Sharpening Swords~ (Mimi and Ryo)

Mioko walked lazily around the bottom of Suishougakure mountain, having taken the Crystal Lift down from the hospital, where she had been working all morning. Technically on her day off, she had been called there to help with an emergency incident. Not knowing what she had been called for, she grabbed her katana, strapped them on her back, and rushed to the hospital in her regular clothes - clothes that may make her seem like a student or a young school teacher – long-sleeved shirt, v-neck jumper and modest skirt with tights underneath. Having dealt with the crisis and stabilised the patients, she decided to get out of the village before she was asked to do anything else. Her katana's still on her back, she left the village by its cave entrance.

For a while, she simply walked, paying no attention to where she was going, before settling down at the base of a tree. Looking lazily around, she saw no-one she immediately recognised, and then leant back and closed her eyes; trying to imitate rest in the hopes of dropping off to sleep. She hoped that when she looked around she might somehow she her grandfather - a wandering swordsman who had raised her - or another wander like him that she knew who might have information on his whereabouts; but seeing as she never really paid much attention to what she saw, she never really noticed anyone.

Once more the road seems longly stretched ahead of him, though Ryo never thought about how long the road was, the only extension that he was dedicated to was his ten blades, the ten blades are an extention of his body, so for each finger he has he acts like the blades are his fingers and thats how he fights with them, Ryo walks on the road though it was unfamilar to him it seemed to be around the mountain ranges, he didn't like it cause the sun made a glare off of the village the looked like it was made of of crystal so it was bright, "so annoying..." No idea why Ryo was going here maybe fate made him turn at the fork in the road.

So Ryo walks on and thinks about chemicals that make up blood which consists iron and other materials, then he thinks about how things could possibly make the human body work better besides the energy source he founded called."Soul Drive" looking how the ground was formed which really made him think about how vains snake around each other he didn't see the person infront of him and BAM he walked right into her and it knocked him over."Oh dear...My apologies..Uh." He looks up at the brown haired girl that seemed familiar."Who are you?"

Mioko opened her eyes and blinked lazily at the person who had just tripped over her legs. It was a young man, who she judged to be slightly younger than her. She looked at him critically for a second. He was familiar, with silver hair and wearing an old-fashioned kimono. She thought she might have met him before... But she had just been starting to relax, and racking her memory for a person she might not even know seemed like too much effort at the present time.

"Depends who's asking." She replied bluntly to his question, closing her eyes again. She shifted slightly so that she was holding her two katana more tightly in her arms, having taken them off to be more comfortable against the tree. The katana had been a parting gift from her grandfather, and were kept lovingly in their sheaths when not in use.

As soon as she said those words about who was asking, in such a way Ryo remembered right off right away and all he did was let out a small laugh,"Rude tone, brown hair...a swordsman in training oh correction, Swordswoman forgive me...You're that Mimi girl from way back when am I correct." Ryo slumps his shoulders and stands up brushing himself off and staring at her,"Maybe if I turn this way"

Ryo turned so the sunlight bounced off of his eyes to show that it could give off that glow that most people would remember."Now do you remember me Miss Mimi?" The name "Mimi" is the only name he knows her by.

Mioko sighed raising a hand to rub one of her closed eyes tiredly. There weren't many people who had called her 'Mimi' in her life, and the use of the name was enough for her memory to start working again, now that she was relaxed and resting. The only person with silver hair who used a sword and wore a kimono who had ever called her that nickname was the person who had given it.

"Ryokobu Hamatoshi?" She guessed, her eyes still closed, refolding her arms over her katana, "Wow - so you finally grew, huh?"

The comment was a teasing one, and as she hadn't even opened her eyes once whilst he had been standing, a bit of a guess she was making based on his chakra signal. The wandering swordsman was only a year or so younger than her, but when they had met they were at that awkward age where Mioko, as a girl, had begun to grow, to the point where she could tease Ryokobu about his height.

