Slippery when Cold [Open]

[Arinia Hiroyuki]

I still can't seem to get it right Yuki thought to himself as he sat on the ground staring at the course before him. He had been training at the Academy now for a month, but no matter how many times he tried his hand at the obstacle course he never seemed to improve his times. The course he had chosen was designed to test and improve one's control of their chakra, and as such consisted of many trials that required good control, from climbing up a vertical wall, to crossing a body of water. It wasn't a matter of not having the control to complete the tasks, it was not having the control to do so quickly. Yuki knew he could complete the course, he had done it many times over by this point. I don't get it, I'm fine until I try to run. As soon as I pick up speed I lose my control and end up slipping. What am I doing wrong?</COLOR><i></i>

Taking a deep breath Yuki stood up and began to stretch his muscles stiff from sitting. Walking towards the vertical wall he began to slowly increase his speed, a slow jog at first, before breaking into a full run straight at the wall. He could feel his chakra moving, willing it towards his feet ready to try again at the wall that kept defeating him. However that first step he took he was too focused on the chakra in his feet, over doing the amount needed and causing his foot to crash straight into the wood. "Damn it!"<i></i> he yelled out in frustration as his foot stuck ankle deep into the wall. <COLOR color="#40BFFF">I'm better than this, I should be better than this he thought yanking his foot out of the wall and slumping down against it. Frustrated and irritated Yuki just sat there back pressed against the wall. He didn't know what to do and didn't know where to begin, but he knew he would keep trying, he had to.

[WC=336][Topic Entered]

 

[Omoi Tetsu]

Morning already... The man lifted his face from the dirt, a stray leaf hugging it and reminding him of where he was. The hollowed out sound from his dreams was beginning to come to life with the sounds of birds singing, branches rattling against each other, and... the crackling of wood collapsing in on itself. This must have been it, and the man was slowly, through the haze of the morning, realizing that he may not have simply awoken by his own internal clock. No; someone was to blame. He pulled himself out of his little burrow and into the shimmering light and crisp air of the forest, rummaging around the paper scraps to wrap his fingers around a small tin cylinder, opening it and bringing the lukewarm liquid inside to his lips before heading out toward the sound.

Out into the realm of man, Tetsu felt, in the recessed parts of his mind, like he was a sort of ogre, collecting the twigs and moss on his person as a kind of camouflage. He instinctively glanced down toward his jacket, doing a little spot check to see if he was at least moderately presentable. He brushed off a few crumbs of soil from his sleeve. Not that it would have really made a difference to how he was going to look, all things considered. It wasn't particularly aerodynamic, but Tetsu did his best to launch his now empty can at the sitting child, now resting, no doubt as a break from what normal people would consider almost resting. "Hey kid! Why don't you do us all a favor and give up?" a dumb smile crept up his lips as he went on, "You planning on shocking your opponents to death with your impressive show of talentless hard work? Go home and sleep." Tetsu started laughing maliciously at his own clever ridicule before suddenly being overtaken by a kind of childish resentment that his dreams had been interrupted for no good reason. His smile quickly turned sour as he spit on the earth and purposelessly kicked a bit of dirt in the child's general direction. The only thing worse than being a loser is being woken by one... He thought to himself as he gazed up toward the sky and began looking inward, wondering what his chances of recapturing that sweet innocence of newly lost dreams might be.

[WC: 398][Topic Entered]

 

[Arinia Hiroyuki]

Yuki was lost deep in thought, his mind tracing over the books and scrolls he had read, looking for a clue or hint as to what he was missing with this skill. He would have sat there for hours going over it all, if not for the sound of rustling leaves and approaching foot steps. Opening his eyes Yuki was just in time to see an empty can coming towards his face. It wasn't going particularly fast, making dodging it an easy enough task, as Yuki leaned his head to the left the can bouncing off the wall behind him and landing in front of him. His eyes traced the path of the can had taken towards the footsteps to see a boy looking slightly worse for wear approaching. Where the hell did he come from, was he out in the forest training? Yuki thought as be began to stand up, however looking him over it seemed more that he had just woken up versus training, his clothes ragged with loose twigs and dirt in various places.

Yuki had originally planned to ignore the boy and the can, wanting to go back to his training, until the boy began to tease him. Talentless hard work? Coming from someone who looks like they never tried hard at a single thing in their life that's rich. Yuki thought has he bent over and picked up the can that had fallen at his feet. By now the boy was looking up his gaze fixed on the sky, and Yuki could feel the irritation from earlier mixing with irritation for his rude interruption. "Its already morning, why would I go home and sleep. Besides I'd rather be hard working than lazy" Yuki said as he gave the can a light toss in his hand before chucking it in the boys direction. He didn't throw it particularly hard, but certainly wasn't a gentle toss.

