Engaging with the Festival of Sound! [ Hanzo ]

[ Festival Season: Set Up Shop ]
[ Festival of Sound: Log Rolling ]
[ Festival of Sound: High Striker ]
[ Festival of Sound: Whack-a-Mole ]
[ Festival of Sound: Ball Toss ]

[ Total WC Required: 2500 (500 x 5) ]

[ Part 1 ][ Festival Season: Set Up Shop ]

Chihiro startledly rolled out of her bed to the sound of her damned alarm-clock. Wait, wasn't it a weekend? Why was her alarm going off at this hour? OH! That's right! Today is the Festival of Sound!

After a few moments of laziness, Chihiro sat up on the wooden floor of her small house, rubbing the back of her head and yawning as the alarm still screamed at her. Eventually, the sound annoyed her enough to get up and turn the damn thing off. Jeez! Why was that thing ringing again? Oh yeah! The Festival!

Overcome by the surge of energy of all the fun activities, games, foods, art, music, and prizes, she would get dressed with great enrgy and enthusiasm, pulling her hair into a spiky ponytail with her bangs hanging out. The best part? She knew nobody, and she didn't have to! Most of her 'peers' would be with their parents, and the kids her age hung out in cliques and large groups, easy enough for her to spot and avoid. And the adults wouldn't even be bothered by her!

The girl smiled to herself, excited to get the day going and have a little bit of fun on her own!

Chihiro gave herself one last lookover in the mirror, sprayed a fresh-scented perfume with bergamont and cypress to give an almost 'Spring rain shower' scent to herself, and left her house, making sure to lock up the door, shoving her key in her back pocket of her jean shorts.

As she approached the Ampitheatre, excited to help the vendors set up their stalls, she noticed a smell in the air lingering from one of the food stands. It made her mouth water and her stomach growl as the anticipation of food hit her hard. She skipped breakfast to make it on time for her mission, so knowing there was delicious food nearby sank her stomach. She made a mental note to visit that stall when the festivities commenced.

Each one of her peers had been assigned a stall to help set up, while Chihiro, being the oldest and most capable, was given three. Everyone was expected to work individually, utilizing the ninja skills they had been taught, but were also encouraged to ask for help should they need it. Pffft. Yeah right, as if Chihiro was going to ask for help. She was determined to do it on her own!

Until... her stomach growled and her stomach panged with hunger.

Still, she pressed on, building the first stall, a fried food stand, setting up the canopy and running extension cords for electricity to run the deep-friers. Who doesn't love deep fried food? A loser, that's who!

Eventually, Chihiro got everything working and the displays of food, the fried chicken carosel, popcorn machine, hotdog rollers, were all good to go. It had only been a couple hours. Some of her peers were done with their stalls, but most were still struggling. None approached her for help, though, and instead attempted to get clones to help. Little did they know that it wouldn't work as the clones were non-corporeal. This meant they were simple projections of oneself; Mirror Images. They couldn't interact with anything real as they would just phase through it.

Well, at least they tried to work smarter and not harder. On to the next!

The next stand was all about selling candles and other smell-good things, like perfumes, mists, incense, and oils. That setup was also a piece of cake! and look! They sold Chihiro's scent she was wearing today! One of the ladies that vended these products noticed and  complimented her on the scent. This setup took merely an hour. There was still plenty more to do and her peers were all nearly finished.

Onto the next!

The last stand was super easy to set up as it wasn't really a stand, it was more so, just set up help.  Chihiro sat in the grass with the vendor around a plastic child's pool. He happened to be a ninja too, and water poured out of his mouth wih a jutsu to fill it a little more than halfway. Chihiro would be taking a permanent marker and marking the bottoms of identical rubber duckies one through nine. There was 33 sets. Three total ducks out of the three hundred that they ended up counting out had a little X on them instead, as there was three left over after marking the ducks one through nine. The X meant it was a grand prize! Each duck was placed into the pool as it was marked. After, there were 9 tubs stacked under the prize tables that were covered with white tablecloths and wrighted down with beautiful decorations from the next stall over of fishbowls with whistle-fish, one per bowl. A whistlefish is a toy fish that you wind up the tail and it swims and emits a tune if you place chakra onto it while it unwinds and swims.

The next stall over was a "get the ping pong ball into the fishbowl" game and costed more than the ducky game, but the stalls were owned by siblings, so they would hand out fishies as a grand prize at this booth. People had a 1% shot to get it and the pool has a little motor in it to create water movement and the ducks to move around the pool in a clockwise circle. The other 1-9 had different prizes from cheap mini-ukileles to kazoos, harmonicas, mini drums, and singing bowls. Almost everythig was music or sound related. She had also unpackaged all the plastic from the items and  threw the plastic in the giant barrel trashcans they had out.

