[Yamamoto Shosuke]

In one's life as a Shinobi, there would occasionally be things that stuck with someone. The sight of a particularly gruesome murder scene, an attack against a particularly strong opponent, the crazed look in someone's eyes that spoke to the true abyss of humanity.

Among them, the involuntary scream of pain that had ripped itself out of Sho's throat was likely to be one that haunted the other Yamamotos for quite some time.

As much as Eri had advised against it after the fact, Sho couldn't help but feel that her warning had been entirely too late. If he had known, he might have acted differently. Or at least wait until nightfall to leave the mountain. Or... or something.

Though, in truth, he could scarcely hold it against her. It wasn't like he always gave perfect advice, and she had been good enough to bring him to the hospital in his blinded state so that was nice.

Either way, Eri probably hadn't expected to hear from Sho for a while after the incident. She had likely thought that he would be cooped up in the hospital for a few months, or (if he was being entirely uncharitable) perhaps he thought she would have written him out of the elections with his injuries.

If she had thought that? Well, she would have been surprised by the request that he had sent via the elder who had come to see him in the hospital bed.

He wanted to meet her.

---

A wooden bench stood outside of the Kumogakure village hospital, somewhere for people to sit whilst waiting for outpatients, or for chronic patients to get to experience some of the outside world before returning to their hospital room. Mountain birds flocked around it, with the local area peppered with small amounts of food to lure them in and give the people sitting on said bench something to look at to brighten their view and hopefully their mood.

Sho, in his current state, was unable to take advantage of the sight of them. For, in truth, he was unable to see them at all. His head was still wrapped in its bandages, several layers of clean linen wrapped around his face like a blindfold, in an attempt to protect and let his eyes heal from their injuries.

Even so, Sho could feel them. He could feel every peck they laid against the ground, every time their little feet walked across the earth, every piece of food that was snatched up by their greedy beaks and swallowed whole.

More than that, Sho could feel people in the hospital behind him, and those wandering the streets. He couldn't see their faces, didn't know whether they were looking at him or not, but he knew they were passing by. He could feel it, sure as if he was touching them himself.

It was a strange sensation. If he hadn't been deprived of one of his senses in exchange, the sensation might have driven him mad. It was like being itchy all the time, or having bugs crawl over your skin. It was errant and uncontrollable, an awareness he couldn't shake, like seeing through his eyelids.

That was why he had called for Eri.

If anyone knew how to sharpen and hone this thing, it would be the person who gave it to him.

557 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-rank EXP: 1/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

It was almost exactly to be expected that he would have gone to the standard hospital, rather than be treated by the clan. Shosuke and his mother had always lived on the outer edge of the Yamamoto, the woman unwilling to bring them deeper into the mountain, and while the clan respected her wishes, Eri couldn't help but think this whole situation was because of that darn stubborness and unwillingness to fully integrate. Shosuke wouldn't have undergone the ritual now if his mother had been willing to move further into the clan's territory and taken part in their traditions.

Still, it wasn't particularly surprising for him to have called for her. None of the other clan members would teach him this, it was her responsibility as his selected mentor. And it didn't seem to her that he would be the sort to sit by and heal normally, so that meant that his request fit pretty much perfectly within her expectations.

Touching down after completing a shunshin, the small girl was able to detect him easily enough. She was proficient with the clan's tremorsense enough to identify individuals by their heartbeats within her range, and his had a very specific rhythm, even if it was faster than usual with what felt like agitation, anxiety, and perhaps a bit of self-pity.

As she approached the young man, she almost wanted to ask if he was always that dumb, but that felt far to undiplomatic for the current situation, so instead she sat down next to him and stared out over the grounds, picking up on the movements of all those around her without having to think much about it.

"So, you're ready to keep moving forward? Even with your eyes currently on medical leave?" she asked. The words from another might have seemed insulting, but from Eri they just came out matter of factly. She wasn't judging him, not really, this was put forward as a genuine question.

Word Count: 326
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 1/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

Eri was right, Shosuke's mother was far from the trusting type. Maybe if she had been born into the Yamamoto she might have been more inclined to bring Shosuke more into the fold of the clan. Yet, it was her origins that had scared her away from it.

Thrown out of her own clan for getting pregnant at 16, forced to subsist on her own for months only to be eventually rescued by the Yamamoto from being borderline homeless... She would never forget their kindness, but it had cultivated an independent streak and an obsession with self-reliance that had carried her this far.

