So, chakra synesthesia. Neat.
That is the Idea. Also.
Also. OH, MY GOD! It's THE LEGENDARY
@Pax_Empyrean! I started reading SV/SB through Ryuugis TGWP, You are an awesome man.
This is one of those things that canon is just wildly inconsistent on. How many people actually live in Konoha? How many ninja are there? In the last arc, there are thousands of them running around, but Naruto's class at the academy graduated 27 students and only nine of them passed their jonin tests to continue on rather than go back to the academy. Zabuza was said to have killed a hundred, a whole year's worth of students, but they would have been expected to cut that number by half with their "everybody fights a duel to the death to graduate" policy anyway, plus the high attrition rate of Mist in general.
Fanon tries to resolve this with things like a "genin corps" where there are a ton of less promising characters graduating in the background who never get a jonin sensei and just get the ninja equivalent of dead-end office jobs for their whole careers. It certainly makes more sense than Kishimoto's approach, which never explained where all of these thousands of random ninja come from when the total annual output the biggest village's academy is in the single digits and nobody is mentioned graduating more than a few dozen.
Yep, as the Infor dump the page before your post broke down, I needed some way to justify the Numbers you see later on.
hmm....Mud clones might be useful?
with a muddy battlefield that they can absorb to heal from....
potentially being deep enough to burrow around in...
*Hides Notes* SHHHHHHH
It was such a big honking deal that it was rare, though, that it'd feel pretty contrived I think. I mean, technically there ought to be some Sharingan scattered around because people fuck, but that doesn't make random Sharingan powers for random characters any less bs.
See, thus my issue with McGuffins. They are everywhere, and acquisition of one tilts the entire story to be 'HAHAHA MY MCGUFFIN IS STRONGEST' ITs bad writing man.
Afaik the wood release was a bloodline ability that the first Hokage had, so unless Toru is secretly a descendant of Hashirama and it skipped a few generations he wont ever get it.
NO WOOD RELEASE FOR TORU! NO BLOODLINES! NO! TORU BE LIKE VANILLA! (Smooth and classic)
On bloodlines:
This is my favourite explanation of how they work.
I do like that... but with the foundations I've already laid in the story, it just doesn't fit.
Hmm, just read the whole story and I have to ask, where the hell is Tenten? I expected some adorkable interactions, dammit!
YOu know! You're right-
Still in the academy for another year, I believe. Maybe two; it's been a little while, so I'm slightly fuzzy on the timeline of how this relates to canon and whether the SI graduated two years or three years before Team 7.
-Toru and Chibi Tenten need to be a thing....
Oh, Here we go, I just so happen to have something just for this....
Empress- 4
I sat at the workbench after training one day, about three weeks into my tenure as a Genin, inspecting the designs for my next project. More specifically, I looked at the dimensions I was gonna be working at for the early forging, and looked around. I had the fine detail tools and a small forge in the Jewelry workshop, but for this project….
Fuck. I need to head out. I looked at the sun out the window. I had about three hours till dark, and old man Hagane would still be open right now. I slipped out the window and ran up the outer wall of the alley and mantled into my room, grabbing a light jacket, my forge gear, and the notebook on the project, before vaulting back out the window, sliding down to the still open window to the workshop. It took but a minute to gather what I needed. A few sheets of metal, a hunk of carbon, fresh Whetstone. and the tools I needed. I locked up the window, before heading to the front door, shouldering the jacket on as I walked.
"Hey Mom, I'm heading out to visit the forge!" I called out, hanging the duffle bag of supplies off my shoulder.
"Be careful!" I heard her call out "Dinners at 10, I'll save some for you if you run late!"
'Will do, thanks, Mom." I pushed out the door and walked into the market.
It was late afternoon, more than half the stalls, mostly the more tool and material oriented vendors, were either closing up for the night or catering to the after-work crowds. Those people who just got off work grabbing food and items as they headed home. I took off north, taking a familiar path (Windowsill, doorframe, cornerstone. Signpost, roof) and passing above the madness, skipping along the taunt banners and rope lines that crisscrossed the square.
