It took far longer than I would have liked, but I did get that time I'd been promised with Aimi. A Red Ogre led me to the fuinjutsu division's workshop beneath the Tsuchikage's Palace, and though I'd been invited into their little haven before, it still took my breath away.
Floor to ceiling scroll shelves, all full. Rooms with polished stone floors, bearing diagrams and measurements inscribed directly into their surfaces. Vats of ink and the ingredients to mix it. Reams of parchment and paper, far larger than I was. Equipment and apparatuses I couldn't even identify the use for. It was a sealcrafter's paradise.
All it was missing were windows.
"You came!" a young, bubbly voice cheered. "Wow, that was fast!"
"I've been waiting for this since my birthday," I said with a smile. Since before that, really, but without the guarantee it was more of a pipe dream. "If I'm in the village and you're free to receive me, then the Tsuchikage himself would have to step in to keep me away."
Aimi blushed heavily, and my smile grew. God, that kid was so adorable.
"Have…have you read the book?" she stammered.
"Cover to cover," I said. "Twice. It's not going to be easy, doing what I want to do."
"I'm glad you recognize that, at least," she said. "Tattoo seals are already tricky enough. But a tongue seal in particular…does it really have to be there?"
I tried my best to convey my sheepishness for the slightly unreasonable request.
"Yeah, kinda. If it's in my mouth, it's not only visibly obscured. Its chakra presence will be invisible to sensors." Since it was technically inside my body, it would be indistinguishable from my natural chakra network (except to the Hyuga and possibly Uchiha). "I'll still have stealth capability. And I'd be able to get past most fuinjutsu-based security features."
It was just a matter of knowing which ones.
"Yeah but…it's your tongue," she said, worriedly. "One wrong move…the consequences could be severe."
I never wanted to be caught without my weapons ever again. To that end, I really wanted an inventory port tattooed on my body, and the tongue was the obvious place for it. However, it bore its own unique challenges. Aside from the hands, there was no greater concentration of tenketsu than in the tongue. Even the brain and the torso, which hosted most of the eight gates, fell short. Why was it like that? Fuck if I know. Some evolutionary bullshit, I guess. But it was the reason that so many ninjutsu appear to be "spat," and why there were so many tongue-related techniques in canon.
I wanted to tap into that network of tenketsu to improve the efficacy of my inventory port seal, but I didn't want my seal to compromise that network in return. If I fucked it up, there could be complications well beyond mere pain and a localized loss of that organ's ability.
There was also the matter of utilizing the seal, in the event that all went well and we found a way to perfectly apply it. Though I referred to it as a single entity, it would be more accurate to think of my inventory ports as a collection of seals; the cortex, which linked the ports to the physical inventory buried in my backyard, and additional subseals corresponding to each slot in my inventory. The ports I used most frequently were the ones inscribed on my bandages, nearest to my wrists. Those were the most user friendly; I wore them flipped around, so people only saw the back of the cloth. But if you looked at the inscription, you'd see eleven seals, all arranged linearly. All I had to do was channel chakra through the slot that I wanted, and I'd be able to access its contents.
Thing is, that takes up a lot of space. Even if I somehow minimized the entire thing (which at this stage, I wasn't even sure was a possibility), I would have a great deal of difficulty selecting the individual slot I wanted to reach into. It would be like trying to type on a keyboard that was far too small. I'd end up either missing the key I wanted (which I didn't have time for in the field) or hitting the wrong one entirely. Especially if said buttons were in my mouth, and I couldn't see them.
So if I wanted quick, reliable access to my slots, I needed a better solution.
"Aimi, trust me. I'm incredibly aware of the risks," I told her. "Which is why I've been thinking. We were worried about the seal misfiring whenever I channeled chakra to my tongue." Like when I was using my Stone Pistol Technique, for example. "But what if I physically separated the cortex from the ports?"
She frowned. "Separate them? How? And how would you reconnect them every time you wanted to use the seal?"
