10-09-2006, 12:27 AM
As the subject line suggests, I went and wrote myself up as a Naruto self-insert character.
Yeap. SI. I don't normally do this, so I'm not sure why. Well, okay, the stuff here sorta popped into my head a couple nights ago, while I was trying to sleep. So I scribbled it down, and then I had a really strange dream...
And then, of course, there's the wonderful stuff Griever, ClassicDrogn, Drakensis and Nathan have been doing. Certainly an influence, there.
This really isn't a story, it's just a character sketch in prose. I dunno if I'll ever do anything with this.
That said, I've already written a bit of Naruto fanfic (about the Waterfall village, entitled "Lesser Nin"), and I've got a couple story ideas revolving around the canon Leaf-nin cast in Konoha. So this might still see the light of day. Sometime. I should probably run through those ideas in a seperate thread, but anyway...
Ake Ichiwa isn't a particularly imposing figure. He stands around 5' 7", with glasses and a sleepy look. His hair's messy, and he's only clean-shaven if you have a very forgiving definition of 'clean'. Half-lidded gazes and stubble might be intimidating on some, but not Ichiwa. He doesn't look disreputable or seedy, just dishevelled.
A Leaf Chuunin, Ichiwa wears a variant on the regular village uniform. Granted, taking dress code liberties like that probably defeats the purpose of "uniform", but he doesn't care. Ichiwa's outfit is the standard green and blue, but he has a full-sleeved jacket instead of a vest. He also has more pouches at his waist and pant legs, on the principle that there's no such thing as too many pockets. In addition, Ichiwa's got an unhealthy obsession with storage scrolls, using them to carry even more.
He's developed a jutsu that activates all his storage seals at the same time, manifesting the items in a large pile in front of him. He usually does this to organise his stuff, but there's a rumour floating round the Hokage tower...that he actually killed someone this way.
And he didn't even bury the guy in weapons. No, apparently his victim suffocated on paperwork.
Ake Ichiwa isn't a frontline shinobi. Members of his family usually aren't. The Ake are recognised as a clan under village law, but they've only been ninja for two generations.
The Hidden Leaf was formed by two brothers, the men who would eventually become the First and Second Hokage. The brothers united the Fire Country's ninja. But to forge a new village, a new nation, they needed more than just soldiers. They needed civilians, too. They needed food, labour, trade links, money. That's where the Ake came in. They were a merchant family that threw their lot in with the new village.
A wise investment, as it turned out.
Today, the Ake still do trading and business. But many of their sons and daughters have taken up the ninja trade. Ichiwa's father organised the Leaf's logistics during their war with the Hidden Stone, while Ichiwa's eldest cousin is the one who builds all those nasty trap-filled training grounds.
And Ake Ichiwa is one of the Leaf's best intelligence analysts. Given the nature of shinobi relations, he also often serves as a diplomatic advisor, making him a regular fixture in official delegations to other villages. The Leaf is a government unto itself, after all. The Hokage needs a good staff.
Ichiwa is field-qualified, but combat is not his forte. He made Chuunin at age 15, passing his first and only exam. Yet only recently - in his early twenties - has he achieved the fighting skills corresponding to his rank.
Of course, he wasn't promoted for his ability to break heads. He literally talked his way past the first two Chuunin tests, before being defeated in the tournament. But he didn't lose. Not really. Somehow, Ichiwa got hold of a psychological profile on his opponent - quite a feat, since she was from a different village. Ichiwa goaded the Grass kunoichi so hard that she lost her temper. The resulting Jounin-level jutsu put Ichiwa into the hospital for weeks.
Except...the jutsu she used was a clan secret. A technique which had remained closely guarded for decades. Never taught to outsiders.
And a strangely large number of Uchiha just happened to be watching from the stands, sharingans open.
If there's one thing the Ake family is good at, it's making deals.
Like most of his kin, Ichiwa is considered a "genjutsu type". That said, he isn't great at genjutsu - he's merely adequate. But he's sub-par at taijutsu, and doesn't have the chakra for really destructive ninjutsu. Generally, he fights by using illusions to conceal traps and explosive notes. However, this tactic obviously works best when he's had time to prepare a battleground beforehand, something he can't always do. Enemies have this annoying tendency to be uncooperative.
