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The base of the mountain was fairly uninteresting. There were scattered rocks and a little bit of flora, but the truth of the terrain was that it was ugly and barren. The symbolism of this place was not lost upon me. Was it possible that where I had started I had been nothing? At the time, it had seemed was though I had had everything - a village that detested and feared me, a powerful body that had yet to fail me in combat, and a knack for getting on the bad side of everything and everyone.

I had been single minded in purpose then, with the only goal to fight, to kill, and to survive. At the time, it had seemed so marvelous, so potent and enough to keep me entertained. I had eaten all the candy that I could find as a ruse, to agitate and confuse my opponents, to give the illusion that I didn't care about them or their assaults. The ruse was so incredible that I had managed to fool even myself, pulling the wool over my eyes for over a decade while I struggled with my own internal feelings and desires.

The barren wasteland that had been my emotional climate had been pathetic, now that I look back on it. Living solely for the fight was a bad way to go about things. My earlier confusion about if I were making the right decisions or not for leaving those things behind me was suddenly cleared. This was definitely the right path for me. The more that I considered this, the more that I seemed to climb. Each step that I took furthered my resolve, and it wouldn't take too much longer before I began to notice the tiniest of changes.

Here and there, I saw tiny bits of flowers, beautiful things lost amongst the gray of the rocks, boulders, and gravel. With a heavy heart, I looked over to the flowers and stopped to bend down and observe one. The flower certainly seemed beautiful, and so with interest I reached my hand out to attempt to pick it. As my fingers grasped around the stem, I felt a sting of pain and quickly withdrew my hand. The flower's base was covered completely with thorns.

I gasped as I watched the tiny drops of my red liquid begin to fall down my hand, the blood proving to me my humanity. These flowers reminded me of how I used to feel before and after every fight. Everything had been bleak and useless, except for when I was fighting another person. But afterwards, I always felt so tired, more spiritually than physically, because I knew that I didn't want to hate all of these people. I felt as though I lost a little bit more of myself every time. Shaking my hand, I moved away from the flower and looked back up towards the summit of the peak, still so far away.

I needed to keep climbing.

It would seem as though my friend hadn't ever had anyone pick up the talent of manifesting their chakra so quickly. I resisted the urge to smile, but not before the sides of my lips twitched just slightly upwards. It felt good to get praised by Kii. When Kii came forward to inspect the ball of chakra, I found myself getting nervous that he would find some flaw. However, such was not the case, and immediately I was sat upon to complete my next task.

I wondered what it would be as he moved towards the tree that he had been around before, and I watched with fascination as he broke apart a limb of the tree, creating a jagged fracture. Then, to my surprise, he simply utilized the branch to create a small wound upon his left hand. My eyebrows raised slightly as I watched, confused, until he gave me my next command. To utilize the ability to manifest chakra to heal the wound on his hand.

I was instantly nervous once more. I hadn't even been given any instruction on how to use Shosen for that! I gulped, hopefully not audibly, but I moved over towards Kii and took his left hand into my own left, bringing it up closer to my face so that I could more closely inspect the wound. It certainly wasn't anything large or deep, just a very shallow wound that was already beginning to clot. My eyes narrowed slightly, and I considered my options.

If I were to think about using techniques, the first thing that came to my mind was to use a medium for the chakra. The point of controlling the pure chakra earlier was simply to practice chakra control, I knew. I performed all of my other techniques by channeling my chakra through a medium, usually my innate Doton nature, and using that to manifest a technique. Should this be any different? The only difference in this case was that I wasn't using a chakra nature to perform a technique, but rather another person's living body.

Was that why the additional chakra control was so necessary? Modifications to a person's body could be fairly dangerous, and mistakes could probably harm just was much as they could heal. The chances of that being the case this time, however, were slim, I knew, due to the small wound that Kii had inflicted upon himself. Nodding to myself slowly, I would extend my right hand, placing it just above the wound that Kii had made, and began to send a flow of controlled, condensed chakra to my hand. Almost immediately, a dim glow began to appear around my hand, and with concentration, I began to channel that flow downwards.

Into the wound my energy went, filtering in through the physical shell of Kii's body. I could feel, rather than see, the results that were occurring right in front of me. The chakra, seeping into the cells that were already hard at work to repair the damage that Kii had sustained, suddenly burst into overdrive it felt like. With the assistance of my chakra, the bodily cells would work and, within moments, I would know that I had closed the wound. Moving my own hand away, I inspected Kii's hand, and found that there was not even a scratch or a scar there.

I smiled to Kii. "I assume that I did it correctly?"

Hmmmm, I thought to myself as I considered the task that Kii had set forth for me. It would seem to be relatively simple - to create a tiny ball of chakra upon the tips of my fingers. While I had experience in controlling my chakra, I had never before considered performing such a menial task, and I began to wonder at the potential difficulty of it. In most cases, the manipulation of chakra was second-nature to an experienced user of Ninjutsu. Rarely did one need to stop and consider an action before performing it.

But this time...? I wasn't using chakra as a medium to complete an action. I was simply manifesting chakra. As I thought about this, I closed my eyes and visualised my chakra circulatory system. With conscious effort, I began to channel my chakra through my body, starting at the heart and then sending it pulsing straight towards my right hand. Taking in a deep breath, I would finally open my eyes and lift up that same hand so that it was about eight inches from my face. Extending my index finger and retracting the rest, I began to channel my chakra through my finger.

This proved at first to be relatively difficult. My desired goal was visible chakra, but that wasn't what I was creating. Like always, I realized that I was attempting to channel my chakra through a medium, my command over Doton, which was as simple as breathing to me. With that realization, I discovered that I was intrinsically aware of how to go about separating the chakra and the chakra nature.

And so I did. In that instant, blue light, the pristine energy known as chakra, flared upon the tip of my extended index finger like a gout of flame from a gas oven that had recently been turned on. The immediate energy burst caught me by surprise, and almost immediately cancelled the flow of chakra to my finger before shaking my head.

"Pretty incredible..."

Without waiting for a response, I took another deep breath and projected another flow of chakra towards the same finger. This time, though, it was much more controlled, contained with a set of dimensions in mind. With my force of will containing the pure energy, I beheld as I shaped the spiritual force into the dimensions that Kii had requested. In no time at all, the spherical shape an inch in diameter hovered a few centimeters from my index finger.