I braced myself for criticism. Aimi was a sweet girl, but she had taken after her mentor in some unfortunate ways. If she got comfortable, like she was discussing her specialty here in her domain, she could tear my ideas apart mercilessly.
"I was thinking the cortex would be on the tongue, connected to the tenketsu network," I began. "And the inventory ports could be on the inside of my teeth."
She took a minute to absorb that. "...your teeth."
I nodded, bracing myself.
"You realize you don't have tenketsu on your teeth," she pointed out.
"Yeah. But I wouldn't need them, right?" I attempted. "If I activated the cortex, channeled chakra through the tenketsu at the tip of my tongue, then touched the tip of the tongue to the proper tooth, it would be like integrating the cortex to the slot associated with it, right?"
"Uh, no. Wait…maybe?" Aimi's brow was creased in thought. "Honestly, I'm not sure if it would work like that. If it does…well, first off, it would be incredibly difficult and uncomfortable to apply. But you don't really care about that, do you?"
"Nope," I said.
"Even if it means taking the teeth out and putting them back in?"
Yeesh. I mean, I didn't love the sound of that. But it would be worth it.
"Even then," I confirmed, and she sighed.
"Thought so. But it's a big if. The seals on your other inventory ports are integrated thoroughly with the cortex. It would have to be an active process on your end to get the chakra you channel through your tongue to communicate with the seal on the tooth."
To use an analogy, my tongue would be an extension cord, and my tooth was a lamp. I had to plug the lamp in to get it to work. But chakra didn't follow a set course like electricity did. I would have to micromanage the power, and actively make it flow properly.
"It's internal chakra control," I stated. "I can figure it out."
"Is it, though?" she wondered. "In a sense, the inside of your mouth is, well, inside your body. But at the same time, it's kinda not. Internal chakra control is the management of chakra within your coils. What you're doing is merging the internally-controlled chakra in your tongue with the externally-controlled chakra emanating from the tenketsu at its tip, then feeding that into a separate, closed system. Your talents are unmatched, but this might fall outside of them."
"That separate, closed system, isn't a foreign entity to me," I reminded her. Working together, the two of us discovered that a seal, crafted by ink imbued with my chakra signature, was literally the same thing as a chakra coil. Meaning that, channeling chakra through one of my seals was the same as exerting control over chakra within my body.
Although, the seal would be minimized, making those "canals" extremely small. That would make it challenging, but I'd been working on making my submarines smaller for literally a decade, so if anyone could do it, I could.
"I think I can make it work. With practice."
"I hope you're right," she said. "And you should definitely figure that out before we move forward in any fashion."
"Oh, definitely," I said. "You got any ideas on how to experiment?"
"I'll come up with something and have a courier drop a scroll off to you," she decided. "It's not a good use of our time now. We should work on the slots. I foresee many, many complications. Remind me what they are, again?"
"Right. First slot is miscellaneous. That one I keep empty. Second is food. Third is shuriken. Fourth is kunai. Fifth is my Fuinjutsu Kit. Sixth is research texts, although I will probably reassign it eventually. Seventh is low-grade explosion tags, eighth is mid-grade. Ninth are golem seed tags—I wanted to show you those and get some feedback. Tenth is so far unassigned, and eleventh is my expanded guide."
Her eyebrow twitched. "You are not putting all of those things in your mouth."
"Of course not," I hastily agreed. That was excessive, and in the case of some items, dangerous. "I'm only planning on putting six of them in there."
"Six is still a lot," she muttered.
"We can make it work," I said, brightly. "I have some ideas. First off, slot one. Miscellaneous. I was thinking about removing the output function."
"So you can seal stuff away, but you can't unseal it from that port," she mused.
"Right. If I'm on a sensitive mission, I would just have to put something in my mouth—really just touch my tongue to it—and I could hide it pretty damn well." And since no one else could activate my ports with their chakra, there would be nothing they could do to get it back.
