Children of Kintsugi

[Sia]

The Children of Kintsugi had had a busy last few months. They had travelled about and out and out and about and much around all over the place visiting various odd little towns and cities and temples. They had been on a spiritual journey, a grand and wonderful little number around the globe in a peaceful visit from sacred temple to sacred temple. Pious, their journey had been mostly left alone save for a few miscreants in Rock Country, but that was to be expected.

Rock Country was always up to no good.

Ikanbi and the children were outside as usual. Having come back from their world journey they had utilized suiton and doton to very properly and carefully take care of the land. It wasn't perfect, of course, but, over time they cleansed and purged a lot of the impurity and designated a space somewhat to the south east as the dead zone. That was to say, they moved a lot of remnants of death there. Bits of bodies, large amounts of blood that was siphoned out of the suiton and soil. It took weeks, months even. Eventually though, they had done a rather fine job of fixing the area around the shelter and the farmland. It was clean enough to thrive, finally.

So, they had gotten back to training. Ikanbi was outside with her polearm and instructing them in a new Fuuton Nintaijutsu form. They went through the movements, surging with chakra as they swept about and blew gusts of wind about lively.

Every so often a group of newcomers would arrive, from close by or far far away, often they were merchants or mercenaries or rounin, or orphans. Anyone that was lost, really, somehow wound up finding the Children of Kintsugi. If not in Iron Country, then somewhere on their travels they would be picked up, or news of where they could be found could be heard in the winds.

Today, their were lots of newcomers, for that was what always happened after they settled down hard for a few days.

Once they planted down instead of travelling, people came in the masses to ask for blessings and favors. The Children of Kintsugi did much they could to help mostly anyone.

With Ikanbi wearing the Emperor's Crown, anyone with ill intentions was dealt with strictly. The Children of Kintsugi saw through lies and deceit.

Still, it was a nice morning so far. Ikanbi continued training the children in Fuuton and a great many children had set out into the forests to forage and hunt for food. Another squad of them had gone fishing, and several of them were working to build houses out of doton for some of the new arrivals.

Things were lovely here.

[Golnax]

Getting to Iron had been a big pain in the keister!

At first it was easy going enough. Shiun and the small squad of five other samurai she'd been assigned to had taken a train from Xincha to the border of the (relatively) newly expanded Earth, where they had continued northward through what had once been Wind country. Almost immediately, they'd been harried by Earth shinobi who were occupying and patrolling the region, forcing the group to explain their purpose there. A purpose which they had been forthright in giving:

Humanitarian aid. That's what they were doing there, and why they were headed for Iron.

Though it had been some time since Shio Mistaki changed the world forever with his abhorrent act of genocide, the Heart empire felt that enough time had passed that it was time to take a closer look at the country that had once been. They had been keeping a distant eye on what remained of Iron while also dealing with the delicate process of managing the Empire, and now felt that it was time to give it a closer look. For Shiun's part (although they conveniently neglected to mention this to the shinobi), she had been assigned to this particular assignment because of her ability to create gold with kinton. More than once she'd been lectured about the importance of world economies and how she should NOT abuse her unique ninjutsu in such a manner, but in this case, it was deemed that any survivors and/or vagabonds that had made their way into Iron could potentially use the economic boost. After all, the amount of wealth lost with Iron itself was practically incalculable...

The explanation had been acceptable to the shinobi, though they had been assured that they would be followed and monitored the entire time they were within the convinces of New Earth which Shiun and the others had begrudgingly accepted. That had been the last time that they'd had contact with any shinboi that far south, but Shiun in particular was able to catch glimpses of them from time to time as she knew better than the others the ways of ninja. There was plenty of grumbling to be had about Earth interference, but ultimately it was just talk and they made their way to North Gold without issue, where they were able to once again take a train all the way to the northern portion of the country where they once again had to cross into Earth territory and were given much the same treatment as before. Thankfully the distance was much less the second time around and the crossing into Pebble gave them even less issues until, finally, they had made their way to Iron far to the north.

From there, the group had traveled on foot and found that, by and large, there was still nothing and no one here. It was grim, to say the least, in Shiun's mind to walk in a land that had once been prosperous and full of life, now reduced to... The annihilation of Iron had done much to change her opinions on ninja these past few years.

Not all was lost, though! As the group emerged over a ridge, they looked down and saw a relatively large gathering of people! Housing! Farmlands! They'd seen some people scattered about and given them what little help they could offer (Shiun especially shined here, handing out ryo to any unfortunate soul they came across) but nothing on this scale! This was the first that they'd found that could feasibly be described as a resettlement effort, exactly the sort of thing that Heart was looking for!

"Alright! We found a settlement!" Shiun said excitedly to her fellow samurai, who were also smiling, happy to see that there were not only so many people, but children as well! "Let's go introduce ourselves!"

