[taneda risa]

THE SECRET IS NOT TO DREAM

Risa was thinking of quitting the academy. Dad wouldn’t mind, she knew that. Mom would be pleased. Kyouka-sensei would be disappointed—or worse than disappointed, she would be angry—or worse than angry, she would discard Risa entirely, relegating her to the weak, the fish food, the bloody pulp that chummed the waters when it was time for the predators to feed. Ikana-senpai had been so kind to her, though, and seemed to really think that she could do… something. Accomplish something. Anything. An-chan too, who had offered her a hand in kindness even while Risa was gushing snot all down the front of her own shirt. And she’d been studying for so long already, it seemed like a waste to throw all that effort away… She didn’t know what to do. Risa doodled in the margins of her notebook as classes droned on for the day: little sharks picked up from the waves by baited hooks, decapitated and seasoned and thrown on a grill. They had X’s for eyes and their toothy grins smiled at the scarce lines of notes that she jotted down from time to time, something about the principle goals of sealing and summoning and why space-time ninjutsu was so far beyond most shinobi’s skillset. They had a guest teacher for the day, a jounin who was a fuinjutsu expert. He looked familiar in the way that a lot of the Ama clan uncles looked familiar, in that she didn’t have a single clue what his given name was but knew that her mother expected her to greet him politely and ask how his day was going. But he was not an Ama, right? He had an unfamiliar family name… While Risa puzzled over this, she half-listened to her normal instructor lecture about the history of Kirigakure’s navy, and she squinted at the jounin, and she doodled an angler fish leading a small shark away to safer waters. When the class let out, Risa took a long time to pack up her single notebook, and when most of the other students had filed out of the class Risa creeped up and loitered nervously in the jounin’s periphery before she remembered the first of Ikana-senpai’s three rules: to be brave. "Excuse me,” she said softly, "Sensei? I wanted to, um… ask you more about the Suiryu Ryodan.” Which was not what she had intended to say, but at least it was something.

Uzumaki Ichigoni -- 401

LAIKA OF THQ

[Uzumaki Ichigoni]

[googlefont=Crimson Text]

くたばれ
The blood of the Ama ran through his veins, but like many men he was practically estranged from his kin. No true ostracism perhaps, but he lived outside of their world. No matter how long he could hold his breath, he couldn’t dwell with among the Ama in the depths or truly appreciate the clan’s customs. Still, he was known as the son of the respected Ama Namija, and he’d made a name for himself commanding the fleet of the west. He’d started to get an occasional "Hello” and some small talk with them when they crossed paths nowadays.

Academy itself wasn’t a normal gig for him, but he was getting used to being a more public face than he was at lower ranks of Suiryu Ryodan. He imagined the next rank up would be full of these sorts of appearances to represent them on a national level, so Ichigoni made sure to take it seriously to show his willingness to support his superior. It was difficult for him though, he didn’t have a warm demeanor.

Risa wasn’t a child of the clan he had personally met, but he had made a note of their kinship when he heard her name called by the academy instructor during attendance before his guest lecture. When they approached, he was rolling up a scroll and contemplating what to do with the rest of the day. They’d booked him a room in a barracks and he wasn’t going to return to the fleet until the morning after a meeting.

"Hi there—” he said. His eye closed for a moment to search for her name. "Isa right? I’d be happy to answer your questions.”

He was wearing the standard Kirigakure garb today, so his face wasn’t covered by his usual garb. The Uzumaki’s face tried to break from its statuesque sternness, giving a weak smile that didn’t suit him.

🗡️

[taneda risa]

THE SECRET IS NOT TO DREAM

Risa shrank beneath the jounin’s gaze. He was so much taller than she was, imposing in his figure, with a stern face that only looked harsher when he tried to force a smile. She briefly contemplated fleeing, just as she had when the Mizukage guest-taught a lesson, but she also thought about what Ikana had told her: be brave. You can’t be brave unless you’re scared, and you face that fear. "Um, yeah.” Not quite brave enough to tell a jounin he’d gotten her name wrong, but at least she was still standing there. She imagined herself rooted in place: immovable, unshaken by cowardice or by social discomfort. "You… how did you know you wanted to be in the Suiryu Ryodan?” Still not what she had meant to ask, but she was locked into this trajectory whether she liked it or not. "Did you get to choose when you became a genin or was it later?” Risa chewed on her lip, picking at the dry flakes of skin with her teeth. "I’ve been thinking about, um, what I want to do.” A long pause. She was trying to sound cool, disaffected, like an ambitious young academy student, but her trepidation rolled off her in waves. "After the academy, I mean.”

