Starring:
Date: July 14, 2010
Summary:
Maia and her assistant find Shisei at the ninja academy and teach him some basics.
"Teaching the Uchiha"
Training Grounds [Kumogakure]
It's bright and early in the morning. Well, it's not so early anymore, and deciding that it's time to beef up the diplomatic corp of Kumogakure, Maia has headed off to the ninja academy to go look through the latest crop of students. It's been a while since she's done some active teaching. Now she's just a part time teacher called in to teach ninjutsu and genjutsu every now and then to particularly promising students.
Still, with her hands behind her back, she walks around the training area, her nose scrunching as she lets out a soft chuckle of amusement at the now nervous students. There's a Jounin about afterall. "Just keep on practicing like I'm not here!" she chirps cheerily, smiling brightly towards the chibi-nin.
Kenta can't believe he's been tagged to come along with Maia as her assistant. He's got better things to do! Well, no, he doesn't, but there's a fishing pond outside the village that's begging to be sit next to and practice his water jutsu. Kenta gives a sigh giving up on that idea and instead follows along with a few books and spirals stacked in his arms.
"So see any promising ones?" she asks curiously, her brows furrowed as she leans over towards Kenta. "I'm still trying to get teams organized. At least that will make some people like Reza and Toshio do their jobs." Maia whispers with a soft chuckle of amusement. "And the gods only know I don't want Kawichi taking his own initiative to form a team. That would be disastrous."
With his pack over his back, Shisei has set off towards the local Ninja Academy for some training. In the back of his mind though, the Uchiha boy is hoping that he'll catch a glimpse of that nice Jounin Diplomat he met while she was in Konoha. The boy strolls through the front gates of the Academy and begins to wander in, looking around at all the sights and attempting to take it all in at once. Soon he finds himself in at the door to a classroom filled with young ninjas-in-training. Of course, being only 6 years old he's still the smallest chibi-nin in the room. As he looks through all the people in attendance, Shisei spots Maia. For a few moments he doesn't say anything, just smiling brightly in the Jounin's direction.
Kenta smiles at that, "But it'd be amusing to see it self destruct. With all the talk flying around about him, no one would want to be on his team." He glances around at the students, "Well, I can't tell by just sight along, Maia-sensei. But…" he reaches over the books he's carrying and picks up the first spiral note book, "This has the recent ethics and diplomacy scores from several of the students. A few were bright and had high scores but the rest…not so much."
Taking the grading ledger, Maia does a quick scan as she purses her lips as she hrmms for a few moments. "Yeah, but some of them who did well didn't score very well on the basic ninjutsu, genjutsu or taijutsu exams." she replies with a bit of a nose scrunch. "Oh well, I'm horrible at taijutsu. We'll watch them then. can you point them out?" she asks before she looks around once more and spies a familiar chibi-nin.
There's a bit of blinking as she scratches the back of her head. Shouldn't he be miles away as she starts to head over towards him. "What… are you doing here?" she asks in surprise. "How did you get here?"
Shisei continues to grin brightly as Maia looks over to him, and he tries to respond to her questions, "I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. There was a thing… with a couple of guys I can't talk about, and then the Hokage, and we went on a trip, and now I'm here." Obviously this undetailed account seems to make sense to the student, and he doesn't bother to fill in any more of the information. "Anyway, Hokage-sama said I should come and study with the Students here. I was hoping you might be teaching today!"
Kenta nods and looks at the list flipping the cover open, but then is stopped as Maia sounds surprised. He looks up, seeing who it is and is unimpressed with the boy. But does pick up hokage so this kid might be someone important. "Hello…" he says in a plesent voice then looks over at Maia, "…I think there's room in a class or two if you don't want to teach him."
GAME: Save complete.
