Rippa had left his camp site and traveled down river for the day. He was careful to stick to the river but while he did so he moved around the branches with all his might and speed. He would leap off of one branch and sail up through the air before his hands caught a hold of another branch. Using his forward momentum he would swing his body up from the branch and bring his knees in. His body spinning like a ball as he sailed through the distance until he would uncurl at the last moment and his spin would end on the next branch. He never really let go of his training regiment. It was how he prepared. For the moment though he was investigating where the river let out into the ocean. It was there that he could gather certain herbs that only grew where fresh water and salt water met. He would use these herbs to help the healing process on his sore muscles when he slept as an accelerated healing process. After all the way muscle building worked was tearing the old muscle before letting it heal. This would just do it overnight instead of over a twenty four hour period.

To be honest though he had alternative motives for going to a secluded beach. He was dressed in boots with blue jeans and a black tank top with black leather fingerless gloves. His red coat was left behind for the moment so as not to let anyone identify him looking for a man in a red coat. He wasn't on the run exactly but he was avoiding some particularly nasty individuals. Some nasty individuals he would kill some day later. For now he needed to train in weaponry. He had only just begun to learn the sword but he wanted to learn something also useful at a range. So as he thought about it he figured he would try his hand at archery and see if he could figure it out. Usually keeping blades around a member of the Chi clan was dangerous but thats another reason he was camping out so secluded and away from any road. Until he mastered weapons he would prevent an accidental outburst of blood rage from killing anyone. It was his responsibility if he lost control after all. Still he wished he didn't believe that his own uncle was out to try and kill him. He would of been far happier living in an oblivious state then being filled with all this anger all the time towards his enemies.

Still he had collected a few branches on the way and brought along some of the suture material used for stitching up a wound. He was pretty bad at designing weapons but he really didn't have much choice. He couldn't exactly return to town to buy some arrows an actual bow. There was too much danger in being tailed. So he gathered the right shaped sticks and made his way to the beach where he finally landed in the soft sand. There was an overcast but no threat of rain. So it was warm but not too warm. It was then that he set to work making arrows with the use of a Kunai he always kept tucked into his boot. Carving away any bark and using seagull feathers for fletching. It took him over an hour but once they all looked almost decent for the crap they were he used the suture material to create a bow string. Notching the back of the arrows to fit it. It was truly a sad sight to see. But still he rose to his feet. He drew back the bow string slowly to test it before he picked up one of the arrows and examined it. The tip was dull but for now he just wanted to be able to aim it. He would sharpen them later and figure out how to pierce the target later. For now he notched one of the more crooked arrow attempts and lifted it up in a bad stance. Aiming for a rock before he took a deep breath and let it out as he fire. His aim and the arrow were both really poor though so the first arrow sailed away from the rock and into the crashing waves of the ocean. Rippa just watched it happen with a sigh. Before mentally going over in his mind what he did wrong.

751

Watching the river empty out into the ocean was rather peaceful. Now, Gin wasn't exactly the type of person that enjoyed peace and quiet on a regular basis. To an extent, she found it dull for prolonged periods of time. The silence, the unchanging nature of the scene, the stillness of it all... It was eerie. It seemed unnatural to Gin that such a thing would be defined as peace, or even as something akin to perfection. The world wasn't like that. Human nature wasn't like that. The former Kazekage had seen first hand how cruel and heartless life could be, how nations gave power to a corrupt few and left the rest in misery, all for the sake of "order." She spat at the idea. It kept people locked in a false sense of conformity and safety. In truth, there was no such thing. Whether they lived or died was decided by the select few in power, their decision relying on a whim. Their own self interest dictated the course of millions of lives which to them, were little more than numbers.

Peace was a lie. Chaos was the only truth.

But in chaos, there were small windows of silence that represented the ever changing nature of the world. She supposed that was why she could allow herself to enjoy views such as this one without soon becoming bothered by it. She walked through the thin forests. The trees decreased in quantity and height as she neared the end of the river, soon becoming small shrubs. She could feel the pressure of the wind over her clothes, but not its gentle caress. Most of her face and skin in general were covered either by clothes or bandages. It was bothersome to have to hide her identity again, but she couldn't quite announce herself to the world while she was in Konoha. Gin would have to settle for using her old outfit.

