Takao had always been one for theatrics. Over the course of his thus-far short life, and after observing countless different breeds and flavours of competition, he had found his favourite; Chuunin Exams. The young, prospective shinobi of various nations seemed to fight at their hardest when the tantalizing golden carrot of promotion was dangled above their heads. Even beyond that, it intrigued him beyond measure to witness the creativity and ingenuity of minds uncorrupted by the breakneck life that a shinobi would endure. This attention was usually given to shinobi of the other nations, as a way of determining their methodology of training, if only to store that information in the vaults of his memory for later usage.

One participant had caught his eye; a young genin from Konohagakure. Exceptionally young at that, compared to what he had observed to average age of participating parties to be. He, not unlike Takao when the senior shinobi had participated in his exams, did not win his bout. Try as the genin did, the gods of luck and battle simply did not shine in his favour. It was unsurprising, at least to him, that the genin had taken it to heart either. Even from the stands he could see the anger, frustration, and harsh sense of disappointment growing. Loss seemed to hit the youngest of their kind the hardest, for they undoubtedly felt as though they had the most to prove. The competitive climate of the exams did little to abate that mindset; surrounding oneself with peers who were just as-- and if not more-- competitive than themselves. If anything, it bolstered their drive for success and victory. The shinobi lifestyle was cutthroat and destructive, it took a special kind of mind to thrive in the hellish environment that so many were willing to throw themselves into. The will of fire that swelled within could either drive them onward to greatness or burn them alive. For people like Takao and Akito, it did not seem like there was anything in between.

A small, weak, sympathetic smile pulled at his cheeks. The Jōnin had seen it all first hand, both in those he had offered guidance to in the past as well as in his own mirror. Takao followed him, his legs moving out of sheer curiousity that grew with each step that took the genin closer to his destination. As he lingered wordlessly in the background, the fireworks brought the slightest of sparkle to his otherwise dull grey eyes. Now this was behaviour he was all too familiar with as well. The rage that burned within people like himself and this young genin were of kindred soul; it felt like he was looking through a mirror into the past. But, ultimately, raging against one’s own frustration was self destructive, and hardly productive. A loss was a loss, yet failure was something entirely different. He wanted to speak up, but something kept him from doing so, and instead he watched for just a bit longer.

As Akito struck his metsubishi indiscriminately whilst surrounded by a myriad of flames, a quiet laugh was exhaled from his throat. The rain, fortunately enough for Takao, drowned out the light chuckle. It did not seem like the best course of action to make himself known by laughing whilst the genin was still discharging a shower of fire and metal shrapnel in his throws of rage.

“You really remind me of myself when I was about your age,” Takao said, his monotone voice carried through the rain and fire. His hands dug into the pockets of his trousers, dampened by the rain as he stepped closer, and stopped his advance just short of the fire. “Maybe just a tad more frustrated, but… The fire is about the same.” He said, his shoulders rolling into a shrug of dismissiveness.

“So, you’re taking the loss pretty hard, huh?” He continued, eager to dig into the psyche of the young and impressionable mind, and see the source of this frustration and anger. Was it the disappointment of others, or himself? Did this exam hold some sort of deeply seeded importance to him? Perhaps he made a promise to another, vowing to succeed in some manner? The options were without limit, and Takao was a sucker for a good story.

“If this is how you intend to better yourself in preparation for the next exams, I might have some light criticisms. Maybe a little advice too, if you're interested.” Takao added. He hardly looked like somebody that was in a position to give advice to a shinobi, at least not to those who knew little of him. He was dressed casually in clothes now damp from the rain, he spoke informally, and his lazy posture was hardly reminiscent of a person who had dedicated a lifetime to being a shinobi. In fact, it might have even looked a little shady from an outside perspective, for him to have followed the young genin in the manner that he had. But, ultimately, it was all in the interest in bettering him as a shinobi of Konohagakure.

Emotion ran rampant in the young shinobi after realizing that he was not as alone as previously thought. Takao, although making an honest effort to appear as little hostile as he could, was unable to ebb the natural look upon his face. Some might have found it threatening, others cold, and others yet merely unpleasant; regardless of which synonym they used to define that look, it was still a far shoot from the nonthreatening demeanor he would have liked to display.

Fear, curiousity, frustration, anger, contemplative--... the kid was certainly not short of emotion, that much was indisputable. In contrast, Takao displayed little in response, and maintained his largely expressionless, slightly intimidating demeanor. Not the best first impression ever made, Takao would be the first to admit that much, but it could have been much worse.

In his state of observance, Takao had failed to notice he had failed to introduce himself. A mental slap across the face was in order for throwing the most basic of pleasantries out the window. “Ahh, shit. My bad. Forgot about introductions… My name is Takao Kimura. I'm from Konoha. You are?”

