Traversing through mud and slurry water looking for a dead body was a terrible experience. Ringo was learning fast that she didn't have anywhere near the level of patience she'd thought; certainly not enough for this. Then again...maybe it was the excitement of the situation. The need to find these things first; the same competitiveness she'd always had. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind she wasn't the only one looking, especially if Fuguki's rambling at the bar wasn't the only time he went around blabbing about the situation. Or perhaps he only let it slip to a couple at a time, let them fight it out, and swooped in for another test or two. The fact that the Kiba still weren't claimed didn't set high hopes for a decent survival rate, but it was what it was.

The stress was just getting to her. Never before had she been this close to what she'd been searching for, and knowing that at any moment it could be snatched away by some poser who just wanted something shiny to stick people with was getting more and more infuriating. If she didn't find them first, what would that mean? What would it do for her plan? For her life?

She'd kill them for it. Even if someone got to the Kiba first, she'd end them at the first possible moment. The Seven might even like that, who knew. These things belonged to her. They weren't in her possession yet, but they were hers.

That said, the search was just as boring and terrible as it was disgusting. The excitement of it was only in what would come should she succeed. The actual searching? Awful. Still water always had a habit of stinking the worst, and the trash thrown into it didn't wash away nearly as quickly as it did in fast flowing waterways. And the worst...the worst was when Ringo couldn't see the bottom of the water from the surface. Because it meant she had to search by hand.

Ringo had done a lot of disgusting things in her time, but this, somehow, took the cake. For her own sanity, the Thunderblades better be nearby.

She hadn't slept very much over the past few days, and her search had expanded far past the boundaries of the more urban portions of Kirigakure.

At least her assumption that this wasn't some petty trap by Fuguki to kill or rob random teenagers was reasonably confirmed.

She was exhausted, angry, and more than a bit worried to top it off. And she smelled like crap. And these clothes would never recover from this experience. If somebody wanted to ambush her, it probably wouldn't be very hard.

That was...still a worrying thought. She probably wouldn't be the only one planning to murder the hell out of whoever found the Kiba, and her paranoia was well deserved considering the situation. Every sound, every splash of water, every time she was sure she heard someone stepping through mud, she whipped around in an instant, swords drawn only to be met by nothing.

She was willing to throw herself into the nastiest parts of Kiri, starve herself searching, and kill whoever she had to in order to claim these swords. They would be hers. Anybody with the bright idea to attack her now? They'd get what they deserve. She was more than pissed enough to make it happen no matter who they were.

But regardless of her readiness for it, the strangeness of the situation was more in that she hadn't been attacked yet. As of now, it was just an anxiety driven higher and higher with every minute passed in solitude in the middle of absolutely disgusting riverbeds. She'd bet that fish fucker was somewhere around, guffawing at her like the asshole he is.

"Dammit, where the hell are these things!?"

She'd searched so much the past few nights. Every river that fit the idea she could think of, every stretch of foul smelling muck. She'd even found a couple bits of remains, but nothing full, and nothing with anything good on them.

Ringo stepped back out of the particularly nasty water channel she'd been looking through, taking a deep breath. She had to think now. She needed to take a moment to calm down.

Was she wrong about them being in still water? Could they have washed away? In another river? ...Was Fuguki just spreading the story to torment anybody stupid enough to believe him? He didn't seem to care the most about other people. It was...It was possible that he made it up just to get naive swordsmen looking for their big chance to wade through crap for days on end. Just a bit of entertainment achieved via psychological torture.

Well. Damn. A bizarre mixture of adrenaline and an overwhelming exhaustion flowed through Ringo as she sat on the bank of the freshly searched river.

'...I'll keep searching for tonight. I need these things. They need to be out here.'

Yeah...she'd keep searching, and if she hadn't found them by morning, she'd return to Kiri and get some food and rest. Once she recovered a bit, she'd come back out with a bit less urgency. Staying out in the cold and muck for so long was taking a nasty toll on her health, anyways. Her cough was coming back, and she wasn't stupid enough to search until she died out here.

Having caught her breath and being more rested than she had been for days, Ringo stood, ready to continue her search once more. Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd find the things before the sun rose.

With the disquieting feeling that she was being watched creeping across her back, she started up the river once again.

