What are those markings upon the paper? <Private/Itami>

[Toraono Michino]

Ah the library, such a great place of relaxation.

Though Tama had read almost every last book he could get in his hands on, including things in the ‘top clearance’ section he still found the smell of books and the sound of turning pages to spark a feeling of relaxation inside of him. There was just something about the very feel of the parchment between his fingers that brought him into a creative relaxed mood making him the perfect study partner. That was, if he could ever find someone smart enough to study with since his only real peer intelligence wise was the Steward.
Before him was a book that was made to attempt to teach the quantum mechanics of chakra based machinery and the theory of amounts it would take to energize large structures. Of course as Tama flipped through this book for at least the third time he was taking notes with his left hand on a scroll that held more than just writing. On it was the vague blueprints for some large ship-like creation, the measurements for propellers being worked out as Tama switched between the book and a ruler, and multiple mathematical equations sitting next to the designs to strange devices that looked like a generator with a slot open for…what have you. The glasses that had once adorned his face had been set aside since he only needed them for viewing things in a strong distance away from him. With the most recent burst of power he had succeeded in controlling his eyes had permanently switched from the amber color to the two colors of blue and green holding onto the irises of right and left respectively. He had in the works the creation of a ring that would help him completely reign in the holy powers that he channeled under his control. The only reason he was working on this thing in front of him now instead of the ring was that he had hit…a bit of a stalemate.
There was a manner of how the ring would work in controlling his powers. The silver was just a nice catalyst for the runes he would need to inscribe on it as he had done research on a week ago, the only problem was finding an actual book that held those runes. The artwork of such a craft was ancient and hadn’t been used since the days of the First Men but rumor was that the books detailing different runes still existed somewhere in Sunagakure. So…in the mean time he was trying to distract himself from the frustration of not getting what he wanted IMMEDIATELY by creating something else that was…actually really impossible too.

It was a ship that was going to be able to sail the sands in the world above…or at least in theory that’s what the intention was. He knew for a fact that the world above was filled with harsh weather that could tear your body to shreds in a matter of days unless you had divine guidance; it was how he got here. Yet there was also very resistant metals that were born from the mining expeditions further into the belly of the creature they lived in as its petrified remains became one with the land again. So a ship built out of this material entirely would allow it to go outside and face the harsh elements, but then came the problem of movement, a problem that Tama was working on solving now. It was going to take extremely powerful engines just to lift the ship from the ground to start with, engines that had yet to have been invented yet to Tama’s extensive knowledge…he’d probably have to get the Steward in on this one since he seemed to have a better grasp on the engineering side of science.
With a sigh Tama put down the quill and placed a bored right hand against his face to cover his eyes for a moment in complete darkness to rest his working mind. He had been in this library for at least half a day now and the number of books that surrounded him in stacks showed that much yet he was starting to feel the closing crush of boredom reach into his mind. Reading was his favorite subject, planning and creating following, but the impossibility of his invention was starting to drag down on those things. What he needed was a distraction at this point…

 

[Kokomo]

Perhaps you'd never know the feeling, and it never crossed your mind what it may be like. For someone as curious and strange as the six foot two inch porcelain woman that entered the library, it was quite an adventure that had crossed her mind many times before, mulling between thoughts and ideas. You see, Kanashimi Itami had been in the library many times before because it had the best of smells. She had heard the whispers of parchment, and the murmurs of people across the library. Her delicate fingers had brushed upon the pages of unreadable messages, as the aloof perfume of ancient and pure information would capture her nose. But toady, it was a different story that all the other times. Today, Itami appeared in a much different form that she had all of her other grand entrances. No, on this particular day, the woman would not enter covered in dirty and bloody bandages. She would not enter like the monster from a horror movie--No. Iori made a beauty out of the beast. Using the flesh and organs that was left over from her dying husband, the new Itami could be created into flawless grace--if not even more intimidating. The issue was, she had got through serious constructive surgery in order to make herself more approachable, when in fact, she went even farther in the wrong direction. When she was sharpened into flawlessness, she became... too perfect. Scary perfect.

