Target Practice ~Private Jutsu Training~

Training was always boring to Dokuhari, who stepped into the enclosed area for his weekly routine. So boring, he could already tell it was going to be bland and uninteresting. Training always was, since enhancing his puppetry skills was just a daily thing for him. Using Chakra strings for basic mechanisms around his apartment, such as closing and opening doors, closing blinds, grabbing that drink from across the room that he was too lazy to nab himself. Everything was puppetry and strings to him, and it's what came naturally to him. And then there was training. Training was so much different, training was so...formal. And the enclosed area was so much different from the sandy desert of the Land of Wind. It didn't feel natural to him, and it was very hard to stay focused half of the time. But he set himself up with this strict schedule. Ever since he was a Gennin, he set himself up with a unique training schedule. Today was target practice day - using his puppets to hit an assorted number of preset targets. Not quite as boring as average training, but strikingly close to it. It wasn't the same as chasing after a moving, breathing target and bombarding him or her with a surprise attack of kunai from his practically-living weapons.

Dokuhari rubbed the sleep from his eyes - it was rather early in the morning, and he never thought he would get used to the early-starting days. He unstrapped his patented Puppet-Pack, deciding which puppet to use today. Supaida was out of the question - no bladed weapons to shoot, and he wasn't going to waist poison gas on a bunch of wooden dummies. Daimyo was a cool, fun puppet, but it wasn't particularly fit for shooting things and more for chopping them into little tiny pieces. There was only one other option, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. Yousai was easily his favorite puppet. It was extremely versatile and covered a large amount of uses - not quite as stealthy as Supaida, not quite as strong as Daimyo - but perfect for the job when need be. He removed the puppet manually from his bag, no point in being flashy or interesting here, and set it on the ground. Yawning, he snapped his wrist at the wooden construct, fingers glowing and strapping Chakra Threads to the correct joints on the puppet's body.

The puppet came to life, unraveling itself and standing upright. Dokuhari swooshed his wrist, and the puppet turned to hims slowly. He flicked his other wrist at it, and more strings spread out to connect to the proper points. He smiled, and quickly closed his fingers, dragged them to the side, and lifted upward abruptly with one hand. The puppet stood resolute, and lifted an arm - saluting to Dokuhari to begin the training. He chuckled, what fun! Ninja Puppetry was a gift to the world, he thought. With his left hand, his flicked his wrist quickly to the left. Yousai's left arm shot out to the side, and Dokuhari relax Yousai's saluting arm. He flicked his left pointer finger slightly to the right, and a compartment in the puppet's arm flipped open, revealing a loaded arsenal of shiny kunai knives. Perfect. He repeated the process on the right arm of the puppet. Magnificent! The puppet was fully armed and ready to begin training, but Dokuhari let it fall limp to the ground for now. Now, he had to set up the targets. What a drag!

{{Word Count: 591/200, post/day 1/3}}

Really, Dokuhari didn’t have very fancy targets. Just a few circular slices of wood, painted with the target pattern, that he could easily store in his pack. Removing them from the bag, he counted a total of five. Not very large nor many, but enough for the early morning practice session. He viewed the area around him, spotting out a medium sized rock in the clearing near his current location. Dokuhari approached the rock and placed the five targets on it, at different heights, to try and challenge himself. Because what was practice without a little bit of fun, hm? Beside, he really did need the challenge, since aiming with a puppet's projectile attacks is no easy matter. And this wasn't even in the heat of battle, where the puppet would most likely be in motion along with the target all of the time. For now this was the best he could do though, and complaining wasn't an option.

He walked back to where he left Yousai fallen onto the grass, and flicked his wrists at it once more, reactivating his Chakra strings and bringing the wooden doll to life once more. With a few snappy arm motions, he prepared Yousai for the practice, turning it towards the target-covered rock and extending one artificial arm at it. It took him a while to aim down just the way he wanted to, slighty nudging his ring-finger left and right until it was in position. Then he pulled back with both his middle and index finger simultaneously, and with a heavily-audible 'KA-THUNK', it armed itself with the Kunai launcher and opened a small hole in it's palm. Showtime.

First, he went for a target set up at the center of the rock. He quickly pulled his pinky finger in and out, which triggered the puppet to fire off a flying blade from it's palm. 'THUNK', the Kunai stuck into the wood of the target circle. Not a bullseye - even he could see from this distance - a little too far to the right. Oh well. Quickly, he flicked his wrists to the left, and Yousai's arm snapped into the same direction. Another pinky-pull, another Kunai fired, another bullseye missed. Dammit, okay, lets try another. And another. He came to the final target now, hand beginning to get a little shaky from frustration. Did this really have to be this hard? He went to pull his pinky and fire at the last targt when he accidently twisted his wrist slightly, which cocked Yousai's hand to the right and begin to fire, although it was nothing like Dokuhari expected...

{{Word Count: 437/200, Post/Day 2/3}}

At first, Dokuhari thought that he had lost control of his puppet. Yousai was probably just not built for extrenious use like this, and just had a slight malfunction. ...Wait, what was he thinking? He built the wooden man, he knew that had worked more efficiently like this before and he'd be damned if he doubted his own ability on hitting simple targets. No, no it had to be something else. Maybe it was just an error of the user. He was getting pretty mad with his accuracy before, so it's not out of the question that he just got very upset and that caused his hand to slip ever-so-slightly. Yeah that had to be it. Regardless, his brow was raised - and the fifth and final of the circular target - completely covered in throwing Kunai.

Dokuhari just stood there for a moment, staring at his puppet who was just as stationary, arm poised to launch more knives at the targets. Which is what Dokuhari would continue doing, that was just a sleight of hand, slip of the wrist. It was a mistake and he wouldn't do it again, he was sure. That was pretty embaressing actually. Had there been another puppet master in the vicinity, he would definitely be turned into a laughing stock for losing control of his puppet.

...But did he really lose control? His gaze swapped back-and-forth between his wooden construct and the target. His arms had been stiff as stone, not moving at all, as he looked at his slightly-shaking hand. Wrist twisted slightly to the side, he slowly twisted his hand back to normal position, and could hear a faint click come from Yousai. He moved its arm, aiming at a different target. Yet when he pulled his pinky down to fire, only a sharp clank came from the puppet's body. The familiar sound that reminded Dokuhari - normally in very inconvenient situations - that Yousai was out of stocked kunai and did not have any more to fire. That meant he was going to have to do some restocking when he was done here. Ugh, shopping. Such a bother, so he was going to make do with what he could. Leaving Yousai where it was, he walked over to the targets and salvaged what knives he could from the targets, discarding the dented, bent, or even broken blades to the side.

He walked back to his puppet, propped it up and flipped open the arm holster, loading his Kunai into the slots and closing it. It was time to continue practice, and hitting targets wasn't his concern anymore. Taking his stance once more, he flicked his chakra strings out at the puppet, bringing it to life once more. Readying it up to fire once more, Dokuhari twisted his wrist before pulling his pinky down, which resulted in just what he expected. Yousai quickly unloaded its ammo, all of the replaced Kunai shooting out and sticking firmly into another target. Dokuhari smirked, releasing his chakra string and folding the puppet back into his pack, and getting up to retrieve his targets. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself. Who knew messing up could be so productive?

{{Word Count: 533/200 Post/Day 3/3}}