Training Time

Well Mika had to star training, it was time for her to take a step towards dealing with this situation, thankfully she already knew what she needed to train, all that remained was training till she was able to do said Techniques. It was going to be hard, of that she had no doubt, but she was already hard at work as she found a sturdy tree, smiling as she placed a hand against it "The first step is always the hardest" she said as she took a pace back and widened her stance keeping one hand on the tree trunk as she made sure to measure out the distance, she knew this Training was going to be harder then the Training she was already used to, after all this would be far more Physical in nature then Academic, but that wasn't going to deter her.

Finally getting the distancing she took a deep breath and then let it out slowly as she closed her eyes, she needed to focus on the pace of her breathing, and slowly she pulled her hand back and she raised the other hand, her stance wide and stable, knees bent to allow her to react quickly if needed, as she remember being taught the basics, and also ready to shift to send out a kick if needed, one hand was tucked close to her body at the waist, the other hand held out so her hand was right along the mid line of her body ready to defend any incoming attack, now granted this stance wasn't meant for combat, it was meant to center ones self, and as she got her breathing under control she opened her eyes and looked at the tree her measure was on point, she knew where the tree was in relation to her. So in her mind she placed her target behind the tree, she wasn't meant to go around the tree.. she was meant to go THROUGH the tree, and with that Thought she lashed out with a hard right strait the echo of her fist hitting wood reverberating around her before she pulled the arm back and struck again.

The pace would be slow, it would be painful, she knew it would be, but she had to keep practicing till she reached her target, the Clan style was one that was very rarely ever used, so she would be able to use it if it came to it without worry, but she had to master it to make use of it, Her clan Focused on Escape not Combat so very few used the style, but those that did were quite powerful, and Mika found herself in a place where she needed to learn it, she really had no choice if she wanted to get anywhere with this assignment. Soon the echo of another strike could be hear as she continued the training, her fist striking the same place, she was making sure of that.

Once more, switch hand, strike, again. switch hands, strike, again, Switch. She continued to do this, Focusing only on punches for now, she knew the style could handle other types of strikes, but those would take a long time to learn to do reliably and she would need some battle experience to make the best use of her training, then she could train to strike with other limbs, likely further training when she gets the special equipment she remembered seeing at the Cloister, Ether way she lashed out again, and again, her pace steady, her strikes not losing strength, she couldn't do that or the training was pointless after all. As she trained, her mind wandered.

Back in the Cloister Training for combat was not prioritized, at lost not by many, Mika though well she wasn't the most skilled, she wasn't the most knowledgeable, she wasn't the fastest, the toughest, the best shot, she couldn't recite all the names of the Kage and Nobles they may have to deal with, she could never get all the routes down completely right when it came to memorizing them to know the fastest paths. What she was though was driven. Even young she strived to make up for her deficiencies. She wasn't the strongest? She started to lift more weights and took her time to make sure she spent a lot more time pushing by her limits to do so, She wasn't the fastest? she would train and train to get her speed up, to make her legs stronger. She wasn't the best at memorization? She would make little mental tricks that she would drill herself on, and on top of that drill herself on the normal information, she would spend days doing it, to the point of focusing on the training, she sometimes went a whole day without eating as she was busy training, a habit her family had to deal with and find a way to pull out of her focus.

As she continued to strike the tree, she remembered her first sparring match after all her training, she at the time wasn't considered the worst, but she wasn't considered near the top ether, combat again wasn't prioritized but it was still taught just in case, and when the spar started something made her partner look startled, she didn't know what it was, but she knew she should take advantage of that moment and so she did, she hadn't won of course, her sparring partner was a teacher after all, but she had given a good account of herself at least. As her fist struck the tree she could feel it give a little under her fist, not a lot, but it wasn't from her initial strike, it was the feeling she was instructed to look for.

With renewed vigor she continued to strike the tree, not slowing at all, and though she was inwardly excited her expression didn't change, she was to focused in on what she was doing to even notice the pain in her hands, she only continued to chase that feeling she had felt with that one strike, the steady pace slowly speeding up as she realized what might have caused it.it wasn't just Strength focused into each strike, it was speed as well, but why didn't they tell them at the Cloister? they only informed them of one component of the style.. Was it to see who would put the time in to learn it? Even if it wasn't the focus of the Clan? She thought about it as her strikes started to land faster on the tree.

She was so focused that she didn't even notice she was leaving red marks on the tree from where she broke skin with her repeated punches, she felt them sure, but she was more focused on getting the results she wanted, she wasn't just there for minutes, she was there for HOURS, punch after punch, slowly speeding up, adjusting the strength of the blow, every time she got a small feeling of that additional impact, that weird feeling of a small burst, she would focus in a bit more. it wasn't just going as fast and as strong as possible, she needed to match them at the same time, which was harder to do then one would think. But as she got better and better at it she could feel that small burst happen again and again.

The Burst Knuckle style, they didn't just give it to you at her Cloister, they gave you the starting point, it was up to you to pursue it, learning the basics of defending yourself was the main focus of the classes. As she thought of that, and the people that did use the style, they were all a little odd, did that mean she was odd? It was really hard to say honestly, but she felt the bursts happening more and more often, and she focused more and more to match her speed and strength to cause the Bursts, focusing as much as possible, and gradually it was happening, even as the sun was setting she was training, She could feel it, she was so close to getting it, each strike was causing small bursts, no where near where she had been told it would be, but it was now somewhat cushioning the impacts, letting her continue without doing more damage to her already rough hands from all her training. But she was almost there, so close to finding the proper balance in the strike strength and speed.

