Steady Preparation

[Kao]

Tsuken hadn't been so exhausted in months.

In the weeks following his twin sister's death he had slacked off with his training, refusing to leave his apartment on most days to do anything more than lift a few weights. He wasn't out of shape, just unwilling to go out and train and fulfill his duties as a shinobi. That had changed when Shuudoshi Zekka approached him with a mission. The upcoming mission with the young Shuudoshi boy gave him a reason to stop isolating himself from everyone and everything and provided the motivation needed to train his body and techniques. He had done so, fervently training for a month and a half so that he wasn't completely incompetent with ninjutsu.

In the weeks after meeting with Zekka he trained for hours every single day, pushing his body and skills to the limit and then some. He'd managed to learn multiple new chakara affinities and techniques that he hoped would help him tackle the challenge of a mysterious temple and make it out alive. The result was that although he was much more prepared and slightly more confident, his energy was nearly completely drained. He was near the end of of a three-day break to recover when he received notice from Zekka that he needed assistance with his training.

He rubbed his head and moaned wretchedly, the sound muffled by the pillows on his bed. Zekka was due to arrive soon, and the chuunin hoped that whatever the boy had in mind wouldn't be too strenuous on either of them.

[Nick]

Zekka meanwhile was quite well rested. In his preparation for the trip he had organized his survival pack, and laid out his traveling armor, polishing and cleaning each piece carefully, and making sure he would have an animal available for them to ride across the desert. He had previously spent some time volunteering at the hospital, and had learned much in his time there, he needed time to reflect to himself as well. Helping the village was all well and good, but he needed to be able to help himself so that he could protect the villagers more effectively. Well, that and the next step for his self training was for a much less likely situation to come by, except in the field, which is what he was training for. He needed a test dummy, and Tsuken would be the perfect choice, given his earlier agreement to help with the mission.

And so once more, Zekka found his way to Tsuken's home, knocking politely on the door, exactly the same as he had when they first met, and for the first time since he had requested his assistance. He had no need to call out his name, less worried about him answering the door this time. The next portion of his training would require a bit of skullduggery that would be quite rude to enact on a fellow villager, but it was the only way to really test his abilities. Poor Tsuken.

[Kao]

As expected, Zekka's gentle knock came and prompted Tsuken to roll out of bed. Wishing he'd left the door unlocked, he sauntered to the front door and pulled it open and immediately wandered to the couch and laid down. With is arm covering his closed eyes he mumbled, "Mornin'," and turned over to curl his body into a ball. He wanted to sleep, but he had promised Zekka that he would be available as needed. He told Zekka to make himself comfortable and that he was free to raid his kitchen and refrigerator for food.

After his guest got comfortable, he'd sigh and groan, "Please tell me that whatever you have planned doesn't involve me having to get up. Everything hurts and I need another nap. "

[Nick]

With the door open, Zekka would smile kindly, bowing once more to show his respects before entering Tsuken's abode. "Quite the opposite, Henrin-San." He mentioned, moving over to the mans facilities, running fresh water into a kettle, and setting it onto the stove to boil. "I figured today we could spend some time getting to know each other a bit, if we're going to have to spend a month or so walking across the sand with nothing but each other to keep us company." Which wasn't totally a lie, but ultimately was, as the water began to whistle to completion, the young Shuudoushi began to add the tea leaves to two cups. Lastly, one of his hands slipped up his sleeve, finding a vial of dark purple liquid in the form of his [Body Breaker] poison, and slipping it into one of the cups.

"You look tense, Henrin-san, the tea should help." He called out to his ally, grabbing both cups, and walking over to Tsuken's sitting area, setting the poisoned cup down before his ally, before taking a long sip of his own, and setting it down as well. "A surprising number of teas contain herbal medicine, just because they taste good." He remarked, crossing one of his legs over the other, and placing his hands intertwined over his knee. "So, tell me about yourself, then. I wont lie, I did a bit of digging into your file, but I'd really rather hear information from you than from a scribe who doesn't understand who you are."

Combat LogShow

Zekka used the following poison.