After the canopy was set up, Chihiro wiped the sweat from her forehead. It wasn't very hard but it was starting to warm up from the cool morning. It would start to cool starting in about four hours, as it was now about one o'clock pm.

Chihiro was excited to go open the arena and let the guests and participants in as she took one last lookover to make sure all the stalls were set up well and that nobody needed any last minute help. Yep! Everything was good!

Chihiro removed the rope crossing off her entrance right as the clock ticked 1, and people waddled their way in, paying admission witht the person on admissions duty and gaining teal-colored bracelets. She obtained one too, however admissions were free for genin level and up, as well as volunteers.

Most of the Adults seemed cheerful and ready to consume copius amounts of alcohol. There was even a station that was for beer and wine tasting. The lone children roaming were pointing and looking at things in awe, though most of the children stuck with their families. She greeted people coming in for an hour before taking a break and heading home to change clothes. Her volunteer time was done. She was so excited to go shopping. She had plans to meet up with Hanzo at the Ampitheater at three anyway, so she had plenty of time to mess around with how she wanted her hair to look.

She was so happy that Hanzo had agreed to come so she wouldn't have to be alone this year. It seemed as if everyone had someone to hang out with, even the adults at the bar. Perhaps some good could come out of having a buddy this year, especally one so formidable in battle. And maybe, just maybe, she could show off some newfound skills and jutsu to him throughout the evening. Most of all, she just wanted to relax and have fun, especially with the genin exams coming up. She had nearly stressed herself into a headache earlier with all the jutsu practicing she had been doing. Now, maybe she could take a load off.

After finally getting ready with her hair up, she would walk back to the Ampitheater and wait by the doors for her friend to join up.

Whe she'd see him, she'd call out to him, "Hanzo!" waving high above her head so that he would see her. She'd then, timidly, make her way through the crowds of people to him and stand beside him.

After talking about how volunteering went and how excited she was for the different booths, she would suddenly have an idea. "Hey, why don't we participate in some of the competitions?" she asked innocently. "It'd probably be best that we don't compete at the same time. That way you can keep an eye on me and corect my mistakes by going after as an example... almost like a way to check my work!" She would say. "I mean, it's not illegal to use jutsu, right?"

She would then bounce a little getting excited to try the different games. "There's fou main ones, but also other small ones we can do in between the wait times for the main four." Chihiro would then look around to make sure to point to the correct one as she spoke. "There's Log-rolling, Strength Test, Whack a Mole, and Ball Toss" she said. "In Jutsu Math, we learned about the way that jutsu are measured based on 4 factors. There's Chakra Strength, Stamina, Physical Prowess, and Speed. If I am correct, each game uses a different factor. If you meet a certain threshold, which is unknown to us, we get a prize, or a commendation, or perhaps a coupon in some cases, either for food or for material items."

The way Chihiro spoke was so matter-of-fact. Little did Hanzo know, she had been to the festival many times. When she was younger, she would watch it from afar, not being able to afford entry, but once in the academy she would hang out on the edges watching, being much to young to participate. She still didnt eat there or do much at the festivals. Once able to participate at 12, she struggled to even want to participate due to people picking on her and shunning her for not passing the genin exam and so she hid those years as well. But this year, she was confident that with Hanzo by her side, nobody would mess with her!

[ WC: 1723 ]
[ TWC: 1723 ]

After a long training session with Chihiro, he was invited by her to the festival of the sound village, celebrating the village as a whole. He wore his usual black clothing attire without any weapons as it was a day of celebration, not a guard duty of any kind. He just wanted to chill with the girl and see how she's been doing since the training.

As the Uchiha was walking around the multiple stalls that was buzzing with customers and noise, he heard a familiar voice calling out his name. When he turned to look, it was Chihiro, "Hey! Glad to see you having fun finally" he laughed as she walked towards him amidst the crowd. She then spoke about her volunteering experience, "That's great, looks like you are pretty outspoken and getting around people easily" he said as he moved people away so they would bang into her while walking.

"A competition ... seems about right. Let's see how much you have learnt from me, hopefully I am a good teacher" he laughed. As she spoke about the different games and the mechanics behind them, he was truly impressed. "Wow, looks like someone knows their stuff, since we are going for the Log Rolling, remember any technique that I taught you that might be helpful with this game ?" he smirked as he walked into the store. Stall owners immediately knew that it was Hanzo of the Black Flames, a nickname given to him by the villagers as he was profound in using his Amaterasu, a special type of dark flame technique that incinerates anything touched by it and can't be extinguished by any normal means.

