Act 1, Scene 2: The First Premonition! Emiko's Lessons!
It was madness, sheer madness, pushing and shoving and shouting, and Emiko watched it a little startled. Perhaps Shizue was projecting her own feelings though, hovering at the back of the pack trying to push forward to sign up. Once they'd had a few moments to process it, everyone realized that a Jonin level ninja was offering to teach them classes. Even the most pigheaded could see what an opportunity it was, and Toyo was right among them, pushing and shoving and once punching someone in the head when they accidentally dug their elbow into his ribs while trying to sign. What a mess. The future soldiers of victory? Shizue thought, looking at them, reminded for a startling moment just how young they all were. Young, and in need of growing strong if they didn't want to die.
And from the rush to someone who had made the offer, to train them, to teach them, to help them better themselves- even if she was a funny looking foreigner who had odd ideas of what a Ninja truly was- showed that, most of all, they knew it.
[INSERT OPENING THEME SONG IN JAPANESE OR EXPOSITORY RAP IN ENGLISH]
*****
In the end, Shizue signed up for three different classes. Genjutsu, Traps and Lateral Thinking, and the oddly named 'Snake in the Grass', primarily about stealth. She hoped that she wouldn't have to wait too long for the classes, but as it turned out, it wouldn't be long before she'd see what Emiko taught in detail. In fact, the first Genjutsu class was this afternoon, then the stealth class the day after, and traps the day after that- then the pattern continued, three sessions a week for each, which was time consuming but doable. Emiko seemed to use the day of the initial meeting as the start of the week when she was scheduling things, and Shizue noted there was an asterisk leading to a declaration that it was fine to miss sessions in order to go on missions, but that telling Emiko would be a good idea.
At that point she was pushed out of the way, and, stumbling back from the shove, looked around but failed to find the source. She wished she were more capable of figuring out exactly who did these things, sometimes. Other times, after a moment's reflection, Shizue realized that the exact answer didn't matter.
What mattered was that it was probably a different person each time, and all in all, the true injustice was that few really thought about it, much less cared. Indifference and dislike were compounded by the fact that it wasn't merely a few people, but too many. And the fact that eventually she stopped trying to befriend everyone, or protest to the right people about what was being done. It never worked, and Shizue knew she should keep on trying, that now that she was a Genin something could have changed… but it also might not have.
She had four hours and knew where the first class would be, so she headed up to the boards, glancing over them before eating a light lunch, ignoring stares. People talked and gossiped around her, both about what mission 'that foreign ninja' had taken, the information not yet released to mere civilians, and rumors about what was being charged.
If half the numbers were half true, it was far more than Shizue was likely to see anytime soon, that was for sure. She wanted a mission, one that would get her out of the village, but not too soon. She wanted to learn a bit more about Emiko, and from Emiko, and she needed time to finish the modifications to her puppet.
Thus far only a single mission had involved actual combat, and that was a C-rank in which a bandit attacked someone gathering supplies, saw that a ninja was protecting them, and ran. He was caught anyway, but that was as close as Shizue had ever gotten to combat. Yet she brought her puppet along to each mission, even without a scroll to seal it in.
She'd manage to pass a few hours, with relatively little to show for it, but a greater understanding of the village rumor mill as it currently stood, before walked over towards what everybody referred to as the 'makeout tree.' At the edge of the village, it was near some nice wilderness, some old buildings, and a nice stream. It also was the place a lot of villagers went to, well, make out. No neighbors to spy, nice and quiet for a private picnic…
To get there, Shizue walked through the village, which she knew was better off than many others. It had paved roads, at least in most places, and electric lighting down most alleys, and the buildings, while squat and obeying no single law either of architecture or building codes, were familiar, and to Shizue it was cozy, as were the winding streets, the people crowding on the street, staring at the ninja as they pass, or calling a greeting or imploring something. In the back alleys they played 'Ninja' with pretend shuriken and came home with black eyes and missing teeth.
All in childish fun, though some of the people playing those games were as old as she was now. There was poverty, sure, and there was the ninja quarter, where her own home was, and everywhere else where non-ninja were allowed to live, but it was still her village, and she knew it. Was comfortable around it, if not always most of the people in it.
She kept on going, until they got to the old buildings that had been left standing there after the fire fifteen years back, which had killed nearly fifty peasants and one unlucky Chunin. All that was left were ruins, and it had hardened into a scar. Criminal sorts tended to meet here, and the buildings just beyond this scar had been abandoned as well, as if they were cut off from the lifeblood of the village by just a few dozen buildings, left to wither down into even more of a husk. That should have made it dangerous, but there was another route to the same tree, and several retired ninja lived along that route, and so it remained open. 'Walk down ninja way' the song went, 'And meet your girl under the makeout tree.'
Shizue saw, as she walked up the hill, that either around twenty people had decided to go on a makeout session at once, in which case a fight would soon ensue, or that she wasn't the only person who thought to show up early. She could see Saya, sitting on a silken blanket, sipping tea she'd brought, while Ginchiyo and her two friends, Sanosuke and Ginjiro glanced around curiously. There was no such thing as set Genin teams, but teamwork was appreciated, and so friends like that usually got paired together for missions, often enough that they became teams in all but name.
Lower on the hill Genta sat with a book, the same one from earlier, seemingly dead to the world, though Shizue doubted it. Four or five academy students were clustered together, chatting, clustered around Akachi, and as Shizue got closer she heard what she expected- they were asking him questions about the world beyond their archipelago now that it had suddenly been brought to their attention.
Chieko, on the other hand, was talking to another one of the Genin, holding up a kunai and seemingly giving them a few quick pointers. She always did try to befriend others that way, by giving them something even if it was just a moment of her time. It worked better than expected really, though Shizue's own efforts to do the same had run into a wall of indifference. She reached the top, passing by Genta, wondering if she should say something to him, ask about the book… but no, would he even care? He had his own affairs, and Shizue crossed up to the top of the hill as quickly as she could, passing him by.
