Troublesome Children [Open for all!]

[Kuru Naohiro]

Naohiro wandered through the halls of the academy with a whistle to his step and an overtly large map in his hands. The white-haired performer looked at the map with a small frown, clearly confused at its contents. He had torn this out of one of the classrooms in hopes of being able to find his way around the academy. A further analysis of the map now that it was in his hands helped him realise something very important about this map.

“It doesn’t even have the academy on it!” Naohiro complained, tearing up the horribly inaccurate world map.

As he tore up the overtly large map into small bits of paper confetti, he felt as though it had suddenly become far more useful. The boy casually grabbing handfuls of the torn map and tossing it at random students that crossed his way. It was all that useless map really deserved. After pestering a satisfactory number of students, Naohiro placed the remaining paper confetti into his pocket for future use.

“Nice place though,” He commented to himself as he continued to scout the academy, “Useless maps aside, there’s gotta be something useful around here.”

As he continued to scout the area, the lad pulled out one of his signature metal hoops and began to twirl it along his arms as he walked. As was customary, if anyone started staring at the hoop too long, Naohiro would make a casual swipe for their pockets as he passed them. Who doesn’t pay for a performance? The thought made him smirk, continuing his walk.

“Maybe I should ask someone,” He mumbled, glancing about at the other students.

 

[Notamashi Yuuto]

When Yuuto had first arrived at Kumogakure's academy, the facility had been daunting to him, to say nothing of the village at large. Despite how hopelessly huge he had first seen it as, however, he had managed to settle in and get used to navigating the site.

As is usual for a place where children from a wide variety of families congregate, there was a fair amount of...interesting students, with all manner of personalities, skills, and other quirks and characteristics. Yuuto himself would be considered different from the normal person; unless, that is, everyone in Kumogakure had suddenly turned into people with demonic heritage.

With such a diverse array of people, most of the students' quirks weren't too surprising, Yuuto could definitely say that he had not expected to encounter someone...twirling a ring?

The movements of the ring as it span round the boy's were quite hypnotic, and wouldn't seem too out of place were he some street performer with a little hat full of change next to him, but...this was a shinobi academy. A place where kids are trained to become fire-breathing, sword-slashing ninja. To Yuuto, it seemed an odd place to be practising whatever you'd call swinging a rig around your arms.

Not wishing to pry too deep into this stranger's activity, he stares at the ring with a quizzical look, before looking at the student, giving him a "huh", before starting to walk past him, to wherever his destination was, unless stopped by anyone for any reason...was...that confetti on the floor?

[WC: 256, Topic Entered]

 

[Kuru Naohiro]

The white-haired performer took the chance to examine the crowd of students for a moment longer, catching the spinning hoop and sliding it to his elbow while he investigated. He decidedly spun towards one of the nearest students, giving a wide grin as he grabbed them by the shoulder to stop them. It was a dark-haired looking lad, seemed simple enough but trusting the general state of the shinobi the guy could be hiding a set of razor-sharp teeth or something. Decidedly taking the risk of a potential shark monster student, Naohiro spoke up.

“Hey, you,” Naohiro said, giving a grin to the new kid, “Yeah, you. Have you checked out the academy already? Need some help with something.”

Naohiro looked up and down at the new guy for a moment longer. Still can’t see any razor-sharp teeth, so that was a bonus. The thought passed quickly as he gestured for the new guy to follow him, moving to jog through the hallway past the crowd of students. Once he broke through it, he stopped and spun on the new guy.

“Alright, need you to help me with two things,” Naohiro explained, holding out two fingers, “First, need help figuring out where the headmasters office is. Second, any clue where we keep the kunai and stuff? It’s gotta be in a storage room somewhere.”

 

[Notamashi Yuuto]

Of all the passing by students in the corridor, of course Yuuto is the one stopped by the mysterious ring boy. Fate seemed to enjoy utterly derailing what would have been an otherwise ordinary day with some eccentric character, dragging the boy into god-knows-what situation.

"Uh, well, I roughly know my way around the place. Why? Are you lost or something?" But apparently the ring-twirling student, interesting though he appeared, just wanted directions or something like that.

