Today was a day for glorious purpose as Tou readied for his day. And that was to preach: not for a god, well. Sort of for a god, as his inflated sense of belief would have it. First part of the day? Preaching. The second half would have him muster some of that amazing chakra that he had learned all about to produce effects beyond his formerly civilian means.
Dressed in his military uniform just like all the others, he didn't waste much time in one of the central crossing points for Otogakure's Shinobi from an entrance that proliferated into many of the other tunnels and was considered a major spot in terms of traversing, keeping it busy for all manners of Shinobi and the vague traveller being escorted by.
"A glorious day for purpose," Tou waited no time in starting, no ramping up his volume over time as he got into it, but pure and unbridled chagrin to the expressions of other people. "So glorious that we do not yet see the Sound for what it is. A haven against the rest of the world! Scourge purged from the land because of our noble leader and enemies to the south kept at bay! I offer you today a resolution against the blight of the Sound: purge yourselves of weakness and step out into the...." he continued, drawing breath and enunciating with his hands as necessary, calling to the nobodies who would be walking past and out into the world - for if one person could listen and heed, the rest of them might take notice.
And by the end of that initial speech that lasted twenty minutes, only one person remained. There had been nobody jaded enough to speak out against this initial sermon. Heck, he still had a few more hours of this - sharpening his tongue and mind much like any other muscle in his body, as important as his chakra was needed to be equally tended to.
She was practically buzzing with excitement as she ran barefoot down the tunnel. Kaede was headed to meet up with some friends who liked to loiter in front of the confectionery shop. There were sure to be plenty of whispered inside jokes and way too loud giggles. Her heart fluttered at the thought and a brilliant smile spread across her face like the dawn of a new day. The girl weaved her way through the crowd, ducking under carried crates and narrowly dodging wild elbows, the lush blonde coils rolled into a messy bun bobbing all the while. [break][break]
Her pace slowed as she heard an impassioned voice cutting through the crowd and she approached with her hands in the pockets of her thin sweatshirt. The voice sounded familiar but she couldn’t quite place it and she couldn’t see over the people in front of her, foot traffic nearly grinding to a halt due to the presence of this evangelical shinobi. She finally pushed her way to the front while the crowd dispersed and she watched the man for a moment, her gold doe eyes fixed only on him until he finally seemed to take notice. “What’s all this about then?” [break][break]
[attr="class","wonderFoot"]i've never seen anybody do the things you do before
A loud personality would not be met by the timid - even if one were a Shinobi it would attract the crowds of hard headed people and those confident in themselves to challenge his way of thinking. So it was later than Tou had initially anticipated but someone did offer their thoughts. And when he said thoughts, it was more of a concerted question - an opportunity which caused the brown eyes of his to gleam, setting the sight for the rest of his face to follow suit in curves and wrinkles of a smile.
"Why, restitution - glorious purpose!" Tou exclaimed - there was no soap box to drop from or a rock he had stepped up - feeling that his body was enough to suffice to be the stage on which his throat sung. "Weee, cannot even begin to conquer the scourge at our borders without fiirst destroying our own bodies and cells, squeezing out the pain, I'd say!" His own two index and middle fingers gestured towards her chest - and then pressed into his own solar plexus and with a voice chock full of emphasis.
He was lucky enough to have gathered enough people because he didn't ordinarily gather more than a few people, so he had to make an extra effort around this time to be eloquent. "Our Nobusuma-sama rose from the previous Kage and claimed rightful ownership over the hordes of evil usurpers to give us all a better life, winning battle after battle and defeating every villain to stand on a stage. Doesn't this give us the glorious gift of life, for her?" The creepier thing was his lack of change in facial expression, so gleefully absorbed in his own words.
Did these things happen? No, probably not. But what mattered was that Tou believed what he was saying and the conviction of a eloquent zealot spoke more volumes than the whispers of truth could offer in rebuttal. At least, that's what he believed.
