[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 252
OOC Note(s):

@

---

It'd been a dog's age since Yuki had stopped to think about anything but the funeral, her grandparents... everything else had been background noise for ages now. She'd been arranging for their care, cleaning up the living spaces, spending time with them with that lingering fear that maybe this was the last time she'd see them, too. She hated feeling controlled by that fear, but it was... deep.

Now, though, she was back in Iwa, sitting on the roof of the hostel she was staying in, with a scroll laid out in front of her. The scroll didn't have anything sealed into it, it was just instructions- ones she had put off studying for long enough.

Staring at the scroll's instructions, she mumbled to herself a bit. "Okay, so... Boar... Dog... Bird... Monkey... Ram. OH, wait. Blood first. Then Boar-Dog-Bird-Monkey-Ram. Almost ended with monkey. Heheh. Woulda been too perfect, I guess," she muttered to herself. "Ugh. Hate hand seals. My hands have better things to do! Like hold stuff! What chump thought this was the way to do things." She grumbled quietly, reaching down towards her brace of Swallows. She paused, though, looking around the rooftop for a moment, thinking to herself before she started. "... wait, how big was Kaen again..?"

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 252
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Yuki still remembered how imposing it was to meet the Sage animals for the first time. She hadn't met with all of them, of course- most had much better things to do than meet with some squirt of an apprentice that might petrify themselves before proving themselves to be worth a damn to the village or the clan of summons. Still, even the smallest of their number, Kaen, had been imposing with her oversized weapon and dark coat.

Was it really a good idea to summon her onto a rooftop? What if she was too chonky for the structure?

Thinking to herself for a moment, Yuki sighed and rolled the scroll back up before packing it away and clambering down into the village streets, heading for the empty, open cliffside behind the Okada gym. It was a familiar place, and a safe one, that was neither in a crowded area nor structurally unsound. She wasn't sure what Kaen would consider a respectful summoning locale. This one was proper enough to Yuki's mind, but she also hadn't seen any of the gorillas in a while. What if she offended them? That'd be frustrating to everyone. Maybe she should get them snacks? Bananas?

... or would that be racist?

Specist?!

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 268
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Yuki grumbled and went digging into her backpack for a moment, looking for a small book she'd been gifted by her grandparents when they heard about her selection for serving the village in such a direct capacity. She spent a few moments hunched over the book- all about gorillas, as it happened to be- and muttered to herself as she pored over the section on diet slowly. She wasn't the best reader. "Uhhh... stems... what, like herbs? Okay. Leaves... bugs... shoots? Like bamboo shoots? They have menma in ramen... hm. Okay. That should work."

Clapping the book closed, Yuki shoved it back in her pack and ran back down to town, heading for the nearest ramen shop.

"Yeah, hello! Thanks, uh. I want a bowl of- hm. Miso ramen. But like. Can you hold the noodles? I need like... a lot of menma, and you can just throw in whatever fresh greens you have, too. And I'll take the egg and chashu and fish cake on the side! Thank you!" She waited patiently, whistling off-tune to herself while she waited. She handed over the payment from her dwindling supply of personal funds, and poured the soup into her own bowl before she headed back to the rocky clearing above and behind the Okada gym, snacking on the chashu and egg on the way!

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 245
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Armed with what she hoped was an appropriate thanks for coming all the way out to respond to her summons- presuming she could get it to work, anyway- Yuki set down the bowl of gorilla-customized ramen and unrolled the scroll between herself and the snack. "Back to work! Boar. Dog. Mon-wait. No, Boar. Dog. BIRD. Monkey. Ram." She spoke as she pushed herself through the seals, by far one of her least favorite ninja disciplines. One by one, she formed the five seals, focusing just on the form, on the execution, not pressing her chakra into service, not yet. One, two, three, four, five. Again.

Yuki checked the scroll repeatedly, confirming she was still performing them in the proper series. She tossed her head briefly, throwing her bangs off her forehead with a huff. That meant it was about time for the hard part. Actually performing a new jutsu.

What if she messed it up? Would it not work? Would she end up with some unaffiliated monke? What if Kaen didn't even remember her? She probably wouldn't. They'd met once, and that was months ago. Well... that wouldn't be so bad. Plus she had ramen, so. She'd probably remember now!

