{( Fin )} Seeking A Balance.

{( Thread Song )}


Yogenhoshi had an unexpected leave from duty which he accepted graciously, deciding to trek out into the Rukongai wilderness in search of a suitable place for training, but the first order of non-business was to enjoy the peace and tranquility. This was the first time he had been outside the Court of Pure Souls since enrolling in the Shino Academy and he intended to maximize on the sights, smells and tastes of nature.

Being alone in an untamed land where beasts and wanted bands of criminals make their home didn't bother him as he had come up from the lawless Zaraki District, and it was easier to piss him off than it was to surprise him with barbarism in spite of a mostly passive personality. The first day passed without incident, either out of sheer luck in not encountering anyone or anything aggressive or because his air of complete self confidence and the fact that he was quite obviously a Shinigami dissuaded the would-be aggressors. Either option was just fine with him as he had no desire to waste a perfectly good vacation.

He traveled along old footpaths and gurgling streams, climbed up through difficult mountain passes and maneuvered his way down into overgrown ravines, so caught up in experiencing the journey that it never occurred to him how just finding an ideal place to train may prove to be as beneficial to the cause as the actual training. By the time dusk began to claim the sky he had covered an impressive distance, and though he was currently standing upon a ledge set high in mountainous terrain he was unable to see Seireitei from even that elevation. It sure is a nice view, though, he thought, taking the time to appreciate it.

This was the has he had decided to use for training as it had everything he needed in abundance; a split in the cliff behind him lead into a hidden crater full of vegetation and wildlife, with a waterfall spring cascading down a weathered rock formation to form a perfectly round lake at its center. The abundance of boulders could very well serve a purpose, too, as the ulterior motive behind this excursion was to become capable of dealing damage instead of merely being able to heal.

"Time enough for that in the morning," he said to himself while stifling a yawn with the back of a hand, stretching an arm behind his head with the elbow pointing upward at an angle. All that hiking had been healthy, generally speaking, but tiresome nonetheless. Once that jolt of laziness was out of his system he set about to gathering enough firewood to see him through the night, retrieving a bucket of water from the lake and laying out his bedroll in the roots of an enormous willow tree where he sat picking at his provisions until the fire yielded a hot bank of coals.

His makeshift fire-pit was shielded to contain its tell-tale light from the down-slope direction, as attempting to conceal it from an observer with a higher vantage point was all but impossible in this kind of terrain, but he intended to keep the flames stoked low anyway so as not to invite disaster no matter how unlikely it seemed. This place was about as secluded as it gets, and aside from the rhythmic lapping of gentle waves upon the sandy beach ringing the small crystaline lake the only sounds were birds and bugs, and leaves rustling in the breeze. He always had enjoyed nature so this was the perfect setting to fall asleep in, as no amount of time in the comparatively civilized Court of Pure Souls could strip that love of nature from his bones. He drifted off with a smile.

He woke feeling fully refreshed, aches and knots in the muscles he hadn't even noticed having vanished overnight, reaffirming his belief that simply being surrounded by nature has medicinal effects. The air was fresh, the atmosphere tranquil and perhaps most importantly he was miles and miles away from the nearest person so far as he could tell. "Just what the doctor ordered..." That was, of course, self prescribed.

After a hearty breakfast to fuel the first day of real training Yogenhoshi set about with a will, first gathering a multitude of boulders and then stacking them in imitation of a firing range around the beach. The sand would stop any resulting fire from spreading, and having a water source nearby was simply prudent as he had absolutely no desire to desecrate this idyllic hideaway, a place he was sure to use in future endeavors.

Next came a meditative period where he underwent a familiar assessment of himself, what he believes in and exactly how far he's willing to go to achieve everything he desires in life, his strengths and weaknesses-- everything. Laying himself bare in this manner completely eliminated self deceit in all its forms, tempered his resolve and ensured that his humble roots would never detach. Hubris was as much a danger as the Hollow when it came down to it, a festering thing that infects a soul and corrupts it from the inside out, poisoning the world around it.

By the time warmth seemed to swell and radiate from the lush crater, sand and vegetation trapping it within, the sun was already at its zenith. All the stripes of slightly paler skin he had acquired during his impractical medical training were gone, now bronzed like the rest of him, as his meditation had lasted longer than expected and he hadn't stirred from where he sat upon one of the largest boulders to be found.

