Adrenaline began to shoot through Komura, her mind predicting what was about to happen. Now she began to struggle against Sanchin's hold and in her haste, dropped the flame, plunging the cellar into darkness.
Komura tried to scream out but with both hands now free, Sanchin clasped one around her throat, effectively ceasing any violent actions other than a panicked clawing at her hand. Carefully, she dragged her in this way to the wall where she knelt to get the first chain, her hand only leaving Komura's neck for a second to quickly seal the chain closed.
Komura leapt forward, trying to escape once her neck was freed, but the chain held well. Only when the second chain sealed over her other wrist did she slow and finally cease her escape attempts. Sanchin moved back to appraise her work, nodding at the confused state of the girl.
"Don't worry dear," she consoled as she relit the snuffed out candle, "if you are up to par then this will be over quickly and you can be on you merry way to sleep. If not then you know what you need to work on." Komura shook her head, unbelieving of her words that promised freedom. But then she thought, if she was up to par. She would have to be strong enough to take whatever would come, only then would her caretakers be satisfied.
If she wasn't powerful enough to do that though, she wouldn't be good enough. It's just a matter of training, the more you work, the more you get out of it. If she failed here then she would have to work harder, that's all. She wouldn't fail though, she couldn't. She refused to fail again, not after the last time, and the times before. If she couldn't have enough strength to do this, then she might as well give up on Akino.
She wouldn't be able to face him if she failed. It wasn't even designated that she would be able to find him in the first place. If nothing else, she would proceed, for Akino, for strength. With that last thought, the first kick came.
Sanchin arose from the depths of the house with a long-suffering sigh. She was honestly out of practice, especially in the stamina department. "How did it go?" Saifa questions as she renters the dining room.
"Better than I expected for her first trial, but she still could be better. I left her downstairs to rest for a little while. She'll definitely have bruises but will no doubt be stronger for them."
"I hope you didn't go too hard, we don't need her running off on us now." Saifa scolds, slightly worried for the child downstairs.
"Worry not, if she does, we'll just bring her back or kill her like the other one." Sanchin replies, brushing the topic away with a wave of her hand. "I'm just interested in what she does before bedtime personally. Occasionally there is the sound of movement, but otherwise the only indication of any restlessness is how she is still all sorts of awake when I go to tell her to sleep."
"It is quite intriguing, but I'm sure it's a trifling matter, probably just more training. What really bothers me is the demands from the market." Saifa mutters with a sigh.
"Are they being demanding again?" Sanchin questions. "Just because we turn out approximately one good Ninja a year doesn't mean that we need their petty money."
"But we do," Saifa denies, "In order to keep going we need it, and the portion of the bounty money from those ninja."
"How long do you think before she'll be called for her first mission?"
"As soon as we can get her out there and know that she'll come back. Start with simple chores for now to make sure that she is obedient and listens to commands, but start off slow like tonight. We don't want her scared off."
"Okay, I shall begin in two days to allow Hasuka to rest."
"Good, and goodnight Sanchin."
"Goodnight Saifa."
Groggily, Komura awoke from her dreamscape and into the world of the living. Trying to move proved painful however as the arm that was supposed to support her only fell limply at her side. Wiggling into a sitting position was even more painful, several audible gasps of pain filling the midnight scene.
She wasn't able to see very well in the dim light of the moon, so she traced her hands around, poking and prodding at areas to see which had been most attacked. Several winces later, she slowly made her way to stand up, pondering on what to do now. Mentally she felt sound, physically she was quite burned out.
Even still, she knew she couldn't fall back into sleep, so she was at a dilemma. It would be rude to awaken anyone in the house now, so leaving her room was out. Staring at the sky-orb, Komura made her decision. She hasn't been practicing it consistently, but she still forced herself to do a little of self-training after dinner on some nights.
Up in her room, she sat and breathed. In through the nose and out through the mouth until she felt at peace. If something was bothering her, she knew that any problem could be sorted out here. It was a logical place of deep thought and connection with the energy of the universe.
Greater lengths of time spent doing this yielded better results when she finally stood up to practice. A mirror stood proudly in the corner of the room, this one much too tall for Komura's present height but still suffice enough for her purposes. Looking at her reflection, she would pick a point of attack and mime hitting it.
The occasional slap of her palm again the mirror was the only indication of anything amiss to the outside world of her room. Then came the harder part though, because no that she knew where the point lay on an opponent about her size, she retreated from the vision of the mirror and onto the open space of her floor.
