Eh… it’d be a bit of a repeat, anon. And, well, the fic would be as you described? A coda to chapter 130 with Shikako and Shikaku feels? Probably Shikaku’s POV about his tiny daughter flinging herself into more and more dangerous situations.
Yes! I’m glad it was salvageable, too. Like, I don’t actually have that much on my laptop but I was just like: oh shit, it’s been infected. THE MURDERER IS IN MY HOUSE HOW DO I GET OUT ALIVE.
(I might have freaked out the associate who was helping me. I like to think maybe it was more amusing than just straight up weird, but who knows.)
Hm… while I am fond of the Lee and Rockruff parallels (and the pun), I actually would rather lean into more of a taijutsu-only equivalent team for him. Meaning only Normal and Fighting types for Lee.
Neji and TenTen would also have Fighting types, but Neji would have a few Psychic types (which parallels the Byakugan sort of an the idea that even though Lee is faster than god, Neji consistently beats him) and TenTen a few steel types.
Now that I think of it some more, I do kind of like Lee having an unevolved Eevee on his team as per @to-someplace-else’s suggestion. Because there’s something very sweet about Lee accepting his Eevee the way it is and not pressuring it into changing itself one way or another. But, of course, if it wants to evolve, he won’t stop it! But what he wants is for it to be happy. (And, also, Green’s Eevee is so powerful. So majestic and fluffy)
Which I guess brings us to the next point with Shikako’s Deerling. And I suppose the problem there is that I’m not sure why the Deerling wouldn’t want to evolve? In comparison to Eevee evolving into a different Type entirely (generally dictated by the trainer and what kind of team they’re trying to form) or a Pikachu evolving into a Raichu which needs a Thunder stone, as far as I can tell Deerling’s evolution into Sawsbuck is just a level cap.
And it’s a natural (or, at least, simple) process for the Deerling line to evolve into Sawsbuck. It’s basically puberty turning from a child into an adult. Whereas Eeveelutions and Pikachu turning into Raichu are more deliberate, like a medical undertaking…
Is there any benefit to preventing a Deerling’s evolution? More specifically, in this world of shinobi-trainers why would Shikako deliberately hamper her Pokemon’s growth with an everstone? She needs to be battle ready, and a Deerling doesn’t have anything over a Sawsbuck–unlike (and I don’t know if this is game canon or just cartoon canon) Pikachu being faster than Raichu.
That’s true… the only Pokemon whose evolution timing I’m set on is when Sasuke’s Pawniard turns into a Bisharp which I vaguely mentally planned out to be around the equivalent of the Sasuke Retrieval arc. Because ~loyalty~ to village and that’s thereabouts when Sasuke decided friendship was more important than vengeance. Like he is a person and not a weapon (and therefore his Pawniard is also not a weapon)
Pawniard evolves into Bisharp at level 52 which actually seems kind of high… Then again, Pawniard is his third Pokemon and the most strictly offense on his team (in comparison to Talonflame, Cubone, and Lunatone) so I suppose it’s not too out there to think maybe he focussed more on levelling up Pawniard in comparison to the others?
At that point in time he would only have had five Pokemon, and his Shinx/Luxio only for a short while so…
In comparison Shikako might be more the kind of trainer to level up her entire team equally instead of focusing on a few. So there could be some hand waving over the discrepancies there.
Hm…
Ooh! Is that how it works? I only vaguely know about this phenomenon because, weirdly enough, even though I love Pokemon I’ve never had a handheld to actually play the games (my mother was taken with the deeply religious Pokemon = demons idea even though she literally did not care about any other media I consumed up to and including 1) Teen Titans in which one of the characters is literally a daughter of a demon, 2) Adult Swim–more specifically, Adult Swim’s awful dubs of various gore filled anime which itself included Inuyasha which has actual literal demons, and 3) I can’t really think of another demonic show I watched as a child that is more literal than those two but yeah).
So I know that there are some moves that certain Pokemon cannot learn, but I didn’t know it was so specific as to be different within the same evolutionary line. I figured a Dragonite could learn anything a Dratini could, basically, but I suppose if there are some moves that are only for a Dratini and then you grandfather those moves into your evolved form that would be a skill over power. That makes sense now.
