Private Tutor

Jirou understood Akemi's logic. Had he been in her position, he would have likely done the same. If he was completely honest with himself, he probably would have kept it indoors, in a gym room or something, to prevent anything hitting a random person strolling down the road. That happened enough with his brother who's kendo training had caused his mother more pot fragment-induced cuts than was humanely possible. And yet Asami kept her positive outlook on life, shrugging off any injuries with a smile on her face. But he was getting sidetracked.
"Right. Keep your guard up and hope you don't find yourself on the opposing side with a genjutsu master. Got it." He said with a slight hint of sarcasm at the end of his sentence. A ninja must beat any foe regardless of who or what they are.

The mentioning of what his training was mostly going to consist of made him look at her with a quizzical expression until she clarified what the subjects were. So he was going to learn how to mold chakra. Taijutsu also sounded like something he would require. He had seen his father training by himself in their home, deflecting his brother's kendo sword with his fingers and shattering a training dummy once with a kick which, now that he thought about it, seemed to be infused with chakra at the time.
"I imagine tiring me out will be part of my training in order to determine how long I can last to begin with?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

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"Oh goodness no. That'll reveal itself in time anyways. I still have things to explain to you, though while I explain it, you could start doing some stretches, you wouldn't want to pull a muscle once we have gotten started." She would say in a kind voice.

There they were in the training grounds. Vast open spaces of green grass and lots of trees. Akemi would start to stretch as she stretched she would explain. "I'm sure you know this, but chakra being the huge fundamental part of what make's ninjas, ninjas is something that is intertwined tightly with your very being. Your chakra system are a multitude of pathways through goes throughout every single part of your body, so tightly that normally if any damage occurs to them, damage occurs to your body as well. It's highly important that you don't drain yourself, because just like your blood, your chakra also helps keep your body alive and without it, we'd perish."

she would continue to stretch and keep explaining. "Chakra is created through physical, and mental means. The more we train such things, the bigger our chakra reserves get. Physical is rather self-explanatory as that involves things such as exercising, training, eating right and so on. Mental involves things that work your brain, reading, learning, math, science, even creative things can further help such as art."

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Jirou was inclined to agree with Akemi's idea of stretching, beginning it with cracking of his neck, fingers and even his toes before beginning to stretch his legs, extending one of them to it's absolute fullest while putting lots of his weight on the other before making the legs switch places. He did this as Akemi explained the chakra system and how it was bound in the organs of his body.
As she finished her explanation of increasing one's chakra reserves, he felt like he had to ask something.
"What if one of your organs is damaged and to keep the chakra flowing in that area would be detrimental to your health? Is there a way to halt the flow of chakra to specific parts of your body?" He asked as he laid down and took one of his legs in his hands and pulled it back towards his head as far as he could without causing pain or discomfort.

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Akemi would stop stretching just for a moment and took thought into what he ask. Then she went back to stretching. "You will have to consciously be aware about it, but thankfully your chakra will never be detrimental to you if it was just regular injury. It works much like your blood vessels, but at the same time. while you'll keep bleeding out if your blood vessels are cut, you won't exactly 'bleed out' chakra if part of your chakra veins are cut. The chakra would simply just find another way around. The only time chakra wouldn't reach parts of the body would be if your tenketsu's, you're chakra points were shut down."

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Jirou stopped his stretching and looked at Akemi quizzically - something he seems to have done a fair bit of today.
"What do you mean, shut down?" He then shuddered slightly from a breeze he felt.
"You mean like, permanently? How would that affect my chakra usage?" He then began to do star jumps for a bit - he was feeling loose enough already, but some extra wouldn't hurt. He was also feeling giddy - any moment now he would be learning how to mold chakra. Maybe even learn how to use it in a jutsu! He felt like he was going to blow up from the sheer excitement!

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Akemi would finish her stretching as she would look at Jirou. "Shutting down, the act in which the power is turned off. If your chakra points are shut down it means they cannot be used. So it would depend on how many of your points are shut down, but if all of them are shut down, well that would induce death, but it would also vary on which of your chakra points are shut off. For instance if the chakra points in your arms were shut off them you wouldn't be able to send chakra in that place, plus your arm would feel dead as well since your chakra system is tied in with your body the act of shutting down chakra points would also in turn shut down your body as well, but on the off chance you still live, then it would just mean you wouldn't be able to pass chakra through those points."

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Jirou shuddered as he considered the possibility that he would have any of his chakra points shut down. The way she made it sound implied that it would be either hard to turn them back on or straight up impossible. He prayed that he would not face an opponent who would use such techniques that could shut them down. Such an injury could easily cost him his life.

