The Cute Wooden Blondie Returns! (Solo, Training)

[Midori Futotta]

When First Learning Kensei

No More String's

About a couple days after his resurrection, Maru was sleeping within a cave he had been hanging around since he got here. The GunBlade at his side began to glow a faint green color as it began to form into a new weapon that Maru didn't have before. While Maru was dead sleep, the young mercenary began to have the strangest dream;

…..Maru……

…..Hey Maru!....

After his name was called, Maru opened his eyes to look ahead. He could see that he was in some strange dream world he haven't seen in a while, broken dolls littered throughout the ground like some kind of doll graveyard, there were many different puppets around including some that he used to own and some that were destroyed a long time ago. The sky was a dark grey with a few ravens circled over his head, then Maru fell backwards into a pile of doll parts from leaning against a wall that clearly didn't exist in this world before hopping on his feet crushing wooden heads on his landing. He looked around, trying to see if he could see anything or anyone when he felt a sharp metallic hand poke him on his shoulder and he jumped back in surprise. Who he turned around to see was pretty shocking… considering that he lost that doll a long time ago in a battle.

“Kawaii? Aren't you supposed like gone?!” He said, the sinister doll covered her mouth to chuckle. “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeell…. I was never really gone considering I'm apart of your body. Remember when you went looney and gouged out your eye to put my eye in? When you got burnt with that spirtiual fire, you and me became two separate souls!” Maru brought his hand up to his chin, thinking how he was back then and he was pretty looney to do something like that.

Flashback: Maru sat in his study solemnly, he sat with his legs crossed, he was face to face with his beloved puppet Kawaii. Her face was joyful but she had the blank expression of that of an expressionless doll. Her glassy eyes stared deep into the boy's soul, they had been locked in the staredown for almost two hours now and it was going strong. As Maru strained his eyes to stay on his unmoving target, Kawaii remained sitting there waiting for the boy to crack. Suddenly he felt himself blink and rub his eyes, Maru cursed under his breath as he realized that it had been a while since he blinked last and was in the middle of holding his breath to match his Kawaii puppet. Kawaiis voice boomed from her speakers, Maru making her hop to her feet in triumph making her tease him! “HeHeHe...! See Maru you can't beat me at a staring contest, Hon!” The doll said to Maru, the boy acted as though he was angry at her but truth be told it should be expected. Maru continued to make his beloved doll tease him a bit more. “How did you think that was going to go?! i have no actual fleshy eyes like you SILLY! Also you tried to match my not breathing even though I don't have lungs…” She giggled, Maru began to drop his fake angry act to smile. He honestly found his doll’s gloating kind of heartwarming.

The boy decided to speak back to his companion “Yeah, yeah, I knew you'd win. I was just testing you so stop rubbing it in.” The boy said that with a sly smile, Kawaii giggled again. “Good game though two hours is a pretty long time for someone who is limited as you ...and you know what that means you have to put the eye in!” Her sharp mechanical hand gestured to a one of her spare dolls eye, it was shiny… beautiful… very beautiful. With that particular eye he'll be able to be halfway like Kawaii, well less than halfway but he wouldn't have to worry about losing to kawaii in a staring contest in at least one of his eyes. That's the main thing.

Maru began to smile to himself, looking at the dolls eye… he grabbed the shiny cold orb, examining it with from every angle.. Bringing his hand to his face. “Dolls are everything that I want to be…” Maru said, his index and middle finger reaching up along with his thumb. “Dolls aren't bound by a limited lifespan, they don't feel pain. They can be built and improved in hours...” He pushed the upper eyelid with his index and middle fingers, and the lower one with his thumb.“Dolls are hollow, seeking to fill their emptiness… “Gradually, he revealed the slick, shining eyeball. “With that emptiness, I will fill that void with hatred.” without a moment's hesitation he stabbed his fingers into his right eye, slowly digging it into his eye, and tore it right out! The eye falling to the table. Maru started to place the dolls eye in his empty eye socket. There was a squishing sound, and drips of blood, the dolls eye fit perfectly in his empty socket. He blinked a few times, his chakra infusing with the eye so he would be able to see you of it…

Maru grinned at his Kawaii who was smiling right back at him. Blood began to come down his face like the cry of an angle, simply asking his puppet… ”So am I beautiful like you now?”