And I suppose in a more tangible way, evolving comes along with literal changes in body size and stuff so maybe it’s more accepted to hold off on evolutions until you’re able to block out a few weeks of training to get accustomed to your Pokemon’s new form. Thanks, anon!
edit: Okay so @jickysilver explained some stuff to me regarding movesets for Deerling and Sawsbuck such that not evolving Deerling makes a lot more sense to me:
Basically, there aren’t Deerling-only moves, but certain moves a Deerling can learn at a much lower level than a Sawsbuck. For example, Solar Beam can be learned by Deerling at level 51 whereas Sawsbuck learns it at level 60.
And the idea of a tiny twelve year old and her equally tiny Deerling throwing around Solar Beams is hilarious. Element of surprise. 😀 No one expects a Deerling to freaking know Solar Beam!
Hm… while I am fond of the Lee and Rockruff parallels (and the pun), I actually would rather lean into more of a taijutsu-only equivalent team for him. Meaning only Normal and Fighting types for Lee.
Neji and TenTen would also have Fighting types, but Neji would have a few Psychic types (which parallels the Byakugan sort of an the idea that even though Lee is faster than god, Neji consistently beats him) and TenTen a few steel types.
Now that I think of it some more, I do kind of like Lee having an unevolved Eevee on his team as per @to-someplace-else’s suggestion. Because there’s something very sweet about Lee accepting his Eevee the way it is and not pressuring it into changing itself one way or another. But, of course, if it wants to evolve, he won’t stop it! But what he wants is for it to be happy. (And, also, Green’s Eevee is so powerful. So majestic and fluffy)
Which I guess brings us to the next point with Shikako’s Deerling. And I suppose the problem there is that I’m not sure why the Deerling wouldn’t want to evolve? In comparison to Eevee evolving into a different Type entirely (generally dictated by the trainer and what kind of team they’re trying to form) or a Pikachu evolving into a Raichu which needs a Thunder stone, as far as I can tell Deerling’s evolution into Sawsbuck is just a level cap.
And it’s a natural (or, at least, simple) process for the Deerling line to evolve into Sawsbuck. It’s basically puberty turning from a child into an adult. Whereas Eeveelutions and Pikachu turning into Raichu are more deliberate, like a medical undertaking…
Is there any benefit to preventing a Deerling’s evolution? More specifically, in this world of shinobi-trainers why would Shikako deliberately hamper her Pokemon’s growth with an everstone? She needs to be battle ready, and a Deerling doesn’t have anything over a Sawsbuck–unlike (and I don’t know if this is game canon or just cartoon canon) Pikachu being faster than Raichu.
That’s true… the only Pokemon whose evolution timing I’m set on is when Sasuke’s Pawniard turns into a Bisharp which I vaguely mentally planned out to be around the equivalent of the Sasuke Retrieval arc. Because ~loyalty~ to village and that’s thereabouts when Sasuke decided friendship was more important than vengeance. Like he is a person and not a weapon (and therefore his Pawniard is also not a weapon)
Pawniard evolves into Bisharp at level 52 which actually seems kind of high… Then again, Pawniard is his third Pokemon and the most strictly offense on his team (in comparison to Talonflame, Cubone, and Lunatone) so I suppose it’s not too out there to think maybe he focussed more on levelling up Pawniard in comparison to the others?
At that point in time he would only have had five Pokemon, and his Shinx/Luxio only for a short while so…
In comparison Shikako might be more the kind of trainer to level up her entire team equally instead of focusing on a few. So there could be some hand waving over the discrepancies there.
This took me a while, anon. I had to chew on it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love worldbuilding questions so thank you, but this one was kind of difficult for me to wrap my head around.
The thing is, the Arm in Arm world is more analogous to the Naruto world than the Pokemon world, except Pokemon basically take the place of chakra. So the clans wouldn’t really have type gyms so much as they’d have clan Pokemon (Nara with the Sawsbuck, Uchiha with the Talonflame, etc. etc.) So it’s more like the clan Pokemon are the clan bloodlines than gym types.
