This library has EVERYTHING! (Max) (IO)

There were two ways to acquire information in this world. They both had their ups and downs. The first was slow, but you learned a lot of solid facts, the second was fast but would often have plot holes and inconsistencies. These methods were reading and speaking. Now Sakana loved a happy middle ground of both. He was neither a book worm or a socialite, instead he had his own methods of reading first, experiencing later. Now being in a new land kind of messed up this plan a bit. Since he didn’t know where the library was the first few days of being here, but he had had recently found out the location, and was entering it now.
 
Walking inside the library left him in a certain place of awe, there were books everywhere. Much more books than in the kumo library. What to start with? What to end with? What section to even go to first? The genin would sit there and think for a solid twenty minutes before deciding on a book on folklore and another on water. He would make his way over to a secluded table and open his books to read. Now if anyone were to walk by they would never know he was a ninja, except for maybe someone who would recognize him, because he would be dressed in his cloak that would hide his clothes and his headband.
 

WC: 236

Max would walk in the library, an amazed look on his face. This place was huge, much larger than any library he had seen before. Admittedly, that was only one other library, but the point still stands.  Max would see bookshelves that climbed up the height of the walls. There had to be an absolute ton of books here, on every subject that one could possibly study.
 
Max would immediately head to the front desk, a big grin on his face. His chakra would be suppressed down to nothing, making him seem like he were just a normal civilian. His Kumogakure Identification Badge would be in his bag, but not in clear sight to those around him. Many folks seemed to give him unpleasant looks while he wore it, and so he stopped. He was tired of being looked at as a monster. Max wondered just what it was that made everyone seem to hate them. Well, maybe the library would have the information he sought.
 
Seeing a man sitting at the desk shuffling through several books, Max would approach him. He seemed like a kind enough man. Looking at his badge, it said his name was “Takashi” and despite him being busy he looked up at Max as the youth approached. “Hi, sir. Do you have any books regarding Kumogakure no Sato?” The man just shook his head, and stood up. “Another one of you looking to do a report on foreign lands? I recall a young girl looking for that information as well.” Max wouldn’t give any outwardly signs, but he would immediately begin to wonder who and why someone was researching Kumo and grow a bit concerned.
 
After the man lead Max to the section, he would ask if any more assistance was required. Max would shake his head, assuring the man that he would be fine. Max didn’t want the librarian constantly bothering him while he investigated. He normally did most of his research alone, but the sheer size of this massive library was the sole reason he asked for help in the first place. Max tried to be a fairly independent shinobi.
 
Max would grab the book, and then another and another. Once he had enough reading material he would make his way to the area designated for reading. There were tables and chairs out for the people to sit and take in the knowledge. There wasn’t a huge turnout in this particular area, with only a couple of people there reading. One of them looked to be familiar, but Max couldn’t quite place it. Max would walk over, place his books on the table and pull out a chair next to the familiar person. Now that he was closer, the facial features of Sakana would come into view. If he went this far to hide his shinobi status, Max didn’t want to bring any unneeded attention to it.
 

“Greetings fellow book enthusiast,” Max would say politely in hushed tones, making sure that his voice would only be heard by his fellow kumo ninja, “I hope you don’t mind my sitting here. Are you experiencing issues with people because of you being a kumo ninja, too? I’ve gotten a great deal of funny looks, but I’ve decided to hide it as best I can from now on. Hopefully it will help avoid the glares at us like we are some sort of demons.”

The first book Sakana had picked up was a book about folklore and legends. In kumo these were the types of books that gave inklings of information on bijuu. As he pages through this one he would read of some interesting tales. The first being of a magical beast or beasts plural, the book wasn’t sure how many that live in a secluded space in the desert just outside the boarders of the village, these were large brown bipedal monsters that were known to rip human bodies in half if they were hungry.  Now while that was interesting it wasn’t what he was looking for.
 
Another story that caught his eye was one of a human that claimed he was all powerful long ago, this was the legends part of the book Sakana assumed. It told the tale of how a man went to a small collection of houses in an unknown district of Haven country. When he got there he could perform magical feats such as healing the sick, resurrecting the dead and teleporting, but he needed things in exchange to perform these feats.  He would take money, riches, land or anything he could get out of those people just to do nice things. It was obvious he wasn’t a god but instead a chakra user who specialized in Medical ninjutsu and Space Time jutsu. And that meant he could have healed them for free but instead took advantage over the small group of naïve people. It’s good that the citizens are more informed now in all parts of the world, even ones without ninja know what chakra is.
 