[Sia]

From where she was Ikanbi hadn't taken the newcomers into her line of sight yet, but an Ikanbi clone and the children had. Watching from above them, the Ikanbi clone didn't move and merely listened intently through the Emperor's Crown to the intents of the individuals who approached. If they were malicious, she would alert the children and the children would...get rid of them.

A group of twelve children suddenly arose from the ground in front of the Heart Samurai, silently coming out of the ground in a very incredibly quiet burst of doton. The technique was so smooth, so seamless, it had hardly made a noise as it occurred. Had it been night time, they surely would have startled the Samurai. Fortunately, there was plenty of light out, though, they were somewhere between lunch and dinner.

"Stop." Said one of the children to the Heart Samurai very pointedly.

The Ikanbi clone listened to the thoughts of them for a moment, gazing down upon them from where she floated mid-air a good several meters off the ground above everyone else. She made very direct and intentional eye contact with each of them as she read their thoughts and occasionally let out a little smile or wink whilst doing so to mess with them and get inside of their heads.

She eventually rotated counter clockwise away from them, her very body merely pivoting through the air and floating in the same place all the same.

"Okay, she says you can come." The children began leading the way toward the southeast entrance of the shelter, directing the Heart Samurai to the appropriate entrance.

"There is food, water, and sleeping bags here to get things started, and clean clothes too." Said one of the kids whom was in all actuality very nondescript in appearance. A lot of the kids were, as it was, not very flashy. They chose very purposefully to look nonchalant and normal in every imaginable way. This allowed them to seamlessly blend in practically anywhere.

"We'll be sending out a hunting party and some foragers soon to help train some of the new folks, you're welcome to join in, after that we'll have a huge dinner." The child continued.

The real Ikanbi was somewhere else instructing children in polearm fuuton katas in secret, where no one could observe them. Every so often however, Ikanbi clones could be sand popping in and out of weird places and keeping a watchful eye on things, listening intently with the Emperor's Crown and communicating amongst the children and the other Ikanbi clones, but basically never interacting with anyone except for the children they were working with.

Occasionally, one might even see a little white and blue ceramic eyeball glued together with gold sticking out from somewhere, communicating a message to the children.

[Golnax]

Just as the group was beginning to step forward to introduce themselves, they were intercepted by... a dozen children rising up out of the earth via ninjutsu. Time was, years back, that Shiun might have screamed at being jump scared like that, followed by, perhaps, a different sort of scream as she began to geek out about the use of doton ninjutsu in front of her and start to ask a bunch of questions! Those days were behind her now, though. Training and experience as an onnabushi all over the world had replaced such impulses with the same sort of reflexive readiness that other samurai had, and so she, and the others, halted in their tracks and assumed more defensive postures the instant that they all recognized the children rising up from out of the dirt. Shiun, in particular, was quick to ready herself, her body moving almost automatically as she raised her right hand hand up, fingers opened and relaxed, while her left hand hung at a stiff thirty five degree angle, ready to call upon Musu in an instant if need be in much the same way the others with her moved their hands to their weapons.

The following moments were extremely tense as none of the Heart party knew if they were about to engage in combat or not. Presumably, they all knew, if they had wanted to attack them they would have done so while still underground. Then there was the woman floating above them. None had noticed her at first but she became quite obvious when some of the dirty, plain looking children gazed up at her. Shiun shifted her gaze upwards and looked at the floating woman herself, assuming immediately that she must have been the leader of whatever this settlement was shaping out to be. A kunoichi, most likely, though affiliated with what nation it was hard to tell from as far away as they were from each other. Time creeped terrifyingly slowly onward.

Then they were allowed entrance, and as one the group of children turned to lead the way down towards the others. Shiun looked around at her companions who slowly relaxed their stances and started to follow. The Kinoko onnabushi gave one last look at the floating woman before she, too, relaxed her arms and followed. It was a strange feeling for her to grapple not being able to trust the capabilities of a child. Shio Mistaki had done much to shake the opinions of a child's capabilities in much of this generation.

They were all thinking it, only one of them was quicker to ask than the others. "Where are the adults? Who is in charge of this encampment?" one of the samurai asked as they were taken through the south east and explained about when dinner would be.

"Who was that woman? A kunoichi?" another asked.

"Are you survivors of Iron?" Shiun asked, pipping up with, "We're samurai of the Heart Empire, sent to see how fares the land of Iron and it's... in habitants. We've come to offer aid to those we can."

They had many questions, and much yet to learn.

[Sia]

As they usually did when they were asked this question the children giggled and snicked and chuckled. Who was in charge? Well...Everyone! That's how it worked, realistically, though the kids were really the shotcallers. Ikanbi didn't even make a move if the kids didn't want her to, most of the time. She was a cog in the system for them, to be used by them, she was merely a tool, a teacher, and a mentor. She would only ever encourage them towards greatness, goodness, and kindness.

