Announcements: Cutting Costs (2024) » January 2024 Copyfraud Attack » Finding Universes to Join (and making yours more visible!) » Guide To Universes On RPG » Member Shoutout Thread » Starter Locations & Prompts for Newcomers » RPG Chat — the official app » Frequently Asked Questions » Suggestions & Requests: THE MASTER THREAD »

Latest Discussions: With Chat currently offline... An alternative » Adapa Adapa's for adapa » To the Rich Men North of Richmond » Shake Senora » Good Morning RPG! » Ramblings of a Madman: American History Unkempt » Site Revitalization » Map Making Resources » Lost Poetry » Wishes » Ring of Invisibility » Seeking Roleplayer for Rumple/Mr. Gold from Once Upon a Time » Some political parody for these trying times » What dinosaur are you? » So, I have an Etsy » Train Poetry I » Joker » D&D Alignment Chart: How To Get A Theorem Named After You » Dungeon23 : Creative Challenge » Returning User - Is it dead? »

Players Wanted: Looking for a long term partner! » JoJo or Mha roleplay » Seeking long-term rp partners for MxM » [MxF] Ruining Beauty / Beauty x Bastard » Minecraft Rp Help Wanted » CALL FOR WITNESSES: The Public v Zosimos » Social Immortal: A Vampire Only Soiree [The Multiverse] » XENOMORPH EDM TOUR Feat. Synthe Gridd: Get Your Tickets! » Aishna: Tower of Desire » Looking for fellow RPGers/Characters » looking for a RP partner (ABO/BL) » Looking for a long term roleplay partner » Explore the World of Boruto with Our Roleplaying Group on FB » More Jedi, Sith, and Imperials needed! » Role-player's Wanted » OSR Armchair Warrior looking for Kin » Friday the 13th Fun, Anyone? » Writers Wanted! » Long term partner to play an older male wanted » DEAD! »

0
followers
follow

Zetsubō Kosan

"Peace or War. Treaty or not. I will find you, and I will take everything you love away from you as you did to me, only then, when your life is collapsing around you will I kill you."

0 · 1,630 views · located in Naruto Universe

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

Description



Image



Image

Despair, Little Sun
I am not naive. People die in war. Mothers, fathers, son and daughters. I am nothing special neither are the thousands that have lost their families, we are dust in the wind, cogs in the machine of war, the currency of nations, but I will have my vengeance. I will feel their blood cover my hands, I will watch the light slowly drain from their eyes... It changes nothing. I know that, but I must do it because I need to know the debt is paid. Someday, someone will come for me looking for their own vengeance. All we can hope for in this world is that we satiate our own ambition before our end meets us.






Theme

Eric Clapton || Tears in Heaven
America|| A Horse with No Name
Bryan Adams|| Sound the Bugle
Disturbed || Animal
Korn || Coming Undone
Geroge Michael | Careless Whisper
Disturbed | Perfect Insanity
Seether | Truth
Disturbed | The Infection
Live||Lightning Crashes





Image





Image
A debt of blood can never be repaid. It only grows with every new victim until it drowns the world in its red tide. I must admit a part of me, a darker part of me, desires to see it. A world drowning in its own blood.






Nickname
[Ko|Chihasu(Blood Lotus)]

Age
[27]

Gender
[Male]

Village
[Kumogakure]

Clan
[No Clan]

Kekkei Genkai
[None]

Chakra Nature
[Lightning | Wind]

Ninja Rank
[Jonin]

Role:
[That Kumo Jonin Guy]

Face Claim:
[Toshizo Hijikata | Hakuouki ]





Image





Image
These peace talks amount to nothing more then an attempt to put a band-aid on a missing limb. Peace is just the time we can use to gather our breath before our next conflict. It delays the inevitable.






Hair Color
[Black]

Eye Color
[Blue]

Skin Tone
[Fair]

Height
[6'1]

Weight
[193]

Physical Description

[Kosan is not an overly impressive man standing at an average height of only 6'1 and nor is he very large. While, like all ninja, he has his share of muscle mass, he is by no means a model of a warrior god. His body is lithe and toned, with wiry muscles running under his body more suited to agility and speed then pure strength as he is not winning any arm wrestling contest soon. His legs and arms are both very long, giving him a very slender look that he mockingly calls a 'stick figure'. He has no behind to speak off, very flat. His hips are narrow, dangerously close to being called 'boyish'. His redeeming qualities in terms of his physical body is his wide shoulders and large hands with long fingers which he is fairly proud of but does gives him a rather odd figure, almost like a very thin triangle with his body getting thinner as it goes further down.

He is what is described as an 'attractive' man. His jaw is sharp and strong, with high cheek bones, thin arching eyebrows and sharp almond eyes gives him a very refined, almost, regal appearance which is completely at odds with his station at life. His eyes are always what garners the most attention as they are very sharp and clear crystal blue that do nothing to hide what he is thinking or feeling. His very soul and being seems to reveal itself in his fierce blue eyes that are either constantly searching for something only he could see, dulled in memory, or dancing with amusement. His long flowing black hair reaches the middle of his back and is usually tied off into a long ponytail by his Hitai-ate. Two long white strips come down to run along the sides of his hair.

His voice is a baritone that holds a quality of calm and controlled, it is almost soothing as there is a soft rumble at the end of his words. He constantly has the faint scent of lavender hanging about him that comes from a small talisman his daughter made for him wrapped around the silver necklace that his old wedding ring hangs from, beyond that faint smell, is the scent of cherry wood and soil, he has a very earthy scent, but it is far from being over-whelming.]





Image





Image
A man needs nothing to die for, but he needs everything to live for.






Potential Interest
Pass: Kosan has already been widowed. He has no desire to look for love or even flings. He is still haunted by his wife's memory and believes he cannot rest or find personal happiness until his vengeance has been fulfilled. That, and his daughter would have to accept whoever he fell in love with otherwise it wouldn't work, but love has a way of finding someone rather they like it or not.

Skills

    Close Combat || Kosan is a master of close combat extremely skilled in both Taijutsu and Kenjutsu. He has developed his own style called Hasukiba and is a master in two other hand to hand fighting styles. To keep his foes on edge, he loves to switch between his fighting styles on the fly to keep them off balance and never let them get his timing down. He is an exceptional swordsmen utilizing his own personal style in his swordplay preferring to use a rapier with its quick thrust attacks that most opponents are not used to. He considers himself to be one of the greatest close combat fighters in Kumogakure.
    Chakra Control || Kosan does not have a large Chakra supply despite being a Jonin, instead, he makes what he has go for a long way. This is best exemplified by his Tempest which requires precise Chakra ratio otherwise it will not work or even turn fatal, but it is also shown in his smaller abilities which he uses to reinforce his skill in Taijutsu and Kenjutsu preferring to get close and fight in a way which uses as little Chakra as possible.
    Body Reading || He can read the movements of muscles in another's body when fighting. The slight twist of a shoulder, the slight leaning of weight, the movement in an eye, these are enough to let Kosan predict what his opponent will do and react to them accordingly giving him incredibly reaction speeds. He cannot predict ninjutsu as he cannot see the chakra nor can he copy their movements as while he can see what they are doing, he cannot force his muscles to suddenly move in that new pattern. The longer he fights someone, the better at reading and predicting their moves he gets.

Ninjutsu
Fūton: Atsugai || Wind Release: Pressure Damage
Fūton: Renkūdan || Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet
Raikyū || Does it with his hands by creating a static charge within the molecules in the air. Lightning Ball
Fūton: Ago No hebi (Jaws of the Serpent) || Condensing the wind around him, it takes the shape of a large serpent roughly ten meters long that flies forward and attempts to devour or otherwise bite the target

Taijutsu


Hasukiba (Lotus Fang) || One of the fighting styles that Kosan uses, it is named after the beautiful lotus flower as the movements are fluid like running water almost giving the appearance that the user is 'dancing'. It is a highly defensive form concentrating on twisting and turning to dodge blows with the least amount of effort possible and strike quickly with either an open palm or a nukite (Finger thrust) once there is an opening.

Rakanken || Arhat Fist, a simple yet very effective and brutal fighting style. It relies less on dancing and more on brutal strikes such as palm strikes, elbow and knee strikes at vital areas.

Arashi Gekido (Storm's Fury) || During Third Gate release or higher, Kosan can preform Arashi Gekido, using his boosted speed and Tempest, he rushes them and either knocks them into the sky or attacks them directly unleashing a barrage of Hell Stabs that are faster then the eye can hope to see. The higher the Gate, the more Hell Stabs are sent and the faster they are sent until his arms become a blur of constant stabs.

Kaze Taigā (Wind Tiger) || His third and final fighting style is Wind Tiger, his most aggressive fighting style. Using his chakra, he creates wind claws around his nails. Using powerful kicks, acrobatics and powerful slashes, it is a very chaotic fighting style with no discernible order or form making it impossible to read or predict. It is a very polite way to say the user gives into their primal instincts for blood, carnage and conquest.

This style has two states, Restrained and Unleashed. Few people can ever truly give themselves over to their primitive side and so the common version seen is the restrained form. While it is still a powerfully aggressive form, there is a limit on it and that is the users own mind. The form while still being savage is a controlled savagery which can be read and predicted like any other form. When they entered the 'unleashed' stage, the user has completely given themselves over to primal instincts. The savagery is truly shown and their is no form or reason to the movies making it utterly unpredictable, but the user gets reduced to nothing more then a bloodlusted beast.

Hasu Ame (Lotus Rain) || His strongest Taijutsu technique. It requires Tempest and 6th gate, at least, in order to work. The lightning chakra around his body starts to disrupt the cellular bonding of everything around them causing them to disintegrate, the disintegrated matter flares white for a moment, with it constantly going on and with his wind chakra kicking up, it tends to look like petals floating in the wind. Running forward, he unleashes a vicious combo of hell stabs, palm thrust, knees, and powerful kicks to the opponent usually keeping them suspended in air as it goes. He can only use this once as the resulting force leaves his own bones shattered, and the strain tears his muscles and tendons. He has yet to use it in combat and is saving it for... the person he needs to kill.

Kenjutsu
Hasukiba (Lotus Fang) || Identical to his Taijutsu form, he uses a rapier to parry and thrust into opponents. The strikes are lightning fast, graceful, and deadly accurate but lack kinetic force behind the blows. His style was designed primarily for his blade, he modifies it to use it unarmed.

Hachimon || Eight Gates, he can open all eight, but like everyone else, he will die. He has never gone past six.

Hari Tsuki (Needle Thrust) || Concentrating his wind chakra at the very tip of his rapier, he can use his sword to penetrate nearly any target.

Arashi Gekido (Storm's Fury) || Much like his Taijutsu form. Instead of hell stab, it is Hari Tsuki that is used in the combo.

Inazuma Furasshu (Lightning Flash) || Charging the blade with lighting, he can do two things, he can shock whatever is against it, he enjoys doing this when people put their blades against his, or he can create a massive burst of light to temporarily blind people.

Kaze Tsuki (Wind Thrust) || Using Tempest and after opening the fourth gate, Kosan can use the Wind Thrust. Thrusting his sword forward, it unleashes a powerful cone of wind energy that slices through anything in front of it. They are not very large being only half a foot in diameter, but he can send many at once.

Nintaijutsu
Jigokuzuki || Concentrates Lightning or Wind Chakra (Has to be in Tempest for both) around his hand then thrust it forward with his four fingers out making his hand able to pierce nearly anything he comes into contact with. Power increases the less fingers he uses.

Kurasshu Pāmu (Crushing Palm) || Striking someone with his palm, he releases a large amount of wind chakra at impact creating a large concussive force that can smash iron.

Shokku Haaku (Shocking Grasp) || If Kosan can grab someone or put someone into a joint lock, he uses the technique Shocking Grasp to charge his hands with lightning chakra and electrocute whoever he is holding, if he can maintain the hold, it tends to knock them unconscious unless they have an incredible pain tolerance.

Tenpesuto (Tempest) || Much like Lightning Armor, it surrounds his body with lightning Chakra, but unlike others, his is both Lightning and Wind, due to their conflicting nature, he has to get the exact concentration, 82% Lightning/18% Wind, in order to get them to work together. Note, he is not 'combining' them. It is more akin to using an Wind to power a Fire jutsu rather then combining the two to make a new element. The Lightning fires his neural synapses greatly increasing his speed and reflexes while the Wind oxidizes his blood giving him incredible physical endurance as well as increasing his muscle output increasing his strength. He combines Tempest with his various thrusting Kenjutsu and Taijutsu moves to make it incredibly deadly. This is incredibly draining, and he cannot sustain it for long before depleting his Chakra reserves, so once he enters it, it is do or die. It is called Tempest due to the massive amount of wind that engulfs him and the crackling of the lightning.




Image





Image
All my life, I was determined to prove myself a hero, but instead, I had become a monster. Fate has an odd sense of humor.






Other:
  • He uses a Rapier that his father created for him. It is the only weapon his father ever made, is custom fit to his hand and created to suit his own fighting style. To his knowledge, he is the only man within the Elemental Nations to use a sword primarily created for thrusting instead of the traditional slashing weapons favored by other ninja and samurai.
  • Has a minor dislike for those possessing Kekkei Genkai. He respects others, like himself, who have no special talent and instead became strong through sheer hard work and determination.

