He was raised in the hunt. When hunting, you used all of the weapons you could to win. You used the shadows, you used the wind, you used the spear and bow. There was no cheap trick in the hunt, no easy way out. It was kill or starve. A clan of people relied on the hunters to bring back enough food to keep them all in the clear. Nothing was taboo in the hunt. Enzeru took to this better than most. The young boy, a man already to his clan, would often bring home a kill through what could be considered an underhanded method. He carried more than one set of arrows. His normal set was just that, a normal set of arrows. But his other was poisoned to bring down bigger prey quickly. The poison was fast acting, and he made sure it was one that would boil out when the catch was cooked. It was not often for him to sit there exasperated as an animal ran off with one of his arrows in it's flank.
Others came to him wanting to learn his tricks. He couldn't well tell them he was being duplicitous even by their standards of nothing being such. So he instead showed them how hunting was an art. He took them on trips into the forest and lost them, forcing them to find him. Here he was at home, a game of cat and mouse. None in the clan could find Enzeru once he was in this mode. He was more than a shadow, he was the air itself. Nothing stirred in his passage, nothing made noise. The first that many of them even knew of his presence was when they had already lost the game. More than one saw him vanish into the trees, and only moments later land ontop of a grazing deer and kill it on the spot. This was not his normal method, and indeed he only showed it when he knew it was going to work due to favorable wind carrying his scent. Still, it did impress.
They found his skill with a bow less flashy, but much more impressive to them. Enzeru pefected the art of pulling an arrow, knocking it, and shooting it in the same smooth motion. Soon he moved on to holding a group of arrows in hand, first in the hand holding the bow but soon he learned that holding it in the hand he shot with was certainly the faster method. It took practice to keep everything flowing smoothly, but once he perfected it, the method paid off in spades. While others who used leather quivers could shoot an arrow every few seconds, Enzeru could launch two or even three every second until he ran out of arrows. When the other hunters got too close and had to stop shooting and pull out their knives, Enzeru could keep shooting at rapid speed.
Another massive advantage he had over them was his natural aim. None in the clan would dare contest his superior accuracy and hand-eye coordination. To them it was not simply that they would lose, it was that they would lose face over making the claim at all. Instead of envious rage, the clan looked to him as a symbol of pride. Here was this child, they said, who could outshoot all other clans and make it look easy in doing.
He was challenged, of course. And one challenger even chose to take out his rage at losing on the child by shooting at him. Enzeru took to the challenge, his arrow flying out and slicing the incoming missile in two before one more flew and took the draw hand of the man. No one challenged him after that except those foreign to the lands of his clan.
After joining the village of Mist, his ability to manipulate chakra proved a boon to his abilities. Now he could infuse chakra into his bow to give more power and speed to the arrows, but even here he found room for improvement. He created a technique of using even his bow hand to give more power to the arrow in flight by flicking his wrist properly at the right time to give an extra bit of snap to the bowstring. This method allowed him to hold back on his chakra when others were wasting their own on their shots. Those in archery class with him soon fell behind as the boy once more rose to lead the pack. And once more he was asked to show how he could do this.
But these were rivals now, and he only showed them how to properly shoot on the right side of the bow, his teacher going red in the face as Enzeru revealed he had been ignoring the man's instructions to use the left side. Using the right, he explained, forced you to keep both eyes open and thus provided better depth perception. It also meant you could draw and shoot with less movement to get your hand in position, something that would speed up the firing times of the slower people in the class. In the end his instructor thanked him, noticing that the entire group benefited from this simple lesson.
He was thrown into real combat situations, there were times he simply could not hide and had to stand and fight. Enzeru proved more than capable in one on one combat, his ability to single his foe out and eliminate them something brought over from his life on the hunt. He could not only hit them reliably, but as they grew weaker Enzeru pushed harder, not letting up until the fight was over. But when he came up against more foes, he had to adapt his methods. And there he found an inner skill that he never would have through the clan. When the chips were down, when it time to look Death himself in the face and spit in his eye, Enzeru could tap into his chakra to empower him. Adrenaline mixed with chakra in his system to heighten his senses. He reacted faster, he moved faster, he even thought faster. His teacher thought him gifted from birth when he learned of this, explaining that it was untapped potential in the young man to call on in times of true trouble.
He began eyeing the branches he could join at this time, and the only one that called to him was ANBU. The police of the land, the bringers of justice. The training in the branch was even more severe than what his clan did to him. His body grew tougher, hardier. His mind sharpened further. There was no room for playing catch up here, you sank or you swam. You were not handed floaties and sent to the shallow end of the pool. Enzeru swam, swam for dear life in the stormy waters of this hell. He went through what could only be called torture to prove himself to the people in charge. He took strategy lessons, he took physical combat courses, he at one point was forced to sit still while others pelted him with stones to see how high his pain tolerance was.
He refused to cry out, he refused to whimper a word of pain. Even when he truly was singled out by the instructors he said nothing. But he fought back. He fought back by defying their expectations, by rising above it all and being the best. He learned from the classes, he learned from the abuse. He learned how to plan out attacked and carry them out. He put this to use with his other training and soon instructors found themselves waking up in the middle of the night tied to their beds with a snake on their chests. Not a rustle of a curtain, not a whisper of wind from an open window, heralded his arrival or departure from their quarters. None could catch him, but all knew it was the blue haired tribal getting one over on them.
He graduated top in a class of a dozen, one of only four to do pass the class. Enzeru became an ANBU, and in time an ANBU Captain because of his life of experience. The skills gathered over that life paved the way for him, taught him and nurtured him through it all. A deadly warrior is what he was trained to be, and these abilities have made him just that.
