Lets save his muse! (Matteo, private, nk)

As they were attempting to dodge the other people about to start a massive fight, Matteo surprised Logs again. With his nonchalance. Nothing else seemed particularly noteworthy. The younger boy did try to get Logs' attention though by pointing out an animal that he wanted to eat. Logs was a bit skeptical of the choice. Matteo was apparently a highly flexible omnivore, for he had chosen a weasel as his intended dinner.

Logs opened his mouth to point out the issue - there were plenty of good reasons that weasels were not commonly consumed as food. Matteo somehow tried to chase the weasel with a virtual target on his back, while munching down on his hot dog and fries, reminding Logs that his own were missing. 


Rip.

The actual clambering through the forest bit was fine. It was decent exercise and Logs was definitely catching up on his Vitamin D from the sunshine. The animal did better than fine though, as the weasel soon left Matteo and Logs behind even though they were ninjas who clearly were supposed to be superior to everything else in the forest.

An explosion rocked the surrounding scene, startling Logs for the fourth time that day. It appeared to come from behind them in the general direction of the duelling ninjas. It seemed shit was going down over there, for real. Soon after the explosion sound, a bunch of dust started blowing through the trees. Logs saw this, having turned at the initial sound. His eyes widened and he dived for cover behind a large tree while his companion ducked. The dust blew through the area and mostly past the tree on the heels of a strong wind. Logs idly wondered how much stronger the attack would have been if it included fire or water as a boosting element.

The cloud of dust slowly settled. Hacking and coughing, Logs emerged from behind the tree, covered in dust. He began brushing himself off and saw a large crater in the medium distance. Oh boy. Maybe they should skedaddle before they were caught in one of those bad boys.

"Matteo, I think we should get moving."



He would resume tracking the weasel briefly. The weasel had continued slithering away on all fours while the explosion had happened, and now its tracks were covered thickly by dust. He stopped moving in an attempt to hear out the location. The weasel was very quiet if even in the area though.

Matteo seemed to not know where the weasel was either. Logs saw the younger boy forming hand seals out of the corner of his eye. Peripheral vision was super useful sometimes. Suddenly, some gusts of wind began to gather in the nearby vicinities. Before Logs eyes, they condensed and strengthened by forming large tornadoes.

*Um....*


"Isn't this overkill?" Logs started out talking but quickly began trying to yell. His voice was largely lost in the din produced by six separate tornadoes spawning in the area. The weather people would go nuts, if they didn't realize this was an unnatural occurence. Wonder what kind of fucked up weather system could produce six tornadoes in close proximity, naturally.

The ground was devastated rapidly as tornadoes are sometimes wont to do. There was a large barren area remaining, with a virtually petrified rabbit crouching to one side. Somehow the rabbit was unscathed physically, though it would probably be recounting its horrifying tale to a psychiatrist one day. If it survived. It was being stared at by two hungry guys.

Some loud thumps emanated in the distance. Evidently Matteo's technique had relinquished its hold on the newfound toys. Some other animals were in the area, frozen in shock purely for slightly comedic effect. An awkward moment ensued before they all scattered.

Matteo was apparently nonplussed about the widespread destruction. He was still eating as if he didn't have a care in the world. No kidding, he had scared them off. Logs would have been impressed if he wasn't primarily annoyed.

"Dude, that was overkill man. I mean. That was pretty strong looking. I would love to be able to do that stuff with the wind element in an actual fight. But that seemed a little unnecessary for hunting first a weasel and now a rabbit. And... No. I'm not trying to be harsh. No need to turn red over this. Wait. What are you doing?"

Matteo was turning a weird shade of red suddenly. At first Logs thought it was because of his words, but Matteo seemed to be under some other sort of influence.

Matteo's voice betrayed no emotion still, despite everything that had happened so far. Logs expected a reply of some sort. Instead of responding to the earlier queries, he merely inquired as to Logs old low quality hot dog.

It hit Logs suddenly.

