Taken Characters & Historys pt 3; Friends Console

[instructorx]

Name: Known as Tobi. to most. A select few know him as Madara of the infamous Uchiha clan
Age: Ostensibly 20
Rank: 3rd-year student
Home Base: Akatsuki
Callsign: Noir
'Superpower': Speed/teleportation. Supposedly through prolonged experimentation, Tobi has the ability to manipulate various elements of time and space. This allows him to teleport different parts of his body--or his whole body--to different locations by using dimensional voids, and often gives his opponents the impression that he has ungodly speed and powers of evasion. His body is also in peak condition, with impressive strength and immense stamina. When he gets extremely serious about a fight, watch your ass. And also watch out for the familiar red glint of an ability he couldn’t possibly have...right?
Other special skills: Was the resident hacker at Akatsuki, and can bake a mean loaf of banana nut bread. Dabbles here or there in Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Mandarin, Nama. And he knows Chuck Norris. That takes mad skillz. No, really. 8D
History: Tell a joke, Tobi will laugh.

Don't tell a joke, Tobi will probably still laugh.

Ask him about his past, Tobi will grin, laugh, and ignore your question. Not because he's a bastard or anything...

He just doesn't remember.

Three years ago, Tobi woke up beneath crisp white sheets in a sterile-smelling white room with no windows and a thick airlock door. Five minutes after he had managed to unhook the IV from his arm and rub blearily at his sleep-crusted eyes, crossing them almost comically to try and get a look at the oxygen mask covering the lower part of his face, five nurses and two doctors were suddenly there with more pouring in the door. Before having a chance to even raise an eyebrow at them, let alone chorus out a what the hell?, they were pushing him back into the mattress with brutish strength and repricking him with the IV and shouting and all of a sudden he felt so sluggish, so tired, and the world was black again before he knew what hit him.

The second time he woke up, still in the same white room with the same white ceiling under the same white sheets, he didn't try to get up. He lay still, blinking slowly and carefully, keeping his breathing rate and heart rate the same as to not alert anyone watching he was awake. And then, he realized he was being watched directly anyway--someone was in the room with him. He turned his head, wincing as a shot of pain ran between his eyebrows.

"Y-you’re awake."

Somehow Tobi didn't feel the need to roll his eyes at the nervous-looking man sitting stiffly by his bed, with startch-white lab coat, crooked coke-bottle glasses, and anxiously shaking hands. There was a black duffel bag by his chair.

Tobi watched the man, expectantly. The man cleared his throat.

"Ah…you’re at the Akatsuki base in Canada. You are a…a b-bioweapon, and your name is Tobi."

The man waited for Tobi to slowly, albeit a little confusedly, nod his head, before getting up, handing the duffel bag to Tobi, punching a code into the door, and walking out when the doors swooshed open.

When Tobi carefully unzipped the bag, he found a change of clothes, boots, some sort of high-tech pager, some magazines, and a worn-looking leather journal. Upon investigating the magazines, he found they were mostly torn scientific journals and one Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. On opening the journal, he found its pages filled with intelligible scrawl, made up of letters and symbols and numbers. A code. In his own handwriting, he would later discover. But for then, he simply scrunched his nose at the mess, flipped the journal closed, tossed everything back in the bag, and sighed.

Within a day of being discharged from the infirmary, Tobi managed to piss off half the base. No one asked where he came from, or who he was (though, more than once, he got a growled "Who the hell do you think you are?!"). They accepted his presence without question, let him join their ranks with nothing more than a suspicious glare or two--which quickly transformed into constant annoyed glares by more than a few members of the Akatsuki facility. In his opinion, not his problem everyone was so uptight, bitchy, and gloomy all the time. He didn't bait anyone, no matter what they said...well, at least he didn't bait anyone who wasn't begging for it.

Anyway.

There was this one time he tried to find out more about himself--two or three days after he was more or less shoved into a dorm, given a grunted introduction to his blonde, art-freak roommate, and realized that he really couldn't remember anything about himself when the guy asked for his name and he had to think for a moment before giving the name the piercing-freak gave him. It wasn't hard to figure out the layout of the base, and from that where an available, proper computer might be. A computer that could provide access to files and information that could tell him what he needed to know. It didn't take long for Tobi to hack through the mainstream security system, mess around with some codes to find what he was looking for. But when he did find it, there was nothing to find. No files on him before he woke up that first day, nothing at all. Not even a mention of him, even when he checked the details on the doctors and nurses and scientists he had interacted with since then--most of them had just been hired, and there wasn't much history to check out. All he found were the medical records of his discharge from the infirmary, and some reports on that weird physical/mental health exam they made him take as soon as he was out. No strange events or emergencies or accidents to investigate, no reason for why he suddenly popped in out of nowhere. Because that was what it seemed like: as if he had appeared without warning out of nowhere, into that bed and that room and this life.

And so he let it drop.

He supposed he should be bothered by it all, but he wasn't...maybe just bothered a little by the fact he didn't really feel concern at all. There didn't appear to be much wrong with him, besides the whole amnesia thing; and even then, it wasn't complete. It just felt like he had woken up from a long sleep after having a dream. He knew he probably had had some sort of life before Akatsuki--and probably a unique one, from the things he could do. Like use his freak powers to fight like a fucking ninja, or speak weird languages he didn't even know the name of until someone told him, or effortlessly hack into the computer super-system of a bastard-run underground military base of some sort. He just didn't remember anything about that life, like how when you wake up you know you had a dream but can't for the life of you remember it. Just because.

