[Chikamatsu Kiyoshi]

     It'd been quite a few years since Kiyoshi'd last visited the Academy. Things weren't so different from they'd been then, six years ago - and the air still carried that same pleasant dry breeze it had over three decades before, when'd he'd still been a student here.

     He'd left the Kage tower for a short walk, just to clear his mind - there was still plenty of paperwork to do: agreements to be renewed, positions to affirm. A shadow clone was there, handling matters, signing the necessary documents until he returned. Perhaps he'd call up Takato's bodyguard: the young Kyokujitsu man, make sure the assignment was still fitting.

     Plenty of day left for it, though. The sun still hadn't quite fully crested over the Academy - the shadows it casted were short; there wasn't much in the way of reprieve from the midday heat. Kiyoshi made his way down a set of sandblasted stone steps and entered the Academy grounds.

     Good of a time as any to make an appearance: get to know some of the next generation. Many of the children here would be new faces to him: those who'd been enrolled when he first retired had likely all graduated. It would be good to meet the village's future Genin.

     The students were still in their classrooms, so Kiyoshi leaned up under the slim shade of an adjoining building and waited for them to break for recess.

Kyokujitsu Senshi | 235 words

[Kyokujitsu Senshi]

Senshi was always a hyperactive child. Always looking for more to do, games to play, and all those sorts of things. Honestly, she could have graduated from the academy a long time ago, and her being here now was kind of more like a formality really. She knew all of the academy jutsu, but found that as of now? She was training in the elements. She'd gotten a grasp of Wind Release from Arashi. She'd gotten a grasp of Shakuton from Asahi. She'd now just needed someone to teach her about Katon. Fire. Before she could try putting it all together. "Katon...Katon..." She says, forming the tiger seal, as she tried to envision a fire lighting up inside her chest, and her vomiting the fire out like a fireball. Sounded pretty awesome! There was just one big problem.

It was a lot harder than it looked. Sitting cross legged in a sandbox, she formed her handseal and channeled her chakra; before exhaling out. "Raaaaaawr!" She calls out, ultimately feeling nothing coming to her. The books were all a bit complicated when it came to explaining the stuff. Elemental chakra and natures and all that. Even with Asahi's help, it was still a little bit of a struggle wasn't it? Heck, even though she'd been trying to progress her elemental jutsu separately, she hadn't been able to put it all together yet. Her wind style could only create gentle breezes. Her scorch release wasn't even close.  "How am I s'pposed ta light things on fire without gettin' in trouble?" She asked cutely and rhetorically. Oh yay. A pyromaniac!

Chikamatsu Kiyoshi

[Chikamatsu Kiyoshi]

     The Academy students and teachers filed out from the building and Kiyoshi greeted each of them with a smile and an introduction. When he'd finished the majority of his visit and the students had begun to file away for their training, Kiyoshi spotted a blonde-haired girl who seemed to have slipped out through the crowd without noticing their visitor.

     The Kazekage approached from behind the girl, who - judging from the handseal she was using - seemed to be attempting to use Katon, to not much success. Kiyoshi smiled. "Hello there," he said as he kneeled down besides her. "Katon, is it?"

     He inspected her handseal, making sure she was holding it properly. "Is this your first nature?" he inquired - something about it seemed as such to him. As far as he could recall, most students practiced their first nature with their teacher - who was nowhere near. Perhaps this was some extracurricular work for her?

     If it was, he admired her drive - he was in a similar position once. Learning the constituent parts of Haton had been an uphill battle for a young boy, so many years ago. He'd had his family to help him back then, but who knows what this girl's situation might be like?

     "You're in luck," he said as he sprouted a small flame from the palm of his hand. "Would you care for some help?" Kiyoshi asked with a smile. "Call me Chikamatsu. What's your name?"

Kyokujitsu Senshi | 239 words

[Kyokujitsu Senshi]

"Hello!~" She says with a bright cheer once approached, watching the man before her. Until she realized. It was the new Kazekage. "Umm...I dunno if it's my first nature, because I got two of 'em!" She says, wondering if it mattered. Or if they were both equally the same. Yet, she found herself immediately sitting up and brushing her legs off of the dust and sand, before folding her arms neatly behind her back. "I'm learning elemental ninjutsu stuff, because I'm almost all set to graduate from the academy sir!" Smiling brightly, she shows off her pearly white teeth before noding her head firmly.

"Absolutely I'd love some help!" She says with a giggle, looking at the flame formed in his palm. "My name is Senshi. Kyokujitsu Senshi! And I'm gonna be the hottest thing on the block once I become a real ninja!" Shooting her right fist into the air, she looked upon Chikamatsu with an optimism in those cerulean eyes of hers. She wondered momentarily about the name though. Chikamatsu as in the puppet man? "I'm trying to knead the chakra and build it up in my chest like I did for the wind; but I don't think it works all the same. And...It's a little hard for me to focus that much chakra in me. I feel really tired, really fast!"