(Fuguki)

Fuguki Suikazan was a man in his own world. He took his service to Kiri very seriously, but in the end, it was his own whims that led him to do what he did outside of missions. Over the years he'd learned to trust his gut. It'd been very good to him thus far, so there was no reason to doubt it when it came to his newest find.

Sitting silently in a tree overlooking one of the many rivers in Kiri, shrouded by the ever present mist, Fuguki eyed his prize. A young sword wielding fighter, currently waist deep in muck, trying to find the Kiba. It hadn't been sheer coincidence when he first found them a couple years back; he had actually been watching someone else at the time. Another kenjutsu hopeful. A very annoying young man, but he knew what was important about the practice and he wasn't terrible. Fuguki had decided to watch the man for a bit, see if there was actually anything to him that would make him a decent subordinate.

As it turns out, there wasn't. Not really. But the time had been oh so worth it at this point. His watch had somehow ended up in a confrontation with a scruffy urchin teenager, armed with a small tanto. He rattled off a full length speech that Fuguki was sure he had written beforehand about the virtues of swordsmanship and a swords relation to its wielder, and before he had even finished talking, the urchin's blade was stuck right in his gut.

The fight was quick. With a first strike that brutal, it would be a rare case not to be. The lad put up a good defence for having a hole in his belly, Fuguki wasn't kidding when he said that he was actually somewhat skilled. Just not skilled enough, and a bit too in his own head. And watching the kid fight, it was clear he wouldn't have too much trouble finishing what that blow had started. The kid was fast, certainly faster than most, and absolutely wild with the way the blade swung. Quite a feat for someone he was fairly certain wasn't even a proper ninja. He knew his strengths and leaned into them, which was good. Careful, but furious with it.

The kid's movements were fluid and quick, the blade they held never stilling in their flurry of strikes. By the time the final cut was landed on the preacher, Fuguki's leer was entirely directed at the other combatant anyways.

The sword sang in the kid's hand, like it was made to be holding weapons. And once the man fell dead, what did they do? Smirked, picked his pockets, and stole his own weapon, eyeing it appreciatively.

"Bahah! The boys got spunk!"

Slapping his hand against his knee and laughing to himself from his perch, Fuguki thought back through what he knew of the kid in question.

It wasn't hard to learn more about him. Mist was always watching. No matter where you went in it, you could never truly hide. Not from a man like Fuguki.

Urchin. No public name worth knowing. Skilled enough with a blade. One of the kids you wanna stay from. And, from what he heard, he had quite the mean streak going on. Not bad for a kid who didn't have anything to him.

But what spoke more than anything was the way he moved when he fought. Not only did his fighting skills speak of natural talent, they showed experience. Real experience. The kind you only get from fighting others to the end with all your being. Normally that's the kind of thing you get in war or service as a shinobi, but street fighting...well, it's certainly worked ok until this point. Sure, it left him pretty damn rough around the edges, some of it fairly basic stuff the schools would normally iron out, but the skill was there, and the rest could be beaten into him. So far, with however many years of that, the boy was coming out on top, and getting better and better with every passing day. Quick learner, likely practiced a good amount on his own time. That was good.

Not a diamond in the rough, but certainly a jewel. Unpolished and uncut, but a gem that could be molded into something worthwhile. Fuguki decided to keep tabs on the kid. If he lived long enough, he could easily become someone worth watching.

Perhaps unfortunately, perhaps luckily, Fuguki ended up needing a fall back like that. The man who'd taken up the Thunderblades, a slimy fellow that was too haughty for his own health, turned out to be nothing but a rat. A traitor, giving out information on the roster of The Seven Ninja Swordsmen to enemies of Mist. The man was good, but not worth keeping at that point. When he'd learned about it, Fuguki was so pissed that he killed the man himself; drained him dry with Samehada and dumped the body, swords and all, in the most disgusting, infested river he knew of.

So, he took it on himself to start searching for a replacement. Someone with talent, someone with the right stuff he was looking for. And as a few applicants tried and failed to be worthwhile, one of the people that stuck to his thoughts was the young boy who stuck through his potential charge a while back. Yes, depending on how he'd progressed so far, he might be worth something now! And if he wasn't...ah well. He'd see, and if the kid turned out to be nothing special...