So, on this crisp summer day, the woman strode in. A delicate and pale finger wrapping around her raven black hair as she bit nervously down onto her new plump rose lips. (Despite further expectations, beauty does not magically make one confident.) There was something still off about this perfect body, something that people took for granted. This woman's eyes resembled an umbrella pattern of alternating colors: soft light green and caramel brown. They were radiating eyes of the Hashigaki--The Blind. Her eyes were unfocused and seemed to be staring straight ahead at something, even if her attention was elsewhere. Alas, she had been luck enough to be taught the all-seeing eye of everyone's multipurpose: the crystal eye. It was made of sand and crawled on the ceiling of the library above her, the crystal eye moving to a brilliantly blonde boy who sat poised in a chair, flipping through some sort of book. It watched curiously at the scribbles and marks upon the page that ment little to nothing to the curious woman who found herself hovering up behind him.

"How do you know what that means?" She asked with a voice that was built to be just as flawless as her body, a bit too pigheadedly, as her slim finger fell to the page and pointed to the word: 'Made'. Frowning the crystal eye zoomed to the page, the image it saw appearing in the blind woman's brain as her eyes stared blankly across the room, even though her finger was on the page. "It's gibberish."

 

[Toraono Michino]

Tama didn’t look up immediately from his studies when the woman came by to poke at his book, and instead picked her finger up gently and flicked at it in a motion to remove itself; he wasn’t very happy about strangers touching his things.
With a gentle raise of his hand he tucked a bit of his silvery hair behind his ear and looked up at the woman who stood behind him out the corner of his left eye which held a bewitching green iris. The pupil seemed almost perfect as the strange energies that coursed through the child’s body had outright cured his need for glasses. Normally he would wear a pair of fake glasses since most people remembered that he used to need them quite badly. The only place he really had left that he could be without those large framed lenses were here in the library since he could simply brush it off as that he was near-sighted. For some reason the child had a feeling with just a simple glance that this one wasn’t a person he would be able to easily fool. The question had been so simple too from such a person that could break him away from his studies so quick. Most of the time the students were simply left alone to their own devices if they appeared to be studying something; a down fall in the system if you included Tama.

“That’s “made”, to create. Of course your pointing to the one in runic gibberish that’s hard to understand in the first place,” he pushed the book on top aside and turned around in his chair that apparently has a swivel function, “What can I do for you? Most people tend to avoid the students and it’s not like an adult to come bother me for anything when I’m in here. I assume it’s important?”

It had better be important at least. The boy had just nearly made a breakthrough on the energy source for modern engines, something that could easily double their power if his theory proved correct. There was still some major calculations to be done by that horrendous thing called “math”, but this breakthrough alone could put him into higher invention societies that could get him some serious grants to explore his inventive side. What he needed to control his power was nearly complete so it was time to start getting back into his other projects…one of them being quite ludicrous. He intended to craft a vehicle of sorts that could traverse the harsh outside and begin salvaging the old world of their country. The young scientist had a going theory that there was powerful information of Suna’s past that could strongly benefit the country or himself.

 

[Kokomo]

The boy seemed interesting, and gave the woman a moment to stagger back mentally. Itami raised an eyebrow, her face staring over at the entrance of the library, and never at his face. Her hand being pulled from the book as he slid it away from him and swiveled around, the freakazoid having to back up to avoid his knees. Folding her hands in front of her, Itami found that he was a very blunt character who wanted to get straight to the point--but how did she bring it up?

"Hm." She said inquisitively as her fingers toyed with one another and she tipped her head to the side, the crystal eye circling around her head for a moment before resting on her shoulder. "I want to learn." She finally said simply, her head tipping to one side curiously. "I just gained eyesight." Itami said, motioning to her unfocused and brilliant eyes, "And I need to learn to read--naturally, as I am a doctor."

Have you ever met a doctor that couldn't read or write?

Didn't think so.

"I need to learn to sign my name, too. For papers." The woman grabbed the chair behind her and pulled it up to him, sitting down in it. "You're a bright boy. Patient too."

"Well?"

