The light of dawn caresses the peaceful building as the quiet hum of foot traffic adds a comforting background noise that allows you to fall asleep. The sun heats stone as it beats down on the ground and the dunes in the distance shift in the wind. This quiet moment of peace is shattered by a loud shriek that wakes up the full block and causes ear pain to every person in the hotel it emerges from.
The shriek emerges again and the pink haired female making the noise is located in the room of team thirteen. This noise aggravates the insects inside of william and the female is swarmed by stinging bees. A strangled cry emerges and the woman crumples to the ground. Team thirteen all stand and look at the woman laying on the ground with a large swollen mass from the enormous amount of venom she has been pumped with. The door opens from a kick and kakashi lunges in with a kunai in hand. He spots his student and glares at william.
"Why did you attack my student!?" the silver haired man demands.
"I did not. Sakura screamed at the sight of my bees and this aggravated them. She screamed a second time and thus my hive attacked her. It is not my fault your student was too ignorant to realize the danger of loud noises near a hive." William replies.
"What does the venom do?" Kakashi asks.
"Kill civilians due to their lacking chakra capacity to fight the venom. A genin of her chakra levels will be dead in five minutes, one minute actually due to the large amount of venom in her system. I could give her the antidote but she will most likely scream and get attacked again. Thus I shall give you the antidote and leave the area. Please inform her of her mistake so she is not stung again." the tall man explains before handing kakashi a syringe partially full of yellowish liquid.
William departs and heads into the town after using the bathroom on the first floor of the hotel. Feeling better after cleaning up and brushing his teeth, William walks towards what looks like a library but is distracted by the sight of a workshop with a man tinkering with a large puppet. William walks over and observes the man putting a mechanism in the arm of the puppet and pulls out a notebook to jot down a few notes. The man looks over and spots william. He smiles at the notes before scowling at the sight of the konoha headband on his forehead.
"What do you think you're doing?" The man demands to march towards William with a scowl.
"I am taking notes on how you build your puppet. I wish to use it for my own creations." William explains.
"Wait. you use puppets?" The man is confused now.
"Yes. I build my own small puppets and use them to entertain children. Would you like to see them?" William offers.
The man nods and William unseals his pair of puppets. The man examines them and pulls out a notebook to jot his own notes. The man hands the wooden toys to William and they both sit on a bench after the man points to it.
"Alright. Your puppets are well made for normal people. However, you're a ninja. The hinges are too thick for faster movements. If you swap to the hinges sold at a shop down the road then your puppets will be more responsive. The wood is a bit heavy too but that's okay. This makes them have a better weight so less effort is needed to keep them on the ground. I have noticed that you're using a mitten design for the hands of your puppets. That's good for beginners but if you want to make a few ninja puppets then you'll need practice manipulating wooden fingers. I have a few spare hands from my older puppets. I'll give you one to help you practice. If you wanna make the puppets do jutsus for your shows then id recommend seals. A sealed puff of smoke or cup of water will do the job for your shows, id also recommend putting in a rotating cylinder in the arm of your puppet. The cylinder has an area that opens to a tube and the unsealed item will fill the space and flood out of the tube." the man explains. William is taking notes during his talk but quirks an eyebrow.
"Why are you helping me? Shouldn't you be angry that I am using art from your ninja forces for something so trivial?" the taller man questions.
"I'm helping you because I regret my actions. My name is Shimamoto I coulda stopped a tragedy." Shimamoto explains.
He reveals his right arm to be a prosthetic. He explains that long ago he was poisoned and a young boy named Sasori helped him by making the prosthetic. Shimamoto explains that he pushed Sasori towards the art of war with his requests for a weaponized prosthetic. He feels regret for his reactions because he set the young boy down a path of war with his new knowledge in weaponized puppet limbs. Now he works as a puppet repairman and hopes to meet Sasori to apologize to him for setting him on the dark path.
William thanks Shimamoto for his aid and hands him a jar of honey before leaving. The heavily covered boy thinks about the new knowledge. Shimamoto was trying to make amends for his mistake, that can't be true though. If sasori was going to become evil then surely a simple prosthetic wouldn't send him down that path. William thinks on this as he heads to the kazekage tower. The civilian council has asked him to speak to the leader of this village to acquire trade agreements.
The kazekage tower stands tall and casts shade on the town. Ninjas leap in and out of the tower through various balconies as they go about their day. William enters and speaks to the receptionist before he sits in one of the chairs set for waiting. A book is pulled from his coat as William follows the book with a tome of notes. Notes are jotted down as the boy reads on the history of sand, how would he use sand in his jutsu?
The receptionist calls William's name and he puts away his books before following a ninja to the office of the kazekage. The door opens to show a carved piece of sandstone that acts as a desk. The desk has the symbol of sunagakure carved into it and filled with gold. The kazekage is a deeply tanned man with bushy red hair. William enters the office and bows to the king of the golden sand, rasa the fourth kazekage.
"Welcome to my village. My secretary tells me you have a trade agreement you wish to have signed?" rasa greets the young man.
"Yes lord kazekage. My clan has begun selling honey in higher amounts and thus we can afford to open businesses in other areas. I would like to get approval to open a shop in your village. My village council wishes to negotiate new terms of trade and have sent a scroll with me for you to look over." William replies.
Rasa holds out a hand and William opens his coat, two black claws reach out and hand the man the two scrolls.
"Interesting pet. A grand mausoleum scorpion male if I'm not wrong." rasa remarks as he reads the scrolls.
"Yes. he has taken to staying in my coat and is quite helpful with organizing the internal pockets. How do you know what species he is though? His kind is native to the forests of fire country, not the dunes of wind country." is the reply.
"I had a mission back in my jonin days. I went to the fire capital to give some important documents to your daimyo. I spotted a giant scorpion in a cage and asked the owner. Apparently the females grow to the size of houses while the males are the size of small dogs. The venom is a valuable commodity for interrogation and my first act as kazekage was to send a team to acquire a breeding pair. The male is quite docile but my female is a feisty one. Only I can feed or approach her. Anyone else gets stung and attacked." rasa replies with a chuckle.
"The female stings them? I thought only the males had venom." William asks.
"Oh no. The females have venom as well. They have a paralytic venom that allows for quicker kills. Probably to help fight off intruders of the nest so the young stays safe." rasa explains. His hand reached for a pen.
William nods at this and they both spend the next hour debating scorpions as rasa reads through the scrolls from konoha.