Shifting Sands [Haru]

[Suzuki Suzume]

The end of the school year brought about some decent calm to the campus. With classes being over the students mostly left early after getting their grades for the exam; this left only teachers and those students who stayed over for some reason or another.

Suzume was one of those students. She sat quietly in a shaded part of the sand fields, paper slip in hand and a surprisingly neutral look on her face. It was a strange look for her; no smile, her body was curled up defensively, and she just stared vacantly at some softly shifting sand in front of her. No, she hadn't been the only one to fail the exam this year, but to any regular person it'd still hurt even while knowing they weren't alone. For her? It was complicated. Her chest felt tight and her stomach felt queasy, leading to a lack of appetite; her head was foggy, but she didn't really get why.

"Up..." With that word, the sand in front of her moved and formed a small castle-shaped mound, mostly lacking detail aside from a couple of shallow window-shaped cuts on the sides. Her eyes drooped, and so did the castle return to a shapeless mound of sand. "I hope I don't get grounded for this." With a sigh, Suzume leaned back just as a soft patch of sand rose up to catch her head and lower it down until she was lying on the ground, limbs outstretched while staring up at the sky past the shade. She didn't really know how much longer she'd be able to stay inside the academy... but she wasn't really thinking too hard about it either. If it was anyone else, Suzume would likely just look as calm as could be...

 

[Sunaku Harupia]

Haru took in a deep breath, basking in the calm moment as the Academy was mostly empty by this point. As chaotic as the place was not much equaled the rucks of freshly graduated students. Of course, combining it with the more saded reactions of those who didn't quite make the cut was a thing on its own but for the most part in his class, he was quite glad to say most of the young Shinobi in training passed fairly well. Now they were taking one step further along this strange journey of theirs...just as exciting as it could be terrifying.

It was something he thought about quite often. They were essentially teaching the kids how to harness their physical and mental strength, and to prepare them to be essential to be protectors of the village and people through the deser.t..or soldiers for hire, depending which corner of the village he passed by in the evening. Being a Shinobi carried obvious implications but even without this training many of the students would develop their chakra naturally, especially if their family had some sort of power in their blood, so would just letting them try and grow without all this wouldn't cause more harm. All he could hope for is to guide them along the way, and make sure they both know they can count on the village to help them in need, and that they were prepared to protect it as well if need be...

He pondered through his thoughts as he was making his way out of the Academy after sorting some papers he passed by a curious view. A lone girl sitting on the ground, a sand castle forming in front of her before dissipating as she fell back to lie down. She did look calm but he spent enough time around these walls to suspect the calmness was far from a content one. It would help if he had a better recollection of her, but she wasn't part of his class. Seeing her manipulate sand made him feel it was a shame she wasnt...he knew a thing or two about that. Then again it wasn't his duty to hand pick who would be in his class. What surprised him the most was the fact he didn't recognize her at all... which probably meant she and her family weren't affiliated with his clan. After so many years it seemed almost weird to see someone bend sand outside of his family.

He weighed his options, and while he assumed a teacher is the last thing a bummed out kid wants to see on the last day int he Academy, he couldn't help himself from at least trying. As Suzume was lying down on the sand, after a brief moment should feel as if a mound of sand was rising and starting to rub against her hand. If she were to look she would see a small sand construct, formed into a shape of a kitten trying to nuzzle against her hand. while at this range it was quite obvious it wasn't a real thing, you could see quite a bit of detail on the form. It even didn't feel too rough and sandy to the touch. After a moment Harupia would approach, leaning down slightly to look at Suzume as he asked "Having a rough day huh?", a light kind smile on his lips.

MFT

 

[Suzuki Suzume]

Suzume was pretty out of it at this point. The sun in Suna was pretty strong, and she wasn't terribly used to it yet due to having spent most of her life underground. It was pretty... and warm. And it hurt her eyes when she stared at it. Suzume didn't really like doing that as a result.

But when she felt it warm the sand around her, it did feel nice... almost nice enough to make her want to take a long nap under it... but at that point, she felt something, and her eyes quickly blinked open to examine what it was.

"...kitty." she mouthed off mindlessly before noticing it was made of sand; albeit she didn't really have time to think about why that was, as she got approached by someone. Probably a teacher? Not that there were many other people around. "Rough?" Suzume tilted her head in mild confusion at the question. "I dunno. What does a rough day feel like? Is it weird and confusing?" Truthfully, she didn't really know why she asked. It wasn't that important of a question, but she still wanted an answer.

