Description

Nothing, Sunrise
⌈None of this is about who we are, or who we were. It’s about who we could be, and whether we’re brave enough to reach for the truly outlandish possibilities.⌋

|Theme|

Owl City || Shooting Star
Starset || Let It Die
Blaqk Audio || Deconstructing GodsBlaqk Audio || Faith Healer
Meredith Brooks || Bitch
Rob Thomas || I Am An Illusion

⌈One life isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. But it's all I have, same as you. Mortality is the great equalizer, for great men die as surely as paltry ones do.⌋

⌈Nickname⌋
[ Occasionally she gets Hino, but really, her given name is short enough as-is. ]

⌈Age⌋
[ 23 ]

⌈Gender⌋
[ Female ]

⌈Village⌋
[ Kumogakure ]

⌈Clan⌋
[ Hinode ]

⌈Kekkei Genkai⌋
[ Unmei Saiken ]

⌈Chakra Nature⌋
[ Lightning ]

⌈Ninja Rank⌋
[ Jōnin ]

⌈Role⌋
[ Medic-Nin ]

⌈Face Claim⌋
[ Yoruichi Shihōin | BLEACH ]

⌈My history is written all over my skin, and to you, that might be uncomfortable. But me? I kind of like it. It’s better than forgetting.⌋

⌈Hair Color⌋
[ Dark Purple ]

⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Gold ]

⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Swarthy | Dark ]

⌈Height⌋
[ 5’10” ]

⌈Weight⌋
[ 140 ]

⌈Physical Description⌋
[ Rei is of rather obvious Kumogakure stock—it is, after all, the only ninja village known to have in its population a large concentration of people with dark complexions. Whereas many of her comrades could pass in disguise as someone from another region, she will never be seen as anything other than what she is. Generally, one can deal with a circumstance like this one of two ways: either one can be ashamed of it and try to downplay it anyway, or one can embrace it. While the first approach might be wiser considering the mission, Rei has never been anything other than proud of her lineage and her village, and this shows in her bearing. She makes no attempt to conceal or hide where she is from, and carries herself tall, to the full extent of her not-inconsiderable height.

Her physique is a thing of practicality, and this, she believes, also makes it a thing of beauty. Certainly, it would be hard to look at her and see none—her training has done what it does for many ninja, and given her hard, toned muscles with nothing excess about them. Her natural shape is what one might call generous in terms of curvature, and very feminine in that sense. But what sets Rei apart, really, is that even her imperfections, her scars and blemishes, are worn like things of beauty, marks of honor and courage that she makes no attempt to conceal. If a scar on her arm makes her less appealing to someone, then, well… that’s just how it’s going to be. She will not surround herself with an air of false delicacy. She is strength, she is vibrance, she is life, and there’s no point in pretending to be weak and wilting and delicate instead.

Even her natural coloration is saturated, raw, vital. Her hair is the color of ripened, dark plums, or perhaps aubergine in low light. It falls, if unbound, to around her waist or so, but for the most part, she is practical enough to keep it tied up, so that it remains out of the way of what she’s doing. There are shorter bits in front of her face, often brushed away in gestures of irritation while she waits for them to grow back out. Almond-shaped eyes, set on either side of an arrow-straight nose, are golden in the iris, like the first glow of dawn. A family trait, if anyone should care to know. Of special note are her hands—Rei has what are often termed a musician’s hands—that is, they are slender and the digits long and tapered, elegant, almost. They are also unerringly precise, as they must be for anyone in the business of saving lives that others have tried very hard to take.

Her gait is rolling, almost stalking, like a predatory cat or the first hint of an incoming thunderstorm. It’s almost ironic, all things considered. She seems to possess a higher-than-average number of scars on her person, highly noticeable for being either white or pink against the darkness of her skin. There are none on her face, but several visible on her arms, and, should she have cause to bare them, her legs as well. ]

⌈I’ve watched love destroy life, and life destroy love. I’m not sure which one’s more worth having, in the end.⌋

⌈Potential Interest⌋
Uhh...: Despite a certain amount of… forwardness in her demeanor, Rei is not usually one for liaisons with others, male or female. Arguably, this stems from the complex web of circumstances surrounding her parents and her Kekkei both, but whatever the case, she is infamously single, and quite practiced at varieties of declination and rejection running from polite ease-down to face-punching. It probably qualifies as an art form.

⌈Skills⌋

Herbalism

Poisons/Immunity

can

Intuition

led

has

⌈Medical Ninjutsu⌋

Byakugō no Jutsu

Stength of a Hundred Technique

Sōzō Saisei

Creation Rebirth

Shōsen Jutsu

Mystical Palm Technique

Saikan Chūshutsu no Jutsu

Delicate Illness Extraction Technique

Ranshinshō

Body Pathway Derangement

Chakura no Mesu

Chakra Scalpel Technique

⌈Ninjutsu⌋

Raiton Kage Bunshin

Lightning Release Shadow Clone

Raiton: Jibashi

Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder

Raiton: Hiraishin

Lightning Release: Lightning Rod

Raiton: Shichū Shibari

Lightning Release: Four Pillar Bind

Raiton: Kaminari Shibari

Lightning Release: Thunder Binding

⌈Nintaijutsu⌋

Raiton no Yoroi

Lightning Release Armor

Rariatto

Lightning Plough Hot Sword

Erubō

Heavy-Style Outburst

Girochin Doroppu

Righteous Lightning Sinking Anger Lightning Axe

Jigokuzuki

Hell Stab

⌈Kekkei Genkai⌋

Unmei Saiken

Unmei Saiken: Eizoku

Unmei Saiken: Eien

using

how

⌈I suppose I’m what you call a specialist. I do what I do very well, but I don’t even pretend to be able to do everything.⌋

⌈Other⌋
N/A

⌈Habits⌋

Snacking

usually

Napping

Walks

⌈Likes⌋

Children

Plants

Snow

⌈Dislikes⌋

Boredom

something

darker

Violence

Dreaming

⌈Strengths⌋

Chakra Control

below

Intelligence

Flexibilty

⌈Weaknesses⌋

Compassion

bothers

end

Breadth

Scars

⌈I’ve got nothing to hide. Hell, if I tried to keep everything a secret like some of these people, it’d just weigh me down too much, you know?⌋

⌈Personality⌋

Willful | Sultry | Good-Hearted | Open | Protective

On the surface of things, Rei Hinode is a very simple person. Quite straightforward, blunt, if a little snarky, and mostly open with her displays of emotion—certainly more so than the average ninja, who is taught to be more reticent for his or her own good. She seems willfully ignorant or oblivious to convention in regards to the ways a kunoichi “should” behave, and flies in the face of most of them by being so noticeable she could never just blend. It isn’t so much her physical features, though the uniqueness of her appearance does help, as it is something about her bearing. She isn’t just living, she’s alive, and seems almost to trails all the colors and music in the world with her when she goes. Against a backdrop of black and white and grey, she’s a bright fucking red, and she’s not going to apologize for that.

One might think her obnoxious or unintelligent to be described in such a way, but in truth, neither adjective applies. She is forthright and without deception, this is true, but she does not flaunt anything about herself. Rather, vibrancy is just her natural mode of existing. Some people want attention—Rei just wants to be herself, the way she really is, and if that means people happen to take notice, well… so be it. She’s actually pretty good at noticing things herself, with an observant aspect that fits her intuitive nature very well. She feels just as much as she thinks, and where some might consider this a shortcoming, she sees it as a strength. There’s no point in trying to reject her feelings—because they aren’t really under her control. So she accepts them as they are, and then if she needs to, she moves on. She doesn’t keep anything bottled up, and though she may not always volunteer her thoughts, she will be very honest if asked for them.

There is, perhaps, a certain charm to that, and it has won her friends in the past, as well as some enemies. She does not tell people what they desire to hear, and that kind of honesty can sometimes fly in the face of established norms of politeness, causing offense. Even so, though, she’s not bad with diplomacy, in the sense that her lack of deception means that most people know they can trust her. Many also believe they can use her, and sometimes, she allows them to believe that. The occasional omission is not beyond her repertoire of skills, after all.

Deep down, she is the kind of person who cares perhaps a little too much, even about people she has never met before. This is not to say she has never killed anyone, only that she generally refrains from doing so. It was a war, she was a ninja, and sometimes, she had to kill the enemy to save a comrade. That much is true, and she will not deny it. She also will not deny that it hurt her, perhaps more than it should have, to do so, and she carries the weights of those deaths even now on her shoulders. Rei may appear to be lighthearted and carefree, but if one looks closely enough, one can see differently.

⌈No one here is blameless, and I at least don’t intend to cast any more blame. That was what got us into this mess in the first place. I’m willing to lay aside my grudges, even if nobody else is.⌋

⌈History⌋

Rei Hinode was not born a ninja. Actually, her father was an apothecary, and her mother a seamstress. Both lived and worked as tradespeople in Kumogakure, and it was expected that eventually, Rei would probably do the same. They’d been shinobi once, maybe a few generations back, but the old line of warriors was dying out, and in truth, most of the members of the clan seemed to share a temperament somewhat too gentle for the work of killing others. They made much better doctors and healers than anything, and Rei grew up with her father’s medical books and the herbs he grew in the small garden in front of their home. It was neither a grand nor especially hardscrabble existence, and they were moderately successful at what they did. Her mother made and repaired equipment for the ninja, and her father acted to heal them of poison and take care of their relatives when someone caught a disease. That was basically all there was to it.

Rei was training in the same, and was about fourteen when it happened. Her father suffered and accident, trying to give triage care to a ninja he found injured outside of the village, clearly trying to make his way back to the hospital. Unfortunately, the man had been poisoned, and with little natural resistance, Rei’s father was unintentionally infected. His death was quick, but, due to the family’s latent Kekkei Genkai, his death took Rei’s mother along with him, something Rei witnessed. Eventually, the cause of the incident was discovered, and Rei began ritually ingesting poisons thereafter, instructing herself in how to dose them from what was actually a very old ninja technique scroll.

Her apothecary training still incomplete, she started looking for someone to finish her instruction, but there were few people who bothered much with such arts when advanced medical ninjutsu was so readily available. The only things chemists could really do better was treat disease, and that wasn’t nearly as much of a concern in Kumogakure as mission injuries were. If Rei wanted to continue upon the path of healing others, her best option was to get training as a medical ninja.

She was definitely late in starting compared to others, and had to fight quite hard just to get accepted into the academy, where she started her training along with children half her age, many of them from proud lineages and already well-versed in things like chakra pathways and hand seals. Rei knew none of it, and was playing catch-up basically from the very start. Never once, however, did she allow it to get her down, for she believed that, however slow her progress might be, she was doing the right thing. She was finding her purpose, her way to not only continue her family’s legacy of healing the sick and injured, but also finding her personal path through the world, one she felt had no place for her but this.

Though she started at the very bottom, with a paltry chakra pool barely enough to earn her entrance into the Academy with six-year-olds, she worked harder than any of them, her personal discipline matched only by her thirst for knowledge and zest for life, and slowly, but surely, it all paid off. Given her age difference, she was taken on as a special case apprentice by an elderly ninja, well into his octogenarian years when he took her on after her graduation, a feat she did not achieve until she was fifteen. Hibiki was, however, a very good medic-nin, perhaps the best Kumogakure had. You are not talented, he told her, but that’s why I chose you. Talent is a crutch. It is something for the weak-spirited to lean on, to get them through what they cannot work hard enough to achieve. You will achieve everything they do, because you will work for it. And when at last you stand on even ground with those talented people, you will know that, when things get so difficult they seem impossible to bear, you will stand strong while they falter. Because you will already know how to do the impossible.

