Gin had probably lost faith in any deity that existed several years ago. Even before she saw herself forced to leave her family and her home, she had been through her fair share of tragedy. Maybe it had been the day when she had first encountered the death of innocents that she had lost any firm grasp on spiritual beliefs. If it hadn't been then, it was probably when her first love had taken the blame for her deeds and had been therefore banished from the village under no just cause. Or maybe it was when she had lost her first child before he was even born. And if it hadn't been then, she had certainly lost all faith the day her husband turned her back on her in favor of a criminal organization and proceeded to slice her arm off. She coiled the fingers of her prosthetic into a loose fist. This particular model was new. Like the other one that she often used, it was completely hidden by her bandages and clothing. Unlike the other arm, however, this one retained a metallic aspect. She hadn't bothered with aesthetics on this one. She saw no point to it. In any case, her nerve endings were mostly adjusted to the new technology. Nevertheless, she still felt an odd tingling sensation whenever she made any sudden movements. It wasn't uncomfortable, nor did it bother her or hinder her ability to fight. It was just that: odd.

The former Kazekage turned her gaze from the palm of her prosthetic arm to the environment around her. It was fairly quiet and solitary, save for the few monks offering their prayers to whichever god it was that they so often praised. Gin had nothing against the practice, as long as they didn’t attempt to force her to believe in such a fantasy. The idea of a god that watched over humans and protected them was nice and calming, but she had realized at a young age that it was too good to be true. Of course, that said, she hadn’t come to the temple to offer her prayers like most of the monks and visitors there. She had made her way through Iwagakure and towards the edges of the village in order to train in a more calm setting. Sure, training in the Blue Rose mansion was nice, but it was far too crowded sometimes and Gin often got tired quickly of the silly excuses for punching bags that were thrown at her. Then again, that training was meant for them, not for her. Having been hired as head of security, it was her responsibility to make sure that the members of the organization stood a chance against any sort of invasion.

The former Kazekage supposed that that was the reason why she now sought isolation. No, it wasn’t that the members of the Blue Rose had annoyed her so much that she could not stomach the presence of another human being (though that did happen on occasion), it was, rather, that she needed to develop a new set of methods that would help these people train. Fuuinjutsu would no doubt come in handy and she had already loosely developed a concept of the seals she would use and apply to make this particular idea come to life. The young mercenary had become very well-versed in the art of fuuinjutsu. Of course, it came nowhere near her swordsmanship abilities, but it was still a useful skill in and out of battle. It helped her carry her great array of weapons effectively, after all.

Before she started training, Shinobu would sit on the ground, isolated from the few monks and visitors that were there. She needed to meditate, concentrate on the flow of her chakra through her body in order to properly grasp the fluctuations in her system. She had always believed that in order to manipulate chakra with the utmost efficiency, she had to know how her own internal system worked. She had therefore incorporated meditation into her daily training routine, which was then followed by purely physical exercises. After that, she worked on her jutsu and other techniques. Of course, he order varied from time to time, seeing as the young woman often grew bored f doing the same exact thing over and over again. She would decide on what to do afterwards once she finished meditating. But there was something that was bothering her. She didn’t know if it was in her head, but she felt as if someone were staring at her. She tried to shake the feeling, closing her eyes and concentrating on her own existence. However, that didn’t work as well as she had hoped. All she could really do was ignore whatever it was until it went away.

[Word Count: Training Cursed Shackles - Path of Training - 800/1500]

Religion. It was the thing in his life that had caused him the most pain, the thing that had driven him through the most suffering, something that had made his entire childhood little more than a living hell. Yet, despite all that, he had pushed through the bad times and had managed to master his own fate, and master his own religion. He was a fully fledged Ustath now, a priest, a religious teacher if you will. Having come from a position where it did nothing but cause him pain and suffering, it was now his main strength in his life. It was what made him able and willing to continue living each day despite being technically all alone in this world. Well, all alone except for Horus, and he was hardly a human companion. Horus was able to talk, but he had a personality that made him difficult to get along with frequently. They were brothers, even if not by blood, and it was natural that brothers should argue with one another, but this much?

