Some days you just need to get away from it all, right? Take a break from the normal grind and just... relax. That was Mizuko's plan, anyway. Her favorite training rooms were unavailable for the moment; she'd kind of destroyed them the previous day and the poor kids tasked with rebuilding them had their work cut out for them. At least she'd been smart enough to send one of her younger cousins to take them the antitoxins and deactivation agents for the trillions of stinger cells she'd left behind in the floor and walls. Not her fault the stupid zombie fish triggered the anemone's instinctual protective reactions. She might have control most of the time; but they where still living creatures; sometimes they would still act on their own.

For now however, she was enjoying a chance to catch up on what reading she ever did anymore. A book, taken from deep in the village library; one of the more advanced books that depicted a physical fighting style. Her own, actually; Capoeira. This was one of the few she hadn't fully memorized yet; and she planned to do just that before she attempted any of the stances or movements depicted within. She was off on the far edge of the park area; near where the edge of her clan's lands began. Several wild anemone had taken hold here and grown to massive proportions; they acted almost like the forgotten palm trees that had once grown here. To her they where nothing more then a comfortable place to lean against; there was plenty of warm sand piled up at the base and that was what was supporting her. Her knees where drawn up and used to support the actual book; a few of the highest tentacles from her leg's bracing it while the one's from her left hand where used to simultaneously take notes; copy the diagrams, and turn the pages. Advantage of having the equivalent of a thousand fingers per hand... multitasking is gloriously easy.

On her right side, a moderate sized bowl was settled in the sand; filled with a mix of mostly raw fish pieces and a few bits of the underwater fruits her clan still grew. She wasn't eating the food in the normal sense; her hand was just laying there, unmoving as much as it ever was. Rather, the tentacles where bringing bits of food to the 'center' of her palm; or what would have been if she had actual hands anymore, instead of anemone growing there. The tentacles where taking the bits of food to the actual mouth of the creature; which given the level of integration between it and her, was as good as her eating it with her own mouth. Hell, she could taste the fish either way; so she was happy. That the anemone above her kept reaching down and taking bits of fish from her didn't bother her much either. Better to keep it happy then it try to eat her or one of the children floating around.

Boredom didn't so good for the Uzumaki; face currently shoved into a magazine as she walked across the sand. She kept bouncing her blue gaze from the magazine she was holding in front of her with her left hand to the area in front of her; making sure she didn't end up running into someone or stepping on anything that likely wouldn't be nice to step on.

Her pant legs were rolled up at the bottoms to just blow her knees; even though she had shorts underneath of them which showed due to her pants hanging slightly low on her hips. Her headband was tied around her left leg, and the shirt she currently had on spoke of some band. Fingertips were painted sea blue with designs of fish and other sea life painted onto them. Short bleach blond colored hair was back in a small ponytail.

As she readied to flip the next page she heard a male voice called out; "GONNA GETCHA!" by a young sounding male voice; who currently had a foot heading straight for the female's head. She likely would have been kicked in the head if her little brother hadn't called out like he had; and she lifted her hand, knocking his leg away, and sending him falling on the sand.

He got up after a moment and then took off laughing. "I'll getcha, you just wait!"

Kouki watched her brother run away and shook her head. "Little brothers..." With her attention no longer stuck in her magazine she finally took notice of the female nearby.

If not for a trained ear; she wouldn't have noticed anything at all. Getting lost in a book, especially one that pertained to her training, was perfectly normal for her. When she felt like focusing, she could turn the entire world out. With her anemone happy, and the one above her contented; there was no reason to be worried about accidentally hurting someone that got to close. For a moment she considered adjusting her position some; dig her feet into the soft sand to bury most of the tentacles and only use the too few for support; the sand was damp only a few inches down, so she wouldn't to waste chakra keeping them happily damp or anything.

Wait... what was that? She'd caught half an image over the top of the book; and now natural curiosity was taking over. Strange dress, even for a place a varied as Denryu. She had to actually glance up some; least when it was time to turn the page; the singular tentacle moving the thin paper for her. Oh, siblings? Good ears worked well in a quiet enough place; she was far enough away from the majority of the loud children to be able to hear things fairly clearly.

Village headband. Ninja, genin by the cut of the band. And a solid guess by the age. Maybe a fresh Chuunin; sometimes they took a bit to change out the bands. Mizuko couldn't be much older than the ne female; but that didn't mean much. Her unusual skills got her promoted early; that and years of hard work. For the moment, she was just going to flag the other's presence in her mind and remain mostly focused on her book. She'd be sociable only if needed, no point otherwise.

