CHAPTER 4: To Draw Blood From a Rock

It was after 3 hours that Lee gave up on yelling. He had been there for three hours, he did not know this, he only knew that his throat was rough and scratchy, almost feeling as bad as his arms, which were scrapped raw from his struggles against the metal bands that encircled his arms, legs, neck, and torso. He had tried to force himself into a dozen different positions, doing his best to fight against unyielding steel but to no result. Exhausted, head hanging, Lee swallowed spit, feeling his own saliva burn down his tortured throat. His yells had been for naught, no one had come, even when he had yelled for his Pretty Ninja Lady, Ri. That had hurt especially bad, but he had quickly rationalized it to her being away. But she would surely learn of this eventually and rescue him once again. But to be honest, as of right now, he wasn't in too much trouble. Or, at least it was nothing compared to what had happened when he first met her. Heck, he could still feel all his limbs!

His experience that one day had colored his world since then. Sure, his training had been rough, rougher than anything he had ever put himself through, but it was like a candle to the sun that had been the continuing pain of that one day and the week that followed. This had become even more clear when his fellow classmates had seemed to wilt under certain orders, having trouble pushing through small amounts of pain to accomplish their goals. And yet, thinking back on that wasn't giving him much relief as his mind raged and his body tried to meet the increasing demands from his overly ravenous pack of neural synapses clamoring for release.

In fact those first three hours felt like 3 minutes to Lee, for Lee was panicked, and panic does funny things to people. A lot of those who have been truly scared, scared because of a life or death situation, talk about how things slow down, they get tunnel vision, and everyone around them moves slowly. But then ask them how long it all took, how long were they attacked, how much time did it take for them to get from point A to point B, and they'll respond with laughable answers. "The whole fight took just a couple of seconds", they'll say, fully aware that by the time the battle was over the sun had set. Things might slow down, but that isn't because people get more perceptive, it is because the whole world speeds up, your heart, your brain, your blood, your life, it all tries to squeeze as much out of your last moments as possible, but even your adrenaline suffused brain can't change the passage of time, and so, Lee, after 3 hours of struggling and yelling, only felt as if minutes had passed, despite the protests of his lungs, muscles, and brain, and as his labored short breaths (the bands of metal restraining him were not loose) were expelled into the dark room he remembered the last time he had felt his heart pound so hard his ribcage hurt.

It hadn't been easy to make friends in the Ninja camp, in fact, it was pretty much downright impossible. Talking was not allowed. Hand signals not in the command book were not allowed ("Hi, how are you, would you like to be my friend" was not in the handbook. Although, "A friend of mine might find some pleasures of a very physical nature if they would simply allow me entrance" was. But no one really felt that that was quite the same thing.). Whispering was not allowed. Helping others was not allowed. And all of it was explained, with that sort of Adult Logic that never seemed quite right, but who were you to argue? Plus, Lee had been riding the thrill of being trained as a Ninja for all three months, and would, he expected, possibly feel that same thrill the rest of his life (assuming he ever got out of here).

Regardless, there had been one time that he had made a friend, or as close as possible given the circumstances. Their training almost always took a turn for the explicitly dangerous once the basics were grasped. In this particular scenario they had been learning how to properly deal with wired shuriken. How to properly care for the wire, how to make sure it seemed invisible until the last moment, and how to use each of their fingers to control different aspects of a single shuriken or to control several shuriken at the same time. Lee, as always, had been excited to learn such a skill. And he had thrown himself into it with wild, disturbingly childlike abandon.

Like with most things that he was asked to do Lee went after this task with a special amount of gusto, picking the heaviest strings and shuriken he could, which, apparently got very, very heavy. The total weight of the string, the 8 shuriken, and the gloves that they were using (a precaution when dealing with novices, that string was thin enough to slice through a digit) was almost 1/5th of Lee's weight (about 12 pounds). And while at first he struggled immensely, he had eventually gotten the hang out it, even if it had taken him 4 more hours than anyone else.

That was another thing that Lee really loved about this training. You had as much time as you wanted to figure things out. Usually training on a single topic was split into 5 days: one day for basics, one day for advanced training, then a day for theory, then a day of team training, and lastly a day for testing. You could spend 12 hours on one thing or 4 hours, just as long as you got it, there was no day to day grades, only the test at the end. That was the only important part as far as the trainers were concerned. And woe to anyone who didn't manage to perform well on test day; failure was not tolerated and if you could beat the failure out of someone then every person in that training program would be the most successful people ever.

