tampered | Log; Ongoing

Harry was late. Horribly late. But it wasn't his fault really, it was Rayne's. It took a hell of a lot more willpower than Harry had to year yourself away from the likes of her when she was still in the mood.

Then he had run across the girl who had just found herself in the City and was very lost and confused. So he had tried to console her until someone more parental from the orphanage could come along and help her.

By the time all that had been taken care of he was a bit late for his meeting. He hoped that the other man wasn't going to be too upset with him. If he was... well, no skin of of Harry's back. Boohoo if the guy that ate children's hearts didn't like him.

His black duster flapping behind him, Harry finally made his way to the lake. He had no reason to suspect some sort of trap, but he was still prepared for one. His sheild bracelent hung losely at his wrist and he had his staff and blasting rod. It never hurt to be prepared.

Fortunately, the other man had waited for him. Calling out as he neared, Harry offered his apologies. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "A few things came up."

Kakuzu nodded, once, his mind already quite set on making sure that the Wizard wasn't going to get off easily in any sense of the word.

"That," he said, pointing to the man's staff, "and any other items of Sorcery that you have on your person will not be needed. Either discard them and put somewhere with your duster, or make them disappear."

Harry cocked an eyebrow at the man's demands. There was no way in hell that Harry was going to cast aside all of his items of Sorcery. Even if he trusted this guy even a bit, which he didn't, there was no way he was going to do that.

"I don't think so," Harry said, shaking his head. "I'll set aside the blasting rod and the duster but not the staff or my shield bracelet. I don't hardly know you, so no offense but I'm not just tripping down magically naked for you."

Kakuzu made a noise in the back of his throat at the man impertinence, but had enough common sense not to overreact. He was more demon than man, after all, in Dresden's eyes, and pushing how much control he had over the situation was idiotic.

"Fine. Just know that if that...staff of yours is made out of anything unnatural this training will be about nine times harder than it should be."

With that, Kakuzu took a seat, assuming the lotus position as he did so, and waited. "Whenever you're ready, sit, and I'll coach you through the first step of Chakra manipulation."

"It's just a focus, it's nothing unnatural" Harry said, sitting down in the same position that Kakuzu had. Or as well as he could, he wasn't exactly as nimble as the other man.

Chakra manipulation was something he had heard of before. It was more Eastern type magic than anything he knew, but he had no doubt that it was the real deal.

"Alright," Harry said, turning to face the other man while being careful not to look him in the eyes. "I'm ready."

"No, you aren't, but we'll fix that in a moment."

Kakuzu drew upon as much chakra as he would allow himself to show the other man, his veins practically screaming with the effort it took to suppress his own power. It had been...ages, really, since he had taught the Waterfall's way of learning Chakra Manipulation.

"I take it you remember our talk about the nature of my people's power, Dresden? -- How it is more of a natural-born gift than something bargained or studied in tomes?"

Too long, perhaps.

"Every living being has the potential inside of them to manipulate chakra. It simply takes...finesse and a rather devoted teacher to make them feel and see it."

He made a single hand-sign, the the Horse (http://leafninja.com/hands.php) and then showed it to the man.

"Do as I do. Simply by forming this hand-sign, you should feel a tiny flare of power somewhere in your body."

Harry gave a small, grunt but otherwise kept his mouth shut. Kakuza was the teacher here and Harry was the student, so he would show the man the same courtesy he would have expected to receive in the situation.

"I remember," he said, nodding in agreement as he carefully studied what the other man was doing. It really didn't sound all that different from what Harry did. All of the words and symbols weren't really magic themselves, just a way to focus your will. Magic was all about effort of will.

The hand sign definitely looked odd, but doable. His long fingers interlocked together with the pointer of each hands steepling and the thumbs locking behind. It felt like a very unnatural position and he could tell it would take a lot of practice to overcome that, but he did feel a little flare of something in his chest.

"Whoa..."

"Chakra," Kakuzu continued, noting that Dresden would become distracted with himself if not instructed rather carefully, "Is a rather capricious and volatile energy. Some can naturally use the exact amount needed when calling on it for a technique, and some may use too much and find themselves using the exact same Ninjutsu as double the physical cost."

Kakuzu raised his hand to eye-level, and snapped his fingers. "If you put too much Chakra into certain techniques, you may end up killing yourself," he explained as a small black fire rose out of his skin and hovered just directly above his palm. "Too little, and you run the risk of going through the motions of your technique and never seeing them come to fruition -- but that is a lesson for a later time, I suppose."

Rolling his wrist, Kakuzu dismissed the flame he had called and focused his gaze on Harry. "Focus on the small flare of power you felt inside of yourself, just now, and see if you can feel where it is coming from. Pinpoint its exact location."

