Is There Somewhere?

Kaze found himself outside of his family's compound, there was a spacious area covered in smooth stone, dirt, and sand. Along the perimeter of this was a running stream of water. There were only two bridges that led into the training grounds across. In the center of the area was a man-sized target normally used for weapons testing from his family’s arsenal. The rows of cherry blossom trees shielded the area from onlookers. 
 
After watching one of his family members create a lightning clone from a while ago, Kaze was determined to make one for himself; if not, learn lightning release and work towards the white ray. Kaze thought since he has a natural affinity to it, how could lighting be so difficult right? With a dangerous amount of overconfidence, Kaze stepped into the middle of the training area. He began to build his chakra. He knew that this technique was going to cost an extreme amount of chakra to learn. After gathering a sizable amount, he slowly began forming the hand signals, careful not to make a careless mistake. He then began to manipulate the chakra nature and give it the lightning element it needed. 

Feeling the chakra pulsating through his body he made the release. A powerful electric shock emitted through Kaze’s whole body. His teeth began shuddering as his body locked up. He instantly felt his body light up in pain as the large voltage coursed through his body. He collapsed on the ground, his arms and hands numb. Lying on the ground Kaze felt the occasional muscle spasm from the shock. Luckily, Kaze has always been resilient to electricity. After regaining his composure, the blue-eyed Hatake sat up and looked down at his charred hands and started to wonder what went wrong. 

Kaze grabbed the parchment his father gave him. Quickly rereading the technique, he started troubleshooting his issue. Running his hands down the paper he realized he was accidentally rubbing soot along with the parchment. He got up from the scroll and began to walk over to the stream to wash his hands and face. 

Kaze stuck his hands into the water and gazed into his reflection in the water. He was not going to stop until he was able to master lightning release. Kaze wiped his hands off on his shirt. Kaze had formed the hand signs correctly, but something went awry. 

Kaze stood up from his paper. Widened his stance and began to gather his chakra once more. Staring down at the paper he mimicked each hand sign. He made the release. Kaze’s vision went white as he once again collapsed to the floor in involuntary convulsions. After the tremors left his body Kaze couldn't help but smile. How could he use water release with ease but not make a bolt of single lightning static? He was naturally gifted in this element. 

‘Alright. Some things are not right here,' Kaze thought as he walked over to the edge of the water and began to contemplate the process of making the lightning release.

‘But why do I keep electrocuting myself when I fail the ability?’

"I've got it this time," Kaze said to no one in particular. He stared down at the parchment. He gathered his Chakra once more and visualized his lightning-infused chakra gathering on a point three meters in front of him. He made the hand signs and applied the lighting element to his Jutsu. He made the release.

Kaze winced in anticipation but there was no pain. About three meters in front of him there was a small bright thunderbolt of lightning that shot out in a few directions before dissipating. Shiki wiped the sweat from his forehead. At least he wasn't electrocuting himself this time. A small smile broke through his face. 

Sitting down and eating Kaze started to think about the last attempt he had made at creating lightning. Why did it fail? Kaze began to think about the principles of using water. 'After infusing the water with my chakra, I need the water to begin taking shape. Water is so malleable and naturally adheres to itself. Molding water is as simple as keeping it still and letting the chakra resonate with you. But lightning is a completely different animal. It is constantly traveling. Trying to make a shape or an object out of it just causes it to discharge,' he thought to himself. 

Kaze grabbed an apple and took a few bites and stared at the clouds. He imagined a bolt of lightning coming from the clouds and striking the ground. Maybe I need to understand the lightning's nature more. How do you build out of lightning? How does lightning move? It is so erratic. his gaze lowered and rested on a power line peeking through the cherry blossom tree. A straight line. Kaze stood up and imagined a battery. The positive and negative ends of the electricity determined its course. If I can create circles of electricity, I can create a skeleton for the element. Kaze knew the basic human anatomy, so he recalled his studying of the basic outline of the human skeletal structure.

He knew the skeleton would need to be able to support the rest of the weight. More importantly, it needed to be the same size and shape. it would need to be able to be a clone of him after all. So, Kaze took out a piece of paper and began to draw and copy the skeletal structure. He started to draw in his likeness. After he felt like he had something similar to his build he stood up. 