Lee had gone through the first two days easily enough, following his old pattern of making things extra difficult, failing for most of the first day, and then suddenly exploding with some serious skill and flair on the later half of the second day. He had suffered through theory pretty well, knowing it was important, and having taken many of the ideas in the Ninja book he had been made to copy to heart, one of the main tenets being information is a power that never dies. Even with that in mind though, Lee had a hard time dealing with the total lack of doing stuff. Lee had decided early on that "doing stuff" was his way of the Ninja, cause not doing stuff was just torturous (an ironic statement, looking back on it).

It was the next day that a series of events landed Lee hyperventilating, soaked with sweat and blood, and the world speeding up in a whirlwind of adrenaline and terror.

Lee walked in on the fourth day ready to work with a team. He enjoyed it quite a lot, mostly for the fact that it allowed him to measure some of his skill against a fellow trainee before the big test day. He always got nervous the day of, but being able to spend time the day before and do as well or sometimes even better than another trainee put his mind at rest, at least for the rest of that day. Not that he was ruthlessly competitive, tips and tricks inevitably got traded around, despite the fact that the trainers, in particular Bear Mask Ninja, glared whenever they saw the skills of one student being passed around. And yet it happened, and that was another reason that Lee loved teamwork day: other students' ideas were so different from his own that sometimes they yielded some really amazing improvements, and Lee loved to improve, whether it was kicking a rock farther or learning how to stick to a wall silently for a minute longer, Lee was all about the improvement.

In particular, Lee was curious to know if his partner had experimented with using his pinky fingers to control the shuriken, cause Lee had had a bit of trouble getting those particular fingers to do everything he wanted. Standing in line Lee thought of other questions he might try to ask, or mime, to his new, temporary partner as the Bear Mask Ninja came by and paired trainees up randomly. Lee was signaled to go to a section of the gym (the gym was divided into many large squares, each with their own designated code for easy directions and accountability) and ran off to his spot. There he came across his partner, a girl, with spiky red hair that went everywhere. And before Lee could even raise his hand to wave she immediately she started signaling, using way too many signs for anything reasonable to say. It seemed like she was saying, "Help Incoming *then she jumped a little* Medicine Yellow *jump* Non-combatant Aggressive Medicine Evacuation *jump* Incoming Safe *jump* Killed Aggressive Incoming *then she stamped her foot*. Lee had no clue what was going on, and even though she repeated what she had signed several more times, even with the jumping and stomping, Lee just stood there, watching the dance of fingers and feet, wondering if this girl was just going to keep doing this or if he would be able to mime his own questions. Finally she started to slow down, signing a word, then holding up fingers that were equal to the number of letters in the word and then pointing to the first finger emphatically, and she worked her way through the whole message, keeping a keen eye out for Bear Mask Ninja. And that was when (a good 15 minutes after she started) it hit him; it was the first letter! She was only signing so that he could know the first letter of each word! So, "Medicine Yellow" was My, and the rest... Oh! It was, "My name is Kai." The jumps must be spaces and the stomp a period? It must have been. And just like that Lee made his first friend.

Kai was fairly insane. She had pretty much ignored her pinky fingers and went straight for the toes. Lee had no idea how that would be practical, but she had gotten surprisingly good at it, considering the obvious handicap. And while her progress was impressive, it became way less impressive when she had to get on her hands, do a handstand, and then attack, poorly, with the shuriken. One of them actually got pretty close, maybe, if there had been a strong wind inside, to hitting Lee, whose own attacks toward the girl were being dodged by some kind of bizarre combination of impressive gymnastics and falling down none too gently. And all throughout, her eyes glimmered, her face stayed impassive, and her fingers constantly signed, "Help Aggressive" over and over. Lee had a much harder time containing his laughter, and earned a couple of whacks from the nearest trainer (Ninjas, apparently, did not laugh).

