Sand Shinobi [Sabure and Dante Training Grounds]

[Sabure]

Location:

This area is an oasis. In the middle lies a pond of water with a 15 meter radius. It is surrounded by many plants both large and small. Surrounding that area is an almost endless expanse of sand. Just to the north, about 1 mile away is the Hidden Village of the Sand. There is a dummy of wood set up just about 15 feet east of the pond

Sabure, the puppeteer, and Ichiban, the puppet, were finally out by themselves. Sabure was very proud of the both of them. “So, I guess that we did it, we’re full fledged shinobi.” “Yeah” responded his Ichiban using the ventriloquism jutsu. “So, what should we do next?” “Hey, we could use a teammate.” “Good idea, how should we do it?” “I think we should find an area where shinobi would meet or train, maybe an oasis.” With this, Sabure thought of a perfect place.

When he arrived he looked around saw that this was the perfect place to meet a teammate. Laying both Ichiban and himself down next to one of the nearby plants, he closed his eyes and waited. He was sure that a teammate would show up soon.

[Runeska]

Tired, and a bit worn, Dante went outside the village. He was going to find a better trainig ground. Hatsuno's house was small and limited. There weren't enough resources, and he was sure that Hatsuno had some fear of him. He decided that he'd search for an oasis. there was bound to be atleast a few out in the desert. With any luck, he could find one relatively close to the village.

Now outside, he'd been walking around for nearly two hours, the endless blanket of sand stretching like the palms of a tired cat. It would stretch and then shrink. As he got to one point, he would lift his head, and it would suddenly seem as if he'd only walked in circles.

That's when he saw a patch of trees on the horizon. 'Tree,' he thought to himself. 'Trees need a sorce of water, which means... Perfect, an oasis' Dante took off at an alarming pace toward the safe haven from the heat. His scarf was wrapped around his head and part of his face as he did so. He believed that he'd simply crash after he made it to the sand. Of course, he was right, and as soon as he made it, his thin frail looking body fell to the ground, soft and luscious, and a dull, soft, heap.

[Sabure]

After an hour, Sabure awoke from his nap. He stared up at the never ending light of the sun. He began to sit up when he noticed somebody else had crashed there. Sabure was still a little woozy from the heat. Rolling over to his right he splashed some water on his face. After that he again looked up to make sure that what he had seen was not some mirage.

After seeing that the other ninja was real he decided that he would wake him up. Still too tired to wake up due to the heat he decided to let Ichiban do the job. Extending both hands he attached chakra strings to his puppet. Ichiban suddenly came to life jumping to his feet. He walked over to the fallen shinobi who laid only about 7 feet away. Getting down on one knee, he shook the shinobi to wake him up. “Hey, are you OK.”

[Runeska]

Still lying unconscious in the undergrowth, Dante's mind began to wonder. He was touching at some old memory again. This time, it was about the hidden mist village. The memory was very vague and all he could really imagine was the face of his mom happy and lit in a beutiful glow while standing next to a man. The man, he assumed was his father. He couldn't remeber though. His mind was about to move toward another object, when suddenly something was at his side, shaking him viscouly.

The hands were hard and rather oddly shaped for a person's. He barely heard what was spoken before he had rolled over, flipped back, and drawn his sword. He was still tired, now woozy and dizzy from rising so quickly , and breathing hard. He was staring the figure before dead in its the soleless eyes with his blank and empty expression. He'd sworn he was still dreaming, except he could still feel the strain of his body about to drop the blade from his hand.

Catiously, and without a hint of any emotion, he commanded, "Who are you?"

[Sabure]

Ichiban seemed to stare down at the shinobi. "Oh me, name's Ichiban" said the puppet pointing at itself. "Me and my buddy over there were just lying here waiting for a shinobi to come around." He turned to Sabure and said "Get your lazy self over here."

With that, Sabure got up got up and walked over to the shinobi. He let a tiny smirk shine through as he noticed the confused look on the ninja's face. "Sorry, just messing with you." "Yeah sorry." "My name is Sabure and this here is my puppet Ichiban. Obviously I am a puppeteer. I was waiting here because we feel that we need a teammate and you look pretty strong. Me, I am a puppeteer and have some prowess in making puppets, traps. I am also somewhat skilled in the medical field although I don't know any jutsu yet. And I am trying to learn about herbs so that I can make poisons to use in conjuntion with my puppets. What about you?"