Ryo lowered his eyes cause she was basically making fun of his height being only 5'6 and when they were younger he was 5'4 so growing two inches wasn't alot, he hated it but brushed it off when he looked up and down checking out how much Mimi has grown,"I'm not the only one that has grown.." Dashing towards Mimi Ryo quickly places his hands upon her chest and squeezes,"You've really developed since the last time we saw each other, Im really amazed about the human body, Oh and-" Side stepping quickly and staring down at her ass he mentions,"And this has grown as well, Im amazed...How old are you again? 18-19 you have the body of a fully grown woman, usually that never occurs at that age.." Ryo steps back in front of Mimi and hugs her."Ive thought about you so much, I dunno what to say....Im happy.."

Mioko's eyes shot open as the hands touched her chest, but Ryo was quick enough to move away almost immediately.

"Were you always a pervert, or have you just lived under a rock all this time?" She asked icily, her hand tightening on the shaft of one of her katana warningly, "If you ever touch me like that again, or look at my body so critically again, I won't forgive you."

She sat completely stiff as he hugged her, glaring into the distance behind him. It was only the fact that he appeared to have meant no harm - and that she remembered him being a lot like this when they were younger; curious to the point where he was inappropriate without even realising it - that stopped her from lashing out at him.

Ryo looks up at Mimi and notices she seems pretty heated, probably due to his feat with the hugging part,"Uhm...I don't think I was being perverted, forgive me if I had been I just... Dont think when I see someone I haven't seen in awhile...I feel bad now." Ryo never considered his curiosity being on the perverted side but he never considered that she would take it wrongly. Lowering his chin he gives her a sad face,"I never forgot about you..."Ryo stops hugging her and crosses his arms.

"Y'know Miss Mimi I never actually been over in this area, I dont really remember much about my childhood also, what was I like?..."He asked curiously.

Mioko relaxed slightly as Ryo released her, leaning back against the tree. It wasn't that she had anything against the hugging itself; she just found it awkward to be so cheerfully hugged by someone who had just touched her chest inappropriately. Unfortunately, Ryo was very good at looking like a kicked puppy - the sort of look when a puppy, not knowing any better starts to chew the carpet, and gets yelled at any more; one minute you're happy with a friend, the next you're being told off but you don't even really know why by that same friend - and Mioko was weak to kicked puppies.

"You never forgot about me so you had to ask me who I was?" She clarified, something like teasing creeping into her tone, "As for your childhood..." She shrugged indifferently, "I never bothered asking. You met my grandfather and I when I was about 12/13, and travelled around with us for... A week? A month? Something like that. You trained with my granfather."

She shrugged lightly. If he didn't see what was wrong with his actions, there was no point in her going on about them to him; hopefully he'd remember next time and refrain from doing the same thing to someone else.

"By the way, having a fully matured body by 19 is perfectly normal - most girls stop growing by the time they reach 16." Part of her wasn't entirely sure why she'd added that but she felt that, if he had an interested in the human body, as a medical-nin they might have some common ground, "More importantly, what in hells name are you doing in this bright place with those glowey eyes of yours? You'll stand out from a mile away... Not that the silver hair and kimono would have blended in." Sitting in the shade, Mioko was hardly one to scold for disliking the light, but she guessed that Ryo's reflective eyes were likely to attract attention, which might attract fights. Mioko didn't like fights; way too much effort involved in them.

Raising his head when she spoke, every word she said made things come clear and so he had to figure out the human body, but it looks like that he had alot more to learn about. Sitting his but down on the hard surface and takes out his scroll that he writes all his information in and his brush and his ink then writes the information that she just exclaimed towards the maturity of the female. Ryo set his swords out on the gravel and looked for something to fan his face, due to the fact that it was hot out,"Hm...Are you hot?"

