Catching Up

It was quite the nice feeling of being able to spend time with you family whether it be at home or on missions. Being a family of Shinobi really meant you could end up constantly around your siblings, which was slowly becoming the case for Shin Uchiha. Shin’s older siblings had taken a back seat on the whole being an active shinobi in pursuit of their own dreams and goals only recently seeming to come back into this line of work.
 
First it was Echo Shin’s older sister who came back from studying about medical jutsu and that line of chakra usage and knowledge which was still very foreign to Shin as he was only use to interacting with Ninjutsu and his family’s Genjutsu which just about every Uchiha has dabbled in at some point in their lives. They had done a few missions together just some basic ones that got their feet wet in the world of being a shinobi but if they wanted to grow more and rise through the ranks they would need to continue to do more and more missions building a name for themselves.
 
Today though Shin had heard that his older brother had returned from some of his own training. From what Shin could remember his older Yuuki had decided to train with weapons and the like being the fastest of the siblings. Funny enough it seemed almost like each sibling excelled in a different aspect, Echo had excellent chakra control, Yuuki was quick and nimble and Shin himself had always been fairly resilient. With his older brother’s return Shin was looking for him to catch up with him and share some new stories about their short time apart. See what they had planned for the future and just spend time together. Sometimes life wasn’t about constantly working and taking some time off to enjoy themselves and relax.
 
Searching around the house Shin couldn’t find his brother but he could hear something going on outside it sounded like someone was using the training posts outside. “Ah that must be Yuuki, no one in the house is up this early to train besides well me.” Shin muttered to no one in particular and followed the sounds of wood against wood. He would find his older brother outside in the family’s small training area which was simple a small area of the property that had a few wooden posts buried into the ground with some having light wrappings on them but it wasn’t anything special. A pretty typical thing to see at a shinobi’s household. Shin would wait by the house till his brother noticed him as he didn’t want to disturb the other’s focus and training.
 
WC: 451

The morning sun's rays ruthlessly burned away at the Uchiha's upper body, the myriad of pearls of sweat glistened and reflected the light that fell onto them. "Seven, eight.", rhythmically counting each of his movements, Yuuki was desperate to increase the already quite respectable speed of his strikes. "Nine, ten." His mind was blank, each muscle tensed and relaxed almost instinctively. There, an imaginary attack had to be dodged, "Fourteen, fifteen." Quickly darting in between the wooden posts his father had erected for the aspiring swordsman years ago, he pretended to fend off multiple enemies at once.

If they wanted to keep up with their younger brother, frankly the most talented one of the bunch, his elder sister Echo and him would have to really get their act together and return their undivided attention to bettering themselves in their 'arts of the shinobi'. "Twenty-five, twenty-six.", swiftly jolting to get in range to hit a third of the training dummies, the wooden sword Yuuki held in hand noisily collided with the cloth wrapped around his target in order to muffle at least a portion of the sound.

His hands were already covered in blisters from the absurd amount of work he had put into improving his swordplay over the past few weeks, even more so now that he knew he would rejoin the shinobi ranks of Tanbo in an attempt to aid his siblings. "Thirty-nine, forty." What little protection the bandages provided for the aforementioned wounds on Yuuki's hands, was nullified each time his sword hit the posts, a stinging pain rushing through his hands on every successful strike. It was a pain he had to endure though, pushing forward was the only option.

The aspiring shinobi did notice Shin approaching, a slight disturbance in the flow of his constant movement was a telltale sign of that, but tried not to let his brother's presence confuse him too much. "Forty-six, forty-seven." Fifty strikes and fifty dodges were to be the minimum of each training session, for increasing both the force and swiftness he could hit and run with was his main focus. "Forty-nine." So far he had kept his brother out of his line of sight, his back turned towards him. A barely visible sparkle whizzed in his eyes as he expertly jumped around the post closest to Shin, facing his brother with a grin and kicking one of the smaller stones scattered throughout the training grounds at his brother.

"Fifty.", he uttered, his deep voice a bit shaky as the Uchiha still breathed heavily. Surely Shin would be able to divert the flying pebble's direction or otherwise fend off the projectile, Yuuki just liked to tease his smaller brother. He remained still for a second, a deep and long breath and slight shake of the body relieved some of the pent-up tension from trying to punish whatever imaginary bad those posts had done. Yuuki leaned the sword onto one of them, grabbed his shirt from another and scurried over to Shin's position, clumsily taking on the simple black shirt with their family's crest embroidered onto the back.

