Controlling the Innermost Storm

Takeshi returned to the same room he had trained with Omega the day before, he had planned on going home and resting but alas he had someone that had waited for him at the door and thus had to deal with that and was just recovering from that ending less than an hour ago. His newest pupil was still asleep on the floor so he walked over and nudged his side with his steel-toe boot. Not a kick or anything painful but the stiffness of the shoe would make it apparent that it was time to wake up and get back to work, if he couldnt be asleep right now then nobody could.

As Omega began to regain consciousness, he felt a slight nudge against his shoulder. The pressure was not painful but it was apparent to him that whoever it was wanted him to wake up.

When Omega opened his eyes, he saw his sensei standing above him, and when this registered, he jumped up and kneeled before Takeshi. "I'm ready, sensei. I will absorb everything today, for I am no longer tired."

Takeshi nodded to Omega as he stated that he wasnt tired anymore, he had managed to get a better night's sleep than Takeshi then because while he didnt show it he hadnt been able to close his eyes for more than half an hour last night but he had things to do. "Alright then Omega, yesterday we worked on a basic manifestation of your storm nature as well as a small amount of practical use. Today we are going to work on you as a whole. Without a fit body use of chakra is nearly useless as anything you throw at your opponent will never hit, lets begin with 10,000 push ups." Takeshi removed his jacket and folded it over a bench before nodding to the kid and getting down on his face and starting the warm p exercise.

Omega listened to his sensei intently. "Alright then Omega, yesterday we worked on a basic manifestation of your storm nature as well as a small amount of practical use. Today we are going to work on you as a whole. Without a fit body use of chakra is nearly useless as anything you throw at your opponent will never hit, lets begin with 10,000 push ups."

He watched as his sensei folded his jacket/coat over one of the benches in the room and gets down on his hands and feet in push-up position. Omega followed the simple instructions to the tee except he made it harder on himself by using his knuckles instead of the palms of his hands. "Sensei! I believe that only pain will teach my mind to be strong like steel, while the push-ups will discipline and train my body. I'm ready when you are, Sensei Takeshi!" Omega held his form until his sensei gave the word.

Without a single word Omega got into the push-up position and asked for a signal for when to begin the exercise. The kage did take notice however that the kid had taken a more painful position atop his knuckles. This could have been done for dozens of reasons from adding pain to exercise the mind to simply putting pressure on his hands to harden them a bit and grow calluses faster but in any case it would result in him not getting nearly as far Ashe could on his palms for a more relaxed warm up. Even Takeshi had a maximum of about 2000 before having to stop and rest so his estimate of Omega factoring in position and overall power was around 500. He had been right though, this would be a mental exercise as it would be done to teach humility and show both master and student their absolute limit by working towards an impossible goal but in any case it was starting time. "Keep a steady pace and don't rush yourself, begin." Takeshi went down so his nose almost touched the ground and came all the way back up, repeating over and over while keeping an eye on Omega to monitor progress.

When his sensei told him to begin, Omega went down at the same time as his sensei. He could feel the pressure on his knuckles and could already feel strain as he went all the way down to nearly touching his nose to the floor.

15 minutes went by and he had just hit 200 push-ups. He thought, I'm such an idiot. Why did I have to do knuckle push-ups...? He was really starting to feel the bruising in his knuckles at the time, but after he'd stopped for not even a second, he continued and didn't show weakness in his posture.

At the hour mark, he reached 500 push-ups and Omega realized that blood began to flow slowly from his knuckles. This hurts like hell...but I can't stop. I won't stop...all the hardship..., the fighting..., For those reasons, I must endure... He began to shake little by little but still, he didn't stop. Though he was going at a slightly slower pace than his sensei, he didn't lose face. Not even if the knuckles started showing out of his skin.

Takeshi was keeping an eye on Omega the entire time and took notice as he started to slow a little and at one point even though the time was so short it almost didnt happen he slowed down a tad from the pain but pushed through it. After an hour when they hit the 500 mark Takeshi was still powering through this without much of a problem but Omega was indeed hitting his limit even though he didnt want to quit yet. His knuckles were bruised and raw, soon they would split and he would have to stop or risk ruining his hands in the long term. He kept on watching his student closely, his skill with ijutsu was limited but he would be able to help him it he went to far at least, he just needed to both determine for himself and to show him what his limits were and from that do great things.

