Why do it a year from now when I can do it now? (Training, flashback) (me and Jigoku only)

It was Three years ago on this day, a boy started his training. It was a warm summer day, the sun high in the air as the wind blew on the trees, and made the fence seem to rattle as if someone or something was shaking it. the ground was littered with logs and shuriken, even kunia. This was a local training field in the village hidden in the leaves. While everyone could go there, it was empty today. A figure walked onto the feild. He looked to be 8, especially cause of his baby face. His blue hair picked him out, it somehow standing out. A brown robe like coat miscued all of his other features. This was Kuma Kaguya, the black sheep of the kaguya clan. He had no features of the kaguya clan on him what so ever. He would walk onto the field, bare foot, no weapons or ANYTHING on him but his clothes. He entered the field walking in, having a calm air about him. As he walked in, noone would notice his arm getting ready to punch. As he got to a trunk stil in the ground he would throw a punch, his cape suddenly spreading open, flowing dramtically in the wind. His now flowing cape showed the rest of his outfit. He wore a pair of long, dark-brown pants with two dark red rings on the bottom, a belt tied around his waist, a traditional Japanese sarashi, though no shirt. After this one, starting punch, he would be flying kicks and punches at this one trunk as if it was something he hated with every fiber of his being. However, his face was not angry, but had a smirk of enjoyment, loving training. Kuma, or Akuma as the Kaguya would refer to him, was going all out on the trunk. Normal people would be worried about breaking bones doing this, but not him. Being a Kaguya who inherited their rare ability, his bone were the hardest in the world. He could jump off a cliff and not a single bone would crack....mind you he would have some head trauma and definite skin loss but still, REALLY strong bones. He was throwing punches like there was no tomorrow, and kicks like his life depended on it. He finally stopped after forty-four, Kuma stepping back panting. "This is harder than it looks." He said.

(wc: 400, 250+150=now Novice 2)

Jigoku sat in a tree plotted in the middle of a training field in Konohagakure no Sato. The field was actually fairly large, many acres in size, and there were many people, mostly Genin teams scattered about who were practicing their abilities. About the land, there were plots of scattered forest that Genin would practice concealment in, though at least 70% of the training grounds was nothing but... Well, ground. It was around 6 AM and the sun had already risen, yet the heat was sweltering. It had to be at least 85 degree weather, and if one looked far enough into the distance, they could see heat waves.

Jigoku Uchiha was the 8 year old protégé of the Uchiha Clan. He had a boyish face that easily portrayed his age. He had light eyebrows and very rounded facial features typical of his age. He wore a simple white v-neck short-sleeved shirt with the Uchiha Clan crest large on his back. The was a smaller crest on his left breast pocket that symbolized the Konohagakure no Sato. He wore a pair of black shorts made from a cloth that allowed maximum maneuverability and went about two inches below his knees. He wore a pair of white Shinobi shoes that exposed the toes and heels. Beneath them was a pair of black socks that went midway between the middle of the calf and his knee.

He was reading through his textbook, given to him by his Ninjutsu sensei at the Shinobi Academy. It detailed all of the basics of chakra, hand seals, the 5 elements and their relationships with each other, the different ranks of Ninjutsu, and that wasn't even the half of it. He preferred to learn from this book than from his father because the book tended to yell at you less and keep the degrading to a minimum. Whereas when he worked with his father, the exact opposite was true. Instead, he would simply expect Jigoku to get everything right on his first try with no exceptions and if he did not, it was the world's most despicable crime. Anger flared in his eyes as thoughts of the man tormented his mind, and he gripped his textbook so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

He was about halfway through the details on chakra. Apparently, chakra came from spirit energy and physical, bodily energy. It was when these two energies mixed that what was called chakra was formed. By training their body and increasing their vitality, a Shinobi could increase his physical energy and thus increase his total amount of chakra. Chakra could then be utilized in a Shinobi's Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and sometimes, even Taijutsu depending on the type. That meant that once Jigoku grasped all the basics, he would need to train his stamina and vitality in order to perform more powerful techniques and more techniques in general. He could jog, do sprints, or whatever gave him the most results. The how didn't exactly matter yet.