He was, in his way, exactly right. Hibiki taught her until he had nothing left to teach. Rei achieved Chūnin rank at the ripe old age of seventeen, but made Jōnin only one year later, and was accepted into the medical corps. The training is difficult even for the exceptionally talented, and it was not easy for her, either. But as Hibiki had predicted, she already knew how to deal with that, and when all was said and done, her chakra control and medical ninjutsu were the very pinnacle of what Kumogakure had to offer in the area. She was strong, because she had worked hard for it.

Then the war started.

Most members of the medical corps saw little to no direct frontline action—they were too vital in treating the wounded and saving lives to risk direct combat. Rei was one of the few exceptions. Embedded with an elite Jōnin Lightning Unit, the Kumogakure equivalent of an ANBU squad, she saw more action than she truly lies to think about, but things were not unbearably bad until about a year into the war. Her unit, exhausted from days of relentless guerilla strikes on the Konohagakure ninja, fell into a trap, and were ambushed from all sides. Most were killed, but Rei was captured instead.

She does not speak in great detail about what happened to her, but she spent almost a year of her life in the company only of the Konoha interrogators and her own thoughts. She came out of it with too many scars to count, if only the ones on her body are taken into consideration. It is written on her skin, the story of what happened to her in there, and nobody’s really quite sure how she escaped her torture, but escape she did, and returned to Kumogakure. When the Raikage was killed and Takehiko Yamamoto made the next Raikage, she was asked personally to accompany him to Konoha for the negotiations. She agreed without hesitation, and has resolved to set aside what happened to her there, even if she should meet her interrogator face-to-face.

⌈I believe they thought they had broken me. And perhaps they had, but all they broke was skin and bone. No man can break your spirit without your permission, and I never gave them that.⌋

So begins...

Rei Hinode's Story

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#2014-08-25 05:56:33, as written by Nephilim

Mizuki Kawagure, Eighth Hokage, surveyed the young shinobi before her with a critical eye. They were Konohagakure’s best and brightest, in one way or another, though to call any of them ideal for this mission was a stretch. She’d had to balance her need to pick the people most likely to be able to handle the Raikage’s party with the competing need to encourage diplomacy rather than violence. The Council was insistent that these peace talks go well, and she knew the newly-minted Raikage had scored himself serious points in the eyes of the rest of the world by being the first to extend his hand in this fashion… and by agreeing to a negotiation scenario that would be against he and his people from the very start. It was on her turf, surrounded by her people, and almost entirely on her terms.

She fully planned on taking advantage of that.

But in order to make sure things went as they needed to, his people would have to be watched without being caged, and for that, she needed these personnel. Kiyoko Uzumaki was the youngest, but also the most likely to succeed at being diplomatic and controlling herself, so she was nominally in charge of the team. The rest were there because they were either exceptionally talented or else because they had some ability that would be advantageous in such a scenario as this one. The Aburame’s bugs, the Tsukino’s eyes… and well, to be honest Yuhara was there because he wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if he needed to and the Uchiha present because the Hokage took great pleasure in watching him squirm… and because the Raikage was a Jinchūriki.

Folding her hands behind her back, the Hokage tossed back her rose-colored ponytail and stared them down silently for a moment. “I trust,” she said slowly, her voice on a lower register for a woman, so calm it could only be the kind of thing that masked something else. “That I do not have to remind you that the future of your village rests on this.” And because of how important their village was, the future of much of the world, not just its ninja. There was no overestimating the importance of it. “You are to be as hospitable as you possibly know how,” the sardonic inflection, ever so slight, gave away that she knew some of them weren’t capable of much in that department. “And as polite as you can pretend. Until such time as any of them act untowardly, they are honored guests. If they make trouble, you are authorized to use exactly as much force as is necessary to stop that trouble. You will meet them outside the gates, escort them to the guest facility, and see that they eat. Then, you will bring them here. Other than that, do as Uzumaki tells you. Am I understood?”

She wouldn’t usually be so stern about it, but she had a reputation for not suffering fools lightly, and she certainly would not tolerate any foolishness here. These shinobi were ANBU, medics, members of village nobility, and sometimes even teachers. Now, they would have to be diplomats. Difficult as it may be for some of them, it was imperative. Obtaining what she deemed to be the required amount of assent, the Hokage nodded. “Then you are dismissed.”

Kiyoko stood before the eight Hokage, her lips pursed deeply together as the older woman surveyed the team. Being the youngest of the group, would have normally caused her to be a little more temperamental, however; this mission required her to be at her utmost behavoir. She was to lead one of the best teams at the moment, to ensure that everything went as smoothly as it could possibly go. She wasn't sure she was exactly the best person to handle the situation, but then again, it might as well be her. Naruto was, after all, her grandfather, and that alone should have stripped her from even leading this team. But a part of her was glad that she was being given that chance to do something good, something he would have wanted.

She remained quiet as Mizuki spoke, her eyes focused on the Hokage. She absorbed the information, sorting it out into the proper order before she nodded her head. They were going to escort the Kumogakure shinobi to their facilities, feed them, and then bring them here to her. Seemed simple enough, however; she glanced over the group that was under her guidance. Akira, Ryuu, Naomichi, and Katsuro. She almost snorted at the last face she landed on. Katsuro didn't seem too pleased to be here, but she was glad he was, in a weird sort of way. She focused her attention back to Mizuki and saluted the Hokage, a grin settling on her lips.

"Leave it to us, Mizu," she replied, standing out in front of her team before folding her arms against her chest. "You heard the woman. Everything and anything I say, goes, and if any of you have anything to say about that, well," she spoke, her head tilting to the side as a bright smile crossed her face. "You are free to express it, but I don't guarantee I'll take it into consideration," she stated, the smile never fading from her face. If they had anything to say about her and her leadership, they were free to state as such, however; it didn't mean she had to listen to it. For all she cared, they could take it and shove it, even if they were all on good terms. Or at least somewhat on good terms as far as she could tell.

"Unless Mizu here has anything else to say, shall we go meet our new friends?" she questioned, taking a glance over her shoulder towards Mizuki before turning her attention back to her comrades, her eyes lingering just a moment longer on Katsuro with evident amusement.

The Hokage rolled her eyes, but waved a hand anyway. Uzumaki was like that—and probably the only person who could get away with calling her Mizu. Probably because her grandfather had been Mizuki’s teacher and so she’d been around a lot when Kiyoko was growing up. The nickname was an old one. “I already told you to leave, Uzumaki. Don’t be late—we could hardly make a bad first impression on our guests.” That she was not especially happy that the Raikage and four of his best would be in the middle of her village for an unknown period of time should have surprised no one.

In sharp contrast to his counterpart on Konohagakure, the Raikage wore a big smile on his face. In all fairness, pretty much everything about him was big, and so his smiles should probably be no exception. The journey here from Kumo had taken the better part of a week, even moving at the pace of very highly-trained, very fast shinobi. It was, after all, quite a distance from one country to the other. He didn’t mind the inconvenience, though—the people he was travelling with were among his closest friends and strongest allies, and that made the distance seem shorter, at least to his mind. Perhaps some would say that mind was just simple, and in truth, perhaps Takehiko would even agree. He didn’t really see a problem with simple, after all.

“What do you think, Rei?” he asked the kunoichi immediately behind him, tilting his head back over his shoulder to glance at her from the corner of his uncovered eye. The smile didn’t disappear, even if it might have been a shade unnerving, given the fact that his eyeteeth were slightly larger than normal, and pointed. It was all Mata’s fault anyhow.

“We’re close,” the medic-nin replied, flexing one of her hands. The thin white scars on the back of her hand pulled taut, then eased when she relaxed her fingers. She was the one who had most recently been to the place, and the only one who would remember its exact location. None of the fighting had ever quite reached either village. “I don’t expect they’ll just let us walk in through the front gate, though… not by ourselves.”

“Mm… probably not,” Takko consented easily enough. “But you never know… we might just make ourselves some friends out of the deal, hm?” His grin widened, and that was how she knew there was more to what he said than a simple, naively-optimistic sentiment. Simple he might be, but Rei knew very well that he was a far cry short of stupid.

"Yeah, well you guys have your work cut out for you then. I don't need to make friends, I already have friends," Nariko replied, shoving her hands behind her head as she stared up at the sky. Her mother was related to the Nara of the Konohagakure village, however; give that she was his grandchild, she might not be as welcomed as she thought she might be. She, after all, did fight in the war too. She killed her fair share of shinobi from Konoha, and she wouldn't be able to wash that away. "Oh look, here's the welcome party now," she stated, lowering her gaze to spot the gates of Konoha in the distance. She could see the outline of five people, and one in particular caused her to grin.

Kiyoko stared at the group coming into view, standing with her arms crossed against her chest. She narrowed her eyes slightly to get a better look, and sighed. She could make the faint outline of something large, and human. If she had to guess, he was either a body guard, or he was the actual Raikage of Kumo. She was going to go with body guard. That left one of the others to be the Raikage, though it ruled out the three kunoichi. If she remembered correctly, the brief said he, not she. That left the shorter, less large male of the group. Sighing, she waited for the group to approach, glancing back towards Nariko and frowned. It had been a while since she'd seen the Kaneshiro, but now was not the time fore reminiscing.

"Alright guys, you know the drill. Be nice, introduce yourselves, and be nice," Kiyoko stated. She shifted so that her arms were at her sides now, and waited for the shinobi from Kumogakure to approach. Once they did, she remained silent for a moment, tilting her head as she regarded the large one, almost tempted to ask about the eye, however; it would be unprofessional and she couldn't exactly just ask. Instead, she cleared her throat and placed a hand on her hip. "Welcome to Konoha. I trust that your trip was pleasant," she started, putting an emphasis on the last word before glancing over her shoulder.

"Kiyoko Uzumaki, at your service. This is my team," she stated, jabbing her thumb in the direction of the others. "We are here to accompany you into the village," and in some way, babysit them, though she wasn't going to say that. She glanced back at her team, waiting for them to introduce themselves. It would be good to know everyones names first, rather than just saying hey you all the time.

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#2014-08-25 08:14:09, as written by Taunbon

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#2014-09-07 04:50:26, as written by Equilibrium

It was a peaceful night or so. Ryuu did not want to bother with their guests for now. They do need to get acquainted with each other because those bonds will be required of them in the long run. So, let them mingle and enjoy it. As for him, he preferred to be alone at the moment. Finding a rather remote place, there he took interest on a lone apricot tree. He climbed and rested himself on one of its branches as its pink blossoms wavered around him like silken curtains. The wind blew scattering the drops of carnation across the blank canvass of the night. Some fell on him, but it was fine. Actually, it created an enrapturing picture.

This was indeed comforting in a sense as he leaned back on the trunk. His mismatched eyes gazed into the evening sky. There were no clouds in sight allowing the moon and stars to shine brightly. "It would have been perfect if there is a storm." He muttered under his breath. It had been one of the things which he shows adoration towards without the affect of a mask. An unclouded smile was present upon his lips as he allowed the lullaby of the night soothe him. However at the middle of his relaxation, he felt the ever-familiar nauseous feeling coming over him. His eyes of gold and blue glowed eerily and soon meshed into a unified white hue. The irises were changed into a glowing golden insignia as his body entered into a stiffen stupor as images only visible to him flashed.