[Runeska]

The alarm over, Dante quickly dropped his stance and resheathed his sword. He nearly collasped, but kept his form up and standing. He looked around at Sabure and his puppet. "Team mate eh?" He had to stop and think. Did he really want, or rather need a team mate? He could probably get stronger quicker by having someone to train with on his level, but at the same time, he had think of what would happen if he were to have another moment of weakness where his other side gained controll.

He stood there for a moment, then said, "My name is Ukido Dante. You may however call me Dante. Only my close ones call me Ukido, which is currently no one." As he turned his head around to survey the area, he noticed the oasis he'd been looking for.

With his back turned to Ichiban and Sabure, he said, "I'm a swordsman primarily. My aspirations however, are none of your business. I mean no insult of rudeness or such, it just simply doesn't concern you. If we are to partners, that is fine, just don't get in the way of personal agenda. Nothing good can come of it." Dante was very blunt at this tie. Not overly, as to insult or belittle Sabure. Simply put, he didn't need to burden someone with an event he planned that could perhaps cause them major trouble.

[Sabure]

Sabure and Ichiban looked at each other smiling. They were not at all offended, they were just happy to have a willing teammate come around. With a nod, Sabure released Ichiban, grabbing him before he could reach the ground. He gently placed him down and then turned and headed for the water. Getting down on one knee he took a sip of the water. “Hm, fresh water!” After about 3 mouthfuls of water he wiped his mouth and looked up at Dante.

“So, Ukido huh? Well what do you want to do. We could train unless you have something else in mind.” Sabure talked as he wrapped his puppet in a white cloth the he would use to hold his puppet, carrying on his back.

[Runeska]

Suiton - Teppodama
Rank: "C" Rank
Skill: NinJutsu
Effect: Allows a user to shoot a ball of water out of their mouth.
Special: "Handseals"
Drawback: ---
Description: The Teppodama is a Ninjutsu technique utilizing the Water Element. The ninja does some hand seals which then causes a big ball of water to come from the users mouth and then hit their target.
Limit: Water Release



10/30

Dante took a moment to cool himself. His skin hard darkened by about three shades out in the sun. It wasn't really a big deal, but it showed how hot it was outside. Slowly, he draped his legs in the cool oasis. Drinking cool water was fine, but at this point in his life, he knew he had to cool himself first. As his feet slowly went in, he felt the cool water refreshing his body. He then got up and began put his face in another spot of the water to get a cool drink. It was really refreshing and tasty.

Turning to Ichiban and Sabure, he said, "I'll be doing some training unless you need" then slowly set one foot atop the water. Carefully, he set his foot atop, channeling the chakra into it so that he might walk atop it. He was now atop the water so that he could wade out to its center. When he was atop the deep side, he began making his handsigns. Almost instantly, he felt a difference in the way the chakra felt. It was smoother and didn't rasp his throat as it was building up. He picked a target about twenty meters away and fired at, releasing the chakra as he did so.

The release was sloppy, too sloppy. When he fired it, a small ball of chakra formed in front of his face and blew up like a balloon. The pop hurt his face, or rather his eyes sharply, but altogether no damage was done. He started making the handsigns again and launched, or rather tried to launch another one. This time, a very crudely shaped bubbled formed up. He didn't bother to shoot it because he knew it would pop again. It was solid or compact enough, nor the right size.

After about half an hour, he had concentrated his chakra enough to launch a solid ball of water, although, it was never the right size. Even after he began channeling all he could into it, it simply disrupted the solidity of the ball, causing to blow up. So with this, he decided to reapply his chakra slow and carefully. To his surprise, it began to get gradually larger. The form held up slightly better, which meant it didn't explode in his face. He tried to shoot it, but it only went about three feet before it lost it's sustenance and reverted back to an unorganized mass of chakra.

