#roku chigami

[cyb-by-lang]

[image description: A grayscale image of four people standing together in a line. Roku is a young man with dark hair over one eye, wearing a sleeveless overcoat with tails over a short kimono top and pants tucked into long boots. A scroll hovers over his right hand. The second is Aiko, a light-haired girl with a headband, carrying a wide sword over one shoulder. She wears shorts and long stockings, and short sandals. The third is Kaito in a hood with trailing scarf-ends, dark shorts, and long armored boots. Strange shards drift out of armored forearms. The last is Kei, a tall woman with dark hair and a scar on her face, a katana on her belt, and a kimono top styled more like an overcoat with roughly stitched sleeves. end description.]

Notes under the cut.

It took me the better part of a week, but I decided to screw around with the character designs for Team Kei. Since I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact lately, I decided to go a little wilder to give the kids less practical outfits so they could show off some of their personal styles.

Kaito gave me the most trouble by far. I went back and forth between giving him trailing sleeves and the armor you see here that I was able to almost entirely finish Kei’s look in the time it took me to decide.

All of the kids have black bands on their designs that mimic about where their shinobi headbands sit. The exception is Roku; he’s never been drawn with a hitai-ate that I know of. He just gets an armband. And a complete hairstyle overhaul.

As mentioned earlier, Kaito and Roku are both catalyst-wielders in Teyvat. Hence the floating scroll. Alternatively, maybe Roku’s using some Magnet Release to make that scroll float.

I think to be genuinely from Teyvat, everyone would need about 3x more detail. Or at least patterns!

I didn’t include any Visions, but if you’re curious:

Roku’s Geo Vision and would sit at his hip, on a chain.

Aiko’s Pyro Vision would be on the back of her neck.

Kaito’s Cryo Vision would be on a pin right at the base of his throat, where the sides of the hood meet.

Kei’s Hydro Vision would sit between her shoulder blades, since we’re leaning into the whole turtle thing.

[langwrites]

Merc Work

I have no excuse for this other than needing a break from my NaNoWriMo break from Kei.

Be warned: It has no ending.

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On a half-decent day, Kei would wake up with the dawn in a world without alarm clocks. If the day was especially good, she’d do so in her own fucking bed and not be on a ridiculous solo mission that’d gotten blown so thoroughly off track that she couldn’t see the proper path with the Hubble telescope. Waking up in an unfamiliar continent was already a sign of a bad time, and then the power of an unfeeling cosmic gearbox threw in the unasked-for bonus of pervasive xenophobia while surrounded by European fantasy analogues. Especially while being trailed by three Academy students on what should have been a harmless trip to visit the graves of their family. 

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the comparatively minor setback of Kei being on third watch. Sleep was for people who didn’t have a demonic turtle sitting in their lap. And who weren’t “new meat” by local standards.

So, between having to join up with a mercenary band to avoid dealing with racist jackasses through the power of numbers and swords, the apparent tech levels not supporting indoor plumbing, the safety of her students, and sitting in the cold for two hours before sunrise… Well, Kei could be forgiven for feeling a bit crabby.

Ha.

You hush. 

Never.

Kei considered the complete inability to actually keep Isobu from intruding on any conversation he liked, then sighed. There was such a thing as a hopeless fight, even for her. 

Isobu folded his armored forelegs under his belly. Had you not been transported here alongside the children, would you have joined this mercenary band to begin with?

Kei made an “I dunno” noise without opening her mouth. I mean, the sheer isolation would be an absolute nightmare. I know my limits a bit better now. 

The spiritual wreckage of her left arm attested to that issue. 

Isobu looked down, over the edge of Kei’s lap and toward the forest around Remire Village. They were probably about ten meters into the crown of the oak tree Kei chose as her lookout post for the last week, with only minor modifications to the branches. The only real change between this night and others involved Isobu being a lookout alongside her, rather than haunting the nearby river and stealing fish for his own amusement. 

And for feeding the kids, but that hadn’t happened since they’d joined the Jeralt mercenaries last month. 

Even if Kei didn’t trust rowdy men and women to look after a bunch of kids with special powers, she did trust Isobu to keep track of them. If the mercenaries got into a skirmish with bandits or anyone else, Kei ordered Kaito, Aiko, and Roku to hide with their spiky guardian as their sole point of contact with the group. When the situation was safe, Kei would call for them. If it wasn’t… well, that wasn’t going to happen. Kei had seen the local idea of what “power” meant and was left unimpressed. 

