Naruto Raiu #15 “Practice hard or go home: Mikko’s new Jutsu!”
It was another day of intense training for the trio, Hishegami and Tanzou went to their new secret location to train while Mikko went off to meet Izanaki at the noodle parlor.
“Hey Izanaki-Sensei, I’m here!” Mikko shouted upon entering. Izanaki looked over his shoulder. “Good you made it!” He said. “Say sensei, how come we always meet at the noodle parlor?” Izanaki swallowed his drink and shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” He replied. “Oh yeah, okay.” Mikko said. “Now, for today’s lesson we need to go someplace secluded so that no unauthorized eyes will get a peek at this ultra-rare-secret jutsu I am going to teach you today.” Izanaki explained. Mikko’s already excited smile morphed into one of gigantic proportions. “R-Really Izanaki-Sensei, you mean that, a new jutsu?” Izanaki nodded, “And if you do well in the training, in a couple of a years I might just teach you the upgrade.” He added. “Oh boy!” Mikko exclaimed while jumping in mid-air. “Okay, okay enough with the craziness.” Izanaki said. “Let’s get to the special area that I hand-picked so that we can begin your new jutsu training.” Mikko nodded excitedly and could not contain her joy. (“What’s with this kid, you’d think she’s never learned a single jutsu in her life.”) Izanaki thought. The teacher and his student exited the noodle parlor, while three nearby patrons dressed in brown trench coats and fedoras read newspapers looked up and removed their disguises revealing themselves to be none other than, Kali Yujihana, Yuu, and Jiro.
“Did you hear that boys, an ultra-rare-secret jutsu!” Kali exclaimed. “Good thing Shuun-Sensei told us to spy on her today!” Jiro added. “Yes, now all we need to do is follow them to that secret location and watch that new jutsu reveal itself to us!” Kali said with glee. The three shinobi exited the noodle parlor and began stalking Izanaki and Mikko as they made their way through the village.
“Say kid, you get the feeling we’re being watched?” Izanaki asked as he looked over his shoulder. “Huh?” was Mikko’s only response. “Oh, never mind!” Izanaki said, returning his vision to the city streets. Izanaki shifted his eyes and lowered his brows, (“But if I didn’t know any better I’d say we WERE being followed.”) he thought. (“I don’t want to distract the kid from her jutsu training so I’ll just keep silent watch.”) he added.
Hishegami and Tanzou practiced shadowboxing on the trees together. “One -two, one-two!” Tanzou cried in order. Hishegami studied Tanzou’s movements and copied them as best as she could. “You’re pretty good at this.” Tanzou said. “Really? Thanks.” She replied. (“This alone time with Tanzou has been great, without Mikko-Blockhead here to goof things up!”) Hishegami thought. “Okay, that’s enough of that for now!” Tanzou said. “What now, Tanzou-kun?” Hishegami asked. Tanzou thought about it, “We’ll put our fighting styles to the test.” Tanzou said. “You mean we’re going to fight?” Hishegami asked. Tanzou nodded. “With each other?” Hishegami added. “No, we’ll use shadow clones to train with.” Tanzou said. Hishegami blew a relieved sigh. (“That’s a relief, I know in a one-on-one fight with Tanzou I’d never win!”) she thought. “Once your clone has been beaten summon up another and continue training.” Tanzou explained. Tanzou placed his hands together forming quick hand signs and summoned a shadow clone of himself. “Tanzou two at your service!” said the clone. “Great, you ready Hishegami?” Tanzou asked. She nodded before performing the rapid hand signs to create a shadow clone of herself. “Let’s do this already!” said Hishegami’s shadow clone.
Tanzou’s clone ran up to him and swung at him with full force, but Tanzou blocked with his arm and countered with his electric jutsu, causing the clone to poof! “See, it’s fairly easy.” Tanzou said while summoning another clone. (“Hmph! That’s easy for you to say, you’re really strong!”) Hishegami thought. “You ready Hishegami?” her shadow clone asked. “Yes, I think so.” Hishegami replied. “Good, because I am going to come at you with full-speed and force!” her clone replied.