He had a small victory though. He was beginning to channel right, which meant he couldn't be too far from learning it. The whole time, his face was creased in an insane amount of concentration.

[Sabure]

Kugutsu no Jutsu, 傀儡の術 (Puppet Technique)
Rank: "C" ; "B" ; "A" Rank
Skill: NinJutsu
Effect: The Ability where the user controls a puppet with strings of chakra. The puppet is capable of attacking an opponent with any weapons hidden inside of it. This technique is effective from long distances since the chakra strings can extend; they are also invisible, so the puppet can be used from a hidden location.
Special: Must be a Puppeteer
Drawback: Must be learned multiple times in order for the distance to increase. The more objects or Puppets used, the distance decreases, this means that if you have two puppets with a hundred meters of distance each puppet can go at a maximum of fifty meters each.
Description: The user is capable of controlling a puppet depending on the distance of the puppet. If the puppet surpasses a certain distance then the chakra strings simply disconnect leaving the puppet down along the floor. The Chakra strings cannot be seen by regular eyes but those who have the capability of seeing chakra can truly notice such a technique. When first learned the technique allows the user a maximum of ten meters of distance. After each time learned the user can increase the distance of Ten Meters. When the user reaches up to a hundred meters then it is harder for a user to gain more distance so the training would go up to a B Rank training as the distance increases Ten Meters every time learned. After three hundred Meters, then the training becomes more difficult once more as the training ranks up to A Rank, at this moment the distance is unlimited.
Limit: Must be known multiple times.

0/30

Seeing that Dante had continued his training he decided to do the same. He began to think about what he could do to improve his skills with Ichiban. He thought about it and realized that he would never be a great puppeteer if he did not learn to increase his range with his chakra strings. Realizing this he began to do so. This would not be training for some jutsu where he would have to find a scroll and then learn to mold his chakra in the right way, to improve his range he would have to just focus. Being a puppeteer required an immense amount of concentration. To begin with, he unwrapped the newly wrapped Ichiban and attached chakra strings to him.

Then, with some subtle movements of his fingers, Ichiban came to life and began to walk away from Sabure. However after about 10 feet he fell to the ground. Sabure was not surprised knowing that that was his current limit. With this training he was hoping to double his range with Ichiban. With a little flexing his finger he once again stretched his finger out in the direction of the fallen puppet and as he did focused chakra in everyone of his fingers as he was so used to doing being a puppeteer and all. He then shot out strings of pure chakra attempting to attach them to Ichiban.

The strings were just able to reach Ichiban as he could feel his concentration of chakra dissipating. He looked down at his hands once again flexing his fingers. Due to the large concentration of chakra in the hand when creating chakra strings, his hands often cramp up. He was beginning to show the signs of cramping but decided to continue.

Looking back over at Ichiban, he once again extended his arms and fingers concentrating chakra at the tips. He then fired the strings at Ichiban and was able to attach the strings to his puppet. Ichiban suddenly came to life once more. Standing up Ichiban began to walk away. Sabure could feel the pain growing and growing in his hand but he just closed his eyes and focused even more. Son he felt his hand cramping up and he released the puppet.

Upon doing so he opened his eyes and saw what he had done. Before falling to the ground Ichiban had traveled four more feet making a total of fourteen feet traveled by the puppet. Sitting down he looked down at his hands. They were in pain and it would be very difficult to work with this for a while so he decided to give it a rest for about twenty minutes as he rested his hands.

[Runeska]

?/30


It was another twenty minutes of training and focusing. Molding the chakra was increasingly easy at this point. It almost didn’t blow up in his face anymore. However, it hurt his face more whenever it did break due to its increasing power. But he was enduring the pain with the knowledge that he’d get stronger. He demonstrated this as he began molding another ball of chakra. He applied the chakra directly into the water, forcing it to take the form of a ball. Next, he applied more chakra to the ball in order to make it larger. This was the part that he had practiced the most over roughly the past hour, specifically, manipulating the size. For nearly thirty minutes of pure training, he played around with how large he could make the ball without it busting on him. The current count was a foot an a half. It wasn’t cutting it.

