Starring:
Date: April 23, 2016
Summary:
Michiko asks Nozomi to oversee a young Student’s final test.
"Daiki’s Final Exam"
Kumogakure Ninja Academy
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//\\Naruto Mush Rivalry//\\
\\//IC Time and Weather System\\//
03:15 - 08/01/14 A.F. - Thursday - Year of the Tiger
The time is 03:15PM. It is a Thursday on the 1st of August in the 14th
year after the formation of the Hidden Villages.
It is currently after-noon in Summer!
It's currently cloudy today!
Clouds are dotted about the sky, keeping the heat in and making the
air stiflingly hot. The only respite comes from a cool, gentle breeze
blowing lightly from the southeast.
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The Summer Festival had brought quite a lot of opportunity for some people. Not only to fight, but also to show off their own personal forms of courage. There were still missions to be had, and the people in the Administration were keeping an eye on the shinobi as carefully as ever. The foreigners even more so, technically. But today wasn't really about the shinobi. Today was about a Student who had stood out to a few of the more regular citizens for being upstanding and helpful. Daiki was seen helping a vendor with a theft, and while he didn't catch the thieves by himself, his efforts were certainly noted. Which is why the Academy requested the young Yotsuki to come to the empty classroom.
Michiko had called Nozomi to a different room in the school, and she was waiting patiently for the Yamayuki. As odd as it was, there was a certain plan in the Iwata's mind that just might kill two birds with one stone… The day was sunny, but it was hard to notice that when they were all indoors.
Well, given what has been going on recently, Nozomi's sleep schedule had shifted somewhat, so she was in bed when the summons came for her to report to the academy. Fortunately, shinobi and kunoichi are trained to wake up quickly and to be ready for missions on a moment's notice. So it doesn't take much time for her to make her way to the assigned room, even though her humming is a bit slow and her dance-walking slightly less energetic than normal.
But appear she does, and to the surprise of most but Arashi and Michiko, and maybe even to their surprise, there's a small bat on Nozomi's shoulder who looks really tired…. and talking? "I still say you…"
But Nozomi had apparently been listening to whatever the bat had to say all the way here. "Look, irrespective of my personal feelings, Michiko-sama is my superior. In fact, she's over the entire shinobi force of Kumo. She calls, I go. I'm sure whatever she wants is important, given that she knows my activity schedule better than anyone else but Arashi-taicho. So please, just stop. We're here, and you will be rude to continue this." The last remark is in a voice that promises retribution if such rudeness occurs. To further cut off conversation with the small brown bat, she opens the door and enters the room. "Yamayuki Nozomi reporting as ordered."
"Good, I'm glad you were able to make it, Nozomi-san. I do apologize for disturbing you when you ought to be asleep, though… The schedule of youth is quite opposite yours, though," Michiko says, offering an apologetic look to both the bat and the genin. "This task I was hoping you could perform is very important, though." She pauses, checking that Nozomi understands how serious her task is. Then she continues, "There's a student that's shown enough… Enthusiasm that we decided he could at least be tested. I want you to evaluate him and send me a report on his progress today. His name is Yotsuki Daiki, and his weaknesses lie in genjutsu and strategy. Here's a list of different kinds of tests you can put him through, but you are welcome to be more creative." Michiko offers a sheet of paper to the Yamayuki…
Nozomi glances at the bat on her shoulder and gives a smirk that obviously means, 'See? Told you so.' Even though she doesn't get why she would be the one to test this student, she knows that Michiko has to have a plan. She then turns her attention to her go… er… superior and nods once. "Hai," she sings with one note while taking the papers. "I take it the student in question should be here shortly?" she sings as she looks through the materials she's been handed.
In the meantime, the bat grumbles something but flies off Nozomi's shoulder to a small desk. "I'll watch," the bat replies as Nozomi gives him a questioning look that he shouldn't be able to see. "And other than the obvious question, it's okay," the bat also says to Michiko.
Daiki was honestly a little bit scared that he had been suddenly summoned to the Academy on his day off. Was he in trouble? He was pretty sure he must be in trouble. But what did he do this time? His brow was furrowed as he made low humming sounds, deep in thought as he tried to pull forward any memory of doing something he wasn't supposed to do. This continued all the way until he entered the academy and came into the room he had been asked to.. But it was empty? Daiki blinked quickly, then looked around suspiciously. Was this another test?