It seemed that whilst she appreciated everything the Yamamoto had done by bringing her into their network, she still believed that the only people she could truly count on were herself and her beloved son. Though, Sho wondered, how would she react if she knew the true specifics of what happened at his Chuunin Exams?

She had invested so much into him becoming a Shinobi, would she be okay with him throwing it all away for the sake of his morals?

---

When Eri arrived, his head almost instinctively turned to look at her. Even if his eyes were sightless, it was like he was acting as if they were still there. It would be a habit that would be hard to unlearn, but perhaps that would come with time. Though, as she spoke, there was a clear sincerity and seriousness to the way that he responded, there was no way that she could mistake this for a joke or empty words.

"Do you earnestly think I have a choice?"

Normally, responding to a question with another question would seem annoying, irritating, but there was something deeper to the way that he spoke, to the way that he acknowledged the current situation.

"Even if I wanted to, there are things that I can't abandon, even just for long enough for my eyes to heal. There are people still in the hospital from the earthquakes, I still have to prove my loyalty to the Raikage, and..." he paused for a second, as if wondering how best to phrase this. It was a moment of contemplation, as if considering every angle, before speaking forthrightly.

"Eri, I am not going to just let you become the Clan Head. If I lose to you? I can accept that, as long as it is the genuine wish of our family. But I will not surrender before the finishing line, and I will not allow myself to look weak in front of them, even blinded like this. They have given us both too much for either of us not to give our all right back.

So, to answer your question? Yes, I'm ready to train again. Even if it puts me right back into the hospital."

477 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP: 2/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Eri sighed slightly at the response, shaking her head for a moment before her resolve solidified. "Well, I gave an oath to see you reach the level you should be at for your age and capabilities, so I'm not going to leave you to it now," she stated quietly, hand drifting slightly towards her holster, "though I need to know, how clear is your sight right now?" she asked. Using the words to cover the sounds of her movement, Eri struck out at a speed that she knew he could respond to, a kunai in her grasp heading towards the other Yamamoto's throat.

The weapon would stop well before striking him, but she did want to see if he could detect it, feel through the ground what her body was doing. Was he able to subconsciously 'see', or was even that currently closed to him? She needed to know where to begin so she could begin the task to build him up to a level that was acceptable in her eyes, the clan's eyes, and even his own. A task that was perhaps more important with his current vision issues taking into account.

"I'm not letting you become the heir either, because I promised I would try," she stated, moving the kunai back into place and getting to her feet, pale skin pressed against the dark ground as she looked around the area with both her eyes and her tremorsense.

"Still, let's begin"

Word Count: 243
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 2/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

'The level he should be at his age'? Well, that stung. Still, she was right, so he simply nodded, glad that she was reliable. Eri really was an incredible person - She had been given the task of looking after and tutoring him in the ways of the clan despite the fact that they were competing against each other for the position of Head of the clan. Even so, she did her job admirably and even being here now was a sign of her quality as a person.

"Depends what you mean - My eyes? Blind as a bat unfortunately, and even if they weren't, these wrappings are air-tight. I can't see anything through it at all. Doctor Jokyu says that I need to keep them on at all times to let my retina heal."

It was as he was speaking that he felt the air around him shift. He still didn't know how he knew what was going on, but his hand shot up, drawing a kunai of his own and using it to block the incoming strike.

It seemed a little delayed, if she had been moving at full speed he would have had no chance to sense and interpret it before the strike landed, but it seemed the skill was there enough to have at least some idea of what was going on.

"As for the blindsight? It's... well, not great. I can't control it; it's always on, it feels like seeing without being able to close your eyelids. It's not very far at the moment, I can sense people about a room away from me at most, but anyone who gets too close..."

Sho involuntarily shuddered, remembering the sensation when he had first had people bring him into the hospital room. So many people moving around him all at once, all so erratic and stressed out, all of their heartbeats moving at such an elevated pace.

It felt like bugs crawling over his body, like fireworks going off next to his ears, like staring directly into the sun. It was only his own limited range in the ability that was stopping him from being constantly overstimulated.

"How do kids deal with this? It feels like my skin is itching all the time, but scratching does nothing to relieve the pressure. It's only my training acting under pressure that keeps me from freaking out every time something surprises me. If I was their age, I'd be going insane!"

409 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-Rank EXP: 3/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Shaking her head slightly, the orange-haired girl didn't say anything for a moment. Really, while she was certainly concerned for her clanmate, his actual eyesight wasn't her area of concern right this moment. He'd either recover or he wouldn't, blindness in the eyes wasn't really something most Yamamoto were bothered about, as they were very capable even without that particular sense.

