[Closed] Strength in Solitude

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

[Ninjutsu • Pressure]
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
The user performs the hand seals or channels and exudes chakra from their being, pushing it out from themselves to create a field of pressure within a 10 meter radius. Those within this area of effect will suffer a 1 Strength Debuff for 1 post.

Aimi sat on a stump outside of the village proper in the untouchable district, his eyes closed and his hands resting on his knees, back straight, his chakra growing. Recently, he had been given some advice that he had taken to heart by one of his fellow shinobi, that he was perhaps focusing a bit too much on the physical aspect of his being and not enough on chakra control and ninjutsu in general. He had thought about it and, given his recent advancements in an entirely new style of swordplay, he felt that the concerns raised (More like criticisms, but whatever) were fairly valid. So he now sat, focusing and gathering his chakra all over his body, letting it flow, circulate and grow within him like a fire grown out of control.

He didn't have any particular purpose in mind for doing this beyond a basic exercise in chakra control, but these things had a funny habit of evolving with him. While he sat there, channeling his chakra, people went about their daily business there in the worst district in the village, giving him nary look or a thought which was exactly how he wanted it to be. It left him to concentrate uninterrupted which was exactly what he needed in order to really focus on channeling his chakra. A faint blue glow surrounded his body as the chakra became visible to the naked eye, things that he was aware of without even looking due to years of practice. Channeling chakra like this was nothing new to him, in fact he did this in a much lesser and more focused degree every time that he pulled a bone out of his body. What was new in this exercise was the scale which he was attempting to achieve.

Nothing big, nothing fancy, just a full and complete aura of chakra all around his body, building in intensity and size - as large as he could get it without losing control and having the chakra dissipate and thus wasting it. He breathed deep and evenly, his chest rising and falling, his breath invigorating him as his chakra continued to grow. He was taking things deliberately slow, not daring to build up his chakra too fast for risk of wasting the effort. Slow and steady wins the race, he kept thinking to himself, repeating the phrase each time he took in a breath. Slowly, over time, the faint glow became brighter and brighter, his entire body being covered in the shine of chakra leaking out of each one of his chakra points and building from a faint, shiny shimmer to a thin, misty cloud.

It was at this point that people really began to notice him and looked on warily. Most of them were at least vaguely aware of who he was by reputation as not only one of the only shinobi that visited the district regularly but also one who didn't come here just to get his rocks off by abusing or killing random citizens. He was, to them, a usually quiet fellow that kept to his own business and didn't usually do anything ninja related there. Seeing him now, clearly channeling chakra got a few of them justifiably worried. So much so, in fact, that their hushed whispers quickly became growing vocal concerns ranging anywhere from asking if they should leave to telling him to turn the light off. It quickly became a very unwelcomed distraction to the Yamai who, on top of not being used to just physically channeling his chakra all over his body without the aid of handseals, wasn't used to doing much of anything one might consider 'meditation' in the first place.

The more that people talked around him, the more his body tensed up, his hands gripping his knees and his face slowly pulling in on itself into the form of a stern frown, the more his concentration slipped. He could feel his chakra growing more erratic as his struggle to maintain a slow, steady, even formation of chakra all throughout his body became more and more difficult. It all came to a head when someone, a bum, came forward towards the tree stump on which the bare chested jounin sat and began shouting at him to 'go practice your ninja shit elsewhere!' He'd had enough at that point and his eyes snapped open.

The opening of his eyes was like the trigger of a gun, his chakra the bullet. Before his lids rose up so that he could get a good look at whoever it was that had gotten in his face, his chakra had steadily grown thicker and thicker, shimmering and shaking in a steadily growing unstable pattern until at last it had left his body all at once, expanding outwards in every direction around him as a quick wave that was as ephemeral as it was potent. The result, and his reward for putting up with the people around him for as long as he had, was the sight of a thin, haggard looking man stumbling right in front of him and falling on his backside on the ground below, as if Aimi had struck him. What's more, Aimi observed that this vagrant wasn't the only one effected as people in the streets, in between buildings and even just hanging out of their homes all seemed to have stopped what they were doing and collectively stumbled, as if the strength of their bodies had been sapped from them suddenly.

He looked around him and wondered why this had happened suddenly as the people around him, already weak and frail, collectively struggled to stop shaking and get back up on their feet. He concluded that he must have been the cause of this, he just... wasn't sure how exactly he had managed it. With his chakra alone? He couldn't be sure... but he was now sufficiently curious, as he'd never heard of an application of chakra like this before. Still sitting on the stump, he began to channel and focus his chakra again, all over his body, much faster than he had done before, no longer attempting an exercise in restraint and control but instead an experiment in application. It didn't take him even until the time that the bum who had come yelling at his face to get back up to his knees before he felt as though he had a sufficient amount of chakra gathered within him.

