Conflict of the Garden Variety

The sky was beautiful over the village of Hoshi for the first time the whole week; it was only in good fortune that the rain had let up for the weekend. With the sun shining brightly and the many shrubs and flowers of the gardens in bloom thanks to all the water they received from the rain, Hoshigakure's already beautiful Water Gardens were all the more breath taking. Though the village hidden in the stars may have still been drying out, it didn't stop the villagers from coming out to enjoy the spectacle. The gardens were bustling with activity, from families having an outing to scholars seeking inspiration, today brought everyone out from the woodwork. Unfortunately not all of the commotion was good and one particularly volatile incident was the reason that a certain genin was there today. Fussing with his untamed golden locks with a frustrated huff, breaking into a brisk walk as he marched down the path towards a bout of shouting erupting from the center of the Water Gardens. His mind split between the task in front of him and the rather ancient appearing scroll partially unraveled before him, a long portion of which was wrapped around one arm as he studied it's text. Someone with acute skills of observation would be able to spot the symbol for the now ruined Iwagakure decorating the back of the scroll in a repeated pattern. The scroll was on lone from Hoshi's own Kozai Yuki National Archives and contained several jutsu based on the Earth element.

Having learned of his chakra's elemental affinity, Satomi searched deep for references and writings from the one place that could possibly have inscribed the most information on Earth Release jutsu—the Earth Country. The genin was unhappy with his current level of jutsu and while he wasn't want for engaging in physical conflicts, he knew that he needed something that would give him the edge should he have to fight. This lead him to the scroll his nose was currently buried in, the personal accounts of an Iwagakure-nin that had long sense departed the living world. The young genin had spent weeks connecting with the man across the barrier of time, deciphering ramblings of an old man who had countless stories to tell and no filter to stop him from hopping between them. However, when it came to recounting the jutsu he had honed in his lifetime the descriptions given were detailed and comprehensive. Satomi could feel the man's passion radiating from the text, it definitely gave him the impression that the long passed shinobi had many benefit from his tutelage. Satomi, through a dusty memoir, was just another young mind to benefit from an old ninja's lifetime of experience.

Perhaps, though, he could have used a few lessons in awareness as it wasn't long before Satomi bumped into and bounced off a rather sturdy object. The young genin lifting his eyes from the page, his head nearly rolling down his back to meet the annoyed gaze of the woman who dwarfed him as she turned to face him. He height wasn't the only thing staggering as he took stock of her rather thick physique, Satomi wasn't entirely convinced that any of the girth was fat as she turned her imposing figure to glare kunai at the child.

A small squeak slipped out before a sheepish grin creased the the the boy's lips, his cheeks pink as he proceeded to give an apologetic bow. “S-sorry, ma'am! I didn't see you there!” Satomi could feel his body tremble as the amazonian only further furrowed her bow at him. In a desperate attempt to not been turned into a pavement pancake the genin offered his biggest, most charming gap-toothed smile as further compensation. He could feel himself aging as what felt like an eternity would pass, but whether it was his smile or just the sincerity of his apology, the woman's eyes softened and a broad smile would spread across her face as she allowed a hardy chuckle to rumble to the surface.

“You remind me a lot of me when I was a little girl too, if you can imagine that!” Another round of laughter from the giant left Satomi relieved as he finally allowed himself to breathe regularly again and for his heart rate to return to normal. It didn't even bother him that she had erroneously assumed that he was a little girl, in fact he was coming to embrace the common mistake and had even allowed his hair grow out as a result. Satomi had found that the confusion regarding his true gender had a few benefits, life enabling him to charm his way out of trouble with an increased rate of success.

Satomi was startled by the speed of the woman as she swung back around to face the source of the shouting as it picked up again, for someone of her impressive stature Satomi wondered if she could have given Miyamoto a run for his money. Unfortunately he didn't have all day to ponder the hypothetical as, from the sound of the bickering, things were growing increasingly more hostile by the minute. Stepping around the woman he was confronted by a wall villagers gathering around the commotion, forming an almost woven circle of bodies around the source of the outcry.