The owners would greet him with a polite bow, even though he hadn't become a Chunin and immediately make way for both of them, since Chihiro was his plus one. The Uchiha would then activate the Surface Walking Technique and step onto the Log, rolling it carefully and without breaking a single sweat he would step back down. "Your turn, lets see how well you do" Hanzo said while folding his arms, wanting to watch his student. In the case that she might accidentally fall into the water below, he would perform the Ram hand sign and use the Body Flicker Technique to catch her, before she reaches the water, preventing her from getting wet.

Battle Info:

[ The Festival Of Sound: Log Rolling ]

Log rolling up first!

Hanzo was up against two formidable looking men, one almost completely covered from head to toe in ninja bandages, and another lean man with dark eyes and spiky hair with face piercings. They both looked confident in their abilities. Yet Hanzo managed to stay on the log as it increased in speed and started slanting back and forth, almost like a lumberjack's version of bull-riding. Wow, they really went all out this year.

"You've got this Hanzo!" She would call out, knowing full well he would dominate the challenge.

Once the logs started slanting and moving up and down,  the two opponents fell off into the water, one by one...

This left Hanzo as the victor of the challenge. The venor bowed to him and handed him a slip of paper that would be good for a hotdog, brat, or hamburger; a deep-fried food or popcorn; and medium soft drink of his choice from the stand Chihiro passed during her help of setting up.

As Hanzo passed her, climbing down from the log rolling mechanism's stage, she would grin widely at him, offering a high-five and congratulations.

Then, she noticed everyone was waiting on her to step up as the next contestant, along with the two people behind her.

As Chihiro was called up for the next round of log rolling, she began to regret her descision. If she would get wet it would ruin the rest of her day and her evening. Nobody likes to walk around in wet clothes, and she sure as shoot wouldn't go home to change, or risk walking around in the nude. Looks like it's time to put her lessons with Hanzo to the test! Would she be able to use surface walking effectively to stay on the log?

As she crawled up onto the log, she became very nervous. At least the water was  shallow enough she'd be able to stand in it, but deep enough she wouldnt get hurt falling into it. But still, she didnt know how to swim and loathed being in the water.

Chihiro was up against a Hippo of a man, with four flat tusk-like teeth and a large body with tiny ears and facial features, and an 8-year old nimble protege from the academy, skinny as ever, and hyper. "Okay Chihiro, you got this" she would say to herself, already feeling shaky.

"Go!"

The logs started to roll on their own as Chihiro used Surface Walking to stay on. The Large man used no jutdsu to her knowledge, however the child used a jutsu as well.

Once the logs started slanting and moving, after about 30 seconds, the kid was dumped into the water, having a huge, almost theatrical, reaction to falling off, making a spectacle of the scene. It was a huge distraction to Chihiro's focus as he whined and complained how it wasn't fair and that his log moved more than his opponents'.

Aventually after 30 more seconds, the logs began to move up and down as well as tilt, in which the hippo man looked like he was really struggling to continue, putting sole attention on his footwork.

Chihiro was strugling too, however the man, much more so, until suddenly he misplaced his foot and also ended up in the water.

The logs slowed to a Stop and Chihiro made her way, dizzily off the logs. She was so used to them moving by now that the absence of movement made hera little shaky on her feet, however she made it off safely. She bowed respectfully to the vendor and also recieved a coupon for the same choices and to the same place as hanzo. She tucked it in her pocket as she climbed down off the stage and met up with her friend, who hadn't broken a sweat earlier. She has a couple of beads on her forehead, and perhaps her armpits were sligtly, but unnoticably damp, but she had done it.

"I hope the genin exam will be that easy" She joked, laughing and slowly returning to her cheerful self as her slight tiredness transmuted itself into excitement for the next task.

[ The Festival Of Sound: High Striker ]

As they left the small stage set up for lol rolling, she would pull out her coupon and read it carefully. "YOu have the same, right?" she would ask, "Perhaps after this next one we should take a quick break for supper?" She asked as the pair approached the short line for the 'High striker' test, otherwise known as the strength test. She wasn't hungry yet, but she didn't want to save the eating as the last thing they did.

She was going to be up first at the large metal mechanism with the bell at the top. She was handed a heavy iron sledgehammer, though she was told she could use any blunt object she had, so long as it was used in a way as to not destroy the machine.

As Chihiro approached, she thought of which type of swing would be best for hitting the ramp that would, in turn, send a ball on a track up to the bell. If the bell dinged, she would win her choice from 10 types of stuffed animals ranging in size from a medium dog to a grapefruit.