The boy's eyes seemed to assess Yuuto, lingering a little too long for his liking. Maybe he was sizing the Notamashi up, or maybe he was just weird. "Probably both," he internally comments. Now free of the crush of people, he listens in to the weird boy's elaborations. Him asking where the headmaster's office was made Yuuto's brow crease, though his expression was swiftly replaced with one of alarm and surprise when asked where kunai were. In the recesses of his mind, there was a telltale stirring as kunai are brought up, Onsei's gaze moving to the conversation at hand instead of whatever disembodied voices lurking in one's consciousness did to idle to time away.

"What...what do you need kunai for? Are you going to try and murder to headmaster or something? You're even crazier than you look..."

Yuuto shifts slightly away from the white-haired boy, ready to move away if his suspicions are confirmed. Assassination plots weren't what he wanted a hand in.

"So, why do you need kunai? Am I right, or are you...I don't know, putting on a juggling act for the headmaster?"

[WC: 263]

 

[Kuru Naohiro]

The white-haired performer gave a wide grin at the hesitation before giving a casual glance at his own attire. He didn’t look like an assassin, right? If he did he may need to consider a new clothing change. The thought made him wonder, what does an assassin even look like. He had to assume blood covered, but Naohiro wasn’t even wearing any red clothing! The thoughts passed as he looked back at the boy, giving a casual shrug to him.

“Yes, sadly you’ve caught me out,” Naohiro commented, clearly trying to hold back laughter as he threw his hands up in surrender, “I intend to assassinate the man who can throw fireballs the size of the academy with a metal kunai. Unfortunate really, honestly thought I had a good idea going there.”

Naohiro began to play with the metal hoop once more, glancing down the hallway for a moment. The office is probably on the second or third floor, who doesn’t put their office on the highest floor possible. Still needed to get to that storage room however …

“Though if I had to give a decent reason beside assassinating the headmaster,” He pondered aloud, glancing about, “Guess the reasons I’m looking for some entertainment. You can’t tell me you aren’t looking for some!”

With his quickly done, somewhat truthful reply, the white-haired performer gestured forward with a wide grin on his face. Waiting with a twinkle in his eye to see if the boy would help him find the storage room.

 

[Notamashi Yuuto]

On reflection, with a helping hand from Naohiro's sarcastic reply, his accusation had sounded a little weird, and honestly, what kind of assassin would outright say they were planning on assassinating somebody? But not wanting to seem completely stupid, Yuuto doubles down, trying to provide solid reasoning.

"Alright, fine, it sounds stupid. I don't know, people do dumb stuff like that sometimes. And no-one's completely unbeatable. Can't throw building sized kunai at someone you don't even realise is there."

"Looking for entertainment" seemed a far more likely reason for this boy wanting to find some kunai than some murder plot, so with a sigh, Yuuto decides to agree to help look around.

"I guess some entertainment couldn't hurt. So... headmaster's office. I reckon that it'll be somewhere nearby the rest of the manager-y...important offices, probably nicely labelled for us to identify. Classrooms are probably mostly on the first floor, with a few on the second..maybe with the actual teachers' offices near the respective classrooms? So could be on the third floor...or maybe it's near the entrance? And for the storage room, that's probably near the training room place, maybe in there, but you could possibly request to use some, say it's for extracurricular activities. But if you're not allowed, other than giving up and going about your day...which I doubt is an option for you...I guess you'd have to sneak into the storage room and grab them, so you'd have to deal with cameras that are probably monitoring that place all the time, and anyone who could be a witness..."<i></i>

[WC: 260]

 

[Kuru Naohiro]

Naohiro’s smile grew wider as he finally got the explanation he was looking for. His eyebrow raised at the mention of cameras however. It can never just be an easy steal. The white-haired performer rolled his eyes as he thought of a quick plan. After a moment, he looked towards the stranger with the same twinkle to his eye.

“That’s the right attitude, atleast someone has some clue where we’re going. Nice going, Maps,” Naohiro praised with a wink, giving the stranger a nickname, “Asking for permission is a horrible thing to get into the habit of. We’re ninja, right?”