Shizue saw in this, nowhere she could be, so she stood a little way up the hill from him, and kept an eye out out for Emiko. She thought she had some idea of Emiko's style, her own brand of flashiness. She'd appear out of nowhere, reveal she had been listening in… it was, Shizue reasoned, just as flashy as any other Jonin, normal even, just in a very different way. Instead, though, after a few minutes of listless waiting, she came walking down Ninja Way carrying a large backpack, dressed in her customary manner. By the time she reached the top, everybody had gotten to their feet.
"Greetings, Iwasaki-sensei," Ginchiyo finally said, with a formal bow, breaking the ice. Shizue could at least guess that Ginchiyo had determined not to let her own dislike get in the way of the chance to learn, and that as far as she was concerned she was being considerate rather than overly polite.
"Hello Iwasaki-sensei!" three of the Academy students shouted in unison, and the babbling of greetings continued for a while, as Shizue watched Emiko carefully. Even when being normal and unsurprising… that in itself was a surprise.
Finally said, "Greetings, and welcome. Now, I'll try to be brief, and there will be no introductory lecture in this case, I'll save that for much later, but I feel it's important to explain what we're going to be doing. We won't be learning how to disrupt genjutsu just yet, because without the proper knowledge it is useless. Genjutsu is complex, and so is the art of countering it. But they begin in the same place. Can anyone guess as to where?"
"Hand signs?" one of the academy students asked.
"Not necessarily, and more fundamental than that," Emiko said politely.
Shizue thought for a long moment, but just as she was starting to come up with an answer, Emiko said, "Yes, Genta?"
"Observation?" He sounded uncertain, but then his eyes widened as Emiko smiled, grinned even.
"Exactly! A master of genjutsu must be able to create a realistic illusion, and if they are trying to fake something it has to both look real and fit in with the rest of the environment. It requires a thousand details, and that's before one gets into the other senses that have to all be fooled for the most powerful genjutsu, like the one I used earlier. But it begins with the eyes, and what you see. A master of genjutsu can look at something for just a second and take in enough details to replicate it, even on a battlefield. Most, though, are not that skilled, and either take more time than that, have imperfections and flaws, or both. Thus, to begin this lesson, I want you all to look around you. Look everywhere, including at your fellow students. I'll give you two minutes, and then the test begins."
Everyone was turning every which way as Shizue started by looking at the others, trying to take in details, not entirely sure what this test was but wanting to do her best. She looked over at the buildings, spotting a small tent in one of the burned out ruins. Was someone camping out there? Well, the weather was decent enough except for the fact that it rained every couple of days. Finally, Emiko would end Shizue's musings by saying, "Alright! Now everyone… close your eyes. You too!" Shizue closed her eyes, and several seconds later she heard, "Open them!"
Shizue opened her eyes to… the same scene as before. Nothing seemed to have changed, and then she looked around and saw that the burned building was not only whole now, but in better repair than it had ever been before the fire. She gaped and heard Ginchiyo say, "Sensei, that building…"
"Indeed. This is the test. You have as much time as you need to look around, and find what has changed. The building was meant to be the obvious sign, in case people thought I was lying to them about having created, with genjutsu, a slightly false impression of things."
"So it's like those picture puzzles, spotting the difference?" Akachi asked, and Emiko nodded.
"Indeed, many young ninja are given those to train their powers of observation, and the same skills are used for genjutsu. When you have found all that you can, raise your hand and I will question each of you privately," Emiko said.
With that, everyone got to the work of looking around, including Shizue. A few things stood out obviously. Like Akachi's shirt was the wrong color, noticeably too bright a shade, and Ginchiyo's shuriken holster was on the wrong side. The color of the tree was slightly off, the stream was a bit too close to them… one of the windows of another building was boarded up rather than simply broken, and a few other minor details. She felt like she was missing something, and so she kept on looking, as Genta raised his hand and... disappeared. As did Emiko. It was a full minute later, as a few academy students were raising their hands, though they looked frustrated, that Emiko reappeared, but not Genta. "It seems we have our first perfect result." Then she and one of the academy students disappeared for thirty seconds, and then she reappeared and continued down the line. Eventually Shizue resigned herself to not get them all and raised her hand, and then found herself standing in...a field. A plain field, grass tickling her sides, Emiko standing there. "So what did you see?"
Shizue took a breath and said, "Akachi's shirt was the wrong color, Ginchiyo's holster was on the wrong side, the color of the tree was wrong, the stream was too close, the cloud formation was different than it should have been, and one of the windows of another building was boarded up rather than broken. I'm sure I missed some."
"You did, but not bad. Note, though, that the pattern of burns on the land was different, and you missed all of the changes to Ninja Way, plus a few details such as the number of visible stones in the stream. However, you do seem quite observant of human details. Just keep practicing and you'll get even better."
Shizue blinked, and found herself among the others again. Genta was sitting, reading a book, but it was a different book than before, thick and full of pictures. Some of the others looked up or blinked every so often, turning to talk to someone who wasn't there. Akachi said, "Really? I missed that? I guess I'm not as observant as I'd hoped…" Then he blinked and look around, just like Shizue had. Eventually, though, Emiko had gotten to everyone and she reappeared, her mood buoyant.
"So we have a variety of skill levels here, but everyone's putting in some good effort. There is more to learn, but I don't want these sessions themselves to take too long, so I'm going to leave you with some homework."
The academy students groaned, and even Shizue felt a bit surprised as Emiko pulled out some thick books, more copies of the the one Genta was holding, and handed them out. "Simply put, do the first three exercises in this book. These are merely more complicated and detailed version of those 'find what doesn't match' books many of you read as a kid, and thus it's pretty good practice. In fact, I have a variant of it that I'll be giving to those who take my class on stealth. I'll be checking that everyone did them two days from now, and while I can't fail you, don't expect to learn much from this class or get as much personal attention if you don't do the work. Understood?"
There was a chorus of 'Hai, Sensei!' that sent several birds scattering from nearby trees.