With a renewed sense of clarity and self purpose Yogenhoshi began firing off Kido spells, one after another, targeting the various boulders and large stones stacked around the beach with what seemed like reckless abandon; in truth, he was straining to amp out as many varying Hadō blasts as he could while aiming intuitively. This would probably be a long and arduous process, draining him of all his spiritual energy day after day, but for what he had in mind... it was the first step, for multiple reasons. If I can't intuitively fire Hadō at a target with accuracy, how will I ever be able to utilize that destruction in a melee?

Hours passed that way, with Yogenhoshi showering the beach with a myriad of Hadō blasts, some squarely striking a target to shatter it or engulf it with a fiery blast, and some flying astray to explode in the sand or be extinguished by the lake's cool waters... Once he started to get the hang of being accurate on the fly he stopped sitting still, beginning to twist and spin while luminous spheres and explosions kept the darkening enclave lit. There were surely deafening sounds to go along with the light show but he had long since stopped being able to hear the reverberating blasts, which he would undoubtedly have to heal.

My body is getting used to this... he thought, arcing prongs of lightning from fingertips already slashing through the air at his side, searing swathes of sand before lashing across a large stone to scorch its surface with distinctive lines. I don't need to hold still while evoking Kido to be sufficiently accurate anymore. Such a thing may be a given to most Shinigami with an affinity for spells, but to a fledgling Shinigami in the only non-combative division it was quite a significant improvement.

Full night had fallen and the stars were out en mass, something he didn't take the time to appreciate until finally ceasing his training to wipe sweat from his brow. You can't get a show like this in Seireitei...

The beach was riddled with shallow holes and indentations from the recurrent blasts that came from innumerable misses, and strewn with the fragments of boulders he had blasted apart whenever his aim proved true. Quite a bit of destruction, but nature would incorporate that into her majesty, as the debris would eventually become sand that will fill the depressions. Everything had a funny way of being cyclic like that.

Raising his hands, already beginning to emit a pulsating green glow, to heal his ears and return their sense of hearing he considered sleeping in the next day, having gone above and beyond the call of duty tonight. The amount of reiatsu control he had acquired through medical training was greater in scope than he had thought, so he had been able to conserve spiritual energy during the execution of Hadō spells and been able to create a sight more than he had anticipated. "Just one more thing to test before bed," he said, assuming a formal Hakuda stance.

Yogenhoshi lashed out with a lightning-quick jab, hand held straight and rigid with knuckles folded to thrust like a knife rather than a fist, calling upon everything he had engraved upon his body that day to intuitively release a Hadō blast at the optimal moment. A surge of raw destructive energy crackled forth from his folded knuckles, streaking several yards to impact a large stone and bore straight through it. All of that errant blasting and maneuvering had simply been a gambit on whether or not his body could memorize executing such spells in rapid succession while on the move and under pressure, all alluding to a blend with Hakuda.

Yogenhoshi continued like that for a little over a week; waking up, breakfasting, setting up a stony training ground, meditating into the afternoon and then spending the rest of the night blasting things to bits. After hours of trying to strike targets while flailing his arms about, applying Hadō to the practiced forms of Hakuda which he was all too familiar with drastically improved the accuracy of his energy attacks.

As the days passed his control over the results of a destruction spell grew, becoming proportionate with the control he had over melding his spiritual energy into refined types of healing and Kido spells, so each day his targets were set up a little closer to where he would be positioned. This came with some risk, of course, as shrapnel was all too common and proximity spells that produce explosions would be tricky.

His physical prowess and well-being were pushed nearly to their limits by this intensive training which was only broken to eat, sleep and set up the necessary implements. Ceaselessly rifling through Hakuda forms had only served to enlighten him in the way of martial arts, opening new doors of insight into what was possible and what could be adapted in order to produce an alternate result. Ingenuity guided his progress.

By the time his time of leave was nearly up, leaving just enough time to make the return to Seireitei, the pillars of stone he set up each morning were far fewer for lack of intact bounders, and all positioned to ring a small open space. This is where the last few days had been spent, rigorously pushing himself through Hakuda forms while executing a particular set of Hadō spells he felt were tactical at close range, controlling their results just enough to prevent the charred totems from being blown apart or otherwise destroyed. There wasn't a stone bigger than a fist left anywhere in the crater, and hadn't been for some time, so each morning meant a trip out of the enclave and into the surrounding mountain ridges to find and carry back sizable slabs.

Though training his physical strength was never a concern before or during the training it was inevitably increased throughout, just in repetition of hard manual labor, but that didn't hold a candle to the true crowning achievement-- the prototype "style" which would eventually lead Yogenhoshi to create the Meteor Style, his secretive trump card.