He still hadn’t been able to launch right, so another twenty minutes passed by. Gradually, the he managed to condense the ball of water enough so that it would fire, except that when the one opportunity came, he missed it completely. The ball was 2 ½ feet and solid enough to bruise someone if it hit them on bare skin. Knew this because he accidentally dropped this one into to water of the oasis. It splashed loud and heavy, sending out many ripples, used very lightly, around him. The ripples were in fact mid sized waves, which disturbed the natural surface tension of the water. Since he wasn’t paying attention to the water itself, his chakra control slipped, for a brief second, and he fell below the surface of the water.

Below the water, everything looked the same, one blanket of suffocating liquid. He flailed about for about 15 seconds under the surface before he gained control over his actions. He was by definition, drowning, and could possibly die, but he had already rationed out his mind and managed to stop himself form wasting energy, being that it was the quickest way to die. His feet were on the bottom of the pool of water. His throat was burning like hot acid. He wouldn’t last more than another minute or two down here, and to top it off, he wasn’t too strong of a swimmer.

A minute had already passed by, and he was quickly filling with water. Only by sheer will had he managed to not pass out. ‘Another thirty seconds, tops,’ he thought to himself. If he didn’t act now, he’d drown and die. Quickly, he channeled as much chakra as he could to his feet and legs. After accomplishing that, he bent his legs and pushed away at the muddy bottom below him. Before he knew it, his head had breached the surface and immediately, oxygen surged inward toward his lungs. Using hands and arms, he clawed his body to the surface, and attempted to rest ontop until he regained his breadth. Unfortunately, he was coughing and sputtering, so much, that he couldn’t control his chakra output properly. As he crouched atop the surface, coughing up water from his lungs, his body began to sink again.

[Itaru]

runeska - Learned
Sabure - +10

[Sabure]

Kugutsu no Jutsu, 傀儡の術 (Puppet Technique)
Rank: "C" ; "B" ; "A" Rank
Skill: NinJutsu
Effect: The Ability where the user controls a puppet with strings of chakra. The puppet is capable of attacking an opponent with any weapons hidden inside of it. This technique is effective from long distances since the chakra strings can extend; they are also invisible, so the puppet can be used from a hidden location.
Special: Must be a Puppeteer
Drawback: Must be learned multiple times in order for the distance to increase. The more objects or Puppets used, the distance decreases, this means that if you have two puppets with a hundred meters of distance each puppet can go at a maximum of fifty meters each.
Description: The user is capable of controlling a puppet depending on the distance of the puppet. If the puppet surpasses a certain distance then the chakra strings simply disconnect leaving the puppet down along the floor. The Chakra strings cannot be seen by regular eyes but those who have the capability of seeing chakra can truly notice such a technique. When first learned the technique allows the user a maximum of ten meters of distance. After each time learned the user can increase the distance of Ten Meters. When the user reaches up to a hundred meters then it is harder for a user to gain more distance so the training would go up to a B Rank training as the distance increases Ten Meters every time learned. After three hundred Meters, then the training becomes more difficult once more as the training ranks up to A Rank, at this moment the distance is unlimited.
Limit: Must be known multiple times.

10/30

After about twenty minutes, Sabure decided that he would continue with his training. Standing back up he walked over to Ichiban. Sabure knelt down and put his hand on the puppet, once again focusing chakra at his finger tips, he released the chakra strings and attached them to Ichiban. Once more, the puppet came to life, shooting up like a small rocket. The puppet was once again on its feet and as he alternated extending his fingers, the puppet began to walk away. As it got further and further Sabure began to feel the strain on his body.

Sabure extended his hands and worked harder as the puppet got further and further. Soon it began to travel further than the usual ten feet that it could travel before the training. As it got to thirteen feet he could feel himself reaching his limits. He decided to stop and see if he had full control of his puppet. With some quick finger movements, the puppet began to raise each hand as he tested his skill at this length. After he became more confident in his abilities he decided that he would test his jutsu at this level and he began to use the ventriloquism justu. With a few quick movements of his fingers the puppet began laugh in the voice of Dante just to make it interesting.