In the end however, a ninja must face whoever he must. If he had to face such a ninja, then he would. For now, Jirou had training to do. Speaking of which, he finished his stretching by doing a single backflip. Akemi's reaction would likely be one of three: Disapproval, "What-A-Showoff" or "The heck?". Neither of them sounded nice in the head of the Kyuuzaki lad, but he had heard from his father that the move would help him loosen up his back by doing a backflip and then a squat in quick succession. Unfortunately for Jirou's father Hideo, he didn't exactly have the flexibility and balance to do such a thing reliably yet, so Jirou simply did a single backflip.

"Alright, what shall we do now, sensei?" He asked, prepared for anything his teacher had in mind.

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Akemi's reaction to Jirou's reaction was that she didn't react to it at all. She just watched him do it and then answered his question. "Well we can start with a bit of cardio to get the blood pumping and then do some ninjutsu training for a bit. Work on a little bit of basics of it and then finish the day with taijutsu."

She would bring her hands in a single hand sign, the rat hand sign, together and looked ahead. "Earth release." she said softly. "Marker technique." After this a thin pillar rose up made of stone in front of her and then further away, about 100 yards away. "I want you to run from this marker to that marker and back. For a nice little starter I want you to do that about 25 times. Running from here to there and back would count as one."

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Jirou nodded. A good little run would do him good. And at a healthy jog that should leave him with plenty of energy for whatever else lay ahead for today. He did a few hops in place next to the pillar that Akemi had made before starting to jog at a healthy speed, making his heartrate quickly speed up as he tagged each pillar, running in an infinity loop pattern around them. By the time he was done his heart was going at about 110 beats per minute, forcing him to place his hands on his knees and take a few deep breaths before he looked at Akemi. "What next *huff* sensei?" He huffed before letting his hands fall limp to his sides as he stood straight up once more.

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Akemi watched as Jirou did as he was told and when he was done, she nodded her head. "Alright! Up next, we're going to work on your balance while you are practicing your hand seals." She'd form a hand seal and then say "Earth release, rising pillars." a few feet away from them eight pillars began to rise. They came out parallel to each other so four on either side. The first two came out about a foot of the ground, the next two came out a little bit higher and so on and so forth until the last two were a significant height off the ground. They were spaced out enough that you can step easily to them and rose up like stairs. This was a common exercise for those studying ninjutsu to practice up their balance. They would rise up and down these wobbly pillars working on their footing going up and down, up and down. "You do know your hand seals? Its okay if you don't."

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Other than the Dragon seal, he didn't know any others. He hadn't read that far into his father's scroll of ninjutsu techniques. "Not really, no. Other than the Dragon seal, that is." Jirou stated. He found no shame in admitting this. He was new to all this after all. He'd practice and in time he would master these things.
He took a step on the first pillar while listening to the response Akemi was giving him. Thankfully it wasn't too hard for him to balance on the pillar, so he could direct most of his attention to Akemi, to the point of him looking at his sensei as she explained what the other seals looked like.
He doubted the pillars would stay this stable for long though. While his sense of balance was good if he thought so himself, it wasn't THAT good. He was certain it would get more difficult as time went by.

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The Pillars were designed to wobble if you stood on them incorrectly, so Jirou would need to take caution in his steps. Akemi would nod her head in his response. "Very well, so you only know the dragon seal huh, well other than that seal, there are eleven other hand seals." would bring her hands up and together as she'd perform each of the hand seals to show him. "Dragon aside, we have Monkey..." she'd give time in between each of her words to make sure Jirou saw the hand seals and was able to recognize it before she moved to the next one. "Rat, Bird, Snake, Ox, Dog, Horse, Tiger, Boar, Ram and finally Hare." After showing each on to him she'd add on. "These are the twelve universal hand signs we shinobi's use to perform our techniques. It helps us hone out chakra within and mold it into whatever we desire. There is a near infinite combination of hand seals for all sorts of techniques, each day, new and new techniques can be made with various combination of these hand seals. On top of that, there may be some other kinds of special hand seals that can be used as well, but those are for very unique techniques."

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Jirou found it tremendously difficult to keep his balance while keeping his attention on Akemi-sensei, so he decided to hop off and focus fully on Akemi's description of the hand signs he would be using for the rest of his life. He made a mental note to write the signs down later, maybe with pictures to further ease his training in the future. He mimicked her motions and apart from the Hare, Snake and the Boar, he found himself quickly learning the proper motions as they were pressed straight to his muscle memory. It was sort of slow, but he would learn how to do them quickly as time went on.

