View Full Version : Green Streak Speeds By
Today was a day where Gai would push himself to his limits. In his retirement from any professional life- both shinobi and criminal, he had nothing but free time in which to train more jutsu and become a stronger warrior. It was really more or less his way of staying in shape.
He had learned of a new manhunter jutsu that was definitely the jutsu for him. AS he understood it, the jutsu was appropriately named "lightning speed" because of its ability to enhance the user's speed by stimulating their muscles via the application of chakra.
When he had heard of this magnificent new jutsu, Gai had of course gone straight to the Hyperion Hotel and read over the scroll with information regarding the performance of the jutsu. He had taken the time to memorize the needed handseals and the order in which to perform them. All he needed to do was actually practice using them.
Gai was well aware that he didn't really need to learn the handseals. He was almost certainly only going to ever use his tambourine to cast the jutsu. But, it never hurt to practice the more basic principles so he would be prepared, should his tambourine not be available.
Gai began slowly doing the handseals, one after another, until he had completed the series from beginning to end several times. It was important to practice the set very slowly at first, so you would develop the needed muscle memory to perform them at faster speeds later on when it mattered.
After he had completed the seals at that slow speed and was confident that his hands were used to the order, he increased his speed. He had been going at about one sixteenth speed before, and was now going about twice that, at about one eighth speed. It was still pretty slow, but he the idea was to build towards something bigger and better than the step before.
Again, he would increase his handseal speed. This time, he had bumped it all the way up to about one fourth speed. The seals were a bit more difficult, but not overly so. After all, the level of this technique was child's play for him to perform in terms of handseals.
Now he was up to about half speed. He was very sure that he had done the handseals to death by now, but he didn't care. He had committed to building towards full speed, and that was exactly what he'd do. He kept plugging away, until he was certain his hands were used to performing the seals at that speed, as well.
All that remained was full speed. Gai quickly flipped through the needed handseals, and was done quickly. It seemed that he had gotten a handle down on the handseals, so now he could move on to the next necessary element of the technique.
Now that Gai had rested and rerturned to one hundred percent, he was prepared to advance to his next agility training exercise. He took his umbrella tip and drew two intersecting lines in the dirt, effectively drawing a giant plus sign on the ground.
Then, he got in a "ready" stance and jumped forward into the first quadrant of the symbol he had drawn. Then, he immediately jumped to the right, landing in the adjacent quadrant, then forward, then left, then back to start.
This was simple at first, because Gai hadn't really picked up the pace. After a short while, he sped things up a bit. The jumping sped up a little, as Gai easily completed three more cycles this way.
But, Gai could still push himself harder. He went a bit faster, jumping even harder to speed himself up. He began to feel a little burn, but kept his pace, completing four mroe cycles.
Finally, Gai turned it up all the way, putting everything he had into it. That familiar burning came after another eight cycles, but he refused to stop. I can do five more he thought. And so, he pushed forward, counting them in his head. One... two... three... four... five... on the fifth cycle's completion, Gai dropped on the ground, his legs throbbing.
Once he got some rest, he felt he was ready to try the first test again.
Gai went back to the first test, ready to see how far he had progressed. His goal was to get to eight seconds, or two seconds per "x", and his initial time had been sixteen seconds, or four seconds per "x".
And so, Gai dashed up to the first "x", and then back. He felt a bit nimbler than before, that was certain. But, was he nimble enough? He dashed to the side and back, then behind him and to center again. He finished by going to the other side and back to center, clicking the stop watch.
He looked down at the stop watch, and was impressed by what he saw, even if he wasn't completely satisfied yet. The watch read twelve seconds, which he averaged out to be three seconds per "x" in his head.
Progress is progress Gai thought, preparing himself for the next test he'd face. Hopefully, he'd be able to finish this first test within his goal by the time he finished the next few rounds of trianing.
Gai still needed to find a way to push past his limitations if he was going to improve his agility to the limit he wanted. So, now came the time for a different, more dangerous and practical type of test...
Reaching behind his belt, Gai grabbed the summoning scroll and unrolled it. His puppet, Masamune, appeared in a puff of smoke. Gai quickly attached chakra strings to the puppet and then made it walk a safe distance away.
