[attr="class","skulloverlap"]ITS JUST [ ANCIENT HISTORY ]
[attr="class","skullbody"]
“I’m telling you, I think there was someone over there!” the young Hiraku harshly whispers, cowering behind a shield that looks as if it were made of paper mache. It was late at night, and he said he was going to bed like a hour ago… But he then he got the impulse to go look at the stars, and it was hard to do so from next to the small crackling fire of their makeshift campsite. However, when he stepped away from the camp, there had been a loud snap of a twig that sent him scurrying back. It was undoubtedly a ninja coming for his head or something. Totally. He was certain of it, thus why he was bothering the poor woman he had hired to protect him for this excursion.[break][break]
The sight of them must be fairly hilarious from an onlooker though. A young man and his arts and crafts shield, hiding behind a woman he had just roused from her slumber in a panic. Like a child afraid of a monster in his closet, he peeked around anxiously, waiting for his guard’s assurance that the monster was just his imagination or something. He was too panicked to be embarrassed at the moment.[break][break]
He’d never been this close to the frontline of the Taiyou Empire and the shinobi nations, so perhaps he was a bit too on edge. Or just on edge enough? He wasn’t sure, but Hiraku Watanabe was certainly trying his best.
Tsubaki was quick to stir at the threat of danger, the shinobi never even lying down to sleep. Instead she sat propped up against a tree, her arm reaching across her waist to rest on the hilt of her blade. So when the boy called out to her she immediately sprang to her feet, blade drawn in a flash of steel. Her single eye quickly scanned the environment, ready to strike out against whatever threat dared to approach the two of them. This lasted for a bit as she approached the edge of the camp, carefully examining the area for signs of danger. Though it became obvious to her fairly quickly that there was no such thing..[break][break]
Slowly she turned to her employer, brows raised as she slowly slid her blade back into her sheath. ”Uh-huh. Sure there is.” She shook her head at him, her hand reaching out to gently pat the paper shield he created for himself. ”You’re new to this whole travelling on your own thing, aren’t ya kid?” Her lips curled into an amused smile as she turned her head to once again survey their surroundings. As confident as she was that there was nothing to worry about, she couldn’t just assume they were alone.[break][break]
She could’ve just told the kid to shut up and gone back to sleep, but she knew that would just get him more shook up. The kid needed some reassurance. Or at the very least a distraction. ”Tell ya what. I’ll stay up and keep watch a bit longer. Just to be safe.” With that she sat herself back down on the ground, leaning against her tree and pulling out her pipe to prep it for a smoke. ”And while I do, you can tell me about where you learned that funny little jutsu trick of yours. Paper seems like an odd weapon of choice, don’t ya think?”
[attr="class","skulloverlap"]ITS JUST [ ANCIENT HISTORY ]
[attr="class","skullbody"]
Once Tsubaki followed him to the scene of danger, Hiraku promptly shuffled to be more behind her. He waited for the attack, the fight, the discovery of what that noise had been. Instead of all that, she resheathed her blade with a declaration of doubt. Had he imagined it? He couldn't tell. “I-I thought there was?” he quietly countered, without the confidence to really double down on it. She did though, and his embarrassment wasn't too hard to miss. He became clearly flustered, his eyes glancing down to his shield.[break][break]
The papers that constructed it slowly began to separate and reconfigure into a stack of single leaf sheets. All of which slid into his bag as he anxiously glanced towards the dark foreboding forest once more. His heart was still racing, doubt ever present. Surely he had heard something, it was going to eat him up if he didn’t figure out what it was though. A part of him felt a need to keep the shield out, but it felt silly, now. [break][break]
That paranoid discomfort didn’t go unnoticed thankfully, and his guard made a kind offer to stay up a bit longer for him. He turned his attention to her as she settled down once more. To which he realized he had yet to move from his spooky spot. He awkwardly shuffled from the edge of their small camp and to drop down across from her, almost too quickly. A rattled mind, adrenaline rush, and more all left him ruffled with nervous energy. In a bid to just do something, he grabbed a stick from the ground to poke at their small fire. He was practically pouting, put off by the whole situation leading to this campfire talk.[break][break]
“It’s a family thing” he answered, shifting his weight awkwardly. “Not like a kekkei genkei, or hijutsu, but just something my family specialized in specifically. We work a lot with paper, so it’s usually meant more for easier organization, but… After seeing all the ninja and what they do with their crafts, I decided to push it a step further. Curiosity, I guess?” He began rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. [break][break]
“It’s kind of second nature for me now, but uh… Well, there’s a reason I’ve hired you!”
Her head bobbed along slowly with his explanation as she took a twig and sticks it into the fire, letting the tip linger there until it was red hot with embers. This kid really needed to learn to relax. If he kept being so tightly wound over the slightest sound she was gonna cram her pipe in his mouth and make him puff all that anxiety away. But for now she was content to listen to the kid explain himself, paying little mind to his continued insisting that he heard something. If there was something, or someone, out there she was confident that she would be aware of it before it became a threat. Whatever made those sounds wasn’t their problem right now.[break][break]
”A family thing, huh? I don’t know of any ninja families that use paper based techniques. Then again, you don’t strike me as someone with shinobi heritage.” She chuckled a bit at the thought, imagining a shinobi raising a boy who was this much of a sissy. Even if her own kid back home was a real softie type, he was at least capable enough to not piss his pants over a snapping twig in the woods. ”Don’t worry. I’m not about to leave ya to fend for yourself just cuz you know how to make paper flutter around. It’s cute, and I’m sure in the right hands it could be deadly. But even if you knew how to kill a man with that, I know you couldn’t manage.”[break][break]
This kid couldn’t muster killing intent if he tried, the poor thing. Lucky for him he was a cute enough of a little thing that she wasn’t gonna look down on him for it too much. For now she would simply bombard him with so many questions that he wouldn’t have a chance to think about that silly noise of his. ”So if your family aren’t fighters, why do they practice this style? Seems like there’s more practical means of self defense. And where did you learn terms like kekkei genkei and hijutsu? Never heard those words from a commoner before?” As she speaks she pulls the stick front he fire and brings it up to her pipe, giving it a few puffs as she got the thing to light. Maybe some secondhand tobacco would do the boy some good.