It was then her Father Found her, apparently it was nearly midnight, she had spent the whole day out training, training this one technique that most people would have trained for maybe a few hours at best and then called it a day, or trained something different, Not Mika, she was going to get this, she had the edge of the feeling, she could just about grasp it, even as she felt her Fathers hand on her shoulder she struck the tree once more. Even as he told her they should go home and she should eat and sleep, she struck the tree, and then when he finally noticed the blood stains on her hands and the Deep grooves Mika had beaten into the tree in just a day of training, and he let out a worried exclamation for her to stop and tried to pull her way, she managed to land one final strike on the tree.

Sweat was pouring down her body, blood was on her fists from the constant trauma, but as that last Strike landed, the tree buckled, the air quaked, and a Concussive burst blew a hole through the tree and the one behind it sending the trees flying from the burst and Mika's father stared at what just happened, as Mika herself fell to her knees, her focus now broken by the task being achieved the strain to her legs from holding her stance all day, the pain of the damage to her hands flooding into her brain, the cramps storming all over her body from the constant, endless action for the entirety of the day, it all hit her at once, and even through all that she managed to look at her father and smile "I... did....it..." she said as her father picked her up to take her home to tend to the wounds.

~

most people would take a day off, Mika wasn't most people, she had more to do, she had so much to make up for, but she also was aware that focusing on letting her hands heal was needed, they were heavily bandaged as she walked shakily into the training grounds, her legs were not as in as bad condition as her arms, but all her muscles were still screaming their exhaustion to her, a scream she ignored as she used this time instead to focus on the Chakra techniques she knew she would need, since her body wouldn't need to move to badly for those, so it should let her body recover at least enough so that she could continue to train some techniques from her clan.

Physical movement was required from her still, as she needed to set things up for the training, but she had come prepared, she had brought a lot of heavy rope with her, and she knew there were some large stones around here, and so she she slowly searched around and finally found one of those stones and began the slow process of tying up the stone with the rope in such a way that it wouldn't get free, she then started to slowly drag the captured stone towards a tree she had singled out for the training. The smile on her face grew as she looked up at the tree, this all would work together to train her use of chakra that would be needed for the Academy. The trick was she was going to be training this before she even went to classes, and then gauge everyone there and place herself near the bottom, enough to pass but not enough to stand out horribly, the less she stood out the better really, that also meant not using Blast knuckle till she got higher ranked, she would have to train other techniques she could use, but for now Training Blast Knuckle techniques would give her something she could fall back on in an emergency.

Regardless, to get the tied up Stone set up as a pendulum for her body replacement technique training, rather then climb up the tree and setting the rope around a sturdy branch the normal way, she decided she was going to use this time to train the Tree Climbing technique, granted she knew she would need a lot of rest each time, but she brought food with her this time, and her loss of chakra would force her to rest, but she was prepared to stay here till she got the stone set up, even if it meant she had to take it back down and head home right after.

And so she began, slowly focusing Chakra into her feet, and trying to go up the tree, she didn't rush it, she took it slow and careful, mostly due to her body still recovering from the day before. The recovery of her body seemed to actually be a help rather then a hinderance as taking it slow mad her concentrate more to get it right since she couldn't just brute force the training due to her limited supply and aching body, and it only took a few hours of trying, failing, resting, and trying again, to get the hang of the tree climbing Technique, the Replacement Jutsu was also surprisingly simple, it still took her a few hours, but once more due to her body being so sore she focused even more on getting the timing right so she wasn't getting smacked by the stone in the chest while it sung on the rope.

The Water Walking Technique... that one she took her time on though, a simple tub of water and once again she simply applied one foot and slowly built up the ability to keep one foot stable, before doing both, she would have loved to simply try to stand immediately, and see if it worked right off the bat, but her aching body told her no and once more forced her slow careful approached, but once more that worked in her favor if only because it also meant she was forced to take breaks to regain Chakra and to let her body rest a bit more.

it was getting dark by the time she finished the water walking technique, and while she wanted to keep going and finish the other two trainings she had planned, her father showed up to collect her, and while she likely would have made a break for it, and she did try to, she couldn't exactly move anywhere fast enough to get away, and her aching body wouldn't let her use any strength at all to try to wriggle free as the man lifted her up and carried her off tied in her own rope and scolding her for staying out so late again. that was how her second day of training ended.

~

Mika had been attending classes, which actually had helped a bit understand a few things, though a lot of it was useless to her, it was about possible advanced Chakra usage and the like, something she would never be able to do, so she came out to the training grounds after school, and she started to look though her academy book  for the stuff on the Clone Technique and the Transformation Technique. reading up on them they were simply an illusionary copy, the other one was making yourself look like something in the area, another person, a plant, a weapon, a lot of things, but it ate up a lot of Chakra to do, and she doubted she could hold such a thing long or make anything to detailed, but she was going to give it a go regardless.

The clone Technique was actually rather easy to do, it was just chakra making a false image, it didn't react with anything, but it acted like it was real as in could run around, but it made no sounds, left no tracks, likely it wouldn't be that good unless the people chasing were not paying attention, but she could make it look like it was using her techniques so that was handy. she tried it a few times to make sure she had a hang of it, before moving on to Transformation.

This technique was the one that took a great deal of time to do, trying to turn yourself into something else, something smaller then yourself that moved in different ways then you could was quite a challenge, she started with something simple though, a stone roughly her own size, it would be simple since it didn't require shrinking or anything, and she started to work on the Transformation. Changing into things and then into other things, it was rather interesting, she even changed into a guy she had met in the village a while ago. but she decided to test it by turning into a stone, and as people walked by she waited to see if they would notice her, she was of course doing this by finding someone and goign to where she thought they would pass by and then changing into a stone.

it was going quite well too they didn't seem to notice, however she hadn't taken into account that they were in a sour mood and the person in question kicked the stone that was Mika off the path sending her sailing into the bushes, she held the transformation just long enough for the person to get out of sight before she released it and lay there rubbing her poor hip "well... guess I was a convicting enough stone..." she mumbled.