"If he isn't tardy, he should be in the room next door," Michiko tells Nozomi. "I'll leave you to the task, Nozomi-san. And I hope you don't mind the interruption," she adds in the bat's direction. Then she would offer a small bow before… disappearing into the earth. She'd be keeping an eye on the whole exam, of course, because she wanted to make sure /Daiki/ would be okay. But she'd be hidden if she does so. No one would know she was hiding nearby!
The bat flies back onto Nozomi's shoulder as Michiko earth-melds and Nozomi finishes looking through the papers. She softly hums as she walks out of the office and to the room next door. She taps on it just before opening the door and dance-stepping in. "Yotsuki Daiki?" she asks as the bat takes off once again to find a place to watch from. "I'm Yamayuki Nozomi. Has the reason you've been summoned here been explained to you?" she asks as she moves to walk-dance around him while inspecting the boy closely.
When the door opens, Daiki about jumps out of his skin. "Waah!" he cries out, suddenly finding himself on top of a desk with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Once he sees who it is, though, he calms down considerably and just laughs off his surprise. "Oh, sorry Ne-chan. I wasn't expecting you!" When she introiduced herself, he just blinked a little, then shook his head slowly when she asked if he knew why he was here. "No.. I just sort of thought I was in trouble.. Wait, am I?" His eyes got a little uncertainty in them and he chewed his lip slightly. She didn't look scary, but what if she took him to someone who was?
Nozomi stops dancing around the poor boy an then backs up a bit with wide, gracious smile on her face that seems genuine enough. "Oh no, you're not in trouble Daiki-kun," Nozomi half-sings, half purrs. Her bright blue eyes seem to watch the young student rather closely as she says, "Your instructors here decided you could use a little specialized instruction, and I've been asked to step in and help. With this she reaches down and pulls a flute from a long, thin pouch hanging off of her belt. "This lesson is called, gaining information. Here's what you do," she says as her plan runs through her head. Given the layout of the testiing room, she'd make him work for this. "You will close your eyes and count to ten. I'm about to pull a disappearing act. I will be somewhere in this room, which as you see is somewhat segmented off. You will attempt to find me without being seen or heard, and at first you will try to find out a secret I have. Once you learn that secret, you will attempt to eliminate the source, namely me via any method that a regular genin can use. The point of this is to use all the basic skills you were taught in this academy. Do you have any questions before we start?"
COMBAT: Nozomi focuses 2524 stamina to turn it into 3000 usable chakra!
Daiki looks at the girl suspiciously. "Specialized instruction?" he repeats, crossing his arms in front of his chest slowly before he nods. "Alright. Sure. I'll take your test." He smirks a little bit, then closes his eyes. "1.. 2.. 3.. 4.." he counted all the way to ten. He had done something like this with Michiko before.. He was sure he'd be able to pull it off again.
COMBAT: Daiki focuses 884 stamina to turn it into 1000 usable chakra!
Nozomi smiles and then lifts her flute up to her lips. Since this isn't the part where he's supposed to attack her yet, she feels okay about slipping a simple d-rank jutsu into the mix, one of the stealth variety. After the first couple of notes all sound in her immediate vicinity abruptly ceases to exist, an that is followed by a simple trick she knows to fade into the background. Once that is done, she moves silently to one of the farther partitions before dropping the sound technique. Satisfied, she starts to pull out a couple of sheets of the papers that Michiko handed her and starts writing on one, pausing every once in a while to look up to the ceiling contemplatively. At the same time, she lets her ninjutsu and her stealth technique drop, an indicator that the test that is not a test has begun.
COMBAT: Daiki defends against WHITE-NOISE(20) attack from Nozomi with a PERCEPTION…24
COMBAT: Daiki defends against STEALTH(14) attack from Nozomi with a PERCEPTION…20
Daiki opens his eyes once he had finished counting to ten. He recalled hearing some sort of sound while his eyes were closed, and when he opened them, the pale girl had vanished. Well, she /did/ say she would be hiding somewhere in this room. So, Daiki walked around one of the walls into another area, and saw her standing idly in one corner, reading some papers. He smirked. "Um, Ne-chan.. No offense, but your hiding spot isn't very good.."
