๏ผ he is more lenient with gwen than he is with most. what he is willing to tolerate from her is markedly different than with others — this being a keen example.
she sets him down, and a slight application of chakra to the soles of his feet ensure that — even within the confines of the simulation — he is in no danger of falling. ๏ผ
It appears... crowded.
๏ผ the high rises remind him of amegakure, albeit in far greater number. ๏ผ
ใ drily amused: ใ Your mastery of the understatement should be studied.
Weโre almost nine million in the real city. Of course, itโs crowded.
ใ there are several reasons a girl who cannot fly chose swinging hundreds of feet off the ground as her primary mode of transportation, sheโs saying. ใ
๏ผ he blinks slowly, looking out over the city with open curiosity. ๏ผ
That is a substantive number.
๏ผ further proving her point. at first it seems he is content to leave it at that, but as his eyes flicker to red and he looks to the city's distant horizon — ๏ผ
At its peak, Konohagakure has never been home to more than sixty thousand.
๏ผ the shinobi registration numbers have run into the thirteen thousands by now, but with deaths, war, and general attrition their numbers did not exceed five thousand at his death. but shinobi are not the only part of a village — there are merchants, artisans, nobles and a swath of other civilians that support the infrastructure and benefit from the protection of the shinobi. konoha has been the most prosperous and populous of the great villages for years — iwagakure being second, and he doubts its population has so much as broken forty thousand. ๏ผ
What is the benefit of living in such a densely populated urban center?
๏ผ trying to imagine the logistics is challenging, even for him. ๏ผ
๏ผ everything she says is so... wildly indulgent he falls silent in a sort of studious processing of it. peeling apart the layers. it is strange for him, to imagine a world in which the driving motivation is not safety, but progress. ๏ผ
I see. How are resources managed to accommodate for that many?
ใ loving the trust, itachi, but— ใ If you're wanting specifics, that one's a little above my pay grade.
There are enough resources. They're not always distributed equitably, ใ she makes a face, ใ but that's a separate, incredibly fucked up topic.
Point is there is enough of the world to keep everyone fed and happy. ใ if humans would stop destroying the environment ๐ซ
dropping to a sitting position, gwen waves him over. after he joins her, she points across the east river. ใ That's Brooklyn. Follow the river, that's Queens, where I live. I haven't made that walking tour yet.
๏ผ haha, humans, stop being bastards, that's a good one. she waves him over and he joins her, though does not duplicate her sitting — preferring to stand.
#justanimethings. for the love of god, don't put him on a power pole or a radio antenna or any other nonsense high thing. ๏ผ
ใ she laughs. ใ No. The mayor lives here in Manhattan. Queens' name is a holdover from when we had a king.
Long story very short, thirteen colonies did not like the king. Had a whole war of independence. Got our independence. And the United States was born. ใ with baseline enthusiasm: ใ America, fuck yeah.
๏ผ that, he supposes, is perhaps the singular point in america's favour that he's heard so far. ๏ผ
Was there something in particular you wished to show me?
๏ผ it isn't a protest, so much as his tendency to eschew small-talk and actions that do not have a direct and often immediate purpose. sorry, gwen, he is absolutely a workaholic, even here. ๏ผ
Guessing you mean my high school and not my university. The latter is uptown.
ใ she motions in the general direction of empire state u. ใ
I was only there a semester and a half before I had to drop out. If you want my school-school, you'll have to give me a minute to simulate it because that's in Queens.
ใ forest hills, to be precise. her neighborhood. ใ
The difference is a matter of age and materials learned?
๏ผ look, ninjas graduate their academy and that's it. there is no higher education except under a mentor, a shinobi who specializes in your preferred area of pursuit. ๏ผ
I have no preference. Whichever you would find easiest.
Yeah. We get more or less the same education ages 5 through 18, ใ she explains as she turns off the simulation. the wind and the buildings vanish around them, leaving them on the floor of the simulation room. she works as she talks. at this point, she has a deft hand creating simulations from the ground up. ใ
There's some variety like if a school specializes in sciences or art and music, but in general, it's a similar curriculum. University, you choose what you want to study: music, communications, chemistry, medicine… Sky and course catalog is the limit.
ใ and how quickly a course fills up. that's a big one.
the simulation flickers to life around them. midtown high is a brick-and-mortar building comprising four floors, its name above the doors. trees cast shade over a green lawn where students would mill in good weather before and after school. yellow school buses wait in the road.