"Come here, little one. Your day off, huh?", he greeted the youngest but tallest man in the family and spread his arms for a hug. While Yuuki wasn't necessarily the buddy-type with most people, he could muster up enough affection for a gesture like that with his siblings. Especially with Shin, for the two of them got along very well. Both of them had a knack for fighting and training their respective fortés, with his talented brother showing promise in the clan's signature specializations of Nin- and Genjutsu. Yuuki did not show any kind of progress in those aspects of a shinobi's life at all, but excelled in others. Nonetheless, the two of them had a mutual understanding of each other, the kind of inert connectection only siblings growing up together could have.

"How did those pesky missions with our dearest elder sister go?", he ironically continued the conversation after the frankly quite awkward and probably terribly smelly hug. "I should shower..", the sword-wielding Uchiha internally took a note for himself and promptly let himself fall to a sitting position, his gaze wandering across the family's training grounds. "Was our doc annoying?", he further inquired with a wide grin and leaned back into a more comfortable position.

---

WC: 724
TWC: 724

Watching people train always got Shin excited, it made his skin itch and his muscles ache to move and join in. From a young age something about doing physical work, labor, exercise just anything that got Shin up and moving really made his heart pump and blood boil. He wasn’t a some battle junkie or anything of that sort but he did love the exchange of blows with someone, it was like showing that he was alive and here when you connected a practiced strike or successfully casted a jutsu you had been training.
 
Shin could almost see what his brother was visualizing while he swung his wooden sword against the imaginary enemies and dodged their strikes. There was something that only those who gave their all to training could understand from one another. A smile found itself on Shin’s face as just at the end of his brother’s training the older Uchiha seemed to have noticed Shin’s presence there. “Glad to see you aren’t getting rusty in your old age.” Shin would say aloud as he watched his brother kick a small pebble at him it whizzed towards Shin’s face and the younger Uchiha simply leaned out of the way as it passed harmlessly by Shin and hit the wall of the house behind him.

“Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from all this Shinobi work ya know?” Shin said in response to his brother as he went in for the hug, bear hugging his older brother as was normal for siblings that were close. “Gosh brother it seems you still haven’t hit your growth spurt yet.” Shin teased Yuuki as was typical between them.
 
“Oh those missions weren’t to bad, Just the typical dealing with our older sis.” Shin laughed thinking back to their small run of missions, Echo had taken care of the more less physically demanding aspects of the missions but that was normal overall. “She shined bright in her element.” He finished as they had needed to finish a report for a mission which Echo had taken care of quite well.
 
“So what has the oldest son of the famous Uchiha clan been up too?” Shin said joining his brother on the ground enjoying the weather and company. “I hear you plan on joining us as Shinobi’s of Tanbo, Should I be ready to drag more of us on missions?” Shin asked as he was quite happy that his siblings were taking more interest in being Shinobi of this village and joining him on various missions. There was something about being able to work with family in possible life and death situations that made you really enjoy the quiet moments.
 
WC: 446
TWC: 897

"Damn..", Yuuki lamented his brother easily dodging the pebble with a simple tilt of his head, disappointment visibly showing on his face. "The little runt." While he surely wouldn't show any signs of it in the company of Shin, the elder brother felt a tiny bit of a sting when overthinking that the younger had so quickly passed him in terms of overall strength. Granted, Yuuki would still be moving faster, but Shin advanced more quickly. To lightly rebuttal his brother's ironic comment on his age, a witty statement simply had to follow: "The genius of the family, bothering to honor my lowly self with his presence.", the corresponding sarcastic undertone clearly audible.

"Sure is.", Yuuki agreed with Shin saying a break from shinobi work couldn't hurt, his face turned to the side as the taller one pressed him to his chest. The sword-wielding Uchiha had greatly enjoyed straying from said type of work and turning to the more mundane task of working the rice fields, there were less pressure and way less adrenaline involved, and even lesser concentration required, with the latter being the most notable advantage in Yuuki's eyes.

