With the final *pop* of the doll opening, the room suddenly filled to the brim with dark smoke. Tooru coughed aggressively and waved at the air in front of him, accidently hitting something or someone.
"Hey!" A voice yelled from inside the smoke. Had they unsealed a person? As the smoke began to clear a bit, Tooru realized that he had been feeling raindrops on his head. Outside? Apparently the seal on the doll was even more complex than he had imagined, if it included some kind of summoning or reverse summoning technique - but it wasn't sealed very tightly anyway. With his left hand he felt around in the smoke and found Kakesu, at least he assumed. "Looks like it took us up top, somehow."
A loud and low rumble started coming from further ahead, almost like the purr of a cat. In fact, it sounded exactly the same but deeper. Someone screamed a few feet ahead of them and then an ear-piercing bellow sounded out. The smoke was blown by a shockwave of sound, nearly knocking them over.
A giant tiger-like creature stood in the middle of the Amegakure street, a man pinned under his front foot. It stared them down and scraped its' other paw on the street.
"Uh-oh." Tooru said weakly.
"Run!" Grabbing Kakesu's arm, Tooru started darting down the street as the sounds of chaos and yelling started behind them. Loud pawsteps could be heard chasing them as Tooru dragged Kakesu into an alleyway, narrowly dodging the cat's snapping jaws. "Can you do any 'magic' to slow it down?!" he yelled as they ran down the alley.
Kakesu Aoki | WC: 272 | A little shorter this time lmao
Last Edit: Nov 13, 2021 4:38:54 GMT by Tooru Ikeda
Magics? Odd name for it, but I guess he's not a shinobi. He didn't bother to correct Kakesu, simply happy to help in any way. A wide smile found its way onto Tooru's face as Kakesu placed the cat figurine onto the table in front of him, quickly grasping it in his hands like a young child who'd found a new toy. He passed it around his fingers, inspecting it in detail with awe before setting it back down to the side.
The sound of hands picking through a bag looking for something caught his attention. What is he grabbing now? A green eye opened further when Aoki pulled out a necklace of sorts; it was an old coin from the former Land of Fire.
Engraved upon it was the now-forgotten symbol of a country long gone, the '火' kanji that Tooru had only seen a few times before in context: hidden in old scrolls detailing ancient business transactions of long-dead Ikeda, smuggled history textbooks, and ill-intentioned graffiti.
The surface of the coin was worn and it had a hole punched through the upper middle of it, with a plant fiber cord threaded through it to allow it to hang. Tooru eagerly took it into his palm when it was offered. "This is amazing, Kakesu!" His sincerity was clear through his toothy smile and tightly shut eye.
"You don't see this kind of thing everyday! I don't think the people in charge here like stuff like this much, too. Stuff from the old Land of Fire, I mean. So it's doubly rare!" He slipped it on around his neck, settling it underneath his scarf and shirt. "I love it! I'll wear it everyday."
With another smile he pushed himself up from the table, grabbing the neko figurine and pocketing it. "I think it's time to go check out what we've got down in the basement!"
With more hop in his step than before, he led Kakesu through a number of rooms until they reached a small library. It was filled to bursting with scrolls of all sizes and shelves adorned with many books, but Tooru headed straight for one in the middle of the northern wall. Grabbing a red book by its spine, he pulled it.
Nothing happened at first, but Tooru opened the book and exposed what appeared to be small summoning contract upon which his name, among others, was written. Biting his thumb, he smeared his blood on his other hand and placed it onto the page. A very small 'poof' noise could barely be heard on the other side of one of the bookshelves.
"Toooooooooruuuu?" A small and extraordinarily slow voice said. "Yep, it's me, Taidapuchi." Tooru said. "Ooooooook," the small voice replied. Another, louder, poof noise. The sounds of a chain being picked up and moved followed, then a louder but still sluggish grunt. Loud clinking noises could be heard, and suddenly the bookcase begun to swing inward. After a moment it had fully retracted. Two more poofs and they were left in silence.
Without mentioning the event, Tooru beckoned for Kakesu. "Come on!" The two headed down into the opening and descended a long set of wooden stairs. Suddenly they found themselves at an intersection. There were doors on both sides on them, but the one on the right was covered in talismans and locks.
