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TXY: SEARCH FOR GERO SAN-NIN!! (edited, expanded draft) - classicdrogn - 07-30-2005
txy02.txt
20050727 - created text file
20050729 - training/mission start, we have plot sign! Draft posted for comment.
20050803 - travelling, meet Two Gees Gang, draft post edited with new bits.
20060112 - discarded Gin and Gomaru intro, got through Jiraya scene. Will throw them straight in.
(ch1 is at the top of page 1)
It had been a month now since they'd graduated, and Naruto almost wondered if it had been worth the trouble - well, not really, but the three genin had trained together almost as much as academy students, and at least then when Gai-sensei had a mission and couldn't join them they didn't have to join *him* painting houses or mowing lawns or catching poor Tora, the Fire daimyo's wife's cat *again* to be returned to the Hell of Smothering Tight Hugs.
Well, he thought there was a hell like that, anyway. He'd been chased away by some older kids the one time he'd ever tried to go to one of the temples during a festival, but he knew there were lots of weird hells, like the Hell of Whirling Blades and the Hell of Inverted Sinners and the Hell of Howling Winds - various adults had told him to go to most of them at one time or another, and he'd had too much experience with smothering hugs since he'd met his super-fuzzy-face sensei. At least those weren't caused by malice, just excessive excitement.
These thoughts had carried him through the somewhat dull routine of setting up some lightweight posts for the morning's training with Lee and Rikou while they waited for Gai to get their assignment for the afternoon. They'd gotten the process refined to a smooth system by now - Naruto would pick out a straight, arm-thick branch about the right length, Rikou would trim off all the twigs and leaves with a pair of blades attached to the ends of her silk rope, then Lee would break it off of the parent tree with a solid kick and Naruto would carry it back to the clearing, where Rikou would blast a narrow hole in the ground with the water-type counterpart to his Katon no Jutsu and, finally, Lee would slam it down into place before they went to get another.
Once they'd gotten a dozen or so of them set in a loose circle, all three would get a turn at jumping from one to the next all the way around before having a three-way spar where anyone who got knocked off the posts had to wait for a count of twenty before jumping back in. That much had been in the instructions Gai had given when they started doing the exercise each day, but they'd quickly added Self Rules as well - today, for example, Lee declared, "For this match, I shall stand only on my right leg, and if I'm knocked down I'll do left-leg squat-thrusts until the time limit passes!"
"Okay!" the blond enthused, his usual cheerful nature reasserting itself. "Well today I'll use only kicks, and if anyone can knock me down I'll do handstand push-ups until I get to come back!"
Rikou tightened the knots where she'd replaced the daggers on her cord with similarly shaped, blunt weights for training. "YEAH!" she shouted, charged up with their collective enthusiasm. "I'm going to hold the kirigakure no jutsu for the whole fight, and if I fall it's BACKFLIPS!"
The two boys gasped, knowing how much she hated doing flips. They tended to loosen the bun she wore her hair in, even with four large pins to hold it. "Such dedication," Lee murmured, his eyes sparkling with re-doubled youthful spirit, while Naruto treated her to his best Nice Guy pose.
Oddly, Rikou always seemed to get a bit flushed when he did that, and sometimes her breath would catch, but when he'd asked her if he was doing it wrong she'd said no, it was just perfect and to please do it more. So he did, chalking it up to girl-weirdness. She shifted her hips and gave him a sultry grin before hopping up to the nearest pole and forming the hand seals to use Kirigakure no Jutsu, the basis of her mother's family technique (jutsu name meaning 'impenetrable mist' or fog or impervious or blinding or ship-wrecking).
Rikou had much better chakra control than Naruto, but her biggest challenge as a ninja was maintaining that control when she was struck, so maintaining the Kirigakure at a constant level where it would feel and taste as damp as the genjutsu element of the refined technique would make enemies experience while still keeping it it thin enough the she and her team mates could see and distinguish each other by their bright outfits was a perfect Self Rule to practice. Doing that while also using chakra to stick her feet to the post with the tree-climbing technique Gai-sensei had taught them just added to the challenge!
With twin cries of excitement the boys joined her at the tops of the poles, and the battle began in earnest as the first edge of the sun peered over the horizon to light up the mist. It was really quite beautiful, the brightly-dressed girl thought as her weighted cord twirled and lashed out like a demented serpent, only barely avoided as Lee hopped and flipped over Naruto to another pole.
Bewilderbeast Studios Presents
TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! SEARCH FOR GERO SAN-NIN!!
As usual, Maito Gai was the first person through the door after the ANBU assignments had been distributed, and Sarutobi had already set aside a pair of scrolls in anticipation. One was a normal mission scroll, the other held closed by his personal seal. Sandaime smiled tolerantly as the jounin landed in his customary Nice Guy pose, greeting, "'Good morning. A quadruple flip today? You must be getting used to the new weights."
"YOSH!" Konoha's most excitable ninja cheered, eyes aflame with youthful passion. "I shall have to create a new pair, with the gravity seal set for six hundred and FIFTY pounds! No, six hundred and SEVENTY!" he shouted, pumping a fist. "I will do it this very afternoon, as soon as my excellent students have completed today's mission with youth and spirit!"
The Hokage hummed, and drew on his pipe. He savored the rich south-coast blend for a moment, then puffed a double smoke ring and spoke. "Your team has shaped up well, then. That's good, Gai-kun. Do you think they are ready for a mission outside the village?" The mission reports on Team Six's progress had been uniformly positive, even when translated from Gai-ese, but he always preferred to leave such decisions to the sensei involved when he could. It was partly a mark of trust in his subordinates judgment and partly the fact that even though he tried to get to know all of the ninja under his care, they were the ones working together day in and day out.
"Oooooooh!" The ebon-haired sensei crowed, manly tears of pride cascading down his cheeks. "HOKAGE-SAMA! I am so moved by your faith in the SHINING ENERGY of Team Explosive Youth! My precious students will accomplish any assignment with the POWER of their BRILLIANT SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH!!"
Again, not an answer that came as a surprise. Sarutobi adjusted his squared-off hat and slid the scrolls across the desk, the C-Rank wrapper of the mission scroll plainly obvious. "As you can see, the mission has been rated higher than D-Rank, but mainly because it is likely to take two to three weeks rather than due to any exceptional danger. I immediately thought of your team because speed is of high importance. You should hold off on the new weights until afterward, and have your students leave theirs behind until the message scroll is delivered. I'll add an extra mission allowance for them to purchase new equipment at the destination."
Gai brushed his eyes dry, bowed over the scrolls crutched tight to his chest. "You're so GENEROUS, Hokage-sama!" he cried, before vanishing in a puff of chakra smoke.
Sarutobi grinned again at the man's antics, then signaled for the next waiting shinobi to be sent in.
---=- + -=---
When Gai poofed into existence at the training ground, he found his charges still hard at work in the sun-touched mist, Lee hopping and flipping from one post to the next as he avoided Rikou's furious assault, attacking across the full width of the circle with the long, weighted cord.
Naruto was on the ground, doing two handstand push-ups for each second as he counted them off, "18, 19, 20, dattebayo!" He flipped down to his feet and then formed the seal for a bunshin as he leapt again, one heading for Lee on the right, one for Rikou on the left, and one straight across to the far side of the circle. One of the kunoichi's weights sailed through that last, the puff of smoke invisible in the mist as it was disrupted, while the one heading for the Proud Green Beast dissolved on its own after he dodged out of the way. Rikou's second cord was already wrapping around her real team mate, but too late - the blond's snap kick knocked her off her perch and set himself spinning to unwind the flat silk binding. Coming to a perch on a post next to the one she'd been occupying, he bounced exuberantly and crowed, "YEAH! Got'cha back!"
"You should WATCH your back," the bowl-cut boy reminded helpfully, even as he landed a kick to the side of Naruto's post and sent him flailing, to fall right in Rikou's arms as she was climbing to her feet. He bounced back from the springy, greenwood post, reaching overhead to grab the one he had rebounded towards and vault to the top.
After making sure Naruto's face had been in place long enough for him to realize where she was holding it, Rikou let the struggling genin disentangle himself and get into another handstand, obviously trying to pretend the blood had rushed to his cheeks from being upside down. "He's so cute when he's like that," she thought to herself, forming a short burst of hand seals before beginning her own series of backflips. Feeling the faint tingle across her scalp, the Maito heiress called out excitedly, "YOSH! Kunoichi Ninpo: Koyonaigamigata no Jutsu ... SUCCESS!!" No matter how boldly she expressed the explosive energy of her glorious springtime of youth, she'd never have to worry about looking bad while doing it! The sheer joy of it was enough to buoy her up and do a double backflip on the count of twelve.