His sibling teased the elder brother for his lack in height, as literally all of them did regularly, and more than definitely knew he'd sucessfully strike a nerve with that tease. Yuuki let out a low growl, his deep voice rumbling accordingly, and forcefully freed himself from the lanky Shin's grip. "Meh, at least I'm not as dumb as I am tall.", he bickered back with a smile on his face and slight chuckle. For the most part, the two of them were on the same wavelength and knew, that neither would take the other's comment to heart, be petty about it or even develop some sort of vindictiveness.

"He's right about that.", Yuuki internally agreed with Shin on the topic of their older sister, he knew exactly what Shin meant when he referred to the 'typical dealings' that involved Echo. "She can be a handful sometimes.", would provide enough of an answer for his brother, the light shudder that creeped along his spine complimenting the phrase. In remembering the dreadful, endless rows of shelves, filled to the absolute brim with long-winded scrolls about someone's past and another one's future, a low disgusted noise let itself out of the Uchiha's body.

With a poignant raise of his eyebrow, he turned to Shin in order to further the short and loving gossip on their sister's 'element': "On that note, she dragged me to the library the other day.." But he would allow his words to trail from there. Knowing that neither of the two young men sitting on the ground of their family's garden was anywhere near the level of bookworm-ity their sister had reached, Shin would surely understand what kind of suffering his brother had to endure in order to satisfy Echo's needs.

They had been looking into the Uchiha clan's past a bit, in hopes of shedding light on the mysteries beneath the thick cloak of secrecy billowing above. "We were looking into Uchiha and Sharingan stuff..", Yuuki added with a shrug and let his gaze stray again, as he surely didn't recall much of what they had found. The eldest two were kind of desperate to somehow find out how to tap into their latent potential, seeing as they hoped to be able to provide some support for Shin and Ame. The former of which had actually already managed to awaken the fabled dormant eyes of their bloodline somehow, and he really itched to know how but hesitated to ask. Yuuki didn't like that kind of conversation, a personal talk was one of the few instances, in which the usually honest and blunt Uchiha behaved.. differently than normal.

As to what Yuuki had been up to, there wasn't much to tell his brother. "Well, other than that..", he initiated in reference to their visit to the burning depths of hell, pointing to the wooden training posts thereafter. "I have mostly been here. Or helping on the fields, 'cause some drunk didn't show up." Eliciting a barely audible hiss from the swordsman, a sharp pain emanated from his hand and rushed up his arm as he tried to prop up on his hands.

"Ouch.", he commented to downplay the pain and started removing the bandage in a twirling motion, just to reveal the inside of his hands covered in bloody blisters. Ironically smiling at Shin, he added: "No missions in the near future, that much is for sure." His younger brother would surely understand, in fact Yuuki was itching to go on missions. He was utterly broke, apart from what little money their parents still gracefully provided for the now work-less man, and in desperate need of an actual sword. Given he had mostly trained with a wooden sword rather than a kunai, his handling of the latter was rather.. lacking.

But not just that, he had the feeling something within him urged him to tag along with his training-obsessed brother, an inkling of ecxitement for the potential fights ensuing. Once they rose through the ranks and some of the more dangerous and conflict-oriented missions would replace the dull and easy ones, he'd need to protect his siblings. All of them. A small sliver of blood slowly creeped it's way down the side of the fist he had subconsciously clenched, an eerie glance darkening his eyes, and he didn't quite notice the growing pain for a while.

---

WC: 918
TWC: 1.642

Shin laughed at his brother’s tease of being the Genius of the family considering the only thing that Shin was good at was training and he did only that in whatever free time he had beyond shinobi work and household things. “Come now brother me? A genius? That would have to be our youngest sibling Ame.” Shin would point out as she had graduated at a young age and was already at the same rank as the rest of her siblings. If he had progressed this fast due to his passion for training and learning more about ninjutsu and shinobi work Shin wondered just how fast their younger sister would progress once she got up and going.
 
Shin pushed that aside as his older brother teased him once more about his height and intelligence, “Oh you hurt my heart brother first I’m a genius and now I’m dumb as I am tall. It seems the gods have forsaken me.” Shin played along with the tease, having heard these things from is siblings multiple times over the years. It was one of those things you learn to live with when you grow taller then your family members, always with the quips about weather and such.
 
