Open Clean up on Aisle Three... [Class]

[Ryuu Nozomi]

The Hot Springs looked… quieter now. Not peaceful, there was too much damage for that. It was like a battlefield after the smoke had finally cleared and the survivors had walked away to lick their wounds. Steam still rose in thin ribbons from fractured stone, and the mineral scent hung heavier than before. White bone was everywhere and their was a faint metallic tang of dried blood that hung in the air. Some of it jutted at awkward angles from the ground like the ribs of a beast who had fallen here. Other pieces lay shattered or fused where detonations had been controlled just well enough to prevent further catastrophe. Calcified plates clung to walls and pillars that were still being warped by heat and stress. Even the bamboo fencing bore the scars of battle as they were now splintered and bent, but mercifully still standing.

Nozomi stood at the edge of the ruined pool, hands folded loosely behind her back, and surveyed it all with a critical eye. This is the consequence, she thought. Training without aftermath was fantasy yet the guilt of this display having occurred here still weighed on her mind. Power without responsibility was just destruction.

Nozomi stepped carefully onto a stable section of stone and crouched, placing one gloved hand against a thick bone ridge that had once tried very hard to kill a very angry academy student. The surface vibrated faintly in response to her touch, a residual echo of chakra still trapped inside the structure.

She closed her eyes and breathed slow. The mouths in her palms shifted restlessly and their teeth started grinding in anticipation. She did not let them open just yet. This was not demolition, it was cleanup. Even though it may require a bit of rough around the edges.

With deliberate focus, she began to draw the bone inward instead of forcing it outward. Calcification softened at the edges as it lost rigidity due to the reverse flow of chakra. Sections broke off in controlled sheets, collapsing into pale fragments that could be safely gathered or dissolved later. It was slow and precise work that was dreadfully boring.

She straightened and glanced toward the entrance, where foot traffic had been blocked off and warning tags still fluttered weakly in the humid air. Ruri would arrive soon, she’d expected that much at least. The girl had grit which means she’s ready to learn something less glamorous, Nozomi thought.

This wouldn’t be about heroics or survival today. There were no bone walls to climb or explosions to dodge. Just control, patience, and accountability. A lesson in how to dismantle chaos without creating more of it.

Nozomi rolled her shoulders once, feeling the familiar hum settle into a tolerable register, and waited...

[Class Post: 1/5, WC: 457/1,000]

 

[Shuusui Ruri]

The message reached Ruri late in the afternoon, slipped to her by an academy runner with a look that suggested they’d been told not to ask questions. The paper itself was plain, folded once, Nozomi’s handwriting was tight and uneven as if written in a hurry. It was brief, an invitation more than an explanation. An invite for training and clean-up in the hot springs. Ruri was intrigued and didn’t hesitate. Less than a week had passed since the incident, but the memory still sat close to the surface of her thoughts, sharp and vivid. The operation to remove the bones had been… unpleasant. She’d endured it in stoic silence, jaw clenched, nails biting into the cot as the medical-nin carefully extracted each shard from her arm, thigh, and shoulder. Healing chakra had closed the worst of the damage, but the spots were still tender, wrapped in clean bandages that showed faint pink where skin was still new. She moved fine, better than fine, according to the medics but she could still feel the echo of it all in her bones.

The springs came into view long before she reached them. What had once been a place of calm now looked like the aftermath of a small war. Pale columns of bone still jutted from the ground at odd angles, some snapped and fractured, others intact and reaching skyward like the ribs of a buried giant. Cracked tiles lay half-submerged in shallow, murky water, the pool itself drained unevenly where stone had ruptured. Every so often, a low creak or pop echoed as something settled deeper beneath the surface. The smell hit her next, sulphur, thick and sharp mixed with damp stone and something faintly organic. It clung to the back of her throat, unmistakable and heavy, a reminder of how violently the springs had been torn open. Steam still rose in lazy, uneven curls, drifting through the destruction as if nothing had happened at all.

Ruri slowed as she stepped into the women’s side of the complex, bypassing the warnings to remain clear. The chaos was frozen now. No movement or hostile chakra, just bone and rubble and silence. It was unsettling in a different way, like standing in a battlefield after the fighting had stopped. Her Byakugan confirmed what her instincts already knew, the terrain-altering jutsu was gone, its lingering chakra little more than a fading residue soaked into the unnatural bone structures. She flexed her bandaged arm, feeling the tight pull of healing skin, and exhaled slowly.

"It's strange, how peaceful it is." She comments to herself.

