Ninpocho Chronicles

Ninpocho Chronicles is a fantasy-ish setting storyline, set in an alternate universe World of Ninjas, where the Naruto and Boruto series take place. This means that none of the canon characters exists, or existed here.

Each ninja starts from the bottom and start their training as an Academy Student. From there they develop abilities akin to that of demigods as they grow in age and experience.

Along the way they gain new friends (or enemies), take on jobs and complete contracts and missions for their respective villages where their training and skill will be tested to their limits.

The sky is the limit as the blank page you see before you can be filled with countless of adventures with your character in the game.

This is Ninpocho Chronicles.

Current Ninpocho Chronicles Time:

Radio Nowhere [S-Rank]

Shiruko Makoto

Head Lorekeeper
Staff member
Joined
Oct 7, 2012
Messages
6,658
Yen
31,590
ASP
903
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OOC Rank
S
"Ugh, that stupid numbers station is back on again," Emiko complained, as a burst of static and then a voice reading out numbers cut in on the radio over the local mellow music station. "Sayaka, go fix that, would you?"

The blue-haired waitress, who had been unfortunate enough to have been named after her parents' favourite manga character, sighed and went to fiddle with the radio again, being apparently the only one on shift who could reliably get their music back.

"This is getting really annoying," Emiko grumbled. "Who the hell hijacks the radio just to broadcast a bunch of numbers?"

Makoto considered getting into the history of numbers stations, the reasons why people shouldn't try and decipher what was probably a code used by either the government or a subversive group, and the likelihood that the people broadcasting actually wanted the five square blocks they were in to hear them in that order, then discarded it all for something simpler.

"They're probably not even aware you can hear them," he said, settling on something safer. "This sounds like a transmission that was supposed to be sent to a specific location, but is inadvertently being broadcast on public radio channels by mistake." Close enough to the truth, he supposed, while omitting anything potentially dangerous.

"So what, some stupid kid has a new CB radio and is doing his math homework out loud from it?" Sayaka called as the radio switched back to smooth jazz.

He shrugged noncommittally. "Maybe?"

"You know something," Emiko accused.

He paused in the middle of lifting his glass up (something called a 'cosmo,' which he had never tried before but which was delicious) and made a 'so-so' motion with his free hand. "I have guesses." Maybe some of them were a little more educated than any other theory around, but he didn't need to say that.

"Do your 'guesses' potentially lead anywhere that could get whoever-it-is to stop sending this damn signal here?" she demanded, leaning over the counter in an apparent attempt to intimidate him. It was as if she had temporarily forgotten that, her height advantage over him or no, he was a ninja and she was not.

Makoto heaved a sigh. "I suppose." He swished his near-empty glass. "Can I get another one of these when I get back, then?"

She eyed him tolerantly. "I don't see why not."

~

Locking onto a radio signal without specialized equipment was quite annoying. The phoenix didn't have any ideas for how to do it, either, so he was basically on his own.

Firstly, since the signal was fuzzy, he simply tuned his headset until he found the faint signal--which didn't get stronger no matter what frequency he locked onto, from where he was--and then started walking in various directions until it became clearer. Then he continued on that direction, out of the city and into the desert.

And from there...he wasn't sure. If he'd had some proficiency with sound element jutsu, he might have been able to improvise something, but...

Still no ideas, huh?


I confess to understanding very little about technology, the phoenix replied. This is as much of a mystery to me as to you. perhaps more of one.

Grand.

But then...it was technology. And what were radio waves, really? If he recalled correctly from his reading, they were electromagnetic waves sent out at a specific frequency. In other words, the element they were most closely related to wasn't sound--it was lightning. (Well, maybe it was magnetic, actually, but he could probably work with lightning here.)

They were quite weak, obviously, and normally not harmful to people even at close proximity to a tower. But they were perceptible...which meant that he ought to be able to trace them back to their source. He knew people could triangulate radio waves with special equipment, but he had neither the equipment nor the third point of a triangle to work with.

Therefore, he had to attempt to sense very weak, non-chakra-based, ambient electromagnetic waves. So at least he knew what he was looking for. And, well, he had managed to sense the source of the disturbances back during the storm god mission, so long ago in this same desert...

Makoto closed his eyes, reaching out with his chakra sense. What some people would do to detect a faint signature was to flood their senses with their own chakra in an attempt to brute force it. This worked...all right, for signatures of living things, and things you only had faint traces on. But for trying to find a specific type of energy not attached to a living thing, a lighter touch was required. Instead, he spread out barely more than the required chakra to power it, still coming in under the threshold of what most would need to use, and let it search the area quietly as it seeped out of him.

It was difficult to lock onto a 'trail' in this case, since there wasn't so much a trail as a focal point, given that the numbers signal was being broadcast in all directions. However, he could gradually trace the direction in which the signal became stronger in this way, with his senses so spread out as they were. Gradually he homed in on a specific area, then a specific locale.

It was a single radio tower, no fencing and no people, with a blinking red light at the top.

He came out of his trance and stretched to find the phoenix hovering above him, casting its silvery light around and keeping an eye out. He sent a wordless sensation of thanks at it, before starting the trek in the direction the radio tower was in. He had been zoned out for quite some time, by the sounds of it.

