Teaching The Old Ways

[Sia]

So it had been a while since Ikanbi had been to Sky Reach. She had a surprise for them now, of course. She had been working on a little something of her own as a present to the children. She had, of course, many trinkets and souvenirs gathered from the travels. From wind country, rock, water, fire, and even the lightning empire, everyone had bought treats, snacks, jewelry, games, clothes, furs, souvenirs, weapons. Ikanbi too had reached deep into her pockets and traded back and forth many times for many obscure things to bring back to Sky Reach.

She slowly made her way to her private office, entering the grounds slowly so as not to disturb the children too much. Her mere presence did always cause a stir, of course. They were always delighted to see her.

"Hello my children." She had said as they had greeted her on the road leading up to the academy. She began handing out pastries and breads and snacks. Everyone laughed and played on the walk to the school with Ikanbi, she had clones scattered around to observe and spy on the area.

As they neared the school she took a detour towards the south east garden where the sun would shine on the plants there throughout the day, then eventually gain shade from the school late into the day. The glass house surrounding it was quite enchanted, it was one of Ikanbis favorite parts of the school. She walked into the green house. The children didn't know why. How ambivalent, they didn't even need to cosign.

She said hello to one of the lotus plants and it opened up, speaking back to her.

"Hello, teacher."

The plant suddenly shifted and the pot it was in expanded greatly to the size of a double doors, and Ikanbi opened it and walked in. The kids had peered in behind her before it shut, and at that point those were the only kids to ever see the inside of Ikanbi's office.

The rumors that started that day were quite wild.

In her office Ikanbi said hello to her plants, the portraits on the walls, and the spirits. They all greeted her in turn. She made her way towards her desk, waving her hand and forming a few hand seals and causing a fine spray to come over the plants and water them methodically.

Ikanbi sat at her desk for a moment and breathed out quite the long sigh. What an exhausting year it had been. She had taken the children all over the continent practically in a round trip.

Now, it was time to gather more for the second trip. She reached into a drawer on the right-hand side of her desk, the bottom drawer of the three and retrieved a large book bound in green leather. She placed it on her desk and flipped through the pages as it asked her whom she was looking for.

"I need the most capable and adept students to take on a spiritual journey. I can only take those that are the most prepared or that have specific skillsets that will aid in humanitarian efforts."

"Calculating." Said the book finally.

The book began printing out files of students at Sky Reach that it thought were of particular note. Ikanbi began reading over them and taking notes of her own and she asked the book to play back archives of the students fights and battle tests. She also asked to see their flight capabilities.

"This is an interesting one." Said one of the Ikanbi clones eventually after about forty-eight minutes of not liking anyone. She had split the work up amongst herself with thirteen other clones, which, was admittedly an incredibly exhausting amount of chakra for Ikanbi to expend, but, it made the work much more efficient, and she would simply take a nap afterwards and regain all of her chakra.

She scanned over the file for Zao's son.

"This one. There's a good chance he could turn completely fucking evil, but, even if it came to that... I believe he would accomplish great things." Said one of the portraits that was reading Saisuko, Ziv's file.

The Ikanbi clone reading the file agreed. "Yeah, but, we've worked with him before, that's Zao's son."

"Ah, right." Said the real Ikanbi.

"He would be an excellent fit, there is no doubt in my mind. With the crown and Ziv, the nomads will have no troubles travelling throughout the countries. The Children of Kintsugi will be able to flourish as intended." Said an Eye of Kintsugi from Ikanbi's desk. The porcelain, blue, and gold eye blinked from its perch, a regal golden owl claw that held the eye between its toes at the corner of Ikanbi's desk. It kept a watchful eye for intruders to Ikanbi's office, which, to date no one had ever successfully infiltrated and until that day no child had ever even observed in the first place, nor even known that her office was somehow magically inside of the Green House in the south east garden.

Who would have thought?

Most of the kids didn't even know that she had an office, though some had asked and been told that she did, no one had ever seen it.

Ikanbi walked down into the second floor of the office. It was time to rest, she had overdone it with the clone technique. She made her way to the bed, which was actually an incredibly large jade crystal that had once been shattered and since glued back together with golden Kintsugi. It was roughly eight times the size of Ikanbi and her body seeped into it slowly, the acid and sand mixing into the cracks of gold and jade as her body moved into it and then fell further and further into the earth, her chakra signature beginning to spread out and mingle into the entire grounds of Sky Reach.

