[Flashback: Training] Stress Relievers(?), the many attempts of Gyo/Ken

A long time ago, perhaps in his younger days (When was he ever young? BAH! Paperwork had aged him unbelievably) he had to vent out his troubles. After all, the fact remained that while he was far more 'enlightened' in the laws of the cosmos than most cretins, that he was trapped in a world ruled and dominated by them. So, naturally, rather than go slaughter them all, he choose the better option of venting his anger on a poor log. A log that was brutally getting chipped down as he kept striking at it with his bare hands.

"YOU STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! PIECE! OF! SHIIIIIIIIIIT!" Punch-punch punch-punch-punch punch-punch-punch/punch/punch~! Eventually, with the last lovely triple tap of his, the unfortunate log (logs are people too!) snapped into two, finally having taken the successive beatings for evenings on end one too many, too far. And he, Ken Najita ... no ... Gyofuou Shinja, stood triumphant with bleeding knuckles and fingers from possible splinters and shredded skin and flesh over his fallen wooden foe. YES! He decided, trees were the root of all evil and he would burn them all!

And now for something more serious, as the adrenaline finally starts to wear off that he feels the pain wear into his hands, so much that it had an odd numbing effect no doubt from all the swelling and bleeding he had been unawares of in that fit of rage. A sigh comes from the not-quite so aged Jounin of Kumogakure, for despite the pains he had went through, it certainly was good stress relief! And now came the second most important part of his nightly ritual, following his clumsy attempts to tend to his wounded hands. Interestingly enough, few people questioned his bandaged hands, and some rumors arose that his hand were actually claws and he was in fact a demon in human form who use them to steal souls. An interesting concept, one he would toy with later, perhaps there was a way, using chakra to achieve a similar effect? Anything to scare the witless plebs.

But now he drew his hands together, the first hand seal coming to his mind being that of the Snake. His hands clasped together as though in prayer, while he himself took a seat on the ground. Physical strength was necessary in order to conquer enemies that fought him as such, but none of it meant a thing if he couldn't master his control over his Chakra. As of right now, he had been so concerned with exhausting his stamina, that it seemed best to focus on regaining his strength and also practice moulding that power. And mould he did, for only a few moments later, he brought his hands forward and began to focus, converting his limited reserves (for tonight) into an electrical nature which crackled about him and his still form. The blue sparks from the arcs coming off and about his person were clearly visible, even to himself and with no other sound than the ominous rumble from his own person as the lightning technique nearly emerged from his person, he unhooked his legs in the meditative posture and rose, shifting forward onto a knee to push from and planting his other foot forward to support his movements back into a standing position.

That empty 'prayer' he made to a nameless god was complete now, but this was a new experience to him. Before he had never taken care to manipulate this much chakra over such a prolonged period of time, even if the technique he intended to release was the same one he had used in the months past to devastating effects. Holding this much potential within his body, raw power and energy that surged and demanded to be released. All this after the brutal exercise earlier, and it was hard for him to deny feeling a sense of exhilaration. Ninjutsu had ... come easily to him, compared to others, and never before had he taken the time to walk about the basics, particularly for nature transformation. His first natural affinity was to lightning, and unlike others who had such talent, he did not face the Centipede's Dilemma. A smile forms upon his face as his left hand rises, a single finger pointed at the remains of his training log.

Raiton: Gian (Lightning Style: False Darkness)

OOC: 725 Words

Sometime in the past after the mastering of his nature transformation of lightning, Shinja ... or ... rather Najita at that time, acquired his second elemental nature. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that nature was Water, a most complimentary and auspicious element to be paired with his original Lightning nature. Most fortunately for him, the day he discovered that he had awakened a second nature was also the day after a particularly dreary mission for solely political purposes. So, unlike his comrades who were relieved to be taking a breather of a mission, he had returned most agitated.

So he took it upon himself to train upon a surface of water! And damn was it weird. Although he didn't doubt the wisdom of his betters when it came to self-improvement like this, it seemed less an exercise in mastering his chakra nature and more ... well ... his mastery over fine chakra control. Also it felt like perhaps they were deliberately fucking with him, given they were Jounin and he was ... well ... Chuunin. A Chuunin with two elemental natures was quite a strange phenomenon, since short of those naturally possessing them as he did, most other had to learn and practice moulding to even utilize other elements. And such training was both arduous and exhausting, given it was effectively akin to making a miracle happen. Fighting to realize an improbably outcome that perhaps would never be . . . he could not lie that the prospect sounded appealing to him.