Harry watched intently as the man demonstrated what Chakra could do. While he honestly wasn't interested in becoming any sort of master in the art, if he could use it as sort of an alternate power source for things, or even to give him a little extra energy when he felt otherwise tapped out that would be very helpful. Some sort of healing abilities or increased strength and speed would be handy.

"Okay, pinpoint the exact location Daniel-san," Harry muttered to himself, feeling like he should just be getting done sanding the floor. Somehow Kakuzu just didn't make a convincing Mr. Miyagi though.

Forming the same symbol again, Harry concentrated on the spot he had felt the flare of power. It was there again, although a bit weaker than before. Furrowing his brow, Harry concentrated more, taking it a bit more serious now.

"The right side of my chest," he said. "Just below my chest, kind of towards my back."

Kakuzu nodded, and showed the man the next hand-symbol necessary for what he had in mind, the the Serpent (http://leafninja.com/hands.php).

"Good, Mr. Dresden. You're learning at the rate most Academy Students would on their first rate of classes," he said, his tone neither condescending or demeaning in the least. "Now, after you've formed the hand-sign I have just done, the small pulse should move either up or down your spine -- please inform me which way it goes, and then we can continue."

Harry wasn't sure if the rate he was learning at was good or bad, but he didn't really mind so much. The fact that he actually was learning something was great. Well, maybe he wasn't learning anything terribly useful, but feeling a spot of power on your body spike when you made funny positions with your hands was pretty cool.

This new hand position was even easier. When Harry his fingers in the new position, he felt the pulse move up his spine a bit.

"It went up," he told the other man.

"Good, good. Now go through the first hand-symbol again, and then inhale," Kakuzu explained, smiling a bit at what was about to happen to Dresden if he completed the jutsu correctly. "You should feel like you're taking in more air than normal, but that's how it should feel."

Standing up, Kakuzu took a step back and then looked down at Harry, his eyes quite alight with mischief. "Please take care not to exhale too hard. I don't want you to vomit out an organ. Or worse."

_{[OOC: Harry's about to do his first jutsu! -- A small amount of really, really cold steam is about to come out of his mouth, and it'll freeze the grass in front of him solid. Seeing as he's still a novice, though, it'll take a bit outta him.]}

Harry did as instructed, going back to the first hand symbol and making it as well as he could. The second one was definitely easier for him to do though. He took in a breath and nearly gasped. It felt like he was sucking in so much his lings were going to burst.

At the warning of not vomitting an organ, Harry became more than a bit concerned. It may just be one of those things you tell a newbie to get him to pat attention to what you were saying or he may honestly vomit out one of his organs if he exhaled too hard. Was the even possible though? He was pretty sure that at most he could only vomit out his stomach or exhale out his longs. Either way, he supposed those were organs he wanted to keep inside of him.

Harry opened his mouth and just barely exhaled, hardly forcing any air out at all. Frozen vapor passed his lips and he saw the grass in front of him crystalize into ice. His eyes widened in surprise a second before he felt all energy drain out of his body. With a grunt he ceased forming the symbol with his hands as he moved to keep himself from falling over.

"Whoa," he said, elloquent as always. "I need a nap now..."

Kakuzu let out a small sigh when he saw that the Wizard had over-exerted himself with such simple ninjutsu, already moving to kneel in front of the man in case his lost consciousness. It seemed that the laws of his world still applied, even here.

"Do not lay back, Dresden," the Sower crooned, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder as he held his other up to his eyes; Adults were always harder to teach than children for this specific reason -- their chakra pathways were already solid. "Tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

Harry focused his eyes for a moment on the fingers in front of him. He was a bit disappointed in the results of his attempt, chakra as an alternative power source wasn't looking so good at the moment. He could have spent all day spell slinging and not gotten this tired.

"Three fingers," Harry said, shaking his head a bit. He hoped that really was all the fingers he was holding up, the wizard couldn't quite be sure. "I've never had it take so much out of me just to breath."

Kakuzu nodded, and after making sure that Dresden wasn't going to fall over, sat down in front of him. "It only takes so much out of you because you still don't know the basics. What I had you do right now was...well, to put it bluntly, a test. I wanted to see if you actually had the aptitude to learn what I could teach."

Kakuzu leaned back on the heels of his hands, and gave the Wizard a wry grin that stretched his stitching. "Now that that's out of the way, Dresden, tell me what you know of the Soul."

Harry nodded in agreement, he knew exactly what the man was talking about. It was the same with magic, you had to first see if the person even had that little spark that would let them even begin to learn.

"No worries. And now I never have to drink a cold beer again," he said, which was actually rather convenient. "As for the Soul..."

Harry scratched his head, wondering how to answer that question. Lash would probably know how to answer that best.

"I know it's the essence of what I am. Sort of the... eternal part of me, the spiritual essence. I know part of it can be gained or lost... and I can see into someone's Soul if I look them in the eyes for more than a moment... so I've seen a lot of them..."