Habits

    Story Telling || Kosan has a deep love of stories. Whenever he is asked a question, it quite often degrades into some extremely long and pointless make believe story including mighty dragons and princesses. This is one of the reasons his superiors stopped expecting reports from him and why he makes a terrible scout.
    Sky Watching || The clouds and stars have a way of snapping up his attention. It is a fairly often occurrence for him to suddenly stop in the middle of whatever he is doing to look at the sky as something has caught his interest. He also loves to lay in grass and stare up at the sky.
    Left foot first || Kosan always steps with his left foot first. He is unsure why he does it as he is right handed and never noticed till his deceased wife pointed it out to him.






Likes
    His Daughter || Seiko is his entire world. She saved him from himself, and he believes he has been a very poor father to her and intends to rectify that. Without her, he would have given into insanity a long time ago.
    Tea || Kosan loves a good cup of tea, the smell alone relaxes him. He always finds time to sit down and enjoy a nice cup of tea no matter the situation.
    Cats || He has also had a deep love for cats and other fluffy adorable animals like raccoon and foxes.

Dislikes
    Konohagakure || All of his hate. He despises it and it's people. Logically, he understands that it isn't all their faults, that he cannot blame all of them for the sins of one, but he cannot stop the feeling that wraps around his heart whenever he sees that symbol on their head bands.
    Leek || The smell of Leek burns his nose and makes him noxious. He doesn't mind the taste or the texture, but the smell is terrible.
    Murderer || The man or woman who killed his wife will also be the being he hates the most. He will spend the rest of his life hunting them down, he will tear out their heart, he will watch the light drain from their eyes... he will take away everything they love as they did to him.






Strengths
    Melee || Kosan is a masterful warrior in close combat with few people that can truly give him a run for his money. It is one of the only two sources of pride he has in his life. His ability to read bodies and situations make him incredibly adaptable and one of the best Jonin in terms of straight combat.
    Will to Live || Kosan has a very powerful will to live. He needs to avenge his wife, he needs to survive to raise his daughter because of these two factors, Kosan pushes himself far harder then any other and fights with a savage ferocity in combat as he doesn't fight to kill, he fights to live. He is very hard to put down, able to push himself up even when he has nothing left in his tank, even when his body is broken and shattered, he forces himself to his feet. Someday, he will die standing.
    Friendly || Despite his old nature, Kosan is a friendly person. He enjoys telling stories and listening to others, he is easily excited and very patient with people. That said, he does not have many 'friends' as he keeps his heart to himself, but he is very easy to get along with and talk to making a perfect traveling companion or acquaintance.

Weaknesses
    Genjutsu/Fuinjutsu || He understands the theories behind both perfectly, but he cannot do either... at all. He has the control to be an expert in both, but he has never had a talent in them. His seals never look right, and he can never get his head around the idea of invading another's mind. His skill in both categories is a resounding.. non-existent.
    Monster || There is a primal rage and beast resting in his heart. It bashes against his walls and cages begging to be let out. To drown himself in their blood once more, to satiate his desire for vengeance on everything and everyone. To become the Chihasu once more. A particularly brutal fight may let this nature come out, or he may even tap into it in desperation, but he is also terrified of this side of himself, terrified it will regain control. He is constantly at war with himself.
    Obsession || Kosan is consumed with vengeance. Killing the person who killed his wife. It plagues nearly every waking thought. He has nightmares of his wife dying in his arms, dreams of feasting on the blood of the person who killed her. This can, and does, often blind him in fights and social interactions. If what he has been looking for in his reach, he would not let anything stop him. To hell with the treaty and his Kage. He would have his vengeance.





Image





Image
I know that it will solve nothing. It will not bring her back. It will not heal my soul, but there are some things that must be done. Some actions cannot be forgiven. Sometimes, blood is the only answer. War the only solution. Sometimes, you just need to kill a man.





]⌈Personality
Dutiful | Competitive | Inquisitive | Patient | Angry |Obsessive |


Among his many traits, his sense of duty has always been a large part of his being. Kosan has always felt a responsibility to someone, in fact, without something to fight for, someone to fight for, he collapses in on himself. His entire existence is dependent on others. He needs someone to fight for, something to fight for, someone to stand up for, someone to live for as he cannot do it alone. Despite losing everything, he still fought for his village because that was all he had left, it runs central to his very being as there is almost nothing that can break his oath to support, defend and die for his village, his kage, and his people. This somber tone, is contrasted by his love of competition. He loves to compete with people even if it is something small and meaningless as there is a certain rush and excitement that comes along with it. One of the easiest ways to earn his admiration and respect is for someone to challenge him and hold their own in a fist or sword fight as fighting a fellow close combat shinobi is something he enjoys immensely.

Kosan is very inquisitive, he loves and adores stories as well as learning. Nothing vexes him more then a mystery or a information he wants to know that is just outside of his grasp which he will chase until he finally finds it and learns all its secrets. Because of his nature, he tends to ask rather personal questions easily and it also makes him easy to lie to as he loves a good story and as long as the lie is more interesting then the truth, he will not push the matter. Kosan himself adores giving stories and if questioned about himself, he will often hand out a fake story that he believes sounds amazing. It does lead to some amusing situations when he tells someone two different life stories in a row without noticing it.

Along with this inquisitive nature is a very patient one. While he often pushes himself to exceed and tears his hair out over things, he is a very laid back and relaxed man. He loves to sit down, watch the clouds and enjoy a nice cup of tea as much as he loves running around. This patient nature makes him very easy to talk to as he has no problems with waiting until someone is ready, even if he does constantly nudge them to tell him to amuse himself, but as his dead wife used to joke, he should have been born a fisherman.

Hidden behind his half smiles and patient persona is a deep seated rage that is a monster within his soul trying to tear its way to the surface. It can often appear in his eyes as a flicker of intense heat and emotion before disappearing again to slink back to the dark cellar in his heart, and out of all his emotions, his rage is the one that breaks his patience the most. A simple fact is that he enjoys killing, while he does his best to control it, killing 'enemies' especially Konohagakure Shinobi makes him feel alive. Their pain brings him pleasure, and he knows just how sick it is, how close his mind is to shattering and diving into the bottomless pit that is his hatred and losing himself in it again. There are some moments when he wants to, wants to lose himself again, to forget the world and take solace in the bloodshed, to become a mindless beast until he finally runs into someone who is capable of putting him down, but he holds back his rage with ever weakening chains of duty to his home and love of his family, but the beast is there. Waiting at the very edge of his mind for the chains to weaken more, for his mind to shatter.

Constantly feeding and feeding off of his internal rage is his obsession. He needs to find the man or woman that killed his wife. Needs to. It doesn't matter the cost, it doesn't matter what will happen as a result, it must be done. The blood debt must be repaid. It is not uncommon to find him brooding over the details, trying to recall any detail about who killed her. Or him suddenly zoning out in the middle of a conversation as his mind is drawn back into that dark corner to bask in the inner rage and addiction that has gripped his soul. His obsession fuels him, empowers him, helps him push on, but at the same time, it is destroying him and tearing him apart from the inside out.




Image





Image
In my life, I have one small candle that I hold to my heart. It's flickering flame is more then enough to keep my small world bright and warm.






History

Kosan was a not born into some great ninja legacy or with great natural potential, he was the only child of a lowly chunin for a mother and a smith for a father. To call his mother mediocre would be an incredible understatement, she could barely gather her lightning chakra and spent most of her time doing C and D ranked missions to help his father who was... far from a good smith. He normally did cheap repair jobs and other menial task as he was not nearly skilled enough to dream of creating Shinobi weaponry. But despite living in a tiny house in the poorest area of the village, Kosan and his parents were happy. Growing up, his mother was his hero. Sure, she wasn't the Kage, sure she wasn't the strongest ninja in the world, but no other ninja scared the nightmares from underneath his bed, no other ninja carried him on her shoulders as they ran across the water, as they flew through the skies and through the trees. She was the strongest ninja in the world as far as he was concerned, and it was her that inspired him to take up the military traditions of Kumogakure and join the shionbi academy.

It was not easy as Kosan suffered from his mothers low chakra reserves, every day was a challenge with him always skirting the lines of expulsion for not being adequate. His mind was sharp, and he understood the theoretical parts perfectly, his written exam scores were always in the top three of the academy, but he nearly passed out when he created one measly clone. Would nearly faint if he held a transformation longer then ten minutes. The mocking of the other students, the pressure of the teacher... was almost too much for his young mind, and he would have dropped out if it was for his mother dying in the field. A mission gone wrong was what they told him and his father. A mission gone wrong. One... little mistake had cost him his mom. It didn't seem real at first. He would wake up every morning and run downstairs expecting to see her on the chair reading a book, he would sneak into his fathers room at night to try and see if she had come back.. but she was never there. His mother, his hero, had been taken from him over night. A week later, he overheard her old teammates, both Jonin, talking about her, reminisce, both joked about how she had even managed to survive so long given her pathetic talent. Kosan exploded, screamed at them in the middle of the street that he would prove them wrong. He would become strong, and they would regret their words. They would know that Kosan was strong and he was strong because his mother taught him to be strong.

The Jonin, having been caught by her child, tried to play it off as a joke. A joke between old friends missing their own teammates, but Kosan, even at such a young age, could see it in their eyes. They were trying to cover for themselves to save their image. His mother meant nothing to them. They had forgotten her, wrote her off as useless. This new found determination pushed the young Kosan to exceed his limits, to push his body to the brink every day until he finally passed the academy and became a Genin. He still was far from being in the top of the class, but he was no where near the bottom. His was assigned to team four under the watch of an old Jonin by the name of Hakuri. While very experienced and wise, Hakuri was far from war and loving, but that was fine, Kosan could take it as his soul burned to prove them wrong. He wasn't living his life for himself, he was living it for his mother... A fact his Sensei would later point out to him before his 2nd Chunin Exam.

The blow to his spirit was... huge. His Sensei followed up with claiming his mother would not want him living for her but living for himself. In one sentence, his Sensei had stripped away his motivation and left him defenseless and hollow. He knows now that his Sensei did it to force him to stand on his own and become stronger, but it crushed him back then. He failed that Exam in the first round while his two other teammates passed to become Chunin. After this, he was left... empty and hollow. His urge to train died down, his urge to become great had all but disappeared as he tried to find out who Kosan was. It was during this time that he met a newly risen Chunin, a prodigy who was a year younger then him and seeking to become a Medical Ninja, Shizu. She was so full of life, so full of wonder and ambition that it was nearly overwhelming. Despite her name meaning silence, she was far from it, instead she was loud and bright like the sun. He did not know it at the time, but he fell in love the second she looked at him with her bright emerald eyes.

They quickly became 'friends' with Shizu constantly pressuring him into being better, into training with her, and he couldn't say no to her emerald eyes. He could never say no to her. Thanks to her aid, he rose to Chunin after his 4th exam, but he had fallen behind as she was already on her way to becoming a full fledged medical nin. It was under her advisement that Kosan start working on Taijutsu instead of Ninjutsu, to start honing his elemental ability now instead of later, and he did so because she always seemed to know best. When Kosan was 16, on a rainy august day, he asked Shizu to marry him. It seems odd to marry so young, but Shinobi live dangerous lives, there was no guarantee that either of them couldn't die tomorrow. He had been so terrified, his long black hair sticking and masking his beat red face, her shocked wide eyed gaze as he had never even asked her on a date, but to his surprise and utter joy, she said yes.

At nineteen, he was gifted with a baby girl, who he named Seiko after his mother. She was so beautiful with his and his mothers bright blue eyes and Shizu's bright blond hair. If he could pick a single moment that he will cherish forever, it would be holding Seiko for the first time in his arms. Determined to make more money, he tried to advance to Jonin... with little success. Shizu had no problem becoming a Jonin, a very respected Jonin at only 17, while he was still just a chunin with low chakra reserves, but that was fine because he had a wonderful family. He would not make Jonin till after he created the Lotus Fang style and learn the Eight Gates technique, something he never uses unless under great duress, at the age of 22. He would enjoy three more years of peace, three more years of his family, three more years of watching Seiko learn to walk and talk before it began. The war.

At first, it seemed romantic. He would fight with his life on the line to protect his family and nation, and Shizu would save his life when he was ultimately beaten up. But, it was far from romantic. Not even three months into the war, Shizu was killed in an ambush. He ran for hours until he got to her side, he can still see her eyes draining of light, the blood that didn't seem to stop, her beautiful blond hair stained red, she had waited for him, the medic told him, held on to see him one last time. She held his hand... and smiled at him. Just.. smiled. Kosan begged her to stay with him, he couldn't survive without her... but she just rose her arm and stroked his face, smearing her warm blood along his face and told him that she loved him then she was taken from him. Why? Why had she died? She was a medic... she didn't like fighting and yelled at him for killing insects, she was kind. Why did she have to die? Why? Once again, he was left empty and hollow, he did not cry. Not a single tear fell from his shocked core, but his emptiness was replaced with one emotion. Rage. Pure, undiluted, all consuming rage.

