| Burning on the Western Front |
[Jun. 2nd, 2013|04:23 pm] |
[Takes place in June of Sandaime Year 29, just over a year before the Kyuubi, when Raidou is eighteen.]
The first time Raidou ripped someone's arm off at the shoulder, he had nightmares for days. That was a long time ago. Now he kicks his screaming target in the face and throws the arm to Gorou, who's out of weapons. A sparking jutsu turns the limb to stone, and Gurou beats another man to death with it, making blood and bone fly. Raidou breaks the amputee's neck.
And that's Tuesday.
The Third Great Ninja War was seven years old before Raidou got into it, a shiny teenage chuunin with ambitions to make himself a hero. He's eighteen now, still a chuunin, and it's the only day job he’s ever had.
( Sometimes he suspects it might be screwing him up. ) |
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| We Were Giants Once |
[Jun. 2nd, 2013|07:21 pm] |
[Takes place Sandaime Year 26, four years before the Kyuubi, when Ryouma is thirteen.]
Everyone knew that Hatake Kakashi had been placed on a team of one when he graduated from the Academy. Ryouma didn't see why they couldn't do the same for him.
"Because you're a thirteen-year-old hooligan, not a seven-year-old prodigy, and no one volunteered," Naoto-sensei said unsympathetically. She'd kept him after on the last day of class to make him clean the new team assignments off the blackboards; he reached higher than she did, these days, or any of the Academy teachers except Himura-sensei. She'd stayed because, she said, someone had to make sure he didn't write dirty things on them afterwards.
( Since most of the things Ryouma knew how to write were dirty, she had a valid point. ) |
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| From Here On Out |
[Jun. 2nd, 2013|10:19 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 10]
“You know,” Takahashi Isamu said, watching Katsuko and Raidou from the safety of the tree-line. “Most people play cards when they’re bored.”
“Dude, we’re ANBU,” Momoi Mitarou said. “Could be worse. One of them could be an Uchiha.”
Katsuko ducked underneath Raidou’s swing, feeling his sword whistle an inch over her head, and slammed the butt of her katana into his stomach. He staggered back, parrying her when she went in for a strike at his knees. They leapt apart and circled each other, searching for an opening.
She grinned at Raidou. “Nearly got you there, lieutenant.”
( “Did you?” Raidou shot back. “Because I seem to have all my limbs.” ) |
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| Suffer the Children |
[Jun. 2nd, 2013|10:53 pm] |
[Takes place Sandaime Year 30/Yondaime Year 1, June 5, four months before the Kyuubi, when Genma is 17]
The war had officially been over for a year. The first anniversary celebration had been a few days of somber memorials followed by a week of wild revelry, and Konoha hadn’t stopped celebrating yet. Banners strung between buildings honored the troops, and the spiral-leaf emblem of Konohagakure rippled and fluttered on flags and pennants decorating nearly every door. Even dripping leftover raindrops from the latest one of Fire Country’s perennial June showers, the decorations were a cheery sight.
At seventeen, Genma was still too young to join the platoons of off-duty ninja enjoying the early June evening by getting tipsy, but no one was checking a uniformed shinobi’s ID too closely. Walking into certain bars with a hitai-ate tied around your head and a faintly blood-stained flak vest on over patched and repaired chuunin blues was an easy way to get a free drink or three, and maybe a willing partner for the night. Even for an awkwardly big-handed, skinny guy who still had a few pimples on his cheeks and nothing resembling a full beard.
( It had been a long enough day running messages between the Hokage’s palace and Intel... ) |
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