"I'm surprised the nurses let you keep a kunai," she stated in a wry tone as she pulled her own away from him, somewhat pleased that he seemed to have at least been able to respond to that half-hearted attack, "as for how the kids deal with it... they generally don't know any different. Do it young as you're meant to, and it's just another sense you get used to once you pop into self-awareness as a functional child instead of a mess-making machine. Particularly sensitive kids will keep their skin off the ground, or wear normal shoes and full body covering when they need a break, but the worst of it is over by the time they're old enough to complain more than any other child," she shrugged slightly, wondering if his body was reacting differently to things and he wasn't disconnected by removing his bare skin from the earth.

That could be both a blessing and a curse, and if it was happening to him right now it was probably closer to the latter.

"For some sense of scale, right now I can feel everything out to about 200 meters from here. If I focus hard enough, I can reach out a kilometer away. It's a lot, but you work your way up to it. Right now, your goal would be a 'visual' limit of about 20 meters from yourself, up to 100" she explained, "that's the baseline for your currently capabilities. So, reach out, try to tell me what you can see and where, it might be tricky, but I'll figure out how well you're doing from it." 

Word Count: 332
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 3/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

Despite his condition, he couldn't stop himself from letting a small, playful smile across his face as she mentioned that she was surprised that the nurses would allow him to keep a kunai. It was the face of a cat that had gotten the cream, of someone who knew a joke that the other person didn't get.

"They didn't - They confiscated all my equipment when they brought me in." He said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Yet, before she could begin to wonder where he got it from if that was the case, he added. "I got gramps to smuggle it in for me. He might be a doctor, but I told him I wasn't about to stop training just cos I lost my eyesight. Though, it's not particularly sharp..."

As if demonstrating the point, he lifted the kunai so it was leaning straight up before bringing his hand down on it with force. With a normal kunai, this simple act would have driven the blade through his hand, piercing through the flesh muscle and bone until it came out the other side. Yet, instead, it didn't seem to do anything at all, no matter how hard he pushed.

"If we were actually fighting? I'm pretty sure I'd be completely screwed."

Though, she raised a good point. Since he had been brought into the hospital, he had been kept in thin, flimsy clothing or in surgical gowns. None of them offered even basic protection from the ground, and the only part of his body that was covered with bandages was his eyes, meaning almost his entire skin was bared to the open air. If what she said was correct, then maybe that was part of the whole problem.

"I guess it makes sense; I have the ability to tell the difference between before and after the awakening. I can tell what would be normal for most people, and I can tell what I feel in this moment and the sheer dissonance between those two sensations.

Maybe in time, I will forget what it was like before this, but that wouldn't be for a long time, if at all."

He sighed for a moment, the earlier smile curdling and turning into a dispassionate grimace. Even so, as she requested that he try and test out the limit of what he was capable of, he considered it for a moment. Even though he couldn't see through his eyes anyway, he felt himself almost instinctually closing them, his mind tapping into the latent sensations that were all around him.

"I can feel... people running around nearby.

In a nearby tree, a small bird just landed in its nest. There are five chicks. One of them is a cuckoo, but the mother is feeding it nonetheless. Inside the hospital, I think a nurse just injected a patient with something. Probably painkillers.

I can also tell that you're worried about me. At least, that's what I'd conclude from your heartbeat right now, though I must confess I'm not used to the reading technique the family uses."

506 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-rank EXP: 4/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Looking over at the young man, Eri took in the clothes he was wearing with a slight frown, "I'll see about getting something more substantial to wear for the sensitivity," she said after a moment, figuring 'clan issues' made for a pretty solid excuse for stepping on any health worker's toes by giving him different clothing. 

As Shosuke started to list out what it was he was picking up, Eri tried to match his descriptions to her own sense of the world, the orange haired teen was able to figure out what he meant, though she couldn't help but be surprised by the sheer level of detail he was already picking up. She had expected his 'vision' to be much fuzzier at first, but perhaps his damaged eyesight was forcing him into a more focused use of the tremorsense. His mention of her emotion was also a bit of a surprise, it wasn't an easy thing to be able to pick up on people's feelings based on their natural vibrations, Eri herself would say she could only get vague ideas based on obvious cues such as highly rapid heartbeats.

"Your range might not be where it needs to be, but your close detail is pretty much at the right standard. I suppose that means we need to focus on getting your range up more than worrying too much about detail. The running isn't much further than the tree with the birds, but it seems you can't pick up on the people doing the running, or what they're doing," she explained.

