Hanabi frowned at him, "Almost right, but not quite." she said to him, "You need too have the environment grind against you, if the current is helping you then you are not practicing correctly, the flow of the water needs to be against the kicks, get used too the Motion of the kick, after you perform thirty more kicks, do one legged leaping stomps thirty times." she said to him her long Brown, almost black hair's lower fringes soaked by the up and down motion and the water washing up and down her, in the light it made her muscles look even more taunt and powerful, yet thin and ragged, it resembled the corded muscles of an agile panther almost.

Hanabi turned rotating leaping as hard as she was able with the rocks on her feet, her knee's coming out of the water, her raising a foot out of the water stomping downwards with force piercing into the water and into the mud bellow her sinking almost over her head in the water soaking her body, she braced herself and ripped her leg out of the mud, then leaped again stomping the other leg deep into the mud in the same fashion.

Hanabi looked at Haru, "That stomp should help your Fundamental Earthbending I wager. The fight against the water too raise and maintain downward pressure, as well as pulling the rock back out of the mud will act too embolden your legs, performing this stomp outside of water when you can do six of these in a row should be easy and a lot faster."

Hanabi was panting slightly, these workouts where strenuous even to her, her agile form was more used too climbing and fighting and wearing weights during strenuous long term exercises like week long hikes, this was a great workout for her too.

She figured Haru was amazingly strong, and figured six would be his limit, if he did more then that with what she had seen of his strength he'd probably have to bend the rocks off of his own feet and back float a minute to regain his energy.

"Your doing great, I'll say you have almost earned your fourth flag. Keep it up." she said to him, she was going to exercise him into the mud if she could, his determination was preserving him, but as Goh'Zhan, her father, had said to her; "Always work yourself tell you can no longer, move, then sleep, regain your energy and do it again, that will make you peerless amongst those your age, but you won't have much of a social life either. But hey, People are over rated."

Even though he gave no indication that he was listening, Haru heard Hanabi's orders. He kept kicking except this time, he was keeping count. He was honestly surprised that he was strong enough to do all these exercises, but working in a coal mining village had apparently made him stronger than he thought.

"Fifteen...sixteen...seventeen..." he muttered as he moved his legs, feeling the pressure of the current let up a little with each kick. When he finally finished, he prepared to work on the leaping stomps. She had been right when she said that it was a fundamental part of Earthbending. He couldn't place a number on the many times he'd done it, but he was more than used to it. As muscle memory took over, he leapt forward as he normally would, but found himself limited by both the rocks on his feet and the current. Realizing that he'd have to jump forward with more force than usual, he let out an extra burst of energy as he jumped, moving forward only a small distance. Although he was worried that he wasn't going that far, he figured it wouldn't matter, especially with Earthbending. It wasn't the leap that mattered, it was the rock he could form by landing.

After a few practice leaps, he figured he'd gotten it down and began to count. When he finally reached thirty, he stopped, turning around to face his trainer. He was still out of breath as he spoke to her.

"Was that good enough?" he asked, splashing some water onto his head to cool himself. Despite the low temperature of the water, he felt overheated and drank some water as well to remedy this. It took several more large drinks, but he felt his body temperature drop slightly. Even that was enough to make him feel better, but he knew that eventually, his stamina would run out and he'd have to rest. He didn't know how willing Hanabi would be in that respect, especially after he'd gone so far in the training. He hoped that she, in addition to being a good trainer, would understand his limitations. Still, he was at least going to go for the last flag in an effort to achieve his goal.

Hanabi smiled after finishing her leaps, she was ready for more, "You are close to your limit, it's why we are only doing five flags now, and five flags later when I get more supplies, these are the free form exercises." Hanabi herself was sweating but she was not going to drink the rivers water, she was paranoid about just drinking from rivers in lands that saw travelers.

Hanabi with her scarred right hand wiped her wet hair out of her face, while it was wet it looked totally black unless one where to examine it closely, She lifted her foot and step at a time she left the water.

Hanabi instead of asking Haru to bend the rocks off of her feet walked over to a peace of outcropped stone and placed her foot along its groove leaping as hard as she was able too. Her foot slammed down the rock smashing apart hitting the granite edge under the rocks own weight, her doing the same with the other foot.

"Another thing to note Haru, earth formed with bending is looser then rock already formed, and with enough time and saturation, the rocks durability will fail." She looked down her stretching her stretching her legs, walking too Haru.

"Here, your fourth flag, you earned it." She sounded happy, her energy was visibly returning, as she smiled. "Come, there is one last flag, your almost tired out yourself too, this is the perfect time for the final exercise."

Hanabi herself was muscular, more so then any girl her age should be, she could split unsteady rocks off of her feet, her agile form was not that of an Acrobat, it more took the Agile aspects of the Acrobat's body build, with the power of a climber and the steady focus of a warrior, all in all it was almost a panther like build.

Hanabi arrived at the Cliff Face, "Bend the heaviest rocks you can onto your arms and legs, even if you cannot lift them, The flag is there." She pointed at the flag wedged near the top of the cliff.

"You are to leap and high as you can, crash down onto the earth and then propel yourself upwards like a Canon and the Flag. You are to use bending for this sense the rocks will be too heavy to lift with just your arms and legs, and with your bending you will have to control the rocky extents of your limbs and grab the flag, if you damage the cliff face you have to try again." Hanabi smiled, "You are gonna catapult yourself to get the flag, but not harm the cliff face. This is an exercise too test the extent of your power, and hold full control at the same time."

Hanabi looked at his arms and legs, "Make the rocks too heavy for you to Physically lift, You will depend on bending for the entire thing."Hanabi paused stroking her chin, "One idea is after setting yourself in place, to create an earth Catapult with your bending and use the weight of a Giant Rock too hit the flat and send you up, sort of Seesaw like." She looked, "Or you could try causing the earth beneath your feet to suddenly contort and throw you."

"Get the flag, you have too grab it between the rocks on your hands, you cannot damage the face of the cliff or cause it to collapse. Meet those conditions and you will have your fifth flag and we can press on, no rest, we keep walking." She said to him.

Hanabi herself was not inactive, she had taken a rather large and heavy peace of granite and was holding it, arms ahead of herself and was practicing walking gracefully while holding a super heavy chunk of granite, the style of her walking was of a delicate sort, where the toe met the ground first and then the bodies weight slowly pressed onto the base of the foot, then from there taking another careful step. The foot forms where the same practiced by people who planned to walk on Rice Paper. The heavy granite she held was to apply an incredible amount of weight to muscles that normally got little to no exercise with normal routines.

Haru's heart both flew and sank at the same time. He was at the last flag, but it was probably the hardest to get. Not only was he going to have to bend the entire time, but he was going to have to try and exert control while launching himself to get the flag. Unsure about this prospect, he lumbered over to the cliff face and broke the rocks on his feet, if only just to free them for a minute. He savored the seconds when his bare feet touched the ground, feeling closer to the earth than ever before.

With a weight on his shoulders, he bent four more rocks from the ground, each almost two times bigger than the ones that had been on his hands. Any heavier, and he wouldn't have been able to stand up. As he'd done before, he leapt in the air and slammed his hands and feet into the new boulders, feeling them melt under his touch and reform, trapping his limbs inside.

Hanabi's instructions were ringing in his head as he braced himself for his most diffcult task yet, and before he knew it, he was gathering every ounce of energy he had and feeling it resonate all over. He didn't think he'd ever put this much effort into Earthbending, but he was doing something he'd never done before.

A large part of Earthbending was manipulating Earth, but another large part of it was learning to manipulate the energy it took to create earthquakes and shatter rocks. The style he used was softer than other Earthbending he'd seen, allowing him to manipulate the energy more easily. Right now, he was concentrating that energy into something he could use to propel himself up to the flag.

With a strength that shocked even him, he let it go and channeled it through his legs, feeling the raw power when it came into contact with the ground. The mere shock was enough to launch him upwards, and he quickly diverted the flow to his arms, allowing the energy to lift the rocks upwards. With a loud crash, the rocks on his hands slammed shut over the flag.

It was then that the direction of his motion reversed and he began to fall. He used some of the remaining energy he'd stored up to keep his arms aloft and before he knew it, he hit the ground with more force than he'd realized.

Everything seemed to slow down as he processed what was going on. As he hit the ground, saw bits of rock going everywhere. He wasn't worried at first, but then he felt something that froze the blood in his veins: his feet touching the ground. The rocks on his hands followed suit, hitting the ground and smashing into pieces.

He froze there for a second, fully coming to terms with what had just happened. Then, with a heavy heart, he lowered his head to the ground and settled into his new pose. A lone tear slid down his dust-covered cheek.

Hanabi walked forward a grin on her face, he was doing well, but the rocks had broke and the cliff had been damaged. "Don't worry about it Haru, it is just an exercise, not a competition, if you mess up you have nothing to worry about, it's the same as building a sand castle."

Hanabi took the flag scaling with her muscular frame grasping rock after rock, her gaze looking for the next ideal spot, she put the flag into place and moved down climbing down at the same speed she went up. She pretended not to notice the tear on Haru's cheek.

"Haru, just get up, bend a few more stones and launch yourself again, and fix what caused your problem in the first place, if you do that, then you will be doing the fundamental step in achieving an ideal state. This is no different the Push Ups, it just uses rocks a cliff and flags, if you are too tired you will just have too exert yourself, in a year this won't even be hard to do." Hanabi smiled at Haru grabbing his arm and standing him up, "Just keep trying. This isn't a competition, this is you working on your own strength."

Hanabi stepped back smiling at the place she put the flag and back at Haru, she was pretty sure if he didn't get it this time, that he would finish tiring himself out and then he cold try later.

Haru wiped his face, leaving a trail of damp dust across it. She was right; he was taking this too hard. After all, the goal of training was to get better, and he shouldn't have been so disappointed for not getting it the first time.

A few simple motions rebuilt the rocks after he'd approached the cliff face, but that still left the problemof how he'd keep them from shattering when he landed. He closed his eyes, going back through the archives of Eathbending knowledge he held. His mind rested on a particular training session that he went through with his father.



As he listened intently, his father's voice melted into his ears and resounded within his head. He'd learned so much over the last few months that it left him reeling. His father took a breath as he began the next lesson.

"Some Earthbenders use a more solid style with harder strikes. We use a variation that lets us work with the earth more fluidly and lets us have more flexibility with our attacks. Even the toughest of benders know how to use the softer side of Earthbending to their advantage, and I'm going to show you how to do that." With those words, Tyro let a burst of energy out through his feet and flew high into the air, landing silently on the ground. Haru was stunned; how had his father managed such a soft landing?

"You see, Haru, not only can we bend boulders out of the earth, but we can change its texture to become something more like sand. That way, we can leap from great heights and emerge unhurt from the landing."



He snapped back to reality and smiled, realizing that he could apply what he'd learned back then to now. All he needed to do was soften the earth for his landing and the rocks wouldn't break. Simple.

He went through the same motions he'd used to propel himself upward, successfully grabbing the flag with the rocks on his hands. As he went upward, he bounced some energy off the cliff face and turned himself around so that instead of the rocks hitting the cliff face, his body would. Although he was going the same speed as the rocks, his back hitting the wall wouldn't damage it.

Finally, it was time for the fall. As he hurtled towards the ground, he sent out every last ounce of energy into bending the earth under him. He landed, but felt something different than the first time; his hands and feet were still trapped in the rocks. He opened his eyes and saw that instead of sinking into the ground, it had bent to accomodate the heavy rocks. He threw his head back and felt an elation he hadn't felt in a long time. He'd done it. He'd gotten the flag.

Hanabi smiled a slightly mirthful grin with amusement as she stepped forward taking the flag between his rock trapped hands with her scarred through right hand, "You have done extremely well Haru, you will practice the first five flags or as close as you can get to it in the morning tell you have five flags."

Hanabi gestured to the rocks, "You don't need rocks that huge, break them off and just make yourself some rock ankle bands that are about ten pounds each that you can hide inside your clothing and where them at all times, just living day to day with them will make you stronger. and should you be in a tight spot you will have a small amount of rock on you."

"When the sun sets and the light wains from the hillsides I will teach you the last five exercises in your new routine." Hanabi gestured to a fire she had started while his attention had been turned entirely on his training, over it, two Squirrelrabbets where roasting, "I don't have any spices for it save for some garlic I foraged, but I'm guessing your so hungry that it probably sounds good."

Hanabi gestured to a spot next to the fire where Haru could sit and watch his meal, right now it was still raw, but he'd be able to pull it off when it was done. To a nose that liked meat the smell wafting from the fire held a succulent meaty smell that made the mouth water, and brought the apatite to a high. However to someone who didn't like meat, it would probably stink to high heaven or be tormenting to there vow not to eat something that good smelling.

Hanabi was slowly rotating the Squirrelrabbets with care to make sure they got cooked evenly, it was an easy enough meal to make, hunt some game, process it properly and set it over fire and eat with spices.