Uzumaki Ichigoni -- 210

LAIKA OF THQ

[Uzumaki Ichigoni]

[googlefont=Crimson Text]

くたばれ
Ichigoni could see the nervousness in Isa. Although it wasn’t his goal to intimidate her, he thought it best not to soften himself too much. As good as the times were in comparison to yesteryear, the village’s warriors needed to have courage. It was better she found it here than out in the world.

"The Suiryu Ryodan was formed when I was a chunin, but the sailing life was something I was born into. I served on a ship under the Ama banner as a genin during the civil war,” he explained. Thoughts of his father came to mind, and of a youth hopping island to island to harvest resources for the clan.

He paused for a moment and reflected on the question she asked. Knowing he couldn’t truly relate to the idea of having a choice in what he would become in the beginning. Then again, he did serve on a traditional team for a time before making his way back into sailing. Perhaps he did choose it. Did he just blindly follow in his father’s footsteps? Or was there some other reason?

"I could have been a doctor, or perhaps a financier. But in the end I wanted a more challenging career. There’s not a job in Kirigakure with more adventure than patrolling our waterways, and I’d dare say nothing less fulfilling than being the first line of defense against an invasion of our peace.”

He'd spoken a lot but wanted to give her something more to help her in her reflection. "What is it that drives you? Do you want to see the world? Do you want a stable routine?"

🗡️

[taneda risa]

THE SECRET IS NOT TO DREAM

Under the Ama banner. Risa visibly perked up at this, wringing her hands with equal parts trepidation and excitement. She knew what the civil war was, of course, she’d heard about it in lessons and read her history books, but she had never experienced it firsthand—she’d lived in the relative safety and isolation of the Ama compound for all of her childhood, right up until the moment she enrolled in the academy. She’d been spared all the grief, the violence, the bloodshed. She’d been so excited to move to the surface world back then. It had been nearly four years, and with each passing year her excitement dimmed and her nervousness grew—she was a shell of the bubbly, vivacious child she had been when she entered the academy, now plagued by self-doubt and by fear. She felt aged. Too young and far too old all at the same time. "I’m an Ama,” Risa said—hushed, sharing a secret she knew she wasn’t meant to share. "I want—I wanted adventure. When I first enrolled, I mean. Mama kept me in the Ryūgū-jō when I was little and all I wanted was to see the surface. I wanted to see everything. But I think…” She paused, shuffling her feet, not quite able to meet Ichigoni’s singular eye. "The weak are food for the strong,” she said quietly. "I don’t want to be food, but I don’t know that I can be strong.” Not when strong meant angry, meant violent, meant sick with dread and hungry for action.

Uzumaki Ichigoni -- 254

LAIKA OF THQ

[Uzumaki Ichigoni]

[googlefont=Crimson Text]

くたばれ
Word that they were an Ama didn’t seem to phase him. Earlier in his life he held some jealousy for the sisters of the clan who could live cloistered away from the world and its problems, but he’d come to terms with it long ago.

"Ah, we are kin then,” he said.

All too often, Ichigoni heard the words Isa spoke about the weak devouring the strong. It had never really resonated with him. He could sense there was some doubt planted in her mind by the tone of her voice. He looked around, verifying the room was empty. What he would say could sound like sacrilege to the average machismo Kirigakure shionbi.

"That’s something a lot of assholes say to sound cool,” Ichigoni said. "It is the mindset of the pirates that I hunt, who want to take from weak merchants who make our society better. The country needs strong people to stop people with that mentality from ruining everything.

A better saying would be, ‘It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak.’

Strength is nothing more than following a fitness and training routine. Anyone can achieve it if they are willing to put in the work.”

🗡️

[taneda risa]

THE SECRET IS NOT TO DREAM

Her eyes lit up. "I knew it!” she said, bouncing in place. "I thought I recognized you but I didn’t know your name—do you know Ama Sayaka? Taneda Kotetsu? Mizushima Tsubasa? Shimizu Asuka?” Her mother, father, and cousins: a civilian, chuunin, academy student, and jounin, respectively, as likely to be familiar to Ichigoni as any civilian, chuunin, academy student, and jounin in Kirigakure. But they were Risa’s whole world, and she had little understanding still that what was important to her was not important to others. She giggled nervously when Ichigoni said assholes—she wasn’t used to grown-ups using that kind of language—but her briefly brightening demeanor quickly grew dour once again as she turned what he said over in her mind. Kyouka-sensei had said: Those who need practice die on the battlefield, like cannon fodder. I guess I’ll waste my time on you. If you disappoint, I’ll break one of your ribs, deal? I can make you a warrior, little fish. The weak are food to the strong, and only the strong have any rights in this world of ours. "I like the sound of that,” Risa said, quiet, timid, as though she were confessing to something secret and terrible. "But… do you know Kyoka-sensei? Hozuki Kyoka? She said—she said, Risa, doesn’t it feel good to taste the blood of your opponents? She said I was good, and that she would make me great, but she bruised my ribs and jaw and the med-nin said I had a concussion, and ever since then I’ve felt—I’ve felt like shit.” Dad hated it when she used words like that, but it was the only thing that came to mind, the truest form of expression she had.

