"Speaking"
'Thoughts'
(Author's Note)
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Three Months later...
Third pov:
Hiruzen was tackling his most hated foe in this whole world while furrowing his brows.
Paperwork...
He finished his work for the time being and slumped back into his seat for a well deserved break.
"Sigh.., I'd rather fight with onoki than deal with this everyday, when will I have some well deserved peace".
Hiruzen pulls out his pipe out of the drawer, using his mastery of fire release to ignite the tobacco in it and took a deep long puff.
Pov end...
It's been 3 months since Ken completed his induction and boy was it hard.
Early morning drills with the team to get all the members in sync.
Classes on anbu signs and their meanings, Stealth classes, More classes on what to do or not to do in certain scenarios.
The most frustrating of all of that was the weekly sparring between all the members of the anbu and a sort of crash course on teamwork with the other members outside of one's own group.
The Anbu had a plethora of specialist's with each ranging from an elite chunin to peak Jonins.
The commander and kakashi being the exception close to reaching low tier kage levels.
But it wasn't without its own benefits, Ken experienced fighting with different martial styles and some members deriving their own styles from the others.
Intercepting,Subduing and redirecting were some of the interests of Ken and he has even achieved some rudimentary success in mastering these.
Poison resistance training being his direct counter to poison specialist's as he couldn't be bothered in carrying around antidotes and changing his fighting style against them.
With another main reason being his weariness of a certain pedophilic snake that will stop at nothing to slither into the future uchiha orphan Prince's butthole.
One thing that ken was happy about was the results of all that was being imparted to him.
Finding flaws about the way you breath was the first punch in the gut but a welcome one.
Flashback..
In an hidden anbu training ground,ken and other new entrants to the anbu were filed up orderly.
Today's training was on stealth and it was their first drill.
The newbies were all silent while waiting for their instructor with ken being located within the middle of the group.
"Hmm, Stealth huh even though not my forte,but still if I have to stay here learning and integrating stealth into my repertoire is a must,I can imagine all the things I can do to improve my stealth, Gonna have to go assasin creed style with this one"
While most of the newbies along with ken were in thought they suddenly felt a chakra fluctuation near the podium.
All eyes focused on there without delay but there was nothing there some flexed their chakra in hopes of getting out a non existent genjutsu.
While the others were scrutinizing every part of the training field for any anomaly.
"Disappointing , Thats all I have to say for you lot"
A man's monotone voice rang out all around the training ground.
The trainees tried locating the source of the voice but to no avail.
They finally focused on the podium in front of them again and found a man wearing a plain white porcelain mask with no specifically identifiable features.
"I wonder why each batch I get is always worse than the last, someone must have it out for me to get stuck with you imbeciles".
Ken meanwhile was amazed of the man's skill in stealth.
"Damn, That was dope not gonna lie, If I can do that I'd spook the shit out of gai sensei everytime", ken thought optimistically.
"Listen up here all of you",The man continued after finishing his rant which ken oh so conveniently ignored.
"You may have thought that you all have acceptable level in stealth but i disagree, some of you here dont even know how to limit your chakra flow"
The man declared with self assurance.
"And I'm going to fix that and make each of you adepts in the arts of stealth".
"You may refer to me as Yurei".
Saying his part the man went quiet for a few moments letting his words sink in.
He then resumes his talk with the matter being that of their training.
"Stealth, A common term with the general meaning
"An example to that is the E rank Kawarami jutsu, As you may all know we replace ourselves with an object with a closer size and mass in comparison to us to effectively dodge an attack"
"Now you may all wonder where stealth comes into play with this, You see there are two main benefits to this jutsu's use, The one being confounding the enemies of your location and two to avoid surprise attacks".
The man motions his hands along with each iteration of his, clearly a person into theatrics.
"As I was saying the use of kawarami employs a simple concept of stealth. Misdirection,the justu is no hirashin to teleport you to another place".
"What it does is use the smoke of the log appearing as a smokescreen to change one's location".
"Simple right,Well No is the answer I give to you all.The timing of pulling it off under the eyes of a veteran shinobi is much harder than that of a genin or civilian.The justu is substandard,a training wheel for one to get used to high speed movement, ineffective against seasoned shinobi as they always keep a constant eye on their surroundings"
"What I meant by saying is that Stealth doesn't always mean to hide or lurk in the shadows,thats what amateurs do".
Some of the members finch at the unexpected burn while some others think about what the man has explained till now.
Ken being one of them while thinking
"So stealth is just a general term and there must be other factors that comprise of stealth too if the wordings of yurei should be taken to consideration".
He thinks of all the things that can be classified under stealth.
"Misdirection, camouflaging,sensory concealment are some of the things I can think of"
Ken is taken out of his thoughts when yurei proclaims the true start of the training.
"We will first start with the basics, The most common and most undervalued of all stealth techniques is breath concealment, A simple yet effective way to hide your selves while ambushing".
"Chakra being the miraculous thing as it is has certain limits well unless you are a kage or the god of shinobi"
"But for grunts like you and for shinobi like me it's useful in many ways".
"Typically breath concealment works in two ways we hold our breaths for a long time while tracking our foe and strike when the opponents guard is down or to hide"
"Another way is replacing the need to breathe for a period of time using chakra to substitute for breathing air".
"An advanced level of this is breathing through your skin,A useful skill to have when following your target"
"But the main drawback of breath concealment is also its greatest advantage, We use chakra as a substitute for our bodily functions"
"Chakra has its limits so once in a while we may have to breathe,The need to breathe once in awhile can be mitigated once you have mastered it,Another major flaw is it's easy to be found out by sensors so most don't see the need for it unless while underwater"
"Breathing through the skin is a whole another can of worms, The benefits being increased duration of stealth and its much easier to maintain it for long periods and even under stress"
"The major flaw is that we become more prone to being poisoned through the air as we cover our body with a thin layer of chakra all over the skin to pull in the air around us to breathe"
"Breath concealment shines through when two opponents are of relatively equal strength, The ambusher gaining the adavantage of striking unexpectedly".
"Another application for stealth is sensory concealment, The title an apt description of what it does".
"All things in the world have chakra in it, There are many theories as to how non living things like rocks and ores possess traces of chakra with the leading one being that the constant exposure to the chakra of living beings has implanted traces of chakra into it".
"Sensory concealment works in the way that it is most effective while in areas filled with livinv beings or areas rich with chakra."
To be continued.....
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(A/N:forgive me for inconsistencies or any other errors I lost the drafts of all my chapters and had to rewrite this chapter from memory).