They seemed to be at each other's throats more and more recently, and he was making all of his social interactions with people awkward. He wanted to be able to start with a charming hello and a brisk handshake or something along those lines, yet Horus was always going on with terrible jokes and his arrogant pride. Hell, he asked someone if a rock had insulted their mother. that was incredibly stupid, and it had almost gotten them punched. If they weren't out of the man's reach, he was sure that the man would have snapped at him. A gap was widening between them no matter how much he tried to stop it, it was the gap of people who didn't seem to come from the same world any more. they were, after all, a hawk and a human, as well as brothers.  

That was why he was here today, slipping inside the church and letting the old wooden door slam shut behind him as he walked slowly down the aisle, looking at everything around him. The Fire Temple was a major part of Iwagakure's cultural history, it was where people went to go and worship the fire sages. This place was actually one of the oldest surviving relic of any of the villages, it had supposedly seen all of the great ninja wars come and go, and had weathered it all. It was an amazingly strong building, and that wasn't even to mention how good it still looked despite it's ancient age.

It was a beautiful old building, and Gen just felt like there was something very homely about it. Most people wouldn't call it that, considering that it had nothing to do with a home, but since Gen had grown up the son of a priest he felt more at home with the altar and the images of their gods than he did in a living room of one of the houses of the village. He had found the inn that he was currently staying in extremely strange, and the first time that he had been in a room like that he had actually been unable to sleep because of how different it was. Maybe that was weird since he'd hated his home life so much, but it was at least familiar and comforting. Rooms like that were still taking some getting used to, and he didn't know how long it would be until he was actually able to sleep comfortably in them. It still felt as if he should be sleeping in a tent or something.

Continuing to walk around, occasionally giving a respectful nod of his head to a passing monk, he looked around the building. Although he had said it was homely, there was something more to it than he had first bargained for. It wasn't the same religion or even the same architecture, but there was still something weird about it. It was like... all religions, he knew, had the same base. They all believed in a god, or a series of gods. In almost every religion there were the same kinds of stories, the construction of the known universe, the creation of humanity, the purging of the corrupt, the messiah being attacked or harassed during his life, yet still managing to come out with something constructive out of his life. They were all very similar in religious styles like that, although with the polytheistic religions they tended to have more than one messiah. What was weirder was just how similar their gods were.

There was a god that controlled life and death, there was a god that controlled food and drink, gods who controlled love and fertility, things like that. Almost every non-restrictive religion had things like that, and it made it hard for him to see what had happened all those years ago for people to become like this, for all religious systems in the world to be so pessimistic and sticking to the same styles of gods. It was weird, like there had been one giant collective religion all those years in the past and somehow it had branched off. It made it hard to tell which gods were the real gods. Well, at least, it would make most people query which god was the real god. He knew for a fact that his gods were the real gods, because he had one sitting in his head and telling him to kill people. His god was an absolute asshole, and if he tried to tell anyone about it they never believed him, thinking him just to be another crazy person. It was like a minor torture, the only people who understood him had exiled him because he was a threat to the tribe. Now he was stuck in a land where nobody would be able to sympathize with him, or rather nobody was willing to.

As he continued to walk through the temple, he finally stumbled upon someone who didn't look like they were supposed to be here. So far he had seen sages, villagers, and people like that. However, in the center of one of the rooms near the back of the temple, was a strange person meditating. He would say girl, but the bandages around her face made it kind of hard to tell. The only thing that really gave it away were... well, the two lumps on her chest. Unless it was a guy who was wearing fake breasts for some ungodly reason, he was pretty sure that this was a woman. Though, judging by her position, she was currently meditating. It was weird, she didn't look like she was fitting right here. There was an aura around her that made her seem.... important somehow. He didn't know how, wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know with the kind of people that lived within the city limits, but either way he still found it almost impossible to look away. He couldn't go forwards and introduce himself because she was meditating and as someone who did that regularly himself he knew just how irritating it was when someone interrupted, especially someone who lived in his head!