Soon enough, it was done as he lowered his head and covered his eyes with one hand. His breathing was ragged and his body was wracked in a series of phantom pains. Another series of images which sapped another portion of his life. It was his so-called fate as the one entitled to be Time's Vessel. The mere thought made him smile with such dejection. Sensing his body had become stable, he took a deep breath and eased himself. He allowed his hand to fall to his side. "Might as well draw it." With that decided, he procured a sketch book and began to flip through the pages. There were some incomplete sketches of people, scenery, and other things. Finding a blank page, he began drawing what he had seen. It started as a mere gray-scale, but then, he stopped midway. He tore it, crumpled it and threw it away. "Hideous... Truly Hideous."

Rei sighed slightly and lifted her arms over her head, stretching them out. In the week and a half or so since they’d come here, Takehiko had apparently handled himself well enough that the Leaf shinobi were not immediately convinced that her team was actually there to burn the whole village down, and so it was no longer necessary to go absolutely everywhere with an escort. She was taking the opportunity to have a walk, reclaiming the comfort of solitude as much as one could in a place like this. There was a sense of proximity here that she hadn’t always felt in the more sparsely-populated Kumogakure, but then it was entirely possible that she was just the slightest bit homesick. Not that she was overwhelmed by the feeling—in all honesty, she’d brought most of the important parts of home here with her. Her best friend, her only other close one (who also happened to be her commanding officer)… and even though she couldn’t claim especially significant friendships with Nari or Kiriko, she liked both of them quite a bit, and respected them, so there was that.

Really, there was only one other significant person in her life, and one did not bring small children to places like this. So while it was definitely false to say that she was relaxed—she doubted she ever could be, here—she was at least not taking her second visit as poorly as she could have, given the circumstances of the first. The night air smelled nice, at least, and was cool on the scant bare skin that her uniform allowed, which really wasn’t a whole lot more than her hands and face.

She was perfectly content to ignore the ambient chakra signatures around her, as there were several, at least until one of them started fluctuating strangely. Pausing midstep, Rei cocked her head to the side, spilling the dark purple strands of her ponytail over one shoulder. That was… irregular. At first she thought it might just be someone practicing a jutsu or something, but it seemed… stranger than that. Different in a way she could not quite explain. Being very familiar with chakra networks, she was immediately suspicious of it, though whether because she thought it dangerous of someone or to someone was not something she could quite pinpoint. Either way, her instincts as a medic-nin kicked in, and she redirected her steps in that direction, when the fluctuations abruptly stopped.

Now thoroughly convinced that something weird was going on, she continued in the same direction, albeit with less urgency. Until, as luck would have it, she caught the sound of someone disparaging something, and then the crumpled up paper that the breeze was carrying towards her face. Vaguely recognizing the ninja in the tree as the one who’d thrown a knife at the Raikage, she considered just leaving him to whatever problem he had, because she didn’t generally take well to people aiming pointy things at her friends. That said… she could almost hear Takko in her head, urging her to be kind even when the same was not received in turn. She wasn’t sure even she was capable of that in the same way he was, but she figured she could at least make the attempt, as a favor to him. She owed the big lug a lot, after all.

“Hideous, huh? I’m not gonna find a naked picture of the Hokage if I open this, am I? I mean, she looks pretty good for her age, and if you’re into that, I won’t judge you. It’s just not for me.” She was almost one-hundred percent certain that was not whatever was on the paper ball, but she’d been wrong before. “Seriously, though… something bothering you, Tsukino-san? I’m not much of an art critic, but I can take a look if you want.”

And here she is, Ryuu would have laughed at the irony of his situation right now. Here he was desiring to be in solitude. It was to give himself a release even for a moment. However, it was not permitted so. Really, he would have liked to kill the ones responsible for such events in his life. Still, he knew best that it would be futile. In any case, he did not want this one person, this kunoichi, her to see him. It was due to the threads which had been revealed to him. At the very least, he wanted to be spared from this fate. Yet again, useless, huh... He has no choice as the path had been prepared no matter what.

"A nice offer Hinode-san." He noted as his eyes were now fixed upon her form. Not a bad sight at all. "Why not take a look?" There was a small smile on his lips as his words were wrapped in ambiguity. After all, the image drawn upon was incomplete but one could see that it is a depiction of a bloody field due to its aesthetics. "Perhaps, I need a new inspiration." He added as he closed his eyes and the images he had received earlier played once more in his head. It irritated him but, it never showed on his face as it remained placid and whimsical in a sense of a word. "Do you have any suggestions?"

Dark hands, nicked with pale scars, unfolded the crumpled paper, studying the subject matter with a raised eyebrow. It could have been any battlefield she’d ever been on, really, blood and gore smeared over the ground like that. She could almost smell the blood and death just by looking at it. Technically, the art was very accomplished—she doubted anyone she knew could draw this well, actually. But there was definitely something unfortunate about what it portrayed, she would agree with that much. Shrugging her shoulders slightly, she tipped her head to the side and flashed a white grin up at the man in the tree.

“Maybe don’t draw something so familiar? I mean, at this point blood and death is probably getting a bit old, ne? Pick something that… doesn’t remind you of this.” She captured the paper between the sides of her index and middle finger and waved it lazily back and forth. “Pretty obvious advice here, but… draw something that makes you happy. There’s something like that in the world, no?”

The advice was at best common. It was as common as dust being blown by the wind. However, he could not help but lightly chuckle at that. "What makes me happy, huh?" It was more of a question to himself than anything else. He looked at the night sky and contemplated on anything which would be label as such. Unfortunately, there were none... or specifically, he wanted to have none, because he knew well the repercussions of such things. "If I do that then I will have to take the future of this world including yours, of course." He stated with a chesire cat-like smile upon his lips. Those eyes of gold and blue gazed at her as if engulfing anyone into the unknown.

"Would that be fine?" After adding that, Ryuu jumped down from the tree with a grace much like that of a feline. He walked towards her and took the paper she was waving back and forth. It was a vision which will come true. This is something he must assure to be of reality. He took back the sketch she was waving back and forth. Once, he did. The paper was rippped into shreds by a sharp passing breeze. "Thank you for the advice, Hinode-san." He smiled at her endearingly as if to shift the vague meanings of his words. Of course, another mask set in motion. A hand reached out towards her as he flicked her ear playfully. "A question, would you mind if I draw you?"

“The future of the world?” Rei echoed, huffing an amused breath. “A little dramatic, aren’t we?” Then again, quite a number of the people she lived with were fairly dramatic themselves, if in different ways and with varying degrees of seriousness or farce. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. She relinquished he sketch willingly, inwardly shrugging when it was shredded. Maybe the artsy types were really as eccentric as she’d always heard, who could say?

“The future, huh?” she repeated, slightly softer this time. “Can’t say I have much use for it.” Her life had, in some ways, been a slow process of learning to live only in the now. Dwelling on the past tended to hurt too much for comfort most days, and the future, well… that was nothing more than the consequences of the present anyway, so why bother thinking about it too much? It was the kind of thing that leaders and prophets had to do, and Rei, happily enough, was neither of those things. She rolled her eyes when he flicked her ear, but his question produced a short, light laugh.

“Draw me? You must be more starved for happiness than I expected, ne?” She kept her tone light, but there was some truth to the words. “I’ve never been a muse before; it could be fun. Sure, draw me if you want to; I don’t care.” It wasn’t like she was self-conscious or anything; what was there to be embarrassed about? Artists practiced drawing on all kinds of things, people included, and she didn’t really look like anyone from around here, so it might even be a half-decent exercise, she didn’t claim to know differently. Her lips pulled back into a catlike grin. “Just don’t go falling in love with me pretty boy; I’ll only make you cry.” Her amusement with the situation was rather obvious—she’d been asked a lot of strange questions in her lifetime, but never that one. So her choices were really either make light of it or ask intrusive questions, and she wasn’t usually one for the latter. It kind of went hand-in-hand with living in the present, after all.

It should be like that. The future should be left in the category of the unknown. If it was like that for him, then he would not have to abide by invisible strings wrapped around him like unbreakable chains. However, it is what it is. He would not complain about something which is already done. After all, he had already decided to walk this path. With that, he would have to bear everything and happiness was always as synonymous as a burden to him. Although, her point of view was at best enticing and at the same time, he had been viewed as dramatic. Well, that would be good. Life does need flair once in awhile to make things interesting.

Speaking of which, she seemed amused by his question and retorted with a comment about him being starved. Oh, how right she was at that point. "You have no idea." He noted as a glimmer within his mismatched eyes showed the intense desire he has. Of course, it was much akin to a hallucination as it ceased to exist replaced by a trivial matter known as mischief along with that vague smile of his. He nodded with approval as she was fine with the idea of being a muse. She then added much like an afterthought, a warning of not falling in love with her. Now, there is another twist with that. "That could go both ways my sun-kissed muse." He stated as he leaned closely towards her as if he has an intent to kiss her.

"But then again, this is as close we are going to get." His words were wrapped in an air of ambiguous mystery and undetermined intent. It was like he had already know what was going to happen, but then again, he acts as if it was nothing more a but a whim. "Thank you for your acceptance, Hinode-san." He pulled away as an apricot pink blossom could be seen in his possession. It was something he had taken from her hair. Now standing at an acceptable distance, he winked at her and released the blossom into the night. "A gift to commemorate." He said as he opened his sketch book and tore another paper which was notable found at the beginning which is an odd thing. Why? "Here." He handed her another sketch but this time it was a complete one, a drawing of her with a beautiful smile at Kumogakure.

Being a medic-nin left one with little option to be uncomfortable with proximity, and she wasn’t. Mostly because she knew what it looked like when someone actually intended to kiss a person, and this was not it. She tipped her head slightly to the side at his words. It seemed he was categorically incapable of just saying what he meant, without obscuring his meaning. Well, it wasn’t like that bothered her—she was just the opposite. One thing he certainly didn’t have to worry about, however, was her romantic affections. That was a road she stayed well away from, and with good reason. You don’t watch what happens to your best friend after he loses the most precious person in his life (your other best friend) and think it’s a good idea to risk that. Especially not after what happened to her parents. Fact.

She watched curiously as he tore the first page out of his sketch book, and the content actually, truly surprised her. It was her face, to be sure, but in a setting he should never have been able to see. “I don’t understand,” she admitted honestly, torn between being simply curious and the faintest bit disturbed. “You’ve… you’ve never been to this place, have you? Is this some kind of jutsu?” Her brows furrowed, and she glanced up at him, perplexed. She wasn’t accusing him of anything, it was just… very strange.

Yes, this would be the normal reaction to such an illustration done by him. Others who had been given such a duty similar to his would write the dictated timeline which will be presented as history when it has been accomplished. For him, it is done through a series of drawings which he had opted to keep himself. It was not something he had conjured through the means of a mere imagination, an imitation, or even a dream. Her visage was imprinted in a vision which made his life inexplicably short. Well, it has become something he had grown accustomed to. After all, it was his fate to see, to preserve, to ensure it all until he is able to.

"To answer your question..." He kept his sketch book and then looked at the evening sky instead. The apricot blossoms waved through the air like glimmering stars. "Nope." It was stated without a hint of insincerity, but with a rather superficial joyous tone which seemed to say otherwise. He looked at her with those mysterious blue-gold eyes of his. This woman from Kumogakure had a significant role to play. It was something he was certain of. But at the same time, she also has a part in his brief existence. "I could tell you, but..." He took a step back. "I will die." There was a bright smile on his face as he stated that as if it was not important anyway. "Well, then I will see you around." He then turned his back at her.