It was the work of fewer than three minutes before my destination came into sight, a large building, made of heavy stone for walls and soot-covered tiles for a roof, with a full half lot cleared to either side and an empty fenced-in lot behind it.
While the most famous Konoha blacksmith for ninja gear is generally agreed to be Higurashi's Weapons and Armor if you want something strange and with weird requirements, This is where you go. He never named his shop, but everyone who goes here knows it by the owner.
Old man Hagane.
I slipped up to the door and pushed in, waving at the counter, where the grizzled old man was sitting with eyes closed and arms crossed. Hagane is not the broad-shouldered monster you'd expect. No, Hagane is tall, fairly lean looking, and seems almost as if he was chiseled from his namesake metal. He's covered in faint scars from burns and with slight signs of age, skin is tanned by years of fire. And when he tenses, it looks like someone is drawing muscles and veins across his skin. His hair, still mostly black, is tied back into a samurai-style topknot. He wears only a loose brown tunic and black hakama, feet covered in boots.
When I was younger, even before the memories came, I liked to hang out in the forge. The heat would bother me, but watching the old man work, hearing the hammer ringing, the rasp of metal across metal.
I liked this place.
"Hey, old man!" I called "Is the forge open?"
The man cracks his eyes, the dark brown glinting in the low light.
"Hmm… For a brat like you? I suppose." he nodded, "If you sharpen my tools-"
"As per our agreement. Yeah, I know." I nodded.
"Then go about your business." he said, eyes closing.
I headed into the back, already pulling the whetstone form my bag, and heading towards the bin at the side of the shop. A pair of slightly dull chisels sitting in it.
I pulled them out, hopped on a stool, and got to work. It was only about half an hours work, all told. Finished, I hung the tools back up and started blowing the bellow to the forge, heating the fire. When it was a nice glowing yellow, I pulled out the sheet of copper I had picked up, and slowly fed it in with tongs.
Now to get to work.
I was more than halfway done when I heard the loud voice of a girl out in the shop, making me pause with the hot metal wrapped around a steel bar, hammer in hand. I signed at hearing the voice chat with Haganes gruff tenor and looked back down. A chalkboard (borrowed from a corner when Hagane kept it) was tilted to the side and in clear view, reminding me of the dimensions I needed and the angles I was looking for (all copied from my notebook before I shoved it with my jacket in the corner. I glanced at it as I shoved the metal back in the forge to heat up again.
I looked up a moment later as the door opened, the voices becoming clear.
"-n't know you had an apprentice Hagane-sam-" Tenten stopped as she looked at me, meeting my eyes as I looked at her. I figured I was a sight, wearing a black tank top, and jeans. Hands in thick leather gloves and hair swept back and unruly. I knew I was also covered in dark black or grey ash from messing with restocking the coal for the forge.
"..."
"...'
"....Hey forge girl," I called out after an awkward moment, hand coming up in a wave.
Tenten blushed a furious red. "Y-You! What are- You? Why? HOW?"
"You're…. Gonna have to be more specific." I replied, before glancing at the copper. "Actually, hold that thought."
I turned and pulled the sheet from the forge, before I began shaping it around the metal dowel once more, hammering the sheet so it went from flat to a stretched and wavy cylinder. Putting Tenten's confusion out of my mind for a moment. I was almost done with this stage anyway, and once it was done then came the hard part.
The seal.
But that could wait. I had the tools for that at home. My forge at home just wasn't big enough to heat the plating.
I spent the next ten minutes hammering and shifting the metal, pulling it off the dowel and shifting it to curve it, in the end, I had a copper cylinder that
just about met its own beginning, and took the shape of three cylinders that flowed together.
Done with that, I tossed it in the quench to cool. After that was the pickle and then when I got home I had to-
"What are you making." Came Tenten's voice from
right next to me!
"Gah!" I'll admit. I jumped like a bitch.
"What?" I asked, trying to drop my pulse back to a reasonable rate.
"What," she pointed at the quench, "are you making?"