Well. Depended on his attitude.

Finding him again was easy, especially once Fuguki learned that he'd become a regular at some seedy bar in Kiri proper. He took his student with him and sat out at the bar for a while, waiting. The sake was terrible, Fuguki couldn't understand for the life of him why people liked it here. Still, 4 or 5 bottles did the trick, and by the time he was starting to get a little bored, the boy he was searching for had walked in, eyes directly on him.

He looked away quickly, but Fuguki was feeling playful. Perhaps the obscene amount of alcohol played into that a bit, but he didn't really care at the moment. The boy'd grown; perhaps a bit shorter and a little softer looking than he would've expected, but he was growing well still. He looked well fed and was fairly filled out with lean muscle, which said skill. You don't eat right without taking the means to do so in the worse parts of Mist. His tanto on one hip, the longer sword he'd taken on the other, tucked securely into his obi. He kept his hands by his sides, ready to draw at any moment if he had to. It seemed that he wasn't the kind the just threaten with the swords; he liked to use them.

Oh, Fuguki was starting to look forward to this.

Thus, it was to his delight that the boy sat a bit behind Kisame, back to the both of them, head down, focused on his drink a respectable distance away. If Fuguki hadn't been searching for him specifically, he could pass the kid up entirely with the way he kept to himself.

But he was young. Young, and inexperienced in any art that wasn't fighting it would seem. He wasn't anywhere near Fuguki's level. No, not just yet, and likely not for a long while still. It was way too obvious that he was trying to avoid their notice. That fact was made even clearer by the way that, every time Fuguki giggled harshly to himself and settled his gaze right on the back of the kid's head, he would freeze like he could feel it.

It wouldn't be hard to pique the boy's interest if he was anything like Fuguki was searching for. A few choice words dropped in a loud enough manner, a couple small hints of whereabouts, and the kid was hooked. The way he stiffened when he recognized the name of the swords, and when he figured out just who he was listening to was more than just a little enjoyable. The kid debated to himself for a minute, then shot up, walking right past him to exit the bar.

After he was gone, Fuguki couldn't resist a proper laugh at how entertaining that had been. And then another at how right he was. The kid wanted those swords, enough to say "stealth be damned" and walk right out. An idiot or someone with enough guts to back up their gusto, time would tell.

Fuguki chuckled to himself. What a simpleton, that kid. If this does end up working, he'd have to be taught quite a lot of basics. Still, he's off to find the prize. The first of the tests has been passed.

'Yes,' he thought to himself, as the boy in question stood and started trekking up the river once more, 'Yes, this has promise.'

(Ringo)

The night was dragging on. The sun would rise soon, and she didn't feel any closer to her goal. And she was, once again, waist deep in the most disgusting muck she'd ever seen. Who the hell lets things get this bad!? Why is her country so filthy!?

That was how it had been since she started her search, and it didn't feel any different now, no matter where she looked. Night had only an hour or so remaining before light would break. Honestly, at this point, she had essentially given up on finding the things before going back to Kiri proper to rest up, even though her body was still mechanically going through the motions of searching.

Which was why it was so surprising when her hand, moving against the bottom of the river, felt something. Cloth? Cloth around something. Something...

"Oh fuck that's a body. Oh, fuck!"

Was this it? She hurriedly got a grip on the thing's clothes, hooking into the fabric past thick, dead skin, and hauled it up, dropping it down against the bank of the river. That's...

"That's disgusting."

The body was bloated, diseased, torn up in places, and peeling. By far the grossest encounter with death Ringo had ever had up to this point. But that wasn't important. She had to search it.

Holding her breath as she crept in closer to it, she started the process. Tied to anything? No. Hips, sash, not there, pants, no…

Metal. Something long and metal was pressed up against his chest on the inside of his robe. Tearing it open, she looked at the weapon stuck to the corpse's oozing skin.

It was iconic. It was what she was looking for, and she could practically feel its power in her hands. It was...just one of them.

She moved in a frenzy, peeling the sword away from the body and keeping it securely in hand as she searched the rest of the body, disgust forgotten, only to turn up nothing.

'The river.'

