Open A Simple Fair Evening

[Ryuu Tama]

It was day two of his little trip back into Kumogakure from the Academy. His life of harsh training was on a small pause at the moment due to his terrifying advancement through what the school had to offer. Every thing that Miro had set before the boy to learn, he picked it up and mastered within three days. She had even tested him on things he was supposed to fail, and he still managed to somehow have enough guts, chakra, and determination to overcome even what he shouldn’t. So, Shin was on a little trip to enjoy life for a few days before his inevitable special exam. His only warning was that the Genin Exam was always deadly and different every year. So instead of worrying and training, he was told to go relax for the first time in months.

To say he was nervous would undersell it. Most of the first day he had been too wound up from his trip through the forest to stomach food and wound up sleeping off what had remained of that day. The second he awakened to a ravenous hunger. He enjoyed a large breakfast full of traditional foods he had never tried before, a lunch made from street vendors stalls, and a dinner of crab that was far more familiar to his tastes. Now he was wondering around the streets as the lamps above flickered to life, looking for something to do. He was only allowed one more day of freedom and that one he planned on spending with his godparents so they could see he was actually doing better under the harsher circumstances than he had been with their kid-gloves. Not that he held it against them, anymore. The education Kumogakure place on their students was advanced, and life changing. He had far more empathy towards the kindness his godparents had doted on him now than he did under their care, but also needed them to realize that he was searing right into adulthood fast - it was just the way of shinobi life. Even though he was only fourteen himself, there were a ton of shinobi already years in the field that were only a few moons older than he was. He didn’t know his Sensei’s age, but he suspected she wasn’t much older than he was.

The clang of hammer on steel caught his attention. He curiously slipped through the crowd and towards the sound to find an open faced blacksmith shop. Shin’s wooden sandals clacked against the cold stone as he walked up to the stand with his thumbs tucked into the sash holding his kimono together; eyes wavering with curiosity. He turned his red eyes over the common crafted things like horseshoes, barrel binders, chains, and the occasional bit of shinobi armor. Held up on a rack all its own to the far right, though, was a set of five katanas each with a different colored saya. The tsubas all differed as well. One was a lizard chasing after a cloud, another an image of the god Raiden throwing down lightning, and a third that had a man chasing off what appeared to be a goblin. The second to last guard is what caught his attention. It was of a snake and a tiger at odds with each other. The intricacy of it called out to his soul so hard that he ignored the fifth weapon all together. It’s saya was black, which was perfect for his future profession, and the tsuka was very nondescript, with a plain navy colored ito. Before the blacksmith even knew he was there, Shinjo stepped forward and lifted the fourth katana down off the rack to test its weight. With a flick of his wrist he rolled the weapon around his wrist, flipped it down to the left side of his waist, and drew the weapon before sheathing it again within a seconds time.
A small bit of applause followed. Shin turned to see the small crowd of people who had gathered to watch the blacksmith now had their focus on the teenager. Red immediately covered his face as he quickly turned and held the weapon up to the bewildered steel artisan.
“How much?”

Ten minutes of haggling and struggling to prove he was in the Academy, and Shin was now walking around with a brand-new sword tucked and tied to his kimono sash. It had cost him nearly everything his sensei had given to help Shin enjoy the fair, but he felt like it was worth it. The weapon at his side felt right, and didn’t have the guilty weight of his other weapon that resided back in the Academy. With what little he had left, Shin looked around at the stalls wondering what else he could do with what little remained of the day. Wasn’t enough to buy another room for the night, so he’d inevitably be heading back to his godparent’s home in the long run…

 

[Ginyama Senshiro]

Senshiro marched through the streets of the Susukino District, a plain burlap pouch on his hip jingling with as he took each step while the empty pack on his back remained silent. Although the sun was already sinking low towards the horizon, the man's pace was steady yet deliberate as though he had only woken up an hour or so ago. Indeed! This veteran was on a mission--though not one for his Raikage, but one he was determined to accomplish.

A faint breeze brushed by him, carrying the pungent aroma of roasted beef and spiced broth with it. He took a moment to take in the smell, his stern and stoic expression failing to falter as he does so.

"Beef," he mused to himself as he continued onward. "Spiced broth. Most likely from a noodle stand."

But as good as he was at masking his desires, his stomach betrayed his calm and collected facade. The man briefly smirked and scoffed at his own hunger before making his way to his destination--a bevy of stalls dedicated to bread, fruit, and meat. He went from vendor to vendor and perused their wares, emptying the pouch on his hip and filling the pack on his back as he made ample purchases.

Once he was content, he turned around and started making his way towards the origin of that delectable smell. But as he did so, he spotted a young man with a finely crafted katana roaming about. The middle-aged man couldn't help but shake his head and sigh as he continued past him.

"These kids today," he grumbled to himself. "A shiny new toy won't help you fight better."

