Konohagakure no Sato -- Sunday Early Evening

[intraspective]

Ino was just glad, all things considered, that the rain wasn't sheeting down on them and the sky was a brilliant red overhead with the sunset--there'd been no way to check that out before coming and umbrella's weren't really used much by, well, ninja.

Or by SOLDIER members, she was pretty sure, considering Zack still... didn't seem to own coat. It was cold, geez.

The forest rustled with the wind and the hard-packed dirt road they were on was clearly well used. Ino grinned over her shoulder at him. "It's just a bit further, and we'll be to the gates. You've got your papers on you, yeah?"

Because if not, they were going to have a problem. And Ino would kick Zack in the shins.

[NFB due to distance, and for the SOLDIER with her!]

Comments

[intraspective]

"Really? In your world?" Ino blinked up at him. "Seriously?"

[puppy_fair]

"Sure!" Zack nodded, smiling a little more broadly as he looked back down at her. "Why wouldn't there be? One of them went to our school, actually. Yuffie? She's the one who gave me my Mug materia."

He was fond of his Mug materia. Punch things in the face! Take their stuff! Yeah!

[intraspective]

Ino had talked to Yuffie maybe once?

"I think I remember her," Ino said, humming thoughtfully. "We didn't really cross paths much, you know? But that's totally cool, just a bit--weird? That they've got similar stuff to my world and they have ninja too."

[puppy_fair]

"We've got similar stuff to other worlds, too," Zack noted. "I mean, cars and stuff, like the mainland off of Fandom, but then magic, which the mainland doesn't really have, you know? Maybe all kinds of worlds have different bits and pieces of all of the same things? It'd explain why we know the same language, at least."

[intraspective]

"True!" she laughed. "Though I speak what passes as Japanese back at Fandom too--most of my writing, people say, look a lot like that. Wonder if Wutai sounds the same? Do they got their own language too?"

[puppy_fair]

"They do," Zack agreed, nodding merrily. "I don't know any of it, though I think... Um."

He rummaged through his pocket for his phone, which had the ShinRa logo printed on one side, in kanji.

"Maybe you can read that? That's in Wutaian."

Because ShinRa was the sort of company that started a war with a nation, conquered them, and continued to write their logo in that country's native language, yes.

[intraspective]

ShinRa was a very creepy sort of company, really.

"If you didn't have that on your logo," she teased him, glancing at it. "I'd say you'd been sneaking stuff from here 'cause that's easily readable to me."

[puppy_fair]

"Creeeeepy," Zack laughed, looking at his phone, shaking his head, and then pocketing it again. "I can't read it, myself. But I guess someone in ShinRa must be able to. Does ShinRa sound like a Wutaian... Konoha-ian? Does it sound like that kind of name?"

Zack had no idea, here!

[intraspective]

She shrugged a bit as they neared the gate Chuunin. "It's not off-sounding?" Ino offered. "But I don't think I've heard anything like it, honest, from here."

[puppy_fair]

"That's fair," Zack laughed, shaking his head and peering up (up! up!) to get a better look at the gate as they got closer. He was going to have to pull his papers out, soon. "The President and his son don't really look like folks from Wutai typically do, anyhow."

[intraspective]

"What do they look like?" Ino asked interestedly.

Shush. It was totally an important question.

(And it really actually was, funnily enough.)

[puppy_fair]

"Actually, kinda..." Zack blinked. "You mean the President, or Wutaians in general?"

The president looked fat. That probably wasn't the answer that Ino was hoping for.

[intraspective]

No, no it was not.

She laughed and shook her head. "Nevermind," Ino said, since it was their turn now, with the Chuunin, who shot a rapid-fire question at her in her own language, not the one she'd been using with Zack.

"Yamanaka Ino," she answered, crisply. "Genin. 012604. We're expected."

A nod from the other Chuunin had the first asking a second question.

"Zack," she said lightly, "hand the nice man your papers."

[puppy_fair]

Zack blinked. He managed to follow what Ino had said, at least, which was good. Because he could have wound up standing there stupidly, and wouldn't that have been mortifying.