If forced to fight head to head, Ichiwa tries to stay at a distance and bombard the enemy with ranged weaponry. He has a pair of shuriken and kunai launchers strapped to his arms - the mechanisms rapid-fire projectiles, reloading through storage seals. He needs a large volume of fire because his aim isn't great. It's terrible. Back in his Academy days, Ichiwa set a new record in his final weapons test. He had perfect throwing technique, no pause between throws, and all his kunai landed at the very same spot. Unfortunately, that spot was 13 feet to the left of the target.
He's improved since then, but there's a reason why most of his jutsu are area-effect. It's the concept of spray-and-pray.
And he does pray. Ichiwa claims to be religious, though precisely what religion he belongs to isn't clear to his fellow shinobi. Well, aside from the fact it was started by some carpenter...who apparently had really amazing jutsu...and preached something about God's enduring love for man and the need to put complete faith in him for salvation. Or something. They're not sure. In any case, it all sounds very very strange for a shinobi, since the ninja lifestyle's basically about depending on your own strength and your compatriots, not some nebulous spiritual deity thing.
Especially one that can't even be summoned.
Ichiwa does have an actual summon contract, however. He summons fish.
Koi, specifically. The contract belongs to the Hidden Waterfall, but he made some friends there during treaty talks some years back. His summons are often laughed at by other shinobi, but Ichiwa insists they're more useful than they seem...
...and besides, it's the principle of the matter. He has to summon fish. It's spiritually significant.
His friends usually ignore him when he starts to talk like that. Ichiwa can be really confusing, and he has a truly strange sense of humour. He's a nice enough person, though, if a little odd. Perhaps overly kind and honest for a shinobi, a bit too vocal...mostly harmless, anyway.
It's well known, though, that Ichiwa has a long-running feud with Morino Ibiki, the head of ANBU's Torture and Interrogation Force. They intensely dislike each other. Morino Ibiki is tight-lipped about the subject, but he's hinted in vague terms that Ichiwa might be somewhat less than trustworthy. Ichiwa, on the other hand, insists he has nothing but respect for Ibiki, and it's all just a terrible misunderstanding.
He never explains what the misunderstanding's about.
Unfortunately, as one of the Leaf's intelligence analysts, Ichiwa has to work with Ibiki on a fairly regular basis. Those days are not good for domestic tranquillity in the Hokage Tower.
As an intelligence officer, Ichiwa has special authorisation from the Hokage's office, and security clearance far higher than most Chunnin. His day job essentially consists of figuring out ways to pry into other people's business, how to forward the Leaf's agenda, how to best stab rival villages in the kidneys...and it's not all foreign, either. A fair bit of his scope overlaps into the Leaf's internal affairs. Ichiwa is a member of what he calls the "Censorship Board"...the panel that decides just what is classified information, and how much to tell the rank and file. He can be quite ruthless in this regard, a trait seemingly at odds with his professed moral code - though if questioned, Ichiwa says he doesn't see the discrepancy.
Ichiwa is one of the few people who knows the Legendary Sannin Jiraiya is actually the author of the infamous "Icha Icha" series. Tsunade let that slip during a staff meeting, while commenting on the quality of Jiraiya's intel reports. It's been occupying Ichiwa's mind ever since. He doesn't like the novels. He finds the prose too florid. But the books are international bestsellers, read by people across the world. And it'd be wonderful if he could persuade Jiraiya to slip subtle political messages into the stories. Pro-Leaf propaganda, you see...
And he'd like a set of autographed copies. It could be a good investment.
"Ake" is a fancy word for red, and "Ichiwa" is one wheel (well, ring, etc). It's an overly complex multilingual pun on my Chinese name, Zhu Yilun. Kanji, you know.
The story about Ichiwa's aim...is true. I did that with an M16 in Basic Military Training. Singapore Army. It was the simulator, you see. I was wired up, and they could measure everything. Perfect posture, perfect grip, perfect timing, perfect trigger pull, perfect precision, perfect shot grouping...nowhere near the target. 13-14 feet to the left, to be precise. In my defence, I was shooting from a few hundred feet away, and another guy did even worse...
But there's a reason I served in a support vocation, and why I always had the cleanest rifle, remarkably free of carbon, during inspection time...
