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Hotarubi had gotten bored of the academy enough to warrant doing a lot more of his studying outside of it. That was one benefit was that he was a nobody when compared to most Shinobi, it made him easier to blend in. He could leave and go other places… but if he got caught at the academy that was it, and there were a few individuals that he would have rather not caught him at the academy. Today’s training was somewhere he did not anticipate being working in water, near and or around it. But, they did live in the Waterfall based village – it was mostly about some more taijutsu based elements of learning how to navigate in lieu of a fatal weakness. He was in a… there was a specific name for it. Where it was more alkaline than not. A bog? Ah, a Fen! A waterfall with mostly marshy style flora. It made it covered by wild flowers, grasses – as well as your more obvious temperate jungle fauna. Not that Hotarubi knew anything of these – but just took in his surroundings. What he was more concerned about was that he was not a lot of ground – a lot of roots, and a lot of water. He would hate to get it wrong.

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Because it wasn’t a high-powered water technique as they had been taught to avoid at all costs, it wasn’t as awful as Hotarubi would have it. It did mean that the more time he spent there, the longer it was taking to reform – and he was just getting generally wet. It was not the end of the world, but he was still an academy student and the better control he got over his bloodline the easier it would be for him to do water borne activities. His exact task and training for today, among other days was to simply shadow fight on land – daydreaming and avoiding the big bads, to learn how to better control his body and immense weight at the same time. The thing that he had not anticipated, and what was going to become a problem was his weight: he was starting to sink, his continuous steps were creating indentations, and the last thing he wanted to do was turn himself into a sinkhole of sorts. ”Ah~” by himself, and with nobody else around? For the time being this was fun, introducing new concepts and learning while becoming better with his earthen body. This was going to knock Nageku’s socks off in the future!

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For what it was worth, his training was going well – it was not energy sapping as such as it was mentally engaging for him to fight himself. While he wished Nageku could have been there to help him there was only so much that he would allow his brother to be privy to his training. While he would stand by his brother – he wanted to be stronger than him. Stronger than anybody else. It was a very binary thing for them and something he lived by in his world. Not everybody else’s – they probably had better priorities than him. It might’ve been boring to an observer, watching an Academy Student zip around a similar path that was becoming treaded in – creating a ring of indented earth, root and wet. The steps in the ground were starting to become watery as well. The shadows would dance as well as the sound of waterfalls accompanied his training, a punch to a ethereal gut- a twist side kick to the hip there. Ideally, he’d had been working on his ninjutsu but there was only so much devastation he could do at this stage when his body was not tough enough to support his aspirations. And for that he would rectify it before taking on anything else to his plate.

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The fighting continued with himself, with nobody to stop him from correcting all his fatal flaws while his energy was not being sapped, he found himself stopping more frequently to do slower attacks: checking all of his muscles and correct posture, that he wasn’t going to harm himself. Their (or his!) Taijutsu instructor had made sure to warn him of the dangers of not appropriately warming up or punching something his body could not handle. The kicks were slow and intentional, and he found himself working further away from the water and more to one of the sturdier trees: though there were some mandates about protecting the natural wildlife and surrounding beauty, he did not mind himself – who was going to stop him? There was also the question of he did not know what he did not know: he would at some point need to ask for help. Ask…. For help. He didn’t mind asking for help, since all it was conducive to growth for him, and he would be able to apply his own learning… he was just a student after all. But, he felt the difference between himself and other students was his age (and he believed maturity was a factor there as well) so he had gone through three quarters of his day without stopping, and he had overexerted himself. How had he ended up overexerting himself? Because the near man had not learned yet how to conserve it properly, and that too, was something that would come with time.

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At least there was another day tomorrow that he could pick a new area to work out in – before being back at the academy for another week. Hotarubi did think he would need to take some time for himself – and so instead of taking the time to continue fighting himself, he was in a secluded enough area he stripped down and entered the water. It was cool: which he did not mind whatsoever. The way it reflected off him, turned his skin darker: he was up to neck deep water before he knew it, moving further into the watery area. That was a separate danger they had to worry about: without the use of chakra swimming would be much harder for a Yamakira, or so he thought to himself. He stared at the sky through the canopy, enjoying the time as it passed – the sensation of water was pleasant. It was eroding his body lightly and would continue to do so while he was in the water, but it was nice. Hotarubi thought about some of the things in his life outside of training and his recent obsession to pass out of the academy. Should he have gone to the shop to go do a few shifts? Would that have been good for his mind? His time outside the academy had been in general education and then a noodle shop for several years as an apprentice, he did not like the attitude his ‘noodle master’ took towards his earthen body but he did respect the man in a way that wasn’t related to strength.

