Act 4, Scene 34: The rhythms of recreation!
The dead could come back to life. That had been a known fact, that by some strange jutsu, someone could be taken from somewhere and brought back to life. People had speculated quite a lot on what the 'Pure Land' even was, let alone what all of it meant, but Shizue knew that many had found hope in what the last war had taught them. That perhaps there was reunion, or perhaps something else. There were a lot of guesses, a lot of considerations.
Bringing someone back from death, though, was rather more difficult.
Suzuhisa Shizue, though, could bring back her puppets with only a little work. Of course, once she started to look into the way they were built, she began thinking otherwise.
It was fun, getting into the grease and dust and dirt of the process, sticking her hands into the shell of the dragon she was making, trying to get the joints just right, but the more she examined what she had of the plan, the more she considered it.
She was a lot better now at the basic act of putting them together, and there were a lot of compromises she made.
A simple example could be found in the way that she'd integrated Stinger's handsome joints into the whole process. It'd been inefficient, the linkage between movement and the style that she wanted for him. He could have moved far easier with just slightly simpler ball joints, but ones that were carefully greased and maintained. Yes, the joints that she used were sturdy, but even with all the grit in Wind, it'd take months for that to really be that much of a problem, and in her experience, if she wasn't repairing or fixing up her puppet after four or five fights, then something was wrong.
It made no sense to design a puppet to endure for months at a time without having to have parts replaced or worked on, if even a little injury during a fight would probably require fixing him. After all, she didn't want him to operate at anything less than complete efficiency.
It was soothing work, really. Not all that complicated, though figuring out the physics of the drop-down movements required a neat little bit of math, and while she was at it, perhaps she could consider other things that could be holding back the speed, like Stinger's shape and the area he took up.
But at the same time… what about.
Three nights in a row she stayed up, trying to figure out just what she wanted to do, and on the fourth day, she shuffled out to talk to Ichiman, and hoped that Okiie would be patient.
[Opening Credits]
Ichiman was a very good fuinjutsu partner. He knelt over his designs, not even seeming to care that Shizue was watching him closely, and not just because he was nice to look at. Shizue certainly was looking at him and appreciating his toned arms, his soft, handsome face, and otherwise… well, she was human. She could look, and she knew that once her body was back to normal she'd be able to spend plenty of time with Okiie.
But, there was also the fact that he was quiet, yet firm. "Shizue-chan, you are… swishing slightly too forcefully."
"Ah, thank you for the information," Shizue said. There was something taut about his body, though, tension in knots running like the joints on Stinger. It was a deserted room, unless Emiko was in there spying on them.
"You're trying to capture forces, seal forces," Ichiman said. "Not… strangling them?" His frown deepened, as if he were trying to figure out how to describe it. She understood a little of what he meant, but she also reasoned that it was pretty likely that she was missing something.
"I can try," Shizue said. "But what about the earth seals? You told me that those were too loose, and too badly formed."
"Earth needs more solidity, it needs a different sort of binding. But if you bind a Wind Jutsu like that…" Ichiman shook his head.
"You sound tired," Shizue said.
Ichiman frowned. "I do?"
"Yes," Shizue insisted.
"...Seiichiro takes a lot out of me." He spoke each word slowly, though this time he didn't have a notebook. Perhaps that meant he was improving.
"What? He's training with you?"
"With a sword," Ichiman said, shuddering.
Shizue blinked. "Really?"
"And chakra. He's training to channel it through the sword. Emiko-sensei is mostly training him, but she said that training against me would help him to get down the basics of how to deal with enemies with greater reach." Ichiman frowned. "She's right, though?"
"You're the only other weapon-user," Shizue said, thinking it through. "And my puppets don't include any weapons that are longer than a… katana, is it?"
"A ninja-to," Ichiman said, with a sigh. "He's… getting better fast? But he's also cutting himself a lot."
Shizue hadn't seen him when she'd stepped in to go talk to Rika, but of course that didn't mean much. She didn't spend any more time than she had to. She wanted to get well enough to get back to more intensive training, and then she had to open up her room again. "Oh," Shizue said. "He's… enthusiastic, I assume?"
"Yes. He's improving each time we fight, but it's… rough. He doesn't give up, though."
But despite that being a huge compliment--Naruto, after all, never gave up--he sounded almost like he wished that Seiichiro would, for a little. "Is it that tiring?"