Matteo must have Asperger's Syndrome or something. It would explain his weird habits, comfortableness in a fight, and his lack of concern over matters that would normally freak people the flip out.

But to ask directly would be rude.

"Matteo, that wind power you showed earlier is pretty good. Looks like you developed quite well in that regard. Have you had any strange occurrences in other areas, combat and otherwise?"

If Matteo happened to see an opportunity to talk about more personal matters, he still could back out easily. Logs had deliberately asked in a way that let Matteo sidestep the subtext question gracefully.

Either way, he was fucking hungry.


"I didn't show you, but I've been working on this technique earlier for storing items. Here. Like this. Hopefully it isn't moldy."

Logs reached into the alternate dimension up to about halfway up his forearm. He felt around and eventually encountered his missing hot dog. He removed it, and gave it a once over. It looked reasonably intact, with several thumb prints that he now recognized quite easily. It wasn't the most appetizing, but he no longer cared.

"My other hot dog and fries got left behind at the hot dog joint you recommended." He sighed. "I guess it won't hurt me much more to have these one more time."

Uncharacteristically for him, he almost swallowed the hot dog whole. He was really hungry, and barely chewed. It was crap, but it was greasy crap with ketchup and mustard on bread. He could do worse. It could have come without the bread. Ok, maybe not a lot worse, but still.


"I don't suppose you saw where that rabbit went, did you? And no using massive jutsu to find it, please. I think I still have a bit of dust in my throat from the last time."

He sounded mildly irritated as he noticed the rabbit had recovered from its shock and was gone.


"I think there was a river near here. Perhaps we could try grabbing fish instead? Or we could make ourselves some spears from some of those branches. We could also try some lower level jutsu that don't wreck everything so we can fish with better accuracy. Thoughts?"

Despite his earlier irritation, he tried to sound neutral as he spoke again. He quickly checked a nearby tree for sturdiness and then scaled it.

He pretended to be a sailor at the very top, for a few seconds, before his habitually serious demeanor took back over. There was indeed a river in the distance. That or someone had something consistently rippling in the distance, which would be a cruel prank indeed.

He scrambled back down.

"There's a river over to the east. I can see the ripples because of the reflected sun. Let's give it a shot, yeah?"

If Matteo looked like he was down for this, Logs would start walking towards the river in the distance. No need to rush. As he walked, he began searching for some long branches that were relatively straight. It occurred to him that he didn't have a way to sharpen it, so he also kept an eye out for rocks that might be usable to sharpen or break the wood with.

He ended up with a shitty facsimile for a spear. Matteo had never pulled out any tools either, and Logs was now cursing himself for not buying the starting ninja bundle commonly sold to genin, and likewise any form of pocket knife. He would have to rectify this later. For now, he ended up breaking off some branches from an otherwise fairly straight piece of wood. Then he snapped the end off of one side cleanly. Some smacks with the branch end between a rock and a hard place helped him make a smoother and pointier end, though it still left much to be desired. If he wasn't careful, he would probably be picking splinters out from the fish.

He continued on his way towards the river, whittling at it now with a rock with a sharper edge. It looked a little better by the time he found the river, but it would never pass as an actual weapon for combat. A pointy stick was all this poor thing would ever amount to.

He crouched on the river bed. His eyes flared into the Sharingan again behind his contacts as he searched the river for food, right hand holding the makeshift spear at the ready.

A motion flashed and he stabbed forward. He recovered despite almost falling into the river. That wasn't a fish though. It was a trick of the light. He crouched again and watched carefully. More fish swam by. Another swing, err, stab, and a miss.

Fuck this. He needed food now, not next year when his fishing level hit 99.

His eyes spotted a hole in the side of the riverbed. It was mud, marked by little lumps forming a little "volcano" shape around the outside.

Heck yeah. Crayfish baby! He could do with one of those for a snack. But was the hole occupied?