******
The next few days were very busy for Suzuhisa Shizue, and for the village as a whole. She continued to monitor the mission board, and worked on the homework she'd been given. Surprisingly, she found she was very good at it, when she worked on it. Finding mistakes and differences was also rather fun, and she mentally did some scheduling, deciding that after the second class on stealth, on Thursday- the fifth day since Emiko's classes had started- would be the perfect time to finish any modifications on her puppet before going on a mission and stretching her legs a bit.
Meanwhile, Reef began to send out probing attacks on some of the Tide islands. Ken even gave a lecture about how the five islands under target were the 'eastern wall' to break into Tide more fully, and that they had to be claimed in order to allow a more broad offensive. The first push wasn't necessarily planned as well as it could have been, but what happened was unexpected none the less.
In one of the first assaults, an older genin, Saiga Tokimune, fifteen and nearing the time when he would have started being considered for promotion to chunin (and already treated like one in terms of missions), died. His civilian mother cried over his casket as it was lowered into the ground, wailing and weeping as half the village watched. Honor the fallen, the council had declared, and everyone went, even Emiko, who was (again, according to the rumor mill) having arguments with the Jonin Council behind closed doors as to the rest of her payment. They'd stood out in the rain, and if Shizue was more poetical, she would have thought the skies were weeping, rather than it merely being common for it to rain this time of year.
What the civilians didn't know was that they'd had to put his body back together for burial. One of the enemy chunin had a meatgrinder technique involving wires, a large quantity of kunai and a huge expenditure of chakra. There had only been pieces left, and he'd had to be collected up, while under attack from Tide shinobi. The only good news from the first failed assaults is that one of the enemy genin had also been killed, though the means of her death had not been revealed, only that she'd been killed while trying to prevent Saiga's body from being recovered.
Meanwhile, Shizue tried to learn. In the stealth class she had found herself far clumsier than expected, as the first lesson had involved a discussion of various features of terrain, speed of movement and ways to get close to an enemy, and then a practical test involving trying to sneak up on Emiko. Everyone failed, but to different degrees, and there was much frustration to be had. Genta still seemed hopeful, but Ginchiyo, with grass stains over her knees, seemed frustrated by her failure. The homework, though, was a little bit more interesting than expected. In addition to the book, this one full of 'find the ninja hidden in this picture'-type puzzles, there was an assignment to pick one civilian target and try to follow them for a short time without being noticed.
Eager to make up for her failure, Shizue worked on that all all through the next few days on both the assignment and everything else Emiko was having them do. That Tuesday, she had both another class on genjutsu, and one on traps. The former included much of the same as before, but also a new assignment. They were to practice the hand signs for a basic genjutsu, and their job was to be ready to show one image of their choice, in two dimensions but as realistic a manner as possible, to Emiko. Shizue eventually decided on her flute, and together with more assignments out of the book, she turned out to be rather distracted going into the Traps and Lateral Thinking class.
Shizue looked around the group, assembled at the practice field near a small wooded area that Emiko had chosen. There was Ginchiyo and her teammates, though they were leaving that afternoon for a mission, Genta and several academy students that Shizue had seen all three times. And finally Chusei, who popped out from behind a bush and chased some of the academy students while wearing an Oni mask, before they turned and started chasing him around the field- only Emiko's arrival stopped them. She started simply, going over a few basic types of traps, about the use and dangers of each, and then giving assignments to locate the traps that were in this field.
Where things got interesting was when she pulled both Chusei and Shizue aside. The boy looked nervous, as if he was going to be called out for a prank, but instead Emiko said, "Both of you have some knowledge of traps, right?"
"Y-yeah, I'm great at them! I swear I didn't do that prank with the--"
"Never mind that," she said, "I meant merely that I have an assignment for both of you." She pulled out a scroll and opened it up. Inside were diagrams of a bear trap, a pit trap, a overhead net trap, an explosive seal array of the sort Shizue couldn't even imagine how to make, and then…
Shizue was not the sort to stop and stare, but who couldn't? It made the poisoned kunai launcher in her puppet look like a cheap toy. The internal mechanisms seemed impossible fine and delicate, and the notes for how fast the kunai was launched and how accurately dwarfed anything Shizue could have done, and the poison listed would have killed even if the kunai hadn't. And considering that with that level of force it could have gone straight through Shizue like a knife through butter rather than flesh and bone, it seemed almost overkill, while being half the size of Shizue's launcher. She heard Chusei whistle and say, "Holy shit... you're amazing. I'm sorry I ever doubted you."
"Thank you. Your assignment is to take a look through those woods and determine where, if you had one each of those traps and were trying to throw off or kill a ninja chasing you, you would place them," Emiko explained, "It'll be due in three days, so I hope I see good work from you. It'll be a while before you can make things like this, but if you practice, it is certainly possible in the long run. Shame that Watabe-san didn't take this class, I would have told her more about the poisons that could be useful. Ah, well… I suppose I can do that next week, when I'm not spending all my time teaching and arguing with the council."
"I've heard rumors about it," Shizue said, without thinking about it, drawn into making the statement, even though a moment later she realized that of course Emiko probably knew about the rumors. But she soldiered, on, saying, "Is it true that they haven't paid you in full yet?"
"They haven't. A quarter, and they've promised to pay five percent within the next two days, and then ten percent a week. I'll probably be here long enough to collect, and they won't run out of money," Emiko explained, "A fair enough bargain when I'm not in any rush. So, get to it," she said with a smile, "And may the best trapper win."
*****
Over the next day, Shizue worked as hard as she could on her assignments. She 'stalked' a baker about his daily routine without being seen, though she did use something of a loophole with Transformation at one point in order to get a closer look, and she went through all of the other assignments as fast as she could before going back fo the forest for a full afternoon of walking up, down, and around. It wasn't that Shizue was out of shape, but after a day of crawling on her knees, climbing trees, checking streams to see if a pit trap near one was viable, she ended the day soaked in sweat, her clothes nearly ruined, trudging all the way home through the village, wondering what people saw when they looked at her?