“Priest or not, I'm going to kick your ass!” The voice of a young man barked over top the crowd, his tone cocky and very reminiscent of a young buck with something to prove.

“I would think not, young man.” While the opposing voice seemed more calm to the observer, but the guise of maturity and levelheadedness only masked its true condescending nature an older gentleman replied.

Both men garnered cheers behind their words from their respective sides as they snarled at once another. On one side a group of local priests, five in total stood there ground before the a squad of two shinobi and a lone kunoichi lingering behind her two teammates looking as if she'd rather have been anywhere else.

“We can go somewhere else, Renjiro.” The young woman argued to no avail as the hotblooded shinobi took a step towards the priests, his dark eyes burning with the arrogance only youth could afford. His attempt to intimidate the graying man across from him would fail as the priest boasted a patronizing smile as he adjusted the broad-brimmed woven hat upon his head to reveal his own piercing gaze.

“Quiet Keiko, it looks like he wants to fight after all!” Renjiro sneered as the priest casually shuffled towards him, quietly declaring the shinobi's posturing all a bluff. It was then that the other young shinobi, a dusty-blonde haired young man, took his squadmate's side in a show of solidarity with his bother in arms.

“Someone really aught to teach you boys some manners; don't you know that you're suppose to respect your elders?” The priest's words seemed to know just where to strike to do the most damage, sharpening the tone of his voice to pierce the two young adults. The middle-aged gentleman's words also served as a call to rally the other members of the priesthood that accompanied him, their collective stares hidden by the shadow of their brims as they squared off with the rash ninja.

It was about time for someone to step in and as if on cue Satomi emerged abruptly from the ground between the bickering parties, it was about time he got some use out of his Hiding Like a Mole technique. He would brush off a few grains of dirt from his shoulders as all eyes snapped to the young genin as he reached behind him into his pouch, the priests and shinobi jumping back in kind as the young ninja's hand was but a blur in his retrieval and deployment of an object. It was a dramatic display worthy of a tokusatsu series as he tugged the scroll open and again wound the loose end around his arm as he returned to where he had left off.

“Sorry, I would have been here sooner, but I took a wrong turn at Sakanagakure.” Satomi giggled, clearly amused with himself as his eyes returned to the ancient scroll. His is seemingly inattentive appearance, his voice was sweet and sympathetic song. “What seems to be the problem here~?”

“Genin, this is none of your business! Junpei and I have it under controll.” Renjiro's eyes flickered with fury as his knuckles grew white with his clenching fists. Satomi seemed to be less than interested in the hot-blooded shinobi's posturing than even the priests were, or maybe he just wasn't paying attention. It was hard to tell even as Satomi coaxed another a bit more of the page from the scroll, using the break to cast a wide glance at his surroundings. The priests were all clad typical attire befitting the men of their religious order, their wide brimmed hats masking their eyes and face in shadow to hide any hint of intent should a fight go down. On the other hand, the three shinobi on the other side of him were clearly older than him. Their vests suggest at least chuunin in rank, or possibly jounin. Satomi was disappointed regardless that any shinobi would act in such a manner as the two men, though he would note the accompanying kunoichi seemed to be keeping her distance and out of the way with the surrounding crowd.

“Did you know that the Earth Country has some of the hardest stone on the planet?” The genin gave a bemused hum as he prattled off a bit of trivia he had acquired in an earlier chapter while maybe insinuating that the shinobi was a bit hardheaded, an attempt to kill two birds with one stone as it was. Despite what it looked like, there wasn't a single moment that passed where he wasn't taking the assignment seriously. On the other hand if he did succeed in his mission he really needed something to help him out in the next part of the exam.

“What does that have to do with anything!? If you're going to stand there we could use another to make things more even.” The cocky shinobi snapped.