 

[Toraono Michino]

Oh, this one was quite blunt it seemed. A characteristic that Tama quite enjoyed since scientists tended to be quite blunt in their own manor of technological babble. So she wanted to learn how to read and write due to having been blind all this time? He did indeed have the ability to teach someone how to read and write basic in a single day since that’s what it took for him to learn. His mother had put him through such terrible unrelenting drills that enabled him to read at the age of two and articulate his penmanship at three. Since this woman asking for his assistance was of an older age he theorized that she would be able to learn a little faster.
The boy stood up for a second and began to clear off his desk by rolling up his scrolls and closing the ancient tomes he was studying then placing them all into his ever growing satchel before taking a walk towards the stairs,
“I will be just a moment.”
Tama was gone for about a good ten minutes before he was ascending the stairs again with a trolley in tow, bouncing on the staircase as its wheels were dragged up each and every bumpy step. The cart being dragged up was completely stacked with at least fifty different books that would teach this woman everything she would need to know about how to write, read, and sign her name in the a fashion befitting a doctor of the highest caliber.
“For the next twenty-four hours I will drill into your head every last thing there is to know about vocabulary, grammar, and literature. When you leave this library you will walk out a person who will never again be confused by any set of words unless it’s in a different language. My name is Ryuu Tama, and I will be your instructor. Welcome to hell,” he finished the emphasis of his introduction by dropping a rather large book in front of Itami and unrolled a large scroll that stretched itself down to the start of the stairs. Reaching into his bag he pulled out a old quill and his ink well and set it down before her.
“We’ll start with the basic alphabet…”

Nearly sixteen hours later the boy was crunching on an apple as he watched his strange pupil go through the tormenting drills he had set up before her. It was a green skinned fruit that had a bit of twang to it that added to the natural sweetness that the red ones usually had and it was all grown in a special green house with lighting that resembled the sun. The science of a plant being able to make food out of little more than the sun and some dirt was amazing but easily understandable when you knew how to break down cells to the nucleus.
The alphabet was an easy start as usual and he had that burned into her mind within an hour. The last fifteen hours had been drilling easy words, then harder words, then sentences, forming constructive paragraphs, and writing the same things over and over again until they read perfectly to both her and Tama. Just as he had predicted she had been a quick learner due to having an adult brain but there was no doubt in his mind that she was regretting ever asking the student to teach her anything. The boy had a sadistic streak in him when it came to imparting his knowledge on anything, believing that when someone wanted to know what he knew they had to suffer for it as he once had. His mother’s schooling while traveling across the world trying to find a permanent residence had been extraordinarily tough on the boy but he had managed to survive it with only going a little insane. He took another bite of the juicy apple having denied Itami any food or water while she learned as it would be a distraction while using hunger as a means to further push her towards finishing this hellish lesson.

 

[Kokomo]

Intelligence was in her natural pockets of the brain--unlike sight and social skills. Did social standings matter when you had a PhD anyways? Was it some unwritten rule that you actually had to speak your brilliant ideas instead of portraying them through actions and science? In this world, you had to look the part too. That was the sad truth...

By the end of the vicious training, Itami was writing paragraphs in cursive and in print--beautiful penmanship compared to what she had been doing earlier. The lack of food and water was nothing compared to the very little consumptions she did when she had a totally scarred and destroyed esophagus. Eating was overrated anyways. Even though, this new body seemed to demand food quite often.

But now, Itami raised her head, looking to the boy with tired eyes. "For the love of all that is good, can we stop?" She asked, lifting her hand and rubbing the side of her index finger that was hardening from the friction of writing. "I'm sure my hand is going to fall off." She said, standing and snatching the apple from the boy, taking a large bite before handining it back and making a sour face at the taste.

"What is that?! That is no apple! It's sour!" Itami hadn't been able to taste things, and she was getting used to new ones and different ones. "Apples are sweet! That's terrible!" Her face was twisted with a mix of horror and disgust as she packed up her things and shook her head and made her way to go outside, "Let's get some real food, come on then, I'll pay." Itami said, as she made her way towards the door, fully expecting him to follow. "I'm starving, and I could use a walk. I think my entire lower body is numb..." She complained, rubbing her rear end uncomfortably.

 

[Kakihara Shirokouu]

A new city. A whole new group of people no one should ever hope to meet. A glowing, gleaming, glittering, golden, cracking mask atop a dirty face whose eyes innocent had fled long ago. This is what Sunagakure was to Bijou, or at least she thought as much as she crouched over a bucket, staring into her own reflection, which was broken only by the soft ripple made manifest as a bead of sweat from her brow's final riposte. Or maybe she was only thinking of her own reflection. She was, after all, the same. Glowing, gleaming, broken.
"Yeowwwww!!" The sudden shriek was almost louder than the initial thud of the door Itami opened against the skull of an obviously drunk woman almost a foot shorter than her. "Rude!! What the hell's wrong with you ya dou-." She yelled in a guttural spurt, spinning around, her unkempt hair flying in an arc before completely covering her face, save a sliver that an almost-red brown eye could be seen through. Her words immediately halted, though, as she saw Itami.

