[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    Daredemo hated their time in the shrine. Each day it seemed to grow more and more annoying. Today her father was once again buried underneath the shrine in their family home, drowning his sorrows in sake. This left most of the actual work in the shrine in Daredemo's hands. The young kunoichi's mother had been there, doing some basic work greeting guests and the like, but she had left hours before to go back to her work in town at one of Konoha's many small restaurants. People usually didn't attend the shrine much outside of holidays, which meant Daredemo was left to sit alone with her thoughts. 

    It was stepping into her families personal shrine that the girls emotions seemed to seep out more. The girl found her eyes lingering on the photos of her brother, the trinkets and spoils of combat he had gained throughout the years. Most importantly she looked at the blade she had grown up admiring. The blade that her brother had promised would be hers one day. She had to kneel down in front of the shrine for the blade to even be at chest level with her. She reached out to grab it, lifting it with the grace one would lift a fallen family member from the ground. To the shinobi this blade was the last visage of the only member of her family who truly seemed to understand her. Daredemo could feel the tears swelling up in the corner of her eyes. 

    "Get your hands off that brat,"

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    Her fathers voice had always been a source of fear for the girl. He also seemed to be a large part of the reason that the girls emotions rarely reached the surface. Before even seeing him, just hearing his slurred barbs, she took in a deep breath, her face becoming blank as she lifted the blade back to its pedestal. 

    "Why the hell are you messing with his stuff," his question seemed simple, but his tone showed a much darker meaning. Daredemo hadn't even turned to look at him, but she could hear the disgust in his tone. She could feel his eyes burrowing into the back of her head as if he was going to peer directly into her brain for the answer.

    "Cleaning," she rose from her position in front of the shrine, not bothering to turn to her father. She didn't need to see him in his current state. She could smell the alcohol on his breath no matter how far from him in the room she went. "Just a Miko's duty, correct? Keeping the shrine you love so much clean." 

    "If you're gonna be cleaning you can go clean the kitchen. I'm out of glasses." was he even paying attention to her? It felt as if he was just listening to key words.

    "A Miko must stay in the shrine while in uniform. Surely you wouldn't want me to dirty my uniform?" Dare was going to have to thank Miroru for that little trick later.
    
    "Then you're dismissed,"

    Even better than the response she was expecting. "Oh joy," she had her eyes closed as she turned and smiled in her fathers direction, "Then I'm sorry but I do have training scheduled today. I'll see you later tonight."

    Before a response could be formed in his drunk mind, Daredemo had already left the room and begun changing into her regular cloak. 

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

     Did Daredemo have training scheduled today? Not in the slightest.

   Did she have any idea what she was going to train today? Not in the slightest.

     Did any of that matter to the girl right now? Not in the slightest.
    
   Daredemo simply wandered to the front of the shrine ignoring the attempts of her father to call after her as she left. Interrupting her time with her brother, that was something she couldn't forgive at the moment. Keeping that sword from her all of these years was beginning to drive the girl mad. Maybe it was for this reason that she paused at the shrines main hall. Various weapons did dot the walls, the blades of shinobi long passed. The kunoichi ripped a simple katana off the wall. Daredemo was done.

    The girl marched out of the shrine, her temporary weapon in hand. Some of the Uchiha saw her walking through the clan compound. Many had gotten used to seeing the girl smiling more often, and those that had seemed shocked to see the face of pure rage the girl had on her mind. Others seemed rather unaffected by seeing a girl they regarded as generally irritable was, once again, irritated. The past few months had certainly changed her perception around the compound, hadn't it? 

    At least Daredemo already knew where she was headed. No need to talk to any of these people while in a mood like this. The girl found herself walking to a bamboo garden. A place of zen for many, maybe a place of zen for the young Uchiha?

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    Or maybe the Curse of Hatred would be too much for now. In one simple motion the girl unsheathed the katana, throwing the sheath hard against the ground. The girl was lucky it was a well made case or she likely could have shattered it there. Alas the girl still had a need for destruction burning in her heart. She gripped the blade tightly and marched closer to the bamboo garden. The memory of her brother, the words of her father, her own confusing emotions on her life as a whole, it was all bubbling to the surface as she took a large swing at one of the bamboo stalks. 

    Her Katana stopping no more than a few centimeters in. The girl tried to pull the blade out, and yet despite the shallow death, the blade was sharp enough, the hole made thin enough, that the blade seemed stuck in the plant. 

    This seemed to make Daredemo grow even angrier, her brows furrowing. She placed one foot on the bamboo, right next to her blade, and began to lean back and pull with all the strength she could muster. The blade seemed to be really stuck in there, as Daredemo chose to put even more weight into it, lifting her other foot up as well so that she was practically standing horizontally as she finally saw the sword begun to budge. 

    In but a few milliseconds the blade went from barely jiggling to flying out of the stalk all together, leaving Daredmo to tumble and fall to the ground, blade in hand. She clawed back to her feet, her anger even worse as she rose the blade again, blindly chopping at the piece of bamboo again and again. Swinging her katana more like a crowbar than a sword. 

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    The chopping was haphazard and choppy, that was for certain. At the same time this was still a sharp blade against a stationary object. Daredemo in part felt a sense of pride that she had managed to keep this blade so clean and sturdy for so long. Part of her duties at the shrine were to clean the display weapons after all. But, as the Bamboo she had been chopping away at fell to the ground, the girl felt something she hadn't really expected.

