An old visit to an older place ( PM author to join)

A short man dressed in tanned clothing sat against a wooden fence, staring at the sea. The sea was covered in mist and you could only smell the strong stench of salt and the sound of crashing waves as if someone threw a hotdog during a band recital. As the man stared out into the sea, he remembered all of the decades of coming here and searching for a certain island of legend. Oh, it was wonderful to be right.

Over time he had gotten tired of human affairs and had shut himself inside of his own laboratory. Ten years. Ten. It had seemed so much longer. After pouring over his brail, he realized that he had gotten accustomed with humans and their smell. He remembered the first time he set eyes on one. The foolish man was named Kitsuke and his smell reeked of diatamacious earth and bug excrement. Every smelled of bug excrement. Or what they called "sweat". Nasty...but sweet after you get used to it.

He now had the information he wanted after those years of searching and decided to get off of that island where the smell of blood was evident and walked over to the mainland. This four-foot high white haired midget had his back to that mizu village and his yellow eyes searched for even a faint glimmer of life above that water. None.

Tori Hitonomi, a simple genin puppeteer, finally walks out of the Kirigakure village, for the first time in a great many years. He had become extremely awkward around the crowds inside the village, as he was far more comfortable in the safety of his home, where he could talk to his creations. The puppets and pieces of said puppets didn't necessarily have to speak back; talking to them and knowing that they could "listen" without judging or replying was enough. And oh, how his puppets would judge him if they could, especially with a past like his. The young boy stops walking and reaches his right hand up instinctively to touch the ten scars on his lower face that could never heal. His fingertips touched only the scarlet cloth that hid his guilt from the world, and the Kirigakure forehead protector that covered his mouth to keep the guilty truth from escaping. Tori closes his sky-blue eyes and immediately sees the beautiful face of the girl he once loved contort into an image of rage. She looked as fearsome and as hateful as Enma, with an angry snarl to match.

The genin continues walking soon, his scarlet robe keeping all 5'8" of his hauntingly thin body from view of the world. He moves both hands down to his hips to make sure both scrolls are still secure in their places. When he looks up and focuses once more on where he's headed, he sees the ocean ahead. A gust from the sea brings the salty smell to Tori's nose and ruffles his hair. Despite the cloth covering his nostrils, the new smell still penetrates the cloth, and he chokes for a moment on the new smell. Keeping himself cooped up in his house probably had an averse affect on all his senses. The world was too bright; people too loud; smells too powerful. The genin feared that it might be too much, but the moment and the breeze passed. When he looks back up, he sees something small, but strikingly white against the backdrop of the blue-green sea.

He starts his walk towards this something with interest, curious about what this thing could be; a child, perhaps? Definitely not an adult, as most adults were taller than Tori, and judging from the distance between the two, he could tell that this thing was even smaller than the genin was. As he gained ground, his feet slipping occasionally on the sand and causing the young adult to lose his footing every once in a while, as he was unaccustomed to walking much at all. When he finally manages to make out that it is, in fact, a person, he stops where he is, and his bony fingers trace the scrolls at his hips, ready to open them and release his puppets, though he probably wouldn't be fast enough to surprise whoever it is when he does so.

"Hey, kid." His voice sounds odd and quiet, as though he hardly ever used his voice muscles. Indeed, the genin hadn't spoken to anyone much in years. He had socially sealed himself off from the world; for the longest time, the only world he knew was the one he had created for his own sanity. He clears his throat in an attempt to make it louder and more intimidating, but when he tries again, his voice hasn't changed very much at all.

"Hey, kid. What're you doing out here?"

The man turned around, his spiky white hair flew up like a cockatoo's. " Kid? KID?! The hell you sayin' bone-butt?!!" Kamoku hopped up on the wooden fence, facing the other man. " I'm freaking Kamoku Willow, Sannin of the Sand Village and Medical Genius in all five nations! Nyah!!" he took out his clawed hands and pulled the lower folds of his eyes down and stuck out his black tongue. His face (if left alone) was quite cute and really did look like a kid. But when animated you could see all that was wrong with him. His pointed ears, his cat-like teeth, his black claws, his black tongue, and of course those huge yellow orbs that was spotted with at least 30 different pupils. All rolling around at once. It's as if someone slapped a horror show on a tanned kid's face.

