ARMAMENT00: GO HARDER

[shinpachi]

[atrb=style, width: 350px; background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/dDxps.png);][atrb=valign,top] Sweat trickled down his temple now as he placed his hand on the butt of his katana sticking out of the soft dirt below. He panted, could almost see the moisture in the air as he looked on wearily at the tree before him. The trunk cut almost halfway through, he'd be hacking at it for hours, trying to generate enough strength to cleave through it. He thought back to yesterday, when he stood in the same training area with his father. "COME!" he shouted, prompting the boy to dash forward and slash horizontally at a Kage Bunshin in order to cleave it in two with one swing. The farthest he got was a few inches into the torso. Never through and through. Never what was wanted. Failure after failure, his father would test his skills over and over until he gave up, turning up his head in that way he did. The way that showed he didn't approve. That he looked down on Shinpachi. That he was disappointed that the legacy of the White Fang and the Copy Ninja wouldn't be going anywhere with him. He dropped his sword now and fell to the earth, sighing deeply as he looked up to the sky. "You can't even perform the Chidori." his father would say. He could hear his raspy voice repeating the words. Shinpachi had a way of making it seem like the pressure of his upbringing wasn't hard on him. But it was. Somehow people believed that because of Kakashi's disposition, his brood would carry the same. They couldn't be more wrong. His father was a psychological terrorist, capable of reducing his own son to mush with words. But one had to admit, it made the kid try harder. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself." Shinpachi demanded, standing up once more and going through the handseals before he slammed his hand down onto the earth producing a protrusion of iron a few meters away. He took off, running full speed toward the iron tower while he formed more seals, finally jumping directly into it, smashing through it fully armed with armor and an ōdachi. "Fuck this tree up!" he grunted, charging towards it, intent on cutting it down before the sun set.

[Uzumaki Minato]

He gripped the bottle of sake that he just stole from his father's room firmly. In his other hand, he held a new bag of cookies that this girl named Karina that he new from his academy days gave him. She used to have a thing for him, thus he didn't think much about the gesture. She was pretty cute too, so he didn't feel bad about flirting with her or accepting the cookies. Heh. Being an Uzumaki had perks.

The scent of the delicious sugar cookies that he carried in the bag teased him unrelentingly. He couldn't fight his desire to crack the bag open right then and there so he could indulge himself, but somehow he managed to fend off his desires long to make it to the training areas. He wanted to train for a bit just to limber up and take his mind off things, then to get faded and fall asleep. That was the plan. And it was a damn good one, too.

"Gah! I can't wait to dig into these cookies," he said sitting his bag that he carried on his back down, setting the bottle of sake and the bag of cookies he had inside of it. Stretching his arms into the arm, he let out a groan. He was tense. That was a sure sign that he'd been stressing out a lot lately. Not that he'd ever admit it audibly, though.

Suddenly, a loud CLANK noise alerted him. Jumping back, he plucked a kunai from the holster on his left side. Looking around, he saw nothing but the residual debris particles from the dirt cloud that whisked through the air in the direction that he heard the noise only moments ago.

Maybe I should go check out whatever's going on over there? He was against the thought initially. Ain't nobody got time for investigating some shit that they didn't have anything to do with. He was curious though; what's more is, after a brief debate with himself that lasted a couple seconds, he went to inspect what was going on.

"Oi," he called out to whom or whatever was on the other side of the thick bushes that acted like dividers for the area. "Everything okay over there?"