It was strange, Ryo's face was red like he was blushing, probably because him and Mimi locked eyes or something, this was happening more and more,it wasn't cause he was hot at all,"Im sooo hot......geez its like burning up in here." He wasn't sweating, just that the moment was the problem, heart raced at a high pace, and his face was a tint of red. opening his robe and sticking one of his arms out revealing a tattoo of two spiraling dragons on his right arm as he started to fan his face with the sleeve,"So hows the old man?"

Mioko watched with a smirk as Ryo pulled out a scroll and started taking notes. His eyes flashed up to meet hers at one point, seemingly of their own accord, and she noticed with amusement the blush that crept through his cheeks as he continued to write. She almost laughed when he started to go on about the heat; it was mildly warm. Not hot enough for him to suddenly flush like that. If Mioko had to describe him in one word at that moment, that word would have been 'clueless'.

Had she been awake enough to be paying any serious attention, she might have commented on the tattoo on the other's arm when he pulled it out. As it was, she was exhausted - she had been made to wake early to work on her day off and she was an insomniac as it was - she had come out to the outskirts to take a peaceful nap. Whilst she didn't mind talking to Ryo, her observation skills were diminishing by the second, and her curiosity had been practically non-existent to begin with.

"My grandfather?" She asked, in reply to his question, ignoring the comments about the 'heat', "You're more likely to know than I am - he left me here almost ten years ago. Have you heard from him on your travels?"

"Hmm? Now why would that old perv do something like that, im suprised myself...No I haven't seen him for the longest time, I was in the mindset that he had still been with you, now from what I hear from you, my only observation and guess is that the old perv had kicked the bucket during the time frame, if not then I guess he would be traveling also, I think that someone like him would up around the women would bathe...Thats what he taught me during our training, infact the only thing he had me do is whack a stick with a blind fold on, kinda acted like a jerk and left me there for a whole day while I was blind by hitting the stick on the string, not knowing where it was going to hit cause I had to learn how to use my other 'eyes'" Ryo nods to this while his eyes shut,"The crazy perv even went to the ends of the earth to have me carry all of our crap and him while wearing nothing but pants, I think you were there I couldn't tell..." Leaning back while holding himself up with his free hand the young swordsman holds up the brush and outlines Mimi,"Pretty much I didn't learn a damn thing back then, but now that im on my own I'm pretty sure I understand what he meant by all that, of course not the pervy stuff...Once again I apologize.." Ryo shrugs and lets out a sigh."Sometimes I think i'm not good enough to reach that goal of mine..." The goal that he couldn't tell anyone..

Mioko leant back and closed her eyes again as Ryo talked; there was no danger of her dropping off to sleep, however exhausted she was. There had only been one person she'd ever fallen asleep around before, because for some reason when she was around that person, the insomnia that prevented her from drifting off seemed to disappear. Unfortunately, it had been a while since she had seen that person.

She chuckled lightly as he reminisced his training with her grandfather. Really, when you heard it the way Ryo put it, it was no surprise the first thing he had done was grope her. Someone as clueless of social conventions as Ryo should never have been mixed with her grandfather. His recounting brought back memories for her, though, "I was there. I remember you grumbling about it." She smiled lightly, her eyes still closed, "And the person holding the other side of that stick you had to hit was me for most of the time, too..."

She opened her left eye lazily as he started talking about not being strong enough. A rush of wind blew through the trees, letting a beam of sunlight hit it, and reflect of it. Her left eye was a glass imitation, and she couldn't actually see out of it, but she tended to use it like a regular eye anyway. Out of bright light, there was no way to tell it was any different to her working eye, but light reflected off of it so she tended to cover it or stick to the shade.

"So what's this goal, then?" She asked lazily, "Has it got anything to do with that tattoo? Or your fascination with the human body? Or both?" When she was relaxing and felt more energetic, Mioko showed herself to be highly intelligent.

