Twisted Pinwheel

[prandom]

We can put actual effort into other things! It's just that this can be solved by throwing crumbs to the peons and copying them.

Click to shrink...

"I can quit any time I want! I swear!"

 

[angelofwhim]

[X] They're going to need to make you an offer here. Like they said, they can't demand training for freeeeee....

 

[macdjord]

[X] "You guys are just the cutest pair of spare orphan parts ever! Look at you trying to coherse actual training out of a real ninja... Well you happen to be in grave luck. For I Mio could use a pair of capable hench-wenches. From now on you work for Mio and Mio shows you how to be badass."
-[X] Proceed to beat their asses into the ground until they acknowledge their new found minion-hood and teach them something good once you have... hell make the subjugation beating part of the lesson... You're just generous that way.


MINONS!

Hm... you know what, we can make them actually learn the E-rank crap for us instead of doing it ourselves. Then we can focus on screwing the family reputation while maintaining plausible deniability. And also train our ninja skills. This had better not take more time away from actually fun things than it saves.

Click to shrink...

Reminds me of an idea I had a while ago: The (post-massacre) Uchiha Sasuke Study Group. "Here's the Uchia clan jutsu library. A century of stolen techniques. You can study anything you want, as long as you let me copy it once you're done."

 

[Koled]

[X] "You guys are just the cutest pair of spare orphan parts ever! Look at you trying to coherse actual training out of a real ninja... Well you happen to be in grave luck. For I Mio could use a pair of capable hench-wenches. From now on you work for Mio and Mio shows you how to be badass."
-[X] Proceed to beat their asses into the ground until they acknowledge their new found minion-hood and teach them something good once you have... hell make the subjugation beating part of the lesson... You're just generous that way.

MIO will make a man out of you.

 

[Dark Ness]

[X] They've just told you a funny joke. Laugh, beat them up, and leave.

 

[Dark Lord Bob]

[X] They've just told you a funny joke. Laugh, beat them up, and leave.

 

[Mystletainn]

[X] They've just told you a funny joke. Laugh, beat them up, and leave.

 

[Ct613hulu]

[X] "You guys are just the cutest pair of spare orphan parts ever! Look at you trying to coherse actual training out of a real ninja... Well you happen to be in grave luck. For I Mio could use a pair of capable hench-wenches. From now on you work for Mio and Mio shows you how to be badass."
-[X] Proceed to beat their asses into the ground until they acknowledge their new found minion-hood and teach them something good once you have... hell make the subjugation beating part of the lesson... You're just generous that way.

 

[asdx]

[X] They've just told you a funny joke. Laugh, beat them up, and leave.

 

[rcnr]

[X] They're going to need to make you an offer here. Like they said, they can't demand training for freeeeee....

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"... or what?" you say, pointedly. "Don't get me wrong, it's adorable that you think you can strong-arm me into doing anything I don't feel like doing, but with number three with the 'fro switched out for a bit of wood I don't see you pushing this by force going even as well as last time."

You grin widely, to the point where it stretches out into a rictus that you could call a leer as shonen-girl's teeth grit.

Honestly, you could just make them learn jutsu and steal them on demonstration in traditional Uchiha fashion, but the problem with stealing jutsu with the sharingan is that you learn them exactly as they're being used. When you stole the transformation technique it took you much longer than you will ever admit to force it to do anything but turn you into a duplicate of an academy teacher. Seriously, that crap went on long after the joke wore thin.

In order to do anything else with the basic transformation technique you effectively had to un and re learn it and you honestly feel that you wasted much more time on it than if you'd just learned the technique from scratch and then altered it the way you eventually did.

This completely leaves aside the fact that you're left sitting on your ass and picking your nose until someone else learns the technique that you then have to un-and-re-learn after stealing.

.... Well, if you want to bother doing more with it than using it exactly as it's shown. Jutsu stealing isn't the perfect bloodline like the clan would have you insist, but if you're going to just grab a one-off jutsu to use like a thrown kunai and then ignore forever, or steal so many hundreds of techniques that you have a pretty good one for just about any situation, then it's still all right.

