MEETING THE TINY MAN [NOMO]

"Wearing T-Srhits is great, though! They're really comfy, and they're perfect for any weather!" Dana nodded sagely, "Tell Saya to think of all the cute designs ye can get on T-Shirts that ye can't get on all the other really fancy stuff she always wears!" Dana was, of course, just chatting aimlessly whilst walking towards the elevator. Empty brain, empty words and all that. That wasn't entirely true, though. Dana's mind was on other things, like the tattoo she was going to get in a bit. She had been thinking about it forever - read, five minutes - but still hadn't properly thought of a design. The one thing she was certain of was that she definitly wanted to get some big wings on her back, but beyond that was a mystery.

As Pinochio vacantly led her throught the village, Dana magicked up her notebook out of nowhere and began pouring over all the wing designs in it. She still truly had no idea where they had come from - somewhere deep in her mind, probably. She was being fictitious when she said they looked like bird wings to Pinochio earlier. They were more like... Dragonfly wings? No, that definitely was't right. Maybe they were just see-through butterfly wings, but that didn't feel right to Dana either. They would most certainly look cool on her back, though. Imagine if she could grow wings like that! Flying wasn't something that Dana had ever done, but now it was her life goal. Being able to soar amongst the clouds under nothing but the power of your own wings... It sounded amazing.

They soon arrived at the tattoo parlour, the pair drawing many odd stares since they both hadn't said a word to each other for the whole journey and had instead just been walking like empty-headed zombies the entire time. They entered, and the bright Senju waved at the three tough-looking women inside. This was so unlike any place she'd ever been to, this was awesome!

"Hello! Moi name's Dana Senju! It's a pleasure to meet ye!" She said jovially after Pinochio had made his weird comment that wouldn't have made much sense if Dana hadn't learned half an hour or so ago that Pinochio had used to be a puppet. He was probably really excited about finally having skin, so it made sense that he would talk about it at every oppotuntiy. If Dana had been wood her whole life, she too would probably say the same thing.

"Oi don't really know how this works, but oi want to get something like this on me back!" She skipped up to the counter and placed her open sketchbook onto it. She pointed at one of the wing designs on the page, looking back up hopefully towards the women behind the counter.

WC: 467
TWC: 7241

Wing Design:

"I mean. T-shirts are fine for like training and sleeping and stuff. I also honestly wouldn't wear them most days. THeres something really satisfying about either Finely fitted armor or a well tailored suit. You should have seen me on my first days. I was out picking up trash and catching cats n shit wearing armani. It cost us so much that I decided to go ahead and invest in armor so that I didn't have to replace them every day. " He would not actually tell Saya. That would involve talking to Saya. While he didn't hate the girl, He'd been heavily enjoying the fact that he hadn't had to interact with her at all since he became a full person. Were she in trouble he'd be on the front lines of course, but until then, he'd keep his distance and make his own way.

"Ah. Evening lad and lass. I'm Belle, I'm the owner of this establishment and these are my two collegues Bunny and Tough as nails Tara the unstoppable destroyer." As she spoke, The girl with a well toned physique and black hair motioned to the two beside her. Bunny looked like an absolute muscle head with thick arms that bulged from her shirt. TOugh as nails Tara the unstoppable destroyer however.... WEll. She stood at about four foot ten, WIth soft blonde curls that framed her face. She looked like she weighed about as much as pinochio, even with the height difference, and her smile was as gentle and genuine as her voice.

"You look like you'd be fun to Tat. I'd love to take care of you miss?" The honey in her voice left doubt as to how the hell she got the name that had been offered up in their introduction, but Pinochio seemed at least enough used to the trio that he didn't flinch.

"So Obviously Belle is doing my work. She's the vision behind my armadillo tatoo and the only one I trust with my ink. HOnestly, Bunny is great but She focuses on new school so she'll give you some sick in... It'll just look pretty cartoony and warped n stuff. TOugh as nails Tara the Unstoppable destroyer does really good photo realistic stuff though. Feel free to pick whoever you like!" It took no time at all for pino to hop into Belle's chair. It wasn't like she even needed direction for what she was creating. He'd been spending at least a few hours in the shop every day thinking up new and interesting tatoo ideas. This one, he'd been planning and tweking since he woke up from that strange dream. While Dana decided which of the tatoo artists she wanted to help bring her vision to life, Belle laid the sketches out for Pino on a tray so he could see them.

Pino had no clue where his vision came from. He just dreamt of wierd shark swords, but THankfully the rest of the village well. They paid attention, so it was pretty easy for her to get a feel for the look he wanted.

