Patrol Training

Spoiler:

Inpei silently jumped from tree to tree, focusing the chakra in his feet both to jump and to stick his landing on the next branch before propelling himself forward once again. He came to rest in a tree alongside the road, wiping his brow and drinking from a canteen he had strapped on his belt. As he looked back and forth, checking for any activity. Not that he expected anything – this was a training patrol, which meant he was on the inner ring of the pattern farthest from the border.

Across the road, he could see a bird’s nest nestled in the high branches. A woodpecker went to town below it, a rabbit ducked into the bushes as a squirrel crossed the road. It was a beautiful day, if a bit hot – sunny with a light breeze. Capping his canteen, Inpei clipped it back onto his belt and looked down at the dirt road in front of him.

Well, this IS just a training exercise…what better time to try out the new one…

“Ram, Tiger, BOAR, Snake, Monkey,” Inpei said, flashing through the signs before closing his eyes and tentatively jumping off the branch. He plummeted toward the ground, but instead of landing he fell into the earth. He could only tell because the light was suddenly gone – otherwise, he could still sense everything. The slightest vibrations of all the same sights from before – the woodpecker, the squirrel – made it all as clear to him as the light had made it. Focusing his chakra, Inpei moved forward – crossing under the path and continuing through the other side.

This is really weird – it’s almost, like, halfway between air and water. Nice and cool compared to getting roasted by the sun!

Inpei pushed the jutsu as far as he could, feeling his vibrational senses spread out and take in new information as he proceeded. It was certainly weird to get used to – figuring out what the vibrations meant without actually seeing the thing first was difficult, but in time he started being able to figure it out. Eventually he couldn’t maintain the jutsu, and for a moment he was scared he’d get stuck in the ground, and so he rose up out of the ground.

“Well that was neat,” a voice said. Inpei jumped, launching himself back and away with a chakra-powered jump. He landed on the trunk of a nearby tree and pulled a kunai from his holster. Staring up at him was the ninja supervising his training patrol, a chunin called Tetsuya. “Jeez, you’re a skittish one, aren’t you?”

“Sorry,” Inpei said with a chuckle. He spun the kunai before sliding it back into it’s holster and jumping back down to the ground. Tetsuya was lanky, taller than Inpei with short black hair and glasses. He wore the usual Leaf uniform – blue clothing, green flak jacket. He hadn’t said, but Inpei figured he was three or four years older than him. “I didn’t want you to think I’m not taking this training seriously.”

“Suuuure,” Tetsuya replied, walking past Inpei along the patrol route. Inpei followed him, keeping pace with the older boy. “Good rule of thumb, don’t waste more chakra than you have to. If you’re on a real patrol, you don’t know when or if you’ll need it.”

“Have you gone on many patrols?” Inpei asked, tilting his head. Inpei really didn’t know much about Tetsuya, other than his name and rank. He wondered what he was capable of, how long he’d been a chunin, among other questions – but he kept them to himself.

“Oh yeah, you’ll be tired of them before long,” Tetsuya responded, taking a cursory look around before jumping up into a tree. He began jumping rapidly from branch to branch – Inpei working to keep pace with him. “Honestly, it’s pretty lax these days. Nobody wants to mess with us because they don’t want to piss off the Mist. Or it's somebody so strong that we can't do anything.”

Inpei thought for a moment before he replied. “Uh, shouldn’t they be worried about messing with us…in general?”

Tetsuya chuckled. “Not really. Our village is kind of a joke.” Inpei stopped at the next branch – Tetsuya went a couple more before he too stopped and turned back around. “What’s the problem?”

“You can’t…you can’t just say things like that!” Inpei shouted, suddenly angry without really understanding why. “This is your village, OUR village – how can you say we’re a joke?!”

“Jeez, easy kid,” Tetsuya replied, crossing his arms with a look of impatience. “It is what it is. Kiri owns us. I don’t even KNOW who the Hokage is right now, and at any moment some missing-nin could just sweep through all of us and waltz directly into their office and they’ll be the new Hokage before long. Face it, kid – we lost the ninja lottery.”

Inpei clenched his fists and grit his teeth. He felt anger boiling within him – and it was familiar. Not something he’d felt in himself, but something experienced from someone else. He had a flash of a face like his but bearded and twisted into anger. A bolt of fear ran through him, and he willed himself to calm down. He closed his eyes, breathing deep – in and out.

“That’s right - take all that anger and push it down into the earth. Plant it like a seed so that something else can grow.”

“Well? Out of breath?” Tetsuya chided.

“No, I’m alright,” Inpei said with another grin. He did a quick bow. “Sorry about that – I think I took what you were saying personally.”

“Whatever, it’s fine. Are you ready to go?” Tetsuya turned around and began to jump forward without waiting for answer.

“Yep, let’s go!” Inpei responded, jumping forward as the pair of them resumed the patrol.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe our village isn’t in the best spot. But it’s ours, which means it’s our job to fix it – to make it better, so that we all have something to be proud of. I’ll just…show him how wrong he is.

[Exit]

WC: 1011
Rewards: 1000 Ryo/5 AP

888 words toward Rank C Rock Pillar Spears, bringing it up to 1000. I'll be putting the other 123 words into Rank C Rending Drill Fang.

For stats, 1011 into 10 SP total, I'll do 5 SP into Speed and the other 5 SP into Strength.

Approved