A week ago, this place had tried to kill her. Now it waited, quiet, broken, and oddly calm, for whatever came next. Through the drifting steam and pale bone, Ruri caught sight of Nozomi near the centre of the ruined springs, her silhouette unmistakable against the rubble. She lifted a hand in a brief wave and called out, voice carrying easily through the hollow space,

“Hey, Nozomi. I got your message.”

[Class Post 1/5]
[Word Count - 502]

 

[Ryuu Nozomi]

Nozomi turned at the sound of her name. She had been standing knee deep in the draining basin with her sleeves rolled up and hands already stained with white residue. Bone littered the pool floor around her but the worst of it had gone inert days ago. When she saw Ruri, whole and upright despite the bandages, something in Nozomi’s chest loosened by a fraction she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“I’m glad you came,” she said, her voice carrying but measured.

She stepped closer, stopping at a respectful distance. Just close enough to be heard without raising her voice. Her eyes flicked briefly to the wrapped arm, leg, and shoulder. Seeing her all patched up and made whole again was reassuring, and yet it came with a twinge of guilt.

“I should have checked on you sooner,” Nozomi continued. There was no flourish to the apology, just simple truth.

“The medical reports told me you were healing well, but I should have visited you.”

She gestured around them with an open hand, encompassing the ruined springs, the pale bone jutting at odd angles, the cracked stone and warped tiles.

“This...” she said quietly, “Was not supposed to be a trial, and yet you adapted under pressure that most academy students never face.”

The steam drifted between them in still in those slow curls as Nozomi exhaled and straightened slightly, shifting gears with deliberate control.

“So,” she went on, her tone changing to be a bit more upbeat.

“Maybe cleaning this up together is a suitable task, and it will do you well to keep those muscles loose.”

She crouched and pressed her palm flat against a broken column of bone. It shuddered faintly as the surface lost rigidity, as if heat had been applied from within. The structure began to crumble inward, collapsing into chalky fragments that could be cleared safely.

“I’ll destabilize and retract what I can,” Nozomi explained. “Anything fully inert, we break down manually and remove. We take our time though, there's no rush. No need for heroics today.”

Her gaze lifted back to Ruri.

“And if at any point something feels unsafe let me know immediately. I'm here to help.”

She straightened and offered a small, genuine nod. The ruined springs lay silent around them as Nozomi turned back to the nearest cluster of bone and rolled her shoulders once more, settling herself to continue the decomposition of bone structure.

[Class Post 2/5, WC: 862/1,000]

 

[Shuusui Ruri]

Ruri felt a small, unfamiliar warmth settle in her chest as Nozomi spoke, not pride exactly, and not embarrassment either. It was something she'd honestly not felt before. It was sweet of her to worry so much about her, even though, to Ruri, it was just another day, this girl had been worried for her. No one outside of her family had ever shown that kind of emotion and even then, it felt rigid. She rolled her bandaged shoulder once, testing it, then gave a sharp nod.

“Don't worry, I made it through just fine.” she said easily. “I appreciate the thought though and I'm good to work.”

Physical labor was simple and easy, it didn’t ask questions or care about awkward silences. As Nozomi moved to destabilize another column of bone, Ruri activated her Byakugan, pale eyes sharpening as the world shifted into layered clarity. Chakra bled through the ruined springs in faint traces, most of it dead, inert, soaked into stone like old stains. But not all of it.

“There,” Ruri said, pointing with two fingers toward a jagged cluster half-buried in broken tile. “That one’s still got something in it. A faint trace of chakra.”

She then moved without waiting for acknowledgment, stepping up to a fully inert pillar nearby. She squared her stance, feet planted firmly against the cracked stone, and struck. Her palm connected with a dull crack, the vibration rattling up her arm. Pain flared briefly where the bandages pulled tight, but she ignored it and struck again, this time with a short, sharp exhale, chakra snapping outward in a controlled burst. Fine fractures spiderwebbed through the bone’s surface. She worked methodically after that. Elbows, palms, short kicks when leverage allowed. Gentle Fist wasn’t meant for structures, and it showed, this was slow, grinding work. Bone dust coated her hands and forearms, chalky white against tan skin. Sweat built quickly, dampening her hair and rolling down her spine as steam swirled in the air around her and to her credit, she didn’t stop. Each impact chipped away more material. Pieces broke loose and crumbled under repeated strikes, reduced gradually to manageable fragments. Her breathing settled into a steady rhythm, movements efficient even as fatigue crept into her muscles, this felt close to the training she did at home, only that was against wooden stakes. After several minutes, Ruri stepped back, hands on her hips, chest rising and falling as she assessed the damage she’d done. The bone was smaller now, but far from gone.

