"If you never ask, you'll never know."

His mother's words rang in his head as he looked upon a woman in the market square. He'd only just stopped walking, having been perusing the many vendors, stalls, and stores that lined the roads of the Market Square, the rounded center of the Market District.  The place was rather busy, mostly because of several sales and price drops on items. This was the very reason behind his own being there, as his mother wanted him to grab a few things while he strolled about the village.

Yet it was this woman that stood out to him among the crowd, and for obvious reasons. She was the palest person Sujin had ever seen. Her skin was so white, it nearly lacked pigment. Compared to others around her, she seemed like a ghost, yet at the same time he could clearly see a white tablecloth behind her from some clothing vendor's table which provided a perfect background to compare her pale complexion with something truly white.  He found it odd how the white tablecloth showed her skin to not be perfectly white, having some hint of darker tone, yet be so pale in comparison with others around her.

Before this moment, albino had just been a word. A descriptor of some rare creature that might as well be considered mythological. Yet now there was someone standing not but fifteen feet away from him that fit the descriptions of such a state.  He had a strong, curious urge to talk to her, and find out more about her skin.  Yet at the same time he noticed the headband wrapped around her left forearm as she moved.

Such a person would surely have made rounds among the gossipers of the village, yet Sujin hadn't heard a word about her.  Either that meant she was much higher ranked than any of his friends (which was the most likely) or that she was recently returning kunoichi from some long journey or mission that had placed her name far out of people's minds and thus never a word would reach Sujin about such a person.

Time had spun faster than Sujin realized, but no matter how long he had stopped and stared, he finally mustered the courage to talk to the kunoichi.  And no sooner had he started walking towards her had a little boy dropped his newest toy bought by his mother. The toy dropped just in front of Sujin's right foot as he stepped forward. The sudden yet small elevation change was enough to throw his balance out of whack. Lost in his brief moment of wonder, his brain hadn't caught up to the drastic problem arising from his foot. With no grace at all, Sujin fell forward onto the road, his face slapping into a puddle that sprayed up and wet his hair, as well as the little boy who had dropped the toy.

Definitely not his best day.


Post WC: 501

Shopping was absolutely something that Amaya detested. This was only furthered by the fact that there were enough sales and deals going on to make the greediness of people begin to show. She had already witnessed two shoving matches in the time she had been in the market and she doubted those would be the only incidents she would run into. No, she really did not care for shopping; she preferred to be home with her nose in a good book, or perhaps on the training fields where she could continue to expand her knowledge or the knowledge of others.

But, here she was because here was where she needed to be. As it was she was halfway done with her trip; she had purchased various items which were in a bag hanging from her right arm, their weight barely registering due to the training she had done just the other day that was still having a bit of a numbing effect on her body.

She was turning to move on to the next stall - off to grab some ingredients for that nights dinner - when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye; an individual falling to the ground and right into a puddle face first. Amaya winced slightly but didn't laugh nor crack a smile; she could imagine that that had to suck. Being a medic it wasn't exactly something she could ignore; one of her fellow villagers face planting like that had to hurt, and there was a chance he might be injured.

So, while ignoring those around her she made her way over to the male in the puddle, weaving her way through the various people who had stopped to stare without touching a single one. Once free of the crowd she crossed the last bit of distance and came to a stop as she pushed loose strands of her long white hair over her shoulders. "That looked like a nasty fall. You alright?", she would ask in a voice that was both soft and gentle, and yet loud enough so that it could be heard above the murmur of the crowd. Were he still down on the ground she would hold out a her left hand in an offer to help him up and to his feet; which if he would take she would give a gentle tug to help him stand once more.

"This market seems to be pretty cut throat today."

There was a slight burning sensation arising from his face.  Odd, as he had to pick himself up out of a puddle. Still, the fall would create such heated pain. Coming out of the water, he could see a little redness being swirled in the puddle's murky water.  A few drops leaving his face and it was clear to him where the blood was coming from.  Pushing back his wet hair behind his ears, Sujin tenderly poked at his nose, checking his hand to see how much blood he was catching.