And so here he was, sitting in a meditative position atop a pond of water attempting to not sink his sorry ass underwater while his hands were forming the Seal of Ram, attempting to mould chakra within. To say that he did this flawlessly would be a most horrendous lie as he was now terribly soaked, after numerous failed attempts on account of lack of fine chakra control and emission. That was about five hours ago, and here he was again this time dressed a bit lighter for clothes that wouldn't weigh him down when drenched ... still sinking. And desperately flailing like an angry cat, given 1) This was Kumogakure, a village located on the side of a mountain (unlike Kiri, a goddamned island) 2) He didn't know how to swim!! SO, naturally this led to a lot of flailing, a lot of spitting, and a lot of desperately clawing to get out of the bottom of the bond (which thankfully wasn't so deep that he would be submerged too far underneath, meaning getting out wasn't hard ... assuming he didn't panic. Pfft, don't panic, yeah right).

And all of this naturally lead to many people coming by to stare at the young teen who apparently did not give a flying rat's ass that people were staring at him. He would not be defeated by this blasted exercise! EVEN IF IT COSTS HIM HIS LIFE! ... Or so he thought after he plunged into the depths for the umpteenth time that day! 'Cold, cold, cold, cold, dark, cold, dark, dark, dark!!' came the panicked thoughts as he burst back out the surface, kicking off the not that deep bottom of the bond very much akin to a whale breaching with a loud "BWAAAAAAAAH" before crashing underneath the water again, very much failing to concentrate enough chakra to cling to the surface of the water without breaking it apart. Every ninja, ninja's mother and ninja's wife could see how miserably he was failing. So much that even civilians were amused at his suffering, and little children asked of their parents if they too could play in the water like that boy. Only to be scolded that they shouldn't imitate crazy teens.

After climbing off to the side of the pond again, heaving as his bare chest was quite visibly trembling and hammering from both his beating heart and his ragged breaths, Ken decided perhaps he should call it quits for the day, seeing as how no progress was being made. Honestly, how was he supposed accomplish such an inane task of sitting atop of water and moulding chakra? The concept was just ... bizarre!

...

Then again, his Sensei had shown to be more than capable of firing off ninjutsu (Katons of all things!) while standing atop water. So, that didn't mean it was impossible, it just meant he wasn't good enough.

'Yet' Swore the youngling, who refused to be defeated by that lazy lecherous bastard of a teacher of his! No way was he gonna let his pompous ass know that he gave up after only drowning sixty-eight times in a row! With sheer willpower, he began again, this time starting from the basics. Water-walking! Concentrating chakra in his feet to hold the water tension beneath him so he wouldn't slip through. All it was was a matter of adjusting chakra output for increased volume ... also, figure out how to emit chakra out of his a-Wait a minute! Was that the point of this exercise? To make him realize that chakra, moulding from both physical and spiritual energies, could be emitted from anywhere? It would make sense how some of the more skilled shinobi were able to avoid sinking into non-solid surfaces despite getting knocked into them ... but how, how did they have such control over their body?

It was a question for another time, as he soon found himself simply standing and attempting to mould chakra for a ninjutsu, and still plummeted beneath the surface.

'Maybe there's more to it' Went his mind just as he slipped and dropped into the water. Then he began to yowl and desperately flail to get out of the water.

OOC: 933 words

There came a time and day in ages past, when he, on the last days as a Chuunin, like many others before him and others to come after, that he came to truly appreciate the power of Shadow Clones. I mean, don't get me wrong: Shadow Clones were very effective in combat situations, and when used strategically, could alter the outcome of a battle. But, he had to admit, even he was unaware all this time of their potential for training. The feedback of information, the growth of all individuals piling back together as a sum, rather than being lost. Memories, experiences, knowledge, all of it pooling back together to himself, the original. To be fair, he had always carefully employed his own shadow clones, since he couldn't sustain more than a couple at most at a time. This meant their exposure, their duration on a battlefield, to new experiences was rather limited. Any knowledge they acquired was either readily apparent, or soon easily discovered, further obscuring the usefulness of Shadow Clones when it came to learning.

