That's A Dumb Idea

Starring:

Meimei (as Yoko), Imota, Kichiro, Kazuo

Date: January 6, 2011

Summary:

Enjoying the early evening in Suna, Kazuo meets Yoko who's upset about work. As they converse, Imota and Kichiro come to interrupt and then talk about lynching and training.


"That's A Dumb Idea"

Village Center - Sunagakure

The day draws on, afternoon slowly fading to oblivion as the sun sinks down towards the horizon. The sky is lit vibrant orange and yellow; in some places there's even a little red. The village center is crowded with people running errands for last minute meal preparations or people stopping at one of the many stands that sell food. The little ramen shop down the way is rather crowded with shinobi who love the place. There's a lot of raucous laughter coming from within.
Even though that Ramen shop is owned by his parents, Kazuo will never venture there. He likes Ramen, to be sure, but he hates his parents with a fiery passion. So, he walks right on past it, making his way through the crowds of people, standing rather taller than a great many of those that occupy the village center. He doesn't seem to have anywhere in particular in mind, he's just wandering.
When he comes across a small bench with a wooden overhang, he stops and looks it at a moment, then leaps up onto the overhang where he slowly settles himself into a seated position. Tucking his legs beneath him, he looks over the crowds that walk past. A few small children notice him, yell at him, wave, and move on. He does nothing in return except watch them. One hand fiddles idly with the chain he wears around his middle, the other rests on his knee, and he sits otherwise unmoving, but plainly within sight.

Meimei, in her guise as 'Hibiki Yoko', tries to approach things in a logical manner. However, she feels that sometimes a situation is best remedied with the application of laser swords. "We live in the desert," 'Yoko' had total the School Administration Department. "Yes," they'd replied. "The DESERT," she had repeated with more emphasis. "Yes, that is true," they had confirmed. "So… WHY exactly are we taking a 'winter break' from school?" she had asked. "Terrain does not have an impact on our scheduling of seasonal breaks." "Yeah, but GEOGRAPHY does, and so does CULTURE. When it's winter over in the Land of Lightning it is not winter here in the Land of Wind. Time differentials, you know? Further, winter having a break attached to it is a Konohagakure thing, and has not been picked up or made part of most other cultures or countries." "We don't follow you." "I'm saying that implementing a new 'seasonal break' when, according to my research, such has never existed in Sunagakure before now is simply ridiculous. These kids need to be learning!" "And what about the families, huh? Don't they need time with their children!?" "…Their families see them every day. They ALL LIVE HERE IN SUNAGAKURE." "Well--" "You just want paid vacation, don't you?" "Where did you find the records of our past breaks? We have no such records." "Don't change the subject! And I found them in the basement of the Academy." "Well, that--" "Inside of a pad-locked storage closet." "Umm--" "With a sign on the closet door that read, 'BEWAER OF TIGRE'." "…." "There was no tiger, just so you know." "It's traditional to have a winter break!" "No it's not! I just said it has never happened before!" "It's a NEW tradition!" "Bite me."
Yoko was dismissed from the room before she could make her point about the lack of qualified Genin that Sunagakure has available.
Now she is stalking around the center of the Village, her diminutive height doing nothing to make her feel better about the situation. "Aww, look at that little girl pouting! She's so cuuuuute! Hahahaha!" a local jerk coos at Yoko. She walks up to him, grabs him by the front of his shirt, and pulls him down to eye-level. "I want you to think about something. I want you to think, 'Do I REALLY wanna piss off someone who doesn't have to kneel down to punch me in the nuts?'" "Eep." "Didn't think so." She lets go of him and goes back on her way.

Witness to this spectacle of the little girl and the local idiot is none other than Kazuo, who happens to be sitting right above and to the side of where this is going on. The Chuunin watches it with an air of detachment, as if he didn't really care about what was going on, though inside he couldn't help but laugh a bit because it was rather funny when you thought about it. The woman wasn't exactly tall, after all. One hard swing and he was down for the count. He'd be sure to try not to piss her off in the future.
"Someone's having a bad day," he calls to Yoko as she begins to move away from her encounter with the man. Despite the lack of an expression on his face, his voice gives rise to the fact that he isn't being mean, just making a note of things as they come about. "Though, the guy wasn't making it easy on himself, I suppose. Probably should have just gone ahead and hit him."

