Really can't see how this will end well [P/Mish]

It was an early morning in Konoha. The air was cold and nippy, the streets were mostly silent. Even the birds had yet to wake, opting to do what any sane mammal should be doing and remain cozy and asleep until the warmer hours. It was far, far too early for anyone to be up, right? And yet...

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The sound of three closely grouped thunks echoed around the otherwise empty exterior of the Advanced Training Grounds. Who could that possibly be?

Yuu skidded to a halt, prosthetic leg creaking under the stress, and spun around one more to release two more training kunai towards the dummy. They both impacted at nearly the same time, relatively close to the previous three kunai he had thrown. It was obvious that the small boy, Yuu, possessed a penchant for throwing weapons, if with a little sloppy form. It wove the tale of a student with a natural gift, but none of the tutoring required to hone that gift into something truly worthwhile.

With a blank expression that revealed none of his thoughts or feelings, Yuu stopped in his tracks from the spin and pushed off the ground to begin a backwards somersault. At the apex of his jump, he let loose another kunai towards the target. Thunk! It hit again, though this time the jump proved to throw off the blind boy's aim somewhat as this one was way off from the starter grouping. To further add to the failure; when Yuu landed, his prosthetic leg finally gave out and the ankle joint popped off.

Yuu landed in a heap on the floor, a sharp intake of breath the only clue to the pain the fall had brought him. In the brief pause of training, the exertion caused by the brief exercise became clearer as it finally seemed to catch up with the boy. The Ex-Hyuuga panted lightly and used the sleave of his old ragged robe - One of his only items of clothing. The chest was open to reveal a litany of surgical scars and burns - to lightly pad the sweat off of his face. He'd fix the leg later, for now he just needed to rest.

WC: 370

Lachesis Onomori had never traveled further north than southern Lightning country, but the waking chill of morning was nostalgic nonetheless.

It was difficult for her to feel pain from the cold, at least cold not influenced by chakra, and it often felt like a different texture of the air- like wearing a shirt with an unfamiliar textile. She didn't normally train at this hour, but she was certainly awake by this time. She meandered her way across the village- she wasn't required to report into the mission desk until nearly noon, and thus she'd revel in the rarity that was free time while it lasted.

Faint sounds tickled her ears from afar. That sounded relatively close to her normal training spot. Though she'll admit she stayed mostly isolated when practicing techniques, wanting her more secretive moves to remain out of public eye, but she was curious nonetheless.

She slid open the door to the advanced facility, making her way down the hallway with muted anticipation as she slid open the door to a training ground across from her usual.

In there stood a stranger. The first impression that came to mind was how incredibly small he was. Though age had little bearing on rank, she had trouble imagining him at a higher rank than chuunin. He released kunai with vigor until his ankle veritably disconnected- prosthetics.

The Onomori focused on him a bit further. She hadn't seen him around the village more than in passing, if that.

Well, she wasn't expected to be anywhere until later in the day. No reason not to indulge her curiosity.

Stepping into the room, she was careful to make her steps audible against the hardened earth floor. Should he permit she come closer, or not react in a way that showed discomfort, she'd come within two meters of him before crouching down. She was nearly two feet taller than him, by her estimate.

She would remain quiet for a moment, not entirely sure what to say. "Working hard or hardly working, hm?" After a moment's consideration, she took a loose rag- normally she'd use those for cleaning up weaponry, but she'd fill it with soft ice and snow, tie the end, and hand it over to him. "Recovery is one of the most important parts of training, you know."

[WC: 385]
[Total WC: 385]

As the sound of footsteps entered Yuu's auditory range, the boy would seem to tense up but he otherwise remained impartial to the approaching woman. He'd chosen this specific time and place to train because it was usually empty, but it seemed that the solitude was short-lived. It wasn't that he disliked people, but strangers tended to have questions that often caused him discomfort through their ignorance. Asashi, the man who'd made Yuu's limbs and was basically his surrogate father at this point, had told Yuu that making new friends was important. Yuu didn't know about the person approaching, though. Even from the distance between them at this point, Yuu could feel how cold they were through his delicate senses.

