[spoilername="Jutsu Mastery"]Word Count Total: 117
That which had been a challenge before had become a second nature by the time he looked back at it, going even as far as to call it casual. Larger jutsu were called forth and tamed, and despite looking comical in their own right, the chirping clay birds floating around Yoshihisa's head were each capable of leaving craters were houses used to be. He had become a minimalist, to keep expecting the same results from himself with less each time. It had sharpened his ability to mold chakra, to conserve it, honing it to the point where the slightest increase of chakra used for a technique had the most drastic of results for those standing against him.[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Bloody Mess"]Word Count Total: 220
Book knowledge was still valuable knowledge: The inner workings of the human body were exposed by the tiny strands of information Yoshihisa could get his hands on from the failing collection of tomes Iwagakure didn't offer openly. But a mere lead was enough in order for him to grasp what he was learning about, and the options to disable the enemy's movements were steadily increasing in numbers. Every weak point was bared if a strong enough force was applied, the rupturing of veins and the tearing at muscle tissue becoming a gruesome, yet effective reality soon enough. And while it wasn't in the boy's nature to kill, even would downright refuse it to this day if he could, it was once again a given fact that being left alive wasn't always the greatest victory one could imagine.
And with the last anatomic sketches in his hand, Yoshihisa had taken in the path of every artery, coursing with the valuable life essence which only offered his opponents to be another glaring weakness. If you asked him, he wouldn't deny the fact that he was going to be ashamed to use this knowledge in battle, but at the end of the day, the lives of your allies was to be valued more than the lives of your enemies.
That was his satisfaction..[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Human Anatomy"]Word Count Total: 220
Book knowledge was still valuable knowledge: The inner workings of the human body were exposed by the tiny strands of information Yoshihisa could get his hands on from the failing collection of tomes Iwagakure didn't offer openly. But a mere lead was enough in order for him to grasp what he was learning about, and the options to disable the enemy's movements were steadily increasing in numbers. Every weak point was bared if a strong enough force was applied, the rupturing of veins and the tearing at muscle tissue becoming a gruesome, yet effective reality soon enough. And while it wasn't in the boy's nature to kill, even would downright refuse it to this day if he could, it was once again a given fact that being left alive wasn't always the greatest victory one could imagine.
And with the last anatomic sketches in his hand, Yoshihisa had taken in the path of every artery, coursing with the valuable life essence which only offered his opponents to be another glaring weakness. If you asked him, he wouldn't deny the fact that he was going to be ashamed to use this knowledge in battle, but at the end of the day, the lives of your allies was to be valued more than the lives of your enemies.
That was his satisfaction..[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Elemental Aura"]Word Count Total: 117
The Immolation Armor jutsu has been the first step for Yoshihisa to don the colors of his respective elemental affinity, and with it has allowed himself to feel the embrace of any chakra armor for longer than usual.
Bright and warm, the chakra armor now provides even more than imagined at first hand. Blinding and scorching, upon the mastery of these Jutsu the offensive power of these Shinobi are rising as well. Yoshihisa has in a sense not only allowed himself to master his own defenses, but has become more in tune with the aura of the elemental used for them, never being truly abandoned by it as long as his own aura shines just as brightly.[/fontsize][/spoilername]
[spoilername="Called Shot"]Word Count Total: 112
Despite more and more coming to terms with what being a Shinobi really means, it is still another step as a whole to kill. The crafty among Shinobi will instead learn some ways around it, experimenting with options to take out the enemy in different ways.
Yoshihisa is among these people, and with it has trained tirelessly to disable those he must face in the field, be it with a quick blow to the head, chest or downright breaking his opponents' arms to prevent them from picking up the weapons against him and his allies anytime soon. Making an art out of doing this effectively might just be as frightening as killing..[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Jutsu Mastery"]Word Count Total: 117
That which had been a challenge before had become a second nature by the time he looked back at it, going even as far as to call it casual. Larger jutsu were called forth and tamed, and despite looking comical in their own right, the chirping clay birds floating around Yoshihisa's head were each capable of leaving craters were houses used to be. He had become a minimalist, to keep expecting the same results from himself with less each time. It had sharpened his ability to mold chakra, to conserve it, honing it to the point where the slightest increase of chakra used for a technique had the most drastic of results for those standing against him.[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Bloody Mess"]Word Count Total: 220
Book knowledge was still valuable knowledge: The inner workings of the human body were exposed by the tiny strands of information Yoshihisa could get his hands on from the failing collection of tomes Iwagakure didn't offer openly. But a mere lead was enough in order for him to grasp what he was learning about, and the options to disable the enemy's movements were steadily increasing in numbers. Every weak point was bared if a strong enough force was applied, the rupturing of veins and the tearing at muscle tissue becoming a gruesome, yet effective reality soon enough. And while it wasn't in the boy's nature to kill, even would downright refuse it to this day if he could, it was once again a given fact that being left alive wasn't always the greatest victory one could imagine.