Finally, as she moved through her jutsu, he walked forwards and introduced himself, making sure that she wasn't going to put him in any danger. From the way he would have looked to her, he was a rather strange looking person. His face was soft and kind, with a smile that was lighting it up. However, there was a certain hardness behind the smile, the same kind that most monks and religious practitioners who had suffered for their religion carried around with them. He was wearing a blue and white striped shirt that was tight on his body, over a pair of black jeans tucked into walking shoes. Over it all, he had a long black long-coat that's collar was sticking up around his neck, and on his back he wore a small satchel and a gourd that had a cork stuck in it. Though, the one thing that would be noticeably amiss from his body was any sign of a headband. Still, considering that she was the kazekage, she might respond hostilely to the fact that a Sabaku, a clan that was mainly from the village she abandoned, was coming over and talking to her. She had no way of knowing that he didn't know who she was.

"You look busy... are you sure you should be doing that in here?" He asked, trying to keep his face pleasant and gentle so that it didn't garner any hostility. there were enough people that would attack him just for being a wanderer, he didn't need to add to the list.
"I don't mean any disrespect, it's just that this place is sacred and not everyone would take very kindly to you using chakra in here. I don't know how the fire sages react to that kind of thing, but since it's their temple surely it's best to err on the side of caution?"

1516/3000 Suiton Proficiency (C) Increasing

Gin kept meditating. She thought she might as well begin practicing the technique that she had in mind and wanted to develop. It would help her training and it would also help those poor bastards at the Blue Rose have at least some hope of being left standing after a fight. The idea was simple: using her expertise in chakra control and her acquired talent for fuuinjutsu, the former Kazekage would create a set of shackles around a person’s ankles or wrists. They would be incredibly heavy and they would incidentally slow the person down by a fair amount, but it would be worth it for the training benefits. It would certainly speed things up by fair amount. It also had combat purposes, meaning that she could apply them onto an opponent in order to reduce their speed and therefore their reaction timing. It was a good idea in theory, now all she needed to do was solidify her cursed shackles into an actual technique. What better way to start than by focusing chakra onto her own wrists and applying the technique onto herself?

The young woman concentrated, still ignoring whoever it was that was watching her. She would deal with that later. In the meantime, it was time to get to business. With her eyes still closed, she began concentrating her chakra onto a single point in each of her wrists. She needed to know how much, exactly, she needed to keep there in order to achieve the exact weight that she wanted. She knew that if she failed, the technique would make it nearly impossible to move or it would be altogether useless. She would test the exact amount that she needed merely by concentrating on how her arms responded to the sudden weight. So far, it was much too light, or at least it felt that way to her. That reminded her. She had to make the technique adaptable to the individual strength of whoever she applied it to. As it was now, it was virtually useless for her to train with. Then again, her previous identity – Gin Kuroka – had been renowned for her brutish strength that had been known to tear the ground open with a single swing of her sword.

The average shinobi did not possess that capability. Not only that, but she knew for a fact that there was no one within the ranks of the Blue Rose that could come close to the strength that she wielded. Well, maybe that man, Hyuuga Tsuyo, could hold his own more than the rest could. But the average foot soldier there was luck to be barely even able to lift 70kg. If she had any knowledge on medical ninjutsu, she would be able to apply some component to the seal that would help it automatically adjust to the wearer’s innate strength. But she lacked said knowledge and she wouldn’t waste time on pondering what she would do if she did possess any techniques similar to that of medics. Instead, she would have to rely on seals alone to do that work. The weights had to be able to adapt on their own.

