Much Ado About Nothing

(While on the road to Hoshi)

His right leg was sore. He was sure that if his left leg had any feeling, it too would be sore from the journey. “Hey guys, can we take a momentary break. Maybe sit down and relax for a bit.” Despite being a talented shinobi, Max probably had the least physical conditioning of the group. That coupled with the fact that he was lugging his puppets around would cause the young Genin to tire much faster than the others. He hadn’t said anything for most of the trip, but between the shifting desert sands and overall fatigue kicking in the boy needed a rest.

The others didn’t seem particularly fond of the idea of stopping, but it looked like everyone could use a bit of a rest stop. As the travelers paused to recuperate, Max would feel something that would end up changing his life forever, though he didn’t know at the time.


The sand beneath his feet would shift without Max moving so much as an inch. The boy would almost jump, the sudden movement startling him. What could be burrowing underneath the ground at such a rate, and what would cause such displacement? The others must not have felt it, or else they would be just as concerned as he had been. Nevertheless, curiosity was gnawing at him. He had to follow it, so long as it wasn’t too far away from the rest of the travelling group. So throwing caution to the wind, Max would walk off from the group, staying close enough for them to hear him if needed.
The mound of sand moving through the area was rather large, easily several meters in size. Max would simply watch, hoping to see something interesting before it disappeared. The sun was beating down on the youth, and he could feel the weight of his pack taking its toll as he tried to traverse the difficult sandy terrain. Realizing he might be better off setting it down so that he wasn’t lugging the heavy thing any more than he needed to, the boy would slide the pack to the ground. As he did so, the sands would shift and the bag would fall over, spilling some of its contents on to the sands. Some fruits would roll down the side of the dune, coming to a rest only once they had reached the bottom.


“Darn it!” Max would mutter aloud as he prepared to slide down the sand hill himself to retrieve it. Just then, another shift in the sand would knock the boy from his feet, the mound reacting to the food it had seemed. Before the boy could react himself, the mount would burst from beneath the sands revealing a rough, beige wall of flesh and a large maw. The food was swallowed up in what Max would imagine was less than a single bite from the monster before his eyes. The sand worm wasn’t the very big for its kind, but Max thought the thing immense. The worm was at least five meters tall, without any noticeable features other than its mouth and razor teeth.
 
Max would feel his heart skip a beat, as the immense creature appeared to be looking at him. Was this it? Was this how he died? And in a foreign land no less! Max knew that if this got ugly, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. His tiny muscles tightened, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Wait a second… if this thing wanted to do us harm, why did it wait to come up until now? Why not attack the group before they had even seen it or known of its presence? It wasn’t adding up. Unless… It was just hungry!
 
Going purely on a hunch, Max looked to his bag to see what else he had. Supplies weren’t particularly well stocked as this had been close to Hoshi and the end of the trip, but Max had packed a bit of extra food to be on the safe end of things. While he did plan on sharing it with the group and anyone that hadn’t had enough forethought to properly pack for the trip, this proved to be as good a time as any to share. The boy would pull out a bag of trail mix consisting of dried fruit chips and unseal it from the container he had used to keep it fresh. The creature before him seemed to be able to ‘sense’ the actions of the boy, despite it lacking anything that had even kind of resembled eyes. Tossing handfuls of the dried fruits into the open maw of the worm, it would seem to be happy at the events that had occurred. Max had not known, but this had been a Sunagakure Sand worm that had gotten lost and somehow ended up in the sands of Hoshi. It likely felt the sand and thought that it had been home, but instead was separated from its colony and hungry.
 
The worm didn’t say a word, but Max would feel as though the creature was thanking him. It would then burrow back beneath the sands and head off to the south. Unknown to Max, that was the direction of Sunagakure.
 
And just like that, as quickly as it had come, the worm had gone. Max began to get up and turn around before noticing something metallic gleaming in the sand where the worm just was. Being a curious child, he would slide down and retrieve the object, pulling on it. It seemed to be lodged in the sand pretty good, but after some work it managed to loosen and free from its granular prison. It was… a scroll. What was this doing here? Max wanted to open it up, but he could hear the others sounding off and readying to begin travel once more. Max would stuff the scroll in his bag and head up with the others.
 
