Making the Gains

The Karatachi Family was important to those who dwelled in Kirigakure for they were not only a skilled family who had produced several Kage-candidates, but they were a symbolic reminder of Kirigakure’s era of the bloody mist. There was a great deal of controversy around them. For some, they were admired for their ability to consistently create skilled ninja, and for others, they were thought to be demons and monsters. In fact, this was the case for many of the people in the village who believed that their insanity was not a matter of their environment, but through their genetics. To them, those of the Karatachi Family were born twisted. There was nothing else to it than that.

Descendent from a former Seven Ninja Swordsman, Kagura Karatachi, and by extension Yagura Karatachi, a former Kage and Jinchuriki, Kazuto was one of the more controversial students in the academy. For many, he was hailed as the grandson of the skilled Kagura, who was thought to have succeeded Chojuro himself, but others still believed that Yagura’s blood ran deep in his veins. To be frank, Kazuto didn’t care for such petty politics, nor did he care about those that came before him. It was his parents who had made it clear that it was not his ancestry who defined him, but his own merit and hard work.

Thus, there he was, leaping through the trees of the misty, Kirigakure training grounds with the intentions of strengthening his body. Being freshly promoted from the academy only fueled Kazuto to work harder, and to train more. In fact, he didn’t have many friends, so that was pretty much all he could do. He remembered the words his teachers told him, and their feedback on his strengths and weaknesses. Because of his lineage, he had inherited a great deal of stamina, and a noticeable talent for controlling his immense chakra levels. However, what he lacked was the necessary physique to compliment his skill in ninjutsu. Even if he could cast every jutsu in the world, what did it mean if he ran out of chakra, or couldn’t mold his handseals in time?

Those were the thoughts that ran rampant throughout Kazuto’s mind as he launched himself from one tree branch to the next, using just his arms as if he was a monkey swinging through the jungle; he wanted to strengthen his upper body. As he came upon a thick tree, Kazuto pulled himself up and down, and performed a series of chin-ups on every powerful branch that he could before swinging to the next and repeating the process.

Sweat dripped down his face as his cheeks became a deep red; his inhales and exhales deepened, before the tree branch broke from the tree itself.

“CRAP!!!” Kazuto shrieked, tumbling through the air rapidly. He had gotten carried away, not realizing that he was at least sixty feet from the ground. What was he going to do? How was he going to respond? It was simple.

Still having a grip on the branch that had fallen off the tree, Kazuto pulled it under his feet, and used it as a surface to propel himself to another tree. He flipped forward just as he came to the surface of the tree, concentrating all of his chakra into the soles of feet, and landed feet first on the trunk. Still, the momentum of gravity caused him to slide down the trunk immediately, even if he was glued to the surface of it. Pulling a kunai out of his pouch, he jammed it into the trunk of the wood, and then did the same with another when he realized that he had only been slowed until he simply stopped.

He exhaled deeply, and looked down, realizing that he but a mere eight free from the ground. Thus, he dropped down, and threw his kunai to the sides. He dropped down flat onto the ground.
“I messed up, so that means, another one hundred push-ups!!!” Kazuto shrieked again, motivating himself through yet another set of exercises until the sun began to set. He gathered himself, his muscles and body torn and worn from his daily training regimen and begun walking back to his home in the heart of Kirigakure. Only if he hadn’t gone miles from the village, he probably would have had an easier time….