The Acid Sand of Ikanbi spread out over the entire grounds from deep, deep below in a sensory technique that she used every so often just to make sure no one had tried to infiltrate the academy from underground. She had put in failsafe and protective measures anyway, of course, once the building had become hers, but, it didn't hurt to check on them every now and then.

She sensed where some children had found some hidden tunnels that were meant for evacuation, she left their caches and supplies and sleeping bags and snacks there instead of clearing it out. She instead made the space a bit wider and more cozier for them by hollowing it out and refortifying it.

It was too much. She wasn't sure why she'd even attempted to cast the jutsu. She fell asleep against her will and slept for several days underground.

Nine days later Ikanbi woke up with an incredible yawn and stretch and began ascending towards the surface rapidly, escaping from the enchanted fuuinjutsu dimension that contained her office and appearing in the back of the academy in a bed of flowers. She coughed up a flower and a bit of dirt and shook herself off before checking the date and time on her scroll.

"Ah geez I missed nine days? Ah the kids are gonna be worried."

She pulled out the file on Saisuko, Ziv to see what class he would be in for the day, then made her way to the hallway to wait for it to let out. The whole time, her feet never technically touched the ground. Always, there was a space of a few inches surrounding them that the earth was merely carved away by Kuuton, acid, and sand, or, she was floating too high off of the ground for that to even occur.

Either way, she was floating cross-legged in the hallway passing out pastries and desserts to the students when class let out for the evening. It was, supposedly, the last of Ziv's classes on a Friday afternoon. She hoped he hadn't major plans for the weekend.

[Zao]

Ziv's last class for the day wasn't technically a class, it was more like a study period that he was able to take time to study workshop number two. In total the school had already built four workshops, the third and fourth doubling as smiths for those studying about weapon and equipment forging. While the first two were used for other things, workshop number two was one that Ziv had managed to get step up almost exclusively for the creation, Maintenace, and theory crafting of puppets. While there weren't to many other students like the white-haired student that specialized in almost exclusively puppets, there were a few others and a good number who were just interested in the subject for their own reasons.

Deep in thought, the slender figure whose features were starting to truly resemble his old man's, the young student had his left arm propped up on the table as his left cheek was resting gently upon the open hand. The fingertips of the right hand danced in almost a rhythmic like motion, a faint blue chakra thread was being projected from each fingertip and at the end of each thread was a different tool. Laid out upon the table was a three-meter puppet that appeared to have a bulky metal body with extremely long arms that stretched down to around the knee of the puppet. But if one were to look at the arm it had uniquely crafted metal gauntlets that gave it a fierce look and the rest of the arms that were normally multi-sectioned puppet arms looked almost like concentric rings. These were actually constricted springs that allowed for the puppet to punch out with great force and extended range.

This was a fun mechanism that Ziv had come up with and one that he'd drawn up from scratch and slowly built the parts for it, finally finishing it today as he was putting back together both of the arms, reattaching them to the body and then reassembling the double strike gauntlets that he'd also designed to give the puppet enhanced physical power. Though he hadn't been able to gather the needed items and donor chakra to start working on the runic seals he wanted to add in, it could still be considered a decent puppet. At the moment he was completely focused on the task of puppet Maintenace that he didn't know that Ikanbi was approaching nor that she was looking for him personally. It had truly been a while since he'd spoken with the shinobi, the last time was probably when the brothers and him had sparred against her back in Aroma country when she was testing their rate of progress.

But back then both had been merely fifth year students. But now, despite being only a fourth-year student technically, his own skill that he kept mainly secret was at the level of at least a second years in terms of combat prowess. Soon he would get assigned his end of the year exam, typically a mission from the school to test the leadership and combat skills of the student before seeing if they are ready to be promoted to the next grade.

[Sia]

After a little while Ikanbi wound up floating through the air a little ways and popping her head into the workshop, slowly peering inside and liking just about everything she saw. It was, as it were, a nifty little are to work on equipment for sure. Puppets? She was amazed. She hadn't seen much of any puppet users in Sky Reach, it was an incredibly rare craft for sure. If Zao's son was working on puppets, she had a few schematics she could care with him that he would likely quite enjoy.

Thinking on it, she was certain she had a few schematics of some of Zao's puppets, though, she wasn't exactly certain of their accuracy. They were however very immaculately well done drawings and very intricate, though some of the exact specifics on the mechanisms was speculation and not exact reproductions. It had been a noble effort by the Scribes of the Sand to archive him properly for history. They were notorious of course, the Henrin that helped them ensured very true accuracy. So, most of it was still quite accurate. Such it was being in Sunagakure, always under the watchful eye of the Scribes.