So he let it go, adjusted to his life as an Akatsuki bioweapon named Tobi. It wasn't that hard, seeing as he didn't have anything to compare it to; and it was interesting. The people there, the other bioweapons--so much fun! That blond art-freak roommate, Diedara, became his partner in training and the occasional mission. He knew the works of the base and it inhabitants, and somehow found the patience to explain everything to Tobi and teach him, though Tobi didn't always listen and learn. Mostly didn't, actually. There was also that half-plant dude, Zetsu, who gave his two-cents in the process of more or less "raising" Tobi as a member of Akatsuki base. The others he saw less often, since they always seemed to be gone for long periods of time at different intervals. Sometimes two at a time, sometimes not. After a while, Tobi had wheedled his way into all their lives, and as time passed they grew used to his antics. And as annoying and exasperating as his jabs at people's personalities and his quirky pranks could be, the base learned to respect and approve of him when they learned of his potential--of his ability to kick serious ass when he got...well, serious. Which was rarely, but that was all that was needed. Weaklings just aren't allowed at Akatsuki.

Nearly two years passed before Tobi had to face his lack of past once again.

One day at the mess hall, in the middle of laughing as Diedara screamed rage at his latest joke-insult, Tobi saw a group of lab-coats pass by in the hallway. Overhead, grayish-blue light glistened on a pen one was pushing into his front pocket...

...And a memory slammed into Tobi as if the world had collapsed and crushed him beneath its weight all at once.

Diedara first thought Tobi was rolling on the ground in laughter, which made him angrier, until he realized something was horribly wrong in the way Tobi's mouth was curling upwards--not in humor, but in pain.

Tobi didn't remember the rest of the day, for as soon as the memory ceased, he blacked out. The memory wasn't even long, either: a dark room, lit by only one bright white light in the middle, a figure bound on a table underneath it, with men in white lab coats and scrubs and masks surrounding him, murmuring words at him, and a scalpel glistening in the light before it suddenly descended downwards, then the screams as blood squirted upwards suddenly and the screams, oh god they were so loud and horrified and pained, and then an eye was dropped into a metal bowl, more gargled screams ripping out of the victim’s throat, and he pounded a fist at the glass panel he was standing on the other side of, screwing up his face, telling himself he had wanted this, he had agreed to this, ignore the screams ignore the screams, ignore the goddamned screams--

In the next year and a half, three more memories returned to Tobi, crashing, random, and painful. All just glimpses, nothing substantial. Tobi was unsettled, but could do nothing but continue to wait. For what, he was not sure. But he knew there was something coming, and so escaped into the carefree attitude and lifestyle he currently defined.

And in reality, all he could do was wait. Because that’s the way it had been planned by a certain Madara Uchiha, before he had his memory wiped and his body aged backwards some thirty-odd years so he could assume the guise of happy-go-lucky Tobi.

Yeah, you read right.

It’s all written down in that worn, leather-bound journal Tobi received his first day back with the living, in a code that only one person in the world can understand: Madara Uchiha himself. It’s all written down.

His plan to destroy the leagues of laboratories and facilities around the globe that keep his and his brethren’s potential tethered, that is.

See, Madara has an interesting, lengthy past. A history with the underground production of nation-less soldiers that many would rather remained buried, as it is. Twenty-two years ago, Madara was declared a wanted man-a rogue weapon, as they put it in the reports, to be found and terminated at once on accusations of deserting and treason. It hadn’t mattered that nearly a decade prior to that, he had put through funding by the prestigious and wealthy Uchiha family for research surrounding trans-humanism, helping the initial scientists accomplish what was needed to form the genetically altered super-ninjas of the present. It hadn’t mattered that he had contributed his own research, could be considered a founder of this branch of genetic-altering technology, had offered up--with the agreement of the family elders and private lawyers, of course--the Uchihas’ own bloodline for experiments, since they had the genes favorable for the first frontier of mutating explorations.

What had mattered was that he had refused to cooperate with the Sanju clan’s plans for “safer, more humane” methods of research when asked--but only because he cared for his own clan, and did not want them to be overshadowed and left behind in this rapidly growing, perilous game! What had mattered was he had continued to experiment on himself, on a close and trusted few Uchihas--but only because he did not want the name of Uchiha to be tossed aside or worse, eliminated because they were considered the “old” model of this new deadly franchise! What had mattered was that members of his beloved Uchiha clan had turned against him and turned him in like the good little lapdogs they’d become, screeching “inhumane!” and “power-hungry!” What had mattered was that he’d killed them, and the others who came questioning, and was suddenly proven too dangerous and unstable, proven a threat. And so he became a hunted man--with a price on his eyes.

When the elders of the Uchiha came asking him to blind himself and then hand himself over, squawking things like honor and duty and dignity, the only thing stopping him from gutting them right then and there had been his own sense of honor, duty, and dignity--more than those geezers had ever had--and the gentle pleas of his younger brother. After they had left, with instructions to deliver his eyeballs and self to the main house in Tokyo, Japan, within the next 72 hours, Madara’s brother finally revealed why he had kept his elder brother at bay.

“You will take my eyes,” Izuna Uchiha told Madara evenly, with no signs of hesitation, “and then you will run and live.”

At first Madara objected, hotly and angrily. He wouldn’t play the coward, wouldn’t kneel to survive! But he knew his brother was right; he knew even with all his power, he still wouldn’t stand a chance against what was sure to be an army of super-soldiers waiting for him at the main house, with orders to kill. And if he didn’t hand his eyes over to them, they would just gauge them out after he was a corpse, ready to rot. So the logical course of action to take would be to escape--to escape and stay escaped as long as possible. And the way to stay escaped would be to give what was wanted. Sibling’s DNA smears are very similar, if not identical in some cases. It could work.

There had been very few who still remained loyal to Madara, but enough to get the job done. Izuna’s eyes were delivered as promised, and the news shared that Madara died from complications during the operation to have them removed. The story was bought nicely, and although a few dissenters still wished to see Madara’s body, they were beaten down with accusations of dishonoring and disrespecting the dead. Madara was crushed that the story wasn’t much of a story at all, in reality--just a switching of names, really. He attended his brother’s secret funeral with an orange mask and new identity in place.

