My Writing is Terrible, Naturally

A lantern caused a small glowing orb under the heavy weight of fog that only blackened the shadows of night. Sitting beside the lantern, alone in the training grounds in the middle of sleeping hours, was a man with wine-red hair, hunched over a scroll. In his right hand was a brush, and in the grass beside the scroll was an ink well. In his left hand was, unbelievably, a book. An actual book, from an actual library that he must have actually entered to have acquired it. His brows were lowered in concentration and vague annoyance. To his left was a kunai, and he seemed to be studying how to seal it into the scroll.

Being an impatient man, Kiigan scrawled what looked like the right words and symbols in about the right places. He then placed the kunai on the scroll and completed the ritual....and nothing happened. Growling a questioning noise, he irritably tossed the weapon and held the scroll up. he had to angle oddly to try and catch the lantern's glow enough to check his work against the book. "What did I mess up?" Kiigan asked himself.

The man's crimson eyes darted back and forth between the scroll and the text book, squinting in the poor lighting. But! The man would not be surrendering to wait for better lighting. Like daytime. Why? Because his training was super secret, mandated by his own stubborn pride. And why wasn't he in the privacy of his own apartment space for this type of training? Well, since most of his training was at night, he was tired most of the time. Studying in his room would tempt him to sleep. Also, his attention span was sad for his age, so the noises of a cheap apartment building drew his mind away, and sometimes even lured him out to investigate. The solitude of a deserted training grounds in the dead of night was the only option he could come up with for him to hold himself accountable and improve without anyone finding out and getting that 'I can use you' gleam in their greedy eyes.

Oh. He found a mistake, or at least something that may have kept the writing from reacting. Basically, his hand writing was sloppy, so two letters looked basically identical. Who knew that chakra and sealing was able to be fussy about penmanship? Scowling, he corrected the letter, then again tried to seal the kunai. No chakra left him, and the kunai was still there. "AUGH!" he protested, refusing to ruin another scroll. He began rereading the text book pages on the procedure from the beginning.

Okay. He read all that again. His eyes were crossing, and he felt a headache coming on from the concentration and eye strain in the lantern light. All that...for nothing. He was doing it right! He didn't know what was more frustrating, finding out he was doing it right and it wasn't working, or the idea that he was doing it wrong and couldn't even fathom his error. It was hard to fix something when you don't even know what the problem is!

Somehow Kiigan had gotten covered in ink in the process, a smell that brought back an unpleasant memory. He'd almost drowned in a bubble of ink, casted on him by an pissy old fox hag out of nowhere. One that hated Matatabi, of course. Thoroughly in a bad mood, he was about to give up. "That's it. It just doesn't work. The book is wrong," he concluded, cursing the library of lies and wasted time.

Kiigan decided to take a break. He needed to rest his mind, and since he was out here wasting time anyway, he might as well meditate and build some chakra. Matatabi had suggested nature chakra, so he did that.

Sitting with his back to the lantern, he assumed a very still pose. This was very unlike the man, but Matatabi had been clear that if he didn't have the right pose and the appropriate stillness, he could turn to stone forever. Why he was listening to her and even doing this was beyond him, but he had to admit that he'd always sorta felt something around him, especially when he was by himself. So by honing in on that feeling, which he suspected was senjutsu, and pulling it into himself and balancing it, he could grab onto a power that could really help him later, tailed beast or no.

Kiigan sat, breathing steadily and listening to the muffled sounds of nature in the night. There were crickets singing, and nocturnal animals skittering about. The trees swayed in a light breeze, which turned the thick mist into airy versions of whirlpools. He didn't have to see it to know it. The grass under him had an energy to it, and it was almost as if he could see the natural chakra seeping into his pores.

It was peaceful like this. Kiigan wasn't a peaceful guy, but after being so irritated with trying to learn fuinjutsu, this was a nice change. Honestly, it was so peaceful he had to resist his consciousness's yearning for a nap. Surely falling asleep while trying to gather senjutsu would end in disaster, or at least a worthless attempt to train something. The red-head jinchuriki didn't like failing...well, not when he was actually putting effort in to win. Otherwise, he quite enjoyed failing others' expectations of him...

"Focus.." Matatabi urged, feeling his mind starting to wander from the task at hand.

Another deep breath in, as if the chakra was rushing into his lungs and his pores now. His own chakra was reacting, and it was a very careful but gentle push and pull as the two mingled. Equal. Balance. It was important to keep everything in there balanced. He had to visualize something...what did he physically balance? Maybe a kunai on the tip of his finger? In that mental image, he had to be mindful of balance, so that was good. Physically keeping the pressure of his finger the same as well as holding still, while also being mindful of the wind that could tip it and of gravity that wanted to claim it. Keep the kunai balancing. Nature was the wind, enveloping the kunai gently while also pushing it around. Harness it, but react to it, all without moving or letting anything get out of control..

It seemed to be going alright. The balanced chakras started to pool in his center, feeling almost like a hoard of butterflies. The silence took him, and though the surroundings were quiet, he wondered if anyone had ever felt the presence of a rock before. It was weird.

Just a little longer. Somehow he knew e'd have to stop soon. That he was at his limit to be able to handle and keep this senjutsu mixed within. Still in his pose, he pushed it as far as he could. Though his eyes were closed, behind his lids seemed to glow. It was some sort of aura, though somehow he knew only he was perceptive of it. He doubted if he opened his eyes right now he'd be putting off any light at all. He wasn't a lantern, after all.

It was now time to stop. Opening his eyes, he felt a surge of power drawing directly from nature. Though he couldn't see it himself, there were dark markings on his face, a sure sign of a non-summoning sage. Kiigan could barely imagine himself being called such, but it was what it was. He could perceive people sleeping in their homes at the edge of the training grounds. He could count the animals within a certain radius, which was sorta disturbing. Too many cats. Someone really needed to do something about that...actually, he was pretty sure he knew one of them used to be a human, possibly one that had belonged to Zeel at some point. That made him want to leave right now. He felt so fast, he was sure he could reach home in minutes.

"Alright, that's good enough..." he mumbled to himself, about to get up. Sage mode had not been what he came out here to do, but at least he still gained. Fuinjutsu just wasn't for him.

"Wait," Matatabi spoke through his internal grumbles, sighing at his lack of resolve. "Check the scroll once more."

"No," Kiigan grouched, crossing his arms. He'd picked up the brush in preparation to leave, thus smearing ink over his chest. "I've already checked it twice. That was enough to Santa, so this is clearly a waste of time. The book is an idiot."

He could feel Matatabi sigh and roll her eyes. Firstly, Kii-kun, all of that was nonsense. Secondly, just check it once more."

"I did senjutsu stuff. Isn't that enough for you? This scroll is broken!" Kiigan's stubbornness rose with gusto, then suddenly rushed out of him like air from a busted bubble. "You know where the problem is..." he drawled, suddenly realizing that two eyes were better than one, especially when he had an ancient demon using his eyes as windows. "Where is it?!" he demanded.

But she never answered, which was an answer in itself. Resigning, he tilted the scroll back toward the lantern, having attitude that he'd find nothing...then he saw it. Perhaps it was his upped perception from still being in sage mode, but somehow with his renewed mental clarity, he saw it. A second stupid mistake in his formula. Matatabi would never let him live this down. Putting his brush to paper once more, he corrected his sloppy writing again, placed the kunai, completed the process and *poof*, the kunai was now nothing more than chakra ink in a scroll.

Just in time, too. The sun was about to peek up, which would bring early birds to train before mission time. He needed to be out of here by then. He might even steal a couple hours of sleep before he met June for the day's activities.