(TWC 8333)

"Well-tailored suits are definitely the best!" Dana agreed exuberantly, then her expression became suddenly more thoughtful, "But, uh, oi've never actually worn one. Oi just think they look real grand." She admitted with a shrug. Really, who in their right mind would have thought that the basically homeless Senju girl could possibly afford something as expensive as a well-fitted suit? She could probably afford something silly like those suits with little weird yellow guys on them she'd seen floating around Kirigakure, but that was about the extent of what her budget would allow. Dana couldn't even remember when she'd last eaten a meal that she'd actually bought instead of stealing.

Back in the tattoo shop, Dana was taking everything in stride. She smiled at the buff lady with black hair as she introduced the other two women in the store, to which Dana did a small curtsey towards using the hem of her t-shirt in place of a dress. This was a very interesting place, and Dana thought it matched Saya's chaotic vibe perfectly. Had Saya ever been here? Probably not, since she was still quite young and that would be against all sorts of regulations and stuff. Then again, Dana and Saya had never actually really, umm, paid much attention to any of those things so using the law to argue something not happening probably didn't make a solid case, in this case. Whew, that was a mess of a sentence. Anyway, moving on.

Dana smiled at Tara the unstoppable destroyer's accent, happy to find someone else on the island who didn't have the same cut-and-dry accent that everyone else seemed to. Murata, the Third- no, Second? Was it? Dana didn't pay much attention - Mizukage, also had a unique accent that's origin was as unknown to Dana as her own weird musical accent. Dana then realized that Tara had been fishing for Dana's name.

"Dana. Dana Senju!" She introduced herself to Tara, and held out a delicate offer for a handshake towards her. Pleasantries were always important, after all. Especially in he case of speaking to someone who was potentially about to give your body a new permanent fixture. As she stayed quiet and listened, it became clear to Dana that she'd have to pick between the three tattoo artists. Well, that felt a bit mean to just discard someone but Dana decided to just pick the one person she'd spoken to so far.

"Tara the unstoppable destroyer, what do ye think about doing something loike this on moi back?" She asked the short woman with blonde hair, using her full name because it invoked fear and respect! To give Tara a proper look, she picked up the sketchbook from the counter and handed it to the woman, "Anything ye think could be improved?"

WC: 469
TWC: 7710

"They just fit so well and I look quite dapper, not to take your language. That is something you'd say right? I"ve been trying to study a bit of speech pathology in my down time and it felt like the kind of thing that would match with someone who has your particular accent but yanno. Don't hear anyone else with it and there isn't actually alot of refference material so it's been hard to figure out proper. " In a moment a confident analysis of the unique differences between Dana and most of the people in the village became an unsure question. Had he done the research correctly? Had he just created a word by slamming a bunch of letters together and deciding for no other reason that it's existence as a blight against god that it would become a word? It was pretty hard to say.

While Saya had not been in the shop before, and hadn't actually even been made aware of it's existence, The shop definitely matched the sort of chaotic vibe that she gave off. There is no specific reason why this is being pointed out, and there was no refference made that would make this specific bit of information make sense. Sometimes as your humble third person narrator I just like to give fun details that you couldn't guess otherwise.

The handshake was met with a small nod as Tough as NailsTara the Unstoppable Destroyer took the girl's hand in her own, paperweight against the power of a ninja's hand shake. Surprisingly, Danas hand dwarfed the girls fairly significantly. She looked over the drawings in Dana's notebook, leting out soft 'hmms' and 'oh's' before giving a soft nod.

"Yes. I believe that I could do a bit of something with this. Have uh. Have you had a tatoo before? I assume you want this to be a full back piece and while I expect the money will be no problem if you're here with Pino, I do feel the need to let you know that Tatooing can be quite a painful process that takes a long time. You'll have to sit very still through the pain or I might mess something up, and if you stop because you can't handle it, you'll have an unfinished piece perminently on your body until you can get the courage up to go back under the needle again. " That was the catch wasn't it? There seemed to be no reason why this tiny mouse of a girl was called Tough as Nails tara the Unstoppable destroyer, but there were thinks the three girls in the shop knew that these two didn't. It wasn't because of her looks taht she'd gotten the nickname. It was because of her pain tollerance. While no tatoos actually showed on Tough as Nails Tara the Unstoppable Destroyer's body outside of her clothes she did in fact have ink. She'd chosen to only get work done in the most painful locations one could get tatoos and as such, she knew the pain and power of the craft all too well. [b]

(TWC 8847)

"Steal... Moi language?" Dana blinked, confused. It wasn't really her language, technically, it was just the way she spoke. Wait, did that even make any sense? Anyway, yeah, she knew what dapper meant, but she'd always assumed that it was a word everyone used. Anyway, Pinochio had just opened the door to learn some of her favourite expressions! She looked at him, mischievousness glinting in her eye, "Have ye heard of the word feck? Oi think oi taught Saya when we first met, and it's moi favourite word ever! Ye can use it in pretty much any situation, whether it calls for it or not!" She smiled, happy to talk about the topic of language with someone for once.

