reallybadeggs | Test Drive for January 2014 Apps

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test drive

Test Drive for January 2014 Apps

Welcome to your monthly Test Drive for

high_seas! Here is where new players can test out their characters' voices, old players can try out new muses, and everyone can help each other get some threads for their applications! Feel free to use one of the prompts below, or come up with something on your own! Comment around, have fun, and remember that any CR formed here does not carry over to the game!

See you during the application round!

♦ So you're new to this world and have just woken up in the Town Square. How do you react? What do you do?

♦ You're lost at sea. Maybe you got separated from your crew. Or perhaps you're on an abandoned island. You need help!

♦ "Pirates off the starboard bow!" It's an enemy ship! Attack!!

♦ You and your crew are hanging out on your ship. Just another day at sea!

♦ "LAND, HO!" Hey look, a new island! How about you go explore it? Tell us what you find!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sakura, meanwhile, keeps her eyes on Sasuke while filling in the blanks.]

But nobody knows for certain.

[He's not alone in the displeasure of being here in the first place.]

There's no harm in trying. [And it's better than just standing around and waiting for something to happen.]

Nobody knows anything for certain. Not even the people who belong to this world. [His tone is about as filled with badly-suppressed irritation as it possibly can be. It's practically spilling over.]

All we have is shreds of information. It's just like -- [Oops, almost slipped up.]

[If they didn't know the geography of their own home, she's not surprised.

LATCHES ONTO THAT SUDDEN CUT OFF]

... Just like what?

[It's not relevant, he wants to say, but it is; he just didn't expect it to turn up with Sakura. But he's been holding in the frustration for a long time, hiding it from Itachi, watching his words, and holding his tongue is not something he's been used to for a long time.]

Just like home, in that way. Villages where everyone thinks they know everything, but no one knows anything. [His gaze sweeps over the civilians milling around, distaste clear in his expression.]

Or they hide what they know.

[Understanding lights her face before her brow furrows. It's true, when she was a genin she didn't know nearly as much as she does now, when she turned to Tsunade's disciple. Suddenly a large avenue of information was open to her and the nebulous ways that Konoha got to where they were now were a bit more clear.

It wasn't pretty. Did Sasuke know too? Or was this about something else? The truth about Itachi she still hasn't been told?]

Maybe it's for protection.

[Protecting the civilians from being interrogated. Protecting foreigners like Sakura and Sasuke from their own tarnished history. Or protecting whoever has that ruby they needed to find to find out if the myth was true or false.]

Protection. Maybe. [His tone makes it more than clear what he thinks of that. Every country in their own world took actions for protection, and more often than not it failed to protect any but the people at the top, the ones who surrounded themselves nine-deep with bodies to keep themselves safe.]

Whatever the case, interrogation hasn't been useful even when we found someone to interrogate.

Our only option has been to travel further and hope we find something useful.

[He says 'our' like...]

So you've been working together with someone?

My brother.

[... how should he even ... there's really no gentle way to break it to her, so Sasuke does what he always does when there is no gentle way: he says it point-blank:]

He's thirteen, here.

[Knowing he's working with his brother is one thing. Sakura's mind goes blank.

Knowing he's thirteen? She blurts out a]

What?

[That's about what he expected. Sasuke sighs, tilting his head to indicate they should walk and talk.]

He's thirteen. Like I said, time doesn't make sense here. His last memory of our world is --

[His expression flickers, just a second, before he continues:] -- the Uchiha massacre. He woke here after he left Konohagakure.

[Her step pauses before she keeps moving, taking it in. That's why he's been here for two months when she just saw him on the battlefield, isn't it? Time was nothing. If that's true, then what ABOUT home? When they got back, would it be like they never left?

Would they even remember this?]

You don't sound angry.

[Sakura knows she has to be careful, like walking on eggshells, when they're talking about his clan. But she needs to ask because it's been bothering her for some time now and they finally have a chance to talk. The 'truth about Itachi.']

Did Itachi... really kill your clan?

[He expects the pause, letting her catch up in step and in accepting the things about this world that don't make sense and exist. The comment she makes isn't one he expects, though, and it doesn't make sense until she forges onward to the next question.

Of course, the vast majority of Konoha-nin know nothing. He's not surprised, but his expression darkens nonetheless, gaze hard and distant when he responds, flat:]

Yes. He killed them in one night and left the village to be a fugitive on orders authorized by the Third.

[At least his chakra doesn't get dark. But that expression is one she's used to when talking about his clan. She isn't going to shy away though, not this time. She's going to learn what happened.]

Th-The Third ordered--?! No way!

[She had tried to think of theories as to what the TRUTH about Itachi was. What she had been expecting judging from the change in Sasuke was that Itachi really hadn't killed them all and was only framed. So he left.