Alright, this is it. He began to visualize the skeletal structure. He concentrated on giving the chakra its negative and positive end. He could visualize the flow of electricity as it pulsed and moved its way through and across the body. He gathered up his chakra after his rest and began to apply the lightning element. Shaping and molding it. He slowly created his hand signs and released the Jutsu.

There was a crackle as a few stray bolts of lightning shot out from the area in front of him. He opened his eyes and saw a rigid glowing skeletal structure in front of him. It seemed stable. Kaze stared in awe at the glowing form in front of him. 

"I... I did it. Haha! I can't believe it," Kaze extended his arms outward slowly reaching for his clone. This is it. Kaze extended his arms out to examine the skeleton. His incomplete element release gave him so much pride at this point. Here he was, not even a full-fledged shinobi, who had already come this far with this element. Soon he would be able to mast- There was an explosion as Kaze’s fingertips made contact with the skeletal frame. Kaze collapsed to the floor and fell backward. 

Kaze awoke several minutes later staring at the canopy of a cherry blossom tree. There was the faint smell of burning hair and cooked meat about him. His mouth had a faint taste of copper. He wanted to just lie there and let his body relax. 'No, while the pain is still fresh, I need to learn as much as I can from this,' he thought.

So, what is there to learn from this? Kaze looked at his twitching fingers. So, the skeletal structure of the skeleton was still unstable. It was still coursing with electricity. So how could he make the actual clone stable? He still had not even come up with how to make the clone animated yet. That would require much more information about how to create and form a working body. 

Kaze stared down at the drawing. This means that housing the skeleton would have to come next. The clone itself wouldn't need a working circulatory system or organ system. They would run off of the chakra that he left inside of them. So really, he just needed to make this stick around. So, Kaze rolled up his scroll and started thinking about how to encase the skeletal frame.

---

Kaze awoke later that night to the cold night air on his face. It had grown dark. Kaze was hungry again, but it was too dark to see in all his pack or look at his scroll. He gathered up his things and moved closer to one of the lamp lights around the training ground. Sitting his things down Kaze began to stretch and slowly began to chew on a piece of dried meat inside his pack. Right as Kaze began to chew, a bug flew past his face making an annoying buzz by his ears. The Hatake swatted at it in annoyance. Kaze absentmindedly watched the bug zip around the radiance of the light pole.

Kaze grew pensive as he felt the burns on his hands from touching the skeleton. For some reason, the lightning didn't resonate with his chakra. The clone wasn't formed, rather it was simply a skeletal structure. His chakra seemed to just be the being into existence rather than provide it animation. Was it another problem with chakra nature? I'm missing something, something key is missing from the creation of an actual replica of myself. 

Kaze watched as the bug kept trying to futilely run into the light. Kaze stared at the dumb bug ram its head into the glass lamp over and over as it tried to climb into the electric bulb. The dull thudding noise of the bug trying to break through the glass was captivating in its own right. Perhaps it was because he had just woken from a nap, but Kaze felt like there was a lesson to learn from this. Even if this bug was to somehow smash its way through the glass it would simply die from the flowing current of electricity. 

Kaze had another beautiful revelation. The blue-eyed Hatake was just recently the bug. By that he meant didn't have that safe protective layer of glass keeping him from the brain-frying electrical pulse. If Kaze could make a defensive layer around the chakra, he could house the electrical skeleton inside of it. Then the skeleton would be able to move and make contact with someone else without electrocuting. 

Kaze steadied his stance. Theoretically, he knew what he needed to do. He imagined the same circuited skeletal system. He saw the coursing electricity and the positive to negative currents that would control the movement of his clone. Then he imagined the protective layer over the coursing electric field. He made the hand seals with his numb fingers. He summoned forth his Chakra and applied the elemental affinity to it. He released the seal.