It was four children kicking a hacky sack around, their footsteps light and joyful as they played near the hospital. One of them was weaker than the rest, probably a patient, but their little bird-like heart was beating steadily and strongly. It was a good sensation.

"From what I've read, sensor-nin sorta focus their chakra outward into a bubble to pick up chakra signatures, but that's not what we do. The chakra is focused inwards, towards the feet, to try and enhance our sensitivity. It won't be fun, not until you build up a tough layer on your feet to remove the feelings of pain, but you will need to push through it," Eri explained, thinking on how to next guide him into building his skill with this ability while he was still stuck in the hospital. It would be relatively slow going, that was for sure.

"I know it might be a cold comfort, but despite everything, you lived," she said after a few moments of contemplation, "all the records I found said that people too old died... and died badly. You didn't, and that's something."

Word Count: 447
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 4/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

It was possible that she was right, that this was just some relation to the fact that one of his senses had been stripped away and so he was being forced to lean on another. However, it could not be ignored that Shosuke was somewhat of a savant when it came to chakra control.

He had earned a doctor's license before he was even a fully grown adult, and he wielded Mokuton, something nobody else in the history of his family had shown. Maybe this was just more proof of the propaganda of those old bastards, maybe he was some sort of "gift from the mountain".

As for the emotion, it was possible that it was simply due to the fact that Eri wasn't exactly a social manipulator. From what little he knew of her, and from what little of her he had seen, she had a tendency to wear her heart on her shirt. That might be far easier to detect than someone who was far colder, more rational. Had he known about her perspective, maybe he would have wondered about Azarea.

Or, at the end of the day, maybe this was just due to the fact that he had achieved this as an adult, whereas most people his age who even tried went mad and died.

Whatever the case, the fact remained that he was having a different experience than most.

"Getting the range up... it's already pretty nauseating with as far as I can see, but I guess you're right. Exposure therapy does work marvels after all, and maybe I just need to get used to it."

There was a certain calmness with the way that he talked, suggesting a level of growing self-control. Sho had never been one for emotional outbursts outside of the rare moment of overthinking or panicking, but even so he seemed remarkably able to compose himself given the nature of the concern at hand.

"If its just pain, I don't really have to concern myself with it." Sho admitted, a little awkwardly. "That's not the problem. I've dealt with pain, I've got stamina to spare, I've gone days without sleeping back when I first studied medicine. Anything to keep up with the rest of the family. It's just...."

He paused for a second, looking for the right word. It didn't come willingly, and he wasn't sure it was the right one at all, but it would suffice.

"... nerves. I'm concerned. You said it yourself - I'm the first person to survive this as an adult. What if there's some complication we don't know about? What if my eye-sight was the price I paid for this regardless of exposure to sunlight?

I don't even remember what happened after the ritual all that well, though that might be from reflexive shock and trauma. If pain is certain, then I can handle pain. It's the uncertainty that concerns me."

482 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Eri found herself shrugging slightly at the other's question, "if you've lost your eyesight then you make this work for you until it's replaces it. On many missions I have been on, I have fought in zero visibility. Our clan regularly utilises nothing more than our sense to navigate the underground. There's probably a few members who haven't used their eyes in years. You may be scared of what has happened, but out of all the side effects you could have experienced, a lack of sight is perhaps the best negative side-effect you could hope for." 

Blind fighting was standard training for the Yamamoto, and one of their greatest defences was the fact that their home was only properly accessible through a myriad of pitch black tunnels that had never seen the touch of light.

"Feeling sorry for yourself, or hesitant, will get you nowhere. Through training, you'll be as effective without your eyes as you were with them, moreso. Your eyesight returning will only be a slight bonus to the whole situation," she stated, fiddling slightly with her gear before withdrawing a number of shuriken. "Here, lets work on your range a bit more, I want you to feel for the impact of the shuriken, and tell me how many I have thrown."

With that, she'd flick her wrist, sending the shuriken out in a varying arc, landing at different points along the line of her expectation for Shosuke's ideal range. She'd tossed five, but only three were within what she estimated to be his current range.

Word Count: 258
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 5/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

Quite the brutal response to his concerns... For someone he knew had a tendency to hide inside a puppet because of her own social anxieties, he couldn't help but feel she was not being very empathetic. He figured if anyone would understand this roiling feeling of uncertainty and discomfort, it would be her. Well, he guessed he had judged her wrong on this one.