Hishegami’s shadow clone charged at her and swung at her, Hishegami blocked with her arm, but the clone swept with her leg, knocking Hishegami down. (“What was that just now, I didn’t think a shadow clone would be so perceptive!”) Hishegami thought. She got to her feet and charged at the shadow clone and punched her sending her back a little. The clone did not poof. (“Damn, this is taking way too long.”) Hishegami thought. (“Tanzou’s on his fifth shadow clone while I’m still on my first!”) The Hishegami shadow clone bobbed and darted toward her and landed a kick to her side, taking her down to the ground. (“This is unbearable!”) Hishegami complained to herself. (“But I can’t let Tanzou-kun see that I am in trouble, I’ll just make my way through it somehow!”) she thought.
Izanaki led Mikko into a heavily wooded area and into a central clearing of a what would normally be considered an “ominous forest”, and turned her facing himself. She wore a red blindfold over her eyes.
“Well here we are kid!” Izanaki declared. “Oh great I’m so excited!” Mikko exclaimed. “You can’t even see the place yet!” Izanaki noted. “Oh yeah, can I remove the blindfold now Izanaki-Sensei?” Mikko asked. “Are you ready?” He asked. “Yes!” Mikko replied. “Are you sure, because once this plane lifts off there’s no stopping until it reaches its destination!” Izanaki explained. “Then that destination is my victory at the chunin-exams!” Mikko proudly declared. Izanaki couldn’t help but to smile a little. “Well okay kid you convinced me.” He said undoing the blindfold. “There now, what do you see?” He asked her. “I see a scary looking forest.” Mikko replied looking around. “But we’re in the most lit-up portion of the woods, and it’s broad daylight.” Izanaki explained. “Yeah I know, but It’s just still pretty creepy looking.” Mikko replied. “And with good reason,” Izanaki said. “This is the ‘Raigaou Woods’.” Izanaki said. “These woods are supposedly cursed from the bloodshed of the ages.” He added. “The village elders refer to this place as the ‘spiritual forest’.” Izanaki said. Mikko looked around, the trees were all dead and twisted and skeletal looking. “So, it’s pretty creepy isn’t it?” Izanaki asked. “You got that right!” Mikko agreed. “That’s the whole purpose of this exercise.” Izanaki said. “What do you mean Izanaki-Sensei?!” Mikko asked confused. “What I mean is that you’re not always going to be fighting on your home turf kid, so you need to learn to feel comfortable in such a radical foreign environment as this.” He pointed out. “Fighting off the willies you’re getting is the first step to becoming a naturally ‘cool and collective’ shinobi.” Izanaki added.
Mikko shook her head, “I can’t train in a place like this, its way too creepy-looking, and besides the trees are all dead and rotted there’s no place to hide!” Mikko cried. “That’s exactly my point Mikko. On a battlefield, you can’t always hide and sometimes you have no other choice but to go all-out!” Izanaki explained. “Believe me, this is paradise compared to some of the things I’ve seen; fallen shinobi corpses scattered all over the field, bloodied comrades, your own friends dying before your very eyes.” Izanaki added. Izanaki turned his back to Mikko and faced a particularly skeletal and ugly tree. “If you can’t hope to accept the reality of shinobi warfare, then there’s no point in you going any further!” Izanaki said. “But Izanaki-sensei!” Mikko cried. “There’s a war going on right now Mikko, between the Iwagakure and the Swamp Country, and somehow we’ve been dragged into it.” Izanaki explained. “This war started exactly five years ago, when you were probably only eight or nine.” Izanaki added. Mikko listened to her sensei quietly. “Many of our shinobi died just during the opening engagements of this war. At first we thought it was just a minor skirmish between the Stone Shinobi and the Swamp shinobi, but once one a battlefield you quickly learn that there are no such things as ‘minor skirmishes’.” Izanaki said. Mikko stepped up to the tree and placed her hand on it. “No way!” She shouted. Izanaki watched her. “No way am I gonna give up, not no, not ever!” she added. “My friends are counting on me to make a grand shinobi of myself and that’s just what I’m going to do!” Mikko cried. Izanaki smiled, “Good to hear it, so maybe now we can begin that jutsu training I told you about!” Izanaki said. “Yeah, finally!” Mikko exclaimed.