After making the funny face to show his displeasure, Kamoku hopped down from the fence and examined his nails, making him look even more rude and selfish. " Anyway, butt-bone. Do you have something to say to the almighty kamoku?" His stature argued with his words. As if someone who was 4 foot even with 6 inch wooden sandals could be anything but 'almighty'. " I think it's called 'an apology."
"

The boy seems to fly into a momentary rage at being called a kid, almost like a child in a playground would throw a temper tantrum if he was told something rude about his mother. But Tori pays very little attention to what the boy says, as when the small Sannin had turned around, the young man caught a good look at the face that he hadn't seen before. It was almost human, but there were so many things wrong with it; the strange eyes with innumerable pupils, the pointy ears, the sharp teeth, and the black tongue and nails. It was almost too much. But Tori forces himself to pay attention to the strange kid's boasting again, then only stares down at the much smaller kid, partly in disbelief and partly in irritation at being called something like "butt-bone" by this much smaller ninja.

"Yeah, I got something to say to you. I'll try to say it without 'cussing', just for you." Tori's voice is gradually growing stronger with every use, but it starts to hurt his throat, making it sore and causing the sound of his voice to change and become more hoarse than quiet. He stops to rub at his own neck, trying to relieve the growing soreness before replying succinctly to the smaller ninja's boasting and annoying, obnoxious behavior. He doesn't realize that his mask has started to unravel, revealing just the bottom of his scarred neck.

"Screw you, freak."

Kamoku laughed at the man's reaction. Or rather "boy". Kamoku opened his eyes wide and his eyes scurried rapidly. So fast that you could only see the blur of them, making his eyes look brown. He was searching through the man's body for anything he could use. The boy's liver was shriveled and his fat cells were very few and far between. With the inclusion that he had been burned, stabbed and cut several times due to the molecule irritation all over his body. He also noticed the alloy in which was around the boys neck. The symbol on it read "kiri". Ah, a shinobi. Kamoku closed his eyes and grinned. He pointed up to the boy. " Freak is much better than kid. Good job butt-bone. Want me to keep calling you that or are you going to tell me your name?" Kamoku put on heavy gloves from one of his large bags near the fence and started to rapidly poke the man's thigh. " Eh? Do yah? Mm?" *pokepokepoke* As he got closer, the man could see that kamoku had taken all of his shinobi headbands and tied them onto his belt. There was ten in all. Most of them were crossed off, but only two were not. Kiri and Suna. Though he had multiple headbands of each. It seems that he had been a shinobi on and off most of his life. Usually waiting until there was a more favorable ruler.

Kamoku then looked back up and pointed at the sash. " Plus, if I'm a freak then you're a superfreak!!" Kamoku could almost hear that asinine song in the background.

The sudden, quick movements of the young boy's eyes makes Tori's stomach lurch, threatening to expel its contents right into the man's mask. The elderly genin manages to swallow it down and try to look elsewhere, not wanting to get sick and be forced to pull his mask off. When the boy pulls on those heavy gloves and starts poking at the genin's thighs, Tori focuses on the boy again and simply yanks the scrolls containing his puppets out of their holsters to slap away those obnoxious hands, though the heavy material of the gloves would make it impossible for the smaller Sannin to feel the pain from such weak slaps. "If you really must call me something, call me Tori. That's all yo-" Another sudden gust of wind reaches the genin's nostrils, and he stops talking suddenly to let out a barking kind of cough from the combined overpowering stench of the sea and the feeling of his hoarse throat closing from all the talking he's already done today.