"He's a student from Konoha. I didn't think the Hokage would've brought someone." she admits ruefully as she scratches the back of her head. It's only then that she remembers hearing about the Konoha missing-nin that might be in the area and her eyes widen. "A couple of guys… hey, you said you have an older brother. What's his name?" she asks curiously, nose scrunching as she decides to just see if he has any connection to the missing-nin.
"And I don't mind. Or why don't you teach him Kenta. Your skill in ninjutsu is on par with most chuunin. Besides, getting some teaching experience would be good."
Shisei's eyes flicker back and forth between the Chuunin and Jounin, and he doesn't offer any thoughts on where he should be placed, class-wise. However when Maia asks him a question, Shisei quickly realises that she must already know something about the situation, and decides to answer honestly. "My older brother is Uchiha Satoru," the Student replies, a look of shame very briefly passing over his face before melting into his facade, "Anyway, if we could learn some Ninjutsu that'd be great! Or whatever the rest of the class is learning today, I guess." It'd been a long time since the boy had actually been enthusiastic about class-work. What's going on?
Kenta's grin drops, "Me? I don't know…." he ponders the idea, "…I guess I could teach him a few things." Seeing the sadness on the face of Shisei he bolsters his confidence for the young one, "It'll depend on what you know, always work off what you've learned in the past as a base for the future." Not that Kenta would follow that, he's all over the board in his skills. He moves the books to a nearby bench and says, "Ok, so tell me what you've learned at Konoha for starters."
"He's an Uchiha with fire affinity." Maia tells Kenta as she lets out a bright smile towards the younger boy, trying to reassure the chibi-nin. "Remember, you form your chakra and your element in your belly!" she says with a fistpump, patting her stomch as she just watches for now, leting Kenta take over for the lesson. Meanwhile, she looks back towards the other students just sparring on the mats.
Having already learnt a fair few fire techniques, Shisei takes Maia's advice with a patronising nod. By now he knows it full-well, but he's here to learn not to try and show up the teachers. For once. "So, most of my techniques are about my Fire Element," the Uchiha explains, quickly giving a run-down on the types of offensive and defensive techniques he's learned. "I've also learnt the Replacement and Clone techniques, but that's really about it. When we met in Konoha, Maia-sensei started teaching me how to walk up trees and walls, but I've been really busy and haven't managed to finish learning it yet," he continues, putting his hands into his pockets as he speaks. He's aware that some of the students in the class are beginning to turn and face him… it happens often when older students realise how good he is with Ninjutsu.
Kenta hurms a bit after hearing the list then says, "I got it. It's not a fire technique, but it's something that could be useful." He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a wad of what looks like rolled peices of paper. He pulls one out of the roll and holds it out. "Explosive tag. Ever use them?"
There we go! For now, Maia just watches Kenta do the teaching thing. The academy needed more teachers afterall, and thus she just crossed her arms over her chest before noticing the other students looking towards the chibi-nin from Konoha. "Keep on practicing! Don't want to let the chibis overtake you afterall!" she says with a wry grin.
When Maia tells the other students to keep practising or they might get overtaken, a little voice in the back of Shisei's head says, 'Too late.' He doesn't dare say it out loud though. The boy returns his attention to Kenta who's talking about Explosive Tags. "I've seen them before, but I've never used them myself," he explains, "I don't even really know how tags and seals work, to be honest." He gives a little shrug that's supposed to say, 'Do I really need to learn that? I have my own jutsu already.' Once again though, he doesn't fight against the instructions of the Kumo teacher-nin.
Kenta smiles and shows a bit of paitence, "Well, tags are scrolls with speical writing on them. You move a little chakra into them, toss them someway. And they explode a few seconds later. You can also set them to explode after a time period or as traps. They're a very versatile tool that every ninja worth their salt should know. If you're low on chakra, they is as good as any fire technique you could muster." He also adds, "Not sure about seals though, Maia-sensei uses them, I think?"