WC=319

 

[Omoi Tetsu]

Tetsu was a boy of two minds. From up in the clouds, his second self could see his temperamental nature suddenly begin the job of piloting his otherwise cool and rational mind, white hot rage literally blotting out his external senses as the can was returned to him. His own actions, literally thrown back in his face, seemed like an incomprehensible escalation of his mere minor and mostly justified slight against the child who had awoken him. He bent down, the blood rushing ever more to his cheeks as a result, and rapidly grabbed a few rocks to throw at his antagonist, not genuinely aiming to hit him, but convincing himself that this was, in fact, his goal. "Rather be hard working than lazy? This kid's so dumb he can't even tell I'm calling him incompetent." He said, as if to his imaginary friends, then laughed forcefully and in a way that made him privately embarrassed of how fake it sounded. "Would you rather be rich than poor too? Want to shout out some more obvious platitudes while you're there?" He thought if he managed to vent out his insults, his temper would be allowed to cool as a result, but there was just something.... Something infuriating about how genuine and dumb and innocent this kid who was standing up to Tetsu seemed.

It got under his skin, and his temper seemed to be boiling even hotter, rather than subsiding, as a result. He could feel the words escape his lips almost without his control, or else at least seemingly so. "You should really watch your mouth, you shit brat, someone worse than me would crack your skull over it." As soon as he heard his own utterances, a little pang of guilt and shame seemed to cower in the corners of his mind. He didn't want to fight this kid, despite his best efforts being put forward to be provocative. He was just angry. Maybe at nothing, he didn't really know what was wrong with himself. Tetsu gave a few quick glances at the little playground this kid was playing on, trying to assess how sturdy it was, and began fortifying his resolve to leave the boy alone to train so that he could get to work as early as possible dismantling and burning the obstacle course after he had left. The imagined look on the sincere child's face the next morning, when he would inevitably come back to train, was enough to fuel his rage-filled imagination, giving Tetsu the illusion that the idea was presently calming him, despite very obviously having the exact opposite effect.

WC: 440
OOC: Apologies for the delay, life stuff

 

[Arinia Hiroyuki]

First it was an empty can and now it was rocks that came flying towards Yuki. Just like the can they missed as well hitting various areas around him, but it still served to irritate him. What the hell is this guy's problem? Yuki thought as the insults kept coming. However what started off as simple insults quickly turned more serious when the boy's words took a much darker turn. "You should really watch your mouth, you shit brat, someone worse than me would crack your skull over it." The words echoed in Yuki's mind as he began to size up the boy in front of him, his eyes quickly scanning him for any potential weapons. At a glance it doesn't look like he's caring anything, but if he's a shinobi they could be hidden. Not to mention he is definitely bigger than me. Yuki thought has he unconsciously took a step back and gathered his surroundings for possible escape routes. Of course he knew that his best bet would be to use the course if it came down to it.

It pissed him off to admit it, but Yuki knew he was no match for the boy. Which meant if he didn't want this to continue to escalate he would have to bite his tongue and play the part. "Look I'm sorry for throwing the can or whatever" Yuki said gritting his teeth and forcing out the words. He didn't really mean it, after all the boy had thrown it first, and as much as Yuki wanted to return the favor with the rocks it would only make things worse. "Maybe if you weren't such a jerk I wouldn't have done it" Yuki mumbled under his breath, the irritation bubbling over. He had already been pissed off about the obstacle course and now he had this to deal with. As Yuki stood there thinking about all of it his anger continued to build and his normally suppressed Ice nature began to seep out as the area around Yuki began to slowly cool and freeze starting with the patch of grass he was standing on. It wasn't something he usually showed off or used, the kids in his class weren't even aware of it. Of course the teachers knew, but outside of them and his mom no one else knew about the blood that ran through his icy veins. If I was stronger I would just freeze his mouth shut, then who would be one in trouble. Yuki thought to himself a small smile slowly appearing. He wanted to be stronger, he wanted to be able to speak his mind and act how he wanted without worrying about people like this. No more than wanted he needed it.

[WC=458]
[OOC - No worries been busy with work myself]

 

[Omoi Tetsu]

"I'm the jerk, huh?" He hardly knew he was going to say it, and when he had, he intended for it to come out with a mocking tone, as if to point out how the boy in front of him seemed to have a kind of addiction for pointing out the obvious, but instead it came out a bit sideways, made him feel out of place, alone. He scratched his hips through his jacket pockets, not really knowing what to do with his hands as he looked away from the apologizing boy, a real sour expression plastered all over Tetsu's face.

The cold breath of the morning seemed to come back all at once, reminding him of where he was, and mixed in with the slight tinge of melancholy and irritation, the boy felt happy to be out on a beautiful morning like this. His rage subsiding, he had felt like he was on some inevitable track toward destruction and consequential explanation to people who would reasonably be unwilling to accept what he had to say. Instead, that damp rag had been lifted from his morning, and where once he seemed to be prisoner of his own whims, he was suddenly freed by them. Like the feeling you get after waking from an unexpected nap; he felt gross and sticky inside, filled with tar, but unreasonably cheery that he'd both been able to rest and wake. He waved his arm forward in a gesture that universally meant 'I don't have time for this' Before casting the other boy completely out of his mind, pondering on the topic of what he could make of his suddenly long day, and began to disappear back into the forest, troll that he was.

WC: 290
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