He found that out the hard way. His hand experienced a strong stinging sensation and he swiftly removed it. A large crayfish emerged from the hole, clamped firmly onto the meat of Logs' hand. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Shaking wouldn't do much good. Logs belatedly realized why you don't stick hands into places you can't see. Leading with his stick would have been much better.

He began trying to smack the crayfish with his spear while the crayfish appeared ready to eat the genin whole despite a significant disadvantage in size.

Hopefully Matteo found this entertaining, at least.

rolling claim list:

Being somewhat inexperienced at combat, Matteo did not have much in the way of training. He never really practiced fighting, only sometimes play fighting in the ninja academy gym. Nobody really seriously studied it, at that time, so most people who graduated were not good at hand to hand combat, or ninjutsu, or any other kind of stuff. Matteo had passively been practicing this wind rejuvination technique, and he completely forgot that this had an outside appearance. He forgot that this would also give some people the impression that either, he was holding his breath, or he was getting really angry. Maybe now, it would be a good time to tell him what he was up to.

"Yeah, it was overkill, I just got somewhat frustrated at how the animal seemed to know the woods better than me. I thought I could make it unable to hide if I simply destroyed a large part of the woods." "Also, I am working on a technique to increase my chakra output and speed, but the side effect of that thing was that it would turn my skin slightly pale and bright red. The bright red part is because my blood gains significantly more oxygen allowing my body to process energy more quickly."

"The Logs would then get out his dreaded bad hot dog. It was so unfortunate, that the dude decided to keep it. Matteo wished a little bit inside his heart, that the dude would throw it into the dumpster somewhere, for it to never be seen again. He thought that the only place that should have to eat this were the fungi and bacteria that decompose stuff and turn it into soil. With that garbage, who knew if those things were up to the task.

"Well, I thought that the decomposers were the only living things that might have been up to the task of dealing with that hot dog. I hope you don't eat too many more of those in your life."

After Log would talk about the rabbit, Matteo would not have managed to keep track of the rabbit.

"I have no idea where it went, I don't really feel like trying to find the rabbit. It knows this place way better than we do."

Logs would then mention how he thought they could try fishing. Maybe that would be better, at least it would be possible to try to catch a fish. Matteo had no idea how he would try to go fishing, hopefully Logs had some kind of fishing rod or something inside his bag or pocket dimension or whatever that was. Matteo also hoped that Logs had some kind of ability to fish as well for that matter. Matteo thought it might be interesting to learn how to do this.

Wait a minute, Logs wanted to use sticks to poke fish and spear them somehow? Surely he was not serious, he really thinks that he could harpoon fish?

For that matter, where is there even a river? Matteo was here before and did not even know such a thing was there. Well, Logs would eventually climb up a tree, although forgetting it seemed, that there was the technique called, "Surface Walking" He would eventually see some kind of river. After he would point out the river, Matteo would see this small shining ripple, one Matteo did not even exist. He never saw that thing before. Matteo would also watch Logs go and sharpen some branches. He seemed serious about this thing. Not really what Matteo could get behind. Well, it seemed like it could work he guessed.

"I guess you can try harpooning fish or something. I do not know how you intend to do that though. I hope to god you have some kind of skills with this."

Unfortunately, one would need to spend many hour fishing and doing a lot of questing, to reach this 99 fishing. Nobody gets 99 fishing through cray fish, that would take more than 10 thousand hours to try to do. Then, Logs decided that it was a good idea to reach into those cray fish mounds, and try to get it. IT seemed, he forgot that one would need probably 99 agility or so to do this properly, otherwise, well, this would happen.

Logs would get grabbed by a crayfish, and it seemed like it was on a mission to kill Logs. Hopefully, Logs had some idea of what to do, Matteo was really confused by what was happening, and did not understand how silly he was. Then, Logs would try wacking the crayfish with a stick??? Well, Matteo was unsure of what he should do now. He would look, and say, "I guess you now realize that you should have put a stick in at first? Matteo would go over, and look at the cray fish, and would decide to use the wind arrow technique, and stab the cray fish between the eyes, killing it. Hopefully, rigour mortis would not cause it to grab Logos even harder. Except Matteo's hopes were soon failed, as rigour mortis would cause the cray fish to pinch super hard. Logs would probably scream in pain when that would happen.