"Fuinjutsu? Yes, I do use them." she says with a bright smile as she looks towards both Kenta and Shisei for a few moments. Maia nosescrunches as she heads towards one of the practice dummies in the middle of the room while calling the other chibi-nin over. "Okay guys! It's time for ninjutsu practice!" The little kid wasn't going to be the only one with nin afterall. The students of Kumogakure were strong as well.
There's a silght grunt as the kanji for each element appears on her fingertips before she places it on the chest of the practice dummy and soon the markings glow with the different colors for the elements. "Today's lesson is in fuinjutsu. For those of you who have attended my lectures, who can tell me what fuinjutsu is?"
There's a happy squeal from the back! It's a little boy with glasses starting to fall on the bridge of his nose. He's around seven or eight years old. One of those with excellent technical skills in the exams. "They're techniques that can stop objects, living beings, or even chakra when the proper seal is made over them!" he chirps cheerily.
"That's correct! This is a rather simple one. It's one that I had developed when I was a genin. So go ahead and start using your elemental ninjutsu. If you can destroy the practice dummy, I'll buy everyone here ramen!" she says.
With that, the students start trying their techniques. There's small sprays of water. Little zaps of lightning. And other things! Still, the seal just sucks them up like a vacuum leaving the dummy unharmed.
"That…" Maia replies, as she heads back towards Kenta and Shisei. "Is the power of fuinjutsu. Don't take it lightly. You can even drain someone's chakra from them with but a touch using it." she whispers with a waggle of her brows.
GAME: Save complete.
Shisei raises his eyebrows at the display of power and explanation of the possibilities of seals. "Wow, that's a pretty cool jutsu!" Shisei exclaims as he watches the students try their techniques against the dummy. None of them are using jutsu as powerful as the Uchiha's higher level stuff, but the boy can remember the effect when he'd used his Great Fireball Technique against the same seal placed on a scroll just weeks earlier. Or to be more specific, the lack of effect. "So that'd probably come in handy in all kinds of situations," Shisei thinks out loud, and looks over to Maia, "Someday I'm going to have to make sure you teach me that trick!" A cheeky grin spreads across his face as he makes the statement.
Kenta watches the display and is impressed, now if only he could do something like that. Like water dragon bullet or something like that. But he can do the wave, so that's just as good if only a c-rank. He looks at the explosive tag and tucks it back into his coat as Shisei is distracted with Maia's display of skill. It's just as well, Kenta would rather keep his skills semi-secret until he needs them. "Anything else, I don't think I can help you, Shisei-kun. I do water style, mostly."
Oh noes! Maia didn't mean to show up her student. There's a little pout as she makes a motion towards Kenta. "Explosive tags are one of the most basic types of seals on chakra paper. If you can learn that from Kenta, you may be able to learn more advanced sealing techniques later on as the theory behind them is all the same. And pshaw. Elemental chakra manipulation is similar for most of the elements. I know my own affinity, but I don't actually know how to use it, so you're ahead of me in that respect, Kenta. I think you'd make an apt teacher for our little chibi-nin here."
Putting his deductive powers to good use, Shisei frowns and asks Maia, "But it looks like you're mostly a Ninjutsu-type. Do you really not use an Elemental Manipulation?" After a few moments of thought, he adds another question on to the end, "Does that mean you only use seals, or do you have some other type of technique?" It didn't make sense to the boy that a ninja would only use Seals when the world of Elemental Ninjutsu was available to them.
When Maia encourages him to learn the basics of Seal Ninjutsu from Kenta, Shisei nods and grins toward her, "Ok, but I'm still going to make sure that you teach me how to do that Sealing Technique someday." He finishes the statement with a curt nod, and turns back toward Kenta as if to say, 'I'm ready to learn!'