It had of course made it so easy for Ikanbi to leave. She was frowned upon anyway. Her kind was never liked by the major powers. Immortals were such fickle creatures after all. You never really knew what they were going to do next.

Peering into the power of the Emperor's Crown, Ikanbi began to read the minds of those around her and singled out which soul was Ziv's appropriately as she had entered into the room eventually.

"Saisuko, Ziv." Ikanbi said quite softly from behind him, floating a few inches off of the ground, not exactly standing, her feet dangling loosely.

"What are we working on today?"

[Zao]

Being able to focus on the task at hand was something that many craftsmen were able to do, the good ones even able to tune out any outside interference as they worked to ensure they were able to minimize the number of unnecessary mistakes that could occur from getting distracted. Of course, this wasn't something one should do in the open, but Ziv felt rather secure about his own safety within the academy, especially deep within the workshop area of the school. Thus, his guard was rather low as his well-trained eyes took in even the smallest of details about the pair of puppet arms as the set of tools wielded by the five chakra threads continued to work in perfect unison unaware of the floating figure approaching him from behind.

"Who!?" The quiet whisper from Ikanbi wasn't in any means a cause to jump, nor did it hold any type of threatening intent, yet due to his current mindset that had more or less shut out everything else around him but what his mind was focused upon it still greatly startled the young man. Instantly causing for the slender figure to jump up from his chair, knocking the chair over backwards towards the teacher as his tools were thrown in all directions as his fingertips suddenly stopped movement, his focus on the control over the chakra for each string abruptly ended.

"Oh!" As the youth spun around, still unsure who had snuck up on him in the workshop, the brilliant blue eyes landed on the ever-familiar body outline of the very person that his late father was entrusted his safety to and the one who had brought him to this distant academy. "Ikabi-sama!" The shocked tone instantly turned to one of joy as he smiled, quickly recovering his appearance as he straightened out his robe and stepped to the side slightly in order to allow for the immortal to view that puppet that was laid out on the table.

"I call it Tako." His bright eyes glanced over at the human puppet, a special note that he was still discovering for himself actually, " It was one of three puppets that my father left me before..." Though he couldn't one hundred percent be sure of where his thoughts were about his father's death, the words spoken in the brief last encounter and the man's own situation of possessing a body that hadn't originally been his and the lack of contact only told him that the man was most likely dead. A brief moment of sadness crossed his eyes, something he tried to hide from his facial expression in front of Ikanbi. "...well, that last time he spoke to me. I've been trying to work on improving not only its physical strength but also retrofitting it with my newest creation." A half smile coming from his pride as a craftsmen helped to cover up his previous thoughts as he allowed for the shinobi to see his half-finished puppet.

[Sia]

The newly reformed nomad floated towards Ziv and the puppet and bent over to peer at it closely with her hands behind her back, floating to Ziv's right side and peering down at the table. Five blue chakra strings jutted out from her fingers and began rummaging around in her bag, retrieving two books which the threads then began rifling through.

"Your father was a great man, I was sorry to hear of his passing," Ikanbi said, she attempted to make eye contact when she said this, standing more upright in the air instead of peering down at the puppet. The pages of the book turned and turned as the threads parted through them. "We weren't exactly close, but I knew of his situation and...my condolences, really."

"I have schematics of a lot of his puppets from the Scribes of the Sand, they're mostly accurate, supposedly, but I'm not certain their quite one hundred percent," She had continued to him.

She turned her attention back to the puppet as the pages stopped on the schematics for what Ziv was calling "Tako."

"Here, you can have these." The pages began to glow bright blue with chakra and then the second book opened, revealing that it was blank, but, the pages of the first one began to duplicate themself onto the other one quite neatly. In a few seconds, the duplication was complete. After a moment of thought, she surged with chakra once more and produced duplicates of the rest of the schematics she had of Zao's puppets from the Scribes, as well as any files on him and puppets in general that Ikanbi thought might be useful, interesting, or perhaps even fun for Ziv to read. There were definitely some mission reports that were very incredible.

"You might like these." Ikanbi had said. "The Scribes of the Sand is a group in Sunagakure that keeps incredible, meticulous archives of everything they very possibly can, quite literally."

"They like..there's a clan, you've heard of them, the Henrin, they record everything endlessly forever its silly really, but, because of that, we do have great archives and records of things."