When he finally finishes his odd coughing fit, he sees those headbands, clearly from other countries, and all but two scratched out to show that he was somehow loyal to two different countries; Tori's own Kirigakure, and what he proposed to be Sunagakure. The genin clears his throat and tries his last sentence again, as though nothing had happened. "That's all you'll get, as far as my name goes." While saying this, Tori had been twirling the scrolls in his hands, and when he finishes talking, he slips them back into their usual places at his hips.

"Now you can stop fantasizing about my bony butt. You're a little young to be doing that, aren't you?"

Kamoku's small hand was slapped away and the boy pulled out some scrolls. Kamoku noticed the type of paper it was written on. Puppet scrolls. Though none of them went past Rank A. Kamoku checked the man's Chakra levels. Genin, easily. Kam had never met a gennin that was over 18 years of age. This was getting interesting. "Tori, eh?" Kamoku stopped poking him and grinned. " you might need to take some of this to get used to the air." Kamoku pulled out a jar of what looked like cloudy water. What was really in it was boiled salty water with diced ginger and honey. It helps coughs, hoarse throats and soothes 1st stage tuberculosis. Kamoku tossed it to him. " Then maybe you can come up with a good comeback."

Then kamoku heard it. The snuff about his age. Kamoku's eyes turned black and he bared his teeth. His emotions a bit rocky from not exercising them with humans lately. His white hair slicked back like a birds and his claws extending, ripping through his burlap chain-encrusted gloves. " You can make fun of my skin, my height, my eyes and my sexuality..." Kamoku pressed the claw-tips of his index and thumb together, with a little light shining in between. " I'M A HUNDRED AND F*CKING TWELVE AND I SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH!!!" The tiny light grew to the size of a small bead and kamoku directed it towards the shoreline. He then let out the burst of light and it shot accross the area, over the fence and hit the ground with a boom. twenty feet of sand and washed-up material jumped into the sky as there was a 5 foot depression in the earth, quickly being filled by water from the sea. " Call and kid you want and make him do that you candy wrapper!!" his face was in a stern pout, his eyes going back to normal. Or...as normal as it was for kamoku.

Tori looks down at the jar of liquid suspiciously, then fumbles it a little when it gets tossed to him before finally catching it in his palm, and he starts to breathe a sigh of relief when another coughing fit works its way through his lungs and throat. When he can finally breathe again, he looks from the vial to the nearly minuscule, child-like ninja that was probably powerful enough to seriously screw up the genin. He had to have been quite powerful to gain the rank of Sannin, after all. Tori slowly unwraps the scarlet cloth from around his face, gradually revealing more and more of his face until the ten scars that reach from the cheekbones down to his jawline are fully visible. He swallows the liquid quickly, starts to cough from the sudden scent of the sea overpowering his nostrils again, but the cough stops almost as soon as it starts. When the genin looks at the Sannin just as the rant is starting, he wraps his face with the scarlet cloth again, then stops for a moment in fear at the small bead causing such a massive amount of damage, and the impossible age that this strange thing claimed to be.

The genin finishes wrapping his face with shaking hands, then presses them against his scrolls to keep the shaking from being too noticeable. "Hmph. Candy wrapper, huh." His voice is more firm now, and Tori is stunned into silence for a long moment at the sudden effects of that odd liquid from the jar. Even with his fear-filled, shaky voice, it was clearly stronger than before, despite not having been used for such a long time.

"Candy wrappers protect something sweet and amazing. If you knew me, you'd not call me a candy wrapper." Realizing that he's not talking to one of his puppets, Tori immediately shuts his mouth, staring at the smaller boy, almost daring him to make some inquiry as to the nature of this sudden change in thinking and conversation.

Kamoku's dark eyes and frown stare at the Tori for a long time. Kamoku crossed his arms as the air went thick with pressure. Then suddenly his eyes turned yellow-white and he started laughing. He laughed for over a minute, with light in his eyes. " If you knew me, you'd not call me a candy wrapper.Ha!" He had mimiced a lower-sounding voice that was supposed to be Tori's and immediately laughed at it. " You're a young human with a life ahead of himself. With all the crap that's happening you're as good as chocolate to a starving man." Kamoku's tiny stomach growled. " Speaking of which, I want to get a bite. Lets go to the meat shop." Kamoku began walking towards the village, then stopped.

