[Saigo Shigeo]

Takigakure was strategically situated on a plateau surrounded by water and trees, further hidden by its Great Tree and the mist that permeated it. Sans crossing the Great Bridge after navigating waterways and a clandestine tunnel network, entry to the village was essentially impossible. The forest that bordered the waterway that flowed around the plateau had trees that grew tall and tight together, offering a perfect venue for the type of training that Shigeo had heard about in Academy Lectures. In order to further increase his Chakra control, they suggested that he learn to climb trees.

Upon further investigation, he learned exactly what they meant. Simply climbing a tree, in the method a child might, was not the goal. The Ninja was expected to weave their chakra specifically so that they clung to the bark of the tree, and could freely walk or run even parallel to the ground. In theory, it made sense. He had seen many types of Jutsu performed by his peers, so something as simple as scaling a tree seemed... possible.

It wasn't nearly on the same level as drawing fire out of his own gullet, after all.

He made his way to the outer fringes of Takigakure and took a seat against one of the many tall trees, carefully lacing up his zori tight to ensure they would not slip and break his balance during the training exercise. Safety was the first thing he was careful to maintain, because if he did manage to figure out how the chakra control method worked, there was no telling what other factors might play into it. Before he stood, Shigeo carefully went over his notes on Chakra control, how to make it flow specifically, and the things he had learned during his previous excursion into the False Village. Drawing chakra inward, taking traits and energy from the outside world; or forcing his own chakra outward, exerting control over his surroundings, creating various effects.

There was a lot to consider before he even began.

[335 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

When he first starting training on his own, Shigeo had dabbled in the practice of maintaining a chakra flow through his body. As he worked through the logical sequence of events, it occurred to him that there had to be a mutual flow of energy through an object and another object in order for them to remain bonded. The same way that he had made water churn gently, it made sense that he could register some base level of connection with a tree. That being the case...

Shigeo started to gather his thoughts, collecting his chakra in the palms of his hands. He stood slowly and placed his hands against the tree he had been leaning against, then closed his eyes. He recalled the way that the rock face had responded to his chakra, given that his nature lent to an affinity for earthen energies. That wasn't the case here; though the tree did have some elements tied to the earth, including its roots, it had other properties that were foreign to him. Ultimately, if he wanted to control something like wood... that seemed outside the realm of possibility.

Instead, he focused on what he could sense. The connection to the ground, the life flowing up and outward, breathing oxygen back out into the air and circulating- there was a connection between the elements that even someone who lacked the training or understanding could scrape the surface of. Given time and a better, more broad understanding of the elements, and of his own chakra, he might be able to do more than just interface with the surface of the tree. For now, though, the ability to do even that much was enough.

"I can feel it," he muttered, his breathing measured. "The tree is probing back, feeling me, too. It's almost like it's aware... more than just alive, even."

When he opened his eyes, he started pushing against the tree. Physically at first, using the force of his muscles as a template for the motion that his chakra would then emulate. As he did, he felt something weightless pressing back. The tree was massive, deeply rooted, and summarily would not budge at the slightest provocation. When he started to push harder, and his chakra followed suit...

Crack!

[377 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

The sudden and unexpected volatile reaction sent Shigeo reeling. He staggered backward, blinking several times in rapid succession as the realization struck. "Action and reaction," he recognized the phenomenon for what it was. Grabbing at his notebook, the Genin quickly scrawled into his notes that exerting Chakra forcibly into something else was met with equal and inverse force. That principle might not hold for everything, granted, but at the rudimentary level, it gave him a foundation to build upon.

"Alright, that's good to know," he said to himself as he stepped closer to the tree once more, then placed one hand against where the bark had exploded outward and knocked him away. "So, the working theory right now is that I want the tree to work with me, not against me," he started to walk through his reasoning aloud, since there was no one around to call him crazy for it. "Since if I exert enough force to the tree to do it harm, it tries to rebuff me. So, what if..."