[topic entered]

 

[Shinrya Kosuke]

Daisuke enjoyed the fair, and often took time to walk around, eat good and freshly prepared food, socialize with people he had grown up with and people he had yet to meet. It was an evening of light fun and mainly good food, as he often spent a good amount of money to fill his belly - and he could eat a lot. As he walked, he currently munched on a yakitori skewer, about four to six somehow gripped in each hand. He was dressed in a rather ordinary outfit, simple white turtle-neck and a grey jacket on top, a pair of dark pants on bottom. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of red shades, and he seemed content to simply walk and eat his skewers of chicken as he looked around for the next person to talk to, or stall to get food from.

Like Shinjo, his attention was taken by the sound of the open smithy, though he cared a lot less for the blades than Shinjo did. But Daisuke did notice the student, and idly wondered if he would be able to tell that the masked Apex from yesterday's venture into the forest was the same modestly-dressed lad who held way too much food in his long fingers.

"Do you know how hard it is to haggle with that guy? I'm surprised you got away with going as low as you did," Daisuke said suddenly from behind Shinjo. The taller AiT had a small smile on his face, despite the fact that he had seemingly appeared from out of nowhere. He stood with a strangely motionless grace, and moved with what seemed like infinite control as he held out a hand in offering - "Yakitori?"

 

[Ryuu Tama]

The youth continued to wonder around the festival, his mind and worries slowly melting away as he realized what would come, would come. He tightened his robe up a little and decided that, with the remaining bit of his money, he’d either grab a snack or head into the seedier looking part of the festival where a mix of sour and bitter smells wafted around. He saw people of all age ranges, mostly adult as a great deal of the youth was being run out of the black marquees stalls, drinking. There were all kinds of colors to the liquids. Some bubbled, some looked flat, and the taste seemed to vary from adult to adult. Shin had been observing the “adult” part of the festival since he had arrived. It was where beer, wine, and liquor was being peddled as either new, continuing, or improved flavors/strengths, but he had no idea what any of it except sake was; and that smell was deeply buried. There was two things about the area that made him avoid it the last few days, despite his natural cat-like curiosity. The first was the way the people there tended to get handsy; everyone was about touching each other over there. Secondly was the smells. Among the pleasant scents that wafted around, especially the ones near the gin, were a large amount of foul odors that assaulted his senses. Bitter of vomit, sharp of alcohol, and the tangy sour of only the gods knew what else.

After standing there staring for a moment, a voice broke his focus and attempt to make a choice as to enter or not. Daisuke had wholesale snuck up on Shinjo again, this time he was rewarded with a slightly high-pitch squeak as the teen turned to face another teenager offering yakitori. Shin’s hands, which were raised up for minuet martial combat, quickly lowered at the sight of what he assumed was a normal person. He quickly placed one of them towards his chest to still his beating heart and signify he had been spooked as a look of relief took over the teenager’s face; happily he accepted the food.
“You know, despite being a Student in the Academy for the last couple of months, I’m still not used to reading when people are getting too close. I have got to figure that out before my Sensei, or someone else in Kumogakure, gives me a heart attack! Thanks, by the way,” he said before taking a bite of the delicious food. Despite his fill of eats earlier, the snack was still delectable and it was hard not to ask which stall the stranger had gotten the skewers from - they were better than the ones Shin had earlier.
“It wasn’t super hard,” he said after a hard swallow in the attempt to stay humble as the blacksmith came up, “Sensei says the hardest part of negotiation is always showing your stance. If you enter into a conversation submissively, you’ll be taken advantage of. ‘Always think of what they’re going to think’, is what I keep hearing. So, after I realized the blacksmith thought he was going to get a good price out of a kid but only went up or down by whole hundreds of yen…it wasn’t hard to loop him into a Genjutsu. I just made him think the higher I went, the bigger deal he was getting, even though I was dropping the price by twenty to fifty-yen every time it came back to me.” He smiled sheepishly.

Yet despite his good day, someone had to be a critic. A stranger remarked on a kid his age with a sword. Shinjo wasn’t normally one known for pride and a couple of months ago would of just smiled and nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with the unknown man. However, the teen had now underwent grueling training for the last nigh twelve weeks straight on how to master the weapon he carried at his side. For the first time in his life, a total stranger’s snide remark flared up a little something Shin had never really known before; ire. His eyes narrowed at that man before quickly finishing the yakitori skewer while ignoring the small burns it was making inside of his mouth from consuming the heated food with such haste. Shinjo then tossed the then bamboo skewer up in the air. Normally the teenager would drop into a stance he had spent more hours than he cared to think about mastering to Quickdraw his weapon, but remembered about how Apex said he talked too much; no doubt the AiT meant body language as well.
As the stick flipped and tumbled down, Shin’s left hand gripped the katana in reverse and simply drew it. The blade left it’s sheath with such speed that it threw off the swordsman himself, just for a split second, as he followed through to cut the stick in half, then fourths, and finally into eight separate pieces that dropped into the ground point first, wedging themselves between the cracks of the stone ground; the katana was sheathed before even the first stick touched granite. With a proud look he grinned at the passerby,
“Nah mister, I’m trained.”

