HSV - The Cold Cave

Melting winter snows had made the water in the underground cavern ice cold.  Leaving his glasses on top of his clothes, Taira stepped out onto the frigid subterranean lake wearing only his smallclothes.  Chakra concentration was best done when there was a constant external distraction, a reminder to focus inward instead of outward.   He remembered seeing monks meditate underneath waterfalls; he shivered at the thought and figured this would suffice for the level he was currently at.

Cold was always a sore point of his, one which he hoped training like this would help him overcome.  He remembered one time he had served on a crab fishing boat, no hand was spared the hard labor when it came time to harvest the pots, but it was not the hard labor that was the trouble on those trips – it was the biting cold and the stormy seas.  One evening he had gone to sleep looking out on a misty sea with subzero temperatures, the next morning all the ropes and the decks were covered with ice, which needed to be broken before sailing could continue.

The chakra in his feet provided a slight buffer against the chill water, but his feet were cold all the same.  The cave was barely lit; there were tunnels above the cave where natural light shone, but only small holes let light down, and then not much.  Still it was a large reservoir which needed some surveying.  Pulling a depth meter, a measured string with a weight on the end, from his clipboard, he let it sink to the bottom before making his calculations.  Of course a single sample was not enough and he repeated the process in a spiral formation as he walked.  A necessary task to be performed, and excellent stamina practice; efficiency at its finest he smiled to himself.

Finishing his task, he took his clipboard back to his clothes and set it on top of the pile before pulling a rose from his clothes.  This cave had another task for him today which was another opportunity for training.

“Rose Whip.”  His chakra manipulated the nature of the rose, growing out the stem into a long whip, the thorns into razor sharp and diamond hard tips.  The rose’s petals floated around him for a moment before falling to the ground, filling the air with their scent.  It was odd how smelling a rose seemed to make all other scents sharper.  Perhaps it was the addition of a constant, like in a painting where making the background a constant color can bring focus to the other details.

A side passage was filled with stalactites which needed to be cleared.  The lab wanted rock samples; one of the Chuunin had an odd theory about chakra feedback into the local ecosystems.  Elemental affinity for Earth seemed to be at a high in the academy; a curious fact, but not enough evidence to support any theory at this point.  Taira’s own elemental affinity was water, earth was definitely not his strongest point, but in matter of ninjutsu he had other resources.  Still, he decided not to contaminate his sample with his own chakra, and used a small pickaxe he had brought to collect the rock he needed.

“Now for some fun.”  Letting loose with his whip, he cut the rest of the stalactite he had taken the sample from and let it fall to the ground.  Before it hit, he sliced it into six neat circles before it hit the ground.

“Hmm…” He sighed to himself; six still seemed to be his limit for stalactites of any size falling from a height of four meters.  Gravity being a constant matter it didn’t matter how big or little they were, they all fell at the same rate.

“Perhaps it’s not a matter of speed, but technique.”  Twisting his whip, he realized that he had still not mastered the weapon.  It was a curiosity he had taken it in the first place, an archaic weapon of Omoichidou from the old war-filled days of yore.  Perhaps it was that connection to history that had interested him in it.  Despite all the love and roses in the village, most of the rose-related techniques he had come across were genjutsu related.  There was more power to the plant that had yet to be explored.

Making short work of the rest of the stalactites, he left the tunnel in a sweat of effort and wiped his brow with a pocket handkerchief he retrieved from a pocket in his coat.  Looking out at the cold lake, he grit his teeth and closed his eyes.

With a sprint, he ran and dove into the cold waters letting the icy temperatures wash away his tiredness and fatigue.

“Aaagh!”  Jumping out of the waters, as best he could, “Too cold, too cold, too cold.”  Putting on his coat to dry and warm himself, he shivered at the lack of heat.  In the dim light he was able to see his breath and guessed it must have been somewhere around five degrees Celsius in the cave.

“Times like these I almost wish I was fire elemen…” he stopped himself before he could finish his sentence.  He willed his muscles to stop shivering and took off his coat.  Back in his home village he had gone through rudimentary elemental training when it was discovered he was a natural for chakra control.  The reason he had been given liberties on fishing ships was not because he was the son of the owners, nor that he was the cook, it was because he was the lifeguard for all the workers.

Stepping back out onto the waters he made his first hand seal: Tiger.  A water clone appeared, rising from the water.  These were useful for grabbing someone who had gone overboard and keeping them out of the cold waters until the boat could pull around and get to them.  Clones, whether they were elemental, shadow, or otherwise were always odd to Taira; they never smelled right.  Releasing the seal he let the clone dissolve and turn back into water.

He walked back to his things and got dressed.  This was a nice cave to practice in; he reminded himself to mark it on his map and promised he would return.  A few renovations perhaps: some electric wiring for lights, maybe run a cable up to his office in case he got any calls, he could even install a waterfall meditation spot.  Or perhaps do none of that and leave the cave in simplicity.

“Decisions, decisions…”  Taira smiled as he turned on his flashlight and made his way out of the caves and back to the world above.