Not to be left out, Lee jumped down on his own, and began another series of squat-thrusts.
Wiping new tears of pride from his eyes, Gai waited for the genin to complete their forfeits before teleporting again, appearing in a puff of smoke atop one of the poles. "AN EXCELLENT BATTLE, MY STUDENTS!" he bellowed, "Your youthful spirit has brought tears to my eyes! Alas, I must sadly announce that our usual morning practice is impossible for the next while, but DO NOT DESPAIR!" He leapt down form the pole, landing in another action-hero pose before continuing, "The burning passion of your springtime of youth shall NOT be ignored! We will be forgoing it only because our wise and generous Hokage has assigned a long-term mission to Team Explosive Youth!"
One glance at the mission scroll his sensei was brandishing was enough to have the hyperactive blond hopping around and shouting his excitement to the world. "YEAH! YEAH! C-RANK MISSION! And next, B-Rank, and A-Rank, and S-Rank, and then I'll be Hokage and surpass all previous Hokages IN MY FLOWERING SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH! DATTEBAYO!" He bounced off an overhanging bough and homed in on the powerposing jounin, talking uncommon initiative in wrapping the man in a tacklehug. "OH GAI-SENSEI! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GETTING US A COOLER MISSION!"
Their own excited cries echoing across the training field, Lee and Rikou latched on from the sides, all four taking several minutes to recover themselves.
---=- + -=---
Gai was in what might be called 'serious mode' as the team collected again at the villiage gates, each carrying a backpack. The lack of training weights on her calves left Rikou with a tan line, and even the boys jumpsuits were a bit darker on the lower legs, since they wore the weights continually except to wash and for two hours of their training each day to practice moving without them. He gave each only a breif arm-clasp as they arrived, then checked over their equipment. Finding everything in order - if a bit heavy on the instant ramen for Naruto, but if the boy wanted to challenge himself with just a LITTLE extra weight, who was Gai to dissuade him? He did make Lee dump about half of the rocks in his pack, though - the bowl-cut jounin took his customary explanation pose to go over the assignment details.
"The mission that Hokage-sama has entrusted to Team Explosive Youth will require your top speed," he reminded them, explaining, "We will be searching for a certain man to deliver a top secret scroll! He was last seen near the seaside town of Kirika, on the Taimatsu Peninsula, and since many people vacation on the beach there this time of year, he should still be nearby." The usual enthusiastic expression on his super-fuzzy face turned stern for a moment as Gai instructed, "This mission, it has a strict time limit. Even if we meet bandits or enemy nins, the first priority is to keep going, without spending time on a fight."
Lee nodded seriously, taking notes in his little book, but Naruto kicked at the ground in disgust and scoffed, swinging his pack by one strap in irritation. Rikou, snuggled up to the blond boy's back, shot a frown at her father over his shoulder, then heaved a sigh after it. "Moooooou, SENSEI..." he complained, trying to ignore the warm, soft girl against his back (and espescially those and his imagination has to be running away with him because his jacket's too thick to feel that and it's just Rikou being huggy again and he's talking to Gai-sensei about the mission, dammit!) "How can we prove our strength as ninja if we run away from the fight? That's too uncool!"
Suddenly, Gai had replaced Rikou, and was delivering a power-noogie instead of a snuggle. "FOOL!" he scolded. "Knowing when the mission outweighs a battle is the MOST IMPORTANT strength of a ninja! To remember, you must do five hundred one-arm pushups with each arm as soon as we arrive!" Just as suddenly released, the blond staggered against his kunoichi team mate, who'd appeared off-balance in front of him when the jounin had used kawarimi to switch places with her. Unable to maintain his anger, the older man swept both of them into a crushing hug, proclaiming, "EVEN THOUGH IT'S WRONG, I STILL FORGIVE YOU MY STUDENT, FOR THE EAGER SPIRIT OF YOUTH IS WHAT DRIVES YOU! OOOOOOOH!"
"OH, GAI SENSEI!" Lee exclaimed, piling on from the other side. "YOU'RE SO MAGNANIMOUS!"
Naruto and Rikou may have made positive noises, or may have been merely praying to the Kami of the Breathing Miracle. They were turned loose before going completely blue, however, and after a few gasps the foxy blond shouldered his backpack and asked, "Hey, hey, sensei, who are we looking for, anyway? You didn't tell us what he looks like or anything!"
"The man we are searching for has not been in Konoha for many years," Gai explained seriously, "but he has been seen wearing (a dark green shirt and pants, with a red vest and sandals, iirc), carries a large scroll on a shoulder strap, and has long, spiky white hair. He is... Jiraya, frog summoner of the Leaf's Legendary Three!" Pointing dramatically out through the open gate, he commanded, "TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!!" There were four muted booms like distant thunder as the team pushed off, literally leaping to full speed and raising a cloud of dust. The gate guard on duty muttered a curse on over-enthusiastic bowl-heads as it subsided, then used a doton jutsu to smooth out the deep footprints left behind in the path.
---=- + -=---
They'd had to stop for rest at night and (breifly) every so often during the daylight hours, of course, because as conditioned as they were, the kids were still rookie genin. Even so, they were closing in on a destination most ninja would call a week away after only four days, and it was barely mid-afternoon. Gai had gone to scout ahead while his subordinates refilled thier canteens at a small stream and munched granola bars. They hadn't spoken much during the trip, and what little conversation they'd made was conducted in hushed whispers, words distorted by avoiding the sibilants that would carry more easily to alert possible enemies to their presence.
That fact might have suprised someone who only knew the boisterous personalities Gai and his charges usually presented, but he hadn't achieved the Elite Jounin rank without understanding the concept of field discipline and - since part of their objective was to avoid confrontations anyway - he'd made a stealth drill part of the excercise. Naruto was now up to one thousand one-armed push ups on each arm, 1500 sit ups, and six hundred squat-thrusts due on arrival as penalty for forgetting to keep his voice down, Rikou only slightly less, and Lee almost half again as many more. Still, even he'd finally gotten the hang of it, and as his idol appeared the bowl-cut wearing genin contented himself with springing to his feet with open arms and shining eyes.
Momentarily overcome with pride at their progress, Gai shared a quick hug with his younger doppleganger, then stepped back to give them all a thumbs-up, super-bushy moustache twitching as he fought to keep from showing a smile that could give away their position with the telltale glint of reflected sunlight. Manly tears escaped the corners of his eyes as the genin followed suit, and sniffles normally hidden by exclamations of excitement echoed softly in the small clearing.
Bringing his youthful passion once more under control, Gai signalled for a huddle, murmuring seriously once the circle was complete, "A party of smugglers have infested the clearing ahead, they appear to be two groups trading contraband. We would avoid them like all others up to now, but ..." The jounin's twisted into a suprisingly firece scowl. "They are trading moonsugar, to be distilled into skooma and poison the spirited youth of Fire Country." He drew a kunai and scratched a quick sketch into the dirt, an irregular circle with two squares inside. Pointing to the larger square, he explained, "We'll make a single attack as we pass through. This is where the moonsugar crates are stacked, the other area is kegs of fire-apple whiskey. I'll go first and knock the crates in the air, Lee, you follow and smash as many open as you can bouncing between them. Rikou will be next, and perform a Suiton blast to melt the sugar in the broken crates - this stream joins another on the low side of the clearing, here, for you to draw on. Naruto, you take the rear. Throw a Katon to set the kegs alight. There are many thugs in the area, but none appear to be ninja, so there should be no pursuit, but if one of them is suprising remember that the priority is to escape and continue the mission." Looking around the circle Gai saw Lee nodding seriously, while Naruto bounced in excitement at finally getting to use some ninjutsu on this mission and Rikou watched him with a smile for how happy he seemed.
--=--
The plan had gone off without a hitch, leaving the smugglers milling about in confusion and cursing ninja brats who show up out of nowhere and vanish just as fast after ruining a deal worth thousands of ryo - apparently Gai had blazed through too quickly to be seen for more than a streak, even though he'd had to kick over a dozen large crates into the air he he'd passed. Lee had hardly been any slower, ricocheting from one to the next and flinging them back down with shattering force, but Rikou had to pause, balancing in mid-air on the jet of water as she played it across the wreckage before continuing on, and Naruto had actually landed and stood on one of the less intelligent thugs' head for his part. The prehistoric-looking enforcer had just started reachingup to feel around on his noggin and even the fastest of his fellows wese still drawing their weapons as the Orange Wildfire bounced away again, laughing madly at how pathetic the whole encounter was - he'd had tougher opposition playing pranks on the mean old guy with the vegetable stall in Konoha Market than from both gangs put together.