That being said, I do like the idea of gyms somehow existing even though that would mean a lot of gyms all in the same village. So they’re probably not full out gyms, but they are…
Oh. The different departments, probably.
Sensory Squad and Intel Division and T&I and ANBU, etc. etc.
So it kind of lines up more with DoS canon, in that after the genin have been trained by their Elite Four-jounin, they join different departments for additional specialization and training.
Sensory Squad trainers definitely use their Pokemon differently than Intel Division trainers do, but given that shinobi-trainers are meant to handle all kinds of missions, you can’t just be like “I know how to battle, I’m a master now.” So you can temporarily or permanently join a department/gym and get more rigorous training for you Pokemon in exchange for doing a number of missions or something like that.
Arcanine would definitely benefit from having an Inuzuka teacher. Or when Staryu evolves into Starmie and suddenly gets Psychic abilities it makes sense for Shikako to seek additional training since it’s not a type she’s previously had, so she does a rotation with the Intel Division. Stuff like that.
Yeah, it’s not so much a “battle your way through and get a badge and qualify for the League tournaments” seeing as how Arm in Arm has the genin teams training with the Elite Four right off the bat.
Then again, maybe for genin who graduated but did not get put onto a jounin/Elite Four team that is what it’s like. You know, do a rotation in each department/gym and if you complete the set then you can apply to be put on a temporary genin team for the Chuunin Exams?
Hm… still not 100% on this though, anon. But that’s what I have for now…
😀 Okay, anon, so in my completely non-canonical and outsider opinion on this, I actually headcanon that Shikako’s way of describing other people’s chakra is one of the few things that carry on from her previous life/“chakra hypersensitivity.”
The way she/SQ describes chakra in terms of sensations–warm sunshine, static and ozone, glowing embers, descending twilight, bubbling brook–it’s very much like someone trying to explain color to someone colorblind. (Or, at least, what I have been trained to understand in media as someone trying to describe color. I legit have no idea if that’s just a hollywood thing or an IRL thing. The only colorblind people I know have only mild forms of deuteranopia and it’s mostly a problem in trying to figure out where on the spectrum certain colors stop and others begin.)
What is green? It’s freshly cut grass and the calming scent of tea. What is red? It’s passionate like fire, the bright burst of sweetness of strawberries in the summer. Blue is the ocean, cool and deep, etc.etc.
So I always figured that chakra sense is literally another sense that we, as readers in a world without chakra, can only experience via the sensation-descriptions that Shikako/SQ give us.
Which, I think, is also kind of why Shikako is unprecedentedly keen at being a chakra sensor. Kind of like color blindness being able to see through camouflage? Most sensors cannot tell what jutsu was used in a certain place and how long ago and in what direction it went. It is, after all, why Shikako got that special jounin rank.
With other chakra sensors I think their abilities are very in the moment. They can tell you how many people are coming and how far away they are. They can tell you how much chakra a person has left (relative to their capacity) and how much chakra they themselves can exert.
Shikako doesn’t have this. Shikako is known to have a problem with… not controlling her chakra necessarily but… moderating it. Regulating it? If that makes any sense. She has and WILL use every last dregs of her chakra and think she’s still okay to walk around afterwards. She pulls her chakra in to the point where even non-sensor Kakashi gets alarmed, and doesn’t realize how weird that may feel to other people.
It’s also why Jiraiya is VERY CONCERNED that she can sense natural energy since that’s not usually something a non-sage can sense. Shikako perceives human/animal-produced chakra and natural energy with the same “sense” whereas other chakra-sensors can only perceive human/animal chakra. Shikako is using a different sense or is interpreting it in a different way.