Kenta smiles and feels a little better now. "Thanks…" and he pulls out the explosive tag as well as a few blanks and ink wells. Kenta's coat holds many things. He sets them down on a nearby table and says, "First things first, practice." He lays out a blank tag on the table, dips a brush into an ink well, and draws out the many lines and scribbles needed for an explosive tag. It's almost robotic in a way Kenta's doing this, as if he's committed it to memory exactly where everything should go instead of knowing the theory of seals. But it does work. "Ok, now take a blank…" he taps the pile of empty pages, "..and a brush and copy this." he gestures to the newly completed explosive tag.
"I use ninjutsu and genjutsu, but I don't use any of the five elemental natures." Maia explains as she hrmms, scrunching up her nose as she thinks for a few moments, trying to figure out how to explain it to a youngin, or at least a youngin not familiar with Kumogakure techniques. "Your Nara clan doesn't use elemental techniques. They use shadow based ninjutsu, I'm kind of like that!" That should hopefully make sense.
Still, she motions towards Kenta. "Pay attention now if you want to learn it. Explosive tags are important and can save your butt at times."
Shisei glances over to Maia, and then Kenta before asking, "What? That's all there is to it?" Immediately he takes a seat at the table and pulls over one of the blank tags. Using a brush dipped in the ink, he begins to copy the seal that Kenta is drawing, being careful to copy the strokes in the correct order and style. After a minute or two of working, with his tongue occasionally poking out the side of his mouth as he concentrates especially hard, the Uchiha produces a tag that he thinks looks passably like the tag that Kenta has finished drawing. As he finishes his tag he says over his shoulder, "Oh, so you're part of a clan like the Nara clan, Maia-sensei?" Then he holds up his copy of the explosive tag for examination and asks, "Ok, so how's this look? Did I get it right?"
Kenta looks over the tag and sees that it's exactly the same. "Good, good." He looks around for something to use on the tag, but seeing none he says, "We've got to test it." He reaches into his coat and pulls out a small container of water. He pours it onto the ground and makes a hand sign. The water surges to life and lifts up forming a copy of Kenta. He gestures to the water clone to move away from anyone and it goes so. "Go over, put your tag on the clone, and put a little chakra into the tag. You know how to use chakra, right?" Maybe he should have asked that first?
"That would be correct. One of the few Jounin of the Yamayuki Clan here." she says matter of factly as she scrunches her nose and just continues to watch. It was passable enough. Now the question was, would it make a big boom or just a little chibi one? So she waits and crosses her arms over her chest.
for a moment Shisei almost feels insulted, and he feels like biting back a sarcastic answer towards Kenta - 'Of course I know how to use Chakra! I know Fire Ninjutsu don't I?' He holds his tongue instead and eventually replies, "Yes," as he walks over to the water clone and places the explosive tag on it. Just before he removes his hand, the Uchiha lets chakra flow from his fingertips into the tag. He leaps back several feet from the clone and waits. After a few seconds there is a sizeable bang that knocks over several chairs and leaves some small scorch marks on the floor, as well as blowing papers of desks and leaving behind a cloud of black smoke. "Woo!" Shisei yells as the explosion goes off, destroying the water clone quite spectacularly. With the room now looking to be in quite a bit of disarray, Shisei notes, "Ok, I think I like that technique!"
Kenta, by this time, is hiding behind the table. He just had a feeling and it was correct. Thankfully, the clone was made of water and any fires that were started are only smoldering. Kenta helps those along by hitting them with a few small jets of water from his mouth. "Good job! my first one exploded like that too." he says finally. "Now, copy the first explosive tag until you can do it from memory, Then you'll be ready. Obvously, you can't make those in the middle of battle, so be sure you have at least five or maybe more with you at all times." He looks over at Maia, "DId I forget anything, Maia-sensei?"
Splat! Maia didn't exactly cower at the explosion. Instead, there was just droplets of water from the clone over her form, though she didn't look drenched. The water just slid down over a seemingly invisible barrier just a few inches from her skin while she formed a variant of the bird seal. Letting go of the seal, the water just drops as she nods. "Just one thing, Kenta. Don't ever have them explode indoors." she replies with a hearty laugh.