Kept in a simple vial for easy and quick injections as well in doses for Busouheiwa's delivery system, this poison causes whoever it effects to [lose their sense of touch] due to the numbing properties, as well as causing [great strain on the muscle], causing damage beneath the skin, and proffering a [-4] to speed. However, the drawbacks are partially due to the muscles tensing up, as the drug gives the injected a [+6] strength stat after one post of building up in the targets system. This poison is a dark purple in color, and smells heavily of elderberries, just like your father, and lasts for four posts before wearing off.

[Kao]

If there was one thing Zekka would learn about Tsuken during their month-long expedition, it would be that Tsuken absolutely despised talking about himself. As a young genin he would have been pleased to brag about his fantastic personality and abilities, but nowadays that wasn't the case. Grumbling, he sat up and crossed his legs and eyed the cup of tea. "Ughh. Can we skip the whole 'getting to know you, getting to know all about you' business?" One glance at Zekka's posture, however, suggested that the young shinobi probably would not take no for an answer.

The Henrin picked up the tea cup and started to take a deep gulp, noting the strong, fruity aroma it gave off. Tsuken swalled several deep mouthfuls of tea until he drained it, and his eyes wandering to the walls instead of looking directly at the Shuudoshi. He was determined to stall as long as he could, but it was difficult to do so after he had finished the drink. After several long moments of silence he finally relented.

"Fine, fine. But there's not much to add if you've already looked at my file. I'm not a deep ocean of mysteries or anything, I'm a chuunin who likes to meditate and read and sleep. Although the strong smell of berries was a bit much, the tea was rather good and Tsuken pushed his cup towards Zekka and expectantly waited for him to fill it up again. "It'll probably be easier if you actually asked me stuff, and I'll decide whether to answer you or not."

[Nick]

Zekka waited patiently; If there was one skill he had mastered for his young age, it was patience. He didn't like being patient, and was even known to occasionally tap his foot, or drum his fingers across his knee, but he was certainly good at it, all the same. So he raised an eyebrow as Tsuken drained the cup of tea, sipping on his own nonchalantly, and smiling once the last drop was gone, and he even went so far as to ask for more. "Honestly, I'm not a big fan of small talk either, but it was a good way to get you thirsty." The boy leaned forward. grabbing the cup, before sitting up, his own cup still half full and left on the table.

The sound of water pouring over tea leaves could be heard once more from the background, as he filled the mans cup up once more, setting it back down before him, this cup also filled with a bit of the same poison he had tainted the last batch with. "Don't drink that just yet, we'll want to get the last batch out of your system first..." He started, before realizing he'd gotten ahead of himself, shaking his head. "Sorry, I kind of... poisoned you... a little? Harmless stuff, mostly!" He promised, smiling as though such a thing was perfectly normal to say. "I needed someone to practice my medicine on, and you'd be surprised how little cases of poisonings come up where I can practice freely, so I kind of had to turn you into a test subject..."

[Kao]

He had just grabbed the tea cup to take another swig when Zekka spilled the beans, and he stopped the cup only inches from his lips. He blinked comically at the boy as the new information processed, and once he realized what the boy said he dramatically coughed and hollered, "You what?!"" then slammed the tea cup onto the table. Much to his surprise, the tea cup shattered in his hand, shards shooting upward and towards him and cutting his hand in several places before settling on the table and the floor. Tsuken stared at his injured hand and the broken pieces. The chuunin definitely didn't think he put the tea down with enough force to break it. Not only that, but although his hand was freely bleeding, he could hardly feel it.

"You sneaky son of a bitch! You poisoned me! You- what did you...." He stopped mid-sentence, his tongue protruding slightly from his lips. It was numb. He licked his lips. Those were numb, too. He poked his cheek and found both his finger and cheeks were also numb.

"Oh my gah. Ru ril sit! Oly sit ru boison'd me!" He reached forward with both hands but stopped. Choking the boy wouldn't help him whatsoever, and he couldn't even speak coherently enough to tell the boy to fix him. Tsuken sounded stupid in his own ears so he stopped talking and instead gave his best rendition of an angry growl and waited for the novice healer to fix him.

