I pull up my pants, and a chill goes down my spine. There's the feeling, again. I'd say it's one of my family members using their Byakugan- it's very nearly the same feeling- but the first thing you learn after awakening it is the location of the bathrooms, so it couldn't be one of them.

In any case, the feeling stays after I wash my hands, during which I form a diamond with my cupped hands and blow a few bubbles. No one knows I do this. It's one of those childish things I keep to myself, like my baby sister's old stuffed bunny, Haruko. I smile as I blow the last bubble and finish rinsing and drying, and step out.

Today is a free day, what us ninja call the mandatory day off after returning from a mission. Mine was nothing very serious, only safeguarding a merchant as he traveled to a village near the border, so I feel like doing some training. As I learned shortly after the war, my chakra nature is water, so I am working on training my proficiency with it. When I was younger I had hoped for it to be earth, something very solid and steady, but I'm learning that water can carry large amounts of blunt force, too. I'm not just thinking of traditional jutsu, but incorporating the myriad ways water works in the natural world into my techniques. It's quite the daunting task. So far I've only defined one technique, a very simple and brutal thing; however due to its nature I won't be writing it down here in my journal just yet- sometimes Hanabi sneaks around my room and I don't want her coming across it.

It's a short jaunt over to the training grounds, and I sneak past the young genin doing their exercises until I come to my favorite spot. It's a small, natural clearing, a break in the trees just a running jump across. I catch my breath and begin the genjutsu I use for privacy out here. "Genjutsu: Double Optic Delusory!" The surroundings blur for a moment, and then they settle down. There. If one should look at the clearing now, they would seems to be at the edge of a cliff, and if they managed to dispel the first layer of the genjutsu, the opposite would appear, seeming as if they had just fallen off of the same cliff. After I became a chunin and was "in on the secret", if you will, I made sure to learn this genjutsu.

I begin with moving through the forms of my clan's martial art, the Gentle Fist style. It's relaxing, and helps me prepare for the nature transformation part of my jutsu- our forms rely on flowing and redirection, like water. That's how I visualize my nature transformation: my blood is a great river, and my chakra is simply and extension of it.

So far with my jutsu, I only have introduced water's flow, a straight-ahead force. Though simple, I've found that this isn't bad at all. I've held on to a couple simple techniques, Hand of Waves, and also Raging Waves, and worked with expanding them. As I'm doing now, I can refine them and target small points in conjunction with the use of my Byakugan. A small stream here, piercing through a knot on this tree; a thin rope there, breaking off from a larger stream and lancing into the ground where I imagine my opponent's foot to be.

This is going well. I continue with the pinpoint accuracy training, but after I stop, I know I need to expand the possibilities of working with a larger flow. As I slowly work through Gentle Fist forms again, a sort of moving meditation, I get the feeling of being watched again. It's not a far-off family member using their Byakugan kind, but much more personal, and specific. I've taken off my jacket, and I swear I can feel the mysterious gaze on where water from my jutsu have splashed on my top. It lingers on a spot on my chest, and I quickly put my jacket back on. I dispel the genjutsu I put up for privacy, and hear a startled yelp and a groan.

"Is someone there?"

"Yeah," says the young voice. I look around a tree, and see Naruto's protege Konohamaru rubbing his nose.

"Oh, Konohamaru. Are you alright?"

"I will be. It's just I was about to jump off this cliff and suddenly the air turned into a tree."

"I apologize for that." I help Konohamaru up, and bow. "Give my best to Naruto," I say, quickly bowing and going my way. I feel an intensifying of the watched feeling as I mention Naruto's name, and make a decision...