If you shoot at me he yelled to the puppet, then I can dodge and work on my agility that way! Gai laughed maniacally as he moved his fingers, making the puppet open fire.
The first senbon launcher popped up and opened fire. Gai darted to the side, narrowly avoiding the first spray completely. He kept runnin in one direction, having the puppet's launcher follow him the entire way.
Soon, the familiar clicking of a senbon launcher running empty was heard, and Gai twitched another finger. This time, the other senbon launcher opened fire, chasing Gai the other way. He bolted to the side to avoid it, and still managed to avoid the dangerous needles.
Gai wasn't done tempting fate just yet. He slipped on his mask and used the puppet's dart launcher to open fire on himself. This was more difficult, since the smoke from the darts lowered visibility. Still, Gai bound to one side or another as the darts came, trying to dodge as close to the last second as possible.
Finally, the dart launcher ran out of ammunition. A sane person would have chosen that time to stop, but Gai wasn't that smart. He still had one weapon left on the puppet: The exploding Kunai launcher.
Gai twitched a finger, firing the first kunai. He immediately jumped backward, trying to clear the area of the blast. His timing was flawless this first time, and the blast only caused a rush of wind to blow by.
The second Kunai, Gai tried again, but this time, didn't quite clear the blast. The concussion knocked him off of his feet. But, he wasn't about to be discouraged. He climbed right back to his feet and prepared again.
The third, fourth and fifth kunai, he managed to dodge with little effort, managing to clear the blast. Granted, this wasn't as intense as real combat, where his enemy would be difficult to time, but it was good exercise in dodging, nonetheless.
Gai went home and slept for the night, prepared to continue his training the next day...
When the next day came, he felt refreshed, his body prepared to face whatever trials he gave it. He found the spots he had trained thus far, and then decided to advance even further into his training, so he could reach his goal for improved agility.
But, Gai decided that he'd been too elaborate in his training thus far. He didn't need to be dashing back and forth on a set course to develop his agility. Today, he'd be doing things the "old fashioned way" as one would put it.
Instead of dashing mindlessly around a set path, he instead walked back to the beginning of the dirt road. He knew from traveling the road as a child that it was five miles long. He decided he'd run the entire length of the run, zig-zagging back and forth until he got to the small town at the other end of the road, and then turn back and go back where he came from.
Immediately, Gai darted forward, running at a diagonal to the right until he hit the edge of the road. The second he did, he turned again, running to the left at a diagonal until he hit the edge of the road, where he turned right again.
For half a mile, Gai continued to do this with no problem. Of Course, the first half a mile is really more of a warm up, but it would certainly be sufficient for Gai to begin training his agility, nonetheless.
Another half a mile, and Gai was a fifth of the way there. Still, he didn't feel any particular strain. He knew that this was still the easiest part of the run, however, and didn't let his hopes get up that this course of training would be easy.
Another mile went by, and Gai had gotten two miles down the road. He was beginning to feel some tension in his legs, but it really wasn't anything to be concerned about. He was already almost to the halfway point of the first leg of the journey.
Mile three cam soon, and Gai's legs were beginning to really hurt. The soreness was really noticable now, but still, he pushed forward. He zigged and zagged down the road at a rapid pace, determined to reach the small town at the end.
Gai was soon on mile four, his legs burning like they were being boiled in oil. He pushed forward, knowing he could aciheve his goal. One mile left! Just one mile! I can do it! he thought, his breathign getting heavier with every step.
Gai finished mile five and caught his breath. He stopped and got some water in town, let his legs get some rest, and then began the gauntlet back. Much like the first trip, it was rough for him, but worth the exercise in the long run.
Gai wasn't ready to quit just yet. He knew he had more in him and he could still push past all of his limits. A real ninja never quit, a real ninja kept going until they reached their goal or they were dead. And nothing was going to keep Gai from reaching his goal.
Gai carefully went about setting up his next course, which was no easy task. Using lengths of rope in the woods, he fastened large boulders to strong tree branches, and set them up to swing across a path in the woods. Then, he set each of them so when he threw a rock at them, they would all fall and begin swinging at the same time.