"I was wondering...If perhaps...You would like to accompany me and the Children of Kintsugi to visit the temples in the other countries and train in the old ways of nintaijutsu?" She paused to give him a moment to think.

"We'd be going back to wind country first."

[Zao]

Though he stood there proudly, as a puppeteer who had to forge his entire fighting style on his own due to there not being any other puppeteer's here in the Sky Reach academy, he couldn't help but let himself frown as what he already pretty much knew was confirmed by Ikanbi. Like any son, who wouldn't want to be able to see their father just one more time. But he understood that the man's body was most likely accompanying that of his mother within the Spirit Saint's personal realm that was locked away somewhere in the folds of spacetime. If he ever wanted to pay his respect to both of them in the future, he'd have to find someone who had mastered the unique ninjutsu skill or perhaps, learn it himself. Yet, this was a subject for another time and Ziv tried to keep himself in the moment as the floating figure continued to observe his puppet and speak to him. "Thank you."

His reply was a quiet thank you at her condolences, as he watched for the first time someone other than himself utilize the secret chakra thread technique that was only taught within the village that both Ikanbi and his father had been a part of, what was formerly Suna before it was taken over in the war that his father had fought in against the hostile power of Iwa. Yet, despite knowing that the force had invaded Suna, the boy didn't have any real attachments to the village himself. Yes, it had been home of his father and mother, but he'd never been there, and his father didn't truly speak of it or anyone from there in the short time they spent together before he had been passed off to the woman currently here with him. It was almost like Zao had purposely did so in order to keep the boy from having any foolish thoughts in the future about the subject.

The boy's eyes opened wide as he watched the book being copied over to the blank pages in real time, just what kind of technique was this that allowed for the old lady be a printing press for lack of a better term. "The Scribes of Sand?" He muttered the name of the Suna based organization aloud as he thought about it, they seemed like some sort of intelligence collection agency, he even pondered if his father had been an active member in such a group due to his constant expeditions and involvement in the exploration of the spirit realms. Ziv accepted the two books graciously, even bowing his head as he pulled the book in tight against his flat chest. "Thank you again."

He listened quietly afterwards, as Ikanbi began to explain a bit more about the information gathering group and even about the clan known as the Henrin, that seemed to have something akin to a photographic memory as the mention sparked his memories about one of the scrolls that his father had left him that spoke about important families in the various great five countries. But his mouth actually dropped open for a minute at her last words, the request for him to follow along with her to the temples, and firstly the one in Wind country. "Is it truly okay for me to come with you, Obau Chan?" While he was super interested in exploring more areas outside of Crescent, just how dangerous was Wind country after the invasion from Iwa? Though Crescent wasn't on bad terms with Iwa, per say, Ziv was still concerned. Steeling his thoughts, he only nodded his head and spoke again quickly as though he had dismissed the previous thoughts, "I would like to go." After all, thought he could continue to become stronger here, he was missing the real-life experience that came with being away from the teachers here.

[Sia]

Was it really okay? Of course! She would write a letter to the teachers and the staff of course and things would be sorted out on that end no worries. "We will be fighting monsters and learning to use the elements, we can of course work on some puppets too, we'll have plenty of time. There's quite the large group of us, actually, so you'll have lots of other kids to play with and bounce ideas off of. We travel in the caravans and we fly, but, I need to know your flight capabilities beforehand just in case you fall out of a caravan." She had said to him.

"So...can you fly, Saisuko, Ziv?" She gestured to her own feet, which had still not touched the ground as she floated upwards a bit.

"It is fine if you cannot, but, do you have some method of flying through the air yet? If not, that will be something that we will work on in Wind Country." She reached into her pocket and produced a scroll that was navy blue and unravelled the black string that tied it together. "We are going to many temples on this pilgrimage, but, the first one is a Sun Temple in Wind Country, and, it is in the sky. It would be a horrible shame if you fell off a platform and could not fly."

"Someone would catch you, eventually." She chuckled.

She stared at the Tako puppet on the slab. "Ya know, I'm something of a puppeteer myself, or I was back in the day." She pondered to herself for a few moments. "Yeah I think I could stand to get back into it, I've been kinda slacking lately." She nodded to herself. "I tend a poison garden and everything, you know, we have a lot of poisonous herbs in the greenhouse here." She added.

"While we're at the Sun Temple we will speak with a great sky spirit and fight several insane monsters, I hear that some of the kids say they look like things from the shows and books and comics you guys like to read and whatnot."