Gin had initially thought that the seal would just hold the chakra in place and make the shackles nearly impossible to shake off for a certain amount of time. Now he felt downright idiotic for thinking up the technique based only on her particular set of skills and characteristics. Now she would have to apply a second seal to the technique in order to make it feasible for training purposes in the Blue Rose. But why did she care about training them? Honestly, she didn’t know. She had just been hired as head of security, which usually meant keeping the base hidden and keeping out petty thieves who thought the mansion belonged to some nobleman. She didn’t really have to train these people, and yet she couldn’t help it. She settled on calling it a motherly instinct or something of the sort.

In any case, the young woman now had a bit of a job to do. Her own chakra began to form the seals. She could feel them being traced on her skin. It was an odd tingling sensation that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. It was just a faint burn that itched slightly. As the seal was traced onto her, she could feel the weight on her arms increasing drastically. At the same time, the secondary seal that would make the shackles highly adaptable was etching itself on the other side of her wrist. She could feel her chakra becoming solid around her arms. It was straining her movements. Good. The seal was set. She tentatively moved her arms around and finally opened her eyes. She already knew how she was going to test the secondary seal and its changes to increase or decrease in strength. But she was interrupted by a boy with white hair that wasn’t all too different from what Gin’s used to look like before she changed it and dyed it.

The boy had pale skin and a childish face. However, there was something underneath the innocent expression that spoke of pain and experience. She didn’t know who this boy was and she sure as hell knew that he didn’t know who she was. She had gone through great length to ensure that no one ever knew who she had been. She was Shinobu now. She was a shadow, a mercenary. As far as she was concerned, Gin Kuroka was dead. She locked her eyes with that of the boy. He seemed shy and hesitant, as if he were scared of her. At first, she didn’t think she should bother dignifying him with a response. But she was almost sure that he would keep following her around until she at least spoke. “This place is quiet. It lets me think properly. Whichever monk thinks that that’s an ill use of this space can try to kick me out himself and get his ass handed to him in the process,” She explained. Her voice was low, gruff and sultry at the same time. It had a way of sounding wild, violent, yet incredibly wise.

The young woman reached for a scroll that was strapped to her back. She opened it and drew a simple katana from it. The originally pink hilt had been covered by a dark blue fabric to hide the fact that it had been a gift from her late husband. The shackles made it harder to wield, but that was the point of it all. She took a deep breath and returned the scroll to its original place. She stepped out of the temple momentarily. She didn’t want to cause a scene by damaging the infrastructure or hurting any civilians in the process. She gripped the sword tightly and felt chakra coursing through her arms as she did so. The sudden flow of energy made her muscles stiff for a moment as they began to grow in strength. As that happened, the shackles around her wrists also increased in weight. She might as well show off a little. She was almost sure that the white haired boy was still watching her.

The former Kazekage swung her sword. It hit the ground with a loud crash. The earth in front of her began to split open, creating a large ditch. She removed the jutsu that had enhanced her strength and walked back into the temple. She returned the sword to its scroll once again and would face the boy. “I hope that doesn’t qualify as a disturbance.” Her only visible eye was devoid of any emotion. But there was a certain depth in her gaze. Her cyan eyes had been tainted and turned crimson in order to hide her identity, but the intensity of her stare was still inherently the same.

[Word Count: Training Cursed Shackles - Path of Training - 1350/1350]
[Word Count: Training Fire Style: Great Dragon Flame - 762/1350]

This woman... was a bitch! Gen tried not to judge other people on first meeting them, but that was the only way to describe the way that she was acting right now. She was being rude and hostile and was saying how she was willing to attack anyone who disagreed with her use of the area. Looking around the room, he suddenly realized why he was the first person to tell her not to do something like this. The monks who actually lived in the temple were trying to avoid her.

