Puppets and Humans (Private)

With a loud groaning squawk Li Dian managed to pry the lid of the sewers open. He leaned over the hole peering inside ever so slightly. The darkness of the inside tunnel system greeted him. It was thick and all encompassing. As he bent over to get a good look of the insides, he could feel the pickling touch of the rain fall on top of him. He sighed. It'd been really unfair CoRin had drawn the long straw and this one and had to check out the old Hydro dam. Man this sucked. He was the leader around here! Why was he the one checking out sewers? He should have grunts to do things like this!

He looked to the scroll on his belt. Hmm puppets. Naw what did puppets know about structural integrity of subterranean tunnels? Nothing! In fact they didn't know anything about anything. He squinted at the scroll. "One day you guys will be useful, and it will be glorious." With that he took a deep breath and jumped on in. He landed with a loud squish. "Ew ew ew." Li Dian had never considered himself to be a tinder ninny, but honestly he was crawling around in a sewer. Even steroid steven would wince upon having to jump in here. At least he had the luxury of not being abel to see anything. At least that why he only had the colorful smells to give him the general heint of what was going on. Wait a minute. He was suppose to be checking if the sewers were still sound. He wondered if he could do that with his sense of hearing alone. He paused held his breath and waited to see if he could. Wait for it.... wait for it.... no. He could hear something skittering about the waters. Up above his head he could hear the sound of the rain sacking upon the streets above. He could hear the sound of drops landing down here with a 'plop'

Dammit ears! They've failed failed him once again. First the puppet now his ears. He was rapidly running out of useful tools at his disposal. Oh great! He couldn't even make rock stuff down here because it's hurt the foundation! What good was he? Nothing but a handsome face. Wait it was pitch black! Had no handsome face to show to the world down here! Oh what agony. Agony! Wait a second. Just one second. "I have a puppet for this situation!" At last his puppetry had a use. With trembling hands of excitement, much like those of a young boy on prom night. He drew his hand down to his scroll. Her unfurrowed it and summoned Ezekiel! His first puppet, he'd gotten just about as much use out of it as all his others, but not anymore. Because Ezekiel double as a flashlight. "Ha!" He announced as his angel appeared in puff of smoke. "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Let is shine, let it shine, let it shine!"  With that Ezekiel opened up his mouth and shined a light out into the darkness. Illuminating the dankness that were the Ame sewers. He sighed slightly as he looked out into the tunnels. It was kind of a hallow victory.

Begrudgingly he wandered forth into the tunnels. Their stench didn't get any better the further he went in. As he wandered through the seemingly endless tunnels he checked the walls, ceilings, and supports for any damage. He wasn't an architect, but he was pretty sure that he was smart enough to tell when a tunnel was calling apart or not. Turns out he was! The sewers that had saved many of the citizens of The rain village were still well intact. Well that'd be why all those people got out, wouldn't it?  He wandered around the subterranean tunnels looking to and fro. No cracks here no cracks good. Oh yeah! Things were looking funky fresh down here. Smelling it too. Well smelling Funky, not so much the fresh part. Nope. Not even a little bit of that. Just funky.

After a thurough look, and much more time in the sewers than anyone had ever wanted to spend in a sewer. After all that Li concluded that the sewers were good to go. Safe to build upon. Nice to look at. Smelling weird. Other than the smell it wasn't that bad down here. Nice and warm, not too moist. Maybe if he put up a few paintings, maybe a few vases, a couch out to for a lounge. A butt load of air freshener and it wouldn't be that bad down here actually. Except for one thing.

Down beneath Li in the sewage of the abandoned city was a rat. A nice big chunky one too. It probably eat bettet than he did! "Gross." Li scoffed looking at the pathetic rodent. Ah what did he expect? It was a sewer Rats lived in sewers this was a pretty standard situation for anymore who ventured down here. Still the furry little rodent was being too friendly, and was crawling all around his foot. Li blanched at the idea of the rat crawling over his body. He stepped back from the rat. "Away with you rodent!" He announced shoving his fingers at the thing like the dark lord of the sith himself. But instead of lightning flying from his fingertips His Chakra strings did instead. Ten indigo strings flew from his fingers and landed upon the rat. Li flicked his fingers this way and that and saw that as he did the rat's body reacted like one of his puppets would have. "Interesting." He announced as he made the Rat do a silly little dance. He sighed as he suddenly realized the sadistic behavior he'd been engaging in. "Sorry about that little guy." She that he's sling the rat far away into the darkness of the tunnel, out of sight, out of mind.

With that interesting bit of information stored happily within hi mind Li Dian began to make his way to the surface. His mission had been accomplished. The sewers were safe. No criminals or crocs in sight. Which was a weight off of his mind, didn't need killer crocs to come out from the sewer to eat him alive eh? Plus the walls were sturdy as a sewer could be. They wouldn't have to worry about the sewers collapsing if they began to build on top of them again. That was Sturdy Ame Engineering for ya! Plus he'd learned an interesting little bit of information about his Chakra Strings. They could not only be used to control the limbs of his puppets. But it looked like they could also be used to get a grip on living beings as well. How interesting.

