When The Ocean Meets The Sand. [Rubī,Open]

The water was cool on his cheek, the slow beat of his heart causing ripples on the surface of the liquid as he lay on top of it - totally naked incidentally- as the wind rustled his hair and caused his body to enter into the subconscious reaction when exposed to temperature's below the core temperature of his body. Acting as though he had a great deal more body hair then he actually did, an eruption of goose-bumps sprang up over his body as the chill factor from the breeze sapped the warm from his body as per the normal laws of physics. Relinquishing his hold over the chakra within his body, Akuharu sunk beneath the surface of the water, only his red eyes, the bridge of his nose and the upwards portion of his face from that point on stuck stubbornly out of the pool - daring the wind to try again. Which it did, apparently with much disdain for his apparent regard for it. Grumbling defeat as his eyes stung in the chill wind, he submerged himself completely within the water and slowly sunk down as he released a steady trail of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and the many other gases he contained within his lungs into the pool itself. Slowly becoming heavier then the water around him, Akuharu continued until he felt he had reached a comfortable breath and took his time to adjust himself mentally as he reflected on his current situation. Why was he here? What he he been doing before? Who had allowed him to come and freeze his ballsack off? There was another 'w' word, but he wasn't really paying attention to it as the hot spring water surged around him. Ah, that was it. Where. Well, that was easy enough to answer- Eastern Subterranean Springs of Sunagakure no Sato. It was quite commonly frequented by most of the Shinobi after a long day working. Although he was technically here to work or train. It probably fell under the title of 'Personal Development' which sounded so much better then training given the fact he was currently lounging around in one of the better bathing places in the establishment. Turning his mind back to the questions before he considered the three problems.

He was here -as he had reflected momentarily before- to train himself in a certain skill type. Having taken the 50 ryo Chakra Affinity Test, Akuharu had been registered as positive for a Water Elemental Affinity. This was regarded as something of a gamble within the Ninja world as the test itself wasn't cheap and it could take time for an affinity to develop. If at all.

The person responsible for making him do this was, no one. He had been entirely at the root of this particular cause. One of the Jonin had come around with the pamphlets, and he gave them out with words of caution, advice and other things adults say to children when dispensing anything of value. Perhaps he could be blamed for it.

Coming up once again to surface, Akuharu contemplated the water beneath him, the flickering gusts of wind causing his solitary candle to flicker and dance with the merriness of a drunken sailor returned to shore. It was, Akuharu reflected drowsily, almost time to go.

Some time later, his short frame presented itself once again to the light of day- his white hair still dripping down onto his face as he glanced momentarily at the sun's position to estimate the time that had elapsed since his personal development had started. A pair of nearly non-exist eyebrows raised themselves skywards, he'd been in that pool of heated water for a good deal longer then he had expected himself to be. Plodding steadily around the corner, he found himself witness to a rather intriguing scene. One that he decided might not be in his best interests to intervene in- and he attempted to continue to slip away from the two girls on the lower dune then himself. However, it turned out that he would suffer the same fate as the horned individual - as he spent more time peering over the edge at the two then actually watching his footing and he tumbled down to join them. "Oof," Akuharu grunted - the complaint in his voice implied but not voiced. Looking up as he began to stand up and dust himself off, he attempted to smile, glower, or do something to pass off the situation but found that he had entered into something a good deal more turbulent then he had expected. "Err, hi," he said, addressing the two girls.

A yawn escaped the lips of Keita, and with it, a small bit of sand also graced the inside of his mouth, however it landed on his tongue instead of hitting the back of his throat, so it didn't threaten any kind of cough, simply a bleck and Keita quickly tried a few times to spit out the sand. He had been looking out his window for a bit, before deciding to put on his cloak and other clothing items. He already had his bandages on, and he was going to head for the Dry Grounds like he did everyday, but this time he was rather late comparatively, and he had hoped that he could get there earlier to avoid the glare of the other ninjas. Well technically, Keita didn't even consider himself a ninja, not just because he was still training in the academy, but rather because he had only lived in the village for about a year, and that entire year he went through the academy at an early age, but instead of passing, since he was so naive in the ways of ninja, he had to retake the academy for another year. He was fine with it, it gave him a good chance to study and learn everything he failed to learn before.

However, he didn't like the looks that he got from the ninja, and they always said things about him behind his back, stating that he shouldn't be there, or that he didn't deserve to be a ninja because of his upbringing as a farmer's child. He sort of disliked those people, but then again, if he had passed with flying colors his first time, he assumed they would be angry, because they were working their whole life to be a ninja, and a simple person from a small oasis town out in the rural areas came and decided to be a ninja one day. Maybe if they knew the reason, they wouldn't say anything, but Keita decided that he rather not even think about what happened, let alone bring it up with people that he barely even knew. It was because of this that he still felt like an outsider in the village, and he liked to go to places that weren't too populated, and he kept to himself a lot, even though if he was forced to talk to people, he wouldn't be shy about it.