"Sorry for myself?" Sho asked, his head turning in her direction as if he was looking at her even through the bandages.

Body language alone told her that was not the best thing she could have said in this situation. Her blindsense would be able to tell her how his heartbeat had just sped up, a clear sign of irritation, before slowing back down. A sense of self-control and understanding, the usual repression of his feelings that he was used to.

"I'm not sad, Eri. Not for myself, at least. If you legitimately think that's the case then I wonder what you think about me in general. But no, I'm not concerned for myself, but for the village.

I have a duty to the people of this village, to the Yamamoto clan specifically - They spent all that time training me, educating me, and I haven't paid that back yet.

You remember the village we saved from the earthquake a few months back? I can't help but feel like I didn't do enough; Yes, I saved every life that was placed in front of me, but you know as well as I do that a great deal of people didn't make it out of that village.

Then there's the utter failure of my Chuunin Exams, humiliating our village in front of the whole world..."

His hands were fiddling with his clothes, clearly uncomfortable and looking for something to do with them. It was hard to speak about this, even to a member of his kin. But other than Atagi, this was the first time he had been wholly honest about his feelings that had been bottled up for quite a while.

"Until I recover, the doctors have said that I am unable to help in any capacity whatsoever. I can't even act as a nurse or check in on patients or fetch supplies or do..." his hands seemed to shoot out, gesturing dramatically

"... anything. If I'm a permanent vulnerability, if there's no guarantee that there won't be some surprise in the future, how am I supposed to help others? How can anyone trust themselves into my care?"

Thankfully, it seemed she gave him some form of minor distraction, a test of his abilities. Yet, it was a strange one to say the least; she asked him about the kunai she had thrown, but her method itself was flawed. Yes, he could only see three kunai impaled into the ground, but in the moment before they landed he could feel all five of them being loosed from her hand.

"Five. You threw five of them. Though for the life of me I can't feel two of them, they've left my circumference."

515 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-rank EXP: 6/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

The orange haired chuunin frowned slightly, frustration pooling in her as it seemed that Shosuke was taking everything she said in exactly the wrong way. Instead of the encouragement and guidance she had tried to give him, he seemed to take it as a personal attack instead. She was sure it was an equal part between her own social inadequacies and his current mindset that led to such a miscommunication, but it was a source of irritation nonetheless.

She contemplated responding to the majority of his words, but all she could think of would probably be misinterpreted further and she'd rather not dig that hole deeper. Instead she focused on the little 'test' she had tried to give him. His answer was one that she had expected, but she would have thought he might have seen for himself what it told them about his current condition.

"You say you cannot do anything, yet sitting there with a blindfold, you were able to pick up on the number of shuriken in my hand even before they were thrown, within a second of being told to even look for them. Even with eyes, that would have been difficult to detect until they were already airbourne," she stated, hoping that maybe this time her words would hit in the right way, instead of being twisted into something they weren't meant to be.

"You might not have the range you need yet, but you clearly have sensitivity enough for fine detail. If at this point you're able to see so closely, there's no reason why you couldn't be an active shinobi. How many other medics can detect cardiovascular status without even touching their patient? With fine enough control, and maybe something to increase vibrations, you could probably map a whole body." She paused here, trying to think of what else she could do to make her point, to help him work through his current situation.

"There are things you can do even like this that would help people, if the way is barred, break through it," she said finally, not really sure her words would get through to him, but willing to try anyway. It seemed his biggest barrier to improvement right now was mentality. And Eri... well, she wasn't exactly the best at pep talks, but she was genuinely trying.

Word Count: 387
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 6/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

Though it was unseen and frankly completely useless as the eyes behind them were currently worthless, Sho blinked instinctively. Wait, was him being able to see them in her hand somehow not normal?

It was difficult to understand what was and wasn't normal considering the fact that he only had his own experiences to work off of. But when he saw, there was no time delay. There was no pause, it wasn't like he was scanning the environment it was like the environment was already there in his head.

Though, he supposed, that was how it felt when one saw too. It wasn't like one could visualize the lag mentally.

For the first time, Sho didn't really have an answer immediately. He sat there, looking into nothingness, his mind racing with the possibilities. If his "visual" acuity truly was accelerated in this state, then what did that offer him on a larger scale? How was he supposed to process that information? Obviously he shouldn't be practicing on patients whilst unprepared but if he could see faster than other doctors then he could react faster, he could stop problems before they started.