Chikamatsu Kiyoshi

[Chikamatsu Kiyoshi]

     Kiyoshi hmmd audibly. "Well," he said, after some time, "a second nature is always more difficult outside your first. Perhaps some of your struggle comes from that, but it shouldn't be insurmountable."

     He pondered how best to help her. She might not have as good of a grasp of the fundamentals, or of niche terms, that his Genin often had, but he was still resolved to help her as best he could. "Maybe you're still trying to form wind chakra, without realizing." He swirled his finger around in a spiral in the air.

     "One way of thinking of it is to try and match the 'physical properties' of the nature, at least with the basic five. Wind would be fast and wavy, earth dense and solid, blocky." He enlarged the flame in his hand, watching it sway back and forth in the wind. "Fire would be less concentrated, but almost violent - swaying and growing and shrinking."

     He hoped the more elementary explanation would help: at such an early stage, theory and concrete explanations tended to not accomplish as much as they might later in a career. At this point, it was more just getting a feeling for 'it.' Kiyoshi gestured for her to try for herself, to change the way in which she was molding chakra.

Kyokujitsu Senshi | 216 words

[Kyokujitsu Senshi]

It was a bit of a thought to say the least. Digesting the wisdom and news that was taught to her, she took a deep breath and thought about fire. "I guess so. I've never really played with fire that much." She mused as she listened to the physical properties. Violent. Swaying, growing, and shrinking. Senshi seemed to be more so trying to condense it down within her chest. However, it didn't help the fact that her chakra control wasn't great. Trying to release it in bursts like a roaring oven.

"Hrm...concentrate." She'd been working on fire for a while now, and as she channeled her chakra, she'd take a deep breath, condensing the chakra down within her, as she tried to sway and fluctuate the chakra within her chest, up an down in a rising motion. Maybe she was trying to smother it down too much, giving the fire no metaphorical fuel to burn. Then when she released it all at once, it was smothered. Hence why nothing but ash would come out of her mouth. There was no real "right" way of interpreting it, but the little blonde seemed deeply focused. Fire and Wind were opposing elements. So it only made sense they'd be pretty different from one another.

"Alright...I'm imagining it." She could visualize the chakra flickering inside of her chest as she took a deep breath. She could do it.

Chikamatsu Kiyoshi

[Chikamatsu Kiyoshi]

     "That's good," he said in reaffirmation. "Once you've built it up, all you have to do it sent it out through one of your chakra nodes - like your palm." It was easier said than done, especially for an Academy Student, but if she'd already mastered one element, she'd know that part well enough. Maintaining the change in chakra nature might be more difficult however.

     Kiyoshi watched as she built up the Katon chakra, offering what more help he could as though she were one of his Genin students. He detailed tips, practical applications, demonstrated. "You've the chakra changed now, inside you - you just have to apply it."

     A flame of his lit his palm like a dancer on a stage, in the spotlight. He let the wind snuff it out. The Kazekage knelt, offering advice and help however she might need it. But he knew Sunagakure's people were tough and resourceful - she'd figure it out, sooner or later, whether he was here or not.

     But his people had always helped one another as well - strength in numbers, like small prey animals braving the open to drink at the oasis - though they were no prey. He'd lived his life receiving help from others - Bishamon and his priests, his grandfather - and spent it giving back. "You can do it." he said with a smile.

Kyokujitsu Senshi | 222 words

[Kyokujitsu Senshi]

What the heck? She didn't know you could just make fire come out of your hands like that. She knew you could make it come out of your mouth, but after some thought? Didn't Asahi do literally that? Made a miniature sun appear from his very hand or even just around him? Her eyes widened at that thought, before she found herself holding her right hand out, her left hand cupping it as she took a deep breath. Concentrate. Imagine a flame. She slowly fueled the energy, and with it, she imagined the hottest things possible. Fire. The scorching hot day. The sun. The glass on the academy windowside in the summer. He reassured her, and with it, she firmly opens her hand to show the beginning flickers.

Wisps of sparks before a small fire forms along her hand. Hovering just above her palm as the chakra is given a shape and application. The small light flickering in her eyes. "Katon..." She says, cupping her left hand over it, as if a simple breeze was going to cause it to extinguish. It was like a dream. Before she proceeded to feel the heat along her other palm. It was a real fire. "I did it!~ I did it!~ Did you see?! Did you?!" She shouts with the utmost excitement and enthusiasm as she calls out.