As Jigoku licked his finger and turned a page, his ears picked out a peculiar sound. There was a pounding on the tree trunk he was sitting in, but it sounded like nothing he had ever heard. Almost like someone was punching the tree, but that couldn't be true for two reasons. One, no one was stupid enough to mangle their hands by using a tree as a punching bag, and two, because the sound wasn't bone. It was something much more dense... Much stronger. Jigoku set his book in a fork in the branches and eased himself forward so that he was in a position to view whatever was pounding onto the tree beneath him.

For some incomprehensible reason, there was some idiot about Jigoku's age punching the tree he was set up in. He watched for a moment, almost amazed at how the kid endured the pain. And upon closer inspection, he also noticed that the shape of his hand was perfect. Not the skin, but the bone structure. Those bones... They were not normal. They should be broken with the force that the kid was punching the tree with. And yet, they somehow maintained their amazing shape. He sat for a moment, mentally listing all the incorrect aspects of his form, power, even posture. This wasn't the type of training the kid needed to be doing and Jigoku knew it.

Jigoku spoke in a cheerful voice. "Hey! Uh... Buddy! That is definitely not how you practice Taijutsu. Your first step should be strengthening and empowering your body so that it can perform high level Taijutsu. You should be jogging to increase your stamina, or sprints to increase your speed, or working out to strengthen your body and apply the force you need to actually damage your opponent. I'm Jigoku Uchiha, what is your name?"

Jigoku placed a hand on the branch above him and pulled himself backward to look into his book a bit more. He clambered between the branches and sat himself in a wedge in the fork of two branches. He adjusted himself a few times to find a comfortable position a few times before he had to completely reorient himself and turn around. He grabbed his book and opened I once more, flipping through pages in an attempt to find where he was, while simultaneously listening to the kid's response, and, since he lost visual contact with him, he listened to see if he would resume the training that, no matter the strength of his bones, was detrimental to his health.

WC: 925

B1 -> I1 Ninjutsu
75 Words left over

Kuma was just about to start attacking the tree again, when he heard a voice above him. The voice spoke in a somewhat cheerful voice. He heard this voice talk to him saying how to train tiajutsu properly. He couldn't believe it. An Uchiha, the whimps who use genjutsu, rather than physical fighting, was telling him how to train tiajutsu. Then as he listened he realized he actually knew what he was talking about. He smiled and looked up at him. "My name?" He asked, a huge grin on his face. "I am the GREAT Kuma, the next Hokage!" He said, his huge grin somehow getting bigger. "Though you might know me as Kmuka or Akuma Kaguya!" He yelled to the sky as if proclaiming his name to the gods. From appearance alone, NOONE could be able to come the the conclusion that this man, was Kaguya. His hair was blue, not white, his body did not have the clan tatto on it anywhere, and the robe like cape obscured most of his body. Unless one knew of the bones he had AND had tried to damage it in some way, noone would be able to find out..... and of course him yelling it too. "Don't worry, I'll do that later, this will just decide how many of my exercises I will do." He said so this guy knew. "H-h-Hey! You ask me a question than run off?" He questioned. "I thought you Uchiha were supposed to be raised all prim and popper and all that."

(WC: 256 = Novice 3, 56 left over)

Ahh... He was a Kaguya... That would explain a lot. Kaguya tended to be ferocious and battle hungry, caring little for their own safety. And... That also made sense of how... Wait, what was it? Kuma? Whatever, it also made sense of how his hand was still intact. He knew little of the Kaguya Clan, but his father had made it his business to make Jigoku study the basics of most known clans with Kekkei Genkai, so he knew the basics of how their Kekkei Genkai worked. Apparently, they could control calcium deposits or something which controlled the growth of their bone instantly. And their skeletons were almost indestructible. It was hard to imagine such an ability... And Jigoku was stuck with some eyes on steroids.

He thought about his Sharingan... The Copy Wheel Eye. The insane ability of a rare, select few of the Uchiha Clan who exposed themselves to great emotional pain. It had abilities that many ninja could only dream of. It granted access to many Genjutsu, illusory techniques triggered by sight of the Sharingan. It allowed a massive increase in vision, allowing users to track high speed movements and items even if they are small. This same ability also gave way to a predictive capability of the Sharingan. When an opponent moved in the slightest, the user could use the tiny movement to predict what would happen, portraying the illusion that they had obscene reaction speeds or the ability to predict the future.