He wasn't entirely sure why they were so scared of her, but now that he noticed it it was hard not to notice it. She was apparently strong enough to intimidate an entire temple and wasn't scared of the fire sages, people who were supposedly sannin-level strength. Either she was really overconfident, or there was something about her that was truly terrifying. But, he didn't really have time to consider her as a major threat. If she continued the way that she was acting then it was really only a matter of time until she destroyed something valuable. This place was a centuries old relic to the past, it was a place that people came to live and pray. She was going to be using someone else's home for her own selfish agenda!

Of course, the moment that he thought that it was only a matter of time was the moment that she actually did what he was worried she was going to do. She was pulling out a katana, a strange katana that didn't seem quite... right in a way. He always considered himself a practitioner of the arts, he cared about religion and he cared about how things were made, and having seen enough of them he could tell that there was something about the blade that seemed... well, if it was anything else he'd have called it artificial.

It seemed like it had been redone later on, and he wasn't simply talking about reforging. He wasn't sure what it was but something about it just felt... newer than the rest of the blade. Though, that wasn't really what mattered. What mattered was that she had just used it in the worst possible way.She had slammed her sword forwards and sliced through the ground. It had left a small chasm, something that made him open his eyes in shock. She... had torn apart their house simply because she wanted to train? This place was a relic.... An expression of anger shot over his face as he looked at her, she was destructive and violent and clearly lacking in manners and morals.

Set's voice perked up in the back of his mind, the tone stern and annoyed but not as cruel and sadistic as the one that he tended to use. There was something unnerving about that, the fact that rather than the psychopath he normally acted like he was actually trying to be sensible and to be concerned about what was going on. This was so wrong...

"Don't get angry with her. If you get angry with her, you're going to get into a fight. Remember who you are." Set was the one that was trying to get him to calm down? that was so rich he could have laughed if he was in a better situation. He was so tempted to just slap her across the face but those annoying bandages would make that awkward. The frustration that was racing through his body was almost suffocating, he need ed to stop her, to help the monks! He didn't know where the fire sages were, but he knew that the moment they found out about this there was going to be hell to pay.

However, instead of thinking about it like that immediately, he was going to have to try and reason this out with Set so that he could get his assistance. Set was, after all, his god form. They were two parts of the same whole, and to be divided in a situation like this was really stupidly dangerous. They were rarely able to work together, they were too damned different, but there was always hope that a situation like this could bring them together. Not much hope, granted, but enough hope that it was worth pursuing.

"But... she's damaged the temple! She's hurting people's home and desecrating their sacred place! She has no respect for their tradition!" Set, for all his bad sides, was still a practitioner of their religion, so he should be able to understand where he was coming from, but it turned out that that little thought had been a bit too optimistic.
"It's not our religion, thus it's not our problem. If you fight her, you're going to get killed. She's a sword user, you know that we're weak to bukijutsu! Don't throw your life away for someone else's problems!"

That was it, he was actually going to risk his life if he stopped this lunatic. She had already threatened the monks who lived here if they tried to stop her, so that meant that if he tried to stop her she would attack him too. With his family's natural weakness, he knew that if they got into a fight before he could get out of her range she would tear him to pieces like he was little more than the earth that she had just bisected.

Still, he had to try, he knew the heavens would curse him if he just stood back and let another person's home get destroyed because someone was selfish and he was too self-preserving to actually do something about it. Besides, he had already said how similar a lot of the world's religions were, and he tried to be tolerant of everyone's beliefs, so an attack against one religion was in a way an attack against all religions and needed to be stopped before someone actually got hurt. Unfortunately, in this case it looked like he was the one who was going to get hurt.

Moving back to one of the monks who were all but shaking in the corner. He was an older man, maybe in his late forties or early fifties with hair that had already managed to go gray. that being said, white hair wasn't exactly the most uncommon color around here any more so maybe he was younger than he looked and his hair was just affecting him like that. Gen looked at him for a moment before saying

"Get the sages. I doubt I'll be able to stop her with words, and if things go badly I doubt I'll be able to hold her off for more than maybe five minutes." The man seemed hesitant for a second, before Gen pushed him, which seemed to jolt him to action. In his hurry to get out of the room, Gen noticed, the man had left behind a flask of water. Well, his loss, he thought as he uncorked the top, took a mouthful before putting the stopper back and moving over to the crazy lady who was tearing the place up.