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Mental fortitude, that’s what it was. He closed his eyes, nodding as he thought about it. The man was not a shinobi…. ’right?’ He thought about it, checking his memory. He didn’t know the answer, and it bothered Hotarubi the more he thought about it. What Hotarubi did know is that Roku was quiet, anal about cleanliness, a hard man – but stoic. It was somewhat what he had modelled his own temperament after. Didn’t really have a choice when he was in the shop working day after day for several years. The thinking had let time pass a bit too much, because by the time he had begun to try and move again – he found the sensation difficult. "Fuck.” His body was starting to lose its form, a muddy patch bubble inside of some water… and that would not be good at all. He took his arms out of the water – trying to push himself backward with strong force. ‘Fuck.’ He was more tired than he wanted to admit. "Fuck you old man,” he grunted as he pushed himself out of the water – he wasn’t out of the danger zone yet because his body was… sorta following him, loosely connected. He finally with more grunts, quite loudly, of effort – out of the water and he laid on his back. That was a guarantee he was going to be there for a lot longer thinking about his actions.

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Staring up at the sky, now annoyed and not having fun and waiting for his body to start listening to him again properly was giving him an opportunity to think about his poor actions. That was for caring about a man who gave him nothing but shit as well for years. But even despite that, Hotarubi still respected the man – even if his current thoughts were saying otherwise. Hotarubi had never considered a time where he didn’t want to be a Shinobi, being tired there on the fen-ground was better than wasting away in some shitty shop doing menial work for the rest of his life. There was more excitement to that: he wanted to visit the world, to be the strongest. This was just the starting thing, and he daydreamed, a light grin on his face as he stared up at the turning-dark blue sky. Hotarubi’s body had been ready to form after about half an hour from quite a few hours bathing, it was a long time as a Shinobi to be vulnerable but thankfully he was in the homeland. Eventually he did get up, would be done for the day and make the way home so that he could get somewhere new tomorrow. And there, he was a little bit of a better person for it.

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The next day was a sharp and rude awakening by some commotion outside which awoke Hotarubi from his well deserved sleep. It set him up for a much worse day, because by the time it had hit time to get out of the bed, he had already been staring at the ceiling for 2 hours. That had been a task of mental fortitude to give his stamina and chakra the time to replenish. Nageku had been in high spirits this morning, only ruining Hotarubi’s as well. But, he left the house with a backpack slung across one shoulder and him moving… somewhere. Finding a place was much harder than it seemed because much more senior shinobi were out and about at the time, he had gone to a popular training ground which as one might’ve guessed: was busy. The next he had gone to, he had been moved on after about ten minutes when a team turned up on site – and it was in his interest to not be bothered, much less be observed by anybody else. Some few other journeys later and he found himself in his secluded spot in the academy, the only place he knew that would be available on the day of the week they were open – but not teaching.

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He settled into another routine – going through all of the academy techniques he had learned to date, and went through them all individually a few times to refine it. Even the transformation technique which he had only learned a week ago was being used enough that he could at least hold the transformation for about a minute. That was an improvement from the ten seconds it had been a week prior. That was what could only be described as him learning to control his chakra better. But at the same time the way he abused his own body would’ve erred to having more reserves than the usual. Only time would tell which would come out as the victor there. But after he did his training on the academy techniques his next set of training was on shinobi weaponry: kunai – going through the basic kata, stances, ‘attacks’ and some strategies. Then was through projectiles with the same – the use of kunai and shuriken. It was good he’d brought his bag for all the supplies he needed, which never went empty at the Yamakira compound. He spent enough time, and while it was not perfect: he thought it was good enough he was hitting the targets each time. Sure, they weren’t in the centre – as far as he saw it, any hit was a good hit.

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What Hotarubi was mostly worried about was his knowledge and instead of spending all of it from doing ninjutsu and taijutsu, decided it would have also been best to try and exercise his mind as well, avoiding the thought of yesterday with his ‘noodle master’ Roku. So, he went through the theory of ethics (which he really didn’t agree with, but it was necessary to pass) as well as arithmetic (who did math in battle?) and geography. Battle strategies, common history things – that was what took most of his day, and by the time he had gotten anywhere with it – the sun had gone down. Several books were opened as he went back and forth with the exam papers, with the questions and answers. Nobody bothered him, and all was well. "So the sum is going to be..” he lightly mumbled as he wrote in his book, head turned to another spot as he read. Hotarubi was surprised that any instructors had come to stop in. But, one thing he didn’t like was that another puny student had come along, clearly with the same idea as him, to study. Glasses wearing… Hotarubi stared for a few seconds, making sure he didn’t recognise them as a potential Yamakira, then continued on with his day. On and on was the life of a shinobi…