Yoko stops when she hears the first words from an unfamiliar voice and then begins to look for the source of it. The fact she is wearing tinted goggles is not that odd, considering the region and the amount of sunlight it gets. However, that she can find Kazuo so quickly with dimmed vision MAY be a very subtle indicator that she probably has excellent hearing to identify a single yell over all the other noise in the Village Center and track it back to him and possibly has enough training to recognize the body language of someone who is focused on her, as opposed to someone who just happens to be looking in her direction.
Good thing for Kazuo he adds on the rest about the guy being a doofus, or she might have taken his assessment -- expression or not -- as more mocking… And then the cutting would have begun. Instead she just says, "Yeah. Well, incase you don't remember, we had a bit of a siege here several months ago. Lots of people died. They had to rush-promote our Student class at the time to Genin in order to fill in the empty positions. Those 'Genin' are even now being given rapid advancement training to make up for all the skills they didn't have when they were 'promoted'. And I'm stuck training an entirely new class of Students from the beginning. And the Academy heads want to send the kids home for 'winter break'. While we still have less than half of the ninja we had before the siege."
She crosses her arms and says, "So, yeah, you could say I'm having a bad day."

"That's about the dumbest idea I've ever heard," Kazuo says after listening to Yoko speak about her ordeal. He continues to sit in his usual manner, which is calm and relaxed, and despite his words makes no facial expressions to accompany them. He really is a rather stoic person, after all. His voice, though, does give away that he agrees with her and that he's not mocking her. "We don't even have winter here. You'd think they could at least come up with a better name for it. Though, I wouldn't know what."
His blue eyes look the small woman over before he rises to his feet and jumps down to the ground to walk towards her. Clearly he is quite a bit taller than she is, though, when he looks down at her there's no negative glint in his eye. "Perhaps you could coordinate something with the children's parents to continue their training during this break? Maybe organize them into work sessions during the day time. Surely the school couldn't say no to you doing something outside of school time."

Yoko thinks over what Kazuo says. "Hmm… That's a good idea. I'll try talking to the parents. Not sure if they'll trust me, seeing as I'm technically not a citizen of Sunagakure, but if the Kazekage trusts me to teach his Village's kids, then they can't really do much, can they? I mean, what are they going to do? Lynch mob me!? Hahahahahaaa!"
Pause.
"No, seriously, are they known for lynching people?"

The conversation had not reached Imota's ears in this large center. He had been about the last of his deliveries for the Administrative dome, as a delivery for low priority messages and orders. This meant alot of movement along the village, from the borders of the outer gate, even to the outlying patrols and camps near of Ayaash Battle Cove. Being back to active duty was good for the Sasaki nin though one would never see the joy of such on his face. The lack of facial expression would be betrayed by the vigorous movement in travel even now, as he would appear before a nearby guard post, phasing into view fron his own Shunshin no Jutsu. Imota would bow to the guard at the posting, the same guard seeming to expect arrival. "On time as ever, Sasaki-san.", would be said with a smile.
This compliment, would only recieve a slow nod, before Imota would simply walk away. Looking to one of his three pouches, the boy would see it was empty. "Objective complete.", would be said rather robotically, as he would simply began walking, seeming to have no real direction.

Kazuo shrugs his shoulders and looks past Yoko for a few moments. "Not that I know of," he answers her, watching as people walk around the village center about them. People have to go out of their way to scoot around the two of them as they stand right in everyone's way. Kazuo doesn't seem to mind that, or care rather. He doesn't make any move to get out of anyone's way, seemingly intent on making them move for him.
"If you need some weight to your request, I could help out. Wouldn't bother me to help the students out a bit," he says as he tilts his head a bit to watch her. "After all, I was once in that academy myself. Caused a lot of trouble there. Couldn't hurt to make up a bit for that."

Kichiro meanders casually into the village center. He pauses and stretches his long arms as he overlooks the market. He grins a big goofy grin and lowers himself into his odd, stooped stance again before strolling forward. He pauses, overhearing the conversation. "Ah.. don't worry… No lynching… no trees for it. Maybe pitchforks or stoning.. but no Lynching, so you have no worries." He grins a little after the tease before settling back, "How is the school going? Any troublemakers like me.. errr.. High spirited youngsters."

Yoko nods to Kazuo. "Well, good. And yeah, if you have any pull with the School Administration Department, or whoever else decides policy, that'd be great." Then Kichiro comes along. "…Great," she responds to his joke. "And yeah, there's a couple. One in particular seems to take each class time as an excuse to complain, tell others what to do, and try to redirect studies towards whatever half-baked idea she has of what ninja 'should be'."

"Considering the trouble I caused for them when I was younger, I doubt they would listen to me," Kazuo says to Yoko, tilting his head a bit. "But the student's parents may listen to me considering I've changed alot since I was younger." And about then Kichiro comes along and he turns his attention to the newcomer, remaining silent for the moment as his gaze drifts between him and Yoko for a moment or two before looking around the village center.

A familiar voice would seem to reach Imota's ears. It was one which a familiar sense of joking that he had grown quite accustomed to, and the person who owned often recieved Imota's correction. "The judicial system of Sunagakure does of exercise a system of execution by means of hanging, though previous records have shown other means. Also, on the contrary to Kichiro's… theories, there is no recorded event of rioting by the public at large in the few years for which this village has been established." Imota would come into view soon after, merely walking along, his precise gait being quite noticiable. He would bow to all that were present, finally noticing all who had been present.