It was a lot.

"That looked like a nasty fall. You alright?" came a soft voice.

Sujin looked up from his kneeling position on the ground to see none other than the albino woman he had wanted to talk to. She held out a hand to help him stand up which he readily took, getting a gentle pull as he raised himself back to his feet.

"This market seems to be pretty cut throat today," she noted.

"You can say that again," he said, turning his head back to see the little boy hurriedly picking up the toy that had caused Sujin to trip and fall. "Thanks for the help."

He let go of the woman's hand and returned it to his nose, pinching his nostrils closed to try and slow the bleeding.  Knowing his body's reluctance to clot, it would be a mess if he didn't try to hold the blood back.  On the bright side, there wasn't too much pain in pinching his nose, only the slight wincing being created. Sujin wasn't any medical ninja, but from what his mother taught him of basic injuries, he could suspect that his nose wasn't broken.

Still, he was now facing the woman he wanted to talk to, but his nose was bleeding and his clothes and hair were wet, if not a bit dirty from the road.  Plus the knock had jarred his thought process a bit, and stood for a moment before recalling what it was he wanted to say.

"I'm Sujin, by the way, of the Nara clan.  Before my little dip in the puddle here, I was actually hoping to get your attention," he chuckled for a moment, but soon stopped as he heard his nasally laugh. Things weren't going at all like he had initially hoped. "Maybe I overdid it just a bit."



Post WC: 407
Total WC: 908

Blood: she knew it the moment that she saw it. She had been an official medic for eight years and had spent four years before that studying to become one. So blood? She knew blood. She knew it as it hit the puddle even though she hadn't saw his face right away. With him having accepted her help and now on his feet she took a moment to look at his face: just from sight alone she could tell his nose wasn't broken, though the way he was bleeding bothered her a bit – it wasn't nothing too deadly or dangerous, but it didn't seem right. She would glance sideways towards the little boy with the toy before shifting her red colored gaze back over to the bleeding male.

"Well, Sujin, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you suffer from Haemophilia? Considering your nose doesn't look broken after all.", it was a guess at least without her actually knowing his medical history off the top of her head. While she waited for a response from him she would reach into one of the pouches that hung from the belt she wore around her waist and pull out a small clean stack of tissues which she would then proceed to offer to Sujin to help with his bleeding problem.

"My name is Amaya Uchiha by the way.", she would add, figuring she might as well introduce herself to be polite. She would then take a moment to think about what else he had said, a small smile playing across her pale link lips. "You said you were hoping to catch my attention? Why exactly?", she would ask in a voice filled with curiosity, yet completely devoid of judgment. It wasn't the first time she had heard words such as those, though the reasonings behind hearing such things in the past differed from person to person.

Amaya would glance suddenly sideways, noticing that the market was getting a bit more crowded than it had been before. "Why don't we move over here and out of the way before we both end up being knocked over.", she would suggest suddenly before making her way through the crowd of people to a spot near an abandoned stall that was empty of nearby passersby.

"Well, Sujin, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you suffer from Haemophilia? Considering your nose doesn't look broken after all."

Sujin blinked a few times. This woman was pretty astute to have gotten his Haemophilia so quickly.

"Yeah, how'd you guess so fast?" Of course, he did just slam into the ground and start bleeding. But the words were already out there, too late to grab them back from the air and pull them back to his lips. His grip on his nose tightened unconsciously, mind looking for something to talk about.

"My name is Amaya Uchiha by the way," she introduced herself.  "You said you were hoping to catch my attention? Why exactly?"

That was right. He was going to talk to her before he had suddenly plummeted to the earth. But after the loss of blood that was quickly building up inside his plugged nose and the knock he had, the goal of his initial meeting of Amaya had completely been tossed out of his head.

Looking at her now, there was something still interesting about her skin. So pale, even against his own paleness. The contrast was still pretty major. Such an interesting thing that was a part of her, and quite obviously she was something unique to the community.  However, Sujin wondered just how such a community reacted to someone so unique on the outside as her.

He had already gotten a taste of the village's reactions when he had his struggling rebellious phase. Although that phase wasn't completely dead, he was mainly more responsible and obedient than he'd ever been since he was little.

"Why don't we move over here and out of the way before we both end up being knocked over."

Sujin quickly turned around, woken from his thoughts and re-immersed with the world around him. She was right, there was a lot more bustling about. Mostly people looking one way and walking the other. Something nagged in the back of his mind that he wouldn't be the only one to trip and fall in this crowd.  People were so focused, yet so oblivious. Not so unlike himself as he had just gotten lost in his own thoughts.

Sujin followed Amaya out of the main road area. She had found a suitable spot for them to tuck away from the crowd in an empty stall, the shop owner having closed for the day or the business just failing. While this fact alone prodded in Sujin's mind, he turned it away to focus back on Amaya.

"Right, well," he began, already restructuring what he would say. His mind had been knocked into a different train of thought.  "I guess I just noticed how different you were, no offense. But then also noticed you're a shinobi and just had to meet you. I'm only a Genin, myself."



Post WC: 489
Total WC: 1397

Amaya sat herself down on the empty shop counter in an indian style position. She leaned forward slightly, allowing her arms to rest on her thighs in a comfortable manner. She glanced towards the crowd as they moved past the two individuals who were now out of the way enough not to be bothered while they spoke: she had no intention of having to go off on a clumsy civilian after all for not paying attention to where they were going. Satisfied they wouldn't be in the way she then shifted her red hues back onto Sujin.

"You asked how I guessed so quickly on your condition? I've been a medic for about eight years now; and studied for four years before that. I grew up with an illness that I've since then gotten over, so I learned a lot about them.", Amaya admitted. She had no reason to lie or stretch the truth at all, it was all common knowledge anyway: Amaya spent a good bit of time helping out at the hospital when she was in the village.

Amaya grinned when he brought up how he had noticed how differnet she was: it was a bit of the opposite of the reactions she normally got. Most people saw how different she was and thought her a demon - or so they had when she was a child. However, here he was wanting to meet her because she was different? It peaked her curiosity quite a bit. "Ah. Well, no offense taken. Honestly, it's a better reaction than most people give to me and my albino traits.", she said simply before contemplating on what else he had brought up: he had noticed she was a shinobi, but didn't clearly know her rank, though he admitted to being a Genin. How would he react to finding out her rank? She figured she was about to find out.

"I'm a high ranked Jounin, actually." Amaya fell silent then, waiting to see the reaction from that proverbial dropped ball.

"You asked how I guessed so quickly on your condition? I've been a medic for about eight years now; and studied for four years before that. I grew up with an illness that I've since then gotten over, so I learned a lot about them."

He nodded as he listened to her. It made perfect sense, as his mother was the one to first realize what was going on with him. He was only taught very basic things about how to treat small cuts and things, but never to the degree of knowledge required by Medics.  Much to his mother's chagrin, Sujin had taken more after his father's abilities and skills.

As Amaya had mentioned all the years of training for her position, he was more happy about his choice of not having followed his mother's footsteps. He had already taken too much time off from basic training than to actually focus on something requiring major devotion and years of special training. There was nothing for him to be but impressed at Amaya's diligence and obvious work ethic for having gotten to where she was.

"Ah. Well, no offense taken. Honestly, it's a better reaction than most people give to me and my albino traits." she had said, smiling. There was a sense of happiness, but about what exactly. Something of how he had noted her obvious skin difference, maybe, or possibly something else he hadn't picked up on yet.  "I'm a high ranked Jounin, actually."

Sujin fell sideways at this last drop of information that spilled from Amaya's lips. His fall was quickly stopped by an awning supporting pole. He was now in a leaning position, but his face was still struck with some shock. For him to have just spontaneously started talking to a Jounin, was rather unexpected. Most didn't bother with him, so it was surprising that Amaya was so friendly.

This brought a strange rising, boiling rush within him. His parents had been his only perception of the higher-ups in the village, besides the Hokage himself. And so far through his interaction with Amaya, she seemed very different from his patriotic parents, the diehard fanatics that would constantly give Sujin speeches of the village's Will of Fire.  However nice it all was, Sujin was seeing whether his parents were normal or abnormal.

"S-so..." Sujin started, swallowing hard to clear his throat. "Looks like you're a lot more dedicated than me. Was becoming Jounin what you expected it to be?"

He took a moment, then a more easier question came to his mind, "Anyways, you might have worked with my mom, she's a medic too... or wait... usually medics are paired by themselves with squads, right? So maybe not..." And like that, his attempt to twist the conversation around to a lighter subject failed as he found the holes in his question as he said it. He had a bad habit of finding his errors as he committed them.

Taking a heavy breath, Sujin averted his eyes to the ground. Here was this Genin of eight years, talking to a Jounin medic that had spent years of training and dedication to get where she was now.  His life was the polar opposite of this woman, having sloughed off his career only until finally he accepted his future would require him not being able to slack off.



Post WC: 575
Total WC: 1972

Amaya watched, slender white eyebrows raising in curiosity, as the individual she was speaking to suddenly seemed to fall sideways at the information she had provided. She had been about to move, to catch him before he fell and ended up injured though she had yet to move even a single muscle, when the pole for the awning seemed to catch him and save her the trouble. It put him in the position of leaning sideways, though she couldn't imagine it being all that comfortable given the hardness of the pole now supporting him.

It seemed to take him a moment to regain himself, but soon enough he was asking if becoming a Jounin had been what she expected it to be. The question brought another smile to her face and a shake no to her head. In truth, she could have never imagined the path her life had swerved onto, and thought it had been filled with its fair share of ups and downs she wouldn't change any of it for the world. "No. I can't say it was. Honestly, I never imagined reaching the position I'm in today. I probably wouldn't have had it not been for my brother, Naota, as well as Kenta Inuzuka, one of our previous Hokage's, and his cousin Ashi.", just speaking their names her voice held reverence: they were people she highly respected, people she respected more than anyone else in her life. "I was on a bit of a lazy path in life, content with being a Chuunin and surprised I had even got that far, when I was introduced to Kenta. He was ill, and in need of a medic; something he knew I was because he was my brother's best friend. So.. it gave me reason to enhance my abilities and to actually train." It was information she didn't mind giving out, information that anyone who had been around at the time would have known regardless, plus she figured it would help explain that she wasn't super human by any means, she herself had been lazy once upon a time and content with being so.

She then thought of what else he had said and tilted her head thoughtfully. "I could have worked with your mother. A lot of medics double doing rounds at the hospital to help with the more severe injuries, so it's always possible. I've often worked with multiple medics, especially if a difficult case comes in."

"So, what about you? Do you plan on becoming a medic? Or do you venture down a different path?", she asked curiously.

She talked of people Sujin had never heard save for the elder hokage who had been resigned for some time now. Even though he didn't know any of them personally, the way she had spoken of them, if only briefly, he could feel the weight of their effects on Amaya. He could only imagine what her journey to becoming a Jounin was like, but of course his imagination seemed to add a bit more optimism than what most likely held true for anyone in a field combatant's line of work.

And then she spoke of her path to becoming Jounin, almost as if reading his mind. Her description of a 'lazy path in life' made him smile. At least he wasn't the only one in that regard, although his laziness (but probably more rebelliousness than just laziness) was most likely much more than hers. His eight years of being a Genin was quite the record to have, and one he wasn't so proud of anymore, now that he was actually getting serious about being a shinobi for the village.

