The Cold Naraka's [T][P][I][NDE]

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Over in the distance, two more clones stood behind broken earth walls, rapidly forming handseals and focusing on Naitome's rapid approach, a burst of chakra sent spontaneously to his feet to move him closer, faster. He went through the handseals slowly this time, sure to form each one right, and as his opponents jumped to take evasive measures, columns broke through the barrier of dirt and compacted dry-land, dark obstructions of so many intersecting layers of mineral fought to hold place against the white mist they'd been preparing in attack. The neophyte ice attacks slid off into the distance as the tall spires criss-crossed in blunt points that seemed able to work effortlessly in crushing an opponent, but did little to form the true structure of the technique.

All action stopped on the field while he spoke out loud, just to hear himself think and remind himself that he was indeed alive.

"I'm going to run out of chakra in battle if i just keep running around trying to crush things with giant rocks."

"There's got to be something more efficient...while i understand chakra control, i'm wary about the methods necessary to improve it, specifically with regards to the Earth Release. Walking up a tree isn't going to help me now."

"Hmm. This technique is A ranked and consumes a massive amount of energy, but as far as shape manipulation, its also incredibly complex structurally. Their seem to be a number of major factors that can go wrong and result in the failure of performing it. Up until now, i've been focusing on the technique as a series of separate pillars or walls of earth that rise up to enclose and eventually crush an opponent, and it seems that one at a time, that's all that i'm getting. Maybe my visualization is the problem?"

"I'm not just creating big slabs of stone. I'm creating a coffin."

In the time it had taken him to form these sentences, the final two clones made a silent approach, having flanked him, and now from both sides drew in, holding kunai and leaving a small barely noticeable trail of ice in the wake of their movements. Naitome's hands formed the handseals so slow, it could hardly to have been said to be the prerequisite for a technique, and placing his open palms together, he waited until he could feel the cool steel of each blade press into his next before using a shunshin to move forward, facing his surprised opponents, and with more force and volume than he could ever previously remember, shouted

"Earth Style: Bedrock Coffin!

...the earth groaned and buckled below him, and without fail or delay six large walls of earth grew from the ground and encircled both clones, before a seventh in their center held the two in place, and the onrushing wave of rock collided, destroying not only the last of the cold snow doppelgangers, but with the power and pressure of the blow, crumbling the walls themselves to dust. In the hush that followed, it hardly appeared as if anything had happened at all, and while weakened from the efforts, it appeared that Naitome could truly understand the technique.

Naitome woke suddenly with a scream. He had no recollection of ever having gone to sleep, and with great pains reached towards the back of his head to feel the knot growing subtly under the cover of his long jet black hair; no doubt a souvenir from passing out. He sat upright and stared into the distance, surveying the dojo and silently said a prayer of relief that no one had happened upon him in the middle of the night and slit his throat. That's what he'd had a nightmare about, and as he looked at the flat-land surrounding his body, his eyes shifted to a blazing red and looked over the minute impressions his previous training left in the earth.

He hadn't successfully completed the technique at all; he'd simply run out of chakra, and gone unconscious once the base level of the technique was formed, which was what made his ice clones appear to have been destroyed. He'd only run out of the chakra necessary to maintain them, and with a groan, he edged painstakingly closer to the scroll, full of frustration.

It's contents were nothing outwardly special. He stared back and forth between the diagrams of the many handseals and his own quickly copying hands as they formed and reformed the same sets, the criss-crossed scars that decorated his hands grating against each other, reminders of older pains. The pictures drawn on the scroll illustrated the entire process thoroughly, and Naitome was able to trace back across the little more than illustrated stick figures calling up a massive gout of earth that split to create the enormous coffin that was the jutsu's namesake. This was an assassin's technique, a technique designed to prevent escape and to intimidate any nearby opponents into a simple understanding that the Earth was entirely your domain. He read across the almost illegibly scrawled notes of Saruhito's ancestors, who'd attempted to leave tips in makeshift ink.

<sup>"The pillars themselves must be created as perfect and individual monuments to the phenomenon of creation; only through the intense study of the of the art of the creation of rocks can one become attuned to each metaphysical act of life-making that shapes the coffin's final form."



"Concentrate on obliterating your enemy, nothing else. The coffin is not only of rock, but in honor of the target's funeral."



"The Warrior charges headfirst towards this technique, with regard only for entrapping an opponent. The Artisan seeks the embodiment of a higher standard of craft, and simply pulls forth the trap that already exists, but only he can bring out. Which are you?"</sup>



The question posed by the last comment he read stuck in his mind. Was he a warrior or an artisan? Would he be reckless and abandon all thoughts of artistry? Could he afforded to ignore the call of constant battle as a part of the shinobi world? He was neither and both. He was a ninja. An assassin. A warrior who took pride and time to hone his craft. He stood and ran through the handseals with increased confidence before flooding his body with chakra and directing it into the earth beneath himself, before shouting out,

"Earth Style: Bedrock Coffin"

...as the earth was ripped apart by the sheer force of his invading energies, and still dizzy from the previous days exhaustion, he watched the earth rise and rush in to enfold him in its rigid grip.