Uzumaki Ichigoni -- 284

LAIKA OF THQ

[Uzumaki Ichigoni]

[googlefont=Crimson Text]

くたばれ
"I’ve not had much contact with the clan since the war, outside of my mother,” Ichigoni replied. "Her name is Ama Namija, one of the clan’s doctors. I know of Asuka, but we have not spoken.”

His closest cousins died in the same battle that took his father. As for Asuka, he knew him as one of the lucky males accepted in with open arms. Part of him still wonered why he wasn’t good enough, but he wouldn’t trade the time he had with his father in a million lifetimes.

"Kyouka is a famed shinobi within the village, and she has a passion to spill blood. Passion in any form can help push you to learn and grow, whether it is in training or on a mission itself,” he said. "Still, while passion is useful to get you focused and paying attention, it isn’t a requirement. Look no further than our kage for a counter-example to Kyouka. His strength came from hard work alone.”

Ichigoni tried to think of a way to make his point more clear, holding his right hand up to his chin as he paused for a moment.

"A shinobi only lives one lifetime, and may become convinced that their way is the only way. For every shinobi you ask you will hear a different nindo: a path that led them to where they are. The truth is that we are all different and all have to find the path that brings out the best of us.”

🗡️

[taneda risa]

Ama Namija was a name she knew by reputation if not personally, a fact that was deeply gratifying to Risa—she would have to share this information the next time she went to visit her mother, and tell her all about the new connections she was making. She felt… excited. For the first time in what felt like a long time. But she listened quietly, respectfully, as Ichigoni shared his perspective: a vision so clearly contrary to Kyouka-sensei’s that she wondered how both of them had possibly achieved the same rank. Surely there was one Correct way of doing things, yes? But no, Ichigoni said—everyone had their own path, their own way of doing things, refining their skills, becoming the best they could be. Risa had only encountered the Mizukage once, in that ill-fated lesson she had fled in sheer terror, but it was clear even from that brief interaction that he was calm, composed, unyielding stone compared to Kyouka-sensei’s tempestuous hurricane of blood-hungry fury. It had felt good to draw blood. She had felt strong and powerful for one brief, glorious moment; before it all came crashing down around her, and she was plagued by self-doubt and self-pity. Then had come the sickening feeling of guilt and shame that she was unable to shake. It had also felt good to slow down—to reach out, however unknowingly, for reassurance and comfort, and to find it in friends and mentors. An, Ikana, Tsubasa, Ichigoni. For each person that had been cruel to her, who had made her hurt, there was someone to be kind to her in turn.

270

LAIKA OF THQ

[taneda risa]

The weak are food to the strong. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. Was it possible to reconcile these two ideas? To hold the physical, tangible satisfaction of drawing blood in a fight close to her heart, and use that towards noble goals? Maybe. Maybe not. She still felt uncertain—it wasn’t like the clouds had parted, and Risa could see the outline of her future in perfect clarity. She still felt sad and angry and hurt and frustrated. She still wasn’t sure that she even qualified as one of the strong she wanted to be—that she would be able to protect the weak, if push came to shove. But maybe… she could try. Instead of throwing in the towel, giving up on her shinobi adventure altogether, she could keep pushing for a little longer. See just how far she could take it, and how it made her feel. "Thank you, sensei,” she said softly. "I, um… I have a lot to think about.” She turned quickly, as if making sure that no one was listening in or loitering in the classroom—no one was—and she said, firmly: "It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. I’m gonna try that, and see how it feels.” A beat. "I should get home to my dad, though. He doesn’t like it when I get home late since… yeah.” She smiled. Tentative, a far cry from the sunshine-bright joy that she had carried with her into the start of her education, but genuine and true for the first time in a long time. "Thank you,” she said again, and then she dashed out of the classroom—not because she was quitting, like she had feared, but out of the desire to come back again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

313

LAIKA OF THQ