Ukiyo sat with her knees folded and feet below her. She sat before a rock and a rubbed her hands together in front of her. There was a hole in the canopy up above and the sun was causing her to sweat and the rock to be scorching hot. Ukiyo gathered her chakra on her palms, allowing it to stream out freely. With the two streams opposing each other, she formed a "flat" jet stream of chakra around her hands. Ukiyo took a breath and pushed her hands together, concentrating on controlling her chakra. Too little and her earth-style taijutsu would have no effect. Too much and it would lose its form. All the while molding it with elemental chakra, chakra flow, and shape manipulation. She pressed her hands together and with a burst of chakra, shot/slid them apart as if using the chakra to repel them from each other. She then whipped this chakra around the flat form she made on each hand and used it to boomerang the momentum. The two hands then flew back towards each other, about a foot apart however. The rock had a neat horizontal row carved out. Ukiyo slid her hands together as she inhaled, then splits them apart as she exhales but this time vertically. Ukiyo lets out a yell and whips around her chakra, guiding it as it redirects her hands down/upwards. In an instant, there are two more slices in the rock, cutting out a near-perfect cube in the center.

Ukiyo places her hand channels chakra, this time containing it to the extent of her hands. As she gathers more chakra, Ukiyo begins to spread her fingers apart little by little. Ukiyo slide the top part of the rock off and lowered her hands around the cube. She began molding the chakra on her hands to mokuton, then slowly closed her hands. Ukiyo began pressing out thorns in the palms of her hands, creating a way to apply sharpened pressure and dice up the rock. It took some time, but Ukiyo eventually caused the rock’s entire structure to be chopped to bits and fell apart into rubble. Ukiyo unclasped her hands and watched as the thorns sunk back into her skin. Beauitful. Ukiyo smiled and blew dust from her hands.
380/1000

Ukiyo stood up, noticing a light breeze playing with loose strands of hair and cooling her ears. It was quite welcome; beads of sweat had begun congregating on Ukiyo’s brow since she’d started this training. She had always had a natural gift for movement, but strength training was difficult. She stretched her right arm above/behind her head and pulled it slightly leftward with her left hand, then repeated for her other arm. The muscles in her hands were already sore, despite her chakra doing most of the work. She paced around the edges of the grassy circle, observing the trees surrounding it. When she found one she wanted, Ukiyo rolled up her sleeves and took a fighting stance; one leg back and to the left, slightly crouched, and left hand forward and to the left, keeping balance. Her sleeves rolled back down on their own, and Ukiyo smiled. Can’t be helped I suppose. Besides, I wouldn’t have them rolled up in a real battle anyway. Ukiyo began to lean back-right, bringing her hand back in the same direction. She suddenly presses into her left foot, swings her left and right arms counter-clockwise, and flips into a forward “roll” without touching the ground, going to the left side of the tree. She places her right hand on the ground beneath her head and uses it to pull the grass, accelerating the roll. As her legs come over, she plants the left leg as close to beneath her body as possible and uses the momentum of the roll/flip to sling her right leg into the bottom of the tree. A sheering pain shoots up her leg as her tendon takes the full impact of the trunk. The tree shakes and a few leaves fall down. Ukiyo winces but continues her attack in tempo. She uses the right leg against the trunk to begin whipping around it clockwise, grabbing the trunk with her right hand as she came around, and uses the momentum of the turn to flip into a 90 degree squatted pose against the tree. She instantly pushes off, grabs a branch overhead, spins, and kicks the tree with her momentum yet again. Same foot, but on the top rather than the back this time. Still, immensely painful. Ukiyo drops and catches herself on her two hands and left leg, keeping the right one bent. She grinds her teeth, then pushes up and kicks out with her right foot (now in the air with her stomach facing up). She bends her body and spins as her foot makes contact. It pushes her away from the tree, but Ukiyo stops this by planting her hands down. Instead, she absorbs the reacting force into a spring and pops back into the tree as she bounces off the ground; left foot this time. With each hit, she catches herself on the ground again and pushes off, over and over. Eventually she catches herself on all fours and falls over, exhausted. She looks back at the tree to see a well-defined foot mark on it. Ukiyo frowns and rubs the bark, “I’m sorry buddy.” She makes a hand sign and a new, thicker layer of bark covers up the footprint. Ukiyo smiles, then collapses over her shaking legs. She crawls back to the center of the circle of grass, where a chopped-up rock sits. Ukiyo sits up Indian-style and winces, her ankles/feet aching in pain. She rubs them and can feel parts where bone has splintered. She does two hand signs, then a third and closes her eyes. It’s not a wince, more a reflection. Bark thickens on her skin covering her feet and ankles. She begins to stand up, but when she gets to her feet Ukiyo is completely unable to balance; teetering left and right, hopping from foot to foot. Eventually she springs off her feet and onto her hands where she stays in a handstand deciding what to do next. She runs off into the brush with an idea of where she might go.

1052/1000