And with the last anatomic sketches in his hand, Yoshihisa had taken in the path of every artery, coursing with the valuable life essence which only offered his opponents to be another glaring weakness. If you asked him, he wouldn't deny the fact that he was going to be ashamed to use this knowledge in battle, but at the end of the day, the lives of your allies was to be valued more than the lives of your enemies.
That was his satisfaction..[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Human Anatomy"]Word Count Total: 220
Book knowledge was still valuable knowledge: The inner workings of the human body were exposed by the tiny strands of information Yoshihisa could get his hands on from the failing collection of tomes Iwagakure didn't offer openly. But a mere lead was enough in order for him to grasp what he was learning about, and the options to disable the enemy's movements were steadily increasing in numbers. Every weak point was bared if a strong enough force was applied, the rupturing of veins and the tearing at muscle tissue becoming a gruesome, yet effective reality soon enough. And while it wasn't in the boy's nature to kill, even would downright refuse it to this day if he could, it was once again a given fact that being left alive wasn't always the greatest victory one could imagine.
And with the last anatomic sketches in his hand, Yoshihisa had taken in the path of every artery, coursing with the valuable life essence which only offered his opponents to be another glaring weakness. If you asked him, he wouldn't deny the fact that he was going to be ashamed to use this knowledge in battle, but at the end of the day, the lives of your allies was to be valued more than the lives of your enemies.
That was his satisfaction..[/spoilername]
[spoilername="Jinchuuriki"]Word Count Total: 1513
Alongside the mighty city-state of Maruishi, Iwagakure had proven that some of the mightier forces roaming the planet would not be stopped solely by the significance of a dynasty's heritage hew from stone. If it hadn't been for the occasional towering reptilian corpse overwhelmed with gluttonous packs of scavengers, what was once the thriving centre of a culture could now hardly be distinguished from the epicentre of another staggering earthquake, one which had managed to wipe the livelihood of so many completely off the map while not even sparing the lives of so many others. The beasts had ravaged the entire region, had broken everything left in their wake that the historians for decades to come would have to speculate whether or they had rampaged in order to sate their ever-growing hunger, or their insatiable thirst for destruction. Little did it matter now, for the results had paralyzed the Earth Country's capital and the road to recovery would with a doubt be very unforgiving to its survivors.
In the conjoint operations to get the seat of power back in working order Iwagakure's Shinobi had taken the center stage, their efforts to be instruments they were molded to be were great enough to overshadow the common work forces without as much as a second thought. And so too there was Yoshihisa, clad in his signature sand-tinted garb which was in the past couple of days had nearly been torn beyond recognition: With each silent hand seal there was another violent explosion nearby, often followed by a near tempest made up of chunks of debris, with each tearing into the youth like a pellet. The conditions were harsh and the objectives countless, making it impossible for calculate how much longer he would be slaving away within the cramped courtyard, whether or not he would even be going home at the end of the day. While grateful about the fact his family had their lives spared, like many others they hadn't been spared the suffering of losing their home, their supplies and everything that had allowed them to keep their heads up for so long. Any other time the work piling up for a clan made up almost entirely of masons had been received as a blessing, now it only managed to severely impede and demoralize. It had been entrusted to the limited number of fine Shinobi produced by the Kodomas to carry their shared weight, to pull them all through this time of crisis.
Another barrage of deafening explosions echoed throughout the ruins of what must have once been the prominent business area cradled within the heart of Maruishi: Yoshihisa knew very well that it was so, but nothing of the man-made surroundings ever managed to give him the confirmation he so desperately needed. Also he was aware that it was meant to be a mission to clear as much of the debris as possible instead of a recovery mission. But while it were mere objectives to the cold, calculated mind of a Shinobi, his humane size was exposed to the gruesome fact that he was dealing with the shreds of former lives here, something he just could shut out of his mind without eventually killing it. Just as easily could he have inadvertently gotten people killed by his actions if he hadn't given it a thought at one point or another, for the presence of others couldn't possibly be excluded, not at this age.
