CH_16

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"This is ridiculous... Ah, NO!"

Takuma said as he frowned hard enough to give himself a unibrow. And the moment he spoke, the leaf stuck between his eyes fell. He tried to grab it but ended up crushing the thin green leaf in his fist.

"Get a new one," Maruboshi said, his eyes closed as he sat in a cross-legged meditative pose.

Takuma groaned as he got up from the grass and sprinted from one edge of the clearing to the furthest opposite end to get a single leaf from a tree before sprinting back to Maruboshi.

Takuma had decided that the Leaf Concentration Practice was the worst thing to happen to him since he had found himself in this world. As it turned out, chakra control was a demanding skill to acquire and train— especially for a rookie as green as the leaf he was holding— and sticking a leaf to his forehead only using chakra was a frustrating way to gain experience in the skill.

And that was not including Maruboshi's hellish penalty of sprinting to and from the furthest tree in the clearing to get a new leaf every time the leaf fell off his forehead. If he thought Maruboshi's previous conditioning exercises were worse, the penalty had made the first week of chakra control training stuff from nightmares as the Takuma was literally sitting down for seconds between sprints to get a new leaf.

The reason? According to Maruboshi: "To give you the motivation to get better faster."

When Takuma heard the words, he thought they made sense, but it took an hour for him to want nothing more than to bash his teacher's face in and yell that he didn't need extra motivation. The morning session had become a dreadful time for Takuma, and every morning, he would spend some time in bed staring at the wall above, thinking about just not getting up to avoid what the day had in store for him.

"You need to release the tension in your mind and body, child," said Maruboshi, his eyes still closed.

"It doesn't help," Takuma scowled as he carefully placed the leaf on his forehead and kept it in place with his finger until he was sure his chakra was gripping it. His hand trembled as he removed his finger, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the leaf remained stuck on his forehead. But the next moment, the grip vanished, and the leaf fell. "See! Relaxing! Doesn't! Help!"

Maruboshi opened his eyes and watched Takuma stand up and run to and from the furthest tree. He spoke when Takuma returned, "Let me ask you this: Do you draw your chakra, or do you reign it in."

"What?" Takuma asked, his breathing weary from all the running. He didn't stick the leaf on his forehead and kept it hidden in his hand. He could use Maruboshi talking to him as a break.

"From my experience, there are two types of people. Those who have to draw their chakra as if pulling water from a well— and those who have to carefully adjust the dial on the tap to stop all the water from bursting out. Which one of these do you think you are?"

Takuma frowned in thought before answering. "The... The second kind. Adjusting the tap to stop the water," he said.

Chakra was made from the physical and spiritual energies inside a person's body. It couldn't be stored. The physical and spiritual energies were stored inside the body— but not chakra. When chakra was needed, the body would meld the two energies together and create chakra, which was then needed to be used within a time frame, after which it would dissipate, wasting the portion of two energies used in the process.

For Takuma, when his body produced chakra, it would be ready to rush out and be used. It was as if it was saying: 'Use me now, or I'm getting out of here.' He never had to pull, as Marubohi had described it, the pool of chakra he had created— it was always letting the correct amount out at just the right rate to make things work.

"Interesting. For me, it has always been pulling my chakra," said Maruboshi, "I have had many friends and acquaintances who describe chakra like you do. They summon their chakra differently than me, but there's one thing that both types do similarly."

"What is it?"

"Using imagery." Maruboshi raised his hands and showed Takuma his open palm. "There's a reason it is easier to summon chakra to hands than somewhere like the forehead, even though the latter is much closer to the heart."

Chakra was produced in the heart and later transported to its target destination through the chakra pathway system to be released through one of the three hundred and sixty-one tenketsu (chakra nodes). The farther the target tenketsu was from the heart, the more challenging it got to control the chakra. That was why controlling chakra in the tenketsu on the soles of the feat was a difficult task.

"It's because we use our hands so much; we can better imagine chakra in our hands than any other place in our body," Maruobshi continued. "Imagination is a powerful tool and can help you effectively utilize chakra until it becomes second nature and comes instinctually to you. Try imagining how you would regulate your chakra as if it were a flowing substance. One of my acquaintances, in the pull category like me, imagined his tenketsu to be straws through which he had to suck his chakra out. Open your mind and try to find the right fit for you."

Takuma nodded. Maruboshi had given him a lot to think about.

"But for now, continue as you were. Leaf to the forehead, please," said Maruboshi.

Takuma's facial expression collapsed in on itself, and he slapped the leaf on his forehead all the while glaring at Maruboshi, who had already closed his eyes in meditation.

The hellish times didn't follow Takuma back home, not other than the shudder in his legs from all the sprinting he did.

Takuma sat at his house's dining table(the only table) with a transparent plastic box in front of him. Inside the box sat square chips made from pieces of newspaper glued together to roughly mimic the size and weight of a leaf. He had brought leaves home to practice but threw them away when he found that his furniture smelled like leaf sap. Paper chips were born as an alternative.