That was just the warm up though, the real crux of the day would be navigating an obstacle course with your partner, using the shuriken to destroy targets, avoid attacks, and overcome certain parts of the course that could not be done by yourself. It was quite the behemoth of a course, held in a separate room. It was always the same course that they were tested on but it went through some fairly radical changes so that they wouldn't learn any patterns or be faced with obstacles that didn't push them to use their new skills. This particular iteration of the course was very spaced out, apparently one of the big things they would be doing would be using the shuriken like some kind of grappling hook if possible. It would be difficult to tell just how much of a reach things would be until they were actually faced with the problem. Not that they would have a ton of time to sit and analyze those sorts of things. One of the consistent parts of the course was that decisions needed to be made on the fly, sometimes literally, and that was a commitment that the trainers were dedicated too, as the attacks made on the students were fast and furious.

When it came time for Lee and Kai's turn, their styles, somehow seemed to mesh quite well. Lee was always a direct kind of kid, want to kick the rock farther? Start kicking it harder, not so much a creative type. And Kai, well, Kai was anything but direct, although she certainly could be. It wasn't a matter really of being direct or not, it was more of a matter of what would you normally expect a person to do, and then Kai would find all the options that you never even considered, and then, somehow, make it look like it wasn't the most bizarre or worst option. Not that she was particularly graceful, but at least she was on the less traveled road. Regardless, the two styles were working out well, with Lee driving forward, a battering ram, while Kai threaded all over it, covering some blind spots, giving a hand here or there. Lee had to step in a couple of times for her, pushing his way through the things that couldn't just be skirted or creatively avoided. Most of the other students who worked together definitely worked well together, but it almost always involved compromise, a kind of bland type of teamwork, instead Lee and Kai were just meshing, and it was showing, as they added some flair and showy moves and big smiles.

Currently they were almost at the end, navigating their way through two large wooden pillars along with several floating platforms, placed haphazardly and in extremes of vertical height. The pillars were set up to be far enough from each other that to jump from one to another would be impossible, even with the extra reach of the shuriken. They were also nearly 60ft off the ground, so falling would be a bad idea. Presumably the vertical platforms were where any kind of attack would be coming from, and so, with an eye on the platforms Kai and Lee sprung into action. Kai went first, leaping high into the air, while twirling slightly, ending up facing Lee as she begun to descend. Lee, at the apex of her jump, sent his shuriken rocketing towards her. As Kai started to descend, she linked her shuriken with his, wrapping it around several times to make a kind of chain, with her wire still wrapped up around the bracers that covered her arm. Then, descending, and with the extra pull from Lee, Kai started to make a slow circle, and that is when the arrows, spears, and shuriken were launched at her; they came from the shadows, not the platforms, which surprised her a bit. But these kids weren't being trained for Ninja for nothing, and as the projectiles zeroed in on Kai she simply rotated her arm, letting the wire uncoil itself and suddenly adding distance between herself and Lee, letting the potentially dangerous weaponry pass harmlessly by. On his end, Lee set his feet, Kai was reaching the bottom of the circle they were tracing, and it would be up to his strength and her momentum to get her to the next pillar. As she rushed downwards and then started to rise, the string taunt and Lee grunting and sweating, more projectiles were released, and Kai uncoiled even more wire, allowing her to dodge without compromising the momentum that Lee and her had harnessed. At this point she was nearly horizontal from Lee, and rapidly speeding up to get above him, all according to their maybe not so well thought out plan. Either way it was working, and as Kai let out the last bits of uncoiled chain, they got to a truly terrifying that speed that just put a smile on her face. With the majority of the projectiles spent, it was no problem for Kai to avoid the rest of them due to her changing speed. There were somethings that the machines that spat fire and death at them could adjust to, small girls swinging from a wire in a full 360 degrees was not one of them.

Lee, still on the platform that looked out over the two pillars, began to swing his arms, trying to add even more speed to Kai's already impressive trajectory. He had to make sure she would actually make it to the pillar, because while there were the other platforms that were scattered, they were either too high up to reach with her current pathing or so far down that to hit it would likely break her ankles, so he really had one shot at this, and while accuracy was important (they had both figured that if she was going to miss she could simply unleash another shuriken and wire and pull herself to the pillar. And with that last thought, Lee swung with all his might, and Kai, sailing through the air slammed into the first pillar, her feet scrambling with purchase as one hand held tightly to the wire as the other tried to bear hug the wood along with her feet. She ended up sliding quite a bit, but stopped by a combination of her monkey like skills and the wire finally running out of slack, placing strain, once again, on Lee. But both of them shared a smiled as Lee tied off the wire on his bracer and signed at her to make sure she was good and ready. After a quick, one handed response of affirmative, it was Lee's turn, which thankfully would be easier.