Then he got to what he was looking for, the page about the legendary tailed beats. He was reading reading and done. There was practically nothing in this book. It told just that there were large magic monsters that terrorized villages. Nothing he didn’t already know.
 
That was when a chair next to him was pulled out and a young boy sat down. It was Max, the kid he traveled with not to long ago. While they didn’t talk much due to Sakana sleeping most of the way, he still welcomed the friendly face in this world of strangers. After the boy would greet him Sakana would say, “Hello Max, and yes those looks can be rather annoying. Normally I would pull this hood off among friends but If you don’t mind ill keep it on while we’re here. Is that ok with you?”
 

WC: 651

Max would take note on what it was that Sakana had been looking into. Folklore and Legends seemed to be his topic of choice, so likely just something interesting to read. "Yeah, that hood is fine. I don't blame you. If you can, I suggest you mask your chakra as well. That way the Hoshi nin won't bother you, either," Max would suggest, hoping the fellow genin had such a capability. 

"I came to do some research on various things, but I decided to see just what Hoshi had in regards to our land of Kumo. People don't develop such disgust of strangers for no reason. I could see them having curiosity and maybe even a bit of caution towards us as unknowns.... but hostility and disgust? No, there must be something more to this." Max would say as he points to the books on Kumo.

He would begin to read up, his eyes growing wide as he reads. While many of the things in the books were true, there were a few things that were clearly lies. Like there being explosive in the walls to kill off the people. While Max knew that Mortarion had made some awful choices regarding his people he didn't expect such a drastic response to an attack. It wouldn't make sense....

"Sakana, do you know anything about this?" Max would ask, pointing to the text regarding the explosives. Max considered himself pretty in touch with things in and about Kumo. This news was troubling, to say the least. It must have been a lie! Yeah, a lie......

Max would start out by saying that he was ok with Sakana keeping his hood up but he also suggested that the Meijin suppress his chakra. Now the Meijin knew that was something he should learn but he never got around to it. So he would ask Max because he seemed to know how to do it. “Umm I would but I don’t really know how. Can you explain how I should do it?”
 
Hopefully max would show him how, but after that conversation Max would talk about how he wanted to see what was written on Kumo in this library. His eyes would start to read through the book. Max was right there had to be some reason he they villagers here hated Kumo so much. After a few moments max’s eyes would widen, he looked shocked about something. Sakana wondered what was shocking about their own village, was it a lie? After he had finished reading he would point to the paragraph he had just read and asked Sakana if he knew anything about it. So the Meijin would slide the book a little closer to him and begin to read.
 
The book talked of the wall that surrounded the village of kumo. It was claiming that there was explosive in these walls that could go off and level the village if need be. Sakana would turn to Max and say “I heard rumors but I never thought any of them were true. But more troubling is how these villages have access to knowledge of our village that even we don’t. There’s something suspicious about this place.”
 

WC: 925

“Don’t worry, Chakra suppression is super easy. Based on the level of chakra I can feel from you, I suspect that you will have little trouble learning it,” Max would say, making sure to give a smile to reassure Sakana that he would have no issues. Max would look back down at his book while quietly taking to his fellow Kumo shinobi. He didn’t want folks to overhear them, otherwise it would be wasted effort. There is no point in hiding that you are a shinobi if everyone around you hears that you are hiding the fact that you are a shinobi.


“I want you to try and consciously think about and manipulate your chakra, slowly forcing it down to your core. From there, just keep forcing it into a more compact little ball, until it slowly fades to nothing.” He would say all this in hushed tones, keeping an eye on the area around them.
 
“The process will fee-” Max would suddenly stop, instead pointing to the pictures in Sakana’s Folklore book. A Hoshi man would be standing at a nearby bookshelf, perusing the books. While he might not have been a threat to them or even noticed the two, Max wouldn’t take any chances. “Ooh, that’s a cool looking guy. Who is that?” he would ask to the Meijin. The sudden shift in tone and such would likely seem strange to him if he hadn’t noticed the stranger, but considering that he was a trained Kumo shinobi he likely had.
 
