Nodding, she pulled down her headband to rest around her neck as it did before and took a deep breath to feel her chakra, eyes still shut. A knot... Knot... She knew this as the thing you used to tie something together, and not something that you'd be able to feel in your head at all, and so had a bit of difficulty feeling that out... But it surfaced eventually, somehow. Knot, knot, knot... As she attempted it, she directed some of the chakra swirling in the pool at her center upwards to do as she was instructed.
As the Sennin enlightened her on what the limiters did for her body however, she froze in her attempts to locate it. Destroying... ourselves?
She wasn't the most cowardly person in the bunch of people she knew. Wouldn't exactly be the bravest one in many other bunches, but she wasn't exactly the heroic I-can-definitely-do-this type when she wasn't drunk with seal-related power. So of course she'd go and consider all those alternative situations in which not having the limiters properly set might destroy her, from the inside out. What if I have to use it during a fight before I fully master it...? If that limiter in my head's gone, will that mean there'll be too much chakra in my head? Or will it just drain all the chakra from there, making me dumb for the rest of the battle... Well, I wouldn't really be all cool and everything in battles in the first place, but I'd be even less cool if I wasn't thinking about what to do next and just rushing in like a maniac (as she did, just a minute prior) or would it just mean I... I won't be able to move at all, since the brain's what controls me? Shouldn't the limiter stay in place, for my own good?
Naoki was at a crossroads now, between advancing her current training as one who opened gates and backing out now, before she did something stupid with the removal of limiters as she understood it. Her current nature, one of almost a supreme paranoid when it comes to dangers, went completely against taking a chance on removing something innate that was protecting her in order to gain power, even under the instruction of a renowned and well-respected member of not just the clan she owed far too much to, but also of Sunagakure's shinobi forces. Really, she wanted to go back home, sleep it off and wake up the next day a somewhat special blind girl with a knack for hearing things, contributing the small amount she could to the safety of the village.
But there was something else inside her right now, something she would need to call on much more often. Her willingness to get better. Samejima Naoki was someone who does want to get better, no matter the cost. It was just overshadowed much by the way she thought of the world, starting from when she saw that first battle a few years ago, what felt like an eternity to a child, the battle that was burned into the back of her mind. The blood, her parents too far away to snatch her up and leave, her own heart, beating too fast as she clung onto the ledge of the chasm that battle tore through a part of the land. The victor eventually rescued her and fixed the scar on the surface of that land, but what she saw, what she heard, what she felt... that there were fighters this powerful... She never forgot it, and never stopped thinking of ways things might go wrong when conflict arises.
Listening to the Sennin's explanations about what the limiter does didn't exactly make her feel better about calling on that part. Dis-integrate... Like dissolve?! Talk of her eyesight returning, possibly permanently, was enticing... though not quite enough to force her out of that comfort zone of keeping her body the way it was, without changing it too much, not like just now. I can't... I can't go through with it... She'd had half a mind to say she didn't want to continue, that more weights and running was preferable at that point, and her expression at that point with the headband already off... It was as close to a poker face as she'd ever get, frozen and absolutely straight.
Naoki found however, that her mouth wouldn't move. It made an apology earlier, one that claimed its owner was to follow every one of the Sennin's instructions from then on. It wouldn't allow her to break that claim. No... I have to suck it up now, no turning back! I'm already taking up Kuro-dono's time, I can't just tell him I can't go through with it because I'm... I'm... The mask of neutrality broke, eyebrows furrowed not in confusion, but in determination. Just because I'm scared!
The moment she thought the accursed word, she forced herself to direct chakra to that area where she sensed that knot which was being shown to her, and the gate she felt earlier, that 'other' source of chakra, flew open and sent her sense of self up high in terms of the power she was now able to use. At the same time, the amount of chakra that burst through, like water from a dam, momentarily gave her a higher awareness in relation to the rest of her body's chakra systems, which gave her an instantaneous recognition of all the gates she had in her body. All eight of them.
Wh... Whoa! This power... Like just now? And there were some kinda... different spots. Were those maybe... those eight chakra gates Kuro-dono was talking about?
Testing her theory, she prodded the area around the left side of her brain with chakra, one which she felt the most clearly as it was the nearest one to the original source of the influx. Here maybe... Or here? She stood up straighter, shoulders curving back just slightly, a show of the subconscious single-mindedness of her approach to this test. Hmm... Hmmmmmm... Rgh! In a fit of impatience, she used her newfound source in order to split what chakra she was using to prod her left brain's part of the chakra system one point at a time into many more, effectively covering much more area per second with the prodding until eventually, she felt her body getting stronger, in the physical sense instead of just in the chakra-related sense.
Ooh! Is this it...!