“Ohhkay~” Kaede responded with a skeptical raising of an eyebrow. She liked to think that she was as patriotic as any other shinobi (besides this guy, obviously) but this level of fanaticism was a bit much for her. The genin wasn’t sure why she cared. She should really just walk by like everyone else. “I’m a Sound Ninja too. This place is my home and I’ll defend it when I need to but what is it that you want these people to do exactly?” [break][break]
Kaede had already started thinking up responses before he had a chance to say anything else. She wondered how big a hit it would be to the old man’s pride if she told him how uncool he sounded right now. He needed to chill out. Maybe if he picked up a hobby he wouldn’t have time to block up the tunnels with his preaching. It was easy to get swept up in this die-for-your-country stuff. She’d seen it before and it never ended pretty.
[attr="class","wonderFoot"]i've never seen anybody do the things you do before
There would be no reason to become jarred at this point. Tou welcomed it - even if he didn't particularly want anybody to invade his space that had been established. Preference against competition he supposed.
Kaede may not have realised that the person she spoke to did not obey the laws of logic or emotion, and had the technical wit to obstruct and the emotional intelligence of a donkey - able to dish out blows and completely throw off discontent with other worse accusations. So, with whatever reasonable things Kaede might have mentioned, Tou would have his point and be as ridiculous to make it as necessary. "That--- that is a good question." The waggle of his finger spoke very little to the content he spoke of.
"Defending isn't enough - fight for your nation and die for it. You - would you let armies march here and murder your family?" Tou had pointed out some random SOB and put them on the spot, who yet didn't seem impressed even so. But, at the expense of sounding silly? Conformity. "No..." And of course Tou rose his hands "A diligent shinobi! He would slaughter oouur enemies given the chance!"
"What propaganda are you out here feeding us huh?" Noriyuki questioned the speaker with folded arms and a dead expression. For those from Konoha The Sound wasn't their true home. They were but outsiders, refugees in this land after loosing theirs to the threat that occupied it currently. The speakers words didn't resonate well with The Uchiha, instead they reminded him that this was a false utopia instead of the heaven he spoke of. "The girl has a point. What do you want us to do? Cause all I'm getting from you and this village is full talk no action."
Mai Nobusuma hadn't done enough if you asked him. Like those before her she hadn't corrected the position they were in against their adversaries. The last thing Noriyuki would do was die for a leader like her, not when his father and so many others had died really trying to fight the threat. How long had it been since the takeover? Half a century? Why hadn't anything been done after so long?
"Last I checked no one has had to die protecting The Sound from invaders." the same couldn't be said about a Konoha he'd never seen despite it being his home. As he stood amongst them he wondered how many of them would really fight when the time came, the speech speaker included. . .
There has been some upstart spouting radical views for a bit now. Yue had been on her way to leave the main encampment of Otogakure no Sato in order to head into the northern parts of the forest to pick flowers. She always thought that bringing back bouquets of flowers and hanging them where she could through the interconnecting tunnels of the village would help lift spirits, bring people together, and just help the place to seem less militaristic and more like home for many. What better way to spread your name, to be known by all, and be important to all then to not only do well on missions, fight for your village, overcome enemies, but also boost morale in other ways too. Happiness and high spirits can keep any normal person happier much longer than those in the shinobi world. Their support meant just as much as those victories that this guy was spouting off about.
One of the people listening, a girl seemingly a few years younger than herself, had been speaking up to the man spouting his propaganda and challenged him about what he wanted her to do, that she too loved her village and would fight for it. But what was he expecting from these people? He didn't know how to respond so he pointed somebody out of the crowd and trapped them in would should have been a rhetorical question. She was going to speak up for the man but it happened much faster than anticipated; including the inclusion of her friend Noriyuki inserting himself into the situation to also challenge the man's beliefs. Though, Nori wasn't exactly the best one suited for this as his grudge against the entirety of every nation that wasn't the original Konohagakure was sometimes...misplaced.
Damn it Nori, don't start something you can't finish.