Hishegami continued battling it out with her shadow clone. (“What’s the problem, I can’t seem to make it disappear!”) she thought. “Hey Hishegami, are you alright?” Tanzou called from a yard away. “Yes Tanzou-kun, I’m fine!” Hishegami replied. Meanwhile her shadow clone lunged at her with ferocity and punched her and swept her down again. (“Damn it! She caught me off guard!”) Hishegami cursed to herself. “Should we call it a day?” her shadow clone asked. “No, just give me…a moment!” Hishegami replied. “As you wish.” The shadow clone said.
Mizaru spoke with a representative of Kirigakure, the village hidden in the Mist. “We are very pleased to hear that Kumogakure is holding another student-exchange program.” said the representative. “Yes, we host them once every four years.” Mizaru explained. “Sometimes we like to summon the alumni to see how they have progressed since their initial debut.” He added. “Well I think my three students will find Kumogakure to be a lovely trip away from home.” She said. Mizaru closed his eyes and smiled warmly. “Yes, I am certain that they will find the village to be most accommodating, almost like a second home.” He said.
The Kirigakure representative had long brown hair and blue eyes. She was slender and wore her hair up in a ponytail. She wore a gray uniform with a blue vest over it. Her name was Taki, she looked back to the entrance gates to Kumogakure and called out. “Disciples, come on in it’s time to check-in!” Two Kirigakure shinobi of about 14 or 15 stepped up and approached Taki, one was a male and the other was female. “Lord Mizaru I’d like you to meet three of my top shinobi, Satoru, Fuuko, and…” Taki stopped and looked around. “W-where’s Umikira?” she asked. Satoru, a unkempt blond haired boy with skeletal face paint shrugged. Fuuko, a strawberry blonde girl with blue eyes and a blue-black skirt uniform looked back. “He’s still outside the village gates.” She noted. Taki rushed out to find a Kumogakure shinobi on the ground trembling while Umikira, a short blond-haired boy with pale skin and a aquamarine eyes standing before him. “Umikira!” Taki called out. The boy merely shifted his eyes when he heard his name. Taki rushed over to him and stood between the two. “I am terribly sorry for whatever he may have done, please forgive me.” Taki said with a bow. “N-No you’re okay.” Muttered the kumogakure shinobi, “I-I tripped…yeah, that’s it…I tripped on a rock and fell!” he muttered before getting up and running away past Mizaru, who stood in the gateway, with Satoru and Fuuko behind him.
Taki escorted Umikira to the gates, “I am terribly sorry about all of this.” Taki apologized to Mizaru. “Think nothing of it.” He replied. “We often receive so many new students here, that it is quite normal to have first day jitters.” Mizaru said with a unnaturally widened smile. Satoru and Fuuko who stood behind him exchanged concerned glances. “Lord Mizaru, this is Umikira, perhaps our most talented shinobi yet.” Taki explained. Umikira approached Mizaru and stopped three feet away from him, his deadpan expression shifted to a frown or scowl. “Welcome Umikira, I am sure you will make quite an impression around here.” Mizaru said, his eyes closed and his unnatural smile at fullest. Umikira said nothing, but lowered his eyebrows and tensed his eyes.