Did they see a pariah, an isolated outcast? Or did they see a shinobi, one of the elite, whose life- by both law and custom- was worth more and whose voice counted for more, than any civilian or peasant, no matter how rich? Did they see some girl who really, really was looking forward to a hot shower at home? What they probably didn't see was a girl who had triumphed. She had put in a lot of effort, and she believed that she might even beat Chusei, who was a smart and clever prankster, but who probably never would have applied himself that hard for something like this.
She had a secret of sorts behind her drive, her dedication and determination, and that was that Emiko was the first Jonin since that one time at the academy who paid attention to her, and had Shizue had received some personal instructions a few times. It was all minor, she was sure that Emiko had far more interesting people to talk to than her, but a little bit could go a long way to open up a sort of needy yearning for contact, for approval. It grew only slowly, but she was starting to realize that it was there. She was not a young woman who allowed herself either optimism or much in the way of self-delusion, yet she found herself hoping, just a little…
The real question she couldn't figure out, no matter how many minutes she pondered it in the shower, was what she was hoping for. She stayed up late that night, thinking and writing up a few notes to help her remember, glancing around her house. There were so many objects in it that weren't hers. The large throw rug her mother had always loved, the big couch, the small television set, the paintings on the wall, the hidden compartments full of kunai and explosive tags, just in case… it was a lovely home, and the outside was well maintained, even at the expense of Shizue growing up like a half-starved weed, wanting to maintain the home as if- and she had eventually realized that this wasn't so- the home would have mattered to her mother more than her own safety. Even her own room was mostly the same, except for a few odds and ends. Too sparse, too much like it was five years ago.
There was only one space that was truly hers, and tomorrow she'd finally have time for some uninterrupted time in her puppet workshop.
*****
First, though, Shizue had another stealth class in the morning with Emiko. The Jonin did her usual trick (by now so familiar that Shizue had stopped gaping at how impressive it was) of talking to people inside of specially created genjutsu 'realms', outside of everyone else's hearing. When she got to Shizue, she asked who Shizue had stalked, and she'd explained, then shyly added that she'd transformed into a younger girl who looked civilian in order to get closer. She'd been nervous but also excited at the time, and now her actions were rewarded with praise.
"Good job, really good job! Thinking beyond the current lesson to what I wanted to highlight later on, stealth isn't necessarily just people sneaking through bushes. I didn't know they taught anything like that at a village like this," Emiko said.
Shizue knew people, and she knew something of how people worked, even if it was a sometimes distant sort of knowledge, but in some ways she recognized what this was. It was an offer. Emiko's opinion of the village's practices were no secret, but she had expressed them again in the context of a compliment to Shizue. She was aware that what Shizue did and who she was was not someone who fit in...and she gave her approval and was offering to allow Shizue to share in her disapproval of others. Hope. She grasped at it every time, so maybe she was absolutely everything like Rika.
"They don't," Shizue said with a sly smile, "I had to pick it up for myself, as best I could."
"And you've done quite well for a new genin," Emiko said, "Keep it up and you'll be a great ninja one day."
It was while still aglow with the compliment that she opened the door to her workshop. It was not a particularly spartan space. There was a bulky music player in the corner with a huge, ugly, old couch and a few posters on the wall, including one movie she'd always liked. They sometimes showed films outside on a big projector, the village lacking frivolities like a dedicated movie theatre. Her first real crush had been on a seventeen year old movie star in a corny comedy watched from all the way in the back, the good seats having long since been taken by the time she'd cleaned the peanut butter out of her hair from yet another 'hilarious' prank. The poster for that movie, his face prominently displayed on it, had a place of pride in her 'thinking corner' where she spent time relaxing in between a stage of work and the next.
The carpeting had been stripped from the floor after the last accidental explosion, and there was now concrete and various workbenches, tools, and storage areas littering the remainder, in an order that only she knew well. She went over to a far wall and touched a panel, pulling it back to reveal Testbed, as scrawny as ever. He (Shizue did not personify them, but somehow still thought of the puppet as a he, just like his former owner) was a off-white greyish color, dents all over his wooden body, his joints quality plastic, hands ending in that silly drill. He was a bit taller than her, but skinnier, and weighed a lot less. She opened him up and set him on the table before retrieving her other puppet.
The puppet was as tall as an adult male, with somewhat long limbs, only just thick enough to hold the poisoned kunai launcher. He was grey-brown with a bit of green, designed to blend into, say, a tree stump in the forest, or a compost heap in other circumstances. He could go flat on his belly and crawl along, his head tucking in a little bit as it did. She usually dressed him in a ratty cloak or the like, to make him look like he might be something else at a distance, but she wasn't sure how well that worked. What did work were the retractable blades in his arms, the spring-loaded spikes in his torso, a last ditch defense, and the other mechanisms she'd incorporated. His legs were similarly long but a bit thicker, to hold the right sorts of gears to allow reasonably quick movement, and each of his joints was carefully made with a material that was both hard to destroy but also allowed greater flexibility with far less trade off than she'd feared.
It was strange, looking at him, how much she remembered of her struggles, how hard it had been to build a puppet from scratch, and how sometimes the simplest things (like the joints, and making him watertight) had taken far longer than the spikes to get just right. She'd made him, she was his creator- perhaps one day she'd make a puppet she called 'it' or 'she' in the privacy of her mind, but Shizue was too attached to him- and thus she had named him.
[] Please Vote on a Name
After a careful check over his mechanisms to make sure everything was in order, she began to carefully concentrate chakra into her fingertips as she'd learned- forming chakra strings was a delicate process, the eight thin threads extending toward the connection points on the puppet. Once they met, she ran through a series of quick exercises, testing his movement, making sure he was responding as he should, before turning her attention to Testbed, to try to decide what to work on today. She had so many things to do, but at last she was sure, and she was also sure that it was going to take quite a while to get done.