Looking over his shoulder, he gave her a wave. "Let's hold that modelling session for some other time." His eyes softened a bit before returning to its vague density. "Good night, Hinode-san." With those words, he walked on and soon vanished with only a swirl of pink, apricot blossoms left in his wake.

“What a weirdo," she murmured to herself after he'd left, glancing back down at the drawing in her hand. Shaking her head slightly, Rei folded it up neatly and slid it into a pocket. There was something... sad about that guy. Or at least, that was the feeling she was getting, and her intuitions were rarely wrong, even if she only infrequently understood them. Still, it wasn't like it was any of her business, so she shrugged to herself and continued on her walk.

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#2014-09-14 07:35:23, as written by Taunbon

As a frequent sparring partner of Zetsu, Rei was rather accustomed to him being up at a certain time in the morning, ready for training. As his best friend, she felt no qualms whatsoever in simply walking into his room when he was considerably later than usual. She found him still passed out on his futon, clearly having only gotten halfway through the process of disrobing to sleep. To say that this was funny to her would be an understatement. For most of the time she’d known, him, he’d been a soul that nobody would hesitate to call fastidious, but from the look of things, he’d definitely participated in last night’s debauchery. She’d found Takko nursing a hangover earlier and gotten the story out of him. Well, she wasn’t using her medical jutsu to help. They could suck it up and get out of their own messes.

Zetsu, though… this wasn’t like him at all, and it amused her to no end. Leaning back on his doorframe for a moment, she tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms over her chest, a slow grin spreading over her face. Might as well have some fun at his expense, ne? Tugging at the tie that held her ponytail in place, Rei shook out the locks then ran her hands through them a couple of times, mussing them up. Peeling off the outermost layers of her uniform, she deposited them on the floor, not too far from his. Decency was preserved, but it might take him a while to notice. It wasn’t too hard to find a spot on the futon, laying her head close to his such that their noses were almost touching.

This was going to be fun.

“Zetsu,” she intoned in a slight sing-song. “Rise and shine sleeping beauty.” She shook his shoulder slightly and plastered a half-asleep look on her own face. Now she just had to wait a bit.

He was used to sleeping with others from his marriage with Shizu to the few nights that Seiko wanted to sleep in the same bed due to nightmares, either hers or his own, and so he did not instinctively feel any difference when a presence he was comfortable with had slipped into the bed, in fact, subconsciously, the second he felt a warm body next to him, he moved closer to the source and sought to wrap his arms around his new bedfellow.

Kosan's eyes flicked behind his eyelids as a voice, a soft voice, called out to him. His mind, still groggy from the night before, was not yet ready to force him awake, his shinobi training utterly failing him compared to the warm bed and whatever he had in his arms, but that soft voice spoke again, and his mind wasn't quite able to comprehend what was said, but it was enough for him to open his eyes. His bright blue eyes met ones of gold, half-lidded with sleep and... something else.

His blue eyes traced her face from her gold eyes, to her wild onyx hair, to her dark skin, and finally down to her lips which he traced with his mind... until his mind realized who he was looking at and his eyes snapped open, his brain jolting him awake, Rei.

Kosan blinked a few times, his body frozen solid, trying to remember anything from last night, but all he could remember was Nari sleeping in his lap, and after that, nothing. His eyes traced down her neck to where the rest of her body was being obscured by his blanket, from the feel of the blanket on his bare chest... well, he was tired not stupid. They had... Kosan closed his eyes for a second before opening them to meet her bright gold ones, his mind running a thousand miles a minute trying to sort through his turbulent thoughts and emotions, all he could do was give out a meek and mumbled, "Rei.."

It took pretty much everything she had to maintain her face instead of cracking up right then and there. Oh, that face! The bewilderment and faint traces of burgeoning guilt… poor, poor Zetsu. He had to have a terrible best friend like her. Time to see just how badly she could fluster the guy. He needed a little more levity in his life, after all, and she wouldn’t deny that it was also true of her. “I was just about to say good morning,” she murmured, reaching forward to curl a strand of his hair around her finger. Huh, it was as soft as it looked. She’d have to tease him about that later, ask him how much time he spent taking care of it. “But you don’t look too pleased to see me here.”

Her pout was only slight, but definitely present. The coup de grâce, however, was the motion she used to bring her hand, his lock of hair still gently held, to her lips, brushing them softly over it before she let the strands slide through her fingers and away. “Should I go?”

Kosan wasn't sure what to do or say as he was so far out of his depth in this situation that he had never dreamed would happen. Much to his embarrassment and shame, he had nearly leaned into her touch when she snagged a strand of his hair, but she also snagged his attention. It was hard to imagine himself as anything more then a shambling teenager that just received his first kiss, a far cry from the grizzled widower he was.

Was he pleased to see her? There? In his bed, in his arms... He didn't know. A part of him.. a part him he had thought forgotten thought it felt right, to have a woman, to have Rei, in his arms when he woke up, but the rest of him was in turmoil. He felt he betrayed Shizu. That he betrayed Rei by, somehow, convincing her to join him when he wouldn't even remember it and that burned him as well, that he didn't even remember being with her. Was he pleased to see her? He... didn't know.

"No," Kosan was surprised with himself as the word escaped him instantly, "Don't leave.."

Rolling to his side, he pushed himself up on his elbow, as he pushed his thoughts aside to face her,"Rei, I didn't," He paused, "I don't think I am ready to move on."

Reaching, he gently stroked a strand of loose hair back behind her ear, "But I.. With you," Closing his eyes, Kosan tried to think about her again, of Rei, she was beautiful. She always had been, but he... Seiko loved Rei, and he did too, but did he love her? The sudden image of Shizu dying in his arms flashed through his eyes, "Rei, I... do not want to lose you. I cannot lose you too. No matter what I feel about you, it cannot be you. It just... "

Kosan let his blue eyes fall from her face to the bed, it couldn't be her. Not Rei. She was like a sister to Shizu, and in some way, he felt it would be betraying her. Trying to replace her with Rei even though the two were very little alike. Or perhaps he was simply a coward looking for a way out of happiness that could threaten his self-imposed obsession?

Well, that had escalated quickly. It hadn’t been completely lost on her that this sort of reaction was a possibility, but she had been hoping it wouldn’t happen. Not for any especially deep reason—she just knew that her friend was still in mourning in some ways, and had hoped that someday, perhaps today, that sadness would not be the first thing he thought about when waking and the last thing he thought about before he went to sleep. Apparently, however, it was still too soon for such hopes to come to fruition.

This time, the melancholy on her face was genuine, and with a little half-smile, she reached up and ruffled his hair, nothing of the implied intimacy left in the gesture. Well… perhaps that was not quite true. It took a certain level of intimacy to be this close to a man like Zetsu and not have him inclined to kill you. Personal space was an issue for people like them, in different ways. But that aside, it was a touch neither romantic nor sexual. Nor was the butterfly kiss she feathered over his forehead. “I wouldn’t want to lose you either, Zetsu,” she told him quietly, as though it were some kind of secret. Perhaps it was—to feel that anyone in your life was irreplaceable was a weakness for a ninja. As far as that was concerned, Rei had always been weaker than just about anyone, given her tendency to form attachments to others.

Her eyes softened—in one sense, she supposed she couldn’t fault him for mourning still. Shizu had been an amazing person, and the love between them had been obvious. The other kunoichi had been one of the people Rei admired most, almost a surrogate sibling in truth, for she’d had so few close people in her life after her parents. She still mourned her too, though in a very different way. “But come on, now.” She sat up, the blanket falling away and making evident the fact that she was, indeed, still very much clothed. Her smile grew, the spark of life flaring back to vibrancy in her bright eyes.

“You can’t possibly believe you’d ever forget a night with me.” Her grin crinkled her nose slightly, and she raised a brow at him. “I just came to get you because you were late for training, you silly man.”

Kosan was rendered speechless when she ruffled his hair like he was a child. The intimacy and tension that filled the air was washed away almost instantaneously, and he could not remember the last time anyone had just ruffled his hair like that. Still, that was not the reaction he had been expecting.

His eyes closed as she got closer, and a shiver went down his spine at the feather light brush of her lips. Well, that was closer to the reaction he had been expecting. It was an oddity. When someone says something personal that they already knew, like telling someone they loved them or liked being near them, it was obvious from actions, but for some reason, once said, it was touching.

Kosan craned his head back, his eyes mesmerized by the cascade of falling blankets and then... he almost coughed when he saw her clothes. It would be a little unbecoming to admit, but he was disappointed at not seeing her body. Then there were a surprising mix of emotions that he was surprised he felt. He was relieved that they hadn't slept together, but at the same time, he was disappointed they hadn't. It was... and odd mixture that he had no desire to examine further.

"No, I suppose not," Kosan said trying to regain a sense on his sanity and other parts of his being, "I would acquire a lovely set of scratches and scars, we would make a lovely matching pair," he said pushing away the blanket and sitting up, letting the cold air touch his naked chest.

He felt he should say something about what just happened... but he couldn't, so he closed his eyes, his body soaking in the ray of light coming from the nearby window. He could tell it was going to be a very long day.

Something that was only confirmed when a raucous, rolling boom reached their ears.

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#2014-09-19 04:00:27, as written by Dynamite

Kiyoko was not so graceful as Katsuro had been, however; she had managed to land on her feet, stumbling only slightly. Shaking the initial confusion off, she turned her attention to Katsuro, nodding her head in a hesitant manner. "Right," was the only response she gave before she left, taking off as quickly as her legs could carry her. She, on the other hand, trusted a little easier than Katsuro did, and trusted that he would be okay. He was, after all, her friend even if he didn't regard her the same. The explosion, however, took over her thoughts. Who would attack Konoha, and in the middle of the day? Sure, day attacks weren't unheard of, and villages didn't really pay attention to time unless it was necessary with their plans.

She found herself in the Uchiha compound as quickly as she had left Katsuro's side, and immediately scanned the area. It seemed untouched for the most part, and she walked briskly into it. How hard could it be to find one Raikage, especially one of his size? He was like a giant! She inwardly groaned when she found no trace of Takehiko and pursed her lips in frustration. Now was not the time to lose her cool. She had to find someone from Kumogakure. This attack, it couldn't have been planned from them, could it have? There was only one way to find out, and so far she wasn't having any luck. It wasn't until she spotted a particular set of white spikes (almost mistook it for Hatake) and released a breath of relief.

"Takko!" she called out, perhaps not the best way to begin a conversation, but that wasn't the priority of her thoughts. "Where's the rest of your group?" she questioned, tension building in the air. It wasn't that she suspected them, of anything; she just didn't like the slight chill that was going down her back. Something just felt off.

Takehiko was attempting to nurse a cup of tea; after Rei had refused to assuage his massive headache with her medical ninjutsu, he’d turned to more traditional remedies, and after too much water, he was now trying to soothe the ache with something gentler on the system than sake. It was sort of working, but mostly it would just take time. Time that, it would seem, he did not have.

The urgent tone of Yoko-chan’s voice drew his attention immediately, and Takehiko stood, setting aside the tea he’d been drinking. “Nari-chan went to see the Hokage, and Kiri-chan is out,” he said, “but Kosan and Rei-chan are still here. What happened, Yoko-chan? What was that explosion just now?”

“The least of your concerns, Raikage.” The voice that answered was feminine, but it was not Kiyoko’s. Rather, it came from a woman cloaked all in white, a hood drawn up over her features. She was flanked by six other people, all wearing some combination of blue, green, and gold. The woman threw back her hood, revealing hair that was an unusual shade of pale green. She had a very pretty face, Takko supposed, but he wasn’t exactly happy to see her.