Matteo would assume that the next thing to do was to try and start a fire. He would grab a few logs, and would try to rub logs against each other and try to start a fire. He thought that this was kind of the way to do it. He would try a few more times, but would fail to start the fire. Eventually, he would ask Logs, "Do you know how you would start a fire? It was worth mentioning, that neither of them had a container to put the cray fish in, nor did they have some kind of way to cook them properly.

Eventually, Matteo would try to carefully get another 10 or 20 cray fish. He knew that one cray fish was not close to enough to eat. He would poke around with the stick that Logs would get, and try to fish them out of the mounds. When he would manage to kill them, he would then wonder aloud, "How was I supposed to cook these things?"

If Logs would manage to make a fire, Matteo would try and hold a bunch of them, suspended with a stick that Logs had made, and try to cook them, until the stick would catch fire. Then, all the cray fish would burn. Matteo would ask, "Do you have any other ideas? Maybe we could try getting a hamburger instead?" This hunting was getting at least a little frustrating.

Matteo would try the wind rejuvination technique again, and finally manage to use enough oxygen, to significantly increase the power of his chakra and speed. He would suddenly be able to run around at the fast 64, enough that it would almost be a blur to most people. He would also have a very pale, but bright red skin complexion, visible to Logs.

Well, at least that would be finished.

(1180 words, 4120 words)

"That's an interesting technique. I might try to learn that later. I need to train my basic wind element though, got any advice for that?" Logs said.

He couldn't help but notice that Matteo seemed a little tense as Logs grabbed the hot dog. Mostly because Matteo did not try to keep this a secret. Also because Matteo had spoken out against said hot dogs earlier in the day. Matteo seemed to think Logs needed to get on with his life and stop eating those crappy lumps of fake meat.

He wasn't aware either that rabbits had a sense of direction, but hey, you learned something new every day.

If looks were truth, Matteo had about as much confidence in Logs' ability to fish as he did in Logs' taste in food. Of course, when Logs shimmied up the tree, he did it for exercise. Not because he had somehow forgotten one of the basic genin chakra techniques.

This was verbalized in short order once Logs began attempting to spear stuff in the water. He had been aiming at tricks of the light, reflections of the sun glinting off the water. Perhaps he had not accounted for the changing angles of light as it traveled through the water. Or maybe, he just sucked as a fisherman due to very little practical experience in the matter.

"Sorry mate, I'm not particularly proficient in this, but you are welcome to try it too. Its good practice for hand-eye coordination at least." Logs said. Might as well live in the moment when there was something to be gained, no sense in wallowing in doom and gloom.

Matteo seemed to have a bit more common sense when it came to practical matters, but he was not verbose in time. Not to prevent an average sized crayfish from trying to murder Logs. Matteo looked confused at Logs' ordeal, which was not encouraging. Did he expect Logs to have avoided the whole ordeal? Or was he just disappointed in Logs for not one hit ko-ing the crayfish? Either way, he was only able to nod in response to Matteo's query while grimacing in pain.

Matteo approached. *Thank god, he's going to help me.* Logs thought. Matteo formed a missile comprised of wind chakra in his hand and struck the crayfish with it. Logs wasn't sure whether to  scream in pain or marvel at the actual usefulness of wind element techniques compared to those of the fire. Rigor mortis had begun to move in, and the crayfish claws clamped as the stronger muscles overrode the weaker ones. 

Logs assumed Matteo was ok with this because the younger boy turned and began trying to start a fire. Evidently Matteo considered this the equivalent of divine punishment for Logs. Death by crayfish. They were there like that for a few awkwardly painful minutes. Logs with a pinched hand, and Matteo struggling and failing to light a fire.

