Desert Training... [P]

~2870 words~
Ganon had his fair share of trials ahead of him. After something of a chance encounter with another crocodile riding individual his immediate plans were temporarily put on hold for a much more interesting affair; and one probably much more organized then anything that he had planned. Unfortunately, because he had wasted so much time in the little scramble with the individual, he didn't have time to find a reasonable place to make shelter. He ended up coming just within eye shot of Sunagakure's wall, and then make a little structure made of sand, hoping that nothing would disturb the little building and thus collapse his shelter over him. Though it wasn't that big a deal, any amount of sand in ones person can be bothersome. Thankfully it was a mild evening and there wasn't too much traffic that could disturb him. Though it was probably a pretty poor gamble on his part, he did manage to catch a few hours sleep, and thus a gamble worth taking.

The next day was quick to wake. He was immediately hungry but there was a serious lack of anything within miles outside of Sunagakure, which begged the question how exactly they provided for those civilians within the wall? There was no way that they could possibly provide completely and utterly for the population by what was grown within the walls themselves. After all, the place was a desert wasteland in essence, the ground was dry, the air arid; the wind carrying off any sort of any moisture. Even with the most potent of agricultural systems, the ground wouldn't hold for too many generations, as the recycling of resources would eventually result in even worse states of desertification. Ganon then snapped at his own thoughts. Why did he know so much about agriculture? He said, grinning to himself while shaking his head lightly. In any case, he assumed that trade ships probably made there way here as well. Sunagakure had a coast of its own, and probably secret routes in which to get resources in and out of the city, which would be his most prominent meal ticket. The mentality of a bandit was one to be valued.

Ganon strolled along the desert sand toward Sunagakure, as he wasn't necessarily in any hurry, though made a point to cover himself in sand as to camouflage himself against the desert floor. He wasn't going to walk right up to the thing, just close enough that he could observe the structure. He also assumed that he would be able to see anyone that could see him, though he wasn't necessarily keen on the idea of being seen snooping around at the moment. He was no where near the gate, which would mean that this part of the wall would most likely be less heavily guarded, though he had no way of telling. Once again, a gamble of sorts that Ganon was willing enough to take. He placed his hand to the ground, using something of a six sense to observe the structure of the wall. Once in range, he was forced to focus, as it wasn't a task done easily from such distance. However, from what he could tell... the wall was almost completely made of sand. He searched further, thinking for awhile that he could have missed something. But when all he could pick up on was the feeling of more sand, he couldn't help but smile brightly. The entire wall was nothing but a big door for him! He would have no problem getting in and out of Sunagakure on his own will; with the exception of any sort of shinobi interference, but if confronted, they would find themselves swatting at sand.