---=- + -=---
Team Explosive Youth split up once they reached Kirika, searching block by block after an initial sweep along the beaches, hoping to find their target before another night passed (or they'd all do 500 sprints.) Now the glorious sunset tapestry of orange and gold had faded to a thin glow on the horizon, and still they'd had no luck. Naruto's stomach rumbled louder than his footsteps as he jumped up and clung to a lamp post to survey the lightly traveled street, delicous smells of miso and noodles wafting out of a nearby restaurant.
"Well, the passionate flames of youthful spirit require a good fuel supply," he reasoned, "I'll just look for him inside while I get some food, dattebayo!" Ignoring the handful of passerby who'd stopped to point and marvel at a boy standing sideways on a lamp post, he hopped down and skipped toward the entrance, eyes screwed up with a wide foxy grin, only to run into some one coming out. The blond stumbled backwards a couple of steps before regaining his balance, and opened his mouth to curse out the old fool who'd...
"Ano sa, ano sa, what did Gai-sensei say the guy we're looking for was like again?" he asked himself, frowning in concentration. He snapped his fingers and looked closely at the bemused older man, counting the points off as he catalouged them. "Bushy white hair, yep, green top and pants, yep, red vest and sandals, big scroll, yep yep..." The orange-clad genin crossed his arms and nodded decisively. "...but a legendary ninja wouldn't have such a stupid look; must be the wrong guy. Sorry oji-san!"
The stranger's jaw dropped, eyes blank with shocked disbelief.
"Ne, if you see a ninja who looks like you, tell him there's an important message from the hidden leaf, okay?" Naruto continued, obliviously.
"Why you little..." The traveler recovered his composure, then delived a smack that left the boy rubbing his shoulder aggreivedly. Assured that he was paying attention, the white-maned man pointedly adjusted his horned hitae-ate, then took up a crane pose and announced, "I am... Legendary Frog of the Three Ninja... Jiraya-sama!" (Ore wa... Densetsu no Gero San-nin, etc.)
"Ero-sennin?" Naruto mumbled, unimpressed. Jiraya's eyebrow twitched, but before he could protest his mangled title the blonde burst into motion, jumping excitedly as he hollered, "Okay, okay! Now I'LL introduce myself!" Coming down into a crouch, he hurtled up into the air, at least twenty five feet by the older man's experienced eye. Forming a tiger seal, the boy blasted off a pair of Katons, one upward to signal his team mates, the other down to light a short-lived bonfire in the street to pose in front of as he landed. "Like an erupting volcano, the Leaf's Blazing Orange Wildfire, Uzumaki Naruto has arrived, dattebayo!" the blond shouted, one arm extended in a thumbs-up and the fire light glinting off of a brilliant smile.
He missed the quickly-suppressed look of shock that crossed his target's face. "Uzumaki Naruto... This is that boy?" the wandering ninja thought, deciding, "This should be interesting."
---=- + -=---
"Before we left Ice Country, we were due to become jounin! Some brats making trouble out of school... It may be too much for ordinary guys, but we'll kill you instantly!"
---=- + -=---
Message scroll is from a spy in Gatou Group, says some new, super-ninja-tools are being moved through Fire, gang is just thugs/not ninja. Training and info gathering, then Jiraya and TXY intercept but it turns into a ninja battle after all - dropouts too weak to merit listing as nukenin who become a threat due to the movie-type chakra armor they use, having opened the shipment. Jiraya was called on because he's in the area and is Leaf's expert on foreign techniques and equipment after wandering around for decades.
Gin and Gomaru - sister and brother, new additions to the Two Gees. Snow-country nuke-nin who want to steal the chakra armor for themselves.
---=- + -=---
(Would you like to know more?)
W.ms: Z ret Nd swd, acc K (HM prst, rep: Aoi stl wh def to M & Nu-Nnjanai, off hired by G)
===========================
Kunoichi Ninpo: (perfect hair) no Jutsu - quoth Nathan, "(I saw a Genin drinkin' a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's...) Koyonaigamigata no Jutsu. I think. (Awoooooo...)" A chakra hair-net, and so much more - Ino used a variation on it to trap Sakura in the canon Chuunin Exams.
Taimatsu - noun, (pine) torch, flambeau, torchlight. The peninsula belonging to Fire Country which extends to the south, across a gulf from the Wind coast and southwest of Water Country. Not yet named in canon, and some maps show the gulf as landmass - the one seen onscreen has it as water, and that's what I went with.
Gero San-nin - 'gero' (pronounced with a hard g) is one of the words for 'frog,' probably an onomatopoeia for croaking. Naruto calling Jiraya 'Ero-sennin' is a pun on that and his peeping, while 'sennin' is hermit and 'san-nin' is 'three ninja.' Jiraya is the frog summoner of the Legendary Three, so it's actually a double pun.
Moonsugar and skooma are from the Bethesda Software's RPG Morrowind, though with the amount of moonsugar you find in various smuggler camps in that game it has to be easier to procure than I've made it here - this version has to be collected from small, white, snowbell-like flowers that bloom in early spring in Lightning Country. On its own it's a very sweet-tasting stimulant with mild mood-altering properties, but when distilled as skooma to be boiled and inhaled it is a strongly addictive, hallucinogenic stimulant especially popular with upper middle class and noble teens and young adults. Gai loathes it and anyone involved in its production or distrobution.
------------------------------------------------
Tales from the cutting room floor:
There was considerably less merriment when word of the hit-and-run got back to Kirika - those Lightning Country bastards had haggled long and hard over the deal, an entire season's collected moonsugar for the specialty liquor so prized in that cold northern penninsula. While hardly a fatal blow when the Two Gees Gang existed purely to be a front for those dealings of the multinational Gatou Trading Group that fell outside Fire Country law, it would still put a big dent in revenues for the vacation season, when hordes of late teens and early twenty-somethings flocked to the Kirika area and its beaches.
That didn't mean it was all that good for his personal well being, however, the Two Gees boss reflected. He was overseeing a different transaction himself at the moment, to prevent any more screw ups - a very special shipment had arrived. He signed off on the manifest - not that it bore any relation to the actual cargo, of course - after prying open the two coffin-sized crates and checking their contents.
CUT! Take two...
(name), leader of the Two Gees, was decidedly less amused when he heard the story - those Lightning bastards had been trouble enough to set up a deal with the first time. Sure, the organization wouldn't be brought down by one deal gone bad - not with their sponsor - but his personal health could be a different question if the situation wasn't quickly dealt with.
"Damn smartass ninja brats!" he complained, the dock workers unloading his latest, very special shipment giving the boss a wide berth. The problem was that legitimate ninja were both expensive to hire and generally supported the laws of the major countries, while the Two Gees avoided hiring missing nin because they tended to attract those same legitimate ninja in the form of hunter squads... But to deal with troublesome ninja, even just kids, required getting better ninja of his own. He cursed fluently and pulled out a handkerchief as a seagull dropping landed on the shoulder of his expensive business suit, wiping at it ineffectually in hopes of preventing a permanent stain.
"Allow me," an unfamiliar, feminine voice said, intruding on his tantrum. Dropping the wadded kercheif, (boss) turned to see a pale, dark eyed woman in grey and white, an unfamiliar snowflake insignia on her hitae-ite marred by the all too familiar slash of a nuke-nin. A similar looking man was walking down the gangplank and tucking a money pouch into his jumpsuit beyond her, and the austere beauty raised an eyebrow, then at his nod, cupped a hand near the offending organic matter, which floated away from the fabric to gather in a hovering ball.
Um, no. Cut!
...better ninja of his own.
Hence, the two nuke-nin standing across from his desk. They were brother and sister, pale and dark of eye and hair, wearing white and grey jumpsuits with the distinct look of having been designed to go over more layers than the pair were currently wearing - no surprise there, with their scored Hidden Snow hitae-ate.
They'd been hired on the sly as extra protection by the captain of a ship that had just made a special run from that far-off country. Ordinarily, anything from Snow Country would go to Lightning and then directly to the Wave via caravan and short-haul shipping, but this cargo woud be too tempting to their supposed partners, and there was always the possibility of being boarded by a team of "customs inspectors" from Hidden Mist. No, the ship had taken a long, roundabout course that circled around the Shinobi Countries to the Fire, whose more open society and more forested terrain made moving things quietly easier, and which was only a few hours' ferry ride from the Wave.
... Oh forget it...