“So! That advice…” Takao cleared his throat, seemingly intent on continuing after having not been met with opposition to the offer. “This is going to sound like something out of a cheesy motivational speech in a bad movie, but just hear me out.” The raven-haired shinobi continued.

“I can see in your eyes that you’re angry, or… at the very least, frustrated. Probably goes without saying, because of all the…” A hand was removed from his pocket and gestured toward the fire that burned around them. “Anger is a great source of motivation, if you use it right. But if you don't, and you just let it run rampant and unchecked, it'll eat you alive and burn what's left.” As Takao continued, his hands began to wave and move as he talked, displaying a bit of inherent expressiveness to his body language. “I like to think of it like this… Your anger can either be the arrow, or the archer. If you’re the archer and your anger is the arrow, then you can aim and fire it where it needs to be fired. But if anger is the bowman and you are the arrow, then your rage is in control, firing you wherever it deems appropriate. How often do you truly feel in control of your actions when your anger is at the helm?”

Takao let a moment of silence befall them, and his neutral expression finally pulled into a small smile as he lamented on the advice he gave. He took a few steps off to the side, offering just a bit of distance between himself and Miku, as he paced at the edge of the fire that popped and crackled next to him. His hand extended, brushing over the flames as if he hardly cared for their presence, but his appendage did not linger long enough to be hurt. Perhaps it could have been summed up a tad more concisely, he mused. It wasn’t a perfect analogy, far from it in fact, but it worked just well enough for the idea he was trying to convey. He glanced off to the right, into the rain-clouded distance, and lifted his hand to scratch his cheek. “Well, that was a bit longer winded than I intended… Anyway, my point is, don’t let your anger just throw you into a frenzy. It's better to use it as your fuel for progress, not as an outlet to feel better, you know?”

The senior shinobi’s attention returned to Miku and he chuckled lightly. “Well, anyway… I suppose it's a little presumptuous for me to come and lecture you after your fight-- was just trying to give you a little guidance. No hard feelings, yeah? You fought well, in my opinion. Probably doesn’t make you feel any better, but it was entertaining.”

One corner of his mouth pulled into a faint smirk, though not so much out of cockiness or an overabundance of confidence as it was enjoyment of musing over the thought. "Of course. It'd be a little hypocritical of me to come and preach about controlling your emotions if I couldn't actually do it myself, wouldn't it?" He said in response, his eyes returning to fixate on the fire as it danced.

"Truthfully, it isn't that difficult. When I was younger, I used to think that it was better to pretend I didn't have them at all. It helped for a little bit to act like nothing bothered me. Like I had no anger, no frustration, no sadness. But after a while, I started to feel less human." Takao continued, providing further exposition on why he stood where he did on the spectrum of shinobi and their relationship with emotions.

"We're a lot like fire." He said whilst lifting his bare hand up to chest level. “We can be wild, unrestrained, destructive, and angry…” The raven-haired shinobi gestured to the flames around them again, using the fire that raged on as a result of Akito’s anger. Takao drew in a breath and as he exhaled, a baseball sized flame left his mouth alongside the oxygen. It landed on his hand, and the fire stuck to his skin. He stared at his alight hand, entirely unaffected by the presence of the flames. Even as it burned and cracked and popped, he only felt the heat. The countless generations of his clansmen before him had ensured that the flames of those that lived today would never cause themselves harm. Even as the fire burned, it never spread, and stayed entirely contained to Takao’s hand.

“Or we can be controlled, powerful, and constructive. Our fire only burns what we let it burn. You know?” His steel, dull-black gaze lingered on the flames that consumed his hand yet did not damage him. A firm flick of his hand would douse the flames that burned on his hand, leaving the skin underneath entirely untouched. His hand flexed into a fist as it returned to his side, a further indication that he was untouched by the flames. His comfort around the flames that raged on around them might have been a little more explained with this display of control over fire.

His inner musing ran wild with self-criticism, teasingly berating himself for being so philosophical and anecdotal in his attempts at giving some advice. As his gaze lingered upon the dancing flames, his smile began to falter and fade for a moment. That familiar voice rang in his left ear, as it always did, and whispered it’s destructive poison. Burn it all, he heard the disembodied voice in his head say. For somebody like Takao, who found solace and safety in the flames, it made sense that the voice in his head would tell him to burn everything, lest he be killed or maimed or otherwise hurt. It was only within his own fire that he felt truly safe from harm. But he was savvy to the ways of his mental illness by now, even if its presence persisted yet, not unlike an annoying old wound that festered and refused to close.

The vague inquiry about whether or not he was strong wrought a legitimately warm laugh from his lungs. It wasn’t condescending, or at least wasn’t intended to be, and it afforded Takao a moment to think. “To some degree, I guess.” Talking about himself was something that Takao truly detested, and with the shortness of his answer to such a question, it was undeniably obvious as well. “I’m a Jōnin, so assuming that nobody made a mistake with the promotion paperwork, I’d imagine I’m at least passable in some way or another.” He clarified just a bit further, if only for the sake of conversation.