“Oh look. An assassination attempt.”

Of course, the universe would deem it fit to act upon his feelings as it would hate do disappoint him so. The loud explosion caught Kosan by surprise and made him spring out of his bed, the blanket flung from his body. It was a shame the universe did not see fit to do this after he had gotten dressed, but he was wearing pants which it seemed was going to be the furthest courtesy the universe would allow him.

Moving to the side of his bed, he reached down and gripped the sheathed rapier that lay beside him as he was loath to leave it behind for any reason. His mind was racing with the implications of the explosion, had Konoha betrayed them? Was it another party attacking? Who was being attacked? Where were Nari and Takko? A small part of him was almost thankful for the attack as it allowed him the opportunity for much needed bloodshed and a way to vent his frustration over his wife as well as provide a wonderful distraction from Rei and the... tense atmosphere. Despite his rather poor jest, Kosan could not shake the oppressive weight that had been weighing on his chest.

Blade in hand, Kosan turned his head, his wild hair spilling over his bare shoulder, "Where are the others?" he asked, his fierce blue eyes holding a feral gleam that was not there moments ago, he was assuming and hoping that she had an idea where some of them were. Considering the situation they would need to regroup, preferably with their Raikage, so they could do their job. Keeping him alive.

“Follow me,” Rei replied immediately, scooping up her uniform vest as she ran from the room. Sliding it on while moving was not the easiest procedure, but she managed it fine, using her limited chakra sensing abilities to find Takehiko and what seemed to be Kiyoko. They stood out like bright stars amongst the other chakra signatures, likely because of the biju that resided sealed in their bodies. They weren’t too far away—still within the compound, actually, though in the courtyard, where the gardens were.

She felt bad now, for not taking care of the Raikage’s hangover. Even a small distraction in a fight was a disadvantage they did not need, but if anyone could handle himself whatever was thrown at him, she had confidence that Takko could. He was practically a force of nature when he needed to be, and that was why he got to be in charge. Even so… the chakra she could feel now from the others in the area was not inconsiderable, though something about some of them seemed… off, somehow. There was hardly any time to think about it, however, because she and Zetsu burst into the courtyard thereafter, Rei immediately stepping in front of Takehiko.

“Another one?” she replied to his quip, but though her lips tilted into a dry smile, her eyes did not leave the array of would-be killers.

“What can I say?” Takko replied, lowering himself into a stance she and Zetsu would both recognize—he was going to use his Lightning Release Armor. “I’m a popular man.”

Kosan was a step behind Rei, the scabbard of his blade still held in his right hand as he tried not to shiver as the cold air ran past his skin and the annoyance of strands of his long hair that occasionally blew across his face obscuring his vision and tickling his skin. It took a bit as he was not as good as Rei at sensing, but finally, he could feel their presence and sense their Chakra. It seemed they made no effort to hide it anymore which was odd. It was almost like they were declaring where they were for the rest of the world. Either they were bold and powerful or rather foolhardy.

He slid to a halt in the courtyard, coming to a stop off to the side to guard the right flank as it appeared they were outnumbered. He noted the woman in white with the odd pale green hair, the way she stood at the center, showing her face in a display of arrogance and confidence told him that she was the leader of this colorful group of assassins. Still, he could not help but feel this was odd. In the war, he was not one to ponder on the situation too much, preferring to jump in and slice into flesh and pierce bone, to feel the warm blood wash over his hands as the smell of death hit his nose and the light drained from their eyes, but he was not the Chihasu anymore, or at least, that is what he told himself.

Why had they waited? It would have been better to attack the Raikage all together and attempt to overwhelm him before reinforcements could arrive... Kosan was drawn back to his earlier though either they were bold and powerful or foolhardy. Looking to his left, he saw his Raikage about to enter his lightning armor, a technique he had seen him use during the war and against him during spars, so they were jumping in head first? Kosan assumed he would be fighting the leader which meant it was his duty to keep the others off of his Raikage, he was tempted to go all out, but he could not afford to use up all his Chakra should the worst happen. The only other wild card in the fight was Kiyoko, it was time to see if she could keep up with the rest of them.

Kosan moved his blue eyes back to the group and drew his rapier tossing the scabbard aside. Holding the blade loosely in his right hand, he left it hanging by his right leg. From a casual observation, he looked at ease almost unprepared, but his body was taut and ready, his knees slightly bent, and his arm ready to flick the blade at anyone that got too close. "Dead or Alive, Raikage?" Kosan asked, his blue eyes switching from one colorful assassin to the next trying to catch a hint of their ability from their appearance.

Kiyoko had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at Takehiko's statement, however; her focus was on the would-be assassins. Of all the times they picked to attack, it had to be during peace negotiations. "Talk about the irony," she muttered quietly to herself. Still, she positioned herself in a stance, choosing not to use her Jūken quite yet. Instead, she released a bit of her chakra, summoning it to her hands as she sized up her opponents. She may not have been as proficient at sensing chakra, however; every hair on her neck stood on end, and it was a feeling she did not like. She waited, glancing once at Takehiko as he took a stance as well. Rei and Kosan both took one as well, and it was apparent this fight was going to be a little challenging. Either these people knew exactly what they were doing, or they were just plain ignorant. She was going to bet on the former despite their appearance.

"At this point, Kosan-san," she mentally laughed at that, "If they try to kill you, should you not return the courtesy?" she simply stated, answering instead though it wasn't her place to do so. Instead of waiting for her opponent to strike first, Kiyoko made the first move, charging one of the would-be assassins, and throwing a chakra-filled fist in their direction. They managed to dodge, and her fist collided with empty air, pushing her right leg in front of her to twist herself around. The man (could have been a woman, she didn't know), caught her elbow, and flipped her over his shoulder, kicking her away from him in the process. The other would-be assassins each followed suit, going after Kosan and Rei while Kiyoko dealt with hers.

Kiyoko, however, had winced when her arm was grabbed. It was no longer broken from her spar with Kiriko, something her own healing abilities had taken care of, not to mention a Jinchūriki's ability to heal. But it was still sore, and part of her wished she had fully healed it. She should have known better, however; she twisted herself in order to catch herself, and landed on her hands and feet. Her fingers dug into the earth to keep herself from falling further back, and she glanced back up at her opponent, who had taken the liberty to charge as she fell. She brought her arms up in an attempt to block his kick, however; her hand collided with the back of his foot, and she smirked. She grabbed it and twisted it, bringing her elbow down on his calf in an attempt to sever his foot.

Instead of making contact with the leg, however; the man twisted, jumping so that his free foot was in the air and aiming for Kiyoko's head. She released his leg to protect her head, listening as her arm gave another cracking noise, and she winced. He'd kicked her pretty hard, and in the same arm Kiriko had broken not too long ago. That wasn't good. Ignoring the pain, she summoned chakra to her hands, molding it so that it took on a particular property. When the assassin attacked again, she managed to strike him, flooding his system with her chakra. "Ranshinshō," she spoke, smirking as the assassin writhed on the floor, trying to take control of his body. "It's a pain isn't it?" she stated, completely caught off guard when another body flew into hers.

Takehiko turned his head just slightly to the side, such that he was looking at Kosan with his one good eye. “Do what you have to,” he said solemnly. “I’ll take responsibility if it comes to that.” That was part of being Raikage, after all; all of the actions his people took were his actions by extension, and he was the place where responsibility stopped moving down the chain. He was accountable for everything they did, in the end, but he believed in them. He believed that when it really came down to it, they wouldn’t do anything that he could not accept the consequences for with his head held high. And if they did, well… he wasn’t just their Raikage, he was their friend and their brother. So he would carry that weight anyway.

The air around him shifted, taking on the scent of ozone, and his already unruly hair rose slowly to stand on end, sticking out in silvery tufts in all directions from his scalp. With a crackling sound, several tongues of lightning flickered around him, bursting at last into the full Lightning Release armor. The area it occupied was wider than average for such a jutsu, and he had to be careful not to put too much chakra into it, else it would expand too far and injure his allies as well as his foes. That was why it built slowly rather than simply appearing. He could feel Mata stirring, her interest piqued by the taste of the chakra outside his perception, but not hers. For the moment, however, he ignored her. They were not on the best of terms, to say the least.

Rei, meanwhile, sized up the situation and clucked her tongue. Though her teamwork would be better with Zetsu most and Takko after, she could see that the intent of the leader was obviously to take on the Raikage herself, and she could sense a dangerous amount of chakra in the woman, cool like water, but in constant flux, like the air. The others were formidable, but not nearly as much as that woman was. “Zetsu—I’ll help Uzumaki.” The implied end of the sentence was clear enough: so you protect the Raikage.

There were four other ninja besides the woman, two of whom were clearly going after Kiyoko, probably to keep her busy. Rei supposed that meant two for her—but only if she played fair, which she did not intend to. “Uzumaki-san. I like two on four much better than one on two." It might divide up evenly, but there were definite advantages to fighting with a partner, including the ability to cover the other when they really needed it. Such as now, when the second fighter crashed into Kiyoko, carrying her to the ground in a reckless taijutsu move that obviously meant to take advantage of the fact that the woman was small.

Rei wasn’t going to allow that. Sketching out a quick series of signs, she generated several lightning release clones, and one planted its foot in the side of the ninja trying to keep Kiyoko down, pushing him off enough to allow the other woman to regain her feet. Two of them drew over the remaining assassins, though they were cut down nearly immediately, the bursts of lightning backlashing into the faces of those who eliminated them, to only minimal effect, it would seem. “What have you got in your repertoire, because I’m not liking the looks of this,” she admitted.

Point. Clever. At least she didn't make a, 'it must be chilly' joke as he wasn't sure how he would respond to that one. Perhaps, under a different circumstance, he would comment on her clever choice of words, but his attention was taken up by the group in front of him as his mind ran through its options. He could take the two on the left leaving Rei behind in support while Takko handled the center, but there was the off chance that these colorful assassins weren't foolish and had a reason to be confident.

Kosan opened his mouth to voice his idea when the fiery red head proved true to her nature charging off to face them head on, well, it seemed like they were roughly on the same page. But, since Takko gave the go ahead-- dead it was. It was far easier to simply kill them then try to take them alive, he would try to take one alive for questioning.

He had nearly took off himself when Rei caught him by surprise, Kosan knew her well enough, fought beside her long enough, to understand her meaning. He would be looking after their Raikage then who had already activated his lightning armor which slowly grew larger until Takko had it of suitable size. He was sorely tempted to activate his Tempest, but this early would only hinder him if these people were half as good as they pretended to be. He needed to feel them out first.

Flicking his rapier, Kosan rushed forward, covering the ground between him and the green haired woman near instantaneously as he let out a barrage of thrusts from his rapier, stabbing at her shoulders and hips to try and box her in, to feel out her movements and speed, perhaps give an opening to Takko should they be lucky enough.

"Well, there is the Rairyū no Tatsumaki, but," she stated, dusting the debris off of herself when she was given the chance to stand. Kiyoko didn't have very many jutsu's in her book, and a majority of them were either medical ninjutsu, or a fūinjutsu of some sort. Still, she could make due with her taijutsu if need be, and then there was the Chidori. The technique she learned when she found out the nature of her chakra wasn't exactly the most desirable to use at the moment. It had a major drawback for her as she did not have a Sharingan like some jerk she knew. She would have to make it count for her, and if she didn't, it would not be a good outcome. "But I could use this instead," she stated. She would have to make it work for now.