[Nick]

Zekka Jutsu Training #8 -- Iijutsu #7 Empty Mind, Empty Body "Ahem... Please don't talk about my mother that way..." The boy said, almost pouting as he spoke, but he sighed and rolled his eyes, giving his Henrin ally a shrug. "I'll fix it, but I need you to calm down, first. Hold out your hands." He had done extensive reading on the technique to remove the poison, and had done even more research to make sure he'd use a poison that was relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things. The first step to this technique was often to cut an incision into the body of whoever was effected, giving the poison in the blood somewhere to escape from, but Tsuken in his strength-fueled senseless near rage had taken care of that job for him. "I'll try to fix your hands when we're done here, too. You should really be more careful, you know..." He sighed once more, and ran through a series of handseals, focusing his chakra from his core, up his arms, and through his hands, until his silver and purple chakra oozed forth, covering his hands in a haze of silver with vines of purple interweaving between his fingers and around his wrists.

The feeling would likely be odd for Tsuken, as the poison congealed itself and worked its way towards his wounded hands, the numbness draining from his face and body, coalescing down his arms, and all focusing into his hands until they were the only thing still numb. Then, instead of blood, a deep purple liquid would ooze out of his wounds, dripping down a few inches, stopping just short of the table, and floating up against Zekka's palms, flattening out almost like a disk. More and more came out, until the full amount he had dripped into the mans tea was formed against his hand, and slowly he took the collection of liquid over to his own cup of half-finished tea, and dropped it in, a little bit splashing over the side and into the saucer he had set up underneath it for just such a reason. It was then that Zekka would turn back to Tsuken, taking a deep breath, and wiping the sweat from his brow, before doing another set of handseals, before performing the blood clotting technique, forcing his hands to stop bleeding from their minor wounds, as the blood would coagulate and harden in the wounds, sealing themselves back up as they scabbed over. "See? Good as new, right? I told you I'd fix you back up! ...I think I got it all, at least..."

[428/400] Iijutsu Get

Jutsu TrainedShow

*[Iijutsu • Basic Antidote Technique]
C-Ranked Ninjutsu
Prerequisite: User's averaged Instinct and Control stats must be 10 or above
A useful, but particularly taxing technique, the *[Iijutsu • Basic Antidote Technique] is performed on poisoned patients. After focusing chakra into his/her hands, the user will make a small incision (with a knife, scalpel, etc.) on the patient and then place his/her hands over the new wound. As this chakra is channeled into the body, it extracts the poison out of it and into the user's palm. After one (1) post of the extraction process, the user will remove his/her hand, and place it over a container of some sort (anything that can bear liquid). From here, the liquid poison will be ejected from the hand along with the remaining chakra that was used to extract it. As this chakra interacts with the poison over the course of a second post, its molecules will be rearranged to form the antidote for the poison in question. This works only on C-Rank or lower poisons. The antidote takes a total of three (3) posts to fully rid the body of the poison.

[Kao]

Tsuken watched the boy work with his face twisted into a frown he couldn't even feel. He slowly but surely regained feeling, starting with his face and neck. He was relieved when he licked his lips and could feel his tongue swipe across and leave a light trail of saliva behind. The boy had some nerve to poison Tsuken, and he wouldn't forget how nonchalantly Zekka had drugged him right in his own home. Someone like that was probably too clever for his own good and needed to be watched.

As the poison left his body he felt a kind of gross tingling sensation beneath his skin. It made the man's stomach turn, but he kept his eyes on Zekka so he wouldn't miss a moment. Tsuken didn't quite understand how he figured out how to take the poison out of him, but he didn't care so long as every drop of the stuff was out of his system. When the boy finished, Tsuken flexed his uninjured hand. He paused. And then he swung his fist in a downward motion and punched Zekka atop his head.

"You're a little shit, you know that? Poisoning me in my own house." He trained his deep black eyes on Zekka and his upper lip raised in a snarl. "How am I supposed to trust you and follow you around for a whole month if you can poison me without blinking?"