“So, pardon my curiousity, but… Who trained you? It doesn’t seem like they’re doing a half bad job so far.” He said, making another reference to the flames around them that didn’t seem to be dying out, although Takao seemed just as unconcerned with that fact as he was with the fires themselves. They could be handled with ease, if the need to do so arose. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I just like to keep track of shinobi who utilize fire in Konoha, although I don’t have a very good reason to do so.”

Technique(s) used:

”A girl you can’t remember,” Takao parroted, idly clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He shrugged, dismissing it at generally useless tidbit of information that offered little toward fulfilling his goal of learning more about this particular situation. The other information that was offered gave a bit more insight, but not much. The names were unfamiliar to him, but that wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Shinobi were secretive by nature, or at least supposed to be. It stood to reason that only a name standing out would be the mark of a good showman and poor shinobi.

“Interesting lineup.” He commented offhandedly, not truly finding anything of particular interest in the names, sans the Anon-sensei he claimed. The anonymous teacher piqued his curiousity, but was glazed over for the most part otherwise, again deemed to be largely inconsequential knowledge not unlike the others mentioned before and after.

Silence would betide him for a moment as his mind wandered. As the two conversed, with the majority of the conversation falling upon Takao’s own words, he began to wonder if his appearance had interrupted Miku’s attempts at venting his frustration. In truth, that fact was undeniable, he had interrupted him, primarily for the selfish reason of speaking to somebody whose anger and boiling frustration reminded him of himself at a similar age. It wasn’t particularly surprising that the young genin didn’t seem very talkative outside of answering the questions proposed to him. Having a complete stranger, and an adult one at that, approach whilst oneself was in the throws of frustration was undoubtedly an uncomfortable experience. Takao knew that he lacked the warm exterior of a person who engaged in such situations more casually, and the cold air he exuded had likely worsened the situation at large.

“They didn’t do a half bad job, from what I could see at least. Don’t beat yourself up too much over the exams, yeah? There are better ways to progress as a shinobi than participating in the equivalent of international genin cockfighting.” Takao said, being a tad more harsh with his language than what may have been appropriate in front of a child. At the same time, he reasoned with himself, this was a child who the village had deemed adequate to die in servitude of their defense, so a bad word would be the least of his worries. He, for the longest time, had been largely critical of the Chūnin Exams. It seemed redundant for villages to showcase their prospective shinobi, most of whom were eager to prove themselves or show off their bag of tricks, and allow other nations to gather intelligence on where the newest generation stood on the power spectrum. But people loved their theatrics, and the village hosting the exams typically experienced an economic boom from tourism as a result of the highly coveted event. Nothing seemed to bring folks together quite like watching children beat each other up and try to kill one another. Even he had to admit that it was entertaining to watch, which was approximately half of the reason he had opted to watch them. The other half was, of course, to gather the intelligence and information he assumed the other villages were also gathering.

“Also, I like the white flames. They’re a nice touch. Meant to blind people, yeah?” He asked, casting another casual glance to the flames. He had picked up on the technique’s intended purpose almost immediately, but hadn’t thought it relevant to mention until he complimented it. The brightness of the flames had little effect on Takao, but those of lesser ability may have found it more uncomfortable to look directly at. It was, as he had previously mentioned, a nice flare of style to the technique. A mental note was taken and deposited in the vast library of memories dwelling inside Takao’s head, perhaps to be used later.

Burn him.

That voice plaguing this psyche finally spoke up, and Takao’s eyes narrowed. Seldom did they represent his honest thoughts, and instead urged him to do terrible things, just as the proverbial devil on one’s shoulder was apt to do. When it found something to latch onto, a leverage piece against Takao’s better conscience, that voice would rarely let it slip from its clutches.

He lost his fight. His fire is weak and cold. His weakness is a danger to us. A liability. Burn him. Burn him down into ash.

Despite being vocal, Takao pushed it back. The voice had precious little power when it contested Takao’s mind alone. Only during moments of weakness, when he was beaten, exhausted both mentally and physically, would that weak voice hold the power it desperately clamoured for. It would take a lot more than that to drive him to do what it wanted.

“Well, anyway. My bad for interrupting you when you were venting. We’ll probably see each other again at some point, so I’ll leave you be.” Takao said, having taken the lack of conversation as a hint that perhaps his presence wasn’t as welcome as it seemed. No offense had been taken on Takao’s end of course, he would have reacted equally if not more standoffish to being interrupted himself, in the event that this was even the case. His right hand rose for a single shake of the wrist, vaguely reminiscent of a wave goodbye. He hadn’t left just yet, in the event that there was something Miku had yet to say.