Out and about [Training]

[Ito Eri]

The scent of rich earth and spice wafted from every corner of the small shop. Tables covered in silk cloth were adorned with jewel like bottles, pots and and tubes of every shape and size. Everyone of them was a special blend of bath or skin product unique to the shop. Experienced with the many and varied options open to him he by passed the musk based and flora scents. They had their appeal but he was not sufficiently enamored with them to use them day to day and he was restocking rather than looking for something novel.

"Such a vision you are, fit to make the flowers wilt with jealousy." Dressed in a blue and white checkered yukata and geita Eri still moved with his customarily silent steps as he snuck up from behind the shops owner as she refilled part of the incense display. She started a bit and gave him an evil look as she turned and swatted at him like he was a nuaughty child. Eri laughed and dodged back as if it were some mighty blow but sidled up to her before she could attemp a backswing and put an arm around her shoulders.

"You horrid boy." In her late thirties she'd grown accustomed to Eri's playful flirting and casual way of touching other people. Moving away from him to go to the register she strutted a bit as she walked.

"I'd tell your mother if you weren't my best customer."A compliment never hurt anything and she chatted with him about new products and impending sales as she rang up his assorted purchases.

Small emerald bag of products in hand Eri headed out of the shop and continued on his way. He still had to stop by the apothecary to pick up a poison his mother had requested on top of placing an order at the blacksmiths for more training kuani. The number of students his famlies school allowed had grown of late due to the hiring of a few new instructors so supplies were a bit short.

[Ito Aki]

"Oi." Aki might have tried sneaking up on her brother to surprise him but after the previous three hundred failed attempts she figured it was better to simply concentrate on training rather then getting one over on him. He was a bastard about winning as well and any penalty extracted would be enforced by their mother. She didn't feel like having to do dishes for a week straight. It messed up her hands.

Noticing the bag in his hand she looked at it questioningly as she walked in step along side of him. Without a word he handed it over and took note of the scents and products. They were not of any particular interest to her but she generally made a point of known fragrances for practical purposes.

She didn't intend on being a nin hunter or one of the more tracking associated specialties, her heart being set on medicine, but it had medical applications too. It might not come up but the ability to discern specific scents and know the difference between something used for fragrance and a potential poison was better to know and not need then to need and not know.

"Whats left to do?" She asked and was handed the blacksmith order which had yet to be filled. With a nod she put the paper in her pouch and diverged paths with him. She knew the way by heart having visited it many times in the past on family business.

Her brother had been assigned the chores but it was customary to help one another in their household. They met back up at the place where they had parted, Aki pulling a hand cart behind her with kunai and a few other weapons in it.

[Ito Eri]

Eri watched his sister go, taking not of the hunch in her shoulders and tight gait as she moved. As if she were expecting a scolding or a blow to the back of the head. Frowning slightly he went his own way to the apothecaries shop. As siblings they knew each other well enough not to need words as often as others to communicate but Aki was practically mute in the first place and he knew that he'd have to draw whatever was bothering her out as if he were pulling teeth from an unwilling patient.

Sighing he picked up his mothers order and rolled through is memories of the last few days. Nothing much had happened to his knowledge and her usual frustration with her limited training regime wouldn't account for her behavior. She was a moody, introverted creature but basically cheerful and even her dark moments weren't usually given to blossoming into such pensive behavior in his experience. Something had to have happened.

"So, who is it you've fallen for?" He asked, not looking at her and behaving as if he'd asked about the weather. He didn't honestly think love was the issue, Aki was a bit dense and skittish for that, but he knew what alluding to it would yield. She was an honest, forthright girl and he loved that about her though it made her all to vulnerable as a shinobi. It was why his mother had never objected to her becoming a medic and he supported her as well. He didn't even want to think about her having to try and lie her way through a mission.

[Ito Aki]

"Fuck you, fuck you twice sideways. I'm not mooning over some god damned boy so lay of that." Aki spat at her brother suggestion, accusation, assumption, the idea that she was in love with someone. She looked away though, realizing her error in letting him rile her up like that. It was to late to hid that she was agitated and Eri was not the type to let her keep a secreat to herself once he so much as suspected the possibility of it.

"Fucker. " She added in a growl, half considering taking a swing at her brother though it would yield nothing good. She’d have to at the very least let go of the cart handles and with such a heavy load the piece of shit would probably flip back completely and dump the whole mess in the street. That would be pain enough to clean up but as it was she was already drawing eyes to them with her open agitation. If she actually started a fight they’d have half the block that wasn’t already watching them at it as well. Aki had no love for preforming for a crowd and a particular dislike of people carrying tales back to her mother about things she wouldn’t particularly care to explain. Eri would hound her for information when he got it into his head to do so but Soyokaze would simply ask and Aki wouldn’t have even a fraction of the stupidity necessary to withhold anything from her.

[Ito Eri]

"Riiiiigh." Eri agreed with a nod in his most condescending tone. He could practically feel the rage roiling off her and a few people actually turned to look even though neither of them had been particularly loud. Aki was either stone faced or an open book with no middle ground and right then half the village could probably see exactly how she felt. Eri almost laughed but managed not to as she would have swung on him for that. Aki had a fairly even temper but he knew how to wind her up and where the tipping point was. Harassing her to a certain extent had been his privilege as the families eldest.