Nothing could get past me if it tried.

There’s a sentiment I can get behind. She’d survived worse than angry knights chasing her with spears.

The only one Kei wasn’t entirely sure of was the mercenaries’ second fiddle. The Ashen Demon, sole child of the Blade Breaker, went by Byleth Eisner (or just Byleth) to everyone else. They were half their father’s bulk and didn’t resemble him much in either coloring or general features. The lack of visible emotion on their face left most people around here fairly unnerved, but Kei found it was actually something of an advantage upon joining the mercenaries. Because people like Jeralt were already used to Byleth’s culturally-remarkable flat affect, they had an easier time giving some slack to Kei’s preferred mask of complete professional stoicism. 

The kids didn’t bother hiding their feelings about the whole thing—they latched onto Byleth insofar as they did anyone, perhaps because they were the smallest adult available who wasn’t Kei. 

But Byleth also had a job, and that job included enough of Kei’s personal stabbing quota to disqualify them from combat babysitting duties. 

Though she’d asked once about it anyway.

Byleth’s microexpressions were difficult to read. She left the conversation with the impression they were more confused by Kei’s willingness to approach them than insulted by the presumption, and thus joined Kei and her ducklings at dinner on occasion like they had a standing invitation. 

They basically did. Kei wouldn’t shoo away people who liked her cooking, and Byleth didn’t get loudly drunk all damn night. 

Don’t worry, though. You’re still the indisputed babysitting champion of the battlefield.

Pah. Isobu swatted Kei’s hand with one of his tails. 

Rowdy for a clone, aren’t you?

Insulting for a host, are you not? Isobu reversed it, because of course he did. And it is not as though this clone could be destroyed by anything less than your brute strength.

Fair.

Normally, Kei could have continued this line of thought for some time. Bantering with Isobu was a peaceful way to pass a watch shift. He had good night vision. She had the ability to interact with the world as a human being. These things were very complimentary. 

And Isobu used his sensitive eye, adapted for exploring the sea, to spot the problem before Kei heard it. Smoke at night was difficult to see without decent moonlight, at least for humans. Isobu poked at her brain to draw her attention to it. Likewise, the orange flicker of distant flames was just barely visible in Kei’s periphery if Kei angled her vision, like she would if observing the stars. 

That is going to be our problem in short order.

Isn’t it always? Kei replied, leaning as far sideways as she can to see through the modified canopy. Any farther and gravity would be held at bay only by chakra usage. Time to get up.

Indeed. And that was when Isobu opened his mouth to roar.

It was a tiny noise, relative to his true form’s size, but the sleepy village below them started to stir. The mercenaries were used to the sound of Isobu’s dying rabbit screams by now. 

And down.

Kei shoved Isobu off her lap, sending his spiky ass tumbling out of the tree to land among the three kids piled up in their camping bags. Kaito stirred first, patting sleepily at Isobu’s ridged belly before sitting up. This dislodged Roku and Aiko in order, just in time for Kei to land about a meter away with her finger in front of her face in a clear shh gesture. 

None of her three charges moved a muscle. 

“All three of you need to hide,” Kei told them, in the language no one around here spoke. 

One by one, she hugged each of them tightly enough to convey the seriousness of her request. Three pairs of cautious eyes met hers, in turn, and then they scrambled to hide their possessions under thickets in the village’s outskirts. No bandits could know there might be someone here to chase. 

After about a minute, she picked up Isobu’s little clone and placed him in Kaito’s shaky arms.

The kids knew she’d come back. The mercenaries had fought in five skirmishes since they joined like glorified camp followers, and not one of those battles featured a single opponent Kei couldn’t destroy with her eyes closed. 

But this was their comfort zone. Each time Kei left them, like a mother wolf leaving her den, she stripped that security like a worn bandage. 

Even only after a month of immersion, the kids picked up the local tongue fairly fast. They were young and adaptable and Kei was the only human adult around who spoke Japanese to them. Until they heard it again, from either her or Isobu, they’d stay out of sight. The waiting, though, never really got any easier. 

“They’ll never find us,” Roku said, tugging gently at Aiko and Kaito’s wrists. The oldest, at barely eleven, and already forcing himself to be the most responsible. 