She summoned her chakra to her hand, wincing slightly as the pain shot through her broken arm. She would have to fortify the strength of her arms if she didn't want them to break so easily, again. The sound of birds filled the area as the chakra kneaded into the palm of her hand, her eyes fixed on one of the assassins. She had to get this right, there were no failures. Taking a deep breath, she charged the assassin, running as fast as she could with an extra burst of chakra to her legs, however; the assassin was a smidgen faster, and dodged her attack, causing her eyes to widen in slight surprise. The assassin took the opportunity at the opening and attacked. Could this day get any better? First her arm was broken, again, and now she was getting her ass handed to her. She grit her teeth together as she managed to collect herself.

There was only one person she ever lost to, (though technically there were now two people) and she didn't like losing to people who were not him. Even with Rei's help, it didn't seem like they were making much progress through the assassins. "You know, I don't remember assassins being this... difficult," she spoke. Most assassinations were not well coordinated as this one seemed to be, and perhaps most assassins were just testing the water so to speak. Send in the grunts to do all the heavy work before sending in the hard-hitters. A flawless strategy, no? That, or these were the grunts, and the hard-hitters would be coming in soon. "Well... crap."

“They’d better be damn good, to be confronting us in the open like this,” Rei replied, but she took the cue from Kiyoko and let off her own Lightning Release armor, and her clones did the same, such that it was impossible to tell which of the three Reis was the real one. Flowing in when Kiyoko got knocked back, she aimed a roundhouse kick for the side of that assailant’s head, only for the hit to be caught in midair and her ankle twisted—hard. She felt several of the bones in it snap before she managed to wrench it out of the man’s grip and backspring, one-handed, into a crouch, careful not to place any weight on the leg he’d broken. Her kick had been fast and aggressive—to just be able to stop it with a hand was no mean feat at all.

Her clones engaged the other three, but there was little hope for them, and another bit the dust, though the resulting explosion caught a robed woman in the face. Gritting her teeth and rising into a standing position, Rei made a series of handsigns, readying the jutsu to follow. This was going to hurt, but if she could just succeed in doing it, then they might be able to drop at least one of these people. Ram, boar, dog, bird, hare—and then she smacked the ground with her palm, a pillar of earth erupting from the ground right beneath her. Pushing up off that one she landed hard, only to repeat the motion, in a rough square around where Kiyoko was going at two of them with Taijutsu. “Move!” Rei called, and as soon as the Uzumaki’s feet cleared the affected area, lightning lanced between all four pillars, trapping the two ninja within, even as her last clone was brought down by a third. “Four Pillar Bind.”

“I don’t know how long that will hold. We have to get rid of the others, as soon as we can.” Golden eyes flickered to Kiyoko, indicating that she’d follow her lead.

Takko, meanwhile, started moving, trying to flank the woman Kosan was engaging. She didn’t seem inclined to play his game, however, smacking aside his rapier with more force than would be expected of someone of her size, even a ninja. The rapier sliced into her sleeve when she did, but drew no blood, and Takko could just barely make out that the skin beneath the robe seemed to have turned green and shiny, as though scaled, for just a moment before it reverted back into pale flesh. Her counterattack was just as physical, and just as brutal, a step forward in one smooth motion, carrying her knee into Kosan’s stomach. Before she could make the natural follow up blow of her elbow to the back of his head, however, Takehiko intervened, a fist crackling with electricity driving with great speed for her head.

She bent backwards with flexibility almost on par with Rei’s, his fist whistling by just over the tip of her nose, and fluidly, she turned that into a back handspring, getting clear of the radius of his damage.

Kosan's sharp blue eyes did not miss the odd way her skin seemed to change before his eyes as his rapier did nothing to her skin. That wasn't too odd in itself as his rapier was not the most suited to cutting, and he had met other Shinobi during the war who could harden their bodies enough where a slice would not hurt, but he could not recall ever seeing scales... that was new.

The green haired woman's knee lashed out faster then Kosan could react, smashing into his stomach and knocking the air out of him. Instinct forced his body to bend down with the blow, and while he was a trained enough shinobi in close combat, he was not going to be able to dodge the follow up attack that he knew was coming. Luckily, it seemed Takko picked that time to make his entrance, Kosan fell to his knee to catch his breath, the air filling his lungs in large gulps, "Faster then I imagined," Kosan admitted.

Kosan looked up at the woman who had managed to dodge most of his attacks and Takko's attack; if they were going to take her down then they had to do so fast, otherwise she could escape and leave them with nothing. It seemed like he did not have a choice, feeling her out any further would waste what little time they had left, and he was beginning to doubt he could do much without tapping into his more draining abilities. Moving his rapier in front of his face getting ready to use his Tenpesuto, he could only assume Takko would cover him until he gathered the Chakra. He did not have the massive amount that Takko had at his disposal, it took him a little more time to gather it.

Kiyoko nodded in agreement. If they didn't finish this soon, they would be out of options, and they wouldn't last much longer. She clenched her fists together and inhaled softly. Her arm was still throbbing lightly from where it was currently broken, again, and she had to shake of the feeling. She didn't have much of an option if she wanted to help end this. With that in mind, she took off after one of the other assassins, refusing to use anything but her taijutsu for now. She missed, was kicked a few times, punched a few times, and almost stabbed. She was pretty sure she was stabbed, actually, however; she shook the pain from her mind. She managed to knead a good amount of chakra in her body before amassing it to her fist, a small smirk covering her face in the process.

"Let's finish this, shall we?" she stated towards Rei. She turned back to her target and charged one of the assassins, unmindful of the one that was charging her. It was a moment too late that she had noticed that one, and she had to stop herself, but it wasn't quick enough. The blade they had slipped in between the juncture of her collar bone and shoulder. It slipped clean through, and was protruding through her shoulder. Wincing, she grabbed hold of the blade and swung her hand around as best as she could, the one that had the chakra kneaded in it. The Ōkashō wasn't a friendly attack, and could likely kill the assassin if it landed. But as they were, the assassin was quick, and jumped away, the resulting attack landing on the ground where he once was, and splitting the earth in small pieces of debris as they scattered.

Their attempts to finish anything were going extremely poorly, to say the least. With Kiyoko temporarily down, Rei found herself facing down two by herself. They initially came in fast with taijutsu, and while she was able to avoid most of the hits by dint of reflex and flexibility, contorting around blows in ways that most people were simply not capable of, one good hit did eventually take her off her feet, and she landed hard on the ground, lashing up by instinct and catching one of her assailants in the jaw with her good foot—at least before the other one stepped right on her broken leg.

She couldn’t help it—she cried out, a hoarse yell more than a scream, equal parts pained and frustrated. Her lightning armor, while surely doing them some damage, was apparently not enough of a deterrent, and she lost a hold on it anyway when the man standing on her leg ground his heel down into it. The scraping of her bones against one another was clearly audible, and she gritted her teeth to keep from biting her tongue on accident. Reaching for her chakra, she tried to focus on the man for long enough to weave her chakra with his in an instance of Unmei Saiken, but the concentration required was simply not possible with the pain ricocheting up her entire body this way.

She jerked to the side in just enough time to avoid the Shuriken that would have taken out her left eye, but the kunai that stabbed through her hand and into the dirt of the courtyard was impossible to avoid. Rei hissed, pouring more chakra into the Raiton no Yoroi in hopes of repelling them with the sheer force of it, though given their tolerance to pain there seemed to be little chance of that. Well, she was tolerant to it as well, which was probably the only reason she wasn’t screaming bloody murder right now. Instead, she glared up at them both. “Is that really all you’ve got?” spat. “Konoha interrogators are worse than this.”

Takko, meanwhile, was doing his best to give Kosan a chance to build up his chakra, most likely for his signature technique, the Tempest. For the most part, he and the woman were exchanging chakra-infused nintaijutsu, but that scale trick of hers, now coating most of her skin as far as he could tell—made her very durable, moreso than even he was, perhaps. Or at least, more durable than he was, until he invoked his kekkei genkai and his arms, legs, and torso were covered in what looked to be granite. It crept up his neck as well, in overlapping plates, just reaching his jawline before it faded back into flesh.

Her next punch, thrown right for his abdomen, broke her knuckles. Apparently completely incapable of being totally serious in any given situation, Takko barked a sort laugh at the surprise on her face. “What? Nobody ever told you about the Raikage’s rock-hard abs? What good is a reputation, then?”

Kosan could hear and sense the fighting going on around him, feel the sudden flare of chakra from his Raikage as he gathered his own chakra. He could do this and still fight, but it would take him some time. Normally, he would do so after opening a few gates in order to have a larger amount of chakra at hand, but using gates would drain him further, and he would need to save as much chakra as possible.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he gathered the amount and reflexively mixed the nature chakra to the perfect ratio and flared it to life, his body seeming to explode as could feel the lightning surging down his spine, and the sudden torrent of wind that swirled around him throwing his loose strands of hair into the air around him.

His blue eyes snapped open to see the assassin and Takko exchanging blows as well as the chakra that moved to cover his rapier, the lightning dancing along the surface and ripples within the chakra as the wind moved through the energy. With his technique finally unleashed, Kosan shot off, the ground cracking beneath his legs, as he joined Takko in the offensive, utilizing his quick thrust and timing them with Takko's blows, moving almost in a dance next to the large granite Raikage, two different fighting styles suited to one purpose, to destroy the Assassin.

Kiyoko pursed her lips together when both assassins went after Rei. She picked herself up from the ground, breathing a little heavier than normal and frowned. There was no way she was going to let this go. She's said it once before, and she'll continue to say it. She doesn't lose, to no one but her friend. And though they were probably stronger than him, she wasn't going to just lose without more of a fight. Gritting her teeth together, she forced herself to move closer to Rei and the two assassins, holding her broken arm in the process. It still throbbed with pain, but she'd deal with it later. With her the way it was, what she was about to do would only last a few seconds. She wouldn't be able to keep it for long, but it would give Rei a chance she would need.

"Rei! You've only got once chance!" she shouted to the Kumogakure kunoichi, hoping she would catch on quickly. "Fūinjutsu: Seidō Fūjin!" she shouted, allowing her technique to be released. She managed to seal the chakra of the two assassins, but time was passing rapidly, and she could feel her injuries creeping up on her. Odd, she didn't remember being kicked around so much, why was her body aching like it had been?

The assassin moved as fluidly as water, keeping herself well out of the way of both men and focusing her aggression on Kosan, as the Raikage was going to require more creative maneuvers to injure, ones that may not be possible while two people were after her at once. So mostly, she just ducked and twisted around Takehiko, dancing just at the edge of the range of Tempest, and making mid-ranged attacks against Kosan, mostly consisting of earth-based maneuvers that sought to throw both men off-balance and damage them with blunt impact. Her scales inched up her neck, coming to the bottom of her jaw, a strange mirror of the Raikage’s granite, and they seemed to stave off the worst of the damage from those few times Kosan got close enough to damage her with the unique release.

She was distracted enough by this exercise that Takko managed to get a few good hits in, succeeding in breaking one of her wrists with a shattering, chakra-infused punch, but thankfully his follow-up lariat missed by a few inches as she slid by underneath the trajectory, stabbing the kodachi she carried towards his face, since it was the only unprotected part of him that she knew about. The blade passed close enough to catch in the tie of his eyepatch, and it fluttered to the ground, blown away soon enough on Kosan’s wind, and suddenly the was looking at the most curious case of heterochomia she had ever seen. His other eye was a peculiar gold-green, but the pupil was slitted, like one would see in the eye of a cat or reptile. The grin stretching across his face, however, was entirely feline, pointed incisors and all.

