Guidance [solo]

Sun Jun 07, 2020 10:50 pm

Mino's small study is papered with an eclectic combination of medical notes and half-finished seal formulas. The clutter has become bad enough that she's had to expand to one of the Military Training Facility's board rooms to store more of her work. Usually, she would like to think that she is quite tidy - but the two techniques she is working on are of such complexity, and pulling from so many different disciplines, that the work has simply consumed her.

It's evening, the sun dipping over the horizon. The weather is unusual, today... well, unusual for as long as this village has been called Kirigakure. When Mino first arrived, when it was called Shimagakure, this sort of evening was very common. It's enjoyable to have a clear, warm night again.

The leering face of a Shinigami, inked in stark blue and red by an Uzumaki centuries dead atop her notes on the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, mocks her from the wall.

Though the resurrection technique that she has unearthed has quite a bit of documentation, there are still missing pieces. Some of those are theoretical, and some of those are in her own lack of skill. Currently, the most pressing issue... is her shadow clones do not have souls to call their own.

Decades of relying so heavily on the shadow clone technique have hampered her, in some ways. Obviously, they are not helpful for practicing surgery and healing - they are too fragile for that kind of internal work. In that regard, Mino was able to rely on other people to help her... but she is not sure how to approach somebody for aid in training this particular technique. It really does seem like a hail mary - she'll only know that she is capable of performing it when the time comes.

'You will feel your soul resonate with the departed', the writing says - what on earth is that supposed to mean? Will it tickle? Mino groans, and considers returning to working on her other technique. The sleeping clone. That one... is an uglier technique, all considered, and less of a holy grail for medicine. It appeals to her, though.

thirty-one years ago... wrote:
Mino Kurokabi, nine years old, crouches over the form of the quavering young boy. A kunai is held securely in her hands, steel cold. This time, there is precious little hesitation before she drags it harshly across his throat. Steel slides through flesh, arteries, windpipe, and then smoke. Mino realizes the last point, academically, as her mother's genjutsu does not quite fully mask the dispersal of her shadow clone. The illusion's talons remain in her brain, however, leaving the boy gasping and writhing and bleeding underneath her, and she keeps her weight on him until the phantom is dead.

Desensitization training has been rough on Mino. Her mother, Shigure, had insisted on starting earlier. It had been a point of contention between her parents. Still, she is making progress. This time she is only shaking a little bit.

The genjutsu recedes, the illusion of the boy's body fading into nothing. The combination of real shadow clones and genjutsu is Shigure's preferred method - using shadow clones gives her much better tactile feedback as to how her daughter is restraining and killing her duplicates. The illusion is, of course, necessary to instruct Mino in the uglier aftermath of taking a life.

"Better," Shigure says flatly. She is a tall, slender woman, with slightly-wavy black hair and round glasses. Her daughter is her near-duplicate - gangly, the rest of her body not having caught up to a growth spurt, and she has inherited her mother's wavy black hair. They are in a small training space behind Mino's childhood home. Birds sing in the trees around them, and distantly, sounds of life in the surrounding town reach them. It isn't a very private space on its own, but Mino's mother insists that due to her handiwork, nobody will ever stumble upon this.

Mino stands, blinking away her discomfort as the blood covering her clothes vanishes. This isn't very fun - but she does prefer it to the training where her clones are on the receiving end of a sharp blade.

"...Shigure," a hesitant, gravelly voice echoes from down the hallway. Mino turns around, in the dim of her study, gazing quietly back at the form of her father in the hallway. With a cane in one hand, and his cat Momo curled in his opposite arm (purring), he shuffles forward into the study, getting a better look at the woman in front of him. "Ah... no, I'm sorry..."

"It's Mino," she says, not unkindly. She usually does not correct him when he mistakes her for his late wife, but he is already halfway to recognition once she is no longer in silhouette. "Good evening, sweet peach," Mino directs towards the cat, reaching forward towards him, smiling deviously as Momo flattens his ears and hisses at her... which earns a chuckle from her father. He is always amused by how hateful his cat is, and Mino will take any opportunity to get laughter from the old man. "Do you need anything?"

"...no," he replies, sounding a little lost, looking around the study. He likely did... or he is just having a wander, as he is wont to do. "Busy, busy, aren't you?"

"Cheating death is a complex matter."

"Don't I know," he replies, and Mino simply lifts her eyebrows in response. "Come downstairs, won't you? Have some tea?"

"Of course, dad."