“Bye, Sensei,” Aiko said reluctantly, before Roku curled his arm entirely around her to keep her from running off. 

“Stay safe,” Kei told her. She looked directly to Kaito and added, “Be good for Isobu-chan.” 

Kaito didn’t say anything at all, instead just fixing Kei with a stare like he’d forget what she looked like if he didn’t. This lasted until Isobu ordered Roku to get all three kids away from there, and he did. 

All three of them disappeared into the forest. They knew how to climb trees like bear cubs—or shinobi—which would have to be enough. And if a single enemy got near them, Kei would probably need to cut a grown man in half. Perhaps several.

Byleth would help.

I’ll let you know when it’s safe to be out here again, Kei thought to Isobu. 

You should know that I was not designed for an arboreal existence. I have many prehensile tails, but I am not a squirrel.

But you’re so cute!

Flattery will get you nowhere. With that sassy rejoinder, Isobu did the equivalent of flicking Kei in the forehead.

Kei headed to the village’s front gate, cutting directly through the forest with the ease of someone who’d been in and around the wilderness her entire life. She could hear another group crashing through the woods at high speed, relative to normal human averages, and a larger group likely in pursuit. 

Well, that wouldn’t do. 

Hidden Mist. Though the hand seal for this technique was more of a stance, she could still put her detection trick in action. She just had to make sure it was concentrated on the pursuers, not the pursued. Deliberately leaving voids was useless for her strategies, but it probably kept people from breaking their necks unnecessarily.

And it let her know that the slower, louder group was thirty strong.

She kept going until she reached the village’s gates, spotting a mercenary named Arkady on duty. Backlit by torches, his five earrings caught the light and gave him away. 

“Back from the camping trip already?” Arkady asked, a note of alarm creeping into his voice. “Where are the kids?”

“Safe,” Kei told him. She slid into place on the opposite side of the gate, hand on the borrowed steel shortsword that’d carried her for the last month. Her katana was not to be wasted on bandits around here. Or in sparring. “But hidden. Someone is heading this way.” 

Arkady paused, eyed the forest, and then nodded. “I’ll wake the captain and his kid. Stay here.”

Kei let him go and drummed her fingers against her sword’s hilt, waiting. The crashing was getting closer, and her kids were fifty meters away in a tree. Even while dead certain Isobu was with them, her nerves refused to settle.

Strictly speaking, she didn’t need to keep herself and her team so far away from the mercenaries. They were a rowdy crew, but they were only of the rough-and-tumble sort. They expressed affection by going out drinking and slapping each other on the back and fighting shoulder-to-shoulder through wind and rain. Since Byleth had been with Jeralt since before he founded the company, presumably the various members would be at least peripherally trustworthy with children.

Kei, as a nineteen-year-old with dependents who had one half-cracked voice between them, only trusted the company on the battlefield. 

Arkady returned without Byleth or Jeralt, but he did have Marcel. The two of them were like a pair of piratical brunet bookends and cracked jokes anytime they weren’t on the job. It made her students edgy around them, but they were well-liked within the boisterous mercenary crew. Like many soldiers of fortune, they wore a fair amount of jewelry to emphasize their success, which was some of the best advertising around. So was the mess of scars, though only Marcel was missing a chunk of his nose. 

“What’s the matter?” Marcel asked, right before the group Kei’d been hearing for the last sixty-odd meters finally crashed out of the woods at nearly the same volume it started.

Three muddied, twig-strewn teenagers stumble up to the pool of torchlight, panting. 

Kei pointed at them, because it was faster than bothering to explain herself.

One white-haired girl and a dark-haired boy, at complete opposite ends of the “has this person seen the sun in the last decade” skin tone spectrum, while the tallest is the blond boy in the middle. If not for the torches, Kei wouldn’t even be able to call them “kids” in any meaningful sense, but she did know what school uniforms look like. Kei wandered out of her education as a baby adult, by one reckoning or another. Both of them. She hadn’t been able to look up information on the internet for unfortunately obvious reasons, but in a world where bespoke tailoring is a norm rather than a luxury and damn near nobody wore customized clothing unless they were rich, Kei’s intuition was subsumed by screeching alarm bells. 

Third watch on a morning  when they were supposed to be marching north into the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and now this. Kei’s private list of complaints kept getting longer.