There wasn't the flashing light that normally occurred. There was no static discharge of electricity. Standing in front of Kaze stood a translucent humanoid figure. The dimly lit figure stood momentarily before collapsing on the ground. Kaze could make out the resemblance of himself faintly. He could see his hair color although it seemed pale and translucent. Almost ghost-like. The clone seemed to be lacking actual details about it. Kaze could make out the colors of the clothing he was wearing. But small things like pockets were missing. 

Most importantly. The clone seemed weak. His eyes seemed sunken in; muscles seemed to be lacking in definition. The clone couldn't even manage to sit upright. It looked like a sad fish gasping for air. If there was one thing on this planet the Kaze hated in this world it was being perceived as weak. Although this was a huge stride in creating an actual lightning clone...Kaze couldn't stand the sight of it. 

"I will use more chakra next time." Kaze lifted one foot and brought it down swiftly on its head, however, he realized that he was only trying to learn the lightning release, not to try and do an actual jutsu. With that, he smiled to himself as he found that he has now mastered the art of lightning release, one step closer to learning the advanced element, White Ray.

---

In the facility at such an early hour many people were already awake and training, some possibly stayed out all night just to get some training in. As for Kaze, he awoke at an average, more normal hour of eight in the morning. Today he was going to go out to the wooded area beside the facility, and get stronger than he was now, and possibly improve his usage of the white fang style along with other ninjutsu techniques. He got out of bed, and after washing up he got dressed in his usual training attire. After eating a meal with his mother, he set off to the point of his destination, he walked out of their section and into the wooded area. Even though he was eager to start training, he could not help but take a minute to stare at the nature-filled surroundings. The flowers, the trees, the grass; The lush fragrance of all of these were simply amazing to the young Hatake. 

The blue-eyed Hatake took a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it in his hand as he thought about how he wanted to extend his knowledge on medical ninjutsu to become a medic like his mother, but he also wants to be strong like his father in the white fang style. So many things that he wants to do. He sighed. He started reading the parchment which had instructions on a new jutsu, Chakra Anesthesia, which is the ability to numb a person's pain or area. He needs to start with the basics before he works his way up to the more advanced Jutsu's. 

His medical abilities have been put to the test, for sure but this is supposedly an easy jutsu to learn. "Hm," Kaze muttered as he sat next to a tree, putting the parchment in front of him and pulling out a kunai; eventually, cutting his arm and then lifting the kunai away from his skin. Always one to rise to the challenge, Kaze was now curious to see just how good he was. Dropping the metal projectile, he formed the hand seals Hare > Ox > Monkey at a rapid pace. A pale blue light began to emanate from his hand, and he set about putting it over his arm where the stinging feeling was. It was painstaking work, having to use your own body to train like this, but what was he to do when he had no team members and his father had other duties, he guesses he can try other family members.

Kaze shook his head; he was getting distracted and needed to focus on the jutsu at hand as you realized the jutsu stopped because he stopped funneling chakra into his hand. "I suppose I should try this again," he stated as he performed the hand seals Hare > Ox > Monkey and watched as his hand became covered in the blue chakra once more. He then put it on his arm again and immediately felt the pain go away as the top part of his arm, then he healed his hand with the technique of healing hands, which he learned a couple of days ago. "Well, now that we got that one down, time to take a break," Kaze said as he headed back inside.

---

It was a quiet night, almost looking like something out of a fairy tale. Kaze glanced down slowly from the branch he sat upon, the abundance of leaves around him provided him with cover as eyed the ground beneath him. It was the middle of the night, just after midnight in fact; the star-strewn sky was clear and had a full moon tonight, allowing the dim glow from the celestial body to be cast unhindered onto the area. Said “area” was outside the training ground near his district with widely-spaced trees. Kaze had been resting in the lower branches of a large tree, not high enough to risk injury by falling, yet not low enough for any ordinary person to reach him. 

Kaze's eyes narrowed as he scanned the ground beneath him. As he had been lying on the branch with his eyes closed, he had heard a sound below him, in his vicinity. As he was in the middle of a wood in the middle of the night, he was bound to hear sounds from the nocturnal inhabitants of this woodland. However, this sound had been different compared to the rest. It was the sound of humans treading carefully yet with unsuccessful silence over the natural litter of a forest floor. Leaves, twigs, rocks, and many others were unintentionally treading on by a pair of covered human feet. Kaze's gaze turned in the direction of the sound. It was approaching slowly, and judging from the number of footsteps he could hear, the source of the sounds was two humans. Pulling himself onto a higher, more secluded branch, Kaze peered through a gap in the leaves at the line of shrubbery from behind which came the approaching sounds.

