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Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

Last week's turnout had been encouraging, so this week saw Arthur, Leto and Reno back at their lot behind the dorms. Arthur stepped up to the forefront, his arms behind his back. "This week, we begin our real efforts," he started. "Above all, we are here to learn and to organise ourselves. In order to do that, we must know each other's strengths and help where we can. Please seek each other out, test those strengths, find ways to better yourself. We are all here in a common cause."

He took a breath, then began to pace idly across the grass. "Beyond our individual abilities, however, we have to establish some common strategies that we can easily default on in times of crisis. We all occupy the same island. You must all also have your own ideas. We'll discuss those as well."

With a curt nod, Arthur finished, "Thank you all for coming. Reno, Lord Leto and I will be joining you, of course."

[[ open! mind the ooc ]]

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Give Ino ten years and she'd be able to do a lot of the techniques, but that was neither here nor there.

She grinned. "It'd totally be a surprise party for you--you'd just have to forget 'bout it. Or something. And, um, soap is good for explosives too. Homemade soap, I mean." Ino considered that. "That's nice of her," she decided, "and extra help with shielding is always good. I'm kinda learning that one on my own, though it's not for the touching thing. I don't think it's that weird, though you'll have to forgive me if I'm not, like, rushing to hug you, yeah? But I won't freak out anyway 'cause the stuff you're super not supposed to get is behind shields Master Skywalker put up in my head." She looked rueful.

"Cable-san can get in my head no matter what other shield's I've got up, so I had to get someone a lot stronger than me to do that. And don't think you're getting out of presents, I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday 'til the day of and by that evening a party had materialized and I got loads of people and stuff coming. Mostly plants. But, yes, party! On the deck!"

"Hunh. Now I'm hoping he teaches chemistry again. That would be cool to know." Dinah grinned. "Yeah, it is nice of her. It's a lot of work, but totally worth it. And no worries on the hugs." She grimaced. "I'm sure your brain is nice and shiny and all, but it's still stressful even when I don't get anything deeply weird of someone. And really? Your shields are that good? I've heard Master Skywalker is a little scary, but Tahiri likes him. So that was cool of him." Dinah hugged herself, smiling. "Party! Yay!"

Ino was just going to laugh at the idea of her mind being nice and shiny. Excuse her for a moment.

"Sorry!" she said, still giggling. "Not laughing at you, I swear. Anything worth doing is hard work, but worth it, I think. Maybe he will, the soap is awesome and explosions even more so. No! Only the shields that were put up by Master Skywalker are super strong. He's powerful enough to block Cable-san, you know? And Cable-san's one of the strongest telepathics ever. My shields are pretty crappy actually, I mean, they're getting better, but it's only the fact that I've been meditating my whole life that has them as strong as they are and that's not so strong anyway. Master Skywalker is scary. Half the time when I talk to him he winds up roaring at me, but I think he likes me anyway."

"Oh, neat. That's good to know, about Mr. - Master? - Skywalker. With the shields. But why does he end up roaring at you?" Dinah blinked, looking a little intimidated at this mention of Cable and Master Skywalker. "I think I'm glad I'm only a touch-telepath now. Well, I never wanted to be stronger than that, really."

"He's pretty decent, really. Though he's very much 'rar, respect me and don't disagree'. And we argue 'cause we've got a lot of different opinions, and I don't know when to shut up because backing down from a fight is so not my thing 'less it's during a mission," she said brightly. "And I'm fairly sure he thinks I, and my world, are rather morally-ethically bankrupt."

This was rather true. Ino considered this to be a small detail.

"Dad's telepathic," she offered, raising her eyebrows that the intimidation thing. "And I'll be learning that when he considers me good enough a ninja to do it. The way another of my, uh, skills work stops me from accidentally getting anything." That's what her dad had said when she'd asked. "But I don't think he's as strong as they are. It's a good thing they're both mostly on the side of the island." Off the island was a bit more dubious.

"I think maybe I shouldn't take a class from him then," Dinah said, thinking aloud, "Or I'll either end up freaking out or yelling at him." She tilted her head at Ino. "I've talked to Hinata, it doesn't sound morally-ethically bankrupt to me. Real different. Harsh. Not sure 'bankrupt' is totally the word, but she hasn't told me a lot."

"Ohhh. That must be cool, having a built-in shield." She'd give a lot for one of those. "I don't think I know any other telepaths here, but then, I haven't really been here that long. Tahiri and Ben's stuff kinda works more like empathy, from what she's said. Sort of."

"He always teaches Ethics," she commented. "It's a good class, and he won't slam you in detention 'less you're being rude. He'll just get really cranky 'bout being disagreed with."