"Gross, but useful," she said. "I approve of removing the output; that way, if there's something in that slot that's too big, it won't break your jaw if you accidentally unseal it, or worse."
"Which is also why I'm not putting in ports for slots three, five and six," I said. Shuriken, my chests of fuinjutsu supplies and medical texts. "I would rather my head not be pried or cut apart, thanks."
"But you want slot four? Kunai?" Disapproval was clear in her voice.
"I need something sharp," I insisted. "What if I'm tied up? If we can find a way to make the orientation constant and favorable—I know that's possible—it should be safe."
"Fine. What are the others? Food? That would be the obvious choice. And the only one that isn't crazy." That last part was muttered.
"Yep," I confirmed. I would make sure that, prior to the port's creation, all food placed within my inventory is bite-sized. I also want both grades of exploding tags, and the expanded guide."
The guide was a small scroll that gave access to every inventory slot. Why do I need a port inside another port, you ask? Because, now that I have eleven slots, I can't put every slot in every port. They take up too much room. For example, the ports on my sandals are so far only connected to slots one, four, seven, eight, nine and eleven. I don't need to be able to summon food underfoot, for example, because I like my nutrients sans dirt if given the option.
However, I might be put in a situation where some of my ports were damaged/missing. Like if I was stripped of my bandages, and I had to free myself using only what I could pull out of my sandal. With my expanded guide, I could access everything in my inventory, albeit not quite as quickly. And the whole point of getting the tongue tattoo was so that I could always have one port to access, if all others were removed.
"Those exploding tags," Aimi noted. "What are their activation methods?"
"Sensory activation," I answered. "With my own signature blacklisted."
In essence, the tags would detonate without a fuse when two criteria were set. First, the tag had to be primed. And second, someone (bearing a unique signature that wasn't mine) used chakra near it. They were touchy, and therefore extremely dangerous.
"Kasaiki-chan!" Aimi protested.
"For the purposes I'd use these particular tags for, I need that activation method," I stated. "It's not like these are the only tags I have. I still usually use all the other variations—the safer ones. Besides, those tags are less likely to go off in my mouth than any other activation, so really you should be reassured by that."
"Unless someone else is close enough to trigger it once it's unsealed and activated," she pointed out.
"The tolerance is a foot and a half," I said. "If someone is that close to me and I decided to use the tag regardless, then I've made peace with my fate and want to go out with a bang. End of discussion."
She groaned. "Fine. But if you blow yourself up again, I'll make you regret it in the afterlife."
I gave her a winning smile. "You go right ahead. But for now, let's start on these ports."
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
Biwa of the Dust never wanted a team. He despised children in general, and he didn't want to be benched from real missions just to babysit a bunch of brats. In part, he also thought he would be a poor teacher. He had never struggled with taijutsu, ninjutsu, or even most genjutsu (though that wasn't ever a focus of his), so he didn't view himself as an effective resource for anyone who did.
After half a year in his current position, he would admit that his fears were misplaced. His brats rarely acted their age, and the few moment's they did, they chose not to make it his problem. It also became apparent that he wasn't as poor a teacher as he thought he'd be; at least, when he was charged with students that so heavily reminded Biwa of himself at their age.
He and Iwao were cut from the same cloth, though the kid was far more social than he ever was. They had the same strengths and weaknesses, and though the kid's base abilities were lower than his had been (smaller chakra reserves, which bled into all other areas, physical and mental), he absorbed Biwa's teachings like a sponge. With him, Biwa could pretend he was learning whatever the kid struggled with for the first time, and walk him through the same process he would have gone through. And that was all the kid needed.
Meanwhile, Daigo was almost as easy, because he didn't need help honing his skills. He had his father for that. All he needed from Biwa was a means to improve his baseline, and experience on how to best apply what he'd learned elsewhere. He didn't need personal instruction; just being included was enough for him to grow. And his personality put Biwa at ease. It was a much need breath of fresh air, after dealing with the team's last member.