Looking up at her, into her eyes Ryo knew that he could trust her with the knowledge and could trust to tell her anything which included his goal, his ultimate goal,"To create, the perfect human..." Ryo puts his hand behind his back and pulls out a red scroll and opens it which revealed a diagram that seemed to be comepletely disected and routed, and on the side there was a list of eleven items,"This is the human body, disected....Sorted out from every fluid to every single cell that creates it and keeps it running, and here is a list of elemental components that I found out during my travels." Ryo seemed to turn from a cheery person to a serious minded and straight forward scientist,"What you need to create a simple human being is; thirtey five liters of water, twenty kilograms of carbohydrates,two liters of ammonia,one point five kilograms of calcium,eight hundred grams of adenosine,two hundred and fifty grams of salt,a hundred grams of nitrogen,eighty grams of sulfur, seven point five grams of fluoride,three grams of silicon,and twenty grams of assorted metals and other items," Sighing he takes a deep breath,"Though it seems that I can't cause life to work for this thing, so I figured I would take a different approach and take a fresh body and create something out of it, and make it work by shocking it with a bunch of volts of electricity." Ryo rolls up his scroll and holds it in his hands,"Now that you know you have to promise me that you shant tell anyone, at all..."

Mioko opened her eyes and leaned forward, crossing her legs and listening with interest. Although she was very lazy with little observance skills most of the time and avoided fighting and most types of confrontation, she had a great interest in medicine, and was a very good medical-nin. She was also very intelligent, and so followed his explanation with understanding. When he was finished, she pursed her lips and rocked back on her heels, thinking it through,

"I won't tell anyone, although I'm sure if I agree with it from an ethical point of view." She folded her arms and bit the knuckles on her right hand thoughtfully, "What about chakra? Would this perfect human have any? And how would you generate that? Also, trying to get a brain to work with just electricity is a bit ambitious - how would you have the synapses connect correctly to begin with? A brain dies within three minutes of losing oxygen, so even a fresh body will have difficulty from that point of view. Also, isn't the idea of a 'perfect human' very subjective?" Although she may not agree from an ethical point of view, from a medical and philosophical view she was interested in the idea.

"You are very quick to see that, I figured that out when I saw some life when I shocked a fresh corpse with lightning, the poor thing died a few seconds later; So I figured that you couldn't sustain life with just a jolt of lightning, I suppose that you can only extend life when the lightning sends a message to the brain screaming at it to hold on for a little longer, to tell the brain that it needs to get off its ass and work this body, So if you look at it; it is possible to keep the body working if you teach the brain to keep working even after it has died. Better yet, I have something that could help everyone become the perfect human, while in my travels I had figured somethings out so I, better yet I suppose I should show you." Hold his hands out infront of him he closes his eyes and releases a light blue shapless form of visible energy where it looks like a bunch of bubbles floating almost life like,"This energy source I call Soul drive, I don't use chakra at all, this is like it...But you can say that it's different, almost a better way for things shall I say.."

Mioko frowned, tapping her lips with her knuckle as she thought. She scrutinised the Soul Drive intently, frowning at it as she mentally compared it to the visible properties of chakra. Finally, she sat back and pulled a face,

"So, you're going to somehow teach the brain to keep working after death - that's ambitious in itself - and then to overcome the problem of creating chakra you're going to introduce this Soul Drive of yours. Again, I'm questioning the subjectivity of the 'perfect human'. Many people will argue against a perfect human who uses something other than chakra - if there was a big war against Hyuuga it would be understandable, but last time I checked a ninja not using Chakra for ninjutsu is generally considered a little less than perfect." She frowned, "And how does Soul Drive differ from Chakra. Would, for example, a sensory-nin be able to notice it?"