He walked back to the fence and picked up his numerous bags and pulled out a larger bag from one of them. " Clench your teeth so you wont bite your tongue." He mumbled as he held the bags in him hand and his eyes went black again. All 10 of his claws had extended to 3 inches and were stabbing into the bags. The light shone from each finger grew, as so did a faint sound. It sounded of a high amount of electricity through the air...but more than that. It was the very fabric of life being changed. The area began to wave and spark, making one lose it's footing if not prepared and Tori's bones felt extremely heavy, with the strong taste of metal on his tongue. The whirring sound got louder...and louder. and so loud it dominated his thoughts...and then it stopped. Kamoku's bags had been shrunk to the size of a juicy apple. Kam grinned as the darkness from his eyes dissipated for the second time and tossed it in the bag. " Okay, now lets go get some grub." He walked towards the village, not waiting for Tori to say no.

The genin continues to stare at Kamoku, even as he begins laughing. He can't tell if the boy-like person was complimenting the genin or if he was jeering him some more. He can feel his anger rising over his confusion, but he drowns it down at the sudden memory of his Enma-faced love, the girl who had tried to cut his face to ribbon with some forbidden jutsu. He only just catches that the Sannin is suggesting that they get something to eat.

Tori Hitonomi starts to ask why he would bite his tongue, then he notices that the child-like thing's eyes have turned black. Instead of continuing his inquiry, he snapped his teeth shut to make sure he couldn't possibly bite his tongue, as Kamoku had warned him. He watches Kamoku stab the bags with his 3-inch long claws, then he has to close his eyes from the sudden bright light. His body suddenly felt heavy, and he could taste copper on his mouth, as though he were sucking a penny. Almost immediately, the wave-like motion and spark of the area caused the genin to fall onto his butt, and he has to clamp down on his ears as the strange sound grows louder, almost on the verge of driving the genin crazy.

Tori gradually opens his eyes and pulls his hands off his ears to stare up at the child-like Sannin, the sky blue eyes showing just how confused he was by the odd display, but he does not ask about what he's just witnessed. Instead, he clambers to his feet, and stares after Kamoku for a long moment before following afterwards.

Kamoku was working on some smaller technique now. Unlike the one he had used to shrink his own things, he was working on his face cosmetically. " Personally I'm surprised you didn't yell when you saw how handsome my roguish face is." He laughed, knowing how selfish it sounded, but not apologizing for it. His claws were rounding out kamoku's teeth and ears along with making Kam's eyes look more like a child's. As soon as the light from the water village struck Kamoku, he was already fit out to be one of the village kids. His now normal-looking black eyes stood out shining, and his smile more cute. He retracted his claws back into his gloves and started to run to a teriyaki stand. "mmm!!! Lets get some of that!" He ran past the pieces of cloth and onto the booth.

In kamoku's mind he was quite serious. He saw the malnutrition of the boy, how Tori's face was cut and how much he seemed to love puppets. Only a really stupid or a really masterful person would flash puppet scrolls as a threat. Especially when the water village is represented as one with no puppeteer. He then reflected on everything that had happened and he laughed inwardly. "It must've set him spinning like a top. An odd Sannin none had heard from in 10 years, using powers without any sort of jutsu and the ability to store or correct things without a storage scroll. This is going to be fun!"

Kamoku turned around, waiting for the skinny boy to join him. "Well, what are you waiting for? For them to encrust it in gold and serve it raw?" Kamoku turned and thought for a bit. " Actually that doesn't sound half bad." He said out loud. "Do you happen to have a license to serve raw food?"

