The Traveling Jester (Open to anyone)

The sun had set over the Leaf Village. After aimlessly wandering the village, Nicol happened across a local tavern. Quietly walking through the door, it was obvious that it was a lively place. The well lit room had at least 2 dozen patrons, along with a small band in the corner. Walking up to the bar, Nicol ordered some warm sake and looked out over the crowd of happy customers. "Never had much luck getting paid in these crowds, but they do tend to be easily astonished." he said quietly to himself. Picking up the small cup next to the bottle of sake that the bartender left for him, he quickly emptied the cup and thought, Now where to start?

This tavern was not open to kids? Ha! Hayashi challenged the very thought of being called a kid and not allowed to go in. He used the classic transformation jutsu to make himself look older and just walked right in. Nobody stopped him. "Tch... easy," he muttered with a smirk. Now that his daily teenage rebellion was over, he saw a particularly strange looking person.

Suspicious.

Hayashi walked over to them and asked, "Hey, who are you?" He used a well practiced tone that sounded older than he was. He smirked confidently. He was so elite as a genin.

"Oh, i'm just a simple performer." Nicol smiled as he pulled out a deck of cards. Placing both his hands on the deck, he slowly pulled them apart, making a string of cards between them before falling into the bottom hand perfectly aligned. Leaning against the bar, he started shuffling the cards as he spoke. "And as one performer to another, that voice could use a little work. But from personal experience, it is rather hard to hide your voice just by talking in a deeper tone." He stopped shuffling the cards as he reached back and grabbed his bottle of sake and the small cup next to it. After refilling his cup with fresh sake, Nicol placed the bottle down behind him. "Now than, how about you tell me who you are." He said before taking a sip from the cup, watching Hayashi from over the rim of his cup.

Hayashi sighed a bit. Figured out so easily... "I'm Hayashi," he said with a bored tone, still keeping the moderately deeper tone to at least hide his age from the rest of the crowd who obviously were paying attention to the conversation, mesmerized by the card tricks. "Easy crowd, huh?" he joked. Looking around the crowd was mostly drooling, drunk buffoons obviously wasted. "Tavern...this is just a bar with a fancier name," he muttered. Chuckling at his remark he looked back to the performer, now drinking some kind of alcohol...more than likely Sake or something like that, from the odor.

"So then, what might I call you then, performer?" he asked with another bored tone.

Nicol put his cup back on the bar and again picked up his deck of cards. Holding them in front of him, he placed his right hand on the edge of the deck. Lifting his hand up, he held it a few inches above the cards. Cupping his hand, a card began to rise out of the deck and float in midair between his hand and the rest of the cards. "You can just call me, Jester." A said as the card slowly began to spinning around, revealing to Hyashi a joker. Plucking the card out of the air, Nicol twirled it between his fingers for a moment before it seemed to disappear with a flick of his wrist. Showing an empty palm, he placed his hand on top of the deck and rubbed back and forth for a moment before slapping the top card with his hand. Holding his hand above the deck, he snapped his fingers and picked up the top card, revealing the same joker that just vanished. "This is for you, call it a souvenir if you want." He said mockingly to Hayashi.

Unamazed, Hayashi sighed. "That's a very nice trick and all, but it really doesn't do it for me Jester," he said. Suddenly the little crowd joined in, as if understanding what he said. They were just drunk off their asses and wanted to see something that they might remember during their hangover the following day. Hayashi took this to his advantage and chuckled with the crowd's drunken displeasure with the little card trick. "Why don't you do something...amazing? Hmm?" Hayashi added.

Perhaps a little too far, he may end up being challenged to a little illusion contest. It would be simple enough. Illusions were all they were. He looked to the crowd, more and more anxious to see something more amazing than a little hide the card in the sleeve trick.

"Than how about some telekinesis." Nicol rubbed his hands over the deck of cards as he looked around the room at the drunk crowd. "Now this takes some concentration, so please, do keep the noise to a dull roar." He took a breath and threw the cards into the air, sending them flying across the room. But instead of the cards raining down over the audience, they seemed to hung in midair as if the laws of physics had looked them over and focused on keeping the crowd rooted firmly on the ground. Moving his arms in a big circle above him, the cards lined up with each other as the began to circle around the room. Nicol than flung his arms towards the walls on either side, sending the cards flying at the walls like shurikens. The cards stuck into the walls like they were made of steel, leaving a perfectly straight line of cards in each just above the crowds heads. "How about that for amazing."