Truth be told, she hadn't expected to run into anyone here. It was a rather remote location and far from the village itself, after all. A man with silver hair - not too different from her own - had set himself up at the shore in order to train. He held a makeshift bow and arrows and was poised and ready to shoot it. His form was laughable, and that was putting it lightly. By this point, Gin was a few meters away from him and made no effort to hide her presence. She sat on a rock several feet behind him. She wondered for a brief moment while she looked at him whether or not he was a Kuroka - his hair was silver and he was using weapons, so there was a chance. However, once she saw him fire the arrow and miss miserably, she dismissed the idea, partially because she held her clan at such a high esteem.

"You're crap at this," she mused. "If you were hunting for survival, you'd starve in about a week," she added, her chin resting on the palm of her hand as she sat and looked on. She stood up and walked up to the man. She would motion for him to hand her the bow for a moment. If he did, she would knock an arrow after testing the quality of the bowstring and the shape of the arrow itself. She could make due with it for now. She would swiftly aim the projectile weapon at the sky and shoot. The blunt arrow would crash against a seagull, which would be momentarily thrown off course. It would struggle to fly for a moment before regaining its composure. After this, she would hand the bow and quiver back to the man and head back towards the rock where she was initially seated.

[Perception B2 to B3 - 647/900]

Rippa had watched his failure with some frustration. He had never really been one to take failure lightly. Even when studying if he didn't understand a term or couldn't do something right he would look into it. Watch and reverse engineer what he observed. Even as a child he could take in something and it's nature and begin to understand it. He would mentally and sometimes physically take it apart before putting it back together. His test subjects being animals he was dissecting after hunting for food. Not alive of course but he would use them to discover the anatomy of living beings. Figure out how it all works and comes together. Eventually he had gone above that and began to heal the injured animals he had no intention of eating. However his studies with the human bodies had churned his stomach only once before. Once when he was still young he had come across a man after his life in his cabin in the woods. It was then that he had experienced the blood rage again. He only remembered getting injured by the man and afterwards he had blacked out. When he returned to the world his injury was no longer bleeding but blood was everywhere. He saw the mans legs behind a table but something hadn't added up. Because he also saw the mans upper torso pinned to the door. In his blood rage he had ripped the man in half and brutally. The part that was torn was in tatters as if it had been clawed apart. That was his only experience with the inside of the human body before he actually preformed surgery. His experience was stitching the torn body back together before giving it a proper burial. It was amazing how much one could learn from stitching together a dead body and seeing the insides of the insides.

Still as he was feeling the taste of vomit in his mouth from the memory he heard a voice. And if anything it was insulting him. He spun around and gripped the bow like a sword. His sword grip was decent but with such an awkward sword like a bow he was obviously not going to wield it very well. He noticed the long white hair of the woman and raised an eye brow. Was she like him? He had never understood why his hair was white anyway. Some sort of genetic string from his mothers side apparently. The bloodline only gave birth to males so the clan had to go elsewhere to marry. Perhaps she was part of his mothers clan? Or was such hair color more common then he had thought? Either way what he also noticed was the bandages that covered most of the woman. It seemed odd to him that such an amount of bandages was even necessary. And none of them with a spot of blood on them. Not to mention how she moved seemed to appear uninjured. No limp or sore spots showed at least. Still she calmly held out her hand for the bow. He hesitated for a moment before handing it to her. He watched as she tested the bow string and the arrow and watched closely as she pulled the arrow taunt. He watched how she aimed it and took mental notes. Taking apart her stance and her movements even as she hit her target. Then she simply handed it back to him and he watched her go sit down again. What an odd woman to just demonstrate her archery skills with even his crap materials. But that had been what he needed to begin with. Something to reverse engineer.

He set the quiver down and picked out one arrow. Using the notes in his mind about everything she did. First his stance shifted and suddenly it was apparent that he was slipping into a decent archery stance. He was mimicking her movements and learning at a stunning rate. All from watching it demonstrated once. Once his stance matched hers he knocked the arrow at the same place on the string she had. Positioning his fingers just as she had done. Before bringing it up and pulling the bow taunt. He pulled it back and straightened his shoulder leveling the arrow just under his right eye. His posture had improved dramatically. He aimed at a crab on the sands and let out a breath as he aimed before releasing it. The arrow sailed through the air and landed not three inches from the crab which skittered away. He cursed a little before he turned back towards her.

"I will manage it thank you very much. I need to learn the bow and I intend to learn western swordsmanship as well. So unless you have a westerner sword on you and care to demonstrate it to me. I shall have to ask that you refrain from being the peanut gallery madame."


1577

1500/1500 kyujutsu trained

77 remaining