"Nope, oi haven't," Dana answered the question of whether or not she'd had a tattoo before with a small shake of her head, before continuing to listen to Tara's warning. She seemed to speak from experience, though Dana couldn't see any tattoos on Tara so that just left Dana kind of confused where that experience came from. She wondered about it for exactly... 3 seconds and then decided it didn't matter, moving on to paying attention to the rest of what Tara was saying to her. At the mention of money, when Tara wasn't looking, Dana would carefully side-eye Pinochio with a 'help, please' expression in her eyes. She'd already gotten so far, she'd hate to have to like, run away after getting the tattoo or something. What if she wanted to get more! Wait, did she need to pay before the tattoo, or after? Huh, questions for later.

"Oi've probably felt worse pain," Dana waived away the woman's well-meaning concerns with a smirk, "Pinochio and oi were training earlier and he punched me, loike, 10 billion times and oi'm fine!" She said blasely, a slight hint of pride in her voice. It was true, as well. Through a mixture of a quick outfit change and Mystical Palm, Dana didn't look worse for wear in the slightest. The only thing that could possibly belay the damage Pinochio had inflicted on her earlier was that her long white hair was kind of looking like a bird's nest. Nothing a quick brush couldn't fix, though!

"So how does this work? Do oi just lay down and ye do it? Do oi need to pay now?" If Pinochio hadn't caught her glance earlier, then Dana would summon a vine at her ankle - out of sight of anyone else in the store - and prod him with it to get his attention. If he turned to look at her, she'd send the 'help me, please.' glance at him again. She really didn't want to get screwed out of getting a tattoo now that she was so close!

WC: 465
TWC: 8175

"well. Not steal your language specifically. I mean like. In trying to understand what is being said based on your dialectic features at points when it is dificult to use context and heavy accent jumbles speech it's helpful to study the standard phrases in order to use that to glean additional information? Does that make sense?" It was rare for Pinochio to speak so complexly. He was a punchy kick boi whose goal was generally to just hit things really hard, so his intelegence was too often underestimated, but he was created from the combined knowlege of Saya senju. Just as she was a genius, he and Ai were given the full strenght of her undestanding. All of the teachings that Saya had ignored or forgotten were stored in the partition of her mind saved specifically for Pinochio, and now free from that prison, he was able to express a bit of his understanding.

":Yes. If you recall I was there during your whole... Feck discussion. Since then however I feel its important to let you know that she's developed a love for the word "heckers" in closed company, or so I've heard. I don't believe she feels confident enough to use it outside of the house yet, but she did uh... practice using it over and over at the top of her lungs the past few nights. While I was trying to sleep." It wasn't anything new. Of course she was up and about far later than he was. It was what she did. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation didn't bother pupnochio the way it does real boy pinochio. More unfortunately, he would have to go downstairs and say something in order to fix the problem, and so he endures.

The tattooist simply gave a pleasant smile as she set up her guns for the task at hand, a wierd shift in the air inpercievable to any in the room noting the point when I, the humble narrator of team puppet, would offer the control of this particular tatooist to the hypothetical narrator of Dana's story, were there one. Of course for the sake of the safety of this world, as breaking the fourth wall is a dangerous endeavor, that totally did not happen.

"Don't worry about the payment luv. Ole pino here has paid our rent for the next two years under the understanding that we take care of all his ink. Extending that kindness to his friends just seems like the right thing to do." It was Belle who spoke this time, even as she set up her color palette for the coming tatoo session. Pinochio was excited. The sketches that had been laid out in front of him proved that Belle just understood him. It was almost like she'd seen a mysterious shinobi who just happened to be the Mizukage walking around with this exact sword, and didn't need to invent the image at all. Imagine if that were true. THen Pino could actually meet the super awesome ninja he'd fought with in his dreams.

(TWC 9354)

"Uhhh," Dana blinked owlishly, her piercing green eyes squinting in confusion at the small guy's question. What was Pinochio talking about? All these words, phrases. Individually they meant something to her, but together? Nope, that was Dana out. She had no clue how to answer so Dana just looked to the side in serious contemplation, then a silly smirk appeared on her face, "It's sort of loike how oi loike moi toast done," She nodded sagely as if she hadn't just said something completely nonsensical. Too many big words often resulted in Dana defaulting to her favourite topic: food.

