Tender Loving Care

[seiuchiblarg]

The sand trickled out like water between his finger tips as Jiigo's tiny pin did it's work. Slowly, carefully, between each and every groove. Jiigo was cleaning Nefarious. The puppet in his lap would have smiled happily, given a face or a mind or a soul.... Well, Jiigo didn't like to dwell on that. The care he took for Nefarious was as a mother for her child, as a father for his household, as a lord for his people. He worked through Nefarious' wires, undoing all the knots, reworking and winding until they were tight and sweetly wound for him. Ready to come out and play at a moment's notice. He toyed out the kinks in his chains, sharpened out bluntened spikes. It was hard, laborious work that took him well into the day. And it was worth every moment of effort.

He was working on the winding mechanisms for the chains to which his spikes were attached at noon. When all of those were finally cleaned through, voided of any and all sand, he began wrapping the chains the way they should be, clearing out sand from the spaces at which they connected, winding it just the way it should be. Only a genin, Jiigo had already done this countless times before. It was a mindless task by now, but a peaceful one, which brought his spirit to rest. Here, he forgot his japes, his jokes, his paranoia and unrest. Here, he could focus on his companion, his friend, his puppet... His Nefarious.

And Nefarious was only the first half. Beside him lay Insidious, laying patiently in wait for his turn as well. Insidious was a simple puppet as well, less to take apart and work with. His tail, wings, and eyes were really the only moving parts on his body, and he would require less work. Insidious was new, however, and so Jiigo would take extra time to make sure they were especially cleaned and taken care of. Neither of them had had their chance in true battle yet, save Nefarious and a couple of silly scorpions, but they would get their chance.

[less]

"What the hell is that noise?" The words fairly escaped his mouth, spoken just as quickly as they were thought in an irritable, lazy baritone. Kaoru narrowed his eyes, raking his gaze around the immediate area in hopes of finding the source of the sound. It sounded like... someone tapping something. Or scratching something. Or both. Or maybe it was a bug trapped behind a pane of glass, zipping into it repeatedly in hopes of freeing itself.

The shirtless teenager clasped his hands at the base of his skull, leaving his elbows cocked out to either side. With a little work, he wandered closer to the phantom disturbance, half-wondering if some asshole was messing with his brain, subjecting him to some vaguely annoying genjutsu. He dismissed that possibility pretty quickly, though; people tended not to mess with him, at least not other genin. His muscles were hard and cut for a boy of fourteen, and it wasn't exactly a secret that he knew how to use them. His self-maintenance was almost as thorough and obsessive as Jiigo's care of the puppets. Almost. Kaoru didn't put that much effort into anything, or attach familial feelings to anything, for that matter.

Puppets. His green eyes narrowed just a little more when he found the other boy, hunched over the over-sized toy... cleaning it? It seemed like everyone had a puppet these days. Everyone who needed something to control, anyway. Kao didn't. He'd been in control of his own existence for a while now, and that was plenty of work right there.

He watched for a while. As long as it took for Jiigo to notice him, anyway, standing maybe five yards away with nothing in the way of cover. Lazy. Relaxed. His slack expression might have reflected mild interest in the menial task, if it reflected anything at all.

Twenty seconds later or whenever Jiigo noticed him, whichever transpired first, he put up a tepid smile and guy-nodded to the other shinobi.

"Hey." A practiced beat, before he added: "Nice puppets." His tone was friendly enough, not at all layered with the soap-boxy irritation that flooded through him at the thought of kugutsu practitioners. Chalk it up to subversive boredom; Kaoru wanted to have a little fun.

[seiuchiblarg]

Jiigo was just about finished. All that was left now was to coil up the chains and load their mechanisms properly, and then to close up the armor. Jiigo was nearly finished with the mechanisms when a man spoke to Jiigo, making him jump visibly. "Oh!"

Looking up from his seat on the sandy desert ground, Jiigo's gaze came to rest on an boy of about Jiigo's age who was staring interestedly at the inner workings of his puppet. The man's bodily features were plain to see, his shirtless form making Jiigo's own well-toned build look childish by comparison. The kairainin set to a rush, then, blushing furiously as he hurried to replace everything to the way it should be in Nefarious: A kairainin was mostly helpless if his only puppet had been taken apart, and for the enemy to see the insides of Nefarious, for Jiigo's puppet to be held open like a whore's legs... it was very much like being caught with his own pants down. Nefarious' "nudity" was his own.

Stammering, Jiigo closed up his puppet in a rush, speaking as he finished up. "Um... Uh, th-thanks," he said, trying and failing to regain his own composure. "I've-- I've had him since I was in the academy." Jiigo gave the man a looking over, noting that the man was from Suna. It still did him no good to allow him to see Nefarious' inner machinations -- and he hadn't planned to reveal Insidious to anyone at all! Now that Nefarious was covered up again, it's nakedness hidden from prying eyes, Jiigo felt a bit more curt towards this stranger who had intruded. Someone may as well have walked in on him in the bathroom without knocking! "I call him Nefarious," he said, his words a bit colder than perhaps they should have been. Insidious quickly went back into his scroll after a couple of seals, while Nefarious took it's usual place on jiigo's left shoulder, spiked chains hanging down off of him, all over his body.

