[center]It was growing dark...[/center]

[indent]Kino knelt slightly, his bow on the ground with one hand steadying him while the other was firmly placed upon his knee. He panted heavily as he looked at his shadow clone which appeared similarly tired, but nowhere near the same degree of exhaustion. Kino looked over to his second shadow clone that was simply reading books, albeit now that it was growing dark, that would likely come to an end. Kino allowed his eyes to dart back and forth between the two, allowing a moment of thought before he stood up and at least appeared to regain composure. The shadow clone that was reading set its book down after marking its page before they were both dispersed, causing Kino to gasp deeply as he felt a rush of information and fatigue hit him. He had been releasing arrow after arrow at one shadow clone, trying to force his clone to absorb it without dispersing, and the resulting harm done to it hit Kino far harder than expected. What truly hit Kino, however, was the knowledge...[/indent]

[center]"Lightning release, weak against wind, strong against ground - unique combination with water...

Lightning release, does not electrify a blade, instead causes it to vibrate...

Vibrations cause numbess and loss of feeling...

Vibrations increase speed and cutting power, like Wind Release...

Chakra itself is a combination of both his spiritual and physical energy...

The jutsu he wants is not just spiritual or physical but both...

His arrow, the Ten-no-Ya, is a fully physical technique...

His Lighting Release uses more spiritual energy than physical energy...

His chakra is still a mix of both types of chakra....

Chakra must be mixed three times to make a single jutsu with both transformations...

Lightning release is not real electricity at first...

Everything I have been doing is wrong..."[/center]

Information flooded Kino as well as fatigue. All the research he had done on chakra, on how it is formed between spiritual and physical energy to make releases and how each release goes through a transformation - all things that were touched in the academy but left unexplained - filled his mind and forced insight onto his abilities. The previous hours of training, trying to 'electrify' his Ten-no-Ya was all wrong - all wasted time. He was merging chakra that was true electricity, far beyond his skill level, especially with very little training with Lightning Release. Only now did Kino realize that his first steps into elemental jutsu would be small, as he was far from learning any jutsu that was above the basic C-rank he should be using. A whole new type of transformation, and to use it with any jutsu he had required merging shape and nature transformations - a rare feat for even Jounin. It was beyond Kino, and he grasped that.

[indent]Kino raised his hands to create another shadow clone, this time only one. In the darkness, it darted back a distance while Kino raised his bow. The clone grabbed a piece of wood Kino had chopped from a tree, simply waiting with it. Kino loaded an arrow into his bow and this time poured chakra into it, molding it as he had been, but this time not into an arrow made of chakra, like his Ten-no-Ya, but an arrow of wood and metal. Before Kino could even fire his arrow, the wooden shaft of the arrow splintered and broke off. He was successful in giving it chakra, but its materials were not suitable for conducting it. If Kino intended on making an elemental arrow jutsu, regular arrows would not do, even if they could conduct his chakra. He would need metallic ones.[/indent]

Kino sighed and dispersed his clone. He had little chakra left anyway, especially after making nearly ten shadow clones for the day. Reflecting back on his day of wasted training, he realized that if anything he had gained a feel for his chakra, and the ability to absorb Lightning-transformed chakra into his body to a far lesser degree. Picking up his books, Kino headed home. Although it was dark, his family - his uncle and brother - still waited for him. They had set aside a plate for him and both of them had a myriad of questions for him, mostly to their dismay. To his brother, he had not mastered any new technique and to his uncle he had not tested any new bow. What he did need, however, were arrows of metal, and his uncle could do such for him....

[center][b]That next morning...[/b][/center]

When fired from his bow, an arrow normally only lodged two or three inches into solid hardwood, it was the fate of his bow. It was its limit. This time, the arrow not only pierced through a solid 8 inch block, but through Kino's shadow clone and through another tree only to be lodged into the second tree it was fired into. Although he thought of his uncle as unreliable, his uncle paid to have several arrows of fully metallic builds made and brought to Kino. As always, Kino was forced by his own mental barriers to disregard the notion, thinking that any success with his arrows he would have would only provide more commercial business for his uncle, but Kino could not disregard the effect. By enhancing a fully-metallic arrow with his lightning-transformed chakra, he could overcome its weight and give it far more power than before.

[indent]Kino repeated his shots. He had a shadow clone only to retrieve his arrows, and soon enough his accuracy and skills with the arrows increased greatly. Not only could he hit his target from thirty yards, he could blast through it and four other trees simply by giving his arrows more chakra. He could fire them off as fast as he could load them, which was admittedly slower than a regular arrow due to the added weight of the metal shafts of these arrows. Kino accomplished these feats in under an hour with the proper tools that morning, but still did not feel it constituted a jutsu. Giving an affinity to a weapon was not a jutsu, it was a skill. All Kino was truly doing was practicing with his lightning release and with that in thought created his maximum of three shadow clones, two of them firing arrows into and through trees, destroying part of a forest while the other dodged, retrieved and fired them back into a target dummy, all to keep his arrows together.[/indent]

It was not long before Kino realized that just a few minutes of repeated fire drained his chakra pools greater than firing his Ten-no-Ya, and was forced to stop. Repeating a simple skill gave him little valuable experience, and he sought out to do the one thing he thought might accelerate his training: find Kirugetsu. It wasn't even noon that Kino set out to find his sensei, mostly just by asking around to see if Kirugetsu or his new teammates were seen and ultimately by asking the Jounin center, which every active Jounin was required to stop by daily. His determination was to find Kirugetsu and simply ask him what he felt the best step was to develop a real jutsu. Merging the two types of transformation felt like an impossible to reach goal for him, so he had to find something entirely new. He had to travel down a different route, and he was seeking guidance.