Once the man would finally leave, Max would continue with discussing the suppression tech. “It will feel a bit odd at first, your body naturally feeling like it is... Missing something, without your chakra flowing through it like normal. At least that was how I felt. You may feel a different sensation, as I had much less powerful chakra than you currently do when I learned the ability.” Max would continue reading his book on Kumo, giving a quiet “Try it out yourself, I’ll use my sensory to check if you managed to succeed.”
 
In regards to the passage, Max would shake his head. He was clearly in disbelief. Why would Mortarion order Senshi to… do what he ordered if this was in place? None of this is making sense to the young blonde. As Sakana mentioned that this place was rather suspicious, Max would nod in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t know why but I’m getting that same feeling. How could they possibly have this information if it is true? If we don’t know…. There must be a spy in Mortarion’s leadership roles. How else could they get this?” The boy almost raises his voice in anger, something he doesn’t do very often. The look on his face shows that he is not very pleased with finding this all out.
 
Then he thinks for a moment. If there is a spy in Mortarions ranks, maybe he isn’t the only one to feel they must stand against the tyrant. He has potential allies that he doesn’t even seem to know.
 
“I wonder what else they have in this library… I’m going to be right back. I need to see if they have any books on either the Nara clan or this neat scroll I found in the desert,” And with that said the boy would be gone, seeking the knowledge of Hoshi to absorb all he can from this place.
 

In just a few minutes, the boy would come back with even more books. Sitting down next to Sakana, Max would crack on open and begin to read, checking with his sensory to see how well his newfound pal had been doing at hiding his chakra presence.

Max would try and explain that charka suppression was an easy thing to do. Because all you had to do was manipulate your chakra down to a little ball and until it’s not noticeable to anyone. The boy would soon cut himself short and start to point to pictures in the folklore book. It was a bit odd to Sakana until he saw the Hoshi man standing in the doorway. Since he needed to play along he would start to tell max what the guy in the book was doing, “This guy was known as the dragon tamer. According to this book he was able to communicate and even took on the form of a dragon himself sometimes. This book says it’s magic but it sounds like something else.”  He wouldn’t explicating say that it sounded like this guy had summonable dragons because he didn’t want the stranger at the door to know he knew such things.
 
After the man would leave Max would start again telling the Meijin how to suppress his chakra. He said you would feel an absence of power once it was completed. The sound of that sounded scarier than it should have. “Alright I’ll try.” Now Sakana had a bit of a problem most other people didn’t have. He had two charka networks inside him. One his own and the other’s a beast. Thus far he had tried his best to merge them but he wasn’t sure if this suppression thing would work. But now time like the present to try anyway. Sakana would sit there flowing his charka around a bit to get a feel for it. Slowly he would try and force it to hide itself away. He felt himself feeling weaker and weaker, he also felt the bijuu’s power fade. He would think he had it completed. If he did this would be very useful to keep his secret, even from his friends. “Did it work Max?” That would be in a hushed tone so those around him didn’t hear. “It’s really weird, I feel weaker like you said. Now all I have to do to break it is start to use chakra again right?”
 
Max would then get angry over finding out these foreigners knew more about his home than he did. The Meijin had to admit he agreed with him, it’s almost like they knew things without ever actually learning them. A weird sensation indeed. “Maybe it was the Queen? I’m not really sure, but either way I don’t like it.”
 
They would sit there and read the book until Max would mention that he wanted to go get a few more books and he would be right back. But he also mentioned a scroll he found in the desert. Sakana wondered if he was sleeping or something of the sort when the genin found it. He was very curious.
 
As Max would return with more books and sit down the Meijin would look over at him and ask, “Hey you said you found a scroll? Can I see it?”
 
WC:1446

Max would listen as Sakana spoke, gathering his wits slowly but surely. “Yeah, you if you use any jutsu that would strain your chakra reserves it will pump chakra back into your system and ‘break’ the effect.” He would say this, while simultaneously using Sensory to detect Sakana’s chakra signature. It was slowly but surely fading away until it was completely gone. “There you go, now folks will have to rely on actually seeing you to know when you are somewhere. It makes following people so much easier… unless they are a Hyuuga of course. You know, with the Byakugan? It gives them this neat all-around vision. It makes hiding from them incredibly hard.”
 
Upon hearing what Sakana had said, there was likely a good bit of support for such a hypothesis. She had access to all of Kumo’s files, she was close enough to the Raikage to learn all of his secrets, and he left her in charge of a great deal of things if memory served Max correctly. He didn’t want to believe such things to be true, but it wasn’t something that he could completely rule out either… Would Akihana really reveal secrets and defenses to Hoshi? No, Max would remove such thoughts from his head, at least until he was able to look more into the situation.
 