JutsuShow

*Ninpou • Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Chouzou [Ninja Arts • Spiritualism Technique: Storage]
C-Ranked Ninjutsu
A jutsu used to store various inanimate objects inside scrolls such as weapons, food, etc. The items can then be summoned at the users need by opening the scroll.

[less]

He wasn't so much watching the puppets as the string-puller. His mechanical and weaponry expertise extended about as far as knowing which end of the kunai was supposed to go into the bad guy. It wasn't a lack of intelligence, though, but a lack of interest. Weapons, puppets, other people: they were all just something that could potentially fail him. As long as he relied on himself, what excuses could he ever make?

The frantic way Jiigo closed up shop jabbed at his curiosity. If it hadn't been for that, he might have chalked the embarrassment up to the fact that he'd surprised the other boy, but... no, that wasn't it. "Relax," he intoned, dismissive of the flushed cheeks and general demeanor Jiigo displayed. He shifted his weight, right foot sliding back a bit as he adjusted to stand comfortably for... however long the conversation wound up lasting.

"Nefarious, huh?" He weighed the name with his tongue and lips, expression thoughtful as his verdant gaze shifted from owner to puppet then back again. "Kind of a... whatstheword... auspicious? Sure. Kind of an auspicious name, isn't it? Bit of a give-away. But then again," and here he added a cocky, crooked sort of grin. "He's only really as nefarious as you make him, right?" His tone was somewhere between teasing and challenging, but he merely shook his head.

"What do you call the other one?" He canted his head toward Insidious, then swept a bit of his hair away from his eyes. "Murder-Spree? Ravager? Bad-Ass? Evil Wing-Thing?" Okay. The last one probably made it pretty obvious he was poking fun. Or maybe it was the smirk? Either way...

[seiuchiblarg]

Jiigo didn't know what was worse: the fact that he was making fun of Jiigo's puppet friends, or the fact that he was on the right track with one or two of his guesses, even as he'd been making fun of them. The look on his face was clearly not amused, and even as Jiigo spoke, his fingers twitched some, Nefarious' chain spikes clinking and clanking as they rattled up menacingly, like so many angry snakes poised to strike. "He's plenty nefarious, believe me. A couple of opponents already learned that... and the ones that made fun of him got the worst of it."

He was in no accommodating mood, thanks to this unwelcome intruder, but he responded all the same. "The other puppet's name is Insidious. He's newer, but we plan to give him a shot to live up to his name real soon." He was sizing the boy up as he spoke, a cocky and skeptical eye of his own raised. He wouldn't go attacking a comrade for nothing, but it was not a good idea to insult his friends. Nefarious' chains and spikes still rattled and coiled threateningly, almost as if they'd had a life and mind of their own. Jiigo wasn't even consciously making them do it: it was more a subconscious response than anything. But Nefarious definitely seemed more ready for a fight than Jiigo, who by now had remembered to master himself and reeled his anger in.

His position was now more relaxed as he stood, and Nefarious' chains lowered some, but even as the hung about his body, they stood rigid and ready. "My name's Jiigo, by the way. I'm from the Samata clan. Not the most powerful family ever, but we know how to get the job done alright!" It was with a casual, flighty sort of tone that he gave this introduction. He had one hand on the nape of his neck in a sheepish way, rubbing as if to dismiss the tension of the situation.

[less]

It was a little difficult to maintain a straight face as Jiigo spoke. Oh, he didn't miss the fact that the puppet seemed itching to uncoil its various instruments of ouch, or that the kid obviously had some weird hard-on for the piles of metal, but... well, he didn't seem concerned. If there had been something convenient to lazily lean against, he would have. It wasn't that he didn't have any respect for Jiigo or puppeteers in general. He was just better loose and reactive, and shifting into some sort of defensive stance would probably only have escalated things further and faster than Kaoru would have liked.

Instead, he decided to appeal to the craftsman's vanity. Grinning a bit, he nodded. "The way you make it sound, it's like they have their own personalities or something. That's kind of cool. I mean... I guess it's better than just using them, you know? I always kind of wondered if people with puppets had like, control issues, or whatever. Like maybe they don't feel like they have control of their own lives, so they need something that they can make do whatever they want." It was worded and spoken carefully, in such a way that Kaoru was certainly describing other puppet-masters, not Jiigo. But hey, if it happened to hit home...

