The first lesson ninja learn about guns is that getting shot hurts.
In Kumogakure, they teach this by putting a ten-year-old in a bulletproof vest and shooting her.
I know this because I was the sixth one in my class to experience this little lesson.
Needless to say, this is a popular day to skip class.
I'd spent the day watching activity on the forums, dipping my feet into discussions here and there with mostly-noncommittal gestures, and trying to settle my mind on the big question: of the two people I currently was, who did I want to be? The answer that kept coming to mind was 'both'. When the clone I'd left at the apartment self-dispelled to let me know the cleanup was done, I'd come to the decision: yes, I would try to keep true to both my selves. The next few hours involved a lot of meditating while I tried to sort my memories out, so I could keep things straight and not get confused by remembering the wrong thing in the wrong context.
By the time the clone filling my desk at work poofed out, I knew it was going to take more than a day or so to settle myself on that particular issue. But clearly enough, the job was going to tie me down in ways that weren't going to work out.
That night, I decided to give one of Misao's standard fill-the-purse strategems a try: trolling for drug dealers. My hometown isn't exactly thick with them, we're a small enough city, but I was able to find a couple here and there, along with a few equally unsavory types who took too close an interest in my newly-feminine physique.
Things got interesting on the fourth confrontation of the evening. I had dropped out of nowhere into the face of Mook Number One, laid him out with a punch-kick-jab combo, and dropped Mook Number Two with a leg sweep and the hilt of my wakizashi to his forehead. Which was when Head Mook got the safety off of his gun and gave me a 9mm lobotomy. The last thing I remembered before everything went black was the smirk on his face.
-----
Which, to be honest, was the reason I gutted him when I stepped out of the shadows behind him, while he was still gaping at the poof of smoke where my shadow-clone had been. I used his cellphone to dial 911 - a nice chirpy imitation of his voice and a "Hi, I'm a drug dealer, I got stabbed by one of my boys, come get me!" should get an ambulance and a bunch of cops to his location pretty quickly. Then I vanished into the shadows again and headed for home.
Some capes deal with the gun issue with a layer of super-spandex, a high-tech armored fabric that acted like a full-body vest. Me, I also took the prudent, ninja-like precaution of never being in the line of fire to begin with. That doesn't mean it's a pleasant memory to look back on.
Once I got there, I rather cheerfully considered the wad of cash I'd recovered. About eight grand, by the looks of it. Would go a long way towards paying off my bills and getting to New York, or wherever Sa-chan and Misty ended up agreeing we should meet.
Then I headed for the bathroom, as I released the tight emotional control I'd been maintaining since the shooting, and donated my dinner to the Rochester sewage system.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
In Kumogakure, they teach this by putting a ten-year-old in a bulletproof vest and shooting her.
I know this because I was the sixth one in my class to experience this little lesson.
Needless to say, this is a popular day to skip class.
I'd spent the day watching activity on the forums, dipping my feet into discussions here and there with mostly-noncommittal gestures, and trying to settle my mind on the big question: of the two people I currently was, who did I want to be? The answer that kept coming to mind was 'both'. When the clone I'd left at the apartment self-dispelled to let me know the cleanup was done, I'd come to the decision: yes, I would try to keep true to both my selves. The next few hours involved a lot of meditating while I tried to sort my memories out, so I could keep things straight and not get confused by remembering the wrong thing in the wrong context.
By the time the clone filling my desk at work poofed out, I knew it was going to take more than a day or so to settle myself on that particular issue. But clearly enough, the job was going to tie me down in ways that weren't going to work out.
That night, I decided to give one of Misao's standard fill-the-purse strategems a try: trolling for drug dealers. My hometown isn't exactly thick with them, we're a small enough city, but I was able to find a couple here and there, along with a few equally unsavory types who took too close an interest in my newly-feminine physique.
Things got interesting on the fourth confrontation of the evening. I had dropped out of nowhere into the face of Mook Number One, laid him out with a punch-kick-jab combo, and dropped Mook Number Two with a leg sweep and the hilt of my wakizashi to his forehead. Which was when Head Mook got the safety off of his gun and gave me a 9mm lobotomy. The last thing I remembered before everything went black was the smirk on his face.
-----
Which, to be honest, was the reason I gutted him when I stepped out of the shadows behind him, while he was still gaping at the poof of smoke where my shadow-clone had been. I used his cellphone to dial 911 - a nice chirpy imitation of his voice and a "Hi, I'm a drug dealer, I got stabbed by one of my boys, come get me!" should get an ambulance and a bunch of cops to his location pretty quickly. Then I vanished into the shadows again and headed for home.
Some capes deal with the gun issue with a layer of super-spandex, a high-tech armored fabric that acted like a full-body vest. Me, I also took the prudent, ninja-like precaution of never being in the line of fire to begin with. That doesn't mean it's a pleasant memory to look back on.
Once I got there, I rather cheerfully considered the wad of cash I'd recovered. About eight grand, by the looks of it. Would go a long way towards paying off my bills and getting to New York, or wherever Sa-chan and Misty ended up agreeing we should meet.
Then I headed for the bathroom, as I released the tight emotional control I'd been maintaining since the shooting, and donated my dinner to the Rochester sewage system.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.