"So, what do you think, are you still interested?" She read his mind through the Emperor's Crown.

[Zao]

"Any fly?" A questioning and slightly concerned look appeared on the youthful face of the student. Did she mean actual flying? It was something that he'd heard about through some of the other teachers. Using different methods of ninjutsu and elements to produce the act of flight. Ziv shifted his ocean blue gaze down to the floor at her gesture, her feet still floating off the ground, but this was also due to the effect of her elemental body composition and a constant chakra drain most likely. The slender fingers of the boy couldn't help but come tap against his hairless chin. "Not yet." His answer straight and to the point, but there were ideas already circulating through his head as he was able to easily control the movement of his puppets both on the ground and in the air for ariel attacks, could he use one of them to fly? Or perhaps he could influence the black metal rods that he'd implanted into his own body as a means to produce a flight affect.

"What?" His thought train interrupted by the joking manner of Ikanbi as she mentioned that someone would catch him, eventually that was. Cough. The kid coughed lightly shifting his gaze around him before he steadied himself again as his mentor began to speak about her own time as a puppeteer, something he had already guessed from her previous display of being able to utilize chakra threads. "I'm sure you could still teach me a lot." Though he didn't completely rely on his chakra threads for puppeteering these days, it was still a useful technique and could be used as a means of surprise to control weaker targets. The older shinobi must have years of experience that she could draw from to teach him how to be a better fighter with his puppets.

"A poison one, too?" Ziv had heard of some of the greenhouses that were scattered throughout the academy grounds, but he'd never heard of one specifically growing poisonous plants. Thought this did sound like something the Anguis house would be into, and he had been looking ahead to his next semester about doing a few alchemies related classes. This would be a jump start on that and adding a poison to his puppets and their hidden weapons and mechanisms would only serve to make him an even more difficult opponent.

"A great sky spirit, huh?" A confident look appeared on the young man's face, he'd never really faced any spirits aside from the great griffin mom who really did a number on him and his brothers the first time they ran into her not long after he'd first arrived at Sky Reach. But that as then and this was now, his skills were comparable to most second year seniors and even some newly promoted first years. Taking a step towards Tako, he pulled out a scroll that already had a fuuin seal upon it and with a one hand seals activated the kai technique causing the puppet to disappear into a cloud of chakra smoke, being sealed away for the time being. "How soon can we leave?" Ziv had completely made up his mind in that moment, he would be able to explore his father's home country, gain experience from learning from his Auntie, and even gain more combat experience. The risk was worth the reward in his eyes.

[Sia]

She listened to him intently, well, they could leave rather soon, but, Ikanbi had just woken up from an accidental nine day coma that she hadn't exactly planned for, so, there was a little bit of catching up to do. Unfortunately, as Ikanbi was a very free-spirited being, she was known to do as she pleased, and, when no one could find her for nine days there had been a bit of panic. News had spread once she was sighted in the hallway however and eventually the Children had found her again, talking to Ziv.

"Yes, there are a few preparations we must make before we go, but we can leave rather soon. I need to catch up on what I've missed the last few days while I took a little unintended nap." She said gigglishy, though she was rather serious. "We can run around and gather supplies and snacks, I think we had a few more days before they planned to leave anyway." She had said after thinking on it for a moment or so.

"We'll use the caravans, there's a few spacious ones, we'll have plenty of space to work on puppets, so grab anything you want to take with you..."

"We won't be back for a while." Ikanbi began surging with chakra and produced two clones of acid and sand that she spoke to on the side as they floated in the air. "Gather the supplies, especially round up the poisons from the south east greenhouse and some of the things from my office, and ready a caravan to have by that greenhouse, please. Also, tell the staff to expand that greenhouse by several dozens of meters, please." She said firmly to the two clones, which then floated out the door and greeted a group of children before flying off to accomplish their specific tasks.

"I'll be at the south east greenhouse getting ready myself and making some tweaks to the underground and the caravans, as well as attending a few meetings here and there. Feel free to swing by and have a chat before we go, I'll show you my secret office." Ikanbi had said to him before she made towards the door, floating towards it before turning back around.

"Ah."

"Any questions, anything particularly pressing on the mind at the moment?"