Shaking her head, she pushed through the very, very small cluster of people who bothered to stay as most were just passing the man by. Not acknowledging Nori at the moment, she moved next to the other girl who had spoken up to him. Folding her arms over her chest and looking the man up and down she would smile and seemingly nod in agreement with him. "You are so proud and true to Otogakure no Sato! I can't wait to see the glory that you bring to all of us. So tell me, sir, what will you do next? How will you slaughter our enemies? How will you die for our country? What are you going to do that isn't 'just defending'?" Yue gestured out to the general amount of people passing by before gesturing back to him. "You seem to want to ask a lot of people passing you by rather than petitioning to the Hokage to be sent out onto the front lines yourself. Are you a coward then? Wanting to rile others to fight in your place for the glory of Otogakure?"
Kaede gasped at the guy’s words before looking to her left and right at the pair of shinobi that had flanked her defensively. “I don’t want you to die and I don’t want me to die either… Not for the Village anyways. Maybe for the people. A village is made up of buildings and tunnels and we can replace that but I don’t think people can be replaced, not really, ya know?” She glanced around nervously looking for support before raising her hood self-consciously. It felt odd to voice her opinion to these older kids and she backpedaled quickly. “What do I know though?”[break][break]
She was suddenly very interested in a crack in the floor that she tried to catch the toe of her shoe on. The gentle hum of insects seemed to swell in the space around her but thankfully the general din of the tunnel was enough to mostly cover it.
[attr="class","wonderFoot"]i've never seen anybody do the things you do before
The problem of dealing with the zealot and the devout is that they would see whatever meaning from something that they so desired that agreed with their epistemology of the world: and not nearly for the more reasonable of folk. Where Kaede had spoken first before the outspoken interrupted his attention he had been listening intently to her, eyes ever so focused on her. And he went to respond - till an interruption of man and woman in a harmonious symphony of discordance.
And too, Tou would have then spoken for this man but someone else earned his ire: a new blonde haired lady of born legginess that had the most to say and offer. Tou would laugh softly while she spoke, as though unbothered by her questions or rhetoric. It gave him the opportunity to circle around the crowd and against the back of a cave wall as he listened - not looking directly at this one, though.
"I welcome the front line, and yet you seem so ready to place me out at the front while you squawk from the back about what I could be doing? Foul! We stand here in the same cave system, no? Your hesitancy to die makes me deem you a coward. I'll be on the front line, and I'll almost certainly not see you there! I will do it with a glorious rage, with intent and purpose: and if you are not with us, you are an enabler of the damned."
But, all press was good press because the introduction of the disbelievers was drawing people - more than Tou was ordinarily able to pull whenever he did something like this. Dissidents were always good for show, and they had made a fatal flaw in believing that they could have won - because though they very well had a point, Tou would bring them down to his level and then beat them with experience.
"You want us all to live. But those creatures out there would see this all gone, so we need to act together as one village. Not like this entity of doubt." He took the moment to focus his ilk onto the now hooded girl - perhaps a little closer than she would like - with a lower voice than had been preaching. Pointing out the other girl - a pariah in his own eyes.
"I'm starting to think you know more than this guy." Noriyuki told the golden-haired girl with an unimpressed fold of his arms across the chest. She may have been young and inexperienced but in reality every one who had spoken up was no different. Still, age never stopped Noriyuki from spilling his heart out before. He encouraged the same from anyone, especially those in their youth. How often was the voice of the young stifled by those older? Too often, but today that wouldn't be happening on his watch.
Thankfully, Yue had come to intervene, questioning the man without all the finger pointing he did. The blonde knew him well enough to know that this could escalate quickly. Noriyuki spoke his mind without thought, similar to the man's own rantings perhaps? Differences in opinion was common in their world, and unfortunately the cause of many wars. One could have easily started over their current contention.
The one thing the man was right about was the united front they had to maintain in the face of their real enemy. Noriyuki might have openly agreed with him on this if he hadn't implied they were cowards before that. The Uchiha fire within began to rage, taking it as an personal challenge. "I don't plan to die any time soon, your fate on the other hand may be a bit different." he stepped forward, a hand finding one of his ninjato handle's "So watch who you're calling a coward." Noriyuki was certainly heating up.