She then began to work on the next Technique she heard about, it wasn't a blast knuckle technique, it was a simple Taijutsu technique that would allow her a means to engage in combat, it would be rather effective if she could get it to work, as far as she could tell it was just a running jump kick, but if she made it accurate enough, or used some means to distract an opponent it could prove quite effective, even as a simple distance closer to engage into hand to hand combat it could be useful mixed with her Burst knuckle style.

She moved over to a new Tree and set a face on it using a stone to carve out the features, eyes, mouth, nose, body, just things to know where she is aiming really, and her training began, unlike yesterday she wasn't as dead tired, but her body still groaned for her to stop, she pushed through though, she had a lot to make up for, the people in the Academy could use Jutsu, she couldn't utilize the same level of those, so she had to drive herself harder so that if came to it, she could at least pull out her training and use it to defend herself in a tough situation, on top of that, being more trained then one would expect could prove useful later on especially if the Chunin exams were anything like what they said they were in the Clans old records, passing would be required to get more access and thus more info.

So her body groaned as she would run and launch herself at the target, trying to make sure her attacks land on the face squarely, she was small but she was fast and strong, a hit like this could be a great way to open a fight and get the enemy on the back foot even if they were able to dodge it, she could quickly follow it up with other techniques now that she was closer, already thoughts of means to alter it using Burst Knuckle started to pop into her head, and she continued her near finatic like training, running jump kick, reset, jump kick, reset, longer run up, keep the leg ready till the last moment then kick out, changing ways she does things, change her approach angle, her attack angle, the way she kicks off the tree to gain distance, through the course of the training she even slipped off the tree or ended up missing so badly that she was getting some training on how to catch herself and recover.

It was going quite well and as she landed another strike like that she started to think of other ways she could use this technique, adapt it, change it with the use of the some the Burst knuckle Techniques, maybe even change or adjust her direction with it if she could some how, but that would all have to wait till she had trained a bit better and learned some techniques for the style, just using the base style would be quite handy, though thinking of things before hand did help her come up with possibilities that she could at least try.

As she continued the flying kicks she suddenly had an Idea and instead of kicking off the tree she ran up it and around it to launch herself at another tree using the same flying kick motion, this way she could just keep moving and if she set her target before leaping then she could continue the training while also reducing the reset time from just walking back to her starting point to do another running kick, it wasn't much move efficient but every little bit helped and soon she was doing a circuit around a few trees so she didn't have to reset her starting position each time.

Eventually though she ran out of Chakra and she had to return to the ground, panting a bit from the exertion, a smile formed on her face as she sat down and took out some food, and some water from the pack she brought with her, and she started eating the last of the food she brought with her, she had to wait for her Chakra to go back up, but in that time she should be able to keep training the way she had earlier with just running at the tree and kicking it, but rather then running up the tree she could kick off it and use the momentum to go at another... that would work actually.

Finishing off the simple sandwich she had and downing some water she stretched a bit, her body still aching from that one day of training"the academy is nice and all... but training alone seems the best way to get things done for me... she said to herself as she got to her feet and started the flying kick training once more. Though eventually she had to pack up and head back home, she could be having her father come out here every time to get her, besides, the aches and pains from her first day of excessive training was stopping her from really getting to far, and she knew it would get in the way of her training the Burst Knuckle techniques so she headed back home to rest till tomorrow.

~

The next day she arrived a smile on her face, the Classes at the Academy were okay, they seemed rather basic but she payed a lot of attention considering this was technically one of the reasons she was here in the first place, though it seemed even some of the other academy students seemed to find it boring, this somewhat lead to her being considered nerdy about paying such close attention, but at the same time she was taking everything in that she could, she would eventually have to make a report once her training had reached a certain point, not to mention that she would be living this life for a while as well so it was all going to help her build a foundation for that as well, so in the end it was all going to be useful to her, she just had to retain as much as possible and utilize it when it was time to do so.

Regardless this time she made sure to go deep into the training grounds so that she had plenty of room for what she was training next, one of the most basic of the Burst Knuckle Techniques, used to by time to escape or press an attack if escape is impossible, buying time was always something one could do, the more time things took greater the chance you may find a means to escape, and the greater the chance the enemy makes a mistake after all, so she was practicing the Concussive blows Technique, somewhat larger Concussive bursts she could use to disorient and stun an opponent if they managed to hit them enough times with the technique, she didn't doubt that something like this could buy her a great deal of time against opponents of around her skill level, but she doubted it would be of much help against a much stronger opponent, but any trick one could pull out against an enemy the better.

The attack was a simple application of the basics, though striking with a faster stronger punch to make a larger Concussive Burst was harder then she thought it would be since she already learned how to do the basic strikes, but it seemed it wasn't as simple as just increasing both equally, it seemed that for the basic Bursts they needed specific balance, but as she trained the new technique she could feel that it wasn't right, and so once more she started to slowly alter both, the good news was it wasn't as wide a variance as when she was trying to learn the base style since the base style was the starting point so she could build from there and it filled in a lot of the gaps at least.

But eventually she got the hang of it, unlike learning the base of the style it didn't require her to train her hand bloody and raw, it was a lot easier once she had a feel for how the base was, and she just needed to figure out the speed and strength needed to make the burst larger and stronger without it being pointless, while it was good to have an offensive option, a defensive one would be quite handy, and so she continued her training with that in mind and she already knew of a Technique to work in that direction.

To do this she set up the pendulum rock again to be her projectile then she set it in motion, the Cancel Bomb was designed to redirect or deflect an incoming projectile so there was going to be a lot of trying to stop the rock once more but at least this time she wouldn't be taking hits to the chest or face if she failed as she would allow herself the room to dodge. she already knew how to increase the size of the burst to the needed amount, the issue now was ranging and timing, how close was to close, how far would cause the burst to dissipate before the projectile was hit with it thus rendering the technique ineffective, these things needed to be figured out for the skill to even be remotely useful, and better to find that out in training alone then in a battle or a sparring match, besides she wasn't about to train this out in the open for people to see, she was going to keep these techniques and even the fighting style hidden till she absolutely needed them.