“Scarface,” said Marcel, while the kids caught their breath, “why don’t you back up?”

Kei did so, because these kids were likely to react to Kei’s not-Caucasian features with the traditional xenophobia displayed by basically every non-mercenary person from Fódlan so far. If she had to deal with weapons swinging at her face before the sun came up, they’d better be attacks from people she already wanted dead. She didn’t have the patience this early in the morning.

The motion caught the eye of the boy with the yellow shoulder-cape, but little else about Kei was too distinct once she was out of direct torchlight.

Well, mostly. 

Sort of.

She was wearing a haori, her armguards, and the local pants-and-boots combination because her sandals could be saved for special occasions. Instead of covering her face with a mask or even wearing her headband as intended, she tied it around her neck like an ascot. There was only so much point in pretending to be anything but foreign. Between her accent and facial features that she was not going to burn chakra trying to hide, it was something Kei kept in perspective. 

And the yellow-themed kid was still looking at her.

“Kid, eyes over here,” Arkady demanded.

Kei silently cheered at even a token attempt to direct attention away from her.

At this point, Jeralt and Byleth arrived. 

Jeralt was a huge, dull-orange mountain of a man with dirty blond hair and a braid and undercut combination Kei didn’t think would ever catch on. His scarred face told even more of a story than Kei’s did, and no one was quite sure how many battles he’d rushed into and out of alive.  Nor were they sure how old he was. More than anyone else in the company, Jeralt was a cavalry commander down to his metal greaves and could be trusted to lead the group to victory come hell or high water. 

Competing for second place was his shadow. Byleth, the quietest person in the company and therefore the one Kei’s students tolerated best besides the horses, was about Kei’s age. They were also one of the few adults shorter than Kei was. Their eyes were a distinct deep blue and their hair a dark teal, which almost blended in with the charcoal-gray clothes they preferred this late at night, punctuated by matte black armor along their arms and legs. The ghostly complexion stood out like the fucking moon by comparison. 

The two of them commanded all the attention better than a weird foreigner did. 

“Please forgive our intrusion,” said the blond one, bowing with his hand over his heart. Kei’s brain tried to calculate angles to assess formality before remembering that cultures were weird and American accents were weirder. He went on, “We wouldn’t bother you were the situation not dire.”

Jeralt visibly took note of the formality, then said, “What do a bunch of kids like you want at this hour?”

“We’re being pursued by a group of bandits.” Oh for fuck’s sake. While the blond noble kept talking—and he was a noble, because Kei had much more experience with the blunter speech patterns commoners used. Couldn’t be anything else. “I can only hope that you will be so kind as to lend your support.” 

“Bandits? Here?” Jeralt’s gaze flicked to Kei.

She nodded, because it was as good a designation for the enemy still shouting their way through the forest as any. Bandits had been trying to kill Kei since she was Aiko’s age. This wasn’t new.

Jeralt didn’t give the order to attack them just yet. Instead, he turned his attention back to the kids as they started talking. 

The white-haired girl said, “It's true. They attacked us while we were at rest in our camp.”

Not a great sign. Why had three noble children been exposed like that? In Kei’s experience, nobility tended to spend a lot more time cloistered inside protective structures, and even traveling daimyo tended to take a proper procession with them. Where were the guards? People died when they were caught alone. 

Maybe the fire she’d seen was a part of it?

As though to confirm her rising tide of suspicions, the noble boy in yellow said, “We’ve been separated from our companions and we’re outnumbered. They’re after our lives…not to mention our gold.”

Well, then. If they were anything like the bandits Kei ran into during the initial month she’d spent as her students’ sole reliable defense, this wouldn’t take long.��

“I’m impressed you’re staying so calm considering the situation. I… Wait.” Jeralt’s body language went rigid. Like he’d just found an armed opponent in a darkened hallway. “That uniform…”

One of the group’s archers—Rickard—ran up with his bow drawn. He shrugged off Marcel and Arkady’s questions, attention locked on Jeralt so thoroughly that he nearly tripped over Kei on his way to report in. If she’d stuck her foot out, he’d have slammed face-first into the village’s defensive wall. 

“Bandits spotted just outside the village.” Rickard gestured out at the forest. “There are a lot of them.”