Little did she know these stuffe animals were of the 10 loudest animals that have been discovered, The sperm whale (bigget stuffed animal), the pistol shrimp, the bulldog bat, the cicada, the kakapo parrot, the howler monkey, the elephant, the wolf, the hyena, and the lion.

Chihiro finally decided on an overhand swing and BAM!

She missed the platform.

"Oops" she would say as people began to laugh. Again, she hoisted the sledgehammer above her head and thins time she struck the plate and the pall hit the bell in less than a second, silencing those that had laughed at her.

And she chose the Kakapo Parrot plushie. This one was the size of an adolescent cat, the stage between smol kitten and big chonker. and it was a kiwi-green, but styled to look more like a giant budgirigar, rather than looking like a macaw. It was coered in black dots and had a slightly goofy face, but that is how they looked in the wild.

She looked at Hanzo, as she came back to him, victorious, with the plush and she gave it a big squeeze, hearing its distinct call from a button inside the stuffie. She was slightly shocked that the plush made a sound, but she squeeled exciteldy, loving it even more.

"It's your turn, Hanzo!" she would say excitedly, smiling from ear-to-ear. "I can't wait to see which one you'll pick when you win!"

AP Tracking:

[ WC: 1128 ]
[ TWC: 2851 ]

The Uchiha could see that Chihiro was nervous, but he had faith in her even though she was against a man that was nearly three times her size and a small skinny kid. As soon as the competition started, the girl and the kid used the technique taught by Hanzo, while the huge man wasn't. The Uchiha could see the skinny kid struggling with the technique and knew he would fall off and just as expected, he was the first person to drop on the pool, making a scene which Hanzo completely ignored.

Next one to fall was the large man, who misplaced his foot accidentally. Due to the constant motion, Chihiro was seen a bit dazed but she managed to get off safely and received her coupon as he got back down towards Hanzo, "You wish the Genin exams would be like this!" he laughed as they walked over to the next station.

The hungry Chihiro suggested having a break before their competition, "Yes let's do that! You deserve it for doing the first station in a timely and perfect manner". Once at the platform of the High Striker, she was handed an iron sledgehammer that was supposed to be hit on the ramp in order for the ball to track up the bell, which meant that she could win a variety of prizes according to the level gained.

When she swung the sledgehammer, she missed the platform, making the onlookers laugh at her. The Uchiha performed the Monkey > Dog hand signs to activate the Reverse Armory Seal, to summon his Chakra Bonding Katana. Hanzo turned his whole body, facing them with killing intent, "The next person to laugh, would have their hands cut off" he said calmly, which made the entire audience into a complete silence.

Chihiro landed the next hit right on the ramp and earning herself the Kakapo Parrot plushie and came back to the Uchiha with a big smile. "I'll be getting the Sperm Whale plushie for you" he said as he walked towards the machine, he turned his sword to the blunt side and raised it up high. With a single strike on the ramp, thanks to his strength, the bell was hit heavily and made a loud sound. He deactivated the technique, which desummoned his weapon and simply walked over to the prize pool area, took the sperm whale plushie and gave it to Chihiro, "This is for you" he laughed as he didn't want to be seen with a huge plushie. "What's the plan now ?" he asked.

Battle Info:

Chihiro took the whale gleefully from Hanzo as he shoved it into her arms quickly. She felt around on the whale and found its button, and it emitted a beautiful whalesong whistling noise. "Ah, this is so cool!" She said. "But wait... I can't carry these around all night." she said. "Maybe one, but not both. Do you have something you could temporarily seal them in, just for now?" she would ask, afraid to try the new sealing technique or the new dimension storage technique he had taught her when he tutored her a few weeks ago.

He would ask her what the plan was, and she motioned for him to follow her to the food stand she had helped set up, giving a two finger salute to the man behind who laughed at her silliness. She was laughing too as it was all in good fun. Chihiro would reach in her pocket and offer the man the coupon, waiting for Hanzo to do the same. As she waited for Hanzo to order the man made a remark about something like 'don't waste your youth, you'll regret it someday' and how if he was younger, he would be the one taking Chihiro on a date.

"Oh, no, we're not..." she would start, looking nervously at Hanzo

But, Chihiro would shrug it off as a compliment to her beauty, turning back to the man and smiling sweetly, but it still made her slightly uncomfortable. The man taking their order would notice this and mutter "Excuse me, I think I need to tend to the friers," and walk off, embarassed, allowing another worker take over.

Thank. God.

