KageYuuki
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
The Sage’s Grove has been tended to by the Senju clan since before the village’s founding. Paper made from the trees grown here is often used to detect one’s innate chakra nature. The Village of Toymakers are the first outsiders to have been allowed to purchase lumber from this grove. Sealed in this scroll is their order, deliver it to the mayor Kunoshita.
Yuuki made good time as he bounded through the trees towards the small village. The toy makers seemed to be doing well despite the bandit attack last year. He’d even seen Yumi when she paid a visit to the Hidden Leaf.
Without a civilian in tow, it had been a relatively short trip with Yuuki arriving in the afternoon instead of early evening. He sighed, walking through the gates.
“IT’S YUUCHIHA!” Hollered a high pitched, squeaky voice as Yuuki passed through the gate. “GET HIM!” Without warning Yuuki was assailed from all sides by a pack of small children, latching onto him, one even attempted to jump from the top of the gate where he had been hiding onto the chunin’s shoulders.
“Gah!” Yuuki stumbled a step, a wing of paper unfurling to catch the last of his ambushers. “Hello to you too,” he tossled the hair of one, giving up on trying to walk for the time being.
“We got WAAAAAAY strongerer, since last time!” announced one of the children grandly. “An’ we’re gonna kick the butts of any bad guys that come here!”
“Yeah!” agreed a chorus of tiny voices.
"We’re not afraid of anyone!”
“Not afraid of anyone huh?” asked a familiar voice, causing the entire pack of children to jolt and turn around to where Yumi stood with her hands on her hips. “Even though you all still have chores to do?”
“Waaa! It’s Yumi! RUUUN!” One of the children squealed as the group scattered like flock of startled pigeons.
“You better be running to weed that veggie patch!” Yumi called after the retreating army. “You can play with Yuuki AFTER!” Yumi watched the children for a few more moments and then sighed, turning to Yuuki. “Well I’ve been practising as well and I’m just about up to the level where I can sneak up on a bunch of overstimulated children,”
Yuuki snorted, watching the group bail. “Yumi the taskmaster, huh?” He turned towards her, “but yeah, you’ve gotten better. Though can you hit a target yet?”
“Yes! Well- most of the time anyway,” Yumi reddened. “Tsuchinoko says I’m doing well but it feels like I’m not making much progress. Oh we started on um, taijutsu, just recently though, watch,” With mock seriousness Yumi squared up and threw a basic punch at the air in front of her.
He hummed and nodded, watching her movements. It wasn’t incredible, but she was just starting. Not like Mai’s kicks or punches were perfect on day one. “Not bad, try not to learn forward so much or you’ll throw yourself off balance. Maybe I’ll be able to help you with shurikenjutsu after I’ve finished with this mission.”
“Oh right, of course! Your mission! And here I am rambling on about about nothing,” Yumi shook her head. “Mr. Kunoshita will be down in one of the workshops, I think he’s teaching a class right now,”
Yuuki nodded, following Yumi. “Been getting a lot of orders lately?” He glanced around the village as they walked, taking in the changes from his last mission.
“Things slowed down for a while,” Yumi said, leading Yuuki towards the far side of the village. “Our usual customers, they’re very picky so when we weren’t able to meet our orders temporarily some of them canceled their arrangements. But it’s starting to pick up again, our products are just as high quality as they were in the past,”
The village bore few scars from its previous assault. The industrious toymakers had long since repaired the damaged houses and replanted the trampled plants. The hasty palisade that Hideki had helped construct had been gently pulled down and replaced with a much more permanent structure, a testament to the village’s newfound vigilance.
However at this time of the day the village’s beating heart was the workshops, a quartet of large, rectangular buildings. The workshops had been shut down during Yuuki’s last visit but now they were alive with the sounds of hammering, sawing and lively voices. One of the workshops had been set aside for lessons for the village’s adopted children, inducting them into the finer points of craftsmanship. The building’s interior was set up much like a classroom, with many child sized workbenches lined up in rows and occupied by children wearing tough, leather aprons and studiously bent over half assembled toys.
