1 Yin and Yang [Training/Open/No Kill] Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:54 am
Shinako
D-rank
Coursing swiftly through the trees beside the stream, Shinako's feet took the rough terrain expertly. Stone after stone, divot after divot, it was all familiar to her. She and the forest held no secrets from one another; between the two of them were no surprises. She loved coming to the woods as the shadows lengthened at the end of the day, past the old mill and her childhood wishing well. As the dark grew, the forest could be hers, and she could belong to the forest, and together they would always make something more of the time than hours shifting into more forgotten hours. Here was the shadow land. Here was the fertile land, where nature laid her womb bare to the world, producing fruit, as if to say 'see, we can have a part in this together'.
Picking her way along the shoreline, Shinako kept her eye trained on the stream, following the silver silouette that flitted just out of range of her shadow. Ducking beneath a low branch, she readied a senbon needle, holding it between her thumb and middle finger and using her index finger to support its length. The throw would come only when she was sure of her success. It was not crucial that she catch her dinner out in the wilderness, but the prospect of returning and dining with her brothers in the absence of their father was not not appealing to her in the least.
Sweat trickled and threatened to sting at Shinako's left eye, so she used the sweat-band on her left wrist to dab at the side of her face, careful not to allow the gesture to obstruct her view of the fish. The stream was coming to a bend, and Shinako knew that the fish woud slow down there. Leaping and springing off of a tree to her right, Shinako flew over the glistening surface of the water, agily traversing from the right side of the river to the left just as the fish bent its own path to the left to follow the stream. With a sharp flick of her wrist, Shinako let the senbon needle fly.
The senbon needle, as a medical and accupunctural tool, was one of precision. Often considered inferior to the shuriken and the kunai, its reputation often suffered for the sheer amount of accuracy required to make it an effective fighting tool in the shinobi world. As the single bolt of metal streaked through the air, its silver flickered first light, then dark, then light again, in constant protest against the sun above and the penumbra below; companion to both, indebted to neither. It parted the water with little more ceremony than a single fish scale, slicing downward in an inexorable dive, scarcely losing any momentum, having been thrown with such purpose that the kami of the stream both saw and approved. Almost with a mind of its own, it claimed its prize.
The fish, though it swam quickly, knew nothing of the death that slipped from the air above it so swiftly. As the needle found its mark, piercing almost completely through the muscular, green-brown body of the fish, the animal writhed and rolled, curling itself like a fist, protesting death. Then, after a few short moments, ceased to struggle, floating lazily toward the surface of the water. Shinako, alighting softly on a patch of moss, arrested her momentum and retied the sash binding her hair into a ponytail.
The young woman, wearing short sleeves, dipped her hands into the stream, retreiving the fish and removing the needle from its flesh in the same motion. She scanned the environment for signs of other wild-life before trekking a ways back from the stream to set up camp. If she was to train through the night she would need a fire.
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Picking her way along the shoreline, Shinako kept her eye trained on the stream, following the silver silouette that flitted just out of range of her shadow. Ducking beneath a low branch, she readied a senbon needle, holding it between her thumb and middle finger and using her index finger to support its length. The throw would come only when she was sure of her success. It was not crucial that she catch her dinner out in the wilderness, but the prospect of returning and dining with her brothers in the absence of their father was not not appealing to her in the least.
Sweat trickled and threatened to sting at Shinako's left eye, so she used the sweat-band on her left wrist to dab at the side of her face, careful not to allow the gesture to obstruct her view of the fish. The stream was coming to a bend, and Shinako knew that the fish woud slow down there. Leaping and springing off of a tree to her right, Shinako flew over the glistening surface of the water, agily traversing from the right side of the river to the left just as the fish bent its own path to the left to follow the stream. With a sharp flick of her wrist, Shinako let the senbon needle fly.
The senbon needle, as a medical and accupunctural tool, was one of precision. Often considered inferior to the shuriken and the kunai, its reputation often suffered for the sheer amount of accuracy required to make it an effective fighting tool in the shinobi world. As the single bolt of metal streaked through the air, its silver flickered first light, then dark, then light again, in constant protest against the sun above and the penumbra below; companion to both, indebted to neither. It parted the water with little more ceremony than a single fish scale, slicing downward in an inexorable dive, scarcely losing any momentum, having been thrown with such purpose that the kami of the stream both saw and approved. Almost with a mind of its own, it claimed its prize.
The fish, though it swam quickly, knew nothing of the death that slipped from the air above it so swiftly. As the needle found its mark, piercing almost completely through the muscular, green-brown body of the fish, the animal writhed and rolled, curling itself like a fist, protesting death. Then, after a few short moments, ceased to struggle, floating lazily toward the surface of the water. Shinako, alighting softly on a patch of moss, arrested her momentum and retied the sash binding her hair into a ponytail.
The young woman, wearing short sleeves, dipped her hands into the stream, retreiving the fish and removing the needle from its flesh in the same motion. She scanned the environment for signs of other wild-life before trekking a ways back from the stream to set up camp. If she was to train through the night she would need a fire.
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