Crisp, Cold, Comfortable (Riku Only)

Itachi flipped his hair back over his shoulder. For the last five minutes every gust had been raising the ponytail up higher and higher until it had eventually flopped over and been in the front rather then hanging off his head like a good set of hair is supposed to do. The wind was nothing major, just there, and slightly annoying, but the way it felt upon the skin was so refreshing. Before coming out today, he had taken a shower so he would feel refreshed and new. It was a mental enabler. It worked wonders.

He stood upon a large grey rock. It was almost white, but not quite. It felt almost crumbly beneath his booted feet. He was completely decked out in his battle attire. Fully prepared to train. As he gazed back towards the village, he wondered how long he was going to be waiting for Senshi. They had agreed to meet in about this same spot. The last encounter they had had was to be described as brief to put it lightly. They more or less just became acquainted. They had been about to be treated to a meal from what appeared to be a jounin level ninja, but they had been interrupted. Itachis mother had stumbled upon them and needed some things taken care of at the house. it was a shame because they had been planing to train after their meal. So they made arrangements where they could be undisturbed, out here in the mountains. At least for a while. The plan was to learn off each other. Go head to head and gain experience that way.

The problem was, they hadnt set a time. The had only said, "tomorow." So that left it pretty open. Itachi had already been standing in his current position for over an hour. There was no telling how long it would take for his new friend to show, but he was almost certain that he would eventually. For now though, he realized he was wasting time, but he did not want to leave in case Senshi showed up while he was gone. That would be rude to make him wait unfairly. And he didnt really mind waiting, but there was no point in doing nothing in the process.

He leaped off the what was better described as a boulder down to a grass patch below. He bent his knees as he landed to soften the impact on his legs. He stood up and turned to face the boulder once again. As he waslked up to it he produced a kunai and a blade of grass from the ground. He tacked the blade of grass to the rock with the kunai and then jumped back away from it. Not once, but three times, creating a noticeable distance between him and his self made target. It was fairly small but all the same, that just made it more beneficial. If he could hone in on the grass, it meant his accuracy was increasing. What made it more intense, was the projectile he drew from his selection of ninja tools.

Senbon.

He procured five of them, all in the same hand, all waiting to be thrown for deadly reasons, He lined up his sights and readied his hand. He took his time. The goal here was assassination. the width of the blade of grass gave about the same room for error as hitting preasure points and death strikes. Being that he planned on using senbon and stealth was his preferred method, this was a perfect training, though it was simple. That just made it better, as it was not more complicated then it needed to be.

The metal links shot through the air one after the other. He only aimed for the first one, letting his preset guidance and instincts and natural flow take over to guide him as he did his best to start at the top of the grass and keep them in a straight line all the way down it. He could not see the thin pieces of metal from this distance in this light, so he had to approach to see his results. What he saw, though was not 100% success, did please him. They were in a stright line, but they did no go straight down, instead they went oiff to the side, each one going a little bit further to the right. That wasnt bad. That just meant he had to readjust his predetermined settings for a bit more of a left approach and keep his shoulder from pulling back cauisng the rest of his arm to jut out to the side. Lowering his elbow would help too.

All but the last two had hit the blade of grass. So that was also good. He was quite pleased wtih what he had done so far but proceeded to try again, repeating the same process as before. This time when he approached, it was a little bit of improvement. He still had the same patttern of veering to the right, but it was less extreme of an angle, and only one senbon needle did not land on the target, all the other four did, so this was improvement. He once again retrieved all the senbon from the grass as well as his kunai. He was going to move on for now. He drew his sword and prepared to practice the basic kendo maneuvers he had learned from his father.