He reached into his robes for a moment, his fingers feeling out the metallic hoops before pushing past and pulling out a small bundle of colourful rope. He normally used those sort of rope for setting up balancing acts and tying things to other things, standard rope stuff. Naohiro took a small bit from the bundle and tossed it to Maps with a nod.

“Just wrap your face with that rope,” Naohiro explained, giving a casual shrug for his improvised disguise, “As for the witnesses ... guess we just need a distraction.”

To solve the distraction, Naohiro casually lifted one of his sandaled feet upwards, showing the underside of the sandal to Maps with a smirk. The white-haired performer touched bottom of the sandal and pulled away a small note that appeared to of been glued to the actual bottom. Flipping the painted note around showed the iconic explosive tag.

“Amazingly handy these things,” He commented with a smile, moving to lay with his back against the wall for a moment to hide the fact that he planted the tag underneath a picture frame, “Should give us a minute or two.”

With the basics set up, Naohiro gave a nod to the other with a grin before starting to head off towards the storage room, unravelling a bit more of the rope from the bundle for his own improvised mask.

 

[Notamashi Yuuto]

The further Yuuto got stuck in this plot, the more pronounced this horrible feeling of dread building in the pit of his stomach became.

"My name's Yuuto, though I feel like you're going to carry on calling my 'Maps' regardless..."

The troublemaker's nonchalant disregard for things like 'asking for permission' and presumably 'basic laws and etiquette' took he Nōtamashi by surprise. This boy practically screamed 'bad idea', but at the same time, going along with whatever he had in mind sounded quite entertaining...though it may be best if he tried to rein him in a little. Call it...a public service.

"But even ninja need to ask permission someti- why are you pulling out some rope. What kind of disguise is that? You're going to look suspicious."

Taking a quick look around to spot any prying eyes or mechanical lenses, Yuuto forms the handseal sequence for the transformation technique, using whatever person around his age popped into his head.

Whether it was someone he'd seen in his class, he wasn't sure, but oh well.

"See? Now nobody will know it's me...unless they see through the disguise, but I might have a plan for it. And if this goes off without a hitch, I'm not going to have suspicious rope marks all over my face."

"We need a distraction."

Something about those words sent a shiver down Yuuto's spine, words that carried terrible, horrible foreboding. And then Naohiro took off his shoe, and pulled off an explosive tag.

"What the hell are you doing!" Yuuto hissed, trying to not yell at Naohiro. "Explosive tags are dangerous! What if someone gets hurt? What if someone dies? Do you know how much trouble you'd be in? You'd get locked up in uh...the... prison place!"

[WC: 290]

 

[Maikeru]

The academy. Maikeru had never understood why the Jonin and Chuunin had always complained about duty here, until he was asked to lead a few classes in the basics of medical ninjutsu. Rubbing his eyes tiredly as he graded the last paper, through which yet another student had tried to fake a semblance of understanding of what he had explained, he leaned back in the chair in the classroom. Dropping the paper loosely from his fingertips onto the large stack that had already gathered, he took a sip from his mug of coffee, before gathering up his jacket and gear.

Maybe it was that he was a bad teacher, or maybe Kumo just didn't have an interest in medical shinobi, leaf sure as hell didn't when he left. Regardless, he was done for the day. Now, he could go home and avoid his girlfriend in peace. Crossing the room, he slipped one arm, before the other, through the long coat he had taken to wearing in the spring months, before he heard small voices passing from behind the closed door.

"...Nice going, maps." The voice rang out before fading into the distance. Raising a curious eyebrow at that, Maikeru got a bad feeling in his stomach.

Why were students walking the halls at the minute? Shouldn't they be in class? The only students he had known to do that was... oh no. Sighing deeply, annoyedly, he shook his head. No. This wasn't his issue anymore. He had left behind the boys in Fire Country. He was someone new, he wasn't going to get involved. He wasn't.

"...Raiden be damned.." He muttered, before slowly opening the door.

As he peered his head out, watching the two boys traverse the halls of the academy, he began to tail behind them. Honestly, it wasn't that hard. They were Academy Students after all, and he was a trained shinobi. It was metaphorically like taking candy from a baby, probably literally as well. Following and listening, he had just been about to turn around and leave when he saw the explosive tag removed from the younger lads shoe. God damnit.