Not only was this woman huge in terms of height, but she had a certain lifelessness to her eyes... Like a part of her soul was gone. There was a silence for a moment as the intoxicated Nanjirou took in the unexpected sight that Itami presented. The slovenly and drunken Bijou couldn't help herself from commenting. "Why are your eyes so dead? Huh?" Her question came out darker than was intended. That happened with her sometimes. Her long, ratty, never brushed locks covered her face completely, leaving her head looking like that red hair-monster from the Looney Tunes, as she looked down, thinking about how she'd answer the same question. After all... her eyes had lost some life in the long years of her youthful existence.

 

[Toraono Michino]

The lesson, it seemed, was at a stop. There was still a few more things that he could still impart onto the woman but to have his apple snatched away brought about a slight ire but he decided to let it go. The revenge of the student’s apple theft apparently left a sour taste in her mouth, one that was strong enough to warrant dragging the child out for dinner as if he was some adult. Or at least that was how he felt the sudden movement of the new relationship between teacher and student take; it brought a cocky smirk to his face momentarily.
This was without a doubt a very ego boosting thing for the child as not only was he teaching a woman who was obviously older than he how to read and write but in the sixteen hours he had been teaching this woman he had managed to form a bond of pseudo-friendship. She didn’t speak to him as one would speak to a child, it was in the way a person would speak to a friend as the “head friend” in a group which told the boy that she was used to being the higher voice in conversations with other people of that level.

Or maybe Tama was just reading too much into it. It was a free meal regardless.

The young scientist took back the apple from the woman with a look of grotesque, holding it up to his face to take an odd sniff of it and shaking his head as he took it away from his face and toss it into the garbage pail next to the desk. The boy, thought not in any way rich, had high standards learned from the constant tutoring beaten into him by his mother. Traveling the world required a type of etiquette that bore itself deep into Tama’s core, so the very idea of eating after someone else, no matter how hungry, was rude. Having discarded of that rudeness he felt that the day could continue on without any more awkward feelings between them; at least stemming from the boy.
This was all of course something he was trying to interject into his sociology studies. The boy had learned that there was strange inner hierarchy in the human nature and that one had to actually work their way up through it to become of any importance no matter how great and revolutionary your ideas were. Tama had decided that the only way he was going to be able to get the funding he so desperately needed to carry out these bigger designs he had been playing with he was going to have to truly learn how to blend in with society. There was no use in being a scientist that was shut up away in a lab for the rest of his life, inventing things that would never truly come to light under their name. So in a manner of speaking this being told to come eat was the perfect chance for him to practice these social skills he had read up on and see if he could blend in away from his natural ‘learn everything’ personality and train a bit more bravado.

Tama quickly packed the only thing he really wanted to take with him, the book on ancient runic languages that he had been studying, and slung the satchel over his left shoulder to follow Itami down the wide staircase and towards the front where apparently their exit caught some poor woman in the head. The boy peeked around his tall female companion to see who or what had been hit to see a drunken woman taking comfort in the seat of concrete. The memories of how his mother felt towards drunks snapped into his mind quickly but it was always ever countered by the knowledge that his mother was an alcoholic herself. His bi-colored eyes of blue and green respectively simply looked down at the woman with a sense of pity before speaking up to his student,

“You don’t need to answer that question, come, hunger serves larger than that of the odd curiosities of a stranger, yes?”

 

[Kokomo]

Deactivating the crystal eye, being worn out from using so much chakra from it, Itami waited for Tama, listening to him collect his books as she made her way back towards the door, opening it and hearing a scream rattle out viciously through the air. Itami took a step forward, letting the door swing shut behind her as she stopped in her tracks, her eyes staring forward at the street as a woman flailed next to her. Calling her rude, and what not.

Itami's glazed-over eyes never moved, but an eyebrow did raise as her head continued to face forward. "What happened?" She asked, too tired to use chakra sonar to scan the area. She was playing this game totally blind. "And who are you calling rude?" She was talking without ever turning her head, standing straight and still as Tama told her to ignore the woman.