Just not so good for training. None of the exercising your own ninja magic with failed attempts, and it'll probably take other students your age longer than a single all-nighter to get an E-rank trick like the pencil sharpener down.

"So you can't really lay down 'this is how it'll be', because frankly I'll just ignore you. Or laugh. Maybe punch you. Some combination of those. Which means you get nowhere with a broken stick and have to use the carrot instead." You say idly. "Like you said, nothing's for free."

You move your thumb around the tips of your first two fingers in a deliberate motion that signifies 'money'. Ami's face purples to match her hair, and she sucks in a sharp, deep breath, probably getting ready to yell something about clans and money and other meaningless things before shonen-girl drags her slightly to the side.

The conversation that the girls hold is in hissing mutters just slightly too soft for you to hear. You're going to guess that most of it is cooling down Ami's hot head.

"We've got... family discount at the steamed bun place." Ami says, baffling you as your immediate assumption that one or both of them were also orphans is nixed.

Though technically, being part of a clan, you can't legally be considered an orphan as long as even one other member of the clan exists so doesn't really matter that your mom's dead. Legally speaking.

"Well, that's a start." you say, dubiously. "But it's going to take more than buying me a discount plate every now and again."

"You can spend your own money, I'm offering the discount you-!" Ami starts to snap, before shonen-girl clamps a hand down on her mouth from behind.

You scratch your jaw and pretend not to notice Ami's angrily flailing arms.

Well, on the plus side, you won't be lacking for entertainment. Even better, if you do this properly, then they're paying you for something they could have gotten for free. This could come back to bite you if they ever read that hand-out, but so far the odds of that are looking pretty long.

"I already ate, but I suppose I can pick up snacks for later." you decide aloud, letting the comedy duo lead the way to a dumpling stall you haven't been to before...

... Ami's sister isn't the owner, but the assistant, and you quickly realize you have no idea how to approach or interact with the much older woman. She and Ami are at least ten years apart, if not more, so... are there other siblings too? And parents obviously.

What concerns you is that in her presence you have an unsettled feeling in your guts, like you've eaten bad sushi, and you find yourself edging slightly out of the way and out of her line of sight, with the impression that you're either about to swallow your own tongue or have it swell up in your mouth to choke you.

Bafflingly, you've temporarily turned into a shrinking wallflower and can't quite shake it off until you've left the stall behind and set up a little play-park picnic. Luckily, it looks like the prospective minions didn't notice your floundering. Unluckily, it looks like the big sister did and was amused for some reason and you don't even know why.

Not for certain. It's much too early for the first fiendish claws of puberty to be settling in. Even with ninja kids developing a bit quicker all around, the better to be able to make use of their talents faster, you should at least have a couple more years before you have to enter that field of battle. Even so, you're vaguely aware of the messy details and that there are girls who Like Girls, and if you can say nothing else about Ami's sister it's that she is visibly and extremely a woman who catches notice, even if it's in a way that most ninja diverge from. Even kunoichi who make their beauty the focus of things. The possibility rattles you.

Of course it could also be that the whites of her eyes are black and your subconscious doesn't have the slightest idea of what to make of that and keeps trying to figure out if she's an assassin or spy in disguise. That possibility is both more and less comfortable, for different reasons.

Ami grumbles for several minutes about the price of meat buns and how this is going to affect her allowance until shonen girl seems to conclude that she has to start things off.

"So?" she asks pointedly.

You tap your chin slightly, drawing it out for a bit, before giving in.

"You probably remember them testing to see if you were developed enough to use chakra without hurting yourself when you were admitted into the academy... or maybe not, they slipped it in with a normal physical exam." you say. "That's because the most important thing overall is chakra. Having enough to use, and being able to use it well."

"Huh? They haven't even mentioned it in class yet..." Ami says doubtfully.

"I read ahead. But anyway, it's because it's the universal factor."

You shrug and raise three fingers.

"The three disciplines are Gen, Nin, and Taijutsu, but those are broken up into different parts. A ninjutsu specialist needs to understand their own chakra more than anything else, and more in depth than other fields. You need to work out the elemental nature of your chakra before you can really get started in elemental techniques. Ninjutsu shows more than anything else the importance of chakra training. How fast you can get hand-signs off is important too, but if you practice enough you're supposed to be able to do away with those, or at least get it down to one."

