We've got a beach, a tent, and lots of water but not a single distraction. [Training]

Age : 48 Posts : 1036

Spoiler:

Watching the sunrise over the shore of Hi no Kuni was a rare treat for most - the shoreline being a highly coveted place for the summer estates of the nobility and wealthy merchants who zealously guarded their privacy and privilege. The rest was filled with the fishing villages who made their living from the rich fishing grounds that sheltered in the massive bay formed by the nations of Fire and Tea. Given such inhabitants and their loathing of most forms of work or simple lives, it was practically unheard of for certain things to happen. So it would be quite a shock for the fishermen and yachters who occasionaly admired the shoreline from a boat to see a positively massive column of water form on the surface. Reaching over a hundred feet into the air and nearly thirty feet thick, the massive collection of water continued to reach higher and higher until it was even with the top of the cliffs that backed the narrow beach. As it did so the column took on the detailed visage of a serpentine dragon - complete with scales and a gaping maw filled with unpleasantly sharp looking teeth. Those closest to the shore would be the only ones, beyond a single white-haired shinobi, to have an inkling of what caused that awe-inspiring sight to form - only they were close enough to hear the faint after echoes of "Suiryuudan" as the life-like water dragon abruptly dove towards one of the large rock formations that dotted this particular part of the coastline. Formed of a resilient gneiss, that rock had withstood thousands of storms stronger than anything in living memory and remained standing. However it had never encountered a foe like this where the water was under so much pressure that parts of it were actually solidifying into a form of high-pressure ice despite the air being well above freezing. Under that sort of stress the rock finally accepted defeat and with a crack like thunder the upper half broke away to crash into the sea nearly a dozen meters away for its original resting place.

While the locals who had witnessed the sight were silently making prayers to whatever deities they believed in to protect themselves from the wrath of the sea monster or demon they had just seen, one figure was grinning like a madman. Clad in a soaking-wet gi (it was good training for fighting when burdened) and waist-deep in water, Toshiro was fighting down the urge to jump into the air and shout in triumph. Ever since he had come to this stretch of coastline he had been working at a furious pace to gain a degree of mastery over his primary affinity that many dreamed of but only a few ever reached. The final part of that mastery was learning to make his water-based techniques much more destructive without expending more chakra. What he had just seen was the final proof that he had reached that end - for a water jutsu to defeat solid stone, something that held the "elemental advantage" it had to be immensely destructive.

Getting to the point where the techniques packed that much destructive force though had been made possible by many smaller steps. The first part had been practicing with every suiton jutsu in his arsenal until he had truly mastered them all. Reaching that level of talent had required days of burning through his chakra, casting jutsu after jutsu until he only needed to think about it and his fingers would be forming the seals in a blur from muscle memory alone. Each sunset as he had crawled into his tent, the jounin had resisted the urge to simply fall asleep, instead pulling out several books (now well-overdue) with titles such as "Principles of Hydraulic Engineering" and "States of Matter". After filling several note books with notes and his head with so much technical information that some of it was bound to seep out he would sleep until dawn then start the whole process over again. In the end though those results long nights had been worth it as Toshiro had been able to vastly improve each technique by eliminating frivolous and extraneous steps until only the real essentials of each technique were left. Doing so had freed up more chakra for other uses. Those other uses being primarily the means, which was far too complex to begin to describe in less than a full-blown dissertation, that created a hard ice-like "shell" at the "business end" of the jutsu and raising the pressure of the water behind that shell to the absolute maximum. In plain terms it meant that, while getting hit with a regular suiton technique could be compared to being hit with a high-pressure hose or waterfall, getting hit with one of Toshiro's would feel as if a mass of solid metal had struck you. Metal that had the additional property of shoving its way into, and if need by making, cracks so small that even the unaided eye couldn't see them before triggering an exponential rate of growth through hydraulic fracturing. So while some of the white-haired jounin's techniques were simply more bigger and involved more water, many were only slightly larger (or even smaller) but packed more water into that volume for much greater impact.

Of course something that complex required far more knowledge of esoteric physics and mathematics than could be found even in a whole library at a college of engineering and Toshiro was far from a mathematical genius. However he was very adaptable, had no issues to with trying something new (at least when it came to the skills of his trade), and occasionally had flashes of inspiration. In this case inspiration had taken the form of watching a crew of professional well-diggers at work while he was taking a day of rest from his other training. He had been curious why they had been pounding a rather large pipe into the ground at after having dug a sizeable hole then started to pump water into the pipe before rolling what looked like a piston attached to some complex machine over the pipe. Watching the crew as the piston was steadily be inserted into the pipe for nearly an hour, the last thing he had expected to hear was someone shout "duck and cover!" before an almighty BOOM and what felt like a serious earthquake had sent him to his knees. Of course Toshiro had rushed to the digging crew to see if anyone needed help only to see them rise up and go back to work grinning like maniacs. It had been then that the engineer in charge pulled Toshiro aside and explained the principles behind "hydraulic ramming" and "hydraulic fracturing" - which the crew used to shatter layers of rock that stood between them and groundwater - to the stunned jounin. That explanation had provided the spark of inspiration and from there things had progressed at a frantic pace as bits and pieces of information was put together like some intangible puzzle to form a single whole.