Tori Hitonomi merely stares at the young boy. He'd seen Henge no Jutsu before, though it was never without handseals. Still, changes in appearance were not particularly rare. The child-like being had simply made himself look more like a normal child, probably in order to not attract too much attention. He finally did reply to the Sannin's vain remark about his own face. "You act as though I've never seen Academy Jutsu before." Just as they reached the teriyaki stand, he finds that people have started looking at the genin as though he were the father of this child-like being before them. And with the apparent age difference between the two, wouldn't it be more likely that they were father and son?

Tori Hitonomi's own mind raced at how the boy had not only created some kind of massive underwater crater, but to change the size of the bags he had been holding to be about the size of an apple. Maybe it has something to do with that handseal-less Henge... It could all just be high-level genjutsu. They say it can appear so real as to nearly become so, and this person is clearly high-ranking. But if I start believing that everything is a genjutsu, I'll just end up paranoid... He has to rub his forehead with his fingers, massaging out a headache he can actually feel growing. This is going to be such a headache...

The genin steps inside the teriyaki stand when Kamoku goads him into coming in, just as the Sannin asks if the guy behind the counter has a license to serve raw food. "You can't even eat normal foods?" He shakes his head and sits next to the child-like person who called himself Kamoku Willow. "Don't worry about the raw food. Just fix him your best dish." This last sentence is one directed to the cook who worked the teriyaki stand.

Kam looked at him with a smirk. " Yeah, a jutsu. Sure." He replied, while rolling his now child-like eyes. Though for some reason, he kept his hair stark white. Until normal hair, it reacted with his feelings. Going up and down in levels of concentration to the conversation or things around him. The village smelled a people. lots of people. He remembered the twists and turns of every street and even where some of his friends lay, either died by the enemy or died simply by old age. Kam lowered his eyes for a second, trying to sniff out Naizu. " It seems he's still Kage. He must be very old by now. Since I've known him for 50 years..."

His surroundings closed back in as he heard the man ordering for him. He stared at him incredulously as if he just said no allowance for a month. " I can't have a bloodied ham once in a while?! Give this old man what he wants, dammit!" He stood up on his stool, leaning to the cook. His head barely reaching over the counter. Due to the suprised heartbeats of the humans, he knew he wasn't going to get his way. He sat down with his hands accross his arms. "Fine...but nothing too acidic!" he thought for a bit. " And bring milk!!"

Kamoku sighed. He could make a commotion like that and not have Naizu sniff him out. But if he eats the wrong food, things could get ugly, and Kamoku was worried about that. He turned to the boy and stared at him for a moment, as if he was looking past him into a realm of thoughts. A look that every child knew, looking at the contemplation of the elderly. Kam refocused his eyes as they brought his milk. He picked up the heavy glass with both hands and sipped it.
"So, a gennin from the water village, with a wound that means he stepped over the wrong line and has a serious dedication to puppets...even though he's not in Suna. You probably have three or four of them...yeah?" Kam placed the milk glass on the table and smiled, his black tongue still there.

One of the shop keepers asked about his tongue and if he was infected and kam laughed. "Nah, I ate too much licorice and someone tried to scrape it off with rice cookies." If the man knew about children, then he would know that if you eat a lot of sugar and then eat any kind of grain, the pigment from the sugar would stay on for at least two more days.

(Sorry for the really late post! I was kept busy by my work...)

Tori Hitonomi only stares as the young boy makes a childish scene about how he can't get something bloody, and the puppeteer says nothing, his thin arms folded across his chest, clearly not backing down from this point of view. The Sannin sits down and crosses his arms, though the genin guesses that such a strong-willed person had simply changed his mind of his own volition, and Tori decides not to inquire about his aversion to acids.

He feels those eyes on him and Tori looks out of the corner of his eye at the boy when he begins his line of questions. At the mention of his scars, the genin reaches a hand up to his face in an almost protective motion before he realizes he's done it, and he brings his hand back down slowly, as though nothing had happened. "I have these wounds because of mistakes I've made. That is the only explanation you will receive. As for my puppets... They are my friends when I have none. But I only need two of them, it's all I can handle. For now."