Byleth turned their head toward Kei, making an inquisitive gesture with their hand. One of the many, many reasons Kei’s students liked them was because they were willing to pantomime nearly everything if necessary. And while body language didn’t often cross national boundaries, Byleth was willing to learn almost anything Kei put in front of them.

Kei held up three fingers on her right hand—counting her thumb—then brought all five of them together to a single point.

Byleth’s gaze sharpened. 

Jeralt considered Rickard first, then said to the kids, “I guess they followed you all the way here.” He’d caught the gesture conversation with Byleth, and said to his child, “We can’t abandon this village now. Come on, let’s move.” 

Byleth nodded. 

“Hope you’re ready,” Jeralt grunted. “Kid, you take these three into cover and pick off anybody you can reach. Rickard, you’re with Marcel and Arkady. Rally the rest.” Then Jeralt only had Kei left to address. “And you. Your job is skirmisher. Don’t let them get around the village’s defenses.” 

Kei bowed, arms held rigidly at her sides. “As you wish.”

Jeralt waved her off, so Kei decided this was an excellent time to make herself scarce.

[cyb-by-lang]

Team Kei (in Genshin Impact)

Using Genshin’s elemental system and weapon differentiation...

Kei: Hydro sword user + shielder + Burst damage Aiko: Pyro claymore user + physical DPS Kaito: Cryo catalyst user + energy generator Roku: Geo catalyst user + healer

I can elaborate if needed.

[cyb-by-lang]

Hey,

⭐ For the director's commentary thing:

If you have specific comments on the dragonlings :)

It's been a comically long time, but I don't think I ever did decide if Roku was blind on his right side or not. He's always had hair styled in such a way that it falls over that side, but I've drawn it that way because I mostly didn't want to draw a second eye while constructing his face. He probably has a scar, under there somewhere, but that's about as much as I've determined.

And in drawing him most recently, I sat there staring at the sketch for a while, made a :T face, pulled up a picture of Kaeya from Genshin Impact, and said to myself, "Nope, detouring right now to get away from that." Which is why Roku has a bun now.

Also, he's around Kei's height as an adult. It makes it somewhat easier for him to learn kenjutsu from her, and he's the only one of her students who actually does carry a katana. He just doesn't always apply those principles when fighting; some part of him really does lean into Magnet Release first.

Aiko has been through the most personality revisions between editions. She used to be a lot shyer, but exposure to Gai and Lee has basically cracked that shell and allowed her to put 110% into physical pursuits in a way that scares people. She's also the only one of Kei's students to really lean into fuinjutsu--which is admittedly self-focused--but all of her kids take something from her box of tricks.

Aiko is the only student for whom Kei does parental check-ins, and Kei honestly thinks her dad is fucking terrified of her and tries not to do it much.

If Aiko is running somewhere, it's best to follow her before she causes trouble. If she's running away from somewhere, the trouble is already happening and you need to be elsewhere posthaste.

Kaito is 100% the student who is the most difficult to manage or redirect. This is partly because of his aggressive, bullheaded personality, but it's also because Kei tends to distract his temper rather than actually try to teach him personal discipline. Can lead a horse to water, etc. etc.

That said, Kaito is also the student who has no other ambitions other than power. It's just tempered by a correspondingly fierce loyalty to his team and his sensei. Basically makes him the team's equivalent of the Sasuke archetype.

There's a meta reason why his hairstyle looks like hers (read: it's actually the other way around), but the in-character one is that he copied her. And she didn't notice. He's also the student who inherits most of her Water Release skill, primarily due to affinity, and is pretty much their team's backup AOE damage specialist.

Kaito and Aiko are about 4'10" and 5' respectively, as teenagers.

Kei has never once criticized her students' fashion decisions because she has no high ground, literal or figurative.

[cyb-by-lang]

More adventures in the land of ice and snow, but at least there’s the company.

FF.Net link.

Song!

[cyb-by-lang]

Rereading catch your breath i got to wondering: are the dragonlings aware in any way about Kei's reincarnation? I imagine not.

The only people Kei has directly told about her reincarnation status are Isobu, Minato, and Kakashi. While the Chinatsugumi had a group-wide deja vu that encompassed Kei as a side effect, they never really worked out what her deal was--or what theirs was. 

However, the three Dragonlings are convinced that their sensei a) is weird and b) knows everything, even if they don’t know why. The fact that she seems to have every situation they run into well in hand is both evidence for their confidence, and is mostly down to Kei’s ability to make her emotions fall right off her face to avoid giving the game away.