In a now deliberate, experimental test, Aimi pushed all of the chakra that he had gathered from his body at once, his muscles flexing with the effort of trying something different and new. As before, the chakra left his body in an ever expanding bubble in all directions that reached about 10 meters before completely dissipating and, as before, it effected everyone who was within that 10 meters. Like a shockwave it washed over them, causing those who had managed to stay on their feet before to fall to their knees and those who hadn't, like the vagrant now at Aimi's feet, to fall flat onto the ground. All of this had happened from the sheer force of his chakra made manifest alone he concluded. He also concluded that the effect likely looked MUCH more impressive than it actually was. These were thin, weak, practically starving people who lived in slums, a far cry from a ninja or samurai. He hypothesized that if he were to use it on a physically fit person, the effect would be much more diminished than it was here.

Still he smiled, pleased with himself for discovering what he felt was just the beginning of a new technique that he was confident he could develop into something quite debilitating.


1285/1000

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

Napalm • Hellish Weapon
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
The user channel Napalm chakra into their held weapon, coating it in a thick layer of gelatinous napalm. The imbued weapon will be able to sling napalm with every swing up to a distance equal to the user's Strength in meters. However, any cutting power the weapon might have will be greatly reduced by the gel. At the user's discretion, or until the napalm comes into contact with a source of ignition, the user may Kai to cause the napalm to burst into flame, burning the opponent or any organic material with napalm-fueled flames. The user must be within a number of meters equal to their Control of the napalm to do this. Ignited napalm from this technique gives first degree burns immediately upon contact. The flames remain for four posts before the fuel is used up or until otherwise extinguished.

Another day, another training session.

Aimi was alone. He was well outside of the village and had made sure that there was no one following him the best way that he knew how to - he'd flown from his apartment balcony up through the mist and over the village to end up where he was now, on a small island that was hardly there at all, surrounded by nothing except for ocean and far off in the distance, just little dots on the horizon, other islands. Not being followed was essential. What he was doing there needed to be kept a secret, away from any and all prying eyes in Kirigakure. It was a grand thing indeed that, as far as he was aware, he was the only shinobi that knew how to fly in the entire village. Finding this island, barely even a sand barge that was only a few dozen feet long and wide, had been a simple matter with his wings. Out this far, away from the mist, he'd be able to see anyone or anything coming for miles around. He was completely isolated, which again, was exactly what he wanted - what he needed.

Aimi had just finished inventing a new ninjutsu release.

It had taken him a long time and a lot of tinkering, much longer than some of his other contemporaries might have taken had they set their minds to it, because he was primarily focused on the perfection of his physical skills and taijutsu. Ninjutsu was a secondary art in his mind. He also hadn't consulted anyone about this release while he was making it. All of the chakra formulas, all of the prior experimentation, the combination of hand seals he needed to discover - all of it and more had been achieved by him and him alone on many a late night when he was alone in his apartment with nothing to do except think and with no purpose in mind but innovation. It had started off as a simple desire, really, to take advantage of the element of abundance that surrounded him at nearly all times; water. Suiton.

It had been years and years ago when he'd first tried to learn the style, back when he was still a teenager and a genin in fact. Much to his dismay, though, he found out relatively quickly that he had little aptitude for suiton as a ninjutsu release in much the same way that he lacked the capability to perform adequate genjutsu. He could do it, sure, but compared to his katon ninjutsu which came so naturally and easily to him, that he had such inspiration for, it was an uphill battle to say the least. He had soon abandoned the effort to learn how to utilize suiton to it's fullest and purest extent and instead began to ponder a new idea - what could he do if he managed to mix the releases of suiton and katon together?

It wasn't a new idea by any means. The Jouchaku, he knew, were a clan who had made a name for themselves with their kekkei genkai which was a mixture of those two elements together. Aimi had dismissed this, though, for two reasons. Firstly that it was a kekkei genkai and thus impossible for him to learn and secondly because at the end of the day steam was just hot water, wasn't it? That wasn't what he was looking for. He imagined a jutsu release that utilized liquid fire and in those days of years passed when he was still young and still struggling just to get by day by day, when he couldn't even properly imagine what that would look like, he kept the concept in the back of his mind, slowly letting it cook and simmer. Letting it grow and take shape in his mind. It wasn't just that the concept of combining two elemental releases which were polar opposites from each other that had forced him to be so slow in developing it but that he simply wasn't as gifted with ninjutsu as he was with taijutsu. It had taken him roughly six months to master Iaido and innovate upon it, a style of swordplay which could take some years or even decades to perfect. Combining suiton and katon had taken him nearly a decade to figure out.