So her training continued with the Cancel Bomb, there was always the chance she wouldn't need this but at the same time better she know it and not need it, she would have to make more techniques for herself to use after this to make sure she could use those instead of the Burst Knuckle style so she could just keep these skill hidden. Till then the training continued, the stone came towards her and she would lash out and cause a burst, knocking it off course and she would shift her position to make sure she was in it's path again so she could do it all over again, it used the least amount of movement to get into a path again instead of her taking time for the pendulum to settle and starting again, so there was that.

She did however start to focus in once more as she continued to lash out at the stone to cancel it's momentum or deflect it off it's path so she could get the hang of the technique. As she continued her movements started to tighten up, her focus stayed on the swaying rock, and her breathing started to become more and more measured, as if keeping pace, and it seemed to help her push past where someone would likely be tired, even with the aches and pains she had she continued to keep the momentum up to keep the training going. and soon she was alternating which fist she was using, and if she missed the timing she was slipping away from the stone and setting herself up for another intercept to try the Technique once more, her mind slowly focusing totally on this task, getting the feel of distancing for the tech to work, for how to alter her stance for best way to launch the technique that would still leave her in a position to slip out of the way if she did in fact mistime it. more Ideas flowing into her mind on what to add to her repertoire of techniques she could use if she ever needed to even as she launched another attempt at the technique, failing, and rolling out of they way to get ready for the next pass to try again.

It was during one of these Deflections that she realized she sent it way off course as she made a sudden right hook rather then a jab and she had to reposition quickly, only barely making it in time, it did take her out of her focus though, but that helped in making her thing of another technique she should add to her list of skills, as it would make repositioning much easier. and so as it was getting darker she started to train in Rocket Blow as she had gotten the hang of Cancel bomb at leas she could tell she did as she did it somewhat improvised with that hook.

It was then that she started to train with punching at the air, and rather then bracing herself against the coming Pressure burst she would allow it to carry her it would suddenly send her in the opposite direction of her punch, the technique was a good way to make an attack and make some distance at the same time.. or so she thought till she tried it against a tree and it didn't do much to the tree, as she practiced she realized it was likely because she was losing a lot of energy from sending herself flying, energy that normally would be put into the strike cause she was bracing herself against the pushback leaving it no where to go but into the strike. It was an interesting Idea, but then how would attacking like this work?

She took a moment to try it as she was getting the hang of moving like this and it seemed to work out somewhat, her speed moving was enough to act as enough of a counter force it seemed, that her blows landed with the same amount of strength... now what about dynamic entry? She set the Stone Pendulum moving again and this time she was using the stone as the target, launching her flying kick at it, and using Rocket blow to changer her direction, but... what if she made a strike behind her before the kick connects? She thought to herself, it was something to look into later, she had other techniques to make sure she learned.

But with that dealt with and under her belt she packed it up and headed home for the day, she needed to think of a few things and her body was telling her it's complaints once more, but now at a volume far louder then she could ignore, at least not without something to wholly take her focus like the Clan fighting style had that first day, and trying to push herself past that limit would just cause her issues at the moment, she needed to have a way to make sure it would give her some progress and she just didn't have that assurance so rest was the better option of the ones available to her.

~

After a day of rest Mika felt a lot more energetic, it seemed her body was already fully healed, then again considering her means of training back at the Cloister she likely simply got used to pushing herself, but then again the means of pushing herself before were not nearly this intensive.. regardless she had to push herself, but today the training was gonna be different, she only had one more technique she needed to train, and it was one that she could use around people without giving herself away, at least somewhat, she was still going to be using it in the training grounds, that way if she is spotted she wouldn't look to out of place as she could just say she was watching other train.

The technique was simply one that would silence her steps, or at least quiet them down a bit, that would be quite handy for avoiding detection for both escape and ambush situations, granted before she headed out she had some chores to do, she got some groceries and rana  few errands for her parents, taking a note for a wood order to the people that dealt with that stuff, Dealing with classes, having to muck about with the students there that gave her a difficult time due to her focusing so much in class, taking notes, and asking questions, things that make one stand out as an overly studious type, she paid it no mind, she would listen and learn, and she would then scrape by at the bottom of the average range, that was the plan anyway.

After classes she decided to start her practice as she walked about making as little sound as possible, as she headed for the training grounds, her footfalls where very quiet and on the busy road no one noticed the small girls steps were missing, or at least they were not as pronounced, then she got to the Training grounds proper and she started to move through underbrush to look for other people training to see how close she could get, she wasn't trying to be found out, she was only going to get as close as she could before someone noticed some sort of sound from her, then she would head off and find a different group.

She was focused in this as well, she would actually go out of her way to make as little sound as possible, her light weight and already gentle footfalls mixed with her now actively making sure she was quiet was making her quite stealthy, and as she practiced she was also able to keep a decent speed up, she noted how fast she could move while keeping quite, and slowly she started to push that, trying to move faster while still staying as quite as possible, it was harder to do then she thought, but it would be another skill that would be quite handy, so training this was clearly going to be of use. During her time she managed to sneak near some groups of Academy students and Genin training, and she would watch them and move around them slowly and quietly, and only when one member of the groups started to notice some sound did she break off.

it was a delicate balance she wanted to train but didn't want to let people find out how skilled she was, nor get pulled into someone else's training since that would require her to preform poorly even though she seemed to be doing well in sneaking around, not to mention likely there was already some gossip of her... Well actually now she think about it she wasn't sure if there was any gossip about her, maybe she should find that out? But that would have to be after her training was done.

