Open Ninjutsu is your friend [CLASS]

[Momoku]

Momoku had started to think he'd been rude for asking as a silence stretched between them.

Then he heard scratching and caught a whiff of a smell before he felt another hand; Breakfast Girl (Sumire), he assumed; before she said:

"I am doing the hand seals in your hands so that you can feel them and get an idea of what they look like in your mind."

Nodding in thanks, he began to go through the hand seals as he had practiced for hours and felt… well, mostly a bubbling feeling in his gut and a pitiful breeze around his ears. It was a bit frustrating, but Momoku would not be stopped by such a setback. He was about to thank Sumire anyway when he heard a small strangled noise before she was gone.
Shrugging, he went back to centering himself when he heard the teacher mumble, "Oh, jeez."

Welp, here we go again, Momoku thought with a bit of bitter disgust. What was it going to be this time? "We can't train a cripple," or "You might be better suited for farming," or his personal favorite, "Get out! how could you hope to be a—"

"You're gonna have a much harder time than anyone else here," Rika stated rather bluntly. "But hand signs are flexible. Once you become more skilled, you will be able to perform jutsu with one hand, or without hand signs at all. Your only limitation is yourself and your imagination."

Momoku was floored. This had been the first time since he was blinded that he had been encouraged by, well, basically anyone. A series of failed attempts to be anything but a burden on his clan had left him a bit bitter, he had to admit. But this? Even hearing Rika ramble on about a story (he was already making a mental note to check whether his favorite bookstore had a copy he could get transcribed) the fire of his determination blazed brighter than ever. Not to be the best, but to be the most useful.

When Rika told the class to form the ram seal and hold it until it stung, he grinned, made the seal seamlessly, and strained to pull on the bubbling pool of what must be chakra, deep in his gut. He reached for it mentally, willing it to flow, to do something; anything. That was when he felt the heat from his core begin to churn and move, slowly, ever so slowly, toward his hands.

 

[Chikamatsu Zuto]

The tensions between the two Chikamatsu was almost palpable for anyone paying any real attention. Yet, separated now from each other Zuto only turned to keep a simple on eye on the cousin to make certain, she couldn’t see his attempts at Ninjutsu. The very idea of having a Water Chakra Nature was already sending the boy into a dizzy state of anxiety as he did everything he could to cut himself away from his own bloodline. He barely noticed Sumi moving away from the others and towards himself as he continued to stare objectively at his own hands.

At least, until Rika showed up. To hear genuine praise from someone his own age, who was capable of so much more, lifted something inside of him. Her casual tone to his water technique, and not making any big deal of it, was an entire world away from what he had expected. There would have been no hiding his chakra from Rika. It spiked, it transformed, it worked; even if it was currently harmless. He had a rare potential for Ninjutsu hiding deep under all that hate, and self-doubt. Yet the teacher made no big deal of it: he was just another kid. The pop of an electric bolt of static behind him from the red-head made him jump a little as Rika turned and elected the same praise.

All his life he had been told the Chikamatsu were special. Different. Loftier in their goals towards helping their fellow man, the adults who raised him saw themselves as something to be praised. Worshiped. They had been a major part in freeing themselves from the yoke of the Ancients not but a few hundred years ago; and were one of the few remaining clans able to speak of it. The stories handed down from generation to generation delighted and thrilled most of his peers, but Zuto knew the other side of his clan. The shadow cast by the beautiful blooming petals. Currently, he shivered in that cold darkness, but Rika’s praise managed to cut a hole into his cold mental sanctuary.

Right now, he was just another kid in a shinobi village. Then his eyes crossed over Ayaka again to witness her struggling. A twisted sense of pride welled up there now, but the feeling conflicted with his sensei’s praise; making Zuto feel oddly ill. He turned his eyes down at his hand once again, still damp from the water jutsu, and clenched it into a fist. Taking a deep breath he slowly began to walk towards his cousin with the intent to help, but the next lesson had already started.

He jolted in mid step, his eyes a mix of panic and determination. So close to an full emotional breakthrough only to be suddenly stopped; but, such was life. Turning his eyes down and away from his cousin once more, Zuto moved his body to face Rika again and take in the next lesson explaining how their powers worked. That it was finite. He admittedly didn’t feel any weakness in himself having just half-preformed a ninjutsu but happily put his hands into the Ram Seal.

His fingers slid into place until it ‘felt right.’ Something deep inside started to get warm, right around his bellybutton. It slowly started to move around in what felt like a circle from his stomach and out into his limbs. It was…powerful. Like he was taking his latent physical energy and transmuting it into something. With stark realization, the alleged swordsman put two and two together. The reason his little water gun had been so pitiful compared to Rika’s was the lack of this. He felt the raw energy form into his hands and sit there, waiting to be used. It just kept building and building, until finally, he felt a dizzy spell hit him from his left.