But then again, what would he do from inside of the walls itself? He hadn't a plan, infact, up to this point he was depending on his ability to kind of... plan as he went along, but now he was in a situation that his ability to move about freely would be hindered and he would have to be careful; not necessarily stepping on egg shells, but still cautious. So what was he going to do? He figured that he needed a decent escape plan if need be, as he wouldn't want to have to fight if confronted, but at the same time he had plenty of sand to take advantage of seeing as though seemingly everything was crafted from a frame and sand, like one big ass sand castle. How would this be used to his advantage? He also had the option of traveling underground, thanks to his oversized Alligator fiends the Bananawana. Come to think of it, the inside of the Bananawana's mouth, that he would most likley travel in, was a small fortress in itself; a powerful jaw and an interior that served as its own defense. He always imagined that, as he traveled under ground, he could also take refuge in the mouth of the Bananawana for short periods of time if need be. Theoretically, he could even cast some of his jutsu from inside of the protection of the mouth of the Bananawana. It was upon this realization that he came up with a plan of sorts. He could move underground and attack Sunagakure without even being seen! But the only problem is that he wouldn't know at all what he was targeting... He instantly recalled a sand based technique that allowed one to create an eye of sorts in which to see out of sand temporarily, but he hadn't taken the time to learn it. If he could use it, then he could control the eye above ground, watching Sunagakure and targeting things with sight while using the attack from underground. He would also need to build a level of control in which to cast techniques without physical contact with sand, which would require more control of his KKG on his part. But then again, as soon as someone spotted a floating eye it would be a defenseless target. Not only that, but after destroying the eye they would quickly be searching for the place in which the attacks were coming from. If he wanted to stay hidden, he would have to make sure no one saw the eye, or rather not target the eye. He thought on this as he kicked the sand around his feet, then he thought of another idea. He could create a clone of sand, where one of the eyes of th clone was infact his own eye. He could thus see through the clone, and have the clone act like himself. If the clone was destroyed, they would most likely consider the threat eliminated and not target, like a scapegoat. That would still render the problem that once the clone was destroyed, he would lack site above the surface. He would need a more solid clone, or perhaps repeatedly create them as they are defeated... or maybe even a technique that regenerated the clone itself? How frustrating to see an opponent that attacks without hand signs and recovers form any technique simply by regenerating from sand? The clone itself would be nothing by a decoy, but his opponents wouldn't know that. They would just assume they were fighting an immortal opponent. If he could make his clone speak and taunt the opponent, it would make it even more impressive, and he would do all this from the safety of underground. It wasn't necessarily brilliance by any means, but it would be more then effective in the majority of situations. He could even Henge the sand clone to look like something or someone else so that they never even expected him should the clone be defeated. But such plans took much preparation, and though he already had a plethera of powerful techniques under his mastery, he would have to take time to simply get the form and shape of each individual technique he had planned to use; after all mastery wouldn't be too much of a problem once that was done. He thought for some time on the subject. If he started right away then he could probably have it all done within about two weeks time... No time to waste, as he had planned to meet with the man that he had met earlier the other day in three weeks, giving him enough time to plan and rest accordingly.

His first course of action was to find a decent source of food while he was 'in town' after all it would be silly to think he could train without the proper fuel in which to do so. He made his way about casually, waiting and watching the traffic in and our of the Sunagakure from different points. He made sure to stay far from the site of the walls yet close enough to the routes that he would know them by location in the desert itself. It was true that there were many supply routes in and out of the shinobi village itself; the larger of which usually had an escort of sorts, at least to the boarder he assumed. He would just have to pick off a smaller one, but the good thing abotu caches of food is that they rarely came in portions too small for a single person not to survive on for a few days. Once again, his knowledge of bandit techniques and experience in raiding would only support him further in his supposed quest. While he was doing so he mad a point to stock pile as many explosive tags as he could get his hands on. He was going to need them for the days ahead.

He first worked on his own ability, wanting to make them more 'automatic'. If he could extend his already natural abilities within an area of sand he could more use them much more straight forward and in a general sense instead of in very specific techniques that only had one of two purposes only. The first and most obvious was a technique that he had been pondering for quite some time and mimic'd another sand using shinobi. One, Gaara of the Desert came to mind, and individual that was said to envelope his opponent in sand before crushing them in the pressure of it. He apparently had a special sort of sand, imbue with the chakra of a great and powerful beast that lay inside of him, and thus giving him ultimate dominion over the sand that he carried. Now, he had only heard stories of Gaara, and didn't know if the person actually existed or where or in what time period, but it was a good idea. While he couldn't compact and pressurize his sand, he knew that he could harden it, as evidence to his defensive techniques that used sand as a medium. However, he wanted to apply the same sand densifying technique to a body of sand independent of himself. He started with the original hand signs of the defensive technique itself and then began experimenting with effects that didn't shape the sand be hardened it where it was. Within the first day he had formed and mastered a technique that he called the "Petrified Sand Technique" by this process of reverse engineering of other technique.