Not that he was on orders from their own Hokage. Like Sasuke had been before when told of the truth of his brother, Sakura is in disbelief. Sasuke accepted that? It would be like Tsunade-sama making that order. She knew her Hokage had to deal with sketchy things but she was a good woman. The Hokage were... good people. Why would the Third order someone to kill their own clan?

Sakura turns now to Sasuke with even MORE questions.]

Why? Why would the Third order something like that? The Uchiha were important to the village, weren't they? They were the police and they're one of the strongest clan!

[His own shock has died down into something else by now, something deeper and quieter (and beneath that is something else, a grief he doesn't touch because he has to keep moving, not mourning). But he recognizes some of it in Sakura's tone. Even if she hasn't lived intimately with what was sold as reality, it's something set in stone: bad people leave the village, and the Hokage keep it safe.

But when those people are in the village, and the Hokage makes them bad: that's the problem.]

That was why. We were too strong. The elders feared us, and they kept us apart.

[The compound he'd never questioned, the long walk from home to the Academy, until the First had accused the Second of sequestering them away against his own wishes. The badge he'd once hoped to wear on his own shoulder -- a cage of hope, and one that had ultimately led to the self-destruction of what it contained.]

And so the clan decided on a coup -- [He rephrases, because he has to face this:] My father and mother planned the coup.

My brother prevented it. Those were his orders.

[Everything Sakura knew about her village seems to fray and crack. While she could quietly admit to herself that she couldn't understand Sasuke, she had thought she could count on her village and on her knowledge. One of Sakura's greatest strengths was her mind -- not only for intelligence but for her willpower.

It was't her fault though. The village had hidden that secret from not only her, she's sure. But Naruto knew about it, didn't he? And Kakashi-sensei. Everyone but her, and not until now. Perhaps it was better she heard it from Sasuke because she's not sure she would believe it from anyone else. They weren't as involved as Sasuke.

She doesn't know what to say. What do you say to someone when their clan, their family is the one to decide to ruin themselves? She never knew what to say to Sasuke before. What do you say to that misery?

Naruto would understand. He understood the agony of being ostracized like the Uchiha were. He was a jinchuriki, people feared and hated him too.]

Why didn't Itachi talk to your mother and father? Why didn't he try to stop it?

[Months here and a path of destruction in their own world have passed between learning the truth and now, and he'd thought he was used to it -- that it was something he'd grown accustomed to waking up with, as he had with the fact of the massacre with time. With Itachi here, as young as he is, it's even more a daily reminder that his brother made his choices and they're in the past, that this is something Sasuke can act upon but not change. That what he needs is the willpower to destroy and remake anew and the strategy to do so, and being trapped here is just another interlude of time to grow inured to the fact.

But something about Sakura's plain shock, the innocence of her questions, touches a nerve. Perhaps there is no accusation in her tone; perhaps he's hearing more than what is there, but he's turned on her abruptly, voice a snarl, eyes sharp with anger, and when he speaks it's -- it's not entirely to her.]

Do you think I know those answers? Do you imagine he's kept me updated all this time on his reasons?!

He was a child in ANBU and he wanted no more of war. What the village did to our clan -- what it made my brother do to our family -- but you would have had us bow our heads and take whatever the Hokage chose to bring upon us. Your precious Konohagakure was kept safe from the consequences of its actions by hosing down its streets with Uchiha blood, and you ask me why Itachi didn't stop it a different way?

[She backpedals a step, more out of surprise than fear. She's never been afraid of Sasuke per say. But she couldn't say he didn't worry her. She listens to him and it's the most she's really heard about it.

Her brows had been drawn high but they drop down slowly, eyes narrowing.]

I wouldn't have had your clan do that!! [Because of what it had done to Sasuke.

She had said it was better to die fighting than do nothing at all. Was it true for this? She really doesn't know how to fix this, or make Sasuke not hate Konoha (or the shinobi world) for doing what it had done to his family. If Naruto were here he would--

But he's not. It's up to her to help him. She had said she wasn't going to depend on him anymore but it was so hard when he was always there. She wishes he was, selfishly.

But she doesn't know what she would do. It's there in her face as she tries to think of something, anything else that would have been better.]

[She wouldn't, she claims, and Sasuke -- wonders when he reached the point that he wants to scoff at that, at the attempt to cling to some higher ideal. Part of Konohagakure grows aboveground, and the rest of it tunnels in darkness. More than ROOT, more than Danzo, until the Hokage's office is planted firmly at the base of the lie, the bright pretty reputation of being a peaceful village a veneer over truth.]