“So you're with them then?” The priest spoke up with a heavy sigh as his old eyes sized up the genin albeit there wasn't much to size up on the small fry, besides battling a persistent case of bedhead there wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary about him except for the fact that he seemed to be more interested in his reading.

“Me? I'm just here to see that no one gets hurt and everyone has a wonderful day.” Satomi's cheery trill blossomed in the air. Neither side seemed particularly thrilled with the non-answer, both sides squaring off around the genin. He could feel their collective gazes on him now, it appeared that giving them a common focus for their anger had worked out as planned. He could barely contain himself, the blonde boy swallowing hard to suppress a potential giggle fit as she tried to keep professional.

“It's going to be a little late for that, pipsqueak!” Renjiro growled as he tugged on Junpei's opened flak jacket, pulling him into a new marched towards the priests.

“I remember when Hoshigakure had no ninja, it was a much better time back then without disrespectful riffraff like you who think they're big stuff just because they wear a headband.” Not to back down, the lead priest snarled in return as he and the other priests aided in closing the gap between themselves and the ninja. It was the last was the last straw for the village shinobi however as he dropped any pretense of being all bark as he bolted for the group of priests, his fist primed and ready. Before the men could react Satomi interrupted with a familiar call as a pair of shadow clones materializing to stop Renjiro in his tracks, each taking an arm to physically restrain him. After a brief struggle the older shinobi calmed down enough to be handled by a single shadow clone as the other walked by Satomi to confront the priests who seemed increasingly eager to escalate the situation themselves. The young boy was certainly glad he could summon his own back up, it has made many tasks so much easier.

“Why are you all fighting anyway?” The genin was generally curious by this point, whatever had happened between the two groups must have been pretty serious to risk physical violence over.

“Why does it even matter? The village ninja are suppose to stick together.” Junpei finally spoke up, sounding just ask cocky as his squadmate.

His comment left Satomi conflicted.

On one hand a shinobi should be willing to come to the aid of another no matter what, but on the other hand a shinobi should be willing to lay their life on the line for the village and its villagers. He still didn't know why they were even fighting though.

“What do we do, boss?” Both the clones looked back at their originator, displaying the same concern that Satomi would have showed if it wasn't partially hidden shadow as he kept his eyes trained on the text scrawled in the scroll. It didn't take long in the silence that followed for the two groups to get back to bickering with one another, snapping and barking back and forth as the two shadow clones did their best to keep them at bay. It frankly made thinking hard and it was becoming a drag, why couldn't anything big easy?

“Will you both just knock it off any tell me what this is all about!?” Satomi's chakra began to surge as his voice broke above the arguing; the genin formed the clone hand seal again in a huff. The time for being sweet or hokey cool ninja facades were over, he was going to get to the bottom of this and no body was going to get hurt. But first it was time to disperse the crowd, perhaps without an audience both sides would be better willing to allow him to mediate. It would take significant chakra to do, but eventually Satomi had a small army of shadow clones ushering the gathering villages away from the conflict like shaggy little blonde sheep dogs. Meanwhile the real Satomi finally looked up from the scroll as he wound the scroll back up again and placed it back in his satchel, the rambles were interesting, but he had gotten all he wanted from the text for now and it was time to deal with a bunch of pigheaded men.

“These 'ninja' claim we were in their spot.” Satomi's eye twitched as both pools of blue drifted to a single bench positioned admittedly comfortably under the shade of one of the oldest trees in the garden. They weren't serious though, right? There's no way such a heated argument was over the rights to use a bench that was completely open for anyone's use... right?

“Junpie, Keiko, and I have lunch here-- Every. Single. day. It's a tradition!” Renjiro grumbled, his arms as crossed as he was. Junpie right there with him as Keiko was no where to be found, seemingly have left with the rest of the crowd as they were shooed away. A theory only confirmed as all but the original two the shadow clones were dispersed and the divided chakra and their personal observations were returned to the genin, not that he could blame her for wanting to slip out on the embarrassment of a situation.

