Things in the Kumogakure no Sato had been a bit dour to say the least. For whatever reason the adults had been rather gloomy. Sure, they'd been polite enough. The freshly graduated Genin was still receiving waves and greetings as he wandered through the market. His elders were still peddling their wares or waving about their dango for sale. It seemed business as usual... But there was something off in the rhythm of his homeland. Every time someone smiled it never truly felt like it reached all the way up to their eyes.

The ear phones that settled on his obedient black hair helped to shut him off from the subtle aura of dread that seemed to permeate the environment. The steady strums of a smooth and modern incarnation of some classic shamisen performances set his mind at ease. Toshi assured himself that as long as he didn't pay attention to it; To the somewhat arrhythmic heartbeat of the now sparsely populated trading center, that it couldn't effect him.

With that in mind, he greeted his surroundings with a bright naive grin! He took a seat at the aforementioned Dango stand. His left hand turned down the music player in his coat pocket while his right hand greeted the merchant lady with an eager "Hello Dango Obachan!"

The older woman gave Satoshi a disapproving look that Satoshi interperted as begrudging amusement. She looked at the vacant seats beside him and then asked "What can I get for you today?"

Satoshi's stomach growled, urging him to hurry up and order. He pat his belly with an embarrassed laugh as he put up a single finger to the older woman. "One please!"

[WC 284]

Lin wandered into the Dango shop, she liked things that were sweet after having a bit of a bite to eat elsewhere. She smiled to the old lady and waved. It was one of her favorite shops to buy sweets, and their Dango on a stick was a favorite snack of hers when she had a bit of extra ryo in her pocket and was willing to spend it on herself. She looked around the restaurant as she came in and found a young man sitting at a table. She recognized him as a recently graduated Genin. He was on par with her abilities, or so she thought from watching the graduating classes of the last four years. She sighed, it would probably be good to go and introduce herself.

"Hi, I'm Katonrai, Lin." She sat across from the teen and placed her hands on the table as the old woman approached. She held up two fingers to signal how many she wanted and then continued, "I assume you're part of the graduating class that just came out, am I correct?" She raised an eyebrow, keeping her hands on the table, her fingers folded over one another. She was wearing a blue skirt, a blue undershirt, and a black vest today. Under her skirt she was wearing some stockings, which she found to be cute, which were dark blue and electric yellow. She had put her hair back, but insisted on keeping her bangs parted to her right side to hide her scar as best she could. She wore the scarf, even if it was a nice day.

It would be a good day if she could get this boy to spar with her. She could at least test out her newly gained prowess from that C ranked mission that she completed last week. She looked across the table, however, without any other thoughts and waited for him to introduce himself and answer her question.

WC: 333

Toshi placed his Ryo on the counter with a cheery plink. He didn't have much, but what he did have always seemed to be spent on food. He grinned happily as the serving woman turned to head past the curtain to the kitchen. It was fast replaced with a look of curiosity as the old woman stopped and turned. She offered a polite smile over his shoulder, which Satoshi followed with his chair, the wood creaking in protest as he turned it with his hips.

Satoshi was a pale boy of modest size and stature. As far as his body was concerned he was far from noteworthy. His hands came up to pull down the white shell headphones from his ears as the girl that drew the woman's attention addressed him. A hand brushed some of his now freed black hair from his face and smiled at her through his bright red eyes. He wore the colors of their nation, his jacket a proud snow white and his shirt a muted grey.

He extended a hand across the table with an eagerness that contrasted with the dreary tone of the outside world. "Pleased to meet you Lin! I'm Kazuhiko, Satoshi! My friends call me Toshi" His voice was pleasant and melodious. In perfect tune... If a voice could be in tune when not singing. The serving woman nodded back to Lin before heading into the back to fetch their orders.

He leaned back in his seat as she asked if he was a Genin who'd just graduated. His thumb and forefinger of each hand came to his waist, gripping the edges of his headband which he used as a belt and buckle with pride. Light glinted across the Kumogakure sigil before he settled back into his seat, leaning back and crossing his extended legs at the ankle, showing off the full length of his snow white slacks and grey shoe sandals.