Now, to try the pillars once more...
He took a cautious step and wobbled the pillar a bit with his leg to see how much it would sway from side to side. It seemed stable enough for now. Putting his other leg on it, he found himself quickly regretting that decision as he started to panic as the pillar began to wobble far more than it did before. For all his sense of balance that he bragged to himself about earlier, he found his match in this training exercise. He quickly hopped up to the next one, which wobbled even more as he flailed his arms around in an effort to keep his balance. He hopped onwards, each one proving more challenging than the last, until he eventually couldn't hop onwards and the student fell down, straight on his chest. "Ow ow ow ow...!" He groaned as he clutched it, having fallen down on it with a fair bit of force. Regardless, he rose back up and looked at the pillars as if they insulted him. Worst of all, he hadn't even practiced his hand signs on them yet. He went and tried again, this time finding a bit more success as he grew accustomed to the way the pillars wobbled and swayed. First staying on the first pillar, he began practicing his hand signs, slowly getting the hang of it.

While he didn't make it past the 4th pillar, he felt very accomplished for his first session of training. And he only fell 3 times in total by the end of it.

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Akemi would watch him as he would first jump off and then take a moment to actually attempt to put the hand signs to memory. Akemi would then observe as Jirou would attempt the pillars once again and end up with rather....funny results. She did snicker a bit as he had fallen off, but smirked as she watched him get back up and try again.

"You're gonna have to practice long and hard till you can handle this. You need to be able to do multiple things as the same time, once you become a shinobi, mission's are going to be done upon all sorts of terrain and different elevation that may or may not even be stable. So keep on practicing a bit long and listen up."

she stated as she would walk a bit closer to the pillars, her eyes watching him. "Much like the academy students that actually go to the academy you will, under my tutelage, you will learn as much as they do, from the same five basic techniques they learn, and a bit extra. You will end up having to learn; bunshin no jutsu, Kawarimi no jutsu, Kakuremino no jutsu, Henge no jutsu, and the konoha shunshin no jutsu."

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Jirou listened as Akemi told him of how shinobi fight in various types of terrain, halting himself from stepping back onto the pillars as he did. Multitasking was going to be something he'd have to learn, that much was clear. The terrain thing was also something he knew already was sort of a given, the occupation of a ninja being as it was.

His eyes fought a bit to not travel down Akemi's chest as she told him of the various techniques he'd have to learn. "Can I see these jutsus as we cover each of them? Once you start to teach them to me, I mean." In his head, though, he was aware that he still wasn't ready. "I still need to learn how to mold chakra. Hopefully that will happen soon."

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Akemi would nod her head to what he asked. "Don't worry, I'll show you them as we go along, we still have quite a bit to go through before even tackling the techniques, you still need to properly learn about chakra and learn how to mold your chakra within yourself." she stated. "For now at the moment keep practicing your handsigns while going up and down these steps for another ten minutes and then we can move on to the next lesson."

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Jirou nodded and went back to balancing on the pillars while working on his handsigns for the next 10 minutes. He found that the more he did it, the easier it became and the faster he could do the signs. At first he had done one rotation of each handsign before moving to the next pillar, with each sign taking about 2 seconds. But as his confidence went up and his muscle memory began to imprint the handsigns into itself, he began doing several rotations with each pillar, managing to do 1 and a half signs per second when the time was up. Of course, he didn't know this, but simply kept at it until Akemi would tell him to move on to the next lesson.

Though despite all of that, he still couldn't get past the 4th pillar.

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once the ten minutes were up, Akemi would call him down from the pillars. "Alright, come on over here. Here comes the academic part of your lesson and right now we're going to talk about the chakra in your system."

She would guide him away from the pillars and over to a nearby stone bench, more than likely she made it, and she sat down. She then patted the space that was next to her urging for him to sit down. whenever Jirou would finally sit down Akemi would look at him and smile. "You got yourself a long and tiresome road ahead of your, Jirou. What we're doing today is only barely scratching the surface of the world you will experience in the future. Are you sure you want to continue down this road?" she asked him with a concerned tone.

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Jirou was caught offguard by the question Akemi had asked. How was one supposed to answer a question like that when it comes out of the blue like it did? Regardless, he thought long and hard about it. The legends of the ninjas and how they were capable of both great good and great evil. He tried to think about it from every possible angle, but the fact remained, that no matter what he chose, ninjas would be central figures in the world and the true strength of whatever country they belonged to.
He wanted to be part of that strength. To be one of the pillars that uphold the great village of Konoha.
A great part of it was also attributed to his sense of duty and expectations of his family. Like his father was the second son of his own father and so on, Jirou was the 2nd son of the Kyuuzaki family today. It was all down in his very name. All Kyuuzaki's families devoted their second son to the life of the shinobi and the way of the ninja. Ever since the clan's founding it was this way and the clan has prospered under this tradition. Jirou felt and took pride in the fact that he was born to the family as their second. He would not disappoint them.

"I do, sensei." He said, confidently and with a beaming smile.

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It was a good thing for her to ask him out of the blue like that. While he was taking his time to answer, Akemi was looking him over, reading his body language, looking into his expression to make sure he was absolutely serious about this. This isn't exactly something someone can do on a whim, it's a life long investment that cannot be half-assed, so she needed to make sure he was absolutely certain about this.