Mikko and Izanaki stood face-to-face in the Raigaou woods. Izanaki held out his hand and opened it making a “5” with his fingers and thumb. “This is an extremely powerful jutsu and I’m not so sure someone you’re age, much less your rank can handle it appropriately.” Izanaki said. “What!?” Aw come on!” Mikko moaned. “But! Since I already promised I would teach you this ultra-rare-secret technique I will. But, you must follow my instructions verbatim!” Izanaki explained. “Uh-huh okay.” Mikko replied. “Now, I want you to gather the flow of chakra to the palm of your hand.” Izanaki said. “Okay, easy enough.” Mikko said. She outstretched her hand and focused, she could feel her chakra building up and moving up to the center of her hand, now the palm. “It’s there!” she cried. “Great! Now I want you to distribute the chakra to each of your fingers, leaving a portion behind to your palm.” Izanaki said. “Okay, I’ll try it.” Mikko replied. Mikko twirled her finger around the palm of her hand. She opened and closed her hand several times. “I can’t do it.” She pained. “It’s tough isn’t it?” Izanaki asked. “But, keep trying anyway.” He added. “Okay, I will.” Mikko said with a confident nod. She closed her eyes and held out her hand and flexed it, Izanaki watched as she tried distributing the chakra from the palm of her hand to her fingers. “Ugh, no go!” She said. “Do it like this!” Izanaki said, outstretching his hand and flexing it. He made sort of a “ball” with his fingers and blue chakra emitted from the palm of his hand and spread to his fingers and thumb. “Like that!” He said. Mikko tried again, tensing up her hand and flexing it. “Don’t be so tense, just relax and let loose!” Izanaki urged. Mikko tried copying Izanaki’s routine but couldn’t do it, his method didn’t worth for her to gathering chakra to her fingertips. (“Why in the hell can’t I do this?”) She asked herself. Then she realized the problem, she’d never really used very much jutsu, let alone ones that emitted from the palm of her hand to attack an opponent. She emitted a glow of blue chakra from the palm of her and flex her fingers and it resided. “What, what happened!?” she groaned. “You’re doing it wrong.” Izanaki said. “I know that much!” Mikko replied. “Here, let me demonstrate the mechanics of how to use this jutsu.” Izanaki said as he reached into a brown sack and pulled out and orange. “What’s fruit got to do with this?” Mikko asked. “Just watch will you?” Izanaki replied. He cleared his throat and held the orange in the palm of his hand. “Watch what happens when I focus my chakra onto this orange.” Izanaki said. “Okay.” Mikko replied, watching. “When you apply chakra to a specificied area it tends to build up so as long the user is continuing the procedure.” Izanaki explained. “Okay.” Mikko said. “Now, see that I have built up chakra in the palm of my hand. Izanaki said, blue chakra emitting. “What you’re doing is you are grabbing and pushing the chakra, causing it to revert.” He explained. “You want to ‘pull’ it like a string and make it ‘invert’ or spread until it reaches your fingertips and thumb.” Izanaki added. “Now if I apply too much chakra to this specific spot, the object in question will begin to feel the force of my chakra.” Izanaki said. The blue chakra swirled and grew as it built up. The orange began tilting and bobbing and vibrating. “Applying too much chakra to anyone area can cause instability, which in the end will create problems.” Izanaki said, applying more chakra pressure to the orange until it bursted. “Whoa!” Mikko said impressed. “So, in other words what you’re doing is building up so much chakra that it reverts back since there’s no release.” Izanaki said. “If you were holding an object, say a temari ball for example it would have exploded depending on how much chakra pressure you applied to it.” Izanaki added. “So, do you understand?” Izanaki asked. Mikko nodded. “So I WAS doing it wrong.” Mikko replied, rubbing her head. “Time to give it another try!” She exclaimed.