For two years after his defect and Izuna’s death, Madara simply wandered, became another nameless face on the globe, and disappeared to keep suspicions at bay regarding his “death”. For another eleven years, he did the occasional odd job--more often specifically interesting rather than random, actually--under the name “Tobi”, mercenary for hire, in order to reestablish and rebuild his resources underground. Information was not hard to come by as a secret spy for yourself, working for many and at the same time no one. Madara was a ghost of the system, and yet still gained ground. In the end, he probably wound up knowing more about the inner-workings of the genetics-altering programs across nations than the people who worked for the said programs themselves. It was important he knew what he could, as soon as he could.

Important for his plotting.

Madara decided he wouldn’t go down forgotten, as another threat erased and moved on from. Because he was very real, as real as his anger and resentment at being taken out like the trash, as real as his pride in his name and power was then and now. He had been wronged by the world, he believed, and would make many bastards pay--in blood. Madara went forward with every opportunity that presented itself, took advantage of every opening he saw to unfurl his plans for destruction and revenge. And it took patience, but finally he found a way in.

Twenty-two years ago, Madara was declared a wanted man. For two years, Madara became nothing, and for eleven years after that, became a ghost, an anonymous benefactor to several so he could benefit himself. Then, for the next six years, he put all his resources towards developing his own branch of the genetics-altering program, under a different name and face, though unnamed and unseen, so he could move within the ranks of those whose downfall he sought. Its purpose was to infiltrate and directly collect information from other genetics-altering bases around the globe. It was called Akatsuki. It was how Madara learned that all he really needed to do to overpower the super-ninja-soldiers of the world was to overpower the final training facility in Nevada, USA.

So first he got a doctor on the inside. Then he sent a scientist. Now he’s sending himself.

...Not that he’ll be himself when he gets there, necessarily. From his experience, the best way to fake being yourself is not being yourself. But he’d run out of brothers. So he said to his scant supply of trusted scientists, doctors, and researchers: how, please?

Their answer? Amnesia. Of sorts. Memories are electrical patterns in our brains, and can be disrupted, interrupted with the right technology. A trigger could be used to reverse the disruptions and interruptions. And with Madara’s time-space manipulation skills...some more of the right technology could possibly lend itself to a more youthful Madara--something no one would be looking for.

Throughout the years following his brother’s death, Madara had never dared to take off his mask in the presence of anyone. Rarely even in the presence of himself. And after fourteen hours in an OR-laboratory of sorts, when the doctors finally removed the orange mask, Madara really wasn’t himself anymore--he was Tobi, once again and for real.

Thus, Madara’s plan for infiltrating the Nevada training facility, and perhaps ending the world, finally began.

Or so it’s written in that worn, leather-bound journal. Which could always be lies, or at least some half-truths, planted just as Madara planted himself.

He’s a tricky son of a bitch.

And now back to the present: when Tobi was notified of his solo transfer to Nevada, and his solo mission, he couldn't help the grin that turned his lips upward. And he didn't notice how the slight, excited apprehension hidden behind his eyes caused a wicked light to flash across his face--a wicked light that seemed only possible of someone who had believed themselves deeply wronged by the world, and now had a chance to set that cruelly right.

This would be fun.




Name: Uchiha, Sasuke
Age: 18
Rank: First-year student
Home Sector: Leaf
Callsign: Taipan
'Superpower': Though unaware of it at the time, Sasuke was subjected [volunteered by his father was more like it] to genetic experimentation from a young age. This resulted in the ‘Sharingan’ hailed among their clan, an 'eye technique' that comes with a three-stage development.

First, memorization. Just from playing witness, whether simple hand movements or martial art moves, Sasuke can get every detail down on just a single glance. Though the ability to pull off anything learned depends on the physical state of the user, and it actually makes Sasuke rather boring to teach if he decides to use the technique to hasten his learning. The problem comes in making sure he is physically able to execute the actions learned, and in that, Sasuke doesn’t feel the need to rely on teachers but rather endless hours of training.

Second is the ability to track every move made by an opponent. This aspect, while hardly a burden, does place a small strain on Sasuke, and requires him to maintain a strict mental training regimen to ensure that he can handle the influx of information being processed by his brain. Physically, it has made him shift away from power in favor of speed, as he found out rather quickly that force couldn’t compensate for agility and a fast reaction time.

Last is the power of suggestion, the ability to hypnotize an opponent through direct eye contact. It places the most strain on Sasuke both mentally and physically, and he can be out for a good day if he is reckless with its use. Because of this, Sasuke tends to rely mostly on the first two aspects of the Sharingan, which he has has a far better handle on at this point, and often couples them with his martial arts training.
Other special skills: Since he’s originally from Japan, Sasuke is fluent in Japanese, though he has a surprisingly good handle on English. He also has a special talent for alienating everyone around him while appearing completely unaffected by the fact. But more seriously, he took up the katana at the age of 15 and is now quite adept at wielding it. And given the strain put on him by his own powers, Sasuke has been forced to become a close-range fighter, using various styles of martial arts. [He now rather loathes the brutish display of power a lot of “street” fighting employs, and he happily includes the idea of “boxing” right in with that].
History: If you were to ask Uchiha Sasuke about his childhood, you’d probably get a glare colder than Death’s grasp and a sharp click of his tongue, thoroughly dismissive in nature. Because he doesn’t talk to just anyone about that, and when he does, he merely mentions that man and the fact that he intends to kill this strange embodiment of hate. Just like that. As if there’s nothing at all wrong with living your life for the sake of revenge.

For him, there really isn’t. It is all as simple as counting down - three, two, one - and inhaling. There is the proof that he is alive, and in that, the means to move towards the one goal that has eluded him for all these years - the death of his brother and a chance to start over. Not that he believes you can erase the things that had already happened.