In the city, the Two Gees Gang boss is pissed about the deal those ninja broke up, hiring Gomaru and Gin straight off the boat to guard 'that' shipment
"Gatou-oyabun will be upset if it's interrupted."
we'll kill them instantly
"Heh... Gomaru and Gin... two more 'G's. It's a lucky sign."
END OF LINE
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TXY: SEARCH FOR GERO SAN-NIN!! (partial draft) - Valles - 07-30-2005
Quote:Gai-ese... *falls over laughing*
Sarutobi grinned again at the man's antics, then signalled for the next waiting shinobi to be sent in.
Quote:(I saw a Genin drinkin' a Pina Colada at Trader Vics...) Koyonaigamigata no Jutsu. I think. (Awoooooooo...)
After making sure Naruto's face had been in place for him to realise where she was holding it, Rikou let the struggling genin disentangle himself and get into another handstand, obviously trying to pretend the blood had rushed to his face from being upside down. "He's so cute when he's like that," she thought to herself, forming a short burst of hand seals before beginning her own series of backflips. Feeling the faint tingle across her scalp, the Maito heiress called out excitedly, "YOSH! Kunoichi Ninpo: (perfect hair) no Jutsu ... SUCCESS!!" No matter how boldly she expressed the explosive energy of her glorious springtime of youth, she'd never have to worry about looking bad while doing it! The sheer joy of it was enough to bouy her up and do a double backflip on the count of twelve.
And heh, poor Naruto.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
TXY! - Foxboy - 07-30-2005
It's going to be fun once we get Hinata and Rikou in their typical interactions.
So, is this going to also go to the FFML after a little more polish?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
Re: TXY! - classicdrogn - 07-30-2005
I have to get the current team dynamic worked out for sure before I add more charaters, but Hinata will probably show up as soon as they get back. Most of her and Naruto's year think he dropped out of the academy since he isn't around any more, and she hasn't happened to see him since he's training in the mornings already when shed be on her way there, and either still doing missions or training again when the Academy lets out. His mischievious tendencies have been almost entirely diverted into taijutsu and espescially ninjutsu practise, so he hasn't done anything major enoguh in that regard to be the talk of the villiage lately, either. So, Hina-chan's feeling a little depressed, even more so because no one seems to have noticed.
As for the FFML... maybe, if I ever get my furshlugginer laptop to work again so I can get at my POP email. Not much point in having someone else pass it on even if I thought it was ready at this point, when I wouldn't see any replies.
ETA:
Quote:You did notice her reaction to the Nice Guy Pose from him, too, yes?
And heh, poor Naruto.
- CD always thinks of something else ten or twenty minutes after posting, and again after that, and again after that...What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
> TXY: SEARCH FOR GERO SAN-NIN!! (partial draft) - drakensis - 07-30-2005
> So he did, chalking it up to girl-wierdness.
Weirdness
> mission scroll plainly obvious. As you can see, the
> mission has been rated higher than D-Rank, but mainly
obvious. "As
> "You're so GENEROUS, Hokage-sama!" he creid, before
cried
------------------------------------------------------
Yay, more Maito Self-Rules training!
I have to wonder though, as to where Naruto's face was. After all, since he's graduated a year early and Rikou is at least most of a year younger than he, that would make her all of, what, ten? Granted she'd almost have to be an early developer, that's still quite young. It might be better to turn that moment into another Maito Glomping Technique (as opposed to her father's Manly Hugs technique) - which at that age would probably have about that effect.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Re: > TXY: SEARCH FOR GERO SAN-NIN!! (partial draft) - classicdrogn - 07-30-2005
Quote:That was one of the things I changed, after eealising the inherent problem with her having been born after the kyuubi attack and yet a year older than Naruto (She COULD have graduated ahead of schedule, but wanted to stay with freinds her own age, and since Gai knows the difference between 'weak genin,' 'strong genin,' and 'chuunin' he didn't push in that way - all either of them care about is having her strength progress and rank keeping up with it, not the other way around) The intro was edited so that Young Gai saved Rikou's mother from an attack during the Leaf/Stone war.
I have to wonder though, as to where Naruto's face was. After all, since he's graduated a year early and Rikou is at least most of a year younger than he, that would make her all of, what, ten? Granted she'd almost have to be an early developer, that's still quite young. It might be better to turn that moment into another Maito Glomping Technique (as opposed to her father's Manly Hugs technique) - which at that age would probably have about that effect.
She's got two good handfuls, but not much more - and with her body fat percentage, she's lucky to have that much. (Her mother's side of the family is often well-endowed. Picture Kasumi Tendo with black hair and a kabuki stagehand uniform.) The Rikou in the picture I did is accurate.
Thanks for the catches! Writing on my handheld, I don't have a spellchecker, and lets just say that my stylus-tap typing is not the most accurate, so while I catch lots of stuff myself reading it over there's always a couple I don't.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - Valles - 08-03-2005
Drogn's draft:
Quote:Meets -my- draft:
Baksuta Neshan, Special Jounin of the Leaf, was just finishing his grocery shopping for the week when he heard a familiar voice call his name. Turning, he saw a tall girl, her brown hair in twin buns and dressed in a sleeveless pink top and blue knee-shorts, waving and calling to him down the street. He waited for her to catch up before continuing down it toward his home and more immediately to one of Konohagakure's many little parks, where they could sit and talk if whatever she wanted turned out to take a while. "Tenten-kun, it's nice to see you again. Getting along with your new team?" From the frustrated sound she made that might not have been the best opener for small talk, he reflected as he adjusted his glasses.
"I WISH, Neshan-sensei," the brunette sighed, after a few seconds of indistinguishable muttering. "Sasuke-san is all right I guess - I think he might have a crush on me, actually, since his ears keep turning red when I talk to him, but Sakura has resented me from the beginning, and since Kakashi-san doesn't seem to notice it she's just gotten worse since then."
He frowned slightly, and chided, "You should call him 'sensei' now, like me. Actually, I'm not your sensei any more, that was only a temporary thing since you got stuck without a team when your class graduated, and fortunately - though not so much for you - there weren't any existing teams that had lost a member at that time." Catching her uncertain look in his peripheral vision, the young-looking jounin quickly added, "That doesn't mean I don't want to help you if I can, it's just not official any more."
Resuming her train of thought, the girl explained, "He hasn't TAUGHT anything yet. In team practise he just has two of us spar and the other practise jutsu or thrown weapons, and on missions he mostly sits on a tree branch and reads while the three of us muddle along. Okay, so they've only been boring D-rank stuff like walking dogs and babysitting and cathing Tora, but you told me they're supposed to be teamwork excercises. Sasuke wanders off and does whatever, Sakura follows him like a puppy, and I have to fill in the holes... the only time he's done any leading is when we go after that stupid cat, and then he just tells us a plan without even asking if we've got one ourselves!" Realising she shouldn't be so negative about her official superior, Tenten bit her lip for a moment, before continuing more calmly, "It's just so frustrating. I'd rather have stuck with you for a while longer."
He gave a soft bark of laughter, then waved her toward the benches as they turned into the park. "I'm flattered, but you can't advance without getting experience outside the village and going through the chuunin exams, and for both of those you need a team. You told me your dream is to be a great kunoichi like Tsunade-hime, didn't you? It would be hard to do that as a genin, even if I taught you everything I know."
Tenten sighed and slouched forward, resting her chin in her hands. She scuffed the spiral insignia of the Leaf into the dirt with a foot as she glumly replied, "Yeah, I know, but right now I don't have a team, just some other genin and a jounin that I work with. Even if Orochimaru eventually became a missing-nin, the Legendary Three were still a team at first."
The tall jounin was silent for a moment, sitting with lips pursed in thought. "Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked finally.
"Yeah, well, I guess so," she replied, with a slight shrug. "It's just... the discussions we had about teamwork were better than this, and that was without having a team to practise with. I realise you can't do anything official about it, and I wouldn't want to make trouble, but it's just, well, frustrating, like I said." Tenten wiped out the pattern in the dirt with a swipe of her sandals, then pushed of the bench and bounced to her feet with a more positive expression. "Thank you for listening to me, Neshan-sensei. I trid to say it to Kakashi-sensei himself, but I wasn't sure how he'd react, even if he seems relaxed usually. I want to get along with them, really, and not just because we have to trust each other with our lives. You showed me how good it is to be freinds with your partners, and I want that for Team Seven."
"Neshan-sensei?" Tenten leaned her head in the doorframe of her former teacher's office.
He glanced up. "Eh? Oh, hey, kid. How are you?"
She stepped inside and flopped into the visitor's chair. As always, the faint 'clank' that violent motion drove from the vast array of weapons hidden across her person brought an involuntary smile to his face.