A much more amazing tactic for a magician. This wasn't an ordinary magician though... Hayashi knew this tactic as Puppetry, it was a technique he was quite fond of as well. He smiled a bit as the crowd was amazed by the little trick. Well controlled cards flung about like playthings. As they stuck into the wall Hayashi applauded at the level of moderately entertained, whilst the rest of the crowd was amazed like never before. "Not too bad, Jester. A very nice combat tactic as well hmm?" he joked. This 'Jester' was obviously trained in some ninja arts.

"I suppose you aren't afraid of bats, eh? You seem to be the dark type," he started with a smug look on his face.

"Bats?" Nicol chuckled. "Who would be afraid of something that eats insects in the night?" Nicol climbed on top the bar. "Personally i prefer for fly with the birds myself." With a smile on his face, Nicol spread his arms and jumped out above the crowd. The people before him shouted as the moved out of the way, expecting him to fall like a rock and injure either them or himself. When Nicol didn't com crashing to the ground, they all looked up to see him floating in midair like the cards had just moments ago with his back towards the ground. Putting his hands behind his head, Nicol crossed his legs, closed his eyes and relaxed, floating just above the heads of the crowd and even with the line of cards in the walls. "If you want you're free to try and join me up here, but it might be rather hard unless you're like me." He chuckled at them as he rested above them.

Hayashi chuckled. Another little puppet master trick. Laying on a chakra thread it seemed. Hayashi figured he probably couldn't do that even with the thread present, so he just sighed and walked up the wall, hanging upside down and said, "This is a common trick a lot of performers use to make good money." As he said this his hands were behind his back, to hide the handseals he made. "However, what many don't know is..." he started once more as he fell disguising a bite to his thumb. The drunken crowd wouldn't know the difference. He smiled, "That standing upside down is an old trick used to disguise other tricks."

As if giving away his own secrets. He said, "If you try that at home, you will get hurt unlike my bat friend under the table." He placed his hand under the nearest table and used the summoning jutsu. As he did this he latched two fingers to the bat's toes and brought him up slowly, putting his finger to his lips as if telling it to be quiet and act like a normal bat. Hayashi held up the bat and cast his genjutsu on the crowd making them all step back with a gasp, almost ready to scream, the same general fear would probably distract Jester enough to fall from his perch.

The bat looked at Hayashi as if he was crazy, and also looked as if questioning why he looked so much older, but remained silent as commanded.
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Summoning Jutsu...Yubami- The Smallest/Fastest

Spoiler:

Jutsu Cast This Post

Name: Chiroptophobia
Rank: D
Element: None (Genjutsu/Basic)
Description: Induces the enemy(ies) with highly severe chiroptophobia, or fear of bats. Must be activated by the sight of a bat. The opponents always have one of these three reactions. The first reaction is that the opponent(s) are so afraid that they are incapable of movement, the second reaction is retreat, or the third effect if they are capable of battle, and decide not to retreat, is that even though they continue to battle they get distracted by the bats every post. Lasts for as long as a bat (or bats) are in the area or battlefield.

Hito had been in the tavern for a long time watching them. His dark eyes looking over his tan hat. Even though he was only around 10 years of age, he was built to look like a person in their teens. His expressionless face witnessed the feats and was totally absorbed into it. He loved puppetry techniques and other tricks that made him laugh before he died. Hito moved to a chair next to them as the crowd drew in. There was trick after trick as each of them tried to impress one another. The clown man was charming and looked almost friendly. Though there was an aura around him that said just the opposite. The boy that was a little older than him tried to cast a technique around himself to make him older, but Hito's clan gave him the upper hand to look through any genjutsu or jutsus that hides the real thing.

Which made him puzzled as everyone screamed, gasped and stood back as they saw the cute bat. Hito stood up, his tall thin figure walking through the short crowd and to the bat. He then began tickling its hairy back. He pulled out a new variation of trail mix and gave the bat a salted dead grasshopper. "How did you do that?" He was talking about pulling the bat from under the table.

Nicol rolled over and opened his eyes, looking at the screaming crowd. "What are you all screaming at, it's just a bat." He couldn't understand why they were all so petrified of a single bat. But before he could figure it out, a child stepped forward and started talking. Letting out a sigh, Nicol let up his jutsu and slipped trough the chakra strings, landing on the floor as the people ran out of the tavern. Pulling his hands in, the cards dislodged themselves from the wall and collected in front of him and a perfect stack of cards. Gabbing them out of midair, Nicol slid them into his pocket than looked up at Hayashi. "That's going to far, you had no reason to terrorize those people."