"Of course, drunk men walking too close to home." He whispered to himself as they continued past the training facility.

Kaze pulled out a scroll, one of the many his mother gave to him when he expressed how he wanted to learn medical ninjutsu because he wants to be a decent medic so he can save people's lives unlike he could for his father. Opening up the scroll, he saw contents inside, basic medical ninjutsu, followed by a set of hand signs. He wanted to endeavor further into the process of trying to learn how to do medical ninjutsu. It'd be hard, but it would be rewarding when he finally did manage. His first step is learning how to use the basic medical ninjutsu, and then training it towards a higher level.  Of course, he had to take things one step at a time.

Now he needs something to heal, so he decided on a better example than to be himself, as he takes a kunai and cuts the top of his arm as it starts to bleed. Kaze then performed the hand seals Bird - Boar - Dog, then his hand started glowing green and he put it on his wound. Kaze watched astonishingly as the wound quickly healed and closed up.

"I guess that is that then," the young Hatake said to himself.

Kaze jumped down from the tree and headed into the Hatake compound. The blue-eyed academy student wandered into his room and picked up the scroll again, reading it as his eyes narrowed in concentration. He decided he want to work on that anymore and decided to pick up a book. The title on the cover read “The Wonders of The Eye”. He read silently, absorbed in the text that explained the functioning of the oculus. Frowning, Kaze placed the book onto the table and leaned back in his chair, playing with his hair thoughtfully as he considered what he had just read.

While the vision was a glorious ability granted to most living organisms, in the case of humans, it was rather lacking. Compared to other animals, Man was essentially blind; there were many natural flaws and limitations in a human’s vision. But the one that worried Masquerade the most was a human’s poor night vision trait. In the dark, humans could barely distinguish their surroundings, and for a ninja, such a thing was dangerous. To be incapable of maintaining full awareness of one’s surroundings left one vulnerable to a sneak attack. But there was a way to get past this predicament. He put the book down and decided he wanted to train again with the basic medical ninjutsu. He wants to improve on already the amazing jutsu itself. He wondered if he could save lives by learning this jutsu, even in its weakened stage.

Kaze opened the scroll back up and saw a more advanced version of the technique he wanted to perform. Taking out his kunai, he sliced his arm again, but a little deeper. Kaze followed the instructions and performed the following hand signs Bird - Boar- Dog - Dragon, almost a replica of the first but with an additional hand sign. Zunair felt as more intensive chakra went into his hand glow more perfidiously than before and he put his hand on his wound and watched in amazement as it started to heal once again. He heard the usual medical ninjutsu is hard to learn but he feels like it's moderately easy. Maybe it is because of his Hatake training. How he excelled in chakra control at such a young age. Except now he feels like his energy has been depleted, maybe he isn't that good at chakra control. He wishes he wasn't like that, questioning his talents. He shakes his head.

"I guess it's time for bed, I wonder what techniques I want to work on tomorrow," Kaze questioned himself as he took off his clothes and turned off his light, crawling into bed. He pondered if should learn another Hatake technique or continue his medical training. He wondered if could mix a chakra-absorbing technique with his white fang style, to make a deadly combination.

---

Kaze headed for the forest after taking a two-hour nap since he was worn out by his mother's training. He had until nightfall ahead of him and he decided to use this free time to train. Not being in the mood for company, he steered clear of the training area and decided to go for a run before practicing the jutsu again to be warmed up.