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 279
OOC Note(s):

@

---

"Boar! Dog! Bird! Monkey! Ram! HA!"

Slap.

Nothing.

"... WHAT?!" Yuki stared at her palm where she'd slapped it on the ground. There was no gorilla, that was for sure. But she also hadn't lost her chakra. What had she done wrong? "Did I do that in the wrong order?" Yuki muttered, scratching her head. "There's only four steps. Blood, seals, chakra, sla-"

SLAP. Yuki's palm found her forehead, noisily.

"BLOOD. I forgot one of the four freaking steps! Stupid handseals. Got so stressed over those I missed a basic goddam step," Yuki muttered to herself, lowering her hand to prick the end of her hand on one of her Swallows. She squeezed her fist after, coaxing a few drops of the blood to leak down into her palm before starting the seals all over again.

"Boar! Dog! Bird! Monkey! RAM!!!" Yuki lifted her hand high, and slammed it down onto the bare stone beyond the scroll, recoiling in faint surprise at the popping sound and the gush of smoke or cloud that erupted out when the technique completed successfully! "Aw, finally! I was starting to get super frustrated with... this... technique?"

Yuki blinked at the apparently open air in front of her. There was no Kaen. No spear-wielding gorilla. In fact, right up until she heard the faint clatter of the bowl at her side, she didn't think there was a gorilla at all!

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 241
OOC Note(s):

@

---

The first thing Yuki noticed was the sound of slurping. Loud, shameless, eager slurping, and she looked down towards the bowl, where the sounds were originating. The bowl was almost on its side, tilted drastically upwards and pouring straight down the gulping gullet of something on the other side of the large bowl. She could see dark, thick-knuckled hands- what looked like four of them- around the edge of the bowl, controlling it as the bamboo shoots, leafage, and broth slurped right down the throat of whoever had the bowl.

And then the bowl clattered down and she got her first look at the scamp behind it!



"... you're not Kaen."

The tiny gorilla flopped onto his back, his tummy round with pilfered soup and slurped-up veggies!

"Nope! And you're not Midori-sama, so. Guess that makes us even, huh?"

"EVEN HOW?! You stole my soup! Or- well. It was for Kaen. I didn't know if she'd remember me."

"Welp! She did! And she was too busy to come hang out! It's been months! You only showed up once and didn't bother to write or drop by! It's rude, you know!"

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 275
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Yuki frowned, immediately caught between her desperate want to be accepted and her still raw hurt from the absence's cause. "I- look. Ya ain't wrong, okay? I woulda loved to've stuck around. But see, I had this family-"

She'd meant to go on to say "family thing", but her mind caught on that sentence as it was. 'Had this family.' Now she didn't. She sorta did. Her grandparents still cared. But she was more taking care of them than vice versa.

It was different to not have anyone around to take care of her at all anymore.

"... I. Didn't. Leave cause I wanted to. I lost my ma. So I went home to... y'know.

Take care'a things."

Things were quiet for a moment.

Until the little gorilla belched.

"Uh... oops. Sorry. That's- super sad. I kinda get it. Midori-sama retired, so. I don't really get to see her anymore. I know it's not the same but."

Yuki nodded a little. "But ya miss'er too. I get it. That's fair. I'm Yuki, by the way. What's your name?" Still somber. Trying to push past it, though.

"Jugo. S'a pleasure." He rolled over with a grunt and ambled over to offer a hand to shake, which Yuki accepted. "Kaen-chan really is busy. I made up the part about her not wanting to see you cuz you didn't write. It's just been boring."

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 255
OOC Note(s):

@

---

"I understand boring. I get bored a lot. I use'ta do a lotta grunt work around town just'a keep busy, ya know? I guess I ain't really gonna do the same sorta stuff now that I'm workin' with the Sage, huh?" Yuki laced her hands behind her head and pondered that idea a bit. "What all is that gonna entail, anyhow? I didn't really get to do much after getting my primer on the Kuchinose no Jutsu and signing the contract."

Jugo ambled over and sat at Yuki's feet, prompting her to sit too, folding down the same way the little gorilla did. "Well. Depends. You gotta learn how to be a sage first. And the crux of being a sage is being able to embody the balance between the natural world and the human world."

Yuki sat in silence for a moment and then... blinked, owlish. Confused. "Scuse me, what? Embody whozit whannow?"

