Fire Fire Everywhere, But Not a Flame to be Seen [Jutsu Training.]

Sacred Fire Barrier Wall. B-Rank:

His little break was simple enough; he figured he'd grab something to snack on to replace what he lost during his puke fest earlier. The replacement electrolytes would be wonderful, and he could use some water to hydrate. Sweating or not, he still lost liquid via breathing and all that jazz. Fire user or not, he was still human. He had to eat and drink eventually. Not that he ever really went a long time between meals; or a significantly long time; outside of missions he kept a pretty good schedule for eating. It was about the only way he get his 'diet' going; he didn't do the restriction or bullshit fad diets, but he ate as healthy as he could, and made sure to watch how much he was eating so that his intake was balanced with his work load; he wasn't vain, but he had to keep in shape to be an effective fighter, and he wasn't going to fall into that jounin pit trap of spending long periods of downtime not working as hard as he did when he was actively on missions and junk but eating the same way, and putting on weight like wildfire, then having to crash burn it all off during the initial stages of a sudden mission or something.

He left the training room and moved back out into the yard, moving toward the tree his bag of snacks and water bottles was under. The egg was happily lounging in the sun, soaking up the warmth like a sponge; he wasn't sure how he could tell that, but he could, and he just went with it at this point. He choose to settle in the shade however, plopping down in the soft grass and setting himself up so that he was leaning against the trunk of the tree, but still able to grab both the bag, and lean just a bit to the left and reach the egg. Comfortable now, he grabbed a fresh water bottle and took a swig, rising his mouth one more time before actually taking a proper drink. The bottles were the refillable hard plastic kind; he didn't like the cheap, one time use' type that many civilians liked to have around. It was stupid, really; they had an amazing water system in the city, and it carried the water from the aquifer under the mountains to the north. That water was some of the purest in the world; it filtered from the mountain snows and rains through the volcanic soil and rocks, through massive veins of coal and minerals, leaving it supremely pure and actually quiet tasty. Why the hell the local civilians and tourists insisted on buying the 'spring' water in those crappy, flimsy, plastic bottles was beyond him; they where exorbitantly priced and literally filled from the taps in the back room of the seller's shops. It was just... stupid, really. And wasteful. Thankfully, the civilian council was starting to take action against this stupidity; and was looking to ban the sale of the water bottles; the stuff was free and in abundant supply everywhere, no one in the village paid for water; so no one should be forced to by unscrupulous vendors.

Finishing the bottle of water, he returned it to the bag and retrieved a bag of dried fruits; he made his own dried fruit so he knew it was healthy; the store bought kinds where full of sugar and salt and didn't taste right to him. He took the time on his days off to go to the market, buy the freshest fruit he could, let it ripen to the right stage, then dry it himself; it was completely pure, and he had full control over what was in it; rarely more than a drizzle of honey and some of the special powders that ninja used to make iron bread and hard tack; it was basically powdered nutrients that would soak into breads and fruits and whatnot, and give them a massive boost; allowing for tiny amounts of long lasting food stuffs to replace bulky M.R.E.'s and the like. He could take a small bag of hard tack biscuits, a loaf of iron bread, and some of his special dried fruits and be set for months. It got boring after a while, but it kept him healthy and going. The less he had to haul around, the better prepared he was; it was easy to target a giant backpack, but difficult to pick a pocket. Well, ninja pockets, anyway; they where always sewn into the inside of clothing and the like, to make them impossible to see and impossible to steal from.

He worked over a few moderately sized chunks of tropical fruits; he had a chunk of coconut meat, some bread fruit slices, and a handful of starfruit berries; more than enough to keep him happy and restore his reserves. The time to drink the water and eat the bit of food was what his body needed to recover and be ready to go again; the last bit of leftover dizziness was gone, his muscles no longer ached in the least, and he felt... warmer, in that strange way that was like when a normal person cooled off after getting to hot; it was a relief and a comfortable sensation to him, and he was enjoying it immensely. Making sure everything was put away properly so that there was no trash left behind; he moved out of the shade and into the sun, walking on his knees like you did when you where a child and didn't want to actually get up just yet and only needed to move a few feet. He was checking on the egg again; something was drawing him to it suddenly; a flare of instinct telling him to go to it right now, very the feeling of 'not yet, not yet' he had before.

