[Yamanaka Tomomi]

This is a fundamental that they’ve been ignoring for far too long. They’re rather impressed they’ve gotten their far without mastering it, really. Of course, playing smart and keeping at a distance has allowed them to rarely have a need for it, but they can’t say there weren’t missions that would’ve gone better if they’d mastered the Body Flicker. And there are a fair few techniques that build off this base that they would like to learn later.

Tomomi understands the theory of the craft, of course. A quick surge of chakra, wind the body tight like an elastic, move at top speed. She’s just not a particularly physical shinbo. All the chakra control she has learned specializes in projecting outward, pulling away from the body. A perfectly even distribution throughout herself is something else entirely. That’s fine. She can adapt.

The most practical way to handle this is to start with the very basics. He’ll warm up his chakra control with something mild, water surface walking. He stands before a pond and takes a slow breath. He focuses, letting himself really feel each step, as if he were a genin again. The chakra flowing through him. He gathers it and feels that grasp, that control, as he builds it in his soles. He steps onto the water and… Ah, this is far too easy, isn’t it? Well, it was just a warmup.

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

She stays on the surface of the water for a while anyways, reflecting on how she responds instinctively to the ripples in the water, adjusting the balance. It’s easy to forget just how tricky this sort of thing used to be when she was younger. From here it’s the same principal, isn’t it? Just distributed more thoroughly. She takes a slow breath as she begins to drag that chakra control up. An even layer through her legs, her middle, her arms. She wobbles a little.

Maybe they shouldn’t do this while standing on the pond, huh? It’s a unique kind of concentration and it would be far too easy to fall in. They step off the water again and stretch, shaking out their hands. They wonder if it would help to think of themself like a puppet? They know quite well how to evenly distribute chakra through a puppet.

They project chakra string out from their fingers and latch them onto their own arm. It’s a fairly useless action, of course. It just creates a feedback loop of chakra. But it does mechanically help them get a sense for the process. How much chakra would they send down the line to control an object their size?

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

It's funny how those mental tricks work. How you can develop an automatic sense for something without really realizing it. They won't wax poetic about it at the moment, though. They're trying to focus here. 

He starts to gather his chakra again. What's strange is he almost feels that it would be easier to create a layer outside. It's something he's more familiar with. Keeping it all restrained inside, that's the difficult part. Ah, maybe he really should try practicing more taijutsu. If he'd paid more attention to those lessons, he'd probably be having a much easier time of this right now. 

He does get it, though. It's a fully-body thrum. From the tips of his fingers to his head to his toes. It is as invigorating as the theory implies. He can understand the idea from the sensation alone. He can also feel why it would be so exhausting. Muscles stretched taut as they are, it'd be easy to pull something. He holds it there. He won't try to move until he's confident he can hold this steady while moving. He brings his hands up, mimes the hand seal.

At first it require a slow deliberation, but she's quickly able to condition herself to hold the control while moving. It's a gradual process. She's lucky she has a temperament for patience. 

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

Though she may just be putting off the actual attempt. Can't improve on the technique she's teaching herself if she never actually tests it. She steels herself, levels out her chakra control, and holds the hand seal. Then she moves and oh, that's disorienting. You know, she had mentally prepared for the level of exertion this was going to require, but she never actually thought to prepare for how it would look, visually. It's not every day you see the world rushing by at that pace. It seems this is a method that requires not only physical control, but a degree of mental conditioning. 

They shrug off their jacket, folding it and delicately setting it down. They pull their ponytail tighter and prepare to refocus. Attempt again. If genin can do this, so can they, obviously. They form the seal once more and move again, a short hop. Even that is a lot. They'll have to be careful how far they push themself during this training exercise. No long distances. They know even people who are experienced can quickly overexert themselves.

The result of this decision is him practicing flickering back and forth within a five foot radius, which would really look quite silly to an outside observer. 

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

It is, surprisingly, a lot of effort anyways. They believe they're beginning to get the hang of it. They're not quite so fast as a lot of other people they've seen use the technique, though. That probably comes with continued practice. Stamina and ability. Being naturally quick would help, but they're not that, so they'll dismiss that idea out of hand. 

It's time for a gradual increase. Instead of sticking in a very small circle, they slowly start to allow themself to rubber-band further out. On each "loop" back and forth, pressing just a slightly greater distance. It's still disorienting, and that might be the greatest barrier to perfecting it at this point. The mental process. They slow for a moment to catch their breath and focus on the scenery. 