You lower one finger, continuing on.

"The other two aren't as obvious. In Genjutsu people will talk forever about how important it is to have a keen mind and understand how your targets are seeing things, in order to disguise that they're under an illusion at all. But it doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't have the chakra reserves to put them under that illusion, keep them under it when they try to escape, and the practice to maintain it as long as you need to without slipping up. In Taijutsu, the most important thing is having a strong body, because you only use Chakra to amplify what you already have, so it's best to improve your physical condition. But chakra still lets you make yourself stronger and faster, and if you're better there you can do it more and longer. Considering there's only so far you can push yourself before you get through all your growth spurts or you might accidentally cripple yourself in the long term..."

"So it's better to focus on chakra and chakra control now." Shonen girl says, considering the breakdown.

"That and when it comes down to it you don't need help to run laps around somewhere and if I start throwing clan secrets or training around the elders are going to prepare a funeral pyre." you note. That's not a metaphor either, you're pretty sure the punishment for willingly handing over is pretty much 'burned to death' if anyone important finds out.

Doesn't make Ami any happier when you pour out a bag full of pencils on the park bench table. Need materials for the jutsu, though, and you've got more.

"The hell?" Ami snaps, as you pick a nice fresh one.

The jutsu peels away wood and lead, sharpening it into a conical point. Thinking about it, that's probably sharp enough to stab more or less okay-ish, which you'll have to keep in mind in case you find yourself out of things to poke through the soft bits with and only have blunt bits of wood available.

You extend two fingers and pose slightly, as much as you can while sitting down. It winds up as just a little twist of the torso, tilt of the head, and lifting those fingers above the opposite shoulder.

"There's two handsigns to this jutsu, and as an E-rank even academy-student levels of chakra can spit it out over and over for hours. Since you're using chakra to perform a jutsu, it's going to work a little at your total reserves and fine control. And once you get it right, you'll never again have to leave your seat or dig out a hand-sharpener because your pencil broke during class."

"Lazy b-" Ami starts to grunt.

"So, it's a training technique that can be used during lecture hours." Shonen-girl cuts in, before Ami can say something you're going to have to smack her for.

"Stop interrupting me, Fuki!" Ami snaps as you rise and stretch and collect your fee.

Shonen girl's pencil loses a few splinters as she focuses on it.

"It's going to take a while for you to get that right, so I'm going to take off now." you say, waving. You've got clan taijutsu training that you probably aren't going to make much use of but have to attend anyway, else the elders will crap their adult diapers in fury.

It's not until you get home that you realize that the girls swiped a few of your buns for snacks. The cheeky little shits. You were iffy before, but this cinches it.

You take a few minutes to retire to Mother's bedroom to unlock and open the closet door, revealing her secret shrine and standing tomb. You clap twice in prayer, set your hand against a mark and let it prick you to acknowledge your blood and chakra, and then slide the window open.

"Mother!" you say to her polished and preserved skull, embroidered silk covering the preserved Sharingan eyes. "I think I made friends with other girls my age today."

You can't say for sure, but the ivory leer seems approving.

With that, everything settles into a routine for a few days, of lectures and jutsu practice, barely interrupted by your finally learning all the E-ranks you selected and a new instructor, Umino, coming into the class as an assistant, until something breaks the tedium.