After going through the trouble of setting up his little obstacle course, Gai got in position and picked up a rock from the ground, hurling it off to his right. It struck the stick holding the first boulder in place, and it came swinging across the path. At the height of its swing, it struck a stick that held the next rock in place, causing there to be two rocks swining. The other rocks wouldn't be far behind.
And so Gai dashed blindly into harm's way, determined to push past his limits, even at the cost of his own body. He rushed forward jumping ahead of the first two rocks. Then, he ducked as the third rock came. He cleared a few feet before another rock came swining, and he jumped up, balancing on the rock and toadstool hopping off of it to keep movign forward.
Gai tredged on through the course, ducking and weaving between the rocks. more than once, he narrowly avoided taking a rock to the skull. Then, on other occassions, he missed the boulders completely. It really was determined by luck, to a large degree.
Gai reached the very end of the course, relatively unbruised. The test had been dangerous, if nothing else, and had helped him prove he had passable agility, at the very least. But, there was still mroe work to be done.
Gai had put himself through a very strenuous gauntlet thus far, but he was still only at the beginning. He needed to kick it up another notch if he wanted to really complete his agility training.
So, Gai carefully cut down a small branch with the tip of his umbrella and then cut it into sticks of approximately the same length. There were about thirty of these sticks total. He then distributed them along the dirt road, but not in regular intervals, as he had done when he ran the road from end to end. Instead, they were at staggered intervals, some of them requiring shorter, quicker turns than others. Gai then cut down a second branch and laid those sticks down, as well.
Having finished the ground work, Gai went right about his exercise. He drew a starting line in the dirt with his umbrella tip and then got ready for the course. He dashed off immediately, prepared to face the trial he had laid before himself.
Stick one was dead ahead. Gai scooped it up and then pivoted right onto stick two, which was a few feet to the right and up ahead a bit. He scooped it up, pivoting left and dashing several feet to stick three.
This continued for several sticks, until Gai, in his rush, accidentally dropped some of his sticks in mid run. He pivoted again as they fell, turning and catching them all in his hands and securing them back where they belonged. After that, he continued his rub yet again.
Sticks ten and fifteen went by. Then, sticks eighteen and twenty one. It wasn't very long at all, in fact, before Gai had reached the halfway point of his journey, having collected the first thirty sticks, which he carefully deposited at the side of the road as he ran.
During the second leg of the exercise, Gai began working with an almost expert-like precision, undoubtably due to the practice he'd gotten in the first half of the exercise. He didn't seem to fumble the sticks or even nearly miss them. Instead, he just scooped them up as quickly as possible and finished gathering them.
After having finished another of his improvised Agility exercises, Gai sat down to catch his breath. He'd begin another exercise soon enough. He'd keep at it until he achieved his goal, which was two seconds per "X" on the first exercise.
Gai decided that all there was left to do for him was to revisit the test that had started it all, the five "x"s forming the giant plus sign. He stood and got ready, clicking the button on the stop watch as he dashed to start.
As he ran, Gai had running through his mind the different things he'd done to prepare for this final exercise. There was the circle around the other set of "x"s, the quadrant hopping, and revisiting this exercise the second time. Then, there was more inconventional stuff, like dodging boulders, his puppet's projectiles, and zig-zagging down a dirt road for five miles.
All of it had been building up to this moment. Gai could feel his legs pumping underneathe him, his mind not even focusing on the task at hand. He was letting the adrenaline carry him as his mind mulled over all of the hard work he had to go through to get to this point. Every memory played through his head at rapid speed, until he finished the course and clicked the button.
Gai didn't look down just yet. It occurred to him that there was no way he had thought about all of the training he'd done so far completely before finishing the exercise, that he must have failed. With slight hesitation, he looked at the watch, and his fears were removed completely. It read 7.95 seconds. He had completed the entire course in slightly under two seconds per "x"!!!
Happy with his hard work, Gai decided to go home and get some rest. He deserved it.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.0 Copyright © 2013 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.