Two Homies Boutta Become Even Moar Homies Because That's What Homies Do

It was early morning, and Shojin was eating breakfast with his family.  He shoveled bacon down his throat as though there were a hole somewhere in his stomach that he was attempting to fill.  Recently, Shojin had begun a project called Hebunriomori, what he believed to be his first blacksmithing masterpiece.  Over breakfast. Hebunriomori and his future plans for the weapon that was closer to an arsenal than a weapon were the main topic of conversation.  His parents had been less anal with him lately about constantly being in the shop, as they saw that he was becoming more independent with ideas.

Maybe it was part of their plan all along, or maybe they saw it as an opportunity to invest more in the future if Shojin had begun gathering his own inspiration for projects.  Either way, all parties were ecstatic about this development.  Shojin continued where he'd left off.  "So yeah, my next idea is kind of a complex one.  It's... basically, its a miniature one-handed crossbow.  Normally, even a one-handed crossbow requires the use of both hands, even if just to load the bolts.  In the case of this one, though, I wanna try and use some sealing techniques to maybe come up with a way to make it truly one-handed.  It'll require some chakra investment, I think, as I can't think of a way to do it mechanically that isn't clunky or impractical, but... yeah.  Anyway, I'm gonna go get to work!"  

The smithy was connected to the house, in the rear.  Shojin would rise to his feet and walk through the house to the workshop.  He'd start to suit up, grabbing his tools and equipment.  He'd also invited Kosuke over this morning to hang out, maybe learn a thing or two, but also to ask a very important question.

Until then, however, he'd simply get to work on the crossbow bolts he'd fire from his hand crossbow.  The first thing he'd work on were the heads.  He'd already gathered the optimal wooden materials and had been treating them for quite awhile now.  It took a long time to naturally cure the wood; up to a month, even.  Luckily, he didn't need anything special from these bolts' shafts, so he was able to pull from previously cured and prepared wood.  So, as he was heating a hunk of steal in the forge, Shojin would lay out a bunch of bolt shafts.

It didn't take long for this forge to heat the steel.  It ran partially off of his own chakra, so he had perfect control over the heating process.  Using some tongs, Shojin would withdraw his heated steel, grab a hammer and a wedge, and split it into two dozen arrow-head sized pieces.  Then, one by one, he'd work on heating each piece, hammering it into shape, and heating another while he did so. He'd work all the way through the process and begin sharpening each of the bolt heads, awaiting Kosuke's arrival to his home and smithy.

TWC: 501

Claimed this item.

Kosuke stood from the tree branch he had been sleeping on and let out a long yawn. He was taking it slightly easy this morning since he had taken a bit of extra time the previous night to train. He had been working on learning a jutsu from a scroll he had poached from a genin that had stayed in the training grounds really late one night training and had actually fallen asleep on the grounds. The scroll seemed to be for a basic fire style jutsu, but he wanted to learn whatever he could to become stronger, plus he knew that Fukuroichi had some wind style techniques, so perhaps the two of them could combine their abilities as he knew fire and wind could be a potent combination. He also wanted to stop by and check on Shojin as he hadn’t seen him since that one day with that weird blind dude. So, pocketing the scroll he would begin his trek to his friend’s house.

Leaping over the fence that surrounded the compound he found Shojin where he normally did, working in the forge. Walking in to where Shojin was working away on some piece of equipment as Kosuke walked in, “Yo! What’s up Shojin?” He didn’t really know anything about crafting weapons or armor, to be fully honest he didn’t know much about using weapons either. He only knew some stuff that he had learned in the academy and what the owls had told him about. But that was hardly enough to really be considered a weapon user anyways. He wondered just how skilled Shojin really was, he knew he had the basics of the academy down, but what did he know past that? He would be thinking about this while also reading through the scroll he had picked up to begin learning the handsigns.