He climbed back up out of the sewer and into the clouded daylight of an Amegakure afternoon. He laughed happily as he smelled fresh air for the first time in what felt like several life times. He was greeted by the moist dampness that was Amegakure and rejoiced. He didn't care out moist, dirty, and destroyed his home was. Nothing could have been worse than the smell of that sewer.

He crawled out of the hole and got to his feet. He stretched out his body feeling his muscles groan as they stretched and twisted. He looked out at his wet and destroyed home town. There was much to be done around town. But for now only one thing took importance over everything else. Li Dian desperately needed to replace his clothing. Right now it was rather ripe.  He let the rain soak into his clothing. Hoping that the rain water was at least a little more fresh than any of the other liquids he had floating around in his outfit right now. He walked forward into his city welcoming the rain upon his body.

Along the way he came across Hans. A few days ago hans had made his own rickshaw that he used to transport good across the city. Today he was doing what he did most days that he didn't have anything major to do. He was tearing copper wiring and pipes out of destroyed buildings and utilities,and loading them up in to his rickshaw. He was a clever player and Li had no doubt that Hans would be able to use the valuable resource in an umber of useful ways. He'd managed to jury rig a power generator on top of the grocery store, who knew what else he could do? They gave each other a nod as they crossed paths. They each had their own thing to do, and while they were friends and equals they couldn't waste any time chit chatting. they had a city to rebuild after all. They couldn't waste any time just chit chatting and prattling about! They could talk when Amegakure was back to being the city of high rising skyscapres and awesome manufacturing plants. Every single one would be named after the people who'd helped build the city back to it's glory. "I'll see you at Dinner Hans!" Li announced as he faded into the distance over towards the grocery store where they were all living for the moment. He heard a loud rumbling answer him and Li Dian couldn't be entirely sure whether it was Han's response or if there was thunder in the sky today.

After that Li went on ahead to the grocery store where they were camping out. The inside was spick and span. As the four people currently living in Ame had done a good job cleaning it up, and fixing it up. They even had showers set up at the back. Where they collected rain water. It wasn't a four star hotel but for a while it would be home. Li Went back to the showers and shed his clothes deciding to cleanse himself of a good sewer expedition.

Of course this is a child safe training thread so the audience can only see butt cheeks.

After which Li Dian ventured back out into the world that was his Grocery store. He decided to follow up on his little discovery back there in the sewer. He knew that he could use chakra threads to move people. But what he'd done in the sewer was different. He'd actually been able to control the thing's movements. Which was entirely exciting. As a yamanaka he already had a few moves at his disposal when it came to controlling other people, but a few more couldn't hurt right? He had chakra for days, but when it came to a straight up fight he wasn't too hot. So the more abilities he had to control the battle field the better. That's why he like Earth Elements so much. It was all about controlling the battle field.