Jugo romped over to the edge of the cliffside, overlooking the village below. "Look down there. You see the village? All the humans living here?"

Yuki followed, crawling the couple paces rather than standing up. "Yeah, sure."

"And you see how they've completely redid the world to do so, right?"

"Well, yeah. S'what we're best at."

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 252
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Jugo snorted. "That and killing things. Humans are really good at killing all sorts of stuff. There aren't many animals that kill for fun, but you guys top the list."

"Ow."

"Hey, it's true. My point is that there's a contrast. You got the world as an end, and the world as a means to another end. Those two things aren't really in alignment. The natural world exists as it is. Change happens, but in the long scale, it doesn't, not really. Everything is... uh. There's a word for "happens because the nature of things makes it happen" but I don't remember it. But that's how everything works. There's not really any animals that go "hey, we don't like this dumb mountain so we'll grind it to dust so we can get to market easier." Change happens because small things happen to cause it, change isn't a goal in and of itself."

Yuki nodded. She was following pretty easily. "Okay, that all makes sense."

"So that's what Sages are- a balance. Think about what human chakra does."

She tried, frowning hard. "... I don't follow."

"Human chakra is change."

That made sense enough. "Oh, right. We use chakra to make changes. To create, or summon, or improve, etcetera."

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 253
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Jugo nodded. "Yeah, well, natural energy isn't change. It's the opposite. Natural energy is ancient and orderly. It's not something generated by a person to burn up like tinder. Natural energy is more like... a lump of coal, burning slowly. Changes creating energy instead of energy creating changes. Sages bridge that gap, bring it into balance, and use that power to... well, do whatever the Sage in question thinks is right."

Yuki stared blankly. "How do you mingle two opposing things? If you've got change creating energy, and energy creating change, aren't they just gonna cancel out?"

Jugo ambled over and completely ignored Yuki's personal space, climbing onto her back, her shoulder. "No, no. It's like clapping. Either hand has force, sure, but by bringing them together, you create something entirely new. There's only a problem if you can't balance the two."

Yuki thought about that for a moment. "So how do you balance them?"

"No idea."

Yuki squawked! "Whaddya MEAN you don't know?!"

"I mean I dunno. It's not something I struggle with. I'm not a sage. I'm a gorilla!"

"Fat lotta help you are."

"I'll be a lot more helpful once you actually figure out how to manage that balance! I helped Midori-sama all the time!"

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!

[Nanashi Yuki]

[Word Count]: 277
OOC Note(s):

@

---

Yuki huffed and shook her head forwards, catching Jugo as he grunted and tumbled towards her lap. "I take it I gotta ask Midori-sama for help with that, huh?"

"Hm? Oh, no, she retired. You gotta ask the NEW Sage now."

The dark-haired genin gawked abruptly. "RETIRED?! She was gonna teach me how to be a Sage though! How's she just gonna nope out and retire?!"

Jugo shrugged, crossing one tiny leg over the other. "No idea, kiddo. I was as shocked as you were. She's taking care of her family, is all. I get that. But yeah. That's the deal. Come back to the complex and ask the new Sage to teach you. You're already signed on, so it'd be pretty irresponsible not to take you on. Maybe you'll even get along."

"Uuuuuuuuuugh," Yuki groaned, flopping backwards. "Okay, so when should I-"

POOF

Yuki sat up and stared at the cloud of smoke disappearing from her lap. Apparently someone had called Jugo off someplace else. Maybe home for dinner.

Right on cue, her stomach rumbled.

"Ugh. I'm hungry, anyway. I'll just start over after I get some food. And a workout." She rubbed at her temples, sighing hard. "I really don't like having to show up and beg to be taught but... I dunno what else to do. Guess I'll just have to swallow my pride.

After a nice work-out, anyhow!"

---

[IC COMBAT INFORMATION]

[Skills/Traits In-Usage]:
▣ | Passive | Relentless Resources (Enchanced Ch. Reserves)
▣ | Passive | Spider Monkey (Enchanced Speed)
[Items Worn[Passively]]: ▣ None
[Items used]: ▣ None
[Sennin Mōdō [Rotation]]:0 ▣ | [Deactive]
[Techniques Executed]:

Template "Borrowed" From Jian!