“Oh I’m sorry for your health.” Shin said when Yuuki spoke on how their older sister took him into the library to do some oh so wonderful studying and research. Shin avoided that section of the house and the library in the village whenever he could as he felt that if he got to close then Echo would appear from thin air and make him study more about some obscure fact or discipline. Though there were times that Shin did his own research but it tended to be about future missions or fighting styles or different jutsus and such. Things that only really pertained to his love of training and fighting.
 
“Ah yes our clan’s mythical and powerful dojutsu the Sharigan.” Shin laughed as the information that you could gain on the clan’s greatest weapon was kept under wraps unless you were able to prove your strength within the clan which pertained even for their family who had left where the main portion of the clan resided. Shin’s thirst for training and strength came from wanting to rise in the clan, it was why he spent so much time learning how to use all these Fire also known as Katon jutsus. He wanted to know more about these eyes of theirs, after all they were suppose to hold immense power and ability with Genjutsu to the point that it made the clan famous and people would even avoid a Uchiha’s eyes because of it.
 
“I still don’t understand why I awoken mine.” Shin said absent mindedly as he remembered back when it had happened, Shin had simply been taking part in a fishing tournament and near the end of it his eyes became painful and itchy as if something had gotten into them like dust or sand. Once the pain had gone away he noticed he was able to catch the slightest detail in how things moved and acted, it took some time to get use to. Though now he had awakened his second Tomoe of the Sharigan which enhanced his vision that much more, now he could mimic people’s motions though just basic motions like copying people’s mannerisms or lip reading. It was quite the surprise but he continued to improve his understanding of his Sharigan as he used it when possible but within the clan’s rules of never showing them to outsiders when possible and definitely not to another member of the Uchiha family as it was said that meant you were challenging them to a battle to the death. Which would be a waste of time to do within his own family. Sure his siblings got on his nerves but not enough to actually think of killing them.
 
“I was fishing if you could believe it. I guess I was simply so focused and straining my eyes to notice how the fish were moving that it caused it to awaken.” Shin laughed at how ridiculous that sounded out loud. “I bet you guys will awaken your own sharigans shortly." Shin didn’t see him as some prodigy or genius in anything he did so he had no doubt that his siblings would easily awaken their own dojutsu once they had put some effort into doing so.
 
Listening to his brother talk about what he had been up to and what he had planned for the future, Shin was looking forward to being able to work with his brother, though he did wince when he saw the blisters and sores on Yuuki’s hands from all the training he had been doing. “Yeah we will need to do some easy ones till you get all healed up there.” Shin mentioned as he watched his brother kind of go into a trance probably thinking about how he needed to protect his family again. Yuuki had always been overly protective of the family which made since being the Eldest son of the family. “Don’t worry brother. We will all get strong together, we need to protect each other after all.” Shin said as he looked up at the blue sky.
 
WC: 882
TWC: 1779

The Uchiha chuckled along with his brother, who was definitely correct in musing their little sister the most prodigial child of the family, Ame had proven exceptional at the academy after all. "You're right on that." She would surely surpass all her elder siblings, what was it with the youngest children seemingly always rising through the ranks as though it was nothing to them? "We'll have to wait and see.. Long term, we'll be answering her commands.", Yuuki scuffingly remarked and while he sported an ironic undertone, he was speaking his honest thoughts on the matter. Another scuff, an amused one this time around, ensued after Shin's rebuttal of the height-intelligence hybrid-tease. "Ah, I'm sorry brother.", he sarcastically apologized and bumped his shoulder into him. "I really struck a nerve there, I can tell." The familial bickering was a normal part of the brothers' daily conversations, and had been for a couple years already.

"She really did a number on me with that..", the Uchiha further mused on the topic of his venture to the village library. "Lasting brain damage, for sure." He could still virtually see the scrolls and booklets twirling in front of his inner eyes, the many, many signs and letters shouting at him, whispering atrocities and, dear god, numbers. "Uah..", he let out a shivering sigh, in another desperate attempt to rid himself of the images haunting his mind. Yuuki really wasn't one to enjoy those.. things. Maths was another one of those.. things his mind just refused to allow even the tiniest bit of information of to stick.

The elder knew of the younger's ambition to better himself at fighting and rise through the ranks of both their village and the Uchiha clan itself, but he was still not privy to the reasoning behind that. At some point, he would be sure to pester his younger brother into revealing his motivation for his strive for greatness, there had to be something there. For now though, the frugal Yuuki refused to spend his time thinking on such matters, Echo would be much more suited for contemplating those types of 'elder-sibling-duties'.

