Toltir, despite concentrating his existence on mischief was a being of chaos, and his mere presence caused deviations and forks to appear on the roads of destiny. He could not stop this anymore than he could stop existing, but he wouldn’t even if he could. It was far to fun that way.
A lot of them were small, inconsequential. A fisherman deciding to cast his net in another place, a housewife deciding to buy his children Ninja O’s cereal instead of Sugar frosted shuriken.
Some had impact over one person life, but unimportant to everyone else. A ninja deciding not to become a missing Nin, or a retiring member of T&I deciding to become a dentist.
Some changes just spiraled out of control. This is one of those.
It was the day they assigned the newly graduated Genin their squads and Jounin sensei. Surprisingly, every single student passed the exams, including one with absolutely no talent for Ninjutsu, Genjutsu or Taijutsu. The rumors about how that came to be were plentiful, from nepotism to voodoo. After the squads were formed, the newly minted team four awaited for their Jounin instructor:
“I wonder if they will make us do missions right away” said Kandzume a nervous looking kid with short sandy blonde hair “because we’re just rookies. They wouldn’t just send us out on the field like that, would they?”
He started walking around in circles and wiping some sweat from his brow with a hanky. “Don’t get me wrong. I mean the academy three are great and all, and will probably work just fine against bandits and low level mercs, but everybody and their grandma know the three basic techniques, if we go against other ninja, forget about it. You know what I mean?”
The other two ignored him. Kandzume had always been a twitchy fellow, more prone to the academic side of Ninjahood, as opposed to the staby one, but after knowing him for years, they were not surprised by his nervousness.
All other considerations were put on hold as their Jounin sensei opened the classroom door and motioned for them to follow. The man leading them looked more like some witless bandit than a ninja, he was tall and bulky with what looked to be a beer belly that would give the impression that he was out shape if not for the heavy musculature on his arms and chest. He had no shirt on and wore his Jounin best open, to top it all off he carried a Tetsubo, not a very ninja weapon, not to mention they could all smell his cheap cologne wafting in the air.
They followed him to a small park outside the academy were they all sat on the ground.
“All right, Introduce yourself kids” his voice was gruff “you there! The twitchy one, you first”
“well… uh. I am, umm, I mean. My name is Kandzume Kurīmukōn I’m good at tactical analysis and research, and… umm I’m pretty good at making traps, and…. and… well that’s pretty much it.
“Calm down kid, before you soil yourself” he spit off to the side and for some reason a metallic ding sound was heard “now you, the goofy looking one”
The other two pointed at each other “yes, I don’t care, whatever”
One of them stood up and cleared his throat. He didn’t seem to have any distinguishing features and had his hair in a traditional ponytail, he wore a white kimono top over a mesh shirt and grey pants “My name is Tekiya Ningyō and I would like to work as a spy someday, I got high marks on Genjutsu and my Taijutsu’s ok but nothing great”
He sat down and the last member of team 4 began his introduction. He had slicked back brown hair and wore a green jacket with the kanji for genius on the back. “My name is Mazui Kangae an up and coming Fuinjutsu master that will take the ninja world by storm!”
The Jounin groaned “ugh, shut up kid, you’re giving me a headache. Now listen up kids. My name is Basshu Akado and for some reason probably senility the Hokage thinks I should be your babysitter”
He stood up and leaked a bit of killer intent to show just what he thought of the idea, not to much, just enough to get them sweating.
“Let’s get one ting straight. Odds are good you’ll be dead by next year. That’s just the way it is, ninja life is dangerous, deal with it” he pulled a small gourd out of his vest and guzzled it messily, they could all swear that the grass wilted were the drops fell, he gave a loud, foul smelling belch and continued.
“The good news? We can avoid all that ugliness. Tomorrow you will be tested, if you fail, you will go back to the academy and I will have another brat free year. Be at training ground 13 tomorrow at sunrise, arm yourselves well…” He suddenly brought his Tetsubo down on the ground with enough force to cause a small quake “cause I’m not going easy on you brats”
With that he turned around and started walking away. Though they could still hear him muttering to himself “maybe if I kill one of them by mistake the old monkey will finally figure out me an kids don’t mix”
As soon as he was out of sight all three genin slumped. Kandzume was the first to speak “did you guys hear that? That guy’s gonna kill us!” He started pacing “I mean, I knew it was dangerous, Susume sensei tells us that all the time, but getting killed in a test before we even begin? That’s insane man”
Tekiya Ningyō, as always, was as cool as a cucumber “Relax man I’m sure it was all a ruse to get us to back down. We are ninja now, and were supposed to be all about faints and cons”
“Don’t tell me to relax. Did you guys even felt that? I could have swore he was gonna rip us apart right then and there! And tomorrow he’s gonna test us? Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great, man. Now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man…”
Mazui tried to calm him down “Chill down dude, you look like you’re gonna pass out. You know me. I’ll think of something!”
For some reason that seemed to agitate him more “Well. Excuse me if that doesn’t make me feel any better. That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?” he started walking away “Don’t even bother showing up tomorrow, because I’m not going to be there!”
His teammates didn’t stop him.
“Well… this is certainly a problem” Tekiya scratched his chin “I don’t believe I can trick him in to going, not when he’s this agitated. What do you think Mazui-kun?”
Mazui Kangae was known among other tings for his extraordinary bad judgment and his poor decisions, such as asking Anko Mitarashi for dating advice and then actually trying to use said advice on a date, or his habit of taunting Neji Hyuga about his hair and then badgering him for a spar. If things continued as they would in a pure timeline, he would have tried to make Genin for a couple of more years before quitting, loafing around a few more years, and finally enrolling in Ninja community college, after which he would get a job as a pencil pusher in the Hokage’s tower human recourses department. His one claim to fame would have been a small stack of paperwork loaded with Fuinjutsu that would always give the impression of being half finished and would compel the reader to finish it. It would be labeled as the single nastiest prank in the history of the village, a fact Naruto Uzumaki would feel resentful with, for a long time.
However, despite being sealed inside Naruto’s stomach along with the Kiuubi, Toltiir’s influence could be felt throughout the entire world, in this case, by inspiring in the would be genin, what could easily be, the best or the worst idea he had ever had in his life.
“Duuuude…” he began slowly “I have and idea!”
“You know I shiver every time you say that, right?”
“Oh, shut up and listen. Well simply…”
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:41)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.