What does Shizue work on (pick one)
[] Finishing up the last tests and installing the water gun into her main puppet. It is strong enough to make someone hit with it stumble, which could be useful, but it has only so many charges and isn't a lethal weapon...which could be an advantage, since she hadn't been able to use her puppet in sparring sessions since pretty much everything it did other than serve as an additional focus for her clan jutsu was incredibly lethal.
[] Continue working on the trap net explosion. The explosion was currently weak, and there was only a single net, and furthermore there had been some real problems fitting it in. It would be a tight fit in her main puppet even if she worked out all of the kinks, but it could be useful for trapping enemies, though the net was nothing special and could be cut through if the opponent wasn't moving enough to tangle themselves up, and maybe even if they were. But she hoped she could manage it in a fight. Probably. Maybe.
[] Try to brainstorm ideas in general, come up with a new concept or two. This will be influenced by Shizue's experiences prior to reaching this point in this (or in future) updates.
******
That night, while she tinkered, people fought. And people died. That night, three new souls went to whatever afterlife there was for warring ninja. Soldiers in the dark of a nighttime raid, corpses before the morning came. At Tokimune's grave, his mother still sat. Her wailing had been reduced to bitter sobs, and perhaps eventually they would be reduced to nothing more than numb, grim acceptance. Nobody watched her, because who can stand to watch heartbreak? And which of the villagers would have said, deep in their cups, what at least some of them certainly thought- what could she have expected, letting her son grow up to be a ninja?
[INSERT SIGNIFICANTLY MORE DEPRESSING ENDING THEME MUSIC]
****
A/N: So...haha! Nope! Double-header episodes baby!
Act 1, Scene 3: The First Premonition! Misery's Bounty!
It takes time to learn what happened, after the fact. It was a task of her whole morning, from waking up, to signing up for a mission to start later that afternoon, and even into her trap evaluation with Emiko. It was odd, the things she noticed first and last. What she noticed first was that Chusei was absent- she later learned he was away on a mission, thus rendering competitive mindset meaningless. She headed to the board first thing to sign up for a mission of her own, having already planned to do so, but now seeing it as more than a priority, and hearing some jokes on the way there.
Apparently the Special Jonin of Tide had all promoted themselves to Jonin, a comment that drew jokes about how 'special' they were to have suddenly reached Jonin level in a matter of a few days, and also how they had formed a council to rule, as if theirs hadn't been a dictatorship, unlike Reef which was used- Shizue knew, and so did the shinobi talking- to a council of leadership. There were bets placed on how long it would take for the triumvirate to break apart, because that was the other piece of news. One of the Special Jonin had then promptly been killed, along with a genin.
Here, Shizue had to listen close, because they seemed to rush and brush past the fact that they had lost someone in return, a chunin named Isozaki Senzo, though nobody seemed to mention how it had happened. In fact, it's going to the board to sign up for the mission that provides the next clue to unraveling the events of the previous night. For, prominent on the board was a large, gaudy looking poster, parts of it hand-drawn and filled in.
*****
There was a picture of what looked like a perfectly ordinary girl, the details were general at best, but below were words 'Wanted! Head of Murderous Fish Bitch of Tide! B-rank mission pay in bounty given to anyone who fillets, fries, guts, fricassees, dries out, or otherwise ends the life of this girl! Proof by body part is required, or by verifiable witness statements.' This was, Shizue presumed, the one who had killed Isozaki.
[INTRO MUSIC PLAYS, OPENING SONG BEGINS]
*****
She was a little shocked by the language, but it was not that surprising overall. It had to be a loved one that posted it, bounties like that were common after a death, and it meant that most enemy Ninja that got lucky enough to kill one beloved figure had to keep their heads down for the next few battles or risk getting mobbed by enemies eager to claim the price on their head. It usually went away, or the other ninja died, which was usually a relief to the grieving loved ones. She walked back home to pick something up, and along the way heard another conversation that continued her slow, careful education on the subject.
Rumors were like that, hard to hold and grasp if one wasn't willing to hear them in bits and pieces.
*****
Snippets heard while walking the streets.
"It's a damn shame what happened, do you think Amaya's handling it right, with the-"
"Foolish business."
"At least there'll be a good corpse for the ceremony tonight, the funeral."
"Drowned by a rookie genin is not what I'd call making a 'good corpse.'"
"I just meant that he'd not have to be stitched back together, you don't have to be a goddamn bitch about it."
"He was a reckless fool, chased after a fleeing genin, jus' trying to get away, and he got hisself killed."
"You were reckless once too, Kiyo-chan, now you're a snuggle bug."
"Oh, quit it Manami, I'm trying to be cynical…"
Shizue had moved away from them at that point, not particularly wanting to see two ninja make out in the streets, their argument somehow seamlessly have turned into something rather different. Either way, it was somewhat instructive.
*****
The next piece fell into place when she went for a quick early lunch before the lesson with Emiko. There was a sushi shop that, by virtue of exploring while transformed, Shizue had found she could go to without getting drawing too many stares, and their sushi was quite good. But when she walked down the narrow, crooked lane, it was only to find a crowd in front of the bar nearby area. "What's going on?" she asked, in the guise of a somewhat plain looking black haired girl, her hair in pigtails.
"One of the ninja's holed herself in there. She threatened to kill anyone who stopped her," an old man said, "And you know that ninja keep their word, don't you? Anyone tryin' to put a hand on her and stop her, like a bouncer, would be breaking the law and prolly die. Not worth it for one drunk ninja."
"You say that, but you're not the one who just had their best booze downed like it was nothing," a fat, older man said, the owner of the bar.
They argued for a while, but Shizue merely watched the scene until some other ninja came along. There was a crash of breaking glass, then another crash, and then they came out dragging a sobbing woman in her early twenties, busty- a fact that Shizue was aware of because she was wearing a night robe and an overcoat, and no bra- and looking a mess, eyes blotchy with tears, screaming and bawling as she was dragged off by the two chunin.