Releasing the orb prior to her reply,"Tis a simple thing; As you can see I am not a ninja.....But that isn't the matter, cause you see my dear..If you were to run out of Soul drive all you get is fatigue, its much more contained that chakra; how I found this out? Well during my trips around the world I had found out that something, what if there was an invisible source of energy and it was lifeless and formless, then you adapt to that energy in case where as you all are in the acadamy you all learn one of the adapted energies, known as chakra little than you all know there is a second known energy known as "Chi" or "Ki" Mainly you find it in Tai users whenever they meditate. Buuut of course I wanted to use something different; So I figured use the highway system of chakra and fill the lines and routes with Ki or Chi while having the soul a blaze, it drives the body with the soul and raises the potentional of the body,"Soul drive..." Other words I understand whatever else about, I even developed new techniques that use this, I call them "Arts" and theres no need for a handsign to be used." Wondering about that last question,"Well I dont really know if you can sense me if you're only honed on Chakra based.." Ryo yawns and put his arm back into his robe and opens it up,"You see this, scar....This was when I was first learning Soul drive, it was very unstable....Very violent...Ripped right out of my chest." The scar was an engraved swirl.

"If it's a volatile energy with the same basis and tangibility of chakra, I don't see how it would be any more useful to you in being able to make a dead body produce it." Mioko said, frowning, "Chakra disappears unpon death - like you said, it's a life force - would Soul Drive also disappear with death, seeing as its base energy is a life forces too?"

She examined Ryo's scar critically. Had she not known better, she might have said it looked like the result of an unusually strong Rasengan. However, she did know better, "I'm not sure I'd want to teach Academy Students to use Soul Drive." She commented.

She leaned back with a stifled yawn, rolling one of her shoulders in an attempt to loosen the muscle there, "What I meant by sensors is that sensory-nin generally have a natural ability to sense extra energy, and so can train themselves to recognise chakra in different people, and the differences between different peoples chakra. If Soul Drive is a similar sort of energy, would they be able to train themselves in a similar sort of way?"

"Yes you'll find out that its simple to pass on, it was just difficult to keep contained in my condition....I had a broken body, as you've known I wasn't always the healthiest kid around, I guess you can say it wanted to reject my body, so I beat the thing down and kept it tamed within me....It hurts everytime bend over, I havent a clue if I will ever be healed from this..." Ryo places his hand to his scar.

Ryo sighs a bit,"I know it was a bit reckless, but if I could be different then it wouldn't be so hard to strive towards my goal....I'm planning on even bigger plans, I just need more research and practice....Well besides that, what have you been up to Mimi?"

Ryo lays back and stares at the sky, admiring the clouds and their shapes, some happy, some sad; all of the same form, sort of like a body."Hmmm..."

Mioko frowned at the scar, shurgging lightly as she replied to his question,

"Well, I live here as a ninja now," She began, gesturing to the village entrance behind her, "Working for our kage. She's an amazing person, really. She's about three years younger than me, but she's so strong not just in personality but physically too." Mioko's face lit up. It wasn't often that she spoke so highly of someone, especially not about physical strength, and so she was putting all her enthusiasm into praising that person. There was only one other member of the village of whom she felt so strongly.

"I trained as a medical-nin, and generally I've taken better to that than swordsplay," Like Ryo, Mimi had never been strong as a child, and even then she had an exceptionally weak body, so whilst skilled, she lacked the physical strength often needed for using swords. Mioko didn't mention her position as ANBU Leader; that was something she could not an would not reveal, on the understanding that the identity of ANBU must always be kept secret.

While the two were conversing with each other, a certain Sannin of Suisho was watching with interest from a really shadowy area that completely covered her in shadows. She was excellent when it came to stealth and has training personally in locating her targets by sound alone. The red-and-gold-kimono-wearing, sickly, yellowish-tinted pale-skinned woman listened with rapt attention as they conversed. She wasn't really paying attention to what they said, so much as she was watching out for her successor as the village's ANBU Leader. She was watching to see if the man was going to harm her and help her, what with Mioko sort of being her Kohai and all, but when she decided that the man was not a danger to the village or Mioko, she deemed it acceptable to show herself. So, she utilized her incredible speed and stealth to sneak up on them in a rapid manner. When she was at a close enough range, she alerted them to her presence. "Mioko-Kohai. I was a little concerned when you didn't show up for" here she stopped as she coughed up a bit of blood into the back of her hand and wiped it on a cloth she kept with her "your patrol of the village and I came here searching for you" The 57 year old Suishogakure's Sannin said as a small frown appeared on her pale, but otherwise beautiful face, acting as if she didn't cough up some of her own blood, purposely not acknowledging the man's presence, though it wasn't meant to be an insult but rather to possibly let the man keep any privacy he might want.