He became little more then a beast. Kosan would be sent into battle and he would butcher his way through his enemy, he showed no mercy, killing the wounded and those that surrendered ignoring his own injuries. His Jonin Commander kept him on a tight leash, and it was during the next two and a half years that Kosan would earn the name Chihasu, the Blood Lotus. Once he bathed himself in their blood ripping their flesh with either his blade or claws, he would sit in their blood for hours. It stained his armor, stained his clothes, his hair, his skin. He did not speak, barely moved, and his eyes were always dead save for when he was fighting that is when he would come alive again, howling his rage at his enemy as he tore into them with the zeal only a blood lusted beast could have, with no fear for his own life.

In his time, he faced a few Shinobi that matched him, his most memorable fight was against a Hyuga, he doesn't know who, hell, he doesn't even know if it was a man or a woman, but they fought for hours. Their gentle fist vs his lotus fang, it ended in a draw with them bleeding heavily and Kosan not able to move his left arm. That mystery Shinobi is the only Konohagakure Shinobi he respects as they fought... magnificently. It is an odd feeling to appreciate an enemy, especially one he despises with his entire being, but their fighting style was beautiful and their fight felt like a dance.

Finally, after his latest bloodbath, he was sent home to recover. It was... an odd sensation to head back 'home', but there was no home. His home died on the battlefield with Shizu. When he got to the gates, he found an old man and a young girl waiting for him. At first, his blank soulless eyes did not recognize him. The young girl that was hiding behind his father, peeking out at the man who wore her fathers face until he saw her bright blond hair flutter in the wind and it all came back to him. Seiko. His little girl. In his blind grief, he had forgotten about his little girl. She had to face the death of her mother alone because he was a coward. Because he was a terrible father. Now, she was afraid of him. He had become a monster.

The strength in his legs went out and he fell to his knees, and for the first time, he cried. All the pain, the fear, the anger... all melted away, and Kosan cried before the gate of his village, before his daughter. He isn't sure when his daughter started to hold him, but all he remembers is holding her back, crying into her shoulder and whispering he was sorry. Over and over again. He was truly pathetic as it was his daughter who was rubbing his head as she whispered it was okay now, he was home. His eight year old daughter shouldn't have had to be the one who comforted him. Seiko had saved him from himself.

In the months to follow, he slowly became who he once was, but a part of him still burned. He couldn't forget it. His thirst for vengeance, his desire to kill the person who murdered Shizu. He wanted, no, he needed to avenge his wife. No matter the cost. He was preparing to return to the front when news of the peace treaty reached his ears, and he was struck with a mixture of anger and happiness. He was happy as it meant his daughter would get to enjoy a brief time of peace, but he was angry because it would try to keep him from his rightful vengeance. More surprising, he was chosen to accompany his Kage, but given his record in the war, perhaps it should not be, but he was no longer the beast that waited to be unleashed, he was Kosan, a man desiring revenge for his wife, and a man who loved his daughter. Nothing more.





Image





Image
I have seen darkness, true unending darkness, and it terrifies me. If it does not scare you then you are either a liar or a fool. There is a darkness in man's soul that cannot be changed, but it constantly seeks to change us. The second we allow it, we are lost.



So begins...

Zetsubō Kosan's Story

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Kiriko Gekkō Character Portrait: Katsuro Uchiha Character Portrait: Naomichi Yuhara Character Portrait: Rei Hinode Character Portrait: Akira Aburame
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK




Image
Image
Image




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.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Kiriko Gekkō Character Portrait: Rei Hinode Character Portrait: Takehiko Yamamoto Character Portrait: Kiyoko Uzumaki Character Portrait: Nariko Kaneshiro
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Taunbon



Image
Image
Image




For all the failures and faults of Konohagakure that Kosan was able to drag forth from his bitter memory, there was one thing he could not fault them. Their land was beautiful. It was almost mockingly so as Kumogakure was a pale comparison to the magnificent forest and green grass that swept the landscape as far as his sharp blue eyes could see. It was almost as if the land itself were mocking him as they were walking through it, the grass bending and sweeping under their feet, carrying them towards their destination, to talk of peace in their enemies' village. Kosan did not consider himself to be an expert in diplomacy, but he understood that meeting someone in their power base instead of a neutral location was a clear sign of dominance.

They were asking for a peace treaty from Konohagakure, and it revolted him. But there was nothing he could, or would, do to stop the talks. If Takehiko desired peace then he would do his best to see it done, but there was something far more important waiting in that village. Every footstep brought him one step closer to where the being that had haunted his dreams for years lived. Whenever he pondered on it, it brought upon a odd mixture of emotions from rage to anticipation and even fear of the confrontation.

Kosan snapped out of his thoughts when Takko spoke to Rei. He hadn't caught what, only her name and his voice had reached him from the dark corners of his mind. From their small interaction, he was able to hear the words he had been anticipating and dreading in equal measures to hear, they were close. Turning his blue eyes forward, he chose to ignore Takko's comment on making friends as he had no desire to make friends, if he had it his way, the city would be burning and the skies filled with the screams of newly created orphans, but perhaps that is why Takehiko was his Raikage, he was strong, but he had a good heart.

Turning his eyes to the left, he glanced at Rei for a second briefly wondering what she was thinking at this moment. How did she feel as they got closer? He knew a little of what she went through at the place, and Kosan felt remiss that he had not given her the attention he should have had as she must have felt something at returning to a place and people that had tortured her, but even if he had, what could he have given her save for empty words? The sudden spike of chakra nearly had Kosan reaching for his hilt, but he stayed his hand as he was on a mission for peace. He ran his blue eyes over the group before him, a few stood out instantly, one with an eyepatch that almost made him want to see him and Takko get in a staring contest, a red headed woman who, given her speech, was obviously the leader, and a very large blond man. Without measuring, it seemed he was a few inches taller then he was. Kosan turned his head to look at his Raikage, waiting for him to give his own introduction.




While the main pack continued their descent on the forest like nation that was the Hidden Leaf Village, Kiriko brought up the rear for obvious reasons: as a sensor, she could tell when others were approaching from behind. As the ‘Guardian’ of the Raikage, it was her duty to make sure that all sections were protected; even if she knew well enough that not many of those selected would need it. Nevertheless, she continued her duties correctly and without hesitation - especially since she had been assigned it by Hiko himself. It was probably to make sure she didn’t start a conversation with one of the others and start an inner war with those that she didn’t know entirely. Her kimono flowed with the wind as her head continued to swerve and observe the landscape - she had initially refused to care about its beauty, but ultimately had to give the place some credit.

The mission gave her much time to ponder her worries, but mostly attempt to figure out just why this mission existed. Why bother attempt a peace treaty, when it was obvious that the Leaf would attempt something shifty? Hiko had gone out of his way to make sure that it looked one sided, and Kiri knew that if she were the Leaf, she would take advantage of that power instantly. Granted, she wasn’t one to really talk: she cared for no village. Villages were simply a collection of people with the same ideals under a ruler that was deemed strongest. The idea that they would fight against another village simply because the leaders have different symbols on their foreheads was absurd. Yet she knew that patriotism was a thing amongst others, so she would have to factor it in if a blood bath was destined to occur.

Of course, Kiriko heard what Hiko and Rei spoke of, and focused on the arrival that was deemed imminent. There was only a sliver of nervousness, simply because she had been told strictly by Hiko to ‘keep her mouth closed and not stare at like you want to kill them so often’. She could even hear the hint of laughter in his voice, which had made her nostalgic. The fact that Hiko was so carefree and full of life made her envious of him, but she knew that he didn’t have it any better than she: the only difference was that she was labeled a monster, and he a hero. However, her thoughts were torn as the chakra she had sensed a while away finally came into focus, and she began the chakra signatures. For a supposed welcome party, the amount of raw power that emanated from their beings did not make her feel any more welcome than when she tried killing them in the war.

They arrived in front of the Leaf nin quite rapidly, and then she began to profile them from the back, and already deemed herself to be the smallest one of them all. Not that it bothered her, as being the smallest always had perks in the ninja world: fitting through small spaces, lighter footprints, hacking at their ankles. Yet despite this, she couldn’t help but shrink at the size of them, even their one woman was massive. Nevertheless, the one named Uzumaki - most likely the descendent of the deceased - addressed the Raikage. Only she addressed Kosan, the swordsman, instead. Kiriko couldn’t help it as she snaked her way beside Hiko to stare the woman straight in the eye and speak - breaking the rule she was supposed to keep. At least she tried her hardest not to harden her eyes - but that didn't stop her voice from sounding a little dead.

”It would be wise for you to address the right person as Raikage if you wish to discuss a peace treaty, don’t you think?”




From the way Uzumaki-san was positioned just slightly oriented towards Kosan, Takehiko suspected that she might have come to the conclusion that he was the Raikage. He did look more the part, perhaps, with a bit of refinement to him, like an actual leader was probably supposed to have. Takko… well, he looked more like someone’s hired muscle, really, and it was perhaps just one more sign that he wasn’t really suited to this job. But… nevertheless, it was his and he had to do it properly, so he would.

His thoughts were interrupted by movement from behind him, and for a moment, he just blinked down at Kiriko next to him, and down was the operative word, considering the difference in height between them. He’d half-jokingly asked her not to say much, if only because he was afraid that she might be a little too… forthright and get herself in trouble, but he wasn’t upset with her, not in the slightest. Instead, he smiled, and reached up a hand to lay on her head, an old gesture from their shared youth. “It’s all right, Kiriko,” he said mildly, directing his attention to the redheaded woman who had spoken first. “I’m still quite new, after all.”

Clearing his throat, he raised his other hand to about shoulder level and waved it almost sheepishly. “Nice to meet you, Uzumaki-san. I would be Takehiko Yamamoto.” The emphasis was only very slight, indicating a lack of offense. Perhaps his name had made it into whatever briefing they’d been given. Then again… perhaps not. He supposed the Hokage must have no great like of any of them. But this was exactly what he was here to fix, and so he wasn’t here to let it bother him. “These are my very best ninja, and I’m pleased to be here.”

From the opposite side of him to Kiriko, Rei spoke up, inclining her head slightly. She was… not disposed to bow, even if it might have been a little more polite. There was still a little too much tension for her to dare taking her eyes off anyone for that long. “Rei Hinode.” She decided against saying anything else, and instead simply adjusted the sleeves of her uniform.




Nariko kept a clamped hand over her mouth, trying to stifle a laugh at the misconception of who was Raikage. Really, it wasn't Takehiko's fault he was so damn huge, but she couldn't really put it past her friend for the mistaken identity. If he wasn't so large, maybe it wouldn't have happened. She blinked, instead, when Kiriko spoke, and raised an eyebrow. Still the ever mouth on her. Nariko shrugged her shoulders lightly, and waited for everyone to speak. It wasn't as if she needed an introduction though. She knew Kiyoko, slightly knew the Uchiha (if barely), but the others, she didn't know. She rolled her shoulders slightly and mimicked the Konoha kunoichi by placing her own hand on her hip.

"Nariko Kaneshiro, but you already knew that," she stated, folding her arms behind her back and rocked on the heels of her feet. "Though, I really wouldn't say the best," she muttered beneath her breath. They were all good, granted, but she wouldn't go so far as to say the were the best. Takehiko was nice like that, she supposed. But to say they were the best? Now that was just being modest. She'd let it go for now, though. It wasn't worth her thoughts. "It's been awhile, Koko," she stated, smirking just lightly at the old nickname she'd given the redhead years ago. She could almost see the scowl on Kiyoko's face, but had turned her attention towards Kosan.

"Silent beauty over there," she stated, jabbing her thumb towards Kosan, who had remained silent through most of the talking, "is Zetsubo, or Kosan, whichever you prefer." Might as well introduce him now. Still, one of these days, her mouth was going to get her into trouble. She knew she shouldn't just speak for people, but an old habit was hard to kill.




Kosan was able to pierce together that Uzumaki seemed to think he was the Raikage, he was by no means a fool, but he didn't wish to draw attention to it as the thought of him being the Raikage was a terrifying enough proposal enough. He never fancied himself being anything more then he was now, he had no desire nor inklings for more responsibilities when he could barely keep up with the ones he had. He was going to let Takehiko vanish that idea as it only seemed, but it seemed someone else had other plans. He couldn't help the slight tug at the corner of his lips as his blue eyes watched Kiriko step forward to correct the mistake. Her stern words made Kosan's hand twitch expecting it to cause some trouble, but he wasn't sure what he had been expecting from Kiriko. He did not know her very well, but he had high regards for her abilities which was often enough.

He would be lying if he said he did not feel disappointment when Takko answered Uzumaki, Kosan had been hoping this would cause a tension that would have ended in a fight. He knew his mission, and he would do his best to help his Raikage complete his mission, but he wasn't opposed to shedding some blood with the Konohagakure, in fact, quite the opposite. It seemed Rei was on board as well as she spoke her name. He wasn't sure what he felt at Rei bowing her head slightly to the Shin, he knew it was more of out social courtesy then anything else but even that felt like too much. Kosan turned his eyes back to the red head and opened his mouth to give his own introduction when Nariko stepped forward, and it seemed the two had met before, well, wasn't that information that would have been nice to know before hand? In fact, it seemed Nariko went the extra step and introduced him... for him?