It was an additional gain, but a welcome one, the training to reach the point he now stood at had also yielded several new advantages. One of the biggest was that the constant practice molding water chakra had refined that ability to such an extent that Toshiro could produce sufficient water by simply "squeezing his chakra" that even in the middle of a bone-dry area he could utilize even his most taxing water-based techniques. An ability he had discovered purely by accident while working on the method to put extra pressure on the water only to douse himself and his campfire when the result had been several liters of absolutely pure water. After getting over his shock the jounin had been ecstatic at the possibilities that ability promised if it could be replicated and had immediately gone off to test the idea in the driest place at hand - an abandoned salt mine dug into the landward side of one of the hills. There he had repeated the process over and over until he had created so much water that it had come up to his ankles. Water that he had used form progressively larger and stronger jutsu until the mineshaft had been in danger of collapse from the resulting damage. Compared to that incredible ability, which removed around the greatest single weakness faced by water-using ninja, the other abilities gained by from his increased affinity for water had been less impressive. Which wasn't to say that Toshiro didn't appreciate them; only a fool wouldn't see the value in being able to skate across water at jaw-dropping speeds, to say nothing of the ability to dive deep and - like some species of shark - erupt from directly blow a target on or in the water. The tactical options alone should anyone be foolish enough to fight him on a body of water were impressive, and combined with the other gains simply mind-boggling.

As he watched the final wave that came from the ultimate proof of just how outright deadly his water jutsu had gotten, Toshiro could only grin while imaging what the future would be like with this ability under his belt. One thing that the jounin knew for certain though was that if he had had this sort of raw power at his disposal when last confronting his sister she wouldn't have survived. The next time he faced his treacherous sibling she would only have a moment to regret her actions before she was reminded why her brother had been the acknowledged ninjutsu expert of their parents brood.

Word Count: 1615/ 1600

Age : 48 Posts : 1036

Spoiler:

Bright sunlight and temperate weather, especially in what was a not-so-mild winter, combined with a sea coast usually means the people on said coast are there to have one thing. - fun. For one of Konoha's most recently appointed jounin however such things were trivial other than they would make today's plans slightly less uncomfortable. After all, he had been spending weeks getting to the point he was at now, in the process spending more time in the water than some sea birds. The reason for putting himself through that sort of torture? Well that would be found in a number of small targets wedged into gaps in the rocks and attached to crude buoys that had been anchored to the bottom of the coastline. Using a similar manner to the training he had done in Rain Country, Toshiro had been trying to increase his speed even more. The twist to this particular course was that there was no (or very little) solid ground between the targets. Instead there was water that had been wiped by winds far away into rolling waves which would be almost impossible to stay on for more than a second or two at best. Which was just fine for what the jounin had in mind - any more time than that spent at one spot would defeat the whole purpose of the training course he had spent the day before setting up. Now, after a full nights rest and some basic warm-ups, he was finishing securing the last of the individual sheaths that held the various weaponry he would use to "tag" the targets. Maybe this time, his twelfth attempt at the course, would prove that the constant sprints up and down the sandy beach (while wearing leg weights at that) and a host of other muscle-tearing exercises had not be in vain. On those last eleven tries he had come close to his goal but it had always remained just out of reach by a few precious seconds.

Once the last tie was secured and double-checked, not wanting to spend yet another day hunting for his equipment after a broken tie dumped it into the ocean, Toshiro put the hilt of one kunai between his teeth and palmed another one in each hand. Then he half-crouched as he waited for the signal to start his latest run at what might be his nemesis. As he waited the wind began to pick up and the clouds that blew in from the ocean began to change from fluffy white ones high up to grey and low - a sure sign that a storm was coming in. If not today then almost certainly tonight or tomorrow. Oddly enough, while he didn't care for the getting wet part, Toshiro had grown to like storms over the years. On more than a few occasions a mission he had been on was made easier (if not possible) by the cover provided by a storm and he simply found the unleashed power of wind and water thrilling and soothing at the same time - almost as if some primal part of his soul was being freed for a short time.