[cyb-by-lang]

An Appalling Lack of Dragons; Resolved

Summary: Team Kei manage to land in Thedas during a supposedly routine mission. Thedas wishes they hadn’t.

Because if there was one thing Inquisition failed to instill in an irreverent soul like myself, it was a sense of drama once I got to level 14.

Look, if they wanted to call it Dragon Age, they need more dragons.

The funny thing is, Kaito thinks later, when the flaming wreckage of a would-be conqueror falls around them like hail, like the ashes of his dying ambition, I don’t think this even makes the top five of “weirdest missions in Konoha history.” Not when Sensei is involved.

Sensei didn’t tend to like it when missions went to shit. Most shinobi didn’t, because inevitably the risks to their lives were multiplied tenfold, and Sensei in particular would need to start using her jinchūriki powers to bail everyone out. Which, Kaito figured, was probably not something ordinary teams got to say often. “We were kinda fucked, but then Teammate X blew everything up and we lived” made for real weird mission reports, and Kaito spent enough time pissing off Konoha’s bureaucracy to know that got under their skin the fastest. Lack of formality, mostly.

“Well, fuck,” were the first words out of Sensei’s mouth after looking up at the giant hole in the fucking sky, which Kaito agreed with. He jerked his gaze away from it to cut off the sense of vertigo.

“Are those chunks of mountains?” Aiko asked, hands shading her eyes as she peered at the thing pretending to be a green not-sun. “And I have to ask… Does that look like a bathtub drain to anyone else?”

“Yes,” Roku answered promptly, but he wasn’t actually looking up any more than Kaito was. Dark rings surrounded his eyes as he peered around at the snow-covered landscape. “And this doesn’t look like the Land of Iron. Too many mountains, and none of them stand out to me ‘sides one.”

“Compared to the three-headed monster,” Kaito muttered, thinking of Three Wolves and its mysterious ability to not flip over and crush the capital beneath itself. But he also knew Roku meant an entirely different sense—there wasn’t much point in using Magnet Release unless the user could find iron to manipulate, and hearing the area was a bit short on resources was a little worrying.

“Thoughts, Kei?” Obito asked, while Sensei shook her head to clear it.

Her expression tightened. “This had better not be what I think it is.”

Obito put a hand to his chin and made a show of thinking the situation over. He even let his Sharingan show for a split second, green light reflected in red. “It’s kinda looking like a disaster.”

“Exactly.” Sensei scowled. “Three to one odds we end up having to get involved.”

“No bet,” Obito shot back instantly. He holds her stare for a second longer before the implied challenge goes out of him. “Look, technically we’re in a wilderness survival exercise now. And the first rule of that is…?”

“Make it not one,” Kaito suggested. He knew civilians were generally told to stick close to the point of losing contact with the rest of the world, whether roads or shipwrecks or whatever, but shinobi had better overland speed. By a lot. And anyway they had Roku, who moonlighted as a compass with opposable thumbs. “So, what are we waiting for?”

Aiko, already ahead of the group, takes three big steps before pausing, spinning around, and saying, “Directions?”

They did manage to find the village eventually, and then shit got complicated.

There wasn’t a single tangentially-Asian person in the entire settlement. Kei figured her group could get over the local attachment to chainmail and straight-edged swords with fullers, the nigh-ubiquitous British accents, and even the air of constant religious fervor, or at least write it off as “foreign weirdness.” But even before elves and dwarves came into the picture—of whom there were many—the perpetual sense of “we do not belong here” was stronger than it had even been before.

It didn’t even manage to get worse when they met the eight-foot gray guy with bull horns, but Kei figured that was more a sign of locating and planting a flag in rock bottom. Only place left to go was up, really.

Oh, and for some reason everyone could speak English. Kei would have brushed it all off as a conceit of the genre if Obito hadn’t immediately belted out a “Hello, how are—?” before cutting himself off in horror at the unfamiliar syllables.

Kei heard everything as people said it, so it had taken her a little while to notice the problem. And that the problem in question only popped up when they tried directly speaking to someone in the little mud-village.

Something was screwing with their brains.

That something would rue the day it made the decision to mess with them, Kei decided. Isobu’s reinforcing growl made it a promise.