"You're the one insulting a blind-woman's eyes." She gave a playful smirk at the nothingness in front of her. "Do they really look dead? I wouldn't know. I've never seen them." She asked, deciding to play a bit with the woman. "Without sight I could still dodge better than you--you reek of alcohol." Intoxicated people were slow, awkward, and tipsy on their feet. "You should really go home and get some rest--doctor's orders."

 

[Kakihara Shirokouu]

The unknown Nanjirou didn't even notice Itami's recusal of her rudeness. Even if she did, would she have cared? Probably not. The girl had no shame. Bijou paid little attention to what was said to her and far more to how it was said.

The girl's face grew red with anger. Itami didn't know better, but she was dealing with someone who had no off switch. "Who're yoo t'tell me what to do ya oversized pale snob!?! I kin handerl myself!!" Bijou yelled in fiery, slightly slurred retort. "Hmph, whadduz some giant kid know?" She muttered to herself as she glared at Itami in a burning stare.

Bijou didn't have it in her to feel the shame she should've for verbally berating the handicapped. She simply didn't have the social grace to even think to treat her differently. Makes you wonder... What's worse? Being treated different? Coddled? Or being treated the same as everybody else... like shit. Nah... Coddled sounds better. Her drunken thoughts weren't well collected and took all her presence of mind. She was basically oblivious as she reflected on the moral dilemma, still standing right in the way of Itami and Tama.

 

[Toraono Michino]

Tama’s face turned into a scowl as the drunken woman blocked his way in continuing the studies of sociology and to block this certain student from continuing his personal studies was actually rather unhealthy. Of course without a way to fully control his own powers he would be of little use force wise so he decided to employ a work-around by using his mind.
The street wasn’t exactly in perfect structure and the woman was indeed in a complete stupor from her alcoholism, it seemed like it would be just a simple feat to place a foot in the right space, trip the woman up, and carry on with their way. The two may have been snobby in their own right when compared to the general populace, but they had their rights as well as suffered the same mortal time-frame this drunk suffered; time was limited even to those of higher caliber.
With a sigh of disapproval at the words spoken to his student the boy acted into that of a real teacher and stepped in between the two and offered his own logic,
“You speak of the snobbish paths we represent but is it not snobbish to look down on someone else no matter how low or high their status in society is? Yet you offer us insults were we have only offered you advice – much needed advice at that. Please, be on your way as will we and we can discuss the implications of true snobbiness at a later date. Preferably when you’re not jacked out of your head on poison.”

The boy’s small hand reached out and grabbed Itami’s decided to attempt to bring this conversation to a close personally by taking her along. He had no idea that she was blind and wondered why there had been a crystal eye floating about the papers as she wrote and just figured it was a secondary study method; it did have merits after all. Since he no longer saw the eye floating about he also assumed she had taken back on the blind form but figured also her bold words of being able to dodge better than that of a person with sight she wasn’t helpless either. The grasp of his hand was more of a reminder that they had plans rather than a guidance to promote the weakness of the disability.

 

[Kakihara Shirokouu]

Uproarious, obnoxious laughter instantly broke the compared silence Tama and Itami's demeanors seemed to convey. "Bahahahahahaha!!!" Bijou couldn't help but find the boys honest and earnest, if a little condescending, advice hilarious. There hadn't been a day since she was on her own that she didn't drink. It wasn't poison to her. In fact, the opposite. She had been infused with it for so long and to such great degree that her body developed dependence and, eventually, a symbiotic relationship with it. Now, instead of going through the normal process, the alcohol can be burned off, and chakra can be created.

Bijou slapped her sake jug and flashed a grin. "Good luck finding that~ day! This shit's gooood! It ain't poison!" The unknown Nanjirou replied, taking a swig, her brow then furrowing and her face turning a shade of red in brightness still far dwarfed by her unkempt hair's. With a twist of her neck cracking the joints, and a wringing of her hands popping the knuckles, Bijou burnt off some of the alcohol in her system and began to pulse, to glow, to course with chakra... and to stink, like straight liquor with a splash of sweat.