“Bit of a secret: Mata and I don’t always get along so well,” he confessed, though it was more in a tone of dark amusement than anything, and when he next swiped for her, he did it with claws. Midori leaped back just in time, but this time right into the rapier-blow Kosan was aiming for her. At the last second, she twisted, and it only just scraped her side rather than piercing her abdomen, as it had doubtless been aimed to do.

Rei, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the opening provided by Kiyoko as much as she could, though that was admittedly not much. At least the managed to get out of the way of the two ninja while they were struggling to free their chakra, though, and it gave her the opportunity to use her Kekkei Genkai, which she did. It was a subtle thing, and not at all flashy. In fact, unless a person was sensing chakra at the time, it was impossible for anyone but the other party to tell that she was using it at all. It was considerably more interesting for someone who was, however, because it was the process of two chakra systems becoming meshed, something which was not usually possible for even a medic-nin.

It activated just as the two broke free of Kiyoko’s fūinjutsu, leach leaping to the side. Rei allowed the one that rushed her in the aftermath to hit her full in the stomach, because the unpleasant realization that he himself had just felt the same pain was a little amusing. It was an unfortunate side-effect of the damn technique when she used it to heal, because she could then feel the pain of the person she was tethering to life, but fortunately, her pain tolerance was high enough to still be effective. She’d been good at resisting torture long before she’d actually been tortured, after all. As it turned out, however, there was little chance to capitalize further on what might have become an advantage.

Time to go. The words were as clear to Midori as if she had thought them herself, and in the end, it was basically equivalent anyway. Jumping further away, she slammed a fist into the barrier Rei had used to hold two of her soldiers, and it shattered on impact releasing them. They and their fellows moved with her, and only she glanced back for even a moment. “You may tell your friends that this is not over,” she informed them, the first time she had spoken during the entire fight. Her voice was musical, but held a low note of something melancholy in it. What that meant, it was impossible to say, but the warning was delivered with neither arrogance nor relish—simply stated, as though it were fact.

Moments later, they vanished.

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#2014-10-03 06:24:06, as written by JokerofSpades

Kiriko revelled in the connection between her fist and the other nin: it was something she was missing, the ability to literally rip apart her opponent, even if her opponent was still in one piece. Panting more heavily than she was used to, Kiriko gave one last smile before taking an attempt to walk forward, only to collapse. Her eyes wide, Kiriko barely got her hands down in time in an attempt to catch herself, but ultimately just fell down. What... What's going on? That was her last thought before the feeling in her legs disappeared completely, only to be replaced by an intense buring sensation. Another muffled scream was emitted as it felt like her legs simply had erupted in flames; or more specifically, the chakra of her legs was replaced with fire. Kiriko could feel the fire slowly creep past her legs and slowly make it to the torso, all the while her body was slowly losing motor function.

Kiriko was finally able to tilt her head enough to see her opponent, who instead of finishing her off like any normal person would, instead grabbed his partner and vanished. His face was still ingrained in her mind as she swore at him profusely; she had dragged her limp body towards where he had taken off before her arms simply refused their master, and she was stopped. All she could do now was muffle her screams with the ground itself while the poison continued its conquest of her body, seemingly setting her insides on fire while disabling her ability to move. She simply laid there now, unable to writhe in pain, unable to see anything as she was only able to stare at the unchanging dirt.

As her vision blurred and her speech began to slur, all she could think of was Takko and her failure. Was there any real point in continuing now that she had failed? Was this an attack on the two Kages to remove the talks of peace? Kiriko didn't really care what their motives were; it didn't matter now anyway. She was no longer fit to be the partner of the Raikage: she was supposed to be his protector and partner, his eyes where he could not see. If she could not beat rogue ninjas that threatened his life, what good was she? As the poison overtook her once again, she couldn't muffle her scream this time as her jaw no longer completely followed her directions. Her mind was cleared, as if the poison burned her thoughts away, and left her with only two words which she struggled to say. "End.... Me...."

“Not today.” The voice, as it turned out, belonged to Rei. Her team had suffered damage, certainly, including impressive cracks to the Raikage’s granite armor and her own broken leg, but a quick application of healing chakra and she was at least functional enough to go check on the other members of her team, leaving Takko and Kosan in care of Kiyoko’s abilities. But she wasn’t taking the chance that some Leaf medics would arrive and not prioritize the treatment of Kiriko or Nari, wherever they were, and let them die for that reason.

As it happened, she’d found Kiriko first, and from the state of her, that was a good thing—she didn’t look to be in good shape, and someone with as much willpower as she had wouldn’t be down like this unless there was just no way she could possibly stand again. Her pride wouldn’t allow for it, or at least that was how Rei saw things. The cause of this state was evident enough when she saw the bite wound on Kiriko’s ankle, and the medic-nin grimaced. A quick scan of the area revealed that Katsuro was unconscious—she’d have to check on him next. He had helped Zetsu out in his information hunt, after all. Ryuu was also there, but considering that he was conscious and not facedown in the dirt, she’d have to wait on asking after him either.

“Takko’s fine,” she said, knowing that Kiri’s first priority would likely be the Raikage. That was as it should be, and Rei understood it perfectly. “So is Zetsubō, but I’m not sure where Nariko is. She may have gotten caught up somewhere in the fighting.” Never one to waste time, Rei worked as she talked, reaching into the pouch tied to her thigh and drawing out a small vial of a dark fluid. Usually, this technique required that someone be restrained, because of the pain of it, but judging from the way Kiri wasn’t moving anyway, thrashing was not going to be an issue.

“Sorry, Gekkō, but this is going to hurt,” Rei informed her calmly, using a chakra scalpel to open the bite wound wider, connecting the two points of entry on her teammate’s ankle. The painful part, though, was when she had to force the fluid into Kiri’s bloodstream, using it to draw and suspend all of the poison in her arteries and veins. It was not a nice process, not in the slightest, but it did draw out the remainder of the toxin, and Rei ushered it back into the vial, which she corked. The whole thing took extreme precision even for a medic, but it worked. “I’ll have a proper antidote in a few hours tops, so take it easy until then.” Most of Kiri’s motor function would be back already, but for full recovery, the antidote was advised, but she’d need time to make it, even after she’d finished checking over everyone else.

Kiriko was genuinely surprised when she heard a voice from overhead, especially one that she recognized. She would have moved her head to acknowledge the voice, but it didn't matter even if she could: Kiriko recognized Rei's voice even if she couldn't see her. Kiriko didn't know how to respond to Rei's counteractive statement to her own -she remained motionless as Rei continued to work, unable to really focus on the words that Rei really spoke besides the fact that Takko was alive and well. While the feeling of relief washed over her, guilt instantly replaced it as she realized that she had been useless to him; her job was as his protector, and if she couldn't manage that task, what good was she? Kiri's whole life had been dedicated to finishing missions flawlessly to protect those she cared for, and yet here she was: basically a dead weight.

Kiriko heard another mumble from Rei - the word 'hurt' was used, if she heard correctly - before a dull pain ripped through her ankle near the cut. What happened next, Kiriko could not aptly describe with words: all she felt was searing pain, as if her insides were being forced out of her body through a narrow tube. The pain instantly caught her off guard, and her screams pierced the previously still air until she was able to muffle them. The next few moments of searing pain were in muffled silence as Kiri's body writhed weakly in distress, until it suddenly stopped. Panting, Kiri heard words in the distance, as each word became more and more clear; something about a proper antidote and taking it easy if she recalled correctly. Slowly, her body began to revitalize itself, and the feeling that she was actually alive began to creep its way back.

Not one for taking advice from others, as soon as Kiri felt she was strong enough to raise herself, she struggled to prop her head up from the ground so that she could see the world, and Rei as she left. Before she was out of earshot, however, Kiriko mumbled out a few coherent words: "I.... Thank you, Rei." It sounded much more bashful than she had anticipated, but it mattered not; she could always use the excuse that she had just been poisoned. Nevertheless, she wanted to get to Hiko as fast as she could - then again, it was hard to do so when your legs felt weaker than the leaves of the trees in autumn. She would have to wait, no matter how hard she pushed herself.

Rei, sensitive to Kiriko’s attitude towards such things, didn’t make a big deal out of her tone, nor of the circumstances under which she’d found her. “Not a problem, Kiriko.” At this point, she figured the other woman was best left to decide how she wanted to handle the situation herself, though Rei was sure that Takko would be glad to see her. Rather than saying this directly, however, she simply moved onto the next patient—the Uchiha.

He was in shit shape, to be completely honest, and she could hardly fault him for the fact that he was barely conscious. Kiriko’s screaming had produced some kind of instinctive reaction in him from the look of things, as he seemed to have been trying to orient himself in that direction, as if to help. Of course, there was nothing to help with, but he was hardly in a position to know that. Still, looking at him now, half-curled in on himself, bleeding from no fewer than two dozen wounds, unfocused eyes still locked in the direction from which he’d heard the pained cries of another human being… she wondered if he was really so cold as he wanted everyone else to think. Well, perhaps it wasn’t any of her business in the first place, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was when people were really trodden down that they showed you their true colors, and his just looked more red than black to her.

She put the thought from her mind, though, as she knelt at his side, talking even though she was uncertain whether he’d even be able to process her words. A voice in the proximity, lacking panic, was sometimes enough to be of assistance. “Hang in there, Uchiha, I’ve got you.” She wondered where his own village’s triage teams were, though honestly they were probably overtaxed, working from the inside out, and wouldn’t be this far to the edge of the village for a while yet.

She didn’t want to risk moving him too much, for fear of aggravating his injuries, but she did need to get a look at them. The uniform shirt he was wearing came off easily enough under the edge of a chakra scalpel, and the fact that she had to peel it off his skin was not a good sign. She heard him make a sound, something like a hiss, when she removed it as efficiently as possible, and she winced at the crosshatched wounds. Whomever he’d been against had not been kind to him—this looked more like ritualized torture than a real fight, and Rei swallowed thickly. She knew the difference better than most people would ever have to. “I’ve got you,” she repeated, the words Shizu had once spoken to her the only ones easy to her lips in this particular moment.

Putting him back together as well as she could wasn’t quite the advanced process that poison extraction was, but she had no doubt that it was taking a lot out of her. She’d used a considerable amount of chakra already today, and while she was always working on increasing her reserves of it, she was only a bit better than the average ninja in that area at the moment. By the time the worst of Katsu’s wounds—the largest slashes and the most shattered of the breakages—were done, she’d had to use her chakra to empty his lungs of blood three times, and that took a bit more than healing the average cut.

He was out cold by then, the strain no doubt more than his body could really take at present, and she was just glad he had so much chakra of his own to work with—almost as much as Takko had, actually, when he claimed Matatabi was being a bit more cooperative than she usually was. That much meant that however brutal the battle, it had not been all used up, and she could put some of it to work helping heal his body.

Rei sat back, exhaling in a sigh and wiping the back of a hand across her head, turning to the last of the shinobi still present. “Anything I can do for you, Tsukino?” she asked, though she was showing signs that her fatigue was catching up with her. Her breaths were steady, but abnormally deep, and she’d forgone the crouch to sit seiza, so as to conserve energy.

Ryuu looked towards the voice who addressed him. His mismatched eyes were glazed with something. However, it quickly dissipated and reflected the visage of someone he knew well about. It was none other than her. He noticed that she was not exhausted by physical effort, but of tending to the wounded shinobi present in the area. She apparently used her chakra intensely and judging by that, it only meant those two suffered heavy injuries. In any case, his answer to the question did not come easily as he prioritized looking at the others who had been treated already. Uchiha was still alive as well as Gekkō. Of course, they should be. It was expected on his part.