Kakuzu stared at the man while he explaned himself, a part him not entirely expecting someone so...mortal to understand so many of the basic tenants of the soul; even stranger after it was all said and done, he found, was that Harry said he could see them in their entirety.

Hm.

"That should make it easier, I suppose," he thought aloud, and then: "Using ninjutsu, to put it bluntly, is to learn how to combine your spiritual and physical energies together inside of youself before then releasing them somewhere outside of your body. The hand-signs help focus your energies into set forms around or inside of you, drawing out the inherent physical energy that your body produces everyday, while the incantations themselves align the chakra gates inside of your body to allow the chakra to flow freely. It's a rather...complex theory to explain, to tell you the truth. I work much better with showing."

Harry wondered if the other man thought he might be a little crazy, and he wouldn’t blame him. It did sound a little crazy saying you could see someone’s soul. Wizards were just lucky that way.

What the other man was saying actually seemed really familiar.

“That’s very similar to how my magic works,” he said with a nod. “The power comes from inside but powers and symbols help give it shape and form. And you’re right, the showing was much more convincing than trying to explain it all to me.”

Kakuzu nodded -- more to himself, this time -- and then went through another series of hand-seals, his fingers working fairly quickly so that Dresden wouldn't be able to follow (hopefully. He didn't didn't know the limits of the man's power).

"The difference between our two arts, I believe, stems from how chakra must be built upon both physically and mentally for it to work. You simply cannot study without practicing or even grow, for that matter, without taking the lessons taught to you and applying them to your every-day life."

"Take this for example," he finished, ending in the Horse seal that he had shown Harry a few moments ago. "The ninjutsu I just cast would, if I willed it, allow me to move through the earth unimpeded."

To demonstrate, the Sower kicked downwards and sunk his leg entirely through the dirt, his body going lopsided as the offending limb cut into the ground as if it were water. "See?"

He cancelled the ninjutsu after taking out his leg, and continued. "I know nothing of your art, so I cannot say this for certain, but another key difference is that our power manifests itself primarily through One the Five Elements that is most dominant in our body."

"I won't know more until I try more, but magic you have to apply too. You have to practice over and over and over to learn how to do something," Harry explained. Despite telling the man earlier he wouldn't each him anything it was hard not to when the mercenary was so open.

When the man kicked his leg through the earth and had it pass through like it was air, Harry's eyes grew wide. There were a number of times he could have used something an ability like that. Could you manage that for other solid objects?

"We can call on any of the five elements as well," Harry said. "But they're not really how our power manifests. Some are easier to call for certain wizards than others. Fire and wind are especially easy for me to use."

Fire was actually a bit too easy for Harry to use, it's one reason he liked hist staff. It gave him focus. Without it, there would be a lot more random damage when he tried to call fire.

[Love your harry so much. <3]

Kakuzu pulled his leg out from the ground and then cracked his neck. The sky was beginning to darken, and he had to get back home to make sure Hidan wouldn't kill anyone on the solstice. Or, really, just because he felt like it.

"I think we're done here, for today. Everything I've learned about you will help me devise a lesson plan for the future, if you're still interested."

[ooc: D'awww, thanks. ^////^ Are you liking the book?]

"I'm definitely interested," Harry said with a nod, gathering up the few items that he discarded and standing back up. It was strange to be learning not just a new spells, but a different way to do magic. He was a little bit giddy about it to be honest, Harry's only hobby really was magic and this opened up a whole new door of possibilities.

"I don't want to see impatient, but just so I know... how long before I can do something of use without almost passing out?"

[OOC: I'm on book three already, and I started like three and a half days ago. XD]

Kakuzu thought about it for a moment. There was still the matter of his payment hanging between them, of course, but for now...Hm. He had nothing better to do, he supposed.

"Two weeks. At the least."

[ooc: Wow, that's awesome! I'm glad you're enjoying them so much.]

"Two weeks?" Harry asked, somewhat incredulous. That was... a lot earlier than he thought he would be able to do something like that. He wondered if this had some sort of wicked learning curve, where the first few things were easy and after that it got insanely hard.

"Well, in the mean time is there anything I can do to practice?" he asked.

Kakuzu ran through a few of the easier hand-signs slow enough for the Wizard to pick up if he so wished, his hands flashing through at least six before he said: "Memorize what I'm doing, and practice forming them as fast as possible. The first step to learning any of the actual..."spells" is understanding the theory behin them, and to do that you have to be able to do to handseals without fail."

Harry watched carefully as the other man (was he a man?) ran through the hand signs. He tried to commit as many of them as he could to memory, promising himself to write them down in picture form as soon as he could.

"Alright, I can do that," Harry said with a nod. "It's not like I don't have a lot of free time."

Log; Ongoing

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