(At the gates)
 
The trek so far had been arduous, but Max knew that it would all be over soon. Those in charge of this outing were discussing things with the ninja of Hoshi it had seemed. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too much longer, else we may run dry on food and water. The thought of such things made Max decide to take this time to eat something, as he had simply forgotten to feed himself this day. Sliding his pack from his back, the sweat of his hard travels could be seen. He would pull out a bar of granola and chomp away at it hungrily. The bar was tasty, but it would leave poor Max with a dry mouth. He would grab his water skin and realize that it had been empty save for a few drops. Such little water wouldn’t quench the boys thirst, and so he would look around and see if there was any other stores of water. Sadly, he had found no water.
 
It was then that he watched as his friend Komori had come out from behind the dunes and marched off in the distance. If anybody would have water, it would have to be the Hozuki, right? Max would get up, grabbing his pack and water skin before heading over towards his Chuunin pal. Right as he was only a handful of meters away, Komori would launch an attack at the land before him, a jet stream of powerful water shooting from his mouth like a geyser. Despite the beauty of the jutsu, Komori looked to be frustrated and it could be seen in his movements. While the technique had been effective, it wasn’t the best Max had seen from the Hozuki. 

“Are you okay, Komori?” Max would ask, notifying his friend that he had been behind him and that it wasn’t an attack on him of some sorts. They were all likely a bit on edge in a foreign land, and the boy didn’t want to startle anybody. “I was going to ask you if you had any extra water but it can wait for now,” the boy would add, his dry mouth now the last thing he was concerned about.
 

“I see that you are training. Is there anything I can do to help?” Max would ask, hoping to get Komori’s mind off of whatever had been bothering him.

WC: 1401
TWC:1401

(While On way to hoshi)

Renji had never been outside of the village before, or at least that he can remember. The last time being when his family moved to kumo. So he did not know what to expect while out here. Yes he was on his way to Hoshi for the grand celebration. But it was possibly a long journey and who knew what trouble they would find themselves in along the way. Or worse, what if Hoshi is not as welcoming as Renji and the group was assuming. With all of this swirling around through his head, Renji decides that he should take advantage of this time while they are in route to hoshi, and use it to train. Yea it’s going to suck training with this heavy pack on while they are traveling. But he knew that it would be well worth it in the long run. Plus he did not want to let his teammates down in the event that the worse was to happen.

Once his mind was finally made up, Renji would activate his byakugan. taking a good look around through its 360 degree vision, Renji scans the area around the group just to ensure that there were no enemies nearby. As he scans the area Renji sees that the group is pretty much all alone out here except for the foliage and animals here and their. “what a view” Renji would think to himself as he is checking out the scenery. He would be so consumed in the surroundings that Renji almost forgets that he had wanted to do some training while traveling.

Once Renji had gotten his mind back on the task at hand, he would try to figure out what was the best way of training. He was currently running at close to his top speed and if he wanted to maintain the same pace as the rest of the group Renji knew that he would not be able to stop and really concentrate on throwing punches kicks or work on any new jutsus.  There really was not much of anything that he could do that would not cause him to fall out of line with his group mates.

“I wonder if I could get my Chakra to extend from other tenketsu points on my body as well? I mean in theory it should work, no? Oh well I got a bit of time and there’s not much else I can do any ways.” Renji would quizzically think to himself. While he was born a Hyuga, Renji’s parents did not go much into detail with him or his brother about their family and what it’s member are truly capable of, this would lead to Renji’s fascination with any Hyuga he meets. And being that Komon was the first Hyuga that Renji had met outside of his family, he would look up to him kind of like he does he own big brother.

As he is running in line with the rest of the group, renji begins to focus and gather his chakra in preparation to try to expel the chakra from the Tenketsu points on his arms. He figures that since they are so close to his hands that it would be easier to control these tenketsu points. Squeezing his arm muscles tightly, Renji would try to push Chakra out the tenketsu points on both arms between his wrist and elbow. However, he has little to any luck. But not one to quit, he continues to squeeze and flex at his arms trying to get the tenketsu points to react even if just a little bit. Finally after what felt like half the trip, Renji would get the chakra to expel from some of the chakra points in his arms.