"At least I am beautiful. Whatever would I do if I was hideous? I wouldn't be half as interesting and no one would bother with learning my name," Kosan said raising an eyebrow at his 'companion'. He always enjoyed straight-forward and brash natures like hers. It was always refreshing to not have to worry about secret thoughts and agendas, half truths and lies, while the truth could be a cool breeze on a summer day, it could also be a knife in the heart, but he preferred both so long as the person plunging the knife into his heart looked him in the eyes.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Kiriko Gekkō Character Portrait: Katsuro Uchiha Character Portrait: Naomichi Yuhara Character Portrait: Rei Hinode Character Portrait: Akira Aburame
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK




Image
Image
Image




For the most part, Takehiko absorbed what was said without much discernible reaction. He was not a man who prided himself on being unreadable, as there honestly wasn’t much of a point to subtlety and dissembling when you were made like a sledgehammer anyway. But just because he didn’t make a point of showing off how clever he was didn’t mean he couldn’t see the implications behind some of the words, read a little into the way people stood or talked. He wasn’t the best at it, but his position would soon demand that he became very good. It was something he liked to think the others might help him with a little, or at least the ones any better off than he was. He couldn’t say he was especially pleased with their reception, but it was better than he was expecting. He knew he should be grateful it hadn’t already ended in bloodshed, though that was not to say it wouldn’t.

Choosing to ignore the varying implications, including the one that they needed babysitters, of all things, Takko smiled affably and nodded. “Well, now that we’re all introduced, some food sounds excellent. Lead on, Uzumaki-san, and we shall follow.” The kunoichi did just that, though the route took them through a good portion of the village itself. He had to admit, it was a very beautiful place. The homes were built almost exclusively from wood, which he supposed must be in abundance, given the natural forest surrounding them with all its resources and greenery. Kumogakure was by contrast very austere, the facades carved mainly into the stone of the mountain that kept them so high up in the air. What forest they had was much sparser and more hardscrabble, and the colors of his youth were more grey and bleached-out red than all this green and rich mahogany.

He had the thought that this village would burn much more easily than his own, but he was not sure how it made him feel. It was a fact, he’d been taught, that the things that were nicest to look at were often the most fragile. Not always, but often. Austerity, by the philosophy of the first Raikage, was a form of strength. Have no more than you need to survive, and all living will eventually become living well. Or something like that. But… the people here wore softer faces than those he had seen around his own village. Many of them, he suspected, had never needed to worry where their next meal was going to come from. He doubted the Hokage ever had to send her people on resource retrieval missions when trade became too slow. Takko’s jaw tightened, but he shook himself out of it. Envy didn’t become him, and he didn’t like it, besides. He was here for peace, because more than anything, that was what his people needed now, and as their Raikage, it was his duty to put them first, to provide for that need.

“It’s as nice as I’d heard,” he remarked to the kunoichi leading the procession. He found himself strangely glad it had not been destroyed in the course of the war, despite his jealousy of its abundance. After all… the people here would not wear such content expressions if the war had reached their doorsteps.

Kiyoko nodded her head and led the Kumogakure team through the village. It had been a relatively silent leading, something she was a little grateful for. She knew Katsuro would remain silent, and Naomichi wasn't exactly talkative. Akira could be a little talkative when she needed to be, but Ryuu... Ryuu was a different story, and she had to keep checking over her shoulder to ensure the Shinobi wasn't causing any trouble. Satisfied, she blinked slowly when Takehiko's voice brought her out of her stupor. She raised an eyebrow, her lips pursing into a fine line, and tried to decide how to respond to it. As nice as he'd heard? How was anything as nice as he'd heard? Instead of asking that, though, she sighed softly and slowed her steps so that she was walking beside him. It was a little odd, really, standing next to someone who was almost twice her size.

"It's Konoha, I don't see what's so nice about it," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders. She didn't see it as he did, perhaps because she'd never actually seen other villages. The only village she could recall ever seeing, was Sunagakure when her grandfather used to take her to visit his old friend. Even on missions, it hardly required going to another village. It was more of going to towns to do their business than the actual village itself. "Once everyone is fed, we will be escorting you and your team to the Hokage's office," she stated, instead, resisting the urge to stare at the eye patch. One, it was rude, and two, it would not go over well with the Hokage if she knew that Kiyoko poked at it.

"Before that, though, you will be shown your living quarters for the remainder of your stay," she stated, stopping momentarily to gaze down the streets, before taking a left. "Once everyone is shown, the eating area will be next. It's not quite that large, so I'd advise telling your team of seating arrangements. Sounds odd, but," she stated, shrugging her shoulders in the process. They weren't children, they could sit wherever they wanted, however; they wouldn't all be able to sit together. Konohagakure wasn't built for large people, after all.

The quarters they were staying in turned out to be in what was apparently formerly the Uchiha compound, or so Takko assumed based on the fact that the crest on the gates matched the one the self-proclaimed Uchiha wore on the sleeve of his uniform. The buildings were quite well-crafted, as far as he knew of such architectural details, but he guessed it had been chosen mostly for the fact that it was relatively apart from the main part of the village, presumably to contain their damage if they caused any. He wondered how the man whose home they were invading felt about that, but decided not to ask. Everyone in his party received a room in the same hallway, though none of them were forced to stay in the same one. It was a small courtesy, but one he appreciated all the same.

Once they’d had a chance to stow their unnecessary belongings, they were led to a mess hall, whereupon food was laid out on a long table, still hot enough to consume. There was, despite Uzumaki-san’s worries, plenty of room for everyone, and Takko did not bother to legislate where his people chose to sit—he was not a micromanager in that sense. They were all smart enough to decide what to do for themselves. He personally bypassed the head of the table and sat to the right of it. The extraneous trappings of his authority had never sat well with him, after all.

When everyone was situated, he took note of the fact that the Konohagakure shinobi still stood, loosely arranged around the room in a way that could only be described as “awkward.” Frowning to himself, the Raikage tipped his head slightly to one side, declining for the moment to pick up his chopsticks. “I’m, uh… not really sure what rumors you heard about us,” he started, looking at the truly massive quantity of food before them, “but we certainly won’t be eating this much. Now, if I have my guess here, your mission is to make sure we don’t do anything… rash, and I’m guessing you can do that just as easily if you’re sitting here eating with us instead of standing there making things feel awkward as all get-out.” He shrugged, half smiling. “So… eat. Drink. Try not to kill each other for a few more minutes. I figure we can manage it if you can.”

"Depends exactly on what you mean heard. I, for one, have head a lot, but that doesn't play into this, now does it?" Kiyoko started, allowing a small tilt of her lips to grace her face. It wasn't a smirk, and yet it wasn't a complete smile. She glanced at her team, noticing what Takehiko seemed to have, and sighed. This was supposed to be as smooth as possible. If tensions were already rising, then she would have failed her mission. And if there was one thing Kiyoko Uzumaki didn't like, it was failing. It was a trait, perhaps, inherited by all Uzumaki, or from what she heard of her grandfather's clan. Stubborn? Not so much. Resilient? Maybe. "Well, you heard the Takko," she replied, staring at her group with her head lightly tilted to the side. She wasn't going to say no, she loved food. She could eat almost as much as the Raikage looked like he ate, if she were to be honest. Food now would be, perhaps, a good thing. Wouldn't want to take on shinobi on an empty stomach, now would she?

"Go eat."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Kiriko Gekkō Character Portrait: Katsuro Uchiha Character Portrait: Naomichi Yuhara Character Portrait: Rei Hinode Character Portrait: Akira Aburame
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Senpai



Image
Image
Image




Former enemies or not, Akira was not one to turn down an offer when the word "drink" was used. Without hesitation, she shrugged and sat right down in a rather sloppy motion that looked more like falling straight to her bottom. Sitting across from her was the woman named Rei. Dark skin was not something she had seen too often, save for her spy missions near Kumogakure. She thought to herself that it was honestly rather pleasant to look at as she poured herself some of whatever alcohol was in front of her, she cared not what it was. "There's a goddamn elephant in this room. Maybe some of this will help clear it out..." She said this loud enough for those around her to hear as she finished pouring. To anyone who would hold out their cup to her, she also poured it for them, Kumo or Konoha alike. It was only after that she quickly downed the contents of her own cup and begin pouring another. It wasn't sweet, and burned a little bit going down. But at this point, if it helped her loosen up a bit, she didn't care if she was drinking acid. "Thank you for complimenting my village, by the way. It's the same as complimenting my home. I work hard to preserve it how it is..." That was a decent enough attempt at initiating some small talk, right?

Naomichi's only orders from the Hokage were to fight back if they were to strike, not to go and interact with the Kumo shinobi. So when he was told to go and join them for dinner, he was really unsure how to handle himself in such a situation. He had never really had dinner with anyone else before, so he followed Akira like a frightened child clings their parent on the first day of school. While he may not have shown it in the way he walked to the table, strong and unashamed, he was terrified inside. With a comfortable thump onto the cushion, Naomichi crossed his legs and immediately grabbed his cup and took whatever Akira was offering to the group. Alcohol would calm his nerves and at least make him a bit more manageable if anything. He immediately downed his first cup, grabbing the bottle and quickly refilling it again. With his second cup, he was willing to take his time with it as he listened to the Kumo kunoichi's analysis of who they were.

Heard the Takko. He wasn't sure why, but Kosan found that remark oddly amusing. It wasn't incredibly clever nor did it hold a large amount of wit, but he couldn't help the small tug at the corner of his lip, at least the red headed Uzumaki seemed to have a sense of humor. Of course, the entire situation was almost laughable. As far as he was concerned, they were wasting their time; he had never desired to see their village in any shape save for in flames. The people had looked so.. content, as if the war was some far distant thought to them that it had been a harsh blow. Kosan wasn't sure what he had expected during the walk. Stifling silence, perhaps, but the odd looks he was given from the villagers was not what he expected. Having things thrown at him, being called a monster, those were things he expected and could handle, but indifference was something else entirely. Almost as if the people were doing their best to not stare at him. It was disconcerting if nothing else.

The building, itself, was large, if he had to guess, it seemed nearly six times as large as his own small, modest home that he shared with Seiko. If it weren't for the Raikage's bulk, it would, indeed, be very roomy, but one couldn't demand so much when sitting next to a mountain of muscle except to not be crushed when they feel the urge to move. Kosan didn't consider himself a small man, but the Raikage had a way of making everyone small and this did include the two Konoha Shinobi who had more then a few inches on him as well.

Still, all his pondering could not stop him from his current problem, where in the world was he to sit? His blue eyes ran over the forming groups until they landed on Rei. Although he was not close enough to truly see, his mind instantly placed the small scars on her body that she had gotten during the war marring her once flawless skin, but the scars suited her. His kimono moved around his legs as he made his way over to Rei's table, barely taking note of the tall blond man and other man with the eye-patch, his reasoning for coming over purely selfish. If he was forced to 'indulge' himself with these Konoha shinobi then he would do so with Rei nearby. He trusted himself more in her presence.

‘Elephant’ might well have been the correct word, but Rei at least was not comfortable enough to imbibe, though she appreciated the gesture, insofar as she could. It was easy to forget that it was not these people who had wronged her—or insofar as it was, they had been acting in a time of war. Just as she and her comrades had been. So she told herself—but nevertheless, the instinct to distrust was a difficult one to tamp down on. Even so, she managed something polite by way of declination, and did not glower at the Konoha shinobi as they settled themselves across the table from herself and Kosan, who was on her left.

The girl - possibly named Rei - looked... cute to Naomichi? She definitely was an attractive woman and her forwardness was definitely a good quality too. He had no idea why she was with the Raikage on this mission though. He never heard a single thing about her during the war - like she never existed.

As for the man, Kosan, Naomichi recognized him instantly. The Blood Lotus was someone he observed when sent out on recon and he would need to be someone that was watched. He wanted to put faith into everyone around him, but this man was just... unstable. Naomichi was more than intimidated by his presence since he knew the man wouldn't hold back on him even if he tried to talk him back down.

The topic of the village itself did seem to be innocuous enough, and Rei supposed that going with it would be better than eating in oppressive silence, so she raised an eyebrow slightly. “You said your name was Aburame, right? I suppose that would make you kind of a custodian of the place.” She referred, of course, to the fact that the Aburame were one of the four noble lineages in Konoha, a fact that any half-educated Kumo shinobi would know by this point. “Come to think of it, I’ve heard the name Yuhara somewhere, too…” Not in the same context though. Perhaps it was a battlefield reputation rather than a family one.

Akira seemed to be in thought a moment when asked the question, but eventually nodded. "I suppose that is one way to call it. Not the term I would use, but it's not entirely inaccurate."

Naomichi was snapped back into the dinner when Rei brought up his name. "My name is fairly common lady, It could be someone else that was a demon or somethin" The thought of someone knowing how cruel he could be made him down another glass. He didn't want to be known as a monster or anything.