One of the children finally answered. "There are a few adults here, but most of them are refugees, there are a few from Iron Country, then there are a few from Rock Country, Wind Country, Miracle Country, Dungeon, Fire, Aroma..." The list continued on tediously, another child began talking over him as the kid apparently just could not be stopped listing the countries everyone came from.

"We're in charge and that is Ikanbi, she is a retired kunoichi from Sunagakure and owns an Orphanage and Ninjutsu school in the Crescent Coalition, though she doesn't really go there much these days." He had told them. It was true. Ikanbi wasn't needed in Sky Reach. Her name was on the paper, sure, but she basically had nothing to do with it. Not that she didn't care, but, that her talents were needed else where. The Children of Kintsugi needed her, and their message was as good there as it was in Sky Reach.

A lot of the kids had come from Sky Reach, but really the Children of Kintsugi were from all over the planet.

"Oh I heard she runs a huge farm in Wind Country too."

"Yeah she does I've seen it."

"Oh cool I want to go!"

"Me too!"

It carried on like that for a few seconds.

"No, no, we're not from Iron, well, some of the ones inside might be. Hey, that's great! That's what we're doing too! Offering a helping hand. We set up this shelter and some farmland a few weeks ago."

It was actually much longer than a few weeks, but woe is the sense of time to a blissful child sometimes.

As they neared closer they would see through the trees that the shelter was, in fact, absolutely massive. It was a looming six hundred meters by three hundred meters, and a good forty or so tall. An absolute beast of a building. All around it, everywhere, on every side were people. They had set up tents and awnings out from the building. There were chairs and campfires and foods and snacks and music. It was incredibly lively. Their were families from all walks of life there coming together as one large united family.

[Golnax]

The laughter of the children was unsettling to the samurai, one and all. Shiun might have recognized it for the mischievous chittering of children were she just a bit younger, but now, having a dozen dirty covered children laugh at their questions about adults and who was in charge was just plain creepy to her! She could feel her mushroom caps flaring up a bit as her body tensed. Of course the explanations came as one boy rattled off country after country where refugees and vagabonds had come from, confirming for the Heart squad that those who were living here, at least in this settlement, were from all over the war-torn world...

"Ikanbi?" Shiun repeated, turning her head around and looking up at the floating woman who was probably using some form of fuuton, possibly kuuton, to achieve the feat. She racked her mind for the names of any famous ninja that she knew about named Ikanbi and... came up blank. It didn't ring a bell! Shiun hadn't been as studious in the BINGO book as she should have been these past few years and had forgotten most of the names of famous, powerful, or rogue shinobi wandering the world. She remember Akihito, though. How could she forget that pink haired miscreant!? And, of course, there was the memory of Aimi Kaguya who was becoming more and more fuzzy in her mind's eye by the day.

She almost missed the parts about how she ran an orphanage, taught ninjutsu (an explanation as to how these kids knew doton style elemental ninjutsu), and had a functioning farm in the former Wind country. She sounded like a busy lady!

Shiun's attention was divided from Ikanbi as a couple of the children came over to her and tugged on her dress. She looked down with an inquisitive, "Hm?" and was replied in kind with, "Hey, lady, you're really tall!"

"Oh, uh..." Shiun said, immediately beginning to feel self conscious about her height again. Out of the group, she was the second tallest among them at six foot two!

"Is that a mushroom on your head?"

"Well, yes, I -"

"She's got mushrooms on her hips and shoulders too!" another child said, playfully reaching out and giving one of the purple shelf 'shrooms an inquisitive flick. The sensation sent shivers up Shiun's spine and she quickly swatted at the offending hand!

"Hey! Don't touch!" she scolded, to the laughter of children. This time she saw it for what it was - playful glee.

A third child grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. The Kinoko followed through the line of trees along with her companions and was just as impressed as they were by the size of the building that had been constructed! "Pretty impressive, huh?" one of the boys said, raising his hands up to the back of his head. "Yeah, we did that."

"You did?" a samurai asked, looking to the dirty boy who gave a toothy grin and a nod of his head that send dirt floating off of his hair. They approached the side of the building and examined it together, a couple of the samurai reaching out to touch the terracotta walls. "It must have taken months... constructed by hand. No scaffolding in sight..." mused a samurai.

More knowing laughter from the children.

"Shiun-chan?" one of the samurai asked, wanting her input. Another reason that the Amethyst Deceiver had been chosen for this assignment was her knowledge and utilization of the ninja arts. All samurai were more or less fully aware of how they worked these days, but still only a handful chose to use them. Shiun looked the building over and gave a small shake of her capped head.

