The young special jounin had never been out of Rock Country, so he was filled with nervous excitement as he started his journey. He had memorized several routes and roads and only hoped that he wouldn’t run into any Konoha shinobi. His superiors had explicitly and sternly told him to hide the fact that he was an Iwagakure shinobi and to avoid any confrontation with any foreign shinobi. Shizuo wasn’t the type to engage in hostilities without reason, so he figured he would have no issue with following that particular order.
To conceal his affiliation with Iwagakure, he left his flak jacket behind and hid his hip and leg pouches in his bag. It was a tight fit and he wouldn’t be able to draw the weapons on short notice, but it would have to do.
As he travelled, he constantly tapped the wakizashi strapped to his hip. It felt odd, the weapon, since he had never before used it in battle or had practiced with it much. When he held it the blade felt foreign, and although it was well balanced and fit well in his hand the man sometimes felt as though it would take ages for him to truly get used to it. But he was determined to become physically stronger so that he would no longer be teased by his peers about his somewhat feeble appearance and his lack of powerful, physical techniques.
After two and a half days of traveling, he was deep within Waterfall Country. It was a beautiful place, on the surface at least. The land itself seemed like it was trying to kill him, and at every turn he ran across some sort of huge ravenous animal or insect that was half his size. He made sure to avoid the poisonous plants he had read up on, but at one point it seemed that he had accidentally brushed against some horrible foliage that had him itching for half the day. Eventually, tired and dirty, he arrived at his destination: a famed Yoshin style dojo, and he became its newest student.
Jutsu TrainedShow
*[Yoshin • Ambidexterity]
D-Ranked Taijutsu Discipline
Prerequisite: 5 Instinct
After practicing for a long amount of time with the concept of using both of their hands with equal skill, the user has developed a level of ambidexterity that allows them to utilize their preferred weaponry without any sort of issue. This extends to other methods of combat or simple everyday life as well.
D-Ranked Taijutsu Discipline
Prerequisite: 5 Instinct
After practicing for a long amount of time with the concept of using both of their hands with equal skill, the user has developed a level of ambidexterity that allows them to utilize their preferred weaponry without any sort of issue. This extends to other methods of combat or simple everyday life as well.
“Bankotsu! Come forward”
Shizuo didn’t immediately respond to his alias, but after his delayed reaction he stood before his sparring partner, his wooden replica of a wakizashi in his hand. It felt worse than his actual weapon, but of course he wasn’t able to practice with an actual weapon. The dojo had forced him to wear an itchy all black dougi, and coupled with the unbalanced false weapon and the half dozen eyes watching him, Shizuo was extremly uncomfortable.
He assumed the basic stance by holding his weapon at chest level. As soon as he assumed this position his partner, a kid of about fourteen, began attacking with rather weak stabs and jabs. He was thankful that the kid was rather weak and his attacked predictable, so initially he didn’t have much trouble parrying hte attacks and pushing forward with jabs of his own.
His sensei wasn’t at all impressed with his technique and the man quickly stopped them. Shizuo wanted to groan when the older man told them to be serious. How could he? He barely knew the moves and was having some trouble implementing the simple jabs he had been taught. After a week and a half, he hadn’t gotten much better and he half expected to be kicked out of the dojo. But thankfully, the leaders of the dojo were as patient as they were stern and made no indication that they were thinking of dismissing him from the dojo.
After two weeks of endless practice, Shizuo was becoming more and more comfortable holding the wakizashi replica and using it for simple jabs and slashes. He practiced intensely with his younger partner, who had a penchance for striking the wrist of his dominant hand so that it would be more difficult and painful for him to hold it. Several times Shizuo had been forced to used his left hand to spar, and at first it was awkward and nearly impossible to do the manuevers he had learned with his non-dominant hand.
But the more his partner forced him into doing so, the more comfortable he became with using that hand. Shizuo would jab at the boy’s arms and chest with his dominate hand, then toss the weapon to his left hand and attack from the opposite side. It took a while, but after three weeks of training, using either hand for attacking and defending became easy to him. His training was coming along quite nicely.