Ringo practically dove back in, a spray of wet filth splashing up around her as she frantically brushed against the bottom of the water where the body had been. She had this, she had them. It was almost anticlimactic, finally finding them, but she was too engrossed in the surge of joy that she was feeling to really care. Her fatigue was forgotten, washed away in the electrifying feeling of the blade in her hand. And all she had to do was find…

There it was. A sharp point jutting from the muck of the riverbed, almost cutting into her just from brushing it. She found the handle and gripped it, pulling it up and out of the mud, taking in the sight as it broke the surface of the water.

This was real. The Kiba were hers.

She scrambled up the river's edge, a sword in each hand, a few quiet bouts of laughter escaping her as her emotions swam in so many directions.

She relaxed and tightened her grip on the handle's of the swords she was so desperate for. They were larger than her other swords, but not giant. Not like Fuguki's. Twin blades, bits of metal stuck out along a couple points of the edge for shredding.

Ringo got into a practice stance and swung forward experimentally. They were lighter than she expected. They were fast. She felt so powerful just holding them.

'Thunderblades…'

These swords were said to grant access to lightning techniques.

'...I like lightning.'

Lightning was good. Strong. Bright, energetic, and absolutely devastating. And right now, she could practically feel herself swimming in anticipation to try it out. Though...she'd never utilized chakra in something like this before. She'd learned enough from spying on academy students to know what it was and how to feel it, but she'd never really used it for anything more than the basics. Now, however, it just felt right. Like she had to in order to get some of this excitement burned out of her.

Grabbing hold of her chakra to move it around was difficult, and ordinarily it would be horribly frustrating, but the time it took to get it right passed in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

Finally pushing a thick chunk of her chakra down her arms and into the blades, she tried what she knew to make something happen. And, a bit to her surprise and much to her mirth, the swords sparked. Bits of electricity jumped up and down the Kiba, and she felt the strength in these weapons resonate within her as sparks from the blades leapt across her wrists, lightly stinging against her skin.

This felt so damn good. So right. These things were MADE for her!

All of her exhaustion was gone, replaced with a giddy feeling of excitement. This was a damn dream come true!

She cut through the air quickly with a couple more swings, chuckling lowly in disbelief. A stab to follow through. She pushed her chakra back through the swords. And then...

A buzz. A buzz that was like music to her ears. Delicious sparking as electricity shot through the blades, arcing through the space the tip of her sword occupied.

She couldn't resist it; she laughed. She laughed quietly at first, and it escalated to full blown whooping and howling as she brought the swords back to her, jumping repeatedly in place. This was IT! She could reach the height of legends with these things!

The weight of her previous swords still tucked against her waist drew her attention, and after a moment of consideration, she removed them, holding a set of swords by the blades in one hand each. Raising the hand that held her first weapons over the riverbank, she slowly released her grip, swords falling into the grime with a wet slap and quickly sinking. She smiled

Ringo wouldn't need them anymore. Now that she had the thunder blades? Never again would she need anything else. Let some other poor sap fetch metal from a river from now on.

A smile was quickly spreading over her like wildfire once more as she reveled in how new, how remade she felt, and more laughter was beginning to rise up out of her. However, her joy was cut short when a deep voice cut through her celebration behind her.

"Behehaha! Finally got em' didja? Took ya long enough. Was startin' to think you'd just give up! And wouldn't that be a shame, huh?"

Fuguki. Her joy halted, mixing with a sudden dread. Several thoughts hammered through her. She was right, she was being watched. What happens now? Vetting, judgement, was he here to kill her? What should she do? Run? Talk? Listen? Attack? There would be a test, but she didn't know how straightforward it would be. She was riding on more adrenaline than she'd ever had in her life, all it would take for her to attack would be him to point his sword in her direction. She couldn't hope to beat him, but the energy that filled her blood right now was a powerful thing, and she was feeling better than she ever had before. But Fuguki was just staring at her. Waiting for her to say something? What was he expecting? She settled on keeping this as still as possible, drawing out as much information as she could while being ready to lash out the moment he showed intent to attack.

"You brought me here on purpose."

The big man's grin was terrifying. Sharp teeth weren't all that uncommon in Kiri, she had them herself, but on a man that enormous it made for quite the scary visage.

"Course I did! I'm not lettin' just anybody get their hands on those."