After Max returned with some books, he would sit down and begin to read. There were all sorts of books, almost more than one would expect the boy to be able to carry. Once he sat down he would first pick a book about the Nara clan called “The Complete History of the Nara Clan.” Disappointingly, it hadn’t been written by an actual Nara clan member, instead being written by someone called “Boundless”. It was a pen name for sure, so maybe it was a Nara who wrote it. The boy would read through the book, taking in as much information as he could. According to the book, the clan seemed to originate in Konohagakure, the village hidden in the leaves. They were a well respected clan in Konoha, but after the cataclysm they started to pop up all over the place, no longer tied only to the Hidden Leaf Village it seemed. What exactly stirred such a thing was listed as unclear, though with the powerful rebirth of both the Senju and Uchiha clans, it was speculated that there was some sort of hidden power struggle, and no doubt the Nara lost. Such speculation is only supported by how prevalent and powerful both the Uchiha and Senju clans were in Konoha now.
 
Taking a quick break from his reading, Max would apologize to Sakana for not answering him immediately, “Sorry about that. Yeah, I found this scroll out in the desert. I don’t have the slightest clue what it is… I saw this big worm thing, I fed it, and it left only leaving that scroll. If you can help me figure it out, I would be very much grateful!” The boy would say this with a cheery smile, clearly happy that Sakana might be able to provide even a little bit of insight.
 

Between Satoru, this massive library, and now Sakana, Max might find most of the answers he needs in regards to quite a large list of subjects. He has already gained a huge amount of knowledge in regards to the Nara clan and the scroll of Nara clan jutsu he found. 

Max would pass along the scroll to Sakana and crack into another book, this one talking about Hoshigakure and some of their protective measures. It would only make sense that if this library had information about Kumo’s defenses it would have information about its own defenses as well. Who knows, it might even have information about the defenses of all of the major Hidden villages. Wouldn’t that be something? 

OoC: The scroll is the Summoning Scroll Contract for Worms. I figured that you already knew this, but I am clarifying for anybody that needs such clarification. 

WC: 645
TWC:2094

Sakana would just nod as max talked about the Hyuuga. “Yeah Komon’s magic eyes, I also learned the Uchiha have magic eyes too.” He wondered if Max had ever come across an Uchiha. Max would walk away and come back a bit later, once Sakana asked for the scroll max would give it to him. Upon opening it he saw it was in a language he didn’t understand. So there was that, but he noticed something familiar at the bottom. There was a space for a blood contract. The same thing was found at the bottom of the turtle contract the Meijin had signed just before he left Kumo.
 
After reading it over again he would start to tell max in a hushed voice, “Max I can’t read that language but that looks like a summoning contract. You said a worm gave it to you, right? Maybe this worm was apart of a summoning race. I am a Turtle summoner, if you want I can summon one of my turtles and he can take a look at this for you.”  Sakana was hoping Max would say yes because he was interested in learning more about summons.
 

WC: 1646

Max would read about Hoshi’s defenses, and surprisingly it wasn’t very much. It was only some sort of large monolith that stopped people from using space-time techniques within its radius. It also mentioned some sort of “password” associated using chakra or such, though Max wasn’t entirely sure what this meant. Still, he would jot down notes in his handy dandy notebook and then flip chapters to the section on important figures in the village. There was mention of Lady Akihana of course, along with a man known as Denkiteki. Max wasn’t sure where he could place the face, but he has seen the man before. Something about him was... familiar. He just couldn’t figure out what exactly it was.
 
Sakana seemed to have a good grasp as to what the scroll had been, and as inquisitive as ever Max would agree to his plan. If the turtles knew what this was for sure he would be ever grateful, as if they were indeed a shinobi summon race, Max would have made a friend that he didn’t even know about out of that worm in the desert.
 

“So how do summoning contracts work, Sakana?” Max would ask, unsure of exactly what it was and what it meant. Max didn’t know it yet, but his interactions with the worms would end up being much more significant than he could have ever imagined. Max would watch intently if Sakana had decided to summon a turtle, trying to notice each and every little motion and the Maijin's chakra fluctuation. 

WC: 255
TWC:2349