Mastering The Foundation

[Ōtakemaru]

If anyone wanted to make it big in life…

Then they would have to leave others behind. They would likely have to step over others – figuratively, at least. It might not look pretty upon that dawned time, but it was the way of life… if you asked Take’s mother. A battle-hardened Nanjirou, indifferent towards the idea of a sword meant to heal others. Take hadn’t told her about his wishes, but… he knew her better than anyone. He could imagine the scoffs of disapproval from her-

What? You wanna abandon your blood and its right over you? You’re a Nanjirou – and you will draw blood until your last breath. Do you understand?

Or something like that. It was the sole reason for why he stuck to himself for such long periods of time- take today as an example. Back at the fields of Konohagakure’s Academy, weightened by his own delusions of incompetence. He wanted to remaster the basics, but at the same time, shame prevented him from approaching the other Academy Students… so he kept to himself, distanced from the open area and nearby the shrubbery.

Take knew that he possessed the Fire Chakra Nature. That was his, uh, bread and butter – channeling fire through his katana and cutting things… but Shusuke possessed more than one or two. The others did so as well. Shishiwakamaru… Akio… he felt so far left behind. It tore him apart. Clawed at his face, bit at his throat. It made him feel sick to his stomach, agonizing, tormenting-

He had to change. He had to get stronger… he would hold everyone back at this rate, just as always.

If he could only awaken a second Chakra Nature… he put his trust on that. Forming the Tiger seal, sitting down in a cross-legged position. Taking a deep breath, until the sound of a bell threw him into the deep abyss that was his inner psyche. A place no mortal should ever find themselves in.

WC: 329 [MFT]

 

[Yume Izanami]

Mitsuha got out of her first ever class starting as an academy student. It was a lot to take in, to be honest. She was only good with manipulating her bones, but even then, she can't form it for long, ie for battles and such. She would see another kid outside training with a sword and fire. It was cool, but... well she was awkward, so she merely went ahead and done her own thing at a respectable distance from the other kid, only trying to form an exo skeleton around her hands. She figured that she might be better for up close and personal types of fights. She had time and the butler won't be here to pick her up till some time later. She can waste some time here. And besides, even though she is an introvert, she'd rather learn all that she can rather than be cooped up in her mansion.

After a few minutes, her bones would move out of her hand and around it. She would then punch a training dummy, only leaving a scuff mark on it. She looked down at her hand as the bone weapon that enveloped her hands were turned to dust. She let out a sigh. She's got big shoes to fill if she wants to outshine her mother and father. They were both something amazing in the world of non-chakra type people. She wants to be both a ninja and... well... she doesn't know what else, to be honest. She just knows she wants her name to be out there for the world to remember.

 

[Ōtakemaru]

Oh no… there was another kid out here. Most were still practicing stuff and reading homework indoors, but one of the Academy Students had walked out to practice on the training dummies with her bare hands. Take was still at a distance and couldn’t exactly see what she was practicing, but it looked like basic Taijutsu at first glance.

… W-Why was she out here? Weren’t her classes undergoing right now – were they having a break? Was she watching him? No, it didn’t appear so… good. But her presence was a little pressuring. She was an Academy Student, right? And he was a Genin… did she expect him to be here? Would she think that he was awkward for returning to Academy grounds, like some sort of loser? Like a boy who was so inept that he’d have to recess to the basics?

What if… what if he could convince her that he wasn’t that inept? That he could be a cool Genin too, just like back when he was sparring with the other Genin? Like when he was sparring with Shusuke, Shi, and Akio… but would that come off as too imposing? Too nosey? Would he come off as some sort of braggart? He didn’t want to brag, he just… didn’t want to embarrass himself. Word got out quickly around here, and the last thing he wanted was to be made a fool of and invoke his parents’ anger even further.

“… Hi,” he greeted, now standing upright next to the training dummies where the bright-haired Academy Student was. His expression was oddly serene but sprayed with anxiety. “Are you… practicing something? If you need help, maybe… maybe I can…”

WC: 281 [MFT]

 

[Yume Izanami]

As she trained, she felt almost as if someone was watching her. Looking over her shoulder, she would see a boy a little older than her staring at her. She turned back at the dummy, trying not to be weirded out by the fact that she had a creeper staring at her. Again, she would try and form a set of bone gauntlets around her hands, this time, came a little bit easier, but... She felt a chill down her spine. Should she dare look? She did... The boy was closing the distance on her and she could feel her face turn beet red. Please don't talk to me. Please don't talk to me. She ran the thoughts through her head.

And then he was there. In front of her and started to talk to her. If her face wasn't red, it is now. "Um...." Was all she managed to say before running to the training dummy and burying her face in it. "No thanks. Just me and my ol' pal Dummy-sama. Me and people don't mix." She hoped that would be enough to get the boy to stop trying to talk to her.

She would un-bury her face but not look at Otakemaru in hopes that he had left her alone. She stared off in the dummy's direction, but more so at the ground as she formed another bone gauntlet around her hands and gave it a half hearted punch. Now that she was in this type of situation, she can't wait for her butler to come and pick her up from the academy so that she doesn't have to deal with more human interactions.

 

[Ōtakemaru]

She looked like his very presence was terrifying to her. He really did meddle in affairs that had nothing to do with him, and it resulted in a simple Academy Student like her to feel so much unease. Stupid Take… stupid, stupid Take…

Was he scary to her? Was he interrupting her precious training time? Why did he even decide to interrupt her, then? How cruel could he be?