He pointed a giant finger right at the Kiba. Once more, her thoughts were in disarray. What did that mean? He wouldn't let her just take them, but what were the conditions surrounding that? "What do you want?"

He chortled. That was disturbing.

"Didn't I just say? Not just anybody gets their hands on those things. You know what they are, yea?"

"...Yeah."

"And you know who they belong to, yea?"

She curled in on herself in an instant, swords pulled in front of her defensively. Her eyes narrowed, and a sneer plastered itself onto her face before she could stop herself.

"They belong to ME!"

For a tense second, the riverside was filled with nothing but silence. Fuguki laughed again, louder this time, hands on his stomach. Still, her defensive stance didn't relax. Not for a moment.

"BAHAhah! They could, kid! They might, even! But beyond that, they belong to something bigger."

He was starting to talk slower, every word drawn out and emphasized.

"I'm sure you know, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen." He grinned, eyes trained on her. "Is that you?"

Was it? It could be. She certainly knew that she wanted the spot. It was her ticket to the life she wanted. To life itself. Fuguki, for his part, didn't seem to care much about what exactly she was thinking. He just laughed on, watching her.

"We need to test that, don't ya think? After all, I said it before," he chuckled out, a hand reaching over his shoulder as he grabbed the handle of Samehada, the bandage wrapped sword that could eat her if she let it, "I won't let just anybody get those."

'He's going to attack' was the thought screaming through her mind as he brought the giant sword in front of him, held firmly with one hand. She was coiled tighter than she ever had been before. Never in her life had she ever been against someone so singularly dangerous. He spoke again.

"I like the look of you, boy!"

There was something wrong with that sentence.

"Your hands were made to hold weapons, but I need to feel it for myself now!"

What a disturbing choice of words. Was this guy stupid? Was he trying to piss her off? Was this part of his 'test'?

What an asshole.

Of course, that thought was paid only a bit of mind to overall. It's difficult not to direct the vast majority of your attention to a giant with a sword the size you are, claiming he's going to 'test' you on your 'handling of weapons'. The man could kill her in a heartbeat, so somewhere in her mind she knew he wasn't looking to just off her, but her thoughts were obscenely clouded. She would still be fighting for her life with this 'test'. She most definitely did not want to die here. Not now. Dying with these swords finally in her hands almost seemed a worse fate than dying trying to get them.

More and more fear had been slipping into her as she tried to piece together her thoughts. This man could kill her, but would he? That sword of his, Samehada, can suck the life out of her in a single second. But she wouldn't let it. Just as quickly as the fear had seeped into her, it was being battered down by anger. She was terrified, so she'd get furious. She didn't want to die, so she had to fight. Who was this man to take her life now? She knew logically she couldn't beat him, but he wasn't giving her any other option. There was no running. Not from a member of the Seven Swordsmen. The only thing she could do was fight, and she'd fight hard.

The Kiba hummed and crackled with electricity, filling the silence between them. She would get out of here. She would kill this man if she had to. And now she was ready.

As quick as the lightning in her blades, Ringo launched herself forward, cutting the distance between her and Fuguki and swiftly moving into a flurry of swipes, each aimed to slice through something important enough to bleed him out sooner or later. Her stance was low, trying to remain as close to the ground as possible as she searched for a cut. Fuguki seemed...amused. He was laughing. That could be bad. At the moment, it certainly seemed so; not even a single swing came close to connecting with his skin, each attack blocked by the massive barrier that was Samehada. He likely wasn't the quickest in the world, but it seemed he didn't have to be, twisting the massive sword just as much as he had to. He didn't move besides that. This was utterly ineffective.

'The lightning!'

He knew more about these swords than any other, so he knew what they offered, but it was worth a shot to take him off guard and she was sure as hell going to make use of the power these things held. She quickly turned an attack that cut harmlessly across the bandages of Samehada back to a stab aimed at his arm. It wasn't quite close enough to reach, and the area wasn't anything vital, but that was what she was hoping she could count on, that he wouldn't even bother blocking. Her chakra flowed down her arm into the metal of her blade, and the already familiar chirps of electricity rung loud. Lightning crackled up from the handle and she shouted as it shot from the tip of the Kiba.

