Balloons and Brats [Open for all!]

[Kuru Naohiro]

Naohiro sat beside a dying tree with a bored smile, the white-haired performer held in his hand a small brochure. It was for the orphanage back in the Cloud village. He and the blind kid, Watashi, had been considering the prospect of moving over there. The boy flicked open the brochure and began to read the features, one eye taking the chance to examine the surroundings one last time.

“Kitchen island, media room, walk-in pantry ..” Naohiro mumbled as he read, “Not bad.”

The white-haired performer rose to his feet with a yawn, folding up the brochure and returning it to his robes. He’d decided to wear a simpler clothing then he normally liked, just a plain brown robe and sandals. Not like he intended to be seen by many people, so he just went practical. The boy pulled out some metal hoops from his robe and a small bundle of ninja wire that he’d been supplied from the academy. It was suppose to be for some sort of arts and craft assignment, but who actually does that.

“Should be any minute now,” He said with a smile, he’d been getting tired of waiting, “Cmon, cmon, cmon.”

As if he had made a wish on a star, his target finally appeared in his view. A large weather balloon inflating on top of one of the rooftops before beginning to sail up towards the sky. He needed that weather balloon. With a determined smirk, Naohiro began to wind the ninja wire around a few of the metal hoops. Giving them a final tug to confirm they’re stable.

With his set up complete, Naohiro took a step towards the cliffside and took a kneeling position, readying himself up for the next part of his self-assigned mission.

 

[Midori Futotta]

Skipping along the country road, Maru had finished his grunt work for today and decided to head to the Spine Of The World where him along with some family had currently set up their clan house. With all the work with hunting down all these monsters lurking around along with some work he occasionally got from the Merces, he usually was pretty booked especially with his monster hunting job. It seemed like everywhere he went something weird just pops up, even on his days he was supposed to be resting there was always some demon or half-breed showing up. The rouge finally had some free time to do whatever he wanted so he thought about going to train, but he saw something in the distance floating in the sky. He squinted, then realized that it was a balloon! A weather balloon! But what would a weather balloon be doing way out here, Maru decided to take a detour from his way home to head towards where he believed the balloon to be attached to….

When he finally got to where the balloon was tied to there he say an academy student, a normal white haired human academy student! Normally he was curious what the boy was up to, perhaps he was a bad student in need of a helping hand in a prank and being the responsible adult like him to aid him in his mission. Besides the fact that he was bored he needed something to take his mind off of monsters for a bit. The masked rogue flexed his cape into the breeze, allowing it to flow in the breeze. “Why, aren't you looking determined! Perhaps I will be able to assist you with what you're planning!” Maru pretty much spoke in yells in order to sound important, or just simply liked to hear himself talk. But the rogue began to skip towards the child to gaze off the cliff side, putting a hand over his forehead as he gazed towards the sky instead of looking down where Naohiro was looking. Obviously this guy was a buffoon so he would more than likely do as he was instructed since he actually wanted to help, talk about finding a perfect henchman.

 

[Kuru Watashi]

Watashi breathed in the fresh mountain air, looking out from his pretend vantage point to imagine seeing the greatest scenery on the continent. "Yep, the mountains are just what I thought that they'd be like," Watashi said to himself, looking around. "Full of GARBAGE to trip over!"

Trying to take in another breath, Watashi did his best to calm himself down once again. Maybe it was a bad idea to go exploring the peaks of Lightning Country while he was essentially blind. Maybe he should have listened to all those other dumb students when they said, "Noo Watashi. You're blind, you can't explore the mountains. Noooo Watashi, you'll hurt yourself trying to run around the wilderness blind.." But he'd show them, Watashi told himself.

"We can do this," He said to himself, slowly, holding the makeshift cane. He'd lost the original walking aid that he brought along hours ago. Turns out the thing really wasn't the greatest to use as a pick when you're falling off the side of a cliff. Grimacing to himself again, he planted the branch for another step. "Just a few more steps to the to--." Crash!

Tumbling further down the mountain when he felt he was so close to the top made Watashi very irritated to say the least. Flinging the branch as far as he could, Watashi decided that he was done with climbing. Unfortunately for the blind kid, what he had thought was empty space for hurling was just another rocky outcropping and with the accuracy befitting a blind boy, Watashi pegged himself in the face. Standing there in confusion, a strange, ominous whooshing faintly sounded, as though the peaks themselves were laughing at him.