"I think I've seen you around someplace... Maybe the Skybar? Is that right Katonrai Senpai? How are you doing on this fine day? Well I hope? What can I do for you?" He spoke quickly, eagerly, not necessarily waiting for the answer to any one question as the serving woman emerged from the back placing the dango down in front of them.

[WC: 388]

Lin waited until he was done shotgunning his questions before answering them in quick succession herself. She had undergone training to pick up every detail of a conversation and she wasn't about to go and waste it on an everyday encounter, "Yes, probably. I spend a lot of my time there nowadays trying to find someone to spar with or date. I am doing well, I was just coming in to get some Dango and thought that I would ask if you would like to go with me to spar sometime. I don't think you can do anything in particular for me, except perhaps alleviate the boredom that seems to have built up in my bones." She smiled as the Dango was set in front of her and she started munching on it. It was a sweet treat that she hadn’t had in a while, and the fun flavors and colors helped to boost her spirits. Chewing on the soft dango she considered the youth for a moment. He didn’t look like much, but he would probably put up a good fight for his size.

”What did you graduate with? Mostly top marks I hope. Anyhow, the new genins are all getting into teams, have you found one yet?” She wanted to make small-talk while eating but didn’t know where to go from there. She was one to state her mind and wasn’t one for pleasantries.

WC: 582

Satoshi nodded attentively at each of her responses. They seemed to take just long enough that he didn't get bored. He didn't interrupt her to answer but his facial expressions responded for her in some ways. Specifically when she said "date". His face reddened and pinched in on itself simultaneously. He looked as if a skunk had called him cute just after spraying him. Girls were strange.

He popped a the top dumpling of his Dango in his mouth, painfully aware of the awkward expression he was making. He continued to nod attentively as she continued to answer him. She seemed nice enough. She was a lot older than he was. To a boy his age four years probably felt like twenty. That said, he'd always been taught to respect his elders, and he was no stranger to the kindness of older women. Perhaps not the sort of kindness she was looking for in the Skybar of course. Again. Gross.

"Sparring huh? I always liked sparring at the academy. I was pretty fond of shinobi kumite! It was fun to feel other people's beats!" As far back as he could remember, Kumite had been perhaps the one thing during his studies at the academy he did enjoy. It was like advanced puzzle solving. Except sometimes, a wrong answer had dire consequences. Of course, not in the academy where things were very sterile and safe. He'd heard tales of other village's academys. That in some of them, students were put up against each other in fights to the death... He frowned at the thought of friends killing friends as his attention drifted towards the macabre and away from Lin.

Her follow up question brought him back to earth though. "Marks hmm? Well... Let's see when it came to class..." He thought on it... Recalling the numerous times Ichijin Sensei had yelled at him while he was listening to music instead of his lectures. He could practically taste the chalk dust from the many times he'd had an eraser bounced off the top of his head by his teacher's exceptional Eraser Shuriken Jutsu. He trailed off.

"And when it came to tests..." Again he drifted off. He could recall many a time where an empty test sheet was pulled out from under his sleeping face... Or when a proctor shouted at him for making exciting landscapes out of the instructions for a word problem rather than solving it. He trailed off again.

"Well...At least with ninjutsu.." Once more he remembered his many demonstration exams. One in particular stuck out. A doppleganger test. He remembered making the handsign with confidence. Shouting "Bunshin no Jutsu!" with gusto... And the laughs of his peers as an overweight, shaggy, and barely colored in version of him stood at his side, it's belly hanging over his belt as snot dribbled out of one of his nostrils. He trailed off once more.

"I did okay!" He reassured. Though who he was reassuring was an absolute mystery. Despite that he leaned back once again flashing her his headband. He'd at least done well enough to graduate, so that was a plus! "How about you?" He asked with eagerness. Surely his senpai was a great success in class. He didn't quite understand how the bookworms did it, but he appreciated their abilities. He loved learning, but a classroom wasn't really the way he wanted to do it.

"I haven't found a team yet, no. I was hoping they would assign them to us, so we could hurry up and get out there! Into the great big world! There are so many things to see! Places to go! Things to eat! And people to meet! I can't wait!" He hopped up onto his stool energetically as he shouted, pointing out the door into the horizon. His enthusiasm was cut by a chiding bop on the head from the serving woman behind the counter.