*****
What happened next was common knowledge. She'd been dragged before the council, and dressed down first by Ken, then Tomoyo and Hirotomo. "I understand your anger, your rage at the vile enemies of all that is good, like that murderous girl," Tomoyo said, "But it is undignified to leave a poster up like that. Why did you do it?"
Amaya whispered something, then tearfully demanded to talk in private. Five minutes later, the council came out and announced that they would match the bounty on the Tide genin, but that Amaya would be on house arrest until a suitable punishment could be devised.
*****
It was in that context that Shizue went to Emiko's Traps class , and right when Emiko was about to start introducing things, an eleven year old academy student raised his hand. Shizue couldn't remember his name, but now that she thought about it, she'd seen him in literally every class she'd had with Emiko. Didn't he have academy studies? There was also something about his face as he said, "Emiko-sensei!" It slowly began to dawn on Shizue- improbably as it was, what did she know about the minds of boys- that perhaps he had a crush on Emiko. Or maybe he was merely taking classes to become a better shinobi. That would certainly make more sense than having a crush on a plain looking older kunoichi, even if she did have the lure of being seen as rather cool, and also foreign. She even had, as Shizue had noticed the other day, a strange accent.
When one of the kids had nearly lost a finger poking a bear trap, she'd shouted something in a thick accent of some kind, hard to understand. Objectively, Shizue knew that everyone had an accent, so it was merely Emiko dropping her approximation of an Archipelago accent, but it still sounded strange to her ears.
Whether crush or idol, Emiko turned and said, "Yes, Yukinaga-kun?"
His eyes were shining, it almost seemed, as he said, "Are you going to go after that fish girl for the bounty?"
There was a long pause, "No." It was a flat sound, almost harsh as a word, and if it were Shizue asking she'd know not to press any further, would have been scared off, but the boy pressed on.
"You aren't scared of her, are you? Cause you're awesome, Emiko-sensei! You'd be like pow, and whop, and then boom!"
"I could beat her, easily. Kill her, even easier," Emiko said.
"Then why…"
"They couldn't afford what I would charge," Emiko said, her voice going even flatter. There is a note, an edge there that even the boy doesn't miss, nobody misses, and Emiko adds, to break the tension, her voice a little lighter, "Makes one wonder how they'll find the money to pay up if anyone does hurt her?"
Shizue looked at Emiko, and wondered at her behavior. Some things were obvious, but others not so much. Emiko's own mood was strange the whole time, though she praised some of Shizue's trap choices and compared them to a scroll that Chusei had given her before he left on his mission, and apparently both had done well, though neither had done perfectly. But while walking about the woods discussing locations, Emiko would turn and say, "I've heard you are a puppeteer?"
"Yes," Shizue said, knowing her voice sounded defensive, "I am." She remembered her act, four years ago, probably her boldest flouting of the village's norms and mores. That which the village values least is worth most, her mother had said, and so she had found that thing, and taken it.
"Well, it is not an art I know much of, it being one that is hard to dabble in, but if you wish I could be an extra pair of hands next week. I do know some about mechanics and fuinjutsu, so I might not be entirely useless in this matter," Emiko said.
Shizue hesitated. It was an invaluable offer, of course, but it was also Shizue's space, the area she'd never let a single other person in, so she hesitated and said, "Can I give you an answer once I get back from my mission?"
"Very well, Suzuhisa-san" Emiko said, "Good luck on the trip."
*****
Shizue didn't believe in packing light, and so she made sure to have plenty of every kind of weapon, and ration packs, and she also had to carry along her puppet to the dock, where the ship and her teammates, selected at random since she'd made no requests for people brought along, were waiting. She looked at the ship as they approached. It was a big ship, with high masts, definitely not new, which could be told immediately by the fact that it lacked any electric power at all, instead possessing huge sails that made it feel like a 'real' ship. A classic junk, she knew, sometimes employed as a raiding vessel. Standing outside the gangway were two other genin.
Reizei Okiie had packed light, and was hopping from one foot to the other, grinning like a lunatic, not glancing over at the third of their impromptu team, Yasukawa Rika, who had packed nearly as much into her bags as Shizue. "Whoa," Okiie said, looking at her, "That's a lot of stuff! We're only going to be gone for a day, you know that right?"
"Yes I do," Shizue said. During missions, people tended to be a bit more polite, if only because there was nobody else to talk to. "But I want to have the puppet in case there's trouble."
"Nah, you won't need to worry, 'cause I'm stronger than ever. Iwasaki-sensei gave me the paper, and it turns out I'm wind natured! So I'll cut through all of the problems!"
"She gave you a piece of chakra paper?" Shizue asked, surprised. It was expensive, and usually given out upon promotion to chunin, unless a genin bought it themselves or knew their affinity thanks to a family history.
"Yeah, Iwasaki-sensei said that in the big villages, every genin gets one within a week of graduating the academy, for free! And the sensei are required to either teach people how to build up their affinity, or there's a big board where people can search for a teacher if their sensei doesn't have the right element! So weird! But she said she didn't have enough made to give them to everyone at once, cause the class was so big, so she's doing a competition. Each week so many people get them, and by the end of the month everyone will know their affinity! It was weird, though, half the people that took it got water."
Rika mumbled something, and Okiie asked, "What was that?"
"It's probably because of epigenetics."
"Epi...genetics? Sounds like some weird thing in an Iruka Book," Okiie said, "Never heard of it." Iruka Books were the colloquial name for a practice that started just after the Fourth, and hopefully last, Ninja War. Many small villages didn't have the money for good textbooks and new textbooks, and certainly didn't have the time to make their own, so Konoha would ship out books, carefully designed to be stripped of political or historical biases (though many said that the Hokage's 'ninja are not tools, be friends with each other' biases slipped through, for better or worse, and there was that one infamous edition in which ramen was listed as a 'staple ninja food' alongside protein bars and other healthy meals), for free. Even now they still did it, and it was a huge cost-saving measure for most small villages.