And yes, I really have invented several assassination jutsu involving fish.
-- Acyl
Yeap. SI. I don't normally do this, so I'm not sure why. Well, okay, the stuff here sorta popped into my head a couple nights ago, while I was trying to sleep. So I scribbled it down, and then I had a really strange dream...
And then, of course, there's the wonderful stuff Griever, ClassicDrogn, Drakensis and Nathan have been doing. Certainly an influence, there.
This really isn't a story, it's just a character sketch in prose. I dunno if I'll ever do anything with this.
That said, I've already written a bit of Naruto fanfic (about the Waterfall village, entitled "Lesser Nin"), and I've got a couple story ideas revolving around the canon Leaf-nin cast in Konoha. So this might still see the light of day. Sometime. I should probably run through those ideas in a seperate thread, but anyway...
Ake Ichiwa isn't a particularly imposing figure. He stands around 5' 7", with glasses and a sleepy look. His hair's messy, and he's only clean-shaven if you have a very forgiving definition of 'clean'. Half-lidded gazes and stubble might be intimidating on some, but not Ichiwa. He doesn't look disreputable or seedy, just dishevelled.
A Leaf Chuunin, Ichiwa wears a variant on the regular village uniform. Granted, taking dress code liberties like that probably defeats the purpose of "uniform", but he doesn't care. Ichiwa's outfit is the standard green and blue, but he has a full-sleeved jacket instead of a vest. He also has more pouches at his waist and pant legs, on the principle that there's no such thing as too many pockets. In addition, Ichiwa's got an unhealthy obsession with storage scrolls, using them to carry even more.
He's developed a jutsu that activates all his storage seals at the same time, manifesting the items in a large pile in front of him. He usually does this to organise his stuff, but there's a rumour floating round the Hokage tower...that he actually killed someone this way.
And he didn't even bury the guy in weapons. No, apparently his victim suffocated on paperwork.
Ake Ichiwa isn't a frontline shinobi. Members of his family usually aren't. The Ake are recognised as a clan under village law, but they've only been ninja for two generations.
The Hidden Leaf was formed by two brothers, the men who would eventually become the First and Second Hokage. The brothers united the Fire Country's ninja. But to forge a new village, a new nation, they needed more than just soldiers. They needed civilians, too. They needed food, labour, trade links, money. That's where the Ake came in. They were a merchant family that threw their lot in with the new village.
A wise investment, as it turned out.
Today, the Ake still do trading and business. But many of their sons and daughters have taken up the ninja trade. Ichiwa's father organised the Leaf's logistics during their war with the Hidden Stone, while Ichiwa's eldest cousin is the one who builds all those nasty trap-filled training grounds.
And Ake Ichiwa is one of the Leaf's best intelligence analysts. Given the nature of shinobi relations, he also often serves as a diplomatic advisor, making him a regular fixture in official delegations to other villages. The Leaf is a government unto itself, after all. The Hokage needs a good staff.
Ichiwa is field-qualified, but combat is not his forte. He made Chuunin at age 15, passing his first and only exam. Yet only recently - in his early twenties - has he achieved the fighting skills corresponding to his rank.
Of course, he wasn't promoted for his ability to break heads. He literally talked his way past the first two Chuunin tests, before being defeated in the tournament. But he didn't lose. Not really. Somehow, Ichiwa got hold of a psychological profile on his opponent - quite a feat, since she was from a different village. Ichiwa goaded the Grass kunoichi so hard that she lost her temper. The resulting Jounin-level jutsu put Ichiwa into the hospital for weeks.
Except...the jutsu she used was a clan secret. A technique which had remained closely guarded for decades. Never taught to outsiders.
And a strangely large number of Uchiha just happened to be watching from the stands, sharingans open.
If there's one thing the Ake family is good at, it's making deals.
Like most of his kin, Ichiwa is considered a "genjutsu type". That said, he isn't great at genjutsu - he's merely adequate. But he's sub-par at taijutsu, and doesn't have the chakra for really destructive ninjutsu. Generally, he fights by using illusions to conceal traps and explosive notes. However, this tactic obviously works best when he's had time to prepare a battleground beforehand, something he can't always do. Enemies have this annoying tendency to be uncooperative.