He dug around the small library they'd managed  to gather in their time in the ruins, and Found Coco Father's Book on medicine. He flipped through it until he found what he was looking for. Lungs, yadda yadda, hearts, yadda yadda, something bout chakra control, chakra dissection blades, blah blah blah blah. Oh there we go. Chakra points. The points on a person body that controlled the flow of chakra throughout the body. Hmm. Li surmised that the chakra points were key in controlling a person's body through chakra threads. Yeah that made sense. If he could connect his threads to another person chakra points he could control them right? Yeah! They'd act like the joints on his puppets. Oh that'd be so interesting.
Keeping the book open, and turned to a Diagram Li Dian went a head and studied the points on the body. There were so many he didn't know how any person was suppose to be able to memorize it all. Still he sat on a counter and with the help of the book, he'd send his chakra threads into his wrist trying to connect it to his own body. It took a bit of trial and error but after enough practice he found that he could connect the threads reliably to a chakra point within his forearm. From there he'd wiggle his fingers that were sending out the threads like he would a puppet. He found that his arm would move according to how he moved his fingers, just like a puppet would. "Oh my god I am so cool!" He cut of the string and tried it again. And Again. And again, and again. Until he could to do it without even looking at his book. Oh man, he was going to make so many people his puppets, oh yeah.
"Li!" Coco's father came running into the building. He was moist and it wasn't just from the rain. Looked like he'd been running pretty hard. Or working pretty hard, but considering the fact that he just came running into the building it was probably the running thing. "A group of bandits just came into the city, they're armed and their savaging through the residential district! We've got to drive them off!"
"Right you are my dear friend!" Li announced jumping on to the checkout lane he'd been chilling out on. "I've got a new jutsu I've just been dying to use. And it's convinent because I litteraly Just learned it. So this is the perfect time to take it for a field test. A spin if you where. Wait a minute." He squinted at Coco's father. "Aren't you a ninja? Why am I always the one taking care of thing around here? You're older too."
"Well I'm not a Ninja I'm a medical Ninja there's a difference." The man announced not sounding entirely insulted but you could hear a good bit of it in his voice.
"Is there though?"
"Absolutly."
"Like what?"
"Well we heal people instead of trying to kill them, for one. "
"Yeah but don't you guys have that whole Chakra scalpel thing right? That's totally for hurting people."
"That's for surgery."
"Yeah but does anyone use it for surgery?"
"Rarely."
"You see, Medical Ninja is just a fancy term for some weird combat moves."
"It's not. You only hear about Chakra scalpels being used in battle because that's what the media covers, but for a great deal of the time it's used for healing. I'm a healer, I don't fight. Li! We're getting distracted! There are armed me in the city, and they are tarring thing up stop them right now young man!"
"You can't talk to me like that you're not my dad." Then Coco's father gave him a stare that his onw mother had given him many times in the past. Me might not have been his dad, but he was the father of a ninja who was older than him so that would have to do.  "Okay Okay I'll go fight off the Bandits geez"
The two of them traveled back into the rain of heir city. Coco's father may have been no good in combat but it was always good knowing that if he ran into trouble there would be a medic just around the corner to help him. They travled for about ten minutes through the rain and the rubble until they made it to where the badits were hiding out. Well hiding wasn't exactly the word. There was three of them, and they were laughing and singing and having a good ol time as the trashed some ruins in look of loot and treasure. Not that the ruins were that nice to begin with. But they were taring the already destroyed building up something proper, and that just wasn't right. Wait a second. Li squinted his eyes to zoom in on the men who were trashing the place. They were those same guys from that other village! Oh hell no! Li rolled up his sleeves and jumped out from cover. "Don't worry I can handle these chumps. "Hey ass holes I though I told you to stop being criminals! Am I going to have to Re educated you? Again? Because believe me I'm more than happy to oblige!
"Aww shit it him again!" The one smoking a cigarette shouted throwing a rock he was carrying to the ground and running for a back pack they had lying not too far away.
"Don't panic, we prepared for this." The leader shouted, trying to keep his two friends calm.
Li Smirked. "Oh did you now? Please continue I'd love to see how you guys have prepared for me." Li crossed his arms and stood back. He was sure that he could combat whatever it was these guys were trying to throw at him. Now while he was sure that he could combat it he wasn't enteirly she that he could handle it. Out from the backpack came three, what looked like bike helments. Only they had wires sticking out from them, with a  big lightbulb on top of it too. Li couldn't help but crack up at whatever these guys were trying to do. "Oh god no! Not the helmets! I Surrender I surrender!"
"You may laugh."  The leard announced strapping his head into the helmet. But we're onto you punk. You totally used some sort of mind control move on us last time, but we're not going to fall for it twice in a row. This super advanced helmet is going to protect us from harm!"
Li curled his lips up into a sour lemon pucker. Well first of all he didn't use a mind control technique on them, so he didn't have anything to worry about but that was a pretty interesting contraption. HE supposed that they were pretty clever for a couple of stupid nobody bandits. Li supposed it was time for him to stop being a jerk to them, and to actually start being the leader he was suppose to be. Or at least trying to be.
He fired his Chakra threads at two of the men. They all hit home and he was able to take control of the men's bodies. He forced them down on their knee's forcing them to bow to him. He shot the third one a glance. Luckily he didn't realized that Li could only summon so many threads and didn't' do anything to resist. He dropped his sword and got down on his knees as well. "Now Kids I thought I said that I'd kill you guys if you ever dared come back to harass another city. And yet here we are. You guys yet again at my mercy, and me yet again deciding what to do with you." All three of them looked up at him with terrified eyes. they were lucky other people wouldn't be quite as nice. "Listen seeing that I've spared your life not once, but twice now I'm going to have to get a form of payment for you guys, and since I'm sure you guys don't' want me to chase you all down, just as much as I don't, here's the deal. For now one You'll be working for me to rebuild the city. Got it? That's your community service for all the crimes you've committed! So Says I Li Dian!"

(Twc 3227)
3227 towards Skillful achievement with a human body.
+16 stats

There was silence in the city. The only sound was that of water splashing against the cracked concrete floor of the city. Off in the distance miles away was the sound of thunder as well. Li could smell the musky scent of humidity floating around the land, and he breathed in deeply. His Indigo chakra threads still connected to the bodies of two of the would be bandits. As he exhaled a cloud of mist plumed form his nostrils and floated apart, evaporating into the thick air of the evening. "Or I could just kill you all now." Li made the counter offer with a smirk. He wouldn't really. He was a big ol' softy, but these guys didn't know that. From what they would remember he made the three of them impale each other on their own swords. Li did so love to manipulate people's bodies, it was so much cleaner than actually having to fight them. A lot less effort too.


"That's not much of a choice." The leader of the group scoffed, his head still bowed.