At this point with Kai at the pillar, all that had to happen was for Lee to run and jump, trying to get the longest hang time her could while moving forward, and using some of the extra slack that would generate, Kai would tie the wire around the wood pillar (during her signing with Lee she had rigged a temporary harness with the rope that they had all been required to carry since learning how useful rope was in any quantity during one of the first practical training weeks) and when Lee ran out of slack, he would be in for a sharp stop but after that he could simply climb up and then they would redo everything. As far as ninja trainees were concerned, 'easy peasy' (Lee figured they could only die, like, 3 different ways, and that is so few ways!). So, Lee leapt, Kai coiled wire, and after a jarring stop that nearly wrenched his shoulder out of its socket, Lee stopped and rested. Then after some fairly difficult climbing Lee finally made his way up to Kai, and she beamed a huge smile, and Lee signed, "ready again?" only for her to make a suggestion, and that is when everything went to shit.

Kai was standing on a platform, cheering in a grunty sort of way, as Lee started to make it to the apex of the 360 degree circle they were tracing in the space between the pillars. He had dodged the projectiles just like she had, letting loose with the wire a bit more to add sudden distance, and that had jerked her pretty hard, but she was sure the same had happened to him when she had made similar movements. Anyway, as she watched him sail overhead, she braced herself, wrapping one of her legs around the pillar. She had managed to loosen up her harness a bit so that she could have more ease of movement, since she would need to jump out soon after Lee landed (stationary targets on pillars strapped into things that kept them falling to their death were still targets as far as anyone in the room was concerned). She had noticed that this didn't seem to be a concern for Lee though, and just as well, he seemed very eager to throw himself into the mix, so he wasn't standing still much anyway. Watching him sail through the air Kai was feeling particularly happy. She had finally found a pretty good friend, someone who actually had the nerves and guts to converse back with her, even if he had been agonizingly slow to pick up the way in which she was speaking. She had originally tried to just speak out-loud to people, but the Trainers had jumped down in her throat and isolated her as punishment. And later, when she had come up with this system, she had a lot of time to think isolated, she had found that no one had the guts to return the conversation, whether it be due to fear of the Trainers, justified, or just disinterest, how dare they, she was soooo interesting! Regardless, it didn't matter much now, Lee, whether it was guts or stupidity, had talked back, and as Kai smiled once more, lost in warm, fuzzy thoughts, she saw Lee begin to hurtle towards the pillar, felt the wire go taunt, and then in a split second she was ripped from the harness, her leg that had been wrapped around the pillar was on fire, and she was sailing too, pinwheeling at a terrifying speed. She was no longer smiling.

It had been nearly a month since anyone had heard someone speak above the quietest whisper (and even that was rare, mostly due to the fairly extreme punishment it merited), so when the stunning scream of a girl was choked out and scattered across the room most everyone paid attention.

Lee had enjoyed the initial jump a lot, the sensation of free falling and knowing it would turn out alright was just as he had imagined when he had accepted the offer of Kai's for him to be the one to be flung to the pillar. And he had been delighted to beat the dangerous weaponry heading his way by simply uncoiling small portions of the wire wrapped around the bracer on his arm. In fact he had even played a small game, seeing just how little wire he could unwrap and still avoid all physical harm. His best was when he felt the a particularly sharp knife part his hair, seeing some of his hair fall past his ear out of the corner of his eye.

Unfortunately and unknown to Lee, this meant that at the end of his arc, as he was flying to the pillar with his slightly larger body and much heavier wire, he didn't have very much wire left at all, which meant, that as he was about 3 feet away, the wire went taunt, and his combined weight and speed ripped Kai from her harness and ripped a scream from her lung. The jerk of her weight suddenly being added, slowed Lee, but did not stop him, and he hit the pillar, but the shock of that impact, lessened as it was, barely registered, instead Lee had the totality of his focus on Kai, who was pinwheeling through the air fast enough she was unable to get a proper breath of air, and, more importantly, she was falling, not a controlled, "I got this" kind of fall, but a "I'm falling, help me" kind of falling, and that was when a flood of adrenaline, the likes of which he had only partially experienced when his body had been shattered, streamed into his veins and brain.