Now many would think that a whole day of simply sneaking close to people who where practicing would be boring, and for many people it would be, but to Mika and the nearly fanatic way she would focus on a task she was still as invested in it when it was getting close to late afternoon as she had when it was early morning, this was what she was here to perfect, at least as much as she could, she was making sure she didn't move a leaf unless she needed to, she didn't step on any dry sticks or twigs or especially crunchy looking leaf, the last one was the hard one... the sound of a crunchy leave was a rather good sound, but thankfully with her heavily focused state of mind she managed to avoid that pitfall on more then one occasion as she was sneaking around some groups, she even got a front row seat to what seemed to be a love triangle that was going on in one group, two guys and a girl... seemed the girl was rather abusive to one, and a total suck up to the other... talk about two faced, but Mika stayed quiet, even as one of the boys got decked by the girl and the other guy seemed to be turned off by the girl.

The little situation ended with both guys wanting nothing to do with the girl, well that was a surprise, she half expected the one guy to try to win her over, but the second guy actually talked him out of it by pointing out how badly the girl treated him. Eventually the two guys headed off having settled on dropping the Drama queen and just hanging out as friends with each other, while the girl seemed confused and angry that she was left with basically nothing. In the end the group ended up all walking away and soon Mika was off once more to see if she could sneak close to any other groups to train her silent movement, or at least near silent.

In the end she was happy with how she progressed and after some light stretches she headed home plans already in her head for a few techniques she could use that didn't rely on her Burst Knuckle style so she could save everything, maybe more like Dynamic Entry that she could later alter with Burst knuckle style techniques to change them up later and make them more versatile? Ether way after a few long days of training she was at least somewhat happy with her progress.

[TWC = 6,593]
training technique (words needed)
Burst Knuckle style (1,500)
Transformation Technique (250)
Clone Technique (250)
Tree climbing Technique (250)
Water Walking Technique (250)
body replacement technique (250)
Dynamic Entry (750)
Concussive blows (750)
Cancel Bomb (750)
Rocket Blow (750)
Stealth Bomber (750)
needed to train all = 6,500

Mika had headed out to deal with some errands, more simple things, she had to get some early morning groceries for supper that day to help out her mother, and deliver an order for some supplies for a project her father was working on, nothing that would delay her from getting to the Academy overly much. Getting the Groceries came first since she could grab those head home and then head to the Academy and drop off the Order request her father gave her on the way to classes, As she got to the Market she started to grab all the things needed, a small bag of rice, some meat for the meal, a bag of fresh veggies and one of fruit for dessert, nothing to fancy, and then she was on her way back home. During the trip she was thinking up a few things she could make into simple techniques she could use instead of her clan style, and as she got home she to drop off the groceries her mother gave her a package that arrived.

Opening the Package was the Siege Bomber, altered enough that it couldn't be identified as a Clan weapon of course, and delivered using a series of unattached groups so that it couldn't be traced back to the Clan, Mika smiled and took the gear with her to class as she would go training with them when she was done for the day, the compartment for the dust well hidden and if one didn't know it was there they wouldn't even know where to look or to even expect it, a very nice design really. to anyone else it would look like just a set of Gauntlets which for someone that sucked at Ninjutsu and Genjutsu and barely was any good at Taijutsu made a lot of sense for them to have something to make what little skill they had at least a bit more viable.

~

On her way to the Academy Mika dropped off the order with the suppliers her father used to get the things he needed to do his work, it was a quick stop at a few places, Lumber, stone, some metals, things needed to make and decorate the things her father made and sold, and then she was off to the Academy, a smile on her face as she waved to the shopkeepers and then the long winding path to the place of learning, it was quite a building and grounds, but she would need to take her time training other things once she was done, using the massive training grounds the Village had, thankfully it had such a thing and would make it easy to separate herself from the crowd even if it was crowded.

For now she simply enjoyed the classes best she could despite some bullies mocking her whenever the instructor had to leave for something, or during the breaks they got between classes, such things were to be expected though as she was struggling to use any of the basic jutsu the class was being taught, at least that's what she was showing to them anyway, she would flop them on purpose, miss a crucial hand sign, use the wrong one, things like that, she had already learned the needed ones to pass, now it was just a question of keeping up the charade of her not having learned them and only slowly improving with them.

The classes with Physical training was her favorite, it never got to the point of her overly pushing herself, but she had to act the part to make it seem like the only thing she had going for her was some stamina, and little to no skill in actual Taijutsu or Shurikenjutsu, easy enough really as she would trip while training, miss targets, things of that nature that in a group like this could easily be overlooked, and usually were so, it did help that she knew what she was doing with messing up, and how to look it convincing. But even in this class she was ridiculed by the other students about her lack of skills, something she acted like bothered her.

If anything in the beginning the hardest part in all of it was not getting focused and accidently pushing herself harder then she needed to, she didn't need any of this training really, as she was already past this point with her own private training, but as she had finished a few days of personal training she found it easier and easier to not focus in class at all, this leant even more to her seeming to lack skills, and only barely scraping by, which served her plenty for what she was trying to do. The only thing she needed to do now was to go train out on her own in the deep training grounds so that she could train freely and learn how to properly use her Clan style, and make a few Techniques for her to use so she wouldn't have to rely on it when it came to actual fights unless it was dire.

Lunch was simply her finding a place to eat alone and go over her plans for making some Techniques she could use, and she considered quite a few Ideas, though one relying heavily on feints and distractions would be best, the unneeded movements would weaken her blows yes but that would work in her favor in the end as it would mask her real strength, it would also be hard to predict so that was useful, with that Basic Idea in mind she had to construct how it would all work, the good news was it would also work with her current new equipment and she could just not activate the powder release and sparking mechanism when fighting and not using her clan style, or she could just not use them as well, but doing that for to long would cause suspicion so not using the special mechanics of the Siege Bomber was better.