If forced to fight head to head, Ichiwa tries to stay at a distance and bombard the enemy with ranged weaponry. He has a pair of shuriken and kunai launchers strapped to his arms - the mechanisms rapid-fire projectiles, reloading through storage seals. He needs a large volume of fire because his aim isn't great. It's terrible. Back in his Academy days, Ichiwa set a new record in his final weapons test. He had perfect throwing technique, no pause between throws, and all his kunai landed at the very same spot. Unfortunately, that spot was 13 feet to the left of the target.
He's improved since then, but there's a reason why most of his jutsu are area-effect. It's the concept of spray-and-pray.
And he does pray. Ichiwa claims to be religious, though precisely what religion he belongs to isn't clear to his fellow shinobi. Well, aside from the fact it was started by some carpenter...who apparently had really amazing jutsu...and preached something about God's enduring love for man and the need to put complete faith in him for salvation. Or something. They're not sure. In any case, it all sounds very very strange for a shinobi, since the ninja lifestyle's basically about depending on your own strength and your compatriots, not some nebulous spiritual deity thing.
Especially one that can't even be summoned.
Ichiwa does have an actual summon contract, however. He summons fish.
Koi, specifically. The contract belongs to the Hidden Waterfall, but he made some friends there during treaty talks some years back. His summons are often laughed at by other shinobi, but Ichiwa insists they're more useful than they seem...
...and besides, it's the principle of the matter. He has to summon fish. It's spiritually significant.
His friends usually ignore him when he starts to talk like that. Ichiwa can be really confusing, and he has a truly strange sense of humour. He's a nice enough person, though, if a little odd. Perhaps overly kind and honest for a shinobi, a bit too vocal...mostly harmless, anyway.
It's well known, though, that Ichiwa has a long-running feud with Morino Ibiki, the head of ANBU's Torture and Interrogation Force. They intensely dislike each other. Morino Ibiki is tight-lipped about the subject, but he's hinted in vague terms that Ichiwa might be somewhat less than trustworthy. Ichiwa, on the other hand, insists he has nothing but respect for Ibiki, and it's all just a terrible misunderstanding.
He never explains what the misunderstanding's about.
Unfortunately, as one of the Leaf's intelligence analysts, Ichiwa has to work with Ibiki on a fairly regular basis. Those days are not good for domestic tranquillity in the Hokage Tower.
As an intelligence officer, Ichiwa has special authorisation from the Hokage's office, and security clearance far higher than most Chunnin. His day job essentially consists of figuring out ways to pry into other people's business, how to forward the Leaf's agenda, how to best stab rival villages in the kidneys...and it's not all foreign, either. A fair bit of his scope overlaps into the Leaf's internal affairs. Ichiwa is a member of what he calls the "Censorship Board"...the panel that decides just what is classified information, and how much to tell the rank and file. He can be quite ruthless in this regard, a trait seemingly at odds with his professed moral code - though if questioned, Ichiwa says he doesn't see the discrepancy.
Ichiwa is one of the few people who knows the Legendary Sannin Jiraiya is actually the author of the infamous "Icha Icha" series. Tsunade let that slip during a staff meeting, while commenting on the quality of Jiraiya's intel reports. It's been occupying Ichiwa's mind ever since. He doesn't like the novels. He finds the prose too florid. But the books are international bestsellers, read by people across the world. And it'd be wonderful if he could persuade Jiraiya to slip subtle political messages into the stories. Pro-Leaf propaganda, you see...
And he'd like a set of autographed copies. It could be a good investment.
"Ake" is a fancy word for red, and "Ichiwa" is one wheel (well, ring, etc). It's an overly complex multilingual pun on my Chinese name, Zhu Yilun. Kanji, you know.
The story about Ichiwa's aim...is true. I did that with an M16 in Basic Military Training. Singapore Army. It was the simulator, you see. I was wired up, and they could measure everything. Perfect posture, perfect grip, perfect timing, perfect trigger pull, perfect precision, perfect shot grouping...nowhere near the target. 13-14 feet to the left, to be precise. In my defence, I was shooting from a few hundred feet away, and another guy did even worse...
But there's a reason I served in a support vocation, and why I always had the cleanest rifle, remarkably free of carbon, during inspection time...
And yes, I really have invented several assassination jutsu involving fish.
-- Acyl