He could feel the cold beads of sweat on his brow, his eyes focusing despite the dark of the night. The plume of chakra that his feet rested on solidified the water he walked on. One incorrect move, and he'd sink into the water near the docks and have to haul himself back to the beach to start over again. He had been going at this for nearly the whole day, save for a few lunch breaks provided by the nearby fishing village that was established on the primary docks that connected Konohagakure by sea to the other coastal nations. It wasn't uncommon to see those of Kirigakure of Kumogakure here, selling their wares to merchants who might want to ship them around the Land of Fire in an attempt to make a profit from such exotic goods.

All of that was a distant memory of the day though. Now, late into the night, the area surrounding the docks was quiet. Yoshihiro relished the sounds of the waves beneath him, his steps focused but also aiming to be quick. His self-imposed task was straightforwards, if not difficult. He was to walk from the shore out to sea as far as the piear stretched. Along the rivers deeper within Hi no Kuni, such a feat would have been easy, the waters were calm and placid. Out here though, on the shores where small to moderately sized waves lapped and crashed onto the sandy beach, such stable footing was impossible. Thus, came the boy's first true challenge: to find stability on a terrain that was inherently unstable, the ocean's surface.

He couldn't count how many times he had failed. He'd started off slow, but then that made him susceptible to the building wave, causing him to crash and fall backwards into the water as he was knocked over by the motion of the whitecap. If he went too fast, he might lose his footing, still posessing the same proficiency over Chakra Flow as the average Genin. Still, as he was without a master, a sensei, this was the only thing that he could think of doing to be able to train himself. He felt gross and sickly, his skin plastered with saltwater that had dried over the course of the sunny day only to be washed over and over again by the ocean's touch.

Yoshi was halfway there, he had gotten the first leg of the task down, but the further in he walked, the larger the waves tended to become. Sure enough, as he stepped over a building bulge of water, the beginnings of a crashing wave, his footing slipped. With a shout of frustration, the boy fell face-first into the water, getting a good mouthful of ocean to swallow as he doggy paddled back to shore. Hauling himself on land, he coughed up some saltwater, promising himself to learn how to swim eventually to make this all a lot easier. For now, he could only sigh in frustration, rolling his shoulders and looking over his shoulder at the waves that continued to mock him. Frowning, he stood up, looking around to see if anyone had noticed him. He hoped he hadn't kept anyone up from the nearby village with his sounds of frustration...

553/553

"Conspiracy Theory #49..do the rocks around the docks allow the anyone fortunate to come across them to activate one hundred percent of their brain power, much like that idiot Sasuke Sarutobi claimed? I have my doubts."

It was late in the night, and normally Hayate would be sound asleep in a comfortable bed. But when rumors were circulating around the block about magical rocks, the young Genin couldn't help but prove these unsubstantiated claims wrong. Especially when people were starting to even -eat- these rocks in some stupid attempt to get superpowers, only to end up in the hospital for surgery. The only upside to this endless stream of stupidity was that the docks were a nice change of scenery to the busy commerce section of Konoha.

Picking up one of the many rocks scattered across the sands, he took out a magnifying glass to examine every inch and crack of the stone. Of course, it looked exactly like any rock...and he didn't feel any smarter, either. Pocketing the stone, he shook his head in disbelief. Just how could anyone fall for this? Sure, Sasuke was a pretty good liar, but it took a different level of stupidity for anyone to believe such an absurd lie. He wanted to slap each and every person that fell for this bull.

"For now, this requires more research but the results don't seem very prom-"

SPLASH!

The sound took him out of his current train of thought, causing him to stop his audio recorder and wander over to the source of the sound. Who was out here this late at night, and why? Hayate didn't immediately assume that whoever did that was a no-good criminal that deserved the death penalty, but nevertheless he kept himself on guard just in case. With how late it was, he figured it was about a fifty fifty chance whether or not the person he encountered would be unsavory or "normal".

But, his curiosity was piqued even further once he actually found who was behind the disturbance - a boy just around his age was drenched completely in water, and he didn't seem very happy. Did someone push him in? He didn't see any signs that anyone was around, so that couldn't have been it.

"Huh. I'd be pretty upset too if I got that wet, you alright?"

Still wanting to stay a bit on the cautious side, Hayate positioned himself six feet away from him. While he noticed the headband, that didn't ease his paranoia in the slightest. But, from the look on Hayate's face you'd assume he was one of the friendliest people in the world! A warm, welcoming smile helped to assert the fact that he was no threat, though Hayate figured he might've been a bit off-put by his eccentric fashion tastes. If the skin tight, black designer pants and the pink tank top didn't do it, the pink lipstick and fingernails definitely would. It amused him seeing people's reactions to it. They just couldn't understand his fashion choices!

Despite his choice of clothing, however, there was no mistaking Hayate for a girl. He was surprisingly well built, and his voice was a perfect fit for any male his age. Of course, none of that stopped any of the absurd advances he got from other men..

WC: 570
TWC: 570

Yoshi grabbed at his robes, twisting the cloth to wring out the saltwater. Why was this so hard? He had easily mastered the art of walking on water mere weeks into joining the Ninja Academy, Chakra Flow was one of his greatest strengths! Yet, despite his prowess, this simple exercises was one that he had no real skill in overcoming, it was the ceiling separating him from ascending to the level of control that Chunin or even the Special Jonin had. He frowned as he tried to rethink what he had done before he fell in. All that he could deduce was that he had slipped and faceplanted into the seawater, but how then could he avoid doing so again? No matter the speed at which he went from the shore out to sea as far as the dock, he always lost control once the waves started getting too big.

The boy was so caught up in his own internal ramblings that he completely failed to notice the appearance of another figure approaching him on the sand. "Wagh!" the teen yelped, leaping up from the sand and flopping onto his side as the pink haired fella' gave him a darn good spook. "Give a guy some warning next time will ya!" he quipped, looking over to where the stranger was standing as Yoshi slowly got up to his feet, dusting the sand off that was clinging to his clothes. He was shivering, freezing cold from the brisk nighttime air caressing his soaked teenage form. He tried to act tough, to fold his arms and put on a serious face, but that didn't exactly stop the way his legs or arms shivered a tad as he stared the stranger down.

He certainly dressed like a weirdo, but by the big happy smile he was giving off, he didn't seem mean. Yoshi thought that weirdos could be nice and good people, so naturally, with his puberty-stricken brain, he assumed that this strange man skulking about the docks at night was a nice guy. "It's no good, yeah" the teen grumbled, shivering in place as the encounter unfolded. "I've been here all day trying to walk on the water as far as the end of that dock, I can't seem to get past the halfway point, thats where the waves start to break. I keep losing my balance" he complained. He shuffled over to the small pile of trash and driftwood that he had compiled whilst training during the day- a clean beach was a healthy beach!

"You look like a Genin, you from Konoha?" the boy asked, standing next to the small pile of trash and wood. He looked down at it and then back up to the stranger, "Tell ya what, if you can make a fire so that I don't collapse from hypothermia, I'll teach you one of my minor jutsu- you're getting ready for the exams right?" he asked, tilting his head as he stood there looking the stranger over. The fashion choice, especially that lipstick, it made the boy look quite cute, even if it caused weird reactions from the teen as he waited shivering in the cold to see if the person would agree to such a frivilous bargain.

551/1104

[EXIT from Inactive thread :( ]

Total WC: 1104

• Training C-rank jutsu, 'Illusory Art: A Not-So-Imaginary Friend': 1000/1000