Reaching the brinks of the forest, he fell into a light jog. Keeping his breathing slow and steady, he continued, passing the shrubs and soon entering the thicker parts of the forest. The roots didn’t cause any problems for him as he easily evaded and jumped over them. The day was beautiful. The sun was shining bright and high trees offered enough shade to make it somewhat enjoyable. Kaze closed his eyes for a moment, still running lightly. He had good instincts and didn’t need to rely solely on sight. He often would do this, challenging himself and trying to run by just relying on his instincts, his goal was to see how long he could keep running without tripping or bumping into something. Speeding up a little he opened his eyes, he had to push himself. He started increasing his speed so much everything became a blur and heard nothing but the wind whistling by and the silent cracks as he stepped on sticks and leaves.

After what seemed like an eternity Kaze started to slow down. Once getting in a light jog again, he jumped up and landed on a sturdy branch, he came to a stop for now. He breathed in and out, now that he was still, his adrenalin seemed to increase, he began to feel the slight burning in his chest and muscles. By the time he was finished with his warm-up he realized that he’s extremely far away from the village, this made him somewhat proud of the distance he got and also that his running speed has increased. Whenever he is jogging back lightly he sees a deserted field near the outskirts of the village with logs laying around. He immediately gets an idea and decides to make a game out of his training. He decided to time himself while jumping across from log to log then circle the field three times in 1 minute and 30 seconds. 

As he gets out his stopwatch and puts it on his neck he gets into his running position. He then presses the button to start the watch while shooting out running as fast as he can. As he finishes up his course he gets tired and takes a deep breath. After looking at his stopwatch and seeing that the time said 2 minutes and 30 seconds, he was ashamed at how slow he was. He had not even come close to the time he was aiming for. He thought “how could you become a great ninja with such a bad time?” To be successful he did it once more, only to get a slower time. He began to get frustrated and kept trying. 

After several tries his time was only 2 minutes flat, this wasn’t good enough he had to do better. To get momentum he started to think about all the ninjas in his village. He realized that he could not compete with them if he couldn’t even increase his speed. He worked harder and pushed his body to the limits. He goes five more times until he gets 1 minute and 32 seconds. Only two more seconds to go, but his body was aching from the pain and he couldn’t continue there was no way, he thought. He collapsed onto the ground and wasn’t able to stand. Suddenly this rage in him began to grow, even if he wasn’t fighting he still felt defeated and his pride wouldn’t let him be defeated by such a simple task. He got up, he had to give it all he had, or else his self-rule would serve no purpose. He gets in his running stance and takes off, he leaps from log to log hoping that he could keep his balance. The sweat was dripping down his forehead and got in his eyes, everything became a blur. 

Kaze didn’t have the time to stop and get the sweat out of his eye; he had to keep going. He glances at his stopwatch while running, it said 1 minute and 6 seconds he still had about one and a half laps to go. He couldn’t fail this time, there was no way. If he could make this time then he would take a rest for the rest of the day with a feeling of accomplishment but if he didn’t then he would train even harder till his body couldn’t go anymore. The blue-eyed Hatake finished and collapsed on the ground, the time on his stopwatch read 1 minute and 29 seconds. Kaze did it, not only did he achieve his goal but he also beat it. He was proud of himself.

Kaze was ready to finish today. The young Hatake was sore from today but he kind of liked the way it felt. He believed soreness is the only way you know you’ve worked hard. Kaze got up and stood next to a few trees. The blue-eyed Hatake began to concentrate, he closed his eyes for the moment so he could focus. As he began tensing his body and you could see his veins popping out, the blurred white space from this morning appeared once again. It slowly began surrounding his body, except this time it didn’t seem to be crazy. The space seemed more condensed and controlled. Kaze smiled and thrust his palm forward and the white lightning smashed into the trees, destroying some of the branches on them. ‘Another one down, two more two more to go,’ Kaze thought as he headed home.

EXIT
TWC: 4,527
Claiming: (25% Discount to All Jutsu)
+25 to Speed
+20 to Chakra
188/188 to Transformation Technique
188/188 to Clone Technique
750/750 to Aerial Strip
1500/1500 to White Fang Style
375/375 to Healing Hands
375/375 to Basic Sealing Technique
375/375 to Bodily Restoration
750/750 to Demonic Illusion: Flower Garden
750/750 to Demonic Illusion: Butterfly Effect
188/188 to Genjutsu Release

Approved