No, those acts are too firmly engraved in his mind. So, when you ask him about his youth, he’ll brush you off, but the memories will surface, and he’ll be left to cycle through them. Bitter and painfully so. Like flipping through the pages of a photo album, each page charred at the edges, the plastic protection melted and furled, the pictures glued impossibly in place by the heat that had once sought to destroy them.

He would remember how simple it had all been. He had gone to school like all the other children of his clan, bright-eyed and overly eager to impress. Family dinners, where he had been chastised for talking with a full mouth but patted on the head for being ridiculously cute about it anyway. But most of all, he would remember how his mother had smiled at him like he was the purest reason she could find to exist, a smile that not even Itachi was granted. And Sasuke had cherished that look because it was his and his alone. His brother had their father, but Sasuke? He had his mother, heart and soul.

That was why he didn’t mind the visits to that place, all cold conduct and imposing steel. He hadn’t minded the blood taken from his veins, the needles that pricked at his tender skin or the pain the frayed the nerves behind his eyes. Because across from him, she would sit, that loving smile on her face [though he was far too young to note the touch of misery in her eyes that darkened with every visit, with every word of praise that spilled from strangers' lips and the cool satisfaction on his father’s face that came in its wake]. When those strange men clothed in sterile white babbled on and on, his mother listened with a worried, attentive look on her face as her fingers dipped into Sasuke’s hair. He accepted it all without fuss. Because she was there, and this was what the sons of Uchiha did.

After all, his brother had played this game himself, and every time his father spoke on the matter, Sasuke could recognize that glow of pride that illuminated the older man’s face. It became so ingrained in him that soon enough Sasuke wanted it as well, as any child would have. So, he grew out of his mother’s shadow and began his pursuit of the men in his life.

Fugaku, however, was not a man to be won over so easily by a second son. Particularly one who performed at levels far lower than his first. And though his mother spoke endlessly of how much his father adored him, Sasuke could only writhe with displeasure [that was until she smiled at him again and somehow all that unease dissipated like smoke from a blown-out candle] when the connection failed to connect - adoration yet stern disapproval, adoration but glowing affection for the son who conquered all records as easily as a bird ascends to the sky.

Itachi was a different matter altogether. For whatever harsh lessons their father had to teach his youngest, Sasuke felt he had found a new harbor of love in his older brother. To the point that he began to prefer Itachi’s attention over his father’s. Over even his mother’s. Because as long as Itachi smiled at him like that [like he meant something] he would be perfectly fine. Not that he didn’t ever stop trying to learn and outdo everything his brother did, but the joy that rested in those trials came from the fact that he had Itachi there with him. One could [and most did] joke that Sasuke had developed quite the brother complex.

Not that he understood the meaning of those words at the time. Just like he didn’t understand the plots and plans being laid and hatched by his own clan. Sasuke only knew that his family had entwined itself with the legacy of war, though he remained naively under the impression that everything his clan did, they did for the betterment of the world. To make it a happier place. To stop the wrongs, not just right them. [For what would weapons manufacturing and distribution mean to a child?] And just as everyone in their family did, Sasuke took pride in the great workings of his father. Just as he took pride in the fact that he was Itachi’s little brother, his only little brother.

So, when he returned home late one night from a self-prescribed training session [just because Itachi couldn’t be there didn’t mean he should skip out; he was after all, the son of the Uchiha clan’s head, a family that prided themselves on their expertise in war, in self and world protection] to flames licking the neighboring houses like dehydrated dogs, Sasuke had no idea what to do. He ran, naturally, because home was just around the corner, and there was no one here to save him from this tragedy in the making. But surely, there would be people coming, and surely his father had to be there directing his uncles and aunts and cousins to the places they needed to be to keep it all from burning down.

His father was there. And his mother. And Itachi. And there was blood and silver and a frigid deep-freeze of non-emotion in his brother’s eyes. It reminded him of that time he had accidentally stored the lettuce in the freezer and when he went to get it, the leaves were dark and wilted and covered in vicious little ice crystals. He had screamed then, as any normal, well-loved child would have. Because here was all he loved slain by the one loved most [or so that was the only way he could really look at the situation; memory has this nasty little of habit of picking the cuts choicest for one’s own survival, and thus this is how Sasuke now remembers that night]. And from that, a new love sprung - the kind that had him begging for his own life.

And then, in the wake of all that had been [which now sat as charred remains and ash like dust waiting to be discarded, a bitter memory best left forgotten by a country with too much honor] and of the undeniable fact that he had betrayed his honor selfishly, Sasuke learned the big problem with love - it had this horrid tendency to tiptoe into the realm of hate. When you loved something so much. . . .well, sometimes, it became all the easier to loathe it.

So, love was best avoided, and he managed that quite well for a few years. It wasn’t that hard to either when the same men who sat as ghosts in his memory [fuzzy, pixilated images of beings that poked and prodded and expected] came to claim him. Last of living kin though both parties, government and corporation alike, knew this to be false. He was tossed into a sea of others like him, abandoned by one cause of another. Though, he was held in higher esteem, not the highest, but genius nonetheless to all the others. Not that they would know that he had been experimented on long before any of them had been. No one would [and no one had told Sasuke either; instead, the deduction was left to a not-so-idle mind, hell-bent on destruction].

Sasuke was nine when he arrived at the Leaf Sector. His training continued as though nothing had happened to disrupt its flow, and he fell into its rhythm unhindered. Comforted, perhaps, by every thrust of his arm, by every problem solved, knowing that with every task completed he grew one step closer to becoming a man capable of defeating the god his brother had built himself into [mind’s eye view and all]. It was easy enough to turn your heart into a crate, isolated from the world while harboring its own within. In the months that had separated the end of one life with the beginning of another, Sasuke had crafted for himself his own little Pandora’s Box.

But there was a problem with that too. Somewhere along the way, Sasuke ran into Naruto. The Naruto. Quite a notorious name, actually, though Sasuke scoffed at such a use. Because he was obviously the better fighter, the better student - stronger, faster, and with a wicked brand of intelligence. Yet, it was that idiot, the dead last of dead-lasts in his mind, who managed to find hope in the midst of all the haunts and horrors of the human condition resting within him.