Well, since Shin knew his brother very well, he immediately picked up on the implicit question Yuuki had posed in telling him about the Sharingan's mysteries being the main reason for their venture to the library. While the Uchiha usually was very blunt and direct in his communication, especially with foreigners or anyone other than his closest relatives for that matter, when it came to personal, private or delicate matters, he had a tad bit of trouble with articulating himself. Shin more than likely knew of that quirky attitude and reacted accordingly, simply giving his brother what little information on the Sharingan he had procured himself.

"Fishing? Really?", Yuuki couldn't help but wonderingly spurt that question with an utterly confused and inquisitive look on his face as he turned to the laughing Shin. "He must've really wanted to catch a big one huh.." Granted, his younger brother was a much more emotional and hot-headed man than he himself was, Shin was easily enticed by a challenge and always strove to be the very best at any task that threw itself at him. Yuuki let out a slight sigh of resignation and leaned back to lie down on the wooden patio the sat upon. In response to his brother picking up on the apparent desparation Yuuki wanted to awaken his latent powers with, he merely agreed with his statement about Echo and him: "I guess you're right then."

Shin slightly winced at the sight of his brother's trodden hands, elicitng a slight smurk in return. "Don't pretend you haven't pushed yourself beyond reason, tall-dumb genius.", Yuuki pushed the earlier statement a little further. Given his fire affinity, the lanky one of the two had put a great deal of his training to the use of ninjutsu and their clan's fabled Katon techniques, so his hands might've been spared so far. But his chakra reserves would surely have suffered from the self-imposed training he had endured. "Gotta show me some of those fireballs some time, brother.", he noted as he groaningly lifted himself back up to a sitting position, his sore body aching in pain from the morning training routine.

Of course, the younger sibling also noticed Yuuki's moment of absent-mindedness and eerie focus, promptly trying to ease the elder brother's obviously strained and tensed mental. And successfully at that, the sword-wielding Uchiha awoke from his weird state of mind, poignantly smiling at Shin: "Protecting eachother, huh?" An image of their father zapped past his inner eye. "Sure sounds like a dream.", he noted more to himself than his brother and fell back to the lying position from before, yet another one of the resignated sighs leaving his body. Both of the elder siblings had an obvious motivation to assist the younger ones in their endeavors, which would most likely prove enough of an incentive for their dojutsu to awaken some time, would it not? "Without those eyes, we won't be getting far.", Yuuki mused into the blue as he watched the twirling clouds rush across the endless sky. The four of them would have to actually devote some effort to gathering information about the possibilities of their clan's rumored signature ability.

Closing one of his eyes and turning his head to Shin, Yuuki, finally back to his normal self, grinned at his brother and asked with a sarcastic tone of voice: "Mind showing me a fireball or something? Right now?" A low giggle ensued right after he finished the sentence. "Come on, for big bro's fun. You got to watch me fight some wooden sticks, let me see you burn them."

---

WC: 954
TWC: 2.596

“Yeah really. The more I hear it out loud the more dumb it sounds.” Shin laughed over the thought of letting anyone else know how he awakened his Sharingan. “I think it was simply the stress and strain and focus on what I was doing that caused it to happen, so I’m sure if you continue doing your training as normal it will come naturally.” Shin pointed out, he wasn’t sure what the exact things that needed to happen for his clan to awaken their Dojutsu but he could only relate it to what he was doing at that time.
 
“Oh I got some perfect ones to show you in that department.” Shin responded to his older brother’s request to show him some Fireballs. Shin had spent a great amount of his training to learn as many Fire release Jutsus that his clan were suppose to excel in. Just another thing that he had spent time on to further his own standing within the clan. Shin would stand up and move away from his brother facing towards the wooden posts, “The best part about Dreams is that with enough effort they can be made real.” Shin would say as his eyes turned from their normal dark color to a bright red with the 3-tomoe present showing that he had in fact awaken his Sharingan fully. Normally Shin would never show his Sharingan to another Clan member as it can be taken as a challenge but he knew his brother wouldn’t take offense. Smiling he turned back to the posts and began to weave the hand seals needed to activate his jutsu Fire Release: Searing Migraine, Rat-Dog-Tiger-Rat finishing off the needed hand seals shooting a small 2 feet wide fireball that easily traveled the 30 meters between Shin and the posts. The fireball slammed into the post and erupted into a 20 meter diameter decimating the posts that had been the target.
 