So I guess in a very roundabout way I’m saying that other sensors are very baffled by Shikako’s chakra. She has a very active regulation of her chakra–I headcanon that the bouts of her passing out as a child as per Sunshine Sidestories Ch 17 is that she hadn’t yet figured out the trick to subconsciously producing chakra. Or rather, while she was still new to the Naruto world, she was too aware of it and kind of…
You know how when you realize you’re breathing and then you become too conscious of breathing and then your pattern gets all weird until you forget about it and then it’s just back to something you do normally? Yeah. Like, Shikako’s body subconsciously will produce chakra but in the early years she was too aware of chakra because of her “hypersensitivity” and so she had to manually produce chakra until it became (like the enhancing her muscles with chakra, like breathing) just something she could do without thinking. (Which is kind of the “epiphany” she has in the fifth installment of Flip To The Last Page)
Yeah. So, very strange for other sensors. If I had to attach normal chakra sense to a RL sense, it’d probably be sound. Which explains why most normal chakra sensors can’t perceive natural energy because it’s just always there and if you’ve always lived with natural energy then there is no change in “sound” for you to hear so it just gets filtered out. Either that or natural energy is at a “frequency” outside of normal chakra sense the way some sounds can be heard by animals but not humans.
So for these listening chakra sensors, Shikako’s chakra is kind of like listening to someone whose volume kind of jumps all of the place for no perceivable reason. Or maybe if its music then the tempo changes for no reason. With other people volume/rhythm corresponds to how much chakra they have left and how they feel emotionally, with Shikako it’s just kind of all over the place. Sense of hearing also goes with the whole “their sense helps in the moment and even at a range, but not after a period of time” since there’s no leftover sound for them to pick up.
Whereas Shikako’s chakra sense is probably more like RL sense of touch. It’s been said before with trying to follow the “heat” of the earth walking jutsu. And it would kind of explain how she can perceive natural energy even though it’s always around and (minus, perhaps the Dead Wastes of the Gelel shrine) her body has never been in a world without natural energy. Like… people who live in one place their entire lives know what humidity is (or lack thereof, for us desert peeps) and don’t have to know what a different humidity is like to know that the air is wet or dry.
If that makes any sense…
So yeah.
Other chakra sensors look for the changes in chakra around them (like sound is vibrations in the air) and to them Shikako is pretty much that one radio station that doesn’t know how to moderate their volume between songs and doesn’t have a set music genre either.
True, true. If it were actually “hypersensitivity” then Shikako really oughtn’t be able to use chakra, or she would have a more typical chakra sense but with a wider range or more accurate ability to tell changes in chakra.
“Hyperaware” does work better, but there’s an aspect of… consciousness? There that doesn’t quite explain the intrinsic difference between Shikako’s perception of chakra and other people’s. And, well, there was the whole arc where Kakashi-sensei had to train her to use her sensor ability to the fullest…
I’m actually not sure what term I’d use, @wildtabbykat…
Chakra atypical?
Other chakra atypicals would include Lee (obvs), maybe the Aburame clan, and probably Naruto (although I’m not sure if that’s a side effect of him having the Kyuubi or he already was chakra atypical and the Kyuubi certainly didn’t help matters… how was Kushina with chakra control? It might be an Uzumaki clan thing).
😀 Okay, anon, so in my completely non-canonical and outsider opinion on this, I actually headcanon that Shikako’s way of describing other people’s chakra is one of the few things that carry on from her previous life/“chakra hypersensitivity.”
The way she/SQ describes chakra in terms of sensations–warm sunshine, static and ozone, glowing embers, descending twilight, bubbling brook–it’s very much like someone trying to explain color to someone colorblind. (Or, at least, what I have been trained to understand in media as someone trying to describe color. I legit have no idea if that’s just a hollywood thing or an IRL thing. The only colorblind people I know have only mild forms of deuteranopia and it’s mostly a problem in trying to figure out where on the spectrum certain colors stop and others begin.)
What is green? It’s freshly cut grass and the calming scent of tea. What is red? It’s passionate like fire, the bright burst of sweetness of strawberries in the summer. Blue is the ocean, cool and deep, etc.etc.
So I always figured that chakra sense is literally another sense that we, as readers in a world without chakra, can only experience via the sensation-descriptions that Shikako/SQ give us.