The stranger stopped when they got within 2-meters of him, so Yuu decided to try and be polite and turn to fully face them despite still sitting down on the floor. Unbeknownst to him, his dirty hair was covering the vast majority of his face save for his right glass eye, which was staring unblinkingly at the area of the ceiling behind Lachesis' head. She spoke, and Yuu would almost seem to flinch at the sudden sound before relaxing. She had a nice voice, Yuu thought. Far gentler than the majority of people he'd spoken to since losing his eyes. He didn't know what she meant so he, rather creepily, just remained completely motionless after her cryptic... Question?

"Th-thanks..." Yuu croaked out hoarsely, the volume of his speech scarce more than a whisper. He shakily accepted the bag of ice with his prosthetic arm and held it against his real arm's forearm, where the pain was the worst. He breathed out small a sigh at the instant relief. It was kind of difficult to gauge when he couldn't see but, if it hadn't bruised already, he was certain it would later. Maybe this strange cold woman could be a friend after all?

He went to stand up, only to realise that he needed to reattach his foot in order to do so. The only problem was that he hadn't really been paying attention to where it had landed, and stationary objects were hard for him to locate. He'd only managed to find the dummy through trial and error. Yuu began to grope around the floor to look for his prosthetic foot, but unfortunately, his hand just missed the mark.

"Could you?" Yuu asked the woman, hoping she understood what he meant.

WC: 412
TWC: 782

She'd hum softly as the stranger replied, not moving too much from her crouch aside from some minute shifting to give him some space. She blinked at his request- the prosthetic foot- before inspecting the mechanism. She was a weaponry user, and as such prosthetics weren't UNfamiliar territory, but she still was very green in the field. It was similar enough to others she had seen on the past, on civilians, but she'd still turn to him before trying her hand at reattachment.

"Alright- let me know if I put it on too tightly, or if anything else feels wrong." she'd delicately take up the appendage, place it in the proper location, before snugly tying and latching various straps and clips to ensure it stayed in place. The pace was a lot slower than she could have been going- rushing here was an astronomically dumb decision, after all- but she would periodically turn to Yuu with an expectant hum or grunt for feedback, or any potential problems. After a few minutes, she'd back up a bit. "Should be done. I imagine you'd do a better job than me, obviously, but don't want you to get any fluids caught up in the joints or whatever." referring thusly to his sweat and the rapidly melting snow pouch.

She'd remain quiet for a bit- she would do so whether he replied or not- before speaking up. "Your kunai are grouped decently. Got anything else under your belt?" Lachesis would assume he was an academy student- she was distantly familiar with most genin given her recent mission at the academy, and with her access to the records.

The Onomori wouldn't kid herself into thinking she was being altruistic- this move was likely as much to spite the academy as it was to genuinely help a stranger- but after the disaster that was Jakku Uchiha, could you honestly say it was wrong to have an issue with current academy standards?

And, honestly, the prospective of teaching him jutsu he was in no way supposed to learn yet just to fuck with his instructors sounded pretty fun. Whether the kid would pick up on it was another matter entirely, of course.

[WC: 365]
[Total WC: 750]

It seemed that the woman hadn't quite understood what Yuu had been asking, but the ex-Hyuuga wasn't the type to complain about much. Especially when someone was trying their best to actually help him. So, he remained silent and kept his face passive as the woman got to work reattaching his foot. He cocked his head as he listened to her work; she moved like she had a certain level of familiarity with handling stuff like his prosthetic. She didn't possess the tough efficient hands of Asashi - who could do maintenance on his limbs in a minute or less - but she was probably doing a better job than Yuu ever could. Asashi had tried his best at walking Yuu through the process, but the boy was still having a little trouble remembering them all.