“Someday we will all be able to do things like this, no one will be able to harm us or take anything from us.” Shin said aloud as he watched the fires die down smoldering into ash and embers, deactivating his Sharingan as he turned back to his older brother. “Now shall we get out of here before our dear sister comes and yells for the destruction of the training yard?” Shin said as he quickly left the area hoping his brother followed suit laughing as he ran.

Approved

"It really does sound dumb, no offense little one.", Yuuki mused in response to his brother acknowledging the weird circumstances he awakened his Sharingan under. Shin apparently assumed stress and focus, drive so to say, to be the main reason his dojutsu had shown itself during a fishing tournament of all places, which quite frankly didn't make sense to the sword-wielding Uchiha at all. "I'm definitely joining the next fishing tournament, that much is for sure..", the elder brother chimed in on his younger sibling's light-hearted approach to this entire discussion, a sarcastic glance accompanying his words. In reality of course, joining the fishing tournament wouldn't have yielded the same results for Yuuki, since what Shin had said about stress, concentration and in turn drive was most likely true, and if that was really the case, the elder of the two could never achieve such results in a boring sporting tournament of all situations.

Yuuki didn't have to say much to get his brother to show him a jutsu, almost as though he had already been waiting for someone from the family to finally request such a demonstration, and immediately got up declaring he'd have the perfect technique trained for this occasion. With a low scuff at the eagerness Shin portrayed at that moment, "The little shit has really passed us, Echo.", the Uchiha still stretched out on the floor propped himself up on his ellbows to get a better view of the training area and the Shinobi in preparation.

Said Shinobi once again turned around to Yuuki, a reassuring smile on his face, and spurted what could only be described as a wise statement, momentuously activating his Sharingan at the same time. The elder brother raised his eyebrows in awe as Shin's eyes turned from a dark color to a bright, glaring red in a spinning motion, three tomoe forming in a fluent twirl. "Whoa, isn't that..", the one taught by his younger brother correctly divined said eyes to be the full manifestation of the Sharingan. Excitement showed itself on the young man's face as he sat up completely in anticipation of the show, his mind still occupied with Shin's statement on dreams possibly turning to reality. "This guy.."

Yuuki was about to once again shoot some internal insults and lamentations at his vis-a-vis, but was halted in those thoughts by his brother's expertly woven handseals. Almost rhythmically in a way, the necessary handseals were completed in a flash, a small but obviously forceful fireball spurting from Shin's position and effortlessly flying through the air towards the wooden posts. "That's not that impr..", the elder brother initiated a derogatory internal comment on the size of said twisting and twirling circle of flames, but found himself flabbergasted a split second later. Upon colliding with the wooden training dummies, a slight shockwave emanating from the force of expansion hit Yuuki, as what had started as a two feet wide ball was forcefully enlarged and incinerated a twenty diameter circle right in the middle of the family's training grounds.

The older Uchiha had definitely not expected Shin to use such a powerful jutsu, he decimated almost all of the aforementioned training posts in a flash, with small flickering flames and the heat still lingering here and there. Yuuki couldn't help but stare at whom he used to still deem his little helpless brother with perplexion and awe plastered all over his visage, of course he didn't hear a single word said brother directed at him. Apparently, the make-shift rice farmer would have to change the outlook he had on the members of his family, as comparatively speaking, Shin had obviously become an actual force to be reckoned with. That jutsu wasn't a mere fireball, from the range of the technique to it's firepower, this was a higher ranked technique than anything Shin had shown or learned before. "What the.."

As Shin turned back to him and requested the two of them to quickly flee, more than a given considering the fact that the younger of the two had just completely destroyed their family's training area, Yuuki awoke from comateuse state of mind. "What the hell did you do?", still utterly confused about his brother's strength, Yuuki managed to get back up on his feet and swiftly followed the laughing Shin with a glance over his shoulder. The last of the little embers left from the big eruption faded into ash as the elder brother scuffed once more and joined in on the chuckling escape, a newfound respect growing within.

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WC: 757
TWC: 3.353

Approved