Itaru lowered his gaze to the ground and the edges of his lips curled downwards.
"No. Not for me anyway," he said in a hushed tone. "It's just something that I like to tell myself. It makes me feel better even if it is a lie."
He turned towards the lake and picked up a smooth flat stone the size of a coin. He flicked it into the water and it skipped across the surface desperately until it sank into the depths.
"The only reason I am around is because they thought there might be some use for the kekkei genkai. I do little else but try to repay the debt so that they aren't left disappointed in their investment."
He didn’t turn back, but an eye on his arm still peered at her. “I think it's better than the alternative though. I wasn’t ready to die or be a burden for the rest of my life.”
Stealth [Rookie] His kekkei genkai allows him to spot people a bit easier than most, but he is nothing special when it comes to espionage himself. He finds it a bit harder to blend in than most even, usually relying on transfomration jutsu to cover the eyes on his body or wearing heavy garments for a disguise.
Adjusted to >>
Stealth [Apprentice] Even though he was out of comission for years, Itaru's ability to go unnoticed has been honed by his desire to keep attention off of himself. He naturally avoids taking the most obvious path where he walks and wears clothing that conceals his abnormalities. Thanks to his eyes he is already extremely good at detecting others, and he knows better than the average genin what someone trying to hide looks like.
Note: This is an adjustment from the overhaul, not an upgrade.
Last Edit: Nov 14, 2021 6:30:15 GMT by Itaru Tokoro
"Oh, you must be the one who they sent for me to work out with," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "No wonder you were up there observing me."
He laughed and finished sweeping away his diagram left in the dirt. He moved his neck from side to side to stretch out.
"I was actually expecting just some general fitness training, I wasn't sure who I was waiting on... so I just started dabbling with my studies while I waited."
He began stretching his legs again, followed by his arms. As he pulled his arm in front of him some of the bandages on his arm came loose, briefly exposing an eye before he quickly reached to cover it up. He didn’t say anything, hoping to continue on unnoticed.
“I’ve been working on throwing lately too, hand-eye coordination type things,” he said. “I am super interested in martial arts. What kind of fighting style do you use, ma’am?”
Itaru had somewhat reclused himself for the past few weeks. He wasn’t chosen to venture out to Otogakure, and he was still embarrassed by the outcome of his meeting with the tsuchikage. He should have been able to discern the illusions that he encountered on the battlefield, but he hadn’t been successful. On the bright side, he had finally made progress in his learning and could do a few small genjutsu now.
The ever present need for money to pay bills had pushed him outside of his home. Someone new assigned to the platoon had already signed onto a mission, so he quickly scrawled his own name on the sign up. The next day he got word that the mission was good to go. He donned his usual attire, a loose olive drab garb with an open chest and short sleeves. His upper body was wrapped in a layer of bandages wound tight to keep the plethora of eyes that checkered his body from being exposed to the elements.
He found himself in a busy market on a pleasant day, he was a big fan of cloudy days as someone who always had to be extra cautious about the sunlight. He had eaten a simple meal of rice at home, so his body was enticed by the smell of different foods that could make up for the lack of nutrients in his diet today. He defied his baser impulse and continued forward with his mission scroll in hand, and his forehead protector on to symbolize that he was currently on duty.
He came to the ramen shop just in time to hear the fair-haired kunoichi confirm her name to the man in white. Rarely did a shinobi get such an opportunity for such a cool introduction. It would look like he had been waiting for his queue the whole time. He began walking through the threshold of the door with a hand raised up for a cool subtle wave.
“And I am… oof!” he grunted as he tumbled over the doorstop. He completely tripped and landed on his forearms, feeling a rush of pain against the eyes unfortunate enough to make contact with the floor. Too embarrassed to acknowledge the feeling completely, he scrambled up onto his feet. “Itaru Tokoro…” he finished with a sullen tone. He avoided making eye contact with his new teammate or the shop owner, staring at his feet. Finally he broke the awkwardness, or would attempt to.
“W-Where there any more details about the thief?” he asked while rubbing his forearms.
Visual Genjutsu [Rookie]: Itaru is able to cast illusions that create simple tricks of light with his eyes. He can change their color and form hypnotic patterns that can be unsettling to look at. This basic application is challenging for him, limiting his daily usage to a few illusions.
“Oh! I am sorry,” Itaru said as he watched her face flush. He looked concearned that he had perhaps offended her. “I should know better since I feel the same way about myself.”