[Zao]

"Yes ma'am." Ziv's reply was straight forward as he watched her form two clones, interacting with them like they were actual people before both quickly flew away to perform the tasks they had been assigned by the original. When it came to his ninjutsu, it seemed that he was still lacking a bit, but he was only fourteen years old and had truly only been studying the art of the shinobi for just under two years. So, it was to be expected that there was still a lot for him to experience and learn along the way. This seemed like it would be the perfect opportunity to do just that with the help of his auntie Ikanbi. "The southeast green house, very well. I will see you there in two days then."

The white-haired student gave a polite bow of his head as the woman floated away towards the one exit of the workshop, when she stopped to question him again the boy simply shook his head in response this time as he pondered about the journey that lay on the horizon for him. After the woman would go about her own way to prepare, he turned around and took out a handful of prepped storage scrolls, though technically all the equipment here in this workshop was the school's property, they wouldn't mind him borrowing a portion of it, would they? Shifting his eyes from side-to-side, as though he was looking to see if anyone was watching he began to store away some of the more unique tooling items that he didn't have personally in his own batch of tools.

Thankfully, most of the teachers and children had followed the elemental bodied woman who left, her appearance making quite the seen and soon they had even forgotten that she was talking to a student in the workshop. But he was sure that after they could no longer follow and speak with the head mistress that they would eventually come to find him to ask him questions about her visit. It only took a few minutes with the use of his storage scrolls and chakra threads to snag up about thirty percent of the nicer tools in the workshop, including a few worktables and benches before slender youth turned to leave after storing away the scrolls in a satchel and slinging it across his body.

With the majority of the students still finishing up their last classes of the day, it was easy for Ziv to make it back to his room as he began to lay out a number of items on his bed to include traveling clothes and different items, he would need for a long trip. Though he didn't know exactly how long their journey would be, he knew that Ikanbi was known to disappear for weeks or even months at a time before randomly popping back up at the institute. Thus, preparing for at least a month's worth of traveling was the mindset that he went with.

A good time had passed as the boy continued to pack and store away items in scrolls that he might need for later, soon enough his room began to look rather empty with only some different items tapped to the wall and a few notebooks left out on his work desk. As the sun set, he managed to secure some food for dinner from the cafeteria and after his light meal the boy opened up one of his partially used notebooks. There he wrote out a letter to his two brothers, Yami and Yume, the pair of which were off on their own grade advancement mission. Those type of missions, at least at their current grade, were to be completed by the individual student but since Yami was more or less a part of his best friend the school made an exception in that matter. The letter detailed that he would be leaving for some time under the guide of Ikanbi to visit the Temple of the Sun and possibly other places. It also told the twins to try and stay out of trouble, at least until he returned.

Soon enough the final preparations from Ziv had been completed as he left his letter on the rack of his brother before tugging a heavy looking backpack onto his shoulder. Stopping for a moment to give one last glance around the shared room between him and the other two, a gentle smile on his lips. Both the brother and he were constantly working hard to become stronger, eyeing positions in the first-year class, each with their own reasoning. When he returned, he would need to test which of them had become stronger. "See you guys when I get back...", with a smile he closed the door and secured the lock with his key before stepping off to go meet up near the greenhouse that Ikanbi had told him about.

[Sia]

She gave him the days that he had said and had spent her time in several meetings, signing lots of paperwork, and generally agreeing overall to hand over ridiculously large amounts of ryo to several different hands, organizations, clients, children, teachers, and staff members. She gave everyone a bonus, just because she could, for it was getting into the fall season and the colder time would be coming soon, it would help people to get supplies. She gave, as it were, an incredibly large donation to the teachers wages, though, they would not see it until the day after she left.

Ikanbi was outside the greenhouse, tending to some of the plants that were outside, away from the greenhouse. It was one of her favorite parts of the Warphanage. She had collected samples and made splices and clones of many of the poisonous things in this particular greenhouse, as well as a few very specific plants that would be good for spreading life and gardening once they were in the other countries. Their were samples of fungus, snakes, frogs, many bugs, and some spiders too, as well as a few scorpions. These were new additions that she had brought with her and were now hanging up around the greenhouse in a new expansion.

She had sensed Ziv's thoughts as he came close by and turned to greet him with a grin, floating around the plants she was in the middle of admiring. "Ah, good morning Mister Ziv." She had said very politely and bowed to him neatly mid-air. "Funny little plant this one, it doesn't like to be in the green house." She gestured towards a strange looking plant some few meters away from the green house. Coming out of a large black pot was a red and purple bush with bright orange flowers. "It doesn't like to get quite that hot you see," She then gestured towards the green house.