How would they actually practically apply this on the field? Those are the terms they need to think in. They're most likely to use it to gain an advantage. Get behind someone, or, even more likely, run away from someone. So they don't need to be able to process the blurred sight well. They just need to be able to make snap decisions about where they want to go. If they know where to start and where to end, that's the important part. 

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

So: snap decision. He pictures an enemy rushing him. Where would he go? Backwards would let the person keep rushing straight into him. The best way is "through," or, better put, around. The time it will take the opponent to realize where he's gone and turn around with give him more time to build distance with minimal exertion. He mimics the motion he would take. A dodge around the opponent, and then an escape. He practices the weaving motion a few more times. Bring up the hand seal, duck to the side, dash. Bring up the hand seal, duck to the side, dash. Performing the motion repetitively will hopefully make it instinctive. 

Just running away straight isn't the only method of escape she needs to consider, though. It's the most common she's likely to encounter, but she should be prepared for combat on any sort of environmental field. She has to hold the hand seal, so no other techniques can be utilized, but she can still climb vertical surfaces and water-walk. Two additional flight-paths. 

She takes a break from flickering to rest her muscles as she searches out a good tree to practice on, tall and sturdy. She readies herself, then begins to practice the methodology. Gather the chakra in her body, more in her souls. Hold the hand seal and run up the tree. She slides a bit on the ascent. It will take work. It's a bit like relearning how to harness the chakra there properly.  

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

Training this technique requires frequent breaks to avoid tearing any muscles. It makes it rather inconvenient. They do it, though, continuing to practice, keep the range short, not push themself too intensely while they get the basics down. When they feel comfortable scaling the tree, they upgrade to water-walking. The first few times they dash off the bank and into the water, they land unevenly, causing a splash and nearly losing their balance. It's almost nostalgic in a way. They haven't had trouble like that since they were a kid! Metering out their landing impact is going to take some significant precision. 

They like precision, so they're happy to practice the maneuver again. And then again. And again. It is their belief that every skill should be ingrained. If you do something, you should do it well. Instinctively. For something to truly be part of her skill set, she needs to make sure she can pull it out in a blink. She spends the better part of the evening just rehearsing these movements, projecting potential paths, until she's confident she could control her chakra in these ways under duress. 

That's not the last of the control practice she needs to break out, though. 

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

If she uses this technique in battle, she'll have to temporarily let go of her puppets. Maybe that's what has kept her from learning it for so long. There is a certain inefficiency to it. Even if it allows her to escape a situation, if she has to drop all her weapons to do it, it's not necessary the best technique to employee in every situation. She'll need to learn to release the controlled chakra right back into outstretching chakra strings if she wants to make the best use of this. 

He's left Kazane sitting idly by near his jacket for the duration of this practice, but it finally might be time to break her out. He brings up his chakra strings, puppeteers her to life. He moves her about idly for a moment, taking another breather. Then he releases his hold on her, flickering to the side. She slumps fully to the ground before he's able to get his strings back out to her. No, that's too slow. That won't do. Take it again. Nose to the grindstone, he's back to repeating the pattern. Getting each point to connect properly and quickly is difficult, it's an additional point of information to keep track of while crossing a great distance. He's sure the difficulty would continue to climb if he had multiple puppets. 

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

He keeps up the repetitive practice, though. Dash a short distance, send out the chakra string. What matters is the quick reaction. The second he slows, he needs to already be channeling the chakra back up and out. He's satisfied when he catch Kazane before she completely crumples to the floor, even if it still takes a second to orient her. On the field, those would be a dangerous few seconds. Hopefully she can trim those down by slivers of a second over time. 

The next step is, of course, combining everything. Being able to launch onto any surface and immediately pick the puppet back up, that's what's important. They go through the motions on that, slowly putting the pieces together, clumsy at first but steadily improving. When they manage a consistent result, they finally feel as though they are ready to wind down. They'll have to keep practicing this every day to ensure they improve, to increase their range and their capability. For now, they feel relatively confident that they could use it in a real situation with at least minimum competency. And that's the starting place of most skills. Bare minimum capability steadily growing into actual usefulness. 

Time to take a break. She can already tell she's going to be sore in the morning.