A sleazy young man vaulted over his front. Feet in the air while performing a split that made his leather pants squeak and hand-standing the whole trip through, the leathery thug buzzed rushing toward his opponent and drove right into him, tormenting the thick and bulky, hairy older man with a spinning, helicopter-like rampage of kicks. The brother of the leathery clad individual hopped over his younger sibling, pushing off of his crotch as he dived over with a jumping kick and beat the meaty and wild, haired ninja with his metal bat.
"And you're outta here, hick!" the older brother taunted his opponent, carefully winding his bat up and slamming it right into the face of the kneeling fleshy behemoth. The clanging impact sent the giant rolling back in a drag that stopped in a less than elegant, bottoms up pose for the opponent of the two weasel brothers.
While the two brothers were busy taunting their fallen opponent whom they've ganged up on, they became too entranced by their own "gun-show" to where they didn't notice the training grounds lighting up and the ancient ruins that they hosted disappearing inside of seals littering the training grounds floor. It was only when the younger brother temporarily opened his eyes to bask at the misery of his beaten opponent that he saw the dispersal of their battlefield and shook his older sibling back into it.
"Bro, something's off here," the younger brother pointed to the training ground that had returned to normal and the other Allied Ninja recruits filling it slowly as the lecture had closed in on its last stages with tutor Mauma ready to wrap it up.
"What? We must have beaten that hayseed so badly that the teach called the whole War Game off, yeah, that must have been it…" the know-it-all older brother nodded, taking note to fix the position of his massive shades as the accessory threatened to slip off of his nose from his incessant nodding.
"Actually, you have lost this round, ruffians," a middle-aged man, subtle of frame, approached the scene of what appeared to be an absolute mugging. "In your senseless obsession at tickling our powerhouse, you've ignored to maintain the security of the objective and you've left it under-manned. That is a mistake that I as the commander of my squad would not forgive my opponents and exploited, winning us the war."
The two leather jacket donning studs eyed the short and slim man approaching them in straight, black military trousers, a fishnet shirt and a black top over it, and a red flak jacket decorated with gold buttons, topped off by a dome-shaped mask with a single monocle eye gleaming in the center and a stiff, rectangular and wrinkly chin sticking out underneath it. The man had some missing teeth. A fact that became apparent when he spoke in his emotionless and strict tone.
"What's that, punk? You telling us you sneaked behind our backs like a little wussy and snatched the win?" the bat-wielding punk brother shoved his brother out of his way and began measuring his steel bat to take a hefty swing to see if the helmet that this man donned couldn't have been split with enough cracking force. "How 'bouts I remeasure your punk-ass face a little as I did with your corn-fed piggy over there?"
"It appears that your intel has deluded you, civvy, an unforgivable blunder provided that you and your sibling wasted the entire War Game here, beating on the distraction that we have left behind for you to fool you. It is despicable that your stupidity has drawn a mark of shame upon me as well, for I have only counted for Hoshido to take only a few minutes of your time, vastly underestimating your ineptitude at your tasks," the slim, red flak jacket-clad man reported with a stiffened chin and a strict, slashing tone of voice. "You appear to be deceived that your feeble pestering has done anything but vex our heavy artillery, it is a shame that the battle is already decided and I cannot sick Hoshido on you. He is a roughneck whose services I shall employ in my future ventures, that is for damn sure!"
Knowing that his strict response will trigger something in his opponents, the self-proclaimed commander snapped his fingers and saw a line of steel wire rise in front of him. The greaser with the steel bat staggered back, having nearly found himself entangled in this suddenly erected trap while his shades hung very loose on the very tip of his nose, exposing his frightened, cerulean eyes.
"Hey, boss, glad to be of use!" Damisan emerged from the cover of the brushes, saluting with his prosthetic arm while his left hung down missing the tips of his fingers as they've shot off of his prosthetic arm as counterweights and hooked onto the obstacle he used to erect the steel wire trap.