Chihiro finally made her mind up and chose a hotdog, deep fried mushrooms, and a Medium fizzy clear soda that tasted like watermelons. She also brought out her froggy wallet to purchase a popcorn and a helping of fried mozerella sticks, which she would later share with Hanzo.

Chihiro carried her food, stacking it with expertise, to a picnic table next to a makeshift fence, blocking off the food area from the games. She could see over it, though and watched as people struggled to keep up with the whack-a-mole moles. "I think we should do that one next!" She exclaimed nodding her head at it. It looked like a lot of fun, and they were giving out kazoos to anyone who could hit 25 moles in a minute.

She ate fairly fast, but also like a bird. A peck of food here, and a peck there as she watched. Small bites, but also quickly eating to regain energy.

She would chat about just about anything Hanzo would want to talk about, and she'd offer him the mozerella sticks to share. They would each get three, and they weren't by any means small. If he'd refuse them, she'd eat the lot of them.

When she finally got down to just her popcorn, she would grab the bag of it and gather her things, standing up and stretching. The sun had started to go down, but hadn't quite set yet, setting the sky ablaze with shades of orange and magenta.

Chihiro also gathered Hanzo's trash instinctively, piling it all up for her to throw away, which she did, recycling her glass soda bottle.

[ The Festival of Sound: Whack-a-Mole ]

Next up was whack-a-mole... and boy was Chihiro excited!

She confidently approached the gate to be let into the center of the whack-a-mole machine. There was a small gate leading into the center of the machine and 8 partitions of moles that would pop up. She was given a soft foam hammer, which she would jokingly reach out of the pit and tap Hanzo's arm with. "Looks like I got one already!" She teased jokingly with the man, laughing to herself.

Then a buzzer rang and the music began. Chihiro used her sense of sound rather than sight to help her with the task as the mole machine made a grinding noise to pop each mole up. It was helpful to let her know which direction they were popping up in.

Before she knew it, the buzzer had rang again and all the moles hid. She looked at the scoreboard.

"29? That's almost a mole every two seconds!" She would exclaim handing the hammer back and recieving a teal colored, plastic kazoo. She left the machine inspecting the cheap plastic instrument, wondering how on earth to use it. She tried blowing through it but it made hardly a sound.

Next up was Hanzo, and Chihiro was excited to see how well he would do for the challenge.

[ WC: 770 ]
[ TWC: 3621 ]

AP Tracking:

"Yea that kinda looks tough to carry, you know what, like you said, let's seal them" the Uchiha said while performing the Rat > Dog hand sign and activating his personal Storage Displacement, simply reaching out into the thin air and retrieving his basic scroll. He kneeled down to the ground and spread the scroll. Assuming she kneeled down as well, he took the huge sperm whale plushie from her and placed it on the middle of the scroll and performed the Dog > Snake > Ram > Ox hand sign activating the Basic Sealing Technique and poof, the item vanished.


The Uchiha stood up, "You still remember what I taught you right, don't make me test you on these two" he laughed. Soon they walked back to the stall that Chihiro helped to set up and the girl handed her coupon over, then it was Hanzo's turn at which the man made a remark about them as a couple. Before she could finish saying, "Nobody is going to steal her from me" he smiled and then seconds later, gave him a death stare.

As the man switched with another co-worker, Chihiro began ordering food, while Hanzo wasn't particularly hungry so he just kept quiet, patiently watching Chihiro being a busy bee and watching over the upcoming competitions. "Whacking moles seems fun" he said as she ate his mozzarellas that he rejected as well. Hanzo was truly in the presence of a simple and genuine girl, he liked her a lot as they were of different personalities. She even cleaned the trash and recycled the items correctly, "You are something else totally" he laughed.

Once they were in the whack a mole stall, Chihiro was handed a soft foam hammer for the game, which she teased him by tapping it on him. "I'll get mine in no time" the Uchiha said looking around for someone to hand it over to him. Once the bell rang, she was quick in whacking the moles, which surprised Hanzo, "Wow, she's grown a lot" he thought to himself. The bell rang again signifying the end of the game, and she had 29 points. "Not bad, that was good" he said as she claimed her prized kazoo which made no sound at all.


"Aite it's my turn" he said as he approached the game stall, at which the owner handed him the soft foam hammer. Bam! Bam! Bam! After an excruciating minute, his score was only 25. If Hanzo wanted to, he could have not missed anything, but he wanted Chihiro to have a confident boost in her. "That's weird, this game is rigged" he laughed while scratching his head. "Looks like you are my Sensei now, Chihiro-sama" he laughed again maniacally.

Battle Info: