Sumiko's wide brown eyes slowly drifted, following the tall stone pillars upward until they reached the wide lettering written across the broad front entrance: "Sunagakure Library". She blinked twice, wondering to herself how exactly she had managed to come this far without any second thoughts. She had seen the recent team postings, and while her initial elation of being placed with another genin of similar rank and abilites remained, she began to harbor worries as well as the two had never actually met before.

The curious kunoichi had asked around a bit, inquiring what sort of person her new teammate was. According to their reports, he had a rather quiet personality, spending most of his time either training in private or searching through various texts at the library. For such a secretive individual, Sumiko judged it would be best to approach him at a public location, hence her visit to the library.

She allowed her gaze to drop from the lettering, focusing instead on the doorway leading in. She nodded to herself twice, her hands clenching her sleeves tightly for a moment before relaxing, a sense of calm spreading over her as a smile returned to her face. She reached her hand out and turned the doorknob, stepping through the doorway and into the library proper.

The wide central room reached out in all directions, the overarching stone dome above decorated with intricate rune-like murals. Below them stood rows upon rows of shelves, where countless scrolls and bound texts lay in organized slots. Sumiko looked about, her arms hanging by her sides calmly as her eyes took in just how many texts this single library contained... The dim interior took some time to adjust to, but as she glanced down each row as she came to them, her eyes were drawn forward and lighted upon a figure seated at one of the many desks arranged around the clearing in the center of the library.

From what she could tell, the young man matched the discription some of the villagers had given her for her teammate, but she stepped toward him with a measure of caution nonetheless. She reached out, her hand extending from her long white sleeve, and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. Her voice came out clearly yet softly, "Kidomaru-kun?"

WC: 385

The Sunagakure library stood before Kidomaru as a symbol of his chance to find out what he could about his clan and the constructs. Now that he had taken his first steps into the shinobi world he thought he should also embark on his journey to uncover information about the past. Even if his clan's past was buried behind centuries of sand and mystery there might be a shred of their existence or the purpose of the constructs written down in earlier texts. He wore his usual formal pants and jacket as he would walk up the stairs and admire at the stone pillars that held up the roof over looking the village. He also needed to brush up on puppetry. He needed to study more of the basics so he could become more proficient with it in case he did ever find out how to bring forth the constructs. He was not as fortunate as some to have gotten money after graduation to afford even a basic puppet. But it did not phase Kidomaru as he was more engulfed by the constructs.

He would reach the huge wooden doors and shove them open as the hot desert air was replaced by the breeze of the library's air conditioning. A welcome break from the hot and dry air outside that messed with his silvery hair. He would walk up to the attendant and politely tap on the desk to get their attention. "Excuse me, I need a little help finding information on basic puppetry and I would like to find information on older clans in the region if that would be possible." The attendant would turn to their computer and look up the catalog of information to try and find what he was looking for and they would point him in two different directions. On the eastern side of the building would hold information for beginning puppet users and once he was done over there he would have to take a flight of stairs behind the desk to reach the upper floor and find a small corner of older looking books. He would nod to the attendant and begin to walk over to the puppet books first.

He would look at the very first books and a few would catch his eye. One for basic puppetry mechanics he could work with in his spare time with the toys he fixed, one that would teach him how to better fight with humanoid looking puppets, and one more that talked more about how to fix and assemble damaged puppets. These three would help him to understand more about the constructs smaller counter parts and he could hopefully try to translate them to the constructs when the time arose. He grabbed the books and made his way back to the center of the library where desks were arranged for people to read and work on what they needed. He gently laid the books down and took his seat so he could begin to read the first.

He lost himself in the book and was entangled in how much the academy had missed to teach him about puppetry. Simple things that made puppeteers the sort of shinobi they were and separated themselves from the rest. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a soft tap on the shoulder and an even softer voice calling his name. He folded over the corner of the page and set the book down before turning around in his chair to see a shorter blonde haired girl standing behind him. "Yeah that would be me. Do you need something fixed or do you need one of the books I am reading?" He would ask in a questioning and calm tone.

622/622

"Uhm... Neither, actually," Sumiko smiled, reaching back with her right hand to rub the back of her head in an uneasy manner, "I'm Sabaku Sumiko, one of your new teammates. I asked around a bit since I wanted to meet with you properly, and, well, here I am." She normally would have accentuated her speech with her loud voice and grandeose pose, but given that she currently resided within the Sunagakure library, she decided against making a scene. No point introducing yourself to someone only to be publically humiliated mere moments afterward.

Instead, she chose to show some interest in whatever it was that Kidomaru happened to be doing at the moment. No nobody's surprise, it had something to do with the books spread out over his desk. She stepped around his seat and peered over at the text laid out before him, placing her sleeve-covered hands down onto the desk's smooth wooden surface as she did so.

Her brown eyes scanned each line a few times, but had difficulty making sense of the contents, due both to her unfamiliarity with puppetry in general and lack of affinity with the medium. Sure, as one of the major ninja fighting styles in Sunagakure, Sumiko was aware of puppetry and the various advantages it afforded, but she had never dabbled in it on a personal level. She learned more from experiance and direct instruction rather than studying textbooks or scrolls that used confusing terms that she may or may not have been familiar with. In other words, she prefered a more active approach to training, jutsu or otherwise.

"Hm... Whatcha reading?" Sumiko decided the best course of action would be to plead ignorance rather than make a fool of herself, "Looking for something, or do you just like Kugutsu?" Given the rather broad scope of topics concerning Kugutsu in the texts he had gathered on his desk, she could only assume that puppets had something to do with his preferred combat style or that her teammate took a personal interest in them. At least, she gathered as much from their titles, which were straightforward enough for her to understand.

She looked up from the books back toward his face, hopping from one leg to another while she rested her arms on the desk. He seemed like a serious sort of fellow, the kind that she tended to get along with as long as they could endure, or were not annoyed by, her more eccentric qualities. In either case she hoped that they could learn to get along. Teammates had to trust each other, both personally and on the battlefield. Passing through any barriers that would prevent such mutual trust remained her first priority.

WC: 385 + 455 = 840

The girl would introduce herself and Kidomaru would remember that he had signed up but didn't receive any notification if a squad was found for him but luckily it seemed his new squad mate was already on top of the ball and sought to seek him out herself. He had to give her credit for that. She would then seem to take an interest in the books he had picked out from the shelves as she stepped around to the other side to glance over. Kidomaru didn't know what his new squad mate specialized in but from the looks of it she wasn't big into puppetry either. Even though puppetry was something for Sunagakure was known and renowned for, not everyone was up to the subject and Kidomaru knew that all to well.

Suwako would then ask what he was reading for and about his affinity for puppetry. She seemed to be legitimate in her questioning and Kidomaru would be genuine in his response as he put the book he was holding into a row to complete the trio he has picked. "Just some basic stuff for anyone that looks to get into puppetry. I was always more the scholar type which I acceded in the tests at the academy but I was only able to do the bare minimum when it came to the actual field work. So it only makes sense to me to try and read up more on the topic and try to learn more. And it wouldn't surprise me that you wouldn't know but yes I am supposed to be a practitioner of puppets. Just need the practice with them and to actual get the money together for the material to make one." Kidomaru would put his elbows on the table and cup his hands together under his chin to prop himself up as the girl seemed to have boundless energy as she hopped back and forth from leg to leg. She seemed to be paying attention to what he was saying and he would ask her his own questions. So Suwako since it seems that we havent been assigned a sensei otherwise we probably would have been called together under different terms. Why don't you tell me a little more about yourself. Besides what I can tell from your clan name as the ones that are able to more easily manipulate sand." Kidomaru was curious to hear what his new squad mate would have to talk about. He was sure her story would be more interesting then the dry material he had been reading.

436/1058

"Hm... I see," Sumiko nodded, closing her eyes and crossing her arms for a moment as she took in this words, "Money certainly is a necessary hardship. Heck, I don't even have enough to buy my own pet yet myself." She laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry, once our team is fully assembled, we can pull together and tackle some tough missions. Even without a sensei, we will get along somehow. Let's each reach for our dreams and accomplish them together!" She took his words, filled them with a measure of her boundless energy and launched them back toward him, confident that her speech would in the very least help encourage him in some small way.