And that was only half of it. The user could see chakra, too, to deduce a large amount of information, including an opponent's chakra nature or even whether they were under Genjutsu. And the possibilities didn't stop there, the user could tell the life state of someone they were observing by determining if their chakra signature was strong or weak in comparison to its usual state. And the final ability was to read and copy the movements and techniques of other Shinobi. Just by observing techniques with the Sharingan, a user can exactly replicate hand seals, stances, and at advanced levels, where and how to focus one's chakra

He thought of whether he would ever master the Sharingan. After all, it was only granted to a select few Uchiha, and it required extremely dire situations to activate. What would he have to go through? Somebody close to him dying? Himself being in danger? Irritation, anger, protective instinct? It was supposedly different for everyone, depending on their emotional state and values. If one cared for a snow globe more than anything else and it fell off a shelf that person may unlock the Sharingan and manage to catch the snow globe, despite their usual limitations because of the aspects that lead to superhuman reflexes.

Jigoku shook himself mentally. There was someone he was talking to. He raised an eyebrow hearing how Kuma viewed the Uchiha Clan. "Prim and proper? Sometimes. But even if we were, it wouldn't mean we all turned out that way. And that's not the point, er... Kuma? Yeah. That's not the point. Your bones may be indestructible, but your skin and ligaments are. You could cause irreparable harm to your hands training like this."

Gripping his book in one hand and a branch above his head, Jigoku swung and hurled his weight forward so that he soard out of the tree and a few feet past Kuma. "I'm training, man. Learning. Didn't mean to run off.".

Jigoku opened his book and began to read from where he left off. He came across the basics of hand seals. Apparently, there were 6 hand seals that were used conventionally, and some specific hand seals that only worked with specific techniques. He read about each of their respective purposes. As a whole, they basically allowed the user to focus their chakra and threw it in specific ways through his body to utilize jutsu. They were the main means of performing both Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, though Jigoku hadn't learned much Genjutsu yet. He was supposed to learn that after he became pretty well skilled at Ninjutsu and Taijutsu.

WC: 684
684 + 75 = 709
I1 -> I3 = 700
9 Words left over

Kuma would listen to what teh Uchiha kid had to say."Ehhhh, guess you got a point. I mean according to most people I'm a blood thirsty and battle obsessed." Then he heard the next part about his skin and ligaments and other crap. "Guess that's true, I'll try and do better....." He said before doing on last kick and stopping. "Fifty-four jumping jacks." He added after looking up at him." Then he heard he was training by....reading a book. [Oh you have got to be *****ing kidding me. This kid, was trying to learn how to use ninja arts....with a book. Skill in combat isn't developed by reading a book, it's forged in combat, that's why they are COMBAT skills. The best way to learn was physical, whether it was learn to survive or just physical training like he was doing, both worked MUCH better than reading a book!.... okay calm down Kuma, i guess with ninjutsu you cann't help it.] Kuma's thoughts were interrupted by his mom's voice. [ Everyone learns in their own way. ]

Kuma jumped up onto the guy's branch. Kuma's face looked kinda neutral now rather than his smirk earlier. "What kinda training can you get done just reading a book?" He asked him, since it made little sense to him. "I mean...just reading cann't really sharpen your skills can it?" Just reading couldn't be enough could it? If it was he seriously needed a martial arts book. "By the way it may look like I'm not listening but I am." He said jumping down and starting his jumping jacks, counting them out loud.

(WC:272
272-250=0+25+56=81
81 left over)

( now intermediate 1)

Amusement climbed over the face of the young Uchiha as Kuma sat in his place and revealed his curiosity on the subject. It was true that simply reading a book couldn't make one become more powerful, but one's training could be many times more effect if one understood the theory behind it. And when you preferred not to have your heartless bastard of a father instruct you, you tended to settle for a textbook... Though there was no way Jigoku would reveal that the Kuma, he could not help but allow a painful expression to cross his face before covering it up.

Suddenly he was 6 years old. But... No wait, he was 8. Ah... It must be... A memory. Yes, he was on his way home from school on his first day of the Shinobi Academy. He walked with a group of friends home. Every once in awhile, a friend would leave the group as they split off to go to their homes as they passed. The parents... They looked so happy, so proud of their children. Jigoku smiled. He thought of how proud his mother and... Even his father would be. He was excited to get home, and since his home was in the back of the Uchiha district, he lived furthest away, and was the last remaining of his group of friends.