The shaggy blonde’s hands dropped on their own, his body going a little limp before stumbling back up. It felt like he had just run a straight kilometer without rest. Sweat began to bead up on his skin, cold and sticky, as the boy also began to take a more pallid skin tone.
“Mm,” was all he could mutter as Zuto shook his head to clear the mental cobwebs. The teacher had warned him, but he had got lost in the sauce. With just a single, simple lesson, the Chikamatsu was already fully aware of how he could train to make his water technique more powerful; but then the fear came back. Did he really want that though? To fall in line with the other Chikamatsu?

He wasn’t sure now…

 

[Otsuka Sumire]

Breaking her concentration with a smile at the praise, Sumi lifted her gaze to meet Rika's briefly before the teacher moved on, directing them simply to focus on molding their chakra. This was already familiar ground; she'd been working on it with her clan, so she was happy to fold her hands into the ram seal and turn her attention inward to the spinning ball of chakra nestled in her belly. It was still a somewhat unfamiliar sensation, especially after the last few weeks of neglected training, she thought with a small grimace, before pulling her focus back to the task.

Letting her surroundings soften and recede, she concentrated on the slightly dizzying feeling within her until it steadied, until she could properly feel the ebb and flow of it rather than just the vertigo. From there she relaxed her limbs while keeping her core taut, and let the sensation expand outward: through her shoulders, down her arms, all the way to the tips of her fingers, which began to tingle pleasantly. Pleased, she dropped her hands on a long, slow exhale. Her head spun just a little as she remembered to breathe again, and she made a quiet mental note to keep part of her awareness on that next time.

The moment her concentration broke, however, the tension hanging over the courtyard became nearly palpable. Her bright eyes snapped up toward the cluster of girls who seemed to be struggling with something, but snagged instead on the blonde boy with the sword, who had drifted some distance away while she'd been focused. His skin was a shade paler than she remembered from her brief glance earlier, his posture just slightly too loose, and he was - oh. He's swaying.

Sumi closed the distance in a few quiet steps, planting her sturdy frame close enough to matter but not so close as to jostle him. Her hands stayed at her sides, poised and ready. She studied his face carefully, watching to make sure he wasn't about to go down entirely, and noted the slightly sunken look to his features, the dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes. She'd only recently shed that same hollowed-out look herself, and the recognition of it sent a small pang squeezing through her chest. Her lips parted on a soft, involuntary "Oh-" not quite a word, but more than the grunts and sounds she'd been reduced to lately. Progress, maybe.

Then a faint current from the dome's ambient air conditioning drifted across them, and with it came his scent; stale and unwashed, the particular smell of someone who had stopped taking care of themselves and hadn't quite managed to start again. Another pang, this one sharper. The auburn-haired girl knew that habit well. She'd spent a stretch of weeks after being freed from the slavers' clutches in much the same state, and she knew how hard it was to climb back out of. Her gaze softened as she held her quiet vigil beside him. She was glad, suddenly, that she'd joined this class. Maybe there was more she could do here than just learn.

 

[Rin Naomi]

She was glad that nobody had seen her nearly fumble over after she had forced the wind jutsu to work for her. Even the girl that was teaching the class had praised her. She gave a small smile, feeling triumphant.

That feeling was then washed away just as quickly. Why? Because Rika then went on to talk about Chakra Burn. Well... She didn't really say it but described it. Naomi knows all about that.... She had accidentally killed her own father when she chakra burned herself.

The Genin would look down at her hands, remembering the dark red glow that still haunts her to this day. And to make matters worst, she nearly caused herself to burn her own chakra doing that wind technique. So she would first observe all of the students. It wouldn't go past her that there were exchanged glances between a small girl and a boy that had a sword. The girl seemed kind of frightened of the boy, and the boy seems to be glaring at her before both went to do the ram hand seal.

One by one, the others have either failed to do so, or managed to do it with a look of relief or smile on their face. It wasn't until that time that she realized that she was the only one left that hasn't done it. She hoped that she had given herself enough of a small rest to try it without instantly burning her chakra.

Taking a deep breath, she would form the ram hand seal. Unlike most of the other kids, Naomi has had done this before. Using her chakra. Even in one of the worst ways to awaken to it, she has an idea how to draw it out. Chakra instantly welled forth. There was a green glow that mainly surrounded her hands. Sweat poured down her forehead and waited. After about ten seconds, the green glow flickered, and turned into a dark shade of red as she instantly released the ram seal. She felt her whole body feel drained. There was a throbbing pain all over her body but she didn't show it. She had a shaky breathe to calm herself and steel her nerves.