Exasperated, he turned to walk back down. This was going to be way more trouble than it was worth. Just as he was about to let out a shout of frustration though, someone else beat him to the whole yelling game.

</COLOR>“Why, aren't you looking determined! Perhaps I will be able to assist you with what you're planning!”<i></i>
The irritation of trying to climb a mountain blind temporarily disturbed, Watashi started walking in the direction of the shout. On any other day, the boy wouldn't have bothered but he wasn't going to come all the way here to leave empty-handed. Even if it was just to gawk as someone else failed as horribly as him, or even to watch someone else actually accomplish something, it couldn't be worse than where his day had already been going. Whistling as he walked out of boredom, bits and pieces in Watashi's head began to fit themselves into a picture that he hadn't even thought about.

A determined someone with a plan. A strange, faint whoosh in the same direction. And what seemed to feel strangely like a child about to throw rings at a fat balloon. It may just have been the hint of trouble coming along on that breeze, but Watashi began to walk a bit faster.

"<COLOR color="#0000BF">That can't possibly be you, Naohiro."

 

[Kuru Naohiro]

You can’t be serious?

Naohiro thought to himself, staring blankly at the two people that have made their selves at home around his lookout point. He distinctly recognised the one with the cane, it was the boy he met nearby the candy store. The white-haired boy dismissed the thought as he glanced towards Maru, giving a wide grin.

“Well, guess I’m caught out, and yes, its me Watashi,” Naohiro said with a casual shrug and a smirk, “Long story short. I want to get a balloon. That one.”

The white-haired performer threw a robed hand outward, gesturing to the large weather balloon that continued to sail lazily up into the air, a metallic line leading towards a balcony somewhere in the keep. After his quick explanation, Naohiro tossed the first of his metal hoops outward. The metal hoop sailed outward towards the small waterfall underneath the manmade structure. After tugging on the ninja wire he’d attached beforehand to confirm it’d gotten stuck on a rock, Naohiro began to tie the line to the dead tree he’d be relaxing on beforehand.

“Not actually sure what the keeps for,” He explained with a laugh, “But they apparently got a small group of guys doing research there. Annoyingly, they’re the only guys nearby that even use weather balloons anymore, what with the stupid storm jutsu’s people love tossing about. Talk about inconvenient.”

With a quick flick of his finger, Naohiro hit the ninja wire to confirm the line was stable. Being met with a small metallic ring as the wire shook. Giving a satisfied nod, Naohiro casually clipped one of his metal hoops to the wire. He then glanced at the two others before decidedly grabbing two other rings and attaching them as well.

“Getting through that front gate seems a little painful,” Naohiro admitted, gesturing towards the bridge that was away from them, taking the chance to walk towards Watashi as he talked, “Thankfully, that waterfall there leads right under the building the weather balloon is attached to. The research guys are apparently looking into something about water freshness or whatever.”

Once the white-haired rogue reached Watashi, he gave a wide grin before leading him towards the metal hoops. After moving his hands to grab hold, Naohiro didn’t skip a beat before kicking Watashi off the cliffside, down the improvised zipline.

“Don’t let go!” Naohiro shouted out with a laugh, glancing towards Maru before holding out the next metal hoop with a smirk, “Guess you can help out too. Just grab hold of the suspicious metal ring and then leap off the cliffside. Nothing to worry about!”

 

[Midori Futotta]

The masked rogue gazed at the white haired lad before looking back at the weather balloon again. 'So a weather balloon. Seems easy.’ Maru thought to himself, listening to the rest of the info that the child got on retrieving this weather balloon. Apparently there was some geeks study the weather and water since there are a lot of people who use storm justu around here, after all kumogakure is the birthplace of those Santaru so they always gotta keep an eye on the weather. Since the front gate was going to be a pain to get into without blowing it up with a good ol’ Omni-Flash, the white haired lad came up with an idea to use the waterfall to sneak under the building that had the weather balloon attached to it. “Well that's smart. I was just going to blast through the gate with a Omni-Flash. Seems…” he brought his cape up to over his mouth looking from left to right to give him a dramatic look. “Stealthy!..”