๏ผ his brow raises faintly as she says eighteen. academy graduates are almost unilaterally twelve, unless they are held back or happen to graduate early — he cannot fathom a world where one remains in such a setting until they are that age.
seriously, what are they learning.
he surveys the school, which evokes none of the same feelings as the academy — the structure may be superficially similar, but the lack of training dummies in the yard alone sets it apart. it's bigger, certainly, than any building in konoha — or in any of the other villages or cities he's seen, but he supposes that makes sense with how disproportionately large her new york is. ๏ผ
May we enter?
๏ผ how complete is the simulation, he does not say. ๏ผ
You wanted to see the school, so unless you have X-ray vision, we kind of have to. ใ huh. ใ I wonder how X-ray vision works in this room.
ใ is the simulation that perfect? or would it be a wall of ones and zeros? oh shit, could they see the matrix?
gwen leads the way inside. the interior is as she last saw it. the bulletin board is crammed with announcements. a banner on the wall reads congratulations to her graduating class. the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.
looking away, she slides off her jacket and tosses it down the table outside the metal detectors. a web-line grabs it before it can start to fall and returns it to her once she's past. ใ
Where'd you want to—
ใ the blaring of an alarm cuts her off. gwen nearly jumps out of her skin. ใ
๏ผ regardless of its nature as a simulation, he is still cautious. not prone to overconfidence or arrogance in any setting, sharp red eyes take in their surroundings in exacting detail. she steps through the odd door frame without a door, and he follows after a moment.
the alarm trips, and he — absolutely anticipating some manner of attack (he does not trust that the simulation room cannot be hacked, after all, and its reality is a matter of perception) — uses shunshin to get to gwen's side in the span of half a heartbeat, covering her back. she is capable enough in her own way, which is perhaps the only reason he does not simply take her by the wrist and use the body flicker to get them both back to the school's doors.
the alarms are loud, so he switches to the earpiece — ยซWhat is happening?ยป ๏ผ
ใ the alarm ends, gwen is fairly certain her heart is about to jump outside her body, and spider-sense continues to not give her a heads-up. she takes a breath, then answers him verbally. ใ
You set off the metal detector.
ใ she could ask how many knives he has on him. but the answer is sure to depress her further so, for once, gwen takes the route that preserves her mental health. ใ
๏ผ he glances towards the odd doorframe again, instantly making the connection between his step through it and the klaxon, and his jaw juts stubbornly off to one side. ๏ผ
Can you remove it from the simulation?
๏ผ the answer would absolutely depress her, smart thinking, refrain from asking. itachi should rightfully clank when he walks. ๏ผ
Yes? But you're already past so…I think we're good. ใ turning around, she waves over her shoulder in the director of the metal detector. ใ Just remember to avoid it if we leave through those doors.
ใ in the meantime, she will attempt to wrangle her heart, which has decided it would rather explode than be subject to more stress. a mood, if gwen is honest. around her neck, a black necklace formed except it shifts and stretches, delicate string-like pieces tasting the air. ใ
๏ผ he hates this place already. why is america like this. he gives the metal detector a faint, dour look and then falls into step beside her. ๏ผ
It is meant to announce when one is armed. ๏ผ literally wild, shinobi academies would consider it significantly more strange were one not armed. ๏ผ I did not realize your world necessitated such actions.
cw: america/guns/schools. this entire thread will be a content warning from here
ใ gwen breathes a humorless "ha!" the tip of her tongue presses against a molar. ใ
Yeah, that's not my world. Just my country, and its valuing guns over the lives of kids.
ใ her sarcastic smile fades. ใ
Not that metal detectors do shit.
ใ something haunted crosses her face before she looks away. around her throat, the symbiote spreads. black threads wind over the shoulders of her jacket, almost vanishing against the black leather but for the way they stretch above it. ใ
๏ผ it speaks to a political situation he does not understand with any immediacy, and wisely — he keeps his mouth shut. something about gwen's ongoing reaction to this place, and the way venom is standing on alert is ... concerning to him.
very gently, he reaches out and touches her elbow. ๏ผ
Gwen.
๏ผ just her name, but what it infers speaks volumes. are you all right? ๏ผ
ใ there is a question in itachi's pronunciation of her name. gwen chooses not to hear it. delicately, she pulls her arm free. ใ
Cafeteria is on the first floor, library on the second. The science labs are between the second and third floors. Outside are the football and baseball fields and the running track. I throw a mean javelin, and that was before I got super-strength.