"I was gonna take us though there," he said while pointing down the rest of the straight hallway they'd been taking. "But even though we're technically not supposed to go in there, for a friend, it's fine." Tooru remarked while smiling, deviously yet innocent.
The left door creaked open to reveal another hallway, this one flanked by a number of doors. Each had a set of bars rather than a window, and were adorned with sealing tags that covered the seams. A sign above each door hinted at their contents. They slowly walked down the hallway.
'Rice-Cooking Machine | Green Man', said one door.
"There's all kinds of weird stuff down here," Tooru said while they strode down the hallway. "Some of the stuff down here might not even have anything in it, but with a clan as old as mine, sometimes you end up with things that you have no idea of what's inside."
Most of the signs, in fact, didn't even attempt to say what was inside other than the object itself. There were scrolls, household items, weapons, and more. Every door down here had a piece of colored paper upon it, green for safe, red for dangerous, and yellow for unknown. Most were yellow, and stayed that way. Unsealing random items wasn't the safest of endeavours, proving to be the end for a number of Ikeda. Tooru'd even heard of one relative who stole a number of items, before or after going crazy.
They stopped in front of another sign that remarked 'Many Concentric Dolls*' with a piece of paper attached to the door further down. Whatever it had once said was faded away, leaving only: 'Not... Could be... Unseal...' There was a piece of faded yellow paper upon it, so old it was almost falling apart.
"I've always wondered what's in this one." The sealing tag on the seam easily came off with a light pull, causing the door to eerily creak open. "Nothing in this wing could be too dangerous though, since all the really bad stuff is kept in the other side."
They slowly walked in.
Inside was a small dirt room with a pillar in the middle. Upon the pillar was some kind of doll, with a seam in the middle of it. Tooru picked it up, surprised by its light weight. "Let's see what's inside!" He popped the top off, revealing another, smaller doll.
"Huh."
Pop. Another doll.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Finally they saw the smallest doll, the only one with no seam. It was no bigger than a thumb, but was almost entirely covered in seal markings.
"Shall we?" he asked, looking to Kakesu for affirmation.
Surprise caused his head to tilt. "Is food really such a big deal?" His smile faded a little as he watched the tear slide down Kakesu's face. "Why'd you leave? Your home, I mean." Even if he was a naive child, he still knew instinctively that not everyone had a family or life like his. He realized he didn't want to prod Kakesu too much, regretting saying anything about it. "Sorry," he muttered under his breath.
Kakesu's mention of a diet of mushrooms for multiple days caused Tooru to cast his eye down at his plate in doubt. "I guess I never really thought much about food on the road, but to me a hungry stomach would be worth all I'd get to see. I just hope I'll know which mushrooms to pick," he joked.
"But I guess that's one good thing about the city then?" Nodding in assurance, he made sure Kakesu knew the food was for him. "We've got plenty here - my family makes good money in our trade."
A smile slowly returned to his face as they ate, glad that he could help the wanderer. He hoped they could be friends. It'd be nice to know a lot of people on the road, he thought.
Once they'd finished eating, he quickly bussed the plates back to the kitchen and hastily resealed all the condiments away and took a seat in time to hear Kakesu mention shinobi tools.
Reaching under the table, he retrieved a miniature hand scroll from a hidden compartment. Rolling it out revealed a simple pattern had been used to seal it, and using an equally simple method, Tooru placed his hand on the paper and produced a small cache of shuriken, kunai, and senbon. Pushing most of them away to the side, he left a single example of each remaining on the scroll.
Placing each item of Kakesu's own collection on the paper, he began to speak. "Here, watch. I'll teach you." With a simple motion he sealed them all away into the scroll. "This is pretty much the basics of fuinjutsu," he said while repeating the motion. Adeptly explaining the basics of how to use one's chakra to perform the Unsealing Technique and reversely, how to seal them away again, he demonstrated it a number of times. Ending with the tools unsealed and on top of the scroll, he moved on - leaving whether to even attempt it or to simply shove everything into his bag up to Kakesu.
