[M&M3e] Naruto

[John Cribati]

Kyori

Putting on a burst of speed, Kyori runs up behind her sensei and, while remaining out of his reach, gently places the tip of her podao against the base of his skull.

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

"Sensei, shall we proceed to the training ground now?"

[dangelo]

"Sure, Kimiko." He says gently. "But this is the wrong way."

Poof. He vanishes. Apparently the ten copies were all clones.

[Summer Silver]

For a split second the when her bokken was caught the excitement of the moment almost overcame Kaede and she began to channel chakra into her weapon. Luckily she caught herself and a moment later it became clear that it would have been a wasted effort in the first place. "But he... what? Really," the young ninja exclaimed as she looked around. "So he was just playing with us this whole time?"

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

"Sensai is not playing with us, he is testing us. Finding out what we can do beyond what we are required to know to graduate from the academy." she says as she retrieves the kunai she threw.

[John Cribati]

Kyori

Pacing back and forth, she runs over the possibilities.

If all three were fake from the start, I like to think I would have still spotted the real one as well as the three clones, so he most likely ran off around the time his clones transformed into me, or maybe the one that vanished was the real one?

Okay, there's one more thing that I can try, but it... Isn't really refined? Gimme a second...

She finds the general area where she'd been so unceremoniously smoke-bombed and closes her eyes in meditation. For a few seconds, she removes her filters entirely, exposing her entire being to the full force of the chakra around her. Calming herself, separating her consciousness from the itch in her skin and the pounding on her head, she's able to skim over the uncomfortable sensations and center herself in the nerve endings in and around her nose.

Whatever she'd been smelling before is relegated to the background as the inexplicable scent of chakra fills her nostrils until she can taste it on her tongue. She ends up coughing a bit as she tries to suss out Yotsuda's signature and connect the way it looks to the way it should smell...

Spoiler

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Hero point to Power Stunt
Chakra Scent:

Olfactory Detect Chakra (+1)
Extended (+1)
Accurate (+2)
Tracking 2 (+2)
Acute (+1)
Perception +4 (Limited to this sense)

Perception to track (1d20+10)[27]

[dangelo]

You can distinct chakra clearly in the air, even the different smells of your teammates. Kaede's chakra smells dewy and fresh, while Kimiko's is rather delicate, cutting sweet.

But even then, the distinct smell of jasmine catches Kyori's attention. She's right, if her senses were able to break through Yotsuda's illusion before, one of the ten initial copies had to be the real one. And the is a scent trail leading back to the White Gardens.

Spoiler

Show

took the liberty of describing your chakra's smell

[John Cribati]

Kyori

Kyori smiles in spite of herself. A small one. She's reminded life at the monastery- how the older monks would often come by to have a laugh with- and more often at- the younger acolytes, either with small pranks, or by playing up the "wise old man"thing by spouting nonsense proverbs.
I cannot believe the nerve of- she double-checks to make sure she isn't misreading the signs of his trail Come on, he went this way. she beckons toward her teammates and then takes off, stopping every few seconds to make sure she hasn't lost the trail.

[dangelo]

Yotsuda can be found back at the White Gardens, pretending he never left.

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

While heading back to the White Gardens Kimiko asks Kyori "That was different, have you been working on a new technique?"

[John Cribati]

Kyori

She shrugs. Depends on how you look at it. I've always been able to do it, but I never really paid attention to it because smells are easier to ignore and it's nice to have something to switch to in the middle of a crowd when I'd rather not go blind or deaf.

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

After arriving back at the White Gardens Kimiko takes a seat and waits for sensei's next move.

[John Cribati]

Kyori

On a more serious note, she whispers, kneeling next to Kimiko, I really don't want the dog people knowing about this. It's already bad enough that I have two clans of eye people on my case. Though one Fancy Eye Clan is a lot more subtle about it than the other.

She enunciated very strongly on the last sentence, for the benefit of her sensei who she assumes is reading her lips.

[dangelo]

"It's good that you know I'm on your case, Kyori. My job here is to make sure you develop your abilities and surpass any other sensorial type in the village. When we begin our training, I'm not gonna go easy in any of you."

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

"I look forward to training with you sensei."

[dangelo]

"Good call back there, Kimiko." He says. "Tea?"

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

Kimiko says "Thank you sensei." and accepts the tea.

[Summer Silver]

Kaede couldn't help but pout a little when they finally returned to find their teacher acting like he never left. "That was a mean trick Sensie," she complained as she took her own seat.

[dangelo]

He looks empathetic. "I understand, Kaede-kohai. But in the battlefield your enemy will do anything they can in order to dissuade your team."

"You should trust no one except your own senses. Even me. If we're in the field and I look like an impostor, attack immediately. We'll come up with a complex handseal sequence as a password during our training."

Yotsuda waits for everyone to get ready and then calmly guide to an actual training field. There, you'll begin with chakra control exercises, walking on different surfaces and multiple enemies taijutsu drills.

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

The training is hard, but Kimiko appreciates the opportunity to learn from a new teacher who can provide insight into how she can improve her skills.

[John Cribati]

Kyori

At the academy, Kyori had something of a reputation. Grumpy usually, surly at worse, but never outright mean. At least, not in the classroom.