Present:

Yeah that probably wasn't the best idea but then his doll continued. “You've fused with your weapons on more than one occasion but I was always the puppet who had been alive, to put it in simple terms you and me have been kinda sharing a soul for a while and thanks to that guy fusing your hearts to your weapon we could finally be a team!” Weird, it was always a childish dream of his to be a team with his weapon, before people used to say that he was too attached to Kawaii… that he is gonna have to learn to stand without her. But now he had that golden opportunity to rely on his weapon as if it was a actual person, like he always wanted. In a way it kinda made sense, how when he holds a certain weapon it heals him if he needed it, how certain weapons have that ability to take chakra and life energy every time he did damage. “Oh! Almost forgot you need to actually know how to use me properly!” She raised her hands, the broken doll parts coming together to form a giant doll monstrosity. Kawaii began to glow twice, transforming into a pair of pistols within Maru's hands.

'When dealing with a single opponent, damage is key but you can also counter attack with dual weapons as well…’ the doll creature raised its big hand, attempting to crush Maru in which on sheer instinct Maru attacked the beast with his duel weapons. Shooting one hand to knock its hand away from its target, breaking its hand! 'Good! Now counter the next move by attacking it.’ The creature attempting to blast Maru with a flamethrower, Maru acted quickly and “attacked” the flames causing them to dispersed. The creature attacked again, Maru combining his needle shower with his Flurry Shot to fire at the creature repeatedly before hopping backwards. The creature beginning to fall apart now had created five versions of itself, Maru beginning to hear his dolls voice once again. 'There are a lot of goons here, try fusing me together then blast em all!’ Maru smashed his duel pistols together, his guns beginning to form a pretty huge rifle in mid battle, the puppet creatures rushed at Maru and the gunslinger began to take aim and fired at the big doll monster.

Click clack

Blam!

He fried at the small monster which shattered on impact.

Blam!

Click clack

He blasted the second copy.

Blam!

Click clack

Here's number three!

Blam!

Click clack

That's four down!

With the last one pretty close, Maru smirked as it continued to charge then… Blam!

Click clack

The huge doll creature was far from finished with Maru, he could see the core that kept it coming at him and Maru had an idea to blast it, but then Kawaii’s voice came through. ‘If you wish to, you can also combine a ninjustu AND a Taijustu together to do a nasty amount of damage. This is known as a Omni-Flash.’ Maru already came up with an idea on how to use it, channeling the non-elemental Justu with his destruction powershot. Maru aimed his weapon at the doll creature, before unleashed a large beam at it…. Then… KABOOM! The doll creature was scattered throughout the doll graveyard, broken and melted doll parts rained from the heavens. Maru chuckled, then separated his rifle back into duel weapons. “I think I'm liking this partnership.” he said, but it was no time for celebrating. The ground began to rumble, then all the doll parts began to move then began attaching themselves themselves, each part making horrific clicking sounds to look to see that there was a army of broken dolls. This kinda reminded him of a manga he saw about a man going against people from all villages. This world maybe against him, but it probably wouldn't be fair any otherwise.

“Could use another Omni-Flash right about now.” Maru said, the dolls beginning to build themselves up. ‘Well right now you can't use it as you are, but you can fuse with me and we'll take care of the rest.’ He could merge with his weapon, that's pretty awesome so he decided to go with it. “Alright, let's fuse.” He said as his weapon began to perform a technique allows the Maru to merge with his weapon, fusing into a new form the grants the Maru all of the abilities his weapon has. Forming his arms into a huge cannon… Maru blasted the army of dolls Omni-Flash, then everything faded into the light of Maru's new favorite move….

….

Maru woke up from his dream! Holding his head, he looked at his GunBlade which was now in the shape of his duel pistols and he looked around the cave. There were numerous bullet holes on the ground hand huge holes which showed to outside making Maru's cave a bit colder. “Sleep shooting, damn.” He rubbed both of his shoulders to get warm to travel deeper inside of that cave. He couldn't have just dreamt of the whole thing, that training with becoming one with his weapon, the abilities and strategies it taught, surely it couldn't all be a dream. Perhaps this was how it was meant to be from the beginning, not leaning on other people but always leaning on his weapon for support.

 

[Midori Futotta]

“Soooooo… like what are these chakra threads for again?” Maru asked looking at the chakra threads attached to his arms and legs. The metallic claws of his puppet had produced chakra threads that were connected to Maru, it was weird to have his puppet in control of him and not the other way around which kinda reminded him of what one of his teachers told him about her in the past. ‘Your puppet, who does it serve? Do you serve it or does it serve you.’ Of course, Maru's intelligent weapon giggled then brushed it aside like this was clearly normal. “Oh common! Why train when you have a cute, intelligent, sentient weapon that could help you with that while your body relaxes!” she giggled, tilting her head while giving Maru sad puppy eyes despite her expression being that of an emotionless doll. “You… trust your Kawaii right?... Aren't we supposed to be a team?” That was pretty much when Maru gave in, then allow his wooden companion to control him. It was for his benefit anyway so no use complaining about it.