"I'd bet being able to seal things would help a lot out on the road," he said a smile. "Otherwise, you'd just have to carry all those little trinkets loose." It was his own way of hinting that he expected something in return, though exactly what that was was up to the wanderer. Tooru watched him with earnest excitement.
Kakesu Aoki | WC: 474 | Maybe a necklace or something like that that he could wear? We'll head down to the basement after this, so it can be a pretty short post
Last Edit: Oct 29, 2021 0:32:25 GMT by Tooru Ikeda
Tooru was sort of jealous of Kakesu. His young mind couldn't help but drift off imagining all the possibilities of what could lie without the place in the wanderer's story. "Wow, that sounds pretty interesting! Maybe you'll take me there one day," he joked. "You should have snagged something! Finder's keepers after all," he said with a naive grin.
He watched with interest as Kakesu pawed through his bag and pulled out a little black and white cat figurine. Tooru smiled at the sight of it and waved back at the little neko, admiring all the little intricacies of its crafting. He listened attentively as Kakesu relayed the story of how he obtained it, then offered to trade it. A smile cracked across his face. "Yea, we've got food at home. I live with my family, but they're all gone to work around this time. Lots of home visits and stuff. I can cook a bit though, then we can take a look through some stuff in the basement! This is worth a lot more than just a meal."
The railing of the elevator pulled away as they finally arrived at the summit of the building. The two stepped off into a light drizzle and Tooru watched as Kakesu took in the view. Spires of buildings surrounded them, with sheets of water flowing down the slick metal sides of some. Wires and a maze of pipes connected a number of them further below.
They walked closer to the edge and Kakesu threw his upper body over the railing to stare down below at the great city and all the covered-up people walking far below, as small as ants. "Is it really not like this anyway else? Surely there are other big cities like this," Tooru said. "I'd trade this view for almost any other."
A good while after the two had reached the summit, and after they'd stopped to look at a good number of things Tooru had pointed out to Kakesu, they arrived outside the entrance gate to the Ikeda family's residence. It was nice as far as Amegakure was concerned, since the Ikedas had never been a poor family, but it seemed little more than a hole in the wall to Tooru. He pushed open the metal grate that covered the entrance tucked underneath a much larger builing and they descended down the stairs to the front door. Streams of run-off water flowed beside them as they approached the front doors.
"Well," Tooru said as he pushed open the front doors. "This is my house." They walked inside - Tooru ducked under a hanging collection of bones that nearly smacked Kakesu in the face as he followed. The rest of the entrance room was just as the chaotic as it would seem, with piles of books and scrolls stacked in corners and on top of chairs and tables. Many different knick-knacks hung suspended from the ceiling, slowly twirling in the air as though animated with inner life.
He led Kakesu through the maze-like room with graceful familiarity, tasking him with not bumping into or knocking anything over - surely a nigh impossible task. After they navigated through the foyer, they came to the dining room where a long wooden table sat. Its surface was nearly totally covered with open scrolls and maps and more, though a few open spots did still exist at the furthest end.
"Sorry, if it's a bit cramped," he laughed. "It's just how we like it." Showing Kakesu the way to the chairs at the end, he darted away into the kitchen to prepare some food while he left him to observe all the items that covered the ceiling, walls, and shelves of the room.
After a short wait, Tooru appeared around a corner carrying two plates with steaming food on them - each laden with a full serving of steak, eggs, biscuits, and salad. Laying one down in front of Kakesu and the other near his own seat opposite, he took a scroll off of a rack that was on the wall. Rolling it out between their spots, he nonchalantly unsealed it.
A full compliment of condiments popped into existence on the table - salt and pepper, various kinds of sauces and gravies, many other spices and toppings, almost anything one could wish for in this day and age. "Go ahead and help yourself!" Sitting down across from Kakesu, he quickly sprinkled a number of toppings on his own food and dug in.
The forest, Tooru thought. What a place to be from. Most I've seen are the distant tops of gnarled trees on a clear day. It made him long for places he'd never been, like some kind of ancestral memories. He couldn't wait till the day he'd venture out with his platoon on a mission far away. All the peoples and locales he had long imagined they'd find filled his mind. All this endless boggy swamp couldn't compare to the lakes and oceans he'd read about - and that was only this continent. What strange sights await beyond?