---

[ ] That Uzumaki boy is a menace. You don't know how he managed it, and the elders are calling for his head, but he's dyed all the Uchiha clan clothes shades of yellow, tricked everyone into dying their hair blonde, and given the police office a new coat of orange paint. You kind of like it, but you're also getting pressured to respond in kind.
[ ] Flyers are being set up for an academy-wide weekend scavenger hunt. Winner gets a D-rank jutsu scroll, and the Hokage signed off on it so everything's official and everything. Better still, you can do whatever you want with the scroll when you have it. Upperclassmen are favored to win, of course, but will that stop the Demon of the Uchiha?
[ ] Ami and the other two get into a fashion disagreement with the Yamanaka girl and her pink pet. Blood is spilled, and a show-off with neutral judges is arranged. You weren't initially invited, which is a grave insult. Are you not worth including in a fashion contest? Bitch, you are fashion. What's more fashionable than coordinated armor?
[ ] There's some kind of civilian holy festival going on, and while the standard Uchiha response to such things is 'what an adorable waste of time when you could instead be learning to stab better', there's enough civilian kids in the class that you can be justified in getting dragged along to the candy and games without much note. Sucks to be you, Sasuke, have fun not-having-fun.
[ ] Actually, nothing much happens, but you do go out for a meal again.
-[ ] Dango.
-[ ] Yakitori.
-[ ] Barbecue.
-[ ] Dumplings.
-[ ] Fried rice.
- Sausage-inna-bun. Too soon, there'll be an armed mutiny in your guts!
[ ] ??

 

[Pipeman]

Our shrine is the best shrine ever.
Here's to hoping mommy murdered her best friend at some point!

Leaning towards the scavenger hunt, but I like most of those options.

 

[Lon]

Holy crap we have our mother's skull in the basement.

Edit: Hmm, as for choices. Not sure what to do.

Uzumaki because haha, fuck you uchiha.
And Fashion show because as Demon Queen we are definitely Fabulous. And it'd be a good idea to reinforce that.

 

[prandom]

[X] That Uzumaki boy is a menace. You don't know how he managed it, and the elders are calling for his head, but he's dyed all the Uchiha clan clothes shades of yellow, tricked everyone into dying their hair blonde, and given the police office a new coat of orange paint. You kind of like it, but you're also getting pressured to respond in kind.

I want to start a prank-off.

 

[Xicree]

[X] Ami and the other two get into a fashion disagreement with the Yamanaka girl and her pink pet. Blood is spilled, and a show-off with neutral judges is arranged. You weren't initially invited, which is a grave insult. Are you not worth including in a fashion contest? Bitch, you are fashion. What's more fashionable than coordinated armor?

 

[Koled]

[X] Flyers are being set up for an academy-wide weekend scavenger hunt. Winner gets a D-rank jutsu scroll, and the Hokage signed off on it so everything's official and everything. Better still, you can do whatever you want with the scroll when you have it. Upperclassmen are favored to win, of course, but will that stop the Demon of the Uchiha?


It´s good to see that mother loves Mio even in death. Look at that smile when her daugther tells her of the new friends she made.

Im tempted to go for dango so we can interct with Itachi but scavenger hunt...

 

[Pipeman]

[X] Ami and the other two get into a fashion disagreement with the Yamanaka girl and her pink pet. Blood is spilled, and a show-off with neutral judges is arranged. You weren't initially invited, which is a grave insult. Are you not worth including in a fashion contest? Bitch, you are fashion. What's more fashionable than coordinated armor?

 

[macdjord]

Our shrine is the best shrine ever.
Here's to hoping mommy murdered her best friend at some point!

Click to shrink...

Er, I'm pretty sure 'preserved' here means 'prevented from rotting', not 'still viable for implantation' - like, dried out or dunked in formaldehyde or something. Chibi-Reaper?


[X] That Uzumaki boy is a menace. You don't know how he managed it, and the elders are calling for his head, but he's dyed all the Uchiha clan clothes shades of yellow, tricked everyone into dying their hair blonde, and given the police office a new coat of orange paint. You kind of like it, but you're also getting pressured to respond in kind.

 

[Pipeman]

Er, I'm pretty sure 'preserved' here means 'prevented from rotting', not 'still viable for implantation' - like, dried out or dunked in formaldehyde or something. Chibi-Reaper?

Click to shrink...

I honestly don't care too much anyways.
That was supposed to be an intentionally over the top comment which completely ignored the rather disturbing things that shrine says about how messed up the Demon Queen of the Uchiha really is.

 

[macdjord]

I honestly don't care too much anyways.
That was supposed to be an intentionally over the top comment which completely ignored the rather disturbing things that shrine says about how messed up the Demon Queen of the Uchiha really is.

