Sittin under a waterfall (chakra training)

Maku set forth into the jungle for some chakra control training.  It had been nearly two weeks since he had actually trained his chakra related abilities.  So much time had been dedicated to becoming physically stronger, and while to some he may still seem week, Maku was confident that he was improving.  The topic of today’s training would be several activities.  His first activity was meditation

Finding a waterfall, Maku perched himself underneath it.  Feeling a bit cliché Maku began to meditate and reach out with his chakra.  Feeling the ebb and flow of his body’s natural energies Maku focused his powers.  He had grown significantly since he had become a genin, so long ago it seemed.  Using his chakra he pushed the water from falling on his body.  In the same way a ninja walks on water by making the chakra form a barrier to walk on, Maku used these same basic principles to keep the water from ever getting him wet.  This sort of training was boring, dull, and incredibly difficult.  Sweat was the only thing that was getting him wet.  It took immense concentration to prevent even a bead of water from the waterfall to touch his skin.  Maku would continue this exercise for roughly 90 minutes.  At that point he released his chakra, and was instantly soaked by the water. 



Stretching Maku walked out of the water and gathered his things up.  It was time to do something else for a little while.  This time he searched high and low for a cave.  He had recently studied up on the temple of nirvana jutsu and wanted to try it out.  Finally discovering a cave, Maku walked in as quietly as possible.  Looking up he saw exactly what he wanted to see, the roof of the cave was covered in bats.  There were tons.  Due to this Maku knew he had come to the right place.  Forming two quick handsigns Maku used his hiding like a mole technique, and climbed up the wall through the rock.  Once he was at the top, he popped his head out and quickly screamed.  After screaming, Maku quickly ducked back into the earth to avoid being scrapped by the bats.  Once they had moved away from the ceiling, Maku exited the stone and stood upside down from the cave.  Which was kind of ironic, vampires popped in his head being in a cave upside down, with a ton of bats.  Not missing a beat though, Maku concentrated his chakra, and blew into his harmonica.  It had taken some work to make this jutsu sound based but with his special harmonica and chakra control abilities he could make it work.  After the note hit the air, golden feather began to appear.  As each feather hit a bat, they would fall from the sky and seemingly be asleep.  Overall it was a successful test.  The jutsu worked and Maku was able to use it in a sound based way. 



Maku’s next training exercise was working on the Demonic Illusion: Devouring Swarm jutsu, and using it also as a sound based skill.  The original technique called for using a blank scroll, however Maku wanted it to be sound based, since that was what made him unique.  Giving it a couple shots, nothing happened but a couple of illusionary flies floating around.  It wasn’t until around the tenth attempt that he was able to make it work.  The insects would fly out of the end of his harmonica as he played.  He found that as he focused his chakra harder into his hands and through the instrument, he could form different creatures.  This wasn’t easy, as Maku had to focus tiny chakra beads into the creatures.  Maku knew that if he had a real opponent it wouldn’t matter as much, because they would be constructs of the victims imagination.  But for now forming these fake insects where could practice.  Precise chakra control creating them would do nothing but make him stronger. 



Now that Maku was confident in his abilities of forming the swarm jutsu as a sound based technique, Maku moved on to the acid rain ability.  Usually to perform this technique a kunai was thrown with a sign into the air to start the jutsu.  But once again Maku wanted sound based.  By playing a clashing tune Maku was able to get the weather to stir around his head and flow out.  Simple enough, after having practiced so often.  Because of this it was easy to make the skill work off sound, especially with his unique harmonica, which could funnel genjutsu.

Maku’s last training mission of the day was to work on a new jutsu.  The chakra suppression jutsu was pretty basic, but still new to Maku.  In previous sparring sessions with his sensei, he had always been found by the jounin’s ability to sense his chakra network.  Focusing Maku felt his chakra disappear.  It was hard because, Maku had pretty decent chakra levels in his opinion.  Once he stopped focusing, his chakra returned.  Maku kept working on making it disappear.  It took most of the rest of the evening but finally he was able to hold his chakra levels under control, and make his signature disappear.  This was only his first attempt at working on this, so the longest he could keep it under control was about 15 minutes.  Maku knew that it was a work in progress and he would have to revisit this skill in future trainings. 



Over the course of his walk home, Maku continued to suppress his chakra.  At the moment, he had to release his semi-permanent transformation jutsu to truly suppress it.  In time he hoped he would be able to circumvent this and be able to do both at the same time.  Returning to the village, Maku checked the notice boards for any new mission postings, but noted that there wasn’t any.  Once home Maku began to write a letter to the village leader. In it he would ask if there were any new missions a lone genin could perform, and what he must do to gain the rank of chunin.  Hopefully the village leader would respond quickly and promptly.  As a chunin hopefully some new opportunities to support the village would occur.

(Word count = 1064, 5 stats towards chakra, 10 jp, training with chakra control and using sound based genjutsu, character development)

WC's are 1,055, Approved for appropriate rewards.