Eventually, Logs was able to poke a twig in between the side of the claw and part of his hand, which relieved some of the pressure. From there he slowly built a shield. Evidently, a little PE was in order. His hand was still stuck due to the pressure of the ninja crayfish arm, but the pressure wasn't cutting into his hand directly. Instead it was bending the twigs.

"Here, let me help with that. I don't know any fire jutsu yet, its one of the issues I had with my cl- family."

There was a noticeable break in his sentence as he adjusted his choice of words. If Matteo was not paying attention, he might miss it, though it hardly mattered to Logs either way. Logs crouched down next to Matteo, his free hand reaching down with some fire chakra emerging. It was not tamed into an actual jutsu, but it was definitely warmer to the touch. It would actually burn litmus paper now, at least. Knowing his own weakness, Logs focused his low amounts of fire element chakra into some of the leaves and the dryest, smallest twigs. Really, he was aiming for the choice bits of kindling rather than trying to light the big stuff all at once.

"Rubbing the twigs together probably wouldn't work unless you were much faster. It's easier if you can use a little energy to do it instead. Like that. Even someone weak like me can make this work by focusing on the easiest ones first."

As he spoke, the smallest leaves slowly burned to embers while the flames traveled on to slightly larger pieces of plant material. "When this gets hot enough, we can try cooking these in their shells. I have literally no idea whether that would work or not. We can also bring them back to the village when things quiet down, and cook them there. Though there will be hell to pay if we make a mess of the shells."

Matteo took the opportunity to start collecting crayfish. While keeping one eye on the fire (figuratively speaking), Logs joined Matteo, poking at the crayfish mounds with his stick. Left handed.


"Do you think I would be able to use the wind element to remove this crayfish claw? I saw you make these arrow things and blasts of wind and such, perhaps one could be focused and help remove this thing? At this rate it will replace my ID and papers."

Matteo tried and failed to cook some of the crayfish by suspending them and stuff. This was clearly because he did not have a high enough cooking level, and he was still capable of burning food. For once Matteo seemed a little frustrated though. He wanted to get a hamburger instead. Heck, his face turned red, the unflappable guy was definitely upset! So much so that he suddenly almost disappeared, his feet, nay, his entire body a blur as he sped back to the village for a hamburg-

Oh. Right. He was training one of those enhancement techniques. Logs calmed his rapid thoughts as Matteo paused again.

"Shit, that was pretty fast. I almost couldn't see you at all."

"I'm down for a hamburger at this point. Its on me if you can show me the wind element, if my fire is weak I need to diversify. Maybe even mix them up together later, they seem complimentary after all."

Of course, because things would be simpler otherwise, a large number of angry looking crayfish began to emerge from the surrounding mud caps. Perhaps Matteo had disturbed too many of them now. The ground was almost covered in writhing angry pink shells waving and snapping.

"Did you give them drugs or something? They're acting all... cray-cray.."

He spoke in a deadpan manner, unaware of the silliness of the statement he had made. He did however wish he had his piece of crap hot-dog on hand. That might have been a worthy piece of bait for some crayfish.

"I'm thinking we exit by way of trees, unless you have another one of those blasts for the crawdads? They are out and angry like real dads watching sports."

rolling claims:

Matteo would reply to Logs asking to learn wind element. Matteo would simply reply, "Sure, I can teach you that. I am not sure what burger place you are thinking of."

Well, a firemaking, fletching, cooking, and woodcutting, all level 1, would not be much help to Matteo trying to cook those crayfish. He managed to burn literally all of them, perhaps, that was because Matteo needed a cooking level of 2 to cook them with a high chance of burning, instead of only burning crayfish.  The crayfish were clearly there to witness the botched crucifixion of crayfish named, Brian, Christiano Hay Soos, Niall Spear, and Woody Cross. Matteo, of course, would not know of this event of course, he assumed he was going to go cooking.

Some of the crayfish were really fired up about the poor firemaking skills involved in this. They were really cray cray about what Matteo did, and crayved their revenge on Matteo. Matteo would hear a question about whether Matteo somehow gave them drugs.