Her expression, on the other hand, was outright distressed. "My team is impossible!"
He pushed his glasses back up from where they had slid down as he labored over his paperwork and leaned forwards on his elbows. "I hate to break it to you, but Kakashi's almost more of a pain in the ass than he is a ninja. You're hardly the only person to say that about him."
"It's not just him!" she wailed, waving her hands wildly. "Sasuke's not so bad when he's holding -still-, but he's got all the cooperation skills of a shark and almost as big a stick up his ass as... as..." She paused to cast about for an appropriate description.
"As a certain Hyuuga?" Neshan prompted, starting to twirl a pen through his fingers.
She huffed. "Don't make me smack you."
He laughed, and she started ranting again. "And Sakura's nice in those once in a blue moon moments when forgets she's convinced that I'm trying to steal away her great overwhelming childhood crush-" she broke off and stabbed an accusing finger at the older ninja as he opened his mouth. "-Don't- say a -word-, you!"
He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned. "Wasn't gonna!" he lied.
"You forget - I -know- you. But even when she -isn't- glaring daggers she's still just one of Suzume-sensei's bubble-brained 'infiltration specialists' - which is a damned shame, since when she doesn't think Sasuke's around to be turned off by it she's actually pretty smart." She trailed off for a moment, then grinned. "She talks to herself, you know. When she thinks no one can hear."
"She's a Haruno. They do that. It's a bloodline thing."
"Really? And I thought she was just being strange... And informative." Her grin turned mischievious. "I don't think my hair looks like puffballs, do you?"
He blinked. "Yes."
"Creep. So we go on a mission and he charges off solo - or solo until she goes trailing after him like a duckling after her momma, and never a thought from -either- of them if its the right thing to do and if -I- try to talk them into a better plan rather than just ignoring them or following along after myself, then that... that... Hatake-BAKA tells me to 'calm down and not get so strung out'!" By the end of her complaint, she had begun to wave her arms again.
The Jounin laughed, then waved an admonishing finger at her. "Hatake-_sensei_."
She gave him a plaintive look. "Even if he's an idiot?"
"-Especially- if he's an idiot." He paused. "Which he is."
She rolled her eyes. "Is he -ever-. Even with all the trouble we three Genin have been having he just floats around with his nose in that nasty book of his and spouts off about teamwork from time to time - as though -building- that wasn't just as much -his- job as ours! - and completely ignores the fact that Sakura hates my guts and Sasuke couldn't listen if his life depended on it! The only time he actually gets off his ass and -does- something is when it's our turn to torment poor Tora!" She sighed. "I wish you were our teacher instead."
He cocked an eyebrow and gestured at his desk - which, as usual, was covered in a minimum of three layers of cheap paper and messy handwriting. "Sure, I'll take it up in my copious free time."
She blushed, since she knew that the year he had spent instructing her while she waited for an opening in a forming or existing team had come entirely out of his own limited free time - without pay. "Eheh."
He waved it off with a grin. "So you wanted to vent about the fact that your team doesn't get along?"
Tenten sighed. "Yeah. I guess... I'm just so -frustrated-, because my team is just flying apart more and more every day, and they're good people despite that and I want us to be -friends-, too, the way you and I were..."
He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Are," he said, touched. "We -are-." She didn't know quite how to respond to the way her words had obviously meant more to him than she'd expected, and eventually he folded his hands in front of him. "I'll talk to Kakashi. I can't promise anything, but..." he trailed off and shrugged.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - classicdrogn - 08-03-2005
Quote:So yah, now that I'm all humble and stuff, I'll clip that to the notes file for next chapter (Tentatively titled, Team Seven: I want to read what comes next...) and get back to the current one, then.
Drogn's draft:
(...)
Meets -my- draft:
(!!!)
- CD is very tempted to go all Lee to Nathan's Gai-senseiWhat, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - drakensis - 08-03-2005
I've been looking at some of the ages and backgrounds of characters to try to construct a Naruto timeline. Some of the things I came across are amusing - Gai is apparently a prodigy on the order of Itachi (although not as precocious as Kakashi):
Gai - Genin (age 7), Chuunin (age 11), Jounin (?)
Itachi - Genin (age 7), Chuunin (age 10)
Kakashi - Genin (?), Chuunin (age 6), Jounin (age 12)
Gai's age might need to be tweaked a little for TWY!H!, since otherwise he met Rikou's mother when he was 14 - which seems a little young by Konoha standards - most of the rookies are 25-30 years younger than their parents. Or is this the power of youth?
I'm assuming Gai made jounin around the time of the Kyuubi attack - a couple of years after Kakashi managed. Does anyone know if there's any canon information about when he was promoted? Other events I've not pinned down are when the Fourth Hokage was named and when Orochimaru was run out of Konohagakure - I'm guessing not long before Kyuubi attacked but I'm not sure."How can I be this kick ass strong?! Powerful! Handsome! Charismatic! Gorgeous! Oh, Gods... Why do you burden me with such a heavy karma!"
- Dark Schneider, Bastard!!! #20
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - classicdrogn - 08-03-2005
(shrugs) I don't rmemeber any official information on Gai, but for TXY purposes yeah, he would be a little older - but still a prodigy. He probably made jounin at around 16, at the same time as Kakashi in the finale of the war with Hidden Stone, which would put him at 19 when Rikou was born, a year before Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked. Still young by our standards, but in the middle ages that wiuld ave been waiting a long time to start a family, and with the number of ninja vs. total population seen in ninja villiages, plus the mortality rate for non-plot-immunity ninja, I would expect it to hold true for Naruto - most ninja who survve being genin become chuunin around 16-17, and or pair off and get to raising the next generation, with number of children ranging from (statistically, not literally) 1.7 to five or so - the more famous the clan or valued the bloodline, the more likely a big family and the more likely for one or both parents to have retired from active duty to take care of them. The low bottom end and high attrition means they still have to recruit a fair number of kids from non-ninja families, even though such first-generation nin tend to wind up washing out of the team-tests after graduating from the Academy and end up in the administrative track rather than on field duty, since they don't have the option of training with family or before entering the Academy, only the most talented overcoming that handicap (WITH HARD WORK AND THE BOUNDLESS ENERGY OF YOUTH! YOSH!!) ala Neshan and (changing what I said before, and possibly open to change still) Tenten (who if so would be from a weaponsmith family, and instead of a family technique her Twin Dragons Dance would be something she got from Mr. Seal Master - logically enoguh, since it's a bit of simple chakra manipulation used in an unconventional way and two mass item summoning scrolls.)
Aside from Sakura she's the only one we haven't seen older relatives of, and if having a dual self is a bloodline thing, that lets out Sakura... which begs the question of what benefit such a bloodline provides - maybe the Inner Self can direct to molding of chakra, to allow using techniques without motion or sound, using them while engaged in taijutsu to keep the enemy from having a chance to use theirs, or even two at once. Surely it can't be so common to (smirk) butt heads with the Yamanaka clan, and it certainly doesn't seem to have helped her any with normal genjutsu - she fell for Kakashi's, saw through the one at the beginning of the Chuunin Exam, got stuck runnning in circles during, then cancelled the one at the end - and both times she succeeded against one, so did several others. I suppose it could be a (lack of) training thing, but the point of a ninja clan is to train the children in certain special skills from a young age to give them an advantage as ninja, which would by definition include bloodline skills. I can at least point to her canonical excellent chakra control and say it's because Inner Sakura is doing the techniques in unison with Outer Sakura.
Which has now led to a story change - by the time Team 7 goes wherever I send them instead of to Wave Country, she will have realised that Sasuke values a girl being a strong ninja over traditionally girly behavior, adn instead of trying to show off when Kakashi does the tree-climbing by appearing to have perfect chakra control, will show off by exhibiting only average control on the tree climbing, explaining when Kakashi asks why she's suddenly so bad at it that she's not using her bloodline advantage, and then having Inner Sakura train in control by hovering a leaf on the back of each hand while she continues to try to climb the tree.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - Valles - 08-03-2005
Quote:For the genjutsu thing and Sakura's lack of practice at it, I've been planning to get around the question by saying that she's the first member of her clan in several generation to actually try and become a career ninja - so that, even if there were Haruno ninja involved in the founding of Konoha, most people -these- days think of the family as large-scale merchants... Haruno-san, Sakura's father, was, in my world, one of Gatou's major competitors, which she wasn't aware of because she was always more focused on Great-Grandfather's ninja stories... So, while the old clan techniques are still recorded, there's no one left alive who knows them - all the others either died of old age or had a bad luck day on the battlefield.