While he was not having a lot of luck with mastering control over his tenketsu points, running on the uneven Terrain with that heavy pack on his back, and constantly contracting and relaxing his muscles, were both proving to be quite the taxing workout in and of themselves. And despite not fully mastering the control of his chakra to his tenketsu points while on the way to hoshi, Renji had improved upon his Stamina and speed a little, and his chakra control even got a little better.

(At gate)

Renji had been sitting behind this sand dune for what felt like forever, through his byakugans binocular vision Renji would watch as the number of hoshi ninja around Komon grew as he tried to garner their entry into the village. Studying the encounter, Renji would try to read the lips of the people talking. But, being that he was not the best at reading lips, especially from this distance, Renji would not be able to make out much of what was being discussed at the gate, but judging by the posture and mannerisms of the ‘welcoming party’ Renji assumes that this may take a while.  Standing there behind the dune Renji would wonder if the Makukage had met the same ‘welcome’ when he had arrived “did they do this when HE came through..? I mean he never returned home, so he must be inside right? I wonder if this SAME group of ‘cool cats’, welcomed him to Hoshi just as friendly as they are welcoming us?”

Renji would notice as Max drops his pack and heads off. Paying such close attention to what was happening at the gates Renji had not noticed when Komori had went off to train, and assumes Max is just going to explore or something. Not wanting to let his teammate go off alone in a foreign land, Renji would drop his pack as well  and begins to get up to follow behind Max. Renji would switch his byakugan to 360 degree vision so that he can keep an eye on the gate and his fellow ninja behind the dunes. As his 360 vision begins to take hold, Renji notices Komori not to far away and sees that this is where Max was headed.

Seeing as Komori was nearby Renji would not be so pressed to chase after Max anymore, instead he would take his time as he walks over to see what they are up to; all the while still trying to multi task and pay attention to everything going on around him.

Renji would get to Max and Komori just in time to hear as Max finishes his question. It had been a while since he had gotten in some serious training; not counting the little bit of training he had done during the trip. Turning towards the guys Renji would say  “hey can I train with you?”

WC
1,105

Max would simply nod while accepting the bottle of water, quickly cracking it open and taking a swig. His parched mouth now refreshed, Max would listen as Komori had offered to train with him. While he was a bit disappointed that his friend wasn’t willing to train in a full capacity, Max understood where Komori was coming from. Max was younger and a lower rank than his Hozuki friend, and the better trained Chuunin would likely be able to do a lot of damage if one of his jutsu’s had connected.
 
“I wouldn’t mind doing some training. What are you working on?” Max would ask, not knowing the water jutsu that the Chuunin had been using. Max didn’t really know many techniques that weren’t contained within his Jutsu Encyclopedia. Just as he was asking this, his teammate Renji had come over and seemed to also want to train. Max was going to answer with a happy “yes, of course”, but seeing as Komori was the senior shinobi right now, Max would allow him to make such a decision. Sure enough, he had also agreed to the training event.
 
“Hey Renji! How have you been?” The young Genin would ask, wondering how much progress his Hyuuga pal had made. “Have you learned a bunch of new stuff? I bet you have! A bunch of cool new martial arts moves, or maybe some neat ninjutsu techs?” Max was incredibly inquisitive towards his teammate, trying to gain some idea of his progress thus far. They hadn’t met up since their training session when the team had gathered to meet one another. Max would then wonder about the rest of the team, Saya and Senshi. They were still in Kumo last that he had heard, and he hoped that they were doing alright.
 
“I might want to learn a few things,” Max would say as he shuffled around in his pockets. He would pull out two scrolls, one old and dull and the other shiny and new. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about this, Komori. I found this scroll, but it doesn’t look like any jutsu scroll I’ve seen before. I figured with you being a more experienced shinobi, you might know what it was,” Max would say as he unraveled the older scroll, showing him the strange symbol on the back of the Nara clan. It was the scroll containing the Nara Shadow Arts, and though Komori might not know exactly what it was, maybe he could provide some insight for the boy as to what he had stumbled across. Max would look over it himself as well, trying to emulate some of the hand seals shown on the paper.
 