"It wasn't meant to be." Li announced throwing down the mad one liners. "Either stick with me and do something useful with your life, and end it right here. Hurry up and choose I've got a city to rebuild buddies with or without you."


The three of them scoffed almost in unison. "Fine." They announced defeated.


"You made a good choice." Li announced releasing his jutsu upon the three. "There's a grocery store seven blocks down. That's where we're hold up. Go there get a shower and some food, and a good nights sleep, we'll give you your chores tomorrow. Copy?" The three men nodded sadly "Don't think about robbing the place either, or I'll be back to skin your hide. Now I don't want you guys to hate me. I'll be a genuinely good leader to you guys, but you've got to earn that. I'll be noble and just, but that'll take time. I'll make proper men of you yet!" He rose his fist to the air as if he was going to puncture the sky. "We'll raise these towers back to the sky and show our resolve!" 


With that'd he'd summon an angel and fly off into the thicker sections of the city.


Rain Secret Technique: A host of angels. That's what his trump card was going to be. Li dian had been planning it out for the better part of his life. It was actually Just the Performance of a hundred puppets, but with a theme. And If anything Li had always felt that a theme was more important than anything. Anyway. The point was that he wanted to have the sky filled with his angel puppets. Now that was a problem because Just his newest puppet camel, took an entire hand. A whole hand, just for an A-ranked puppet. Keep in mind that He someday planned on creating master work angel puppets. There was no way he'd fill the sky with his current Chakra manipulation. He had to do something to increase his skill.


May as well start with increasing his chakra thread production ten-fold. Right? Sounded like a good idea to him. Ten threads, one from each finger. That's what it meant to be a master at the puppet technique. one hundred chakra threads was what it meant to be a legendary puppet master. He had a decent Chakra supply, so the threads shouldn't be that hard, right? I mean it was only ten times the amount he could create. The master's before him could do it, so why not him? He was the guardian of Amegakure! His angels would be the stuff of legend. He was going to protect everyone. He failed once with only two puppets... but what if he had one hundred? Hmm? what then? Hahahaha giant flaming golden lion that was a lot of F-ing puppetry to dig through! 


He explored his city. Slowly, ever so slowly it was rebuilding. However he came across this one little street off of main. It'd been cleared of water, but the mid section of the street was littered with broken glass. Look at all this glass on HIS streets! Littering his ground! Being all sharp and jagged and shit! Ah hell no! This would not stand. Just like the average person would not stand on this street. You know because of the glass. because it was sharp. And people didn't like stepping on sharp stuff.


"Ah hell no!" Li yelled swooping down onto a safe section of the street. "Glass in my city? I don't think so!" Broken glass that was. "Alright Li let's do this! Chakra Threads! Ten Fold! Rain Secret Technique: Dance of a hundred glass shards!" He shot his indigo threads out towards the shards of glass. Only a sad quantity of threads were able to fly out from his finger tips. Only ten. The ten connected to what glass they could and Li could feel the tug he could created. Only ten... that's only ten percent of his potential. Well that's no good. Especially when he saw his potential as something that could eclipse the sky not being able to move a hundred glass pieces at once was really something that was going to harsh his mellow. "hmm." He'd hoped that just by shouting a cool name at the glass the threads would just come out like magic. Guess not. Hmm. He sat down on a near bye rock, and considered his fate. He crossed his arms as well as his legs and closed his head in contemplation.



Chakra strings were constructs of concentrated Chakra. He had the enough chakra control to summon these constructs to semi solid chakra into the world and control their direction and movements. That's what he used to control his puppets. Right now it wasn't so much a question of if he control his could control that much chakra or not, it was just a matter of fine tuning it. He was only used to sending chakra out through a single point in each of his fingers. He'd had to fine tune that concept. Ten fold! Ten times as many threads Ten times as many puppets! Hahaha I'm going to fill the sky with puppets, and angels and any combination in between! Ha ha ha, this was going to be awesome. And hard work. Oh god hard work? Gross. He was working hard enough rebuilding this city! Wasn't that enough? Guess not. Strangely enough rebuilding cities and puppetry didn't seem to over lap all that much. Well maybe if he be built the city into one giant puppet. Oh goodness, that'd be awesome. A giant city puppet. Dear god what had Li just stumbled upon? Something awesome. He took out a note book and jotted down 'city puppet' on the paper. Though almost immediately the paper was smudged by the rain and within moments became worthless. Li frowned and set the notebook away. For a brief moment he wondered how many great idea he'd lost because of that. He flipped through the pages. Roughly fifty two. Geez that was a lot of genius to loose. Oh well if he'd managed to come up with that much genius he'd surely be able to come up with twice as much! Li was a puppetry Genius! A Genius!