Apparently these two were somehow able to get past his genjutsu in some way, one was tickling his bat and the other was scolding him. "Hehe, sorry, I am just more a fan of horror as entertainment," he said. He snapped his fingers and the genjutsu broke among the mass of people. They all started to gather around and look and examine the bat. "Alright then, why not freak 'em out some more Yubami! Speak," he said.

Yubami tilted his head a bit and said, "Uhh...Hiya!" The crowd backed off a little. The voice a a bit casual so it looked more like ventriloquism than anything. Yubami waved his right arm/wing a little to show no harm meant. "Hey batfreak, could you get your greasy paws off my fur? It took me forever to get it clean like this," he continued. Hayashi was a little embarrassed by that and said, "Now Yubami, don't be rude!"

Yubami sneered and said, "You know what's rude? People who come out of nowhere and tickle ya'!" The crowd seemed to get a kick out of that and some of them even laughed. Hayashi sighed. It wasn't like him to throw on a comedy routine. Hayashi wondered what had him in such a good mood...

Hito was slightly aware of them arguing, but he didn't mind. He was always around turbulence and havoc. Giving him slightly a warped sense of reality. He was surprised at how well the bat talked. He immediately took his cold hands from the soft fur. He looked down. " pretty...." he mumbled. Even though he had the body of a teenager, he had the personality and voice of a 10 year old kid.

He put away the grasshopper that the bat refused to eat and pulled out what looked like a possum. " This is Gravy. He's a rodent too, but he's more fat so he cant fly." The plump gray possum rolled onto his side and gnawed lazily on Hito's hand. After introductions he turned to both of them. " I..uh. You're puppet users, right?" He seemed very nervous to be talking to people more advanced than him.

"No no no. What i do isn't puppetry, what i do is an art." Nicol waved his hand in front of his face as if shooing away a fly. He pulled a chair from a near by table and sat down, leaning back on two legs and resting his feet on a table. "Besides, a the main thing to being a puppet user, you need a puppet." He help out his arms and looked around him sarcastically. "And as you can see, not a puppet in site."

Hayashi chuckled. "I suppose that the chakra strings were just play huh?" he asked. He sighed, not really caring like he was hinting. "Either way, My puppets are outside," he said, "Their too heavy for anyone else to lift, so I don't worry too much." Looking past Jester, he was not really in the mood to bother with anymore of Jester's simple tricks, though they were pretty interesting.

He looked at the possum and set Yubami on the table and the bat looked at the possum as if disgusted. "Gravy, eh? Looks like a normal possum," Yubami said. Hayashi then went on with the conversation at hand. "So why do you care if either of us are puppeteers anyways?"

Hito nodded. " He is." He put Gravy on his shoulder where he munched on loose threads as he stood up. Hito realized that he was taller than both of them, but much thinner. When he was asked why he was saying all of these things, he began to shuffle his feet. " My name is Hitogoroshi Guujin. I come from the mist islands where there is this gas that turns people bloodless, with lack of organs and can only move around by pure machinery. Which is why our nickname is the living puppets of the bloody seas." He said all of this weakly, as if he was going to get beaten for it after wards. Hito pulled up his right sleeve where his skin was cracked and falling off. underneath it was white bone enforced with metal and shock guards along with what looked like wiry muscles made from metal threads.

He stared at his black shoes instead of his arm. " I...need a repair..."

"A metal man." Nicol chuckled as he moved his hands, mimicking the movements of person controlling a marionette. "I might not be able to control a person like a normal puppet master, but I have complete control over inanimate objects." Nicol waved his hand, motioning for Hito to come closer. "Now come over here so I can control you as I wish. It would make living easier if I could steal with someone else to take the fall." Nicole was laughing as he continued to make the over dramatized motions of a puppet master.

Hayashi sighed, "Now, now, no need to be jealous that I can do that." He chuckled and walked over to the living puppet or whatever he was called. "Sheesh kid, have you been fighting with rabid wolverines or something? You are torn up like my puppets after that mission with the dog pack, aside from the wire-typed tendons and muscular system," he said with a frustrated sigh. He didn't see why this guy would be a living puppet, but keep himself in such bad shape.

He felt the kid's arm, it was cold. "Well whoever put you together was a pretty smart guy in a rush," he shrugged, "Judging by your tone, your voice resounder is out of date...your skin is peeling...the only feature that looks good is your bones, and those shouldn't be showing..." He was examining all of the structural flaws and broken bits and pieces. "You really do need a repair kid," he said after a few more moments of inspection.