Kosan waved off the offered drink, he was not one for alcohol. While he would drink under special circumstances, he did not consider this a special circumstance. Any one of them could be the ones he was looking for and, more so, he did not have a desire to drink in the midst of his enemies' seat of power. Reaching out he brought a small cup to himself and poured some of the heated water conventionally placed at the center of the table, in an unassuming little pot, into it before lowing a bag of tea leaves into it. He gently tugged on the small string, lifting it out of the darkening water just to slowly lower it back in.

He looked up from his work, his blue eyes watching the eye-patched shinobi, Yuhara as Rei so helpfully supplied, just finish watching him. Kosan had a few ideas as to why, although Yuhara did not look like someone he knew or heard about, given his job in the ANBU it fit that he would not be aware of the man's history as it would defeat the purpose of being in ANBU if everyone knew of their exploits, or at least, it would render the mask pointless. Kosan, on the other hand, as the 'Blood Lotus' wasn't someone who could be so unassuming.

On reflex, his eyes followed Yuhara's one to Rei, running over her body as he did. Rei was attractive, to deny they was to be blind, and at this distance, he could see the scars, both large and small, that marked her skin, each holding a story of their own, each adding just another interesting piece of the puzzle that made Rei who she was.

The clan name of Aburame caught his attention, and Kosan snapped his blue eyes to the tall, thin blond man that was seated and away from Rei's figure, "Aburame? I have heard of your clan's abilities, and they have always sounded impressive. I do not believe I ever met with an Aburame during the war, but I must admit I have always been rather curious as to how their abilities truly look," Leaning forward over the table, Kosan pushed his tea out of the way, forgotten for the moment in the pursuit for an interesting subject for his next tale, not even his distaste for the village in the leafs could stand in the way of a good story. "Would you be willing to give a small demonstration?"

When Naomichi heard Kosan's request, he set his drink down and repositioned himself to watch his partner at work. If it was one thing he was good at, it was working with bugs. He was proud to be his partner and wasn't ashamed to hide it.

Rei sighed softly, having a feeling she knew where this was going, and judiciously set down her bowl and chopsticks, covering the first with an upside-down plate and the second with a cloth napkin. She really didn’t want any stray insects in her food.

Akira looked up at Kosan as he addressed her, only to meet his conversation with a smirk. "Of course you didn't meet any Aburame, doll. Like our insectoid friends, we try not to make ourselves known too much... In fact, many of my clansmen complain that they never get noticed. Even by their own teammates. My great-uncle Shino Aburame especially..." She said the name and immediately realized right after that doing so had absolutely no point to it. But she shrugged, leaned back and cracked her fingers all at once after weaving them together and pushing out her wrists. "Of course, I do this for the sake of improving relations. And not showing off or anything."

"Of course," Kosan said almost on reflex as his blue eyes watched her movements, his attention hers to command.

She sat up on her knees and unbutton the pin-striped suit jacket, then unbuttoned the lower buttons on the white dressy shirt beneath it. Lifting up the left side revealed several holes on flat, smooth skin. Four bugs crawled out of four different holes and climbed onto her finger. "Meet the Bikochu, Kidaichu, Kikaichu, and the Nano-sized Venomous Insect. Not proper names, but the names of the kinds of bugs. They all feed off of my chakra and obey my whims in return. Pretty sweet, huh?" The bugs returned through the holes, though Akira kept the shirt lifted up. Looking to her partner, Naomichi, she gave a playful wink before making one more command to the bugs. From the revealed holes, and many hidden holes all over her body, masses of insects began flying out, coagulating into a purple-colored cloud along the ceiling. Buzzing of all sorts of kinds would fill the room, replacing any lingering silence before they would fly behind Akira.

"Incredibly so," he replied unsure of how to respond to something said being 'sweet', but it was fascinating. He was a little disappointed that the holes were not on her arm or some other less personal area as he would have liked to feel them.

The purple cloud of insects began taking a shape behind her, at first a purple silhouette. Quickly, details would be added as the Insect Clone took the appearance of Kosan himself. Nodding, she would speak. "Check this out, though." She stood up with a soft grunt and turned to face the clone. Clenching her right hand into a fist, she shot it straight through the clone's head. She pulled her hand away and watched the detailed head turn into a purple coagulation again before reforming to mimic Kosan again. Turning around once more, she smirked and held up her hand to the clone, which slapped hers back. Akira sat back down as sloppy as she had the first time and let her insects return to a cloud and begin filing back into her body. She also decided to leave her pin-striped jacket off as well. Her tie became looser as well as she tugged on it and poured another drink. "Enjoy your demonstration?"

Both of Rei’s eyebrows ascended her forehead as she watched the Kosan-shaped mass of insects reform itself after being damaged. “Interesting. But… wouldn’t they be very susceptible to ninjutsu? Fire and water and all that?” It was asked with a tone of genuine curiosity, academic and pragmatic more than anything. There was, indeed, no hint of a threat in it at all.

"It's a clone, you know? They're not exactly built to be sturdy. Losing them is not a big deal... Bugs don't live long and they reproduce more than rabbits." She let out a laugh with this explanation. "They don't like water at all, and they do like fire. Not that it's particularly good for them..."

Rei actually managed a small smile at that, then shrugged. “Fair enough."

"And that's what makes Akira such a good partner. Kickass bugs with a brain to boot. What's not to like?" Naomichi sat smugly with one arm propping him up. With a few drinks in him at this point he was allowing himself to become looser and more talkative with the group. He was slightly worried with the person who the bugs took the form of, but he knew Akira had reasons for doing it so he wouldn't object.

"I did, I truly enjoyed the way you hit me in the face, very good form," Kosan said leaning back once more to lift his once forgotten tea to his lips, pausing only for a moment to check the contents to ensure no stray bug had 'accidentally' been left in his cup. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the clone having been made to his likeness. A statement or was he the choice because he was the one who asked the question? Well, it didn't truly matter, his curiosity was somewhat sated for the moment.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Katsuro Uchiha Character Portrait: Rei Hinode
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK




Image
Image
Image




And as that evening ended, so would the next several days pass. Perhaps it was the Raikage’s initial invitation that had made the difference, perhaps not, but either way, mealtimes consisted of all ten of them eating together in the large dining room in the compound, unbothered by the few other Uchiha who nominally inhabited the location. Outside of that, the ninja from Kumogakure were allowed to move about the village as they wished—so long as they were accompanied by an equal number of their guards. Takehiko was kept from morning to evening with meetings, and despite his complaints—something he usually only voiced to Kiri or perhaps Rei—he felt like he was getting somewhere, if not especially quickly.

Regardless of the relative uneventfulness of the peace talks so far, ninja were not the kind of people who tended to appreciate standing idle, those with grudges least of all…


The days that had passed would have been pleasant if not for his inaction weighing on his mind. Every hour that passed with him in the compound was another hour that he was not out looking for clues and for the person who murdered his wife. Every day that passed, a reminder that he was sitting idle as they continued to draw breath, but the shinobi of Konoha were not fools and wouldn't let them leave without guard, and Kosan did not trust any of them enough to reveal anything. Yes, they ate together, but that did not absolve them of suspicion. So far, only Akira Aburame was someone he doubted heavily was the murderer as his skills did not match up, but he did not trust the tall blond man enough to tell him anything. The man was still a shinobi of Konohagakure.

His patience, he hoped, would pay off. By waiting a few days, Kosan was betting that their fellow Konoha shinobi were becoming lax as he had not given them any reasons to be suspicious of him besides his status and reputation which was a hurdle all on its own. It was at breakfast, when his Raikage was going to yet another meeting that he decided today was the day. Well, if he were to be honest with himself, he wasn't sure he could bear waiting yet another day. He had almost spoken to Rei about his plans, to give her a warning, but he decided against it. Rei could try to stop him in order to protect their village and himself, but this was something he had to do. He doubted her or anyone could ever understand, not unless they held someone they loved in their arms... what was left of their loved ones and watched the tortured light fade from their eyes.

Kosan looked up at the dark night sky, the moonlight, oblivious to the whims of mortals, casting its soft light over the peaceful village and the Uchiha compound, more importantly, its tall walls that created the sensation of imprisonment and segregation rather then protection. Taking a breath, he closed his eyes and stretched out his awareness trying to pick up any fellow shinobi nearby, but he couldn't sense any, but sensory was never his strong suit, if the alarm was raised, it would become apparent that he was discovered. If it did not then he had a short amount of time to find the information he needed. Set on his decision, he bent his legs and shot off into the night sky, moving from rooftop to rooftop until he came to crouch upon a small water tower as he overlooked the village. The obvious place to look was the Hokage's compound as he was betting they kept a record there, but how he was supposed to sneak in was something he would need to plan out and observe the compound and what guards were there, he would have to wait and time the guard shifts which could take.. time, but he had no other choice. Much like everything in his life, it was do or die.

It wasn’t too long afterwards that another presence did appear behind Kosan, but it was a familiar rather than foreign one. A heavy sigh accompanied the near-soundless impact of a second pair of feet on the top of the water tower. Rei kept herself low, not desirous of casting a perceptible shadow over someone on accident, and moved up in a crouch so that she was directly beside her friend, looking out at the same view of the village he saw.

She wondered, for just a moment, what it looked like to him. Was it simply an enemy fortress, to be infiltrated? Did he see the people moving around as though they were automata, incapable of their own thoughts and feelings, as one must sometimes make one’s enemies so as to be capable of killing them? She was willing to bet that whatever he saw, it did not elicit in him the same reaction it did in her—an old thing, an insidious and cold thing, creeping under her marred skin and threatening to lock her muscles in place. It was dark and foreboding and alive, somehow, palpable and tangible, but untouchable all the same. No jutsu would banish it, no trick of mental discipline. It could not be destroyed, only managed.

She was ashamed to realize that when she looked at this place, she was still afraid. The fear was easier to ignore, in the light of day and surrounded by people she could really see as people, who gave odd demonstrations of insect jutsu and praised their partners and fought each other over food and bantered back and forth with real expressions on their faces. It was harder now, when night was at hand, and the scant illumination in the sky could not suppress the reminder of utter oblivion, of sitting on a cold, damp stone floor for days she lost count of, trying not to wonder when next the pain would come. When next she would see the ones with no faces, with no words, only lashes and knives and chemicals she was thankfully not nearly so susceptible to as they had hoped.

“You could have told me,” she said, her voice scarcely more than a murmur. It carried less than whispering, that way. “You know I won’t stop you.” It was true that she did not approve of his quest to utterly destroy the person who had taken Shizu from the world. Partly, that was her own instinct, not out of mercy for the killer but out of the desire to keep her friend from succumbing to the darkness that would surely consume him if he continued on his path. But part of it was also for the memory of her friend: Shizu would not have wanted this, either. Even despite her reasons for wanting to stop him, though, she never would. That was not her right. She was not him, she was not Shizu, and she was not that murderer. This was a matter between only those three people, and her right to interfere was nonexistent.

“I’ll help you, though. With this part. You know that, right?” She glanced to the side, golden eyes flashing slightly under the irregular lighting conditions. She’d help him figure things out, and then if he went through with it when he knew the answer, well… she’d be there to patch him up afterwards. That was what friends were for. Even when they disagreed. Besides… she knew a little girl who’d be stricken by grief if she lost her father, too. And it was a feeling Rei knew all too well.

Kosan did not turn around when he heard that all too familiar sigh, when her presence washed over him. Rei. He almost felt a tug on the corner of his lips, how foolish he was to think he could have done anything without her notice. Rei had always been too clever for her own good, or perhaps, he had always been too easy to read for his. Either way, it seemed he had failed in sneaking out undetected, but a part of him was glad for her presence; it was soothing to be near something familiar when he was looking at the unknown that awaited before him, but that unknown held the answers he had been longing for.

He kept his blue eyes on the compound, his eyes scanning each floor, every window, for any sign of the guards as well as the shift change that had to happen at sometime or another. If he missed it he would have to start all over again, and Kosan highly doubted he would get more then one chance at this for the night, and he had no desire to try it again in the coming nights as it increased the chance of further detection.

Kosan turned his head slowly turned his head to face her, yes, a part of him knew she would not try to stop him. He had been trying to justify why he did not tell her, but it would not have been fair. To force her to pick between himself and the village, even if the decision would be an easy one for her. It was his burden to bear, and she did not deserve to have him lean on her anymore then he already had.

Her golden eyes seemed to shine with her declaration, and he knew he could not dissuade her once she set her mind on something, turning his head back to the front, all he could think to do was whisper back one simple phrase, "Thank you." He saw a few shinobi enter and leave and looked up to the moon once more, "They seem to change every three hours for five minutes, at most, that is not a large window."

“No,” Rei agreed. “It’s not.” She chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment, casting her senses out over a wider range. She wasn’t a sensor either, but she was fairly decent at reading the fine details of chakra networks. Like the one that had just revealed itself—suppressed, but now detectable—a short distance behind them. “Damn.” She whirled around, her stance low and guarded, and found herself looking into a pair of eerily red eyes. These weren’t like Akira’s, something the color or rose petals. They were rubies and blood, some kind of black shape identifiable in them.