"Sounds like her," Dana said fondly, briefly recalling all the other loud and crazy things she and Saya had done together. If she recalled, Saya had told her about her penchant for using the word heckers back then as well, but Dana had yet to use it in any context. Wait, no, she'd definitely said it - amongst other, um, bad words - when Pinochio had used his one quadrillion punch Jutsu on her earlier today. She felt like she might have said it earlier, in one of those weird fun dreams that she could scarcely remember. One had involved a lot of zombies, she thought, but she couldn't really remember. She'd been dancing at one point too, hadn't she? Regardless it was time for her to get a tattoo!

Dana had absolutely no idea what was going on in regards to how getting a tattoo would work, so she kind of just tuned out throughout the whole procedure. She chatted with Tara for a bit about the design of the tattoo, how long it was gonna take. The usual. Tara was very nice to speak to, and Dana found her excitement growing with every word that was said on the subject. Dana ended up having to get a slightly simplified version of the tattoo she wanted purely because of time constraints, but that was fine. Once everything was sorted, Dana was instructed to lift the back of her T-Shirt up and lay on her front on some comfy table thing. The procedure was actually quite painful, much to Dana's surprise. She didn't really let it bother her, and she managed to lay completely still and silent throughout the whole thing.

Due to the fact it was on her back, it was kind of hard to get a proper look at it. Tara helped out, though, through a bizarre combination of multiple mirrors that allowed her to see it from her position laying down on the table. It looked amazing! Her back looked a little red - which explained the soreness - but the quality of the tattoo was easily visible. It was spread out across her entire back, almost reaching her shoulders it was so wide. This was excellent! For the second time today, Dana activated a regeneration technique and then got to watch in real-time as the redness of her back reduced, until it was completely clear.

"Grand," She said to herself, sitting up and smiling when she saw Tara's jealous face. They got talking, and Dana managed to secure a business deal where at some point in the future she'd come and heal their potential clients for a day for some extra Ryo. Yay! Maybe she could finally pay her rent.

"What do ye think, Pinochio?" She asked, turning so that her back was visible to said little guy. The design was complex, but Dana loved it.

WC: 574
TWC: 8749

"Oh! how does this translate to how you like your toast? Or is that a phrase from uh... wherever your dialect is from? I guess your family? Yanno. I don't actually know if anyone on team puppet has ever actually asked you if you were born in Kiri or came over from somewhere. I kind of figured with your accent that you came to Kiri at some point. " What did it mean? He wracked his tiny little brain for any information that might make the sentence understandable. What did toast have to do with the dialectic differences between his new friend and the rest of the village? Was this a suggestion that she cooked her toast in the traiditional way of her home town? Was it home town or home land? Maybe he was reading into this too much. It could be an elaborate metaphor for the way monotomy is broken up through the unique usage of phrases that define one person's individuality over another? One thing was for sure, it definitely wasn't something completely non sensical.

"There was like. An entire week Dana. Random times of the night I would hear her just belting it as loud as she could. I had to sleep during the day when she was out terrorizing the rest of the village. Took me so long to fix my sleep schedule after that. At first I was just up during the night and sleeping during the day, but then I ended up in this wierd habit where I'd wake up rediculously early in the morning, like three am or something crazy, and then just like. Stay up all hours of the night. Could you even imagine? I was up twenty hours of the day sometimes just saying to myself I should go to bed but never actually doing it. " There is a joke here, but he doesn't know it. Neither probably recognize the level this joke actually plays on, but you, my dear audience, you get it. Right?


THe buzz of the tatoo gun calmed Pinochio. WIth his powerful physical damage resistance it didn't hurt at all. Unfortunately that also made the tatoos take way longer because they had to go a little bit at a time just to get his skin to hold ink. The pain was a non factor though. It was kind of nice. When Dana finished with her entire back piece, Pino glanced down at his own before taking a moment to check out Dana's.

"it looks uh. " He paused, trying to find the right words. It was imperative to their future hang outs that he get the syntax correct and not look like an idiot. "It looks... Propper nice innit?" He felt pretty good with that. WIth his pride cam a bit of an excited wiggle, which was stopped immediately by a hand that pressed his chest downward until he could no longer move. Thats what he apreciated about this shop tough. They didn't take any flack and would not allow their clients to mess up their work for anything.