TWC: 307

Shojin had just finished his crossbow munitions when Kosuke arrived.  He was his usual upbeat self, and it seemed he was studying a scroll that no doubt had some fancy new technique or details of a fighting style within it. "Hey Kosuke!" Shojin was always glad to see his friend, and he hoped that once they both passed the Genin graduation, they could be placed on a team together.  They often trained together, and knew each other's technique well.  They could certainly make a great team!  Maybe Shojin would have to pitch that idea to someone who could make that decision.

He'd go on to answer Kosuke's question.  "Well, I'm working on the next part to the weapon set that I plan to take onto missions with me."  Shojin showed Kosuke Hebunriomori, which currently had the Chakra Blade and Cloning Pommel attached.  "This is Hebunriomori, which is basically my transforming weapon.  Right now, I'm working on a way to turn it into a crossbow."  Shojin gestured toward all the crossbow bolts he had finished and laid out on to one of the tables in his workshop.  He was quite young to be as talented a smith as he was, but it quite literally ran in his blood.

The next bit of what Shojin was doing was rather complicated.  He had to form several bits of steel, carbon fiber, plexiglass, and wood into what would make a miniature hand crossbow, to be wielded with one hand.  "Hey Kosuke, so listen... I invited you here because I wanted to ask something of you.  I want you to move in.  We have an extra room that we just use for materials for my shop, but we could clear that out.  You and I could build a shed or something to hold all that stuff.  I could certainly use a friend around here, I don't have any siblings..."

The last bit of that explanation was quite true.  Shojin always wanted siblings; people who perhaps understood the pressure he was facing as the future hope of his clan.  Shojin's family was rather poor, and supporting an extra mouth could be quite difficult.  However, Shojin and Kosuke were both soon to become Genin and would have steady income.  On top of that, Shojin was getting quite good at his craft, and was beginning to bring in substantial sales.  Last week, he'd made a sale to a Special Jounin, even.

He worked while he talked.  He shaped the arms of the crossbow, and then the rails.  The rails were the hardest.  He couldn't hammer their shape together like he could most things - instead, he had to form the outer "shell" and grind away the insides, removing material bit by bit until it began to take the shape he wanted.  The last step was one he didn't typically do with his weaponry.  He inscribed sigils into each side of it, linking it to Hebunriomori; this way, he could use unsealing techniques to materialize crossbow bolts on the rail ready to be fired.  When he was finished, he showed the product to Kosuke by firing a smoke bolt out the window into the ground.  As soon as it made contact, it was like a huge smoke bomb, even better than the standard ninja tools.  The smoke billowed outward so that one could barely see through the window.

TWC: 1059

Claimed Repeating Crossbow.

He was pretty amazed at what Shojin was creating, as usual. A crossbow would be a pretty unique weapon for shinobi that most of them didn’t use on a regular basis. However, his mood changed slightly when he was offered a place to stay. While part of himself wanted to jump at the offer of not only a place to live but someone to call his family, he also had too much pride to simply submit to such things instantly, as well as an embarrassment at his situation. He was only days away from becoming genin and then he could get his own apartment, so he could handle living like he had for a few more days, right? It was something of a dilemma and he didn’t really know how to respond outside of simply performing the hand seals he had been learning and putting his hands up to his mouth breathing out his own small stream of smoke. That wasn’t quite what he was going for though. He could feel the heat in his chest but it wasn’t ignited when it came out of his mouth. “I-I uhhhh…. I’m fine, but thank you for the offer, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your family or anything plus the exams are coming up and once i’m a genin I’ll be moving into an apartment in the shinobi district so its not so bad…” He spoke quickly, his embarrassment evident in his tone.