Now he was ready to put the release to the test, and now that the time had come he was nervous. He looked around him in his perfect isolation, paranoid that someone somewhere was watching him even though that was by all accounts improbably if not impossible. No one could have followed him, he was sure of it, and no one was watching him now. He was alone with nothing but himself and his jutsu - and his sword. Taking a deep breath, Aimi drew his blade from the sheath and held it up in front of him, the steel gleaming in the sunlight. "Napalm release..." he mused to himself, looking at his sword. He'd spent years developing the concept and months scrawling jutsu in private scrolls that he kept hidden in his house. Thinking of those scrolls, he supposed that if this worked he would head home that evening and burn them all so that only he had the knowledge. This release would be his and his alone. Aimi began to channel his chakra.

The effect wasn't immediate and it was more subtle than anything at first. A dull green sheen faded into view on the blade of his long sword as he pushed his katon and suiton chakras mixed together in just the right way into his sword. The sheen quickly became a coat which turned the color of the sword from a cold grey to a sickly green, and from there it grew into a viscous gel like a slime oozing out from some dark crevice. The effort to actually perform this seemingly simple task was actually extraordinarily taxing on the Yamai, as up to that point it had only ever been a theoretical composition inside of his head. He didn't even know that the napalm would come out green!

When at last his blade was completely covered in the stuff he stopped channeling his chakra and let out a held breath, panting slightly and relaxing a bit, his sword slumping forward slightly. The effort was quite tiring to say the least, even to perform a jutsu as simple as this one, purely because of his inexperience with the release. He didn't let it bother him though. The jounin knew that it would become easier with practice, just as he knew that his heart thumping in his chest would go away with time as he became more and more accustomed to performing these ninjutsu. Standing up straight, he held the sword out in front of him an examined it thoroughly, turning it over in his hand. The napalm had completely covered the blade, where he had channeled his chakra, coating it in a thick layer of the translucent green gel. A few drops slowly trickled down the edge of the blade as he turned it over in his hand but never fell off of the blade itself. The substance was sticky after all, something that it had gained from it's suiton parentage.

He knew from his notes that as this gel was in that moment in was dormant and perfectly safe. So he reached out and ran his index finger over the edge of the blade, finding that it unsurprisingly didn't cut him. He'd need to apply quite a lot of force with his sword in order for it to cut anything as it was now, much more than was really practical to use. As he pulled his finger away from the blade though, a thin layer of the slimy substance sticking to his finger, he knew that there was more to this jutsu than any cutting potential he'd lose by using it. Thumbing the gel on his finger, Aimi brought his hand up to his nose and sniffed at the gel, only to turn his head and cough as the sickly sweet stench flared up in his nose. He couldn't smell it from a distance, but up close like that it was undeniably nauseous. He'd never smelled anything like it before.

Turning and walking over to the edge of his little island, Aimi knelt down by the water, keeping his blade well above it, and pushed his hand into the surf, rubbing his thumb and index finger together to try and get it off of his finger. Much to his surprise, though, the water did nothing to remove it from his hand! After several attempts at trying to get the sticky gel off of himself he gave up, conceding that, again to his surprise, you couldn't wash this away with water. This he concluded was both a good and a bad thing, making this sort of ninjutsu very situational. If it was as volatile as he theorized, he wouldn't want to use it carelessly. Stepping away from the water's edge he turned and ran his hand over the sand, wanting to see if he could smear it off of him. To his delight he found that he could and after a couple of quick swipes his fingers were clean of the stuff if not dirty with wet sand.

Standing back up, Aimi looked the blade over once more before giving it a good hard swing in front of him, watching as the napalm flew off of the steel and out over the water, landing in the surf some thirty plus meters away. It was easily identified by not only it's bright lime green color but also by the fact that it apparently floated on the water. What's more, not all of the gel had been expunged off of the blade. It looked as if only a few globs had been flung away, meaning that he could perform this feat a few times before running out of gel to sling. Next, though, would come the most daunting part of the day - testing to see if his theoretical model matched up with the one in reality. Much how napalm had gained the ability to stick to things from it's suiton roots, the release was also capable of catching fire very easily. He needed only to kai in order to set them aflame, his chakra acting as a source of ignition and igniting the dormant katon chakra within the gel... theoretically, at least.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Aimi fixed his eyes out on the floating blobs of gel. The wind picked up and blew his hair forward past his face, the water moving the napalm further out to sea. He needed to act quickly in order to test this. Aimi held his hand up and performed a kai, sending his chakra forth towards the gel and waiting with a still heart to see what would happen next. The result was spectacular! Instantly the napalm ignited into a gout of bright green flames that twisted wildly on top of the water's surface! His heart beat again and Aimi lowered his hand, relaxing a bit as he watched the waves take the bright flaming gel away from him. It would burn for several minutes he predicted, as long as the gel lasted. The water wouldn't be able to quench the flames since it's source of fuel was all but immune to it no matter how rough the sea became, and today it was rather calm all things considered.