He broke into a run. His feet tapped against the ground as he hurtled his way between houses and eventually stopped on the porch of his own. The door opened. A man in Shinobi garb exited the house. It was a Jounin of Konohagakure. It was his father. A smile spread across the face of Jigoku and his mouth opened wide to speak.

"Father, I-"

He was met with a cold interruption. "Get out of the way of the doorway, I've got things to do."

His eyes widened and a lump formed in his throat. He... Didn't care. Jigoku would like it better if he was disappointed, but he simply... Didn't care. Why? This could be one of the most important moments of Jigoku's life and his father couldn't give to squirts of... Well, quite frankly, crap. And he was gone. Some strange jutsu, and he was off, leaving nothing behind. Jigoku couldn't even trace his movements. Why did he just... Not care? Why? Hurt numbed his heart, pain spread throughout his stomach and throat. His eyes burned. No... No crying. No, you're older than that. You shouldn't be crying, father is a busy ninja of Konoha, you know he is busy. Come on Jigoku...

He walked inside. He didn't see his mother so he ventured to her bedroom and saw her, sitting on the bed, crying. Her face was hidden. "Ma, what's wrong?" He was met only with harder sobs. She buried her face deeper into her lap so that Jigoku couldn't see it. "Mom?"

"Go to your room sweetie."

"But mom, what's wrong?"

"Jigoku, go to your room. Now." Her voice didn't sound angry, only hurt. And stern. So Jigoku obeyed, walking to his room and closing his door. And here, he couldn't stop his tears. They rolled and rolled until he woke up later that night, his face on a wet spot in his bed. He went to the bathroom and his eyes were read and poofy in the mirror. It was obvious he'd been crying. He walked back to his parents' room and peaked through the door. He wanted to see if mother was ok. What he saw horrified him. Her right eye was darkened and bruised, her lip was cut, and there was deep bruising on the side of her face. Father had... Hit her.

And he was brought back to the present. Mentally, he shook himself. The sad expression erased itself from his face and he wondered if he managed to do so in time so that Kuma wouldn't notice... He was working out, so Jigoku had a bit of a chance. He opened his book back up and began considering words to answer Kuma's question.

"Well... No, you can't get stronger simply from reading a book. But if you have no sensei to tell you the proper way to do things, you should learn to do them correctly from a book. It's better to take the time and endure the boredom of reading if it means practicing correctly. Just training without instruction would probably cause you to do things incorrectly. Training incorrectly just causes negative effects which you would simply have to unlearn when you learned the correct way of doing it."

He looked back at the book. He had gotten past all the basic stuff and it detailed a few E-Rank Ninjutsu someone should practice when they had no experience. Tree Walking Practice... Hmmm... According to the book, one had to focus their chakra in just the right way to allow them to essentially climb a tree with no hands. After setting down his book, Jigoku approached the tree Kuma was in that had previously been the tree that Jigoku sat in, reading his book. He turned his walking approach into a dead sprint while focusing chakra into the soles of his feet until he made it to the tree. He took two steps vertically before being hurled 10 meters away.

Apparently, after consulting his book, that was what happened when he applied too much chakra. They were hurled off of the surface they were standing on. There was a small hole formed in the bark of the tree he had tried to ascend. Hm... The effect of his chakra. He stood once more and sprinted at the tree, this time applying less chakra. This time, he only made it a single step before simply sliding off of the tree and landing on his back. He stood back up, dusting himself off. At this point, he was sure Kuma was laughing himself to death as Jigoku looked up to observe him.

WC: 994
I3 -> A2

103 words leftover.

Kuma saw the mix of emotions stretched across this kid's face. First he was amused, then hurt, then back to normal, finally he zoned out. During these many minutes of him zoning out he would show even more emotions in his eyes, the one place that always showed emotion, or lack there off. 1st he was happy, then like he was holding something negative back. Then he was sad, extremely sad, finally finished with a socked expression that was quickly wiped away. Kuma sometimes hated eyes. No matter who you are or what you did they always told the truth about someone. Any human could see it which made it worse, regardless of who you were, who was looking, and what was going on: they could see your emotions just from that look. Then he told him about the book and all of this stuff about training. The Uchiha did have a good point. "Maybe I should pick up a book then huh?" He asked with a smile, looking up while still doing his jumping jacks, trying to cheer him up. He didn't know why but when he smiled, people normally smiled back. Then he saw him fly off quite a bit away. "aaaaaaaaaaaaand I scared him off." Then he saw him keep trying to walk up the tree. "Tree climbing?" He asked as though questioning if that was what he was trying to do. Suddenly Kuma dropped to the floor and started doing push ups, as if some force was forcing him too. Kuma got a good view of his hand, he'd definitely needed to see a doctor later. Anyways, let's focus on the training push ups Kuma. He had to do one hundred and fifty push ups, and if not, his number of sit ups would be doubled.