His fears had been misplaced. He was a good teacher, and his students weren't whiny annoyances. There were other things he should have been much more worried about.
"Imai," he said, as stoically as he could manage. "What the fuck is that?"
"Hm?" she asked, so engrossed in her inspection that she hadn't heard him approach. "This? It's just a little jutsu I'm working on."
In his twenty-five years as a ninja, Biwa had seen more jutsu than he'd rather think about. Some of the most terrifying, he'd been on the receiving end of. But this…this monstrosity. He could say with certainty that it was like nothing he'd ever seen before.
His youngest student had been obsessing over her clones ever since she picked up the Iwa Bunshin on her first trip to the archives. But clones were supposed to look like their casters. That was their whole point. This thing, most assuredly, did not.
It was almost humanoid. Almost. There were no legs, no arms. Its head looked barely separate from its torso. But it sure wasn't lacking on faces—he gave up counting when he reached twenty. They were misshapen, and though they bore some of her characteristics, they lacked both color and the appearance of flesh. Imai must have stripped away that particular feature. The whole thing looked like a lump of clay, or perhaps a grotesque tumor.
He wasn't the only one deeply uncomfortable by its appearance. Daigo seemed mesmerized by the horror, unable to look away. Iwao had the opposite problem; if his stomach was a little weaker, its contents would likely be on the ground already.
"Yes, but what does it do?" he all but pleaded.
"What, haven't you ever seen someone with thirty-two faces before?" she asked glibly. Seems like she counted them. Lovely. "But to answer your question, it's a bomb."
"A bomb," he repeated. "Just…why? Why do you need a bomb that looks like that? Don't you have enough bombs?"
"Oh, not like this baby," she said, the smile on her face sending a shiver down his spine. "You want to see it in action? A prototype, at least. I got the sixteen faced one kinda working. This one is tragically stationary."
He wondered if it would be helpful if he pointed out that it didn't have legs, and that might explain why it didn't move. He refrained—mostly out of unease—but it seemed he was going to get a demonstration whether he wanted one or not, so he sighed in resignation and backed away.
Biwa was no passive sensor, but his active chakra sense was more honed than most. So he easily felt it when Kasaiki pulsed chakra to her sandal without making hand seals—indicating that she was utilizing the inventory port inscribed on the bottom of its sole.
Shortly after her birthday, Kasaiki had cracked a long-running project of hers, inventing what she referred to as a Golem Seed. It was, essentially, the Rock Clone ninjutsu transformed somehow into a seal. It should have been easy for Kasaiki to create (according to the girl herself), if not for the particular mechanics of the jutsu. Rock Clones needed to be formed out of the ground, and if the caster was separated from the mass needed to form its body, the jutsu would fail. More simply, the tag needed to be buried several feet underground in order to work properly.
Kasaiki had circumvented this problem with an addition to the seal. Upon its activation, it would soften the earth underneath it in a manner reminiscent of the Moguragakure no Jutsu, and quickly propel itself downward for a couple seconds before coming to a halt. There, the clone would "incubate" and burst out of the ground, fully formed. She had made the process so seamless that, with a single stamp, she could plant a seed, and if her opponent's senses weren't good enough, they wouldn't even know it until the blasted thing emerged.
It was a neat trick. But, of course, Kasaiki could never just leave it at that. She made variations; sometimes she edited the time it took to incubate, allowing her to set up traps in advance. Sometimes she made the clones bigger, and more offensively threatening. But now, it seemed as if she made a much more drastic (and far more horrifying) departure from the original jutsu.
Because he was so in tune with the earth below him, Biwa sensed a tremor from below. He tensed as there was a sharp crack, a warning sign that something was about to emerge, but it was far louder than he was used to. Whatever this thing was, it couldn't be used covertly.