With this thought in mind, he wanted to further master the special ability of his chakra. He could, via touch, dehydrate object, but wanted the ability to extend the effect in other ways as well. The most obvious was via sand, as the chakra would need a medium in which to move or cling to. Thus he would use Saton chakra along with his own, or rather, he would lace his own normal chakra with pre-existing saton techniques! It was a good idea, so he tried it; sifting his own chakra into his Saton attacks. He practiced using his weaker technique with one part saton and one part desert chakra, however without the full shape of saton chakra he couldn't completely form the technique. He could however force his chakra into the technique, using not only fully saton, but also a part of his own chakra. He could monitor how he used it, but it was quite a bit more expensive for the effect that he wanted. Seeing as though he had no, or few other options in which to do this, short of compressing his own chakra. But that required chakra control that he had not yet achieved and thus he had no choice but to settle for this style of the technique for now. Thus the "Desert Plague" technique was born. Next he wanted a way to aptly counter water techniques, which his normal chakra could do but unfortunatly his brand of Saton could not. It would have to incorporated the same ideals, in that he would have to use Saton and normal chakra, but would be making an unshaped form of technique, meaning that he coul do both and still have a 'complete' technique. The only problem is that he didn't necessarily have a large amount of water to test it on, so he would have to see how it went when he actually got into battle with something or someone that tried to counter him with water. He could however, evaporate standing water with a touch and thus coined the technique with the name "Force Evaporation" technique. Simply, but effective.

Another technique that he had planned on forming but never really got around to it, was the Hidden Sand technique. He wanted to originally use it to hide objects in the sand itself, but had more dubious plans for the demolition of Sunagakure. If he would implant the sand that he manipulated with explosive tags and then with very simple moves toss the sand at anything he could ignite the sand in a series of explosions, making it seem as if his sand was infact explosive. It would be quite the displace and would also make it easier for him to create and move items on the field of battle if need be. He still liked the idea of blowing stuff up inside of his sand. It would be tricky, unforeseen and hard to escape in the event of successfully surrounding his opponent in the battle field of sand. It wouldn't be too hard to manage a few items that were forcefully and temporarily buried in the sand, though he knew it would be more expensive the more items he had hidden and the larger and heavier they were. In any case, the "Hidden Sand Technique" was born.

Taking a break from his sand based techniques, he decided to form another technique to throw his voice, or rather, displace his voice into an entire different area like some sort of intercom or loud speaker. For this one, he had a scroll in which to learn from, as forming normal ninjutsu wasn't necessarily his strong point, even in simple proportions, especially form scratch, however, it only took a day for him to take the instruction from the scroll ( that he had coincidentally stolen from one of the supply caravans he was living on, apparently that of a collection of simply puppetry ninjutsu.) He use this as something as a rest day as once mastered it was quite easy to use; entertaining himself with the idea of making his voice come from many different an comical places. It would have been much easier for him to feed himself if he didn't also have to support the large alligator that he had carried around with him. Not necessarily for necessity, but rather for company and convenience. It was much easier to get around on a sand surfing Gator then walking about on his own, he just had to... feed em. Thus he couldn't continue to stay outside of Sunagakure for too much longer simply because people would start to notice missing caravans and loss in resources and eventually investigate. It would be somewhat unfortunate if he was skulking about during that time.

Upon this point, he had worked about a week successfully, and needed the next week for the final three techniques he had in mind, the ability to regenerate sand clones, the ability to use sand technique be targeted site instead of touch, and the ability to use the 'Third Eye' technique using sand. It was the ones he had the most need for and thus had set aside the most time to accomplish. He made clone after clone, trying to overlap the techniques while destroying them, then established, like a shadow clone, their own style of chakra system that would regenerate them by themselves, instead, the result was a monstrous sort of statue of sand instead of an actual clone. He had to turn toward more ninjutsu based techniques then an actual chakra feed; a sort of attraction or viscosity of the chakra that would bring it back to itself with the same shape after smashed; repeatedly and without need for reinforcement. It would need a large amount of chakra to pull off, as for his own chakra to stay adherent to itself, thus making it 'A' ranked, but with such a decoy, it was well worth the cost of chakra. Ohh, and he master the other two in like two days and had about 200 explosive tags stockpiled.

With his training and preparations finished, he was ready for the next step in his plan...