Lee immediately sprung into action, twisting back toward where Kai was, his feet clutching the pillar he had so recently smacked into. A second to figure out what needed to be done, and Lee exploded from the pillar, hurtling down towards one of the scattered platforms, with Kai falling like she was, he needed to get to a platform as quick as possible, if he had stayed at the wooden pillar he would not have enough time to get a harness rigged, which would have meant being pulled down with Kai when she ran out of wire and her weight and momentum pulled on his end. All of this went through Lee's mind as a single sentence, "GET DOWN GET PLATFORM GET HER!" and so, not questioning his adrenaline fueled mind, Lee pushed with all his might, aiming for the platform, and when he hit he hit hard, the force of his controlled fall spraining both his ankles, breaking at least one toe, and sending him to his knees which parted the skin on his knees like water, sending blood onto the platform, but that was something Lee had no time for, as he frantically wound the wire around his bracer, making sure the wire would not slip out of his grasp and send Kai falling to her death.

Knees slick with blood, Lee had a single moment to take a breath, and then he was stomped into the platform, his arm instantly becoming dislocated as he screamed into the wood only to stop suddenly as he realized he was sliding to the edge, so he pulled back and screamed a bit again, as his shoulder was wrenched even further out of the socket. He rolled onto his side, still sliding inch by inch to the edge, where, he assumed, Kai was dangling and in a similar situation. He twisted again, getting his butt under him and digging the pliable and soft shoes he was wearing into the wood, trying to gain traction, but the blood was making the platform slippery, which, bizarrely was partially from his bleeding head (how did that happen?). He tried to jerk the wire toward him with his other hand, but all he was rewarded with was a cry from below (it was Kai, thank the heavens, she was alive!) and a small pause in his sliding, but then it started up again. Lee knew he needed traction but with the adrenaline flowing through him he was having a hard time thinking, let alone solving a problem. So he did something straightforward and stupid. Removing his hand from the wire and letting all the weight hang on his arm with the bracer, the arm that was dislocated, he took his other hand and smashed into the platform just to his right over and over, the wood splitting knuckles and splintering wood. The pain of it stabbed deep into him, following the bone as the nerves in his hand were punished again and again, flaring up and relaxing for brief seconds only to be hurled back into the fray again and again, as quick as possible. Lee was still sliding bit by bit. After a couple seconds in which Lee fought back tears and ruminated briefly on how ruined and mangled his hand must be, the adrenaline was going into overload and and nearly made him ignore the problem at hand (hah) and focus on stupid things: like consequences. Shaking his head he kept punching until he finally punched through the wood all the way, creating a small, jagged hole. Bringing his hand up to his face he saw that it was a ruined mess, and so, with a twist (which was grotesquely helped by the amount of blood that was on the platform) he went 180 degrees, with his head facing where the wire disappeared off the platform and hooked his legs into the hole, hardly feeling the bite of wood into flesh off the pained screaming of his right hand and left shoulder.

And Lee stopped sliding. So Lee started pulling.

He pulled and pulled as his legs and hand and shoulder died. And he pulled harder once he heard the slight whimper from Kai, and then he figured he was done, but looking behind him, face scratching against wood, he saw that he wasn't and he kept pulling, kept pulling even when he knew he must be done because he couldn't do any more and kept pulling as the muscles in his shoulder seemed to detach themselves and his fist ached, and inch by inch the wood digging into his calves pierced further and further. And after a lifetime of adrenaline and hurt and harsh breaths that seemed to do nothing for the burning in his lungs and screaming in his mind that he couldn't drop her, that the PNL hadn't dropped him, that the pain would make him stronger, she had said so, and this was just pain, just pain, just pain; Lee pulled Kai up, grabbed her, touched her, and brought her to him, and simply stopped doing anything.