"My office is inside, by the way, if you'd like to see it. There's a few things in there you might find useful."

[Zao]

Ziv was only close friends with a couple students, aside from his two brothers, and as he was leaving the dormitory section of the school grounds he bumped into them. Chatting a bit before letting them also know that he'd be gone for a bit on a mission and that his instructors had already been given the proper notification for his absence. After a few parting words the group dispersed and the white haired youth cut across the campus of Sky Reach as the green house area was closer to the Aguin house section. He seemed to have a sharpened his gaze as he passed throug, almost as though he was looking for someone specific but in the end only shook his head and exited out a pair of large wooden doors. "I'll find the green haired kid some other time..."

The boy whispered to himself in a rare dismissive way, his mouth curling into a bit of a frown. His thoughts drifting back to the time the twins and himself were beaten and had the griffin egg stolen from them by the green haired upper classmate and his pet snake. Though not really the vengeful type of person, Ziv couldn't help but want to settle the score between them. A defeat was always a little hard to swallow but it had been more like a bully picking on two kids back then rather than a real fight. 'I'm completely different from back then...' Shaking his head the boy cleared his thoughs as the cool mountain air swept over him, subconsciously causing a gentle smile to form on his face.

Turning left on a well worn walking path, the grass of the training area gave way to more luscious vegetation that was a mixture of different fauna raised by the school. A few minutes later the trail came to a number of protected green houses, some of which truly seemed to be the size of a normal house and each had at least a third year group of students on watch or patrol. Even a group of second year's could be seen roving through closer to some of the more dangerous green houses. "There she is!" The excitement in the young boy's voice was anything but hidden as he raised his left hand to wave from his distant position.

"Hello Ikanbi-sensei." The youth bowed politely as he neared, calling out in greeting for his adoptive aunt. His eyes were directed to the strange colored bush with orange flowers, but her words confused the boy somewhat. She spot as if the plant had it own will or intelligence. "Of course, please lead the way." Blinking for a moment he was brought back into the moment as the immortal question him about seeing her office. There were many rumors, good and bad, about the head mister and even about her secret office, was he about to be one of the few students who were actually able to see inside it? And what were these things that were mentioned which could be useful to him?

[Sia]

"Let's go then," She had said to him and floated towards the entrance of the greenhouse, casting the door to the side carefully as she made her way in and held the door open for him behind her. She made her way to the lotus lily plant and tapped it lightly, waking it up. "Oh, hello dear!" It had said to her, then it turned very visibly in Ziv's direction and greeted him too, "And to you!"

"Hello old friend," Was all Ikanbi said in response, to which, the pot containing the plant began to expand tremendously, spanning out to several meters tall and about two meters wide with a large set of double doors in the middle with large vertical wooden handles. The door on the right slowly swung itself open, then the left did as well and opened up wide to reveal its contents.

Inside was practically a museum, a zoo, an aquarium, an exhibit. Their were displays as far as the eye could see in just about every direction. Various collections of different specimens of minerals, fluids, bugs, arachnids, fauna, flora, fungus, weapons, armors, puppets, birds, animals, reptiles, fish, spirits, scrolls, the library alone was dozens and dozens of meters wide and tall. Ziv could get lost for hours here finding samples of practically everything he could imagine.

In her younger days Ikanbi had been affiliated with the Scribes of the Sand, and an amazing archaeologist. Her ability to utilize sand and acid in conjunction with each other so very precisely allowed her to excavate and extract practically anything anyone desired. She had spent several years amassing a fortune by merely taking and stealing things for various well paying parties. Surround with sand, move to other area. It was really so easy. It had allowed Ikanbi to retire super early, and easily to fund the orphanage.

The vault in Ikanbi's office was sizeable and filled with Ryo, jewels, golds, paintings, armors, vases, jewelry, and a lot of jade. Herbs and spices too, and a lot of incense. Speaking of incense, the scent in Ikanbi's office was lovely, reminiscent of nutmeg, allspice, and christmas. It was a relaxant, meant to calm Ikanbi and other's nerves.

Ikanbi made her way to the desk in the middle of the massive museum of an office and pointed out a few poisonous, venomous, and toxic things in the various sections that they passed along the way, and actively encouraged Ziv to take one or two if he felt like it as their were several of each, for she bred all of them on purpose for such reasons.

"The fungal ones are interesting, people have a hard time making real cures for those, they can stave the effects, but never get rid of them forever, very potent," She had said.