Shigeo began to work his chakra into his fingertips this time, gently kneading the exposed, pulpy flesh of the tree where his hand had been before. Instead of pressing into the tree this time, he started to pull gently at the tree's own energy, and in turn, he began to feel the massive entity pulling gently back. It felt almost like holding hands, an equivalent condition met, both forces working opposite to one another. He allowed the flow of chakra to continue, binding him to the tree even as he tried to pull away...

"So that's it," he muttered, "That's how you establish the link, but if you maintain it, you can't easily pull away." Shigeo blinked. "I'm starting to understand how this is a chakra control exercise."

[300 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

He stood for a moment reflecting on the flow of Chakra and energy between himself and the tree. He immediately drew a parallel to the way electricity flowed through wiring. By touching the tree, he created a circuit, and in turn by flooding it with chakra, he created a current. Push and pull were the tip of the iceberg. If he could isolate the Chakra flow in his legs and feet, then perhaps...

"I'll give it a try with both hands first," he decided. Luke before, he placed both hands against the tree, but this time, he started to focus on the flow of Chakra within his own body, circulating it explicitly through his chest and arms. He noted that near his heart, the flow of life energy was at its most potent. Each heartbeat pumped energy outward to his extremities. Every second that ticked by brought oxygen back to his lungs, churning out more life in a seemingly endless cycle. It was like an engine or a turbine, a system that naturally replenished fuel and in turn, created more fuel to be utilized. That was how Shinobi powered their jutsu. When he looked at it that way, it seemed much more simple than when he had struggled during his time in the Academy.

The Chakra that pushed out from his hands entered the tree, flowed through it, and returned to him, creating a give and take. Perfectly balances. By controlling the intake and output, he distorted the flow once again, alternating the current so that it flipped from one hand to the other, and the nearly magnetic force flip-flopped poles with each passing moment. The result?

One hand pulled away from the tree, and the other stayed firmly rooted. In the next second, the other hand was pulled into the tree, and the other pushed away. Makeshift magnetism, but without established electrical currents or magnets. At least, none strong enough, given the low natural threshold of the human body for either phenomenon.

"I can use this principle to try to walk up the tree," he said, "but if it doesn't work, well, at least I won't fall far."

[359 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

First and foremost, Shigeo had to relearn how he moved the chakra to accommodate his new hypothesis. He stood in front of the tree and began to cycle the energy similarly to how he had before, except that instead of using his hands, he could feel the energy flowing through his feet and into the ground. It was a different phenomenon entirely: where his hands were more geared toward fine motor skills and lifting, pulling, and pushing, legs did a great deal less of the thought-required movement. That meant that while channeling Jutsu through his hands, his mind devoted more conscious thought, and while channeling chakra through his feet, he had to consciously, actively control the flow.

It went from being second nature to being laborious. Left flow, then alternate, right flow, then alternate. The amount of requisite chakra was markedly different, too. His feet were bigger than his hands, and they exerted force differently when applied. He carried more weight per step than when he had pushed into the tree with a portion of his strength. It would therefore be all too easy to apply an incredible amount of force and be thrown from the tree by accident.

By channeling the energy in a circle through his body, down to his feet, back up, and then back down, Shigeo began to feel out how the cyclical dynamic worked. He took a few steps to feel out how that changed or disrupted the flow, and suddenly felt his feet get heavier, then lighter, then heavy again. He needed to figure out how to level out the disparity and control it so that he could apply the method in earnest.

"Now, what if..." he mused to himself as he changed the way he alternated chakra, and instead of pushing and pulling like waves rolling in and out, he created a steady current that rolled over and under itself consistently. "Let's see how that works..."

[323 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

It felt almost like a cushion beneath the soles of his feet. The chakra manifested there in a pocket, lining the bottom of his zori as he took a step. Nothing strange immediately happened. Another step, and he was right next to the tree. He placed a foot on the bark of the tree, took a deep breath, then stepped forward as if to walk, shifting from the x-axis that the ground formed, to a y-axis represented by the tree. With his brow furrowed, he braced himself for the impact...

