What had started as a week of relaxation quickly turned into one of high stress.
In a trip to see his own godparents, the Student nearing a personalized Genin Exam found himself back in the Academy he had been exempted from. However, instead of anyone guiding the teenager, Shinjo was in one of the local laboratories during downtime. It was used for elective studies into organics and a single mandatory class of ‘cutting flesh’ so that students could get a feel for digging a weapon into substance. The flesh used was usually corpses of non-chakra citizens donated for the cause, and other times they were pigs. The Tsukinowa was here, however, for other reasons as he had passed that class some months ago when his kunai cut the specimen nearly in half due to his kenjutsu training.
Shinjo was here for a study in poison. In the back towards the corner of the class, the boy had his normally unruly hair tied back into a tight bun with a lab coat covering light-colored scrubs. His hands were protected by rubber gloves as were his feet the same but in boot shape, and both a filtered mask with goggles were firmly attached to his face. To his right in the corner facing the wall was a long narrow table full of leather-bound books of all kinds of sizes. They each detailed a number of poisons, the plants they were made from, and which of their compounds mixed with other toxins. One book, in particular, seemed to be bound in real human skin treated with the gods knew what to keep it looking as supple as the day it was torn off the back of the unfortunate soul. Within that book was a number of deeper secrets that related to his Yamanaka cousins that had been passed down between the hands of his own clan before it somehow ended up locked away in Kumo; no doubt to keep anyone but the Tsukinowa from seeing it. Within those pages were lessons on a number of Genjutsu and how to, say, cast them without using handseals. But the passages that Shinjo kept bookmarked were the ones that referred to gardening.
The Yamanaka were apparently a clan bent on learning every form of Genjutsu. They had through years and years of poison research discovered that some plants actually absorb human chakra. Not Nature Chakra which all vegetation supposedly carried through them, but molded chakra that was already attuned to the aspects of Genjutsu. Grafting this chakra into soil or directly onto a plant came with complications so it was still rare to find the right type of plant of this genus that was also toxic, but the results spoke for themselves. A Genjustu inflicted into the bloodstream instead of just chakra spoke volumes of battlefield carnage. Thing was, Shinjo wasn’t originally a guy who thought much of poison users so he didn’t really pay much attention to those classes. This, of course, still ended with him binging every last book about toxins and plants that held these toxins he could get his hands, but he still caught on as fast as anything else. The stranger book he had found by stumbling across the fleshy tome while in the poisonus section of the Academy Library. It looked like it belonged in the ‘High Rank’ section and had probably just been misplaced; incredibly fortunate to the boy. Yet, unlike the physical activities of swinging a sword or molding his chakra, he needed a delicate touch in order not to…well, poison himself.
Shinjo’s gloved hands were swirling a beaker full of a liquid that looked deeply blue on the bottom with a clear amber-colored oil refusing to bind on top. The top oil-like substance was a plant extract that he had personally spent a painstaking twenty-four hours to draw from a rare flower. The bottom fluids were a known poison, Twilight Venom, that were a mix of special seed paste, mountain cobra venom, and a base solution. Having swirled the liquids now for a solid twenty minutes with no result, Shinjo placed down the beaker and withdrew a notepad to write down a big ‘F’ next to a list of trails he had attempted to use to fuse the two substances. He was down to three, now, and if they didn’t manage to work he would need to discover his own method or call the entire thing a waste of time…which to be honest, it kind of was.
This was all an attempt to keep his mind busy from facing the reality of his recent actions that brought down the lives of his only known remaining family. The shock of the entire situation had already hit him and gone, now he was just trying to recover from the whole ordeal. Grief was something Shinjo was quite familiar with, so unlike most shinobi-to-be that would undoubtedly be dealing with a full psychotic break, the poor teen looked like he just wanted to hurry up and move on from the pain. With a sigh he flopped back down onto a leather padded stool with wheels that rolled back as he connected with it. The guy looked worn out, drained. It wasn’t far from the truth either as he had slept all of about six hours between three days. Yet behind the tired glaze of his eyes one could see there was a fire burning and edging him on to make damn well sure he passed the upcoming exam. Lifting the clipboard again he reviewed the last three methods he had yet to try, cringing at the thought of the last one: using insects.
There was a common type of beetle in Lightning Country that Kumogakure had a small collection of for uses such as these. He had procured the beetles rather easily but had been warned that the reason they could mix special types of poisons was because they, themselves, were incredibly toxic. Adding to that they were horribly hostile as well so, getting them to go from their clean jar to one full of viscous fluids would prove to be a nightmare Shinjo thought would be best for last. Yet as he looked at the list of failed attempts and then back at the hissing three-inch stag beetle inside of its jar he sighed and wondered what it would come down to.