Ino shrugged a bit. "Hinata's position is a lot different from mine," she said, after trying to figure out what to say to that. "And a lot of the things I know, are outside her knowledge 'cause of her position. Our families have different areas, and Hyuuga Clan is too... blatant for what I'm good at." Another pause. "Hinata's also a lot nicer than me, both in who she is, and what she thinks, just so you know." Pure truth that.

"It's only built-in 'cause one of my ancestors worked it out that way," she said, making a bit of a face. "And we start training with the technique that covers that pretty young. I... don't know how many telepaths there are, honestly. Most know to keep their mouths shut about it. Same thing with your touch, you know? People freak out."

Which... wasn't exactly an endorsement in Dinah's opinion, on top of Peyton's comments. On the other hand, Tahiri thought he was cool. "Maybe? Maybe. It'll probably depend more on what other classes are offered anyway."

"Hunh." Dinah studied Ino carefully, trying to put her comments on Hinata's life together coherently in her head. "Would it be really rude to ask what it is that you're good at, that Hyuuga Clan is too blatant for?" Because, dude, seeing in the dark; not exactly a striptease.

"And yeah." Tugging her hair, and twining a strand in her fingers, Dinah said, "I get why people freak out, honestly. But. It's worse if I'm not clear about it up-front, then they think I was spying on them or worse, and I can't without touching them, so if we never even had a handshake.... And I don't want to. Thus, shields. I mean, it's really obvious when I've picked up on something, I look like I'm getting a migraine, and if there's an accident, then it's keeping a secret plus not having told, and it becomes a Thing."

"Oh, totally," she bounced. "Summer classes tend to be sillier, just so you know. The have useful ones too, but silly tends to rule, at least from last year."

Ino blinked back. "Well," she said slowly, "Hyuuga Clan is kinda... Konoha's most prominent clan? And they're all super recognizable--Hinata's eyes and her hair colour are the same all the way through the family, but the eyes are a dead giveaway. Her forehead is always bare, right? 'Cause she's from the main family, so kidnapping her alive is a priority if her team gets cornered by another village's shinobi--she's useful both as a hostage and as a research subject. The Byakugan is one of the most versatile bloodlines, and it's very powerful--keeping Hyuuga main family members uncaptured is kinda a super important thing, so the missions she gets are going to be different than the ones I get 'cause I don't matter to the village as much." Matter of factly. "And she'll never be allowed in ANBU, or anything like that, which is where I'll probably wind up."

Even odds were that that had only confused her more.

Ino shrugged slightly. "I get it, I guess, and I don't? I mean, powers and stuff happen a lot in my village? 'Cause we're one of the few that didn't get rid of it... which is a long story, by the way, but whatever. So we've got a pretty high concentration of weird that is... kinda, on an even keel?"

"Yay for silly!"

Dinah just barely followed about half of this. Number one points being: Hinata must not get kidnapped. "And, um, what's ANBU?"

She nodded, saying, "There's no powers back home that are out in the open. Metas like me are kind of underground, mostly. And here it's fifty-fifty, people who are either used to it or have some huge issue. So you run up against taboos, and people who've never imagined it, and people who have entirely the wrong idea about what I can do with it." Dinah made a face. "Telekinesis is so much an easier show-and-tell."

"Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai," Ino rattled off. "It literally translates to 'Special Assassination and Tactical Squad'. The bogeymen of the ninja, pretty much. They do all the missions that Hokage-sama deems too messed up for the regular corps, and handle all the torture, interrogation and things like that. They also deal with internal issues like traitors and stuff." She tugged at her hair. "Pretty much, if you're a ninja, you want the ANBU to stay the hell away from you and that goes triple if you're a civilian. They've got the highest fatality rate too." That just got a bit of a shrug. "My skills mean I'm probably already tapped for recruitment there once I get strong and experienced enough. Dad says so, and he was one."

Ino bounced on her feet a bit. "Yes, exactly, here you've gotta be careful who you say, and what they might have an issue with. The first power I tend to tell people 'bout is walking on walls and stuff--that's basic stuff back home, every ninja more than three months out of the Academy can do it, and the civilians don't even blink 'bout it. But some real powers freak out people more than others even still. Like, Kiba can talk to his dog, and get what he's saying--so they're like partners, right? People are pretty okay with that. But Shino's got colonies of bugs living inside his body and a lot of people are way less okay with that in comparison. So it's..." she waved one hand vaguely, "kinda all over the place? Back home we don't advertise the telepathy, but some of my other family skills are better known 'cause we're less circumspect 'bout them."

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Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

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