"I made a fire! And it's actually hot!" She says, lightly burning herself. "A-Ah! Ah!" She says, before lifting her hand and showing the Kazekage her little flame. Not much larger than a candle flame at best.

[Chikamatsu Kiyoshi]

     "Yes -" he said with a grin. "- good job!" He cupped it from the wind with his own hands as well, felt the meager heat warm his palms. "Now, you've got to make it as a natural a process - as natural a feeling - as you can."

     "It should feel the same, just as easy," he said. "as you first chakra nature." It was the core rule of learning practically anything - memorize the fundamentals, until they're second nature, before you learn anything else.

     "You'll know you've got it down well when you can swap between the two as naturally as letting out chakra with no element at all." He held his palm out once more. Chakra poured out in a small invisible spout, then lit afire like gas. A moment later, it crackled into electricity, returned to normal, and became fire once more.

     "It might be a ways off still, but you need to have all your natures down pat if you want to be able to seamlessly perform jutsu." he told her with a smile. He suggested she continue to practice on her own when she had the time, but for now should try to change that flame into her other element - Fuuton, unbeknownst to him - without letting the 'faucet' of chakra shut off.

Kyokujitsu Senshi| 213 words

[Kyokujitsu Senshi]

"Natural. Right. Right! It has to be! How else am I gonna roar flames out like a dragon?!" She said rather playfully. However, when she found herself looking into the flame, she waved her hand about left and right as she thrusts her palm out. "Katon! Candle Palm Jutsu!" She proclaims, before the flame along her palm slowly puffs out with a slight squeak, almost sounding like a dried fart. Before she sweatdrops. Though, within that next moment, she closes her eyes and focuses a second time.

This time, cupping her hands together. She imagines it. Gloriously. Fire in her left, and a gust in her right. Before she slowly channels it. There's an odd glow forming in her hands, as she closes her eyes and feels the serenity. Before then shooting her hand outwards. Only, there wasn't a flame. Nor a burst of wind. Nor was there a small mess of nothing. Instead, there was but a small little orb almost, contained, but very loosely. A little crimson velvet looking ball that floats out. Barely the size of a marble maybe. Looking somewhat volatile. Yet, also beautiful like a piece of candy with a wispy flame.

"I-umm...Wow. I..." She says, unknowingly having created her first ever sample of Scorched Release. She'd learned jutsu theory from Arashi, had learned the Shakuton element and the foundation from Asahi. Had learned how to channel fire a bit from Ameko. Now, she put it together, and bam. "Uhh...How do I get rid of it?" Something Senshi came to wonder as it slowly begins to float off towards the academy swing set.

[Chikamatsu Kiyoshi]

     "Well," he said with a laugh. "just stop exerting chakra - let your network relax. But since I'm here -" With a small motion of a finger, a chunk of sand on the ground flashed into a small glass orb that floated up and ate the small bit of Shakuton. It compressed down into the size of a marble, which Kiyoshi picked up and dropped into Senshi's palm.

     "That was good!" he said. "Now, just keep at it and soon enough you'll be more than able to create dragons of wind and fire, I'm sure. Practice, every day." That was what had always worked for him, anyway - and the advice seemed to work well for every Genin he'd ever had as well. The importance of fundamentals, no matter what they were for, couldn't be overstated.

     A small glass dove passed over them, refracting a beam of sunlight into the Kazekage's eyes. His cue to leave, it seemed, from himself. Kiyoshi smiled down at Senshi and congratulated her once more. The other Academy Students seemed to be slowly shuffling back towards the building as well.

     "Keep up the good work and I'm sure you'll be a Genin before you know it," he said with a grin. "I'll see you around, Senshi."

[Thread Exit]
Kyokujitsu Senshi | 208 words

[Kyokujitsu Senshi]

Relax he said. "B-But it's so cool!" She said. Though that was nothing compared to what she saw next. How they just seemingly turned the sand into glass and just encapsulated the little heat into the glass. When he kneeled to pick it up and put the glass marble into her hand? She could feel it's lingering heat as it shines so brightly. Looking down at it with awe, he talked about how if she practiced every day, she'd be able to make dragons out of wind and fire. "R-Really?" She says with a big look of awe. She was praised and told she was doing good work even!

"Wow! Thank you!" She cheered, and pumped her fist up into the air as she throws the marble up into the sky and then catches it firmly. "I'll keep training really hard, and I'll be the strongest Kunoichi that Suna's ever seen! For real!" She announces, and with it, as the Kage takes the liberty to leave, she found herself slowly looking over to the academy building. It was about time to get going then it seemed. "Thanks a ton for teaching me!" She announces, and before long, she finds herself leaving to resume her classes. Some of the last ones she'd have before she'd become a true and proper ninja.