"I must admit, I've found your suppressing explosive kunai barrage arm maneuver to be just damn cool. At ease now, veteran, allow me to teach these pups a lesson," the short yet militant man croaked in response to Damisan while he approached the steel wire wall and placed two of his fingers into his mouth, letting out a sharp whistle that cut into the ears of even the more remote lines of recruits still hanging farther away and hearing the tutor's lecture out.
The fallen Hoshido rolled on his fat bottom and strung right back onto his stump-like feet, cracking his neck to the sides and then cracking his knuckles as the ginger yokel smirked with a sadistic smirk and wiped the trail of blood running down his nose. Before the behemoth could rip into his sibling bullies, however, the sharp and authoritative tone of the squad leader once again defused the situation.
"While you wasted time on meaningless acts of sadism that merely entertained my cornfed comrade, we have outplayed you on every rank and every aspect. You are embarrassments to your squad and to your service. I wouldn't design footman puppets after you even if the Supreme Leader demanded it and I'll let you know I am a man that respects his orders!" the helm-donning man replied with both arms positioned behind him as if he saw no impending danger from the two increasingly frustrated goons in front of him.
"Oh yeah? Well, what if I carve you up and scoop you out like an oyster?" the younger brother hopped forward, revealing a kunai knife from his sleeve that shimmered in bright sunlight. With a single slash, he cut through the steel wire and advanced toward the grumpy field commander of the impromptu squad that tutor Mauma put together for this lecture's War Game.
Before the young man could close up closer than one dash away from the field commander, his knife bounced off of something round and rubbery while the blades of a katana, a scythe, a spear, a round and flat shield with sharpened edges positioned around his neck and an elongated chain with sharpened links that sliced into its targets like linked razor blades wrapped around him leaving the sleazy brother's leather jacket in stringy tatters.
"Cease this at once!" tutor Mauma roared, rushing to the scene with a massive naginata in hand that appeared from a cloud of smoke and a loud pop, sealed inside of one of his gauntlets, as he tripped over the older goon brother and pressed him to the floor before swinging his glaive around and tossing the armed puppets surrounding the younger brother like rag dolls before subduing the younger sibling himself. "What has gotten into you? I would have thought recruits less than a month away from becoming Allied Ninja to be more mindful of the organization's rules!"
"I apologize, tutor," the puppet-commanding field leader bowed the upper half of his body in bodily language that translated genuine regret but a tone of voice that was as strict and unmoved as ever. "I must request that you understand our situation. This War Game became heated, tensions were high, and we're all very passionate about securing victory to the Allied Ninja!"
"I understand, recruit Tongo, that I why I won't be reporting you bunch to the Regimental Commanders and pushing for a disciplinary hearing. Don't make me think myself a fool because of it!" tutor Mauma pushed the subdued brother toward his older sibling. The two got back on their feet full and proper and checked up on themselves. They secured their shades as close to their eyes as possible so that the scare that this experience has put into them was not immediately apparent.
"Whoa, those are amazing!" Damisan yelled out, smacking his cylinder by accident as he had intended to smack his cheeks to shake himself out of what he thought surely to be a dream. The self-puppeteering ninja dashed up to the lined-up army of Hyakuton Tongo's puppets and began devouring them with his eyes. "I used to be a puppeteer myself back in the day when I had arms and legs so I can tell amazing craftsmanship. They've been through so much - their bodies have signs of scrapes and bends, but they're so meticulously maintained!"
"Thanks, son, this particular model you're gawking at is S13G3 Unit No. 4500," Tongo approached one of his puppets with both arms behind his back while his creation stood in a military position of tensed up salutation and greeted its commander and its temporary ally on the battlefield.
"Wow, you guys do stuff a little differently than us back in Sunagakure. We used to give our puppets sort of human names like Kara-chan or Luby-Hearts." Damisan said with a lighter tone now that the intense scuffle that Tongo guided his impromptu squad through had concluded just as decisively as the puppet commander promised to his comrades if they listened to him.