He shook his head, and tried to focus on what was actually going on in the world. He looked down at the broken, moist, sharp translucent field of glass shards in front of him. Oh how it mocked in it's own glassy way. He summoned up enough chakra to summon ten chakra threads, but didn't extend it to the rest of his fingers. He only transferred his chakra into his index finger, hoping that that would enough to do the deed. He closed his eyes and imagined ten bands of indigo chakra flying out from his finger tips and hitting the glass, making it into his glazed puppets! He squinted his eyes open and took a look at what he had going on inside. Not looking too good, no sir ie'. He checked everything out looked here and there was but a single bright blue thread connecting his finger to a glass shard. Though it's color and thickness were greater than that of a normal thread but still... Li had always been of the mind that more was better. He need more! More Threads, more table!



He focused in on the thread in front of him. It had the strength of ten threads but he didn't need the strength of ten threads! He needed ten strong threads. There was an old Rain village legend. There was a goddess who had seven sons. One day she invited the seven of them into her tent, and from a chest she pulled seven arrows. She gave one arrow to each of her sons and told them to try to snap the arrow in half with just their hands. Each son did so with ease. Then from the same chest the goddess pulled out a bundle of seven arrows. She handed the bundle to her oldest son and asked him to try to snap that bundle in half with only his hands. He failed to do so, so the bundle was handed to the next oldest, but he failed too. And so on and so one until even the youngest of the brothers failed to break the bundle asunder. After this test the goddess gave her sons a proverb. Alone they could easily be broken, but together no one could break them.



Li took that to heart. He'd rather have a hundred weak puppets than  a single strong one. Of course with this new technique he could have both! Which made him a little giddy to think about. He was going to have so many cool puppets it was ridiculous. She sighed and stood up, ready to take another crack at it. Thought it all seemed fruitless. This hadn't been the first time he'd tried this technique, he'd been attempting it since before Ame had been destroyed. There was a reason only a few people on the face of the planet could master it. It wasn't just an advanced technique, it was next to impossible. Sasori of the Red Sand had only been able to perform it because he'd turned himself into a puppet and built an enhanced core to control all of the strings. He'd actually had to create a mechanism to control it all. Li wasn't sure he could match that. Which it was pretty common knowledge that Sasori was completely crazy, his genius couldn't be denied. 



He took a deep breath and looked out upon the glass minefield. It had to go! It's very presence was an insult on his person! Die Glass Die. He let out a war cry that would have shaken every window in ame if they still had windows. He  Felt his chakra boil up within his shell. Ten times stronger than what he needed to summon ten minor strings! He had enough to summon a hundred and he would! They would fly from his finger tips like whips of spiritual love, connect to that glass and he'd gather it all up like the boss he was. "Hiyaaaaah!" He shouted firing for his chakra from his finger tips. Ten mighty strings connected to ten shards of glass, and Li Dian roared in rage! "Why is this so hard! I'm a boss! A Boss! I should have gotten this taken care of months ago!" Finally giving up he summoned his angel Abbadon. "Ya!" He announced activating the puppet's vacuum function. The glass didn't even stand a chance. With little effort on the puppet's part the field of glass was sucked up like a glass of milk, child's play really. Li frowned as he looked upon the now glass free streets. He'd cleared another road way of danger, but not in the way he'd wanted to. A hollow victory to be sure. 



With a hump Li had Abbadon wrap him up in his arms and fly him away. Though he couldnt' see it, the sun was setting beneath the horizon and it would be extra dark around here. The rain would turn cold and he'd be stuck out in it if it started to rain. The sleet would freeze his puppets joints, and he'd have to walk home. Now that'd be the icing on his already rancid cake.



He soared home to the fortigied Grocery store. Underneath him he could see the work they'd accomplished around Amegakure. Slow going it looked like from way up here, but steady going. It wouldn't be a power house any time soon, but it would be home again. And this time he'd cherish it. His blood and sweat was soaked into every brick of this village now. With our without a hundred puppets he'd protect it forever. Though as he cruised through the ruins a though accrued to him. He'd started all of this out of a desire to make people happy. His puppets were suppose to bring hope and joy to people, not him specifically. Now it wasn't his puppets that were bringing people to town, and rebuilding it. It was him. His own works were changing the world around him, and he didn't like it! What was the point of him making all these cool puppets if people thought he was cooler than them? There was no point! No point at all. People don't got to puppet shows to see the puppeteer go to work, they're there for the puppets. Duh. Still he couldn't be too mad at every body. He was pretty awesome and that couldn't be denied. So who could blame the folks of ame for thinking that he was amazing, because after all.... he was!



He began his decent down to the grocery store. A large section of land around it had been cleared out, cleaned up, and reinforced. It was half sanctuary, and half fortress. A glorious little home in a sea of wet crumbled stone. He landed on his feet and ran to the store front. Tiredly he opened up the doors and stepped inside. The store itself no longer smelled like a store, as it seemed to have become a home and shelter, and it now shared that smell. As at least a half dozen people now made there home there. On a oven near the back of the store where they all slept, bacon was cooking. Li began to drool he the smell of it hit him I the face. Oh so good. He felt like he hadn't eaten in ages. He approached the group of refugees sitting around the stove like it was a camp fire. The store did get a tad nippy at night. Around the stove was the three bandits, Hans, and of course the namless Coco's father. Who gave Li a leery look. "I wish you'd ask us before you invite people into the store."