Which, I think, is also kind of why Shikako is unprecedentedly keen at being a chakra sensor. Kind of like color blindness being able to see through camouflage? Most sensors cannot tell what jutsu was used in a certain place and how long ago and in what direction it went. It is, after all, why Shikako got that special jounin rank.
With other chakra sensors I think their abilities are very in the moment. They can tell you how many people are coming and how far away they are. They can tell you how much chakra a person has left (relative to their capacity) and how much chakra they themselves can exert.
Shikako doesn’t have this. Shikako is known to have a problem with… not controlling her chakra necessarily but… moderating it. Regulating it? If that makes any sense. She has and WILL use every last dregs of her chakra and think she’s still okay to walk around afterwards. She pulls her chakra in to the point where even non-sensor Kakashi gets alarmed, and doesn’t realize how weird that may feel to other people.
It’s also why Jiraiya is VERY CONCERNED that she can sense natural energy since that’s not usually something a non-sage can sense. Shikako perceives human/animal-produced chakra and natural energy with the same “sense” whereas other chakra-sensors can only perceive human/animal chakra. Shikako is using a different sense or is interpreting it in a different way.
So I guess in a very roundabout way I’m saying that other sensors are very baffled by Shikako’s chakra. She has a very active regulation of her chakra–I headcanon that the bouts of her passing out as a child as per Sunshine Sidestories Ch 17 is that she hadn’t yet figured out the trick to subconsciously producing chakra. Or rather, while she was still new to the Naruto world, she was too aware of it and kind of…
You know how when you realize you’re breathing and then you become too conscious of breathing and then your pattern gets all weird until you forget about it and then it’s just back to something you do normally? Yeah. Like, Shikako’s body subconsciously will produce chakra but in the early years she was too aware of chakra because of her “hypersensitivity” and so she had to manually produce chakra until it became (like the enhancing her muscles with chakra, like breathing) just something she could do without thinking. (Which is kind of the “epiphany” she has in the fifth installment of Flip To The Last Page)
Yeah. So, very strange for other sensors. If I had to attach normal chakra sense to a RL sense, it’d probably be sound. Which explains why most normal chakra sensors can’t perceive natural energy because it’s just always there and if you’ve always lived with natural energy then there is no change in “sound” for you to hear so it just gets filtered out. Either that or natural energy is at a “frequency” outside of normal chakra sense the way some sounds can be heard by animals but not humans.
So for these listening chakra sensors, Shikako’s chakra is kind of like listening to someone whose volume kind of jumps all of the place for no perceivable reason. Or maybe if its music then the tempo changes for no reason. With other people volume/rhythm corresponds to how much chakra they have left and how they feel emotionally, with Shikako it’s just kind of all over the place. Sense of hearing also goes with the whole “their sense helps in the moment and even at a range, but not after a period of time” since there’s no leftover sound for them to pick up.
Whereas Shikako’s chakra sense is probably more like RL sense of touch. It’s been said before with trying to follow the “heat” of the earth walking jutsu. And it would kind of explain how she can perceive natural energy even though it’s always around and (minus, perhaps the Dead Wastes of the Gelel shrine) her body has never been in a world without natural energy. Like… people who live in one place their entire lives know what humidity is (or lack thereof, for us desert peeps) and don’t have to know what a different humidity is like to know that the air is wet or dry.
If that makes any sense…
So yeah.
Other chakra sensors look for the changes in chakra around them (like sound is vibrations in the air) and to them Shikako is pretty much that one radio station that doesn’t know how to moderate their volume between songs and doesn’t have a set music genre either.
Oh, god, yeah pretty much! The most recent chapter is just… a lesser shinobi than Neji (and, let’s be real, many shinobi are lesser than Neji) would have screamed when a flying cloud of shadowy death flew towards their face.
I screamed when I was reading it, and I’m not even there.
Obviously any team that Kakashi “casually invents an one hit kill jutsu as a teenager” Hatake got his hands on would be a bunch of over powered juggernauts. I mean, not even considering Team Seven’s respective backgrounds. No wonder Yamato/Tenzou is constantly exhausted if that’s what he had to put up with.
