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With a proud smile on his face he placed a hand on Shuji's shoulder.

"Well, you must shift all of your chakra to a specific part of your body in mere miliseconds. The drasctic amount of chakra in that part causes it to have an incredible burst of power, for the muscle literaly soaks in a tiny amount of the chakra."

~6 days after the fight with Nekage

Manndar came straight here after dropping Aona off at her house that day. Since then, Manndar has been moping around, lost in thought. With only a shovel, Manndar began his work.

Working pretty much nonstop, Manndar dug into the far end of the training grounds. He rarely ate, and he rarely slept. All he could think about was what HE, Manndar, had done. Working hard all day long, trying to forget, but it was of no use.

Manndar had dug a deep hole and hit water. There was now a lake there.

The nonstop working and apathy for bodily well-being had taken its tole on Manndar. He is still wearing the same clothes since that day, and they have become faded and worn in. He has dark rings under his eyes. His eyes are extremely blood shot, and he is extremely pale, even for his normal complexion. His hair has been watered down by the sudden burst of water so it resembles a mullet. His headband is gone and he is missing his right shoe.

Overall, Manndar has made himself physically and mentally ill. Manndar was truely sorry about what he had done, but he couldn't forgive himself, and it ate away at his soul like a spider to a trapped fly.

Shuji smiled at Kitsu's kind words, and began to think them over himself. If it was possible for him to learn it that quickly, then he'd have to begin right away. He didn't notice at first why Kitsu had gone running, but when he noticed that he was talking to Manndar, Shuji wasn't far behind.

Nearing Manndar, Shuji could tell that something was wrong. He knew that Manndar's training regiment typically made the Shinobi look very tired and beaten, but this went deeper. Something wasn't right, but he wasn't sure what. Looking down at Manndar, Shuji got down on one knee and extended his hand to Manndar.

"Manndar, come up and let Kitsu help you. We're your friends, and we want to make sure that everything is alright." Shuji's voice was filled with warmth as he spoke to Manndar. There were only a few Shinobi in the village that Shuji truly considered friends, and Manndar and Kitsu were included in that list.

"Manndar, what happened," Shuji asked, moving to block the path back to the hole. He wasn't about to stand by and watch a friend of his destroy himself because of something that might have happened during battle. Mistakes were meant to be made. Beating himself up about it wasn't going to fix the situation.

Approaching Manndar, there was only one person that Shuji could think of that would cause Manndar this much turmoil. It had to do with Aona. The two were inseparable, the best of friends. He had never seen bonds like he saw between the two of them. Getting closer, Shuji squatted down next to Manndar, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Manndar," he whispered. "What happened to Aona? What did you do to her that's causing you to do this to yourself, man? This isn't healthy, you know that. You need rest."

Forza entered the training area, ready to begin his new training regiment.
"Spending all my time teaching has dulled my skill... I need a refresher"

Manndar stumbles away, but not towards his house. ((I'd post where he's going, but that wouldn't be much fun now is it?))

It was a few days now since Manndar had been here; Aona paid the freshly overturned soil no mind, deciding that an earth elemental had been a little overeager in his training.

Tea hadn't calmed her down much... moping wasn't doing her state of mind any good, and going to the lakes had backfired powerfully. The only thing left that she could think of was breaking some things, and she had a few jutsu ideas left to test out. In fact, she would prefer to find someone to test some genjutsu on, since it was hard to practice without a target, but for now, she settled for some weapons training.

The throwing targets were already placed in a good arrangement by chuunin standards - not really any good for her, then, and she moved the targets to some truly improbable locations, placing some entirely behind obstacles, she was holding a full compliment of kunai in each hand. She leaped skywards, eyes closed, and her hands lashed out in a series of motions like a striking serpent; the kunai were all tossed in quick succession, some deflecting others onto the hidden targets, while being themselves deflected into others.

She landed gracefully, knees bent slightly, her arms out to her sides. However, in a sudden change of mood, she slammed her fist into the ground, opening her eyes in a frustrated glare aimed more at herself than anything else. Even without checking, she knew that she had missed the bullseye on three of the targets - she'd been hitting them all consistently for some time now, it was simply unacceptable. She'd do it until she could do it right, and she set about preparing for a another try with a somewhat different setup.

((I just pretty much ripped off Itachi from Sasuke's flashback at the waterfall, yeah.))