No sooner than the words crossed his mind, there was a subterranean explosion, and a massive boulder—Kami, that was too many faces—erupted into the sky.
It could fly. It could propel itself out of the ground and fly.
Immediately he went into analysis mode, noting its low speed, and how it seemingly traveled straight up. It was already slowing; gravity was regaining its influence, and though it cleared a height of, by his practiced estimate, twenty five feet, it was just going to drop back down again.
"Art," Kasaiki said, a few paces away. A shit-eating grin on her face. "Is an explosion."
It had been called a bomb, so he knew it was going to blow up. He was concerned about how it was, essentially, right above him and his team, so he set up a Jinton barrier to protect them, but it seemed he didn't need to. When the monstrosity detonated, it detonated strangely. The boulder shattered into pieces, but not at random—he realized that every face on its body separated, transforming the mass into sixteen projectiles that separated of their own volition.
"I forgot to mention," she said. "That tree over there?" She pointed. "That's the target."
Biwa's eyebrows creased in thought as the fragments changed direction and picked up speed, homing in on the tree before impacting. Bark dented, branches were shattered, and light clouds of dirt were kicked up as around half missed and hit the surrounding area instead.
"So? What do you think?" she asked, expectantly. "I'm calling it Doton: Jūtan Bakudan no Jutsu."
Earth Release: Carpet Bomb Technique.
He surveyed the point of impact, and, despite his student's glee, found himself tentatively disappointed. Given the nature of the girl in question, he expected something…well. Outlandish. Terrain altering. There was barely any fire, even. He wasn't complaining; a part of him was glad, actually. Maybe this restraint was a sign of growth?
"It's an impressive technique," he said, honestly. He could only imagine the time and effort it took to manage every variable that went into it. "Slow, of course, but I imagine you're already working on that. With some tweaks, it will likely be difficult to evade."
He peered at the tree. "How did you get those faces to target the tree like that?"
If it were anyone else, he would have assumed that they were guided individually. But Kasaiki had infamously terrible external chakra control—even extensive practice with their resident genjutsu specialist couldn't help her much in that department. It was a great source of frustration for everyone, but no one more so than the girl in question.
"What looked like a single modified clone was anything but," she revealed. "Each one of those faces was a separate entity, initially released as one great package. A first explosion propelled it into the air, and a second broke them apart. But clones can sense people, you know? And follow simple directives given by the caster."
"The intent you weaved into the jutsu," he realized. "It guided the projectiles toward your target."
Intent was something that, in many ways, defied explanation. The leading theory was that the spiritual energy that formed chakra was sentient, to an extremely limited degree. It carried with it the will of the caster. It was a characteristic that rarely became relevant, but it was important for anyone who utilized clones to understand. Once you learned how to guide your clones effectively—something that wasn't as intuitive as it seemed—they became that much more useful.
"You had them target the stationary tree because you weaved that into your intent," he mused. "But if you were targeting an enemy…those projectiles could follow them. So long as the target was actively using chakra."
Of course, they were merely bits of rock. Their agility was limited, especially since they were only moving under gravity's power. They could adjust their course slightly by altering their orientation (the faces' elongated shapes allowed them to catch the wind at different angles to drift), but they could be dodged all the same. Easily, since they were so slow. That was probably why she was working towards doubling the amount of faces; at a certain point, it didn't matter how sluggish they were. Dodging would be impossible—the enemy would have to block or take a hit..
"It's a great start," he allowed. "Once you improve the projectile speed and power, it might be useful in the field. As it is now, it's just a waste of whatever time and resources you put into the tags. For that amount of effort, that tree should be demolished."
Her eyes lit up in realization and a dangerous grin split her face.
"Oh, it would have been," she declared. "If I hadn't left out the explosive tags."
Biwa froze.
"Explosive tags?" he repeated.
"Uh, yeah?" Both Daigo and Iwao took a step back. "Didn't I mention? All of those faces…well. They blow up. I just didn't want the Red Ogres to think there was something wrong and come over to investigate again."