Over the months, the fights shifted away from testing-ground matches, taking on an almost affectionate tone, and Sasuke, for a time, allowed himself to believe himself capable of finding someone else to place an ounce of love in. Until that was, Ego and Insecurity came to claim what they felt was rightfully theirs - namely Sasuke and every bit of soul he still held onto. And once more, love snuck into the realm of hate [though this was where it got funny because Sasuke knew he didn’t really hate Naruto]. In every power move that moron made, Sasuke saw his own insufficiencies. In every bold challenge, Sasuke saw the darkness cloaking his own heart. And in every mention of friend, Sasuke began to realize that if he stayed here, he would be faced with a choice - revenge, sole reason of his existence, or friendship, a new reason to exist.

It was the former that won out. After all, once you had begged for your life in the most shameless of fashions, in the pool of your own clan’s blood and dreams [which he still remained blissfully ignorant of], you couldn’t really face the prospect of living until you reconciled that sin with one other. The fights between the boys became more vicious, a means to prove his own self-worth, his own reason to exist, and the trips to the medical ward became more frequent as time and time again Sasuke saw himself faltering before Naruto’s power.

At eighteen, this has only created a volatile mix of emotions in a young man not quite claiming to be fully stable. You can’t with that sort of history. Most of the time though, Sasuke has a cool demeanor, his anger carefully chained and locked in a place where it can poke and prod at him while leaving the rest of the world around him untouched. It’s only when frustration at his own failure to improve in a timely enough fashion rears up that he finds himself unable to keep the emotion from gripping him. If it’s around Naruto, more than likely a fight is bound to erupt [because Sasuke begrudgingly acknowledges the fact that Naruto does actually have something to offer by way of power], but with anyone else, it shows itself as a fire-branded sense of disdain.

Sasuke has never once forgotten where he has come from, what exactly he has lost, and it is for that reason that he holds himself to high ideals [convoluted as they are] with an arrogance that bows before no other. When he is feeling more settled, however, Sasuke has the air of someone who knows precisely what he wants and how to get it. Very little seems to affect him in this state, though that is a horribly deceiving trait of his. Emotional, he can be both fire and ice in the same instant, or be completely overwhelmed by one element or the other.




Name: Umino, Iruka
Age: 32
Rank: Instructor
Home Base: Nevada/Leaf
Callsign: Blackfish
'Superpower': Iruka's been altered to make him a kind of super soaker soldier. He's stronger and faster than a normal human, and all five senses have been greatly enhanced. He's able to retain information with remarkable accuracy, and his digestive system is efficient to the point that he can survive long periods of time with very little water or nutrients, while creating next to no waste. The most obvious change that was made to him, however, is that he no longer has the ability - or the need - to sleep. He spends his time in a constant state of alert consciousness, and physically needs almost no rest at all. This can often lead to extreme boredom, and when work gets particularly stressful, it can cause an entirely psychological sort of exhaustion, leaving him a depressed and nervous wreck for several days at a time. This doesn't happen often, and he can usually recover fully within a week, so long as he's given a chance to relax.
Other special skills: Having 24 hours of every day at his conscious disposal leaves Iruka with a ridiculous amount of free time. He's taken to picking up a myriad of hobbies, and has become a sort of jack-of-all-trades - you name it, he can probably do it. He's nearly fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic, and knows enough Latin to help make medical school a breeze. He can fly a plane and a helicopter, and can drive a tank, and can operate most any firearm with amazing accuracy. The skills he takes most pride in, however, are related to his current line of work. He has a wonderful bedside manner - he can administer shots and draw blood without causing any pain, can change bedsheets without moving a patient out of the bed, and has a knack for knowing when someone is either physically or mentally uncomfortable, or in need of some form of pain treatment. He's also an effective drill sergeant, and when barking out orders or calling someone to task, his voice can be heard clear across the Facility.

It should also be pointed out that, when needed, he has the patience and gentle touch of a living saint.

ETA: HE GIVES AWESOME SPONGE BATHS LOL.
History: Compared to many of the inhabitants of the Nevada Facility, Iruka Umino has had an easy go of things. He's had his share of hard knocks, but so far he'd say life's been pretty good to him. That may be due, in part, to his die-hard optimism, or perhaps he's only capable of such positive thinking because he's never truly been put through the ringer. Either way, he's one of the more stable individuals currently on payroll, and he's made it his lifelong goal to instill some of that stability on his charges.

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, Iruka was the only son of Doctors Kujira and Shachi Umino, two prominent oncologists. Both parents - particularly his mother, Shachi - were considered among the best in the country, if not the world, and around the time Iruka came along, their research into predicting, preventing and ultimately treating certain forms of cancer through gene therapy had attracted a lot of attention - most notably that of certain "weapons specialists" on a secret base in South America. When Iruka was six-years-old, they moved in and took over the private firm the Umino's had worked for for years. By the time he was eight, his parents had been backed into a corner; the only way they would be allowed to continue their vital research was by first spending a few years in Colombia, working out a few kinks in their program of genetic alterations.

In short order his parents were flown out of the country, leaving Iruka to his grandmother's care. Despite them having been work-a-holics for as long as Iruka could remember, and therefore rarely home, he found himself suddenly missing his parents terribly. Counting down the days and hours until their weekly phone call home became the focus of his every idle moment; he loved nothing more than to tell them about his school week, and what little they could tell him about their work in Colombia fed into his growing desire to follow in their footsteps in the field of medicine.