"No, I am assuming that they are crayving revenge. I can't put them in a crayte. I think we should go through the trees."

The two of them would probably run through the trees, eventually probably losing the crayfish in the trees. It was worth mentioning that they could not run through the dense forest, as they would need 56 agility to get through it. Unfortunately, one could easily get poisoned, although not a strong kind. The two would eventually reach the circular area Matteo had decimated a while ago, followed by reaching the area that those two ninja were fighting in. That place ended up with some kind of crater normally only possible from a small asteroid. The two would continue on, not needing to get climb over any kind of agility shortcut to get into the village faster.

When Matteo and Logs would get back to the village, Matteo would ask Logs,

"What place are you thinking of going to? I have this place, next to the crafting guild. I believe the place is called, Fat Tony's. It is placed in kind of the wilderness, although in an area kind of known as the bandit camp."

The cooks there had at least 85 cooking level.

"I think you wanted to learn wind element right? I will teach you a basic air strike thing, I am sure that will be a very good start."

If the two started walking again, they would pass by Bob's Brilliant Axes, and Gerrant's Fishy Business.

Matteo would continue, "To learn wind, you should start by practicing cutting leaves. I like to practice on leaves from yew trees. These trees are marked by a special tree symbol on maps. Some of the other trees that are marked are Crystal trees, magic trees, and elder trees. Unfortunately, there is no good way of distinguishing between what kind of tree, is actually around that tree symbol. I believe there is a yew tree over there."

That yew tree was fortunately not cut down by someone who had a woodcutting level of 60, nor was it burned by someone with a firemaking level of 60. No bots had been roaming there and chopping them down.

If the two would eventually go into a hamburger place, Matteo would wait in line, he would look at the cooked meat. Hopefully the cooks there had a high enough level to make sure that they would not burn the meat.

(579 words, 4699 words, also guess all the runescape references I used, also hopefully I did not offend anyone)

so many runescape references I forgot what RP site we are on

Oops. Logs had forgotten that Matteo had wanted to visit a burger shop instead of their current hunting situation. 


"The 'Disheveled Goat' is probably my preferred burger shack, but honestly I'm not very picky. I only go there if I want a relatively pricey but worthwhile burger. I normally focus on the cheap stuff though, gotta keep my hands on that dough. Thats how I end up with stuff like that cheap hot dog though. If we were to go for a cheaper burger, I would suggest ol' 'Mickey Ds' on the main street. You've said enough scary things about food that I might just shell out for a decent piece of meat though."


He watched Matteo cook the crayfish he had caught while Logs wrestled with the firmly crayfish. Rather, they both struggled with their tasks. Matteo was apparently horrible at timing the crayfish and none of the crayfish escaped unscathed. Jesus.


"You might have a talent for the fire element yourself, given your skill at burning the crayfish." A bit of a snarky joke but perhaps Matteo would see the lighter side of things himself. Little did he know that Matteo was naming all the crayfish with silly references. Logs just thought of them as food.


Sadly, Matteo's attempt at humor in his pronounciation  went unnoticed as Logs was not reading a transcript of their conversation.

The crawdads were so pissed that even Matteo was down for leaving. Though Logs might be able to return with a net and sell the catches later.... The journey through the forest was long and tiring but at least they din't have to walk.... Fortunately ninjas have this weird running hopping thing that lets them travel super quick without all the hassle of walking like a regular person. 

Anyways, they arrived back in town. The ninjas who had been fighting by the training grounds were gone, though the traces of their fight weren't. Logs paused to put out a small fire that was still burning up some shredded undergrowth. The destruction was pretty immense, the combatants had either wiped each other out, or were being tasked to clean up their mess. Mostly because this was a shared training ground - the kind that was used to practice shurikenjutsu and taijutsu and basic sparring. It wasn't intended to have giant holes blasted in it by people having a di*k measuring contest. So in some ways Logs sincerely hoped there were reparations underway.