And Sai, oh that poor sweet baby has no idea what befriending Team Seven will do to him. He can’t even human properly and now he’s being thrown into the deep end with a bunch of weirdos. It’s like Aggressive Friendship 101… except maybe not 101, because that would imply its an introductory course. There is no introductory course. In the Game of Friendship you play to win or you die.
Hahaha, yeah. Team Gai are suitably bewildered by Shikako. Then again, TenTen knows that the kind of mind that can just produce the seals Shikako does is probably a frightening place. Impressive, but frightening.
I wonder if each member of Team Gai is most afraid/intimidated by different members of Team Seven? TenTen is like: oh no, Shikako is just socially awkward, but she’s a nice person. And Lee and Neji just have horrible flashbacks to the Forest of Death. And now eldritch horror no jutsu. O_O
Oh, god, yeah pretty much! The most recent chapter is just… a lesser shinobi than Neji (and, let’s be real, many shinobi are lesser than Neji) would have screamed when a flying cloud of shadowy death flew towards their face.
I screamed when I was reading it, and I’m not even there.
Obviously any team that Kakashi “casually invents an one hit kill jutsu as a teenager” Hatake got his hands on would be a bunch of over powered juggernauts. I mean, not even considering Team Seven’s respective backgrounds. No wonder Yamato/Tenzou is constantly exhausted if that’s what he had to put up with.
And Sai, oh that poor sweet baby has no idea what befriending Team Seven will do to him. He can’t even human properly and now he’s being thrown into the deep end with a bunch of weirdos. It’s like Aggressive Friendship 101… except maybe not 101, because that would imply its an introductory course. There is no introductory course. In the Game of Friendship you play to win or you die.
I love Natsume Yuujinchou! (I mostly read the manga, but the anime is very sweet too).
I do think she helps out when she can, but she doesn’t go out of her way necessarily to help ghosts move on. I am thinking that at least one mission does revolve around her helping some noble’s ghost ancestor move on, and that would be when the differences in civilian’s opinion of mediums and shinobi’s opinion gets discussed.
Shinobi are more afraid of mediums, I think, than civilians weirdly enough. For civilians its the equivalent of a priest/priestess having a greater connection to the spiritual world. For shinobi it’s a person who has access to abilities/knowledge that they cannot control.
So, yeah, ironically enough Sakako is more frightening to shinobi than to civilians.
I do also think as the Uchiha heiress she’s been helping the ghosts of the clan move on–and there’d be an emotionally charged arc in which, once the rest of the clan has moved on, Sakako has to say goodbye to Itachi-oji because he thinks its time for him to move on as well. Of course, there’s probably a bit where Sakako uses her ability on Sasuke so he can say goodbye to Itachi, conflicted as his feelings on that may be. T_T
I mean, it’s not unprecedented, anon. Shikako already has three ghost related missions on her record (even though one of them was more a Scooby-Doo-esque who is behind the mask caper) and she doesn’t even have the ability to see ghosts so…
I don’t know if she can see other spirits though… I mean, ghosts of dead humans are one thing, but I don’t know if Sakako’s abilities extend as far as Natusme’s…
And I also feel like ghosts are limited in their range of movement as opposed to spirits. Like… spirits are free to come and go wherever they please, pretty much, but I think ghosts probably have to stick to the specific place/person/item that they’re “haunting.”
I think a significant chunk of Uzushio’s fallen population probably piggy-back off of Kareru and benignly haunt him so they can see more of the world than just their ruined home… Probably Minato and Kushina switch between benignly haunting Naruto and their grandchildren (and probably enjoy conversations with the other ghosts from Uzushio that they come across).
… anyway… I don’t think the ghosts can specifically seek her out to help, but maybe whenever they notice she can see them they call out to her and ask if she can help them. Or maybe if she’s on a mission, they’ll help her so long as she helps them in return…
Or maybe, in Lucky Seven tradition, whenever her team goes to the admin building for a mission she always ends up with one that has a ghost involved. Yes, even the D-ranks. And she’s not even the one picking them? Literally one time Konohamaru-sensei just closed his eyes and pointed and that mission ended up with three different ghosts so…
JackSGreyson Says 