“How were we to know? We're priests, not mind readers.” The lead priest might have been waiting his whole life to use a line like that judging by the smug expression that followed. Satomi had to fight off another urge to giggle herself, but of course the two older shinobi were nowhere near as amused as he or the priest were. As stupid as the whole argument was, the priest did have a point.

Of course Renjiro refused to back down even when presented with this logical paradigm, he reminded Satomi of 'The Natural'. A term he coined to describe someone who had raw, natural talent and coasted through the academy and ranks with ease. Often times these naturals develop a smug sense of self and a short-fuse towards those they deem to be less worthy than themselves. He hated dealing with those kinds of people, they never wanted to settle things the easy way. The really bad ones always seemed to acquire a lackey too, usually someone who looks up to them for their skills and are easily impressionable. Junpei's close orbit to Renjiro told Satomi that his assumptions weren't too far off the mark if not correct in his assumption. The pair so ready for a reason to jump that an innocent sneeze from one of the priests was enough to rile them into tossing out some more insults.

“Hey! Listen to me! Stop fighting!” Satomi's usual sweet attitude was becoming a fading memory as was his voice as he tried to shout over the war of words, he was definitely feeling smaller than usual. Fortunately his shadow clones were there to act as a bit of buffer between the two parties. The real Satomi, however, would raise his folded hands out in front of him as it was became increasingly obvious that the two sides just wanted to fight over a stupid bench.

“Shut up and go home, squirt!” Satomi blinked; so now he was going to be insulted too.

The genin refused to let the words get to him too as he began to chew on the inside of his right cheek, something he seemed to do to help him think when he needed to the most. It's like barely even register to them. Satomi huffed, not even his trademark smile was able to charm his way to a resolution this time. The child's eyes suddenly widened as he felt his chakra return to him, that only meant one thing—his shadow clones had been dispatched by the two sides.

“H-Hey! We don't need to fight!” Everything was coming to a head right before Satomi's eyes as he watched insults were no longer enough for the two groups, Renjiro and the lead priest having it in for each other as they began their charge. Of course his young squeaky voice would fall on deaf ears, Satomi's frantic pleas for the pair to stop and talk things through might as well been the wind for all it mattered to the two bullheaded individuals. His chakra flared again; he needed to stop this right now while keeping to his promise to not let anyone get hurt. His hands quickly clapped together in front of him as his chakra poured out into the ground below his feet, focusing it into the soil. It would be the most taxing jutsu yet for the young genin, but if he was going to stop them and get him to notice him then he needed something they couldn't ignore. It was was just two hand signs, Boar → Tiger, his focus strengthened as his chakra infused with the earth. Though the potential was great and destructive, Satomi didn't need to exert the full power to get his point across. The ground began to bubble around him as he was approached from both sides, it honestly didn't feel much different to him than his mud spore technique. It was only as he increased the surge of chakra emanating from his body did that all change as the ground almost instantly liquefied around the young genin, mud gripping both priests and shinobi as it belched from the ground and pulled them down into the repugnant swamp. Satomi stood safe on a small island as the unruly men were dragged to their waist in the 3 meter wide pool of muck, fortunately the center of the gardens was itself just an expansive clearing for visitors to gather so there wasn't much need for Satomi to worry about collateral damage as he terraformed the land around them. “You. Will. listen!” Satomi flailed, not that anyone had any choice in the matter. As anyone who tried to swim in mud could attest, it was a damn difficult feat and hardly worth the effort just to knock some sense into an impudent shinobi or to kick some old man's ass for insulting him. No, instead all attention slowly fell on Satomi as he stood above them safely on his own personal haven.

The biggest grin swept across the child's face as his eyes lit up with satisfaction, finally they were ready to listen. “Okay! So we're all going to have a nice chat, yes?” The giggled that followed was rather unsettling to say the least as the two part leads slowly found themselves gradually sinking deeper in the mud. “And you don't have much time, no no, you have exactly until you drown to make nice~” Cheery thrill of Satomi's voice as he laid out the stipulations of negotiations.