Rushing through the hand seals again, ram, boar, tiger. He knew that most could do this with a single seal, but the scroll said that adding them in would be good for helping him focus his chakra more. Once he finished and put his chakra into his mouth, he would let it out with a single burst of flame. That was progress if ever there was any. Deciding to change the subject while he worked on his jutsu, Kosuke would speak again, “So do you think you’re ready for the exams?” He knew Shojin was, and he was confident that he was as well. They had spent years learning and training for it after all. It was not an exam that was meant to be failed for the most part after all. This time, he would perform a single seal, the tiger seal, before billowing out a rather impressive stream of flames that burned with intense heat. He made sure to aim them in a direction that wouldn’t cause any harm to those nearby, namely Shojin himself or his property. With that technique under his belt, he felt a little more useful now. Perhaps he would train it with Fukuroichi when he got a chance.

TWC: 754 [Claiming Fire Release: Great Flame Technique]

Kosuke's answer did not surprise Shojin, but he also simply was not going to give up that easily.  He knew it had to be awful living like the guy did, and if he had known about Kosuke's situation sooner, he would have already tried to make this happen.  Still, he'd already gotten the ok from his parents, on the condition that he did actually get that shed he'd mentioned built.  He wouldn't press too hard, yet, though, and instead opted to let the offer breathe for a bit before he pursued it any further.  In the meantime, he walked over and retrieved a special metal from a secure strongbox in his materials cache.

"Well, I think I'm ready... at least for the techniques portion.  I really don't know what else it will consist of, so, for now, I just have to prepare for as much as I can.  Still, I think I'm pretty good at this stuff so I'm not totally worried.  Moreso, I just want to be sure to get it over with now, and not have to wait another six months for the next one, yknow?"  Shojin would speak rather casually as he began to work the unique bronze metal.

Using a pair of hefty tongs, he'd place the small lump of metal in his forge, ready to start giving it its shape.  He felt the familiar warmth of the chakra drain on his body as the forge heated the material, drawing on him for fuel just as it did the coals.  As it heated, Shojin would continue speaking with Kosuke.  "Wow!  Nice job!  What jutsu are you working on?"  He'd ask, impressed that Kosuke was already manifesting his chakra into fire.  That was a skill that Shojin hadn't even scratched the surface of.  Maybe he'd ask for some help on it later.

Once the material for the next component of Hebunriomori was ready to be worked,  Shojin would grasp his favorite pair of tongs, and make his way back over to the heat generated by the forge.  He'd plunge the tongs into the fires, where he'd placed the metal, and retrieve it from the depths.  It glowed a hot yellow, much hotter than the typical dull orange he went for when working steel.  Bronze was a little harder to work with, and required more of him.   Immediately, he'd start banging on it with a hammer, hammering it into the shape of a sword pommel.

He'd quench the item in oil so that it'd cool, and he'd be capable of taking it in his hands to work with.  He'd grind it so that it had a smooth surface with a large, heavy duty grinder.  He'd then move to a smaller one, and begin working intricate sigils into the surface of the bronze.  To this day, Shojin wasn't entirely sure how he imbued mystical properties into his equipment.  And yet, when he fastened the pommel to his Hebunriomori, currently holding Chakra Blade, and performed one of the jutsu attached to it, it utilized less chakra, as intended.

TWC: 1567

Claiming this item.

Once kosuke finished performing the technique once more, he would grin at his achievement. He was getting stronger, little by little. Listening to Shojins answer, he would also allow a soft smile to cross his face, “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t be too worried about it. You’ve got all the jutsu down already anyways. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were the Rookie of the Year.” He was honest with his friend as he knew his friend was honest with him. He knew that he wasn’t exactly one to go around being loud and attention drawing like Shojin, that kid didn’t have a shy bone in his body, but Kosuke was not quite built like that. He didn’t like to have a lot of attention drawn to him, nor did he like to have people watching him when he did most things. He figured being a ninja was a good place to be for someone who didn’t like to be watched. But, then there were plenty of ninja who wanted to use their position to become famous and well known. He supposed he may become well known one day depending on how it all goes, but it was hardly the first thing on his mind.