His eyebrows hedged up at the introduction. Did he detect a faint hint of shoulder-chip in regard to the boy's family? That was one aspect of his lack of identity he actually enjoyed. He was completely free of those sort of comparisons and politics. People didn't bother adding him into the equation as a variable. "Nice to meet you, Jiigo, Nefarious, Insidious." He grinned toothily. "I'm Kaoru, but you can call me Kao if you want. No idea who the hell my parents are." He played that little card seamlessly, lassez-faire, straight from the hip. The intent was to make it a non-issue, rather than hunt for sympathy, and to avert the usual awkwardness when he declined to give a surname with no explanation.

[seiuchiblarg]

One of Nefarious' many coils wound their way up beside Jiigo's shoulder, getting stroked at the spike as if it were the body of a beloved pet. This was in response to Kaoru's opinion of other puppeteers, which came after Jiigo's introduction. He had a soft sort of smile on his face as he stroked Nefarious' spike. It did strike Jiigo as odd that the boy didn't know his parents, but he wasn't the first kid with a sob story from one of the hidden shinobi villages, and he wouldn't be the last. Jiigo thought very little of it, and so didn't stress it.

"You're an interesting one, Kao." He was curious about his observations regarding those puppeteers. "I wouldn't say it's about control. It's about being effective ninja. Your offensive and defensive abilities being in more than one place at once, all the while staying away and protected yourself. I cherish my puppets as close friends because their performance relates directly to my livelihood. If I don't take care of them, I'm not taking care of myself." He gave it a moment's hesitation, and then added almost as an afterthought, "Well, I guess it is pretty cool to have a couple of badasses like my puppets to command![/i] That wry, sheepish grin again, and one of Nefarious' coils mirrored his own actions as a hand went to the back of his neck in that sheepish manner of his.

[less]

People always looked for reasons to degrade. Kaoru tended to prevent a pretty unassailable front, but his sordid past was basically the one gap in his social armor. If he lied about it, he was a dishonorable curr. If he told the truth, people could call him stupid names or theorize about what sort of union would have resulted in him, and the type of woman who left her child to someone else's care. He was glad Jiigo didn't seem to care.

A smirk took his lips. He took 'interesting' as a compliment, most days. "Like I said," he drawled. "I wasn't talking about you." Well, he hadn't said it, but he'd implied it. "There are plenty of ways to be an effective ninja that don't involve puppets though. I think there's a pretty big overlap between control freaks and puppeteers." His smirk exacerbated. "Just like there's a big overlap with guys who run around with huge ass swords and guys with tiny dicks. It's psychology, plain and simple."

He reached up to scratch at the back of his neck idly. Maybe he was off-base going the control angle, now that he watched the kid caress his puppet. "Where'd you get the idea to make them like that?" Fishing expedition. Jiigo seemed pretty susceptible to flattery, at least as far as his little friends went, so Kaoru would continue to ask his seemingly benign questions. It wasn't even that he didn't like Jiigo. Jiigo seemed like a decent guy. There was just something here that felt like a mystery, worth figuring out. Or maybe I'm just bored... There was always that possibility.

[seiuchiblarg]

Asked where the inspiration came, Jiigo puffed up as his ego was stroked. "Puppeteers are common in Suna, and I didn't choose the path. It was what my family thought I'd be best with, so they taught me as much as they could about it. Everybody has puppets with special designs, made to look like stuff around them. They all have the same weak points. And besides that, they all have weak points."

Jiigo lifted Nefarious off of his shoulder with chakra, allowing most of the spikes to slip back into the puppet, while two of them seemed to be flexed like a body builder's bicepts. "Nefarious here is made of the same material with the same exact build all the way around. All three hundred sixty degrees have the same stability and sturdiness, and any joints or mechanisms to him are on the inside. I started out just wanting to make something symmetrical, just so it wouldn't bug me, but i ended up getting something powerful.

"With Insidious... I wanted something small. He's easy enough to destroy, but only if you can hit 'im. He's light-weight so he's really fast, and even though he has limited weaponry, I can use his body in a lot of different ways, and because he's so small, he can be difficult to see coming. And of course, the symmetry gives him the same strength Insidious has. I guess my inspiration was symmetry. Looks good to me. I spent more time measuring their symmetry than I did on their weapons, really..." Jiigo's voice trailed off. He did adore their symmetry, and thought it worth every moment of time spent for it.

Jiigo's own curiosity had been ignited as well. He was tempted to ask the boy about his own abilities, if he didn't use puppets, but the only reason Kao had seen what Jiigo did was because Jiigo had been caught with his pants down. Ninjas didn't share their secrets unless they had to, after all.

[less]

Kaoru blinked slowly, standing in place to watch the entirety of the demonstration and rambling.

He'd been doing so well. Behaving. Biting his lip here and there. By the time the kid finally shut up it was like a persistent itch. He waited, and waited, and suppressed the nearly biological urge to roll his eyes.

"Like I said," he intoned with a smirk and an air of finality. Jiigo's unspoken wish would be answered to a degree as Kaoru went through a series of hand-seals.

"It's psychology, plain and simple."

With that, he burrowed into the ground, churning away through the earth to emerge around a convenient corner and make his way home.

And people said he had issues...