Of course, they also did things like sent crates of the things addressed to 'The Shimikage [sic] of Island' as if it hadn't been forty years of war. The three villages would fight over who got most of the books, and the losers would have to use old, worn out books, or just shrug and start teaching kids by memory.
Rika apparently decided to to elaborate, except Shizue was curious and leaned in, asking, "Can you tell me? It sounds interesting."
Rika smiled, she clearly liked the idea of being able to show off, and said, "So, well, affinities run in families, right? But there have also been studies among some ninja who are more...scientific that environment plays a factor. People who move to live in a very different region can find their descendents affinities affected, as their chakra systems adapt a little bit towards their new surroundings. The ninja around water finds their children are more likely to have a water affinity, even if their family tend to be fire natured- though family affinity wins out often enough that it's still a good rule."
"So you're saying if we did the same paper thing in, say, Suna--"
"Yep, lots of wind natures. And lightning in Kumo, and so on."
"I guess that makes sense, but isn't genetics some… civvie something or other?" Okiie asked casually.
"Just because it's a civilian science doesn't mean--"
"Listen, I get that you have to defend your roots as some civvie's daughter--"
Rika blushed and said, "No, I'm just saying…" her eyes looked a little bit wet, though she clearly wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She looked like someone who had been pushed too long and hard today, and this single event had pushed her past some invisible barrier. Okiie had the good sense to notice and then immediately begin to apologize, not having realized that his words were offensive.
Which was typical. Boys. Well, not all boys, but Okiie was distinguished in his tactlessness from Toyo only in that he wasn't trying to be a total jackass and that he'd apologize if he realized he was being one. As if any person wouldn't be insulted by someone casting aspersions on their parentage.
Shizue brushed past them and got to work preparing. She had to talk to a few of the sailors before she got agreement, but who would question a ninja's strange whims? It was early evening by the time the ship cast off, her puppet carefully secured on deck beneath a tarp by a some string that would probably be enough to keep the less than incredibly heavy puppet from moving around too much (though it'd provide little protection in case of a storm), but would also allow it to easily break free if needed. Anyone looking would figure it was a crate, or perhaps a coil of rope, under there, and thus it would be both easy to hide and easy to get at, just in case. Not that an attack was likely, but one never knew, and raids on shipping were very popular among all three villages.
The captain held dinner down below deck, fare heavy on seafood and fatty dishes, relatively light on vegetables unless they were fried, breaded, or otherwise. Korokke was present, as was the less rare tempura (this from packages, rather than cooked onboard) and seafood karaage. It wasn't a bad meal, though the conversation was...interesting.
Okiie had little enough to say to the Captain, and except occasionally commenting on the food in vague, full-mouthed compliments, leaving Shizue and Rika to do most of the talking.
*****
"So trade's been going down ever since fall to that island, but I've been making it up by taking trips to a few other places," the Captain, who was named Obata Tokuhei, explained to Rika. He was a somewhat tall man whose considerable muscle had begun running- no, sprinting- to fat as he approached his fifties.
"Oh, but what about doing some of 'the trade' with kunai? I know that Reef is always short of them, and allocation management is apparently something--"
"We're short on kunai? How short?" Shizue asked.
"Well, my father wrote to tell me that the demands in tribute from the mine have increased, well beyond sustainability, and since they're not gold mines or anything that would have value except as a weapon," Rika said.
Shizue nodded, impressed. Rika seemed a bit of a pushover, and Shizue knew that she typically underestimated the girl, but then times like these she was reminded of just how smart she actually l was. And how much they shared together if only they could get along consistently without Rika pushing her away in a sudden fear that people would associate the two of them so closely together that they'd start ignoring her all of the time, instead of just most of the time.
Another thing she noticed was that Captain Obata didn't trust ninja. It was subtle, but he seemed to keep as far away from ninja business as possible, except to hire them as guards for missions whenever the war got to the point where any ship could be attacked at any time. This was reasonable enough, though it did get Shizue to thinking.
It was something she'd end up doing all through her watch, the first, then while she was laying down trying to sleep through Okiie's watch, and so when the lookout called "Land ho!" at three in the morning because the ship was scheduled to dock in the early morning, she almost expected it. She shifted to get out of her hammock, as Okiie scrambled to get out of his. Okiie tripped over something as he got out of his hammock and faceplanted on the ground before scrambling out the door, and then up the ladder to the deck, Shizue close behind. Up on deck, Rika stood near the wall of Obata-san's,, looking around as he emerged and turned his gaze towards the shore.
It was early in the morning, but some lights on the dock were already lit for any ships trying to find the harbor, though there were few enough ships in port, and the place seemed to be enjoying a quiet, sleepy morning. And then, out of early morning fog came a small boat, rowing towards the ship, "Ahoy!" a young woman's voice said, "One moment of your time please."
"What is it?" Obata-san called, leaning over the bulwark, looking down at the boat as it drew close to the side of the ship. "I don't want any fresh catches of fish, however good you claim the prices are--"
When was when the figures from the boat, three of them, leapt up, the one in front hurling a perfect, textbook spread of primarily kunai, but with shuriken mixed it, the others throwing immediately after. There was no time to react, to do anything at all to stop it, and Shizue reached for her shuriken holster, trying to figure out what to do first, brain still blurry from lack of sleep. Which meant she almost didn't believe what she saw. Suddenly, in a single moment, instead of Captain Obata there, Rika stood in his place. She saw the girl wince as one of them scored a shallow cut across the top of her head, but aimed as it was to kill a man twice her bulk and significantly taller than her, the attacks mostly missed as the three enemy ninja landed and leapt at her.
Shizue had to move, and fast, though in the back of her brain she figured out what had happened when she saw the Captain standing where Rika had before, baffled but unharmed. A sealless, instant Body Replacement? Shizue hadn't known Rika could do that. And now, they had to move fast if Rika wasn't going to pay a heavy price for her selfless protection of the Captain.
[Insert Ending Credits and Theme Song]
What does Shizue do? (This is the first move, the rest of the battle until any important decision points will flow from this and what the QM thinks Shizue is likely to do.)