The energy shot at the man's arm, and...Samehada covered it. Damn it. The electricity that had been aimed at the man himself quickly swung around his sword, running across it and slowly dissipating as the energy was absorbed into the bandages. There was some weird crunching sound. Did it just...grow? Oh, kami, that was a terrible sight. Fuguki looked all too pleased with himself, placing the tip of Samehada on the ground against the cracked mud and leaning forward, resting his elbow on the hilt.

"Not gonna work, boy! Samehada here can abso-hey!"

Ringo cut off Fuguki's talk, flying into another series of strikes aimed primarily at the legs. She had to find somewhere he couldn't defend as easily. The ever encroaching fog that crept around them was sliced apart by her attacks, and Fuguki seemed to actually be taken off guard. That was good. She just had to keep attacking; any advantage couldn't afford to be wasted, and her strength was in her speed.

But no matter how fast she moved, no matter how fluidly she shifted from attack to attack, from target to target, Fuguki managed to block them all. That said, he had blanched at her interruption, and had actually taken a good few steps back since this round of strikes had begun. She raised one of the Kiba, and-

"OOF!"

She was sent staggering back by a massive foot planted in the middle of her chest. It wasn't that painful, but it was a struggle not to fall from the force of it. Fuguki was recovering from his surprise, and started to speak once again.

"Beheheh! You've got some spark in you, boy,"

Oh. That's right, she did! And if it wouldn't work against the man himself, then...

"But when a man like me speaks, it would be wise to lis-"

"HAH!"

She slammed the tips of her swords into the dirt and pushed her chakra through them, willing it towards the earth at Fuguki's feet. Electricity sprung to life, and the energy raced towards him, tearing up the ground along two parallel lines on a path that ended where he stood. The rocks he stood on crumbled and exploded outward, and Fuguki fell forward, a look of dumb shock on his face as he tried to process what just happened. She had another chance. This man had to die. She had to kill him NOW.

Ringo ran towards the man once more, fangs bared, and leapt up, readying a scissor cut aimed at the man's neck. Fuguki's shock receded quickly as she approached, and was replaced with rage.

"DAMMIT KID!"

His footing stabilized, and his grip on Samehada tightened as he reared the sword back. He was fast, faster than she thought he was. He moved to the side before her cut could connect and she landed harsh in a kneel. She flipped the blade closest to him around in her grip as she turned, and, after just one moment, surged back at the man with a quick slash, the plan playing through her head. She'd bring the sword past him in a slash, stop quick, and with her grip she could change it instantly to a stab once she was past him, bring it back to a hit, and use the electricity to-

"LISTEN TO ME!"

Quicker than she could comprehend, Fuguki roared and ripped Samehada from beside him to smash it against her ribs, batting her away like he was playing some sport, sending her flying backwards, the quick movement from her rush being smacked harsh and sudden in the opposite direction. Somehow, her grip on the Kiba remained strong, but the pain hammered directly into her chest, and it was blinding. Her vision exploded into white for a moment, and she screamed as she rammed against the earth and rolled a fair distance, landing lamely on her side and pressing the hilt of one of her swords against the impacted ribs. Those were shattered. This was a fight ending injury. And her chakra...In just that brief moment of contact, Samehada had ripped out far more chakra than she'd used on all of her attacks so far, leaving her feeling both broken and nearly emptied.

A shadow loomed over her, Fuguki's presence forewarned the by harsh slap of his sandals against the wet earth. She managed to look up at him, and met his eyes.

She wished she hadn't. That mixture of a condescending smile and rage filled sneer was not what she wanted to be looking at right now. Dammit! She had to do something, she had to-

"AGH!"

Ringo screamed again as the top of Fuguki's massive foot sank into her stomach, sending her skidding against the mud once more.

"Beheheh...You gotta learn your place, boy. Swords or not," more pain ripped through her as the man stomped on her hide. Another scream tore from her throat, and she could only guess Fuguki was still smiling. "You're no match for me."

The pain was debilitating, but moreso was the overwhelming need to do something. She couldn't die here. She wouldn't let herself. She'd sooner live a life of misery than die this young. Her hands squeezed the hilts of the Thunderblades, and sparks erupted from the weapons, spreading over her skin. That is, until the sole of Fuguki's sandal came down hard on her hand with a piercing crack. Fuck. The pain was too much for her to handle, and the electricity sputtered out before she could do anything with it. The torture reached her eyes, and her face contorted into agony as the man ground her hand between the hilt it was holding and his foot. Her screams turned silent, just sputters of pain in between heavy breaths that begged to fill her lungs. She hated this man. She didn't want to die here. Dammit, she didn't want to die.