While the boy finished explaining, he was shocked when he realized that the kid with the shades had been kicked off the cliffside with only a sketchy looking Zipline as the only thing keeping him from falling to his doom. Maru walked over then looked to check and see if the kid was okay. “Damn” he said, then looked over at the child who was handing him the sketchy looking metal ring that was attached to ninjawire expecting him to jump holding onto the thing. Would it even support his body weight?! He shrugged, then did what any responsible adult would do and take the suspicious metal ring. The boy did say there was nothing to worry about so he should worry, this looked totally safe that even he would give the homemade Zipline an A grading. Maru slipped the hoop on his middle finger, then raised his hand then tipped himself over simulator to that of a tree when it was cut down while saluting the boy as he took the plunge. “See ya.” He said before he began his fall down the cliff, laughing like a madman as he began his fall as though he was having the time of his life!

 

[Kuru Watashi]

Watashi ran down the mountain as fast as he could without reintroducing his face to the ground again to get to the place that Naohiro was looking out from. He even took extra care in slowing down before hand, making sure that his ongoing momentum from the run down wouldn't toss him over the edge of the cliff. Watashi was going to keep himself from actually going off the cliff no matter what it took. He came to find Naohiro to have a bit of fun after all, not continue his nightmare of tripping and rolling down the side of a mountain.

Stopping next to Naohiro by the edge of the cliff, Watashi looked in the direction of the other, taller weirdo that had been shouting earlier. "Hi there, I'm -". Watashi didn't get very far before Naohiro shoved some sort of big ring into his hands. Confused, Watashi looked back towards Naohiro before he felt the sickening lurch of the ground escaping him as he went flying down the cliff towards whatever was at the bottom. "Don't let go!"

Shouting his head off back at Naohiro, "Atleast you didn't get the chance to make one of your stupid blind puns!" Watashi clutched onto the hoop for dear life. It took a second or two before the blind boy realized that he wasn't actually falling downwards though. With the friction of the hoop riding on something or another, Watashi realized that he was falling sideways! It was a strange experience for Watashi. The last time that he had the opportunity to do something like this, the blind boy has opted out because he didn't want to risk it while being blind. Unfortunately for him though, this time it seemed like Naohiro had forcibly opted him in!

What had they called this again? Watashi thought to himself. The teacher that had been presenting the device in class referred to the horizontal falling thing by a certain name and the kid was wracking his brains to try and remember what it was. Bungee gliding? Hang jumping? Zip... zip Then it hit him. The wall, that is.

Letting go of the ring, Watashi hit the ground again with a thud and rolled around for a bit while hollering back at Naohiro. "You could have atleast told me what was going on!" Watashi slowly got to his feet again after a few seconds, rubbing his back and feeling around the place where he had landed. If it wasn't for the feeling of a roof above his head, Watashi would have even believed that they dropped back onto the cliffside railing where he and Naohiro had first met. Poking around, it wasn't long before Watashi found out that he was on a balcony of sorts. Tooking back towards the direction that he had fallen for, the boy was now sure that this was going to be a step up from the candy store incident.

 

[Kuru Naohiro]

The white-haired performer watched the two go down the zipline with a satisfied smile on his face. He was wondering if that improvised zipline actually worked, convenient that it did really, Naohiro imagined the guards would probably catch on if they heard yelling coming from the waterfall. Grabbing hold of one of the rings himself, he also ziplined down with the sound of metal grinding to a high pitch. As he reached the end and unlinked himself from the line, he reached for his robe and pulled out a small knife, cutting the ninja wire with a quick swipe.

“Can’t go leaving the evidence lying around,” He commented with a grin, collecting his rings and walking into the underground cave, “Shouldn’t be too long a walk. Hope you brought waterproof shoes.”

Naohiro stepped through the water, splashing through with the occasional droplets falling from the roof, water forming on the cold rock. The water may come outside as a nice waterfall, but it apparently had to sift through the mud inside the cave first. The wet mud felt barely like a liquid as much mud with a watery squelch surprise with every step. As he walked forward, he tried humming to himself for a small moment to ignore the sound before glancing behind himself at the others.

“You know, they never actually bring this sorta stuff up in the academy,” Naohiro mentioned aloud, “The whole dark, smelly and generally unpleasant walks through stuff. Its always the big ninja fights and dramatic moments!”