As the classes for the day ended everyone was heading home or heading off to hang out, Mika, as usual headed for the training grounds instead, her new equipment with her as she had already well planned to make use of them and train with them as she trained her other techniques, the time it would take would be a while but she had a few things she could do to make it slightly easier, she could have a clone copy her movements and then see if the feints and distractions worked at least from a viewing perspective, it wouldn't hurt her at least so she could at least get a feeling for how to move better to make them work better though.

So with her Siege Bomber Equipped she started to train her Diversionary based Techniques, it was hard at first, moving to look like your striking with one side of your body, only to suddenly lash out with the other, it was weak as she assumed it would be, but what was the hardest part was making your body move in a way that made it look fully committed to one type of attack, and then changing it to attack a different direction or target entirely, the challenge of it was fun though, it would also work well in making her seem weaker then she was with the resulting loss of power in her strikes due to the odd moves she had to make to have the Techniques work correctly, The right and left strikes for instance caused her to toss her weight behind what was a total Feint meaning when she used the actually attack it was far weaker then she was, but as she watched her Clone preform the same techniques to see what could be improved, she could tell that it would be exceedingly hard to react, and worse yet, for the opponent at least, they could never tell if she was going to feint or really commit to the attack, so it would be quite the confusing means to fight.

With the Right side worked on she needed to move on to the left, if she only focused on one side it would become predictable after all, and so her training continued, moving the body against the actual direction she was going to attack from, and then suddenly lashing out with a limb that had less power behind it to land an attack, even as she learned to do it with one side, learning to do it with the other side wasn't any easier, in fact it was slightly harder due to having just trained to do the opposite, but a challenge was a challenge and this was also something she needed to learn anyway, there were other ones she thought up and they too would be hard to train, but it was all needed to hide her clan style as much as possible.

The best thing was as she did this training it was also good training for getting used to the Siege Bombers, the added weight of them took some getting used to, and as she trained she was able to slowly learn to compensate for that and work it into her movement better, and to make sure it didn't throw off her movements, and as she went through the motions she was getting better at using the extra weight to play into the swings, and she was able to gauge how much power and force she would have to put behind her swings to make it work with her Clan style.

With that figured out she continued to sway her body leaning into the fake attacks and then lashing out with the real ones, it was a slow process but it was one she had to deal with to make this all work out, and after some time she started to get the hang of things, at least with these attacks, she still needed to train the others she thought up  but that would take time, and at the moment she was starting to feel hungry. This time she hadn't brought anything to eat with her so she packed up her school things and headed back home for the time being, training was something she focused on yes but her body hitting her limit while on empty wasn't something she wanted to have to struggle with while training, if she had brought food with her she would have used that instead and then kept training but as it was she headed for home.

Once home she dropped her school supplies off and sat with the family, the talk was simple what did you do today, listening to what her little brother had learned in the classes he was taking, her father made good progress on the project he was hired to do, and the supplies reached him when he needed them, and her mother was doing well with her little simple and cheap home remedies, so they were doing okay as far as money was concerned, but more would always be somewhat helpful and while the costs for her to joint he academy was covered and the family was compensated for moving to the Village, Mika wanted to help them anyway, as a way of paying them back for being so kind and welcoming to her, they were really treating her just like family and she couldn't help but want to make sure they would be okay.

~

The next day she had to do more of the same, except she didn't need to run the errands and her mother had packed her some food for when she went training, that would be very helpful so she could push herself father this time. But first came getting to classes at the Academy, she was grabbing her things and out the door quickly enough, she could also take her time a bit more since she didn't have to go do any errands on the way. Class was the usual, the written stuff was slow and tedious, at least for the other students, Mika found it all interesting and took all the notes she could on how they taught things and what was being taught as well as the notes themselves that they were to go over, as well as some of the more advanced information they would tell the students such as Elements and the like. Now Mika's clan already knew about this stuff but this was about learning how they changed how they trained, and what they focused on and what was being trained, so a first had experience and account was always handy.

Physical Training was also more of the same, she held back as usual throwing off her aim at times allowing some hits so she wasn't getting worse, staying easily within barely average as she trained and went through class, again the only thing that she seemed okay in was her endurance and even then it was barely above average, while everything was basically barely average at best, though with all the training the rumors passing around about her were going on about it would make sense she was able to last at least this long, endurance being the only thing going for her could be a selling point to graduate her, since she was showing progress, slow progress but progress none the less.

As she finished classes she headed out once more to the training grounds going deep this time as she got into training by doing some basic jogging to get her some distance from everyone else, going deeper and deeper into the training grounds till she could barely hear anyone else training around her, then she went even further in till she was sure she was clear of anyone, with that she set her things down the job was enough to warm her up so she went right into practicing her new Techniques that she was planning, more feints and attacks from another angle, a aim for the Crotch changed suddenly into into a strike to the face, it was hard to do right but it wasn't going to be the hardest she would have to learn to do, a rush from a kick to a sudden drop and spin to take out the head, but the first one was sloppy and slow, she had to be faster, as she trained she got faster, more precise in the timing, that was important, the power wasn't that important, timing and execution that was key to these techniques she was making, they had to be fast and they had to be well timed to get the effect she wanted from them.

So as she was watching her Clone do the technique she altered things only slightly to make sure it was faster, and altering her balance to make it easier to do the technique, and then she started to use the technique against a tree to get the feel of the impact she was going to get out of it, that would help her set it up better and get ready to follow it up with another technique, it was quite important that she manage it as much as possible without a reactive target, it would no doubt feel different in actual combat or even in a spar but the more she trained the movements and the way the whole technique felt the easier she could react to things when it came time to use it in an actual fight.