Aside from that there's the gym, the music room, art room, computer labs… Everything else is pretty much classroom.
ใ in contrast to before, her voice acquires a brighter tone. a note in it rings false, however. like she's putting on an act. (she is.) rather than let her thoughts catch up to her, gwen starts walking. she is not fully aware of what she is saying. (it doesn't really matter.) posters line the walls between students' lockers; again and again, the word "prom" is repeated. she ignores it as she tries to ignore the crawling sensation at her back removed from the symbiote. ใ
๏ผ warning thrums along the web of his awareness, and itachi is absolutely silent as he follows her. his brow is drawn down, jaw set. this has begun to feel like tsukuyomi, though he cannot divine exactly why. the dreamlike way, perhaps, she drifts through this place like a ghost.
he mentally tabulates what he knows of her history, and what this place is like to hold for her. some things are shadowed, grey, others as bright as a clarion bell.
she prompts him for a place, and he thinks of the drums she has webbed to the ceiling in her room aboard the ximilia. ๏ผ
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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she sets him down, and a slight application of chakra to the soles of his feet ensure that — even within the confines of the simulation — he is in no danger of falling. ๏ผ
It appears... crowded.
๏ผ the high rises remind him of amegakure, albeit in far greater number. ๏ผ
no subject
Weโre almost nine million in the real city. Of course, itโs crowded.
ใ there are several reasons a girl who cannot fly chose swinging hundreds of feet off the ground as her primary mode of transportation, sheโs saying. ใ
no subject
That is a substantive number.
๏ผ further proving her point. at first it seems he is content to leave it at that, but as his eyes flicker to red and he looks to the city's distant horizon — ๏ผ
At its peak, Konohagakure has never been home to more than sixty thousand.
๏ผ the shinobi registration numbers have run into the thirteen thousands by now, but with deaths, war, and general attrition their numbers did not exceed five thousand at his death. but shinobi are not the only part of a village — there are merchants, artisans, nobles and a swath of other civilians that support the infrastructure and benefit from the protection of the shinobi. konoha has been the most prosperous and populous of the great villages for years — iwagakure being second, and he doubts its population has so much as broken forty thousand. ๏ผ
What is the benefit of living in such a densely populated urban center?
๏ผ trying to imagine the logistics is challenging, even for him. ๏ผ
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ใ she gives a little considering hum as she wanders the edge of the roof, balancing delicately on the balls of her feet. ใ
I'd imagine it's much the same as your Konoha. More jobs, greater diversity, better opportunities… Now on a truly absurd scale.
For perspective, the population of humans on my Earth is seven billion. We're quite a few.ใ she too can understate ๐ ใ
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I see. How are resources managed to accommodate for that many?
๏ผ how fucking big is your planet, gwen. ๏ผ
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There are enough resources. They're not always distributed equitably, ใ she makes a face, ใ but that's a separate, incredibly fucked up topic.
Point is there is enough of the world to keep everyone fed and happy. ใ if humans would stop destroying the environment ๐ซ
dropping to a sitting position, gwen waves him over. after he joins her, she points across the east river. ใ That's Brooklyn. Follow the river, that's Queens, where I live. I haven't made that walking tour yet.
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#justanimethings. for the love of god, don't put him on a power pole or a radio antenna or any other nonsense high thing. ๏ผ
'Queens'? Does your city's leader live there?
๏ผ that's what that means, right. ๏ผ
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Long story very short, thirteen colonies did not like the king. Had a whole war of independence. Got our independence. And the United States was born. ใ with baseline enthusiasm: ใ America, fuck yeah.
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๏ผ that, he supposes, is perhaps the singular point in america's favour that he's heard so far. ๏ผ
Was there something in particular you wished to show me?
๏ผ it isn't a protest, so much as his tendency to eschew small-talk and actions that do not have a direct and often immediate purpose. sorry, gwen, he is absolutely a workaholic, even here. ๏ผ
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Only my playground. ใ she looks over the city with a serene smile. even itachi can't ruin new york for her. ใ
There anything you want a closer look at?
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Your school?
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ใ she motions in the general direction of empire state u. ใ
I was only there a semester and a half before I had to drop out. If you want my school-school, you'll have to give me a minute to simulate it because that's in Queens.