At the woman's expectant hums, Yuu nodded graciously to affirm her efforts were right so far but a smile still never touched his lips. The combination of his disheveled appearance and neutral expression ended up making Yuu look quite miserable, but in actuality, the boy was more content than he'd been in a while. This was the first person he'd encountered - who wasn't part of the gang of thieves who'd taken him in - who hadn't immediately treated him with pity or like he was dirt on the side of the road. It felt... Nice.

He wriggled the newly-restored limb around, tilting his head slightly as he listened in to all the gearwork and who-knows-what-else went into the making of his prostehtic. He didn't know what all the sounds themselves actually alluded to, but he did know what his leg was supposed to sound like when it was in full working order. There were a few things wrong; snags, things out of rythym, though it seemed to be more from the damage of falling than anything the woman had done.

"It's... Good." The boy struggled out to say, trying to squeeze a compliment into his limited short speech ability. For someone who'd never worked on his leg before, she sure had an amazing job. Slowly, Yuu stood up and lightly hopped off the ground to see how it felt. Something about it was definitely broken, but Yuu didn't think he was in any danger of falling over as long as he didn't move too fast.

At the woman's question, Yuu would pause slightly as he slowed his breathing. He normally held back from focussing this deep on his senses, but after the woman had shown him this kindness Yuu didn't want to hold anything back.

As his breathing slowed, the world began to light up in his sense as if he was seeing properly for the first time. He could feel the location of the dummy from the sounds it generated lightly swaying in place, the smell of the kunai embedded in its surface. He could feel the woman in front of him, colder than anyone he'd ever felt before. She used the same shampoo that many other ninja in the village used. It was supposed to be scentless, but Yuu's sensitive nose could smell it all the same. All different clues that added together to form a complete image.

Suddenly, Yuu would break out of his trance-like state and point towards one of the lights on the ceiling, "Faulty light... Will break soon... An hour," He guessed after hearing it struggling. He pointed to the ground, 5-meters to his right, "Discarded kunai, buried." He coughed as the irritation to his throat grew worse, but he continued to point things out. He hadn't stretched himself like this in a while, "Loose change in your pouch..." He paused to consider something, and also give his hoarse throat a rest, "250 ryo."

WC: 626
TWC: 1408

She looked at the boy- really, actually looked at him- as he stood up, announcing their surroundings to her with a distant expression, and made the realization that ‘oh shit, this kid’s actually blind’. She stood up after him as well, careful not to go too fast to surprise him (hopefully wouldn’t make him lose a leg again and all that), before speaking up herself. “‘S okay, don’t need to keep pushing yourself. Got an idea.” she scratched her chin absentmindedly, abruptly realizing that she didn’t actually know his name at all. “...Anything you prefer I call you? Lachesis on my end.” she wasn’t sure why she gave him her first name- a rare display of closeness, maybe.

She hummed to herself again. “You can sense physical shit, how good’re you at chakra?” a pause. Hmm… Actually, did he even know any academy stuff at all?... That might be a better starting point. Whatever he’d answer, she would nod to herself. Everyone started somewhere, yadda yadda. She’d started later than him, so she had no room to judge regardless of his answer. “I’m gonna channel some chakra to my hand- nothing too intense or whatever, but see if you can try to tell where I am- and what it is- without extending your senses like that. Don’t gotta say anything if you don’t want to, either. Can point if that’s more comfortable or whatever.”

At that, she’d stealthily make her way around the room, hiding around seven meters away from the blind student, holding out her left hand and letting water condense. It was an extremely simple jutsu- an E rank water technique aptly named ‘drip’- but she made no moves to hide her chakra, or any that she was channeling. Whatever would happen next was entirely on him, now.