When he reached his 713th push-up, he realized finally that he was at his absolute limit and collapsed, panting, and his hands blistered, bleeding, and shaking.

He slowly got himself to stand up, his arms hanging down as dead weight. He had his eyes closed as he began to regain his breath, and then seconds after, he lifted his head and chuckled once. "I guess I failed, sensei. I can't feel my arms and hands." He laughed for a few moments, thinking that he was completely surprised he even got that far. Then, as he stopped laughing, tears ran down his face and looked up at the ceiling. "I wonder why I'm crying...do you know why? Sensei?"

Takeshi saw it as it happened, Omega was finished so he finished the push up he was in the middle of and rose to his feet. He shook out his arms for a second and listened as he was asked why he thought his student was crying and honestly he had no idea but there were always possibilities that it could be so he sat down on the bench with his jacket and patted the seat next to him for Omega to sit. "You cry for simple reasons kid, the biggest one being that you couldnt do it. I dont know what your records were before my training but it would appear that you are getting a sense of failure stuck in your head." He took out a cigarette and started smoking it, offering one to Omega before putting them away and going on. "Between this and what I have been told happened in your fight at the chunin exams you are starting to feel you cant do much of anything but you have to keep thinking of times like yesterday where you were able to do something you had never done before just by focusing and trying hard. But you accomplished something toda as well didnt you? I doubt you ever randomly waited around and did over 700 push ups so even though you didnt make it to the final goal its still a victory." He sat back and relaxed, looking towards the roof with closed eyes as the sound of the rain outside hitting the metal ceiling passed through his mind and calmed his soul.

His sensei ushered him to sit down and as he sat down, his sensei spoke calmly. "You cry for simple reasons kid, the biggest one being that you couldnt do it. I dont know what your records were before my training but it would appear that you are getting a sense of failure stuck in your head." He then offered Omega a smoke and put the rest away in his pocket. When he accepted the smoke, it was lit and his sensei continued. "Between this and what I have been told happened in your fight at the chunin exams you are starting to feel you cant do much of anything but you have to keep thinking of times like yesterday where you were able to do something you had never done before just by focusing and trying hard. But you accomplished something toda as well didnt you? I doubt you ever randomly waited around and did over 700 push ups so even though you didnt make it to the final goal its still a victory."

As he finished speaking, he looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. Omega followed suit and then spoke. "I'm not crying simply because I'm a failure. At least, I don't think I am." He chuckled once and continued after he blew smoke slowly out his mouth. "It's because of the fact that I've gotten weaker. I'm 23 and yet I can only do about half of what I used to. You know, once upon a time, I fought a jounin. My toughest fight. When I look back, it kinda makes me sad. Maybe thinking too much has made me weak. Maybe being alone has made me weaker. That's why I decided to settle down for the first time in 7 years. I want to become stronger. It was a stroke of luck that led me to you, and I'm glad I did. If anyone could help me get stronger it's a Kage. Even so...," he sighed quietly, blowing out more smoke, "I still get the feeling that I'm not living up to your expectations...or even mine for that matter." Then, as he finished his sentence, he got up and stretched, put his hands up behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling again.

"Mind if I ask you something, sensei?" He said this with a more serious tone and spoke again in the same tone. "What do you think? Of a complete outsider coming into your village expecting you to train him? I also find it kind of odd that you accepted me so quickly..." He then waited silently and patiently for his sensei to reply and blew out some more smoke.

Takeshi continued smoking while Omega spoke, he had some interesting questions that he knew were eventually going to come up. Namely the part about how he had accepted him as a student so quickly but there was something he hadnt said yet to make up for that. Turning to look at Omega after he finished his questions Takeshi spoke slowly in a slightly depressed tone that would be unusual for the new student as so far he had only seen the kage in a 'lets work out' attitude rather than this. "You remind me of someone I once knew years ago, it is for this reason that I put better judgement aside even though you are an outsider. If you'd like I can forget about this reason and treat you as a normal foreigner." He spoke of someone he hadnt mentioned in almost ten years, someone he assumed to be dead already but nothing was certain and although he was left with nothing but a lost friend he was wanting to leave some of that in Omega but it would all be up to how his student wanted to go about this as Takeshi probably wouldnt be leaking any more of his past than he already had.

"You remind me of someone I once knew years ago, it is for this reason that I put better judgement aside even though you are an outsider. If you'd like I can forget about this reason and treat you as a normal foreigner."