In a trip to see his own godparents, the Student nearing a personalized Genin Exam found himself back in the Academy he had been exempted from. However, instead of anyone guiding the teenager, Shinjo was in one of the local laboratories during downtime. It was used for elective studies into organics and a single mandatory class of ‘cutting flesh’ so that students could get a feel for digging a weapon into substance. The flesh used was usually corpses of non-chakra citizens donated for the cause, and other times they were pigs. The Tsukinowa was here, however, for other reasons as he had passed that class some months ago when his kunai cut the specimen nearly in half due to his kenjutsu training.
Shinjo was here for a study in poison. In the back towards the corner of the class, the boy had his normally unruly hair tied back into a tight bun with a lab coat covering light-colored scrubs. His hands were protected by rubber gloves as were his feet the same but in boot shape, and both a filtered mask with goggles were firmly attached to his face. To his right in the corner facing the wall was a long narrow table full of leather-bound books of all kinds of sizes. They each detailed a number of poisons, the plants they were made from, and which of their compounds mixed with other toxins. One book, in particular, seemed to be bound in real human skin treated with the gods knew what to keep it looking as supple as the day it was torn off the back of the unfortunate soul. Within that book was a number of deeper secrets that related to his Yamanaka cousins that had been passed down between the hands of his own clan before it somehow ended up locked away in Kumo; no doubt to keep anyone but the Tsukinowa from seeing it. Within those pages were lessons on a number of Genjutsu and how to, say, cast them without using handseals. But the passages that Shinjo kept bookmarked were the ones that referred to gardening.
The Yamanaka were apparently a clan bent on learning every form of Genjutsu. They had through years and years of poison research discovered that some plants actually absorb human chakra. Not Nature Chakra which all vegetation supposedly carried through them, but molded chakra that was already attuned to the aspects of Genjutsu. Grafting this chakra into soil or directly onto a plant came with complications so it was still rare to find the right type of plant of this genus that was also toxic, but the results spoke for themselves. A Genjustu inflicted into the bloodstream instead of just chakra spoke volumes of battlefield carnage. Thing was, Shinjo wasn’t originally a guy who thought much of poison users so he didn’t really pay much attention to those classes. This, of course, still ended with him binging every last book about toxins and plants that held these toxins he could get his hands, but he still caught on as fast as anything else. The stranger book he had found by stumbling across the fleshy tome while in the poisonus section of the Academy Library. It looked like it belonged in the ‘High Rank’ section and had probably just been misplaced; incredibly fortunate to the boy. Yet, unlike the physical activities of swinging a sword or molding his chakra, he needed a delicate touch in order not to…well, poison himself.
Shinjo’s gloved hands were swirling a beaker full of a liquid that looked deeply blue on the bottom with a clear amber-colored oil refusing to bind on top. The top oil-like substance was a plant extract that he had personally spent a painstaking twenty-four hours to draw from a rare flower. The bottom fluids were a known poison, Twilight Venom, that were a mix of special seed paste, mountain cobra venom, and a base solution. Having swirled the liquids now for a solid twenty minutes with no result, Shinjo placed down the beaker and withdrew a notepad to write down a big ‘F’ next to a list of trails he had attempted to use to fuse the two substances. He was down to three, now, and if they didn’t manage to work he would need to discover his own method or call the entire thing a waste of time…which to be honest, it kind of was.
This was all an attempt to keep his mind busy from facing the reality of his recent actions that brought down the lives of his only known remaining family. The shock of the entire situation had already hit him and gone, now he was just trying to recover from the whole ordeal. Grief was something Shinjo was quite familiar with, so unlike most shinobi-to-be that would undoubtedly be dealing with a full psychotic break, the poor teen looked like he just wanted to hurry up and move on from the pain. With a sigh he flopped back down onto a leather padded stool with wheels that rolled back as he connected with it. The guy looked worn out, drained. It wasn’t far from the truth either as he had slept all of about six hours between three days. Yet behind the tired glaze of his eyes one could see there was a fire burning and edging him on to make damn well sure he passed the upcoming exam. Lifting the clipboard again he reviewed the last three methods he had yet to try, cringing at the thought of the last one: using insects.
There was a common type of beetle in Lightning Country that Kumogakure had a small collection of for uses such as these. He had procured the beetles rather easily but had been warned that the reason they could mix special types of poisons was because they, themselves, were incredibly toxic. Adding to that they were horribly hostile as well so, getting them to go from their clean jar to one full of viscous fluids would prove to be a nightmare Shinjo thought would be best for last. Yet as he looked at the list of failed attempts and then back at the hissing three-inch stag beetle inside of its jar he sighed and wondered what it would come down to.
