[Mizushima Tsubasa]

Doing

The academy was fun to a degree. Learning new things every day and working to become a shinobi like his older brother was something Tsubasa was proud to do, but the days had been so lonely lately. His brother hadn't been home lately and hadn't been spending as much time, if any, with him lately. It felt like the bond they had was drifting apart and Tsubasa was being left to dust. While his parents did reassure him his brother wasn't doing this maliciously he couldn't help but feel left behind. If only he had been born around the same time then maybe things could have been different.

So he found himself wandering a lot more, not going home except for when he had to, and sulking. It was easy to hide his pain with the mask of beauty his family so often wanted him to show so most people simply thought he was going on walks or resting from training. They never tried to go up to him or ask him what was wrong which made him feel even more alone. He found some solace in the training grounds of the academy as he could throw kunai or pretend to work on jutsu and people would just see him as a hard-working child. Which was fine he liked the idea of being seen as someone who worked hard, but he just wanted someone to be friends with or talk to was that so much to ask? Still, he couldn't stop himself from brooding so he found himself once again in the training yard simply throwing rubber kunai at the training dummies. His throws became more and more listless as time went on.

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ulla

ok?

[taneda risa]

Brooding was something that Risa had become intimately acquainted with as of late. The vivacious, happy child that had entered Kirigakure’s shinobi academy had matured into a trigger-happy, temperamental preteen; prone to fits of rage and long bouts of bad moods, Risa often resorting to floating off on her own to marinate in her own misery. Even her dad’s best efforts couldn’t bring her out of her funk sometimes, and though her existential crisis of whether or not this was the right career for her was beginning to pass as she grew more sure of herself, more confident in her burgeoning skills, she had lost that bright spark of enthusiasm and love of adventure that had carried her through the first few years of her shinobi education. Some things still made that little spark flicker, though. Risa had been training harder than ever since her conversation with An—working herself to the point of exhaustion in an effort to expand her chakra reserves, filling up the balloon to make it bigger, so to speak. But when she reached her normal spot she found it occupied by her cousin Tsubasa. He looked about as dejected and worn-out as Risa felt, and though she had initially come here to train, instead she found herself stepping up to touch his elbow to get his attention. An had helped her, and now she had to pay it forward. "Hi, Sa-chan,” she said, and gestured over to a little grassy area on the side. "Wanna come sit with me for a minute? It looks like you don’t really wanna be doing that right now.”

Mizushima Tsubasa -- 268

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[Mizushima Tsubasa]

Shark Bait

The training wasn't doing for him he could feel his frustrations still lingering and his emotions just being hell-bent on staying despite trying to distract himself. Each throw of a kunai or thrust into a dummy just didn't feel right and honestly, it just made him more and more frustrated. Essentially a brain fog of thunder and lightning making him more annoyed and angry by the second. Certainly, not a very appealing look that his clan would approve of.

A voice would call out to him which would bring him out of his mind storm and he would see a cousin of his calling out for him to come and sit with her. "Well you aren't wrong about that," he would call out back to her as he thrust his kunai into the training dummy and left it there. Heading over to Risa he would sit with her as requested and ask, "So what's up?" A lot calmer already having someone to talk to instead of brooding on his internal monologue. Plus since she was a part of the same clan as he was maybe she would have insight into his brother's absence lately so he could get answers from her if he asked.

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ulla

HOO HA HA

[taneda risa]

Tsubasa stabbed his kunai into the training dummy with a note of finality and came to sit with her, looking even surlier and more frustrated than Risa herself felt; she wondered briefly if this was what she looked like to people all the time, and as mean as she felt for thinking it, she shuddered at the thought of seeming so… miserable all the time. She wove a couple of handseals to channel a large amount of chakra into her hair, more than the technique even required; it didn’t do much other than to turn it rigid and long, but this was something she had been practicing lately, whenever and wherever she could: just expending as much of her chakra as possible to try to brute-force her way into deepening her reserves. "I’ve just been trying to practice burning through all my chakra,” she said, folding her legs beneath her. Her now much-longer braid swayed awkwardly behind her, as if waiting for a command. "Feels weird, but I think it’s working… I think. But I thought you looked—I dunno, upset about something. Is everything ok?” She’d been living away from the Ama compound for so long, her visits back to her mother growing less and less frequent as her dedication to her studies sharpened and intensified… whether or not she knew anything about Tsubasa’s brother, or would be able to help with the troubles plaguing him, remained to be seen.

Mizushima Tsubasa -- 242

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