Turning away from the waves, Aimi held up his sword in front of him, a thick layer of napalm still clinging to the steel. Raiding up his hand again, he performed a second kai and ignited the napalm on his blade, emerald green fire erupting from the gel in a sudden green inferno. Similar to how the color and smell of the gel had surprised him, these green flames were also something he hadn't foreseen. Some sort of consequence to the precise mixture of his chakra he supposed, though it ultimately didn't matter. It was a very minor note compared to the achievement of having actually done it! He'd invented his own form of elemental ninjutsu! In joy, in exaltation of his accomplishment, Aimi swung his blade around thrice, sending out waves of flaming napalm flying out over the ocean and landing in the water in three different directions before he moved further onto the sandy barge of an island and impaled the sand with his blade, letting it sink half way in and sit there.

He stood, for a moment, and watched the green fire burn, transfixed by it. "So pretty..." he mumbled to himself, taking a seat a few feet away and simply watching them burn on his blade. He watched and he felt how as time ticked on, the flames grew hotter rapidly. So hot, in fact, that the heat coming off of them caused shimmers in the air and turned his pale skin a shade of pink - a very mild first degree burn! They hadn't been so hot to start off with, so they must have been heating up of their own accord. Yet another property that he wasn't aware of. Within five minutes, the napalm had completely burned out and Aimi's sword was left a steaming, ordinary blade once more. He sat and smiled at the sword, eager to find out what jutsu he could perform next.


1360/400

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

Napalm • Napalm Rain
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
Prerequisite: D-Ranked Suiton • Rainmaker
The user performs the hand seals or channels Napalm chakra and creates a green 'mist' from their body which climbs skyward, gradually forming green napalm clouds over the course of 3 posts. During these 3 posts, the napalm clouds will spread over an area of 20 meters. After the 3 posts have passed, it will begin to rain napalm over the projected area and continue to rain for 3 posts. At the user's discretion, or until the napalm comes into contact with a source of ignition, the user may Kai to cause the napalm to burst into flame, burning the opponent or any organic material with napalm-fueled flames. The user must be within 5 meters of the napalm to do this. If the user chooses to activate the Kai before the cloud has finished depositing the napalm gel, the fire will rapidly climb upwards towards the cloud within a second, causing a chain reaction which makes the napalm explode in flaming globs that shoot out over a 30 meter area. Ignited napalm from this technique gives first degree burns immediately upon contact. The flames remain for four posts before the fuel is used up or until otherwise extinguished.

With the first napalm jutsu down, Aimi was eager to put another one to the test! He stood up from where he sat and started to form hand seals but stopped on the third one, midway to the fourth. The jutsu he wanted to try out had a fairly wide area of effect, so wide in fact that it would cover this entire island in napalm and then some. What's more, as long as he was standing on the island, or in fact under the jutsu period, he was going to get covered in napalm himself. He thought back to how his sword had gradually heated up while he sat next to it and realized what that meant; his napalm jutsu heated up. The degree of burns increased with that heat. He could likely survive what he predicted would be third or maybe even fourth degree burns, but it would hurt. A lot. He didn't feel like dealing with that pain.

Lowering his hands, Aimi turned and walked over the water in the opposite direction of where he had flung his napalm before, recalling literally one of the first lessons he had learned while playing with katon ninjutsu- location, location, location. In his excitement he'd almost forgotten that most sacred of lessons and had almost ruined his little island getaway as a result! With this in mind as a warning to be more careful, Aimi moved a good thirty meters out on the water before performing the handseals in their entirety, napalm chakra coursing through his body. Lowering his hands, he closed his eyes for a moment before lifting his hands up and looking down at them. As he had thought would happen, a thin green mist was rising up out of the pours on his skin from all over his body. He tilted his head back and watched as it rose skyward up above his head, the mist collecting together into a single location and forming a cloud of sorts, green and sickly looking as the clouds of an oncoming tornado.