Of course; that wasn't the only brother she had. The older one hadn't bothered making the same mistake as the first, his attack was silent; a tackle from behind that put her flat on her face in the sand just as she was about to say hello to the female she had noticed. A muffled slew of profanities left her as her brother sat on her in a obvious attempt to keep her pinned.

He leaned forward, laughing. "What was that little sister?" He leaned back only far enough to allow her to lift her face up out of the sand.

"Didn't your mother tell you it's not nice to hit a female?"

"Nope, all she said was I wasn't allow to whoop your ass in the house. Didn't your mother tell you to watch your back?", her brother responded, jokingly as he leaned forward to talk into her ear.

Kouki took the opportunity and sent her head flying backwards; hitting him right in the face and causing an almost instant minor nosebleed. Her brother rolled off of her holding his face and she was up instantly. She flipped him over so he was face down in the sand and sat on him while holding his arms behind him. "Yeah, but she also taught me to notice when my opponent's leaving openings due to cockiness, bro. Looks like you're buying the ice cream today."

Kouki finally noticed that her and her older brother's fighting had caused the two to end up closer to the unknown female than she had been before. She offered a shy looking grin. "Haha, hello there. Didn't mean to bother you."

Huh. More of them. Okay then. She had a few siblings of her own, and while they didn't act like that; often anyway; she was used to turning out insanity. She realized that she'd hit the end of a chapter; so it was a perfect moment to shift around and fluff up the sand she was leaning on. A single tentacle was inserted between the pages and the book was closed; held against the side of her arm by a few others while she began to shift around. She was sitting up higher, knees pulling closer and the tentacles attached to them used to slowly begin to dig into the warm sand. Just... safer. The way these new people where playing around; she was going to way on the side of caution.

"No worries. You kind of expect it, coming here. But it is still quieter than trying to read at home. Are you going to wait until he inhales the sand to release him, or did you have another plan in mind?"

Laughing she got off her brother; allowing him the well needed air he needed. He got up and sat back on his haunches for a moment while staring down at his sand covered, slightly fancy, shirt. "Ugh, thanks, she likely would've left me there. I'm never gonna get all this sand out of these folds.." He balled his right hand into a fist and lightly punched Kouki on the shoulder; nothing harmful, just more playfulness. "I owe you ice cream, you owe me a new shirt." With that he got up to his feet, gave a nod and walked off.

Kouki just shook her head and turned her attention back to the female. "Ah.. speaking of reading..." She glanced around, quickly locating the magazine she'd been looking at. She plucked it up out of the sand and gave it a little shake, causing most of the sand to come falling loose onto the ground.

She then turned her attention back to the female, figuring she might as well politely introduce herself since she had interrupted her reading time with her play fighting with her brothers. "I'm Kouki by the way, Uzumaki Kouki." Her mother had taught her to always be polite after all. She plopped herself down on her ass in the sand, flipping through a few pages of her magazine, noticing that several of them had ended up coming free from the binding due to her brother's tackle. She pushed them back in as best she could while waiting for the female to respond.

"Really, no worries. Paperwork isn't fun' watching someone suffocate a sibling would make for a lot of it." Aaaand then he was leaving. Awesome. Less noise, fewer distractions. Woot. She just finished her shifting; settling happily into the new position and releasing a half-way happy noise when some fresh blood made it to her knees and relieved a bit of the slightly numb feeling that had been growing. That, and the base of her feet had hit the damp, cool sand layer and the instant feeling of happiness flooded her senses. The anemone's liked the damp sand; therefore she liked the damp sand.

Uzumaki? Explained the rowdy behavior and odd dress. That whole clan was a little odd. "Mizuko. Anemone Mizuko. Kinda obvious what my clan is; not many people look like we do." Her tone was light, even when she wasn't being overly friendly she was a warm enough personality.

After she finished lightly shoving the pages back into place she threw a glance behind herself; ensuring that there would be no more sneak attacks from her older or younger brother. The pair had teamed up recently when they had realized she expected them to come at her alone; and she made a mental note to think up some new ways of dealing with the pair together. Last thing she wanted was to be eating sand again, after all.

She then turned her blue gaze back onto the female and gave a nod. "Aye." She then looked towards the book Mizuko had and nodded towards it. "Good book?", she asked curiously as she closed her magazine and put it down in front of her. The front had a skateboard with some graffiti tagged wall behind it which acted as the title. She had read it already twice, but had been double checking for something she might have missed when her brothers had attacked her.

"It's... new. Pertains to my prefered fighting style; so a good read overall. Tad dry, though. More technical than anything; which is rare when working with musical martial arts like Capoeira." She'd put the book down if not for the fact that she didn't have to; at all. The tentacles would hold it right to her arm without it being in the way, so no need to get sand all over it. Said arm was now draped over her knees as she shifted forward some; a sign her attention was now focused on the younger female. Interactions not based around asking about her anemone. Such a rare pleasure.