Nozomi turned her head to look at Daiki, seemingly confused. "Hmm, well, it wasn't meant to be, but aren't you supposed to be trying to find out a secret from me?" she asks. "What if I were someone you couldn't approach directly? How would you have tried to find out that information?"
Daiki tilts his heads and thinks about that a moment. "Hmm… Aah! Hold on! Bathroom!" Daiki makes a very convincing show of holding himself and dancing, before bolting out into the other area of the room where he couldn't be seen. There, he snickers to himself and makes a hand sign. "Henge!" *POOF* … There stands a rather accurate portrayal of Michiko. Daiki put on his most serious face before strolling into the other area disguised as Nozomi's superior. "Nozomi? What are you doing? Wasn't Daiki-kun supposed to be with you?"
RP: Daiki uses HENGE.
RP: Nozomi makes a Int roll and got 14.
Well, so far he got props for tracking, though this was a relatively simple tracking job. She makes some notes down on her paper, which is tilted so that the words are not plainly visible. "Ah, Michiko-sama," she says as she turns a warm smile to her "superior." "He claimed he had to go to the bathroom. I'm waiting here for him to return before we continue." Of course, the convenience tells her that this is likely Daiki henge'd to look like Michiko, but she'll take her time to assess the quality of the henge and see how he plans to use it.
Daiki-Michiko nods and smiles, turning his gaze to look down at the paper she is holding. "How is he doing? May I have a look?" He reached his Michiko hand out for the documents, like he was expecting Nozomi to hand them over. Daiki was keeping his cool pretty well so far - he just hoped Nozomi wouldn't get suspicious.
So that's the way he's planning on doing it. It was a good tactic for a student coming into being a genin, really. Of course, it all depended on her willingness to believe that Michiko would be doing this. And this student had no way of knowing their past interactions, and therefore didn't know she could spot a fake Michiko from miles away, so she was duly impressed by his control and tactics, even if she wasn't really fooled. After all, even if he didn't act like Michiko acted toward her, this is what she was looking for. "Sure," she says, not sings, "Let me make a quick notation, then hand over the secret to you Daiki-kun." She hands over the paper, which is genin-test evaluation form with Daiki's name on top.
Daiki's hand paused a bit when he heard his name. She was onto him! Quick, make a recovery! He laughed suddenly. "Daiki-kun? Who do you think I am, Nozomi? I think you're taking this lesson a little too seriously…" But still, he had seen the form, and his eyes got wide. She was testing him for Genin? For real? Whoa! He did his best to conceal his excitement, and quickly handed Nozomi back the paper. "Well, carry on with you evaluation, Nozomi. I'll expect a report later on." He then hurries out of the room and dispels his henge with a deep, panting breath. That was crazy!
RP: Daiki stops using HENGE.
Nozomi does her level best not to chuckle as the student leaves. After he leaves, she looks to the bat and says, "I know we haven't gotten that far yet, but would you be willing to assist me with a genjutsu if what you've been trying to teach me doesn't work?"
After a moment, the bat chirps, "Yes, but only if you seem to have failed."
Nozomi nods and puts her flute to her mouth again and concentrates as she tries to cast a genjutsu before he returns. Of course, it's a very week E rank genjutsu that simply makes her appear three feet to the left for a very brief period of time. But perhaps this, combined with the hint from the papers, will produce a reaction…
[NPC System]: Bat-assisted Nozomi roll(s) Displacement Genjutsu from 10 to 20 and get(s) a 20. - Rolled by: Nozomi
RPCOMBAT: Daiki defends against with a GENJUTSU-PERCEPTION…15
Daiki returned after a moment, grinning a little bit. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Ne-chan." He walked over to where he saw her, assuming that she had simply moved. He looked at her a bit, curious as to why she hadn't said anything. But.. Something was off. There was her scent close to him, but.. It was in a different place. No way it could be that strong of a trace.. He frowned. What was going on? "Hey, did you spray some perfume or something over there where you were sitting?" he asked, pointing to where she /actually/ was - although he couldn't really see her there.