Kunoshita, also wearing a leather apron, flitted from bench to bench, offering each child tailored advice.
“Yuuta those pieces are not going to fit together, this is why we tell you to measure twice and cut once,”
“Ooookaaaay,”
“Miki that mechanism is very impressive but it’s going to be very fragile once you attach it to all that weight. You should figure out how to reinforce it or else save it for pieces aimed at older children that will know to treat it with some delicacy,”
“Yes Mr. Kunoshita,”
“Mari, you’re painting crooked again,”
“I’m sorry,”
Kunoshita crouched down so that he could speak to the girl level. “Your hand is shaking because you’re second guessing yourself. Your design work is very good so once you start painting its okay to have a little more faith in yourself okay?”
“Mmmhmm,”
“Great,” Kunoshita smiled and then winced as he pulled himself up to standing height, putting a lot of weight on an aging set of knees. “Ohh goodness- Ah I see we have visitors!”
“Mr Kunoshita, it’s good to see you again,” Yuuki offered a slight wave as he stepped inside, not failing to notice that many of the children had stopped to stare up at him. He idly wondered if any of them had ever seen a shinobi before.
“Class say hello to Yuuki Uchiha,” Kunoshita instructed, smiling warmly at his students. “He was one of the shinobi who protected our village,”
There was a flurry of hushed whispers and then a childish chorus of “Good Afternoon Yuuki,” filled the room.
“Yumi would you supervise the class for a little while while I tend to the formalities of young Yuuki’s mission?” Kunoshita asked, ushering Yuuki out of the classroom.
“There’s a storeroom up the back where we keep timber,” Kunoshita said, closing the door as the sound of work resumed. “We’ll double-check the delivery, I’ll sign whatever I need to and then we’ll get you some tea. We’d prefer you stayed for dinner of course, but you might need to get moving before then. Still I draw the line at sending you off without tea,”
“Heh, I think I can get away with staying a few hours for dinner.” Yuuki wasn’t overly surprised at Kunoshita’s insistence. Especially not after the week he and Nagisa had to stay behind so she could recover somewhat.
“Wonderful!” Kunoshita exclaimed, leading Yuuki through the workshop to a back room full of stacks of timber neatly ordered by species. “Ahh to be able to work with Senju grove wood after all these years, this is rather exciting for me,”
“I’m not sure how easy it will be to work with,” Yuuki knelt and unfurled a scroll, removing the seal that stored the stack of timber. “I know paper made from this is extremely reactive to chakra.”
“Indeed,” Kunoshita said, clearing some space for the anticipated wood. “In its natural form it’s so sensitive that with careful application of chakra the grain of the wood itself can be sculpted, introducing an entirely new dimension to the crafting of it. I believe the wood is so sensitive to chakra that it’s unsuitable for many military purposes, but that quality alone makes it priceless as a medium for art,”
“Perhaps,” the Uchiha unsealed the order in the spot that had been cleared. It still had its use in the shinobi world, serving as an easy way to identify someone’s innate chakra nature. But outside of that, it was fairly useless to ninja outside of the Senju clan. “Guess I’m just not much of an artist.”
“Art is simply the language of the heart,” Kunoshita said, running his hand along the surface of the wood and inhaling its natural scent with an appreciative sigh. “So it can come to everyone in one form or another. Once you know what your heart wants to express you’ll find your art soon after young Yuuki, now then how about that tea?”
The last few hours of sunlight faded gently into evening. After tea and mochi Yuuki spent some time helping Yumi with her shurikenjutsu, although the lesson was disrupted somewhat by a crowd of extremely impressed children, word of the visiting hero having by then spread throughout the younger populace of the village. The lesson was productive but it took almost as long again to chase the children back to their homes, so by the time Yuuki returned to Kunoshita’s house it was already filled with the inviting aroma of spices and cooking meat and vegetables. A certain old man was also waiting at the table.
