CH_16

CH_16

"This is ridiculous... Ah, NO!"

Takuma said as he frowned hard enough to give himself a unibrow. And the moment he spoke, the leaf stuck between his eyes fell. He tried to grab it but ended up crushing the thin green leaf in his fist.

"Get a new one," Maruboshi said, his eyes closed as he sat in a cross-legged meditative pose.

Takuma groaned as he got up from the grass and sprinted from one edge of the clearing to the furthest opposite end to get a single leaf from a tree before sprinting back to Maruboshi.

Takuma had decided that the Leaf Concentration Practice was the worst thing to happen to him since he had found himself in this world. As it turned out, chakra control was a demanding skill to acquire and train— especially for a rookie as green as the leaf he was holding— and sticking a leaf to his forehead only using chakra was a frustrating way to gain experience in the skill.

And that was not including Maruboshi's hellish penalty of sprinting to and from the furthest tree in the clearing to get a new leaf every time the leaf fell off his forehead. If he thought Maruboshi's previous conditioning exercises were worse, the penalty had made the first week of chakra control training stuff from nightmares as the Takuma was literally sitting down for seconds between sprints to get a new leaf.

The reason? According to Maruboshi: "To give you the motivation to get better faster."

When Takuma heard the words, he thought they made sense, but it took an hour for him to want nothing more than to bash his teacher's face in and yell that he didn't need extra motivation. The morning session had become a dreadful time for Takuma, and every morning, he would spend some time in bed staring at the wall above, thinking about just not getting up to avoid what the day had in store for him.

"You need to release the tension in your mind and body, child," said Maruboshi, his eyes still closed.

"It doesn't help," Takuma scowled as he carefully placed the leaf on his forehead and kept it in place with his finger until he was sure his chakra was gripping it. His hand trembled as he removed his finger, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the leaf remained stuck on his forehead. But the next moment, the grip vanished, and the leaf fell. "See! Relaxing! Doesn't! Help!"

Maruboshi opened his eyes and watched Takuma stand up and run to and from the furthest tree. He spoke when Takuma returned, "Let me ask you this: Do you draw your chakra, or do you reign it in."

"What?" Takuma asked, his breathing weary from all the running. He didn't stick the leaf on his forehead and kept it hidden in his hand. He could use Maruboshi talking to him as a break.

"From my experience, there are two types of people. Those who have to draw their chakra as if pulling water from a well— and those who have to carefully adjust the dial on the tap to stop all the water from bursting out. Which one of these do you think you are?"

Takuma frowned in thought before answering. "The... The second kind. Adjusting the tap to stop the water," he said.

Chakra was made from the physical and spiritual energies inside a person's body. It couldn't be stored. The physical and spiritual energies were stored inside the body— but not chakra. When chakra was needed, the body would meld the two energies together and create chakra, which was then needed to be used within a time frame, after which it would dissipate, wasting the portion of two energies used in the process.

For Takuma, when his body produced chakra, it would be ready to rush out and be used. It was as if it was saying: 'Use me now, or I'm getting out of here.' He never had to pull, as Marubohi had described it, the pool of chakra he had created— it was always letting the correct amount out at just the right rate to make things work.

"Interesting. For me, it has always been pulling my chakra," said Maruboshi, "I have had many friends and acquaintances who describe chakra like you do. They summon their chakra differently than me, but there's one thing that both types do similarly."

"What is it?"

"Using imagery." Maruboshi raised his hands and showed Takuma his open palm. "There's a reason it is easier to summon chakra to hands than somewhere like the forehead, even though the latter is much closer to the heart."

Chakra was produced in the heart and later transported to its target destination through the chakra pathway system to be released through one of the three hundred and sixty-one tenketsu (chakra nodes). The farther the target tenketsu was from the heart, the more challenging it got to control the chakra. That was why controlling chakra in the tenketsu on the soles of the feat was a difficult task.

Takuma slowly stood up, and with his hands clenched, he gingerly moved his head side-by-side. The paper chip didn't fall. He threw a light nodding motion into the mix, and the grip held strong. Takuma grew bolder, and in one fell swoop, he shook his head as though the sickest death metal hooks were playing in his mind.

The paper chip stuck to his forehead as if it had been glued on.

Takuma threw his hand up with a "wooh!" No more running, he thought, feeling the sweet rush of dopamine from his head.

The next moment, the paper chip entered his vision on its way down. Takuma gave it a long stare before picking it up from the floor and sticking it back on his forehead.

He was going to make sure that didn't happen the next day when he met Maruboshi. Even if it took him pulling an all-nighter.

"I have done it," said Takuma with his hands spread wide and a leaf stuck on his forehead. He smiled proudly and showed his progress to Maruboshi as soon as they met.

Maruboshi smiled with an approving nod. "Shake your head," he said.

Takuma confidently attempted to break his neck with forceful head movements, but the green leaf remained on his forehead. The night of practice had paid— he could keep the leaf stuck pretty consistently as long as he didn't get distracted and lose concentration.

"The imagery advice came in handy," said Takuma.

"Excellently done, young Takuma," Maruboshi smiled. He pulled the leaf off Takuma's forehead before immediately giving it back to Takuma. "Now, stick that on your forehead."

Takuma was confused until he looked down at his hand. His smile wiped out as he saw two leaves resting on his palm. He looked up at Maruboshi with disbelief and dread pooling in his eyes.

"Both of those at the same time and on the opposite ends of your forehead," Maruboshi promptly showed exactly where Takuma needed to stick the leaves. "If even one falls, you repeat the penalty."

Takuma felt a tremble travel up his legs.

-.-.-

- Omake: NG! -

—

He decided to give the tap imagery but with a little twist where he imagined a watering pipe instead of a simple tap because all the diagrams of the chakra pathway system he had seen were a network of tubes with tenketsu as the outlet ends. He imagined a regulator on the end of the pipe which controlled the flow.

'I'm the regulator,' Takuma took a deep breath as he held the paper chip against his forehead. The water was chakra. Sticking the paper chip didn't require much chakra. The lighter the object, the less chakra it needed to adhere. Takuma imagined turning the regulator knob just a few degrees to let the faintest amount of water/chakra out.

"Ah shit, now I gotta pee," Takuma said before running to the bathroom in a hurry.

Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.

Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.