She took a step back, clasped one fist in an open hand, and bowed to him. "Thanks for the feedback sensei. My next rendition won't disappoint you."
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
"I can't! I just can't do it!"
In the privacy of the Tsuchikage's office, Biwa pointed an accusing finger at his father. "Why the hell did you force her on me!"
As noble as he appeared in public, Biwa knew the truth about Kamizuru Ōnoki. His father was crass, sarcastic, prone to almost childish fits of anger. He also enjoyed making trouble, even going so far as to engineer conflicts amongst the clans and divisions subservient to him. He claimed it was to weaken them and maintain his seat's superiority, but Biwa knew that, at least half the time, his father was just bored.
So the grin on his face now, and his actions that precluded it; neither were out of character. Biwa just didn't know what he'd done to deserve them.
"If you would have complied with my wishes and taken a team when I asked, then you would have found yourself with a more palatable student," the Tsuchikage announced. "You have no one to blame but yourself."
"Like hell," Biwa snarled. There were other people to give Kasaiki to; people who were better equipped to nurture her than Biwa. Kuso-jiji. He just wanted to make Biwa's life difficult.
It was a good thing that Iwao and Daigo were such low maintenance. Because managing and tempering Imai Kasaiki's destructive tendencies was on its own a full time job.
"Sit," his father ordered, nodding towards the seat opposite to him. Biwa did, because for the duration of his life, Ōnoki was the Tsuchikage first, and family second. That was just the way it was.
"What happened?"
Biwa rubbed his beard in agitation. "It was only a matter of time, but she made her signature technique."
Plenty of shinobi made original techniques, but a signature technique wasn't exactly the same. The user didn't technically need to create it themselves; it just had to be strongly associated with them. A signature technique was quintessentially theirs, capturing their personality, fighting style, skill. It was a technique used by someone with some degree of infamy. If you encountered it on the battlefield, you knew exactly who you were fighting, even if you couldn't see who cast it.
"And?" the Tsuchikage asked, and eyebrow raised.
"And it's fucking A-ranked," Biwa spat. "Or at least it will be, when it's perfected. Which I give a year, tops."
The Tsuchikage stroked his beard serenely, but Biwa could see the fire in his eyes.
"Is that so?" he asked. "What kind of technique is it?"
"The army killing kind. The kind that scorches the earth. The kind you want to get your allies the hell away from when it's used."
Jūtan Bakudan. He understood the name, now. It couldn't be dodged, not by anyone who didn't have some bullshit special ability. It couldn't be blocked by ordinary barriers. If it was used against run-of-the-mill shinobi, they would die. No question.
Once it was finished, of course.
"Good," the Tsuchikage said, approvingly. "We needed more of those. You and I can't be everywhere at once."
Ain't that the fucking truth?
"An interesting report landed on my desk. From R&D."
"Her final report on the puppet she took from Fang?" Biwa guessed. "Whenever we made camp on patrol, she obsessed over the thing."
"Yes. I can barely understand more than half of it," he admitted. "I handed it over to Atsuchi. The girl spent a great deal of effort explaining the defensive measures she found. She seemed to fixate on them more than its offensive capabilities, which surprised me. It seemed contradictory to her profile."
Biwa knew what he was referring to.
"Not to me," he said. "Imai doesn't care about weapons. She doesn't even care about jutsu, not in the way that anyone else aside from maybe Date Fumio does. She just cares about understanding how chakra works. Once she understands that, she can apply that knowledge to make techniques far more dangerous than what example she was given to start."
He shifted in his seat.
"That puppet of hers. It had shielding against elemental techniques," he said. "Some of them, anyway. From my understanding, it had the ability to seal away elemental chakra. Which, of course, greatly mitigates the effectiveness of the jutsu used against it."