"Just… not restful." He glanced down at the fuinjutsu and smiled slightly more. "Not like this."
Shizue nodded, grateful for the implicit compliment. After all, she was going to try to do some very difficult things with her puppets, and Ichiman's help could certainly make things easier if she tried to use fuinjutsu to move it one step beyond.
"Thank you," she finally said.
Ichiman nodded, and then added, "The… next seal involves absorption of energy, it's complicated, and--"
******
"And I think that you missed a spot," Emiko said.
Shizue nodded, and gripped the broom tighter, and continued to sweep, the dust making her nose itch. She couldn't stop, though, because there was so much to the base to be cleaned. It was dark, but Emiko was stringing lights, and perhaps they'd even move the pipes in, with time.
Emiko was focused, and it was comforting just to be be doing something useful. She'd… had a lot to learn, and this wasn't going to teach her any of it.
"Yes, Emiko-sensei," Shizue said.
But it was going to help the base itself. It stretched into the deep, dark corners of the mine, the places that must have once mattered. It was even more clear when you started reaching the far ends of it on both sides that it had been a mine, and had only been repurposed. There were actually old newspapers wrapping glass bottles at one place, where the newspapers, though all but faded, still read the date: 32 A.N. That was a long time ago. Everyone who had used this place as a mine was probably dead by now, and the thought made her wonder at whoever it was that had gone in and transformed it.
But if Emiko knew the process by which a single space had transformed so many times, she wasn't revealing it.
It meant that Shizue just peeked at these small hints of a past and wondered what else she didn't know.
It wasn't that important, but as she swept the barely retrofitted mine shafts, she did have to wonder.
"I wonder why we want to complete things. We'll be leaving within a few months, or at least a relatively small time. This is the kind of base that should be left as is. I wonder what it held." Emiko frowned and turned away, and Shizue had the feeling that she was listening to Emiko speak out loud.
"A large group?" Shizue guessed.
"What if it was a hidden village? An actually hidden village, which would be a rare enough thing. Far too many villages turned out to be pretty obvious." Emiko paused, her lips pursing, "Of course, you have to be if you want to get clients." She shrugged. "I think sometimes."
"You do?" Shizue asked. She blinked, and then added, hastily, "I mean, about Hidden Villages?"
"Few enough people are going to believe I don't have a plan regarding all of you, some sort of Village scheme," Emiko admitted. "Perhaps I've never been ambitious enough. It's always been very personal, for me."
"What has?"
"The things that actually matter," Emiko said, simply, stepping closer to Shizue and picking up the broom from her hands. "Assassinations, those are just business, but being a shinobi? If you don't take things personally, you'll miss something."
Shizue considered that for a moment and then spoke, "You know, I never quite was able to understand it?"
"What?"
"Someone like you, and assassination. You're very good at it, obviously, but you take death so… you want to kill Ken-san, because he almost killed someone you cared about. You regretted the war that led to all those people…"
She saw the look on Emiko's face, and understood that perhaps this wasn't the safest topic.
"It pays well, and I do enjoy it." Emiko shrugged. "But it really is easier to kill people I barely even know. Obviously, right?"
"Of course," Shizue said.
"Yet, look at civilians. They struggle to kill someone they don't know, but if you look at a murdered woman, you should look for her lover." She tilted her head, thoughtful and yet seemingly almost disturbed by her own words.
"I don't think about it much anymore, either," Shizue said.
She'd killed people before, and not just once. She'd killed on her last mission. But the murder didn't weigh that heavily on her, if that's what it was: in all cases it was self-defense, so maybe that made it different. But she didn't stay up at night dreaming of that young shinobi, as much a victim as she was in the system, dying in pain and afraid on the deck of a ship. Now she was thinking about it, but not then. "Is that a flaw? I know I'm younger than I should be. When did you first…"
"When I was fifteen," Emiko said. "There was a fight with a bandit. Things got desperate, and then they got absurd. Then I won. Most of the missions I took before I became a chunin, and even after it, were either traditional missions or a few stealth sorts of ones. Even as a chunin, I only sometimes got to do assassination missions." Emiko looked like she wanted to laugh, "At the time I regretted it. How was I going to get experience? I wanted to become a Jonin and do high-level work for the Tsuchikage."
"Did you like the old one?"
"He was rather wiser than this new Kage. But she's a puppeteer, so there is that."
