The training grounds were blessedly empty.
Ayaka had waited until the last group of older students filed out, their laughter echoing off the bone-white walls as they compared bruises and boasted about their progress. She'd hidden in the equipment storage, counting her breaths... `in for four, hold for four, out for four` ...until the massive doors finally closed and silence settled over the arena like dust.
Now it was just her, the sand, and the artificial sun that never really set in this underground world.
She stood in the center of the training circle, her white and blue robes pristine despite the packed earth around her. The Chikamatsu Orchid on her sleeve felt like it was mocking her, a symbol of healing, of life, stitched onto someone who couldn't even perform the most basic defensive technique.
`Pressure Burst. Everyone can do Pressure Burst.`
Ayaka's fingers twisted in her sleeves as she stared at her right palm. In her mind, she could recite the instructions perfectly. Channel wind chakra into the palm. Create a protective burst on impact. She'd watched the instructor demonstrate it twenty-three times today alone. She'd studied the chakra flow diagrams until her eyes burned. She knew how it worked.
Knowing and doing were apparently very different things.
"Okay," she whispered to the empty dojo, her voice barely louder than her breath. "Just... just like Sensei showed us."
Her hand came up, palm facing the practice dummy. She reached for her chakra... that familiar warmth that came so easily when she was healing cuts or encouraging plants to grow.
Yet it felt like nothing happened.
Ayaka had waited until the last group of older students filed out, their laughter echoing off the bone-white walls as they compared bruises and boasted about their progress. She'd hidden in the equipment storage, counting her breaths... `in for four, hold for four, out for four` ...until the massive doors finally closed and silence settled over the arena like dust.
Now it was just her, the sand, and the artificial sun that never really set in this underground world.
She stood in the center of the training circle, her white and blue robes pristine despite the packed earth around her. The Chikamatsu Orchid on her sleeve felt like it was mocking her, a symbol of healing, of life, stitched onto someone who couldn't even perform the most basic defensive technique.
`Pressure Burst. Everyone can do Pressure Burst.`
Ayaka's fingers twisted in her sleeves as she stared at her right palm. In her mind, she could recite the instructions perfectly. Channel wind chakra into the palm. Create a protective burst on impact. She'd watched the instructor demonstrate it twenty-three times today alone. She'd studied the chakra flow diagrams until her eyes burned. She knew how it worked.
Knowing and doing were apparently very different things.
"Okay," she whispered to the empty dojo, her voice barely louder than her breath. "Just... just like Sensei showed us."
Her hand came up, palm facing the practice dummy. She reached for her chakra... that familiar warmth that came so easily when she was healing cuts or encouraging plants to grow.
Yet it felt like nothing happened.