The names of the lands in the known world were familiar to him, recited many times in the books and maps he'd read and seen. They fit together like little jigsaw pieces in his mind, a kind of encyclopedic knowledge he didn't have for anything else. Etched in white against the black of his mind were all the borders and subdivisions of the major countries along with all their satellites and dependent lands, enough to make a strategist jealous. But who hated who and who was allied with who didn't factor into his mind at all.
Kakesu's story intrigued Tooru, places like that made him want to explore - even if they ended up empty. He'd snuck into various run-down parts of the city before, but usually he'd find nothing of interest. It never stopped him though.
"A tunnel? Like some kind of mine? And what were these weird patterns?"
The talk of underground tunnels reminded him of his family's basement, with all its branching corridors that lead to numbered and sealed-off rooms containing all manner of things. Maybe this wanderer would trade something of the outside world for a trinket or two. Tooru had never seen any of his family seal anything particularly dangerous away. There couldn't be anything too crazy down there, he thought.
"It looked like you collect a lot of different stuff in that bag of yours - maybe you'd trade me for something? My family has got all kinds of little things lying around."
The elevator slowly creaked along as they talked and before long they would reach the top of the building. Tooru couldn't wait to see Kakesu's face once he saw the commanding view, from which one could see almost every nook and cranny of this part of the city.
"There's plenty of odd stuff down there - some of it's so old not even my mom and dad know what's sealed inside. I think they brought it with them when we came here - stuff that belonged to my extended family: a rabbit foot, all kinds of different scrolls and books, a bat wing from a cousin, all with stuff sealed in them!" He hoped Kakesu would have some nice little part of the outside world to swap - an accessory made by a far-off people, a map of distant lands, or even just a fancy piece of rock.
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Last Edit: Oct 14, 2021 2:26:17 GMT by Tooru Ikeda
Tooru smiled as they walked, excited to get to talk to someone from outside the village for the first time in what felt like forever. Kakesu speaks sort of oddly, but he seems nice too., he thought to himself. I wonder where he's from - probably somewhere nice, somewhere far away.
All of the wanderer's questions were answered with a smile and a polite explanation. "Busy? This is pretty normal. There'd be even more people here if they weren't all out there fighting, but you know how it is - right?" A toothless grin followed.
Tooru laughed a little at Kakesu's suggestion of getting lost. "Lost? I've lived here my whole life! It's actually pretty hard to find somewhere I haven't been to."
The two were approaching the large skyscraper. Stepping in, Tooru led Kakesu to an elevator that led to an observation deck high above. A short silence followed, with cheesy low-quality music playing out of an old speaker in the corner of the carriage.
"Where are you from? It looks like you've been all over! I'd love to hear about the places you've been - it can be a little suffocating here sometimes."
"This elevator ride is pretty long anyway, since its so slow. But you'll love the view when we get there!"
Last Edit: Oct 14, 2021 2:24:04 GMT by Tooru Ikeda
The rain pattered around them, clinging to the pipes above and congealing into large drops that splattered on their heads. They walked away, smiling and laughing softly as the wanderer joked.
They paused for a moment. The newcomer's gait slowed as his eyes looked up to the cityscape, with a kind of reverence not too unfamiliar. That same life filled Tooru's own eye from time to time, whenever he had the chance to see the outside world. Whether it was in a book, from the top of a building, or from his little hideaway, did not matter. Even if the sight from the city was little more than grey swamps and flat marshes, he could still imagine what it was like far beyond - rolling green plains dotted with flowers, deep forests that hid thousands of years of history, or even small villages made with wood. Wood! Something so rare here, not because of price or necessity, but because it had been deemed obsolete. The few wooden buildings that remained had been darkened and warped by decades of rain - splintering into shards and rendered uninhabitable.
From the way Kakesu spoke, he could tell he'd never been here before. Maybe he'd seen the towering spires from the road once or twice and heard tell of the "greatest city in the world". Even for all the advancements and technology, the people here were no happier than outside. Tooru couldn't have known it, but the constant war and fear had changed the people of the city. A new, bright face could surely only be a taste of the better world that waited for him.