He picked up the paper rigid from the glue and stuck it to his forehead. Unlike when with Maruboshi, he could do the leaf concentration practice in peace inside the warm comfort of his home. The leaf concentration practice had become a staple in Takuma's life. It was the only way he could soften Maruboshi's hell and make it tolerable by getting better in his off-time.

'Imagery,' Takuma recalled Maruboshi's advice. He hadn't thought about using any sort of imagery while using chakra... 'No, that would be wrong,' thought Takuma. There was an image in his mind while practicing: the image of the leaf sticking to his forehead.

But the imagery Maruboshi talked about had to do more with the concept of chakra control than sticking a leaf to the forehead, which was an application of chakra control.

The dynamic of drawing and regulating chakra was new to him. He didn't think he had heard anything like that when he read the manga. It was a fascinating concept, and Takuma found himself thinking about the different types of imagery he could use to help him control the chakra as he continued sticking the falling paper chips back on his forehead.

The tap imagery called out to him. He could picture it easily from doing the action multiple times a day since before he could remember. He was even well-versed in the advanced art of opening the hot and cold water taps to get just the right temperature in the shower.

Then there were pictures of squeeze bottles used for ketchup and other condiments or the simple fountain pen that released ink based on the pressure applied on the nip. Even the imagery of pee-ing crossed his mind, but Takuma didn't want to compare his chakra to pee— even if that image was the most intimate of them all.

Takuma shook his head to dispel the image from his mind.

He decided to give the tap imagery but with a little twist where he imagined a watering pipe instead of a simple tap because all the diagrams of the chakra pathway system he had seen were a network of tubes with tenketsu as the outlet ends. He imagined a regulator on the end of the pipe which controlled the flow.

'I'm the regulator,' Takuma took a deep breath as he held the paper chip against his forehead. The water was chakra. Sticking the paper chip didn't require much chakra. The lighter the object, the less chakra it needed to adhere. Takuma imagined turning the regulator knob just a few degrees to let the faintest amount of water/chakra out.

'It's stuck!' Takuma felt his chakra gripping the paper. He removed his finger, and the paper chip stayed against his forehead.

He didn't celebrate his success as the task wasn't complete. The grip on the paper chip was flimsy at best; the lightest gust of winds could make it fall. The grip needed to be at least strong enough that shaking his head violently wouldn't budge the paper chip in the least.

Takuma twisted the knob a few degrees more to increase the input by just a bit. But contrary to his expectations, chakra came flowing, and the leaf was pushed away like a feather against a puff of wind.

"Ah, shit!" Takuma cursed. "One more time!" He picked up the fallen paper chip and held it against his forehead until a weak grip was established.

'Slowly this time,' he thought as he slowly increased and turned the knob in his imagery, slower and more delicately than the last attempt. The water that had been dribbling out turned into a thin laminar flow stream with zero turbulence.

Takuma slowly stood up, and with his hands clenched, he gingerly moved his head side-by-side. The paper chip didn't fall. He threw a light nodding motion into the mix, and the grip held strong. Takuma grew bolder, and in one fell swoop, he shook his head as though the sickest death metal hooks were playing in his mind.

The paper chip stuck to his forehead as if it had been glued on.

Takuma threw his hand up with a "wooh!" No more running, he thought, feeling the sweet rush of dopamine from his head.

The next moment, the paper chip entered his vision on its way down. Takuma gave it a long stare before picking it up from the floor and sticking it back on his forehead.

He was going to make sure that didn't happen the next day when he met Maruboshi. Even if it took him pulling an all-nighter.

"I have done it," said Takuma with his hands spread wide and a leaf stuck on his forehead. He smiled proudly and showed his progress to Maruboshi as soon as they met.

Maruboshi smiled with an approving nod. "Shake your head," he said.

Takuma confidently attempted to break his neck with forceful head movements, but the green leaf remained on his forehead. The night of practice had paid— he could keep the leaf stuck pretty consistently as long as he didn't get distracted and lose concentration.

"The imagery advice came in handy," said Takuma.

"Excellently done, young Takuma," Maruboshi smiled. He pulled the leaf off Takuma's forehead before immediately giving it back to Takuma. "Now, stick that on your forehead."

Takuma was confused until he looked down at his hand. His smile wiped out as he saw two leaves resting on his palm. He looked up at Maruboshi with disbelief and dread pooling in his eyes.

"Both of those at the same time and on the opposite ends of your forehead," Maruboshi promptly showed exactly where Takuma needed to stick the leaves. "If even one falls, you repeat the penalty."

Takuma felt a tremble travel up his legs.

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- Omake: NG! -

He decided to give the tap imagery but with a little twist where he imagined a watering pipe instead of a simple tap because all the diagrams of the chakra pathway system he had seen were a network of tubes with tenketsu as the outlet ends. He imagined a regulator on the end of the pipe which controlled the flow.

'I'm the regulator,' Takuma took a deep breath as he held the paper chip against his forehead. The water was chakra. Sticking the paper chip didn't require much chakra. The lighter the object, the less chakra it needed to adhere. Takuma imagined turning the regulator knob just a few degrees to let the faintest amount of water/chakra out.

"Ah shit, now I gotta pee," Takuma said before running to the bathroom in a hurry.

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