REVISED CHAPTER.
A/N: I actually enjoyed rewriting this one and knocking us down a few notches. There have been some significant changes in how Mirani and Ilki function to make them less Mary-Sue-ish. I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer/Claimer: I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own the characters Mirani and Ilki, as they have previously been copyrighted to me by a friend who borrowed them for her privately published book. So yay, I own something!
Glossary at end of the chappie.
There were multiple training grounds in Konoha, but only one looked like a giant porcupine. After some weapon shopping, Ilki had dragged her friend to one of the many training grounds. They had rented one for the rest of the day, which, all things considered, was not a very long time. After their ramen escapade and the bench episode, they had spent a good hour debating on weapons before they had finally reached the grounds. The sun was sinking low in the sky, but she had insisted on practicing her aim.
Mirani had barely escaped getting cut up as kunai and shuriken went everywhere, except the unharmed dummy in the middle of the training ground. Glaring at her friend, she came stomping up to her and snatched the remaining weapons from her hand, throwing them a safe distance away without harming anyone.
"Are you crazy?" she snapped.
"It all looked so easy on TV..." Ilki frowned, studying the mass destruction she had created.
"Do you remember the bunshin you tried to create earlier? And how bad it came out?"
"But that involved chakra...I figured weapons wouldn't be so bad..." She looked down sheepishly. "I wish my horrible aim hadn't carried over with me."
Her friend snorted in a very unladylike way. "Please. I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Now help me clean these up."
It took them the better half of an hour to collect the weapons strewn about, and even then they were missing some. As it got later, though, they lost interest in hunting through the woods for weapons that blended in with the shadows.
"So what should we do?" Ilki asked as she flopped down onto the ground.
"Lets focus on finding out what chakra feels like. Then we'll worry about molding it."
Sighing, she formed a hand sign and closed her eyes. Focusing deep down, she tried to find whatever large mass of chakra the Hokage had sensed. After a few minutes, she felt a tingling, warm sensation, as if she had just come out of the cold to a campfire. Whatever it was, it tickled pleasantly the more she focused on it.
"Ilki...you're surrounded by this growing...darkness." Her friend's voice cut her concentration, and the sensation went away.
"If that's chakra, I like it," she said with a shrug as she opened her eyes. Then, rather bluntly, she continued with, "You're glowing."
Looking down at her hand, Mirani frowned. "Chakra is weird."
"Do you remember any jutsu for us?" She was curious, she wanted to be able to do something if she could not throw anything.
"Kind of. Most only involved simple hand signs 'cause I didn't wanna make anything complicated, but I couldn't tell you how much chakra you would need to put in it."
"Nothing like trial and error." She stood and cracked her knuckles. "Lay 'em on me."
Mirani crossed her arms. "Bad idea. Too much chakra and the jutsu will explode, too little and nothing will happen."
"I want to try one!"
"Are you sure you're not secretly twelve?" She ducked a punch. "What? You have the attitude of one sometimes."
"You gonna teach me or not?" Ilki scowled. "Just one or two."
"Fine, we'll see how this works." She thought for a moment. "I think, tomorrow, we should buy some scrolls or something. I would like to write all the jutsu out so we don't forget, and we can work on them."
"Great idea, but less talky, more teachy now."
"I'm going to teach you what should be your signature move." Mirani went through the hand signs. "It's called Kage Ridatsu."
Pulling on that tingling sensation she had found, she mirrored the seals. "Kage Ridatsu!"
At first, she felt nothing. Then, glancing down, she found that her shadow had moved away from her, partially. One foot was free, and the shadow seemed to be struggling to get away. It hissed at her, and she released the jutsu.
"The more chakra you put into it, the farther it can go," her friend explained, tapping her chin in thought. "It's uses are simple: attack the enemy's shadow, and whatever damage it does to the shadow will be transferred to the actual person. Unfortunately, it works backwards, too. If someone hurts your shadow, it'll hurt you."
"What are you going to learn?" she asked, before performing the jutsu again. "Kage Ridatsu!"
"Hoshiboshiton: Taiyoukei Hakkei." She formed her own seals. "This being parallel to the other world we...traveled to, I would say there would still be nine planets, plus the sun. And that means I'm considering the dwarf planet a regular planet. Each planet is unique, and I can unleash it in the form of a quick attack. But it's incredibly draining to do all of them."
"So let me get this straight." She watched as her shadow made it farther away from her. "You basically get ten jutsu right there, and you're teaching me one."
"You have taijutsu." At Ilki's confused look, she sighed. "Remember all those kick-boxing classes I dragged you to? Consider it a form. Once you learn how to channel chakra, you'll be confusing people with the weirdness. And tomorrow, we can go to the library and check out some books on what we need to learn."
"I guess." She sighed dramatically. "Can you at least give me one other jutsu to practice?"
"Les sigh. Offensive or defensive?"
"Hmmm. With Kage Ridatsu offensive, let's go with defensive."
Nodding, she dispelled her Taiyoukei Hakkei and did different seals. "This one is Kage Sanran. You disperse into pure shadow and retreat into whatever shadows there are. Good for avoiding attacks or moving from one hiding spot to another."
"Kage Sanran!"
Part of her arm disappeared, and she screamed. Dispelling the jutsu as fast as she could, she found her arm back in place and nothing wrong. With a sigh of relief, she glared at Mirani.
"What are the downsides to this one?" she grumbled.
"Bright light affects how well you can regroup. If that happens, you have to find a big enough shadow to hide in so you can siphon what you need off of that shadow to recreate whatever got destroyed by the light."
"Oh joy."
"Yep. Taiyoukei Hakkei: Suisei!"