He felt a pinch in his finger. He looked at his hand, raising it up to meet him up high, and realized he had forgotten about the crawfish still clamped on his hand. He realized that the twigs held the crayfish's claw open wider than it was intended, and so it couldn't release his hand because it was overstretched. Oops.

Fortunately, they were approaching the town and Matteo decided to help out with the wind element. Neato. Logs had heard about the cutting leaf exercise before, though he had no idea of how much was required. He had something stuck to his hand that could serve as a useful target for practice. PETA anyone?

"If I had to guess, its like the fire element training. Except that instead of attempting to burn leaves with a concentration of chakra energy magic stuff, I just try to force it out as a concentrated blast wave thingy? Anything I should be aware of?"

Wait.


"If that was true though, I don't know how water or earth works but I guess you would use a tingly sensation for electricity. "

He slowly gathered chakra within the tenketsu of his hand near the crayfish clamped on his hands. Hopefully he could get this in one go so that the crayfish didn't suffer any longer. Logs wasn't some soft hearted snowflake who wanted to hug every animal he met, but he also wasn't some crazy lunatic who wanted to burn the world and not give a hoot about anyone else. He just didn't see a point in needless suffering, like most normal and sane people. Outside of cultists. Those were the worst, but their payments to suppliers were usually very prompt. So they could be worse, if you weren't one of their targets.

Matteo did not seem particularly opinionated today, and Logs was feeling slightly peckish. So he would lead the way to his favorite burger shack - "The Disheveled Goat". He had no clue why it was named that, but the creator seemed to have used it as a reference to someone, judging by the coyness shown when Logs had asked before.

He lined up. 


"What do you want to eat, kid? I'll get it." His tone was mildly friendly. Not too friendly. But mildly friendly. He couldn't help looking around for signs of his brother while he waited. Not just his brother, really. He really didn't want to have another food fight break out while he wanted to relax.

"The coolest thing I like about this shop, is that some of the staff are retired ninja warrior guys. Some of them needed the socialization, and some just wanted some extra cash." Indeed, a brief look around the place would show anyone that the workers and even many customers were on the older end, at least for the combat oriented occupations.

"Honestly, the only reason I had a shot at being a genin was because of some of the old timers here. I had other circumstances that pushed me into this, of course, but I wouldn't have tried to take it as seriously for money purposes...."

It was open ended, there was clearly more to the tale than he let on. It was up to Matteo to ask if he was curious himself.

"Heya, could I get one double mushroom angus, with a side of curly fries and aoli? A large house lemonade as well?" The fellow at the counter jotted down Logs' order.

"Did you decide what to eat? They actually have two lemonades, one of which is made in house. You should try that one once... It has this interesting lime sub-flavor and it is not too sweet like the commercial stuff. I'm a stickler for budgets but this is an exception."

rolling claim list:

Always look on the bright side of life. Matteo would think about that when he would hear Logs say that he thought that they would go to "The disheveled goat." Matteo did not know about that place, he actually assumed that the only few good places were called, "Why a burger" "4 guys" and "inside out burger." Either way, Matteo was down to try this disheveled goat place. Logs would then make a small joke about Matteo having good skill of fire element. Matteo would chuckle a little bit and then say,

"Well, I try."

After that ninja travelling stuff that they seem to be able to do, the two would get back to civilization without too much trouble, although seeing a few sights that they saw on their way out there. Logs would continue on, about how the leaf thing worked, Matteo kind know how this worked for other elements, apparently, to do lightning, you wrinkile the leaf, for water, you soak the leaf, and for earth, you crumble the leaf.

"I don't really know how exactly the wind stuff cuts the leaf. I was told that if you put the leaf between your hands, and make sounds of constipation, you apparently cut the leaf. I did not do that, I just tried to make some kind of mini wind cutting thing. That worked for me."