When Kujira made a surprise visit home in the summer of 2037, Iruka couldn't have been happier. If the man was looking a bit wan, his son was far too jubilant to notice, at least not at first. The reason for his return was revealed soon enough: it became quickly apparent that he was seriously ill. Ironically, the chemicals, in combination with radiation escaping through improper use of the gene splicing equipment, had created a malignant and inoperable new form of bone cancer. Kujira had come home to spend his last few weeks with his mother-in-law and his son. Just a few days before the start of Iruka's new school year, he was dressed up in a little black suit at his father's remarkably well-attended funeral.

When, two months later, Shachi showed up on their doorstep, Iruka - though thrilled to see her - was a little more cautious in his celebrations, and his caution turned out to be justified. Before too long, Shachi was buried next to her husband, dead of the same crippling illness.

Iruka handled his losses fairly well for a child of eleven. They had been a tight-knit and supportive family, and they had instilled in their only child a rare kind of emotional fortitude. He grieved, then moved on, though the idea of following in his parents' profession had turned sour in his mind. He finished school, and at the age of eighteen was recruited by the U.S. Marine Corps, in what he thought would be a step in the opposite direction.

But irony was to rear its twisted head once more, and right out of boot camp, he was shipped off to the Nevada Facility for "specialized enhancements." The States were involved in what they hoped would be the last gasp of a long and bloody war; each small victory was more Pyhrric than the last. Their attempts to create a standard, homogenized super-soldier had finally born consistent fruit, and nearly four hundred men and women were sent in for treatment, then parachuted into the war zone. Of the 312 who'd survived the program, Iruka was ranked 15th most successful, but the experiments often came with the regrettable side-effect of leaving the subjects rash and irritable. Iruka's innate patience - if anything, enhanced by the treatment - became an unexpected blessing. Only fifty of these soldiers returned home alive; out of these, Iruka had proved himself a better soldier than any of them.

Though healthy and in one piece upon returning home, war was never kind, and this one had been particularly cruel. Iruka found himself emotionally exhausted, sickened by the senseless killing of the battlefield. More and more, his mind returned to the kind of work his parents had been involved in - fixing, healing, adding on rather than taking away. He wanted to take care of people, to give them hope and comfort. The military was more than pleased to fork over the cash for his training - on one condition: As an altered soldier, he couldn't be allowed to work in the private sector without severe restrictions. If he wanted to change professions so badly, he would have to work for them, at the same facility that killed his parents. With no other real direction to his life, Iruka agreed. If nothing else, it might give him a better understanding of what had happened to his family, and why.

Iruka advanced through his courses at an alarming rate, thanks to his mental enhancements and strong work ethic. In spite of himself, he enjoyed his studies, as well as his short residency at the Smilow Cancer Hospital in Connecticut. He was almost convinced he'd just made the best decision in his life - until he was finally transferred to Leaf Sector.

Suddenly all of his theoretical research came into play in real life. He could see the kind of suffering the genetic alterations (so much more extreme than his own experience) caused the young people involved in their various programs. The surgeries and horrific side effects, the bleeding and the anguished cries reminded him cruelly of his experience with the nerve agents and explosive devices on the battlefield.

And then he met Naruto Uzumaki.

Knowing what was behind the experiments being performed on the boy induced a wave of bitterness and revulsion entirely uncharacteristic of Iruka. Out of all the patients residing in the base, Naruto had one glaring point against him: the majority of the research into this particular project had been done by Iruka's parents.

But Iruka, by his very nature, was unable to hold a grudge for long. The niggling thought that it wasn't the boy's fault quickly wormed its way into his head. He started going out of his way to check on Naruto, to talk to him, even if it was only to scold him, or remind him to show up for an appointment. It soon became blatantly obvious that the poor kid was attention-starved, and even shunned, which was a crying shame in Iruka's mind; at heart, Naruto was a good kid, and Iruka was hard-put not to like him outright. It came as no surprise for him to eventually realize, his parents had died for this boy. Iruka had damn well better make sure he was well taken care of.

Before long, Iruka's patience and mother-hen instincts would be applied to any of the patients involved in the Leaf Sector's work, as well as those in the Nevada Facility where he spent several weeks out of every year; whether or not the "kiddies" were willing to open up to him was a moot point. They were all seriously lacking in the parental guidance department, and if he could steer any of them, even once, in the right direction, it would be worth every effort.




Name: Uzumaki, Naruto
Age: 18
Rank: First-year student
Home Sector: Leaf
Callsign: Foxfire
'Superpower': As one of the first wave of the genetic weapon experiments, Naruto's 'superpower' is one of the more impressive and personally-oriented of the whole division. He's gifted with extraordinary regenerative powers, both as healing and recovering his stamina - which is ridiculously high in the first place. He can also be incredibly strong, but the instability of his genetic tinkering doesn't always leave this strength consistent.
Other special skills: Naruto is the modern-day Houdini. No trap has been invented that he can't get out of; this is very useful, since no trap has been invented that he won't somehow get himself into. Boy's had a lot of practice.
History: Naruto knows very little except the world he was raised in. He doesn't, for example, know exactly where he came from, or how he came to be one of the first wave of experiments in human gene tinkering: he doesn't know that his parents - caught between the proverbial rock and hard place - sacrificed their only son as a sign of good faith and watched in strangulated pain as the infant thrashed and screamed as scientists went to work on his tiny body. He doesn't know what it's like to be 'normal', having been a weapon - a monster, of sorts - since he was barely a week old. For all of his life, he's lived with a simultaneous awe and stigma that comes with being what he was crafted to be, and never really understood why people have such a reaction to him.

(It's always worse when they see him recover from near-fatal injuries in a matter of days; Naruto barely even realises that this is unusual.)