Li gave him a guilty smile. "Hey I thought you'd be happy that I didn't kill them. You're a doctor after all! Do no harm and all that."



Coco's father just gave him a look. "Oh now you try to pull that on me but earlier it was nothing but 'why don't you use chakra blades to kill people'."



"I'm fickle what can I say?"



The bandits looked between one another looked very uncomfortable with the current line of dialogue. "Um..." One of them would announce looking to his friends for support. "We're sure glad that you decided not to.... kill us that is." He grabbed the lapel of his new jacket. "These are the first dry clothes we've had in weeks." The store was one of those mega stores, so it had plenty of room for clothing and stuff like that, so they didn't have to worry about running out of clothes any time soon.,



"Well good." Li announced lying down on his back and moaning loudly. "Just don't make us regret it." He breathed looking up at a flickering light on the ceiling. He was so tired of flickering lights. 



Coco's father looked over at li. "Everything alright?"



"Yeah." Li moaned rolling away from the stove. "Just that I'm a failure as a ninja is all."



Everyone in the group looked to one another. They wondered if he was going to explain or he wanted them to ask arbitrarily, and it turned out to be the latter. "Why is that?" Someone asked fulfilling their social obligation.



"I'm working on a pretty high ranked technique, and I just don't have the chakra control to do it. So I'm just crushed beyond belief. SIGH!"



"Don't worry Li." Hans announced rumbling the store to it's very foundation. "It's not like we didn't already know you're a failure. We are living in a grocery store after all." The words were harsh but his face was that of a clown.



"Your words cut Deep hans."



"Don't listen to him li." Coco's father announced, in a very motherly way. If hans and him every got divorced he wanted to live with him. "I think I have something that can help you out."



"Really?" Li gasped turning on his side.



"Well not with me but I know what you need. There's this yellow flower out in the swamps. It has some properties that help a person with their chakra control. I use to mix it in with my coffe when I was learning to become a medical nin. It gave me enough of a boost to understand how to control all the chakra nessesary to heal."



"That sounds amazing!" Li announced jumping to his feet. "Where can I find this wonder drug?"



Coco's father laughed and slid a bunch of bacon off of the pan and on to a plate. "I'll tell you in the morning, that way I don't have you trying to run off during the night and get it. You can wait another day before mastering your technique."



"You drive a hard bargain mr. Wei. You could have been a good stock trader in a different life."





"I'll consider it if this village reconstruction doesn't work out."



Li smiled and began to nom away at his plate of bacon. He talked to and got to know his newly accuired lesser minions of chaos. Learned about their woes, and their adventures in the rain country. As expected from any story where bad guys become good guys they had good reasons for everything they did, and by the end of the night Li felt like he'd developed an actual friendship with them. Though he realized that he would never learn their names, or probably ever mention them beyond this thread. As they usually did they went to bed not too long after dinner. They had a full day of city building ahead of them. Plus it wasn't like there was too much entertainment in the store to keep them up for hours on end. So soon Li found himself slipping into an excited sleep.


He woke up bright and early ready to begin his search for the yellow flower. Of course this was ame, so things were less bright and more... well dim. So it'd be more proper to say that he woke up dim and early in the morning ready to search for that flower. Yeah. Luck for Coco's father he was already awake when Li was awake. Otherwise Li would have shooken him until he was awake. So this saved both of them a little trouble. "Up so late?" Coco's father asked with an amused grin. "I'm surprised that you did not wake me up earlier."


"Thought I'd take mercy on you. Now flower me up man! Where is it where can I find it?"


Coco's father laughed, and put his hand to his forehead. "I guess it won't do me any good keeping you waiting." With that he filled li in on all the juicy information of the flower. It didn't really have too many affars to gossip about, but he did know the location of the flower, and that was gossip enough. Deep within the swamp, through bog, and wetlands it laid in a try field above the murky water. Why wasn't anything every on the outskirts of the hazardous area. Why did things always grow deep with in it? Never mind! Li would not be deterred! He woke up early for this and that was a big of a commitment as anyone could ask of him. Also he kind of wanted to learn the technique so there was that.


Li packed up a tasty lunch for himself, and set off for the swamp. Lucky for him he didn't have to worry about slugging through that muddy, boggy, nasty, smelly, mosquito invested, no good, rotten, terrible excuse for a wetlands that they called the Rain village's swamps. And that was no use of Hyperbole my dear friends. That place truly and without a smidge of doubt sucked beyond all reason. Well as he looked down at the swamp as the flew above it he though of a few situations that it could be fun in. He imagined all those mangroves down there would be awesome to travel around in. Too bad that wasn't his destinations. The Yellow flowers! Go go go!