"Did you know her?" Shizue watched Emiko begin to sweep efficiently and thoughtlessly, not even having to pause in her memories, which seemed to flow out rather freely. It was clear to Shizue that she was in the right sort of mood to let it spill out.
"A little. But she never actually figured out the trick of how to make chakra strings invisible. For someone so vulnerable in some ways, she was not a very subtle shinobi, at times." Emiko leaned up against a wall as she finished sweeping the area.
"Invisible chakra strings?"
"Yes. The technique itself is flawed and limited. The greater your range from the target, the more likely it is that they'll just stumble across it anyways. But it's a Suna secret, and I think I can teach you how to do it. It won't be all that effective, at times, but it could have been useful if you'd combined it with burrowing under the earth, or perhaps a smoke bomb? You have the experience that could make that be a possibility."
"But I wouldn't be able to see the puppets--"
"Make sound cues. Tiny ones, that only an ear trained for them and, moreover, enhanced with jutsu, can hear," Emiko said. She said it casually, just throwing it out there, but Shizue was forced to stare at her blankly.
That was actually a great idea. Sonar Burst wasn't an efficient technique, but Keen Ears should allow her to at least generally guess at where the enemies were, and the sounds would allow her to place her puppets as well. Of course, it'd be slightly clumsy, but if her enemies were blind as well, that'd be all the better.
"You could also learn a technique for improving your eyesight, but that's another matter," Emiko said. "Think about it. I'll be teaching you what I can, in the next few weeks, on how to survive, so that you'll be ready for missions in the future."
"You're not going to forbid me to go out again?" Shizue asked, touching her face. It was her face and her neck that were responding the slowest to the treatment. Her arm was already almost unblemished, and the rest of her side only hurt in the morning now, when she was waking up and trying to pull herself together.
"No. I am going to be leaving in a little while. I hope I can at least talk you through a few things first, but the present comes first."
"The materials?"
"Yes. Well, I suppose I should tell you what there is. First, well. What is the weight problem?"
"That a puppet, if too heavy or too big, is hard to maneuver, and if too complicated takes more than the normal number of fingers," Shizue said.
"So, they've been working on a type of metal alloy that's as strong as the steel that everyone wants to use for puppet armor, but is light enough that it doesn't add to the weight. It's rather impressive stuff, and I think I could figure out how to make more of it if I had some to look at." Emiko frowned, "So might you."
"That seems… interesting," Shizue said, almost quivering in place. It was more than interesting. If there was a way to use it more fully, then that'd be amazing. It'd be the kind of thing that truly would revolutionize puppetry. "What about steam power? I've wondered if that could--"
"No, that's the Iwa's puppet corps, looking at that. What they have of it. So they're not looking into it." Emiko snorted, "Academic wrangling, of a sort."
"Ah," Shizue said, thinking about the three villages of the Archipelago. "What other innovations have they been working on?"
"Wires. There's been a lot of work with both fuinjutsu patterns and wires that can have chakra running through them for faster reaction times for even larger puppets. It'll require a better understanding of wires than I think you might have, to work out how to arrange them within the puppet, but I've seen reports that show a marked increase in speed. Of course, the limit is always the user, isn't it?" Emiko shrugged. "Besides that, there's one or two others I'm not so sure of, or rather I'm going to have to see whether I can get them, and then there's what the reports call Moeru-ki. It's a wood specially treated to conduct and channel chakra, as well as implicitly resistant to fire."
Shizue frowned, "They're trying to bring back all-wooden puppets?"
"Well, mostly more-wooden, I suppose." Emiko shrugged for a moment, and then added, "But the chakra conduction is the most interesting part, because there's a number of ideas in the files themselves… of course, I'm seeing this second-hand, but they know that if they're lying to me, they'd better run fast. And I have reason to trust my sources."
"Your sources for… are you really breaking into Suna?" Shizue had only just started to realize how… sketchy that could be. Major Hidden Villages tended to be well-defended, though of course those who knew their systems were said to have ways to get inside, such as what the Akatsuki had famously done.
Those who were from certain villages had easy ways through the defenses and security of said village.
Shizue had no clue whether that changed.
"Yes. It shouldn't be more than incredibly difficult," Emiko said. "Certainly not impossible. I'll show you what I can now, because I might not be back for a while. So, tonight, come to my room, and we'll work on figuring out puppet strings."