For a moment, she recalled what little she knew of the Sharingan, and wondered if she might not already be caught in some exceedingly subtle genjutsu. Was that why she’d not sensed him until now? It was hard to say. But the eyes faded back to their light grey color thereafter, and the Uchiha shoved his hands into his pockets. “Don’t stop on my account. I’m only here to make sure you don’t kill anyone… tonight. She didn’t say anything about stopping you from doing recon.” His indifference was obvious, and indeed, he seemed to dismiss them from his immediate attention thereafter, glancing down and away at something on the other side of the tower.

Rei raised a brow, and looked skeptically at Zetsu, as if to ask him what he wanted to do now.

Five minutes to infiltrate a place neither of them have ever seen, slip through whatever security measures they have in place, locate their mission reports, pray they did not black them out, and get out before the shift change is completed. It was near impossible, but it was something he had to do. If he had to pick, the room they wanted was going to be on the top floor or underneath the building for security purposes, even with their paltry five minutes, they would only have time to search one of those, if they looked at the wrong one, or worse, he was incorrect about its location then all of it would have been for nothing, and he would have to try again and try to keep his Raikage here if needed. They could split up, but he wasn't going to leave Rei alone in there.

Lost in his observation, he did not feel the Konoha shinobi sneaking up on them, his instincts instantly trusting Rei, who was superior at him in that field, to keep a watch out, but her muttered curse was enough to make him spring into action, turning on his heel remaining low to the ground, he placed his hand on the hilt of his rapier prepared to draw it, but he stopped when he noticed who it was, Katsu Uchiha. If it had been another shinobi, a chunin or a lesser jonin, Kosan would have taken the chance and tried to kill them before they could raise the alarm, but while he had never seen the Uchiha in action, the fact they chose him as one of those to keep watch over them meant he was far from a normal shinobi, and he very much doubted Katsu would go down before he raised an alarm, or at the very least, caused a ruckus which would prompt someone to investigate. It was a no win situation.

Kosan raised a dark eyebrow as his blue eyes scanned the Uchiha's face, his eyes having reverted back to normal from the fabled Sharingan and his odd... comment. Kosan turned his head to Rei who seemed to be waiting for his decision on the matter, "It seems we do not have a choice in this matter," He said turning back around to face the compound. He did not trust the Uchiha, but he had little choice in the matter, "Katsuro Uchiha," He said keeping his voice low as his blue eyes scanned the compound, "You are an odd man Uchiha, but you wouldn't happen to know where they keep mission reports would you? There is someone I must find."

It was a gamble as the Uchiha could betray them, but he could do that anyways, and he could lie to throw them off, but the chances of this succeeding was very low as it was and if there was even a tiny chance he could increase those odds; he would take it.

Mission reports? Well, Katsuro really hadn’t gone into this with any particular expectations about what they might be looking for, but he was still a bit surprised to hear that was all they wanted. Not that he thought they’d been planning to assassinate the Hokage or anything so stupid as that—one thing he could say for a majority of these Kumogakure ninja that he could unfortunately not say for many of his own comrades was that they rather lacked a certain element of stupidity. Thought the intelligence of attempting even this much was debatable. Blinking owlishly, he thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Depends on what kind of mission you’re talking about. Most of the lower-level stuff is filed in the archives below the Hokage’s office, the war stuff is kept underground. Most of the top-secret documents are kept in her office itself, when they’re kept at all. What kind of report are you looking for?”

Rei was almost incredulous. Was this guy for real? A Konohagakure shinobi, just telling people—with the stated intention to go through things they shouldn’t be able to see—where to find mission reports? He hadn’t seemed especially dedicated to his Hokage or his village, but he’d certainly been doing his actual job thus far without complaining, unlike that Tsukino guy. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth here,” she said, pronouncing her words deliberately, almost as though she were still trying to get used to the idea that she even needed to use these particular ones, “but why the hell would you tell us that? You have no idea what we’re looking for.” He could, of course, simply be lying, but it didn’t really feel that way to her. Her intuition didn’t have a very logical basis most of the time, but that didn’t stop her from being right, and she had the feeling tha he was being perfectly truthful right now.

Katsu removed one of his hands from his pocket, but did nothing more aggressive with it than scratch an itch on the bridge of his nose. “Does it matter?”

Rei’s jaw tightened for a moment, but in the end, she sighed through her nose. Technically… no, it didn’t. She supposed she could respect his desire not to spill his motives… for now. “It’s probably going to be with the stuff about the war.” She couldn’t imagine that Shizu’s death had been a mission on its own. Rei’s best friend had been a skilled medic-nin, but she would not have been a high-priority target, not when the battlefield was filled with people like Takehiko, Kiriko, Kosan and other damage-dealers on a similar scale. Therefore it probably wouldn’t be the subject of a file so important the Hokage needed to keep it in her actual office. Which was a good thing, because a simple shift change wouldn’t help them much if that was where they wanted to go.

The Uchiha considered this fact for a moment, tipping his head a bit to the side, then nodded slightly. “In that case, you’ll want to follow me.” With no more than that, he leaped off the water tower and onto a nearby rooftop, already gathering his legs underneath him for the next jump before Rei made the decision to follow. For better or worse, this was probably their best chance.

Kosan looked back and forth between the two. While he was also interested in the Uchiha's motivations; it truly made little difference. His motivation could have been something as simple as he felt like he wished to and that would have been more then enough for him. He was committed to his current course of action, and the situation and odds were never in his favor, this was no different. The only other purpose he could have would be to lead them into a trap so they could be caught red-handed, but that would not stop him. They could not reject his companionship even if they wished, and even if they were to return, the Uchiha would keep a closer eye on them from now on.

While trust had nothing to do with it, Kosan did not trust the Uchiha, in fact, his seemingly non-existent loyalty to his village only made Kosan distrust him further. How could someone trust a man who was not loyal to his own people? But when walking into hell, did it matter whose hand one held?

Kosan nodded his head forward slightly acknowledging that he too believed the information would be with the rest of the war reports. Shizu was not a critical target or someone that would have been a assassination target or someone whom had valuable intel would be worth keeping. It was a harsh reality, but in their files, he expected nothing more then a brief description of a dead medical-nin on the date and location where she was, the most he could hope for was that he would find a name that wasn't blacked out, and he could continue his search from there.

Casting his blue eyes once more at the large hokage building, he followed Rei and Katsuro onto the next building. If the Uchiha knew another way in that worked for him as waiting three hours for the guard change would have been taxing as they would have had to move to avoid detection. Kosan could not stop the feeling of anticipation that was filling his heart, he was getting closer. Finally, after all these years, he was finally getting closer to his goal.

It turned out that the Uchiha’s plan wasn’t especially complicated; all he did was lead them to a concealed entrance. Considering the point of something like this was rather defeated if it was guarded, there was nobody near. “This doesn’t connect to the Hokage’s building, if you were wondering,” he explained, gesturing for Kosan to hop down first. He went in the middle, and Rei followed behind, closing the entrance behind her. He wasn’t especially fond of this place, but he wasn’t stupid, either, and he wasn’t going to give potential assassins a route into the most important building in town. If only because it would be inconvenient to himself.

“This is the underground portion of the archives.” It was naturally cool and dry down here, which helped preserve the documentation not important enough to get its own sealing jutsu. “The war reports are the whole room to your left.” Three years only it might have been, but it was a busy three years for Konohagakure ninja. “It’d take you a long time to go though all of that, though. What are you looking for?” He could at least point them to the right section. It wasn’t like he wanted to spend the whole damn night under here, after all.

Kosan did not hesitate, entering the dark portal and down in the dimly lit archives. The cool, dry air was a shade colder then the night air above, but besides that, there was not much of a notable difference. He knew that if there were traps, he would be the one running into them, but it was a small price to pay and so far this was working far better then his original plan as looking for secret entrances like this would not have been possible as it would have taken too much time, and he doubted he could convince the other Konoha Shinobi that he just enjoyed pressing his ear to every odd shaped stone and wall he came across.

His blue eyes traced the surroundings, the flickering candle lights offering very little illumination to the rest of the dark hallway that stretched out before him. Kosan glanced over his shoulder and nodded before moving to the left door and pushing it open slowly, listening for the slightest tick or jerk as he had no desire to have gotten so close only to be foiled by a single trap. Satisfied, he pushed open the door which gave off a small creak echoing in the large expansive of the archives and ominous greeting to the small group.

"So it would seem," Kosan said his eyes scanning the shelves stacked high with scrolls, while he could not say he often visited the archives in Kumo, there was certainly a large assortment of scrolls gathered. If he spent all night, he would barely get through a quarter of them. For the first time since deciding to accept the Uchiha's help, Kosan hesitated, he had no desire to talk of it to an outsider, but he had brought them this far, "In the beginning of the war, barely months in, a medical-nin was killed, she had small holes in her neck and her body," He kept his back turned to them, but his blue eyes were glazing over as his mind called up the memory perfectly as he saw it nearly every night, "Her body was shriveled up. Almost as if the moisture had been drained from her body," She was so fragile, his mind continued recalling how he could barely grasp her for fear of her falling apart in his arms, yet he still could not stop her from dying, slowly and painfully.

"These scrolls are ordered by dates, yes?" Kosan asked half turning to face them, it would speed up the process greatly if the Uchiha happened to know where the scrolls began as picking a shelf at random did not seem to be a very quick route.

Katsuro had heard such a thing mentioned once or twice, but he’d never seen it in person, so it stood to reason that the jutsu was one only one or a few people knew. He didn’t know it himself, nor did he know what might. “My guess would be some kind of water release, but I couldn’t say for sure. The dates you want are right around here.” He led them slightly inwards, to a few shelves of scrolls, though he let them do the searching themselves. It had the flavor of something personal to it, and he wasn’t the sort to get involved in anyone’s grudges but his own. Too exhausting.

It was Rei who found the document most likely to correspond to Shizu, and she tapped Zetsu on the shoulder after reading over it. “Hey. I think I found her.” The mission report was brief, and there were multiple names indicated for the Leaf shinobi that had been involved, though a few were redacted with black bars as well. Some, however, were not. “Who’s Heisuke Takarada?” she asked, giving the first name listed on the document to the Uchiha on the off-chance that he would answer.

His brows furrowed together. “Let me see that.” She handed over the scroll willingly enough, and he scanned it quickly, his frown growing more pronounced. “I have no idea who the redacted parties are, but the rest of these people are missing-nin now. They were thrown out of the village by the Hokage for their actions during the war. Officially, they were allowed to leave because nobody could amass enough evidence of their guilt for war crimes, but if they had, we probably would have executed them. The rumors were heinous.” He didn’t sound especially disgusted, but then, most shinobi were trained not to express their emotions overmuch, so who could say how he felt? Whatever the case, she took it to be true that he was unfond of Takarada at least.

“None of these ninja reside in this village anymore, unless one of these two redacted names does.”

It took everything he had to not rip the scroll from Rei's hands; he had to be content with reading over her shoulder, he committed each to memory as each name could be the one to put to the phantom face that haunted him, but all of the names on paper had become the most important men in his world. It was a grim satisfaction, but it wasn't enough. It was a drop of water for a dying man.

Kosan lifted his head up to watch the Uchiha as he looked over the scroll, Missing-nins. It had to be missing-nins. While it did help ensure he did not put the peace talks into jeopardy, it made finding them nearly impossible as they could be in any nation using any name and that was assuming they stuck together which was doubtful. The last two names were blacked out which did not help him in the least. There was the off-chance that he could look through other scrolls for the same names and try and see if the squads matched up to find the missing names, but he doubted it would be so easy, and he doubted he had the time to pour over them and find a pattern.

It would take time, but Kosan would send out some feelers for now, and see what he could find about the names. Heisuke Takarada was the first on the list, so he would be the one he would concentrate the most on finding. In the morning, he may try to wander the village with one of the Konoha Shinobi and investigate more about the names at various locations, but for now he wanted to know something,"Rumors? What exactly did these rumors imply?" The medical shinobi had been vague with him when he asked them what, if anything, had been done to Shizu prior to her death.

Katsu locked eyes with Kosan for a moment, silver meeting blue, then shook his head slowly. “Postmortem mutilation, mostly. Experimentation with corpse reanimation. Vivisection. Illegal medical ninjustsu. Whomever you’re doing this for… there are worse things than just being dead, that’s all I can say.” He didn’t say it out loud, but frankly, if the worst this man had seen was the dead or dying body of someone he cared about, then he was fairly lucky, as far as Takarada’s bereaved victims were concerned. It could have been much worse than that.

They were out of time though. “There will be a patrol through here in a few minutes. If you have what you came for, let’s go. I really don’t want the Hokage chewing me out over this, thanks.”

Kosan met his gaze until he was finished, only then did he allow his shoulders to fall and his eyes to close. She had been tortured. He had thought.. hoped that they had gone for the kill, and it was only her knowledge in medical-ninjutsu that kept her alive that long, but they had wanted to keep her alive, and it was Heisuke Takarada who had done it to her. Kosan wasn't sure if he was the one who killed her or took her down, but Heisuke Takarada tortured her and the others had let it happen or even watched. He would find them and get what he wanted to know from them, and he would kill them. Every single one of them, and he would drag out the information of the blacked out names from their dying breaths.