"I'm fine."It was a short answer as he turned his back on her and began to walk away. Right now, he would like to be alone and get some sleep which had been unceremoniously disturbed. Yet, he ignored the fact that he has some internal bleeding and more importantly, his hand and arm were now sporting cellular damages from the jutsu he was about to use earlier. It was a backlash he had expected when it was not thrown away or even stabilized. That is why he had concluded before that there would be a furious scolding from that person. Well, he would accept that.

Midway in his walk, he stopped as blood came out of his mouth. He covered with his other hand as the other was now unusable until proper treatment had been done to it. If not, he would probably be maimed but that was not his concern at all. "Tsk." He clicked his tongue as he wiped his mouth with the back of his uninjured arm and continued to walk on. It would seem that he needed some medical assistance, but, he would not be seeking the one who had offered if she can do anything for him. Instead, he would be seeking the help of another. That should not be difficult, however; the question is if he will reach there with enough provisions of his present condition.

He was simply being stubborn at the wrong time. It seemed his bad mood was still a continuing process.

Rei didn’t miss the faint splash that accompanied a few drops of blood hitting the ground, nor could she mistake the sound for anything else. Sighing, she glanced down at Katsuro. “Are all of you Konoha shinobi this stubborn, or did I just get stuck dealing with the proud fools?” Being unconscious, there was of course no way he could answer her, and she sighed again, knowing this was going to be murder on her still-tender foot. But it wasn’t like anyone else was in a fit state to do it. So it was with some difficulty that she lifted the taller—though not much taller, thankfully—Uchiha, slinging him over her back and leaning forward slightly so that gravity would do some of her work for her.

Glancing over at Kiriko, she pressed her lips into a grim line. “I’ve got to get this one to the hospital for more treatment. Do you think you can go check on Takko?” She expected that the Raikage would be fine, in all honesty, but Kiri really needed to see that for herself, if Rei’s intuition about her current mental state was anywhere near correct.

Fortunately, the hospital, located near to the Hokage’s building, seemed to be the general direction in which Ryuu was heading as well. Birds, meet stone. Jogging a bit so as to catch up, she tried not to wince when the pressure on her foot sent little needles of pain up from her ankle. They really hadn’t been kind with that one, had they? “Oh for goodness’ sake,” she groused, shaking her head upon observing the blood streaking across the back of his one arm and how the other hung uselessly at his side. “It’s fine if you trust one of your own village’s medics more than me. I won’t be offended. But at least let me stabilize you so you can make it to one of them.”

Kiriko did not acknowledge Rei's first comment as she went to help out the other fighters that were just as unlucky as Kiriko, but in a completely different manner. Kiriko struggled to keep her head up as she watched Rei walk over to the absolutely battered Uchiha, and studied the reclusive man. He reminded her of herself, really - only with a chakra that was so potent with potential it was sickening. The fact that she was able to sense his chakra once again meant that she was regaining a lot of her cognitive abilities as well, even if the sense was somewhat dull for the amount of chakra she had read off of him earlier. Kiriko used that as a marker that she should be able to move soon, and made the mistake of attempting to prop up to a possible standing position. Instead, her body collapsed on her, and she was instead on her elbows, panting. Seemed as if the poison's effects felt like holding on for the fun of it, and weren't the speediest to give her back the strength to get up yet.

As she struggled to get to a standing position, her mind wandered into some seriously dangerous territory - almost as dangerous as after the war. The faces of her new enemies kept going through her head as she finally made it to a sitting position. Their every feature would be engrained into her mind as she knew she would hunt them to the ends of the earth. She had no other purpose if she didn't; Hiko would find somebody more suitable to guard him, seeing as how she failed miserably at performing a simple task, and she would devote her life to the extermination of those that dared to ruin her reputation. Kiriko's mind continued to dwell as she finall pushed herself up into a shakey standing position as she began to envision how she would find them, what she would do to them: she could even taste the blood that they would gush after she was done-

Rei's comment took Kiriko out of her dark corner, to which she was silently grateful for. That was a place in which she rarely came out of, for it required Hiko to make a comment, her mother scolded her for brooding or some sheer willpower, which she had none currently. Kiriko made a stern nod in Rei's direction - as stern as one coming off of the effects of a neurotoxin could, anyway - and watched as Rei hobbled off with the Uchiha. With her sensory ability limited, Kiriko had to guess that Hiko was still in the Compound, and began the slow walk over. For onlookers, Kiriko probably looked like a frail old woman with little to no ability to walk; her head was only tilted up enough to make sure she didn't run into things, her back hunched over, her pace slow and jagged. Each step was exhausting, but at least her legs were obeying her and moving at a pace, instead of lying limp beside her. Count the small blessings, she guessed. Her train of thought began to wander a bit as the walk painfully continued forward, as she mulled over how horrid her kimono must look from the outside, with its new stains and tears as well as her missing sandals.

When Kiriko thought that she would have been out of the village by now, she looked up a little more to realize she almost ran into the pole to the Uchiha Compound, and gave a ragged sigh of relief. Putting up a hand on the pole to stabalize herself, Kiriko caught her breath before moving towards the building she had been sleeping in for a while now. She couldn't really see the destruction that had been caused, nor did she care. Her thoughts became narrow as she reached the door and nearly collapsed in exhaustion, panting profusely as she thought of only one thing: finding Hiko.

There it was again, the persistence which Ryuu currently does not appreciate at the moment. If it has been any other day or perhaps even time, he would have taken such a trait as an interesting note. Unfortunately, he was not in the mood to say at the very least. His wounds? Injuries? They were inconsequential to him. Really, they were. He was not going to die from them. That fact was pretty much he was certain of. So to effect, there was really no need for her pestering. Yes, he was starting to see her as a pest. "Should you not treat yourself first?" He stated with a tone wrapped in concession without even looking at her direction as he continued with his pace. It would appear that he had noticed her condition even if it had appeared that he did not care about anything around him right now.

His two-colored eyes reflected the visage of the hospital which meant that they were near. All he had to do was to endure a bit more and soon enough, this will be over. However, his body failed him a bit as he made a sudden stop. With his available hand, he covered his mouth as blood spilled forth much like a riveting fountain. As it would appear, the internal damage caused by getting hit directly by that lightning jutsu did more than he had anticipated. Really, he would like nothing more but to crush those attackers until there would be no traces of them even bones. Yes, that would be fun. Yet, there was a different intended course for them to take and he must allow them.

There was another fit of vomiting blood as he ultimately sat on the ground unceremoniously. He was getting tired from such actions and soon enough made himself comfortable by lying down. Closing his eyes, he felt the aches, pain, and the tiredness engulfing his entire body. It was probably due to the adrenaline pumping within him earlier had already dissipated. "Hinode-san." He stated with a voice akin to that of child with a dislike of waking up early. "You shouldn't force yourself too much." There was once again his mask put into place that even beyond those fictitious smile provided a tint of concern. "I just need rest." He decided on that as his breathing seemed to endure a normal pace. However, his wounds would not heal without the needed stimulation by the medics. "So do you."

She wasn’t sure what was the cause of this stubborn insistence on being fine. Sometimes it was a pride thing, usually a male pride thing, though women could have it too. Sometimes, other shinobi considered the skills of medical nin to be somehow inferior, because their skills were not the flashiest or most straightforwardly combative, and apparently some people took that to mean they were less respectable. Still others had a paranoia about others interfering with their own bodies. While this might just be some kind of pride, she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the other possibilities, leaving the other option to be that he just had some personal issue with her.

Well, fine, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a good reason to refuse help, and she shook her head. They were both heading to the hospital anyway, and she just decided that if something happened on the way, she’d address it, and if not, she’d let him have his way. Shifting the Uchiha slightly on her back, she responded with the sort of calm straightforwardness that characterized her medical training. “I have treated myself. My leg’s a bit tender, but if you’d seen it before, you’d understand.” She left it at that—there was no need to whine or waste too much breath. It would probably only annoy them both at this point.

She drew the line, however, when he collapsed into a seated position on the ground. Lowering herself a little more carefully, mindful of her passenger, she eased Katsuro onto the ground so that she could move a little more freely. “Sure we do,” she agreed readily enough. “And we’ll both get it—when we walk into the hospital under our own steam. I can’t carry two of you.” She raised an eyebrow and half-smiled, but it was pretty clear that she was entertaining exactly no objections about whether or not she was allowed to stem that internal bleeding. Her hands were already encased in the needed chakra, and she splayed her fingers over his back, where his lungs were located, such that her hand was lodged against the ground, and her other hand mirrored the positioning in front.

It wasn’t a full heal by any means, just enough to stem the flow of his internal lacerations. She could not help but notice, however, the extensive cellular damage he’d undergone, and traces of scarring from the same, over an extended period of time, as though he repeatedly did something that caused him serious internal injury. It was similar in principle almost to a technique she knew for rapid cellular regeneration, one that called on the body’s ability to replace all of its cells early. There were a finite number of such things in any person’s lifetime, just like there was a finite number of times he’d be able to do… whatever it was, before he expired.

He had to know. There was no way you could do that to your body and not be aware that something was terribly wrong. She could only assume it was the side effect of some jutsu or another, but it seemed a steep price to pay. Her lips pressed together, but she remained silent on the matter. It wasn’t really any of her business—he owed her no explanations. So once she was sure he’d stopped bleeding and could breathe more easily, she withdrew her hands. “There. Wasn’t so terrible, I hope?”

That was pretty much useless for having his bravado about not receiving any kind of her aid. There are certain reasons in which he did not like her to help him. Of course, he could not say that outright to her. Which would be odd if one is judging of his persona, well, it was just temporary. Eventually, he will be able to say it or she would find out. But, it was not now. In any case, he could not help but sigh in light irritation as he closed his eyes. This time, he did not resist nor say anything against her initiative to stop his internal bleeding. Actually, it truly helped as his body felt a bit better. He could not deny her an answer as she asked about his opinion in regards to her assistance. "You just can't keep your hands off me, can you?" There was a smile filled with mischief upon his face and a tone which insinuated a certain matter.

Regardless, he stood from his position. It is true that she stabilized his condition. So, he was not a person without manners. Actually, he really was as it is more fun. But then again, he is aware of his responsibility. Instead, he looked at the unconscious Uchiha. The prodigy was beaten rather badly. There was no doubt in his mind that Katsuro's pride had been damaged. Anyone will suffer the same outcome as the enemy group left them in a complete bind. It seemed like they were nothing more, but a toy when they are bored. Well, it was fine. The people will rebuild what was lost. So, there should be no problems. For now...

"I will be taking him." With one arm, he heaved Katsuro to his shoulder without even an ounce of delicacy. Well, he was knew that Uchicha was tough. So, that should be no problem. In addition, he would not be taking any complaints from her, this is simply how it is needed to be done. His mismatched eyes glanced at her form. He knew that she had been presented with something odd about his personal health. But, this would remain a secret and he does not owe her anything to explain. Moreover, he has no intentions for anyone to know about his odd condition. So, it will remain the same. Although, there will be something he will do. "Thanks." Without much warning, he placed a kiss on her forehead and then fluidly went on his way to the hospital.

Rei sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead for a moment before she dropped it again. “Weirdo."

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Rei Hinode

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a character in “Naruto: End of Attrition”, as played by Dynamite

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Rei Hinode's Story

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