At the mention of the black tongue, Tori starts to panic, then relaxes again when he finds that the boy-like man seems to have an answer planned for that particular remark. He touches the scrolls containing his pair of puppets automatically, watching for trouble from the man who had drawn attention to the black tongue. The genin shakes his head slowly, almost imperceptibly, but the man catches this and leaves them be until the food is ready to serve.

Kamoku laughed. " Yeah, they are a handful. I've had this friend of mine make a few puppets for me once, didn't go on too well since it's hard on the upkeep. Two years later he saw the condition they were in and nearly cut off my head!" Kamoku laughed wildly, his eyes beaming at the memory. He remembered the man in the missing ninja outfit, covered from head to toe in metal and wood with four of his puppets standing next to him. " I think his name was Kisho... though most people know him more as Zodiark. My brother-in-law raised that fool to the bloodthirsty animal he is today. Wonder where he went..." Kamoku had just described the previous leader of the Akatsuki and the killer of over 3 Kages and 2 Sannin. Kamoku's evey began to grow dark. Remembering his time in the Akatsuki. All 3 times. Unlike many other people, he survived decades after deserting the Akatsuki. Maybe because they knew he would always come back with some sort of contraption to make their plans better. He wondered how things have changed during his 10 years of being underground...working.

Finally the food was brought in! A large teriyaki bowl of glazed meat and vegetables was served to him. Ignoring the chopsticks and the small spatula, he dove right in using his gloves. As he ate, his claws peeked through and removed the acidic juices from the peppers and the fruits from the meat. Though to another perspective...it just looked like he had horrible manners. After gobbling the bowl that was nearly half his size, he sat down and dabbled his lips with a napkin daintily. Though there was a massive amount of barbecue sauce still left plastered on his face. "Ah! that was good! Arn't you going to eat?" Kamoku's messy face grinned at him.

Kamoku began to think. "This boy says that two puppets is all that he can handle... what is he didn't have to take care of the puppet? What if it could take care of itself. I've thought of linking Guujins with masters, but never really any puppeteers...Netsu wouldn't even contemplate of being the servant to this bony guy and the other guujins are far too peaceful to be put through the horrors of being pulled apart and messed with. The only one stupid enough and is the most resilient is that ten year old boy Hitogoroshi..." Kamoku jumped up, balancing the glass of milk on his head as he placed his hand on his hip, he pointed to the boy. Kam was probably interrupting the reply to his previous question. Though that was just how selfish Kam was. " What if, my good friend. I said that I can give you a puppet with a soul? Meaning," Kamoku pulled the milk from his head, downed the rest and set it down on the table and stared in the hollowed eyes of the boy. " It can talk, have it's own opinion and move on it's own. Though it's still devoid of any living material except a skeleton." Kamoku beleived that if this boy had Hitogoroshi, they could grow together. Hitogoroshi was very creepy, but very kind. It would cause this boy to be more soft in return, and it would help Hitogoroshi feel more useful. Maybe they could even master the art of puppeteering.

Tori hadn't paid much attention in his classes, but he certainly remembered the story of Zodiark. The genin grips the table in order to stop his hands from shaking when the child-like man mentions that such a ninja had, in fact, been raised by his brother-in-law to be what he is today. He closes his eyes for a long moment and tries to dispel his fear by mentally reminding himself that Zodiark was not in Kirigakure right now, and was therefore not a current threat to him. When he opens his eyes again, he notices that the boy's features had changed just a little, and he realizes that the Sannin's mood is quite different, and much more like Tori's when he had been cooped up in his house after that fateful Chuunin Exam fiasco.

But Kamoku's expression changes again when the food arrives and Tori can only watch while the boy-like man digs into the food without using any utensils. The genin rubs his eyes, knowing that people will stare at this boy who seems to have been raised like a wild animal, stuffing his face with his hands. When Kamoku asks if he's going to order anything, Tori can only shake his head. "I'm not revealing my face... not in public, anyway. It could be considered...... quite rude." Tori notices that the Sannin has missed quite a lot of barbecue sauce with his dainty napkin, and he starts to grab a handful of them to help the boy clean it up when said child-man jumps up and points at the genin with the glass of milk balanced on his head.