"...a scroll case for travel." came my slow reply. Yeah, it would be a bit overworked, but having a scroll case that could hold my scrolls for seals and not let them get A) Wet, B)Burned, C)Cut in fucking half or D) dirty, was useful. I had plans to make it hinged at home, and then seal the gaps with a gasket, solder or weld in a bottom and top to the pipes, and engrave a seal based lock (From
Security Fuinjutsu Volume 2: Doorways and locks) before hooking it to a few straps so I can carry it, probably around my left leg, or maybe inside my jacket.
I wasn't decided.
"Scroll case?" she asked, head tilted. "Umm… no offense, but why would you need one? You're a Ninja, right?"
Wait. Did she… Not know this? I mean,
Really? I
I broke my sudden silence, noticing Tenten's expression shifting from curious to… annoyance? "...Fuinjutsu. It's... for Fuinjutsu. You know. Sealing scrolls? Stuff like that?"
"I thought that was just for carrying stuff? That's what Higurashi-sama always uses it for." She frowned slightly, crossing her arms.
I looked at her and then up to the ceiling. Eyes closing as I took a breath.
"Alright, I can see how you would think that." I looked down, reached over, pulling the shell from the quench, and setting it on the counter. "Let's talk fuinjutsu then."
I pushed the chalkboard away from the forge, and tilted I so she could see, before wiping it clear.
"Fuinjutsu has three major popular uses. The first and the most well-known is sealing." I drew a (slightly wobbly) image of a stick figure with a scroll in hand and a pile of stuff by their side. "Alongside the standard use of sealing weapons, or supplies, seals can also be used in combat, though to do so is… difficult. I know some people can use a scroll to seal an attack jutsu, and then release it later, but that's high-end stuff. Regardless, sealing is taking something and storing it in a scroll."
"The second most common is Summoning. It's sort of considered the opposite of sealing. Instead of hiding in an object in a seal, you use a seal to pull an object or being from another location to you. Summoning contracts are essentially a permanent link between the summons and the summoners, allowing them to instantly lock on." I sketched a simple image of a stick figure with a scroll who had a hand on the ground, and a giant frog next to them. "Tsunade, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya, as well as their most famous foe, The Salamander Hanzo, all had summons. Tsunade has slugs, Jiraiya has Toads, and Orochimaru has snakes. Hanzo is self-explanatory"
I cleared the board off and started on the last one. "The most varied, and least common of the big three fuinjutsu, is called a Seal Channel. It applies to quite a lot of fuinjutsu, but what is references is that the seal makes a defined effect when fueled with chakra. Some examples are things like weight or resistance seals, Using a scroll to cast a jutsu, Security seals, and barrier seals. All of them, and much more, count as Channel's."
I turned and looked back at a nodding Tenten who was clearly processing. "Now. questions?"
"Are seals hard?" came her question, head tilted.
"Uh… tough question. The best way of putting it is a quote I remember. 'Sealing is simple, Sealing isn't easy.' It means that seals make sense, they are logical progressions, they have results. The issue is that the art of sealing is… Harder. The patience, the control. That is Hard. I've studied seals for three years now? I'd barely call myself greater than beginner skill. I do use it for a lot of smaller things, but my sealing is strange." I explained.
"Okay, I guess that makes sense. I wanna try and learn to seal, and I bet I'm gonna be better than you at it! Senbon-Senpai!" She yelled, pointing at me, while I adopted a nonplussed expression.
"Senbon… Senpai….?" I drawled, calling on the late memory of Alan Rickman.
Tenten flushed and clasped her hands looking away shyly. "Uh, Well… I may have forgotten your name…. So…," she mumbled off.
"Why so Kawaii," I muttered facepalming. "Toru Shusho. Call me Toru-san, senpai if you must."
I looked at the clock on the wall, Cringing at the sight. It was close to midnight and had to get up in 8 hours as it was for training
"It's late. I need to head home to sleep, and you-" at this, I yanked Tenten up by the collar. While I wasn't much broader at the shoulder or much bigger than her, I was actually quite a bit taller, which meant longer arms. I was easily able to keep her held up by one hand."-are gonna tell me where you need to go so I can drop you off."
Tenten grumbled at that.