When he directed the discussion back toward her in a more personal light, Sumiko quickly snatched up the opportunity. A broad smile slipped across her face as she placed one hand upon her hip, the other resting by her side, "You're a sharp one, Kidomaru-kun. I'm a member of the Sabaku clan, a line of ninjas who have defended Sunagakure for hundreds of years. We specialize in our own unique advanced element release, Sabaton, which gives us a distinct advantage in the desert environment. It is the ultimate ninjutsu element, combining strength with versatility without sacrificing either."

"Personally, I'm interested in becoming a long-range ninjutsu specialist, taking down enemy ninja without even letting them get within ten meters of me," Sumiko stuck her chest out a bit, "Of course, the strongest of ninja always have a source of inspiration, and for me that inspiration takes the form of an often ignored desert amphibian." She held up her left forefinger, "That's right! The desert toad! He's a resilliant little fellow who can grow to enormous sizes if properly cared for. They can practically swim in the sand, hinding from preditors during the day and coming out at night to hunt. singing songs to their fellow toads about their daily adventures..." Sumiko's eyes began to stare off into the distance, before she blinked and shook her head quickly to recover her composure and collect her thoughts, "Anyway... For me, the desert toad is a testament to the hidden brilliance that can shine in even the most unlikely places. That's why I want to train and raise one of my own, a huge toad that will be known throughout the ninja world as the strongest desert toad."

Sumiko let out a sigh and rested her chin on the desk, "Of course, even I need money to get one... Even though the common desert toads are quite impressive, you gotta raise them from when they are just little tadpoles if you wanna train them as combat pets. The specialists that do that sort of stuff don't perform their services for cheap, either."

The energetic ninja perked up rather quickly, "But like I said before, something like that isn't going to let me down! I'll go out into that wide world out there and prove myself worthy of their respect and fear! I'll make my fellow clan members proud as I become one of those ninjas that people will remember." She accented her words with a confident grin, one that she had shared many times before.

WC: 840 + 556 = 1396

Kidomaru would listen as his new squad mate would rattle on about the kind of shinobi she wanted to be. He could agree with wanting to become stronger and being a remembered shinobi like the ones of legends. It still seemed odd to him that she would have the obsession with the desert toads. She didn't seem like to kind of person to have an affinity for the creatures. But to each their own and who was he to judge. Kidomaru would get up from his seats and stack the books to a pile before picking them up and looking at his new acquaintance. "Well since you seem genuine in your intentions and beliefs how about I show you what I am working towards. We just have to head up stairs and in the corner there are some older texts and one of them holds a brief history of older and forgotten clans. It is quite the interesting read. Will you join me?"

Kidomaru would begin to walk over to the winding staircases and make his way up to the higher level. Once he got to the higher level he would go over to a corner section where older scrolls were hanged on the wall and books with damaged and dusty appearances lined the shelves. He would lay the pile down on a nearby desk as he approached a shelf and grabbed a thicker book with golden binding. He would bring it over to the table and look through until he found the singular page on his clan. He would look to Sumiko and place a hand on the bottom of the page before he would speak. The Kikyojin of old were master puppet makers who helped the fight against Madara Uchiha. Once the battle was over a few defected from the rest of the clan to carry on the lineage of puppet making. They also thought that there needed to be counter measures in case something to that scale ever happened again. So they made puppets on steroids. The usual puppets used by puppeteers are around the same size as them. But they made puppets the sizes of houses and even beyond that. Once they were created, the giant puppets were sealed away to wherever they were stored for when they were needed. My quest is to figure out how to summon one of these giant puppets and gain control of it. The majority of the Kikyojin are happy with their lives being builders and construction workers and the stories of the giant puppets have been lost to the sands except for the stories my grandfather told me. So now I must do all the research I can in order to be prepared if I ever do find a way to control one of those giant puppets. That seem interesting to you? Kidomaru would slide the book over to her in case she wanted to read from the pages. He would then go and look over some of the scrolls as she would speak. He would listen intently even if it didn't seem so but he had to make sure he wasn't missing any pieces of information he was looking for.

535/1593