Maru began to relax himself, Kawaii began manipulating Maru to do basic things like human movements. She then started to make him mimic her movements while Maru simply felt like he was just dangling on strings but he was still able to move how he'd normally would move. He was still able to draw his duel guns and all he really had to do was move his fingers. He automatically knew if he needed to move his fingers from a slight tugging on the back of his neck, he was able to move slightly faster than he normally would and shoot pretty quick too but his duel weapons wasn't loaded so it simply made clicking sounds. After a moment, Maru actually got used to the whole letting his doll manipulate him thing since normally he would get lazy and stop after a certain time. After hours of exercising, Kawaii decided to give Maru control of his body again and Maru ended up crumbling down to the rocky ground like a marionette with its strings cut. “Whoops, should've told you that you have control now.” the doll said, rubbing the back of her head. Maru kicked up, still full of energy then put his cape on. “Alright, let's go exploring around the country. Got places to be and people to meet.” Maru said, then Kawaii transformed from her doll from into a musket which Maru strapped onto his back to head out the cave….

 

[Midori Futotta]

Since Maru had been training with his signature weapon, it felt as if he was actually getting somewhere or at least he felt as if he was actually being taught things actually useful to him. With Kawaii, it took him no time at all to master the art of projectile Taijustu but his training was far from being over because there were still Justu that he haven't mastered yet. She told him that if he actually mastered all the ninjustu he would be able to do cool things like channel ninjustu through his weapon or even have more combinations for his favorite Taijustu technique known as Omni-Flash! His weapon had a wide array of knowledge of combat, knowing exactly what Maru should use and what he shouldn't use which made him also wonder if he should change his style of combat but she had an easy solution for that.

While holding his weapon, it began to talk to him. ‘Now since we mastered everything having to do with projectiles and nearly done with mastering puppet justu I think we should work on your secondary affinity of combat which is Genjustu.’ Maru jolted, he his genjustu was pretty average not to mention he only knew a few but then he realized something. “Well since you can use any ninjustu at a range and I could use my favorite ninjustu Rasengan at a range how about we go for….” Maru began to think, what was his favorite kind of genjustu then he snapped his fingers. “Kinetic! Only because that has cool effects like giving the plague.” Maru began to smirk, then chuckled at the thought. Affecting someone's sense of touch seemed to be most effective, they need hands to weave hand signs or hold a weapon not to mention he could cause more pain that way but he wondered what Kawaii thought.

'Hmmm… seems pretty useful. We could use something like that, so let's get to it.’ Maru was about to put his fingers over his forehead to attempted to master what he knew but he was halted. ‘Wait! You know if you hold me to your forehead you can learn everything you need to know about kinetic genjustu.’ Maru chuckled. “Is there anything you can't do?” The young rogue said, if she was able to help him learn faster then he was all for it so he placed the barrel of his musket to his forehead, chakra threads latched onto his forehead and he felt as if he was already gaining the knowledge he needed, and not just Kinetic but he had knowledge of even other senses which he thought was pretty cool…..

WC: 442

 

[Midori Futotta]

So now that Maru had this indestructible weapon what should he do now? Well for starters Kawaii had told him before that he needed to change his fighting style, the problem with him was that he was not the best hand to hand combat fighter and his ninjustu wasn't really any good but Kawaii had a way to better his skills in ninjustu by helping him to train on his accuracy with ninjustu. The lesson now was pretty much how to use ninjustu properly so he could fight using something other than his range weapons. 'Now there will be times that I won't be around, say you left me at home or you got captured. Another way to fight would be to use ninjustu!’ She instructed before continuing. 'Ninjustu is great to use when you're trying to beat your opponent down quickly, it can also be used to buff me up if I need it or help you when someone's trying to punch you. Now the goal is to master ninjustu the point where you can use that as great as you do range weapons. Ready?’

Maru feeling a bit excited about learning something new kinda made his eyes lit up and he was ready to learn a new style of fighting. At first, Maru had trouble controlling where his attack would go, his supernova would hit somewhere where he wasn't aiming at. It took Maru days to actually get his skills with ninjustu under control to at least where he was about average in his ninjustu skills since he would be using range attacks most if the time. It only came at the cost of having his knowledge in genjutsu lowered just a bit but of course that really didn't matter him since there was only one sense that he would be using most of the time, and he mastered that with range accuracy.