For roughly three minutes the mist rose up from his body and the cloud formed, creating an area of deep green shade over him and the water on which he stood. As calculated based on the amount of chakra he used, the area was roughly 20 meters in total diameter. After the three minutes had passed, the mist stopped rising from Aimi's body; that was his que to leave. Fast as a flash he dashed over the surface of the water and back towards the edge of his island, turning back to watch as the cloud of napalm started to empty itself onto the unsuspecting ocean below, little droplets of the green gel falling in scattered clumps at first but rapidly growing into a full on torrential downpour of his napalm. He watched it for about a minute, figuring that the napalm would take roughly as long to fall as it had to rise up into the air... he didn't feel like being patient anymore than he felt like dealing with fourth degree burns, though.

Lifting his hand up, Aimi performed a kai and sent his chakra forth to the floating puddle of napalm on the surface of the ocean. The resulting reaction was violent and instantaneous, the green gel catching alight in emerald fire. The fire shot upwards towards the cloud above it, using the falling napalm raindrops as stepping stones to satisfy it's voracious hunger until, within a moment, the fire reached the cloud itself. The result was a violent chain reaction as the entire cloud became engulfed in flames in an instant and exploded in all directions, the napalm flying off in thick flaming chunks that hit the ocean and came flying towards Aimi! Quick on his feet as always, though, he simply jumped backwards to avoid the emerald globs of liquid flame so that they landed harmlessly against the edge of the island. The danger avoided, he looked back up at what remained of the napalm cloud, watching the chunks rain down heavily from the sky and land on top of the salty water, floating and burning there in a very wide area of flaming destruction. He could only imagine how horrifying this would be in a closed environment or really anywhere of consequence, but out there? On the ocean? Where the emerald green flames erratically danced and hissed on the water, heating up quickly and burning away? The contrasting blue of the ocean matching marvelously with the green spots both large and small of the napalm? There was only one thing he could think.

"Mein Gott... it's just... so beautiful..."


773/400

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

Napalm • Napalm Clone
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
The user performs the hand seals and creates a clone of themselves made out of napalm. This clone is incapable of performing ninjutsu, genjutsu, or taijutsu. The clone is meant to perish, and in doing so, spread the napalm it's made of over as large of an area as possible. When the clone inevitably meets its end, the napalm it's made of will spread out over a 2 meter area. At the user's discretion, or until the clone comes into contact with a source of ignition, the user may Kai to cause the napalm to burst into flame, burning the opponent or any organic material with napalm-fueled flames. The user must be within 5 meters of the napalm to do this. Ignited napalm from this technique gives first degree burns immediately upon contact. The flames remain for four posts before the fuel is used up or until otherwise extinguished. The Clone's stats are as follows:

Taijutsu: 1
Stamina: 1
Strength: 1
Speed: 1

He continued. Turning away from the rather large section of napalm burning on top of the sea, Aimi made his way back over the water in an entirely different direction. He went out roughly ten meters from his island before performing another series of handseals. A small puff of smoke later and Aimi was stood next to a clone of himself - and not an entirely perfect one, either. As he inspected it, he took note of the fact that the clone's eyes were the same color of green as the napalm it was meant to be made out of. He didn't know if this was a mistake on his part or a natural consequence of the jutsu - it could have been either or - but he didn't pay the mistake much mind since he was alone at the moment.

Something else immediately of note was that the clone didn't stand on the water like he did. It sank down, it's balance getting lost as the water rushed over it's legs and tripped it, causing the clone to fall back on it's rear and float on top of the water. "Not exactly stable, are you?" Aimi asked the clone, looking down at it. The clone looked back up at him silently. "What, can't talk?" the Yamai asked. The clone continued to stare up at him, floating on top of the water and being cradled by the water. "That's fine I guess. Just like a regular clone. Looks the part, mostly, but it's purpose is for distraction... well, sort of." Aimi held his hand out down to the clone made out of napalm and the clone reached up, grabbing onto his hand. Aimi pulled it up to it's feet and held onto it, keeping it in place. It's grip was absolutely atrocious! He doubted that this thing could hurt even a baby with how tightly it was holding onto his hand! He was almost worried that he'd destroy the clone on accident by squeezing his hand too hard. As it was now he was basically holding it above the water by it's gelatinous hand.