It was only after he had sent a Shadow Clone to peep that he came to realize their frightening power. Yes, now he had the ability to, although they had to be in some sort of proximity to keep the clone from fading, be able to fulfill all those repressed perverted desires! TRULY, THIS WAS THE MOST SUPERB OF TECHNIQUES WHEN COMBINED WITH THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION, for the knowledge that fed back into him as his clone suffered multiple broken bombs, a puncture lung and half of its teeth knocked over the course of the peeping sprees, was beyond grand. Well okay, he realized he was getting back the imagery, as well as both the pain. And he was a repressed young adult, just barely out of his late teens, who had suffered god knows how much emasculation and degradation of self-worth that the fact he (this being after he already killed a major source of belittlement to himself and a distinct lack of care in public perceptions of himself-phase) was acting on baser impulses was a ... ... uh ... good sign? More on that later.

So, in this grassy area, possibly formerly someone's private property before they died/their house was burned down/it was seized by the politicians to convert into a training grounds for younger shinobi, he was finally going to put this newfound knowledge to the test. How? By having two his clones duke it out, of course! Of course, unfortunately for him, having two clones active aggressively try to end each other's faked real existences was perhaps a bit too much a strain on himself than he expected, particularly since his body which operated on little sleep nowadays (bags forming under his eyes. Nothing permanent yet, but they were quite noticeable) was unused to such a strain. Funny how he never noticed it before, considering his relative inexperience with the jutsu! But, such a realization only drove his burning desire to conquer this new seemingly unsurmountable wall!

The logical conclusion then was to test the limits of his chakra moulding capabilities but sustaining the clones for as long as he possibly could. His hands cane together to form the seal, and a slightly less unhinged smile formed on his face as he was eager to defeat this new challenge! And that smile, a mix between potential insanity and genuine glee was tripled in number as he now had to identical copies to himself standing side by side. Of course, since they were him, and he was already thinking about what to do up until he used this technique, that naturally meant they knew what he had in mind. In this case, since just standing around would be boring, and talking to himself was a sure sign he was crazy ... it made only sense they would combine both for a brief introspective moment! So he was boring crazy, but hey ... it wasn't every day he had two copies of himself assist him in trying to piece together what the hell went wrong with his life. So, with himself plopping down and forming the Ram Seal and shutting his eyes, Clone Alpha took a seat beside him on his left lounging back a bit, while Clone Beta just plopped onto his back to the right, his hands folded back behind his head to rest on.

"So, I think it all went wrong with mother ..." A began on his left, apparently hesitant. It was true, their mother wasn't exactly the most encouraging of maternal figures. Meant well, but was shamelessly embarrassing for them due to high expectations to escape the inglorious name of their family. That certainly didn't do much to help his nerves when he was younger.

"N'aw! Dad was the real fucker!" B retorted on his right, clearly bitter and a bit more rough than the rest of them. This was also true, while his mother had been a kunoichi, she chose being a mother first than a ninja. And ... there was the problem of her dying while he while he was still young. Their father, though, was a man indomitable spirit and strove to undo the stain of failure for their family ... it just so happened that while he knew that he loved him . . .

'He never was home often enough. Or had enough time for me.' He, himself, ponders this thought, before banishing it into the recesses of his mind and focusing on moulding chakra.

"How can you say that? He was the reason we became shinobi!" A had a point. Even though he was distant, that didn't change the fact they idolized him. Well, they not only being 'all' of 'him' but also his older brother.

"And that's exactly why he's responsible for why we're so fucked up?!" Walking down this path had done nothing but earn them hardship after hardship. Their talents were minuscule, their experience non-existent. They were, for all intents and purposes, considered wasted 'potential' due to their youth, but exhibiting no traits to indicate they were at all fit to be a ninja.

'And yet, in spite of all that, I pushed on' He frowns, although his focus was on concentrating his chakra, there was the problem that the subject of whom to blame was getting a bit uncomfortable to his mind. But this was training too, for if he couldn't keep his head straight, then there was no way to make sure his concentration wouldn't be shot in an actual stressful situation. That didn't mean he liked the pounding in his head from annoyance and rising blood pressure.

"You can't blame him for our troubles, seeing he wasn't even there. No, it's all nii-san's f-"

"ENOUGH!!" So much for training then, as he ... Ken Naji- ... Ken. He didn't want nor deserve that other name. But, he finally snapped at the two. The strain of the chakra he fed to them while exhausted, along with moulding more from his physically tired self coupled with this uncomfortable topic was too much . . . and only served to indicate how weak he was still. But one day, as his clones undid the techniques of their own volition to end this session, one day he would rise above this. And the world would see.

'They'll ALL see.'

OOC: 1215 Words.