The Life of the Brawler [Training/Open]

Already one who was adept in the skill of using the Water Release because, come on now, he was a Hoshigake clan member! He also had just received the Crying Long Sword, a weapon that was used in their clan for the longest time, which made him more skilled in the art of being an assassin. Jin planned on getting the Sound Release and the Sonar technique so that he could detect people’s movement through the Hidden Mist, which was the technique he was about to learn. Stepping out onto the pond in front of him by putting chakra into his feet, Jin put his fingers together and closed his already small eyes. He knew that he would have to do a set of four of five handseals for this technique so he put his hands together to form the most basic of all seals just to be prepared for it. His blue skin blended in perfectly with the pond, especially since it was night, making the water seem more dark blue. Jin was ready to begin training this technique. He was ready to begin getting stronger.

Thinking about each specific seal that he was going to have to do, Jin sighed to himself. He hated doing handseals, even though he did them all the time, he still hated it with a passion. He sighed to himself as he tightened his hands up more together and began to channel chakra throughout his entire body. There was no fog tonight, no mist whatsoever, but he was about to change that. He could hear random animals splashing around at the edges of the pond, frogs sometimes jumping up and coming back down into the water. Jin was about to use this mist to test his abilities as an assassin. He smirked to himself, showing his pointed teeth. He went through each handseals in rapid succession, nailing each of them expertly. He opened his eyes and looked down, but there was no fog, no mist. Everything was as clear as could be. He frowned to himself and closed his eyes once more, focusing a lot more than before so that he could get it right this time. There was no time for failure, not in Jin’s book.

He did the first handseal, spiking the energy flowing all across his chakra circulatory system. He could feel it pumping through his bone marrow, his veins, and his bloodstream. Everything was just moving together like it was supposed to; it was just completely and totally natural. Jin bobbed his head around as if moving to the beat of a drum just because it all felt so normal for him. He did the second seal and the chakra in his body intensified that much more, ready to come over that brink and spill out across the pond, covering it with an eerie mist, but nothing happened yet. Jin still had two more handseals to go through. He did the third seal and this was where the chakra was put up to that edge, that brink where Jin thought it was just going to slip up and spread out everywhere within a fifty meter radius, but nothing happened. It was just intense. It was just hardcore. It was just how it should be.

And then, with that last, final handseal, the chakra within Jin’s body just spilled out of his body and covered the fifteen meter circumference of the pond. He opened his eyes and looked out around him. Yes, the mist had been created, but it was a very thin mist. If Jin searched hard enough, he could actually see through parts of the mist. Not very reassured by this, he held up his index and middle fingers on his right hand and muttered the word ‘Kai.’ The mist was no more after that word left his pale lips. He had to work on this just a little bit more before it was truly perfect.

Returning to his usual training spot, Jin sat down Indian-style, gently floating on the water of the lake. He closed his eyes and returned to training similar to that of the Hidden Mist skill and even with the same intention. He was going to become one with all the sounds around him. Nothing was going to get by him, no matter what. He took a deep breath and concentrated. Chakra seeped out of every pore in his body and covered the area in a twenty meter radius. Nothing was going to get by him.

His ears twitched, his balance perfect. A bird flew out of a tree, its wings flapping loudly behind it. A rabbit was jumping up and down on the edge of the lake, making splashing noises as it did so. The bird that had flown out of the tree now joined an entire family of birds, all of their wings flapping simultaneously. This made a cone of noise that pointed downward, covering everything within it. Anyone who was really paying attention would notice this trivial detail. All of the wings flapping at once, a squawk or two heard from the birds as they traveled away from the Hidden Mist Village.

Beneath Jin, deep under the water, some of the fish were swimming around, creating bubbles in their wake. And, subsequently, they were also making very slight noises as they disturbed the underwater. A few feet away from the center of the lake where Jin was sitting, a frog was jumping from lily pad to lily pad, kicking up a few drops of water each time he did so. The lily pads also glided across the water, creating slight, but noticeable, noises each time. Jin took a deep breath. These were all sounds that he could hear normally. He needed to delve deeper. He needed to hear more. He needed to pay more attention.

He put his fingers together to form the basic Tiger seal and concentrated more. A few feet beneath the ground, earthworms were wiggling their way to the surface of the Earth to taste the delicious rain that had come a few hours ago. The worms displaced the soil, moving it around, and even eating it, making the slightest noises. Nobody would notice this unless they were trained to notice it. The bunny that Jin had heard earlier was traveling into its rabbit’s hole, displacing the soil just as the earthworm was doing. Jin’s ears twitched one last time as, miles away, a team of shinobi were traveling towards the village gate, their footsteps loud against the soft soil. This was the beginning of something very good.