A few months later, when the Nightmare dies screaming under the jaws of a monstrous seafood buffet of a monster, that promise was fulfilled.

But that’s a longer story.

Meeting the Inquisition goes like this:

“Hey, I have a question,” Kei said, to the blond man directing soldiers to train.

“Can’t you see you’re interr—” was his initial response, before turning to look at her and her funny-accented voice. “...Who are you?”

“Was gonna ask you the same thing,” Kei answered, one eyebrow raised. She knew she’d heard that voice before, but couldn’t pin down exactly where amidst the cold, the snow, and a lifetime’s acclimatization to an entirely different language.

Blondie looked at her like she’d crawled up out of the unknowable abyss. Racism wasn’t new, and xenophobia was a human classic, but seeing the beginnings of it is no less annoying than it’d ever been.

“Keep making that face and it’ll stick that way,” Kei said lightly, and stuck out her right hand. Gloved, sort of, but without claws or anything as terrible as she suspected he was expecting. “Name’s Kei. You?”

Blondie eyed her hand for a second, proving her suspicions correct. Unlike the majority of the people in town her team had scouted before, she was neither raggedy, starving, desperate, or beaten-down by whatever fresh hell had descended on this village. She saw his eyes flicker to the odachi across her back, to the katana at her side, and the obviously-artificial cloth of Konoha’s standard winter cloak.

Kei was possibly the most obvious foreigner on the planet, and she was including the misplaced gray giant in that number.

Oh, well. As somebody said once, “Go big or go home.” That second one wasn’t an option until she punched a demigod in the face, probably, and there was a distinct shortage of viable targets around here.

And that was how Team Kei was arrested for suspicion of espionage.

It didn’t take, but the Inquisition got an A for effort.

That encounter probably set the tone for the whole thing.

[cyb-by-lang]

X me something from the cyb side of cold calling

I went with “Quiet Me” since you didn’t specify. Kaito has outbursts; his team reels him in.

Kaito, of course, had several things to say about the strangers Team Kei had politely ushered back through a giant hole in space-time. He’d always been the one to react first and most forcefully, to contrast his siblings/teammates and their (in one case marginal) self-control.

“Kei-sensei, seriously. What the shit.” The air temperature dropped by at least twenty degrees in his immediate vicinity. “They were at the gate! No one’s been through that thing since the last time Mount Soragami exploded! And they were in our home!”

Aiko nodded along, but she’d always been less explosive. “And then there was the language. They spoke total gibberish! It was like someone tried to make Komogakure code into something real.”

“It actually is a real thing,” Kei replied, scratching the back of her neck. “Just not here.” To Kaito, she added, “And I’m sorry, but even if them tromping around the village is disrespectful… It’s not worth a fight. They didn’t know what they were doing.”

Kaito scowled, but he couldn’t meet his teacher’s eyes. Or those of his teammates. “People die of ignorance all the time.”

“But it’s not our job to enforce that.” Often. “Kaito, we’re here to remember good people. Not to snarl and snap at people who came here by accident.”

“…Yeah.” This time, when Aiko hugged Kaito’s arm, he didn’t pull away or yell. He just sighed and rubbed at his eyes, his free hand coming away wet. “Fuck. I lost the flowers.”

“I’ve got them,” Roku said softly, holding up a small bouquet wrapped in an Iron Sand vase. “Let’s get back to that.”

“I still wanna know what the fuck was up with them,” Kaito grumbled under his breath as they walked back to the old Sorayama longhouse.

“We can use my theories as bedtime stories, then.” Kei patted his shoulder. “It’ll be a nice change of pace.”

[cyb-by-lang]

Dragonlings Bloop? Oh! And a bloop for that one Team Kakashi Kei met in that one side-story, if it's not too much to ask, pretty please?

Team Kei:

Roku doesn’t particularly want to be the responsible one, but between his age, his siblings’ personalities, and the fact that they adopted Lee, he somehow is. He also tends to be the quietest.

Kaito can make his own sorbet and tends not to share. They found out when he flash-froze a slice of watermelon at a beach party.

Aiko is the one of Kei’s students most interested in fuinjutsu. Though her personality is 100% high energy and she’s only been encouraged by Gai, she has a soft spot for tea ceremony and other formal hobbies.

Alt!Team Kakashi as found in the “Trousers of Time” segment:

Kakashi has a lot of explaining to do. And quite a few explanations to demand from other people, too.

