend with if necessary. Despite her dwindling chakra reserves, Akiko seemed to understand this Jutsu quicker than the previous one. Early on she could see the superficial cuts in the training dummies, something her Chakra Scalpel was not inflicting. Just as the last light from the sun was fading she could tell her blades had hardened and formed just as the Jutsu described. Falling to her knees exhausted after another day of training, she was quickly comforted by a large coat over her shoulders. Looking up she saw her proud father, now off duty to collect his diligent new Genin.

[Exit]

Trained Jutsu:

Returning to the training grounds she was becoming so familiar with, Akiko came with the new supplies she had recently purchased in order to practice. However, before she would be needing those tools she wanted to first try her hand at a common enough water release, the Water Bullet Technique. She’d seen this Jutsu many times throughout Kiri as many people had Suiton Release and this Jutsu in particular was incredibly versatile. I hope I don’t get dehydrated after this, Akiko thought as she wove the hand signs she’d seen so many times before. Feeling a coolness swell in her core, Akiko pursed her lips and released the chakra inside. She had hoped for something substantial, but out spewed a gentle trickle of water as if from a small fountain.

The knowledge that she did in fact create that water with chakra did little to dissuade her quiet humiliation before she attempted again. Each ‘spit take’ growing larger with each try. As with her other Suiton Techniques, Akiko seemed to have a knack for molding this specific chakra. Feeling accomplished enough in her ability to use the technique, Akiko took a snack break before continuing on with her training for the day.

The next technique was one Akiko knew how to do but could do better, hoping to spend this time in the nature of the training grounds to practice. Pulling out the Fuinjutsu materials she brought, (the calligraphy brush, the inkwell, and the scrolls and tags), Akiko began carefully tracing the seals and symbols required to recreate an Enclosing Technique. She would then spend the next few hours tracing the same calligraphy with a dry brush until she could recreate it in seconds. Satisfied she wanted to attempt now from the beginning. Wetting her brush, Akiko quickly recorded the seal, testing her speed and accuracy. Then she released her newly trained Water Release: Water Bullet Technique, weaving additional signs to bind the water stream released into the seal. In a splash of vanishing water and a puff of smoke, the successful Enclosed Jutsu lay before Akiko. “Yes!” She exclaimed to herself, I knew it was really that simple!

Now with proof of her Fuinjutsu capabilities, however minor, Akiko moved on to the final Jutsu she wanted to learn today: how to recreate the Explosive Tag Seal she purchased a few days earlier. Placing it gently next to a blank tag of similar size, Akiko began by deconstructing the seal. With a little trial and error, she was able to theorize the seal was segmented into several main functions: Chakra Storage, Chakra Release, and the complex Programmable Contingencies. Thankfully the tag she had wasn't too complicated and was easily parsed into a simple hand sign trigger.

She began with her blank tag by inscribing the chakra storage seal, adding some of her own chakra to do so. Then Akiko bound the chakra to the tag so that when released it would do so at an explosive rate. Finally, she finished the tag seal by programming it to explode when activated by her hand sign. The only step left was to test the creation, and Akiko did so, finding a large boulder she attached the explosive tag to and retreated. When safe she looked on as she spiked her chakra in the direction of the tag seal with a hand sign, watching the yet again successful seal recreation burst into shattering flames. With that Akiko was satisfied with another day of self-teaching and she headed home.

Trained Jutsu:

Every day I spend here is just another step towards Father, Akiko thought as she walked yet again through the gates leading to the training facility. She wouldn't have to stray far today as all she wanted to work with here was the training dummies near the entrance. She would begin by warming up her precision with a technique she loved from the academy, the Temporary Paralysis Jutsu. Like many of Akiko’s favored Jutsu’s, this one was a method of disabling not harming an enemy. It relied on precise chakra control to overwhelm the target's own chakra network at key points. Akiko would spend the next hour or so circling the well designed training dummies and striking their disabling points with her chakra empowered fingers. The dummies might not have been paralyzed, but Akiko could feel her accuracy getting stronger with every mistake.

With that warm up out of the way, Akiko was confident in her revisited skill from the academy. Now it was time for her to try something new she had only read about, a Jutsu that can manipulate your nail’s growth and strength to create a tool or weapon when in need. As someone who had yet to find a weapon she felt comfortable using, Akiko jumped at the idea of not using a weapon at all and relying further on her own chakra and body. As she practiced the chakra flow described in the scroll she had read she found her nails were in fact growing, just at a nearly imperceptible rate. Frustrated, Akiko began wildly fluctuating her chakra flow hoping she just needed a different frequency to cause the accelerated growth. Unfortunately this only burned her out and before long she needed a breather and a couple chocolates.

Now that her rest was concluded Akiko returned to the precise control she tried the first time, able to repeat slow growth immediately and hoping it would just get faster with practice. Before long her nails had extended enough to start using against the training dummies, though they had yet to reach the full hardness and length of the mastered Jutsu. As she began carefully striking the dummies, Akiko suddenly realized the strength she had imbued in her nails. Her fingers even, only felt a slight pull as she began letting loose and really clawing some of the mannequins around her. As she fell into the flow she could feel her nails emboldening, reaching their desired length and changing the marks they left from scratches to gouges. Akiko stepped back for a moment and looked down at her vicious claws, somehow noticing only now that her toenails had extended in kind and her poking out from her sandals. Startled, she canceled the Jutsu and watched as her nails slowly reverted back to how they were this morning.  

Curious about even further control over the chakra, as to avoid another scary toe incident, Akiko began practicing again, this time limiting even more chakra and focussing on one single index finger. Struggling to route the chakra correctly, Akiko made a tiger seal with the hand intending to elongate a nail and instantly she watched it grow to the length of her previous claws in an instant. Ecstatic at her discovery she did notice it was less durable than the claws however, probably due to more chakra being wasted on the precision of one nail. With a new idea, Akiko realized she might be able to use this single, weaker nail as a chisel instead of buying one of the fancy ones for Fuinjutsu. Happy with her morning of training, Akiko went off to compare her new Jutsu to the various shinobi chisels she could window shop.

Trained Jutsu: