Kurama had been waiting all morning to go try and practice a new kido he just saw preformed in class. The kido in particular was Hadō #4. Kurama set up a straw dummy a good twenty yards away and made sure no one was going to step within the line of fire. He positioned his hands as shown in the lesson earlier today, and concentrated.

"Hadō #4 Byakurai!"

A small white spark fizzled in his hand. "What?! That was lame! What'd I do wrong?!"

Kurama could hear some one giggling not too far behind him. He turned to see Kazumi Kaito, his sparring partner from yesterday, giggling to herself obviously after seeing his pitiful show of kido. "What are you laughing at?" Kurama demanded.

"What do you call that kido, Fail Lightning?" Kazumi mocked.

"Let's see you try then!" he shouted in reply. Kazumi smirked and stepped forward, "Gladly. Now look out, wouldn't want to char those pretty robes of yours..."

Kazumi made the same hand positions and called out, "Byakurai!" A bolt of white lightning burst from her fingertip and flew straight towards the targeting dummy. "Direct hit!"

Kurama stood there in shock, "How did you do that?!"

She smirked, "I guess I'm just a better Shinigami than you."

Kazumi sighed, "Here, let me show you. Hold yours hands like this, now you must allow your spirit energy to flow into your hands, quit blocking it!"

"I'm not blocking it!" "Yes you are, if you weren't you'd have a flaming dummy five minutes ago. Here let me help." Kazumi moved he hands towards his right shoulder and began to massage it. "Err... what're you doing?" "Shut up, I'm easing the tension you've got built up in here. That's what you get for using all your muscles to move that quickly yesterday... cheater." Kurama smiled, he'd flash stepped for the first time the other day and he was rather proud of that fact. "Ok, now try it."

Kurama mimicked her stance and hand position. He took a deep breath and spoke the words once more,
"Hadō #4 Byakurai!"

A pale blue bolt of lightning from his hand, smashing through the already weakened dummy, and right into a tree. Bark blackened and chipped away from the trunk of the tree, not harming the foliage too seriously.

Kurama turned to Kazumi and thanked her.

"No problem. Any time you need my expertise just call." She laughed as she walked away...

Word Count: 396

+1 kidou ^_^