Maintaining History

Spoiler:

This…is gonna suck. But it has to be done.

The wood of the board was warped and splintered, missing chunks making it impossible to read the history inscribed on the board. It was leaning to the side, barely upright, covered in posters and graffiti. Inpei figured he’d need to make a whole new sign and re-paint the history it displayed. That meant he needed wood, nails, and a hammer at least – as well as needing to go get a book with the information in question.

The hammer and nails were easy enough to obtain – his father kept some in the house for different projects. It was a box – tucked away, out of sight, filled with anything and everything that truly belonged to him. It was strange going through his things – Inpei did so brazenly, like he didn’t care, but he felt a rush of anxiety.

“What did I tell you about moving my things?!”

The shouts came back like he had walked in and seen Inpei going through them just then. On that particular occasion, nobody had moved anything – he had misplaced one of his sandals. He had blamed Inpei’s mother, so the child had offered to help his father find it. When he did find it, his father accused him of hiding it on purpose and punished him for it.

If he was mad then, imagine when he gets out…I’ll have to be ready for him.

The next stop was to the academy – Inpei knew there to be a text on the leaf’s history that he could use to re-create the sign. He walked through the building, remembering all the times he had done so as a student. His early years at the academy had been rough – he wasn’t really in a position to be worrying about much of anything beyond what was going on at home. His last couple years, though – those he truly enjoyed. He made his way through the school to the library, where he parsed through the books for a while before he found it – forgotten on a shelf near a sheaf of dusty old scrolls was a text called A History Hidden in the Leaves.

“That’s a bit of dry reading, don’t you think?” he head a voice say.

Inpei turned and grinned at the newcomer – a weathered-looking chunin with a salt and pepper beard and his headband worn as a bandana. “Daike sensei! How have you been?!”

Ubutaki Daike chuckled and held his hand out for Inpei to shake. The former student took it gladly, pulling his teacher in for a hug. “Teaching the next generation of leaf ninja – and all that entails!” Daike was the teacher that had noticed what was going on at home – and the one that had eventually led to Inpei’s father being imprisoned. “What’s got you back at the academy grabbing text books?”

Inpei’s smile turned sad, and he looked down at the text in his hand. “I’m on a mission – repairing that old sign near the market.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad – why the long face?” his teacher asked, leaning against the shelves and regarding his student. Daike was known for being to see through his students – present and former. It was said he used to specialize in interrogation, and the skill was highly refined in his day. Now he just put it to good use in the classroom – recognizing situations like Inpei’s.

“Our village…well, the history hasn’t really been great,” Inpei replied. Opening the book and thumbing through it as he spoke. It helped not looking at Daike – not that he was intimidating, Inpei just felt strange admitting his feelings. “I guess I didn’t really think about it before, but this headband doesn’t mean much these days.” He waited for Daike to respond. When the older ninja didn’t, Inpei continued. “I just feel like…like the people who are dismissing the leaf should be the ones working the hardest to fix it. It’s our village – our home – and if we don’t do what we can to try and…well, make it better, then things are going to stay like this. We need to have a Hokage that makes enough of a difference to end up on that mountain.”

“And YOU’LL be that Hokage?” Daike asked.

“Me?! No way!” Inpei responded, taken aback by his teacher. “I’m barely strong enough to be wrangling chickens and carrying groceries, let alone becoming Hokage!”

“Well, perhaps it is a bit early,” Daike admitted, crossing his arms. “But shinobi with that perspective, shinobi like you – you’re the ones that go on to make the village better. It won’t be easy, but our village won’t survive without young people like you.”

“Thanks sensei,” Inpei smiled. “I’ll do my best to protect our village. I only hope that others will come along that can help as well!”

They said their goodbyes and Inpei headed to retrieve the wood the village had set aside to repair the sign. The easy part was hammering the sign together and planting it in the ground, the new wood a nice bright color compared to the sodden, almost black wood that had stood there before. For the next few hours, Inpei painstakingly recreated the previous sign – feeling a small ember beginning to burn brighter in his heart.

[Exit]

WC: 877

I'll be putting all 877 into Rank C Rending Drill Fang to bring it up to 1000.

Stat-wise, I'm going +5 SP in Strength and +3 SP in Chakra.

Approved