Hito was surprised at how both of them jumped at him with either words or actions when he said he was a puppet. The clown man was making scary jokes with dance-like movements. Making it very hard for him to ignore. Hito stared at him wondering how he was able to move so smoothly without making a sound. creepy. He turned back to the person closer to his age and saw him holding his arm. He commented on its structure. " Well, he had 3 other operations to go to after me so i guess he was a bit rushed. I was in the forest coming here and saw some people with hunting knives on the road. So i gathered some food for them and walked back on the road so i could give it to them. They broke the shock structure of my arm, broke my chest compartment to splinters and dented my cranial reinforcement sheet. " he poked the deppression in his chest and removed his hat for them to see that the right side of his head was bleeding. though once you looked more closely, you could see some plastic between skin and metal. It was fake blood.

"so do you think you can fix me? Do you need any payment?"

"Sorry, I'm an entertainer, not an engineer." Nicol put his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. "My technical prowess ends with balancing a throwing knife." He reached behind himself and grabbed a knife from within his vest and balanced the point of the knife on his finger tip. "Now, if you need entertainment for a party, I'm your man." In a flash, Nicol flipped the knife around, than gabbed the handle and sent the knife soaring through the air. Shooting between the pair's heads and lodging itself into the wall behind them. "I do over other services, but they cost extra."

The Jester was still going on about his services and stuff like that. "I'm sure, if I need a magician for my three-year-old cousin, I'll look you up," Hayashi said jokingly. Then back to the matter at hand, this guy needed too many repairs for Hayashi to charge him fairly. Hayashi shook his head and scratched it too. He could fix the kid, but it had been a while since he's worked with a puppet, and this was advanced stuff. Complicated engineering and stuff like that. Luckily the overall structure only needed a little bit of metal work. Some replacement parts were due, but Hayashi probably had some decent replacement parts laying around his place.

"I think I can fix you up, not going to be easy, but I can," Hayashi said. The bleeding head thing was a little creepy. "And lemme tell you what. If you put the hat back on, I'll do it for free," he said closing one eye with a barely hidden grimace. Yubami flew up and stood on Hayashi's head, and went to work cleaning his fur.

Hito was still entranced by the magician. "Maybe this is what genjutsu is...if it is, i like it." he thought quietly. Hito stood stock still and stared at the magician. Even though the man was an entertainer, Hito could be entertained with a clod of dirt and would still want more. He vaguely heard the repair guy about his head and he put on his hat quickly. The doctor had a sick sense of humor to put fake blood in a dry body. He then heard about the repairs. Hito turned back to him. " I have all of the spare parts in my coffin if you need them." He mumbled eagerly. His cold voice sounding more like a chill.

He felt a breeze of cold steel rush past his face and lodged behind him. He turned back to the smiling man. "Did you....?" He stared at him again. This man was a borderline between creepy and funny. It reminded him of the happy tall man in the mist. He acted like a happy clown just like him, though he had more of a murderous aura and he didn't need all of the fancy clothes to make him scary. Hito pulled the Kunai from the wall and handed it back to him. " Weapons shouldn't be misused like that. Senbons are more accurate in the reaction you were trying to entail."

He walked off to the darkest corner of the shop. They heard a scraping of wood and stone. Hito had lifted a half-ton, 6 foot tall stone coffin and was bringing it over to the little group. His full name etched on the front with his birth date and his death date; which was four years after his birth. His little possum Gravy rolled from his shoulder and plopped on the front. Hito opened it slightly and cold mist emitted from it. Gravy scuttled in, with his mouth full of the bar's mixed peanuts. Hito tried to smile, but the corners of his face only twitched. " It has a few compartments, a cooling system, a few sheets of skin, Gravy's nest, and a few of my tools." Hito was quite proud of the space, though ignoring the fact that it was a coffin.

Nicol yawned as he grabbed the knife. "I'll use my tools how I wish." He pulled out his deck of cards and quickly shuffled them. "I'll let you two have fun with your toys. I'm not very keen with mechanical workings." Nicol twirled a card between his fingers, than held it between his middle and index fingers. Putting his arm behind his head, he flung his arm up like he was throwing a baseball, but twisting his wrist at the last moment, adding a spiral to the card, sending it into the ceiling with deadly accuracy. Picking up another card, he repeated the same motion, again lodging the card into the ceiling next to the previous one.

Hayashi figured that there was enough skin for the guy, but there was no metal to work with anywhere inside this coffin. Nor was there an in range. The tools were nice, but without sheet metal there was little he could do. He sighed and said, "Well there isn't any plating to help armor you up, and the skin is for after the operation..." He was a little frustrated. "I'd need access to the puppet workshop down the road to get the metal to work with," he added. He backed away from the guy's coffin and said, "There isn't enough. Especially if you want to be better than ever."