"Yes, that is a good question." Maikeru said, stepping from behind the corner, raising a curious eyebrow "What exactly is it you think you're doing Ri- er, boys. Do you know how much trouble you could get in if you were caught?"

[Topic entered]

 

[Kuru Naohiro]

The white-haired performer looked at the disguise jutsu for a moment before his grin grew even wider. Watching the boy lecture him about explosive tags in that new appearance was remarkably entertaining. Naohiro made a note to memorise that face, thinking for a moment on some potential fun he could do. The thoughts passed quickly however as he looked back at the disguised kid, giving a casual wink.

“If they weren’t dangerous,” Naohiro said, giving a smirk, “They wouldn’t be very distracting, now would they?”

Just as Naohiro turned to go down one of the hallways, some high rank got in their way. The white-haired boy glanced towards Maps once more with a wink, trying to convince him to play along. He glanced at the stranger for a moment before patting the explosive tag on the wall.

“Don’t worry about the tag mister,” Naohiro reassured, giving a nod, “The teacher told me to put it there before heading to class! We’re gonna be having a trap finding exercise and he asked each of us to find atleast one place to hide a trap. Maps planted his somewhere too, right?”

He looked towards Maps with a shrug, gesturing outward in the hallway. There always had to be some sorta inconvenience in the way. The white-haired performer just had to wait and see if the bluff paid off, he still needed to do some scouting.

[OOC: Had to edit the post a whole lot, didn’t notice Maikeru had sprouted into the thread before I posted. The pains I get for replying fast!]

 

[Notamashi Yuuto]

"There are plenty of non-life threatening distractions! You could-"

Yuuto stops dead, teeth clenched when a voice sounds right next to him. If he remembered right...it was the guy from that time he was nearly dragged away for Youkai testing. Maybe he was some kind of spirit meant to try and stop stuff like this from happening to him.

Naohiro's bluff didn't seem too bad, but at the same time it didn't seem like Maikeru would buy it; it sounded like he had heard Yuuto's protests, after all. And besides, would a school let children plant real explosive tags everywhere?

"Uh, not yet, still trying to find a place, but they're not meant to be real explosives! The exercise uses fake explosive tags, but he thought it'd be a good idea to substitute it. People find it, it goes off, funny prank, he thought. I don't think it's a particularly strong one, probably wouldn't hurt anyone, but I'm not sure."

That seemed a good enough reason for everything. All that was left was to pray he didn't notice the transformation jutsu...

[WC: 181]

 

[Omoi Tetsu]

Most people, they didn't know what it was like to be starving; starving to death even. Was he hungry? No, it was worse than that, what he felt made all the hunger that had been draining the life from his cheeks and eyes feel like a distant thought. He tried sitting, in the nearby forest to calm his racing thoughts. Maybe there was some avenue he hadn't explored, but even as he tried to think of these things, it felt like there were a hundred voices, all his own, screaming in his head. That wasn't the case either; neither the hunger nor the voices were really what were plaguing him in any real sense, but how could he describe this feeling that was so fundamentally indescribable? Would he ever be forgiven? It didn't matter. He wandered up to the academy as if his feet had decided that reasoning was pointless before his brain could catch up with the realization, but it was true, he had scraped every last dollar he could find. He tried to work even, he tried. It didn't work out, and he didn't want to think of that any more. All he needed was one good pay cheque and that would be it. One bad deed and he could clear his head and figure out a way to move forward properly, but he couldn't think at all.

Nanaimo would touch the cold bricks on the outside of the building, looking wearily inside the academy. Were there teachers around? It didn't look like it. He could be a teacher, even. He was old enough. It was true that he looked a bit haggard, but don't these guys go through enough that you might find one or two looking like he did? It was probably also true that the turnover right for ninjas in any role was pretty quick, all things considered; probably, no one even recognized the people around them. Of course, Nanaimo didn't truly believe these things, it was more that he was trying to muster enough courage to go through with the act that he knew he had no choice but to follow through with. His skin was itchy all over, he wanted to dig into it with his finger nails until they reached bone, and maybe then he'd be able to get a good night's sleep.