Matteo was still slightly unsure of why the crayfish claw was still on the dude's hand. Maybe, Logs could try cutting that crayfish claw off of his hand. It looks really stupid. Well, a little girl would see that claw thing, and scream,

"AAHHH"

Matteo would lean over to Logs,

"Look, you really have to get rid of that thing."

As the two would get in line, Matteo would notice one of the dudes that was fighting in whatever that thing was in the training grounds, was ahead in line. He looked rather disheveled, like perhaps he lost the fight. Who knew what really happened there, but Matteo did not want to ask him. The dude was probably not going to react well to an inquiry. Matteo would look around, and then ask Logs,

"Who was that dude who spilled his drink on you? I mean, he deserved a kick in the **** but I mean, he must know you in some way."

Logs would then ask Matteo what he would want to get. Matteo was kind of unsure, he really did not know what he wanted to order yet. Matteo would look at the menu that was posted above the counter where you pay for food. Apparently, there was this stinger burger with deep fried jalapenos. That looked good, maybe with a side of lemonade and onion rings. Matteo thought that he would order that.

Matteo would reply, "I think I will try the stinger, with that house lemonade and some onion rings."

Logs would then talk about how he became a genin. Matteo assumed this guy probably had passed the genin exams, and that this dude was not a particularly experienced ninja, but he seemed ok. "That is an interesting way to get inspired to become some ninja. I personally decided to do this, because of the freeform nature of making money. You normally don't have to do much as a genin, and eventually, when you need to make some money, you can then go do a bunch of missions."

Matteo was actually a little surprised that this place had 2 different kinds of lemonade. Kind of a surprising thing to do.

What happened next, was caused by Matteo being a regular at what can only be called strip clubs. Matteo would get a tap on the shoulder from some older dude, he looked around to be 50 or so. He would say to Matteo,

"Stormy Daniels really did it with that orange dude. I mean, I heard that they had this orange guy in the private room getting spanked by a rolled up forbes magazine."

Matteo was kind of surprised that the dude had not managed to embarrass himself enough, the dude was already apparently getting way too many lap dances, one could hope that this dude had enough money that he could continue to do stuff there.

"I mean, I guess he can do what he pleases, I think he probably looked pretty stupid doing that, I mean, why would he pay to do that?"

"Well, I mean people can get stimulation in various ways. By the way, why do you go there?"

"Cheap beer. I have gotten better at fending off lapdances. I mean, now I just have this reputation as a spoil sport who never wants to get a dance. Do you know what that orange man's name was?"

"He calls himself DJ Trump, nobody really knows what he does though, he seems to have plenty of money."

"Well, I mean... I guess he can do that. I have never seen or known anyone who has seen him do anything with disks."

"I guess, I think I will go back over there."

"See ya."

Matteo would talk to Logs,

"I am a regular customer at these strip clubs, that dude is a manager at one of them. I am surprised that they let me in at first, although now, I guess they are ok as long as I am a paying customer."

Eventually Matteo and Logs would order, Matteo would then look to find a table. Fortunately, there was one open, although kind of messy. Matteo would ask a staff member,

"Can you clean this?"

Matteo would get to watch a dude come over, do a few hand seals, then a large controlled stream of water, wash over the table, from his mouth, followed by him doing some kind of water clean up jutsu which caused the water to disappear.

"Thanks"

Matteo would sit down, fortunately the dude did not make the seat wet. Matteo would hear another customer loudly trying to sing some kind of incoherency. Matteo would look over, and see this dude was behind him on the next table. Matteo would lean over and ask the dude politely,

"Can you keep that delightful singing down a bit?"

"NO!!"

Matteo really did not want to get into another fight, so he would think about what he would want to do. That issue would get solved by a staff member say, "There is a karaoke bar over there, go there."

Matteo would see the dude walk out eventually. At that time, the burgers and fries and drink would arrive. Matteo would assume the stuff was right.

Matteo would get up, and grab a LOT of napkins, plop them down next to Logs, and say, "You can actually try doing that wind cutting thing on these."

(1128 words, 5827 words total)