Wanting to learn how to use this Hoshigake sword that was handed down to him from a dear friend, Jin unsheathed the sword from his back and stood on the lake’s surface. As soon as he unsheathed it, the sword nearly dragged Jin into the lake. Grasping it tighter with both of his hands, Jin shook his head a little bit. The muscles in his arms were all straining from the sheer weight of this sword. It was a completely balanced piece of metal with no one piece being heavier than any other piece; that made it unique, but odd to wield since the hilt was heavy, and everything attached to the hilt was heavy as well.

Straightening the sword out in front of him, Jin bent his back a little bit. He placed one foot behind him on the water, and angled that same foot a little bit so that it was horizontal while the foot in front was vertical. His right hand grasped the hilt closer to the blade with his left hand clasping the hilt closer to Jin’s body. Trying to get the handle of the sword a bit more, Jin took a step forward and slashed with the sword going forward. It cut through the air with ease and, once again, almost dragged Jin to the bottom of the lake. Jin had never felt this weak in a long time. He reassumed the stance, one leg behind, one leg in front, and he slashed once more at the air molecules in front of him.

This time, instead of almost drowning, he steadied the sword after making the slash. He put the sword back in the sheath and shook his head a little bit.

After taking a break and meditating a bit both to regenerate his amount of chakra and to let his body heal a little bit, Jin stood right back up on the surface of the water with the intention of getting a better handle on this damn sword. Unsheathing it once more, Jin tried to remember exactly how the second stance was carried out. Ah, yes, he remembered. He grasped the sword with one hand. That was a mistake. With a splash, Jin fell straight into the water, dragged down by the sword. He quickly grasped the hilt with his other hand and returned to the surface of the water. It was a good thing he was a Hoshigake.

Shaking the water off of his body a bit, Jin took his right hand and grasped the hilt of the Crying Long Sword tightly. He then let go with his left hand. For a few moments, he staggered, but he quickly stabilized himself so that he wouldn’t fall straight back into the lake again. He then began to move the sword with his right hand behind his back. He twisted his wrist in such a way that the sword was almost perfectly vertically aligned with his spinal cord, the blade’s tip coming to the top of Jin’s neck. He put his left foot behind his body horizontally while his right foot remained out in front in a vertical fashion.

Flicking his wrist out in front of him, Jin made a diagonal slash with the sword. The blade hit the water hard, making another huge splash. This sword was going to be fun, he could already tell.

Having struggled throughout the stances with the weight of the sword, Jin made his way away from the center of the lake, towards the outskirts of it. Untying the sheath from around his back, he heaved the great long sword onto the ground and set it down, leaning against a nearby tree with the tip pointed towards the sky. Stretching his arms out, Jin hit the ground. His palms flat out in front of him, he bent his elbow and began to do push-ups. His back straight so that his butt wasn’t sticking up into the sky, Jin kept his legs straight as well, his feet making an impression upon the ground. His chest was pointing towards the ground directly below him. His head was angled upwards a bit. The muscles in his arms strained only slightly, push-ups second nature to the shark-man now.

After at least a hundred push-ups, Jin stood up and stretched his arms out more. It had been a good warm up. He then began to do laps around the lake. He knew that his legs would also need their strength in order to sustain the weight of the sword when he made slashes with it. Doing laps around the lake, Jin would peer around. He was on the outskirts of the village now. He could just see the outlines of the village and random passersby. He needed to take his mind off of the fact that he was running. It wasn’t that he minded the physical exertion; he was just bored when he ran. He didn’t really have anything to think about or to do. He just wanted to get some training done before he went off to the Chuunin Exams. The muscles in his legs started to get sore as he was finishing at least the fiftieth lap. He had lost count after a while.

Figuring that he had done enough of these damn laps, Jin returned to the tree, his sword still standing against it. Getting into a ‘Brawler stance,” Jin jumped between each of his feet, his elbows bent so that his fists were in front of him. He began to punch at the tree, the muscles in his arms twitching with each blow that he dealt to the bark. He was relentless, hitting the tree harder and harder each time. After a while, Jin’s fists began to bleed. The bark began to wear and chip away, shards of wood littering the ground on Jin’s side of the tree. His blood stained the tree, red drops and spatters lining the trunk. After what seemed like an eternity, Jin stopped. He was out of breath. He wasn’t used to going through training exercises like this. He was a brawler, yes, but those fights were usually short. A few blows here and there, and that was the end of it. Jin slid down. He sat and regained his strength.

After a few minutes of recovery, Jin stood up. He eyed the sword suspiciously. “Alright,” he said to himself. He grabbed the hilt of the sword with one hand and attempted to heave it up. The sword’s tip went straight to the ground. His arm sore, Jin grabbed the hilt with his other hand and lifted it up. He winced a bit, a sharp pain going through his body, but he never stopped. He made a diagonal slash from left-to-right against the tree, dark bark giving way to light bark. The tree was mutilated by this point. There were all shades of brown where some hits had been deeper than others. Jin continued to stab and slash at the tree, the sword getting lighter that each time Jin used it. After a while of slashing and stabbing, though, his muscles gave way, and he was forced to put it down.

“That’s enough of that for now…”