[Nick]

Zekka Jutsu Training #9 -- Iijutsu #8 Cleansing Ritual Zekka made no move to stop the punch to the top of his head, crying out in pain as the fist connected, and squirming underneath the mans strength, but taking his due punishment for poisoning the Henrin. "Hey, hey! I needed some way to test the stuff!" The boy complained, still wriggling under the pressure from Tsuken's fist. "Learning the proper technique to do this could save someone's life when they get hurt with a real poison or venom some day!" Which was true, there were countless cases of scorpion venom being the last thing touching a person before they died, or wasps, or any of the other hundreds of deadly little critters in Wind Country. There was no real system set up to teach people anti-poisoning techniques, and so it was a serious problem that couldn't be fixed in traditional methods, so Zekka had to take the goal into his own hands.

Finally freeing himself from the harmful fist of the Henrin bodyguard, he sighed once more. "Besides! The stuff I had you drink isn't... bad for you, per say." Zekka brought his hand up, turning and shaking a straight plane to admit that was only partially the truth. "It's actually a drug I made... Well, drug doesn't sound quite right... To try and make myself stronger temporarily! Like I said last time, my taijutsu isn't the greatest, so I figured the best way to make up for it was to use my knowledge to come up with a solution, and well, this stuff was it..." All of which was true, though admitting it all made the Shuudoushi boy squirm a bit, he had worked on the stuff in secret so as to not draw attention to the fact he was developing such things. "S-so I've tested it on myself before! That's how I knew it was mostly harmless." He finished, taking another deep breath to steady himself.

"Now, let me make sure it's all out of your system, okay...?" He asked, standing up and stepping closer, performing another set of handseals for the 'cleansing' technique. This was a more surefire way, with much less room for human error, but it took more time, which wasn't something that many had in the event of poisonings. "After this, no more poisons, okay? ...Not without permission, at any rate. It's a promise!" He said, placing his hands over Tsuken, and activating the white blood cells, letting the body do its own natural work against whatever remnants of poison might be left inside of his body.

[424/400] Iijutsu Get

Jutsu TrainedShow

*[Iijutsu • Cleanse Technique]
C-Ranked Ninjutsu
In the event that creating an antidote is not possible, users of this technique can still help their patient fight off toxins, infections and other foreign bodies. After focusing chakra into his/her hands, the user will begin to channel it into the patient's body. As this chakra flows into the body, the leukocytes will react to its presence and begin to multiply rapidly. This influx of white blood cells takes one (1) post of concentration to create. Over the course of five (5) posts, the new and old leukocytes are able to fight off poisons that are C-Rank and below that have entered the body. During these final five posts, the medical-nin does not need to continuously focus chakra into the patient. It will take care of itself at this point.

[Kao]

There was nothing that Zekka could say that would convince Tsuken that being discretely poisoned was something that could be brushed off. As Zekka babbled his apology and excuses, the Henrin simply listened and waited for the boy to finish up using him as a guinea pig. Suddenly he wasn't sure about being Zekka's body guard for this excursion. If he could poison him without batting an eye, the boy may even abandon him when things got rough and leave him to fend for himself. If it came to that, Tsuken would have to look out for himself. After all, Zekka wasn't a friend; he was merely his temporary employer.

When Zekka finished up, he slowly stood to his feet and stretched his muscles. He felt alright, but as soon as Zekka left Tsuken would make a trip to the hospital to make sure he was truly free of the poison. "Yeah, well, you'd better not poison me again, or you'll regret it, kid." With his arms cross, he deadpanned, "Is there anything else you need me for, boss-man?"

[Nick]

Zekka sighed. He had hoped the whole situation could be played off as a good training opportunity, which was the point, really, but Tsuken seemed to take the whole thing incredibly personally, which was regretful. Clearly the young Shuudoushi had a long ways to go in his diplomatic training, and bringing people over to his way of thinking, or perhaps Tsuken was much more hard-headed than could be dealt with via diplomatic approaches. Or maybe it was because Zekka had poisoned him, and people tended to take those things very personally, no matter what you said to the contrary.

He returned to his cheerful smile despite it all, however, and bowed deeply to Tsuken as a means of apology. "I feel confident in my ability to cure such things now, it wont happen again." He promised, keeping his head bowed as low as possible, before slowly raising back up, a large lump formed on his head where Tsuken had hit him squarely. "I uhh...
Well, it doesn't really feel right to just leave after all that, so about that small talk...?" He smiled nervously, nodding his head, as though that made more sense to him.