He had been so worried about being a vulnerability that he hadn't even considered himself as an asset. Cos now that he had the vision, it wasn't going to go away. At times in the last few days he had hoped that it would, especially when he tried to sleep, but it was here to stay. If that was the case, then shouldn't he be working with it rather than against it?

For the first time, Sho had to consider that maybe, just maybe, she was right. That this was a blessing rather than a curse. But if that was the case, then how was he supposed to proceed from here? If he was supposed to move forwards with this ability rather than worrying about it, how did one hone it?

The entire concept was a little ludicrous. He was considering how to hone his senses, but how did one hone eyes? It wasn't like he was an Uchiha or one of those clans with Dojutsu, you couldn't train eyes the same way one would a jutsu. But obviously they could improve, he was certain that his eyes were weaker than Eri's. But then how did you cause them to take the next step, how did one stimulate growth?

"You're... genuinely amazing, do you know that?" Sho asked, in a tone that suggested not polite encouragement but actual genuine revelation. It was a quiet moment, but one of fortitude nonetheless.

"I'm... sorry, for what its worth. You're right. I'm so scared of what could go wrong, of letting more people down, of not helping everyone that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth.

But what do I do from here? How do I convince people to give me a chance to try and make things better? If even I am unsure of what I'm capable of with these then how can someone who doesn't even understand it at all be expected to deal with them?"

508 words | Yamamoto Eri

SPOILER: Click to show

D-rank EXP: 7/8
Jutsus Used: None

[Yamamoto Eri]

Yamamoto Eri

Blinking slightly at the change in attitude, Eri tried to grasp exactly what it was she had said to finally get through to him. It wasn't really possible, she was...bad at human interaction to say the least. At least when she was Eri, Genbu-san managed it well enough for reasons that she never really thought about or could articulate. This was more real, more raw, and she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Still...

"Fuck 'em" she said bluntly, and were he able to see her expression Shosuke would see her look of surprise at her own crudeness. She hadn't meant to say that but... well, it was accurate. "We live in a world where people can be made of electricity, or stone, or grow extra limbs and spit fire out their nostrils. The only way to 'convince' people is to do it, competence is its own explanation and you're not going to let something like this bring you down to mere competence. And if any one thinks less of you because you're using different senses than them, fuck 'em. They'll need to adapt, or they're not worth the time"

It was kind of hard to help Shosuke with this, because to Eri a lot of it was completely natural, having developed the sense so young that she couldn't remember being without it. Not to mention helping him with his mental health because of the side effects. But she was good at not caring about how others perceived her, and she hoped to maybe pass that on to him now while he was feeling so constricted by other's views.

Word Count: 271
Tags: Yamamoto Shosuke
Training Post 7/8

[Yamamoto Shosuke]

It wasn't like Sho wasn't used to people being blunt and crass, he was a doctor after all. He had seen people scream their head off and use every swear word under the sun, even some ones in languages he didn't even speak. Even so, there was something different about the way that she spoke in that moment.

Perhaps simply because she was right, as absurd as it was to spell it out in quite so bold a way.

".... You know, when you say it like that, you almost make our world sound positively stupid."

There was a small note of humor in the way that he spoke, acknowledging the patent absurdity of her argument. Even so, she was right, and the ones that she had mentioned weren't even the weirdest. His best friend summoned plagues of insects, his other companion had a nearly infinite well of energy in their soul, and even just the random peasantry of the village were able to throw around fire and rock as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"But I have to say... for someone who's so confident in telling other people to get over themselves, isn't that a bit... hypocritical? I mean, I'm blind Eri, not deaf. I've heard the stories about you just as sure as everyone else, about you using your puppet like a kotatsu, hiding from people inside the confines of your own weapons to avoid social connection."

If he was being honest, he wondered if they'd even be able to speak face to face were it not for the nature in which they were first introduced. Despite ostensibly being on the same team, they had never actually done any jobs together, and everything they had done had been clan related. Would she have been able to be this open and transparent without having the clan to hold onto?

"Don't take me wrong, you're right. I think I just needed help seeing that, but... Try and take your own advice, yeah? You're amazing Eri, you're strong and powerful and insightful. Not to mention beautiful." The irony of a blind man saying that was not lost on him, but even so. "Maybe take off the puppet getup once in a while? Just a thought."

With that, Sho went quiet, focusing instead on trying to sense the world around him. If he was going to take her advice, he would have to get stronger, even if only in small ways.

413 words | Yamamoto Eri

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D-Rank EXP 8/8
Jutsus Used: None