[] Move to help Rika. She can't survive against three to one odds for long, can she? And there's little for her to replace with, unless she thinks of Shizue's puppet on the fly. But two to three, or maybe even three-all odds, would probably serve better. Looking closely, none of the enemies seem older than fourteen or fifteen. Still, Shizue is no experienced close combatant.
[] Use Replacement to switch with her puppet and then attach chakra strings and use it to fight. This will take a second, though, and then time for it to be deployed, meaning Rika *might* be on her own for some vital seconds, but it'd be safer for Shizue, and hopefully she'll be able to do more good hanging back.
[] Follow Okiie's lead. Try to coordinate with Okiie, since working as a team is important. In this case, since Shizue doesn't have a rapport with anyone, this'll mostly involve going along with whatever Okiie does, since arguing at the start of a deadly fight is a...bad idea.
[] Write-in. QM has right to correct or refuse, but I will also ask for clarification if any part of it seems openly flawed (like, to the point where Shizue would know it wouldn't work IC) or unclear.
*****
The Laurent: So, a lot of author's noting to do, here. First, to those asking 'where are the rolls'? There are rolls, but in order to get a narrative experience, they are behind the scenes and in the background.
So, Emiko built up, and war starts getting started in earnest. It gets a little bit dark in that respect, I apologize! To cheer things up
I'm going to have a running counter.
Ninjas Killed in latest escalation of the war: 9 (4 Tide Jonin, 1 Tide Special Jonin, 2 Tide Chunin, 1 Reef Chunin, 1 Reef Genin)
Civilians Killed: ???
This is likely to be going up and up and up. And up. Also, war destroys people, and also makes them assholes. And yeah, the bounty thing means that Ninja who manage to do a 'good job' at killing enemies then have to worry about being attacked en masse, meaning even gaining experience might just be another way to get killed.
Now, on accents. Me and my co-QM talked for a long time, but neither of us are linguists, so we weren't able to come up with a specific, exact accent. However, we did determine that accents vary by region, and come up with some dialect groups. Fire (Coastal), Fire (Southern), Fire (Northeastern), Fire (Northwestern), Fire (Standard/Konoha), Wind (Deep Desert), Wind (City), Wind (Northern), Earth (Southern), Earth (Northern), Lightning (Mountain), Lightning (Coastal), Lightning (Southern), Water, and of course, on top of others we didn't think of, Archipelago. Accents of course blend, mix, and get complicated, especially the fact that different enough dialects can cause trouble understanding each other, but it's all the same language, fortunately enough, though also because in the show everyone spoke the same language and it'd be inconvenient to create language barriers, as fun as those can be in a story. Shizue doesn't know enough about accents to say, "Oh, so that means that Emiko is from 'X' village." Infiltration is the skill that tracks to faking accents, or recognizing them too. Emiko's accent only says that she's not born and raised in the Archipelago, which is sorta a 'no duh.'
Tinkering will be a constant thing with puppeteering, it's cool. There would also be similar sorts of 'bull sessions' available for Fuinjutsu at higher levels, as well as Jutsu creation in general once Shizue reaches the point where she starts making up her own Jutsu. Anything that can be worked on ahead of time will have a session that doubles as both a training session and a 'tinkering section.' Emiko, for instance, took one such session this week to work on [REDACTED.]
It's called premonitions for a reason, cause there's a lot of that going around. Epigenetics are a real thing, and we decided it'd be neat if there was some sort of magic version of it, that explained affinity clusters. Rika doesn't know hers, and Shizue doesn't either...if only she were taking the Elemental class. Of course, there's things she would have missed not taking the classes she did, so it's all a matter of choice.
And, yes, Iruka books.
Just in case people thought this was a setup, the truth was that there was a 50% chance that this would be a perfectly normal C-rank, so blame the dice, not me!
Next, important detail:
Chakra Strings:
--Effect: Can use Chakra Strings to control a puppet. Puppets that aren't one's own will, of course, not respond to the same delicate manipulations, making it hard to hijack someone's own puppet on the fly, unless they spend time and effort learning how to make it move. At this level, these motions are physical, but at higher levels, chakra manipulation does the work, or else how could a single finger control an entire puppet?
--Cost: 1 Chakra Per String
--Currently, it takes 8 strings to control, meaning Shizue can control it and also draw and throw a single kunai, hold one of the bells of hers, or hold her flute though it's hard to play. And also do the hand-signs for the bound jutsu. The number of strings taken is flatly (as in, no stats involved) connected directly to Puppets, with the number of strings going down and down, and other options also being opened up. Like, just a hint, Puppetry+Fuinjutsu+Ninjutsu (Sound) can get some...interesting things. I can tell you because Shizue has had a few fantasies of the 'And then I'll beat everyone with super ninja skillz' dreams that many young ninja have.
Finally, please tell me if this update was too long. I was thinking of stopping at, well, the halfway point, since there were and are two votes there, but I realized it wouldn't *much* effect what came next (the length got away from me, it was all supposed to be one 'episode' but got so long that I split it in two), the tinkering sessions, and that I *could* show it in flashback in the next episode. So I kept on charging along late last night, secure in the belief that this would turn out well. I now sorta leave it to you to decide. It comes to you faster, but I *could* have given it in a smaller chunk and sat on the rest of this for 2-3 days. It would have certainly made my task easier, since this was a mountain and a half to write, but...eh, anyways, feedback is appreciated, especially on the topic of 'votes in the middle of an update'.
Also, to note again, reaction posts are adored and will be rewarded with a few XP. They get my creative juices stirring just like likes do, in the sense that it allows me to see what the voters think and see, so that if there are any misapprehensions, good ideas, clues, hints, etc, I can be aware of them.
Thanks to McClenahan for editing this!
McClenahan: And probably the longest update I've ever proofread, as well. This is going to be interesting… if you hadn't already realized from the tone, well, this entire update, this isn't going to be like the surprising number of fights in the anime where nobody actually dies. The enemy are playing for keeps here.