What he wasn't quite aware of was that that water was from one of the chakra waterfalls of the village. When people used enough water style jutsu, there would always be some of the water that would get evaporated after the battle was finished, and when the chakra dense water was evaporated it was brought into the atmosphere, where it rained and became part of the waterfall. It was like taking a direct shot of another person's chakra. If he was more in touch with his chakra channels like a Hyuga was, he might have noticed the increased output that his veins were giving of suiton chakra now.  

As he approached, he moved his hand to grab onto her arm that held the blade, trying to stop her from using it. He knew that if she tried she could break out of his grip, but he wanted to give her a chance to be peaceful first of all. Threats and attacking the temple were one thing, but attacking people was another. She hadn't crossed the point of no return yet so he hoped she would still be reasonable.

"Please, ma'am! People live here, you just damaged someone's home!" He objected, trying to get her to see reason. He doubted it would work, but there was no harm in trying.... well, actually there was a lot of harm in trying, that was why he just sent for reinforcements.

"I'm asking you to stop. I really don't want to have to make you." Where he might have looked timid or gentle earlier, there was a lot more determination to his face. It was probably bizarre, considering that she had just cut apart earth without even trying, and yet he was not going to give up this situation simply because she was tough. It was his duty, even if this wasn't his own religion being desecrated.

3000/3000 Suiton Proficiency (C) Increased!
0021/4000 Suiton Proficiency (B) Increasing

The former Kazekage’s strength readjusted to its original level. Of course, it was still held back by the shackle around her wrists, but at least she had proven that they worked perfectly well and adapted to changes in individual strength. Her katana was once again in its sheath. She looked at what she had done. There was a large ditch in the gardens that belonged to the temple, but she already knew how to fix it. She knew what she was doing at it wasn’t her intention to get herself any sort of notoriety withing the village. Most of her actions were deliberate. But of course, hardly anyone really knew the motivations behind what she did, the thought process or the reasoning. That, and the young mercenary didn’t really feel the need to explain herself and what she did. Take the devastated yard, for instance. To the average viewer, it looked as if Gin had just destroyed part of the priests’ home without effort and without consideration or care. But she had never been so uselessly cruel. She had never been known to kill or to destroy just because she could or just to prove her strength to herself or anyone around her. No, Shinobu had never been that type of person nor would she ever become someone like that. She would only commit such acts if there was a clear goal behind them. A few years ago, it would have been for the sake of the Hidden Sand Village. Now… Well, she supposed she now owed the Blue Rose her protection.

But the alarmed kid in the background likely thought otherwise. She didn’t have to look at him to know that there was probably a look of utter shock on his face. The former Kazekage stood still, contemplating the large hole in the ground. It seemed as if she were admiring her work – which was partially true. Anyone with any kind of doujutsu, however, would notice the abnormal concentration of chakra in the palm of her left hand. Her eyes were closed softly as she summoned her chakra in order to create one of the weapons that she had most recently fabricated. Jishin, was its name. A stream of bright chakra burst from her hand and began to quickly solidify and take form. The hammer that appeared in her hand was unconventional in its appearance. It was large and heavy. It looked rather difficult to handle, but the young woman’s strength was enough to make the weapon very effective. Not only that, but it had a natural ability that allowed her to modify the terrain around her. She could form mountains, spikes on the ground or ditches similar to the one that she had just made. But that wasn’t what she was about to do, of course. Such a thing would likely result in the destruction of the temple as a whole and her consequent exile from Iwagakure no Sato. She would rather avoid that and put it off for as long as possible, no matter how much she disliked the village that she now found herself in.