When he said this, Omega noticed the more sad tone in his voice and realized he had said something wrong. "If I brought back memories, forgive me. I suppose I'm still rather ignorant. Though, I do know the feeling of losing others. Nevermind that. I did not accept your offer to be trained so I could deny you treating me like I'm part of the village. However, as a sensei, what is most important is the relationship or bond between sensei and student. Of course, I've never been a teacher or anything like that, but I believe that it isn't supposed to be strict, and it should be similar to the bond of a father and his son. I came here in the first place so that I may become a part of your village. In many ways, I am rather sympathetic with the rain. It makes me feel at home, I guess. How you treat me is up to you, Takeshi. However, whether you treat me like the dirt on your shoe or the clouds in the sky, I will not move from here. All that is even left for me is going to back to wandering alone. I see only darkness these days."

Omega paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "I don't know what happened in your past, but whatever it was, I'm sure I understand. I just have a feeling in my heart. I will remain here. Until I get crushed by my training, or you kick me out. My goal is to become strong. It's also to protect what I love and enjoy. If I wander for the rest of my life, I'll remain weak and I won't be able to ever protect anything. My plan in a nutshell. Simple, right?"

He crushed the cigarette with his lightning chakra and took off his shirt. "I'm ready. For anything you throw at me."

The kid's plan was a bit generic in the shinobi world but regardless, there was something within Takeshi that pushed him forward to train him whether it be nostalgia or pure guilt from his actions in the past. He tried to stay as professional as possible about the kid's theory on the master student relationship, in his heart he knew the kid might be correct but based on how things are done in this village for so many centuries it was more a dream than anything, this might have shown a bit in a cringe that had slipped out on accident as this part was said but nothing else as far as body language. "You know that means that the odds are against you and you will probably remain weak forever based on what you're saying right? You claim you want power to protect that which you love but you tell me not five seconds earlier that you have nothing to go back to but wandering in the darkness so either you are telling me lies or there is more to you than you want to reveal for now. Personally I also don't care about the things I don't know about you, I however won't make the assumption that I understand it as many people might take that as a bit offensive as they have been through some things no one could understand without it happening to them personally." He took a moment to take another long drag on his cig until it was depleted and spoke once more as he got out another and started to light it. "There are many things you don't understand about the rain, even if it reminds you of home it's quite obvious this is not where you are from. In this land we do not embrace this new age crap where master and pupil bond like family, in this land you are my pupil and nothing more while we train. I train my own son in this way as though he were just as much a stranger to me as you are so expect nothing else in the walls of this training hall. Outside them might be a different story but as I have many things to do you'll have to stand out from the crowd quite a bit, might not seem totally fair right now but imagine what is going through the minds of the more talented people from the hidden storm that know I'm training you right now rather than spending time on them and I am quite confident you won't need to consider the fairness of these ways any longer." He put the lit roll in between his lips and lightly puffed on it as he stood up to see a shirtless Omega that was apparently ready for anything that could be thrown at him, he just shook his head and walked over to a switch on the wall and laid his hand on it but didn't flip it yet, things needed to be in place first. "Stand over there, you're next test is to find a way out of the situation without using anything but defense. I see a single offensive move in this exercise and you fail. I'll start when you get into position." He was pointing to the center of the room, the specific point would be marked by a circular pattern that looked something like a summoning circle and if Omega paid attention he would notice that several other smaller circles like this were scattered about the room so whatever was about to happen would be rather large scale.

His words made Omega only more curious, but he remained silent, for disrespect is something Omega does not take likely. His sensei then spoke of the next test.

"Stand over there, you're next test is to find a way out of the situation without using anything but defense. I see a single offensive move in this exercise and you fail. I'll start when you get into position."

Omega nodded seriously and with no expression as he began walking into the position that his sensei had pointed out for him. He noticed that ahead of that position was a large circle, which looked quite nearly like a summoning circle. I've seen something like that before in the room... Then, as he recognized this, he remembered there being a circle just like it on the opposite wall. He calmly looked around the room, and without showing expression, he realized there were dozens of them all around the large room. Whatever this test is, it's going to take me to a limit of some kind. I better be ready. "One question. Is there a time limit? Or must I defeat them using only defense? Or shall it purely be on your say that the test will end?"

He reached the position pointed out to him, took stance, and waited for the command to begin.

(bumping. Been a couple weeks :))