He doesn't even know that, of the original nine experimental 'super-children', he's probably the most stable, and therefore regarded as the benchmark. Scientists spend hours and days and weeks poring over his running history, trying to decipher exactly what factor they included for his apparent success. It's entirely possible they'll never admit that his inborn determination and pure strength of will is one of the few things that keeps him from flying completely to pieces when the nightmares snap at his heels and every cell in his body tries to reject what has been done to him

However, Naruto does know that he's an orphan; he does know that, no matter how annoying living in a barracks may be, it's infinitely better than trying to eke his way out in a world that automatically regards him and his mutated kindred as superhuman weapons. He does know that he'll have to do some very bad things on somebodyelse's orders, and while it rankles that he can't just overturn them, he knows he has to take that leap of faith and trust the people who have, in their own way, become his family to know what they're doing. To do the right thing. And one day, if he works hard enough, then he'll get to give the orders. That's a thought worth all the boredom and stress and heartache.

His earliest memories aren't particularly happy ones, though he doesn't consider them to be particularly traumatic, either. Naruto has always had to be independent - no parent was there to pick him up if he fell, no hand would stroke his head at night to keep the sleep-demons away, no loving arms would circle themselves around him if he needed something to cheer him up. In fact, he was left mostly to his own devices until deemed old enough to begin his testing and training, and has long since come up with ways to amuse himself. Every time he fell down, he'd get back to his feet, only vaguely aware of the uncaring but distinctly interested gaze of those tracking his progress. When he was old enough to begin military-style schooling, those cold watchers noted with some dismay his short attention span and apparent lacking grasp on basic logic - or, indeed, common sense - and wondered if their miniature hurricane of a growing weapon was irreversibly flawed. However, in some respects his understanding and skills were leaps and bounds ahead of his classmates: he never failed a question of ethics, his sense of honour was incredibly well-developed, he could grasp the most difficult of concepts if they were presented as something he could do, and his sheer raw power, when it manifested, was nothing short of incredible.

The other children ensconced in Leaf Sector's Colombian base couldn't reconcile the bumbling, often-clumsy smiling idiot with the spectre of a dangerously competent trained killer that hung constantly over Naruto's head, and generally shunned his presence. He took to watching old films and television shows to keep himself company; through this, he tried to slake his ever-growing need for friendship and affection by absorbing himself into these fictional situations, imagining what it would be like to ride around a desertificated world in a pimped-out tank, or to live in relative bliss with a handful of best friends, or even to be a legendary hero growing up in an ancient empire.

If his emotions range dramatically from intense joy to blackest despair, it's a natural inclination intensified from the only example Naruto really had. If he's overly susceptible to the emotional trials and delights of others, it's an inborn empathy that has never had to be checked - instead it has only been encouraged by the small screen and its depiction of what Naruto believes is 'real life'. And if his sense of idealistic optimism seems so deeply ingrained as to be more than a little ridiculous - particularly in view of his profession - well, Naruto has come to expect a happy ending in the greater scheme of things. He can't bring himself to believe that all those movies and stories and ideas weren't at least a little bit right.

But these attitudes were baffling to his superiors and tended to produce disdain (at best) in his peers. Surely somebody who was training for destruction had to be severely backwards if they believed in love and peace and happiness for all Mankind, right? Right. And so Naruto was left on the sidelines, waching wistfully as his classmates formed little groups and cliques and alliances amongst themselves. It hurt - hurt worse than when the steely-eyed men and women in their crisply starched white labcoats strapped him to their too-cold hopsital beds and conducted 'tests' which seemed mostly to involve slicing bits and pieces of his anatomy to see how fast he healed - but nothing he did seemed to redeem him. They all gave him the same slow, frosty, hard gaze. It looked right through him, didn't see him at all, dismissed him of lacking some crucial element required to pass as human. It drove Naruto barmy. And it very nearly drove him right over the edge of madness that his screaming nightmares hinted lay around the corner if he stepped just a bit to the wrong side.

Enter Sasuke. Or, rather, enter the subtle shift in their relationship, for Sasuke had been at Leaf Sector for a while before that infuriatingly disinterested gaze sharpened. It focused on him - not pleasantly, oh no, but for the first time in a long time Naruto was seen, seen as a human and a person and something worth looking at, and suddenly Life had grasped him firmly by the wrist, tugging him out of the rut he'd been herded into. His smiles grew wider and ever-brighter; his eyes shone with a new determination. He existed. The fact that somebody cared enough to consider him a- a rival? It was bliss. It gave him another goal, another reason to keep pushing onwards. He didn't exactly turn into a diligent student, put he put in more effort than he ever had before. After all, if he couldn't even beat Sasuke, how the hell was he s'posed to achieve everything else he wanted to do?

For a short time this life was perfect. They had a complicated little frienship/rivalry thing going on, and neither of them needed to question it or discuss it. It was what it was, and it was perfect for both of them. Until one day - Naruto still isn't entirely sure when - something changed. Sasuke's vision of him wavered and morphed once again. He couldn't pinpoint it, but a wall went up, one that even he couldn't get behind. And nothing - nothing - he'd ever experienced hurt that much. He managed to brush it off for a time, managed to cover it up with louder laughs and more groan-worthy jokes and ever more over-the-top tomfoolery. But every time Sasuke forgets to hate him quite as much and Naruto thinks things are normal again, that barrier slams up and he's left reeling all over. He tries not to think about it, but it slowly gnaws at him from the inside. He's horribly scared that one day, it will eat through something holding him together, and maybe then his nightmares will manifest themselves.

Despite all the factors that should have had Naruto buckling under mental strain and revealing the fatal flaws in his experimental design, he managed to solder himself up, cauterising the cracks in his psyche that no amount of dictated platitude and enforced conditioning could prevent with willful determination to be the best that he could damn well be - and then some. He's loyal to a fault, but his loyalties rest less with the institution that has - somewhat greedily - nurtured him and less with the people he's forged bonds with through it; it's his burning ambition to prove his exemplary worth to the point that he gets put in charge, for he feels that only at the top will he fully be able to care for and protect his bizarre little 'family'.

Gifted by nature with a superhumanly sunny disposition and ascribed killing power by human hands, Naruto sometimes feels at odds with himself, but has ultimately decided that he is what he is and fuck anybody who can't see him that way.