After that she moved on to another Technique that was going to be quite a tough one to deal with training, she had to go from a high strike to a blow to the targets crotch, while not the most... respectable tactic, winning a fight could be life or death and she decided already that she would choose life, it would also make people consider her likely less skilled if she used such cheap tricks and that suited her fine, anything that would throw people off from her actual skills was always going to be good for her. The first try ended up with her on her ass though as she lost her balance, the change was one that threw off her balance, but she had to keep trying, these techniques where going to be her main way to hide her Clan style, so while weak they at least needed to have an actual use in combat.

As she trained the motion and critiqued herself using her clone, to watch the motion, she would try again, changing things like her weight distribution, her pacing, leg and arm placement to give the same feint with the same feel to it but also more easily transfer into the attack, and as she did so she could feel the drop in the power of the blow. It was another one of those things she was willing to sacrifice with these techniques, they didn't really line up with the Special equipment from her clan, but they could still make some use of them, but over all the equipment was meant for the Burst knuckle style, not these techniques she was making, but she could incorporate these techniques and use them to set up Burst Knuckle Techniques, so there was that at least.

Soon enough she was done with getting the technique as close to done as she could manage without a reactive target, and so she took a seat to have a small snack and plan out what else she needed to get done there were the techniques to throw enemies off as she attacked, she had a few of those, she had to make sure her training with the Siege Bombers was done so she could move well with then equipped, and then she had a couple of Techniques from the clans style to train so she wouldn't lag behind on that/ though truth be told she was quite a ways ahead on her Clans techniques and she had little to nothing for the coverup right now so she had to start prioritizing the cover up stuff, so she was going to focus more on those then anything else.

With her choice she got back up and started to train even further, she started with moving her body like she was getting ready for a flurry of blows, moving to line up, getting both arms ready and making ready to move in with the attacks to follow them up, and then she would flick out a weak useless strike to draw attention before suddenly shifting all her weight onto her other foot and leaning into an attack that snapped out suddenly with all the power she could muster behind it given the sudden change in weight distribution. the blow that landed was heavy, due to the sudden shift she actually didn't lose any power to it, and as she reviewed the motion with the help of a clone she seen it was still heavily off balance though, so she started to look for ways to improve it, and she would go through the new mission, then watch another demonstration by her clone, before she followed through again with new alterations.

The process repeated for a while, this one was harder to do then the others due to her suddenly shifting weight and momentum, but it's power was reasonable, and as she worked on it and seen her clone demonstrate it to her, without any physical reaction of course, it was all about the motion, she could see it all coming together, so she started to work on it all over again, chaning small things and repeating the motion till she felt she got it down, and then seeing her Clone do the motion so she could see if anything needed changing which she would then change and go back to working on getting the motion down again, it was slow work but it was required to make sure these would preform when it came time to actually use them.

After a time she sat back down and had another snack she started to realize she would need to make a few techniques that are meant to miss, to fail, at least so she could keep the ruse up better, at least she thought it was a good Idea till she took the time to think about it, she wouldn't need techniques to do that, she could just miss on purpose, hold back her strength, her speed, just hold back but make it look like she is really trying, that was best rather then over complicating things with to much over thinking, if you made it to practiced after all people might notice a pattern after all.

With her snack done she looked up at the setting sun, it was likely a good Idea to head out now, since she would take some time getting back due to how far she had headed out to train, and so she packed up and headed back for the night, doing a slow jog to cool her body down as she headed back, more Ideas going through her head as she considered other possibilities.

~

The next morning was one without classes, and so she could spend more time training then usual, first though she had breakfast with the family, a nice simple breakfast of some oatmeal with toast, and some hard cheese, her Parents still had work of course, and her brother was going to be helping her mother around the house, she was going to have to run some errands again before she could go training, just delivering some things for her father, and getting a few things for her mother, nothing major, and so she headed out to get the work done, the things she needed to deliver for her father in hand as she headed to the people that had ordered them.

The trip around to deliver the Crafts her father had made was uneventful, she met some people from the Academy, but due to her reputation she wasn't really asked to hang out, instead they simply teased her as she walked by carrying the things she needed to deliver. She ignored the jeers and simply continued on delivering the items to each customer as requested by her father via the most efficient route she knew of. Then she headed to the Market to get the things her mother needed.

This was the part that took the longest, as some of the things she was looking for, while not exactly rare or expensive, was something few people carried as many other alternatives existed, though her mother used the specific herb in question and didn't use any substitutions as she didn't know how it would react with the rest of the ingredients. But eventually Mika did find a shop that sold what she needed and she bought the amount her mother asked for, as well as a few extra things from them that were on the list her mother gave her. With that she headed back with all the supplies purchased and some groceries also bought and packed up.

When she got back home her mother had already packed up some food for her to take with her for her training and Mika smiled and thanked her as she helped put the things away that she had gotten for her before grabbing the packed up food and heading out to the training grounds. She had considered stopping on the way to check out some of the sites of the village, see things, get more used to the place, but all that could be done later. She might not have friends really at the moment, but she could still sight see when she wasn't training, maybe she could find some nice places to hand out to relax or something. After all there were many things in the city she hasn't seen yet.

So she headed to the Training grounds and started to look around, seemed it was rather quite this time around, but she didn't take that for granted and instead jogged deep into the training grounds once more, to ensure she wouldn't be spotted, she didn't want to have to deal with annoying questions after all, or even chance being found by some of the Bullies as she trained, she could beat them of course but that would basically ruin any chance she would have of selling herself as barely Average in Taijutsu, and if they found her she would have to lose and they likely wouldn't leave for a while which would ruin her training plans for the day, so deep into the training grounds she went, to make sure she was good and secluded for her training.

