Too much reading, too many closed spaces, too quiet a day: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, in this case, it makes Garuda a bored young man. It was the middle of the day, and Garuda stirs out of bed after a night of sleep that resembled a log rolling down a rocky, bumpy slope: constantly moving and never finding a stable position that allowed him to stay at rest. He knew that his body was in need of some sort of activity, so he gets up out of bed, gets dressed in a black, red and white variant of the orange and blue gi he sometimes wears, and starts stretching out. After about half an hour’s worth of stretching out as many muscle groups as he can to loosen up, Garuda steps outside as the sky grows overcast.

“Why did I have to pick today to go out and do this?” Garuda says, looking at the looming clouds overhead. They seemed to promise rain, but he knew that he already stepped out and made the commitment in his head, so he starts walking towards the training areas within the Hyuuga clan complex.

There was an assortment of different activity possibilities. There were a few training dummies, many of which were Wing Chun derivatives that were arranged four around the trainee, meant to sharpen and hone the Byakugan. There were some other dummies as well: a few that were charged with chakra to simulate closing chakra points (although there were ones filled with water for beginners, where you make the balloon burst by increasing the water pressure) and others that were just meant to take hits. Although the Hyuuga clan was strictly dedicated to taijutsu, there were some wooden training weapons, predominantly blunt kunai (practically little wooden bats to resemble kunai) and softwood shuriken (only good against a foam board).

Garuda moves towards the 4-on-1 Wing Chun dummy setup and takes a loose stance. As the sky starts to rumble a little bit, he takes a deep breath and begins to move, locking up with one dummy before shifting to the right, making contact with each peg at least three times before moving to the next one. His speed begins to pick up, the wooden pegs on the dummies beginning to creak with the force of Garuda’s strikes, hitting them a minimum of five times before moving to the next one. It begins to rain, but Garuda stays committed and focused on his training, his movements cutting through the raindrops, hitting each peg a total of ten times before moving to the next one. The pegs begin to crack, bending with the force of each hit as Garuda ups the limit by striking each peg 15 times before moving to the next dummy. He then begins to pour more chakra into his movements, a heavy wind beginning to blow around him as he moves, keeping his limit to 15 strikes to each peg before moving on in rapid succession.

The wind around Garuda begins to blow harder, generated by his own chakra. An aura of black, instead of blue (which is considered the normal hue for visible chakra output), forms around him, simulating a tornado as he spins and attacks the array of dummies around him. By this time, he strikes each dummy’s pegs 20 times, multiplied by the number of pegs, as he begins to create his own whirlwind of chakra, the funnel created by his aura lacing itself with electricity from Garuda’s secondary reserves. Soaked with rain, Garuda continues his pace, his eyes burning with sweat and fatigue, his muscles straining as his stamina wanes, his skin moist with perspiration and precipitation, the flesh on his hands and arms becoming raw and bruised.

WC: 630

Unexpected on the behalf of an Uchiha, although Tenzō was inside the Hyūga clan district with a diplomatically assignment on which he just picked on. The young man was supposed to deliver a scroll which contained the response towards an invitation sent a few days ago by one of the Hyūga high families towards another high family, although an Uchiha one. The young shinobi was quite lost within the walls of this vast district and accidently managed to locate the training grounds, where Garuda was constantly delivering powerful and rapid blows towards the inanimate dummies. It was expected for him to be this good, since the Hyūga was known for their taijutsu, more specifically the gentle fist fighting style. One which did not focus on dealing hard blows that damaged the exterior, but one which focused on dealing internal damage with the use of their knowledge on tenketsu, the system which had the role of guiding the chakra throughout the body; internal bleeding was not something which could be ignored.

“Oh... excuse me from interrupting your training, but do you know where I can find this address?” was the question posed by the young Uchiha towards Garuda. Once his question was revealed, Tenzō searched deep inside his pocket before pulling out a small piece of paper which contained the address of this specific high family, and hopefully this young Hyūga was capable of escorting him towards that location, or at least give him some few indications which he could work with. Without further ado, once the piece of paper was unwrapped from its square-shaped form, the young Uchiha had shown it to Garuda. There were quite a few things which the Uchiha was quite good at, although when it came to locate a certain building he was quite bad, even with a map and indications given at start he would still be somewhere close to the word deplorable.

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323 Words

Garuda’s progress ground right to a halt, hearing a voice he recognized from the ramen shop. He stops and lets his body come to a relaxed state, the chakra he was emitting coming to a halt. Taking a deep breath, he looks at the Uchiha and slowly receives the paper from him, holding his hand over it to block as much rain as possible. After reading it, he folds it back up and hands it back to him. “It’s in the middle of the compound,” Garuda says nonchalantly, though sounding slightly depressed. “Follow me. When is the scheduled time set for you for this appointment?”

Garuda felt like a guide now, but the rest and the rain felt good on his body after all the sweating he did earlier. He walked with the Uchiha through the compound towards the main complex, where the final destination would be. “Actually,” he says, looking over to the Uchiha before looking forward again, “I think I saw you at or around Ichiraku’s a few days ago. I was just heading out as you were just finishing up, maybe.” It could have been a coincidence. He was poking at an Uchiha while at the bar of the ramen shop, but he didn’t get much attention or use from him, the cheap b@stard, so Garuda figured that, since he finished up, he would pay his bill and leave, thanking the young man for his ‘lively’ dinner conversation.

It was not much longer when they reached the master complex at the middle of the compound, Garuda escorting the Uchiha inside. “I’ll stick with you and walk you out as well,” he says when the Uchiha comes in. “Even though there is a more open policy about guests and visitors, where you’re wanted is a little more closed-off. You just have to follow the signs now.”

WC: 308
Total: 938

The Uchiha didn’t really seem to be bothered by the pouring rain, although he neglected the fact that the address might get soaked completely within water, luckily for him that Garuda acted quickly enough in order to make sure that it won’t get soggy and wiped out. “Oh, but I’m not from a high family. I’m just a messenger in this case, as I just took the simple job of delivering back this scroll which I have stored inside my robe.” Tenzō said on a gentle tone, while his right hand was rubbing the back side of his head.

“Thank you very much for taking me here, as I would have surely been lost. Oh, and yes... I was at the ramen shop a few days ago, and saw you deal with two... unpleasant villagers. I was going to give you a hand, although you managed to best them before I even had the chance to leave the shop.” were the words spoken by the young Uchiha before he dashed quickly inside the building to deliver the scroll. A couple of knocks followed quickly after, and a member of the Hyūga high family had hissed the doors open. Just a few seconds were spent inside by Tenzō in order to explain his presence, and the fact that he took the assignment of delivering up the response from the Uchiha family. Without wasting any more time, Tenzō headed towards the exit where he had the chance of meeting up with Garuda once more, in order to escort him outside the district.

“I guess saying thank you won’t really be enough. I promise that I’ll make up for it these days, with a ramen and coup of sake.” were the words uttered by the Uchiha before his lips curled within a smile. Apparently it was nothing more than a summer rain, as the sky was now clearing and the clouds were scattering all over the place, dispersing themselves individually. The celestial sun had barely began to peek.

The Uchiha was safely escorted outside the district.

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350 Words

Total Words ~ 673

Exit Thread.