Name: Yamanaka, Ino
Age: 18
Rank: First-year student
Home Sector: Lightning
Callsign: Hemlocke
'Superpower': Mind confusion. She can enter a person’s mind without losing consciousness and control their body, restricting movements or having them injure or kill themselves. She can also enter a person’s body as a way to gain access to places and fool people but when she does so, her real body is left vulnerable. If that body gets injured so does her own body.
Other special skills: She is a highly skilled actress meaning she can fake ANYTHING and be convincing. Ino is schooled in the ways of being a woman. At least, the way men of many cultures think women should be. She is good in bed, can cook, knows how to dress appropriately, arrange flowers, sing, the whole shabang. The makeups of a perfect spy.
History: Ino, unlike many others in her position, had a happy childhood.

Growing up in New York City, Ino felt like she really was the center of the universe and everything revolved around her. She remembers birthdays, frilled white dresses, ice cream, flowers, and a loving (if a little absent), father. Whatever she wanted, her nanny (in place of her father), got for her. Her father was away for months at a time working and her mother had left long before but Ino was not lonely. Inoichi wrote letters when he could, sent her candy from abroad, and signed every letter “I love you, my princess”. Ino went to school, made friends, had crushes, fell out of crushes, loved, lost, cried, and laughed.

They were happy times but every child has to grow up sometime.

When Ino was eight, Inoichi came home to their apartment in Manhattan for the first time in two years, looking thinner and more haggard than she ever remembered. There were hushed words between he and the nanny, no presents, no hugs hello. He was in trouble, Inoichi told her. He needed her more than ever now but it would be okay because he loved her more than anything in the world. He would protect her no matter what.

Ino doesn’t remember how she came to The White Place as she came to know it by. One minute she was in New York kissing her father good night, the next she was strapped down to something cold and metal and restrained, looking up hazily at her father and men in white coats. Inoichi looked so sad, as if just gazing upon her was physically painful. Even in her distress, Ino felt sorry for her father. He didn’t deserve to be so sad.

Pretty girl, one voice said, not wholly unkind but not gentle either.

Plenty of potential.

When she woke again, her father was gone. She would only learn later that he was gone for good- out of The White Place, off of this earth- for being a double agent and selling secrets to the American government. Ino was sold to ensure Inoichi’s loyalty but even that wasn’t enough. Giving up his flesh and blood could not save him from the wrath of whoever was in charge. He had taken the ultimate risk and paid the ultimate price- with his life. Even years later, Ino never believed Inoichi “sold her”. She had no doubt he was trying to protect her however he could before they came after her in order to get to him.

As a beautiful girl with carefully harvested mental powers, Ino was groomed into the perfect spy. Her military training included extensive courses in culture as well as seduction. Her father was a spy but never one who could take on the body of a government official to get information. He could never assassinate a man by having him kill himself. They had taken all of Inoichi’s data and made it better, creating what Ino is today.

Somehow, knowing that she was connected to her father comforted her.

Where her loyalty lies is always in question. She easily makes friends and has a fondness for the people around her but Ino cannot forget the past. The Higher Ups have her under constant surveillance, just in case she tries to get revenge for her father. Despite this, they are still training her along with the other rookies to learn the “shadow arts”.




Name: Yuuhi, Kurenai
Age: 31
Rank: Instructor
Home Base: Rain
Callsign: Redwood
'Superpower': Hypnosis induced illusions.
Other special skills: Kurenai can hold her booze and likes to drink often. She has no relationship skills to speak of but is great at playing the denial game. She speaks various languages because she traveled all over the world and is knowledgeable about many cultures. Kurenai can identify nearly every type of plant. She can also recycle at the speed of light-old habits die hard.
History: Kurenai is the sole product of a geneticist and an ecologist. She spent much of her childhood trying to save the rain forests, prevent global warming, and roughing it all over the world. Polar ice caps were melting, hurricanes were hitting the world at a dangerous pace, and trees were getting burned because people in Brazil didn’t have enough money to eat. Her parents were very involved with the world, rather than with the people destroying it, and so Kurenai grew up very much alone and isolated but she much preferred it that way. Home schooled (or world schooled, really, because she never had a permanent home), Kurenai was very bright. Any part of her that wished for a normal childhood was quickly swept aside for the sake of the cause. Parties could wait-polar bears drowning could not.

However, saving the world couldn’t pay the bills. While doing work on the vegetation in Cuba, her father, famous in the science world for his research on DNA and the human body, was approached by some of the scientists working on Project X, convinced that his knowledge could help them to make their Super Humans. These scientists of the Rain Sector promised him that these warriors would be doing the world plenty of good. They wouldn’t just be heartless robots that ran around recklessly. They would be trained and under control. They would get rid of the “bad people” who polluted the world (such as oil companies) and make room for a more “green” earth. Her father agreed to help and even offered his daughter up as a sign of good will because earth needed more warriors to defend it. Her mother was not so quick to agree but she was powerless to stop the inevitable. They were swept away into the research but at least, Kurenai thought, she finally had a permanent home.

Years passed by and Kurenai grew from thirteen to twenty and soon the effects of creating these metahumans were starting to show. Birth and mental defects, cancer, blood and bone diseases-all of these were present in many early subjects because of their “playing” with human genetics and DNA. She was one of the lucky ones- the use of her hypnosis on people had made her irises turn red and sensitive to light. So many people her age and younger were swept under the rug because their bodies had rejected the changes.

Her father had helped do that but Kurenai tried not to think about it much.

Kurenai is a rational, calm, honest person that doesn’t like to lose her temper. She prefers logic to emotion but that doesn’t mean she can turn her back on those in need. She is very much the “older sister type” and hates to see people with lost potential. Many of the subjects in the project are without parents of their own and though Kurenai is an instructor first and foremost, she also wants to be a mentor to the kids.


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