Nozomi makes a mental note that he showed he had some skill in genjutsu perception, but it was really minimal. Something she'd have to tell him to work on. At the same time, she was acutely aware that she almost didn't need the bat's help that time. One more lesson should do it, really. Hopefully the bat would be impressed enough to actually let her call him by name… Still, she had a student ot teach. At this point, she lowered her flute, which incidentally canceled the genjutsu, and threw some wire-laced shuriken at him in hopes of making him use another skill.
COMBAT: Daiki defends against SHARP(18) attack from Nozomi with a REPLACEMENT-TECHNIQUE…12
Daiki blinked again as suddenly, Nozomi's body shifted fast as a flicker to her previous location. Something had changed. She had done something! But he wasn't sure what. What he DID know was that suddenly a bunch of shuriken were flying at him! Quickly, he makes a hand sign. "Kawarimi no — Ouch!" he yells, grumbling as the sharp edges catch his skin. "Kawarimi no Jutsu!" Suddenly, his body appeared next to a desk on the other side of the room, and in his place was a plain wooden chair. He wiped his brow with tense relief. That could have been a lot worse.
Nozomi had set down the papers, but she picks them up to mark them. "You'll get feedback at the end of this," she says simply with a serious expression. After making her marks, she looks up and says, "Create a clone for me as a distraction, then go hide somewhere in this room." She doesn't offer a wrap yet, for some reason.
Daiki regains his composure and nods a bit. This test kept getting harder. "You got it," he almost grumbles as he pulls together another hand sign. Out pop three Daiki clones which scatter in every direction, along with the original. "Just try to find me!" Daiki laughs as his clones disappear in various places. The real him was hidden in plain sight, not far from his original position. But he had hopped around enough with his clones that he hoped she wouldn't notice that he was indeed just hiding in the supply closet three feet away.
RPCOMBAT: Daiki defends against with a CLONE-TECHNIQUE…19
COMBAT: Daiki attacks target 1 with STEALTH with a roll of: 19
RPCOMBAT: Nozomi defends against with a PERCEPTION…12
RPCOMBAT: Nozomi defends against with a ECHO-SENSE…38
Nozomi watches as the four Daiki's run in different directions. Unfortunately for her, and very fortunately for Daiki, her eyes were tracking a clone. This showed that he was successful at the clones, and at stealth, to a degree. She makes a few more marks down on her paper and then puts her flute to her mouth and plays a couple of notes. She's rewarded with his actual location almost instantly, allowing her to turn and look at him. "Come on out and sit down here," she says as she points to the chair she rescued from the wires. Assuming he does as ordered, she says, "Stay still," befor tying him up in something that a genin can get out of. "Now, escape from that."
Daiki frowned and huffed that she was able to find him so quickly. But, he did as he was told and sat down. When she started tying him up, he looked at her suspiciously and tried the knots a bit with slight pulls of his limbs. "Great," he mutters. They seemed pretty well done.. But, he had learned a jutsu for this! Trying his best, he used his chakra to help loosen some of the knots, and in a matter of a couple of minutes he was able to wriggle himself free of the contraption, throwing the ropes down with a grin and a thumbs up! "Heh! Take that!"
Nozomi nods and makes a couple of marks on her sheet, then pulls up another chair and sits down. "I have three questions for you. First, what is your nindo? Second, why do you want to be a shinobi? And third is a situation. You are faced off against a small bandit group, and one of your teammates is badly injured. You have a way to escape with your wounded teammate, but doing so would likely end her career, and you would fail your mission. You can continue to attack, but that would put your friend in danger while completing the mission. How would you proceed?"
Daiki frowns quietly, sitting down back in the chair and resting his chin in his palm. Those were some pretty serious questions. "My nindo… I feel like I'll know more about it when I grow up.. But right now, I just wanna try my hardest and do the best I can for my village… I wanna be a shinobi cause shinobis are able to help more people and protect more people than normal people are.. Um.." The last question was significantly harder. "Um.." Daiki frowned deeply. "I know that… To be a shinobi means having to follow orders… If you don't complete a mission, something bad might happen.. Cause missions are important… But if my teammate was hurt, I think it's more important to get them to safety.. Cause you can always try the mission again later when you're stronger, but if you lose your teammates, it will make you weaker no matter what.." He looks up a bit, question in his eyes. ".. Is that good..?"