“Don’t be an idiot, Nori. Zeal strokes the ego and pride of others and causes them to react terribly; all it does is make you look just as silly as the one who started it.” Yue would say this while holding up an arm to block Noriyuki from doing anything stupid in public like this against another Otogakure not Sato resident. He was her friend and she wasn’t about to let him do something like that and while she wouldn’t have minded watching this fountain mouth of a man get tossed around a bit, that wasn’t their place.
Turning her attention back to the speaker at hand, she simply shook her head at him. “No one here needs to prove anything to you; they simply need to prove themselves to our Hokage and what she wants from us. You have no say.” He couldn’t have been anyone of importance. She didn’t recognize him as a delegate or a nobleman or a politician. He wasn’t recognizable as a shinobi either as most Jounin with sway were people she’d at least be aware of. Yue was not aware of this man or his importance; or rather the lack of.
Much in the same vein that the man was thinking, unbeknownst to her anyway, but the opposite, she saw that a crowd was beginning to form and wasn’t a fan of that. Press is press regardless of whether or not it is good or bad. "I would just like to see you do something. There is a reason that the saying 'actions speak louder than words' has such an impact. But right now that is all you are; words."
She said this loud enough to where anyone in the immediate area would hear; that anyone in the forming crowd would hear, and specifically of course it would ring loud and clear for the man before her. Turning away from the man and towards the younger girl she would reach up to gently remove her hood, if she allowed her, otherwise she wouldn’t press the gesture. “Never hide who you are from someone like that; stick to what your truth is and fight for what you believe in.” With a smile she motioned for Noriyuki to step aside once more as if to reinforce her earlier statement to him with every intention to begin to walk away from this fool of a man.
There was a tickle though in the back of her brain how he could easily use her words against her. Talk about her words and lack of action. But that would be fine.
In that case it would be TWO example of words without action; proof that nothing can get done that way.
Kaede could feel the tingling hum of her beetles growing louder as the debate heated. She glanced up at the tall, dark-haired guy as he spoke to her and a rosy glow appeared on the apples of her cheeks. The warm fuzzies hit her stomach as the pretty blonde girl pushed her hood back and she did her best to suppress the bugs inside her hoodie. She’d never had the courage to talk to people this cool and her worst nightmare was sure to come true if even a single beetle were to crawl onto the girl’s hand. She smiled back with baited breath until the girl’s attention shifted to her companion and she motioned to usher him away. [break][break]
This seemed like the best chance for her to escape this tense and far too public situation as well and she moved to follow the blonde even though she hadn’t been expressly invited to come with them. She figured she could probably trail after them and then break off without much fuss. [break][break]
The genin stopped however and looked back at the extremist and there was sadness in her heart. The simplicity of his worldview… How could one’s vision be so devoid of color in their various shades? Perhaps he was too blinded to see the things that made living worthwhile. Kaede didn’t doubt he would throw his life away eagerly if given the chance. She took a step towards him. “The death of anyone here only tips the scales further towards the monsters clawing at the gate. The most patriotic thing you can do is to live your life.”[break][break]
Kaede took a deep breath and reached a hand out towards the lone figure, “Let’s start over. I’m Kaede Aburame. We could get to know each other over breakfast, if you’re not too busy here.”[break][break]
[attr="class","wonderFoot"]i've never seen anybody do the things you do before
Kaede would wait a few beats for Tou to respond but he must not have been interested in making friends because he simply brushed her off and returned to his business of preaching to the crowd. The young Aburame’s shoulders slumped and she turned to wander off. She had better things to do today than watch some zealot spew nonsense at every passerby. In fact, she was pretty sure there was a plate of pancakes somewhere in the village that was calling her name. [break][break]
Notes: Kaede will exit here unless specifically addressed.
[attr="class","wonderFoot"]i've never seen anybody do the things you do before
Glorious purpose.