Mikko backed up and held out her hand, she formed a “ball” with her fingers until the blue chakra appeared visible in the palm of her hands. Mikko ever so gently tugged at the chakra with her fingers and flexed down with her wrist, the chakra spread to each of her fingers and lastly her thumb, her whole hand now glowed a shade of blue. “Way to go kid!” Izanaki congratulated Mikko. “I did it, finally!” Mikko exclaimed proudly. “Now; for the next step in this complicated, but ultra rare jutsu!” Izanaki declared. Izanaki created a “ball” with his fingers and spread the chakra to his fingertips and thumb respectively. “Now the next step requires that we use a ‘fire-jutsu’.” Izanaki explained. “A fire-jutsu, now I like where this is going!” Mikko said excitedly. “Listen up kid!” Izanaki chided. Izanaki formed a rapid hand sign and blew a small amount of fire into the palm of his chakra glowing hand. “Whoa!” Mikko said. “After blowing the fire into your readied hand, you need to build up the flame!” Izanaki explained. Izanaki opened and closed his hand rapidly, building up more chakra to the palm of his hand. The small flame grew into a large burning flame of crimson ochre. “Now that we have our bright, burning flame, we need to use it!” Izanaki said. He targeted a nearby large stone and charged up to it with his flaming hand behind him. “Secret-Art: Crimson Blaze!” he cried before striking the face of the stone with his flam-engulfed hand. “Wow, that was amazing!” Mikko said, almost applauding.
Izanaki retrieved his hand and blew on it, there were no visible signs of burns of scrapes. He held it out and made a “5” again showing Mikko. “Do you see the palm of my hand?” he asked. “Yeah, it’s…totally uninjured.” Mikko observed. “Exactly, remember that little chakra ‘ball’ exercise, well that’s what protects your hands from burning to a crisp.” Izanaki explained. “I never knew chakra could work that way sensei.” Mikko confessed.
Izanaki’s back was turned to Mikko and he watched a patch of bushes shuffle. He raised an eyebrow. “Mikko, continue on with your justu and remember to practice very LOUDLY!” he exclaimed. “Just like with your taijutsu kicks.” He added. Mikko nodded and walked over to the charred stone. She extended her hand and prepared for her oncoming jutsu attack.
Izanaki folded his arms and closed his eyes in frustration. “And just how long were you three planning on spying on us here?” Izanaki asked. The bushes stood deathly quiet and not a peep was made. “I’m waiting for an answer!” Izanaki replied. Then suddenly there was whispering, a commotion from the bushes as voices lashed out blaming one-another for being spotted. “You can either reveal yourselves or I’ll go in and get you myself!” Izanaki declared. Then out from the bushes, Kali Yujihana, Yuu, and Jiro jumped out before Izanaki. “Oh, Lord Izanaki, you-train here as well?” Kali asked. “Oh is that what you three were doing in there?” Izanaki asked. “And here I thought you were bickering at each other.” He added. “Nope, nope just our secret training!” Jiro lied. “Yeah, top-secret!” Yuu chimed in. “So, I hope there’s no hard feelings we won’t tell ANYONE about what we saw here.” Kali said nervously. “You’ve got that right!” Izanaki said, forming quick hand signs. The genin trio gasped and shielded themselves. “Secret Art: Mind alteration attack!” Izanaki shouted. Suddenly the three stood complacent before him with blank expressions. “Now, you three are at the library cramming for the exams.” Izanaki said. “We are at the library cramming for the exams.” The trio said in a most monotone voice. “It’s getting late, so return to your homes and get some sleep.” Izanaki said. “It’s getting late so we will return home and get some sleep.” They repeated back all monotone. “When you get home the jutsu will wear off and you will have no memory of what happened today.” Izanaki explained. With that, Kali and her thugs trotted off out of the Raigaou woods.
Izanaki sighed and turned back to Mikko who was no longer training but following Kali and her henchmen. “Mikko!” Izanaki shouted. “I told you to train LOUDLY!” Izanaki exclaimed. Mikko followed the trio out and departed company when she arrived at her house. Izanaki’s jaw dropped and he turned white as a ghost, “Oh no now I’m gonna have to teach her everything from the START!” Izanaki moaned and began sobbing.
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Chapter notes: Mikko Makato, Hishegami Otokusa, Tanzou Murasaki, Kali Yujihana, Yuu, Jiro, Mizaru, Izanaki, Taki, Umikira, Fuuko, Satoru
Chapter end notes: Flashback Arc...