“Gahhaha, Uchiha boy! Figured we hadn’t seen the last of you!” Tsuchinoko was more mobile then when Yuuki had last met him, having fashioned himself a second artificial leg to complement the first. But the mischievous grin, bristly beard and shining bald head remained identical.
Yuuki snorted, taking a seat at the small table. “I was starting to wonder if I’d even see you while I was here.”
“Bah, I’ll have you know I’ve been extremely busy!” Tsuchinoko huffed, taking a swig of what looked to be sake.
The Uchiha raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.
“Tsuchinoko has agreed to help me with the senju grove wood,” Kunoshita explained from the kitchen. “Since I can’t mold chakra myself he’ll be handling that side of it. I was worried he wouldn’t take it seriously but he’s been practicing rather diligently,”
“I needed to brush up on my chakra control anyway,” grumbled Tsuchinoko. “More importantly, I want news boy! News! You’re all still alive over there I take it,”
Yuuki glanced into the kitchen as Kunoshita spoke. “Yeah, by some stroke of luck. We’ve all had some close calls, but that tends to come with the job.”
“True enough,” chuckled Tsuchinoko. “Just keep watching each other’s backs and you’ll pull through. And how has your progress been in other areas?”
With a shrug, Yuuki leaned back slightly, “Nagisa’s doing fine if that’s what you’re looking for. She’s developed some really cool tools lately.”
“Well of course she is!” Tsuchinoko said, shaking his head and thumping a meaty hand on the table. “That’s not what you two blockheads are having trouble progressing in! How’s your...hmm… team dynamic?”
“We work best together,” the Uchiha’s eyes narrowed slightly, “and we’re not dating if that’s what you’re after.”
“Ohh? Then would the defendant please explain why witness Yumi saw the defendant and one Nagisa Kanazawa viewing a romantically charged film together?” Tsuchinoko asked triumphantly, wriggling his eyebrows and gesticulating with his sake cup
Yuuki gave an annoyed groan, “We both like the books it was based on and decided to see it together.” He pointed at Tsuchinoko, “That does not inherently make it a date.”
“Objection! If that’s true then why did our witness notice that Nagisa was quote “dressed really cute” a situation that can only be described as highly anomalous!”
“How the hell should I know!?” Yuuki silently cursed at the slight rise in pitch his voice decided to take.
“Alright I’m calling an adjournment,” Kunoshita said, appearing with a large bowl of curry that he sat down between Yuuki and Tsuchinoko. “Dinner time,”
“Unnecessary,” said Tsuchinoko with infuriating smugness. “The prosecution rests its case,”
“Well I’m glad you two are getting along and having fun,” Kunoshita said patting Yuuki on the shoulder as he returned to the kitchen to fetch the rice. “I think about what you children must have to get up to and it makes me shudder. At least you’re making time for yourselves as well,”
Yuuki muttered something under his breath before sighing and taking some of the rice and curry. It looked as good as it smelled. Not that he was overly picky about food. “Well, thanks for dinner,” he said finally.
“It’s always a pleasure Yuuki,” Kunoshita said, smiling as Tsuchinoko ravenously attacked the curry. “Oh that reminds me, don’t forget to take this with you, a small token for your father as thanks for arranging all of this,” From underneath the table Kunoshita produced a wooden box, containing more, smaller boxes, the rectangular, wooden sake cups known as masu. These masu were elegantly decorated with carved patterns and scenes. “It’s been a while since I’ve made something that wasn’t a toy,” Kunoshita said. “But I think I remember the gist of it,”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll get it to him,” Yuuki accepted the package and sealed it in one of the tags on his wrist. “I’m still kind of surprised the Senju even agreed to the whole thing.”