Outside, she could hear it begin to rain.

"How bout that."

She turned her attention to Ziv and then floated over to another poisonous thing of sorts, a lily scorpion from wind country.

"This is a Lily Scorpion, they are incredibly rare," she had began. "Their poison makes the usage of chakra difficult, it does incredible damage to tenketsu in the affected area and if it spreads can make someone unable to cast jutsu properly for a while." The Lily Scorpion was beautiful in a way, it was sand-colored, with slightly white markings here and there, but when it walked it almost looked like a flower, its tail being a more yellow like the protruding parts of a lily.

"Of course, you need a lot of the venom if you're going to make it into a gas, but that would be pretty funny to test out."

"Do you see anything you like? There's some books and equipment laying around too if you want to poke around, but scroll down the aisles and see what you find, there's all sorts of stuff here people have collected over time, it's not just my crap." It was from all over the different countries, a collection from the Scribes, Kintsugi, the Nomads, Iwa, Kiri, Kumo, Suna, Everywhere. It was just a collection, a dump of things interesting and trivial.

It was an antique shop and an animal exhibit all at the same time.

One could get lost here for hours.

[Zao]

Ziv naturally took a half step back as the strange plant seemed to come to life, his shoulder shifting slightly back with his upper body as both of the young shinobi's solid blue eyes narrowed. 'A talking plant?' Was it a spirit or some sort of hybrid creation that Ikanbi had created herself. Spacing out a for a second, the boy couldn't help but be drawn back into the limited number of memories that he had of his father between the time he was brought back from the Elephant spirit realm and when he was transported back to the human world where he first met his auntie in front of him. There in the strange realm of his father's own personal design somewhere in-between the layers of spacetime, on the small floating island there was another strange spirit creature that served his old man, it was a brilliant desert rose that had been a hybrid creation through the combined efforts of the Spirit Saint and the Naegi clan.

Before he even realized it a large set of double doors had formed in front of the old woman and himself, almost like something was pulling him along he began walk very quietly behind his mentor and adoptive family member. Yet, with every step he couldn't help but find his eyes drawn off to one side and then the other, it was like a treasury mixed with an apothecary, mixed with a zoon, and finally mixed with some type of junk store or flea market. Things of various origins lay scattered about, there was even a section of strange animals. The boys partially formed sixth sense would flare up in his mind as he fell behind Ikanbi as she led the way towards her own personal desk, as he looked at various plants or animals the sense of danger crept up the back of his neck. Ziv had experienced a number of dangerous situations, one bringing him close to death when him and his twin brothers had been caught in an ambush by a number of mercenaries and shinobi when protecting a princess.

It made him back up a few steps, almost unable to venture off the center walkway that the older woman had been walking on in front of him, after passing through that part of the floor did, he finally let out an audible sigh of relief. Soon they moved past a number of poisonous and toxic substances that were kept either in cases or bottles as the boy's detail-oriented eyes scanned the physical features of the ones in the cases and the label of the bottle. About half of them he knew but to his surprise the other half he'd only ever heard in brief mentions from other books or even not at all. Under the blessing of the head mistress, Ziv took out a few storage scrolls and decided to take away of few different poisons and toxins to help in his alchemic studies while under the banner of this mission he'd agreed to undertake with the old Suna-nin.

Next his attention was turned towards the Lily Scorpion, as Ikanbi spoke about it he couldn't help but raise both eyebrows in amazement. What a unique creature to be able to specifically target a prey's tenku. What a useful toxin it would be, but it would probably take months to extract enough venom from just the one she kept in captivity. "How rare are they?" One could only assume such a desert creature wasn't easy to find. As they continued on the boy laughed a little at the mention of it not being just her crap, shaking his head and then nodding as he gave a gentle bow and wandered around checking out different pieces of equipment that was unique or broken that he could use for parts, even finding some plans for different puppet modifications and weaponry. This place truly could have been considered by many as a treasure trove, who knew what one could find in here if they spend enough time.

But he was not the type to be greedy and after some time, he returned after sealing away a number of items that could be useful for enhancing his puppets or items that he wanted to further study when he had downtime on their journey while traveling. A delighted smile ease to see on the young one's face as he returned back front and center at the large desk of the school mistress. "Thank you for allowing me to come to your office. I've found a lot of things that I believe could help further my understanding of the art of puppetry here between pieces of old puppet frames and weapons, and some of the old scrolls over there. Maybe I'll also be able to make some headway in my alchemy studies to."