A rather pathetic-looking tornado appeared in front of her, fizzling when it moved away from her. She frowned and tried again as Ilki attempted the Kage Ridatsu again, and this time a stronger tornado appeared. As it spun away from her, the pile of weapons they had collected started to shake, and a few of the lighter ones flew at the now-magnetic tornado.
Later, after it was finally dark, the girls had sort of started to get better at their jutsu. It was not as strong as it could be, but Ilki was quite happy with her progress. As they walked back to their apartment, she pondered how much they would have to practice before they would be better kunoichi. 'If I'm going to die, I mind as well become as awesome as I can beforehand,' she thought with a half smile.
–
The morning sun streamed into Mirani's room, warming her room and making her quite reluctant to move. She added exhaustion to the list of reasons why she should not get up, seeing as the moment she moved to turn over, her body hurt. 'But I didn't even do taijutsu or weapons,' she thought drowsily. 'And I didn't think I exhausted my chakra reserves that much.'
Her thoughts of sleeping again were interrupted as her door practically flew open to Ilki's kick. Groaning, she turned away from the girl who would drag her to another training ground, waste money, and probably make something explode.
"I had an epiphany in the middle of the night!" her friend said with her tone cheery. "I was playing with chakra 'cause I couldn't sleep, and I found how to focus it to my hands and feet. Let's go climb some trees!"
"Ilki..." Glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand, she saw the time and groaned. "It's SEVEN in the MORNING. If there's no school, I don't get up for at least another six hours."
"Don't you want to become a powerful kunoichi?" She was bouncing up and down, bursting with energy.
"...if I give you money for ramen, will you leave me alone for at least another hour?"
"...maybe..."
A few seconds later, Mirani once again had peace and quiet for her snoozing. But ten minutes into her blissful slumber, she was rudely awakened by someone knocking on her door. Mumbling obscenities at whoever dared to wake her up – if it's Ilki, I'm gonna punch her into next week – she dragged herself to the front door and pulled it open with such force that she visibly flinched in pain.
"Good morning."
Iruka stood at her door innocently, as if all normal people were up and awake at that time of the morning. 'They are,' some part of her mind reminded her. 'You're just not a morning person.' He was holding papers in his hands, papers that he gave her after she glared at the offending door that had caused her arm pain.
"Hokage-sama asked me to deliver the papers you and your friend will need to fill out in order to attend the academy," he said. "Attendance today is not mandatory, but starting tomorrow, it will start going on record."
"What time does it start?" she asked absentmindedly, flipping through the papers.
"Classes start at 7.30 in the morning, with a break at noon, and ending at four in the afternoon."
Nodding her thanks, she took the papers inside and closed the door. Making herself a cup of coffee from the groceries that had magically been in the apartment before they had gotten there, she sat down at the kitchen table and pondered over the papers. Most of the ones that required guardian signatures had been signed by the Hokage. The only papers they had to sign were waivers, acknowledgments that they were entering a school that taught how to kill, and that they accepted the consequences that would come if they needed to be disciplined.
The last paper they had to sign piqued her interest, and she read over it carefully as she sipped her coffee. It laid out the admission guidelines. First, you must love the village and hope to preserve peace and prosperity. Second, you must have a mind that will not yield, able to endure hard training and work. Lastly, be healthy in mind and body. If the above conditions are met, admission to the Academy will be granted. Frowning, she studied them again. Of course she loved the village, and she wanted to preserve peace, however hard that would be in the shinobi world. She had a healthy body and, despite how deep it was in the gutter, her mind was relatively healthy, too.
It was the second guideline that got her. She was lazy, but she would endure once she got the stamina – but she was more worried about a mind that would not yield. Just because it was healthy did not mean she knew it would not yield. The future was haunting her, and she wondered just how far her mind would yield then. 'Can I rightfully agree to this with the knowledge that I have?' she wondered, her pen hovering over the signature line. 'I want to...I can try for as long as the outline lets me...'
A sudden bam shook her out of her thoughts as Ilki came bouncing through the door. Taking one look at all the paperwork on the table, the girl turned to run out of the house. Even though she had turned, Mirani's glare was irritated enough that she backpedaled and sat down at the table.
"These are for you to sign," Mirani said as she pushed several papers over. "The last one is the requirements for admission into the Academy."
"Blegh, paperwork is the devil." She signed them carelessly, then passed them back. "When are we going to the Academy?"
"Well..." She glanced at the clock. "It starts in seven minutes. But Iruka said we didn't have to show up today. And did you even look at the last one?"
"Yes, and I wholeheartedly agree with all of them." She stood and stretched. "You should get changed. I wanna go to the Academy and learn."
Mirani froze. "You...want to learn?"
Her friend shrugged, and she looked out the window to make sure the apocalypse had not just come.
"Hurry up. I don't wanna be late, and the Academy is pretty much a five minute walk from here."
Dressing quickly, she joined her impatient and hyper friend outside to "fast-walk" to the Academy. It was then that the pain from yesterday's training hit her full force, and she growled.
"Ilki...I'm going to kill you later."
Glossary:
Mirani's Jutsu:
Hoshiboshiton – Celestial Body Release [also could be called Star Release].
Taiyoukei Hakkei – Solar System Release, with "Hakkei" meaning to release internal power.
Suisei – the planet Mercury. The inspiration for the jutsu itself came from NASA's website, where it says, "The magnetic field in the solar wind episodically connects to Mercury's field, creating intense magnetic tornadoes that funnel the fast, hot solar wind plasma down to the surface."
Ilki's Jutsu:
Kage Sanran – Shadow Dispersion [also could be scattering].
Kage Ridatsu – Shadow Separation.
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