“Well hopefully we can produce something worthy of their generosity,” Kunoshita said. “We will certainly try, thank you for delivering it so quickly and be careful on your way back,”
“He’s not wrong for once boy,” rumbled Tsuchinoko. “I’m long since retired but I very occasionally hear from some shady characters and recently I’ve been hearing disturbing rumours about a price on too short a head,”
“I know,” Yuuki murmured, “They’ve already tried.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” sighed Tsuchinoko. “Well, like I said before, just keep watching each other’s backs and you’ll pull through,”
Yuuki made good time as he bounded through the trees towards the small village. The toy makers seemed to be doing well despite the bandit attack last year. He’d even seen Yumi when she paid a visit to the Hidden Leaf.
Without a civilian in tow, it had been a relatively short trip with Yuuki arriving in the afternoon instead of early evening. He sighed, walking through the gates.
“IT’S YUUCHIHA!” Hollered a high pitched, squeaky voice as Yuuki passed through the gate. “GET HIM!” Without warning Yuuki was assailed from all sides by a pack of small children, latching onto him, one even attempted to jump from the top of the gate where he had been hiding onto the chunin’s shoulders.
“Gah!” Yuuki stumbled a step, a wing of paper unfurling to catch the last of his ambushers. “Hello to you too,” he tossled the hair of one, giving up on trying to walk for the time being.
“We got WAAAAAAY strongerer, since last time!” announced one of the children grandly. “An’ we’re gonna kick the butts of any bad guys that come here!”
“Yeah!” agreed a chorus of tiny voices.
"We’re not afraid of anyone!”
“Not afraid of anyone huh?” asked a familiar voice, causing the entire pack of children to jolt and turn around to where Yumi stood with her hands on her hips. “Even though you all still have chores to do?”
“Waaa! It’s Yumi! RUUUN!” One of the children squealed as the group scattered like flock of startled pigeons.
“You better be running to weed that veggie patch!” Yumi called after the retreating army. “You can play with Yuuki AFTER!” Yumi watched the children for a few more moments and then sighed, turning to Yuuki. “Well I’ve been practising as well and I’m just about up to the level where I can sneak up on a bunch of overstimulated children,”
Yuuki snorted, watching the group bail. “Yumi the taskmaster, huh?” He turned towards her, “but yeah, you’ve gotten better. Though can you hit a target yet?”
“Yes! Well- most of the time anyway,” Yumi reddened. “Tsuchinoko says I’m doing well but it feels like I’m not making much progress. Oh we started on um, taijutsu, just recently though, watch,” With mock seriousness Yumi squared up and threw a basic punch at the air in front of her.
He hummed and nodded, watching her movements. It wasn’t incredible, but she was just starting. Not like Mai’s kicks or punches were perfect on day one. “Not bad, try not to learn forward so much or you’ll throw yourself off balance. Maybe I’ll be able to help you with shurikenjutsu after I’ve finished with this mission.”
“Oh right, of course! Your mission! And here I am rambling on about about nothing,” Yumi shook her head. “Mr. Kunoshita will be down in one of the workshops, I think he’s teaching a class right now,”
Yuuki nodded, following Yumi. “Been getting a lot of orders lately?” He glanced around the village as they walked, taking in the changes from his last mission.
“Things slowed down for a while,” Yumi said, leading Yuuki towards the far side of the village. “Our usual customers, they’re very picky so when we weren’t able to meet our orders temporarily some of them canceled their arrangements. But it’s starting to pick up again, our products are just as high quality as they were in the past,”
The village bore few scars from its previous assault. The industrious toymakers had long since repaired the damaged houses and replanted the trampled plants. The hasty palisade that Hideki had helped construct had been gently pulled down and replaced with a much more permanent structure, a testament to the village’s newfound vigilance.
However at this time of the day the village’s beating heart was the workshops, a quartet of large, rectangular buildings. The workshops had been shut down during Yuuki’s last visit but now they were alive with the sounds of hammering, sawing and lively voices. One of the workshops had been set aside for lessons for the village’s adopted children, inducting them into the finer points of craftsmanship. The building’s interior was set up much like a classroom, with many child sized workbenches lined up in rows and occupied by children wearing tough, leather aprons and studiously bent over half assembled toys.
Kunoshita, also wearing a leather apron, flitted from bench to bench, offering each child tailored advice.