WC: 315

 

[Midori Futotta]

With all the grueling training with Kawaii, he felt almost prepared to go against whatever poor sucker who challenged him. He wasn't really sure about if he could take on multiple people at once, peoples being actual shinobi but then again he did have the power to make the poor souls who challenged him to attack themselves or even share each other's pain but being on one end a swarm… From experience, was pretty hard. Especially if you're standing alone, but then Maru had an idea. Since his signature weapon was quite skilled in the art of using strong negotiation (manipulation.) He figured that he would try to get a few lessons in Genjustu a shot. With his eye of hypnotism he might would be able to hold off some people while he shoots at them, a clear cut strategy but pretty hard if he doesn't make eye contact with them.

Floating by Maru's side, the spirit began to give her simple minded welder tips on how should he use his new founded powers. ‘Right. Now to begin with, that eye you possess gots a great ability to hammer into a person's mind with genjustu in one hundredth of a second, or faster. So obviously you'll be using it a lot since… well it gives you a lot of advantages. One look could put a person to sleep, cause blindness, turn their weapons against themselves, or turn them against someone else.’ The spirit began, folding her ghostly arms. 'Its quite simple to avoid your genjustu since it takes a smoke bomb or something but since I control most of your senses I could give that genjustu a little push to make it irresistible.’

“Wait what?” He said after the part about her controlling most of his senses but she completely ignored him. ‘Alright! Let's get to buffing up your will!’ she said before placing both of her ghostly hands within Maru's head causing his senses, his consciousness and even his subconscious to go blank for a bit. A sort of possession to keep Maru still while she transferred a bit of her knowledge of genjustu to the frontal lobe of Maru's brain and even using bits and pecices of the young mercenary's encounters with genjustu to actually learn from that experience. It went from how he used genjustu, to his genjustu was used on him, and even causal everyday uses of genjustu that he used today. With all the genjustu knowledge moved to his frontal lobe, he would be able to have very advance knowledge on how to use genjustu that he would've of even thought about.

But the price was that when she did this, she caused a bit of damage and it may mess with his chakra a bit and his stamina. However, with his fast healing he should be fine… probably. Now he was a master at genjustu and a great range fighter. That was the main goal….

WC:491

 

[Midori Futotta]

Maru's woke up, slowly sitting up with a throbbing headache which caused the young mercenary to hold his head. He felt as if he was out for days, the warm face of his Kensei spirit sitting on a large boulders within his empty cave greeted him. “Yo how long have I been out?” He asked. Kawaii looked up for a bit to try to remember an exact number, then shrugged. ‘About 72 hours at the most.' She said as if it was no big deal. "Shit…” Maru thought. He didn't recall anything that happened within those hours, one moment he was training on how to use genjustu then everything went black and poof! He was woke up in the same spot he was in, and boy was he hungry. Like very hungry, so he kicked up but ended up losing his balance then face planting into the stone floor after his legs went to sleep on him!

He held his face, then slowly began to get up then began heading out to leave the cave. 'Wait where are you going.’ Kawaii sounded concern, floating over to Maru's side to while the young mercenary sealed his signature weapon into his mask. Then dusted himself off a bit “I'm going to see if I could get some food in me, I'm starving.” He frowned, he hated that he got hungry that was one thing he hated about being of the flesh. Maybe somewhere down the line he could become a puppet again or be a ragdoll but for now he needed to get to the nearest romen restaurant...

WC: 266

 

[Midori Futotta]

After that small encounter in the outer village area he did get a chance to train a bit, right now he was training in the art of using genjustu to cause damage to a person's sense of will. Not only that but he also decided to pick up on another ability that might be a bit more useful for his Genjustu Taijustu fighting style. He honestly didn't know whether to be smart and go for mastering most of the sense of will or just take the another sense into his arsenal. Maru's was practically sleeping right now, in his tsukuyomi like dream realm training with his Kensei spirit in the art of genjustu.’Meh, it isn’t really hard as people think it is. It's pretty much you using your imagination and your eye to trap them inside of a illusion.’ she said rather matter of factly, remembering that there was something else that might would help Maru since he would be mostly using his visual prowess to do damage to the enemy. ’While we are at it… we might as well teach you another ability that most Genjustu users use.’

Maru of course having a overactive imagination was able to pull off getting most of one sense down pact since he relied heavily on Genjustu for weakening his opponent. However, he didn't quite know how to counter people who would probably try and avoid him by trying to hide or confused him with clones. That would be a problem for sure, if he couldn't see it was probably game over but he just had to trust the fact that there might not be anyone who would try that. Appeariently, the ability that he was learning was that most proficient Genjustu users use to take away his illusions in a snap of a finger causing severe mental damage! Now that would be pretty awesome to do if he could pull it off, especially when he had to go toe to toe with one of those phantoms again.

WC: 352