Some unknown time later (later he would learn he was only out for a minute or two, tops), Kai was tearing up pieces of her and Lee's clothing bandaging his wounds, and as she put a poorly made bandage over the cut on his head he came back to life, bewildered and hurt and more than a little scared. But as he saw Kai leaning over him he managed a smile, which broke out into a pained grin as she signaled, "Help Incoming" at him, which either meant that help was on the way or her just saying "hi" but either way he was pretty happy, everything considered. His right hand, his left shoulder, and his calves were bandaged, and... they were still on the platform. He would have thought that they would have been removed by now and sent to the infirmary. He looked questioningly at Kai, and she simply sighed and pointed at the finish line, clearly visible just a ways past the 2nd pillar, which was much closer now. Right, of course, these training exercises were up to the trainees, no one else. They might remove you if you died, or were knocked unconscious, or dead, but not before that. And if you gave up you were out, forever. And frankly, the idea of giving up never even occurred to Lee, he just firmly thought that maybe the trainees could get a break once in a while. So, Lee got up, slowly, the trials of the past few minutes, which turned out to be more like 15 minutes (turns out pulling up a girl just under your weight while being critically injured takes a while), and the adrenaline draining out of his system had severely exhausted him. Kai looked much better off, though her shoulder also seemed to be very dislocated as well. Although as he watched, she tied some rope around her shoulder, fiddled with it, then grasping some of it in her mouth and hand, jerked it to the left, letting out a gasp and an audible pop where her shoulder had been forced back into position.

Kai looked at him wearily, flicked a shuriken at the pillar with her foot, which brought a smile to his face that she matched, and they slowly made their way across, with multiple sets of harnesses, large amounts of rope, and Kai carrying him bits and pieces of the way.

And once they got to the end they had been chewed out: For not using the rope to increase the range of the wire attached to the shuriken, for not using multiple wires and shuriken for strength, extra length, for supporting themselves, for not thinking about their difference in weight, for Kai not tightening her harness, for Kai to not cut herself loose and letting Lee continue, for Lee letting a knife cut his face, for not cutting his wire and letting Kai fall (the only criticism that Lee vehemently opposed though he was too tired to show it), for not using his rope to help anchor himself on the platform, for not using any of his tools to make the hole in the platform, for not cutting Kai loose when he was on the platform (the floor had only been maybe 15ft below the platform), and they were called fools and idiots and mentally retarded and worse, all of it accompanied by expert medical attention and the rough cuffs and slaps of the Trainers. And finally one of them gave a score for their partner training, a measly 3 out of 10, the lowest anyone had gotten, and they were told they got 1 point between the two of them for not giving up and two points for their inventive way of avoiding the projectiles. Lee barely processed this news, instead he smiled at Kai, exhausted and she smiled back, grateful.

That memory occupied Lee's attention for 5 minutes before he came back to the darkness, and he screamed again, not for help this time, but because he had momentarily forgotten where he was, and now he was back. And then he screamed for help, or tried to, but it turned out his throat was too raw and tired to manage a real proper scream, and so Rock Lee hung his head limply, thinking about Kai and pillars and cutting wires loose. And that was when it hit him, this pain was just making him stronger, or, well, he didn't feel stronger, and he was crying again, but it would eventually make him stronger, right?

Rock Lee cried in the darkness.

Author Notes:

Okay, Part 1 of the Torture. Let me know if you guys are understanding what is happening. I have a huge fear that I will describe shit, in detail, and then someone will just go: "What the fuck just happened?" And then sad feelings. So many sad feelings. So let me know! I actually love criticism more than praise (though I will take either), so please say whatever. I changed a couple of things, you may have noticed. 1. PNL = Ri. Her name is Ri, not Rin (I apparently fucked this up, thanks for catching that BlueGlass 54. 2. Lee is now 6 or 7 years old, not 4. 3. He has been in Root for 3 months when this chapter starts, not 1 month. 4. I don't know why the fuck my text is all messed up. I wish I could make it have more spacing and larger text, but I don't know how to fix that. If you have a suggestion, please let me know, and I will try it. Cause I want this to be at least sort of visually appealing.

Thanks to AJ Katon, kage-sensei, Nappy Boy Rep, LeexSaku Rocks, BlueGlass54, and everyone else for the reviews, favorites, comments, taking time to read this stuff. Also, somebody said that Lee was thinking in ways that are a bit too intelligent, verbose, and above his paygrade. I tend to describe thoughts, rather than literally put them on page. So when I say that Lee, "ruminated briefly on how ruined and mangled his hand must be" he doesn't actually use the word "ruminated" cause he doesn't know that word. But I do, and I use it because it accurately conveys what he is doing. Also, I am kinda of the belief that if you force a kid to survive on his own wits and power from an early age, he will be unnervingly observant in some ways, but still super stupid in other ways. Hopefully that comes through in this a bit more.

Also, good news. I did this in about a week. So I expect that might become fairly normal. I'll be shooting for weekly updates, and if I fuck up, feel free to bombard me with messages/reviews complaining.