3 Strokes? Shouldn't Be Hard. [Jutsu Training. WC 1107/1000]

Jutsu being trained.:

What was sleep? No, seriously. What was sleep? He was having one of those nights; no matter how comfortable he got and how badly he wanted to sleep, his brain wouldn't shut down. He wasn't normally an insomniac, but for some reason he just couldn't shut down tonight. He was making up for this using meditation techniques; they'd let his body rest like it needed, and give his mind the rough equivalent of a light sleep effect, but it wouldn't keep him from being off base and tired the next day. It was a temporary 'fix' of a sort; it'd be enough to get him through a day, maybe two, before the effects of not sleeping really hit him hard. He wished it was a easy to fall asleep is it was for Coen; the joey was sprawled in the bed next to him snoring peacefully. Coen technically had his own bed, as well as a second hammock up on the wall where he could sleep when he wanted to; but most night he ended up 'sneaking' into Karu's bed to sleep with him. He wasn't very good at sneaking yet, but he was trying, and that was what mattered really. Karu let him get away with it right now; he was getting better at it as he grew up, so he was giving him a few more weeks of free tries before he'd start 'catching' him and making him really work. Training and teaching in all things; an approach that was working wonders for the joey overall; he was racing ahead in the training and quickly becoming a proper 'ninja'. Although, Karu was doing a great job of letting him enjoy the last of his childhood; even while exposing him to the realities of being a ninja. It worked, somehow.

They'd gone to bed fairly early; once they'd finished cleaning up after the day of training. Their usual ritual of movies and/or study time had been cut short, and they'd both agreed to go to bed early. It had been a long day, and Coen especially was tired from the effort. He'd never managed to make that much flame before, and in doing so had worn himself down good. He was out like a light, and nothing was going to wake the joey up until he was rested and ready to go. That was fine, though; in his early days of training he'd been like that too. When he was learning to generate fire in large amounts he'd end up sleeping it off for days on end; so he understood the need for Coen to as well.

Meeeeeh. This wasn't working. He was too tired to meditate properly, but his mind wasn't letting him sleep. Might as well get up and do something. He could watch tv until he crashed out, or something. Mindless enough to put him out from boredom. Not the best option, but it would work; if it did, anyway. He grabbed one of the large plushies floating around on the floor beside the bed and settled it against Coen juuuust right, so that the joey would cuddle into it without waking up. Karu focused just a little bit of fire chakra into the plushie so that it warmed up to body temperature; it would comfort Coen and make his dreaming mind think he was curled into Karu. Even if he couldn't lay in bed without going insane, he wasn't going to make Coen uncomfortable.

He slipped out of the room silently; closing the door and making sure that the door that separated the hallway from the rest of the living areas was closed. He'd had it installed to be safe; it was a fire door and safety measure. It locked solid into the foundation of the house so that it couldn't be opened unless you had the key, or where on the inside. Coen could easily slide it open if he woke up; but someone breaking in couldn't get past it. He kept his important paperwork and such in a safe hidden in the hallway; and his bedroom had been reinforced with fire-proofing materials and such. The guest bedroom (he'd seriously scored when he'd bought this place) was being used for storage for the gear he wasn't actively using; and there was some seriously dangerous and expensive, weaponry and gear in there. A ninja's place was a standing armory, after all.

Once that was all done, he started moving stuff around a bit; he was planning on toss in a movie or something originally; but he ended up moving his training mannequin out onto the floor and starting to run through basic training katas. Nothing special, nothing hard; the basic starting taijutsu skills that everyone knows.

Hmmm...

Well, he did have a couple of jutsu left on his list of stuff to train. He'd ran a bit long working on Wall of Woe earlier, and hadn't finished everything he'd planned. Maybe that was what was wrong. He didn't like not finishing things; so maybe if he trained this jutsu he'd be able to sleep. It wasn't like it was a hard technique; but it was a combination that he'd never really used before.

Let's see... low kick to the thigh, kick to the face, palm strike to the stomach. Simple in theory. Not... so much in practice. Huh. That last part of the movement; changing from the face kick to the palm strike... huh. His normal movements put him in the wrong position to strike properly. Maybe if he rotated differently...

He started the movements again; only this time when he delivered the kick to the face, he allowed for a long follow through of the kick, using it to rotated his body so that he was essentially flipping over himself and landing in a position that let him follow up with the palm strike while balancing on one leg. It was actually pretty effective; and it worked for how he trained to move. Woot.

He moved the training mannequin back into it's corner and headed back to bed; a quick stop at the bathroom to freshen up so that he was comfortable and he was crawling back into bed. Oh yeah, that was the trick. He was snoring the moment he hit the pillow, an arm thrown over Coen, and blankets kicked away just like they both liked.

Time for some much needed sleep.

1107/1000