"Come on, up onto the stage," sighed the theatre's stunt coordinator, beckoning for Tsubaki to follow him. "Let's see what you can do…"
Tsubaki dutifully trotted after the man and scrambled onto the stage, glancing out of the corner of her eye at the other actors and actresses who had gathered in one corner of the room. Upon seeing her, they immediately stopped parroting their lines to one another and began whispering conspiratorially amongst themselves.
"The newbie's certainly got the goods to play the part..."
"Gosh, you are such a perv, Jun."
"This is going to be fun to watch~"
Tsubaki was beginning to feel a little anxious about all this. She'd thought the role would be a cinch, since she was a clone of the subject of the play with all of the original's memories, but she was already beginning to get stage fright, even though this was only a rehearsal and she was facing nothing but a sea of empty seats!
"Let's start with the basics," sighed the stunt coordinator, thinking to himself that he was going to need a stiff drink once he was through with this newbie. "Can you do the splits?"
It suddenly occurred to Tsubaki that no one was expecting much from her.
After all, she was a total unknown the king had brought in on a whim because of her passing resemblance to the Sixth Hokage. Unlike the others here, she was neither a formally trained actress nor a professional gymnast. With her hourglass figure, she looked more like a milkmaid than a highly trained stealth operative capable of crawling up walls and running at the speed of sound.
But little did they know, her shelf-like chest and wide hips concealed a lithe and wiry physique!
"Oh, I don't know," Tsubaki said sarcastically. "Does the Third Tsuchikage eat through a straw?"
The answer was maybe.
Tsubaki easily sank to the floor, one foot sliding in front of her and the other directly behind. She then proceeded to demonstrate the full range of motion of her body, contorting and bending herself in ways that defied belief. The only thing she could not do well was sit on the floor with her legs spread wide and bend her upper body all the way to the ground, since her chest got in the way.
"This is nothing," Tsubaki said cheerily, rolled up in a ball with her knees bent over her shoulders. "I can dislocate my shoulders, if you'd like to see me stretch even further."
In truth, this sort of thing was nothing special for a Leaf shinobi. Students of both sexes were trained from early childhood at the ninja academy to be as flexible as possible; it was part of the escape-artistry course. Tsubaki remembered the lessons well; her memories of Sakura's time at school were especially vivid, for some reason.
"I've seen more than enough… I think I'm going to be sick," the stunt coordinator said queasily. "Let's move on to gymnastics… do you know anything about tumbling?"
Tsubaki repressed the urge to tell the man that she knew more than he did. He demonstrated a few gymnastics moves, but to his utter shock, she replicated them all on her first try. Front somersaults, back somersaults, vaults, handsprings, cartwheels, flips…
The stunt coordinator goggled as Tsubaki jumped and tucked in her legs, spinning five times in mid-air before easily sticking the landing. "Was that a standing quintuple backflip?" he gasped. "Without any harnesses or special gear? That's just not… human!"
Whoops, maybe she'd overdone it. And she hadn't even used any chakra, too…
"Haha," she laughed uneasily. "Beginner's luck…?"
"Any beginner would have cracked their skull or broken their neck attempting even a simple backflip," the stunt coordinator muttered to himself. "Not even taking into account having two sandbags tied to their chest weighing them down… she's a natural."
The stunt coordinator then introduced Tsubaki to the equipment she'd be relying on to simulate the legendary kunoichi's superhuman feats of agility. She'd be wearing a harness hidden under her costume attached to nearly invisible strings during the performance.
"You just need to remember your cues to jump," he explained as he strapped her in. "The technicians up in the rafters will take care of reeling you up and down."
It was then that a man who had been quietly sitting in the front-row seats rose to his feet and jumped onto the stage. As he marched towards them, the stunt coordinator clicked his tongue in annoyance, but did nothing to stop him.
"All right, jumping and flipping about is all fine and dandy, but we're running out of time," he said crossly. "The grand premiere's tomorrow, and we still haven't got to the fight sequences yet!"
This was the action choreographer!
"You seem to have a good handle on your body, so we'll skip straight to the big finale, as we've run out of time… you'll just have to improvise the other fight scenes using what I'm about to teach you," the action choreographer said, before raising his voice, shouting, "Bring out Naruto, A and B!"
Question marks appeared to pop up above Tsubaki's head. She didn't remember Sakura battling the A-B Combo alongside Naruto during the siege of Konoha? That was some historical revisionism…
"Here!"
Two burly men separated from the group of actors rehearsing their lines and walked up to them. Their faces were slathered in brown face paint, and they were in full costume, complete with fake armour and rubber weapons, as tonight had been meant to be the final dress rehearsal… before the palace guards basically dragged Tsubaki out of the palace and to the grand theatre so that she could rehearse at least once with the other actors.
"Whoa," said Tsubaki. "Is that blackface, mate?"
Tsubaki's remark was met with blank stares. It seemed this sort of thing was not offensive here, as the Land of Redaku did not appear to have any black people or any history of racial conflict. After all, they had been isolating themselves up in the mountains for a thousand years.
"Where's my Naruto?" said the action choreographer, sounding rather displeased. "Does anyone know?"
The actors looked around. Where had Naruto's actor gone?
"Here!" came a voice from backstage. "I'm coming!"
Tsubaki goggled as a blond Sasuke ran out onto the stage. What in the world was he doing here? She'd insisted on doing the play since she owed King Sora her life, but Sasuke had no business being here! Wasn't he supposed to be guarding the perimeter?
"You're not Sami," said the action choreographer, frowning. "Where is he? Who are you?"
"Sami unfortunately just came down with a severe case of a broken leg backstage, and his backup got run over by a runaway cart while helping an old lady cross the road this morning. He's been hospitalised as well," Sasuke said monotonously. "I'm the backup's replacement. Sa... Sa... er... suke."
The script called for a romantic kiss at the end of the play, just as the curtains drew… could it be that Sasuke didn't want her to kiss a stranger? The thought made Tsubaki's heart flutter slightly.
"Whatever, Sasa'er Suke," the action choreographer sighed. "Naruto, Sakura, A, B, get into position…"