"She wants to replicate those shields?" the Tsuchikage asked. "It would certainly cover her weaknesses, if she can pull it off."
"She has stated as much. Says she needs a new evening project, now that she's gotten all she can out of the puppet."
His father nodded, pleased. "I must say, it's incredibly refreshing to have someone on my roster knowledgeable in fuinjutsu. I understand now how that bastard Sarutobi must feel." His eyes were downright cruel. "How I wish I could have seen the look on his face when he learned about Uzushio."
It wasn't nearly the first time he'd said as much.
"I wish to break their spirit even further," he said after a moment, referring to the Hidden Leaf. "Word has gotten out about your team. I'm sure Konoha knows about them. So far, their skills are unknown, but that won't last long. What do you say about an official debut? To make a splash when they jump, rather than a ripple when they wade?"
Biwa suddenly had a bad, bad feeling. "What did you have in mind?"
He told him, and the leader of Team Tsuchibokori took a deep breath. "Are you sure that's wise?"
"You're the one who's best suited to answer that question, which is why I'm giving you the full right to accept or decline this mission," Ōnoki said, and boy, was that a rarity. Usually, if such choices were offered, they were merely an illusion. The Tsuchikage's will would be done, one way or the other.
"Can they survive the eyes of the world?" he asked. "If you say no, I'll never propose this mission again. But do know that I really hope you say yes."
He hadn't felt this amount of pressure in a long time. Since long before he was taken off the A-rank mission roster to become a sensei, which was saying a damn lot.
"Give me a month," he decided. "No missions. Not even patrol. A month of pure combat training. Then I'll decide."
"Granted," the Tsuchikage said immediately, a not nice smile on his face. "Looks like we've made a dutiful sensei out of you after all, son. I can't wait to see the fruits of your effort."
Biwa got up quickly and left, immensely uncomfortable at the address. It was always jarring the few times the Tsuchikage acknowledged him on a personal level, outside his station as a shinobi.
Like always, he hoped he'd never do it again.
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
Hey y'all! I have ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Covid! I'm okay, though. I only really had bad symptoms for a day, since I'm vaccinated and boosted. Sure was annoying, though.
Kasaiki has a signature technique! It was inspired by the move Draco Meteor from Pokemon—as it's shown in the anime. I want to reiterate, this isn't nearly an A-rank technique yet. Biwa just knows she's going to tweak it, add to it, and fuck around until it is.
Couple chapters until the next arc starts. Y'all are really going to like them; we get to check in with my favorite character behind Kasaiki. And then the arc itself? This is the Big One. I've been waiting to write this since I started the fic.
Big, exciting news! This fic now has TWO Betas! Please welcome David and DoubleBock to the Float Like A Stone team! They have proved themselves to be very talented, and I'm excited to work with them both.
David is going to help me edit what's already written! There will be changes to improve the overall quality, to go back and rehash scenes that I'm not satisfied with, and to make the story more approachable to new readers. If you feel inclined to give feedback and help us in our efforts, please feel free to do so in the comments. It will be slow going; it's not what I can afford to devote a lot of time to right now. But it is in the works. Special attention will be given to several select scenes, including Kasaiki's accident.
Meanwhile, DoubleBock Is going to help me with planning going forward. Here are some words from him:
"Hi everyone. I'm DoubleBock, another big fan of this story just like you. My favourite character is Zabuza, and I hope that my presence will bring about even more of that early Naruto grit into this story. Expect things to get deliciously dark."
I don't have a Ptrn. If you've gotten five bucks of enjoyment out of this story, please consider buying my original work on amazon (information in my bio). Between the two sites this fic is posted on, I have over 1700 readers. If even half of you choose to support me in this fashion, I would have considerable bargaining power when it comes to getting future books published. More publishing deals means I can quit my day job, which translates into more time for fanfiction. It's a one time thing, and you even get more of my writing out of it.
Check out my profile for some great fanart.
Thank you, and have a great week!