(TWC 9865)

"Oi don't know who moi family are, or where oi'm from." Dana shrugged, seeming unperturbed, "Moi earliest memory is waking up on a beach with a broken boat beside me. Oi still have part of that boat with me... Somewhere, oi dunno where it is at the moment though. That and moi accent are the only clues oi have about my past. It's pretty cool," The young Senju said with a soft smile, eyes looking into the middle distance with a small amount of nostalgia. It occurred to Dana that Pinochio may actually be the first person on the Island that she'd told this to. She didn't really know what to do with that information, so she moved onto the next topic with grace.

She smiled at Pinochio's description of the current absolute state of his sleeping schedule, nodding along. "That sounds like a completely normal and totally healthy way to sleep. Oi bet you get a lot of stuff done during all that extra time, roight?" Honestly, Dana was a little jealous. Who wouldn't be of such a glorious sleeping schedule like that? Whoever stuck to it for a long time must have a tremendous amount of willpower and also be really cool.

Moving time forward a bit to the point where Dana had just gotten her tattoo finished and was asking Pinochio what he thought, the little guy had just same something proper confusing. With all the talk earlier about the nature of her accent, Dana felt like Pinochio was either doing an awfully bad attempt at copying her dialect or was just mocking her. She furrowed her brows and dropped the t-shirt back down so her tattoo was fully covered again. Wow, if Pinochio didn't like her tattoo he could've just said so! He didn't need to get all mean and personally insult her accent.

She pouted, crossed her arms, and deliberately looked away from Pinochio. She would've offered to help him heal up the tattoo to get rid of all the redness far quicker than normal, but now she wouldn't! In fact, she was quickly working up a scheme to get back at him! She did note, however, the woman that was somehow holding down Pinochio whilst she did the tattoo. Having experienced Pinochio's strength first-hand, that was definitely quite a feat. Regardless, Dana was now gonna settle for giving him the silent treatment whilst she waited for his tattoo get done.

Once again, the white-haired girl struck up a conversation about potentially decorating the shop. Dana, the artistic soul that she was, offered to help. What followed next was a short montage of Dana and Tara putting up several flowers and pretty vines along the interior. At one point Dana got quite enthusiastic about it and started to do the handseals for Sea Of Trees until she remembered the last time she'd done it: when she and Saya had almost completely destroyed the advanced training facility. She got halfway through finishing the last handseal when she remembered this so it was, as they say, quite a 'close call'.

WC: 516
TWC: 9265

"Huh. So you just kind of washed up here with no memory of your life before the shipwreck. Sounds a bit like amnesia.. Or maybe its some higher force that picked you up and messed with your memory after playing cruel tricks on you for a period of time only to drop you off at our doorstep when they were bored..." It was the most rediculous thing he could think of. There was no way that Dana could possibly think it to be a true statement, and that was what made it fun. Imagine some trickster beings kidnapping her for no reason other than to play tricks. No one in their right mind could believe in something like that right? Right?!

"If it's helpful, While I kind of know where i'm from, I don't have any history before the day that Saya created me, so thats kind of something that we have in common right? As far as we're both aware, We didn't exist before the day you washed up ashore and the day that I was crafted into a living construct using powerful ninjutsu." WHen he says it like that, it makes Saya sound like some frankensteinian myth. Wierdly though, its a true statement. She did literally get bored one day and try to figure out if she could cast ninjutsu powerful enough to actually create living beings for more than a short moment. She found that the answer to the question was yes. Yes she absolutely could. 

"See. That's the thing. Not only is it not particularly healthy for me mentally or physically, I end up half the time just sitting there thinking about going to bed. I have stuff that I should get done, and I know if I can't sleep it gives me extra time to get those things done, but I just like. Can't get up to go do them so I end up just struggling with the realization that i am neither going to get rest nor get anything done!" It was a vicious circle. WIth all the crafting he had on his plate on top of physical training and missions, most days he just wished for the sweet release of sleep, but instead he sat and glanced at armors uncrafted and missions not yet gone on. 

He was excited to see if he'd gotten the statement correct. It would seem almost immediately that Dana confirmed that he had not. 

"I.. I think you pissed her off a bit luv. Dunno what you said, but you should probably apologize. " The comment from Belle only emphasized what he'd already realized. He must have missed an emphasis or something? Maybe he'd put the wrong words together. 

"Listen. I promise I wasn't trying to make fun of your accent. I was genuinely trying to use a phrase I thought you might in order to show recognization of your dialect and some ability to mimic it positively but uh. I can only assume that I've done that  wrong and I'm sorry.... You aren't listening to a word I'm saying are you? Can you teach Saya this silent treatment? It would be great." 

(TWC 10389)