The Final Stretch (Solo Training)

Keita had no idea that he had no more time left inside of the training chamber at the training facility, but as soon as he was getting to the good parts of his adventure, the training facility abruptly changed back to the pristine white walls that he had seen when he first got in there and started the actual training module. Still, Keita breathed a sigh of relief, as he was in quite a bit of danger there, and this gave him a chance to catch his breath. There was simply no way that he was going to go home like this though, as he needed to see the end of the mission inside of reality to the very end, and he was definitely not wanting to go home empty handed. He was actually really happy with the amount of power he could feel in his body from the intense training that he was doing, and this would continue as soon as he was ready. The woman that was responsible for his training room tapped on the door and waited a few moments, before entering and addressing Keita, telling him that he needed to leave because his time was up, or he could simply pay them a bit more to continue the time there. Keita debated this for a few moments, before realizing that he wanted to be in his best condition to finish that fight, and that he was extraordinarily hungry, voracious even. Keita bowed to the woman before leaving the building and going as fast as he could to the nearest restaurant so that he could stuff his face with whatever they had on offer at the time. Keita was very hungry, and he did not really care about what the place sold, and simply walked in to sit down at a table. Shortly after, the waiter came and asked him what he wanted, and Keita ordered a variety of dishes, but most importantly he ordered a couple of appetizers, as they would be out a lot sooner than what the actual entrees would be, and Keita wanted to eat as soon as possible. Waiting there, not eating, and having to listen and watch other people receive their food was a bit of a torture to Keita, but eventually a few minutes later, he got his appetizers, wish were simply some chicken wings and some deep fried mozzarella sticks, which would definitely tide him over until the entrees arrived, or so Keita thought. He quickly finished the appetizers that were served to him, as they were quite a bit small amount of food, simply because people only wanted this to start their meal. Keita then waited patiently for his food to arrive, although he was a bit calmer now, and he realized that he should have taken breaks in the training center every now and then so that he could eat the very real food that he had brought. Although he had brought the food, the food not being touched in a little over a week made the food spoiled and questionable enough to where Keita did not want to take the risk and eat it. Instead, he quickly ran to a restaurant and finished the food they gave him, before relaxing on a bench, allowing the food in his stomach to settle, and make sure that he was in his top form. He wondered if the training facility could accurately recreate the point in which he was at previously, before the training facility ended the program. Keita relaxed for a little while, and then decided to hurry back to the trainin facility to complete his training. He was so close, and could fell that he was just about to get to the cliff of his training, so that he could make the final jump to complete it. He paid for the training facility again, and then walked in, ready for the final stretch of it. The training facility whirred, and his senses abruptly blurred, allowing him to go back into where he was previously, although a couple of things were a bit off, and characters that he had traveled with last time were slightly different, but not in quite drastic enough to cause Keita to lose any immersion, their hair color or scars were slightly different, but Keita did not worry about that, as they were in exactly the same predicament they were in last time, stared down to fear by the face of a large dragon. This dragon was quite huge, and had the body of a european dragon, which was that of a large salamander type reptile with huge wings and a sharp, angular face. Four large legs like that of a scale armored elephant awaited them, and ruthlessly sauntered into their group, flinging its tail to scatter them. 

Keita wasn't quite ready for this, but he steeled himself and reacted right away regardless, and used his chakra chains to protect him. His group was wondering if he was okay as they scattered and got to work on fighting the dragon. The team was fairly well coordinated, distracting the dragon from attacking it from the side, and also using their support skills to heal and aid the others that were the target of the dragons ire. Keita was simply looking around the area of the dragons lair, hoping to gain some insight and think of a strategy that would work against it. He thought about simply tying it up with the chains, but he thought that the dragon would for sure be able to break out of the chains rather easily, so they had to weaken it at first. The dragon must have some supernatural stamina for it to compete in the environment that it was in, and the guide had told them as such when they first saw it, so a battle of wearing each other out was not a viable prospect, simply because they would be worn down first. This was precisely the reason Keita needed to make sure that they had a plan to wear down the dragon enough to where Keita would be able to subdue the dragon and tie it up with his chains. As Keita was looking through the large lair of the dragon, he noticed that it had a hoard, like most fictional dragons, which was composed of huge piles of gold coins, gems, and what seemed to be weapons or other various shiny things that would appease a dragon. Keita wondered if the dragon was intelligent, but considering the dragon immediately attacked the group of them and has yet to say anything since the battle began, he assumed that this dragon was incapable of speech, at least towards the common tongue that humans and the other races spoke among each other. Still, Keita wanted to end this training session after he had gotten some experience, and getting attacked and fighting against a giant dragon was quite a good way to train, as he would never really fear a regular person again if this was what he fought. This made him appreciate the training facility even more than he already did, as it would allow him to successfully simulate events that would be way worse or more nail biting than what he could encounter in real life. Keitas mind was rapidly trying to figure out a way to tire out the dragon, as his friends and party mates with him were unleashing their best attacks, but to no avail, they simply could not do any significant damage to the dragons thick hide, that was also resistant to magic and chakra, respectively. Keita kept scanning the room when he could free his eyes from the dragon, which was difficult considering the dragon was throwing tail swiped at him, claw attacks at the others, and some dragons breath, which was a stream of fire, at the oines that he was focusing on, so pulling his focus to another area of the room was a bit of a strenuous task at the moment. Eventually he fell upon the ceiling of the cave that they were in, and noticed that there was a large amount of stalagmites on the roof of the cave, and that he could potentially use those. Keita wrapped a couple of chains around the stalagmite on the ceiling and gave it a light tug, making sure how stable it was, and it was stable enough to where he would need to put in quite a bit of effort to pull it from the roof, but he could do it. Keita was planning on dropping this large stalagmite on the head of the dragon, and thus finish it off in one strike, or at least daze it long enough so that he and his friends could attack the vulnerable spots on its body without the fear of retaliation from the beast. Keita slowly fought around the dragon, and told the other members of his party his plan, so that they would also fight in a way that lured the dragon directly under the stalagmite. He used the stalagmites as a sort of anchor point for swinging his body around to avoid the dragon attacks, so hopefully that would lull the dragon into a false sense of security, and that he would be able to pull off the plan without a hitch. The battle grinded on, and the people that Keita had been with were starting to show signs of fatigue, but to get the dragon to be directly under the largest spike on the ceiling required quite a bit of time, fighting, pushing the dragon back a little, taunting and feinting to get the dragon to move in a certain direction, but it was soon close enough to the area that they were about to see the light of victory, and this was the same for the dragon. 