Shizue nodded, and smiled wider.
It sounded like it'd be a lot of fun: something new to learn, and dreams of greater materials.
******
So once again, somehow, Shizue found herself with a full schedule, with more to do than she knew what to… well, do with. Ultimately she knew that it wasn't always the wisest thing, but she needed to reinvent herself. She needed to recreate her puppets, she needed to tie tight bonds that time and stress could sever.
Perhaps if she were more philosophical, she would have thought about how she fit into all of this, how easy it was for her to just take that role and run with it. But she wasn't, not particularly, and she had rather too much to do to consider the implications of anything she did, not when she had coffee to brew, and books to rearrange.
There was nothing in her room that was entirely her own, because she'd opened it up, opened it up and yet also retreated into her secondary lair. Her privacy was her work, not her life, and so one day she just opened the door and set up the clipboards, and watched to see who came.
It was Akachi first, slouching in with that smile of his. "Shizue-chan," he said. "I missed the coffee."
"Oh?"
"It was the bomb," Akachi said, absently, as he shuffled over towards it.
Shizue actually took a moment or two to get it, and when she did she just sighed. That was Akachi. At least it was a pun, rather than a joke far darker than that.
Then came Junko, slipping in and looking at Shizue from every angle, trying to be a little secretive about it but failing. The young girl really didn't know how to be that subtle, at least without using techniques she clearly wasn't trying to use, and so Shizue just rolled her eyes and smiled politely at the inquiries, the questions that went nowhere, and directed her towards the cards, to play a simple little game or two.
Go Fish was easy to learn, and pretty simple when it came down to it.
Slowly, people came. Slowly, her room became again a common room, but it was almost four hours before Okiie shyly slipped in, looking a little tired, but dressed in a different shirt than she was used to. It looked like one of the shirts the ranchers wore, the ones who weren't tribesmen, at least. That was to say, it was a little bit tight, and close to the body, which certainly worked to his advantage, she thought, trying to keep a sort of mental distance, even as she found her eyes roaming over him.
She'd missed him, but she didn't know what to say, and so she sat down on the couch when she saw him, glancing over at where Ichiman was standing in a corner, having backed up the moment he saw Okiie.
Which was odd, but who was she to ask why people did weird things? Okiie stepped towards her, glancing over at Junko,and then at Ichiman, before coughing slightly and moving to sit down on the couch, slowly.
She was used to the sound of his cough. In fact, she was very familiar with his voice, and yet it somehow had the power to make her heart beat a little faster.
"Shizue-chan, I'm glad you've opened this place up again."
"Of course," Shizue said, aware that her words were cool, collected, as if she had gathered them up like a pile of parts and laid them all out. She wanted him to assemble them. She wanted him to understand her so thoroughly that she didn't have to explain herself, didn't have to justify herself.
But then she didn't know herself that well, so how could she expect him to?
"Shizue," he said, leaving off the honorific and leaning in, close enough that she could feel the heat from his body. It made her feel safe, and yet also… pressed in on. A kind of safe that held risk, risk that he'd see past her makeup.
She leaned past slightly. "Yes?"
"Would you like to go on a date in a little bit? Or… something." Okiie frowned. "I could cook a little meal if you wanted to eat lunch together?"
She smiled slightly, though she stopped when she realized that it might draw more attention to her scars. She wished her hair was longer, then she could just cover her face and never have to face it, truly. Because that's what it was: facing him, and facing what happened to her. She needed to fix herself, and fast.
Once that was done, it'd be far easier to say yes.
"Probably. But I'm slightly busy now with learning from Emiko--"
"If I could explain it perfectly, I would. But the first principle to be considered is the nature of chakra. Chakra strings are, after all, chakra in a very pure form. You know that much, but that seems to be the answer, and for many it was the only possible answer. After all, chakra leaving the body is visible, isn't it? So then, you have to consider another point--"
Emiko could in fact give a lecture like few other. It was not an easy thing to forget, but Shizue hadn't thought about just how intellectual Emiko could be, even on topics that she was mostly guessing on, or extrapolating.
