[Katananaka Tsumetsu]

Under the rising sun, where he liked to be in Arashi Teien, Kat stands with his back to the shadows and his dominant hand out. Hi to Kōri stands erect from his stance, and he flexes smooth, curves the sword diagonally beyond his body. His yellow eyes glaze over the sheen of its silver surface, and as it catches the reflection of his concentrated eyes he stills. Blinks. Tilts his head and sighs, dropping the stance and looking up into the rain pouring down on him. It's not a nuisance, but he is wet. But he was used to that. What he didn't like was the cold of it, and the dusting of snow melting with the rain and turning the beautiful garden into a mud pit.

"Hmm..." Kat hums as he walks around the stone edge of a rippling pool. He eyes it, and wonders if he might try to walk on it - but better to save that for a day the surface tension of the water was a little more even.

Regardless, the Genin slips out of his footwear, rolls up the legs of his harem pants to the shins, and steps into the water. Kat shivers, the icy water shooting up into his bloodstream. He steels himself against it, feels the stony earth beneath his feet, and sighs.

At his side, his brother's katana hangs parallel to his leg. The tip rests just below the surface of the water.

The blade sizzles.

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246

[Katananaka Tsumetsu]

After a moment, the water just drowning the blade begins to boil, burbling larger bubbles than the rain drops from the clouds above can produce. Kat is channeling a small portion of katon-tinged chakra into the blade, funneling it from the palm of his hand into the hilt of Hi to Kōri. Head down, eyes sheepishly partway closed, he studies the blade and the water breaking around it. 

With just a small portion of his chakra, the blade was sufficiently heated. He knew by now not to touch it, but he always felt like there was something he was missing by not. Silly thought, surely.

He flexes his hand. The blade pulls from the water, though it does not settle as the rain continues to disturb it. He does not hold his grip out very far, but he angles his blade away from his body, blade tip now pointing toward the heavens, even as his head remains hellward. From the corner of his eye, he watches the blade carefully still. It's always the same, and he does not need to look to the blade anymore for concentration - regardless, he is methodical and slow. Gently, he channels a healthy portion of chakra into the grip. From there he can imagine the way it swirls through the core of the blade, perhaps resonating in a small halo tinged blue. But it's only chakra manifesting in his mind - outwardly, so far, the blade has done nothing.

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245