Still standing, she would attempt to hit the imaginary spot without the sight of the mirror. Tonight the very idea sent a shiver through Komura's body who resisted even the smallest movement. Instead, tonight she would experiment.
Most nights her energy-usage was spent moving it throughout her body, specifically focusing on her hand for the purpose of attack. Perhaps instead, her course of action could be using the energy in a way to help herself. Her chakra went into the dexterity of her body against opposition, but what if she could do other things with it.
It wasn't necessarily a new idea for Komura. A handful of other times she had entertained the thought, but they were always shot down by her need to be stronger in the eyes of her tutor and caretakers. There was a sneaking suspicion in her head that said that they would not be quite as enthusiastic with this skill as with others, so she saved the idea for when time was not of the essence.
Those criteria seemed to fit this situation pretty well. Her body protested any movement that wasn't doing nothing, so perhaps something could be done about that. The bed seemed too far away so Komura settled for slipping down onto the ground in measurable silence.
Using the same idea for other training, Komura focused her attention on her hand and leg. This particular bruise was located on the side of her small kneecap, so Komura put her hand there. For a time, she sat in silence just focusing on trying to put energy into the location slowly.
She stopped this endeavor when the hand was drawn aside to only reveal the bruise unchanged. "Hmph," she muttered, trying to think of a different solution. Wasn't it Sanchin who had told her that there was always more than one road to take? Yes, she thought that she remembered that.
The obvious answer would be to see if drawing out the energy would work better, but she had no idea on how to do that. Conceptually, she would have to have a deeper connection with the energy to draw it out of an area, but then she thought. The body has a way of dealing with disruptions to chakra when being hit on pressure points, if given enough time.
What if bruises are a similar ordeal? The energy is all concentrated into a singular area that takes time to disperse and realign itself throughout the body. Perhaps she could speed up the process of dispersion then. But how? Adding more would be a futile effort that only defeats the purpose, subtracting the energy would be ideal but theoretically could go very wrong in many ways.
Komura breathed, in through the nose, out through the mouth, with eyes closed. Her problem slowly faded away and without warning, she was once again asleep.
Much of the second half of her sleep that night was dreamless, however there was one part that she would remember for weeks afterwards. She knew not what she wore, what she looked like, even if she was herself, but there was one aspect that made her think that she was. Sitting in a lush, green, forest, she wandered.
Komura had no power over where she walked, which route she took, or any other aspect of the dream. At her resting place though, was a small, fluffy, raccoon. He seemed almost to be waiting for her in that clearing, and dream-Komura's face lit up in joy. In all of the events having transpired barely a thought had been spared for her friend, not she could have visited him anyway.
Dream-Komura sat next to him as he leapt into her lap, quite happy to see her after all this time. Rubbing his soft hair, she laughed with all of the licks peppering her face. When he went to speak, unlike in the real world, she could understand him.
"Where have you been?" Garoma questions, "You led time all alone." Komura releases a sigh, preparing to explain herself but Garoma interrupts. "Nevermind, I don't care. How has your training been going?"
A smile comes to her face as she explains how she's being trained, by a tutor and his style of passing on his knowledge. If she had the ability to read faces, she would almost say that Garoma's face looked sad, disappointed even.
"Komura," he interjects, "let me teach you. All animals know their own form of the life source you call energy. Humans, it seems, do not know enough to give you a proper insight."
She blinks for a moment, not quite believing what she had heard. "So getting stronger in this way is a waste of time?"
"I did not say that. It's true that they can teach you much about their style of fighting; you are all animals too. However, I can teach you about the energy side, they can teach you the uh, chakra, side I suppose.
Komura tilts her head, not understanding. "There is a difference?"
"Sort of, how can I explain this, um...It's kind of like one is created from the other, if that makes sense. Energy is the life force of all living things, it's what makes them living, chakra takes a small bit of that energy and combines it with the force of will and a kind of spiritual energy I suppose, to do the amazing acts that you see."
"Ohhh okay," Komura nods, finally understanding the difference.
"One more thing, all of the ninjutsu that you've seen are possible with just the use of energy, it simply requires a greater amount of energy to get it done than this chakra would absorb."
"Okay," Komura nods, showing her understanding. "How will you teach me though? I cannot leave my location."
"Don't worry Komura, learning mistakes in a dream is far better than learning them in the real world."
Merry Christmas ;)