He made pretty good time actually. Camael was one fast puppet and made a mockery of the arduous journey he was suppose to go on down there. He was sure he missed out on some really good self development and discovery, but he didn't really care, he had a jutsu to master! Before the morning was even over he had arrived at the field of sunflower like flowers. But they're not, understand? These were special Jutsu flowers. *Cough Cough* That just happened to look like sunflowers. 


As Li touched down on the squishy island in the middle of the swamp and let out a loud whistle. "That's a yellow flower alright." He even took his shades off to add a dramatic effect to the scene. He didn't really have any sense of suspense so he just walked up to one of the flowers and plucked it's bud off of the stem and held it aloft. Coco's father said that that you had to eat the whole thing. So li Did so cramming the entire thing to his mouth, somehow managing to chew it all up.

"I don't feel anything." Li announced looking is body over. It'd be so awkward if he was allergic to this thing.  He looked at his hands and noticed that they looked awfully blurry. "Woah!" He announced waving them in front of his face and noticing the after image they made as the trailed them around. "That's so weird!" He help his hand up above his hand and looked up at it, only to notice that the entire sky was a bright pink. Kind of like cotton candy butt, hyper garish. It almost made him sick to look at it. "Aww man, I don't think that was a chakra enhancer I just took." He sighed as he watched the world rise up over him as he fell onto his back. "Dammit." He announced as the watched the sky swirl above him, as he passed out.

Some time later li woke up with the world returned to normal. He was soaking wet from all the rain, and felt like if he rung himself like a sponge he'd be fine. His whole body felt like it was vibrating. Almost like he was aware of every hair and floccule and hair on his body. "He took this stuff for school?" Li moaned forcing himself up on his feet. It was interesting that much was for sure. He could feel all the chakra points on his body buzzing and humming, even the ones at his fingers. It was like his chakra system had been forced inside of him like a pipe cleaner and now he was obnoxiously aware of it's presence. "Might as well." He announced flicking his wrist like he was the dark lord of the sith. He held out a single pointer finger, and took in a deep breath. 
"Here we go ya'll." He channeled the same amount of chakra as he always did to generate 10 chakra strings, but just in his index finger. This time however it was almost like he could feel his cell's emitting the chakra. Not only that but it felt like he could control it as well. Not just it's strength but out of which cells it came out of. Almost like he could control the angle the thread shot out from his finger. Well that was terribly interesting, but there was one thing he wanted to do more than anything else. He picked ten points on his finger, and channeled his chakra through them. At last! Ten indigo threads came swarming out of his single finger like a bunch of party streamers! Li was so happy he could have died. "Yes!" He announce punching the air and jumping into the sky! "I am the greatest puppet master of all time! Hear my roar world! The dance of a hundred angels is real!"

(TWC 4225)
21 stats
Claiming Red Secret Technique: Performance of 100 puppets
Also 2225 words towards Skillful Achievement with a human body.

from the sky, or even from a tree (>.> Zetsu) They'd be hard pressed to find the boy admist the swirling vortex of flower petals. Li felt awesome! He war proably dancing around longer than he should have because he was starting to feel awfully dizzy. "eww."He moaned releasing his threads and letting the flowers go flying across the waters of the swamping, giving the dull grey waters some much needed color. "Ahh man." Li wheezed heaving over and taking in a few deep breaths. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to start spinning in crazy artistic circles while he was tripping on physcodelics. 



He took in several deep breaths through his nose and breathed them out through his mouth. Take it easy buddy you've hada busy month, no need to push it there sport. As he dry heaved over the fresh soil of the swamp he looked up at the swamp waters. The little yellow flowers were floating along the water. Nice. Li always thought that the city need more of the colorful stuff. Flowers and murals would decorate his reunited city. He took In a final breath and pulled himself back up to his height. He'd just gotten a little excited that was all. He was sure he'd only need the assistance of the sun flower for a little bit longer before he had fully master the performance of one hundred puppets. But for now he'd play it safe and bring a few along





Mission accomplished he deided to head of back to town, wow the folks with his amazing hundred thread abilities. Before he left he grabbed three of the flowers and stuffed them into his bag. Now before anyone claims that Li dian just killed an entire species off flowers don't you worry. Despite him throwing loads of the flowers into the swamp there was still dozens of living specimens alive on the island. Besides that all his dancing had seeded the island. All his dancing had upturned the dirt! That island was healthier for his being there, that much was for sure! The island of the hallucinogenic drug could rest easy, knowing that Li dian had been there.



He summoned forth Camael and used his puppet to fly him back to ame... with only one finger. That's right... Li dian was controlling an A-ranked puppet with naught but a single finger, and that was amazingly awesome, as well as rad. It'd taken a few minutes to get used to it, but after he got the hang of it it was just like controlling a regular puppet with all his strings. Sure he'd crashed into that mangraove and had some pretty heavy Personal discovery happen. Maybe it was just the sunflower that made the discovery seem more important than it was. It was hard to tell with drugs. But as soon as he'd gotten done with that little adventure he was back in the sky and ready to fly. Okay so maybe the control for the one fingered puppetry thing was a little more difficult than he'd originally thought, but he'd get the hang of it don't you worry. Li Dian was a bright shining light and the world and no luxury would be hidden away from him! Other than an undestroyed village, but no one can have everything now can they? 