He flipped his headset back on on the way there, for no real reason.

"48. 56. 71. 12. 15." A pause, and a sound of chimes. "16. 27. 34. 5..."

Sure enough, when he reached the tower it continued on, undisturbed, and there were no people there.


"Perhaps it is merely a remote relay?" the phoenix suggested.

"Maybe..." he said slowly. "But...with no fence?"

He walked around it, looking for something that would indicate where the signal was coming from. It could be a relay tower, yes. Especially since he could see no recording or broadcasting equipment other than this. Except...

Around the other side of the tower, behind a slight rise of rocks, were doors that looked like they went to a storm cellar. He exchanged a silent look with the phoenix. Whatever was down there was probably whatever was broadcasting. Moreover, it looked old. Yet this station had only been broadcasting and reaching the nearby town for several weeks...although the tower itself looked new...

"Well then," he said, flipping out his lockpicks to have a go at opening the padlock holding the doors shut. "Let's see what's down there."
 

Shiruko Makoto

Head Lorekeeper
Staff member
Joined
Oct 7, 2012
Messages
6,658
Yen
31,590
ASP
903
Deaths
0
OOC Rank
S
The lock was not a difficult one. Makoto was almost disappointed.

"If you're going to the trouble of putting a secret underground base next to your secret remote radio tower, it should at least be well-defended," he grumbled as he tugged the padlock off and put his lockpicks away. "Piece of junk."

The phoenix hovered over his shoulder, still providing light, as he pulled the doors open and climbed down into the...passageway? Well, all right then. It followed him in, hovering in front of him as he looked around.

There was no one directly around, but the passage continued in only one direction--straight forward, with no turns he could see at any point. The walls, however, were bricked instead of simply stone or packed sand. They were also covered in posters and graffiti, in some sort of strange script he didn't recognize. There were bits and pieces here and there he could recognize, though--although after quickly reading them, he wished he hadn't bothered.

'Look at me!'

'Pay attention to me!'

'Love me do!'


"All right, this is...creepy," he muttered. "I don't know what I was expecting from a numbers station, but it wasn't this. This is...this is serial killer territory."


"That may be premature," the phoenix said. "We have yet to encounter anyone living."

He indicated the graffiti, and the posters--all of which, when examined, depicted scenes that became unsettling if you spent more than a glance on them. The phoenix subsided with a soft trill of understanding, and without asking brightened its silvery glow to reach further down the corridor so they could see ahead properly.

Makoto almost would have preferred less light with which to see the deranged wall scrawling, but common sense won out, and he instead resolved to just ignore them.

At the end of the corridor, a wooden door was set into the wall. He would have pulled out his picks again, but he hadn't seen a lock on it--and indeed, there wasn't one. It opened easily when he turned the handle.

The other side was also a straightforward, narrow corridor. However, the floor here was carpeted in a rich red, and there were dim electrical lights in the ceiling. More to the point, there was no more creepy wall graffiti. Not that what was there was much better--there were huge 'windows' set into the wall, with paintings set behind them. These paintings were of the same type as the posters had been in the previous hallway. Even the phoenix uttered a trill of dismay upon seeing them.

"Whoever is here has got to be seriously disturbed." Makoto's voice echoed a bit. "Assuming anyone is here at all, that is..."

By now, he had taken out his knives. The corridor was too narrow in order to use his main weapon, so he couldn't pull his parasol. Still, the knives weren't a terrible substitute.

His footsteps would have echoed had it not been for the carpeting. He almost wished they had; at least it would be something vaguely creepy he was causing himself, as opposed to just something that was there. But no, it was nothing except him, the phoenix, and the creepy paintings of disturbing, macabre scenes.

Innocuous at first glance, there was a similar theme in all of them--an innocent person standing somewhere innocuous, oblivious as some sort of dark, shadowy monster loomed behind them. The monsters and the people both varied in features, but the implications were obvious.

He would have been able to tell if something was sneaking up on him--but still, it gave him the creeps.

Especially when the music started.

By the look of it, they were about halfway down that second long, narrow hallway when it became apparent that there was some form of sound coming from under the door ahead. Muted and dim at first, it increased in volume as they drew closer. But what on earth was there music for at a numbers station?

The fact that they were probably nearly directly under the transmitter now did Makoto's nerves no favours.

As they reached that door, the music had gotten quite loud. He spared only a brief glance at the last paintings behind the glass bubbles as he put one of his knives away so he could grasp the doorknob--then did a double-take. Neither painting fit the theme, although both were disturbing. The one on the left depicted a headless horsewoman, whose 'head' had been replaced by what looked like the flame of a candle. The one on the right...well, it seemed like a cross between a monstrous knight and a mermaid.

Shaking his head, he twisted the doorknob and yanked the door open.

The phoenix crowded in with him as he stared.

He had expected perhaps some sort of living quarters, but there was none of that here. Only a room full of broadcasting equipment, and a computer big enough to take up a whole wall on its own. The computer was generating the numbers, which appeared on the tiny monitor, before being replaced by the next. There was a tape protruding from it, steadily printing the numbers out. The music was coming from it, as well.