He melted back into his seat apologetically before looking across the table to Lin with a half eager, half embarrassed smile. He then hurredly stuffed the last three dumplings into his mouth in a single bite! "What's your team like? You can tell me about it on our way to spar, yeah?" He spoke through full cheeks, his words muffled by the delicious sweets he rather ungraciously devoured while looking across the table at Lin expectantly.

[WC P:769|T: 1441]

Lin nodded at his eagerness to do ninja kumite, perhaps he would make a good sparring partner. "Kumite is exactly what I had in mind." She had no idea why he was making the funny faces at her. Perhaps his Dango was a bit too sweet or something. She shrugged and brushed it off on something else. It couldn't have been because of her actions. "I did fine in the academy. I passed in first place for medical ninjutsu, and third in my class for ninjutsu. There were two others that could control their chakra at a chuunin level at least, and I couldn't beat them if I tried. They're probably on the fast track to ANBU now." She took another bite of her Dango and nodded at his proposal to talk while they were on their way to spar. Dango was something that she could take with her and didn't require much concentration to eat. She lifted the two sticks that the Dango was on and stood up in one fluid motion.

Setting the ryo on the table she smiled at the old woman once more, before looking to Toshi. "What did you do best in the academy with your Kumite? It seems like you enjoy sparring as much as I do, and I excelled in it at the academy. I was hoping to find a partner for training and perhaps, after this, we can test our skills on a mission together. As for my team..." She started to walk towards the door when he would follow, if he didn't she would stay standing until he got up.

"I have a sensei, but she is a tough trainer. She hasn't led me on any missions yet, but I am sure that we will go as soon as things cool down here in Kumo. It's hard to do anything outside of the city with the recent tensions between Kirigakure and here." She explained, leaving out that she had met two of the legendary swordsmen. Though it wouldn't be hard to tell that she was holding something back in her conversation. She wasn't a great liar to begin, and she didn't have any particular reason to impress Toshi at the moment either. She just didn't want to get under Gin's skin. The last time she was irritated she had threatened to send her through a wall. Something that Lin would probably not survive.

Lin would step outside when Toshi was following behind her and adjust her scarf to hide her scar from the world, along with her hair. She brushed her hair over her left ear to peer out among the people. It seemed like things were starting to get busier in the market, so they should probably head to the old sparring grounds. Though, with this crowd, it would probably take a while for them to get there. Plenty of time for them to talk. "What are your ambitions Toshi? I am hoping to become the top Medical Ninja in the whole of the ninja world. Perhaps on par with the abilities of the seven swordsmen, though, not near as violent perhaps." She blushed, hoping that she hadn't given too much away.

WC: 1142

Toshi grinned widely as Lin agreed to come with him and participate in some friendly sparring. The heels of his feet braced against the table in front of him and with a push of his knees he drove his seat away from the table. Then, in another fluid movement of his legs he popped up onto his feet. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a coin purse that looked like an old tape deck. He drew the zipper across the front, sliding along where the casette bay would pop open, reached in, and placed some ryo on the table.

"Thanks Dango Oba-san! See you tomorrow!" He waved and gave the woman a -stupidly- charming and sincere smile. She half-heartedly shook her fist while returning the smile. Dango Oba-San had been one of his few consistent friends in the village. He'd made sure to come by and see her nearly every day. They rarely exchanged banter, rather, most meetings were just like the one they'd had today. But he didn't need to hear about her day and she didn't need to hear about his. Their spirits were in sync and he dug her beat!

He brought his arms up over his head, grasping the opposite elbow and creating a sort of cradle for the back of his head out of his forearms. His head lulled back slightly into his arms in a relaxed posture as he followed Lin out of the Dango shop.

"Medical Ninjutsu? Neat! I was never very good at putting things back together... And to be honest, I'm not particularly fond of blood" He grimaced at that. "Hopefully you're better than Doc Kamiya. I always left his office with a headache."  The truth was that Doc Kamiya was an incredibly capable medical ninja. One of the best in fact. The problem, as it typically does, lay within Satoshi.

Whether or not he was fully aware of what it meant, he was a member of the Kotone clan. A scattered clan of ninja with a somewhat unique physiology. Due to their chakra's resonance it made ninjutsu based healing rather difficult. It simply didn't operate on the same wavelength as everyone elses. While it was the source of many of his unique qualities, it was also an impediment. As such, even standard examinations often threw him out of synch, causing the headaches he was talking about.

"Your sensei sounds strong... And scary." He narrowed his eyes as he searched the area suspiciously... People like that had a tendency to hear things they weren't supposed to. "Either way. You're lucky to have her... I want to find tons of sensei, and learn from them all!" Boy... that was lofty.

He continued to follow Lin, his headphones bobbing lazily atop his shoulders as they conversed. "Hmm... What did I do best?" He considered it for a moment. "I got to know people. I don't think you can truly know someone until you dance with them. Sometimes people lie with their mouths. But you can't hide your rhythm during a dance, yeah?" He gave her a thumbs up in what he thought was a cool pose. As if he expected the information he'd just given her to leave a profound impression on her life.

"Ambitions? I don't know if I have any of those... I just wanna see the world! There's so much outside of our walls! So many people and things and ideas! If I get to see, hear, and meet all of those, there's no way I'll be bored." He nodded. "So when you're the top medical ninja... What are you going to call yourself? Can you be the Scalpel Sannin?" He laughed a stupid carefree laugh. The laugh of someone who's never truly seen difficulty. Felt heartache. It was a pure laugh that he hoped to only sound sweeter, rather than become tarnished by the cruel reality of the world.

[WC: P:673| T: 2114]

Lin kicked the door closed non-chalantly to the Dango shop, she didn't want to let the A/C out of the shop like she had the last time. The woman behind the scenes, Dango Obaa-chan, was actually a real crack shot when it came to lobbing metal objects at people through a crowd and hitting people in the back of the head with them. Last time it had been a ladel, though she didn't know what a Ladel was used for in Dango it had hurt as much as she had thought that it would. Lin smiled up to the sun and basked in its rays for a bit. Sunny days in Kumo were rare and she loved every second of the sunlight that she could grab. It would be a good training session, and she would perhaps have another friend by the end of it.

"Usually when you go in to see a medical ninja, they're supposed to heal your ailments, not give you them. Have you told him that you suffer from headaches every time that you go in to see him?" She started her diagnosis as if it were second-nature to her. She was a capable lightning jutsu user, more capable than her medical ninjutsu, but she was also more kind-hearted than most people knew. She had a short-fuse, yes, and she wouldn't tolerate others besmirching her honor, but she also hated to see anyone get hurt that didn't deserve it. This young ninja didn't do anything to deserve his headaches and she thought it was unfair that he left the office every time with something that ailed him rather than feeling in tip-top shape.

"If you are seeing Kaimya-san, perhaps I should talk to him, I hear that he is a very good medical ninjutsu user, but he should know that he is doing something that causes his patients discomfort. Perhaps he just needs to adjust his medical ninjutsu to channel less chakra into minor wounds. I have heard of cases similar to yours, where the doctor actually ended up doing damage rather than healing in situations where they used too much chakra at once to heal the person. It is a very precise practice, and I don't have much knowledge above the hovering-hands technique, but I have been working on expanding the medical ninjutsu world through trying to come up with new jutsu to use in the midst of battle. she explained, there was a war not very long ago between Kiri and Kumogakure Even she knew about the war between the two villages and she was relatively young. Perhaps he knew as well what was going on between Kumo and Kirigakure. What he didn't know was her sensei was one of the people that started the conflict. She sighed and kicked a rock, ricocheting it into a wastebin. She was quite good at projectiles, but weak in a fight. She wondered if he would be able to help her train her flimsiness in close-quarters combat.

"I use lightning mainly, and also use ranged weapons. We are going to be doing a kumite so I won't hurt you too badly, but anything that I do I will heal, I promise." She smiled and picked up a flower from a merchant, tossing a coin at the merchant and placing it in her hair. She enjoyed the days when she had a bit of extra coin to throw around, and was loving the sweet taste of the dango, and the sweet aroma of the flower in her hair. The dark blue of the flower seemed to accent her blue eyes as she stared up at the sky, "I wasn't big on close-quarters combat. So I am hoping that I will get better through practice. Perhaps if you're decent you and I could improve ourselves together."