"Eh? A puppet with a soul, huh?" He stares straight ahead as he thinks about this, his mind working to think about how he could open up this living person and put weapons inside. He had heard some back-handed talk about puppets that were made from living bodies, and this sounded quite similar. If he ever wanted to be one of the few puppet ninja to create a human puppet, this puppet with a soul sounded like an opportunity he simply could not miss. He smacks his palm on the table and stand up, and when he speaks, it's not just a quiet whisper any more. "I will have this puppet with a soul and mind as well as a body!" Tori only realizes that he's made a scene after he says this, and he sits back down quickly and mutters something about useless theatrics and infectious excitement.

Kamoku laughed as the boy jumped up and went nuts with excitement, though it was kam's fault for inciting it. He was glad that Tori was excited about something. Even though it was in a short time span, it seemed the right decision; and hey, if it didn't turn out well he could always terminate Hito. Kamoku remembered that Hitogoroshi had been living in the Guujin Islands recently and had grown depressed after the akatsuki puppeteer was killed. Now Kamoku tossed a few gold buttons he pulled from the decoration pieces from his coat and started to walk away. The buttons landed in the shop keepers' hand and Kamoku assumed he would understand that that was the means he was paying for the meal. His tiny stature marched through the crowds confidently. " Alrighty stick legs, lets go get your ninja buddy. Though I have to tell you, Hito is a tad odd when it comes to his pet rat. I think he named it "potatoes" or something."

As soon as they went out of the city limits kam dove his hands in the icy water and wiped his face. As he did so, he removed the childlike features from his face into an older personality. Though his cuteness was still there. He looked down at his own form and frowned. " I'm so freaking short midgets use me as a footstool..." He grumbled to himself as he made himself two inches taller using that 'jutsu' that had thrown Tori off his feet. The effects were still there and agonizingly uncomfortable, but since Kam knew that Tori would be able to prepare for it, he didn't see the harm. After inspecting himself, not saying much about where they were going or how or even why were they at the exact same spot. Kam stared at Tori.

He took a long breath. " Those stories of a mad doctor creating bodies into living puppets and placing them on an island to build an army are true." He said it flat and straight off with no hesitation in his voice. For a few minutes he started to explain that he had discovered twenty years ago an island off of the coast of the village of the mist that was close enough to the deep seabed that the underwater volcanoes would release it's gas from the boiling water around a certain island. It was covered in a mist that would boil you from the inside out and disintegrate your bones. Kamoku told him that he believed the island was made up of animals who had gotten near this mist and died, attracting even more animals over millions of years until it rose from the water itself.

" These things I spoke to Naizu, whom I've been friends with since he was a gennin. He agreed that I could keep the island as my research lab and be militarily protected by him as long as I don't supply certain countries with Guujins -living dolls- and to make sure I help raise at least one puppet master from his village every human generation. Your the second. The previous one I looked over went bad, they seem to all do that." Kamoku laughed lightly as he remembered a puppeteer who had tried to attack him with a Guujin called Akiba. He had to terminate that poor thing, though he never suspected that if you are in contact with the puppet's chakra as kam terminates, you get blown to bits too...funny.

Kamoku pulled off his socks and geta sandals, showing clawed feet with what looked like a raptor spurr on the back. These foot claws were blackened at the tips just like his hands and tongue. "I'm telling you all this at once, because." He stepped on the water and a bright light shone. Kamoku tried to keep the teeth jarring as low as possible. He pressed his weight on the bright light and stood on it. His feet were manipulating the atoms to slow down their movement and solidify themselves as pillars of ice. The light went down and Tori could see the smooth surface. " I'll only be able to answer questions as we go to the island. Sort of the downside of having chicken feet." He said as such because he needed to walk while creating the next pillar on what is less that adequate footing. Kamoku hoped he didn't overwhelm this boy's understanding. Kamoku pulled out a lamp and strapped it to his hip, then lit it using his claw against his tongue for friction to make a spark. " If you want a repeat of that long yarn, wait until we get there." Kam grinned, this was going to be an interesting evening as he would pull a gennin from the safety of his despair and into the wavering hands of destiny. Why? We all know that destiny always needs a little help.