[Sorry for this lateness, it's been a week]

 

[Ginyama Senshiro]

[all good; life happens, eh?]

Senshiro stops and sighs at what he assumed was the boy's impressive display of swordsmanship.

"Yes, yes; you are certainly trained with a sword," he states the obvious before craning his neck and torso to glare at the aspiring student behind him. "But are you trained without one?"

The sharply dressed man turns around the rest of the way, the food jostling around in his pack as he does so. "If you rely too much on a single tool--whether that is a weapon or a technique--then what will happen once an opponent denies you that much?"

 

[Shinrya Kosuke]

"You should honestly work on it, but I won't hold it against you; I have trained a bit more than the average student my age," he revealed, yet still somehow did not offer too much insight to the now-yakitori eating Shinjo. He chuckled at the heart attack comment - they were both too young for that, and heart attacks among shinobi were few and far between, as the vast majority of them were extremely fit. Save for the occasional Akimichi, but they were strange exceptions. "Oh, that is very good. Genjutsu will always be extraordinarily poignant against non-shinobi, and even against many shinobi as is. Be careful to not get caught, though. Some civilians would not take kindly to that type of manipulation," he said with a shake of his head, before he looked over at man in his suit.

He was a bit out of place for a festival, and it looked even a bit stranger to Daisuke that he had a pack on. Most businessmen held briefcases, and called it a day at that. And he was a bit... Rude to boot. But all the tall, dark-haired boy did was smile slightly as the swordsman in training showcased a brilliant bit of nearly subtle swordsmanship. Most students their age would focus on being as flashy as they could possibly be, but he was glad that Shinjo took his (or rather, Apex's) words to heart.

"It is a bit hard to make it through the academy and only train in a single discipline, no? Kinduva weird question, sir," Daisuke said with a shrug as he offered Senshiro, too, a stick of yakitori.

[ MFT ]
[ WC 273 ]

 

[Ryuu Tama]

There seemed to be no pleasing the adult who then asked, what if he lost his sword? Shinjo didn’t even have to think of a response, just simply blurted,
“Genjutsu,” but then thought about it a little more, “…and then stealth, at least until I can get my sword back. Failing that there’s always a tactical retreat, reinforce, and return. This isn’t even my only sword, either, just my newest one. I have my…father’s sword…” Shinjo’s eyes seemed to go a little blank as flashbacks of memories forgotten came rushing back. A pang of guilt inevitably struck his heart at the thought that here he was, just barely a full year later after the murder of his parents, and he was playing around in a fair. A low sigh escaped Shin’s lips before he blinked and realigned his thoughts, realizing he had thrown himself off track.
“The Academy is very serious about those of us who can actually use Chakra, sir. There’s so few these days that we are being taught multiple fields of study at the same time no matter what we naturally specialize in. It’s what we have to do! So yeah…like he said, that’s kind of a silly question. To be honest, the sword isn’t even what I’m best at…I’m just really dedicated. Extra, dedicated.”

He was only dedicated, it should be known, because Miro was making him do so. She was convinced that his ability to manipulate Genjutsu would allow him to easily tack on a second tactic to take advantage of; the sword just seemed a natural fit. He already had a knack for handling it. Something in Shinjo’s blood just made him raise to the occasion and master things with such speed and accuracy it was becoming frightful to his mentors; with perhaps the pure exception of the ANBU Sennin. He had already blown by years of Academy training in months, casually. To him it all felt like a game, right now, because others were struggling to crawl in areas of combat he simply walked. It really only further embarrassed him though. All his success made it hard for him to make or keep friends when everyone his age all struggled to keep up; teens who had been there for years. Already at the very thought Shin could feel his cheeks heating up and decided to crouch down to pick up the sticks that had fallen between the cracks to hide the emotions he had stirred up himself.

Didn’t want to be a litter bug.

As he was plucking sticks from between the cracks, though, an explosion shook the area and knocked him off his feet. Shin landed on his side and rolled right back up into fighting position as his eyes darted around looking for smoke. A plume of black with gulfs of flame licked the sky where the alcoholic stands where at. His panic eased ever so slightly as the Student recalled that alcohol was flammable. He turned his eyes back down to Daisuke, a bit of mischievous curiosity rattling around in his irises,
“Wanna go see what that was about?”

 

[Ginyama Senshiro]

The Chiunin shook hisnhead and sighed when the boy's expression went blank at the mention of his father's sword.

"It seems I misjudged you then," he stated the obvious in a cool and collected tone. "Sometimes I forget that just because I lived through my fair share of wars, that doesn't mean I am an authority on combat by any means."

He reached into his pouch for a few coins and offered them to the boy with an outstretched hand. "Consider this my apology; that blade could certainly use some oil to keep it from rusting as quickly."