“…Okay,” she admitted, glancing over at Nozomi. “This works, but it’s slow as hell.”

She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist, leaving a moist smear behind.

“You’ve got more experience with this stuff than I do,” Ruri said plainly. “Is there a better way to break these down without just… punching them until my arms fall off?”

[Class Post 2/5]
[Word Count - 484]
[Total Word Count - 986]

 

[Ryuu Nozomi]

Nozomi did not interrupt. She let Ruri finish her assessment, let the dust settle, and the question hang where it belonged. Watching mattered more than correcting in these moments as it allowed her to make her own mistakes and find the courage to ask for aid. The way Ruri framed the problem told Nozomi exactly where the lesson needed to begin. She stepped closer, boots crunching softly against scattered fragments, and crouched near the damaged pillar. Her gloved fingers hovered just off the surface and traced over the fractures without touching them.

“You need to attack the substance properly.” Nozomi said calmly.

She glanced sideways, briefly, to make sure Ruri could see what she was indicating before returning her attention to the bone.

“Think of it like breaking stone with a chisel,” she continued. “You don’t swing once and hope. You chip away over and over until the bone is convinced that staying whole is more effort than falling apart.”

She straightened and took half a step back, deliberately leaving the space open.

“Your technique should actually be ideal for this,” Nozomi said. “Because your eyes allow you to be so precise.”

She lifted one hand and made a short, repeated tapping motion against the bone, quick and shallow strikes.

“Find the places where cracks form naturally and the structure is ready to give way. If you keep the same depth and rhythm then you slowly teach the object how to fail.”

To demonstrate, she turned to a thinner column nearby. Her movements were economical and almost understated just how light she seemed to tap the bone. Dozens of rapid taps were placed along one side of the bone. There was no explosion of force and no dramatic impact. Just a subtle, spreading change in the sound that seemed to dull with each strike. Then she stopped and shifted her weight before delivering a single hard clean strike toward the center. The pillar split with a sharp crack and collapsed inward, breaking apart into manageable chunks instead of jagged shards. Nozomi would exhale slowly and step aside.

"Try that technique. Also, if you find something still active let me know. We can handle those together in a more deliberate fashion." She would announce, and slowly go back toward exactly that effort. Removing any chakra still charged within any of the fortification so that they could break things down more easily.


[WC: 406]
[Class: 3/5 WC: 1,000+]

 

[Shuusui Ruri]

Ruri didn’t interrupt, she just watched and listened with intrigue. She tracked Nozomi’s hands, the spacing of her strikes, the rhythm more than the force. The explanation clicked almost immediately, not because it was new, but because it aligned too well with what the Hyuuga already knew. The Gentle Fist style was never about power, but rather, it was about persuasion. About convincing something, muscle, chakra, bone, that resistance was pointless in the face of pressure and perseverance.

“Don’t force it,” Ruri murmured to herself, more thinking out loud than speaking. “Feel the weakness within, and exploit it.”

Her Byakugan sharpened the ruined pillar in front of her into layers of density and fracture lines. The bone wasn’t natural, as you might expect but It pretended to be and it was quite convincing until you truly looked deep. Stress ran through it in uneven veins, tiny imperfections spidering outward where earlier impacts had weakened the structure, no human bone would survive with such obvious faults, those were the points Ruri would focus on. Her first attempt was clumsy though, she struck too deep, too fast. The bone shuddered but held, the impact rebounding unpleasantly through her arm, dispersing the chakra from her hand. Ruri hissed and shook her hand once, annoyed but not discouraged.

“Too much,” she muttered. “Deep breath, then precision.”

This time she slowed down, starting with gentle, light taps, almost delicate. She tested different spots, listening to the sound, watching how the microfractures shifted beneath her vision. Tap. Tap. Tap. The rhythm mattered. The depth mattered. One place answered her touch better than the rest, the internal stress rippling outward like a sigh.

"There."

She adjusted her stance, shoulders relaxing instead of tightening. Her palm came forward, not with force, but with intent. The strike landed clean, her chakra pushed forcfully into the fractures like flowing water. For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then the bone creaked, the chara she'd pushed in expanded rapidly through the ractures, creating new ones as it did. The bones themselves didn't react explosively, nor violently, just… gave in. The structure collapsed inward, breaking down into fine fragments that scattered in the warm wind and steam like pale ash. Ruri blinked, then her mouth split into a wide, genuine grin.