It was lucky of him that the other Academy Students hadn’t gone out just yet, otherwise the entire scenario might’ve come off as intrusive. They would’ve definitely attacked him, called him names, and thrown him out for being a creepy, useless failure…

Kids were scary.

Even while the girl was half-heartedly punching the dummy, Take was… doing the same face-first into the dummy and hugging it tightly as she did before. He desperately hid his face away from the world and from her, even beginning to… sob a little. His choking, quiet voice echoing out once in a while with words:

“S-Sorry… I-I’m sorry… s-so sorry…”

He didn’t even check out her Jutsu… the way she punched the dummy launched such cracking sounds that didn’t appear to be her fists dislocating. Given her size, maybe she was amplifying her punches with something, but it wasn’t as if Take was in any position to clarify such assumptions right now. Right now, he just wanted to try his best to recollect himself…

… But he was getting nowhere. He just kept apologizing to her, until tears began to dampen the training dummy he clung to.

WC: 262 [MFT]

 

[Yume Izanami]

Welp. Mitsuha had found herself in a very awkward position. Whilst she doesn't like to be around people, she now finds herself by someone that is now bawling into her training dummy. She doesn't even know what really to do. The young Kaguya stood off to the side awkwardly, wondering what she should do. Her shyness was eventually ruled out by kind of wanting to help the boy out.

The problem is... well... What should she even do if someone is sad? Her dad would tell her jokes every now and then. That's going to be a nope for her since her societal skills are on par with a dumpster fire. Coming from a rich family, there were very few things that were given to her that would calm her down, manga being the biggest thing for her.

She ruffled through her bag, until she had found one of her old manga, signed by the author and then she said, "Um... Here? I already have so much other manga."

 

[Ōtakemaru]

His hulking did manage to come to a halt… for a brief second. Then it returned, but quieter… even when he was at his emotional bottom, he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. It’d only make things worse, in the end… please don’t make fun of him. Please don’t hate him. Please don’t expect anything from him, other than trying to cope with his inner demons. He had no inner demons – only himself. He was his own demon, in the end…

… Was that… a book? It looked thick – she must’ve been very much into novels like those. She referred to it as a ‘manga’, however – a term that Take had not met before, which thereby left him turning his teared face slowly towards it. “A… manga…?” he quietly asked, “You must… read a lot of books. You’re so smart… I-I don’t know, are you sure?”

It was still her possession, but… could he accept it? Could he? Could he really?

She did say that she had so much other manga… so upon taking a deep, sharp breath, he rested his hands on the sides of the book to gently pick it up. Further inspection of the manga revealed to him that it was full of images, as if he was watching a flipbook story. So that was why it had so many pages…

Upon going through the pages… his eyes widened up. It was a very interesting story being told, although it felt a little in medias res – maybe because it was a random volume. “It’s… really pretty. Who wrote this?” he asked, noticing the signing on the front with the author’s name, “T-There are more like these?”

WC: 278 [MFT]

 

[Yume Izanami]

You must be so smart... The girl blinked. That was the first ever compliment she has ever really gotten. She never gotten a compliment from a stranger before. She stared at him blankly, not sure how to really respond. But she stood in awkward silence as the boy seemed to be entranced by reading the contents.

When the question came about if there were more. "Um... Well, yeah. He is one of the lesser known authors, but I really find this whole manga series quite fascinating!"

And just like that, the girl was on rapid fire mode. Yes, she is shy, but get her talking on a certain subject that she likes and she will talk your ear off. "The manga is about this one girl that basically is doing everything for her friends and family. Most of them don't really mind, but they also kind of don't care. It wasn't until the girl died when all of her family and friends realized what they had lost that day. Most of them honor the girls wish by doing what she did, help strangers and others. But there were a few people that went down a dark path that sought revenge for her death. The ones that wanted to help people out, became well known and nearly famous, whereas the ones that went down the revenge path, found her killers, who were part of a big corporation. But after they had took down the corporation, they still felt empty and lived all kind of poor lives." She spoke so fast that some of her words probably blurred together.

 

[Ōtakemaru]

Woah! There was more! Then Take was alright with borrowing this one… the story had caught him. Captivated him in the matter of seconds – that was rare for any literature work! And the main story that she explained sounded… broad. Yet focused around a singular character with a heart of gold whose death shook her entire family to the point of a giant split – those who followed her example bathed in the light of success, but those who followed the shadows of those who murdered her… they met their goals, and their grim fates lurked just around the corner of that.

Mitsuha’s explanation was fast, but Take kept track of it. A surprisingly good listener, that one. “I can understand… if one of my family members were killed-“ With a quick flash hovering over what appeared to be a silhouette of his parents, only to blur and melt the shadows into each other to reveal a maiden with ash-grey hair, “-then I’d…” What a grim topic, revenge. Did he have it in him to seek revenge?

Depends… if anything happened to Yuki, he’d… he’d break.

Sitting down and leaning against the training dummy, Take read through the manga with widened eyes filled with a rare phenomenon – sparkles. At first, the sparkles revealed the joy of starting the story with the girl helping everyone she knew, but… then it happened. She was found dead, and Take’s sparkles faded. He was sad.

But some of the girl’s family members moved on and honored her. Sparkles returned to his eyes, but they soon faded away with the topic of revenge echoing in the heads of other members. Revenge… or redemption.

Such heavy topics… wait, the manga ended? It was only the first volume, so it made sense…

“I-I’d like to read this. Is it… okay if… if I borrow this? It’s yours, it’s your book, you can have it back…”

WC: 317