Max was slowly but surely trying to piece it all together, but hopefully the boy would start to grasp it soon. He would continue to focus his chakra, not understanding what was happening. Minor fluctuations to his shadow would occur, but not knowing that was what to look for it went unnoticed by the boy. 


WC: 503
TWC: 1904

As Renji is shaking Komori’s hand, he would notice through his byakugan, a small dot like mark appear on the back of his hand. The dot only appeared for a moment, but it looked very similar to the dot left by the mark seal jutsu that Renji had learned while he was training for his second trial. Being in a foreign land so far away from home, it probably was a smart idea to mark each other in the event they needed to summon one another or something, or at least that’s what Renji would assume Komori was doing it for. Thinking to himself  that this was indeed a great idea, Renji would attempt to Mark Komori while he is shaking his hand. “Hey Komori. It’s nice to meet you. The names Renji, Hyuga.” Renji would say while still shaking the chunin’s hand.


In response to Max Renji would say “I’ve been working on a few new moves here and there, thought I have been mostly spending a lot of my time preparing for my final trial so I can take the chunin exams!” Renji would pause for a moment. He’d shift his weight to his left foot and scratches at the back of his head before continuing on “you know, I ended up going back out into the rain that same day we had all meet. I was there all night training, and I ended up learning a new taijutsu move. But also, I was able to awaken my earth affinity! Now I can learn all sorts of new ninjutsu techs as well” Renji would say, a smile on his face as his finishes his statement.


Renji would watch as Max pulls the two scrolls from his pocket, curious as to what they could be, Renji would take a look at the unrolled scroll through his byakugan. Looking at the scroll Renji could not make out anything that was on it. It looked so foreign to him. Maybe Komori would have some insight as Renji was completely lost.

Seeing as he was not going to get much out of the scrolls, Renji would walk out a few feet to give himself a bit if space and begins to perform air squats while he watches to see what Max and Komori are doing. While at the bottom of one of his repetitions Renji would stick out his hand and grabs a handful of sand. Renji looking at the sand in his hand in awe; wide eyed and dropped jaw with a slight tilt in his head.
Renji had never seen sand before and had been kind of curious about it since first setting foot onto the desert. letting the sand escape from his grasp and flow freely through his fingers, the tiny grains would dance about with the wind, some of it them blowing into the still opened mouth of Renji. As the grains of sand  hit his tongue he was certain now that this ‘dirt’ was different from the dirt back in kumo. Grabbing another handful of sand, Renji would stand back to his feet. Turning towards his travel mates, who probably thought him to be crazy by now if they had been watching, Renji would ask “What is wrong with the dirt here in hoshi?”  Renji would hold his hand out and releases the sand in it as he finishes his question,  a quizzical look on his face.

WC
569

TWC
569+1,105= 1,674

Hearing about Renji’s dedication to training made the boy smile. Both Max and Senshi had been a tad busy and sadly hadn’t gotten to do a whole lot with the team. Hearing that Renji had not only learned an additional martial arts maneuver, but also had learned to utilize yet another element was incredible. Plus, he mentioned that he was also working towards Chuunin as well. This news only proved to Max that Kumo had bred a capable strain of ninja. They were ninja that weren’t afraid to put in the hard work and effort needed to advance. This only help inspire Max to push on and advance as well, his own advancement easily seen within the near future. “That’s really awesome, Renji. Congratulations! Only a bit more to go and you'll be quite the dedicated Chuunin.”
 
Max would continue to read over the scroll, trying to figure it out. He was normally pretty good at this sort of thing, but whatever secrets were contained within eluded him still. Max figured that Komori might know what this was, but despite being a higher rank he must not have been privy to whatever information was locked in the ink on the pages. It was too bad, but such setbacks wouldn’t deter the youth. No, they wouldn’t deter him at all. Komori had mentioned that there was a vast library in Hoshi, filled with all of the knowledge one could ever hope to know. Enough knowledge was housed there to likely fill many lifetimes of study, and so if Max wasn’t able to find anything there it would prove painfully disappointing to the boy. Quickly rereading everything on the scroll and memorizing it, he would roll it back up and place it back within its old scroll case.
 
