Update schedule? What's an update schedule?
(Thanks to
@keios and
@bidoof for reading drafts of this.)
(1.5)
The fallen star in the forest is a sacred treasure of the village and of the Mitsui clan; a great relic that empowers the ninja of Hoshi; subject of a hundred whispered stories and wild rumors. Some believe it possesses the power to double a ninja's chakra reserve, or allow him to learn techniques normally far beyond his ken. Some say it has even the power to grant abilities normally restricted only to those with bloodlines.
But in person it's small, grey, and stony. It has a few holes in it, like a blob of particularly spongy firm tofu. It's a rock, and you can't really tell what all the fuss is about.
The only mildly impressive part about the whole thing is the terrain—the meteorite sits at the base of a shallow gorge covered in thin stubbly grass, a little clearing bare of trees and free from the tangling mat of undergrowth that otherwise blankets the area. Unusual, certainly, but hardly worthy of being the subject of generations worth of myths and legends.
Nonetheless, appearances can be deceiving, and if your father believes in the value of training with this small and kind of boring rock, then, well, he's the expert, and you're not going to complain. Even if you really want to.
You have to double down on this decision when it turns out that most of the "star training" involves just… sitting still, and clearing your mind, focusing on your breathing, and trying to feel the chakra of the star. Meditation, in other words. You're not Ikki so you're actually capable of sitting still for more than a few seconds at a time, but you were certainly hoping for something more exciting.
You sit, making yourself as comfortable as a lotus position allows, and your father gives you a solemn nod. It's a signal to start, you suppose, and you start going through the motions.
Breathe in, breathe out. Take the energy inside of you and push it, feel it flow and spread from your core out to the tips of your toes.
Something bothers you about this. It shouldn't bother you, because you should be clearing your mind and meditating, but you can't help it.
Focus on the now, let the air fill your lungs and settle your diaphragm. Take that energy and pull it back, let it swirl back into your core.
Then it hits you. Why is your father here? If all this is is meditation, then how could you
not be ready? You've done exercises like this since you were two, probably. What you're doing now is essentially a very elementary chakra-control and sensing exercise, a prerequisite for the
leaf concentration exercise, of all things. It's not dangerous and it shouldn't need supervision, most certainly not for you.
Push the breath out, not from the chest but from the stomach. Pull a new one in, fresh, brisk and tingling in the morning air. Let your chakra circulate through your body, rippling and clear. Turn your senses out
, feel the pulse and the rhythm of the world around you—
You feel something. It's the barest flicker of activity but you know it's there, a little wispy flare of foreign chakra-nature that you can't quite identify. It's gone as soon as you notice it, but you're looking for it now, senses sharp and alert, searching and waiting.
A moment passes, an eternity of concentration and momentous silence.
In, out, in, out.
And suddenly the air is thick with a swirling storm of blinding energy, a roiling cloud of sound and light and feeling that drowns out the world. You're caught up in it, swept along the current of its course. You gasp and your eyes snap open, but around you is only blind darkness and an impossibly crushing weight of chakra, roaring around you and
through you like an avalanche, sweeping away your thoughts and knowledge and memories, baring your soul to the howling mercy of the star.
For a moment there is everything, and then there is nothing, so
much nothing, an endless pure-black void of it. But you know something is missing, something you don't quite get. It's a test, you realize suddenly. There is something to learn here, if only you knew how to grasp it. Something behind the veil, beneath the yawning emptiness that engulfs you and reaches as far as your eyes can see. But what?
Then you feel it; a little thread tugging at the corner of your soul. Part of you
always knew what to do, you suppose, since the day you came into this world. A familiar understanding unfolds inside you. This is what you were born to do.
Your eyes have been open this whole time, but that was never the problem. Now you open your soul, your mind, your spirit, and you
See.
===
The stars twinkle above you, a million blazing jewels piercing the darkness, more vivid and brilliant than you have ever seen—you, who have lived and grown in a village named for its starscape.
A pale man stands before you. He has your eyes.
"Watch," he says, his voice a deep, mellifluous whisper. "See what came before. See what follows."
Now you stand no longer on an empty plain, but a battlefield. Ninjutsu blooms around you in gouts of elemental fury, water smashing rock and lightning parting fire. You are surrounded by the clangor of clashing blades, the agony of the wounded, the brutal din of war. It smells of burnt flesh and desperation and death…
And in the distance an impossible thing moves, huge and silhouetted against a crimson moon, the unholy union of a lamprey and an alien shellfish. It rears back on too-human limbs, gaping maw addressing the sky, and its roar echoes across the battlefield around you, shattering the earth and all the things upon it, drowning the world in flame.
In the wake of that roar is only silence and emptiness.
===
It's over as suddenly as it began: you find yourself lying on your back in the clearing, a ringing in your ears, your vision swimming with stars, sucking in air in wheezing ragged gulps. Your father is hunched over you, a hand on your pulse.
He looks concerned.
He says something—is it your name? You can't tell—and you can feel his arms around your waist as he hoists you up.
"I'm fine," you want to say between gasps, but you can't quite get your muscles to cooperate. Everything is bleary and sticky and
slow. It feels like drowning in a sea of fuzzy grey. You only manage to keep it together for a few more seconds before everything blurs away into oblivion.
===
"Is it… normal? To have that happen?" you ask. It's not clear you're asking the right question, but the wrong answer is better than
no answer… probably.
Your father is in the kitchen with you, cutting vegetables. Today is the first time he's been home for
months. It's also the first time you've seen him doing something so domestic since… well, you're not even sure.
"It is not. Your reaction is the strongest that I have seen." He pauses, and you can see the faintest inkling of a smile pass over his face. "But normalcy is hardly the greatest of virtues. The star grants knowledge and power commensurate to the depth of one's connection with it."
A pause; he sweeps the bits of carrot into a waiting bowl, to start on a new one.
"The first time that connection is made is always the worst. That yours was as bad as it was… it is telling of the heights you might one day reach."
You hold his gaze for a few seconds before he turns back to his kitchen-work.
"I have a question, Father," you say, after a pause.
"And perhaps I will have an answer," he returns. The air is filled with the dull tattoo of his knife against the chopping board.
"When Akahoshi left your office, he seemed unhappy."
"That isn't a question, Kana-chan," he says. "But, hmm, why do
you think he was unhappy?"
You've considered this at length. You're vaguely aware Akahoshi dislikes you and your father, but he's always been subtle about it, and you've never seen him so… openly express his distaste for you or anyone else. Something significant must have happened recently to set him off like that. And considering its obvious relevance to Takeo, the list of possibilities was very narrow indeed.
"I think Akahoshi wanted his son to receive the same opportunity to council meetings that I was presented," you say, a little bit more stiffly than you'd intended.
"Ah. And why would he want that?"
"Conferring that privilege is a signal for the intended heir. Having experience with council meetings is a big advantage for a prospective clan head, so this signals your intention as to who
you wish to see as your successor. Akahoshi wishes his own son to succeed you as head of the clan rather than me." You pause in thought. "But that doesn't quite explain it."
"Oh? Elaborate," says your father, arching an eyebrow.
"Were it not for me, his son would be heir to your position. That's a good reason for him to dislike me, but it's not a very good reason for him to do so openly. He's not a fool; he wouldn't be so obvious unless he thought he could act on it."
Your father looks surprised and amused in equal measure. "Indeed he isn't."
There's a missing link here, something you're not quite grasping. You fumble for it for a moment, but nothing comes to you. "The leadership of the clan passes by blood. This has been established for
generations. He has no case unless he plans on leading a coup."
"Well, I hardly believe he would go
quite so far," says your father, chuckling a little. "Whatever else kind of man he may be, Akahoshi's loyalty to the village and the clan have never been in question."
"Then what does he
want?"
Your father scrapes the contents of the cutting-board into the bowl again before dumping the whole thing into a pot.
"That's the question, isn't it?" He pauses briefly, stirring the contents of the pot on the stove, making a thoughtful humming noise. "Your analysis was very good, Kana-chan. But you missed one thing."
"One thing?"
"Yes. In short, you are the first clan heir to be both an only child
and a daughter. The precedent on this matter is… lacking."
Oh. You hadn't even
considered that.
"But isn't there plenty of precedent on the heir being descended from the previous clan head?"
"Some believe that male children have stronger claims than female ones. That the previous instances only demonstrate the succession of
sons."
That's got to be one of the sillier things you've heard, and you're an eight-year-old who spends most of her time with a ten-year-old.
"You shouldn't concern yourself too much over it, Kana-chan," says your father. "Some believe it, but most do not. Akahoshi's position is weaker than he believes. And even if you and Takeo had equal grounds for succession… you are exceptional, and he is not."
"Thank you, Father," you say.
===
"You're really a growing girl, aren't you, Kana-chan?" asks Hotarubi-sensei, completely earnestly.
His timing with regards to your chewing is excellent. All you manage around the mouthful of food is an irritated "Mmf".
"He's saying you eat a lot," says Ikki, helpfully.
You consider giving him a rude gesture, but you're pretty sure Hotarubi-sensei would disapprove, so you settle for punching him in the shoulder instead.
Ikki is undeterred. "How are you so hungry anyways? What did you even do today?"
You finally manage to swallow.
"I was
training, Ikki."
"Yes, Kana-chan's meditation was very exhausting today," says Hotarubi-sensei, sipping from a cup of tea.
"Meditation?" asks Ikki, with a little bit of surprise. "You mean, sitting-down-and-thinking-about-breathing meditation? Doesn't-really-involve-any-physical-activity-at-all meditation? That kind of meditation?"
"Chakra shaping is
hard work, okay? It's
not just sitting there doing nothing," you huff.
"It sure looks like it though," says Ikki. You punch him again, a little harder this time, and manage to draw a little yelp, before helping yourself to another bowl of curry and rice.
"Well, before anyone gets hurt, I should admit that there's an ulterior motive for me treating you two tonight," says Hotarubi-sensei.
Well, that much should have been obvious. He clearly wanted to talk about something.
"First of all, congratulations to both of you on a successful mission. Your performance was exemplary."
Hm. Is this about something
serious? You pause your eating for a bit.
"I think, as far as away missions go, this one went about as well as anybody could have wanted. A lot better than
my first, at any rate."
It's a good point. There was technically fighting, yes, but you were able to talk your way through a lot more than you'd expected, and nobody had really gotten hurt.
"But," he continues. "Good mission or no, I want to make sure both of you know that if you ever need anything, ever need to talk about anything, that's why I'm here."
You and Ikki nod.
"So what was your first mission like?" asks Ikki, after a long pause.
"It was… different. It was the Second War, then, and I think many of the villages were hurting for manpower. Hoshi wasn't… as invested as others, but we sent our share out to die."
He looks up, fixated on some faraway point behind you. You're indoors so you know there's nothing there.
"Natsuhi and I were set to patrol duties on the Ame front with two teams from Suna. It was supposed to be a relatively safe mission, separated from where the action was. Safe is pretty relative when you're fighting a war, though."
"You got attacked."
"We got attacked. Just a scouting cell, really. A few squads, mostly chuunin, older than us but not by much. We were told to let nobody through, so we didn't."
He sighs, swills his tea in the cup.
"We got through it with no casualties."
"Did you… kill someone?" asks Ikki.
"I did."
"Was it hard?"
"I didn't regret it. Still don't. It was me or him. My life or his. And when it comes down to it, I'm a pretty selfish person." He gives a wry little smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I'd rather his village grieve than mine. I'd rather have a future for
my family than his."
"I thought you couldn't have children," says Ikki.
"Ikki-kun, now is
not an appropriate time to bring that up," you say, more than a little harshly.
Hotarubi-sensei looks like he wants to laugh but manages to keep it under control. "No, it's quite fine. I accepted a long time ago that Natsuhi and I will never be parents."
A pause, again, with more swilling of tea.
"But being out there teaches you is that family isn't just blood," he says. "It's who you're close to, who you trust, who you can depend on. It's your
team."
Hotarubi-sensei is actually
technically related to you too, but, you know, it's the idea that counts.
"Thank you for the confidence," you say.
"I already have a dad," says Ikki, at the same time.
You roll your eyes. Some things don't change.
===
Different people describe chakra in different ways. For some, it flows, a cool liquid flow that rushes through their veins. For others, it's the bubbling warmth of sunlight, or the smoldering heat of embers, or the crackling surge of lightning.
For you, it's the weight of
substance. Your chakra is solid, firm but pliant, shaping with equal ease the unpredictable caprice of wind and the reliable heaviness of earth. But while you've always been good at shaping and controlling your chakra, what you're trying now is something entirely different, entirely new, and entirely too difficult.
But some would say that difficult things are the only things worth doing.
You shove chakra through your system again, emulating seals to the best of your ability. Hand seals existed primarily as a way to assist in chakra mixing and shaping: by percolating chakra through the pathways in one's hands, arms, and fingers, a ninja could force the production of certain patterns that could be combined to greatly ease the execution of any single ninjutsu.
In theory, then, to use a ninjutsu
without the hand seals is simple enough. Tiger first, a heavy upwelling, gradually rising in intensity. Hare next, a flighty series of blips terminated by a pause. Then boar: a single big spike
—whoops.
You lose it again, and your chakra dissipates pointlessly back into your coils.
Hotarubi-sensei is nothing but patient. You're very thankful of this.
"No, no, draw it out," he says. "You're spiking your chakra too hard, the boar seal forces a
pulse."
You nod, start over again. A
pulse, not a spike. Right. Back through the motions. Tiger—a crescendo. Hare—a staccato. Boar—a… tenuto? Is that what it's called? And, shi— ...shoot, there it goes again.
"You need to hold it a little longer than that. Steadiness is important, so try not to fluctuate the intensity so much."
Okay, try again, from the start. Tiger and hare, easy. Now boar again, do it slow, do it steady… and... there! You did it! And, wait, what was the last seal again?
You flush a little in embarrassment as the collected chakra for the technique once again bleeds away uselessly.
"The last seal is Dog," says Hotarubi-sensei helpfully.
(+7xp to ninjutsu. Ninjutsu is now rank 16!)
===
The council meeting takes place around a big round table in a high-ceilinged conference room by the Hoshikage's office. It's a surprisingly small affair—besides the two representatives of each clan there's only a stenographer and a few aides. You're unsurprised to see all three clan heads among the representatives. You
are a little surprised to see Akahoshi here, though, although you suppose it would be strange if he weren't. He's an important and well-known figure in the clan, after all. To your relief, he makes no acknowledgment of your presence.
As an observer to the proceedings, you're sat down in a chair against the wall. Your role is purely non-participatory, and you suppose the physical separation is to cut down on the temptation to blurt out things in the heat of the moment.
Which, for what it's worth, is a temptation you've managed to fully, 100%, completely and totally quash, despite how heated these last few moments have gotten. The council meeting had opened with a few relatively uncontroversial trade and civil matters, but it seems like the central attraction and hot-button issue is now on the table.
The head of the Azuma clan, Azuma Hiroki, is speaking at the moment. He's a slender, well-dressed, almost effeminate man, who punctuates his flowery words with flowery gestures.
"With all due respect, Yoshiro-san: committing to military action would starve our economy. Commerce is the lifeblood of our village. No merchant will want to travel through the region if we turn it into a warzone. This plan will be disastrous for all of us."
This argument doesn't surprise you. The Azuma are merchants, after all; Hiroki's priorities have always been gold and prosperity.
"You would have us stay silent? Simply ignore our allies in need?" roars the burly giant across from him. Koizumi Yoshiro is Hiroki's polar opposite: heavy-set and bearded, a combatant par excellence, but loud, brusque, and unsubtle in spades.
"Suna does not yet require our aid. And we already benefit them greatly through trade."
"We made an
alliance, not a trade agreement!"
"Yoshiro-san is right, of course. What we have with Suna is an alliance. But need I remind the members of this council that it is an alliance that has not yet been invoked?" He casts his gaze around the council chamber. "And it may never be. Trade through Hoshi is rather valuable for Suna; perhaps more so than opening another front in the war."
"Yoshiro-san, Hiroki-san, I believe the matter is hardly as urgent as you are making it out to be." Surprisingly, Akahoshi is the one who speaks for the Mitsui, and not your father. "There is no war, as of yet. There are no fronts. This plan is based on hypotheticals that may never come to pass."
"Y
ou of all people are advocating for more waiting? I never thought I'd see the day!" Yoshiro says.
"Please don't misunderstand my intentions, Yoshiro-san," says Hiroki. "I support the defense of our village and our honor as much as any man. I oppose only our escalation. We should seek not to be the aggressors, both for the sake of our reputation and our prosperity."
Yoshiro looks like he has some choice words, but manages to fight it down. "Well," he says, glancing from side to side for support. "Very well, then."
"If the deliberation has concluded on this topic, shall we record that the council advises discretion on this matter?" your father finally says, and everyone murmurs their agreement.
"Very good. The next matter for deliberation: the Azuma clan's proposal of reduced merchant fees on iron and steel. Hiroki-san, you have the floor."
"Again," muttered Yoshiro, loudly enough for you to hear.
Hiroki speaks, another deliberation, and the meeting drones on.
===
Between all the other commitments and goals you've set for yourself, it's almost the end of the month before you manage to finally make sense of the scroll your father's left you. The chakra exercises contained within are difficult to grasp, but they're… transformative, you finally understand the principle behind them.
What have you learned?
[] advanced shape control techniques, allowing you to more quickly collect and form the chakra needed for advanced ninjutsu. Gain +1 chakra control.
[] high-level body reinforcement exercises, providing you more effective ways to instinctively augment your strength and speed with chakra. Gain +1 taijutsu.
[] exotic chakra suppression techniques, allowing you to evade detection by chakra sense. Gain +1 stealth.
When you finally demonstrate what you've learned to your father, it's with a sense of great accomplishment and vague pleasant satisfaction at having conquered a milestone you know to have been difficult. You know on some level that it's simply what's expected of you, but sometimes the small victories are the important ones.
The remaining few days of the month pass in a seeming blink of the eye, and before you know it you're standing in the mission office.
It's time for another mission. It's:
[] Corporate Espionage: A glassmaker in Iwa believes one of his competitors has been paying bandits to raid his caravans and warehouses. He wishes you to break into said competitor's offices, and find proof of this malfeasance, preferably undetected.
[] Bump in the Night: Someone (or something) has been murdering the livestock of a nearby village during the night-time, and the citizens are understandably afraid. They've put in a request for someone to handle the situation.
[] Another Routine Patrol. Somebody's gotta do it. The roads and forests aren't gonna watch themselves.
)