 

[Kokomo]

It was weird being the only handicap in the area--unless you counted alcoholism as a handicap. Itami tipped her head as Tama spoke to the obnoxious woman in a rather sophisticated way. Her head tipping towards the sky as she gave a gentle smile. Her skin glimmering in the sunlight as she enjoyed the heat on her face--almost ignoring the two.

Tama grabbed her hand, moving to pull her away, and Itami slipped down the first step--she didn't know it was there!-- tripping and squeezing the boys hand as she fell flat on her butt onto the concrete steps. Her body shook for a moment in shock as she tried to figure out how far she fell.

"Ouch." She said in a monotone voice as her head tipped back up to figure out where the sun was so she could tell which was she was facing. But the energy began to flow from behind her--and it reeked. Itami stayed sitting down, blinking a few times as she felt the energy pulse.

 

[Toraono Michino]

Ah what was a boy to do?

The drunkard before them seem to be able to use alcohol in a special way that Tama had not considered before by what appeared to him as using the poison of the alcohol and turning into pure energy which would keep that person from falling prey to the death of liver poisoning. It had a lot of interesting uses in theory to say if the user of this technique never developed any kind of tolerance, the stronger the alcohol they drank the more power they would be able to produce. He watched in pure curiosity of the technique as actual power pulsed from the drunkard’s form…along with a stink that the scientist was able to ignore. Tama had devolved a stink near this level himself when he was in the process of creating the ring that would be able to control his powers; ten hours of sleep in a week’s period.

But then his ward fell.

Now the gentleman in Tama was furious that this woman had just simply showed up out of nowhere and caused this entire fiasco of insults and injury. The scientist, however, wanted to just leave Itami on her rear and try to talk the woman into revealing her secrets of using booze for an alternative energy source as it held nearly unlimited uses.
The gentleman and his pride as a new teacher wouldn’t allow him to do it though.
As best he could Tama helped Itami off the ground, (and that was quite a sight in itself to see a midget pick up a giant,) and dusted her off as best he could taking her blindness into consideration without any shame to where he dusted off.
Once this was accomplished, all the while completely ignoring the woman’s taunting display of energy, the boy would simply take the woman’s hand a bit more gently and lead her back down the last two steps to the street,
“Shall we?”

[Sorry for the lack of posting but I'm a habitual slow poster due to a very stressful job.]

 

[Kakihara Shirokouu]

The clap of Bijou's hand against her mouth was the only sound that accompanied Tama's hateful glare in the moments following Itami's fall. The girl tried to hold back her laughter at the slapstick happenstance to little avail, as her muffled coughs of amusement crept through her fingers in muted giggles. In her drunkenness, it took a second for her to realize that she had been, at least indirectly, responsible for the blind girl's fall. She moved forward to help, but Tama had already rushed to the fragile porcelain doll that Itami seemed to be.
Bijou barked out, half in self-defense and half in remorse. "You shoulda watched what you were going!I mean, felt whe-... I mean... Sorry..." She said defensively. She couldn't help but instinctively shove blame off herself as she began. Responsibility was a lesson the girl never learned. Remorse, however... That was something she knew well. Insult and injury... They followed her around wherever she went. She spread 'em without trying.

She did feel bad for not only knocking the girl down, but also for being so inconsiderate about her blindness. Bijou wished she knew what to do next, but she never was socially conscious. Instead, she got quiet all of a sudden, and her eyes watered as they filled with an expression of confusion and self-consciousness. As soon as she realized she was showing weakness, she dropped her head, looking at the ground and instinctively thumbing the cork of her sake jug as she fidgeted, still awkwardly standing in the path of the two she'd inconvenienced.

 

[Kokomo]

A hand reached down, pulling her to her feet, as she balanced herself. It was funny, trying to keep your balance when you couldn't see the horizon. When you didn't know if you were looking down or up. It was difficult to keep steady most of the time--had it not been for the sensitivity of touch the woman had.

It was better this time as Tama took her arm and lead her down the next few steps, her feet carefully feeling each bump and drop in the walkway as she patted his hand thankfully. "Such a nice young gentleman~" She complimented as her hand grasped his and her mouth mused lovingly with a smile.

Her musical laugh rang out as the drunk moved to stay defensive, and found herself apologizing. A blind hand raising to wave above her head--signaling a goodbye to where ever the woman ended up. "Stay safe~" She mused again, continuing on with Tama.

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