“This is just a fire release jutsu I uh… picked up. Its called Fire Release: Great Flame Technique. It should give me a couple more options in combat, I think.” He wasn’t really sure what he was doing learning something like that, but he did know that he wanted to become strong like Shojin was, strong and confident. That’s how he would be one day, when he was a powerful ninja. He would look back at his friend, wondering about some things himself. “What kind of weapon are you making again? A cross bow? What’s it a cross between, a bow and a what?” He didn’t really get what he was crossing a bow with, but then, he might be looking at it totally wrong anyways. He didn’t know much of anything about weapons or how to craft them like Shojin did. He definitely had proven himself to have more skills than Kosuke did in almost every facet of being a shinobi than Kosuke, that much had been shown.

TWC: 1,128

Shojin could not help but to grin happily at Kosuke's compliment. Shojin knew quite a bit about Kosuke by now, and knew that he was an honest guy. Shojin perhaps did not agree with Kosuke's analysis of his skills, but if Kosuke said he thought Shojin could be Rookie of the Year, it was because he meant it. "Ahhh, well, I don't know about that, Kosuke, there's a lot of guys taking the exam this time around. I'll be happy just to be in the upper fifty percent!" Despite his humble response, Shojin couldn't help but hope Kosuke was right. That'd be wonderful!

With the body of the crossbow finished, all that was left was the bowstring. This would be a rather easy one. After all, it was only a small piece of the bow, one of the least complicated parts of any bow or crossbow. As Shojin rifled one through one of the many trunks in his workshop, he would speak so as to answer Kosuke's question about the crossbow. "Haha! No no no, you misunderstand, that's not why it's called a crossbow! It's called a crossbow because it lays across the receiver assembly. Hold on, I'll show ya."

Shojin would withdraw the upper half of his body that had previously been buried deep into the trunk of supplies. He'd come up with some dried and treated sinew from the leg of a horse, which was what he planned on making the crossbow string out of. He'd lay it on the table and retrieve the crossbow he'd been working on. "Like this," he'd say, gesturing toward the weapon. "It's got a handle, and some rails, here. The bow portion of it lays across the rails. That way, I can just pull the trigger and fire an arrow like I did, instead of having to use both hands. And this one is special! Normally, I'd have to manually load it with both hands each time I fire it. But this one, I don't have to."

Shojin would manually load a bolt onto the crossbow, firing it into the dirt in the yard. Nothing was special about this bolt, as it just thudded into the earth. Then, he'd use the ability of the Repeating Crossbow attached to Hebunriomori, using the Fuinjutsu inscriptions to load a bolt, fire it, and immediately do it again. "See? World of difference."

Shojin would lay Hebunriomori down and go back to his animal sinew. He'd dunk it in some special oil - not what he used for quenching, but rather some ritual oil that he used to imbue properties into tools - and perform some handseals. Fuinjutsu inscriptions would appear on the table he was working on and snake their way up the goblet holding the special oils; text, moving on the surface of the table. He'd reach into the oil and retrieve the bowstring, completely dry as if it weren't just submerged in a liquid. Then, he'd fasten it to Hebunriomori, instead of the base bowstring he'd used previously.

TWC: 2075

Claiming this item.

Kosuke was pretty impressed by the display of craftsmanship that Shojin had displayed. It was fairly impressive to have a friend who could make such incredible weapons. He wondered just what kinds of shinobi the two of them would end up becoming, they had very different fighting styles. Shojin had all his weapons and equipment to call upon and use in battle while Kosuke, until very recently, only had his owl summons. And at present, he could only faithfully call on Fukuroichi to aid him in battle, he hadn’t met any of the other owls. It was something along the lines of everyone gets a specific ‘partner’ that they bond with by nature and then can learn to summon others, but their first bonded is the one they can synch with the easiest. But, he was getting lost in thought, shaking his head, he would watch as Shojin displayed even more skill at weapon crafting as he showed off some more of his clan’s unique forging ability. Using some special liquid and some strange markings, he did something to a string, but Kosuke couldn’t tell exactly what.