“What!? You little brat!”

“What he said!”

The lead priest seemed to finally be on the same page as they snarled and griped at Satomi, though the genin didn't appear to be phased by it in the least as he was content to let them sink themselves as he remained silent. The remaining priests along with Junpei would of course protest as well, but a single glare directed at both sides would be enough to quell that, a glint in his eyes that spelled business for anyone that would interrupt the proceedings. Could he back it up? Who knows, but would you be willing to risk a painfully slow drowning in a substance with the consistently of a thick milkshake? The peanut gallery settled to a murmur among themselves as the pair in the center of it all found themselves now resting chest deep in the unforgiving muck.

“Priest, do your scriptures not teach you pacifism and to respect all life?” The was an air of maturity under the youthful song of Satomi's voice. “And what kind of ninja threatens villagers over a frickin' bench!? You aught to be ashamed!” Satomi snapped, his words having teeth as they bit into the one thing that could affect someone with Renjiro's attitude—his pride. The two of course were at a lost for words as the mud grew constrictive around their chests, it would make it harder over time for them breath just as their stubbornness made it hard for them to admit how completely childish they were. The irony wasn't lost on the real child among them as he tapped a finger to his chin, making note of their deep descent. “Time's running out~”

“Okay, okay; so maybe I shouldn't have tried to chase off this old geezer!”

“And maybe I could have been less provoking to this hotheaded brat.” A frown creased Satomi's face as the who men continued to act like children, an exhausted sigh passing the genin's lips. His head canting to one side as he watched their shoulder's disappear under the surface. Meanwhile the actual child merely hummed hummed along to a song that had popped into his head, giving the pair a little more time to work it out. Facing one's mortality often had a tendency to trigger self-reflection even in the most stubborn individuals and this time was no different as the muck slowly crawled up around their necks and throats. Of course there were cries for Satomi to do something, but he had a better idea of the reality of the situation than the others as he continued to wait for the two to resolve their differences.

“I'm sorry!” Renjiro finally confessed. “I'm so sorry, it's just a stupid bench. I didn't mean for things to get out of hand, I can be really impulsive!”

“I apologize as well! I have dishonored the priesthood by succumbing to my anger.” The priest was also very correct, both responses seemed to satisfy the boy as he flashed a lidded smile. “So w-will you please stop this now?” Satomi didn't, in fact he just watched the pair with a knowing smile as they just stopped sinking. They would find their feet touching the bottom as the mud just barely touched their chin. He may have been frustrated, be he wasn't a monster—there was no way he would actually kill anyone! He did leave them in time out for a bit longer as he knelt down and addressed one and then the other, a humiliating thing to be scolded for acting like children by child. Satomi preached the word of kindness and respecting others, also in the virtue and sharing. Lessons that his father imbued him with, along with Queensman Tanni that showed him the value of kindness and The Bento Club who showed him that respect for others can forge bonds one with people they wouldn't expect to. As for the tea lady? Satomi had made it a point to visit her several times in the hospital after their encounter, he would sit with her and exchange stories. She would share tales of her own childhood and Satomi would recall his most recent adventures, a small tradition up until she recovered and was able to be moved to place that could keep her from harming herself and others again.

Having returned to give his report, Satomi sighed as upon finishing, though that smile of his as present as ever. “And that's that. I even managed to clean up most of that swamp mess.” He giggled as his tongue poked out playfully before a dramatic turn on his heels, and in one graceful move he whipped out his scroll again with one hand, the genin offering a whimsical wave with the  other way on the way out the door. It was a long day, but assuming he didn't completely flub things up he had more to prepare for, not to mention there was his weekly game a Shogi with his father as well tonight.

“I wonder if there's anything in here to help me beat the old man...”