So the move had been a strong water style Ninjutsu known as “Water Severing Wave”, but it show out like a powerful stream of water. “Maybe it was named that way because the water could sever the waves that it might have been used to protect boats or such from. I dunno, I haven’t the slightest clue why half of the things are named the way they are,” Max would say with a lighthearted chuckle. "I figure that many of these jutsu were created with uses besides just as combat abilities, though. Maybe their usefulness in combat wasn't figured out until later, re-purposed for battle."
 
Turning to the vast sands before his eyes, Max would gaze off into the distance while asking his pal Renji a simple question. “Renji, you are able to see what is going on at the gates from hear, no? I recall reading heavily about the Byakugan recently and I believe such is within its scope, but I figured that I would ask someone that was, well a Hyuuga,” Assuming that Renji had answered with a yes, Max would continue, “Do thinks seem to be progressing well at the gates? Does it look like we have time to get some actual training in, I mean?”
 

It Renji saw that there was still time and things weren’t in any particular rush, Max would suggest some practice. “So, what would you guys like to do to train? Practice some moves? Spar? I’m fine with whatever is chosen,” the boy would say looking for his pack and his puppet pals. “If you don’t feel comfortable practicing moves on us that would be understandable, Komori. Renji, I’d like to see some of the things you learned if that is okay?” Max had to see firsthand how his teammates were progressing, not just hear about it. 


WC: 601
TWC: 2505

Renji would he intrigued upon hearing that Komori and Komon were in fact twins. While they certainly did kinda look alike, Renji could not understand how one could have the byakugan and the other not. But not wanting to meddle in other peoples affairs, he would try not pay it much mind. Both Komori and Komon seemed like great shinobi, and Renji could see in their eyes the love that they each shared for kumo. “I agree, this is certainly the start to a great friendship” Renji would say in response to Komori.

Not wanting to get any of the sand on Komori or Max, Renji would quickly stop playing with it and turns around to brush it from his hands so as not to get sand all over the place.

Hearing that only Komon had the byakugan made Renji curious if that meant that only Komon was able to expel chakra from his body as well. Renji would go back and forth in his head over if he should ask Komori if he was able to do any other Hyuga skills. But what If he did not? Renji did not want to embarrass him by putting him on the spot like that. Not knowing when he would get the chance to ask Komon, especially being that he had been at the gate for, who, knows, how, long,  now; It would not take long before Renji’s  impulsiveness would win the battle and he spurts out
“say Komori, you can’t expel chakra from your tenketsu points? What can you do then…” Renji would stop mid sentence, his eyes full of shock at what had just come out his mouth. So consumed with if he should or should not ask, Renji had not given his choice of words much thought, and was just kind of letting it flow from his impulsive mind. Not wanting to upset his new friend and senior shinobi Renji would quickly, say to Komori  “I’m so sorry I did not mean it like that..I know that you said you are half Hyuga I was just wondering what was your other half, if you don’t mind me asking. Again I’m sorry if I offended you.” Renji would be Looking down towards the ground as he says this.


After listening to the first half of Max’s inquire, Renji would say “Yes, you asked the right person!” standing their with a smile on his face. Once his teammate was done speaking, Renji would say “I’ve actually been keeping an eye on the Gate since we came over.. the byakugan has two modes one that allows me to see really far and one that let’s me see in a 360 degree field. Being that the gates not to to far away, my 360 field is able to see it…but yea it seems like things are moving kind of slow still so we probably can get in train if you wanted too.”
In fact, Renji had been waiting for this moment since the last time they had sparred. He wanted another crack at Napa, the puppet was one of the driving force behind Renji’s rainny night sparing session. Renji had to spar with Napa again. No he needed to spar with napa again, he wanted to see just how much his skills had improved since the last time the two had traded blows.  

“sure Max, let’s do this, where’s Napa at!” Renji would say, trying to appear as confident as possible, although deep down he would be a bit nervous as he was still a fresh Genin with little experience.
While he waited for Max to get his puppets and things together, Renji would turn to Komori and seeing that he was a senior more experienced shinobi Renji would ask him “say komori…do you have any tips? All are welcomed.. say if you want I’ll follow your lead,  but I get Napa.”  

WC
649

TWC
649 + 1,674 = 2,323