Lin was making her way, albeit slowly, toward the battle plateau. She didn't think that it would be very crowded in the afternoon on a school day, but perhaps there would be a class that was being taught at the academy there. They could be sparring or running jutsu training. She would just have to stay out of the way enough for them to get a good ring to fight in. The bad thing about rings for her was that she wasn't able to get away as fast nor as far as she would like. The good thing about them is that it helped her hone her skills towards becoming a better ninja in close-quarters combat. She put her hand to her side to make sure her senbon were where she had left them and nodded at the cold steel that tickled her fingertips.

"What rules, besides that we don't really want to hurt eachother, do you want to set while we are walking to the plateau?" Lin asked, thinking it courteous to say the least to ask him. Perhaps he had a more liberal thought towards "harm" than her. Or perhaps more conservative.

WC: 2014

He rubbed the back of his head and laughed another stupid laugh as Lin suggested that he let the doctor know. "Maybe I should. I don't think there's really much he can do about it. I think it's a part of who I am! But that's okay! There's way worse afflictions out there. I still have my arms and legs right? What's a little head pain? Besides, Doc Kamiya's a good guy. I'm sure he's trying his hardest."

His grandma had discussed it at length with the doctor which was where he'd gotten the small amounts of knowledge concerning his condition that he had. Toshi wasn't very well versed in medical ninjutsu, or medical anything to be honest, so he'd taken her word for it. He knew very little of the background concerning his "clan". He'd never met anyone else like him... Nor heard tell of another. In some ways it was lonely.

They were approaching the battle plateau. He'd been there plenty of times. He enjoyed watching others spar, sussing out their particular rhythms and abilities. There was only so much you could learn from reading a book. No, the real lesson, at least for Toshi, came from seeing and touching. Unfortunately it was often at his detriment. It meant he went into most lessons and activities as a total layman. In some instances that could prove quite... Painful.

"Rules? Hm... let's see. Well I trust you so I'm not too worried... So uh... Hmm. I guess anything is fine with me! We'll spar until one of us recognizes the winner! That way we don't have to hurt eachother. If we have too many restrictions, there'll be no way for me to feel your beat, right?" He nodded sagely as he continued to seemingly spout more of his nonsense. "Let's greet eachother with our fists, yeah!?"

He punched his two fists together with an audible smack and then gave her another goofy thumbs up. It'd been a long time since he'd met someone that he could consider a friend. Sure he'd made acquaintances and had study partners in the academy, but that wasn't truly what a friend was, right? Someone he could rely on. Something dawned on him in that moment. Maybe it was because of his extreme impatience. Or perhaps it was his reckless optimism, but he'd crafted a plan. He ran out in front of her a little bit, putting up a hand in front of her.

"Oh! And one more thing! The loser has to join the winner's team!" He gave her another stupid grin then. The grin someone wears when they think they've placed a winning bet!

-[Exit Thread]-

[Total WC: 2595. To be used for Stat Training [All Stats to E-3, with the exception of Strength, which is to D-0]]

She giggled when he talked about his doctor. Well, he was the one that had to deal with it. She realized how silly she was being assuming that she knew more than the medical ninja that was treating him. She had barely any training outside of the academy and she would hate to step on toes at this point. She nodded when he said that anything was fine with her.

"Let's just not do enough damage to eachother that we need to go to the hospital or seek out a medical Ninja... well other than me." she reconsidered, seeing as they would be sparring there was no reason for them to not go all out, "We'll need to see eachothers full abilities, so please come at me with all you have." His smile seemed to be infectious as she could feel it creep onto her face. She nodded once, getting rid of it like the phantasm of a dream. "Greeting others with fists isn't usually my style, but I am sure that you'll figure that out."

She stretched in the sunlight, raising her hands high above her head and groaning, feeling a couple of her joints pop from the strain of not being used in a few days. She had yet to make any friends outside of her own academy group. Some had already graduated to Chuunin and it was probably due to her laziness that she wasn't on par with them. Or that was her excuse to herself.

Lin wasn't really paying attention when he jumped out in front of her, and it was only her reaction time that stopped her from running him over. Raising her eyebrows she grinned, "If that's how you want to play it, you might get more than you're bargaining for. Just to let you know." She had a couple of tricks up her sleeve that she would show him.

|Exit Thread|

WV: 2350

Using Words and 300 ryo to train Endurance and Perception to D-3