He let go of the clone and let it fall onto the water once more. He turned back to the island and made his way over towards it, wiping his hand in the sand briefly to make sure that none of the napalm from the clone was stuck onto himself. He turned to look back, seeing that the clone was still floating in the water on it's back, not even trying to right itself. He imagined that if the clone were on land it might be able to walk but that was about it. The best use for it, then, he theorized, was as a replacement for himself, something that he could combine with the substitution jutsu to catch someone off guard and cover them in napalm. Or perhaps as a suicide bomber that he could send in and kai to explode himself. While he pondered on the usefulness of this clone of his he made his way over towards his sword still stuck in the sand. Grabbing onto the handle, he looked out onto the water again to spot the clone, thinking to himself, 'Let's see what kind of a burst you make...' before withdrawing the blade from the sand and unleashing a Dragon Strike, the wave of air cutting out across the water and cleaving the clone in half easily.

The result was immediate, the clone gushing out in an outward explosion of napalm that covered a fairly small area. He estimated it to be no more than two or three meters in diameter, tops. That meant that, unlike the cloud he'd just created which covered a rather wide area, this clone of his could only really be useful in small spaces. He supposed that even in an open area unlit napalm was still something to be wary of, but it wasn't primarily meant to be used as a trap that way. He was about to raise his hand up to perform a kai before he stopped, furrowing his brow. Stabbing his sword back into the sand, he lowered his hand and made his way back over over the water. There was something else that he could use this particular bath of napalm for.


716/400

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

Napalm • Fire Walking
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
Prerequisite: *[Basic Jutsu • Act of Water Surface Walking]
A variation of *[Basic Jutsu • Act of Water Surface Walking], this jutsu allows the user to walk over the surface of napalm, burning or otherwise, without being burned or having napalm stick to their feet. This jutsu lasts for a number of posts equal to the user's stamina stat times 3.

Aimi stood over the patch of floating napalm that he had left unburnt before, contemplating his next action carefully. The jutsu that he had in mind was potentially dangerous, more so than even the rain cloud that he had made burst before. This next jutsu he wanted to perform was dangerous because of the risk of harm there was to himself. As sound as the theory might have been in his head and on paper, the truth of the matter was that they were only theories until put into practice. Thus, until performed one way or the other, the result of his actions with this fledgling release were that of Schrodinger's Jutsu - both results equally possible. In this case, he could step on lit napalm and be perfectly fine. Or it could cling to the bottom of his feet and burn hotter and hotter, searing his flesh and eating away down to the bone. Such was the risk he was contemplating taking.

What was so damning about this technique, what was making him hesitate, was the simplicity of it. A simple variation of the Water Walking technique that each and every academy student knew by the time they became genin. He was using that jutsu right now as a matter of fact! It would be a simple matter to slightly alter the chakra in the bottom of his feet so that he could safely step on the napalm. The risk became his actions disrupting the chakra keeping him afloat on the water as he went to step on the flaming napalm, his foot sinking down into the water and the flaming gel catching on his leg and burning him there. The question was; could he perform both jutsu at the same time?

It was a risk he needed to take. The worst case scenario was that he caught himself on fire. If such happened, he could quickly run over to the island and bury his leg in the sand in order to douse the flames. He could likely perform the feat in just a few seconds, meaning that at worst he'd suffer first degree burns. He could deal with that. Taking a breath, Aimi brought his hand up and Kai'd, his chakra igniting the floating napalm at his feet in brilliant, emerald fire. He took a breath and performed the short series of seals required before sending chakra down to his feet, a signature of chakra that was almost identical to the basic form that he used to stand on the water. Fortunately, he got the balance right and he didn't sink down below the water. The only thing left to do was to test his footing...

Lifting his left leg up, Aimi stuck his foot out over the flames and slowly, carefully, pressed his foot down on top of the gel, ready to spring forth towards the island at the first sign of pain. There was none, though. He looked down and watched as the green flames licked at his foot, shin and calf harmlessly, his chakra keeping him safe. A smile crept over his face, the Yamai allowing himself to be proud of his mastery of fire in this moment. He couldn't count the number of times over the years that he had burnt himself on fire produced by chakra. It had garnered him a great respect for the element. This was perhaps the first time that he'd come into contact with an open, volatile flame and not felt any sort of pain. He was quite happy that this feat was his and his alone.

He lifted his foot up and took it off of the green flames, tilting his leg just enough that he could look at the bottom of his foot to be sure. He saw nothing but his wet bandages, the chakra on his foot having kept the gel from sticking to him. Righting his leg, he turned and walked back towards the tiny island. There was more work to be done.


664/400

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

Napalm • Surprise Mine
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
The user performs the hand seals and creates a replica of an object not exceeding 1³ foot. This napalm will have the same color, shape, and general dimensions of the object, but it will not be a perfect transformation. If the object is struck, it will explode with the force of a single exploding tag, covering everything within a meter of the point of detonation with napalm. At the user's discretion, or until the clone comes into contact with a source of ignition, the user may Kai to cause the napalm to burst into flame, burning the opponent or any organic material with napalm-fueled flames. The user must be within 5 meters of the napalm to do this. Ignited napalm from this technique gives first degree burns immediately upon contact. The flames remain for four posts before the fuel is used up or until otherwise extinguished.