On the training field, she was feared. Nobody knee what exactly came over her, but once she was given a target to focus on, her entire demeanor would change, the sheer force of her determination permeating the area.

It had always been easy for her to put herself back at the monastery, among the broken bodies of those she called family. To remember the single chakra signature that was out of place. To imagine that man before her now, instead of a target, a dummy, or even another student.

That mindset, and the killing intent that came with it, along with what was considered an unorthodox martial Arts tradition, had made her a formidable foe on the sparring field against her classmates.

Not so much against a Jounin.

As much as she was unable to land a clean hit on the man, she welcomed the challenge. As often as she'd get knocked down, she got back up with a manic grin.

Now she knows how far she needs to go.

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

Armed with the knowledge of her elemental affinity and the first step towards mastering it Kimiko begins trying to cut a leaf whenever she can. Spending hours sitting in trees practicing while reading medical books from the library. Honing mind, body, and spirit.

[dangelo]

The following couple of days are just as harsh as Yotsuda predicted. His shadow clones show up at your doors at 4 am and wake you up with (literally) a bugle call. Then, after inspecting your ninja tools' conditions, he insists on chanting mantras at least once in the morning before getting down to business.

Unsurprisingly, he avoids the White Gardens as a whole as a meeting spot, limiting his training grounds options to actual trainings grounds.

About half of training is battlefield simulation and sparring, where Yotsuda's constantly coming up with different scenarios to challenge you. Most of the time he prefers that the teammates fight each other instead of himself, but at some point you may notice he actually enjoys taking action. Every single day of training ends with a single-round all-out "Battlefield situation number 18", which essentially is as much shadow clones as Yotsuda can make against you three, no rules. You fight a full squad of nerfed sensei for as long as you can.

In the rest of the time, Yotsuda-sensei offers himself to help you with specifics. He constantly puts Kyori against her teammates in hand-to-hand combat or shows Kimiko how she could perform an even cleaner cut through her wind affinity.

One week of heavy duty, day and night, with a horn blasting down your door the next morning. Yotsuda's routine feels crazy at some point, as you wake up and your muscles and bones are still aching from the previous day. It might make you angry and this is kind of part of it, actually. When a teammate gets angry and screams, he screams back at them and channels that energy into the training.

Finally, at what was supposed to be one of those rare, short moments when Yotsuda lets you lay on the grass and rest your bones for a while, he suddenly calls the rest of the day off.

"It has been a great week of training, girls. I'm proud of you." Kind words like that were getting sparse lately. "So I think we should cut it early today. You're gonna need a long weekend to spare your bodies."

"I finally decided. We are going on a mission in a couple of days." He opens up a tired smile, showing you three pieces of paper: "all you can eat" buffet cupons. "This is where your training really begins. We can talk more about the mission in our way there. Are you ready?"

It's kinda weird how much Yotsuda can lay back suddenly, but his kind smiles are slowly changing from "oh poor young girls" to something more energetic, understanding, friendly

[John Cribati]

Kyori

Still lying on the ground, she pumps a fist into the air. I'm actually going to get sleep tonight!

She makes sure not to get to her feet until the others do. She'd found herself calling the shots quite often during exercises- by virtue of her senses giving her more information that needed to be shared or acted upon- and so picked up the habit of deferring to her teammates whenever possible. There was no doubt in her mind that Yotsuda noticed her behavior, but she had no idea if Kaede and Kimi caught on, or if they did, how long they planned to keep it to themselves.


So, she swings an arm around each of their shoulders as they walk, either of you been to this restaurant before?

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

"I have been there a few times on special occasion." she says absentmindedly, her mind racing. Her first mission, she is both exited and a little afraid a the same time.

[dangelo]

"Its kind of a fancy place, but their discounts are great. Did you know the owner used to be a shinobi?"

[dangelo]

"This will be a hard one, you guys, so take it serious. We'll be on the field, it's the real thing, I need you to be alert at all times."
"Basically we'll be giving support to another squad, which will raid a warehouse south of the village. This warehouse have been deactivated for a couple of years, and we believe it's been used as part of a smuggling operation."

"This is a mission for the Land of Fire, so messing up is double bad. Our strike team got over two weeks worth of surveillance intel, so this should be an easy win. But we're dealing with militarized criminals, so who knows."

"As a support team, we'll set camp a couple of miles away from the warehouse and patrol the area. Worst case scenario, one of the smugglers might run off to our direction and we'll capture them. There will be three other support teams patroling the woods around the warehouse, so we don't have too much land to cover. For this, we'll split up in two teams."

"Are you following up until now?"

[Izzarra]

Nara Kimiko

With the briefing of their first mission underway, Kimiko's mind races ahead. "Will we have tome to lay traps? How will the patrol groups stay in communication? Do we have any intel on the targets?"

[John Cribati]

Kyori

She nods, already figuring where her assignment will be. I'm going to need to meet with the other patrolling teams so I'll at least know to expect out there, and who to raise an alarm for.

[dangelo]

"All support teams will maintain their position on the field. We'll have radios to keep each other updated, I'll carry two so we can contact HQ and Team Alpha."

"Tomorrow we'll know for sure who'll be there, but either way the rules are the same. We'll spend most of our time laying off traps and watching the field, so get ready for some serious hard work."