    She was disappointed. She looked at the simply dismantled bamboo stalk, and what remained of where it used to be connected to the fallen half. The signs of her chopping were clear. The uncountable number of strikes it took to chip away at the plant. Why did she care about this?

    Shigure's lessons had taken hold, the girl guessed. She knew that she could have done better than this, cleaner than this. Was she really going to let her father dictate how good of a swordsman she could be? He didn't deserve to be the reason she failed. The girl let out a sigh as she realized she had somehow been turned into a shinobi who actually cared about the thoughts of others. Not her fathers, but her sensei's. 

    Dame stepped up to another piece of bamboo. Everything that she had been taught at the academy was going to be for something. She took her stance, getting a much more traditional sword grip on her blade. She took a deep breathe in, and on the out-breath she took a powerful swing.

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    The sword went further than last time at the least. Looking at it, the actual distance of the cut was significantly different. Rather than having taken a swing near horizontally, this slice was at about a 50° angle, not far off from the 45° she had been aiming for. It was also much simpler to slide her blade out this time, the longer cut leading to the bamboo spreading out around the blade more. Daredemo cracked a small smile at her work, but she still seemed to realize it wasn't enough. It had only gone about half-way through this time around.

    She looked at the edge of the blade in her hand, certainly it could have been sharper, but it wasn't so dull that the cut wouldn't have gone through. She thought it could be her own swinging power, but going much harder wasn't exactly something she could muster for now. She needed to worry about different issues to begin with. If strength was the problem, it would make itself clear as she fixed the other issues. 

    The angle of her cut hadn't been so far off that it would make it that much harder. A slightly longer distance, but not too bad. It must have been part of her swinging technique, she decided. 

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    If technique of the sing itself was the issue, then that would be an easy enough fix. Finish this shoot off to get some more practice, then move on to the next. The girl simply went about her swings with a more concerted effort. Before she took her secondary swing at the bamboo, she paid extra care to her stance. She took a moment to line up her blade with the cut already made, looking to just continue the same slice if possible. She would lift the blade and make another cut, this one continuing the split that was already made and chopping through the rest of the bamboo with ease.

    The second stalk would fall, Daredemo's face would light up with pride as she found herself relaxing her shoulders, and taking in another deep, contended, breath. The cut wasn't completely clean, it was easy to tell the angle was slightly different, making the second chop incredibly evident to anyone taking a close look. It was a beginning, but the girl could tell there was still a lot of room for growth as she looked to find her next victim.

    She found the new bamboo, took her stance, and placed the blade against the shoot. She would eyeball the 45° angle, and even took a few practice swings, stopping right before the bamboo and checking if her angle was right. Each one was different, some dead on, some a degree or two off, others up to 5, even 8 degrees difference. The girl was satisfied with the regularity of getting it within. a few degrees however, and set up for her third attempt at falling the tough plant in a single swing. 

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    Deep breathe in as she raised the sword, breathe out on the downswing. The girl went over that in her head a few times before finally she lifted the blade high into the air, and in one fluid downward strike the girl cut through the bamboo, her blade sinking into the shoot with incredible speed. Unfortunately, it didn't cut the whole way through, instead it left about half an inch of bamboo between the edge of the blade and the open air. 

    The bamboo still fell. A slow fall, like a lumberjack waiting for a tree to fall. What had been a clean cut became frayed at the edges as the bamboo pulled itself apart. Daredmo let out a very audible groan ash she inspected her handy work to see what she had done wrong. The angle was almost perfect, if not at 45° then only a degree off at best. 

    The girl couldn't help but be frustrated, but at the same time, she had gotten closer than she had any of the other times. She just needed to try a couple more times. And that she did. One after another she tried again and again to cut the bamboo in one straight slice. Going through at least 5 more bamboo stalks. Each cut was incomplete. Either the angle was off, or the strike speed was too low, or some other issue she hadn't figured out yet. The girl was nearly ready to quit. 

OWL

[Daredemo]

DaREDEmO Uchiha N/A

    Daredemo owed it to herself to give it one last attempt however. She knew that she could do this. Shigure had trained her well enough, this blade was strong enough. This was her opportunity to prove herself worthy of wielding a blade like this... worthy of wielding a blade like her brothers. She found the perfect stalk of bamboo, not too thick, not to thin. The strength of the plant just right to work with her blade. There was an electricity in the air as she lined her blade up with the side of the bamboo shoot. 

    She took one long breathe in as she raised the blade above her head. As she pushed the breathe out she swung the sword as swiftly as her body could muster.

    One slice.

    One slice and her blade had carved through the bamboo like butter. Her eyes locked on the stalk as it seemed to stay still, motionless in time. It took a few moments for gravity to do it's work. The top half sliding down and clattering to the ground below. 

    "Woohoo!!!" Daredemo let out a loud yell of self-approval, "Take that you dumb plant!" why was Daredemo shit-talking a plant? The girl didn't know, the emotions were confusing. She simply smiled and laughed to herself as she looked proudly down at her handy work. She even debated beginning to cut away at more stalks, however. 

    "Hey, kid!" Daredemo's head quickly snapped to the source of the noise, a very angry looking man who Daredemo would spend no time talking to as she began to dash away, grabbing the sheath on her way out. "No, get back here. What the hell did you do!?" that question would go unanswered as Daredemo scurried away.

OWL