The cracks had darkened, and the fading iridescent colors had completely faded away, it looked for all the world like the egg shell had been bleached grey-white, with the darker gray of the cracks the only change in color. The raised bumps and surfaces where still there, just completely faded into nothing. Strange. If he didn't know better, he'd think the egg had died, almost; but he just... knew, it was alive and well, and this was supposed to happen.

CRACK!

Oh! It was hatching!

The shell had cracked audibly, far louder than he would have expected it to sound. The crack was along the darkened lines of grey; a small chunk seeming to shatter like shatter proof glass; it broke into tiny pieces, but didn't break away, like it was being held together by an inner membrane of sorts. He moved to sit in front of the egg, giving it about a foot of pace. The cracked split slowly, the egg was seeming to pulse in a sense; an energy he had never felt before was emanating from inside of the shell. Around a quarter of the way down from the top of the shell, it cracked in an almost circular manner, leaving a lid to cap the shell. From inside, something pushed the 'lid' upwards a tiny bit, maybe half an inch or so. Leaning forward to get a better look, Karu was almost sure that for a split second he saw an eye staring at him from inside the shell; before it began to shake and twitch and roll over. The lid fall off, and out crawled a small... what that...?

Was that a child?

With... horns.

What?

It was seriously a small child; it would pass for a three year old human if not for the fact that it; no, he, he just knew it was a he, was only a few inches tall. He was closer to the size of a young child's doll, really. The child crawled from the egg shell and sat down on the soft grass, staring up at Karukaya with a surprised expression. It's eyes where unfocused, the sun was extremely bright to him, and he was having trouble seeing right away. However, he was focused entirely on Karu's face; and anyone with even a hint of animal training would recognize imprinting behavior when they saw it. Well, that was expected, just not so early. Most animals where born blind, but again, this little guy looked like he was closer to three years old than a minute old.

"Well hi there, little one. Welcome to the world."

"Daddy!"

Oh. Well. That was pretty much a g-, wait; what language was that? That sure as hell wasn't any human language he knew, it wasn't any animal language he knew either. Yet, he understood it perfectly.

"Aye, I'm your daddy, little o- Roku. You're name is Roku, yes?"

"Roku! Roku!" He reached up with his little arms, like he wanted to be picked up; which Karu instantly obliged. He lifted the little one up by placing his hands under Roku's arms and lifting him like you would any child of that age. Roku giggled happily as he was lifted into the air, and hugged at Karu's neck when he was brought in for a hug. Karu was almost helplessly attached to the young child; much as he had been for Coen. The biggest difference here was, he could hold Roku right away, instead of having to wait long days before being able to be with Coen. Roku grabbed a hold of Karu's shirt and climbed up onto his shoulder, then up into his hair; laying down and wrapping himself in said red strands until he was secure and comfortable. "Daddy! Daddy! Roku!" Those where the only words the boy knew, it seemed, and that was fine. They'd work on language later.

"Roku wanna watch Daddy train?"

"Daddy!"

"Wanna watch Daddy make fire?"

"Daddy! Daddy!"

"Well alright, then. Let's play with some fire, then go inside to meet your brother. Sound good?"

"Daddy!"

Well then, that was being taken as a yes. He was supposed to be working on another fire wall style jutsu; the big ones that make for wonderful shields and even better deterrents. Given he'd been working on these often lately, he pretty much knew what he needed to do. Start off with a basic fire wall, compress the chakra a bit harder than normal to give it a solid 'punch' upon impact, and give it a bit more energy so that the flame would last for a while without him having to put in extra chakra. With Roku still in his hair, he moved to his feet and walked to the center of the flame training area one last time for the day.

Inhale. Fill your lungs.

Exhale. Be one with the fire.

Inhale. Focus the chakra, compress the air.

Exhale. Thin fire, a start.

Inhale. Compress it hard, let it heat up.

Tighten the throat, focus the lips and mouth. Exhale the flames in a wide angle, so that it creates a massively wide and tall wall of flames that burns everything it comes in contact with. Now wait and time how long it lasts. Wait. Wait. Watch the flames. Time it. Second pass, that's okay. The longer, the better.

The flames slowly faded, and the time was set. A solid three minutes or so, by his count. Perfect.

"Daddy!"

"I know, it's pretty, isn't it?"

"Nuh! Nuh!"

"Let's go meet your brother, kay?"

"Brwothur!"

Well, it as a start.

2002/1500 B-Rank Sacred Fire Barrier Wall