“Yuuta those pieces are not going to fit together, this is why we tell you to measure twice and cut once,”
“Ooookaaaay,”
“Miki that mechanism is very impressive but it’s going to be very fragile once you attach it to all that weight. You should figure out how to reinforce it or else save it for pieces aimed at older children that will know to treat it with some delicacy,”
“Yes Mr. Kunoshita,”
“Mari, you’re painting crooked again,”
“I’m sorry,”
Kunoshita crouched down so that he could speak to the girl level. “Your hand is shaking because you’re second guessing yourself. Your design work is very good so once you start painting its okay to have a little more faith in yourself okay?”
“Mmmhmm,”
“Great,” Kunoshita smiled and then winced as he pulled himself up to standing height, putting a lot of weight on an aging set of knees. “Ohh goodness- Ah I see we have visitors!”
“Mr Kunoshita, it’s good to see you again,” Yuuki offered a slight wave as he stepped inside, not failing to notice that many of the children had stopped to stare up at him. He idly wondered if any of them had ever seen a shinobi before.
“Class say hello to Yuuki Uchiha,” Kunoshita instructed, smiling warmly at his students. “He was one of the shinobi who protected our village,”
There was a flurry of hushed whispers and then a childish chorus of “Good Afternoon Yuuki,” filled the room.
“Yumi would you supervise the class for a little while while I tend to the formalities of young Yuuki’s mission?” Kunoshita asked, ushering Yuuki out of the classroom.
“There’s a storeroom up the back where we keep timber,” Kunoshita said, closing the door as the sound of work resumed. “We’ll double-check the delivery, I’ll sign whatever I need to and then we’ll get you some tea. We’d prefer you stayed for dinner of course, but you might need to get moving before then. Still I draw the line at sending you off without tea,”
“Heh, I think I can get away with staying a few hours for dinner.” Yuuki wasn’t overly surprised at Kunoshita’s insistence. Especially not after the week he and Nagisa had to stay behind so she could recover somewhat.
“Wonderful!” Kunoshita exclaimed, leading Yuuki through the workshop to a back room full of stacks of timber neatly ordered by species. “Ahh to be able to work with Senju grove wood after all these years, this is rather exciting for me,”
“I’m not sure how easy it will be to work with,” Yuuki knelt and unfurled a scroll, removing the seal that stored the stack of timber. “I know paper made from this is extremely reactive to chakra.”
“Indeed,” Kunoshita said, clearing some space for the anticipated wood. “In its natural form it’s so sensitive that with careful application of chakra the grain of the wood itself can be sculpted, introducing an entirely new dimension to the crafting of it. I believe the wood is so sensitive to chakra that it’s unsuitable for many military purposes, but that quality alone makes it priceless as a medium for art,”
“Perhaps,” the Uchiha unsealed the order in the spot that had been cleared. It still had its use in the shinobi world, serving as an easy way to identify someone’s innate chakra nature. But outside of that, it was fairly useless to ninja outside of the Senju clan. “Guess I’m just not much of an artist.”
“Art is simply the language of the heart,” Kunoshita said, running his hand along the surface of the wood and inhaling its natural scent with an appreciative sigh. “So it can come to everyone in one form or another. Once you know what your heart wants to express you’ll find your art soon after young Yuuki, now then how about that tea?”
The last few hours of sunlight faded gently into evening. After tea and mochi Yuuki spent some time helping Yumi with her shurikenjutsu, although the lesson was disrupted somewhat by a crowd of extremely impressed children, word of the visiting hero having by then spread throughout the younger populace of the village. The lesson was productive but it took almost as long again to chase the children back to their homes, so by the time Yuuki returned to Kunoshita’s house it was already filled with the inviting aroma of spices and cooking meat and vegetables. A certain old man was also waiting at the table.
“Gahhaha, Uchiha boy! Figured we hadn’t seen the last of you!” Tsuchinoko was more mobile then when Yuuki had last met him, having fashioned himself a second artificial leg to complement the first. But the mischievous grin, bristly beard and shining bald head remained identical.