He kept doing his push ups at a rather fast rate, seeming to be used to it somehow. His body moved fast and sweat trailed down his brow. He could feel his body sweating more and more. His muscles felt tense, but not painful yet, only tensing do to the strain from his work out. His breathing stayed steady, not getting ragged yet, in through the nose when he was going up, out from the mouth when he was going down. He remembered his time with his father cause of this, him too going back a bit.

He was five, watching his father practice tiajutsu. He watched his father doing martial arts movements, as he shadowed the movements of his father, albiet terribly. After a while, Kuma's father looked over and smiled, Kuma not noticing he had stopped. Kuma continued moving through the movements even though he was failing badly. Kuma's dad watched, as he son shadowed these moves, having apparently memorized the order after watching his dad do it so many times.

"Hey. Kuma." His dad said motioning for him ot come over. "Why don't you train with dad?" He asked him with a smile. Kuma's face lit up. He got to train with his dad? AWESOME! Kuma ran over to his dad nodding wildly and jumping up and down. He and his dad both did that one form over and over again, this being the most basic of tiajutsu forms. While his dad did it perfectly, Kuma did it horribly, even falling a few times. Luckily his dad just helped him back up and they started again.

(Wc: 569+81=650)
(Intermediate 3)

Jigoku had managed to completely erase the shadow of emotion bestowed upon him by the uninvited memory of that day in the manner that he had been taught as both an Uchiha and a student at Konohagakure's Shinobi Academy. When someone had a mission they were to complete, they could not allow themselves emotions like self-pity and sadness. One could not afford it on the battlefield. Such was the way of the Shinobi. To stare death in the face with no fear, no anxiety. Such was the way of the Shinobi to simply keep moving forward.

So Jigoku cleared his mind, forming the Tiger hand seal in an attempt to help himself better focus his chakra. Words echoed in his mind in a way that felt strange. As if they weren't his words at all. "Erase your thoughts... Allow yourself no emotion, erase even this thought... Your mind's eye does not exist. Embrace it, acknowledge it... And then let it drift away." And so it did. All that was left was actions. Zero thoughts passed through the mind of the young boy as he felt chakra focus around his feet. It was slightly visible. An opacity less intense than when the tree had hurled him away, yet more intense than when he had no traction at all.

Rather than running like the book suggested, Jigoku approached the tree at a steady walk. He planted one foot on the tree... No thoughts. As he took a step and pulled his other foot off the ground, he did not fall, nor was he sent away. He simply stood horizontally on the tree, motionless. Instinctually, his chakra shifted to be more intense where there were deeper portions of the bark and less so where the bark rose above the rest of the tree. We walked comfortably up the tree, then changed direction to be walking along the bottom of the branch, hung upside down.

Slowly at first, he allowed his thoughts to return. First happiness of his success, then thoughts of what he would do next. Then he allowed himself to analyze. He thought of how the jutsu must work, how the chakra suctioned one's feet to the bark, propelling them when too much chakra was applied and yet simply letting them go when enough chakra was not present. Then, he allowed himself communication as he spoke to Kuma, nearly forgotten in his adventure. "Woah! Pretty cool, huh?"

Jigoku released the chakra from his feet. As he did so, he hurled his weight backwards so that as his feet were released from their grip on the tree, they did a partial somersault and he landed with a thud. He felt a shooting pain in his ankle, though nothing too severe as the branch he had fallen from wasn't too high. He spoke again to Kuma. "So, you like Taijutsu huh? Ever thought of giving Ninjutsu a try? Combining them could give you quite a deadly arsenal." And it was true. A ninja who could master both of these deadly forms of Shinobi combat could indeed be deadly. If a ninja was tossed into a situation where he simply could not strike the opponent with his fists, perhaps a well-timed Katon: Great Fireball Technique could. In Jigoku's view, being a powerful Shinobi was all about versatility.

WC: 552
Ninjutsu A2 -> A3