Finally, with a feeling of apprehension and inevitability, he opened the door and made his way inside.

These kids disgusted him, they were being given everything and didn't even realize it, but he supposed this was just what life was like when you were that young. He could have gone far, when he was in school, all his teachers would tell him how smart he was, he even remembered one telling him he should try getting into medicine since he was pretty good at science. Well, he laughed quietly, he got into it eventually, turned out.

There, in the distance, he found his target, or what would have to be good enough. Two boys standing and chatting by themselves and somewhat isolated from the other children walking by in a discreet corridor of the academy that led to a small storage room. One of them even had some... Rope covering his face. Nanaimo didn't know what the purpose of that was, but it would be useful to find a kind who wouldn't necessarily be recognized leaving the building. If the man had any luck at all at this point, he would have also seen Maikeru chatting there with the children, which in turn might have scared the man off, but the MiT was momentarily obscured from where the haggard looking man was standing.

He knew there was no time to lose, and every second idly standing and apprehensively contemplating what he knew needed to be done was another second of attention being drawn toward him. 'You already decided to act, so act!' He thought to himself, and then, as if by magic, his feet started moving, first in a brisk walk, and then, as he got closer, a jog. All these clans were rich. They wouldn't throw a penny his way normally, but they'd do anything if they knew their precious kids were in danger. He didn't want to think that way, but it was the bare bones truth. Now he was running as he came right up on the boy, and only then saw Maikeru, but it was too late then, it was now or never, live or die, he could never come back to the academy for a redo on this. This was so dangerous, he was shaking. He was probably going to end up in a ditch somewhere, but it didn't matter. Anything, he'd do anything just for a chance at getting rid of this awful feeling. He needed it, needed the money.

.
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OoC: Alert! Alert! Kidnapping attempt in progress! Nanaimo is attempting to snatch Naohiro out of the discussion and run out of the school with him, leaving the topic if successful. In other words, topic left with Naohiro unless stopped.

 

[Maikeru]

Maikeru just blinked as he looked at the two boys in front of him, presumably speechless from the words that they had spoken to him. On the one hand, at least they were clever enough to quickly come up with a lie, on the other they had lied to him. Shaking his head, he crossed his arms across his chest as he took a step closer to the boys, his blue eyes coming to meet with theirs.

"Look, I'll give you a six for the gall to pull this off, but a two for creativity. Someone in my generation tried this same prank, and I ended up having to bury him. Is that really what you two kids want?" Sighing, he crouched down so he could be at eye level of them. "Because that's not what I want, so why don't you give me that explosive tag and go back to class? If you just stop now, we can pretend this never happened, otherwise, I'll be forced to use physical violence to take it from you. I'm tired, I don't want to do that."

Before he continued to speak, he caught sight of the mysterious man out of the corner of his eye. Why was he running? Was he a guest teacher at the academy? Maikeru certainly didn't recognize him. All of his questions were answered as the man grabbed the white haired child under his arm and began to run with him, and fast. Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Maikeru pinched the bridge of his nose before looking at the boy who remained unharmed.

"God damnit.. just.. stay here. Don't make me hunt you down later." As Maikeru spoke lightning would begin to crackle around him, a blue aura surrounding him as the lightning became more and more intense.

He would activate his Sharingan as he watched the man continue to run, the whole world coming to a near crawl. The man didn't appear to be a shinobi, or at least if he was he wasn't a very good one. His movements were sloppy, wasted energy burned with each step he took. Great, he was going to spend the day dealing with this now. The young Uchiha came to a low crouching position before he pushed off with his legs, his form disappearing from the view of the young Academy student.

With the enhanced speed of the jutsu, and the increased cognition from his Sharingan, it was a simple task to pass the man, coming to a stop in front of him. Sharingan staring into the man's eyes, Maikeru would use a light genjutsu on him before speaking.

"Drop the boy." He ordered, his eyes cold as he looked to the shotty excuse at a criminal. "I really don't have time to deal with you."

[Crpj Raiden's armor used]
[Hypnotic suggestion bloodline genjutsu used]