"These are weapons, tools of war, son. You do not name any of those excellent explosive projectiles you fire in sweet automated fire from your arm cannons, do you? I see my S13G3 Units and the lower ranking F00T models much the same way. Don't get me wrong, I'd sacrifice a hundred F00Ts over one S13G3, but that is about it! War is a matter of economics, just like hand-to-hand combat is about managing your stamina. Having more energy helps clinch victory, but it won't hand it to you all by itself!" Tongo reported while removing a scroll from an inner pocket of his flak jacket and unraveling it before him for his S13G3 Units to seal themselves into it as their commander and maker approached the bemused powerhouse behind him.
"You're a source of some fine mayhem, son!" Tongo commended his asset that settled for taking a beating for almost nine minutes that Tongo needed to scope out and achieve victory for his field squad. "Few men would have had the guts to sign up for what you did. Your bunk is grateful for your service!"
"Anytime, old-timer, I'm always up for a good slobber knocker. Say, you seen my hat anywhere? It fell off when one of dem bastards was swinging at my face with a brick and must 'a rolled off somewhere… It does that sometimes…" the colossus of flesh scratched his messy, long, and spiky ginger hair running down his chunky and hunched back.
"If memory serves, a high-crowned, wide-brimmed head accessory… That would be a negative, I'd be willing to lend you the aid of my F00Ts if you promised to allow me the luxury to conscript your services for tasks tall and grisly in the future," Tongo tightened the hanging of his helmet by pulling it lower down still to where it obstructed even more of the man's nose.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say… I liked my hat…"
"Huh, where is everybody?" Damisan bent his head to the side, feeling the cylinder flop about on his head as it tried compensating for the sudden shift of position. The Stars' room had been empty. All Stars but Skaven appeared to be absent, which was a prime time for Damisan to work on the repairs of his prosthetics, but being the seeker of social acceptance that he was Damisan still felt curious.
"Mana is out studying, Tomi and Shige-H had a fight about something and don't seem to want to be in the same room as one another. Well, at least Tomi doesn't…" Skaven replied while lying on his back with his eyes closed, even though it was far too early for bedtime yet.
"Oh, do you think they'll be okay?" Damisan wondered. "We should do something fun together. Maybe I'll make a boomerang propeller in my arms for Tomi's summons to play fetch. She's always happy when her summons are entertained. I think that's how Mana won her over so quick."
"Guess so," Skaven mumbled in response. From the utter apathy in his tone it seemed like he didn't much care or want to talk to Damisan yet did so just so that his fellow Star didn't feel bad about it. Even though it felt a little rude, Damisan couldn't help but not smirk underneath his cylinder, as even this speck of decency would have been very much unlike the Skaven that he used to think he knew before. Just the very fact that Skaven cared at all what Damisan thought of him or how he felt uplifted the handicapped ninja.
"I want to work on some repairs for a little while. You're not actually sleeping, are you? It might be flashy and noisy for a bit," Damisan dragged his foot over the floor.
"Sure, knock yourself out," Skaven flipped over on his right shoulder, turning Damisan his back. Damisan settled by his worktable, still hesitating and postponing the first bumps and flares of his work as he just felt like something about his little talk with Skaven left things dangling in an uncomfortable zone that he didn't want to tread over. Talking to Skaven sometimes felt like talking to a woman. He said so little, that more was left to take from subtext rather than what Skaven said.
"Must be a real drag, having to repair your actual limbs after every little tussle," Skaven's voice rung from behind Damisan. He was talking to him! Skaven was engaging in small-talk with Damisan! It might have been because of the dreamy and optimistic nature of Damisan, but he couldn't help but slip into vivid imaginative flashes of him and his new best friend Skaven tinkering together and meditating one alongside the other. One caring so much about the other that they signed up for what the other liked, even though the first didn't quite care for it. It truly was like dating someone…
"Yeah. It isn't too easy getting materials either. I've got the tools, by now I've gotten back on my legs, figurative, of course, but getting materials isn't easy. The workshops here will sell or borrow you low to mid-tier weaponry, but getting raw materials still requires the blacksmiths or engineers owing you favors. Depending on how often tutors send me out to fight, they might run me into bankruptcy if I want to keep my arms and legs intact and operational," Damisan spoke with a sense of cheery optimism that should have been very alien for someone speaking what he spoke of. Regardless, by now Damisan's nature was public knowledge to the Stars, so most of the time they brushed that sort of bright tone away and took it for granted.