"Ah, that's fine," Okiie said. "But I did want to go out with you again. I mean, if you wanted." Okiie was hesitating, and Shizue wondered if he feared the worst. He could, couldn't he? It'd be like him to doubt himself like that. Or to wonder whether she was done with him, or…
It twisted her heart, to see the hope and the doubt mingling like that, but what was she supposed to say? They were dating, but perhaps he wasn't so sure of that. The thought that he might not realize that it was okay, was…
But wasn't it polite and nice that he was asking so humbly? But a part of her almost wanted him to insist, wanted him to suddenly and briefly take charge. Just because then it wouldn't be her put on the spot, trying to navigate how to feel and how to think.
So it was, but it wasn't.
"Soon," Shizue said, biting her lip. "I'll talk to you soon. We can go on another date. We're boyfriend and girlfriend, after all." Shizue tried to sound confident, but then she didn't even want to lean in for a kiss like she might have before. She liked kissing him, but what about her cheek, what about her neck. Would he noticed? So she backed away from what she would have once done. She'd be able to do more soon, she was sure.
"Of course," Okiie said, and he smiled. What a smile, though. His teeth didn't need to glint for them to steal her heart. She'd fix herself, she'd remake herself, and then they could go back to the way things had been.
*******
"Hi-yah!" Seiichiro yelled, as Shizue opened the door to the training room.
She arrived just in time to watch Seiichiro stepping forward, holding a stra. Despite his cry, he wasn't moving forward at all. The brown haired boy was holding his sword in… a low guard, perhaps? Shizue didn't know enough to judge the stance, but it was low, with the sword pointing upwards, high enough that it was at about Ichiman's throat.
Ichiman was standing a little way back, holding his own spear in a rather odd overhead stance. Well, not his spear, for the tip was blunted too.
"You didn't fall for it, did you? Well I'll get you next time! Hy-ah!" Seiichiro yelled, and Shizue saw his muscles tense, as if he was about to leap at Ichiman, except of course he didn't move forward. Not then.
Instead, after not taking the bait, it was Ichiman who sprang forward.
Seiichiro was fast. He swung immediately upwards, but Ichiman was faster, slipping out of the way in a single motion, almost a blur, before he stabbed down with the spear. It slammed into Seiichiro's shoulder, and he stumbled back.
"Ah! That was just a flesh wound! Again!" Seiichiro yelled.
Shizue turned to see that Yuichi was approaching. The young man was frowning, and shook his head. "He's been… weird."
"Weird?"
"He slept with the sword last night." The young boy was looking at Shizue incredulously. "H-he really did."
"That sword?"
"No, he has his own personal katana. Emiko-sensei bought it for him." Yuichi leaned against a wall, face a little flushed, looking put out. "It is pretty odd."
"It sounds like it," Shizue said. "So all he's doing is training? Is Junko-chan worried?"
Ichiman defeated Seiichiro again, this time even faster, though at least Seiichiro got two swings in and forced him back a single step before it turned out to be a 'fatal' trap.
"No, she just thinks that she needs to work even harder."
"And what about you?" Shizue asked.
"I try," Yuichi said. His words were a little uncertain, and he moved to squeeze past her. "I should fight him."
"Why?" Shizue asked.
"So he doesn't give up. I'd give up if I lost as often as Seiichiro-kun does," Yuichi said, his frown deepening. "But he is getting better. But he needs to fight people closer to him in skill."
"Like yourself?" Shizue asked.
"Yes, but he wants to fight weapon users," Yuichi said, with a slight shake of his head.
Shizue glanced back over at the hapless fighting, though of course from what she could see of his skills, Seiichiro could probably do far better in a direct fight with her than she might think, looking at how outclassed he was by Ichiman. Ichiman was, after all, one of the stronger fighters in the entire team.
She had a chance to help people here, if only she could decide who needed it most?
Who to help?
[] [Halping] Seiichiro. He needs to learn some perspective, and perhaps a little less of a headlong kind of style. Talk to him, and figure out what can be done.
[] [Halping] Ichiman… by taking over at least some of his word with Seiichiro, and figuring out how to direct him better.
[] [Halping] Yuichi needs a confidence boost, and he could help Ichiman with Seiichiro.
Okiie-Date ideas?
[] [Date] Write-in.
And what of Saya and Genta? When to meet them?
[] [Saya] First thing in the morning. Some wake-me-up tea.
[] [Saya] In a few days, come around noon, to share lunch.
[] [Saya] Procrastinate until at last Saya press-gangs Shizue into coming.
[] [Saya] Write-in.
*******
A/N: So, here we go. No plan votes, three decisions.