Nozomi simply looks intently at the student in front of her for a few long moments before finally reaching over to make some notes. "Okay, here's my review. First, you need to learn to look beyond what is directly in front of your eyes. I had to prompt you to follow the original orders I gave you, but once you did you managed to pull off a reasonable likeness of Michiko-sama. However, in the future, before trying to impersonate someone, you need to know their mannerisms and how that person interacts with your target. You were off on the first and further off on the second," she says as she makes some notes.
"Next, your basic skills are all passable, but your genjutsu can really use some work. You appear to best at stealth, though as you are you can fool those not trained in chakra use, however, trained people will present a problem for you. Last, you should work building a solid foundation for your determination, which means finishing your nindo. While your answer for the situation was acceptable, you need to realize that as long as completing the mission didn't kill your teammate or permanently injure her, you should have completed the mission while trying to minimize the danger to the teammate. You could have done this by getting between her and the bandits, for example," she offers.
Lastly, we have one more test to perform, and that is taijutsu." With that she stands up and scoots the chair back. "Now is when you follow the last portion of the original orders. Attack me. I'll tell you when to stop." (re)
Daiki swallows a bit, feeling heat on the back of his neck as she finishes her review. So he was okay, but not great. That was fine. At least he would get a chance to show her whereome of his strength lied. Kicking the chair back, he took a calming breath and readied his stance. He contemplated drawing his sword.. But now wasn't the time for that. Stil, he wished that he had a stick, or something.. He just wished that he was better at hand to hand. Diving forward, Daiki lashed out with a punch towards Nozomi's face, followed up by a swift knee aimed for her solar plexus. As long as he could get a few hits in and avoid real damage, he should pass,, Right?
COMBAT: Nozomi defends against PHYSICAL(13) attack from Daiki with a DODGE…16
COMBAT: Nozomi defends against PHYSICAL(16) attack from Daiki with a DODGE…18
Nozomi starts humming even as Daiki starts forward to punch her. She dances out of the way for both attacks and says, "Feel free to use a kunai or shuriken for the next ones." But she follows her statement up with a couple of kicks of her own that seem to more flow than rely on force, even if it would be obvious to a taijutsuist that she has a long way to go.
COMBAT: Daiki defends against PHYSICAL(12) attack from Nozomi with a DODGE…11
COMBAT: Daiki defends against PHYSICAL(15) attack from Nozomi with a DODGE…13
Daiki did his best to leap out of the way of Nozomi's kicks - but her flowing movements were either disorienting or faster than he gave her credit for, and he was hit one after the other, knocking him backward onto the ground. Clutching his stomach briefly, Daiki wiped a tiny trickle of blood from his lip. It had split in the corner from her last kick. Well, if that's how she was gonna play.. Reaching into his tool pouch, Daiki grabbed a couple of Shuriken and, using a spurt of chakra, made a couple of clones before throwing them at her. He would see if she'd be able to dodge the /real/ one.
COMBAT: Nozomi defends against SHARP(10) attack from Daiki with a BLOCK…9
COMBAT: Nozomi defends against SHARP(14) attack from Daiki with a BLOCK…13
After loosing her last flute to an unexpected acid bath, one of Nozomi's newer strategies was to have her flute strengthened against damage. Therefore, her bone-flute was deliberately strengthened by someone in her village to be harder than steel, and capable of sustaining light blows without physical damage, or more importantly, damage to the sounds it makes. Therefore Nozomi decides to try to deflect the shurriken away from her with her flute, which was still in her hands (thus why she focused on kicking). "Okay, that's good enough," she says as she comes to a halt. Taking a quick assessment, she took a couple of scratches, while Daiki took a little more damage. After a moment, she puts her flute away, then reaches over for the paperwork and finishes it. She signs her name to the bottom, then seals it up. "I have to turn this in for review, and you'll hear the results soon enough."