Kichiro ahs. "the class boss. I don't know about that. I was just the class clown.. of course, that did teach many important ninja skills.. you know.. getting away with it." He takes a pose as if aiming with a rubber band, "I was a real sniper too" He scans slowly for targets, finding Imota, and launching his imaginary projectile. He grins, "there you go, ruining things with your 'facts' and your 'Logic' Bah!"

Yoko nods towards Kazuo and says, "Yeah. Well… Anything that can help." She then slips away while everyone is distracted either with Imota or the rest of the Village Center. She needs to track down and contact the parents of all these kids and convince them to allow continued training as 'extra-curricular activity'. She doubts she'll be paid for it, but money is the least of her worries right now. Funny how priorities change when kids are involved.

Kazuo almost doesn't even notice that Yoko is gone. When he does, he looks around a bit, but the diminutive woman has just plain disappeared in the crowd. Turnig his head away, he looks over towards Imota, then to Kichiro as the two speak up. His eyes drift between the two of them and then look off to the rest of the crowd. Either he's bored or he just doesn't have anything to add to what the two have said. Regardless, he doesn't say anything for the moment.

Kichiro's comments would seem to wash over Imota, not provoking any reaction. The boy simply learned that to try and counter Kichiro's silliness with sensibility would prove an exercise in futility, and wasted effort. He'd only seem to want to just tell the boy he should try and think more about training than joking around, but what would it do but to provoke more of the monkey nin's since of humor. Anyway, strange enough, Imota looked up only to see that Yoko, had no longer been there. Mysterious though the disappearance was, the small Sasaki payed no mind. He would look to Kazuo instead and say, "This nin seems to have interrupted more immediate conversation. Is this considered… 'rude'?"

Kichiro chuckles, "nah.. Besides, the conversations was preterupted prior to the interupting of your interuption." He pauses a moment as if going back over his own statement, trying to make sense of it. he shrugs, "Besides, it looked like she simply had things on her mind and went to deal with her own things. How have you been doing, Immy-san?" He offers a smile to Kazou as well.

"If you're referencing your interuption of the conversation, then not really," Kazuo says to Imota as he moves to clasp his hands behind his back while he regards the new arrival as well as Kichiro, all with a completely blank expression on his face. "She was a bit preoccupied with a situation at the school. Some… ill-thought plans on the part of the administration. Though, she should be able to handle it."

As odd as Kichiro was, his answer to Imota's question, made complete sense, even if the wording was found a bit redundant by the latter. "And yes, Kichiro san. Your answer was well understood.", nodding and speaking almost as if he had read the other genin's mind. Kazuo's further elaboration was accepted, and with that Imota only needed to answer Kichiro. "This nin has concluded his assigned task for today. As per objective two of todays scheduled task, this nin should now be enroute to the training grounds for an afternoon session."

Kichiro perks up, "ah, excellent, I'd love to come with you for some practices. We don't work together often enough, do we?" He looks to Kazou with a smile, "I'm sure she'll be fine. I've met a few of the kids. They seem like a good bunch." He looks to Imota, "so, whats up first on the roster for today's work out?"

Kazuo offers a small nod of his head to both Kichiro and Imota in turn. "I'm sure she will," he offers before giving one more glance between them. "Since you two seem intent on going to train, I think I'm going to go do a bit of research." He nods to them and then looks up at the nearby overhang. Jumping up to it, he lands lightly and then jumps up to another ledge and onward until he reaches the top of the building and moves off.

"Affirmative. This nin has not trained with Kichiro-san for several weeks." He would look to Kazuos words as he bid farewell, and bow, though he was still left with the question of who that man had been. He had seen him with Itami, however, no more thought had been put into the man's presence then. When he had gone, Imota would only say to Kichiro, "The development of technique, and some form of assessment of this nin's ability."

Kichiro nods, "developement of technique and assessment of this.. er" he points to Imota, "that nin's ability. this sounds like a good project for the day." He looks off the direction kazou left and the direction he thinks Yoko left before looking back to Imota. "This nin looks forward to hearing what that nins assessment of this nin is"

"Indeed.", would be the only thing that Imota could say to answer, though honestly, he hadn't really wanted to reply to the monkey nin's silliness more than he had to. However, he would seem to be very inviting to the boy he called friend. After all, without much of Kichiro's training, Imota would not be as physically fit as he now was, able to endure much more, and even use more chakra than in the past. Imota would however, not make sense of Kichiro's next statement at all. "…You wish for this nin to assess yourself, Kichiro-san? Or rather you wish to assess this nin?"

Kichiro chuckles, "ah.. the first one" He looks to Imota, seeming to act a little more serious. "I value your opinion and I know you have a sharp mind and can help me become a srtonger Nin. anyway.. lets get to the training area before someone catches on that I'm not completely imcompotent."

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