"You seemed to have been fairly interested in your own material before your siblings appeared."

Capoeira? She had heard of it before, but never really studied it much other than to know what it mostly looked like. Head tilted a bit as her curiosity peaked. "Never met anyone who did Capoeira before." Well, her day had got interesting; met someone knew each day, and this time she had her brothers to thank as they had offered the perfect reason to end up saying hello.

Her attention then shifted to her magazine and she nodded. "Yeah, boarding magazine. I was looking to see if there were any techniques I might've looked over. I've read it twice already." She lifted the thing up, which caused it to begin to fall apart again. "Looks like it's time to get the next one though, I think my brother did this one when he tackled me." Maybe instead of ice cream she would have her brother buy her a knew one; it cost about the same after all. "Kind of my hobby I suppose; normally I don't go anywhere with my board, but it's broken right now."

"It's not very popular, least not as an actual fighting style. Plenty of people love to watch the dancers during festivals; but they see it as a soft art. All dodging, no power. Kinda sad how wrong they are." Skateboarding, eh? Now that was an odd one for a ninja. She didn't think that many of the younger ones even bothered; you learned early in the academy how to move more effectively then with some wheeled board. And with how little of the village you could actually use one of those things...

Unless it was a conversion board. Then it would make sense. They worked fine in the canals, and if it had hover abilities; she could use it everywhere.

"How'd it break? Landed wrong?"

"I suppose that's the hidden beauty behind stuff like that though; you know what it's capable of but your opponent doesn't and therefore underestimates you.", or at least that was how she saw it. If someone didn't know how well something worked than they likely would become over confident, and that would be their downfall. It was why she tried not to underestimate people.

"Actually, it was the board or my brother. He has his own board, but he's new at it. Got himself going a little too fast and was about to crash. I was able to grab him and keep him from breaking himself too badly; but I had to sacrifice my board to do it. I think it's fixable though. I'd hate to have to get rid of the thing, I've been using it since I could practically walk." She had always been ahead of herself in that aspect; using the board before she could even properly run; of course, most of that board usage early on had been while seated on her ass and holding on to the sides, and pretty much in a straight path until she learned to shift her body just right to allow for turns; but still. It was like a friend or something.

"Aaaah. Well, it's easier to fix a board then fix a brother. Least, that's what people tell me. I'm fairly sure I've broken my brothers more than once. They're fairly flimsy, not the type to do a lot of physical work; outside helping to maintain the anemone fields for the clan's medical research. Or even the fruit trees we've managed to keep growing."

And then her attention was yanked away by the sudden descent of several trunk sized anemone tentacles from the larger specimen behind her. She glanced down at the suddenly empty bowl of snacks beside herself and merely sighed softly. The anemone had been enjoying the free meal, and now that it was over, it was rather unhappy. "You may want to back up. She was eating my snack, and now that it's gone, she's going to have a little tantrum until she gets more. These half-wild anemone are... temperamental; because the local's feed them scraps and they stop wanting to feed themselves."

It was easy enough to calm it; she only had to reach for one of the tentacles with her own; wrapping them around the larger and focusing some. She could use the chakra network in her anemone to 'connect' with the primitive mind of the wild one; forcing a sense of soothing calm into the great beast until it began to retract into itself. It would rest for a while, then resume it's usual routine of entertaining children for food.

"We really should replace the "do not feed the wild anemone' signs; but at this point it's a rather wasted gesture. All of the creatures in this area have grown to dependant on the scraps the locals toss at them."

Kouki laughed softly and nodded. "Aye, much easier to fix a board than one of my brothers. I don't think my mother would enjoy one of my brother's coming back too banged up." She grinned. She then nodded to the female's words. "I'm glad my brother's aren't easily breakable, 'else I'd be spending an awful lot of time in trouble with my parents.."

She watched the sudden descent of the trunk sized anemone tentacles and didn't need told twice to back up. She did so with haste, putting a good bit of distance between herself and the other female. However, her gaze never showed fear, and instead curiosity filled it as her head tilted a bit to the side. She watched as after a moment it began to retract into itself and her head finally straightened out.

"Ah, yeah... most people do tend to do what they want despite warnings and signs telling them not too." She raised her hand, pushing back several small loose strands of hair that had fallen in her face. She was the type to not exactly listen to such things; but at least she could say she had never fed anything she wasn't supposed to; she had heard enough stories of things going wrong when people tried feeding wild animals and the sort not to want to try it for herself.

"The children were not properly taught the difference between the wild ones and the tame specimens in our clan fields. Those you can play with all day long and never worry; these ancient ones still have their sting."

