A Thousand Cuts

[Kao]

“I’ve never known you to be interested in ninjutsu.”

Setsuna sat kneeled on the floor with her back straight and head lowered. Her red hair flowed freely past her shoulders and down her back, and her bangs were brushed back out of her face. A man sat in front of her and, unlike her, was seated more casually and comfortably with one leg stretched in front of him and the other folded inward. From the neck down he was covered in scars and tattoos, each marking a testament to his warrior lifestyle. The art depicted his triumphs, including his marriage and the birth of his two children. Across his chest was the depiction of his first Shinren, the result of which was him becoming one of the many warlords of Rock Country. He defended his title for over a decade, losing it only after society shifted after the Great War. Though he was now considered a regular citizen, he wore his past proudly.

His pride weighed on Setsuna. After all, he expected his daughter to continue the family tradition of greatness. “Things change, I guess,” she said almost under her breath. After clearing her throat she spoke a bit more loudly. “There’s only so much I can do with taijutsu. Anyone who’s anyone in this village is skilled in more than one discipline. I don’t want to fall behind my team. They’re catching up to me.”

“And we can’t have that,” her father said with a small chuckle. His daughter normally didn’t care about such things, and it pleased him to see that despite her usual dispassionate demeanor she had a bit of a competitive streak. “I’ll find you a trainer.”

---

The man her father found to train her was…interesting. More than interesting. He was several years older than her, but perhaps no more than nineteen or twenty. He was deceptively slender; beneath the tight sleeves of his shirt Setsuna could make out toned muscle. And he certainly was easy on the eyes. White hair, pale skin and a nice smile. His glasses made him look a bit like a nerd, but Setsuna surprised herself by finding that intriguing. The man introduced himself as a jounin named Komiya Shizuo, and she tucked his name away somewhere close to her chest.

“Tell me about what you’d like to learn.” Setsuna blushed and trained her eyes to the rocky ground. She told the man she’d like to learn more about ninjutsu, specifically sensory and iijutsu. The man chuckled. “Those are some pretty advanced skills. How are you with ninjutsu in general?” She supposed she was decent. Setsuna had learned all the basics in the academy, though not without considerable effort. Taijustu came so much easier to her, so once she learned chakra control and the most basic ninjutsu, she subsequently ignored the discipline completely. Shizuo smiled. “Let’s get started then."

The training was intense. Shizuo tested her proficiency first. He used a jutsu to make a rather large pond and then made her use the water walking technique followed by transformation until she tired. With her level of chakra control, it didn’t take much to exhaust her. The jounin frowned and contemplated what to do next. “We have to improve your level of chakra control before we can delve into sensory and iijutsu. Sensory, especially, takes a much higher level of control than you’re currently capable of. I’m curious about something though. What is your chakra affinity?”

How embarrassing. Setsuna didn’t know how to tell her that she had no idea. That on top of being told her chakra control was lacking was absolutely mortifying. She steeled herself, however, and did her best to keep her unease out of her expression. “I don’t know.” Setsuna half expected Shizuo to be frustrated with her at this point. But instead he grinned and started rummaging through his knapsack. Eventually he pulled out a very unassuming rock and placed it in her palm.

“Focus your chakra into the rock.” When the genin raised her brow at him in confusion, he gestured at her with an encouraging, if not silly, expression. Setsuna shrugged one shoulder and did as he asked. At first, nothing seemed to happen. But after she focused a tad more chakra into the rock, she felt it grow in size in her hand. “Whoa. Um…what just happened?” Shizuo stood over her with a somewhat proud expression on his face. The girl looked up at him, bewildered. “Congratulations, Setsuna. You’re a doton user!”

Over the next few weeks, Setsuna trained with Shizuo nearly every day. Although he didn’t use doton himself, he helped her learn how to shape and mold the earth beneath her feet. Once she learned the basics of that, he had her shift and move the earth in various directions. They then moved on to controlling the distance at which she manipulated the ground around her. Setsuna ended each day utterly exhausted and drenched in sweat. But at the end of the third week she was shocked at how much she could do. It was still elementary compared to what others at her rank could do with doton, but she had done so much within such a short time that she didn’t mind that she was still a novice.

Almost two months after her training with Shizuo began, Setsuna was suddenly called for an unscheduled training session. The girl was eager to see the man, thinking he had eagerly come up with another creative training method for her. But much to her annoyance, Shizuo wasn't the one who greeted her. Instead she met a much younger girl with stunning looks, long pink hair and golden eyes. Setsuna disliked her immediately. “Hi!” she sang, giving the redhead kunoichi a little wave. “You must be Ishiwara Setsuna. Komiya-san couldn’t make it today, but he thought we should meet. I’m Kiyoko, a chuunin.” Setsuna didn’t say much in return. “Aaaanyway, I’m here to help you with doton and ah, your chakra control, I think? Does that sound right?”

“You seem a little unprepared for someone who’s training me on a jounin’s behalf.”

Kiyoko’s smile faltered. She blinked, and her gaze cooled. “Okay.” The pink haired chuunin performed a few seals and then held out her hand to the side. As she did, a blast of raiton erupted from her palm and hit the ground to form a ring of electricity around them. It gave them an area with a twenty meter diameter to play with. “Let’s spar. You can shift the earth however you like, as long as it doesn’t go beyond the boundaries of my jutsu.”

Kiyoko bowed at the waist and then dashed forward with surprising speed. The genin’s eyes widened when her opponent was suddenly directly in front of her, smiling as she brought her fist forward to jab her in the stomach. Setsuna buckled but quickly righted herself and formed the short set of seals for her Earth Flow technique. But just as she finished, Kiyoko pivoted on her back foot and flew into a spinning kick that knocked Setsuna off balance. Again she righted herself, but this time she flooded the ground with doton chakra and it began to shift like a current of water. But this was nothing to Kiyoko, who giggled as she cartwheeled out of the way.

Setsuna grit her teeth, watching Kiyoko’s movements as she dodged and formed more seals. When the older kunoichi stopped flipping about she was near the boundary of her own raiton technique. Setsuna ran towards her at near her top speed, but her sparring partner wasn’t fazed. Kiyoko merely raised her fists, still smiling as Setsuna closed the distance between them. The two girls exchanged blows, each strike stronger than the last. When Kiyoko backed up a bit, Setsuna performed her technique. It threw Kiyoko off balance and she went crashing to the ground. The genin smirked triumphantly, but the pink haired chuunin shook her head.

Confused, Setsuna dropped her stance. And then she saw it. Her doton technique had gone past the boundaries of Kiyoko’s raiton. With a sigh, she resigned herself to her failure.

“It’s ok! It only went out by about half a meter. Let’s keep going!”

They continued on, and a few times Setsuna’s technique went out of bounds. But Kiyoko simply told her to keep trying, and the girls kept their spar going. By the end of it Setsuna was exhausted and Kiyoko was more than a little winded. But she had gone out of bounds more than once, each time by less than a foot. Every time it happened Kiyoko pointed it out, and the young genin found herself becoming more and more frustrated. Not only that, but she was nearly drained of chakra. She asked for a break and Kiyoko obliged, giving her a few minutes to take a few deep breaths and smack herself on the cheeks. “Get it together,” Setsuna told herself.

The two girls continued the spar, knowing that Setsuna only had one or two doton techniques left in her before she passed out. Her moves were sluggish but she pushed through, unleashing on more doton technique. This time when the earth shifted it stayed within the boundaries of Kiyoko’s technique, but just barely. But, in their eyes, it counted as success.


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