Pleased with his current progress he decided to go ahead and continue with his training. Once again closing his eyes, to raise his concentration level, he attached the chakra strings to the puppet. Closing his eyes attempting to fight the pain he went on. The puppet slowly walked forward as Sabure pushed his limits as he had never before. This was not some simple endurance test; he needed to double the length of his chakra strings while still being able to use them in battle without any drawbacks.

Ichiban went further than he previously had, reaching about seventeen or eighteen feet before falling to the ground. Sabure was making progress much faster than he had anticipated but is came at the price of pain as his hands once again began to cramp up. If he had started on his medical training like he had planned he would be able to stop these cramps at the source but he had become too attached to his puppet to train without him. However with this new teammate he would need to in order to be of more use in and after battle.

Looking back at his puppet he decided to ratchet up the difficulty. Instead of walking up to the puppet and placing his hands on the puppet, in the process connecting his chakra strings to the puppet, he would stand there and fire his chakra strings at the puppet attempting to connect from distance. He could already do this from ten feet and under but he needed to increase his range. This was an important skill because in the midst of battle one may not be able to reach his puppet. Extending his hands he fired the chakra strings attempting to grab Ichiban in the process.

[Runeska]

Konoha Reppu (Leaf Gale)
Rank: D
Skill: Taijutsu
Effect: Spinning kick made to send an opponent off their feet.
Special: None
Drawback: If dodged, user is open for an attack.
Description: With a burst of agility and speed, the user of this move quickly performs a low spinning kick at their opponent’s feet. If successful this will knock an opponent down and leave them open for some of Goken’s more powerful attacks.
Limit: Must know Gouken no Kamae

It was only about a minute afterward when Dante managed to get most of the water out of his lungs. It was a painful process, mostly do to the fact he could only half breath. He quickly opened his eyes and realized that his body was sinking again. Quickly, he used a body flicker and ended up on the opposite side of the oasis from Sabure.

He rested for about fifteen-twenty minutes, the whole time, his lunges burning from expelling the water. He didn't rest for long, and soon enough rose back to his feet. He spent a total of thirty seconds before deciding what to practice. So with that, Dante was back at his goken training again. He decided that he would start learning moves to link up together. He decided to start with Konoha reppu. It was a kicking technique that would allow an advantage in a fight if it tripped the opponent.

He began simply training his feet For ten minutes, squatted and practiced getting down low. The response was slow at first, gradually speeding up. His movement in itself was really slow for the description of the move. The move itself was a sudden spinning kick that was low enough to trip the opponent. After sweeping the opponent off their feet, they’re supposed to be left open for more dangersous and deadly techniques. He was nowhere near this speed yet, but he’d reach it in due time.

To achieve this speed, he continuesly practiced the movement of squatting and kicking for a half an hour. In his opinion, 30 or so percent of learning a move was getting the body to recognized and do the actual movements. This required a constant relentless approach during the training where he would continuously go through the motions for perhaps an hour. Fifty percent was muscle memory. By achieving this, his muscles would accustom themselves to moving in the manner he chose.

This also went with another odd percentage of 20. It consisted of getting the mind and body so conditioned and used to doing the move that both were in synch. Once this was accomplished, their was no delay between telling the body to do something and having the body’s response. So, after another half an hour had passed, Dante moved on to actually trying the spinning kick on the floor. The kick was plain and simple, only requiring him to trip the opponent in one fast fluent motion and then continue to respond. There were no complex movements required for this.

Dante had just thought that he’d perfected the kick, being that it was so plain and simple. However, after a few repetitive uses, he realized the draw back. Each time he used the move, he noticed that his reflexes were slow getting back up. He realized that if he missed the attack, any ninja with decent reflexes could easily take advantage of his recovery time. He had put the move together, having the proper reflexes and mind to body response. He had, for all exclusive purposes mastered the move, but hadn’t thought of what to do about its weakness.

Not a lot of time passed by before he decided what he’d do. What he decided to do was play out a few instances where his attack would miss, or the opponent would recover and attack him. In all these played out situations, he practiced movements like back flipping to get away, blocking motions with his hands. This lasted for atleast the duration of a half an hour. It hard trying to block or avoid attacks that weren’t there, but he continued, regardless or how stupid or crazy he looked doing it. Obviously, he didn’t care.