"Very well," Kosan said, his blue eyes snapping open, "Thank you for your assistance," Kosan stepped around him and towards the door. While he wished to stay longer even if the chances of him finding anything were nonexistent, he had gained enough for now. It was time to go.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Katsuro Uchiha Character Portrait: Naomichi Yuhara Character Portrait: Takehiko Yamamoto Character Portrait: Nariko Kaneshiro
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK




Image
Image
Image




About a week and three days had passed, the meetings were still not done. Progress was being made, but on some days, it was much slower than others. Today it had been especially glacial, and Takko’s frustration was testing the limits of his courtesy. All this putting on of polite manners wasn’t in his nature anyway—he was a nice enough guy, maybe, but he preferred to be direct rather than coy and political, and the days where he felt like he was just chasing his own tail were increasing in frequency as the Hokage’s Council dithered about this or that. Without any real way to get past that besides stretching his patience and digging his heels in when he could, he decided that it was high time sake was brought into the equation. And some of that fancy imported liquor, too.

Which was how he found himself headed back to the compound, loaded down with a sack full of alcohol jugs. Beside him, the Uchiha, who had picked him up from the meeting this time, grudgingly carried another sack, slightly smaller, with various bottles clinking around inside. Still, it was all paid for with the Raikage’s money, so it wasn’t like it was a drain on his family’s resources, something he supposed he could appreciate. Whatever the case, it was full dark by the time they made it back to the compound, and it happened that most of the others of both village groups were there anyway.

“Well,” Takehiko said, at just enough volume to get the attention of anyone who hadn’t focused on the new person entering the room. “Seems I have a lot of sake here, and not a lot of time. Who wants to help me drink it?” He grinned, toothy and feral, and set his sack down in the middle of the room, near a low table, urging the Uchiha to do the same with the slightly more exotic brews.

Naomichi couldn't help but want to be outside at night. As he walked along the courtyard of the Uchiha compound, whistling a gleeful tune as he enjoyed the commonly warm air that Kohana had to offer. It was a beautiful day and he couldn't help but find nothing wrong with it. His mind was at peace, he was still on a high from his night with Nari, and the place just looked beautiful. He couldn't help but look at the gorgeous design of the buildings around him - elegant but strong - and the finely trimmed greenery that showed the love and care that was put back into the clan's home.

As he was rounding a corner though, he saw Takko come into the compound with a sack full of... something. Naomichi was unsure what could be in the bag, so he figured he'd do a little recon work just to make sure it wasn't filled with something suspicious. He threw himself against the back wall and peaked around the corner at the Raikage - his ANBU skills coming out at the moment of suspicion. What is he doing? Why does he have that bag? What is in it? So many questions and so little time. As he analyzed the movements of his prey, he came to the conclusion that he was not suspicious - or was being very good at hiding it. Nevertheless Naomichi wanted to continue to follow him.

As the Raikage traversed the compound, Naomichi attempted to remain less stealthy just in case he was caught. He probably wouldn't be happy if he had a Kohana shinobi stalking him down like prey, so Naomichi attempted to do the more natural look. Leaning against walls, pushups, rearranging flower pots, holding cats (in all the wrong ways), and anything else he felt would seem normal if he was ever approached on the subject.

Eventually when the Raikage went into a meeting hall and made his exclamation, Naomichi lost the cool stealthy attitude and immediately charged into the room and snatched a bottle up from the bag. With a huge grin across his face he popped open the top of it and looked towards Takko. "So this is what you've been hidin' in your bag huh? You coulda said something sooner!" Naomichi immediately started to drink the bottle down to its halfway point, but still maintaining a semi-sober state of mind. He wanted to feel the alcohol but not become a bumbling idiot.

Katsuro sighed, but Takko only laughed, hitting Naomichi on the back with one large hand. It wasn’t a violent gesture at all, more one of camaraderie than anything else, but the Raikage was not always especially good at remembering how strong he was, so there was that. “The stalker over here has the right of it,” he said with a grin, plucking out a few of the bottles for his own use. “Anyone interested in trying to drink me under the table?”

A window sill was far more comfortable then most people believed, a fact Kosan had learned from a very young age especially at night when the thin plank of wood was the perfect mixture of heat from within the house and cool to the touch from the night air. Kosan leaned back against the side of the window, as he looked up at the star filled night sky. It was comforting, in its own way, as the stars were always the stars no matter where one was in the world.

His mind had been occupied since that night. Since Rei, the Uchiha, and him found the list of names. Even now, he could call up the scroll and every name on it with perfect clarity, if he desired to, he could even count the strands of Rei's hair that rested on her shoulder as he had looked over it. The image had been seared into his mind, but unlike the past hours... or was it days? Kosan mind was his own, and he chose to pass his time to watch the night sky. While not as interesting as spars and other odd habits he was sure the others have, it held a certain charm all on its own.

Kosan's blue eyes watched the large moon, and he almost wished Seiko was looking at it too. Almost as if she was watching it then she wasn't tucked in and sleeping which she should be doing as she had to go to the Academy for instruction in the morning.

His sensitive hearing picked up a familiar voice, that of his Raikage and something about Sake. Kosan leaned his head against the side of the window. A part of him just wanted to stay and continue in his self-imposed exile, running over the same things in his head, driving himself insane with the fact that everything was still so far away from him. One step forward in a travel of a lifetime, but, on the other hand, it could be amusing to watch his Raikage drink himself in a stupor after the all the talks with those elders had to build up a stress. Kosan had never been bothered to accompany the Raikage, but he trusted him enough to not hand over the key to their gates.

On that note, he had not had a chance to sit down with Nari for awhile, and if she was in a ten mile radius, the sake would summon her. Decision made, Kosan pushed himself off the ledge and back onto the wooden floor, his socks providing a nice barrier between him and the cold floor. Moving to the kitchen, Kosan filled a small pot and set it on the burner to boil for his tea. He had never been much of a drinker, and he was intent more on watching them drink then partaking himself.

With his preparations done, Kosan entered the room they had first sat together and ate in, the 'dinning' room, was it? Or perhaps a sitting room? His eyes ran over the three occupants, Naomichi, Kosan had not spoken to him much, his Raikage, and the Uchiha. Kosan offered a small nod to the Uchiha in the form of a personal greeting, or as much as Kosan was willing to give the other shinobi. He did not know what the Uchiha thought about their little trip or if he even cared, but Kosan was still grateful none the less.

"I will be sure to get my glorious Raikage a pillow when he has fallen under the table," Kosan said offering a small smile before sitting down on the floor and sliding his legs under the table, "Can you imagine what our Konoha brethern would say if a Raikage was sleeping, stone drunk and without a pillow? I fear we would never hear the end of it."

“Assuming I’ll lose already? Woe is me, who has lost the confidence of my closest supporters!” Takko bemoaned dramatically, placing a hand over his heart and pretending something had hit him there. The goofy grin still firmly in place gave away his actual thoughts, however, though it was but a moment before the glint in his eye turned a bit more sly. “You know, Kosan, a drinking contest with only two people is a pretty poor showing. You should participate too, and then we’ll see which one of us ends up under the table, hm?”

Kosan raised an eyebrow at the thinly veiled challenge. While he was never much of a drinker, he did not like letting challenges go unanswered. An odd desire to prove himself that was born many years ago that had never left his system. Still there was the chance he would make an utter fool of himself. He was glad it seemed there was no women there which would lessen his chance to make a fool of himself, or worse, wake up in the wrong bed.

"I suppose," Kosan said slowly, rolling the words around in his mouth, "that I don't have much of a choice, although I bemoan what they will do back in the village when they find out that lowly Zetsubō out drank the Raikage."

Kosan glanced at Nao who seemed quite taken with the entire bottle, "But I think I may have to use a glass." With an ungraceful snort, Takko handed him one, taking another for himself.

Nariko walked with a large grin on her face, the cool breeze of the air washing against her face; a welcomed antidote to the harsh warmth of the weather. She tilted her head side to side, humming a light tune before something in the air caught her attention. She might not have been an Inuzuka, with their sense of smell, nor their hearing abilities, however; when it came to the scent of that, she could smell it a good distance away. And Nariko had never been one to turn down a good drink. With large grin on her face, Nariko made a bee line for the source, coming upon it within a few seconds. She wasn't too far from the compound to begin with. She arrived just in time to catch the last sentence of Kosan's, and shook her head. Rolling her eyes, she came upon Kosan and drapped an arm over his shoulder.

"Ah, but what would the village think when the lowly Zetsubō is out drank by a kunoichi? Surely it would be a blow to not only Takko-chan, but Ko-chan too, no?" she almost cooed, leaning in so that her lips were close to the shell of his ear. She pulled back suddenly, laughing as she patted his back in the process. "But you know me, I'm never one to turn down a challenge," she stated, grinning almost from ear to ear. "So, shall we see who is the better drinker?" she stated, flashing a predatory smile around the group. She couldn't hold her liquor, she knew that, and almost everyone else from Kumogakure knew that, however; she didn't care. A good drink and having a good time were all that mattered to her.

Naomichi silently drank as he watched almost all of the Kumo shinobi come into the dining hall, drowning the awkwardness away in himself with the bottle of sake. He decided it'd be best to push himself to the brink of tipsiness and only humor them with drinking after that. Gotta keep it a fair game and all. "Well now it's a party! Come Nari-kun, Katsu-san, Takko-senpai, Ko-san!" Naomichi let out a little snicker at the play on words he made there. "I bet none of you are gonna beat someone with the stature of the Raikage. He's so much larger than the rest of us I'm sure he can take his liquor by the barrel load and still be able to balance on his toe!" Naomichi was able to keep his abilities secret to the entire group throughout the week-long period that they were together, and he wasn't going to let them in on what he was like just in case Kohana needed the upper hand at all.

"I like this idea for a game though. Tell ya guys what," Naomichi stood up and placed his arm around Kosan with Nariko as well, bottle residing in his other hand. "How 'bout last man standin' gets bragging rights and a weeks worth of free meals out of everyone else? Eh, whadaya say guys? Kumo shinobi can't back down from such an easy challenge or rumors will start to spread." Naomichi grew a devilish grin across his face as he took another swig from the bottle and then heaving a heavy sigh. If everyone was gonna have fun tonight might as well make it interesting.

"Ko-san, I bet you can't even outlast poor Nari-kun right here. You gotta prove your manhood to the rest of us here." If anything, Naomichi wanted to see what such a calm and collected person was like under the influence. He never had the chance to see anyone like him be so far gone, so egging him on was his best strategy for the situation.

Kosan couldn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine when her hot breath caressed his ear. He closed his eyes as his mind was thrown into a world of confusion. Such personal contact wasn't something he was used to anymore, and it had caught him off guard and left him feeling momentarily vulnerable. So lost in his own inner confusion and raging thoughts over what just happened, he did not have time to really answer Nari's challenge like he normally would have done. Maybe he would have something akin to 'She was never one to turn down, or win, a challenge' but his wits had abandoned him. Fleeing in terror at the gentle warm air that had brushed by him, an action that was probably nothing more then Nari seeking to tease him and the others.

His back went stiff as an arm wrapped around him and pulled him closer to Nari, the devious heavy breather that had put him in this precarious position in the first place. Feeling his body crushed against hers did not help his wits return to him. It was hard to hear Naomichi over the sound of Nari's heartbeat that was filling his ear as it was crushed against her chest.

"...Of course," Kosan said almost on reflex, but his mouth moving did seem to restart his mind, as he slowly came back to himself, doing his best to ignore the woman being held against him. Nari was like a puppy, he had to remind himself, a fluffy, hyperactive puppy that was still in the middle of learning to not use the carpet as a restroom.

"I can outlast Nari-chan in anything, but I fear she could not handle it," Kosan said with a soft sigh. He was dead set on turning this around. He did not enjoy being caught so off guard and out of his comfort zone. It was time to turn the situation around.

“Uhh…” Takko put in, not really understanding the implications of what Kosan had just said but sensing that there might be some. Katsuro had clearly caught them, if the fact that he was rolling his eyes was anything to go by, but then again, he seemed like the sort who did that with regularity, so it could have been nothing. “Anyway! Let’s go. Mikkun, put down the bottle. We’ve gotta do this all official-like! One cup at a time, everyone drinks together!”

As it turned out, Nariko, for all her big talk, was looking awful by the fourth cup, which Takehiko polished off with relish and no seeming change to his physiology at all. Kosan looked all right, and it was hard to say with Mikkun—the man was an odd duck normally, so who knew what he was like when drunk?

One thing Nariko could do well, was talk. She could talk, but she could never really live up to it. Even as she downed her fourth cup, her face was already contorting into something uncomfortable. She really shouldn't have taken the challenge, but she couldn't really resist the call of it. She glanced around the room, watching it spin as she grinned with a lopsided smile. She turned to Kosan, blinked slowly at him, and allowed the grin to spread further across her lips. "You stay right there, Ko-chans. One of you will be enough," she slurred, out patting his cheeks before her eyes closed. Her head fell onto his lap as she passed out.