[WC: 300]
[Total WC: 1,050]

"Yuu," He said in response to her question about his name, giving her a small nod of respect. He'd missed out on a lot of etiquette lessons as a kid so he didn't really understand a lot of it, but he knew that giving a first name wasn't something one did casually. He didn't really know how to react to the sudden show of respect, so he retreated back into himself a little bit. Shrinking in stature and lowering his head slightly so that some of his loose hair fell over his face. It wasn't even a conscious decision, just one borne from years of social isolation. He didn't react to the sudden curse from the woman as he had heard it all before, but he did note it was a little odd that Lachesis was so loose with his language around him. If anyone had said something similar in his old compound, they would have been punished severely. It was... Freeing, to hear someone speak like that.

This new method of sensing people was interesting to the ex-Hyuuga, but he really didn't have any idea how to start. For one, he couldn't really 'turn off' his senses, so much as focus on them less so the sensory overload wasn't as bad. One thing that had been worrying him was that people in the future might be able to sneak up on him since he couldn't see, but another method to sense the world would help assuage that thought. As he thought earlier, though, he didn't really know how one went about sensing chakra. Lachesis, even though she was really nice, seemed to be more of a hands-off kind of teacher.

Once again, Yuu let out a breath and began to slowly stop paying attention to all of his surroundings. He could point to exactly where she was at this moment, but that would defeat the point of this entire exercise. Sense by sense, his view of the world grew dimmer and dimmer until he was left in a sort of subjective darkness. He did this exercise often - blocking out the world - when the sounds and smells of the world were starting to freak him out. It was an easy way to center himself if he ever felt lost.

He furrowed his brows as he tried to sense Lachesis from nothing but her chakra, having been given nothing to go off. However, that said, Yuu was a natural at seeing the world through a different lens and he figured it out in no time at all. All it took was focussing on the ebbs and flows of his own chakra, and then extending feelers out into the world. The feeling came naturally to him, for some reason. The first time he properly managed to feel chakra other than his own, Yuu let out a breath of shock. "Amazing." He whispered, and it was. It was like an empty rainbow candle in the middle of a dark void, it was almost like he could see again.

He raised his arm and pointed directly at Lachesis' position, the whole thing only taking about 30 seconds in real time.

WC: 528
TWC: 1936

Hm.

Lachesis stayed silent for a couple moments after his declaration of her location before nodding, though in theory, it was more to herself than for his benefit. “Good job,” she stated after a moment. Most of her experience training others was for chuunin or the occasional odd ANBU- children were out of her wheelpark, so to speak. What did kids need? Praise, right? Or was that dogs? She put her hand to her chin, walking a bit closer to him at a leisurely pace because having a full conversation at 7 meters was a pain.

She wasn’t quite sure what to say next, but would allow the stranger to speak up at this point if he felt like he wanted to. The Yuki clansman scratched her nose for a moment, sizing him up. Part of her wanted to ask how he lost his limbs. Did he lose his vision then, too? But some things were private for a reason. She wouldn’t dig unless given reason (or permission) to do so.

“You know those academy jutsu? Clone and whatnot?” she spoke up after a moment. Technically, it was permitted for jounin of the village to give academy exams, but the instructors might take offense if she took the matter out of their hands. Yuu had learned a chuunin level chakra sensory exercise over the course of a few minutes, so she figured she was well within her rights.

Not that she’d tell the kid, of course. If he was nervous, it could potentially muddle the outcome. But she was still curious nonetheless- and it wasn’t like he could take the written portion, anyway. She was pretty sure there wasn’t a braille variant.

Whether he decided to perform the requested jutsu or not, Lachesis would wait patiently for the kid’s response.

[WC: 300]
[Total WC: 1,350]

A small flicker of embarrassment wormed its way onto the stoic boy's face at the woman's compliment, and he tilted his face down towards the ground to let his hair fall over the top. When was the last time he'd been praised for anything worthwhile? The instinctive answer was a long time ago; after all, he wasn't completely useless as a kid. Surely, something he'd done would have been worthy of praise? However, the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how empty his childhood had been. He didn't want to think about it too hard, but had he really been devoid of any compliments his whole life?