Naohiro thought about that for a moment before spinning a hundred and eighty degrees, looking towards Maru and Watashi with a wide smirk. He walked backwards through the cave as he continued his conversation.

“Actually,” The white-haired performer brought up, “I’m not even sure if half the teachers have even gone on any real missions! With all the weird lessons they bring up, I think they’re all talk; most of the shinobi are just peacocks with headbands. What do you guys think?”

 

[Midori Futotta]

With Maru and Watashi had zipped in on the hand made zipline, the last to join was the mastermind himself and when he finally got to them he cut the wire so they didn't leave any evidence which was good thinking. Flicking on his eye mask flashlight he looked around to check to see if there are any rats around before he walked in with the white haired lad and the blind kid. “Good thing I always wear boots.” He said stepping through the water, his cape flowing behind him as droplets from the roof hit the top of his head and on his forehead. The ground was pretty silent as they trudged through the mud and water, Maru nearly slipping nearly about to face plant into the mud but caught himself standing straight up. When the white haired lad began to talk, Maru shrugged. “Guess it's because they want to make being a shinobi sound cool I guess. You see the academy is just a gateway into making you guys into soldiers rather than normal people.”

Maru kept moving, listening to the white haired lad then chuckled. It was true that most probably haven't been on a mission on or even won a fight but they still move on to teach students how to act. “Meh I don't know about other people but I hardly teach anyone anything. I kinda like… do research then give students something to do so they don't bother me. That or I have them help me cheat in poker, have them look at other people's hand then blink.” He looked at the blind kid, it would suck if he had a kid who couldn't see as his student when he wanted to cheat, how in the world would they be able to look at the hands?! Guess students with that kind of disability can do some foot washing or something. The things Maru didn't want to do pretty much, like those lame dog missions and he HATED dogs! Hated them with every fiber of his being.

As the trio ventured on Maru was starting to wonder how long would it be before they actually got to where they had to go so he just asked. “Yo got any idea how long it will take to get to that balloon, Mastermind?” He asked, he already forgotten the kid's name so he decided to go with a nickname because it was easier to remember.

 

[Kuru Watashi]

Watashi walked around his little ledge on the side of the mountain, poking around in his best attempt to explore before the others got there. He wasn't too keen about exploring whatever place Naohiro was planning on tossing them into this time, but figured that going along with it for now might be the safer option. It was either that or taking a short tumble down the cliff and that idea really didn't appeal to Watashi. Listening to the water trickle in, he tentatively started walking into the ledge while the other noisy guy landed before realizing where they were and groaning. His echo bouncing back and forth around him, the blind boy realized that this was seriously going to mess with his senses. "We aren't in a cave now, are we?"

Groaning, he started walking in through the mud and water, watching his step the best he could without eyes and letting them go in front of him. He might not be able to tell if there was a trap ahead, but the big guy triggering one would probably give a bit of warning. Watashi trudged forwards through the slime and dirt, trying to keep up with the others' conversation to keep his mind off of what he was doing with his time. "Yeah, I guess it's better for the dumb shinobi to think that running at the danger, waving their arms and shouting about friendship is the way to fight. More distraction for the rest of us and natural selection and all of that! Though they're not really doing a good job at killing off the stupid."

Atleast they would know what they were running at, Watashi figured. The best I can do is just have someone like Hiro tell me what it is and that doesn't sound very safe. The blind boy did his best to make sure that he was traveling through the mud. One bad step on a slick rock would leave the kid worse for wear than having muddy shoes, and Watashi already had shoes for walking. "Shoes of an adventurer," The boy muttered to himself before looking back in the direction of the weirdo as he heard another bad blind joke.

"You know, I always wondered why people bothered gambling with cards," The blind boy snapped back, irritated that it wasn't Naohiro making the blind jokes first. "I figure with all of the mind tricks and mind reading shinobi can do, cheating would be super easy! I guess the people who still use their eyes to look at cards are a few steps behind." Watashi tried remembering the other guy's name, doing his best to be polite before realizing that the guy never gave it. Irked at all of the mud and the weirdos in a cave with him, he tossed his hands up, one of them still holding onto his stick. "Didn't you say that they were measuring water freshness here? I don't think you need to be a researcher to realize that mud isn't safe to drink!"