"Ugh, that was way more arduous than I expected." Kuroichi said as he glanced over his shoulders toward the body of the fogveil civet he had killed earlier.
"Hoot hoot!"
"Yeah yeah, I know, no need to tell me twice. I'll start cooking this thing up right away!"
It seemed, however, that Kurai simply couldn't hold back, as she hopped forward, slowly inching closer and closer to the body.
She noticed Kuroichi wasn't paying much attention and without hesitation used her sharp claws to rip some of the beast's flesh off it's body. Her beak tore off some bite sized chunks which she quickly scarfed down.
"HEY, what do you think you're doing?? I still wanted to prepare that properly Kurai!" As Kuroichi noticed what she was doing his first thought was to interrupt her, but in the end he decided to just let it go and let her do whatever she wanted. "Here, do you want me to cut you a bigger part?" He asked as he prepared to cut off a part she could eat raw before he cooked the rest.
As he sat before the fire and watched the meat sizzling under the flames, he thought back to the fight he had just a few hours earlier. His mind had calmed down by now, so he started noticing a lot of things he could've done differently, better and more efficiently.
He definitely lost his composure way to easily during the fight. 'Sure this was my first real life or death fight, but I can't be so easily deceived again. I know what kind of different powers exist in this world, I need to be more prepared for the unexpected.
There is also the fact that Kurai has obviously become an emotional weakness future enemies could exploit, but to be honest.. with the way she lit up my world since she hatched it is probably worth it!
The moment he lost his composure, and stopped thinking rationally, is when he truly fell for the trap. Letting himself believe that Kurai was dead unraveled himself in that situation, add to that the previous mental battle he was fighting with his own instincts, and he was smoothly manipulated.
He realized just how easily he could be toyed with once his senses were dulled. Sight, sound, touch, once these senses were under his opponents control, he was done for. He focused too much on being able to physically see the civet during the fight, when strictly speaking he didn't to.
'I need to master that sensing ability of mine, if I could have sensed everything from the very beginning, then I could've technically won almost instantaneously. I could've just focused on the real one from the very beginning and also wouldn't have fallen for the illusion in the first place.'
He truly had to focus his training more on his perception, as well as getting his instincts under control, since they were a glaring weakness of his for the moment. The two were connected and he was optimistic about future progress.
Remembering once again his frantic attacks, lacking any kind of strategy or technique, made his jaw clench in frustration. If he wanted to survive in this world where genjutsu could rewrite wills and shatter minds, then he needed to stay emotionally grounded. He needed to train himself to remain calm, focused and rational even in severely stressful situations.
There were other things for him to improve on.
For example, his jutsu deployment speed. His hand seals were clean, but not fast enough. During specific moments during the fight he was cutting it very close, almost getting injured or worse because he was too slow finishing his seals.
'Not only do I need to be quicker when forming seals, I also need to be able to use fewer seals in general when using jutsu. So, even more chakra control training, and maybe I should also look into and figure out water element transformation… no scratch that, first I should learn the rest of the water jutsu.'
Another thing was his inefficient use of dark release. At the end of the day, dark release was what really let him win the fight, not something else he did. He got the ability to work and even as he sat in front of the fire he felt like he could summon the dark release chakra again, but he was still too unfamiliar with his power in general.
He needed to refine the way he drew chakra from others, making it not only quicker and smoother, but also letting him gain full control over it, truly mastering dark release and it's advanced applications.
For his taijutsu, there wasn't much he could think of to improve on off the top of his head. He didn't have the experience needed too see the mistakes he made just as he thought about it, but when he took a few minutes he did come up with something.
His rhythm during the fight was way too predictable, making it relatively easy for the civet to adjust to his movements. His taijutsu was good for someone who hasn't been training in it for long and has never had anyone to spar with, but he needed to be more unpredictable. He just went through the familiar motions of his kata, not deviating from them at all.
All in all, he now had a pretty good idea of what he could do in a fight, and could work on addressing the weaknesses he found in his fighting style, improving it further from there.
The meat had been cooked just right as he finished the last of his thoughts. He took a piece of meat off the fire and let it cool for a second, blowing on it, before devouring it with gusto.
The taste didn't blow him away or anything, but it was still deeply satisfying. It tasted hearty and smoky, with a touch of strange warmth, something hard to place. It wasn't spicy, simply… charged, probably from the chakra that once coursed through it.
Kurai, on the other hand, was in total bliss. She had torn into the meat with wild enthusiasm, letting out high pitched and strange sounding hoots whenever she ate a really good part. To her the taste was rich and potent, unlike anything she ever ate before.
To her, it wasn't just food, but power. Her eyes danced with pleasure as she finished what was left of the meat, stomach bulging comically as she plopped down next to Kuroichi, too exhausted to even move anymore.
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