You say that. [He has no doubt many have said that, the First being -- the first, and through the succession.] I trusted the Third, too.

[It's the first he's admitted to that. The Third had been kind to him when he'd been alone. There had been a time when he'd mourned the man, genuinely, a childish grief amplified by the weight of sombre black around him.

And then he'd betrayed the Third's memory, and then he'd learned that he'd been betrayed by the Third long ago. But Sasuke didn't raise the dead to continue to tear the world apart on the strength of fury and vengeance. He'd wanted the truth, from every side he could hear it, and the truth was -- the truth, stark now that it's clear. He glares a moment longer, then forces himself to exhale, turn away from a target that knows nothing.]

Konohagakure was built on betrayal and blood from the start. Everything that has happened since has just been repetition.

[Did that mean he didn't trust her? Can she really blame him? She tried to kill him and he tried to kill her. Even after coming back to them in the war on his own, she's not sure what to do with him.

She doesn't know what to do with him here, either. They're on the same side, they're looking for the same thing. She wants things to be normal between them.

Everything he's been saying since she asked about Itachi just confuses her more and more. Finally, she can't take being silent.]

What are you talking about?

[He's said too much, maybe, but he's also past the point of lying, and withholding information is just part of the cycle, isn't it? Still, he starts walking again before responding, heading towards the market, mentally ticking off -- hardtack, citrus, anything that won't spoil without refrigeration at sea for weeks.

When he speaks again, his voice is even, controlled:]

I was the one who brought the Hokage back. [Well, technically Orochimaru, but the man is practically Sasuke's responsibility for unleashing upon the world again.]

They were able to tell a much more detailed version of Konoha's history than we learned in school.

[She isn't sure if she should follow him but she does. She needs to know this. Maybe it would explain everything up until now when it came to Sasuke. All the HeelFaceTurns and such.]

Sasuke brought them back? Sasuke even knew the Edo Tensei? She had disliked the nature of that jutsu, even while Kabuto had done it. She still doesn't care for it much but she couldn't deny that it's helped them recently in the war.]

And that history isn't as clean as we were led to believe?

[What the hell is she SUPPOSED to believe in anymore?]

[More HeelFaceTurns than even Sasuke can keep track of himself, and even now he can't claim to be on anyone's side so much as his own, determined to prevent his own history from repeating on an endless loop. He'll die first, and he won't have left family behind to avenge him, but there will be others who perpetuate it.]

Konoha was built on alliance between the First's clan and Madara's. They'd spent generations killing each other, and then they expected harmony.

When they didn't get it, the Senju found ways to enforce it.

[She already knew that Konoha was built on the First's and Madara's coming together as clans to become village. She didn't know about their bloody history. A history that turned into Konoha's.

The Senju was the First's clan, if she was reading/remembering correctly. If there was no harmony, weren't both clans to blame?]

--By separating the Uchiha?

By trapping us in the village, then isolating us. [The answer is quick -- but he sighs, after a moment, shoulders hunching a bit:]

The clan was too slow to act at times, and too quick to offense at other times. [His father had seemed proud of their role in the village, but he's learned that the father he'd known had been the bare reflection of one fact of the man Fugaku had been, and his mother ...

Itachi had spoken of it with pride, too, the precinct and the compound cobbled together at the edge of the village, walled away.]

There was too much to forgive.

[Sakura's hand reaches for his shoulder but pauses, dropping back to her side and curling in a fist. She stares at the ground and directs her question there too.]

You didn't know about any of this when you were growing up, did you? That your clan-- that your mother and father, even Itachi, felt this way.

[She looks now to Sasuke for an answer. If there was too much to forgive then...]

Why do you want to be Hokage now?

no subject

no subject

no subject

wow i'm not good at html

i will give u lessons yes

ty sensei i will be your rock lee

YOOOOUTHFUL HTML HAAAAAAAA

I WILL FOLLOW YOUR LESSONS FOREVER!!!!

CRIEs INTO SUNSET

/WAVES CRASH IN THE BG

/SOME SPARKLES??

/TEETH PING

/THUMBS UP

/GETS OUT THE GREEN SPANDEX

NO PLS

YES SPRINGTIME IS SPANDEXTIME

NOO LMAO

LET IT CLING TO YOUR YOUTHFUL SKIN

BUT I LIKE SWEATS

SPANDEX ALSO GIVES YOU FREE MOVEMENT

SO Do SWEATS!!!

BUT SPANDEX IS MUCH MORE YOUTHFUL!!!!!!!!!!

nooooOOOOOOOOOOOoooOoOOoooOOO

YES SPANDEX WILL INCREASE YOUR YOUNG HIP ENERGY

BUT GAI HAS OLD HIPS AND HES OLD