"So if it’s not about a boy then why are you sulking about with your tail between your legs? You've been like this since yesterday at breakfast." Despite everything his sister was actually sensitive to physical and emotional queues and he knew how to work that to his advantage. Relaxing his own posture and smiling would keep her within reasonable range of calm. She’d only get more worked up if he started showing agitation as well and fortunately he was sufficiently master of himself that he didn’t have to do any such thing even if he was upset. Fortunately though he wasn’t anyway so that particular thesis didn’t need to be tested just then and Aki seemed to have understood what he was about and was becoming resigned to talking. She could be a stubborn creature, hiding things for days sheerly for the sake of spite but not if it was important and it had been plain since the aforementioned breakfast that something was not right.

[Ito Aki]

"I!" Aki wanted to make a strong denial but she didn't have one. She had been preoccupied for that long, longer really though Eri hadn't been around to see it as he’d been off with some girl then a mission. Feeling a sudden rush of embarrassment she looked away and a hand went up to her hair. A gesture born of the teasing she’d gotten about it and how different it was from her mother and other siblings, not that any of them matched.

She felt a stirring of irritation at how he always picked up on her mood but knew that it was a lie even as she thought it. What got under her skin was how he always went straight for her weak points to wring an answer from her. Not as much as it might have though, it meant he cared but she could have done with just being asked every once in a while though she knew she wouldn’t answer and her brother had no patience for losing games when he was after something in earnest.

"I got my first team and mission the day before." She spoke with a fair deal of hesitation. The mission had been anything but secret but she felt uneasy about talking about it even a little bit. It was part of the way she had been raised though it was alright to talk about her teammates at least. She just wasn't exactly sure what to say. Her impressions of them were not easily made into words though. Even her biting assessment of Ro’s rather unfortunate habit of using unnecessary jutsu hadn’t really been about the boy himself. Objective was easy where the subjective had her tongue tied in knots of lead.

"I don't think either one will want to work with me again." She admitted after a few moments of silence. It was what she was most concerned with but it was the gist of the problem. Her hand which had been superstitiously scratching at her blue main was stuffed in her pant pocket to stop the gesture the moment she noticed she was doing it. She wasn’t bothered in particular by the little weakness it showed but her brother had a particular dislike of it.

"One of them...Ro kept trying to use strong jutsu for mundane things. That was kind of bad but it happens. I was kind of surprised when Dr. Kikkawa stepped in and scolded me. I guess I thought he would know more about being discreet since he was older but he seemed mad that I had tried to talk Ro into stopping.” Aki slouched a bit more. She hadn't meant any offense but no one ever seemed to care about that. True and helpful didn't matter for shit if it wasn't covered in lies and sugar fit to choke a horse. It didn't make sense to her. Sure, not everything should be said that way but when it came to work and things like that then using the most direct method should have been considered better. She could handle being the social leper so long as she was listened to when it mattered.

"I don’t even really care about that but I…I just thought it would be different from academy." She said finally with a sigh. That had been the real let down. In class she’d never been picked willingly for group exercises of any kind and the boys and girls pretty much shunned her out right. None of them had picked on her though. Her peers had been harsh but not cruel to any degree. Singled out though she’d been a favorite target of the slightly older delinquents who thought she’d be an easy target. It might have gone differently if she’d reported what went on to the teachers or asked her classmates for help but Aki was introverted and had sought to deal with the few aggressors that cropped up on her own. A thing which had landed her in hot water more than once as she tended to look more like the bully by the end of things than the actual aggressor as she’d always had a brutal streak when given cause to fear for her own wellbeing.

[Ito Eri]

Under normal circumstances Eri would have been happy to hear his sister’s wish to serve the village had finally been fulfilled, as it was though he found his hands balling into fists unconsciously as she spoke. She'd been ill used during academy and calloused words from idiots had left their mark on her. He'd have reckoned with them at the time but Aki had always refused to let him teach them a lesson out of the kindness that gave her both her strength and inner beauty but left her fragile in spirit.

"Firstly it is the way of a ninja to be secretive in all things, not only hiding weakness but hoarding strength from prying eyes like a miser precious jewels. For they are ephemeral things techniques and ploys, their true power spent in the moment of revelation never again to be reclaimed." Eri spat the quote from the children’s primer he'd committed to memory long ago. He had a better head for such things though his sister knew the wisdom of it in her bones just as well. Their mother had raised them to understand the ways of such things more thoroughly then academy or society alone could have. Revealing ability haphazardly was tantamount to repeatedly striking stones with a katana, a foolish waste of a weapon and strength.

"So these little bastards didn't understand that you were trying to help and took it amiss?" There was more scorn in the amiss then bastards. Eri was not one to view his own gender favorable to begin with but those who did harm to Aki held a special place in his contempt. He knew she had no particular art with words but the meanings were deathly clear and if anyone paid attention to that rather than the delivery they would learn something for a change. That she identified one as a doctor in particular set poorly with him. She looked up to them deserving or not and if the man hadn’t understood her meaning then he certainly was not.

Eri regretted speaking as harshly as he did the moment the words left him but he didn’t try to call them back. His sister gave him a sad little shrug of the shoulders that might have looked indifferent to another but he knew for long suffering hope. She’d said all she intended and would not entertain insults against her temporary comrades and suggestions of motives that she could not know the truth of one way or the other. Rather than head home with him she took a side turn that would lead her on a more direct path home then the scenic path Eri preferred. Taking the meaning he continued on his usual way though more slowly then he’d have cared to. He’d overstepped himself in moving to barb strangers so quickly and she’d need a bit of time to herself before she’d speak with him again. Likewise he was livid pissed and wanted a few moments to himself to think over what to do with his frustration and the source.

[Sayomi]

Ito Eri| 23

Ito Aki| 18

As a side note there wasn't any true training in here, it was really just a normal thread.