Nope it was just one of life's little quirks, that we have to live with.



He traveled back to town much happier than he'd left. He was now one of he few people on the planet who could actually perform that power, and that was kind of cool. Really cool. Well he was also one of the few people on the planet who could use puppets at all, ah man. what is life any way? He wondered if every puppet user could manipulate onehundred things. If it was like a basic right of entry into the world of ninja puppetry. He'd have to think long and hard on that one. Or just meet another person with a puppetry spec. If they had the same ability he'd be morbidly depressed, and his life without hope. But if they didn't he'd gloat and lord it over them for all eternity. Because li dian was without a doubt the greatest Puppet master in history, folks!


And Don't ya'll doubt it.


Behind the calming, grey clouds of the rain village the sun was starting to put some thought into heading off towards the horizon. The clouds were starting to turn a nice loverly orange, and yellow. You could almost feel the warmth coming off of it. Too bad it was still raining! That usually managed to take out the nice warm feeling a beautiful sunrise would give you, but not today. No sir, no sir! Nothing could ruin today! Literally nothing. If that handsome lion fellow came back into town and crushed the ruins this would still be a great day. If that physco dude in the dead pool armor was back in town and stole all of the bricks with an orphan army, this would still be a great day. A great day! How great? A hundred puppets worth of puppets. That's how great? Have you ever seen a hundred puppets in once place? Of course you have not because you've never seen a day this good before. Your puny ten puppet days could easily be killed by the golden flaming lion dude. But not this one hundred puppet day. Yup that's the sort of thing Li Dian though about as he looked out over what was left of his village. Not very impressive eh?


But seriously he took a moment to admire his home. Off to the west there was a large orange glow coming from beyond the light grey clouds of his home. The normally impressive skyline of Amegakure is saddeningly absent from the sight. He could just see the grey ruins of Amegakure strewn about the landscape. The smoke was gone and all what was left where the rubble and ashes of his beautiful home. He sighed. He'd make it big once more, and bright. So fucking bright it'd make the eyes bleed with pleasure. The were going to have a city of god damned blind people, and they were going to love it ya'll. 


He still had a solid hour before the sun was finally put to sleep. Why, why that was just enough time to clear another road, and actually contribute something to the city rather than doing whatever it was he did around this place. Supervise? Ah who knew, he was a ninja surely he did something important behind the scenes. Wait a second, that was now. Now was his time. He had a hundred threads to move the world with. This was the limited edition collector's set of the Li Dian movie, and he's about to take us behind the scenes. 
 
He flew himself over to a bridge that was being blocked off by a large pile of rubble. Li wasn't too sure what use this bridge would be used for, but it spanned over to the other side of the river and that had to be useful. An opened road was an opened road. Listen they need to get rid of all the crab if they were going to build stuff back up in this mug. 

So Li Dian fixed that pile of rubble with a cocky smile knowing it was no match for him. He dug into his pockets and pulled out an awesome looking pair of shades. He put those Shades on and continued to look at the rubble like a smug bastard. Then he took those shades off, and delivered his one liner. "Over the river and through the woods." With that electric guitars blazed over the ruins of amegakure and rock was restored to his home. Let's flame.

Li struck an awesome action pose and held his fingers out like a truly heroic figure. His fingers were fanned out like he was a sexy deadly cat. He let that charka BURN! Within his body. It boil, broiled, and screamed to be released from his body. And it ten. In ten powerful lines of pure chakra. They flew from his finger tips and connected to those piles of rubble like they were a needy prom date. Dammit! That wasn't what he needed at all. He sighed looks like the sunflower was wearing off. He reached into his bag and grabbed another sunflower and plopped it into his mouth. Mmmm mmmm. That's some good hallucinogenic. He laid himself down on the floor and got ready to pass out like last time. Dang that was a pretty nice sky. He thought about dying it pink permanently. Luckily he passed out before he realized that that was impossible. We wouldn't want to see him disappointed. 

After his trip was over Li got back to his feet and struck another pose. This time it was happening. For good! He could feel every cell in his body vibrating with chakra. God it's good being the king. He flung his arms forward. His amazing array of strings swarmed over the debris blocking the bridge. They were a blindingly bright indigo blue. They weren't just numerous. They were strong too. With a mighty pull of his arms the debris covering the bridge was flung away, leaving that construct looking spic and span and ready for a person to walk across it's surface. Amazing.

Li struck his amazing action hero pose as the debris still connected to his strings started raining down around him. He was Li Dian of the rain village, and he had master the puppetry art of Chakra Strings.


(twc 1618)
8 stats
and 1618 towards Skillful Achievement
aaaaaand done