Click to shrink...

Hey, for all we know that could be ordinary Uchiha funerary custom~

 

[Pipeman]

Hey, for all we know that could be ordinary Uchiha funerary custom~

Click to shrink...

Those wacky Uchiha! Always keeping the preserved skull and eyes of their parents in the bedroom closet and talking to it.

 

[Guile]

[X] There's some kind of civilian holy festival going on, and while the standard Uchiha response to such things is 'what an adorable waste of time when you could instead be learning to stab better', there's enough civilian kids in the class that you can be justified in getting dragged along to the candy and games without much note. Sucks to be you, Sasuke, have fun not-having-fun.

Fashion is tempting, but I'm a sucker for festivals.

Those wacky Uchiha! Always keeping the preserved skull and eyes of their parents in the bedroom closet and talking to it.

Click to shrink...

The Senju just light incense at wooden shrines to appease their ancestors. How dull.

 

[Lon]

Those wacky Uchiha! Always keeping the preserved skull and eyes of their parents in the bedroom closet and talking to it.

Click to shrink...

Considering you can get a power up by stealing your family member's eyes. Those eyes have to be preserved somehow. So that you will always know your ancestors are always watching you.

 

[Irked]

[X] That Uzumaki boy is a menace. You don't know how he managed it, and the elders are calling for his head, but he's dyed all the Uchiha clan clothes shades of yellow, tricked everyone into dying their hair blonde, and given the police office a new coat of orange paint. You kind of like it, but you're also getting pressured to respond in kind.

I'll admit i'm unfamiliar with Uchiha funerary customs as Danzo stealing the Eyes interfered quite a bit with what would normally happen, are we supposed to gift our mother's eyes to our significant other once we get engaged to someone?

on a completely unrelated note i'm beginning to think that it might of been better for us to start the quest when Mio was younger.

 

[Bobs Beard]

[X] There's some kind of civilian holy festival going on, and while the standard Uchiha response to such things is 'what an adorable waste of time when you could instead be learning to stab better', there's enough civilian kids in the class that you can be justified in getting dragged along to the candy and games without much note. Sucks to be you, Sasuke, have fun not-having-fun.

Not only are festivals fun, we already all know Naruto/Ino/Sakura, from umpteen dozens of quests/fics. Similarly, we just got several big helpings of Ami/Fuka stuff.

I'd much rather see Chibi portraying other side characters in the quest setting/show off more fun OCs in the context of a big event, than once again spin wheels doing the same old. Sure, it'd no doubt be fun to read and go along with, but why not do something a bit moreso off the beaten track?

So's I feel, at least - and Festivals can have some of the best quest hooks.

 

[redaeth]

[X] Flyers are being set up for an academy-wide weekend scavenger hunt. Winner gets a D-rank jutsu scroll, and the Hokage signed off on it so everything's official and everything. Better still, you can do whatever you want with the scroll when you have it. Upperclassmen are favored to win, of course, but will that stop the Demon of the Uchiha?

 

[Winged One]

[X] That Uzumaki boy is a menace. You don't know how he managed it, and the elders are calling for his head, but he's dyed all the Uchiha clan clothes shades of yellow, tricked everyone into dying their hair blonde, and given the police office a new coat of orange paint. You kind of like it, but you're also getting pressured to respond in kind.

Starting a prank war sounds fun.

 

[Dark Ness]

[X] Actually, nothing much happens, but you do go out for a meal again.
-[X] Dango.

 

[Biigoh]

[X] There's some kind of civilian holy festival going on, and while the standard Uchiha response to such things is 'what an adorable waste of time when you could instead be learning to stab better', there's enough civilian kids in the class that you can be justified in getting dragged along to the candy and games without much note. Sucks to be you, Sasuke, have fun not-having-fun.

 

[mc2rpg]

[X] There's some kind of civilian holy festival going on, and while the standard Uchiha response to such things is 'what an adorable waste of time when you could instead be learning to stab better', there's enough civilian kids in the class that you can be justified in getting dragged along to the candy and games without much note. Sucks to be you, Sasuke, have fun not-having-fun.