"Didn't you request tutor Mauma to put you on Tongo's squad today? Sure, they were a member short, didn't mean you had to volunteer…" Skaven switched back to lying on his back and sat up so that he could look at Damisan's back while the ninja worked on the maintenance of his prosthetics.
"Yeah, well… I like to be a part of things!" Damisan turned to Skaven one-armed and used his only arm to give his friend a thumb-up before returning to straighten out the bent frames and replacing the empty cartridges of weaponry he had used.
"Yeah, I've noticed that. It's one of your strangest qualities," Skaven said.
"Strangest, how?" Damisan left it dangling with howling curiosity.
"You wear that dumb thing on your face and staple pictures of pretty people onto it as if you're fooling anyone. You use those ridiculous, curtain-sized garbs to hide away your scarred skin and prosthetics underneath. Yet you wish to be in public and around people as much as possible. That just feels odd, you know? I'd have taken you for a more reserved person, more like me, maybe?" Skaven shrugged while looking at the ceiling.
"Heh, I guess I sort of understand where you're coming from but… When you see how short life is, how abruptly it might end and how deep the abyss of the nightmares it can plunge you in is, you want to experience the most of it you can, you want to spend your life with nothing but positive memories, boundless friends and no regrets, you know?" Damisan shook his cylinder in a plastic dangle while he flared the shade of the room up with the welding tool he worked on his prosthetic with.
"That thing that left you this way, what happened back then?" Skaven shot straight. It was one of the qualities that Damisan could recognize as no one else had just asked him like this without trying to dance around the subject and hope that the impaired ninja shared the story with them or as if they were trying to avoid the subject. Honestly, Damisan wasn't sure what felt more corrosive–remembering the pain and utter collapse of that day or seeing people decide for him what he thought of as a sensitive subject and making the call to protect him from his own memories, the nature of which they did not know.
Before Damisan could figure out what to answer to his friend, a knock on the room door disrupted them. Without Mana in the room, it was impossible to have prior knowledge about potential visitors, so the option of surprise was always present. It was Tongo, and he had Hoshido with him. Skaven sat up, but Tongo raised his hand.
"At ease, I'd like to speak to your heavy-duty friend over here in private. I'd like you to remove yourself for a moment while I do that," Tongo stared at Skaven and the more that Skaven hesitated, the more displeased Hoshido was behind his new master as the hick cracked his knuckles bit by bit.
"Are you going to ask your toothless dog over there to remove from my own room if I don't?" Skaven wondered, sounding more curious than threatened.
Tongo raised his arm up to block off Hoshido's path. "It has only been a few hours since we almost got into trouble with the tutor for breaking discipline. I take matters of discipline seriously, son, you will not dishonor me with your behavior," Tongo instructed his newly made friend.
"Oh, I see Hoshido found his hat," Damisan stood up, speaking with a cheerful tone as his facial expression was impossible to tell from underneath his cylinder. "That's great. It seemed to mean a great deal to him. Let's talk outside, Tongo. No need to inconvenience Skaven, who has nothing to do with this."
"Indeed," Tongo nodded while still fixing his one-glass visor onto Skaven "The role of a lone wolf is as immature as it is desperate. Camaraderie and military order, working in a unit and being part of grander order, defines a genuine man with actual power. I'd take that into consideration, young man,"
Feeling the potential of a conflict brewing in the air and wanting to avoid it at all costs, Damisan almost shoved his guests out of the room into the hallway outside that, fortunately enough, was empty.
"I need you to work for me, son," Tongo stated as soon as the door to the room of the Stars closed shut. The suddenness of the matter almost made Damisan trip over himself by stepping over his cloak.