Welcome to Gaia! ::

Michio had gone through the enrollment process once again, something he hadn't done in over 11 years, although this time he was now a full-fledged academy student of the Village Hidden in the Rain. It slightly bothered him that he'd have to go through the process all over again, but he decided that the Rain Village was his home now, and if being here meant that he had to keep up a charade of the new kid on the block academy student, he would. Besides, this time around, it would be easier. And perhaps he could actually learn a couple of basic techniques while he was at it. Although, it pained him somewhat to have to write sloppily, but he had to keep up appearances.

Within the hour, class had convened and they had begun the course discussing the details behind the Body Replacement technique, otherwise known as the Substitution Jutsu. Michio learned that by creating the Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog, then Snake hand seals, he could utilize his chakra to switch places with an inanimate object. This intrigued him and for some reason he couldn't ever remember the Sand Village academy teaching this jutsu. All they had cared about was direct combat and dealing as much damage as possible.

Or maybe that had just been Michio, who had ignored most of the basic jutsu that the academy had tried to teach him and had insisted on direct combat. Now that he was on the run, learning things that keep him out of sight or at the least get him out of the way of an attack sounded like the best option for him.

Unfortunately, when they went to practice the substitution jutsu, Michio found himself incapable of performing it. His chakra pools just weren't large enough for him to expend the necessary resources to grab a nearby stone, pipe, or bamboo stalk and replace his current position with them. The rest of the class did it with ease, even Yahiko, and Michio was left to feel like the dunce of the group.

The man who had enrolled them in the class, who had ended up being their teacher, walked over to Michio and knelt before him, bringing his height down to the stunted height of the twelve year old form that Michio had taken.

“What's the problem, Toshiro?” he asked, and Michio frowned, running his fingers through his hair.

“I don't know, Sensei. I keep trying but I just... I don't have enough chakra to do this. My parents always just taught me to use my bloodline to get by and I guess it just doesn't use chakra like I thought it did.”

The man nodded, “The bloodline of the Ketsueki is one that goes outside of the normal ninja abilities. I'd like you to stay after class is dismissed and we'll work on how to better utilize your abilities.”

Michio nodded, somewhat hating that he was a special case that needed extra attention, but mostly grateful that he had come across a teacher that cared about his students' progress. On that thought, he remembered that the teacher had said that Michio himself was scum that deserved to rot and should his cover ever be blown, he was going to feel terrible about having deceived this man.

“In the meantime, I would like you to go over to those training dummies and practice a technique I call the Blood Whip. Just stretch your blood outwards and swing it like a normal whip. Don't worry about destroying anything either. Those training dummies are made of the same metal that our city's piping is made of.”

Michio nodded and went to work on the pipe dummies, careful to only use basic strikes and not get fancy. If he displayed any advanced control, it might have blown his cover and the last thing he needed was for someone to become suspicious of him.

Ketsueki Chouzu, the teacher that stood before him, had all of the other students continue performing the substitution technique as Michio practiced his own Blood Whip technique, as it was hardly unique to just Chouzu.