Yuuki snorted, taking a seat at the small table. “I was starting to wonder if I’d even see you while I was here.”
“Bah, I’ll have you know I’ve been extremely busy!” Tsuchinoko huffed, taking a swig of what looked to be sake.
The Uchiha raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.
“Tsuchinoko has agreed to help me with the senju grove wood,” Kunoshita explained from the kitchen. “Since I can’t mold chakra myself he’ll be handling that side of it. I was worried he wouldn’t take it seriously but he’s been practicing rather diligently,”
“I needed to brush up on my chakra control anyway,” grumbled Tsuchinoko. “More importantly, I want news boy! News! You’re all still alive over there I take it,”
Yuuki glanced into the kitchen as Kunoshita spoke. “Yeah, by some stroke of luck. We’ve all had some close calls, but that tends to come with the job.”
“True enough,” chuckled Tsuchinoko. “Just keep watching each other’s backs and you’ll pull through. And how has your progress been in other areas?”
With a shrug, Yuuki leaned back slightly, “Nagisa’s doing fine if that’s what you’re looking for. She’s developed some really cool tools lately.”
“Well of course she is!” Tsuchinoko said, shaking his head and thumping a meaty hand on the table. “That’s not what you two blockheads are having trouble progressing in! How’s your...hmm… team dynamic?”
“We work best together,” the Uchiha’s eyes narrowed slightly, “and we’re not dating if that’s what you’re after.”
“Ohh? Then would the defendant please explain why witness Yumi saw the defendant and one Nagisa Kanazawa viewing a romantically charged film together?” Tsuchinoko asked triumphantly, wriggling his eyebrows and gesticulating with his sake cup
Yuuki gave an annoyed groan, “We both like the books it was based on and decided to see it together.” He pointed at Tsuchinoko, “That does not inherently make it a date.”
“Objection! If that’s true then why did our witness notice that Nagisa was quote “dressed really cute” a situation that can only be described as highly anomalous!”
“How the hell should I know!?” Yuuki silently cursed at the slight rise in pitch his voice decided to take.
“Alright I’m calling an adjournment,” Kunoshita said, appearing with a large bowl of curry that he sat down between Yuuki and Tsuchinoko. “Dinner time,”
“Unnecessary,” said Tsuchinoko with infuriating smugness. “The prosecution rests its case,”
“Well I’m glad you two are getting along and having fun,” Kunoshita said patting Yuuki on the shoulder as he returned to the kitchen to fetch the rice. “I think about what you children must have to get up to and it makes me shudder. At least you’re making time for yourselves as well,”
Yuuki muttered something under his breath before sighing and taking some of the rice and curry. It looked as good as it smelled. Not that he was overly picky about food. “Well, thanks for dinner,” he said finally.
“It’s always a pleasure Yuuki,” Kunoshita said, smiling as Tsuchinoko ravenously attacked the curry. “Oh that reminds me, don’t forget to take this with you, a small token for your father as thanks for arranging all of this,” From underneath the table Kunoshita produced a wooden box, containing more, smaller boxes, the rectangular, wooden sake cups known as masu. These masu were elegantly decorated with carved patterns and scenes. “It’s been a while since I’ve made something that wasn’t a toy,” Kunoshita said. “But I think I remember the gist of it,”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll get it to him,” Yuuki accepted the package and sealed it in one of the tags on his wrist. “I’m still kind of surprised the Senju even agreed to the whole thing.”
“Well hopefully we can produce something worthy of their generosity,” Kunoshita said. “We will certainly try, thank you for delivering it so quickly and be careful on your way back,”
“He’s not wrong for once boy,” rumbled Tsuchinoko. “I’m long since retired but I very occasionally hear from some shady characters and recently I’ve been hearing disturbing rumours about a price on too short a head,”
“I know,” Yuuki murmured, “They’ve already tried.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” sighed Tsuchinoko. “Well, like I said before, just keep watching each other’s backs and you’ll pull through,”