It wasn't until he had cast a glance at it that Yoshihisa noticed what the stress was doing to his physical being: Swollen and rapidly pulsating, vile blue veins and arteries alike were just barely kept below the sickly ashen skin of a boy barely old enough to even shave, while it could have easily belonged to someone having well lived past a century. He broke out in sweat, dilating pupils no longer able to register the phenomenon where the pores soon enough didn't allow any of it to be expelled anymore, for as the skin tone deepened, the body expanded so rapidly that no bystanders could have told if the clothes were torn to shreds or swallowed whole. It was only when his body had taken on the mass once trice his own that the Toujigikou's expansion halted, leaving him in a shape very much unlike the one he had possessed only moments earlier. Initially a formless mass, Yoshihisa could have hardly been distinguished for a product of either of his additional maws, a massive grey blob that soon enough started to shape itself further into what could only be the fuel of nightmares. Hunched but undeniably bipedal, the grotesque creature that took his place had arms akin to pillars with no hands to speak of, nor did there appear to be any eyes in the elongated cylindrical head and with only the flared open nostrils giving away that it was observing its surroundings. Slightly agape, the maw of this creature wasn't exactly the first feature to catch the attention: It were the wide and eerily thin grins of the two separate mouths running right across its chest and shoulders which took the crown, occasionally running a tongue across the non-flesh before a croaking giggle pierced the silence. Several crater-like growths protruded from its back, like rows upon rows of makeshift spines of all sizes. A thick haze started to cloud the area, pollution having been pumped into the sky from the depths of these craters and would most certain make it inhabitable if it wasn't for the fact that the horrid being was soon enough on the move.
Luckily he had been assigned to this area all along, an encounter with other Shinobi had no doubt raised red flags that were undesirable to the dulled persona whom had taken the reins as much as to Yoshihisa himself. Or rather, to the former it might have been nearly like taking effort to swat a fly, for killing power it appeared to have plenty: As if vaguely aware of what his mission had been, the creature soon enough hunched over on top of a pile of rubble, one which had given it the perfect view across the landscape if traditional vision had been at play here. It remained there, stationary for long enough to make one wonder if it was actually inanimate, but long they wouldn't have to wait as additional protrusions grew from all across the being's hulking body and possibly made it seem all the more horrific. In the blink of an eye, the extensions shattered without ever as much as triggering an audible sound all before the inferno of a tremendous explosion consumed everything in the direct facinity. Soon enough the process would repeat itself, more of the tiny lumps of clay being scattered across the caved-in buildings and caresses to only be wiped off the map within a moment's notice. Moving ever so slowly with its lumbering steps, the monstrosity moved from time to time with its only intention appearing to be a destructive rampage to which there wouldn't be an end anytime soon. Every so often it would cease its movements when it had managed to find a prize in the form of a collection of half-charred giblets, just as likely to be men or monster at this point, which only made its efforts to consume them all the more sickening. Its slavering, twisted maws never ceased the chewing motions it made before another load of found itself being corroded: As a matter of fact, the chewing was as much a vital process to the digestion as was the fact that the flesh couldn't stay within its grasp for too long without literally melting away like it hadn't known a shape or form to begin with. The corrosion ended up being so aggressive that even the liquid soon enough evaporated into thin air, making the seemingly mindless quest of the beast seem all the more pointless to that end.
The political and financial centre of the Earth Country had been the scene of something that the civilians shouldn't have been exposed to. But even the aftermath, for weeks and even months to come they just as often as the local Shinobi had turned out to be sick, heaving up the contents of their stomachs without a logical explanation to clear their troubling thoughts. For all they knew it was to be deemed haunted, even when one of the Iwagakure Jounin familiar with radiation -a subject most of the population would have raised their eyebrows at in question- tried to educate them about what the spiked readings actually translated to. While the campaign under her guidance to purge the area of the shortly after discovered chunks of blistered clay, the apparent root of the problem had proven to be succesful, the residents settled there acknowledged till much later that there could just as easily be an explanation resorting to higher powers of some sort. The closest to the truth they came was when another layer of shed 'skin' showed up, all with the very same results..[/spoilername]
