rap with me, sweety | Sio

[Tan]

That's right; big man on campus walking through. Step aside, mates.

It was the same thing Tan mused as he approached his duties at the Village Gates. He needed the self-induced enthusiasm to best the depressing stares cast by his subordinates. This boy was seventeen years old, and ranked as a chūnin. Yet, Ryuze gave him the role of Padre; General of the Village Gates. He was one of three Padre among the entire village, which was pretty fucking sweet.

What was even better, was that today it was his turn to entertain that foxy girl from the Hidden Leaf. He didn't mean foxy as in sexy, really. He more meant, like, nine-tailed foxy. You know, the Tailed Beast? What the fuck even was his name? Ku... Kushina?

Tan shrugged.

『口寄せの術』

He drew blood and formed a few simple hand seals. With the placed of his hands on the ground, a cloud of bats appeared before him. They were so cute, but Tan could never admit that aloud. But the little bastards knew it. They just- just fucking knew it.

The smug fatty at the front of the cloud inched forward. He was wearing a mock-up of Tan's patch, signifying that particular bat as the leader of this little grouping. They were the ones Tan always summoned for this job, because they were the most cooperative bats for guard duty.

"Yo, Tan my man," the bat squeaked. "Same as usual?"

Tan gave him a thumbs up.

"You bet, Ringo."

With confirmation, the bats took off into position. They placed themselves into predetermined positions around the two gate entrances. There were two bats in each position, with schedules to determine bouts of echolocation for intruder detection.

This is what always happened, every single day when Tan was on the job. He waited at the second gate for that little foxy girl to arrive.

[Sarutobi Sio]

It wasn't Sio's day off, but she also wasn't working. Ryuze had pulled her from construction today, and given her a special assignment. Sio had been gaining a wealth of experience and knowledge in Ame. She was accompanying Ryuze on her errands, as well as receiving one-on-one training. She was developing physically, as well as developing diplomatically.
Today, she was to get a brief on border patrol from the outer gate Padre. An interesting fellow, who Ryuze spoke very highly of. She said that she would trust him with her life, and did, which is why he held the position he did.

Sio approached the gates as instructed, looking up at one of the long ladders that led to the gate-top station. Sure was high. But it needed to be, in order for them to spot any oncoming threat. The top of the stone and steel wall was thick, easy to sit atop, if one wanted to, though potentially hazardous to one unprepared for how often slippery it could be, due to the rain. For that, there were areas of what appeared to be a sandpaper-like material, for footing. The gate, for all it's medieval doom and gloom and industrial coldness, was quite genius.

Nearby, she spotted the gentleman whose picture she had been shown earlier that morning. He appeared to be chatting with a bat. Nothing strange about that. In this place, what was normal had been turned on its head...nothing was strange to her, anymore.
"Tan-senpai?" she said, approaching him. She was no longer a shrinking violet, nervous about approaching strangers or worried about interrupting. Confidence was beginning to surge through the Genin. Partially due to her training, but more greatly due to Kurama's influence leaking in. It was empowering. It was addicting. She grinned at the Chunin, raising a hand in a wave.

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[Tan]

The sound of a little girl calling his name turned Tan around on a dime. Yo, that was that foxy girl from the Hidden Leaf. The bats had already taken off to get into position for their duty. Now it seemed that all Tan needed to do was entertain the foxy girl.

"That's me," Tan replied with a stupid grin on his face. "And you must be the little girl always tagging along with Ryuze these days; her little Montei. But not today! Today you're with me, Montei. With you'd been here a little earlier so you could meet Ringo. He's the leader of that little cloud of bats I just put to work. If you noticed, he's the fatty wearing the white patch."

He walked around Sio, getting a good look at her. He wondered what he was going to have her do. Yeah, there was the whole 'talk about border patrol' thing, but that was usually pretty self explanatory. If they were lucky, some sucker outside the village would try to invade. That would give Sio some first-hand experience on what exactly Tan does.

"So," he said. "We're gonna do some border patrol. Gonna walk all the around and see if anybody's dumb enough to try and invade the village; not that anybody usually is that dumb. But hopefully we'll get lucky. Or maybe some trouble-maker inside the village will try their luck with us again. Just know the number one rule here; first come, first serve. If you see somebody taking care of a situation, don't jump in unless they're about to take a one-way trip to the Shinigami."

[Sarutobi Sio]

Sios' cheeks puffed indignantly at being called 'little girl'. He couldn't possibly be that much older than her. He certainly wasn't that much taller. But she brushed it off for now. Maybe that was just his thing.

She drew her eye to the cloud of bats now hovering above the stone wall, and with a squint, she could see one of them donning a small patch of white, even from that distance.
"Oh...I think I see him." she said, gesturing in the direction of the cloud of bats.

As Tan spoke, Sio kept her ears trained to and hanging on every word. Ryuze wanted her to spend time with each of the three Padre, if for nothing else, to give her a feel for exactly what components went into maintaining a village. Internal defense, external defense, and economics. Sio, herself was considered Human Resources and Public Relations. The four of them together, with Ryuze at the helm, were a well-oiled, fine-tuned machine.

"Sounds good to me." she agreed with a nod. It all sounded reasonable enough. She was looking forward to getting started.

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[Tan]

"Alright, cool," Tan said. "So we're gonna get started right now. Stay right behind me and don't make any small talk with the guards. Some of them are already butthurt that I'm in charge, so I doubt they're gonna be happy I'm giving the grand tour to you, Montei."

Redundantly, he gestured for her to follow. As he walked, he talked. Explanations with Tan were always very elaborate with a colorful choice of words. He liked to play up some things here and there, but it was obvious when he was stacking the explanation. It was just his way of keeping entertained and happy, which is something Sio could probably guess at.

"Oh yeah."

He slowed to a stop, careful to make sure she knew they were stopping. Then, he turned to face her.

"Montei, I forgot to tell you that that's gonna be your name here. It's for safety reasons, really. You understand, right?"

[Sarutobi Sio]

Sio stayed behind Tan, hands linked behind her back, face lowered to hide a smile. Hewa s beginning to remind her a bit of Minato, in a way. He had a kind of charm about him, a confidence that wasn't quite edgy enough to be called cocky, but all the same: a certain swagger that Sio was immensely jealous of. She wished that she could be this way. She wished she could talk to people that way, look people in the eye that way...live every day the way they did.

She was getting there. With every day that she and Kurama were braided and bonded, she could feel herself becoming more like him. She could feel a certain boldness coming over her. She no longer awoke each day with anxiety and dread over what could possibly go wrong.
She skittered to a stop behind Tan, not having been paying attention but instead off in her own little world.

"Oh, yes. I understand." she said with a nod, smiling. "How long have you been in charge here?"

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