Mioko turned to watch as the Sannin of her village seemingly appeared out of nowhere in front of her and Ryo. She had been aware of the woman at the edges of her senses for a short while, but had decided not to alert Ryo to her presence. Out of the people Mimi knew, she only genuinely respected two of them. One was her kage, and the other had just appeared in front of her.

Slowly, Mioko rose from her seated position, dusting herself down. Although it may have seemed a lazy, insubordinate action to some, to people who knew Mioko just rising was an effort she generally did not make for anyone she didn't consider important.

"It's my day off, Kimi-sempai." Mioko replied, smiling lightly at the older woman, her eyes finding the bloodied hankerchief with a flicker of worry, "And I spent all morning in the hospital anyway." She flicked a hand lazily in Ryo direction, "This is Ryokobu Hamatoshi. He travelled with my grandfather and I when we were younger." Mioko was pretty sure she had told her sempai about her master swordsman grandfather at some point.

Yawning to her appearance obviously meant that Ryo didn't want to aknowledge her up to the point when she arrived, dawning that she gave off the indication that she was very wise, a figure that had something of sage like properties; doning to this Ryo kept his mouth shut and switched his position into crisscrossed sitting position. Silently Ryo lets out a sigh,"How boring..."

Ryo founded that this woman of sorts wasn't really interesting, at least to his standards, yes she was indeed beautiful but not exactly a prime subject to his needs. Drawing one of his blades, he looks at its reflection to stare at the paint on his eyes, it looked like it was smeared a bit, probably from the hug or whatever with him and Mimi.

"Kimi...Sempai?" This must have meant that this woman was somewhat a higher rank than Kimi herself, thats definently weird even on his standards,Ryo wanted to put on his face paint but didn't want to be scolded for it, he didn't care about it; he was just tired....Ryo pulls out his kit and just started painting on his face, and made himself look like a clown, a scary clown,"Boo!"

Boredom and no respect for a higher authority means Ryo is covered with face paint.

The terminally ill Sannin nodded her head in acknowledgement, a look of realization appearing on her face, seemingly having forgotten it was her day off. She mentally beat herself up for her forgetfulness and aspired to ensure that she didn't forget it again. She saw the worried look that appeared on her Kohai's face as her eyesight was trained on the bloodied cloth in her hand, though she didn't comment on it or make any outwards signs of recognition that she had seen it. She instead turned to Ryokubo when Mioko introduced him and noticed his apparent lack of interest. She didn't get angry at his obvious disrespect. A disrespectful ninja was a trash ninja, after all. She didn't give him any sign of greeting aside from turning her head to look at him. She just turned back to Mioko and gave her an acknowledging nod of her head, showing that she did indeed know the story of her swordsman grandfather. She had often made comments to Mioko, wondering about how good of a fight her grandfather might have been should she and him ever face off. "I understand it is your day off but" here she stopped a bit to cough up a bit of blood into one of her numerous handkerchiefs "you shouldn't wander so far away from the village. You never know when" here she stopped to cough again "an enemy army or ninja might attack or infiltrate the village and do it harm. Why do you think I only leave the village when I'm going on" she stopped to cough into her handkerchief before continuing "a mission or I go looking for one of our own who is not in the village?" she said, trying to pass along one of her teachings to her young Kohai. She didn't acknowledge herself coughing violently, mainly because it was obvious to her that her illness has gotten a bit worse, she instead chose to act as if nothing was wrong.