The dragon could sense that most of the party was weakening, as it was fairly intelligent as a creature and as a hunter, so it knew when to go in for the kill on its prey, and that time seemed to be right now. The dragons attacks started to get more and more reckless, but also more and more powerful as the fight dragged on. The party members suffered wound after wound, and their morale as well as their flesh was not quite making the cut as they were fighting, but the time had come cor Keita's plan to be put into action. Keita had been loosening the largest stalagmite from the ceiling for quite some time, using it to skirt away from the dragon as it fought, and now Keita suddenly yanked on it. There was some rumbling and cracking noise, which seemed to be masked by the dragons constant thrashing and fire breathing, and suddenly, the large spike of a stalagmite came crashing down towards the dragons back, before a large thud and the sound of cracking was heard. The spiky stalagmite found its mark almost perfectly, but the dragon was able to sense it and move slightly out of the way, so the stalagmite simply crushed a lot of its side, instead of hitting its spine directly and paralyzing it. It was definitely stunned, and the group started to use the last bits of their strength to pour attack after attack onto the now fairly defenseless dragon. Keita was sure that now was the time to use his chakra chains, which he summoned and used to bind the monsters mouth closed, making sure that the dragon could no longer use the aggravating way of combat that was breathing fire onto everyone. The fire breathing definitely had to stop, and Keita knew that this was still going to help him face off against fire users in the future as well. After this particular round of attacks, it seemed that the dragon had finally succumbed to the wounds that it had accumulated in the fight, and had died. The group were huffing and puffing, attempting to catch their breath, and it seemed that a couple of them that had suffered more wounds than the others collapsed, the feeling of exhaustion overcoming them in a manner of seconds once the fight was actually over. Keita was a bit winded, but much better than the others because he kept his distance and his chakra capacity was massive, so he did not even need to use up half of his chakra in that fight, but he also could not use a large number of his jutsu on something as large and resistant as a dragon either, so there was a strange middle ground. As Keita finished up with catching his breath sooner than the others, he decided to go to the hoard and look around it. There was a massive amount of gold and jewels, as well as items that let off a faint glow to them that Keita could not really recognize, but he simply assumed that they were magical items, like from most games, and looked around the room some more. It seemed that the expedition was over, as the guide that hired them walked over to the large pit of money and declared that they were rich. Since the mission was such a dangerous one this time, the guide agreed to give a little bit of the treasure to everyone in addition to the pay that they received and were still going to receive, which made the group let out a collective and satisfied sigh. They decided to rest around a campfire, and they were sad that they would not be able to take all of the dragon and money out of here, when Keita thought about telling them about his ability to use fuuinjutsu to make the carrying of goods a non issue, but he decided against it. He did not pay for that much time in the training facility this time, and decided that he would just complete this and stop for the time being, as he was satisfied with this amount of training that he did. Over the past few months, he had essentially turned from someone fairly weak into a person that he himself would be proud of, so he was very satisfied. He thought about training some more, but ended up thinking that he needed a bit more of a practical test of his expertise, and was simply not enough to train by himself. He was resolved to do some more missions, and maybe higher ranked missions outside of the village to attempt to hone himself. 

