15 & 41 for sai / 1 & 8 for asuma / and 17, 28 & 53 for kakuzu !
character building questions | @claysplosion
15. What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone?
s.ai is much more relaxed when alone - there's quite a hard line between his ROOT self and the person he's becoming around friends, and there's a lot of pressure to be one or the other when around other people. even in post-war settings he still struggles with both sides of himself, though not as much.
he definitely has a "work mode" where he'll fall back onto his ROOT training by default, and that's probably the best time to see that side of him. he's more himself - the person he was before spending years inhibiting emotions etc - around his friends, especially n.aruto and s.akura as they were the biggest impact on him.
41. What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?
s.ai 100% has picked up mannerisms from team 7. they're not obvious, but they're there. it's more noticeable when he's older and further from his days defaulting to ROOT training bc at that point he's more comfortable with who he is (and more comfortable with showing it) - he's not adding n.aruto's signature phrase at the end of every sentence, but he definitely adopts some of the more informal language or tones that n.aruto uses when speaking to people (instead of being rigidly formal). he also picks up some of s.akura's playfulness and his teasing becomes less blatantly rude and more light-hearted (and obviously a friendly tease as opposed to an insult). once he gets his own team as an adult, a lot of his teaching methods are similar to y.amato's.
1. What’s the lie your character says most often?
'i don't need my father's approval'. this was a lie he said, both to himself and to anyone who would listen, a LOT growing up. he had a lot of responsibility put on his shoulders, being the eldest, and he never felt like he was matching up to what was expected of him, so he started denying that he cared. after h.iruzen's death, it changed to 'i have no regrets'.
on a lighter note, he also vehemently denies that he's scared of spiders (and that he had a childhood crush on both his teammates).
8. How loose is their use of the phrase ‘I love you’?
not very loose at all. they're not words that come easily to him due to a strained relationship with his father (though he would say it / write it to his mother on occasion) and it's usually reserved for special moments or special people. his closest friends will probably hear it uttered in a flippant, casual manner but they'll know he does really mean it. when it comes to a romantic partner, he's a little more loose with it. he is very loose with the phrase when it comes to any children he has.
17. What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?
i love this question bc he notices the monster before the man every time
but other than that-
most people, if looking at his unmasked face, would probably notice the stitches first, and his eyes second. for k.akuzu, it's the other way around. this is partly because he deliberately tries not to look at the stitches (more on that subject another time) but also because they are the only thing he shares with his unknown father and it's been a question that's plagued him since he was a kid. he still has absolutely no idea who he was and there's no one left alive who might have known. they're such a distinctive part of who he is, making him instantly recognisable long before he became the ragdoll monster - and he hates them.
28. What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want?
money, obviously. everyone who knows k.akuzu knows he has an obssession with money.
but what he actually wants is security. having grown up with next to nothing and having watched his mother die of weak health due to poverty, he wants to live his life in the comfort of knowing he'll never suffer like that again. money pays for comfortable homes, food, medicine, etc. money is reliable, dependable. money isn't going to hurt him or betray him. his obsession is entirely rooted in trauma and a refusal to relive it.
53. Who would / do they believe without question?
this one is difficult, because to believe someone without question is to have complete trust in them, and that's not something k.akuzu has with anyone, really. he trusts h.idan to a certain extent, certainly more than he trusts the rest of the organisation - though good luck getting him to admit that - but to believe him without question on something? debatable.
whilst his mother was alive, that's who he believed without question, for sure. but now? i don't think there's a single soul still living that he trusts that completely. h.idan is the only one that comes close.