There was some solace that he wasn't the only one to have gone through such a phase and that there was still the chance he could make up for the wasted time. Like she had said, it was through training and practice of techniques that had gotten her to the skilled title she now had. More importantly, her motivation seemed to be more for her friends than just simply the honor and privilege of being in the village, as his parents would often recite how they did their work for the love of the country.

His main reaction was just to soak in what she was saying. Admiring her honesty in revealing even some of her lows of being stuck as a Chuunin for a while. And then she asked about him and his plans, to which he had to take a long breath, giving him time to find an answer to such a big question.

"Not really sure if I'll end up taking the medic's path. I only noticed I was more comfortable with ninjutsu and a desire to mess around with genjutsu. But I've yet to really learn much in the genjutsu department as of yet.  Very tricky to nail down those techniques," he smiled. He was enjoying the relaxed attitude between them which made him open up about himself unprovoked. "And I've only recently gotten back into training, again. I've, uh... well, I've been extremely against myself for a long time about following in my parents footsteps into the shinobi world. Only this year did I decide I would make this career, which I'd committed to do, something I'd pursue on my own."

He took a pause, his mind going over what he had said. There's times when the words are said aloud that it really hits how stupid some decisions were, yet he had made them. Now having said them, and to a Jounin no less, Sujin began to feel self-conscious again. The relaxed environment eaten away by his own anxiety.



Post WC: 529
Total WC: 2501

Noticing he'd been rambling about things, none of which added to the conversation, Sujin began to press his brain for what he had to ask the kunoichi. Her being a Jounin and all, he was surprised by her easy-going demeanor. Maybe it was the way he met other Jounins, but it always ended up in conflict and harsh words. True, his past was something that would always irritate others. As big as the village was, most of the people of Konoha seemed to never forget who were the bad seeds.

Not wanting to kill such a promising relationship with one Jounin that hadn't shown any aggression towards him, he decided to end the little chit chat they were having. "Well, I think I've run my mouth long enough," he'd say, chuckling through his blocked up nose. "I'll be heading off. And thanks for the help earlier!"

Sujin turned and headed off into the sprawling market square. As he walked, he tentatively checked his nose by slowly releasing his grip on it. To his delight, the bleeding had stopped, but exactly when, he had no idea. A quick pump of air through his nostrils and he could see it hadn't been too long as the dried blood wasn't too set in his nostril cavities but instead shot to the ground. Taking a deep breath through the nose, he grinned widely as he strolled back to his home.

Arriving back at his parent's house, Sujin found his mother was home for the day. "Off for the day," she would say. "How was your day?"

"Pretty great, actually," Sujin would reply cheerfully. "I think I'm on good terms with a Jounin besides you and Dad."

At this his mother would turn. "Oh really? That's great, honey! Who is it?" She had been working on dinner in the kitchen, but laid down the kitchen knife to talk to her son.

"Amaya Uchiha. She said she's a medic."

"An Uchiha... that's a medic? Hmmm..." His mother would stop to think of the face to the name. He watched her wipe her hands absentmindedly, her head would crook towards her right shoulder as she tried to recall the various jobs and times she had been around the other medical-nin of the village. Something that would probably rate among hundreds of instances as medics were always needed, and his mother was almost always kept busy with work.

Seeing her brain was struggling, Sujin would pitch in. "Mom, she's albino."

"Oh! Yes!" She snapped her fingers as she nailed down who it was that he was talking about. A soft smile came to her as she remembered Amaya from whenever they may had met. "Lovely girl, actually. I've only worked with her two times. Both very brief. Excellent medic though."

Sujin nodded, "Yeah, she had said that you two had probably met before." He then left her to her cooking and went to his room to relax on his bed. Things were starting to change for him. What else could be in store for his future?




Post WC: 524
Total WC: 3025
Training Reaction Time E to D-1: 1075/1075
Remaining WC: 1950
Training Speed E to D rank: 750/750
Remaining WC: 1200
Training Strength E to D rank: 750/750
Remaining WC: 450
Training Endurance E-3 to D rank: 300/300
Remaining WC: 150