Oh! Right! Papers!

He smiled sheepishly and went rummaging, surfacing a moment later with the (only slightly crinkled) papers in question.

"Here you go!"

[intraspective]

Just a bit, yes. Ino would have been a good friend and totally not laughed.

Or, more likely, have laughed her head off once they'd gotten past the guards.

Really, the guards had seen papers in far worse condition and the crinkles barely got a twitch as the guard took them and glanced through them before biting the pad of his thumb hard enough to bleed and pressing it to the corner of the cover, murmuring something too low to hear. The whole thing crackled and the Konoha leaf symbol flickered on the cover for a second before fading out.

He handed the papers back to Zack as the other Chuunin guard wrote something down.

"You're free to go," he said, voice light for a man. Then, to Ino: "You know the rules."

Ino wrinkled her nose at him cheerfully and shrugged. "Come on, Zack!"

[puppy_fair]

Zack kind of glanced between the guards, and then at Ino, wondering what the rules were, exactly. But he was planning on being on his best behavior while he was here. Really, this was Zack. He'd have to put serious effort into pissing people off, anyhow.

"Lead on," he replied, and then gave the guards a cheerful little smile and a nod of his head. Sort of a 'thank you for not trying to kill me on my way in or something,' maybe.

[intraspective]

"Down this way," she said, more relaxed down that they were actually in Konoha and walking down streets that were hard-packed dirt with buildings made of wood, mostly, to either side of them. The leaf symbol was, if you were paying attention, visible painted, on walls, on little flags that hung over doorways--some of the symbols obvious and others less so. Almost as prevalant was the kanji for fire, nearly always done in red though the buildings were any colour--a lot of off white, tan, but always some splash of orange or blue or red. Trees of all sizes, some big, some small rose around the streets and staircases were built around the larger ones, seeming at random.

Above all of this, was the Hokage Monument, with the faces of their leaders carved out.

"Don't know what you'd want to do first? Food or something? Or go straight to my place?"

Ino was easy! Either or!

[puppy_fair]

Oh, this place was so Wutai on the inside, it felt almost like Zack was wandering around Fort Tamblin again. Only, with fewer people trying to kill him. And no Foulanders. It was going to take a concentrated effort to keep from staring gape-mouthed at everything they walked by, actually.

"Well, I am kinda hungry," he confessed. "I haven't had anything to eat since..." He squinted a little. "Actually, I didn't really eat on my break, either."

[intraspective]

"You like barbecue?" Ino asked, considering that. "Or there's dango, and curry and sushi places if you'd like?"

[puppy_fair]

"What's a dango?"

See Zack. See Zack be painfully American-esque in his eating habits.

[intraspective]

"Dango it is, then!" she decided, grinning up at him. "It's a kind of dumpling? On skewers a lot of time! There's all kinds, most of 'em are made from rice flour? And flavoured with things like red bean paste, green tea, soy sauce?"

A beat.

"Or you might like Okonomiyaki?" Ino continued. "It'd be a bit like a pancake and an omelet had a demented love child back at Fandom?" Don't tempt Fandom, Ino. "And you can put whatever you want in them--there's places that'll make'em to order!"

[puppy_fair]

"Oooh, maybe I can try a bit of all of it, before we go?"

Or, knowing Zack, a bit of all of it, tonight. He was a growing puppy, dangit, and it took fuel to run a bouncy SOLDIER kid!

[intraspective]

"Let's pick some place that doesn't specialize in just one thing then," she laughed, shaking her head and totally betting that he'd be eating a whooole lot tonight because, yeah, growing boy and all that.

[puppy_fair]

He had the proportional appetite of a puppy. Where there was food, restaurant owners trembled in fear of having their stock depleted while readying their tills.

"That sounds like an awesome plan, Ino," Zack decreed, and yes, he was totally bouncing, here, looking around wide-eyed at pretty much everything. "I want to take in as much as I can while I'm here. This place is amazing."

[intraspective]

"Not so much of a backwater then?" Ino asked archly, deftly navigating her way through the warren of streets. "I seem to remember you saying something 'bout that, hmmm?"