ใ forest hills, to be precise. her neighborhood. ใ
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๏ผ look, ninjas graduate their academy and that's it. there is no higher education except under a mentor, a shinobi who specializes in your preferred area of pursuit. ๏ผ
I have no preference. Whichever you would find easiest.
no subject
There's some variety like if a school specializes in sciences or art and music, but in general, it's a similar curriculum. University, you choose what you want to study: music, communications, chemistry, medicine… Sky and course catalog is the limit.
ใ and how quickly a course fills up. that's a big one.
the simulation flickers to life around them. midtown high is a brick-and-mortar building comprising four floors, its name above the doors. trees cast shade over a green lawn where students would mill in good weather before and after school. yellow school buses wait in the road.
gwen shrugs further into her too big jacket. ใ
Midtown High. Four years here.
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seriously, what are they learning.he surveys the school, which evokes none of the same feelings as the academy — the structure may be superficially similar, but the lack of training dummies in the yard alone sets it apart. it's bigger, certainly, than any building in konoha — or in any of the other villages or cities he's seen, but he supposes that makes sense with how disproportionately large her new york is. ๏ผ
May we enter?
๏ผ how complete is the simulation, he does not say. ๏ผ
no subject
ใ is the simulation that perfect? or would it be a wall of ones and zeros? oh shit, could they see the matrix?
gwen leads the way inside. the interior is as she last saw it. the bulletin board is crammed with announcements. a banner on the wall reads congratulations to her graduating class. the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.
looking away, she slides off her jacket and tosses it down the table outside the metal detectors. a web-line grabs it before it can start to fall and returns it to her once she's past. ใ
Where'd you want to—
ใ the blaring of an alarm cuts her off. gwen nearly jumps out of her skin. ใ
no subject
the alarm trips, and he — absolutely anticipating some manner of attack (he does not trust that the simulation room cannot be hacked, after all, and its reality is a matter of perception) — uses shunshin to get to gwen's side in the span of half a heartbeat, covering her back. she is capable enough in her own way, which is perhaps the only reason he does not simply take her by the wrist and use the body flicker to get them both back to the school's doors.
the alarms are loud, so he switches to the earpiece — ยซWhat is happening?ยป ๏ผ
no subject
You set off the metal detector.
ใ she could ask how many knives he has on him. but the answer is sure to depress her further so, for once, gwen takes the route that preserves her mental health. ใ
no subject
Can you remove it from the simulation?
๏ผ the answer would absolutely depress her, smart thinking, refrain from asking. itachi should rightfully clank when he walks. ๏ผ
no subject
ใ in the meantime, she will attempt to wrangle her heart, which has decided it would rather explode than be subject to more stress. a mood, if gwen is honest. around her neck, a black necklace formed except it shifts and stretches, delicate string-like pieces tasting the air. ใ
cw: uhhhhHHHHmerican..... highschools/weapons mention
It is meant to announce when one is armed. ๏ผ literally wild, shinobi academies would consider it significantly more strange were one not armed. ๏ผ I did not realize your world necessitated such actions.
cw: america/guns/schools. this entire thread will be a content warning from here
Yeah, that's not my world. Just my country, and its valuing guns over the lives of kids.
ใ her sarcastic smile fades. ใ
Not that metal detectors do shit.
ใ something haunted crosses her face before she looks away. around her throat, the symbiote spreads. black threads wind over the shoulders of her jacket, almost vanishing against the black leather but for the way they stretch above it. ใ
no subject
very gently, he reaches out and touches her elbow. ๏ผ
Gwen.
๏ผ just her name, but what it infers speaks volumes. are you all right? ๏ผ
no subject
Cafeteria is on the first floor, library on the second. The science labs are between the second and third floors. Outside are the football and baseball fields and the running track. I throw a mean javelin, and that was before I got super-strength.
Aside from that there's the gym, the music room, art room, computer labs… Everything else is pretty much classroom.
ใ in contrast to before, her voice acquires a brighter tone. a note in it rings false, however. like she's putting on an act. (she is.) rather than let her thoughts catch up to her, gwen starts walking. she is not fully aware of what she is saying. (it doesn't really matter.) posters line the walls between students' lockers; again and again, the word "prom" is repeated. she ignores it as she tries to ignore the crawling sensation at her back removed from the symbiote. ใ
Up to you where you wanna go.
no subject
he mentally tabulates what he knows of her history, and what this place is like to hold for her. some things are shadowed, grey, others as bright as a clarion bell.
she prompts him for a place, and he thinks of the drums she has webbed to the ceiling in her room aboard the ximilia. ๏ผ
The music room.
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