She slammed the hammer against the ground with all her might, letting out a loud grunt in the process. But instead of producing more damage, the ground began to shift. It lifted itself slowly. It seemed as if the ground were bubbling like boiling water as it rose to the surface. In a few moments, the ditch was covered by flat ground. The only sign that there had been any sort of turmoil in the area was the lack of grass in the perfectly symmetrical circle that now lacked the same lush grass that covered the rest of the area. Had she been a Senju, the former Kazekage would have fixed that. But seeing as she couldn’t she let things be as they were and made the large hammer disappear. However, the boy was already calling the priests and asking for help. Gin sighed. This was more trouble than she had intended it to be, but she was always up for a good fight. Of course, she wouldn’t start it. She would only defend herself if need be. If not, she would carry on with her own training as she usually did. Then again, having a set of sparring partners – the priests of the temple, of course – wouldn’t be so bad. Then again, she really didn’t want the unwanted attention nor did she want the entirety of the security forces in this damned village to be drawn to where she was over a very minor and stupid misunderstanding.

Yes, it was best to opt for a peaceful solution in this case. He grabbed onto the arm that had been holding her weapon before as he approached her. There was a look of desperation on his face. Gin’s stare was still cold and unfaltering though she did nothing to struggle. She simply looked at the boy with her uncovered eye. No doubt he would feel that the arm he was gripping was only a prosthetic. It was hard and made out of metal, which would no doubt tip him off that it wasn’t made out of flesh and bone. She wondered for a moment how he would react to that, if at all. This was a woman who was made up of bits and pieces that didn’t originally belong to her. Transplants, plastic surgery and prosthetics were a common thing for her. They were necessary, after all she had been through throughout her lifetime.

The eye she had gotten would keep her safe. It would likely draw greedy and ambitious people towards her, but it would just as well defend her from them. The plastic surgery kept her identity hidden, it kept her children back in Sunagakure safe. The prosthetic allowed her to fight and allowed her to continue acting as the proud kunoichi that she was after her late husband had mercilessly sliced her limb off while she tried to calm him down and keep him from defecting. Yes, there modifications – they were a necessary part of her.

The young woman’s stare didn’t falter. The boy was brave, she had to give him that much. “I’m not here to fight or hurt you, kid,” She said simply, shaking her false arm out of his grip. She walked a few steps past him, as if she hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, she hadn’t, but he didn’t really know that, did he? If he attacked her, she would only move around and dodge. She had no reason to pick a fight with the boy. She had to concentrate on her fire techniques. This time, she would aim it at the empty sky in order to avoid any further trouble. She scouted the heavens above her briefly. They were completely empty. There wasn’t even a bird that could act as a possible target. She drew her hands together and formed several signs before muttering, “Fire Style: Great Dragon Flame.” A large burst of fire, loosely in the shape of a dragon, escaped her lips. It danced through the sky briefly, twirling upwards before slowly dissipating once it got out of its intended range. Perfect. She had managed to get the jutsu right on her first try. She still hadn’t lost her touch. Age and time had yet to take their toll on her strength.

The former Kazekage turned to the boy once again, assuming that she was still standing behind her and had not tried to attack her while she practiced her new technique. She stayed silent and only looked at him. She expected the fire priests to come out of the temple any time now and consequently sighed. She would have to take a while to explain to them what had happened, which was something that she hated doing. That, or she could just fight them. Of course, this was assuming that the boy hadn’t called them off yet. In the meantime, Gin sat on the ground in a lotus position, as if resuming her meditations. She still held her guard up and was ready to react to any incoming attack that was directed towards her. She would still have liked to avoid confrontation, if at all possible. She would just have to sit still to wait and see. Fate had a funny way of working itself out.


[Word Count: Training Fire Style: Great Dragon Flame - 1350/1350]
[Word Count: Training Wind Release: Dust Storm Technique - 807/1800]