With them returning to the town with whatever spoils they could, it was only a matter of time before the mission would be over, and Keita's simulation here would end. Keita walked to the front of the town gate with the group, he himself dragging back a chest filled with gold using his chakra chains for the group, as that was all that they had brought with them to take the stuff back, Keita looked around the front of the town, the line as long as ever. There were fewer people there this time, but the people that were there were eying their spoils with jealousy and envy, and it seemed like there would be a bit of a fight perhaps simply getting the spoils into the town to finish the mission. Still, it seemed that there were still people with their wits about them, as a treasure haul that large would definitely have some sort of horrible monster that was dreadfully strong guarding it, and so they had to think carefully about upsetting the people that defeated said horrible monster or doing anything rash that might get their ire set on them. Still, the eyes that were filled with greed did not stop, but in the end, no one seemed to make a move, as making a move first would get you assaulted by all of the people there, and you would most likely die first and get nothing out of it, so no one ended up doing anything in the end, and the group had made it into the city safe and sound, before immediately walking to the building that was in charge of all of the adventurers in town, so that they could turn in this mission as quickly as possible, so that the company behind their guide would get the money safely out of the city. By that time, it was none of the groups business what happened. So Keita still played along, content with seeing how the story that he helped shape would play out, and so after they had turned in the mission rewards, they were rewarded themselves, and immediately decided to throw a small party to celebrate. Keita did not usually drink, so he was simply there for the fun and camaraderie of it all, but he still had a good time doing it, so it was still a great way to end a fairly long and stressful week of training in the training facility. As the party was winding down, Keita bid farewell to his virtual friends, before the simulation he was in slowly died down and turned off, and he slipped back into reality with the walls turning into the sterile white that they were before, and he himself turning around to leave. The person managing the facility bid Keita a warm farewell, before walking into the room to help clean it up after its use, as they did every time one of their customers left it, as the training was usually quite strenuous and caused a bit of scorch marks and the like. Keitas room was fairly clean afterwords, simply a few scuff marks on the walls where his chakra chains hit, but that was something that was extremely easy to fix, so Keita still felt pretty good that he did not leave the facility staff with a large mess to clean up, and that they would get to go about their busy days a little easier. Keita was perfectly content with this weeks training, and specifically todays, simply because he got to see the situation that someone had programmed into the training facility to completion, and wondered if anyone else would be able to see it. He would most likely recommend that scenario to other people that went to the training facility, as it was particularly fun and fairly challenging, especially if you were not very good against the fire element or large lumbering things. Keita assumed that it was simply going to be too easy to go through if the person doing it was a speedster, so there was no point in recommending it to the few friends that he had, as they were focused on being speedy.

Keita was thinking this and not really paying attention, as he walked briskly around the part of town that he was in, and was sort of wandering to a nearby cafe. Keita would always visit this cafe frequently when he was pondering life, simply because they had some of the most relaxing coffee and tea that could be found in the mist village. As he entered, the usual staff member there gave him a sweet smile and asked what he wanted to order. Keita ordered a multitude of things, and the woman behind the counter seemed like she wanted to ask Keita if he wanted the usual, but Keita did not have a usual, and it frustrated her a bit. Still, Keita smiled gently back and asked if they had any specials today, and he simply got that when he sat down. Keita had a lot of thinking to do, as he processed what he had been through in the past week or so, and he was attempting to analyze and digest what sort of training he had gotten. He went through the places where he had wasted some movement, or that he did not use his chakra as efficiently as he could, so that he would be able ot better control fights in the future, he would definitely analyze himself. He was quite a bit lost in thought, thinking about all the things that happened, and he did not really notice the young barista walk over and offer him the special, which seemed to be some sort of sweet latte, or even a hot coffee with some heavy cream on top. Keita enjoyed all manner of things, and he did not shy away from something just because it was sweet, and it was the manly thing to torture yourself with very bitter things, and so Keita happily blew on the cup of coffee before sipping it. The young woman had not gone away yet, and waited until Keita said that it was delicious, before she returned to her station in a good mood. Keita finished his small cup of coffee, gave the woman a fairly generous tip, and then calmly walked out of the small coffee shop with a new found appreciation for the training facility. With the various strange things and situations that the training facility could cook up, it was great to get the ninja to stretch their brain and think outside of the box, as other people were going to employ a large amount of varied strategies, so it was good to be able to stay flexible, especially with things like this. There was almost never going to be a situation where Keita fought a dragon, at least not one like the one depicted in the training facility, but it still got him to think about how he could still fight something that was larger and more durable than most things, and so he could take that training and apply it to the practical ability within the heat of battle. Still, it was great fun and trained him, so he was looking forward to attempting to do that again one day. With that, Keita decided that he would go home and relax, allowing his muscles and his mind to slowly absorb all of those things that he had learned, and he would also reflect on the things he had done in the coming days, perhaps he would even write a poem or a calligraphy sketch about it. He was looking forward to attempting the Kanji for Dragon, since it was fairly difficult to get right.
===============
EXIT - 3730 word count
===============
Claiming 2 Stamina
Claiming 29 Health
Claiming 15 speed
46 stats equals 4600 words - 20% from training facility = 3680 words
Claiming 2,500 words towards Five Elements Seal - 2500/2500
Claiming 500 words towards Mist Servant Technique - 500/500
Claiming 500 words towards Temporary Paralysis Technique 500/500
Claiming 108 words towards  Chakra Chain Familiarity 1000/2000

Approved