...that never came.

It was less than five feet off the ground, granted, but he was standing proper parallel to the grass. He could feel his heart starting to race as excitement blossomed inside of him. He'd done it! Instead of celebrating however, he took another step, and another. Shigeo was walking up a tree like a seasoned shinobi, and it took only a negligible amount of concentration to maintain. The massive tree presented a fairly decent course for him, a good mile or so up, and so he took the opportunity to acclimate himself. The more he walked here, the more accustomed to this jutsu he would become; and this particular skill was considered fairly advanced, even among Genin. That made him even more proud.

Proud enough that he suddenly lost himself in the series of elated thoughts that bombarded him. Shigeo was nearly ten feet up when the chakra in his feet wavered, and he felt himself losing balance, and the energy that kept him stable gave out entirely. "Uh oh," he gasped, reaching out for something to keep him anchored. There was nothing.

He acted quickly, spinning his body to get his feet under him, and started to weave the chakra the same way he had in order to scale the tree in the first place. When he landed, it was akin to the way a cat might. Fleet-footed, swift, and soft. The chakra created a buffer than cushioned the impact, and he stood upright as if he had landed on air.

"Again!"

[346 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak!

His footfalls were becoming more rapid as he felt more confident in his ability to maintain the jutsu. He made more progress with each attempt, climbing to a higher level of the tree before feeling even the slightest waver in his control. When he did that, he kicked away, and he focused on leveling off the fluctuation in order to bring the jutsu back to proper form. Kinobori no jutsu- the Art of Tree Climbing- not only gave him the ability to move up the tree, but to safely stick the landing after breaking away. This was the kind of Chakra control that higher ranked shinobi used to freely move about the world, faster and more agile than any other kind of warrior.

With some time, and some training, he now knew that he could do it, too. Shigeo had never been as quick or skilled as his classmates. He never knew the secrets that allowed them the power of ninjutsu. He worked hard to just be adequate enough to walk out or everything as a Genin. Now that he had the foundations, though, he had the will to cultivate those seeds into something more. He was destined to focus on the art of weapons, but as a Ninja, even that required the use of Chakra.

That inferred that he needed to focus on the basics, but also, that he needed to advance his knowledge of those basics into something that rivaled the most seasoned of Shinobi's knowledge. He needed to do more work than any of his peers. Shigeo needed to hone himself like a blade on a whetstone until he was keen enough to cut anything that came at him.

Once more, he began to sprint along the face of the tree, his chakra and his mind both focused on surpassing his own limits. Soon, he'd get to the top- then, he'd do it again, and again, until he felt that it was no different from running along the ground.

[333 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

When he touched down once again, the initial shock seemed less than he remembered. His body moved differently, adjusted to the motions, the flow of chakra, everything right down to how the landing "should" have felt versus how it would feel "ideally." He remembered one of the lessons he'd learned during a theory lecture on Ninjutsu, about how jutsu were created using conceptualization and visualization. In theory, crafting a ball of fire in one's mind, provided they had the necessary affinity to pull it off- would give the Ninja the ability to translate that ball of fire into a jutsu and actualize it. This was a little less grandiose, certainly, but the theory behind it was the same.

His movements were predicated on how he thought ahead, and how he turned those tactical decisions into action. It didn't have to be creating mystical fire or water or wind from ambient energy. He could use his chakra to change and improve his own movements, harnessing the natural ability of his body. With that information in mind, he decided. The time had come to test the capabilities of this new jutsu he was teaching himself. If it could change the way he not only moved, but how he landed, then it could probably allow him to do some other skillful movements and tactically reposition.

Kicking off of the tree he had been using, he kept his chakra focused in his feet, and he twisted his body in mid-movement in order that he would land against another tree. When he touched it, he could feel his chakra molding itself to cling to the tree in the same way it had when he was landing on the ground. After a moment, he righted himself, and the jutsu continued to allow him to stand on the bark of the tree as if he had been walking along it all along.

