sunshineverse | [Open] Well he did make his point...

"I see." Her voice was quiet, but there was a faint note of appreciation running through it. Her mouth curved, and it wasn't a happy smile, not really; it was a brief, smug flash of teeth that was quickly hidden behind her collar, the smile of a stray cat that finally didn't get a boot thrown at it for clawing up pet dogs.

"They'll think twice about signing me up for something as stupid as an auction, if nothing else."

"Mmm was it stupid though? Far less time consuming than a mission if you're not being directly paid." He brushed the words off though, watching the boy crawl away after seeing her smile.

"In any case... you seem like an interesting girl. You'll grow up dangerous."

"They don't send you on a mission with the intent to be made a laughingstock." Poison flashed through her eyes, dripped from her voice, and spurred on Takeshi until he was out of sight. Granted, the subject of mission was still sore, given recent events and her glorified grounding, but he didn't need to know that. Better for him to think of her as touchy or prideful, in the long run—if there was to be a long run.

"I hope so," she said without thinking, mind clinging to the thought of just growing more than anything else. "I need to extend my reach more." that had been an issue in the fight that had gotten her captured.

"Considering my own missions when I was your size... I assure you that you're very wrong to assume that assigned missions do not get much worse than standing where people can see you for a few moments." He shook his head sharply, looking her over and then tilting his head.

"You simply seem to have a... leader amenable to not taking advantage, if you've avoided it and that is your baseline."

"I meant," she explained with more patience than she would have otherwise, "I don't consider that the same as a mission because...because there's always some value to a mission, and that's why it's assigned. It isn't the same as idiots using my face to try and publicly embarrass me." She knew that there were much, much less pleasant things that could happen to a cute little girl than being put up for auction for a village's charity.

Konoha was nice, now, but then it wasn't at war now, either, and there were past precedents a ninja had to prepare themselves for. but her energy for talking was being stretched with each long sentence, and she subsided back to silence.

He studied the girl, then gave a small shrug and gestured for her to walk with him. He had a village to explore, and having a local escort would get him more places and less hostile looks than not having one. "Idiots are inescapable, and unfortunately, you can't always just kill them. Getting a vicious reputation will serve you well, especially starting now."

She studied him right back, but obligingly fell into step with him, short legs working to match his larger stride. the looks he would get for having a girl half his size with him wouldn't be hostile, and wouldn't last long given just how physically intimidating he was, but there would certainly be quite a few. She shrugged, opting to keep her response short and simple. "That's about what I figured out in the Academy." A bit of that stray cat smugness had returned, if ever so briefly at the memory of brutally working her way to the top of the rankings.

"And then someone taught you to stop it did they? I'll never understand how Konoha works." It was a tisk, because in Kiri such initiative was not only encouraged, but brutally fostered at the first signs of it existing.

"Someone told me to stop." She corrected him, twisting the lace on the cuff of her sleeve. "Just like they told all of us that ganging up on those you think are weaker is wrong."She didn't say that neither bout of talking accomplished much, partly because she wasn't a whiny little tattletale and partly because she felt he was perceptive enough to pick up on it himself. "You only get lectured if you get caught." For both offenses.

"Then you had best work on your stealth." It was a simple statement, not any sort of opinion one way or another on anything else she happened to have said.

"...I'm usually more discreet," she admitted, blushing faintly at how...public her retribution on takes hi had ended up being. "Really. I just...I get angry, sometimes." Her temper was what got her caught, when she was.

"Have you considered feeding your anger inward so that you get more focused instead of less?" He was studying the girl. "I find that works far better."

"I've been trying that more this past year," she agreed, brow wrinkling worriedly. "But that just makes it...stew and simmer, most of the time. And then I end up exploding at somebody. In private, but still."

Like she had at Shisui, before the cat mission.

"Ah, so you're not actually using it. You have to burn it off. Feed it into your chakra for attacks, practice, and burn it out. Just holding onto it will never get you anywhere. And is boring besides."

"You can use it to fuel chakra?" Her eyes lit up with interest and she craned her neck back to stare at him. "They never taught us that. they said that you had to center yourself, and anger would make channeling chakra difficult and dangerous during battle."

"If you don't learn to use it." He shrugged, looking down at her. "It's just another form of energy and emotion."

"Mm." She hummed thoughtfully, but her gaze was backlit with ideas now. "That makes sense." And was probably less exhausting in the long run. "Thank you for the suggestion."

"Hm. Konoha isn't completely hopeless." He was peering at her intently. "You're well known to these merchants."

"I live with my aunt's family," She explained, holding up the fine fabric of one wide sleeve for his perusal. Despite its girlish frippery, it was actually a material well-suited to the rigors of shinobi life. "They run a textile shop near the shopping district."

He obligingly studied the material, then inclined his head. That was a mystery solved, and he straightened, clearly unconcerned now that he had the answer. She was a pleasant child, this one. "Deceptive."

That was a matter of opinion, and an opinion that few shared, at that.

But then again, Ami thought he was a particularly pleasant and informative adult as well. So perhaps it was a resonation between kindred spirits, or something to that effect. "It can be a little troublesome when I need to be taken seriously by clients. But it comes in handy, more often than not." That, and her ribbon and dress had been lovingly crafted for her by her aunt, and Ami would deck anybody who dared insult them.

"When I was a new Jounin I had similar difficulties. I promise you they will only fade when you begin to carry an aura that implies that you can kill them without trying." He shook his head slightly. "And even then some wn't grasp the point."

"I don't think we're supposed to do that until we start taking assassination missions," Ami said thoughtfully. "Because people think of us as the nice ninja village, or something." Her teachers hadn't technically realized she was listening, but they had said something along those lines. "But that goes back to the 'inescapable idiots' thing, doesn't it?"

"Konoha has a reputation for catering to the more subtly destructive madnesses among its shinobi when compared to the other villages. They're not nicer unless one means to clientele." He made a noise of dismissal at that concept.

"...are there any other ways for shinobi to be nice professionally?" She had meant towards the clients, originally. Ninja were fundamentally men and women who stole, lied, spied, seduced and killed as the situation called for it, after all.

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