As deeply as a part of his mind was focused on those thoughts, Toshiro didn't miss the tolling of the bell from the town several miles down the coast. A bell that carried far out over the waves to indicate the time (high noon) for those without other means to tell time and to provide a means to find the way back to safe harbor for those who might be lost. For Toshiro that bell also served as something else because before the first echo of its clarion call had died down he was just a blur moving over the sand to the handful of locals who had taken to watching the daily spectacle as a break from combing the beach. Moving too fast for the human eye to make out, the jounin was past the last part of land and running on the water in less than a second. Trained instinct and honed reflexes taking over where the normal eye couldn't, the first kunai was in the air and on its way to the first target before his brain registered that he was in place. Nor did Toshiro have to think about how to slow enough to change direction as his left leg extended - causing him to bleed off momentum and throw up a shower of water like a downhill skier making fast turn on a course. For that brief moment the jounin became clearly visible, then he was gone in a blur again as the leg that bent during the slide pushed off against an incoming breaker towards the next target. The same effect was used again and again as Toshiro pushed himself off the tops of breakers and from the "walls" of the toughs between them to reach his next goal which was nearly a half-mile down the beach in the surf. If there had been hungry predators in the water a single misstep truly could be fatal as the jounin was kept above the surface of the ocean only by the surface tension of the water and his ability to spend only a few fractions of a second on top of it. With no time to spare for anything but his next step and getting a tiny bit more speed out of it, the Leaf-nin had no time for even a tiny upward movement at one corner of his mouth as the next target came into sight. Nor did he have to think as he reached into his pocket as his hand had already done that and came up with a trio of four-pointed shuriken. Shuriken that with a snap of his wrist went flying to embed themselves in the target while the jounin was busy half-running and half-skating up the side of the next incoming breaker. At the top of that wave he slammed one foot down - almost as if stomping on a particularly disgusting bug but in this case the stomp had another purpose. Namely to lauch Toshiro into the air where he sailed over an intervening outcrop of rock, releasing several of his specialized sebon at the target located on the reverse side as he did so, before he flipped himself over just in time to land on top of the water facing the way he had come from on top of a particularly large wave.

It was at that point that something significant changed for Toshiro's run. On every prior try he had always sunk into the water - sometimes completely while other times just an inch or two. An action that caused him to lose precious time. This time however his feet hit the water with so much force that it felt like he had landed on solid steel. Outwardly the only sign of that change was the jounin bending at the knees to absorb the impact, but inside he was roaring in excitement. To hit water so hard that it felt like steel he had to have been going much faster than his other attempts. Maybe, just maybe, this try would be the one to prove the sweat and blood he had shed had been worth it. To that end as soon as he felt himself stop Toshiro uncoiled from his crouch, pushing against the water he briefly stood on to hurtle through the same between it and the next wave crest in the direction where he had put his fourth target. Repeating that almost-instant travel from wave crest to wave crest, the jounin almost felt the intervening distance to the next target disappear as the rock with the fourth target (which bore a passing similarity in appearance to one of the recent Hokages) came into view. Without slowing down the white-haired jounin reached behind his back while launching himself into what might have been a pirouette in a ballet but had a much more lethal purpose. A purpose made clear as the windmill shuriken, whose blades had been unfolded by the jounin's rotation, sailed through the air to land what would have been a disfiguring and crippling if not immediately fatal wound to the targets face.

The second to last target dealt with Toshiro kept going in a straight line towards the rock in front of him, seemingly bent on splattering himself against the weathered basalt of the formation. Such wasn't his plan however and at the last possible second he made what might have been a drop-kick against the rock that had him briefly perpendicular to the surface and help in place only by inertia. Form there the jounin again uncoiled like a spring to launch himself through the air to the top of an especially large wave that had yet to break. Determined that this time he would succeed, Toshiro reached for and somehow found yet another untapped well of strength to increase his speed. Faster and faster he went, unaware that the wave behind him had begun rise higher and increase it own spread as it began to break and show its true nature. A rogue wave that had managed to travel this far, one with the power to smash a person into the ground with enough force to shatter bone and then suck them out to sea. Still the Konoha jounin skated ahead of the giant, unaware that what had been a race for self-improvement was now possibly a race for his very life. After what might have been seconds or minutes, time having become a blur to the jounin as his world narrowed to a single goal and the immediate steps to achieve it, the final target came into sight. Nearly fifty feet up on one of a pair of rocky pillars that marked two exists from some long-vanished magma chamber the man-sized collection of straw and bamboo was wedge onto the top of the formation. While he could have easily embedded one of his thrown weapons into the target, Toshiro instead closed the rest of the distance between himself and the pillars. Just as he did so he landed on top of a wave crest in a crouch then, like a starving shark striking at a fat seal from the depths, hurled himself upward to the side of one of the pillars. As soon as his feet touched the rocky surface he jumped off again, traveling upwards and across to land against the other pillar only to repeat the process. Caught up in this flurry of "triangle jumping" Toshiro never noticed the massive wave that broke just a dozen feet beneath him before impotently venting its fury at its prey escaping against the uncaring beach. Four the jounin everything else but reaching that last target ceased to exist - three jumps left became two, then one.

With one last leap from the side of the pillar Toshiro cleared the final obstruction to his last target, drawing one of his swords as he did so. With the precision borne from countless hours of practice and honed in dozens of bloody clashes, in one smooth motion the blade cleared its sheath on the jounin's back, moved downward to a "chambered" position at his side, then shot forward to impale the dummy through the chest before being wrenched out the side. The last happening just as the Leaf-nin's feet touched the solid rock of the top of the pillar and would be followed by the blade being sheathed once again. Just as that action was finished a sound could be heard that made Toshiro let out a whoop of satisfaction and relief. In the distance the twelfth and last peal of the towns bell could be heard echoing away. That sound, more so than the cheers of jubilation from those who had been hoping for the jounin to succeed (and groans of those who had bet against him) on this try, proved that he had reach a new plateau. One occupied only by those ninja who proved the phrase "speed kills" was more than just empty words.

Word Count: 2022/ 1600