Aimi stepped on the edge of his little island and gave pause before continuing forth. Something bright had caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, a little pink thing that looked to be half buried in the sand. Turning his head, he looked and saw there buried a sea shell from the looks of it. Curious, he knelt down and reached out with his left hand, burrowing through the sand in order to free the shell and pulling it out from where it had been submerged before. Standing up straight he looked at the shell and turned it over in his hand, dusting the sand off with his right hand. It was, in reality, only half of a clam shell, it's owner having long since met it's end to some predator below the waves. It was fairly large, all things considered, about the size of his hand from the hell of his palm to the tips of his fingers. About the size of a standard shuriken, as a matter of fact...

An idea came to him then suddenly - or rather, he remembered something. Another jutsu concept which he had written in his secret scroll that was of simple application with potentially disastrous effect. He tossed the shell lightly onto the sand bar of an island he was practicing his new release upon and stepped forward over towards it. Looking down, he brought his hands up and formed a quick series of seals, gathering napalm chakra into his hands. He clapped his hands together and let the napalm seep between his fingers, gathering it together like play dough and shaping it into his hand. He poured a bit more chakra into the shapeless blob and used it to shape the thing, making it into a copy of the half a clam shell that he had tossed onto the sand at his feet. As he pulled his hand away, he looked down at the shell made of napalm he'd created and...

... Realized that it wasn't perfect. Far from it, really. The general shape was the same, the colors were right, but there was just something... off about it. It was clear just from looking at the two side by side that these were not identical copies of the same thing. Though he had to admit that, at a glance, if one wasn't paying too much attention to the finer details, he himself likely would have mistaken the two shells for one another! After all, it was only when you were looking at the finer details that it became clear that one of them was a copy while the other was the original, and after all, if the original wasn't there to compare the two with, who would really know? He quickly cycled through a short list of ways that this jutsu could be useful to him, everything from replacing a stolen object to outright setting traps in a space where there would be plenty of small objects... but of course, the thing in his hands was still napalm, which meant that it was volatile by nature! He needed to know exactly how volatile, though, before he could make proper use of it.

Kneeling down, Aimi picked up the original shell and held the two up together side by side. This close, he could clearly see the differences between them. The copy had more of a roundness to it, a softness if you would, that gave away it's gelatinous nature. That was the key difference between them - the texture. Dropping the one made of Napalm into the sand, Aimi took a few steps back, putting about a two meter distance between himself and the copied shell, before throwing the original shell at the copy. The collision made the volatile nature of his jutsu immediately apparent. A small scale explosion erupted from the little gelatin shell, sending the original flying off to who knew where and spreading the napalm that had once constructed it's being off in all directions for about a meter! It was spread out fairly thinly, all things considered, with bits and pieces of it being detached from the main splatter in the sand. All in all, though? Aimi would say that it was quite the success of a jutsu and, if used cleverly, a potentially devastating maneuver to pull on an unsuspecting opponent!


752/400

[Golnax]

Jutsu TrainedShow

Death Bone Pulse • Dance of the Seedling Ferns
S-Ranked Ninjutsu
The user will channel to ossify the bones in their arms or legs, sending the bones underground where they will spread over a 100 meter radius at a Speed of 30. The bones will then jut out from out of the ground in huge, rib-like spires up to 10 meters tall at a Speed of 30 and a Strength of 40. These spires are capable of impaling even the largest of creatures when they erupt from the ground. The user is able to merge with these bones, allowing them to travel anywhere within the 100 meter radius nearly instantly.

Today was a bad day for Aimi. He was in a foul mood and had no real outlet for it. There was no particular reason for the mood, he'd simply woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Rather than head to the bar to drink his troubles away or to the Untouchable district in order to purge his feelings on the weak flesh of others, as some ninja were want to do, Aimi Kaguya had decided to spend his time training the pain away - his usual response to such moods and his motivator through them. He stood rigid in the misty training grounds of the Kaguya compound, a bare and empty open square courtyard that was only just barely separated from the rest of the village, the living quarters situated in front of the training grounds. He was alone, which was to be expected. It was 4 in the morning, after all.