Fuguki's foot lifted, and Ringo tried desperately to stabilize herself; ready herself for whatever would come next from the giant. But rather than attack, he started speaking once more.

"B'heh...Behahah! BAHAHAHA! Oh, you've got some promise alright. I like you, kid. I really do. Maybe a few respect issues…But those can be...smoothed out, right?"

His face went fairly neutral, and he let out a 'hmm', thinking to himself for a moment. Ringo's thoughts were finally coming together to form another clear plan.

Do whatever the hell this guy wanted.

Fighting didn't seem the best idea now that he was talking again, but just to be careful, her good hand's grip tightened on the Kiba once again. Fuguki noticed this, eyes snapping right to the motion. His smile grew again, and he turned away from her, throwing his sword up and over his shoulder, securing Samehada in its place across his back.

"Heheh...fine. Alright, why not! I got a good feeling from you!"

She choked out her next words as best she could,

"W-what...?"

"Mm?"

Fuguki turned back, looking down at her.

"It means you'll do for now. I told you who those swords belonged to."

He leant down, grinning face getting closer to hers as he harshly stated,

"Welcome aboard."

He laughed again as he stood and began walking away, arms behind his head.

"C'mon! Up! You've got people to meet. Better hope they see some good in you too. If you don't wanna be dead within the season, you've got a lot of work ahead of you, boy!"

Ringo slowly sat up, clutching her side with her unbroken hand. She'd need to tuck the swords into the sash around her waist; she didn't trust her grip to stay strong right now. She didn't know if she could even bring herself to speak without sounding pitiful, but...

"I'm...a girl…"

"Eh?" Fuguki turned back again, slowly eyeing her up. "...you sure?"

What the god damn hell-

"Yes."

Fuguki turned his head again, contemplating.

"Hmmm...that's a first..."

He started walking again. Dammit, she had to follow him, and her chest hurt so damn much. Getting up was like torture all over again. If there was anything in Kiri that could temper her joy at the plan working out, it was the plan working out this painfully.

'But…' She thought, grunting as she slowly rose. 'He is right…'

Ringo had a lot of work to do. It seemed she was where she wanted to be, now she had to become strong enough for it to be worth it. There was much left ahead of her, and she'd need to put in a massive amount of effort to get through it.

AN: Hope everybody had a good week! Y'all know how good boiled cookies are? They're wicked good. M' in heaven rn.
Probably gonna need an extra day at the gym this week, but damn is it worth it.

Next friday will officially mark the end of The Early Years!
This chapter is probably my personal favorite in the first few. Some very fun lines, some neat situations...Sword smashed against our favorite protagonist. Good times.
Maybe started a little slow, but we got some of that much needed action. Wouldn't be a Ringo story without some good ol' fightin'.

I'll see ya next week! Stay rad, yo, as i'm sure y'all are!

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icestar0: fixed apt to aptitude, bless your heart.
I love that you noticed how she'd never used chakra for much before! That's actually a little part of the plan; according to every source I can find about them, the Kiba grant some degree of control over lightning techniques, and allow use of them with minimal chakra cost. Now that's going to require a good bit of training and refinement, obviously, but needless to say she probably won't be using too many chakra techniques outside of that. As well, she is about 14 when she first meets Fuguki, so spot on!
Nailed it, my dude.

A lot of her use of the swords and training with them was, unfortunately, skipped over, and other survival skills were more implied than stated. That was one of my main worries about even having an Early Years arc, but with a character as unexplored as one of the Seven Swordsmen that isn't Zabuza or Kisame, I both really wanted to and felt like I had to go through something before her time in the group that felt right for her. That said, I didn't want to spend an overwhelming amount of story on it. A spicy prologue only gives way to so much setup before it gets boring for a lot of people :(

And yea, they didn't plan on letting just anybody get those swords. I hope what Fuguki was planning lived up to your hopes! It was a very fun fight from a writing standpoint, so I hope it brought on some excitement.

PS. She can't read ;P