He felt her approach him, but she hung back at a reasonable conversation distance. She didn't say anything, and neither did Yuu because he was just as clueless as to how to proceed in the conversation as she was. A somewhat awkward silence descended on the pair and the young Hyuuga, with an embarrassed flush still present on his pale skin, shuffled uncomfortably on the spot. Not for the first time, he wished his throat wasn't so wrecked. Maybe then he could find what to say next, since he wouldn't have fear of hurting himself anymore.

Finally, the woman spoke up and asked him if he knew the Academy Jutsu. He nodded slowly, thankful for the conversation to start up again. Once again, he felt a small flush of shame creep up his cheeks as he had to rely on the Lachesis to keep him talking. He was truly thankful for the company, but he had no clue how to convey it well. A bow? A hug? What was appropriate in situations like this? His old Hyuuga training had taught him how to say thank you without really saying thank you, so everyone knew their place. He'd always hated that sentiment then, and he hated it even more now. Why couldn't they have taught him how to talk to real, normal people instead?

Slowly, with his real arm, Yuu brought it up in front of him as his one hand curled into the Dog Seal. A small puff of smoke surrounded him and, once it dissipated, it revealed that Yuu had transformed into a younger version of himself. Younger Yuu had the standard white eyes of his clan and all four of his limbs. His skin was still pale, but it lacked the deathly quality that it had now. He looked... Happier as a kid. It was the only thing he could really visualize enough to transform into, so that's what he did.

He released the Transformation and it would become clearer just how different he looked now. Skinnier, limbs missing, glass eyes, matted hair. The Ex-Hyuuga remained emotionless, as he moved on to the next technique: the Clone jutsu. Again, with only one hand, Yuu performed the Ram seal. Instantly, two exact replicas appeared on either side of him facing in Lachesis' direction.

He let the clone technique cancel and tilted his head questioningly. Was that what she had wanted? It had just been a question of whether or not he could perform the techniques, not a demonstration. Oh no, had he just interrupted her by using all the techniques without her prompt?

WC: 547
TWC: 2485

If Yuu were a chuunin, she’d probably be a lot more critical of Yuu’s attempts.

As it was, however, he was still an academy student. Hm.

In a way though, she was curious- did he lose his eyes as well as his limbs, as opposed to being born without vision? Although his transformation seemed ‘Hyuuga esque’ in theory, she honestly wasn’t going to push unless outright told.

His transformations and clones had color and texture. If he were born blind, he’d have no frame of reference for the way light caught on folds of clothing, or the way the odd lighting of the room seemed to desaturate the things within. They’d look- empty. Sorta.

She hummed after a moment, not immediately replying to Yuu’s apparent distress. His limbs were a hindering factor, true- and to be perfectly honest, she wouldn’t trust the stranger’s well being to the current medical institutions in place. Kidney related trauma and all that. With genin pay, in theory he could afford better prosthetics- but would the mission desk really assign him to ‘safer’ missions with the current economic crises?

Bleh.

Either way, he was stagnating. Hm.

…

……

The academy teachers already hated her for the whole rogue Uchiha incident a few years ago. She wasn’t particularly invested in payback, but a little light trolling never hurt anyone.

Lachesis Onomori slid off her headband and tossed it to him after a moment, confident he’d catch it. (...Probably. He would, right?)

“Just take the damn thing. I’ll probably get your paperwork updated later tonight.” a pause. “Oh yeah, congrats on graduation. Not sure if the main office still offers stipends or whatever for rank up, but it possibly won’t hurt to ask.” note the use of ‘possibly’ and not ‘probably’.

She scratched her nose after a moment, utterly at a loss as to what to do with the weird child before her. He’d have better access to instructional resources in terms of jutsu, but she doubted they’d have much- or anything- in braille.

Teaching him to blow shit up this early would be irresponsible. But it was tempting.

“You have any affinities of note? I’d probably get keelhauled if I taught you anything too intensive this early, but I can at the very least make your life easier in case you run into trouble on missions.” or if he knowingly got assigned something above his capabilities.

[WC: 400]
[Total WC: 1,750]