Tooru's mind wandered back and forth, remembering all the little trinkets Kakesu had stuffed away. It had seemed almost like a bottomless bag to him - all manner of things that one would hardly ever find in the city, aside from small shops tucked deep into the darkest corners of the city, thrown in haphazardly as if they were the most everyday objects. Called back to the present by the traveler's voice, Tooru shook off his thoughts.
"Yeah, I live here. Never been very far outside of it either." The words left a grinning mouth, but the very corners of it almost looked pained. "Want me to show you around? I could take you just about anywhere you'd want to go!"
"There's a skyscraper near the center that has a pretty good view of the city, and we can talk a bit on our way there." They began walking in that direction as he continued on. "What do you want to know? And why'd you come here, of all places? Looks to me like you could go anywhere you liked."
Last Edit: Oct 14, 2021 2:22:53 GMT by Tooru Ikeda
Hiding outside the rainy city, there was a small hill that overlooked the north-eastern side of the great moat-lake. Few knew of its existence and even fewer had ever been there. Far from any of the city gates and blocked by one of the many slick skyscrapers, it was usually a lonely place. Topped with a small boulder and an immense tree, one of the few pieces of nature that near to the industrial and grey trophy of mankind's progress, it provided shelter from the rain to only the most inquisitive of Amegakure's residents.
On this rainy morning, one young Genin was on his way to that very tree. To him, it was an important place. From the top branches of the tree, one could see far out above the muddy swamps and plains surrounding the village - and on a good day, the sun might peek out behind the furthest clouds. And if you looked hard enough, far, far away, you could see something that you'd never find inside the city.
With hurried steps, Tooru wove between and around the many pipes that punctuated the alley-like corridors circling the village. Ducking underneath obstacles with a hand on the city walls, his fiery head of hair popped into sight near the eastern city gate. An older man with dark eyes glanced at the boy with an apathetic gaze, before continuing on his way out of the city. That same sense of indifference lingered in the moist air as busy people, bored people, passed by.
His eyes followed the man towards the gate, when a scene caught his attention. Another boy, with a few more years under his belt, looked to be having some trouble with the gate guards. His cloak had caught some dirt and dust from the road. Tooru assumed he was some kind of traveler, free to go and come as he pleased, whose worn clothing seemed nearly as old as himself. The wanderer's head moved back and forth, before coming to settle on the young Ikeda. One and a half sets of green eyes matched and the call for help clearly visible in his eyes compelled Tooru's feet to trod towards him.
"Your lot number," Tooru overheard as he approached. The newcomer squinted towards a sign, before giving an answer the guard didn't seem too keen on. For whatever reason, he seemed to be having a tough time and with no reason other than childish glee and naivety, Tooru decided to help him.
"E-385," He said assuredly. "Long road, right cousin?" With a smile, he looked between the guard and the traveler.
With a crackle from his rebreather, the guard sighed and looked them over.
"Sure thing kid, just get a move on. You're blocking the line." With a wave, another guard handed Kakesu's things back to him and gave a light push on his shoulder.
The two walked into the dark city, finding reprieve from the rain under an overhang. Tooru looked up at the other boy with a look of expectation and excitement.
Last Edit: Oct 14, 2021 2:19:03 GMT by Tooru Ikeda
That sounds good! I saw you're looking for a thread about coming of age, maybe we can incorporate that somehow? Plus, I imagine Tooru has some weird stuff sealed into funky objects lying around his family's home - maybe he could trade something like that for some trinket from the outside world.
Maybe the "unexpected perils" part could come into play, too. Perhaps it might end with him getting chased out of the village after they accidently unseal something dangerous? Let me know!
Plotter Tooru Ikeda is a young and bright-eyed Amegakure Genin. At the moment I'm looking to thread with people inside of Amegakure, to explore the village, its limitations and the allure of the outside world. I'm fine with threads that don't (initially) mean a lot for Tooru himself, as long as it is somehow important to your character's growth and takes place in Amegakure.
I'd also like threads that explore aspects of Amegakure culture: the impacts that the near-constant warfare has, perhaps the melancholy of the rain, or something else such as that.