"So I can leap between trees and stay above ground level, too," he murmured.

[329 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

Fleet footed steps carried him between trees. Each impact sent a vibrato up his legs, reminding him of the flow of chakra before quickly subsiding. He could feel the excessive amount of drain that came with those touchdowns, and he worked to actively bring that down as much as possible. To that end, he continued to jump, catch himself against the face of another tree, take the time to recover, and then jump again. Each time he did, he could feel the muscles being strained- however lightly- and he began to allocate chakra directly to those areas during the landing in order to ablate the impact more.

It was surprisingly simple to allocate those small and precise amounts of chakra once he became aware of the joints and muscles, then allow the tension to compress that chakra, fold it back into the general flow he had created, and minimize the amount of energy he was using on the whole. Each jump in turn required less active chakra to complete, the jutsu that kept him aloft took less concentration and energy to maintain, and his control became more focused. When they had mentioned this jutsu in the academy, they said that it was potent. He never imagined that it was this effective.

"Alright, then... let's try something else..."

[217 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

He landed with both feet against the next tree, came to a fully crouched position... and then, he released the Jutsu. For a moment, his body shuddered as the sudden transition jolted him, but not even a full second passed before he began to freefall, nearly a mile above the ground. Mathematically, there wasn't enough time for him to accelerate to a lethal speed, but he didn't need to die from the fall to die from breaking every bone in his body. Fortunately, his sudden release of the jutsu was entirely by design. He kept his cool, feet braced so that they slid along the tree, using the friction to slow himself just enough that he could maintain a controlled speed.

And then, he started to channel his chakra again. By suddenly switching the jutsu on and off, he could quickly raise or lower his altitude without moving from one tree to another. This also capitalized on his chakra control, allowing him to stay relatively in position and not move far or enough for someone else to spot him. This would be an effective tool, he reasoned, for stealth. Moreso than a lack of jutsu like he suffered from initially, of course.

It also forced him to quickly halt and tap once more into his chakra reserves, meager as they were. It was the perfect sort of tool for forcing quick, taxing drain on his pool, which he had heard also helped to shape it's endurance. In the end, he would never have the wellspring of Chakra a Shinobi gifted from birth might, but he wasn't destined to be stuck with barely anything at all forever.

That knowledge too gave him hope that he could become a more excellent ninja, and not just be a Genin for the rest of his life.

[302 words]

[Saigo Shigeo]

He skidded to a halt, feeling his body weight carrying him over his feet. Normally, this would have been terrifying; but armed with new knowledge of this jutsu and the physical training he had done in order to become a Ninja in the first place, he reacted entirely on instinct. His body turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees mid-fall, bringing his feet back over into position. As they touched down on the tree once more, he could feel the sudden draw of the jutsu, once more giving him control over his balance and motion. He utilized his momentum to accelerate into a run, shooting down the length of the tree at breakneck speed. When he made it to the bottom, he released the flow of chakra and touched down with a bit more force than necessary, falling face first into the grass.

For a moment, Shigeo just lay there, face down in a daze. His mind reeled at the overwhelming amount of knowledge he had just gained from firsthand experience, a set of invaluable tools that he could not wait to put to use as soon as possible. He rolled onto his back, reached up and pried the bandages away from his lips, gasping for air. "I did it," he rasped breathlessly, "I actually did it."

Reality had not yet fully sunken in, and yet, he had felt it. All of it. Shigeo had gone through the motions of weaving his chakra to form, shaping it to fit, tailoring it to where it was most useful, and trimming away excess. All of that had done more than wipe him out; he could feel every muscle in his body screaming.

"I'm doing it, dad," he whispered. "Every day, I'm a little closer to being a Ninja you can be proud of."

Harsh words flashed in his memory. Shigeo closed his eyes, tilted his head to the side, and he spat.

"You'll see. I can do it. Just you wait."

[330 words]