Then she sat up and looked properly at the cat. It was definitely made of sand, she could tell that much, but how was it made? Did this guy make it? Or was it just his pet? Questions swirled around in Suzume's mind, but for now her interest was in figuring out whether this day was 'rough' or not.

 

[Sunaku Harupia]

The sun was blazing down on them as it normally did...heh, that sounded weird to say, considering for most of his life seeing it shine down on you was not quite the obvious thing...still felt so bizarre to think they've been on the surface for a few years by now. It was almost by chance that the village managed to find a way to get rid of the Dimond Mealstorm... but they took it, and they made the best of it. It felt nice seeing someone enjoy it...

The young girl seemed surprised to some extent by his construct, but she didn't seem mad about the interruption. She seemed pretty calm, if confused by his question...though he could see a hint of deflation from how she looked before. He would sit down next to her while the cat perched in front of the two of them, rising its paw to its mouth as to "clean" itself. He sat in silence with her for a few moments before saying "That's a good question really. It can feel differently for different people. Someone can spend all day working so hard when he gets home he just topless on top of the bed. That's a rough day for sure, but at least you feel like you accomplished something" he mused, reaching his hand to pet the sand cat as he continued "You spend your time preparing for that one thing everyone keeps telling you is really important and in the end you just dont quite make it...and then you feel confused. What could have you done different, better? Are you gonna get another chance? Will everyone be mad at you..." he paused once again, poking the sand construct gently and in a second, it would crumble away into a pile of sand as he said.

He would turn to her with a soft smile and ask "Is it that why your feeling weird and confused or is something else bothering you? If you wanna talk about it of course...dont wanna bother you, but for me, it usually feels nice to talk about stuff bothering me..." He didn't want to be pushy but he couldn't step away from someone who seemed to need some help. Even if he wasn't quite sure what the help was.

MFT, WC- 381

 

[Suzuki Suzume]

Suzume stayed quiet for a while, just listening to the man's words as he described what he thought was a rough day. She didn't quite understand it... heck, there were lots of things she didn't understand, but as he continued on she started to look down at the ground and wave her hand. The sand under her finger started shifting, forming a very crude cat shape with a silly-looking face. She was still listening, but despite that she wanted to see if she could make the same thing as him. Once the cat crumbled into raw sand, though, she stopped.

"...kitty..." The student pouted, then looked up at the man. "That's kinda right, I think. I dunno..." With another wave of her fingers, the overly blobby and cutesy cat grew in size until she was able to pet it, but it didn't move at all like a normal cat. "They said I 'flunked' it... that's bad, right? I dunno what I did bad either." She was still a kid, but as far as understanding herself she was well below that too. Her heart felt tight and her stomach was heavy, but she wouldn't be able to say that. Nevertheless, Suzume looked up at sat properly with one leg over the other, as well as leaning back against a short wall of sand that lifted up as she let herself drop. She was comfortable, and wasn't at all opposed to the man's presence.

"How'd you make the kitty? Can you do the same things as me?" The student looked up at him expectantly, a twinkle in her eyes as her own cat moved its paws very much like a cheap toy. "Are you a teacher? I never had a teacher for this." From her jumping from question to question one after another, it would be easy to judge that Suzume had a short attention span... but that didn't really matter, she wanted answers for all of those questions, so she figured she'd ask them all.

 

[Sunaku Harupia]

He watched the girl make her own attempt at creating a figure from the sand. It was a lot more rudimentary than his own, almost seemed more like one of those plush toys you would see at the market. But she still seemed to have decent control over it, especially for someone who hadn't passed the examination. So the ability was there... maybe it just needed a bit more direction. As she replied to him he would say "Sorry if I made it sound a bit confusing... I like big words a bit too much". His face grew a bit more serious as she sat up before he says "well...it isn't really good Ill be honest. But thinking about it too much won't be helpful...now you need to think about not flunking it again" Moving forward from a failure was usually the best way to deal with it once you had the will to do so... something he knew all too well. But at least here he could help.