"I think this was done with doton ninjutsu," she said. "Look at the base. There's no separation from the building and the ground, no foundation. It just rose up from out of the earth..."

"Impossible! A bunch of kids do that? It had to be that Ikanbi woman," one of the samurai dismissed, giving the shelter another look over. "It's way too big! Even a bannin level ninja would struggle to make something like this!"

"No, no! We did it!" one of the children spoke up, joined by rancorous agreement. Seemed that none of them were wiling to get stubbed on the effort they contributed to the shelter they shared. "Ikanbi barely even helped! We did most of the work!"

The samurai gave the children incredulous looks, obvious disbelief on their faces. Even Shiun found it difficult to believe that children could pull off something like this, even if they worked together. They simply wouldn't have enough chakra between them all in one go, so it had to have been done piece by piece, day by day, over the course of a few weeks - even taking that into account it was an impressive feat. These kids must have had a really good teacher, or they were all natural prodigies in ninjutsu. The Kinoko was inclined to believe the former over the latter.

[Sia]

They were of course free to explore as they wanted. They were welcome to a caravan, one of the children pointed out off to the west away from the building where there was a clearing in the trees and several caravans lay around with no occupants.

"Those ones are up for grabs." He had said to them. Whether they took one or not, their were plenty of spaces to sleep. Sit, rest, lay down. The grass had come back to life, finally, after a lot of hard work. Trees had been moved in tediously from surrounding areas and countries. The large shelter had an awning that stuck out for dozens upon dozens of meters and beneath it in the shade activity bustled. People sold trinkets, weapons, snacks.

Inside their was the kitchen most immediately and plenty of seats, though many were taken. Soups and breads were handed out aplenty, along with nuts and fruits.

"If you'd like some food head inside, there's also a station in the far east wall if you need to make any repairs to your equipment." Said another one of the kids.

"You can just pick anywhere to set up camp, or you can sleep inside. Most of us enjoy being outside though. It has a spirit to it or so they say." Said another.

[Golnax]

The samurai looked at one another and more or less silently agreed on the same thing: Time to split up. They'd been welcomed into this settlement of sorts, there were children openly running around, and, apparently, at least some of them were powerful ninjutsu users. This camp was safe and they weren't there to cause any sort of trouble. So some of them split off and followed the children to go and explore outside, a couple went inside to check on the food situation. They would all meet back up later that night and discuss what it was they needed to do in order to help these children out, how they, and by extension the Heart Empire, could be utilized.

For Shiun's part, she stayed outside and kept her hand pressed against the earthen wall. As the resident "ninja expert" of the group, it was more or less her job to figure out just how defensible these children were. Could they take care of themselves? Was this Ikanbi a responsible sort of teacher? Or was she maybe hiding something? Something which might require Heart's intervention rather than help?

Looking around and making sure that the other samurai were out of sight before doing so (samurai could be touchy about their own using ninjutsu, so she tended to not use it around her fellow colleagues if it could be avoided), Shiun began to walk up the wall of the shelter until she made her way to the top of it. From up high, she could see a good ways around. All of the progress that had been made. The grass growing, the trees forming a forest. Had they been transplanted? Was Ikanbi maybe a user of mokuton? Did that make her a Senju?

All valid questions. Shiun turned in the direction of the woman in the sky, considering her. Just who was she exactly? Shiun really shouldn't have stopped reading up on the BINGO book... but maaaaaaaaaaaaan, she wasn't a bounty hunter! That stuff was BORING to her!

[Sia]

Floating in the air, Ikanbi couldn't help but listen to the thoughts of the newcomers as they entered into the crowds. It was a perk of the crown, of course, but she wore it proudly and usefully. She listened in intently and monitored things as she saw fit, but really, Ikanbi was benevolent and peaceful. Here, at home, she was adrift in the wind quite literally. Her body began to tilt in the air and she floated into a laying down position, as though she were positioned inside of an invisible hammock. She dozed off for a nap, a bit of acidic sand drizzling out of her into a clone that floated away and kept watch over everything, talking with another clone that was chatting with a group of children that were cooking.

It was quite peaceful here.

What was best to do? Well, the forest was new, it needed real work, the soil needed help being purified, though they had done a great job already. The farm always needed a little love, the forge always had eager attendees but needed real instructors, though their were a few on hand. Their were many more students than teachers for the forge however, as well as the leathercrafting and the potions stations. The potions however did have some of the best teachers, and the greenhouse of poisonous plants that was thriving outside of the mess hall was magnificent. It also housed several spiders and frogs.

They had planned for a fishing trip the following day, they intended to go down to the river that had previously had a good camp and lodging set up closer to the rock country border to the north west. It wasn't that far of a journey, and all were welcome to come. Ikanbi would likely go herself, or so it had been rumored, just to be on the safe side.