Aside from Sakura she's the only one we haven't seen older relatives of, and if having a dual self is a bloodline thing, that lets out Sakura... which begs the question of what benefit such a bloodline provides - maybe the Inner Self can direct to molding of chakra, to allow using techniques without motion or sound, using them while engaged in taijutsu to keep the enemy from having a chance to use theirs, or even two at once. Surely it can't be so common to (smirk) butt heads with the Yamanaka clan, and it certainly doesn't seem to have helped her any with normal genjutsu - she fell for Kakashi's, saw through the one at the beginning of the Chuunin Exam, got stuck runnning in circles during, then cancelled the one at the end - and both times she succeeded against one, so did several others. I suppose it could be a (lack of) training thing, but the point of a ninja clan is to train the children in certain special skills from a young age to give them an advantage as ninja, which would by definition include bloodline skills. I can at least point to her canonical excellent chakra control and say it's because Inner Sakura is doing the techniques in unison with Outer Sakura.
Your doing this is good too - it'll, mm, help distinguish the stories in the minds of an eventual audience.
Anyway, I can see another fairly major benefit to the double-mind thing - major enough that I think that it was likely the entire -point- of creating the blood limit in the first place.
Deep cover spy work. You condition and alter the outer mind until it -is- its cover... until not only can they pretend to be completely loyal in the manner that they were supposed to be, but they -believe- that that's who they are and always have been.
And the whole time, the inner mind is -still- -present-, watching and waiting and remembering -everything- it sees, undetectably.
Double-image chakra tricks, Yamanaka headaches, genjutsu busting... all that's secondary, stuff people figured out in order to make new uses for what they already had. Infiltration is the -point-.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - classicdrogn - 08-03-2005
Quote:I hadnt thought of the infiltration possibilities at all, actually - Aside from Kabuto and Orochimaru's kind of sketchy performances as Leaf genin and Kazekage (but still good enough to last HOW long undetected?) the 'ninja' of the Naruto world all seem to go for more or less direct confrontation, or at most a short-term strategy, rather than espionage per se. I'm going to intentionally break fanon by giving her a large and active ninja family, actually, since she seems to be the usual pick for two-parents-and-a-pet normal non-ninja home life. And yes, they all, father, brothers, and sister, have bright pink hair, while her mother is strawberry blonde, and ... um. Tsunade's mother's youngest sister was Sakura's maternal grandmother, by way of an unexeptional immigrant from Reed country (home of the Hidden Grass) where red hair is more common than the Leaf, but not so much as in Wind. (Sakura herself is the youngest of five.) That makes them second cousins or so, right? Of course, with the size of Konoha and prominence of the great ninja clans, it's not like that kind of relation is particularly noteable. Still, Haruno-ojisan undoubtedly does have some fascinating ninja stories to tell.
Haruno-san, Sakura's father, was, in my world, one of Gatou's major competitors, which she wasn't aware of because she was always more focused on Great-Grandfather's ninja stories... So, while the old clan techniques are still recorded, there's no one left alive who knows them - all the others either died of old age or had a bad luck day on the battlefield.
Your doing this is good too - it'll, mm, help distinguish the stories in the minds of an eventual audience.
(snrrrk) I bet he hangs around with Maito-ojisan, or more prescisely Maito-ojisan is constantly challenging his eternal rival Haruno-jiji to another round of mahjongg/shogi/go/etc. all of which he lugs carved stone sets for around all the time, waving (but not actually leaning on) a knarled cane. Shikamaru knows both of them, and sometimes joins them and another undetermined player for a tournement series.
Edited (AGAIN! ARRGH!) to add: Sakura goes to Kakashi for extra training instead of her family because a) they're mostly busy on missions, b) stories aside, most of her family techniques are less pound-rivals-into-the-dumpster and more trick/trap-or-avoid-being-tricked/trapped, and most importantly c) if she went to them she'd be admitting to her next-kid-up sister Kikuko that being a delicate feminine kunoichi isn't working out, just like that noisy, annoying tomboy is always nagging at her about, trying to get her to train more (or just get out of the GODDAMN SHOWER BEFORE IT'S COLD, PRISSY-MISS!!) (A voice from downstairs warns that their mother heard that and had better not hear it again.)
E(12 or so): stripped out to new post, since nathan replied before this went through
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - Valles - 08-03-2005
Quote:...Damn. I wish I'd thought of that.
I'm going to intentionally break fanon by giving her a large and active ninja family, actually, since she seems to be the usual pick for two-parents-and-a-pet normal non-ninja home life.
OTOH, it'd be... -interesting-, since Sakura's so much a central character in TGNH that I'd have to develop the entire crowd pretty well to make it stick.
Quote:My thought on this is tied in to some of the comments that get dropped in Tsunade's flashbacks (can you guess what episode I'm up to?).
I hadnt thought of the infiltration possibilities at all, actually - Aside from Kabuto and Orochimaru's kind of sketchy performances as Leaf genin and Kazekage (but still good enough to last HOW long undetected?) the 'ninja' of the Naruto world all seem to go for more or less direct confrontation, or at most a short-term strategy, rather than espionage per se.
See, we know that:
- The major ninja clans predate Konoha.
- Konoha was founded in large part with an eye towards 'ending the constant wars.'
And we can -guess- that at least -some- of those selfsame clans also predate the era of war that seems to've ended not more than a decade or two before the series picks up.
...holy shit. I just figured out why Kyuubi attacked Konoha.
Demons, according to Inu-yasha and numerous other sources, feed off of carnage and bad vibes. Vibes don't get much worse than all-out war.
Konoha was ending the war - which Kyuubi did -not- want to happen...
Anyway, before the war really got started, I imagine that the role of ninja was -much- different from the 'front line combat' that they've developed to in response to its pressures.
The Haruno and Yamanaka, with their non-combat bloodlimits, stand out because -they're the oldest clans-, the -survivors- from the previous, more peaceful era, when -espionage- was emphasized rather than battle.
Quote:*trombone noises come from offscreen*
(or just get out of the GODDAMN SHOWER BEFORE IT'S COLD, PRISSY-MISS!!) (A voice from downstairs wanrs that their mother heard that and had better not hear it again.)
Sakura: *put-upon* -Yes-, Mother.
*more trombone, now sounding rather annoyed*
Sakura: Sorry, Mother.
*placaded trombone*
Sakura: Yes, Mother, I will.
*brisk trombone*
Sakura: Yes, Mother, going! *she does*
*satisfied blat of trombone as Sakura dashes off out of frame*
And I can just see Big Sister's expression when she realizes that Sakura's started to 'see the light' and decides to twit her about it... and promptly gets knocked through the wall. ^_^
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - classicdrogn - 08-03-2005
(formerly an ETA above) Haruno Kikuko is two years older, wears her hair in a pigtail, and a maroon bodysuit under a chunnin vest. She has some kind of bizarre three-way thing going with Kiba's sister and one of Sandaime's aides. Sakura doesn't even want to THINK about how that works, espesciually since the there was a big argument and the two of them old him off in front of the house a couple weeks ago, but Kikuko spends just as many evenings out late on dates.
The twins, Jinrei and Kenjiro deviate from the Haruno norm by being strongly psychic but not having second selves - Yamanaka Inoshi was their jounin sensei and taught them as much of the Yamanaka psychic jutsus as the clan elders would let him get away with, to the point that the more traditional of them are pushing for an arranged marriage between Ino and one of them. They're chuunin also, planning to take the jounin exam next time it's offered, and three years older than Sakura. They use a highly effective paired fighting style that they developed on their own, which they call aunnokokyuuken (aunnokokyuu - (n) the harmonizing, mentally and physically, of two parties engaged in an activity). Their bodysuits are similar to Ryoko's red and black number from Tenchi Muyo! (well, one version or another of TM!) with mirrored patterns, plus of course the usual vest.
The eldest, unimaginitively named Ichimaru, is an ANBU jounin, and most information is classified. His mask is patterned after a cat.
Haruno-tousan is named Apuro, and retired on disability after losing an arm six years ago. He has a prosthetic similar to what nin-puppet masters sometimes graft into themselves, but as puppetry has never been a Haruno art, he's only now getting the hang of it well enoguh to consider going back on duty - and there's his family to consider too, he's found that he's greatly enjoyed having more time for them the past few years. He wears civilian clothes... for now... but still ones that offer good mobility and a few hiding places for kunai and explosive tags.
Haruno-kaasan is named Ayame, and has, herself, gone back to active duty now that Sakura has graduated from the academy, after a couple of decades doing guard duty and raising kids. She's a jounin also, known for helping chuunin assigned to her reach jounin level but who turned down the offer of a genin team in a year or two, after getting her hand back in, on the grounds that she'd raised enough kids of her own, and while she loves them all dearly it's time for a bit of a rest. Kikuko's bodysuit/vest combination was based on hers, except of course for a jounin style vest. She fights with a traditional Hidden Grass style learned from her father that uses twin kodachi, and wears arm guards like the one Sarutobi-sama had on to fight Orochimaru, except that hers have elbow spikes for rear strikes.
ETA again: RE the map Nathan linked to above - comparing this to the map shown in the Wave Mission-era manga, they've got an extra land area - the little spur of Fire country that extends down the coast is supposed to be a peninsula. I'm siting the city Jiraya is at in TXY2 there - it's the shinobi-world equivalent of Miami at spring break, so where ELSE would he be than Kirika?
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - Valles - 08-04-2005
Hmm. Having thought further, I think that one of the reasons I'm so attracted to the idea of having Sakura's immediate family being non-ninja is that that lack of effective role models makes her initial abilities and attitudes both more understandable and, IMHO, more sympathetic.
*shrug* I like the kid, so having her be/act so blatantly shallow and stupid for no good reason, while possibly -realistic-, given her age, still doesn't sit well. I guess that makes me an apologist.
Ah, well.
Anyway, my speculations on her family situation end up with Momma H being this perfectly feminine Hausfrau type... very Kasumi, but not Belldandy, if you follow (which seperates her from, say, Keiunko, who most definitely has an iron fist to back her velvet glove. Well, iron kunai, anyway.)
Her husband, Kaichou Haruno, spends most of his time away on business but dotes on the kids when he's home. Opinion is divided on whether (most of the neighbors) or not (everybody who actually -knows- him) he's cheating on his wife in the meantime.
Sakura is the second of four - the other three are as-yet nameless, but...
Big Brother (#1) - about fifteen, maybe a little less. Sort of equal parts Tenchi Masaki and Kaname Chidori - very calm, pleasant and restrained... up to a point, after which, KABOOM. His hair's a light blue color, about the same as a Rosemary flower, and he's a neat freak - one of those people who's room is -always- spotless. Since -everybody- else in the house tends to handle things the same way I've shown Sakura using (ie, memorize what's in which pile), he tends to be rather frustrated most days, and occaisionally relieves the tension by dashing into some random room when the usual occupant is out for the day and... bringing it up to snuff. (Thereby neatly explaining why Sakura's room was so clean and neat when they showed it to us on the show, without contradicting -my- depiction in her departure scene.) Studying to take over the family trading concern.
Big Sister (#2) - Pink hair. Ninja. Yeah, her.
Little Sister (#3) - About eight, precocious as all hell. Lavender hair, missing a tooth, does tensor calculus in her head. Has a serious case of hero-worship for her heroic older sister, which doesn't stop her picking fun at every opportunity. In Konohamaru's class, but thinks he's an idiot.
Little Brother (#4) - Four years old is old enough to be -really- annoying but too young to really talk to. His hair is -bright Goldenrod yellow-.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - drakensis - 08-04-2005
I spent most of today (when I wasn't working) thinking up the family background for my Cameo (like I said, he's taken on a life of his own).
Nara "Nobegami" Shikanenai (no one except the Third Hokage calls him Shikanenai anymore - Nobegami is the archaic type of paper he prefers to use for his origami jutsus). Born fourteen years after his cousin Nara Shikaku and twelve years before Shikaku's son Shikamaru, his parents died when he was four and he lived with Shikaku's parents until he was seventeen as an adoptive younger son (Shikaku having moved out to get married at about the time Nobegami was orphaned). Still visits the graves of Shikkari-tousan and Fuyou-kaasan as often as he does the memorial stone where his parents names are marked.
Graduated out of the Academy into Gai's first team as jounin-sensei, a little ahead of shedule as Konoha's ninja were rather depleted in numbers by the Kyuubi. First entered the chuunin exam when he was fifteen - one of his teammates passed but he didn't. The other teammate passed the next attempt they made and when he was seventeen he left Gai's supervision and went into the exam again, filling out an open slot in Iruka's team. Iruka passed but Nobegami got his tail kicked (to be precise: burned) by a certain 10-year old Uchiha, too quickly to make any sort of impression.
Rather than going back to Gai (who had other duties), he was spent the next few years filling out open slots in teams on C-class missions - finally made chuunin a couple of years ago when he happened to run into a Konoha team that had lost a member en route to Sunagakure for the Chuunin exams. Having had several years to improve, he passed handily but still works away from Konohagakure mostly.
^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^
Somewhere in Lightning Country, a tall man looked at a small turtle and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Another 'urgent message'?" he asked rhetorically.
"Uh huh."
"And you got here in, what, six months?"
"Five and a half," the turtle said proudly. "I've been practising."
"Merciful Amaterasu." He shook his head in disbelief. "Okay, what's up?"
The turtle looked quizzically at the sky, forcing the lean shinobi to cover a chortle by coughing into his fist. The turtle didn't say anything - he didn't have to - but there was a twinkle in his dark eyes.
After a moment, the turtle retracted one forepaw into it's shell and rooted around for a moment before producing a small scroll.
There was a rustle of paper as the scroll was unrolled. Then a whimper of disbelief: "Sandaime made him a jounin-sensei - again!?"
^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^
Nobegami looked up as a shadow fell across him. "Shikaku-nisan," he said in greeting.
The scarred ninja nodded and set down the bottle of sake and two cups. "I didn't know you were back in Konohagakure. You never come by anymore."
"Your wife keeps trying to set me up with her nieces," the younger of the two Nara cousins replied, pushing aside his empty bowls so that he could reach across the table for one of the cups.
Shikaku snorted. "Even Shikamaru will get married someday. If your sensei found someone then so will you."
Both flinched them at the familiar but disturbing idea of Gai reproducing.
"Shikamaru is a genin now?" Nobegami asked, filling his cup and his cousin's. "I'm surprised he can be bothered."
"Yes, he's teamed with Inoichi's daughter and Choza's boy - Shika-Ino-Cho again," Shikaku said proudly.
They drained their cups together.
"So, how is Sunagakure?"
"Still standing. Surprising, given the way they treat that Gaara kid. He'll level the place someday and it couldn't happen to a nicer Kage."
^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^^w^
Lee jumped into a defensive posture as the tall Nara clansman appeared out of nowhere, the only warning of his presence being the growling grunt that preceded him.
"So," the chuunin said bluntly. "You're the apprentice." He looked Lee up and down with a calculating look in his dark eyes. "They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know?"
Lee blinked, then beamed. "I admire Gai-sensei greatly," he admitted, eyes wide with sincerity. "I swear that I shall one day to be such a truly excellent Ninja as he, or I shall carry an Akimichi matron around the village with both legs tied behind my back!"
Nobegami closed his eyes and repressed a shiver. "Your motivation is... admirable," he managed to say between clenched teeth. Pulling a small, folded piece of paper from his pocket, he studied it. "Says here that you can't manage ninjutsu or genjutsu at all?"
"Yes!" Lee agreed proudly. "But I shall become a great ninja nonetheless or I shall -"
"Whoa, whoa," Nobegami interupted. "Don't get carried away or we'll have no time to train today."
Lee remained silent, almost vibrating with eagerness.
"Riiight..." the chuunin drawled, tucking the paper away. "Well, I gather you've had to face ninjutsu before and that your taijutsu was up to the task. How about genjutsu?"
"I -!" Lee broke off as Nobegami shushed him. "I have great difficulty, Nobegami-san."
The chuunin nodded. "Understandable. The usual counter to genjutsu being a form of genjutsu itself, I can see that you would be unable to counter in the conventional manner. Since your sensei will doubtless polish your ninjutsu to 'reflect the burning passion of your youth', I shall teach you to detect genjutsu." He smirked. "Once you know you're caught in one, escape is merely a matter of..." He'd usually say 'willpower', but edited the assertion for the audience: "the 'burning power of youth'."
"YOSH!" Lee shouted. "I will master Nobegami-sempai's counters to genjutsu or I shall do a thousand press-ups one-handed!"
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - classicdrogn - 08-04-2005
Quote:Eh, everyone is entitle to a little stupidity when they're young. Also - her grasp of theory and the family specialty (at the academy level) of perfect chakra control is spot-on, but she's trying to stand out in a big family of higly effective ninja by being like the kind of kunoichi that's in the movies, who gets the guy by being a 'valued team mate' but still needing rescuing, but never breaks a nail or smudges her costume even at that darkest moment when she must endure a dank dungeon while her One True Love rescues her and pounds the badguy, or possibly the other way around. Sadly, she's going to have to accept that life isn't as slick as a movie, and the guy she's interested in will only regard a team mate who needs regular rescuing as a bother.
*shrug* I like the kid, so having her be/act so blatantly shallow and stupid for no good reason, while possibly -realistic-, given her age, still doesn't sit well. I guess that makes me an apologist.
Drakensis - I like! if it's six months after Team Explosive Youth was (officially) formed (after practising together anyway for months, and the guys for nearly a year) then that's three months after the chuunin exam Gai didn't let them enter, and nine until the one that he will.
Naruto anime - is anyone else as unimpressed with 'Formation Ino-Shika-Cho' as I am after seeing ep145? Chouji grabs, Shikamaru shadow-binds, Ino mind-controls... and they stand there, burning their stamina, not doing much of anything to actually, you know, take out their opponents. Not so much as wrapping them up in a freakin' rope... of course, this is kind of a sad filler arc so far anyway, but it wasn't actively bad before now.
finally... heh, this is funny. I'm writing Naruto-fic... and I just got done building a bridge to the island in the back yard. Granted, it's only an 'island' because the river splits and flows on both sides for a bit, and there were no missing-nin trying to assassinate me over it, but still good for a laugh.
Maybe I'm just easily amused?
ETA: The ch2 draft has been edited with the additions thus far.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - Valles - 08-04-2005
Quote:And she's stubbornly sticking to the idea because Kikuko-neechan decided it'd be funny to point out the impracticality of that arrangement in the most condescendingly obnoxious possible way, thereby leaving Little Sister determined to Prove Her Wrong - even more so after having everybody else in the family take -Kikuko's- side of the argument... At least until she reaches to point of being mad enough at Tenten that her subcon^H^H^H^H Inner Sakura backburners the entire question and sends her Kakashi's way.
Eh, everyone is entitle to a little stupidity when they're young. Also - her grasp of theory and the family specialty (at the academy level) of perfect chakra control is spot-on, but she's trying to stand out in a big family of higly effective ninja by being like the kind of kunoichi that's in the movies, who gets the guy by being a 'valued team mate' but still needing rescuing, but never breaks a nail or smudges her costume even at that darkest moment when she must endure a dank dungeon while her One True Love rescues her and pounds the badguy, or possibly the other way around. Sadly, she's going to have to accept that life isn't as slick as a movie, and the guy she's interested in will only regard a team mate who needs regular rescuing as a bother.
(I'm seeing this emotional scene where Sakura, having just had Round II with Tenten and still stinging from the chewing out Kakashi gave her over it, stomps up to Kikuko on the verge of tears and bites out something like 'You were right, okay? I was an idiot. Go ahead and laugh.' And Big Sis just sits there and stares, because she had -no clue- that Sakura had actually been that... involved? attached? something like that... with/in/to the issue. Because for her it was just a joke, but Sakura, between Teen Angst and the fact that she's always getting dismissed as the baby of the bunch, was genuinely hurt...)
I think I have a fairly good grasp of just how obnoxious elder siblings can be, seeing as I am one. Not perfect, since I don't have any myself, but fairly good.
Ja, -n
(And Sasuke ignores her because he's a twit. But we knew that.)
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: TEAM EXPLOSIVE YOUTH! HASSHIN!! - drakensis - 08-04-2005
Quote:Porbably a bit later than that - the way I see it Gai sent a message to Nobegami after the first chuunin exam and the whole Mizuki/kinjutsu scroll thing, so Nobegami arrives back in Konoha about three months before the Chuunin Exam he'll enter the kids for. The message is basically a request for Nobegami to help Lee devise strategems against ninjutsu and kinjutsu that he can't use himself. Nobegami, obviously, is well versed in the capabilites of foreign ninja.
Drakensis - I like! if it's six months after Team Explosive Youth was (officially) formed (after practising together anyway for months, and the guys for nearly a year) then that's three months after the chuunin exam Gai didn't let them enter, and nine until the one that he will.
Then TEY! go off to build the bridge and Nobegami next appears helping Gai train Rikou and Naruto for the finals, until Jiraiya turns up.
Quote:I guess their fathers have been filling their heads with this Ino-Shika-Cho stuff to the point that they focused on doing the technique rather than completing their mission. Which is kind of sad in Shikamaru's case, although Chouji's bear-hug - which neatly avoided any restraint the arms was pretty silly.
Naruto anime - is anyone else as unimpressed with 'Formation Ino-Shika-Cho' as I am after seeing ep145? Chouji grabs, Shikamaru shadow-binds, Ino mind-controls... and they stand there, burning their stamina, not doing much of anything to actually, you know, take out their opponents. Not so much as wrapping them up in a freakin' rope... of course, this is kind of a sad filler arc so far anyway, but it wasn't actively bad before now.
At a guess the directors didn't want the kids to be cold-blooded killers and couldn't be bothered to work out a method of restraint.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Amusing Image, and associated realization - Valles - 08-04-2005
Tonton, the cute little pig, is a summon. If he (she?) wasn't, then not only would he not go around wearing -clothes-, he also wouldn't be able to keep up with ninja traveling full speed - which he -has-.
His associating with Tsunade and Shizune almost certainly means that he 'belongs,' ie, was summoned by, one of the two.
We already -know- what Tsunade's contract is, and I very much doubt that they'd be that big a deal if a person could have more than one.
Now, the way we've seen summons handled suggests that, for the most part, one clan is equal to another... It's also possible, of course, that there are major or minor clans, and that slugs, snakes, and frogs happen to be three of the major ones (Which, to me, suggests that the other two would be birds and spiders, but that's neither here nor there).
Now, imagine that the kaiju-boar summon... is a member of the Soviet Porcine Proletariat People's Agricultural Commune!
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Amusing Image, and associated realization - Foxboy - 08-05-2005
Four legs good, two legs bad!
Four legs good, two legs bad!
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
Re: Amusing Image, and associated realization - classicdrogn - 08-05-2005
Huh, now that's an interesting thought. I'd never really gotten beyond wondering whether in a pokegirls/naruto world Shizune would be Tsunade's alpha girl and Tonton a captured feral type, or if Shizune would be an apprentice tamer and Tonton loking to her alone.
I'd kind of figured Tonton was just a nin-pig like the Inozuka nin-dogs, what little I bothered to think of it at all. Heh, maybe Shizune has a little sister or cousin named Akari?
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Re: Amusing Image, and associated realization - Valles - 08-05-2005
Quote:Depends how much yuri luvluv you were after.
Huh, now that's an interesting thought. I'd never really gotten beyond wondering whether in a pokegirls/naruto world Shizune would be Tsunade's alpha girl and Tonton a captured feral type, or if Shizune would be an apprentice tamer and Tonton loking to her alone.
Quote:Heh. Nin-pig. Heheheh.
I'd kind of figured Tonton was just a nin-pig like the Inozuka nin-dogs, what little I bothered to think of it at all. Heh, maybe Shizune has a little sister or cousin named Akari?
OTOH, it's actually a fairly reasonable idea. Granted, pigs aren't full-out predators the way canids are, but on the other side of the coin, they're also a lot -bigger-... Princess Mononoke flashbacks, anyone?
Actually, I sort of figured Shizune had a second or third or so cousin named Sasuke...
Y'know, that'd make a really -different- thing to do with a fanfic, wouldn't it?
Hmmm. *jots down a note*
Ja, -n
(Who wonders how much better the girl would've done fighting Kabuto if she hadn't been distracted trying to keep a catatonic Tsunade out of the line of fire.)
Edit: Damn typos.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: Amusing Image, and associated realization - Herr Bad Moon - 08-09-2005
Quote:Heh. I just had this mental image of Shizune performing the Summoning jutsu and a half dozen truffle smelling pigs appear to help her tracking.---------------
OTOH, it's actually a fairly reasonable idea. Granted, pigs aren't full-out predators the way canids are, but on the other side of the coin, they're also a lot -bigger-... Princess Mononoke flashbacks, anyone?
Leo: (July 23 - Aug 22)
You'll feel a lot better with warm clothes on your back and food in your stomach, proving that cannibalism has a couple things going for it.
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"
Re: Amusing Image, and associated realization - Florin - 08-10-2005
Can't summoned animals usually talk? With the exception of a few throw away summons, most of the ones shown so far in the anime have. I'd have to come down on the nin-pig side.--
"Just the idea of that bruised my very soul a little bit. So now when I die and go to whatever awaits, I'm going to have a big, purple mark on my arm. And I won't be able to stop touching it to see if it's stopped hurting. For all eternity."
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.