He was caught within the power of his own jutsu; a victim of the bedrock coffin and securely fastened between the stone pillars he'd brought into existence just moments before, still furiously weaving handseals. The confining space was tight enough that he found it difficult to breathe, yet he steeled himself and focused inward, allowing the resonant chakra to sync itself to the always moving frequency of the earth itself. He felt the normally imperceptible movements of the entire planet as it rotated on its axis, and delved deeper into the crust coating the core of earth as his chakra molded itself voraciously, looking for anything to cling to. He moved his hands as best he could and followed the gyrating impressions of movement deep below anything he'd ever previously explored with the Doton release. He was getting closer. He could quite literally feel it.

The fragile sunlight still peeking its way through tiny spaces of less compacted soil were poor light for his training, but it didn't matter. He no longer needed to study the scrolls, only find the right combination of power and accuracy, the right measure of form and substance to create what could surely equate to an artful accomplishment of the jutsu. He strained under the harsh pressures of the encroaching stone oblivion spread out in every direction around him, and he sweat profusely while the quiet maelstrom of fossilized life and struggling blind grubs pushed out all around him, the true maters of the Earth Style. Could he learn from them as well? If he listened close enough, would they reveal the secrets?

His hands became a blur; he was being crushed by the slow moving rock walls and allowed them to grind around him, his enhanced Kamyuja strength his only savior, and he tentatively spread a wide palm out, let the ruggedness of nature grate itself into his unkept fingernails and become a part of him. As a ninja he was merely one who utilized tools. Jutsu were no more than so many tools. The earth itself was his weapon to use against his enemies.

Once the rock seemed so oppressive that the air tasted stale and his heart beat began to slow to conserve its energy, he relaxed, exhaling a long and carefully measured breath that let the stone expand, releasing him eventually to the freedom of the flat earth he'd disrupted. The walls descended, crashing down into mere pebbles. The red pupils and sclera that marked his kekkei genkai glowed fiercely beneath his eyelids, and his hands clapped together again. He pushed his chakra into the earth, made it change, made it rigid and immovable, made himself a simple conduit for the transfer of power from one object to another and as quickly as his own prison had entrapped him, he was free. How easily could he control the element of Earth? He poured his chakra conservatively through his body and as the bird or boar or snake symbol would be performed, tiny kinetic twitches spread out, almost rippling the ground itself.

A large white blank-faced owl landed on a tree twenty meters away and in his line of sight, and with a grunt of exertion he motioned for the seals that would be completed before the bird could twist its wide head around to stare at him, and he threw a wave of rushing chakra towards the earth entangled in the tree's roots, briefly imagining the owl's face to be that of an enemy ANBU's mask. He could almost hear the ninjato being unsheathed as its wings ruffled slightly in alarm, Naitome clapped his hands together, and without the tiniest trace of reservation or concern for the animals continued well-being, allowed for the creation of a over-sized coffin of earth release energy. While the branch suddenly free of its weight swayed, the owl was not far enough away in flight to escape the powerful technique, and was soon only a smear of blood destroyed by the colliding and impressive wave of land.

As the ambient chakra level pulsating within and throughout the dry earth surrounding him ebbed away into tiny kinetic impressions of movement he could barely feel through his heavy boots, he noted the crumbling facade of rock that turned very nearly to dust as he let go of the handseals. Every indication from the scroll suggested that this breakdown of rocky matter so soon after the 'completion' of the technique signald that a mastery of its most basic concepts had not yet been achieved. He could form the walls of the coffin, shape the earth itself to mimic his wll, but he could not also reinforce its strength sufficiently to contend with higher leve ninja, should he face them with this particular jutsu in combat. The problem couldn't be with his chakra energy expenditure,and it didn't seem to be an issue of shape or naure transformation either.


As 'in touch' as he felt with the doton element, it was perhaps the fact that his own natural affinity was for wind. He felt as if every motion of his hands through the proper seals, every build-up of Earth Release chakra he attempted to embace the new futility of his efforts with in acceptance of his shortcomings, everything he tried was going against who he was. He was not a blunt force, but one that was swift and sharp, as all encompassing as the air itself and just as necessary to the wellbeing of others as he could be deadly. Did Doton really possess such qualities? Could he tap into them?


The handseals were second nature to him now, there was no effort needed to perform them instantly and accurately when the time called for it, and he assumed that passing that stage of the techniques operation was an important milestone. Commiting the seals to muscle memory would serve him well in the heat of battle, when one didn't have much time to think. Each small representation of the constellations stuck in the sky above him flew by in a flash. The chakra grew, then changed; he created the proper intervention of effect to create the elemental nature transformation and change from pure energy, to the correct frequency and call-sign of the Earth Release.