[Sabure]

Kugutsu no Jutsu, 傀儡の術 (Puppet Technique)
Rank: "C" ; "B" ; "A" Rank
Skill: NinJutsu
Effect: The Ability where the user controls a puppet with strings of chakra. The puppet is capable of attacking an opponent with any weapons hidden inside of it. This technique is effective from long distances since the chakra strings can extend; they are also invisible, so the puppet can be used from a hidden location.
Special: Must be a Puppeteer
Drawback: Must be learned multiple times in order for the distance to increase. The more objects or Puppets used, the distance decreases, this means that if you have two puppets with a hundred meters of distance each puppet can go at a maximum of fifty meters each.
Description: The user is capable of controlling a puppet depending on the distance of the puppet. If the puppet surpasses a certain distance then the chakra strings simply disconnect leaving the puppet down along the floor. The Chakra strings cannot be seen by regular eyes but those who have the capability of seeing chakra can truly notice such a technique. When first learned the technique allows the user a maximum of ten meters of distance. After each time learned the user can increase the distance of Ten Meters. When the user reaches up to a hundred meters then it is harder for a user to gain more distance so the training would go up to a B Rank training as the distance increases Ten Meters every time learned. After three hundred Meters, then the training becomes more difficult once more as the training ranks up to A Rank, at this moment the distance is unlimited.
Limit: Must be known multiple times.

??/30

Firing the chakra strings out of his fingers he attempted to attach the strings to Ichiban. In less than a second Ichiban came to life and Sabure stood him up using his chakra strings. He was able to reach his puppet from about seventeen feet but he still wanted more. He wanted to double his previous range and reach twenty feet with Ichiban. However he still had some ways to go. Once again, Sabure extended his fingers and began to make subtle motions causing the puppet to once again move forward.

Because of the fact that the puppet was already about 17 feet away, it was quickly very difficult to control him and Sabure felt Ichiban falling away and he quickly closed his eyes in an attempt to focus his chakra harder. However it was too late as Ichiban fell aimlessly to the ground causing a few dust particles to float into the air. Sabure looked down at his hands and slapped them together in frustration. “Darn it, almost had it.”

He once again looked up at the puppet that was still face down in the ground. This time he decided to walk over there and place his hands on the puppet. Doing so he released his chakra strings and the puppet got up. With some finger movements, the puppet began to walk away. He didn’t want the puppet to fall again so he drowned out all of the sound around him and focused on the task at hand. He needed his puppet to reach the twenty feet and he would not stop until he did.

Walking away the puppet reached eleven feet… twelve… thirteen. Sabure could feel his hand beginning to tingle. Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… seventeen… eighteen. Sabure had passed his previous best and was determined to do go all the way. Sabure could feel his hand beginning to hurt but that would not stop him from getting to twenty feet. He extended his hands and closed his eyes. Upon opening them he realized that he had accomplished his goal. The puppet was now twenty feet away.

He now needed to make sure that he could control his puppet freely at that length. After some superficial tests like jumping and raising his hands. He thought that this would be enough for now so he turned to Dante. Feeling that they needed a scenery change from this heat he asked him if he wanted to go. “Hey what do you say we look for a place inside the village, maybe a dojo. What do you say?”

[Runeska]

Looking around, Dante decided to stop training for the moment. He was far away from his partner coudln't actaully see him. However, he was able to see Ichiban walking around, which meant he couldn't be too far off. Imediately, he went around the oasis unitl he reached Sabure, who had since made himself seen. By the time he reached him, he'd already pretty much packed up Ichiban. He asked Dante if he wanted to head back to the village, perhaps to a dojo. It didn't matter so much to him, so in a nonchalant manner, he replied, "Why not?" and turned from the oasis.

[exit]

[Masakuni]

Learned, both of you.

[Sabure]

Sabure saw his partner begin to walk away. Sabure finished wrapping up his puppet and put the straps over his shoulders in order to make him easier to carry. Following Dante, he headed over to the village hidden in the sand.

[EXIT]