“So that thing that you just did… what difference did that make to the weapon than before? I can tell something happened when it was in that oil, but it looks like a normal string to me?” It kind of showed his lack of mechanical knowledge perhaps, but he didn’t really see much of a difference. He knew that bows and the like weren’t very common as Shinobi weapons for the very reasons that Shojin was pointing out, so it was pretty neat that he had found ways to get around such things. He wondered what other marvelous weapons his friend would make as they progressed in their careers, only time would tell. For the time being though, he was content just learning what his friend was teaching him, for the red head to be such a hyperactive knucklehead, he was a fantastic teacher.

TWC: 1,459

Shojin smiled at Kosuke's question.  He didn't quite realize how much liked talking about these things, when they were questions that weren't posed by his domineering parents.  He thought a moment before answering, hoping his words would make sense.  "Alright, well... so, I have a Kekkei Genkai.  It's called Jigoku no Jizo, or Hell's Forge.  It... basically allows me to imbue weapons and stuff that I create with special abilities and properties.  The craftsmanship is all my own, but the Kekkei Genkai allows me to essentially enchant them, like something out of a fantasy book.  For this bowstring, once I get some practice with it, it's basically gonna allow me to curve my arrows when I shoot them.  That's gonna allow me to shoot around barriers, or even allies."

Shojin grabbed Hebunriomori, using its ability to draw out the Chakra Blade and Cloning Pommel components.  "So, I can't show you with the bowstring, because I haven't practiced yet, but this is a similar concept.  This blade has an ability to channel chakra through it and empower itself." Shojin grabbed a scrap piece of metal and stepped outside.  "So, basically, I can use techniques to empower this blade.  And when something is blessed by Jigoku no Jizo, my chakra also sort of reinforces it."  Shojin tossed the hunk of metal and, chakra coursing through the blade, smacked the piece of metal with the backside of the blade.  It went hurtling across the sky, far more powerfully, and far further, than he could ever do wit his own strength.  "Like so."

Shojin then turned, looking at Kosuke.  "Kosuke, I really want you to consider my offer.  It'd be nice to have someone my age around, and my parents have already cleared it.  I won't pressure you if you genuinely don't want to, but I wouldn't offer if I didn't really want you to come."  What Shojin said was the truth.  It was partly to help Kosuke, of course.  But also... and, he wouldn't admit this... Shojin looked at Kosuke as one of his best friends and as a rival.

"But yeah.  Anyway, hey, I gotta go make a delivery.  There's a merchant that's going to help my family deliver the swords that I make, and it's gonna help a bunch with money!  Not to mention... I wanna try and start networking.  Soon I wanna start selling these more unique weapons that I make, and they're gonna require a more particular clientele.  Besides that, if I start getting Jounin to buy my weapons, I'm gonna have friends in high places!  Today, a student, tomorrow a Genin, next week Chuunin!"  Shojin excitedly took off.  "BUT HEY IF YOU WANNA ACCEPT MY OFFER, COME OVER FOR DINNER TONIGHT!"  He had to yell at the top of his lungs, because he was already sprinting away.

TWC: 2544

[EXIT]

Shojin surely was a personality. Kosuke would smile at his friend as he explained the intricacies of his kekkei genkai. Such things always amazed him and he wondered what having such a unique and powerful ability would be like for someone like him who had nothing really going for him that he didn’t work hard for, outside of his summoning contract which he felt was just luck. You couldn’t be unlucky all the time, right? Anyways, hearing about how he was able to make such unique weapons was awesome and to see it in action with the blade he had made was even cooler. It made Kosuke want a powerful weapon like that, but he realized it would be wasted on him as he had no idea how to use a weapon. But, as he explained he had a meeting to get to, Kosuke would let his friend go, but upon hearing him reiterate his offer he would pause at the doorway before turning back with a smile, “I.. I’ll think about it.” Was all he would say before leaping over the fence and making his way off to get some food and then go train some more, they’d be taking the exams soon and then meeting their sensei, so he wanted to be up to the task.

TWC: 1,673