As he made his way to the Dry Grounds, he was simply walking towards a cliff face that he usually climbed, and as it got a lot easier, he had started taking weights with him, and as he got over those, he would simply try one handed with rocks or boulders in his hand. Still, it was getting to the point where that too was far too easy, and he wondered how to increase himself further. He was simply waiting for the academy to be over, so he would simply get a sensei after that hopefully, and they could teach him specific techniques and how to defend himself, because while he was very strong at the moment, he had to technical skills. Keita happened to witness a rather bizarre series of events. There was a young woman, and she suddenly stood up and started speaking to another woman, and they were apparently angry with each other. This wasn't the most bizarre thing to witness, things had gotten a lot crazier, and Keita had been bullied earlier, so he was used to conflict, the bizarre thing was suddenly another person slipped off a rocky outcrop and fell, literally into the two womens' conversation.

They were pretty heated already, and the addition of another person might actually make the two women simply turn on him, but Keita wasn't even thinking of that, he simply saw a person fall, and he had quite the experience with injury, so he rushed over there.

"Are you okay?"

He would direct this towards the young man who had just fallen, as he didn't see the woman fall earlier, or he would have rushed over to her as well. Keita didn't have his goggles on today, so it was simply him in a small tan colored cloak and some bandages covering his chest. He had very dark blue hair, and was particularly short at four foot ten inches.

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Word Count: 724
Total Ryo: 70

There are few things in life that are as terribly invigorating as the advent of a good scrap. However, Akuharu was sadly not in any sort of state to appreciate the situation evolving around him as he strategically positioned the towel across his torso and lower legs to prove the maximum cover for his dignity.

Very rarely had he been exposed to quite an odd assortment of emotions before- embarrassment, bemusement, confusement (something else ending with 'ent') and the urge to rise up -dignity be damned- and find something suitably distracting to do whilst he observed the confrontation between the two females. He judged it to be of an almost singular focus, as even his interruption merited only the most fleeting scraps of acknowledgement. Apparently neither were prepared to back down in a hurry. And then the addition of yet another factor into the situation injected itself in the form of another male whom seemed primarily concerned for his safety. In other circumstances, Akuharu might have agreed that his gender correspondent had a point. But right now it would probably take the arrival of the Kage to break the pair out of their clash of wills. Akuharu merely hoped that they restricted it to first blood to the victor which was an easy way of determining the outcome of scratch matches without investing everything into a single battle.

Normally people learned to fight with their claws sheathed so to speak. It prevented escalation of combat and made sure that one was not unnecessarily injured- however it was mainly for the former reason. Preventing a confrontation from scaling up beyond its original parameters was a social norm. There was no need for a simple spat between friends to end up in murder for example. So people did not retaliate harsh words with physical blows. Shinobi had been trained to ignore these restrictions, there was no room for excessive mercy or 'holding back' on the battlefield unless victory was assured. And Akuharu was afraid that the two girls would not know when to stop - it was this thought alone that prevented him from slipping away now and took hold of him as he rose up slowly from the ground -making sure his towel covered all appropriate areas and was tight enough for him to have both hands available should they be called from the barracks. "I'm fine, but thank you for asking all the same. Personally, these two concern me more." He said in a level undertone, eyes only flickering once to the short male as he expressed his gratification for the assistance.

+40 ryo

Keita simply watched the scene unfold, as the man replied to him, the man had fixed his towel so that he was still covering up everything that was important to keep covered. The man politely thanked Keita for worrying about him, but then the man brought up an interesting point about the two women, and just as he brought up the point, the one with the horns attacked the other one.

Keita, being one who hated to see women hurt, tried to intercept it, but he had been distracted, and only managed to get in between them when the girl who attacked was rendered useless and in pain, crumpled to the floor. She seemed to know that she was being rude, and even said that she was sorry, although it seemed to take a lot from her to say it.

She was most likely proud, and with horns like this, it was most likely some sort of defense mechanism to cope with people, as there was probably a lot of bullying going on. Keita knew this well, and would relate to her about that, as she clutched her arm from the pain. Keita had to deal with these sorts of injuries all the time in his town, not because of the fights, although he did receive more than a couple of broken bones from the ninjas so far, it was because of his work, lifting heavy things, carting objects and wares around for his father, more often than not, he had tried to pick up something far too heavy and had his arms and his back pop.

He didn't know what was wrong with her arm until her knelt down to her and looked at it, and then turned to the other woman.

"Woah. She attacked first but this is harsh."

He felt sort of dumb after saying this sentence, as this was the ninja world, and there were probably worse things she could have done justifiably, but Keita wasn't from the ninja world, and he hated to see women get hurt. Keita would then turn to the woman that had the injury, and try to calm her down a little.

"Don't worry, I've dealt with plenty of injuries. I'm sort of useless as a ninja, but at least I can do this."

With a reassuring smile, he would take a closer look at her arm if she allowed him to get that close, and then he would lightly touch the back of it with his left hand, and the front with his right. It seemed to be simply dislocated, and he could pop it back in, although he was only knowledgeable in the basics of medicine, this was something rather simple.

"It's just dislocated. I'll pop it back in for you. You might want to grit your teeth."

With that little warning, if she allowed him to continue, he would simply force the shoulder back into it's socket with a swift motion, and there would be an audible "pop." The arm would still be really sore, but the amount of pain would significantly die down after this was done.

"I'm not a medical ninja yet, so you should still go to the hospital."

Keita said this, although the people at the hospital would probably just give it a once over and send her home with some ice packs for the inevitable swelling that came with a dislocated shoulder.
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WC: 572
Ryo total: 120

Words - 270
Ryo - 20

[ exit ]