Cherry Shinto Training

Training: Shinto Shisupaida's
Req. Chuunin Level, and 800wc. Both done.

Cherry didn’t even know how she managed to get as far as she did when she looked back at everything that had happened lately. The exams had come and gone in a flash, and things hadn’t gone to plan. Her team had disbanded as quickly as it formed and none held any real care. All they had do was train separately, just a trio of antisocial people. It was that alone that caused only Cherry to even pass the exam on sheer power of her knowledge and skill from her clan techniques and dual weapons. She got to chuunin only on ‘potential’. But it also meant she was left without a team. One of the ones who failed had managed to get themselves killed, and the other simply quit after finding out they failed. And Cherry didn’t care. Good riddance to losers.

She also elected to let her sensei move on to a new team. She had the emotional support if she needed but as far as she was concerned she never really needed the teacher anyway with how she taught herself. Now she wasn’t sure what to even do with herself. All the preparation and lack of real focus upon her Ninhachi hives, had meant that she was more than prepared for her family’s preferred insect hives; Shisupaidas. Holding Moji, her spiders themed Hunting Horn weapon, she gave it a shake as she looked at several of her new hive inhabitants come scuttling out. The tiny black arachnids were just what she loved of her clan. The power of a swarm. She had been gradually adjusting to their presense, and to their poison. She’d been letting them bite her every now and then in small amounts with tiny amounts of the toxin let loose into her system. Eventually she could get full immunity to her own bugs. Likewise she had stopped feeling so nauseous after they did. Progress.

Now she had the spiders though she had plenty in mind to work on. Sitting in her room, legs crossed on her bed and staring at the little webbing that was taking over the hole that was her window, she watched the first of the spiders she ever had in its final moments. With its lifespan running dangerously short she had let it leave the hive, feeling that it was what the widow wanted, to let it breath its own air. An odd request, but she felt that it meant her spider was asking for its own choice in where it spent its last few minutes of life. She partially understood its desires. She never had been much of a friendly person after all. In that she preferred her time alone. And when it came down to it, then she wouldn’t like to die around her loved ones. She would want to go peacefully, in her solitary confinements just all cozy in what she wanted. And she hoped by letting her widow free in the way that it was, that she was giving it that same chance to control its death.

The hours passed, and every now and then she noticed a slight twitch at the widow in the center of the web when another insect, stray Shinto bug or plain wild insect, would land in the sticky web and get trapped. For the most part Cherry’s Widow wouldn’t move much. But gradually the web that was perfect in the morning became deformed. Whilst the Widow had some strength left, there was only enough to gradually tug the web with its front legs, and not move anything further. This meant each time a bug came, that the Widow was pulling it in rather than going to it. Signs of the growing weakness. But she was a fighter it seemed. She lasted a long time though. And after noon she was no longer eating. As the sun was setting the insects caught in the web were beginning to be left where they were now. Still the Widow ate it’s last meal that came around noon and had been saved. The rest caught after was wrapped into tight packages and left for Cherry to feed to the other Widows in her hive later.

It was almost romantic how the Widow reached its end. Cherry hadn’t moved at all for the whole day, just watching her first Widow in its final day. As the moon came up behind, it perfectly outlined the Widow as it wrapped the half eaten remained back into webbing, each movement obviously pained. As she was perfectly silhouetted in the moon, every motion came to a stop. And for those few seconds there was nothing but peace between Cherry and her Widow. As the moon rose just beyond where the leg of the Widow was sticking out from the outlines, that was where it ended. The Widow suddenly sunk, hanging from the stickiness in the web on her legs, taking all the weight, before said stickiness wore off. And the Widow dropped. Cherry caught the spider before it got too far. She had plans for this, there was a jewellery maker she knew who could turn the Widow into a pendant. Perfect memory.

Approved