He finally gave his answer and there was a small pause as she stared at him. The moments would fly by before she would nod her head accepting that as his answer. "Very well then, let us continue your lesson." she stated as she looked out across the field. "Chakra is a vital source of life. It is within us all. There are those of us who cannot access our chakra, and there are those of us who can. Those of us that can access our chakra are the ones who end up becoming shinobis. It is so tightly bound to our very being that without chakra, we can die. Chakra is composed up of two elements." she stated as she looked over to Jirou. "There is Yin, the spiritual aspect, and Yang, the physical aspect. That is built within the body naturally, so as you learn and train more it will naturally increase over time. Yin and Yang is then combined within our bodies before it is released out to us as the chakra we use."

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Jirou felt like his pause was taken as a sign of hesitation. A part of him felt like he should have answered quicker and not think about it too hard.

But Akemi's words made him let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Yokatta..." He said, feeling like the whole world was lifted off his shoulders, his sensei's acceptance giving him a sense of relief he hadn't felt in ages. Then again, a lot has happened today. He might just still feel that relief in greater magnitudes later.

He was pulled from his reverie as Akemi began explaining the nature of chakra and how it forms into the useable form that ninjas are known to manipulate. He made notes as he listened. "Yin, spirit. Yang, body. Got it." He mumbled to himself, scribbling down the last words. He then noticed Akemi looking at him, let out a sheepish smile and put his notebook away. "Will you teach me now how to control this chakra, sensei?"

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"Of course, I will." she stated. "I wouldn't be a teacher if I didn't." she added as her eyes looked at him when he asked the question. She would then sit back on the bench of earth and gaze out towards the training area, looking over the ground seeing how lacking of grass it had. This was proof that a lot of people used this place for one reason or another. Other minor evidences here and there that also showed it, but all that is unimportant anyway, a light smile came to her face as she was proud of the thought of her student now training in the area where many others before him have trained to get to where they are today. She would finally continue her lesson.

"Once the raw elements are combined and chakra is created, then you are capable of performing your jutsus. From here, as I stated before, hand signs come in to help you with that. The path in which your chakra goes, how it is molded, and if necessary what element it changes into. All that is assisted through the usage of your hand signs, that's why it's so important for shinobi's to know them like they know how to breath. Without your hand signs it's near impossible to perform jutsu. While some are capable of performing techniques without hand signs, not everyone can do that. Not everyone is born the same and much like we come from different families, there are those that carry a kekkei genkai, a bloodline. To this I'm referring to such clans like the Uchiha, the Hyuuga are just an example of many, many clans out there with bloodline. While these two, thankfully, are sided with Konoha."

Jirou chuckled as Akemi replied, the humor in the situation being clear as day and after all the seriousness that was going on - on his part anyway, he didn't hear Akemi snickering when he fell down the pillars - he took the first opportunity he could to have a laugh. But all good things must come to an end eventually, as his smile faded, his mind once more focused on training. After all, he already knew a jutsu and only needed to know how to mold chakra, something which his sensei was about to teach.
Jirou took this information to heart, knowing it was going to be a matter of life and death in his life as a ninja, even more than a blade at his throat could be. But there was something he wanted to know.
"How will I know if I have enough chakra to use any jutsus? Is there some sort of way to gauge how much chakra I have available?" He asked, though there was a question he left unasked, one he would ask his father later. The legends of the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans were something he liked listening to when he was just a toddler. The possibility of his own clan having such a kekkei genkai... It somehow sent a feeling down his spine and he felt his heart pump extra loudly as a response. He clutched at his chest out of reflex.

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"That is a bit of a difficult question to answer. It's kind of a trial and error kind of thing. I can't just simply say you need to put in specific number of chakra as well...chakra doesn't exactly work that way. You kinda have to feel it and test it, it's why ninja's train every day and practice their own moves so they know ahead of time what to use, how much energy it wastes and how many times they can do it. It also varies as well because as you get stronger and you learn to control your chakra better, you may end up finding yourself spending less chakra than you did when you first learned the jutsu. So it's a trial and error kind of answer." Akemi gave him a smile and looked to him wondering if that was a good enough answer to sate his curiosity.

"So it's a matter of intuition and that chakra cannot be actually quantified. Alright, I think I understand. Thank you, sensei." Jirou said, happy that his question was answered, no matter if it wasn't as "question here, answer here" type of answer as he would have hoped. He would simply know if he had enough chakra for jutsus. That was good enough for him. But the question remained... Would he be able to use the False Surroundings Jutsu at all yet? Or would he have to become stronger in order to actually use it?

"I guess I will see eventually." He thought with finality.

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