Those who were derelict in their duties were the worst kind of scum. Those who couldn't protect the village were also the worst kind of scum, and even those who would fulfill those duties, but in so doing forget about the importance of friendship and family were also the worst kinds of scum. Those who didn't have any dreams of their own to fulfill? You guessed it; again, worst kind of scum. In fact, one could make a case for it being fairly difficult not to devolve into scum in this world of shinobi the hidden villages found themselves at the epicenters of. So, why not kick your sandals off, lace your fingers together behind your head, and melt away into moral ambiguity for an hour, or an afternoon? Now you could, with Tetsu's forest spirit infused peach cobbler flavoured homemade coolers and wine, now without bathtub grime!
No, no, that wasn't quite... Good enough, as a sales pitch. He didn't know why, exactly, because it would have worked on him, but his finely honed salesman senses told him that it wouldn't on the seasoned Anbu he would be selling to today. The boy wiped the beads of sweat from his brow as he pulled his hobbled together cart up to the mountain pass. Looking back at his haul, it may have been slightly ambitious in terms of what he felt he could get rid of for the day, but he just couldn't resist the dream of pulling the thing back with a mound of money in place of where the bottles now stood.
'Shoot for the stars; even if you miss, you'll land on the moon,' as the new saying went. Instantly, or at least as soon as the oddly assembled crowd was in view, Tetsu knew who his mark was. As there was no law against wearing an Anbu-esque mask without being a part of the corps, Tetsu quickly slipped the stylish accessory he had gained as a mission reward on, replete with the cool markings and carefully crafted broken area around the eye he had made for added cool factor.
After passing a quick and untrusting glance over the adolescents that were putting together what looked like some kind of picnic, the boy cast a Rock Golem to menacingly watch over his cart as he forced a casual sort of walk over to Maikeru, looking up toward the sky as if he wasn't cutting a direct path toward the maskless Anbu. It was odd though, wasn't it? Was the corps finally giving up it's pretense of secrecy? Well, that hardly mattered for the moment.
"Friend, how about this weather, huh?" A weak start, but it was okay, still salvageable,
"Finally getting a bit of sun out here, but it's just not quite warm enough to really shake off those Winter blues yet, ya know?" Here, he materialized two ornate looking bottles from his coat,
"Why not add a few much needed degrees Celsius with a nice glass of the ol' one, two punch, huh? I've got the de-facto finest brewed peach infused wines and spirits this side of the country." He briefly glanced over to the girl who was having her papers asked for.
'Too young.' He quickly guessed, or at least she was still probably too young for Cloud's current medieval age restrictions on drinking, but Tetsu knew the day would come where Kumogakure finally stepped into the fourteenth century, and when they did, Tetsu would be ready with his batch of colourful liquor labels with friendly looking teddy bears and princesses for the new demographic.
"You don't want your liquor brewed in some giant, industrial vat somewhere, do you? Where's the soul? You really gonna drink a spirit without a soul? Come on." He was particularly proud of that line. Kind of started a bit rough, but the boy felt he had really stuck the landing on this one.
