I turn the kunai around in my grip, eyeing it in something like shock. I almost can't believe that it had worked just like that, but I can feel it shifting along the surface of the throwing knife, hugging the edge tight.
That's it, huh? As long as I know what I want it to do, it can do it in here. I bring the kunai up to my other hand, running it along my index finger, and feel the compressed stream of wind press against my skin. But when I take the kunai away, my skin is unmarred.
...
Looks like Asuma was wrong after all. I groan, tossing my kunai spiralling away into the void. What now? I look around, but there's still just as much nothing as there was two seconds ago. Where's this Yin and Yang stuff Hinata was talking about? Shouldn't I be swimming in black and white energies right now?
"Guess it's just you and me," I tell the wind, and it whispers its agreement. I urge the current keeping me adrift to expand and let me lay back, and it hurries to obey. I curl one arm beneath my head and raise the other to the sky-void, twisting my fingers. The wind dances above me, jumping at every command I give it. "Well, this is pretty relaxing, if nothing el-"
Wait a second.
I sit up, pushing myself up with the help of a compressed cloud of wind. Then I get back into a cross-legged position and hold both hands out in front of me.
I've still got an exercise to try in here.
This technique I'm going to teach you is something I picked up from an A-rank Suna nukenin. He was a close combat specialist, like you, and he used a tanto, also like you. On paper I should have been able to dispose of him without much trouble, since I'm a long range specialist and I'm very, very good at it. But I had never seen his signature technique before, and it almost killed me.
Hatake had introduced it to me back when he first started training me with my tanto, the week before we left for the exams. I hadn't made much progress with it leading up to that, and hadn't had much time to practice during the exams for obvious reasons. And then I got my tanto jacked by my partner and gave up on the chakra exercise, pretty much. It doesn't work with kunai, and I didn't see myself figuring it out without the conduit anytime soon.
But in here. In here, it might be different. I know what I'm supposed to do, after all. All I need to do is…
I twist my left hand and pull with my right, forcing my will upon the element encompassing me, and it submits. The wind howls in my ears as the technique takes effect, blooming to life on the palms of my hands, and I bare my teeth in a fierce grin.
"Hell yes!"
I drop onto my back again, releasing my grasp on the technique and folding both arms behind my head. Satisfaction surges through me, and I send a mental thank you to Hinata wherever she is beyond this void. Now I can show Asuma that his idea with the kunai didn't work and we need to do something else, and maybe even weasel another chakra exercise out of Hatake while I'm at it. And maybe then I can ask Hinata to put me in here again, and master that one too.
I'm like that for a good minute or two, absorbed in thoughts of abusing the system with the help of my Hyuuga friend and cleaning house in the finals tournament. By the time I notice that my technique didn't dissipate after I released my hold on it, it's grown twice as large and engulfed me.
"What the-" I choke, thrashing up into a sitting position and then onto my feet. I throw both hands out, willing the howling flurry of wind to go away from me, to disperse, and it refuses. I stagger as the cyclone grows even larger around me, and cross my arms in front of my face.
A sharp pain opens up on my right arm a second later, and I see blood fly away from the cut and into oblivion. Another gash open up on my other arm and I hiss, hunching in on myself. The wind claws at me with a fury I've never felt from it before, opening up cuts along my back and legs and chest. I throw my will against the hurricane one last time, screaming wordlessly, and suddenly find myself connected to it.
I feel the sheer enormity of it, having grown from a technique about twice my size to a monstrous gale spanning further than I can see with my eyes. I feel the unforgiving edge to it, tearing apart my flesh, the wind that's not apart of it, even the void itself. I feel the fury.
The last thing I register before I lose control and am tossed back into oblivion is a single, earth-shattering roar.
I come back into my own body in the next instant with a harsh jolt, and hunch forward, gasping for breath. I curl my fingers into the dirt beneath me, smell the sharp tang of the grass-
Hear the wind raging around me.
My eyes snap open, and I realize that I haven't escaped the hurricane at all.
I watch as it tears the bark off trees, rips dummies out of the earth, and feel it as it continues to open up very real cuts all over my body. I look around desperately for Hinata, but I can't see any sign of her. Did she get out of the way, or was she thrown back? Is she okay? Why can't I see her?
I'm halfway to my feet, determined to get out of this storm and make sure Hinata is okay even if it kills me, when it stops. One second it's tearing the training ground and me to shreds, and the next there's nothing left of it but a low, moaning breeze. I stand there, wavering on my feet, panting, and covered in bloody cuts. Then I take a painful step forward. Then another.
Gotta find Hinata. Gotta find Hinata. Gotta-
"Naruto?"
It's barely more than a whisper, but I latch onto it immediately and spin around to a tree off to my right. I almost fall over from the abrupt motion, but I couldn't care less. All I care about is the head of dark blue hair poking out from behind the ravaged trunk. Hinata looks back at me with something like horror on her face.
"Are you alright?" I ask, in a stronger tone of voice than I'd expected. She seems to be unable to speak, so she just nods instead. I sigh in relief. "Thank god."
And with that fear assuaged, I let my legs crumple beneath me and collapse onto the dirt.
...
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