He did look at her curiously, trying to spot the modification for a moment but failing. He felt ashamed of being nosey and looked away, but then glanced back at her and gave her a week smile as he adjusted his glasses. He paused for a moment and fidgeted as he tried to gather himself up to say something impactful, though his posture didn’t come out as being confident.
“We’re more than our quirks and modifications,” he said, although his voice inflected almost as if he had asked a question. He swallowed air, and then seemed to find a more positive tone of voice. “Even if they are what the village finds useful in us, we are still people. So instead of telling me about your modification, tell me more about yourself, Nana. What brought you out to this lake today?”
The volunteer manning the soup robotically poured the gruel into the bowl of the man, which was a thin red broth with a few potatoes with a trivial amount of beef in it.
Itaru was eating the same meal himself. Up til this point he hadn’t quite seen any of the people he was serving, up until the point that a harsh cracked voice broke him from a daydream.
“Oh, that’s very kind of you,” Itaru said, maintaining a genuine smile. “Don’t worry, I am not injured. I just have sensitive skin,” he told the man, his smile sinking just a bit as he looked the figure over. Then guilt, feeling shame at his own discomfort of being around the needy. It must have been a harsh life that had made the man’s voice so harsh.
“You can have a seat if you’d like,” he said to the man. “You used to be a doctor?” he asked, even though he wasn’t sure a real doctor would be so down on his luck to be eating a soup kitchen. Sometimes a friendly conversation could help uplift someone down on their luck, so he’d entertain them for now.
“Older than you are…” Itaru muttered as he gave the woman a second glance. His nose tilted to the side as his face scrunched in disbelief but realizing he had made a face he brought his hands up in a show of embarrassment. “I’m a lot older than I look,” he said.
He had totally missed the point and thought she meant physical age. He was trying to walk back his show of disbelief about her being younger. He still didn’t get it.
“That seems like sound advice, I will continue to hone illusion. Perhaps I’ll figure something else out in the end.”
He glanced down as she mentioned being a scout. Scouting was about all he was good for right now. He’d have traded places if he could.
"If you didn’t do the assassinating, someone less skilled in it would be put in danger trying to take your place, yea? But that would mean.... I um… apologize, that must mean your rank is higher than my own and I have been addressing you like a peer,” he said giving the woman a quick bow.
simplicity
Last Edit: Nov 3, 2021 1:54:59 GMT by Itaru Tokoro
Every one of Itaru's eyes looked down with a look of defeat for a moment. The guards had hyped him up in coming to make the report on his own, but it seemed like there may not be as much cause for action as he had assumed. He knew that they couldn’t have known without wasting time to debrief him themselves that it hadn’t met the criteria of an act of war.
"The animals were the only ones who I can confirm were engaged in hostile action, Lord Tsuchikage," Itaru replied. "The shinobi from other territories hadn't done anything aggressive towards Shoichi-Sensei by the time we took our leave. I can't positively say that they had engaged in hostile action... but there were so many animals that seemed intent on crushing everyone, so it was hard to tell what their intent was."
He gave the kage a bow, signaling an understanding. He dared not to dismiss himself, leaving himself ready to answer more questions or follow any orders that he was given to carry out. There was an underlying worry in his eyes, but he did his best to keep it together.
Hotaru tensed up as the woman slid down the treetop before he could manage to wipe away all of his idle calculations. There was a small look of confusion on his face as she made a demonstration of her own use of chakra. He shrugged his shoulders, he may as well have rolled with it since he wasn't sure when he'd run into Junko. She had recognized that he was working on illusory work.
"Yea. Genjutsu is sort of like trying to thread a string through a needle from a distance and then stitch something from the other end of the line," he said. "I understand how the chakra works well enough, but it is a difficult thing to put into practice."
He paused for a moment and drew a breath in. He turned his eyes back to the loosened pile on the ground.
"Ninjutsu is probably more practical, but my abilities suit learning illusions or medicine, and I don't see myself as a doctor," he said. "Do you ever wonder what it might have been like if you focused on doton over what you know now? I always worry I'll have regrets about whatever I choose," he finished with a small laugh.
Itaru was off duty and had gotten a pass to leave the village for a nearby town for the day. It was a little town with cobblestone roads and a friendly atmosphere, mostly on the up and up thanks to the security of Iwagakure. Still, there were unfortunate souls here that had very little. While Itaru had very little spiritual beliefs he thought that helping people was the right thing to do.
As bandaged as ever to conceal his kekkei genkai, he stood in a soup kitchen with an apron on, dipping a ladle into a large pot of soup and serving it to the needy with a smile. He wasn’t alone, there were a few people from the village and even a few he didn’t know that were working the kitchen as well. Things were a bit slower today, so after serving a customer and seeing that there was no line, he went to sit down.
The little cafeteria where they were serving people had six rows of tables. Three were occupied by people eating or joist loitering around and talking. He enjoyed listening to the sound of people relieved of hunger. He didn’t want to intrude on their conversations though, so he politely took a seat on his own in the corner and listened to them while he read over a scroll.
simplicity
Last Edit: Oct 25, 2021 6:02:18 GMT by Itaru Tokoro
Itaru paused for a moment and took a deep breath in. as he closed his eyes. A cold washed over him, and he could hear the sound of a heart monitor inside his head and the discomfort of a thin hospital mattress against his back.
He opened his eyes again and sighed. “Prior to completely forming into eyes, they form as tumors beneath the skin that lack the correct structures to circulate blood flow correctly. I was one of those kids that was eager enough to go to academy I did it before finishing primary school. Or well, I was raised to think that was the best thing to do.”
He laughed as a thought about his old man came to mind.
“It takes years of anguish for them to develop and being medically retired at such a young age was horrible,” he said. “I was lucky that the tschukigae’s team took pity on me.”
He raised a hand up as if to dismiss talking about himself.
“Anyways, you seem to be in the know about the way things are around here. I don’t see any outward modifications to you though. Are you a medic or something?”
Itaru worked vigorously on the diagram, it was one of those overly complex book explanations about how something worked, in this case genutsu. One of those things that wouldn’t actually impart any skill by learning it outright but was something that one could do to stay motivated about the subject in between real lessons.
Busy work.
A stray branch from above would make a small cracking noise, which would immediately draw Itaru’s gave up from his work. He blinked as he noticed a woman in the canopy who was seemingly watching him from above. Protective of his own work for little reason other than a strange instinct to stop others from copying him, he brushed his foot over the diagram.
“H-Hey! What gives?” he called up the tree. “Why are you being nosey up there?”
He didn’t know who he was speaking to, which was a bit risky given his low rank. Still, it was hard to make them out in their entirety through the branches, so he assumed it was someone younger than himself.
Itaru blinked for a moment and nodded his head at the kunoichi’s question. He didn’t look at her directly when he answered.
“It takes a lot of maintenance to take care of, and don’t get me started if I have to peel onions,” he said with a small chuckle. “It is hard not to resent them when it feels like I lost years of my life during their development. Thinking of what could have been is always frustrating.”
He squinted as some sun peered out through a cloud, he quickly squeezed each eye on his arms shut. He lifted his arm up to block it out after that, feeling the tinge of redness beneath each exposed eyelid. Although he didn’t say it, the sunlight was also a constant problem for him. It was hard to keep It from getting into one eye or another.
“You are very kind. What is your name?” he asked. “I am Itaru Tokuro.”
“The one that drew the most attention was a woman with violet hair, she yelled something back towards Shoichi-san as he spoke. There were strange black dots that flew around her. Insects, I think? I know they were rain because one of the women in the platoon had their emblem on her arm and a male had one hanging around his neck.”
He was straining to recall more details. Not wanting to bring on the wrath of the tsuchikage by being an incompetent scout.
“Before I withdrew, there was another in the crowd that was shouting orders, a man with darker hair wearing white. I think I saw the lady next to him talking at one point before that… I think….” He paused and looked the kage in the eye, trembling a bit nervously.
“Aside from that I saw a little girl running headfirst towards the animal, and a dog swooped in to get her out of the way. Lots of white-haired folks. There was a bear? Or maybe a man wearing a bear hat? I think I saw cloud headbands on at least one of them.”
Having so many eyes was an advantage, but he still only had one mind. His focus had mostly been on the Rain shinobi.
"...and then just the animals... they were much larger than horses and had jaggad horns on their heads. Just like the initial reports said it seemed like some sort of demon or creature not native to our area. The numbers were uncountable."
simplicity
Last Edit: Oct 18, 2021 19:21:43 GMT by Itaru Tokoro