(817 words, woo!!! )

Tori can only stare at the gold buttons when they land in the shopkeeper's hand, clearly curious about why anyone would walk around with such ostentatious jewelry on his clothes. It was just another odd thing about an extremely odd ninja; he was short and child-like, but apparently fifty years old, he had been loyal to almost every village and had probably broken ties with just as many villages, he knew where to find a living human puppet, he could create powerful blasts out of nothing, and he enjoyed a fine meal of raw meat and milk. The genin suddenly felt that the flashy clothing was probably the least of his worries. (Un)fortunately, Tori isn't really given the chance to second-guess his original decision, as the man-child is already outside and walking through some crowds of people. The ninja is just barely able to keep up, following the odd shuffle someone would make in order to not trample the much smaller Sannin on his way out of the village. "I might be thin, but at least I'm visible in a crowd... And having a rat to talk to wouldn't be so bad, I guess."

Tori waits behind and to one side of the Sannin as he apparently cleans barbecue sauce off his face, and the genin looks away, across the ocean. At the comment about his own height, the genin smirks and retorts with his own comment. "You're so short, you're knee-high to a grasshopper." As he starts to turn towards Kamoku to gauge his reaction, he gets to see that change in height, another odd thing to add to the growing list. And when the man-child turns to face the genin, Tori almost jumps out of his skin again, though the change of the previously child-like face to this more mature one was not nearly as dramatic as almost turning into a completely different person.

He can only stare and listen attentively as the Sannin tells his story about the odd island made up almost entirely of rotting corpses that were drawn to the island to a similar demise as their very own prey, and how the ninja now had permission and even protection as long as he made Guujin for Kirigakure and trained at least a single puppeteer from each generation. He almost can't believe that such a short person could have possibly known the current Mizukage when he had just been a lowly genin, and he bites back a question about what Naizu had been like so long ago. Tori clearly does not share Kamoku's joy when he laughs at something he clearly remembered, but that Tori was rather confused about.

When the Sannin pulls off his socks and geta sandals, he reveals raptor-like feet with a spur on the back, black claws like what one would normally see in a nightmare. Tori almost thought he was actually in one, in fact, but determined that he would never dream about something like this. All of his dreams were plagued with nightmares, and none of those nightmares included men-children or islands made of animal corpses. The genin can only stare when the ninja creates shafts of ice for himself to stand on and Tori begins to guess that he will be taken to the island one day. He shuffles his feet on the sandy beach, wondering for a long moment about whether or not he should really follow a young boy to a dangerously deadly island, then figures that he has nothing to lose now but his life. And this life was a crappy one.

Instead of trying to walk on water, Tori assumed there is a reason for stepping on the ice pillars instead of simply walking on the water, and so follows the Sannin in his exact foot steps, avoiding the water as he follows headfirst towards his destiny.

( I apologize for the late post)

Kamoku continued to walk down the ocean, the waves moving up and down, the ice floating along with it. Eternally in place until both Kam and Tori have finished with it. It would then move away aimlessly and melt back into the dark abyss. The only sound now was of the sea and the clacking of Kam's feet against the ice.

He would hold onto the lamp with one hand and create more pillars with the next. He turned a yellow pupil in Tori's direction. " Its a few miles off the coast, so with this slow pace it's going to take a while. Any questions you want me to answer?" His short form was blurry due to the large amount of fog around him and was getting thicker the more they walked. Soon, the light and the pieces of ice would be the only things visible. Kamoku was waiting for an answer to make sure they kept up a conversation. Just in case the boy didn't wander off with that weird ability to walk on water.