As she jogged she made sure to secure the Siege Bombers to her arms, they were well secured and she had even started to figure out that rather then having to mess with them to activate the powder dispenser and the striker, she could do a quick Kata to slip the catches, likely designed for quick changes to using them for the Burst Knuckle style, she could do the same to get the things to be 'safe' again so she had to practice those as well, she also looked them over as she jogged and realized they had several slots for more powder charges, and they could be opened and closed with certain Kata as well so she could have things loaded and not even have to touch them to change the Powder she would be using, she would have to practice all of those and see what shifted what opened and commit it to memory, though she would also need to get her hands on the powders, though currently she only had the basic powder, and that would do for now.

As she got to the location deep in the training area that she decided to use she set her things down and walked to a tree and nodded as she decided to use it to get things rolling, so she started to do repeated strikes on the tree using the Siege bombers to get used to them, she got used to them a little before but with the new information she had on them she wanted to learn the motions she would need to make them active and dormant, and to change Powder charges, and so as she was throwing punches to get used to their weight with Burst Knuckle, she then tried different sudden kata, almost looking like hand seals at times as she then would attack to see if that would make the gauntlets active, it was a lot of trial and error. After all she had to learn them and then commit them to memory, and then she would need to know how to do it more fluidly.

it was slow going but she was starting to get the hang of things, her blows coming in faster as she tried another movement to see if they would work that way, till eventually she stumbled upon the means to move to make the Gauntlets active, it was a motion no one would even consider to do normally when using them normally, and she watched her clone do the movement and seen it looked like she was doing if not a hand seal then some weird Kata before striking, and she smiled a bit, no wonder the explosions were seen as her Clans Kekkei Genkai, and so she started to try to figure out the motion that would render the gauntlets Dormant, and that would take some time, but at least she could find out without doing another strike, as she was sure to many explosions would cause people to some see what was going on.

As she went through motion after motion she felt a bit silly, but she then started to think about the motion needed to make them active, what if it was... no... they wouldn't would they? but.. the ones that tended to use the Burst Knuckle style to this extent were considered the 'strange ones' and so Mika took a deep breath as she started to wide grandiose arm movements as if she was some play actor trying to emote through a mask, this meant a lot of exaggerated motions and she could feel things shift inside the gauntlets and with a bit of trying she stopped and sighed. She should have known... but then again it was these motions that also made people think the style was their Clans Kekkei Genkai and threw them off the truth so there was that at least.. and the usual gauntlets and the like were much different looking then the ones she had so at least that wasn't going to be a problem.

With a few more motions she found the motions needed to change the powder dispenser used, to make the gauntlets safe or active, so it was all done there, next was to train, two of the techniques from the clans fighting style, but thinking about it wasn't it better if she used her time to train non-clan Techniques for now? she already had a fiar bit of the clans techniques trained so she needed to set things so she wasn't dependent on them and had a more usable set she could use in front of people, so it was likely better she trained other things instead?

She took some time to take a seat and started to consider that issue, looking back at her current skills she realized that yes she would need more non-clan techniques to use since she would need to use them much more often then her clan style. granted she would need her Clan style eventually but hopefully it wouldn't be any time soon as it would mean she was forced into a corner and ether discovered or in a situation where only enemies were in front of her and no allies were around to see her use the Clan style.

With a deep breath she decided to repeat the training of the techniques she already trained, to make sure she understood their movement, to make sure she had them engrained into her mind and body, it was going to be imperative that she use such things after all her cover was needed to be maintained for as long as possible, if she could go her whole career without being found out all the better, as they were not technically enemies to the villages her staying in the village and helping them as a ninja was fully possible since if she was never found out she could continue to give information to her Clan and her clan wasn't one to try to do anything stupid like attack the villages, the information gathered was defensive after all to try to keep as many of their people alive as possible, and to know of the political situation between the villages.

so with that in mind she continued to train the techniques she would use to hide her clan style, while also trying to memorize the motioned needed for the Siege Bombers so if it came to it she could move right into the attack at a moments notice, it wouldn't do to have a need to defend her life and then not be able to quickly get her gauntlets ready for use, moments could decide life and death in many situations where she made need to start fighting seriously after all, and she would need to be ready to use such tactics to keep herself alive. there was also the option that she could change clothing hair style and change the color of her hair to not look the same, and change her headband to look like she was from another village, or just as another courier from her clan, she would have to get the different uniforms ready for if she ever had to go into other lands for work, a disguise like that could be a life saver in a tough spot.

As her training continued, it started to get darker and darker as the sun got closer to setting, Looking over her food she decided that heading home for supper would be the best Idea, but once again that would mean she would have to leave now to get home in time to enjoy the food while it was still somewhat hot, and so she packed her things up and started to head out of the training grounds, it had been a good day of training, though she had to be careful heading out as she ended up stumbling upon some of the bullies from the Academy apparently looking for her, muttering about betting she would be out here trying to get better at her crappy skills.

Being quite she made her way around them and out of the Training area, it seemed going in deeper then she usually did had been a good Idea, though she had to wonder how long she was going to be bothered by those people, would this continue her entire time at the academy? Or should she just take the risk and beat the ever loving hell out of those guys? It was a hard decision to make really as long as the bullies were picking on her and she didn't do anything about it but avoid them, then likely the rumors of her being so bad would persist which would help her out in the long run.. but it meant they would look for her top bully her more likely ruining some times in which she wanted to train, as she likely couldn't avoid them all the time.

The other option was to deal with them, but then the rumors would be she took them all out alone, and while she knew none of them where that great at Taijutsu or anything else really, her taking out all five of them would defiantly turn heads to look at her more though it would mean she wouldn't have to deal with these possible disturbances, but it might make it much harder to get away with the barely average thing she had going. In the end as she got out of the training area proper and headed home she had to admit that leaving the bullies did more for her then dealing with them.

With that head headed home to enjoy a nice meal and get some rest.

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