He stood in the dark pre-dawn and simply breathed, hands balled into fists and gathering chakra in his body. He was angry, frustrated, at what? Who could say, but the anger burned inside of him like an intense fire in his gut. He felt his arms shaking as his body glowed with chakra. The long haired jounin began to ossify bones within his arms, knowing what it was he wanted to do without knowing what it was he was doing, operating off of instinct and intrinsic rage more than anything. Often times, these were the best moments of inspiration for the Kaguya, after all. Once he had gathered a rather substantial amount of chakra within his arms, he threw them up in the air, flinging his head back and opening up his mouth to let out a loud, guttural shout of existential frustration. Falling to his knees, Aimi slammed his arms down on the ground in front of him, kneeling before no one as his scream echoed throughout the courtyard and beyond, creating a small crater in the ground where he'd impacted his arms. He released the chakra and bones he'd built up.

The response was swift and immediate. All around him, at random points and angles, large spires of rib-like bone erupted from the ground. They made little sound, oddly enough, aside from the rupturing crunch of earth-crust as they broke through. The sound almost resembled breaking bones, coincidentally enough. One by one by dozen by dozen, towering bones shot upwards into the air around him, tearing up the ground as the dense forest of cartilage and calcium grew and grew - showing no signs of stopping even as it encroached upon the living quarters at Aimi's back! Indeed they did not stop, instead tearing through the gate that was the entrance of the training grounds and even into the buildings beyond!

The sound of snapping wood caused Aimi to lift his head up, flinging his hair up from out of his eyes and frantically turning his head towards his back in order to see what he'd accidentally done - only to find that he couldn't. There was nothing to see; nothing but bone, anyways. Slowly he stood up onto his feet, his chest rising and falling and his mouth hanging open slack in disbelief of what he'd done... what he'd accomplished. His head turned from side to side, looking up, looking down, examining his surroundings and finding them strange and alien. This was no longer the training grounds he was intimately familiar with. Indeed, he'd transformed it into a distorted image of his own internal rage made manifest by his will run wild. A forest of bones, sharp and dangerous, encroaching upon the outside world.

The sound of shifting dirt beneath his feet made him look down. There he saw white mixed in with the brown and, curious, he nudged his foot along in order to clear up some of the flakes that had been left behind by his arms being slammed into the ground, which throbbed with pain now that he took a moment to notice. Under the flakes, and indeed under the surface of the ground all around him, was a lattice of bone, weaved in and out of itself, forming a thick mesh of overlapping tendrils all struggling to get over themselves, frozen in the instant that Aimi had created them. This was the source of the forest, he wagered, and as he looked back up around him at the ten meter tall spires of white, the sound of crackling wood came back to him. A question burst into his mind, demanding an answer: 'How far does this go?'

Leaping up into the air, Aimi jumped from bone to bone until he made his way to the top of a spire, looking out and around him in all directions. His forest, for what it was, was vast. It covered the entirety of the training ground and moved beyond, into the greater village proper beyond the walled off borders of the Kaguya training ground and, indeed, even into the Kaguya quarters themselves! He could see that the shinto-style gate that had once served as the entrance to the training grounds, meant for all Kaguya, now lay on it's side, embedded within a building! Many of his spires of bones were also thrust up into the walls of the building, their curved structures oft entering from the bottom of a wall and exiting through the roof. How far beyond they went? Who was hurt, if anyone? He couldn't say. But as he looked around, he estimated that the range of his rage made manifest must have been about 100 meters. A landscape altering technique, birthed from inexplicable anger in the middle of the night. There was only one thing that he could say:

"Oh, shit."

Then it happened - the truly unexpected. Aimi's balance was thrown off and he felt himself sinking down to his left. Turning his head, he saw his left foot was vanished, disappeared within the bone on which he stood! Startled, he drew in a deep, sudden breath and instinctively drew his foot back as he would from a pit of quicksand only to find that it came easy. Confused, the Kaguya planted his foot back firmly upon the bone, tapping it twice to test it's solidarity. Then, getting an idea, he channeled his chakra and slipped his left foot back down, finding that it melded with the bone easily. "Huh..." he said aloud, a look of perplexment on his face. A quick meditation concluded that it made sense, he supposed. After all, these bones were essentially his body. They came from him, they were a part of him. If he so wished, he could vanish in them as easily as anyone else but in a way that no one else could. Testing this theory, he channeled his chakra within his legs and sunk down into the bone slowly, becoming one with the spire and taking a step forward once he was at the bottom, stepping out from the bone and taking a breath of the night air. "Alright, that's nifty," he said aloud to himself, right before the sounds of waking Kaguya reached his ears. He looked back behind him towards where the training ground entrance used to be. He had some explaining to do...


1218/1120