Curled up in a large plush chair, staring at them with wide blue eyes, was a young woman with similarly-coloured hair--no, a teenage girl. She uttered a frightened squeak, scooting the chair back.

"I'm sorry!" the girl blurted. The broadcasting equipment wasn't on at the moment, he noted, so this was not being transmitted. "I had to take a break! I don't often, I swear!"

"I'm not--what?"


"Makoto," the phoenix said quietly. "This girl has no shadow. She is not human."

No shadow? His gaze briefly flickered to the floor, and to the chair, both places were one might be. The chair itself cast a shadow, but the girl did not appear to. She was small enough and curled up enough that not having one on the floor was plausible, but...

The girl had acquired an even more terrified expression. "Don't hurt me!"

"I--" What? "Look, I'm not working with whoever put you here, so you can calm down, okay?"

She looked at him properly, then the phoenix, and stated, with a certainty, "You're telling the truth."

A chill ran down his spine. Yes, he was, but how did she know that? Moreover, the phoenix was still there, and she didn't seem to be either particularly concerned nor relieved by its presence.

Come to think of it, either her blinking was precisely matched to his, or she just didn't blink.


"She is a spirit," the phoenix said, reading his confusion correctly. "Not of the normal variety, as in a human ghost--she has apparently merely chosen a human form. In other aspects, she is more like me. And, I suspect, at least as young as she seems."

"So what, someone captured--or created--a spirit to run a numbers station?" He looked back at the girl who, now apparently convinced they were not threats, was spinning around in her chair. She darted a glance at the printout of numbers every now and then. "And then stuffed her in a creepy hole and neglected her?"

"Creepy?" the girl asked, sounding injured. "Do you mean my paintings? Well, I didn't paint them, but I made them. And put them there."

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but he had no idea how to deal with this.

"But they did neglect me," she continued. "You got the rest right. Tricked, trapped, can't leave, can't lose physical form for now." She shrugged, and he noted that if she had that level of control over her surroundings, she had also chosen the unsettling music and to have a too-large sweater. "Stuck. A seal, of some kind. Limited."


"I see," the phoenix said, gliding over to peer at her curiously. "How limited? You were able to modify your surroundings."

"Yeah." She stopped spinning and peered right back. "A bit. Takes a lot of effort. Have to do it the way some humans can." She whacked her head lightly with a fist. "Stuck."

Some humans can? Oh, with chakra control. Those must just be solid illusions out there. Which meant the only disturbing thing was the girl's taste in art.

"Who did this to you?" he asked, keeping his tone as level as he could so as not to startle.

She shrugged, uncurling her legs and letting them dangle over the edge of the chair. "Don't know names. Bad with human faces, or any sense you'd recognize. You might," she added, correcting herself as she jabbed a finger at the phoenix. "But I don't know words for it and I can't tell you normally."

Now that she'd uncurled, Makoto revised his estimation of her physical age downward--maybe eight or nine, at most eleven if she were particularly small. She was tiny.

"I could have a look at the seal," he said, unsure if he could help. He wasn't the best in the family with seals, but he had far more training than average.

The phoenix pre-empted him though, landing on the arm of the chair. The girl obligingly tilted her head forward and pointed at the back of her neck, where the seal apparently was.


"I believe this seal is beyond your skill, Makoto," it informed him. "I do not know your cousin's skill level, and I still do not entirely trust him. I think your brother ought to take a look."

"Saito?" A nod. "But he's in Moon...oh."

Of course he wasn't going to leave a little girl trapped in an underground bunker with nothing to do but listen to music and read numbers all day and night, spirit or no. Of course he was going to take her out of there. And, if she was a spirit, she didn't have a family he could take her back to.

I keep picking up strays, he thought, but approached the chair and crouched down to meet her eye level. It was a high enough chair that it wasn't very far, at least.

"What's your name?" he asked, then silently berated himself. Some spirits didn't have one, he knew.

"Miki," she said immediately. She climbed to her feet in the chair, then hopped down when he stepped back. "Are you taking me out of here?"

"Yeah," he said, reaching down to take her hand gently in his free one. She didn't seem bothered he was holding a knife in his other hand. "You're coming with me for now."

She looked up at him, eyes still unblinking and wide. "The bad guys won't be happy. They'll come and get me."

He recalled what his brother had told him, some years back, when Makoto had agreed with Saito it was the smart thing to do to keep him ignorant of his own condition, for fear he would talk and the Shrine would take him.

"They'll try," he said simply. "Do you have anything you want to bring?"

She looked around, appearing to consider things, then let go of his hand and toddled over to the broadcast desk, reaching up to grab a pair of oversized dark blue headphones.

"That's it?" he asked when she came back over to him. She nodded. "Okay. Let's go, then."

The phoenix glided out in front of them, lighting the dark corridor to the surface after the long, painting-filled hallway, leading them back into the world above. When they reached the outside, Miki stopped dead and tilted her head upward, staring up at the clear, starry sky.
The hand holding her headphones clutched them tighter.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I know."

They continued on to civilization.
 

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