[cyb-by-lang]

Rin-san, what are your thoughts on Kei and the dragonlings?

Rin: “They’re Kei’s genin. I mean, I’ve watched them follow her around like ducklings for years now. They’re nice kids.” (pause) “Well, Kaito’s a bit less so, and Roku isn’t a child anymore. But I meant what I said.”

[cyb-by-lang]

Kei, which of your students do you think is most likely to become chunin first?

Kei: “If they weren’t pretty much a package deal, I’d expect Roku to be promoted first. He’s the most mature and self-aware of them, and he does most of the strategist work when I’m not around. Sometimes even when I am around.”

[cyb-by-lang]

Hey there dragonlings. How would you rate your teacher on a scale between Wet Noodle and To The Extreme?

Kaito: “Well, Gai-sensei is ‘Extreme’ personified. The man doesn’t do anything half-assed. Whole-asses every second of his life.”Roku: “I think I’m the noodle. Or maybe Aiko’s dad is. But he’s not a ninja.”Aiko: “And I’m on Team Extreme! In addition to being on Team Kei.”Kaito: “Hrm. Maybe Kei-sensei is like, uh, a peach.”Roku: “…What?”Aiko: “Oh, I get it! A soft outside and a stony center!” (pause) “Wait. No. What’s the opposite of that…?”

[meanwhile, in a tree directly above them…]

Kei: (sigh) “…These kids have too much time on their hands.”

[cyb-by-lang]

Do any of the Dragonlings want to take the chunin exams or are they pretty happy where they are?

Kaito and Aiko: “BRING IT ON!”

Roku: “…I think they need the challenge.”

Kei: “That’s not why people get promotions. And anyway, you’ve been on high-ranked missions as genin already. You can continue as you are.”

Roku: “But for how long?”

[Several years of stellar performances later…]

Minato: “Who thinks their genin are ready for the opportunity to pursue chunin rank?”

Kei: (sighs and raises her hand from the back of the room) “They’re ready.”

[Elsewhere in the same room…]

Genma: (to Kakashi) “More than four years. Pay up.”

[cyb-by-lang]

It's early and I'm bored, so why not ask a silly question? What's the favorite type of missions for Kei's students?

Aiko: “Escort and bodyguard missions are boring until they’re not, and then you want to go back to the boring because all kinds of stuff can happen in the not-boring. I mean, if you’re losing.”Roku: “Or: warfare is long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of chaotic excitement. And, for reference, I prefer courier missions. You’re a little less likely to get attacked.”Kaito: “Just give me an anti-bandit mission. Go here, clobber these jerks, get bounty. Easy.”

[cyb-by-lang]

If Deidara is a Konoha's ninja instead of an Akatsuki's member,would Kei & Deidara become BFF due to their interest in explosive? How woulld the Extended Minato Team react to their friendship?

If Deidara was born a Konoha ninja—maybe as a Yamanaka or something—then Kei probably wouldn’t meet him until a bit later in life, until she was established as a shinobi and likely after he’d almost set off a bomb close enough to deafen someone. Or himself. It’d be interesting to have a Deidara raised in a culture that’s a little less war-oriented and whose eardrums aren’t made of vibranium.

Also, Deidara is actually much, much younger than Kei is—at the time of his death, he was just nineteen. During that same timespan, Kakashi was twenty-nine, and Kei is only a few months older than he is. That’s quite a gap. 

So if Kei met Deidara, and they hit it off? He’d be an apprentice-slash-little-brother.

[BOOM]

Kei: “…Deidara, did you forget to carry the one?”Deidara: “Math would just slow down my artistic vision!”Kei: “Your artistic vision is burning down the forest.”Deidara: “But the chaos—that’s what makes it so beautiful.”Roku: “Do I need to call a fire brigade?”Kei: “Yes!”Deidara: “NO!”

[cyb-by-lang]

Which Ninja Turtle would Kei and her genin be??

Since there aren’t enough of them to include the entire cast…

Kei: Leonardo. Both are the leaders of their teams and use swords.

Roku: Donatello. Donny’s tech and Roku’s metal-manipulation. (They both also use a staff.)

Kaito: Raphael. Both are angry. Kaito is also green(-haired).

Aiko: Michelangelo. Class clown.

Bonus: Tsuruya as Master Splinter.