“…Oh. That felt good.”

Excitement replaced fatigue almost instantly. She moved to the next pillar, then another, her confidence building with every success. A few exploratory taps, a brief pause to confirm the weak point, then a single, precise strike. Bone after bone collapsed, reduced to dust and fragments, the ruined springs slowly opening up as she worked. She lost track of time, sweat rolling freely now as she moved with purpose, clearing sections piece by piece. It felt right, clean, controlled and efficient. Gentle Fist applied beyond flesh, she was beginning to see more of the potential she had than ever before, a true moment of personal growth. Then she stopped as her Byakugan caught something wrong beneath the shallow, sulphurous water, near the center of the basin. A broad, flat shape that curved and smoothed out like a massive shoulder blade, half-buried beneath broken tile. It looked inert at first glance, but Ruri could see it clearly, chakra humming within it, slight, as if it knew its fate already and was clinging to stealth and hope. Ruri straightened immediately, her excitement cooling into alert focus.

She raised a hand and called out, “Nozomi... hold up.”

She pointed toward the water, careful not to step closer. “There’s a bone plate under there. Looks pretty big, like a shoulder blade or something. It’s mostly hidden, but there’s still chakra inside it, looks like it's hiding? Or it was created to be like that, hard to detect.” Her eyes narrowed slightly.

[Class Post 3/5]
[Word Count - 627]
[Total Word Count - 1613]

 

[Ryuu Nozomi]

Nozomi continued to watch without correcting. She stayed just far enough away to avoid crowding Ruri’s space but close enough to still read the cadence of her movements. Nozomi watched a rhythm slowly settle into Ruri's hands. Each successful collapse of bone registered not as surprise, but as confirmation. This was not improvisation anymore, she clearly had a new comprehension on the topic. Very Good.

While Ruri worked, Nozomi stayed busy in the margins of the destruction. She went about lifting fractured segments and sweeping fine debris into prepared sacks. Each bag was sealed with a thin clay lining that hardened on contact, which would prevent residual chakra from leaching back into the ground. When a sack was full, she shaped a moderately sized avian construct with some quick mouth-work and sent it skyward. Its wings beating silently as it carried the load toward a designated disposal zone beyond the springs.

She kept herself in motion because stillness invited the marrow within her to begin grinding, the curse testing its leash. Movement kept the pressure distributed and most importantly, her attention never left Ruri. She noted the widening grin, the increased pace, and the way confidence sharpened precision instead of dulling it. .

But when Ruri called out, Nozomi stopped immediately.

She didn’t rush toward the water recklessly or raise her voice. She simply turned, followed the line of Ruri’s gesture, and let her gaze settle on the basin. Steam drifted lazily across the surface and to the untrained eye, it was nothing more than just cloudy mineral water. Nozomi felt the faint resistance in the air, it was a pressure that didn’t belong to the environment.

“Good catch,” Nozomi said.

She approached the edge of the pool and crouched, making sure to be careful with her footing. Her reflection stared back at her as she glanced down into the water. Her white hair was stained red and her clothing still dripped with fresh blood. There was a sick look across her lips as she saw the reflection look towards Ruri. It wanted to do more than harm her, it wanted to rip her into a million pieces. Pressing her foot down into the pool caused the image to shatter, making it possible to ignore and focus more on the bone plate beneath the surface.

“Don’t strike it directly,” she added.

She reached down and pressed her fingertips lightly against the stone near the basin, feeling the echo of chakra through the ground rather than the object itself. She would feed some clay to the mouths in either palm and they would create an army of small ants that quickly marched into the stone below. If Ruri continued to watch, she would see this army of chakra ants move around the plate until it was surrounded. Then... a small rumble that barely shook the ground and yet the entire piece beneath the ground had broken into thousands of now inert pieces. Nozomi looked toward the girl at this point and nodded,

"You can continue your work down here. You did very well to alert me of that, it could have been very dangerous. If you find anything else let me know. Hopefully it's more of the same from here! You've got this. I'll keep cleaning up behind you, and destroying anything like that if needed."

Then she turned back to her work, already shaping another avian construct to lift another bag of debris. Truly, she was beginning to lose it and needed to keep her focus. But... on the outside, her posture seemed relaxed and she seemed fully in control.

[WC: 600, Class: 4/5, Total WC: 1,000+]