Least, this one still did. In those few moments she was touching the larger tentacles, she had absorbed some of the larger's stinging cells and realized that it carried a toxin she hadn't encountered yet. Awesome; she was going to feel that headache for a bit; until her anemone were able to detoxify and replicate it.

"You could always learn how to disable without damaging. Lovely little trick. I had to learn how to physically disable my siblings; even if I wanted to paralyze them with a toxin or something they would adapt in a few minutes and it would never work again. Kills a lot of the fun of being able to do it."

"I suppose that does take some of the fun out of tormenting younger siblings if it only works once."

She nodded to the female's words before another grin swept across Kouki's face. "Unfortunately, the majority of the time my brothers, well at least my little brother, ends up hurting himself without me having to help. He's learning slowly, though." She shrugged lightly. Everyone had to start from the bottom and work their way up the learning ladder; and little siblings were no exception to this rule. Her brother wanted to be just like her now; he didn't realize it took years to just get to where she was. He had a long way to go.

"Speaking of having a long way to go... I really should stop being so lazy and actually go train." She lifted her right hand, scratching at her head for a moment before pushing the short strands of hair out of her face - not that they would stay back long, but it was worth a try at least.

She been about to start in on the Training Dome rooms being down for maintenance and offering an alternative when she heard her name being called. A Chuunin that she only recognized as working in the missions department was skating along one of the small streams that bisected the sands; avoiding the tripping and awkwardness that came with attempting to run on dry, sugary, fluff. Oh joy, what now?

That the Chuunin didn't even bother to actually get off the water told her what she needed to know; it wasn't immediately important. A sealed message container; awesome. Likely a summon by a clan elder, it happened often enough.

"Excuse me a moment..."

CraaaaackSNAP

Glancing over the contained scroll, she nearly fell over cackling; the irony was too great.

"So... the newest squad assignments are out. I guess they decided that I needed one, finally. Guess who is on my team."

Kouki had just laid back in the sand, arms behind her head and acting like a pillow, when she noticed the Chuunin skating towards them. An eyebrow rose, but for the moment she didn't bother to get up; it obviously wasn't for her, so what was the point? Nope, no reason to suddenly become uncomfortable again. She watched the message get handed over and then gave a light shrug before closing her eyes.

Of course, they didn't remain that way long as she heard Mizuko begin speaking. Eyes opened and she turned her attention to her, eyebrow rose in question. Surely it couldn't be Kouki herself? She'd been thinking she had been overlooked at some point, but really hadn't thought to make a fuss about it. But, what else could have the other female acting so?

"Surely not my lazy butt?", she asked curiously, sitting up the whole way, sand falling from her shirt and hair, but she didn't pay it any mind.

"Yeeeep. Irony is lovely." Oh well, least she knew that they got along. She'd never heard of the other one on the list, but that wasn't very strange. She didn't shove herself into other people's lives often, preferring to let them come to her. Effective for finding only people she enjoyed, and not having to deal with the bullshit.

"You and some other person I've never heard of; a kid by the name of Jashiel. We'll find him whenever I get around to calling a squad meeting."

No seriously, she didn't give a flying fuck. Maybe it was the anemones fault; but her whole clan had a deeply ingrained 'wait and see//go with the flow' attitude toward much of life. Only their highest passions ever pulled them into active work modes.

"So.. you mentioned training? The Dome rooms are down for the day, they're fixing them up after i got a little carried away..."

Well, at least her sensei didn't seem like a hard ass. She had heard stories, horror stories, mostly stuff she had heard in passing as Chuunin spoke of their times as Genin under one sensei or another. Grueling training that left you wanting to die when it was over because of the pain. The kind of stories that made her want to find a dark hole and stay there for a while. But, this didn't seem like it was going to be the case; not that she was normally lazy, she did have some motivation it just only happened to show when she had something to actually work for.

She reached up, pulling her ponytail out finally. After wrapping the band around her wrist she shook her sort bleach blond hair out before stopping and blinking; having heard what she had said about getting a little carried away. She could only imagine. "Carried away?", she asked after a moment, curiously. She had heard of some hardcore training, but enough to actually cause the Dome rooms to be closed for that day? That had to be some seriously awesome stuff. "The mental image I'm coming up with since you said that... it's an amusing one." She had to have done a number on the Dome rooms.

"Yes... well; when the physics of the room decides to change when you're working on a half-controlled idea of a jutsu... it can happen. Although, nothing I've done compares to when my grandfather managed to seed the entire eastern half of the dome with anemone spawn that took us... over a year to transplant to safe place."

Ah, the wonders of having living creatures fused to your body; anything could happen at random moments.