His face lit up as she asked all her questions, already seeing a bit more enthusiasm from her. He noticed the cat move like a toy a bit before he said "Yes, I am one of the teachers in the academy. Though I dont think I've been assigned your class. And this, what we're doing... Some teachers feel its a bit outside of what an Academy student should know...I imagine you were taught about the four elements we base our ninjutsu on... Water, Wind, Earth, Fire" as he spoke, he made quick hand seals, and with each element he performed a simple trick, water shooting from his fingers, a bit of a breeze blowing over the girls hair, a spark of flame in his fingers "Now, while it may seem similar, controlling sand is a lot more tricky than molding earth. You need to use the power of the wind to manipulate the tiny specks or rock and soil that makes up sand...that's why we call it an advanced element" he spoke making sure to keep eye contact with the girl as he said

"For most people, it takes quite a bit of practice to combine these two elements. But you seem to have a bit of expertise in it already... tell me, since when were you able to move sand like this?" he finally asked. Again, he doubted the girl was from any of the Sunaku families he knew. Wash she a daughter of some unaffiliated desert nomads? Or maybe the power of sand had just awakened in the girl's bloodline starting with her.

MFT

 

[Suzuki Suzume]

Big words? Suzume didn't think he had said anything THAT big. Most of them were easy and short to say, didn't take much effort either... maybe they were big because bigger people used them? That was a weird way of describing a word. She definitely understood one thing, though: flunking was bad, and not flunking was good, so she nodded in understanding to that.

"Yeah, they talked about those. They're like, easy to get too, wind's just air, water's water, earth's the ground and fire's hot..." Suzume said that, but when she tried to mimic the man in his display of the basic elements all that really happened was she just did some weird hand gestures and blew a bit of wind from her lips. Sand, though... sand came naturally to her. As he spoke, she turned her attention to the ground, using the words as a guide for what to look for. With the minimal movement of her body, a thin stream of sand rose up from the ground, spiraling haphazardly until it split to each of her fingers. "Tiny rocks... mm, I can feel them." She nodded, her eyes now properly glistening with newfound wonder. That said, Suzume didn't really get the 'advanced' part. If they called it that, that's what she'd call it too, but what did that word even mean...

"Mmh, my ojii-san said I always had it. Somethin' about soon... soon to bed..? No, that was early to bed, early to rise..." The sand stream collapsed as she pinched her chin. "Well, he said he didn't know why too so. I dunno." Suzume shrugged, she didn't really remember details well, but apparently was able to focus enough to learn a proverb. Prolly cuz it was repeated so often it stuck, or something.

"Hey, Sensei, what's your name?" Well it was a little late to be asking, but it hadn't caught her interest yet. "I'm Suzume. I dunno where it comes from but Suzuki too." She let herself drop to a sitting position, and a cushy sand pillow was there to catch her instinctively.

MFT

 

[Sunaku Harupia]

He was silent, listening to her talk about the elements as they were taught, and then her focusing on the ground again, conjuring another steady strand of sand. He could see that glint in her eye, the spark of wonder when something clicks. It seemed clear that she had the talent for sand manipulation in her blood, though it did surprise him slightly she seemed less apt in other forms of Ninjutsu. It could mean all sorts of things, though she didn't really seem like the lazy or unmotivated type. Perhaps a bit...unfocused. She mentioned her grandpa trying to explain her abilities to her, though it seemed he was just as surprised as anyone else...perhaps he would need to chat with him. And also her parents, though the fact her grandpa was the first family figure that came to her mind gave him a... grim suspicion as to their fate.

AS she spoke to him, he said with a chuckle "I guess I didn't introduce myself. I'm sorry, I kind of assume the kids from my classes keep complaining about me or something. My name is Harupia, Sunaku Harupia. Now listen, Suzume...I know it feels really bad the exam didn't go well now, but you have a talent here. One that some people can't really grasp for a long time...but maybe that's also why you having a bit of difficulty" he said with a brief pause before holding both of his hands up, a solid mound of earth in one, and in the other you could see a gust of wind seemingly swirling around as he said "When I said advanced element, what it means is that we need to combine two of those easy elements together...like here, you use the wind, and blow the solid earth into particles of sand..." and as he spoke, the wind blew from one hand to the other, creating a small whirlwind of sand

"Now I can see you know how to move the sand on instinct, like me. But It can be a difficult thing to control, so by focusing on it you may have had trouble grasping the simpler stuff...like, if instead of gradually going into deeper water, you tried jumping head first into a deep pond" he mused, trying to come up with an understandable idea before saying "You probably are gonna be asked to either repeat the year or take a more focused remedial session...would you like me to teach you a bit? I know a lot about sand and other Jutsu, so I think I should know all the things you'd need to learn" he finished his offer with a wide smile. He had a hunch this girl would do just fine with a more concentrated effort, and he had quite a bit of time to do the slight pushing forward.

MFT