Four drinks in, and his mood was dimming. Everyone else was having fun, so he supposed that was something. He constantly moved his blue eyes from one to the other, smiling when appropriate, a reflexive response more then anything, but he was only half there. The other half was swimming through memories, of drinking with friends who died in the war, of his Shizu falling into his lap when she had drank a little too much...

Kosan snapped his eyes to his right watching Nariko weaving back and forth and giving him a very, very odd look. He was a little surprised she had lasted this long. He instinctively leaned into the soft pat of his cheeks, his eyes closing... before he felt a sudden weight on his crossed legs. Opening his eyes, he looked down to see her head on his thigh. Well, at least he had not spilled his drink, but looking down at her, he couldn't help the small smile that tugged on his lips as he reached down to lay his hand on the top of her head, "It seems our puppy is out."

“Her bark was always a bit worse than her bite,” Takko replied definitively, smiling with amusement at his own extension of the metaphor into an appropriate idiom. He was definitely smarter than people thought he was, right? Right. His thoughts were only the slightest bit fuzzy, and there was a pleasant warmth in his stomach, but that was really it. Other than that, he was only a slightly-more-boisterous than usual, and that was it.

The next three drinks went down nice and smooth, and though his grin was wide enough to split his face now, nothing about his state of mind had become especially different, as far as he could tell. “Hey—hey Kossan,” The ‘s’ slurred slightly, but he was comprehensible. “Don’t look sso down, my friend. Thiss iss a celebrashun!” Of what, he wasn’t sure. Fixing his eye with utmost seriousness on the other man, he asked in a grave tone of voice:

“D'you need a hug?”

After the next three drinks, Kosan could not, for the life of him, remember what he had been just thinking about. In fact, nearly all his attention was being consumed by the little puppy sleeping in his lap. His head was down, causing his long black hair to hide his face, and most of hers, in a black curtain.

Reaching down, his long fingers turned her sleeping face to his. Her mouth was hanging open letting out short even breaths, and he could not help but stare... before reaching down with both his hands, putting them on the side of her face as he moved her mouth open and closed. 'Ah....' 'Um' 'Ahhhhh' 'Um' his mind filled in the sounds that her mouth was making through the hard work of his hands.

Lightly, he started to bob her mouth with his palm making soft popping sounds fill the air. Nariko must have been really out of it to not have felt his touch, and he was a little annoyed by that prospect. She should be awake and enjoying it! But she just looked so adorable! Even if her passed out face wasn't her most attractive one, she just looked so cute! He just wanted to wrap her up and steal her away.

Takko's voice made him snap his head up... and cause his head to swim a little from the sudden movement that caused his inebriated brain to slosh around in his head. A hug?

Instead of speaking, all Kosan did was hold his arms up, like a child asking to be picked up. Of course, he didn't want to be picked up as he had such an adorable puppy sleeping on him, but it was an acceptance of the hug from the man who would probably snap his spine in two.

"Isn't she just so adorable!?" He asked a few shades too loudly, "She is so much cuter when she isn't talking."

Takehiko was as good as his (implied) word, and though the hug was slightly awkward, given the need to consider Nari-chan, it did indeed happen, the Raikage offering his friend a pat on the back to go with, though he might have accidentally used a bit too much force. Three glasses later…

Nari's face was almost taunting him in how she slept there looking so adorable and there was nothing he could do about it! Somehow, someway, she had planned this! That deviously cunning Nariko! Oh, ho! She was trying to trick him again!

That half smile was not one of pleasant inebriation! That was one pure evil! Reaching down, he grabbed her nose with his fingers, pulling it left and right, forcing her head to rock in his lap. No.. maybe she was really asleep?

Blinking a few times to try and clear his cloudy vision, he was aware of two facts, his stomach was starting to hurt, and he was really, really tired. Throwing his hand into the air, he proudly, and loudly, announced to the small room, "I am tired and I am going to bed!"

Pushing up on the table, he climbed to his feet, either ignorant or uncaring to how Nariko's head plummeted to the floor with her pillow removed. Turning on wobbly legs, Kosan leaned against the wall and motioned to the sleeping Nariko, "Takko," Kosan said stressing the o for as long as he could, "Take care of my puppy."
With that, he started to stumble towards his room, trying his best to disrobe on the way without falling down at the same time.

The Raikage blinked, glanced down at Nari-chan and shrugged. She looked fine to him, for the moment. “So... Mikkun. Just you and me and the sake now." He nodded sagely, as if this were some kind of significant statement, but even drunk he couldn't maintain solemnity for very long. His face cracked into a broad grin. “Let's do this."

Naomichi took the challenge on like every other person in the room, downing drink after drink and watching his companions fall from their graces like the sun falls for the moon. When Nari was gone just after a few drinks Naomichi knew it would be easy to take down the rest. The way she curled up onto Kosan's legs made him slightly jealous, but it'd be better if he just let the group do what they are used to since they all know each other better than he could ever. As he watched Kosan's slow descent from calm and stoic master into cuddly and adorable child looking after their 'puppy,' Naomichi couldn't help but smirk and chuckle at how completely different he was acting with so much alcohol in his system.

As Kosan stumbled out of the room Naomichi scooted towards Nari so at least he was able to keep an eye on her, softly rolling her to her side just in case of something bad happening. He couldn't help doing this - he knew it was wrong and weird to do so - but he softly pet the back of Nari's head in a caring manner. He just wanted her to be happy and well in this situation, despite probably not remembering anything that happened that night.

"Well Takko-san" Naomichi said, fire in his eye as he looked at the Raikage. "It looks like it's the battle of the eyepatches then. This proves we are the manliest of men and no one can take us down. Now, let's see who the victor is!" Naomichi raised his cup to the ceiling in a cheers motion, clanking it with Takko's. After downing what Naomichi assumed was his eleventh glass (he had no need to count them unlike everyone else) he sobered himself up almost immeditely and decided that it was as good of a time as ever to gloat about how much better he was than the Raikage. "So you realize you'll never win this, right?"

Takko couldn’t seem to be bothered, not even by the gloating. “Yer pretty good at thish,” he slurred, his voice a fraction too loud for the size of the room. He blinked his single visible eye at Naomichi and grinned, shrugging. “Yanno, I really don’t mind loshing in an honorable contest between men. Or women. Women are shome of the toughesht people I know.” He seemed especially delighted by this, and continued to down drinks—he’d lost track of his count by this point, but Katsu hadn’t, and honestly, he was surprised the man wasn’t dead, even considering his size. He must have a serious metabolism to be able to process that much liquor.

“Too bad Naomichi’s cheating, then,” the Uchiha put in. It wasn’t too much of a contest if one of the parties was doing something to remove the negative effects of the alcohol. It was really the only logical conclusion to come to, given how much they had already consumed. He sipped his own sake decidedly more slowly—someone had to stay reasonably sober and responsible during this escapade.

Takko looked aghast. “Now thash not… not… ish mean, Katsu-kun!” The Raikage switched his sentence when he couldn’t find the word he’d originally intended on losing, swaying just slightly back and forth in his seat. “Mikkun wouldn’t cheat at a drinking contesht! Being washted is half the fun! Dun go… impugning hish honor that way.” How he’d remembered a word like impugning when he couldn’t manage nice was one of those mysteries that may never have an answer.

“Is that so?” Katsuro replied, raising an eyebrow in Naomichi’s direction. “Looks like the Raikage’s defending your honor, Yuhara.” He was ever-so-slightly curious as to how the other Shinobi would respond. He didn’t exactly seem like the smooth liar sort, but then, Katsu didn’t know him very well. Which probably explained why he couldn’t think of a reason to hate him, which explained the fact that he was actually using complete sentences to speak to him. Funny how that worked.

Naomichi gave a hearty laugh when Katsuro pointed out his little trick. After taking down another cup - matching the Raikage's pace - he turned towards the silent shinobi with a big smile plastered across his face. "Aww, now Katsu-san... why'd ya go about saying that? I wanted to be the one to make the 'big reveal' to Takko-senpai." He was a little bothered by the fact that there was still someone standing - sober even - that would dampen the fun of the evening.

He turned towards his drinking partner and gave a humble bow, paying his respects to the man he wronged by cheating. "I'm sorry senpai~" Naomichi said in a playful tone. "I can't lie to a man as spectacular and powerful as you, so I feel I must proclaim you as the winner!" He couldn't help but feel guilty for using his kekkei-genkai as a crutch in such a simple game, but he just wanted to see everyone enjoying themselves. Never really witnessing anyone having pure fun without any motives behind it was something he always wished to see; and so he owed it to the Kumo-shinobi for giving him the chance to be more natural without panicking about what he was going to do or say.

Naomichi raised his cup for what he assumed was the Raikage's last time. Every man had his limits and the fact this man could still form words without them crumbling out of his mouth was a miracle in itself. He wanted the Raikage to be out of the room itself either in mind or matter so he could have a private conversation with the man who so kindly interrupted him. "Now, let us drink one final cup to the winner of the evening... Takko-senpai!"

For a moment, Takko looked a bit disappointed that the downer Uchiha had actually been correct, but he perked up again at the praise, nodding agreeably—though it made the room swim—and downing the last cup. He could hold no more, however, and stood with considerable unsteadiness from his spot. Still, he managed to throw Nari over his shoulder okay; he at least had not quite managed to forget that she was present. “Shure, shure, I’ll be winner if you shay sho. Jus’ don’ be too hard on Katshu-kun here. I think being cranky and depreshed ish in hish genes.” Picking up a tuneless hum, he wobbled out of the room, depositing Nari on her futon—on her side, not her back—and briefly contemplating just curling up in there himself, because his own seemed so far away. But, well, there was a reason he shouldn’t do that, he was almost sure. Kiri would know what it was. Kiri knew everything.

“Shoulda made her Raikage,” he mumbled to himself, half asleep already, flinging wide the sliding door to his own room—with unfortunately enough force to take it out of the frame.

“Oopsh.” Well, at least he was here now. Time to sleep.

Katsu, meanwhile, narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but drank for the purposes of the toast anyway. “And did you enjoy watching them all make fools of themselves?” he asked blithely.

With the Raikage's exit Naomichi immeditely sobered himself up, losing the excitement and jest he had with the group to adapt to a more serious tone with Katsu. With a soft chuckle he set down his cup and stared at the finely crafted wooden table, fixated on how simple it looked and yet how it still had a sheen of beauty with it as well. "Ya know something Katsu? I enjoyed having fun with those guys - and you should too. While they may have acted like idiots it was pure fun. You shoulda joined in... I mean we can't be ruthless killers all the time right?" As calm as Naomichi tried to sound, deep down he was breaking out in a cold sweat. Katsuro was someone he just couldn't figure out - more so than others. He just came off more inhuman than anyone else he had ever met due to the fact that Naomichi couldn't figure out his desires in the slightest - assuming he had any in the first place.

Katsuro blinked just once, slowly, as though processing what was being said. “I wasn’t feeling especially like a ruthless killer at the moment,” he replied flatly, his left eyebrow inching just slightly up his forehead. “Now if Tsukino were here, that might be different.” It was very, very difficult to tell just how serious he was being, because neither his voice nor his facial expression modulated in the slightest, but it might just have been a dry joke. Maybe he had had too much to drink.

With the slightest of sighs through his nose, he stood, flicking a glance at Naomichi. “If I resented this, you’d know.” It was perhaps as close as he ever got to admitting that not everything was a complete chore for him to deal with. At least… not today. Nodding tersely at the other shinobi, the Uchiha too took his leave for the night.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Rei Hinode
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Taunbon



Image
Image
Image





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.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Rei Hinode Character Portrait: Takehiko Yamamoto Character Portrait: Kiyoko Uzumaki
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK




Image
Image
Image




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.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Zetsubō Kosan Character Portrait: Kiriko Gekkō Character Portrait: Takehiko Yamamoto Character Portrait: Kiyoko Uzumaki
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK




Image
Image
Image




Kiyoko sighed, allowing her shoulders to slump as she scanned the area. Rei had left to take care of the others, leaving her with Kosan and the Raikage. She could at least tend to their wounds while she could. She applied the necessary means to at least fix her arm so it wouldn't be completely useless. She'd need both arms regardless to heal whatever injuries Kosan and the Raikage suffered. She glanced at the both of them, assessing which one would need treatment first, and decided to heal Kosan. The Raikage was a Jinchūriki, he'd be fine for now. A Jinchūriki's ability to heal on their own was good enough that she could tend to the ones who weren't so lucky. She approached Kosan tentatively, tilting her head to the side and raised a brow.

"You get to be the first one receiving treatment," she spoke, casting a side glance towards Takehiko before returning her attention back to Kosan. "And don't say 'help him first because he's the Raikage,' either. He will be fine on his own until you are taken care of first," she stated, jabbing a finger in Takehiko's direction in the process. She blinked mildly, glanced towards Takehiko, and waved, assuring him that she was going to work on Kosan first.

Kosan waited a few moments to ensure she was not coming back for letting his Tempest fall, the crackling and howling of wind dying down as quickly as it had erupted which left his hair in quite the state of disarray. He had not had time to tie it back as he normally did, and he could only wince at the thought of brushing it later and the sheer amount of knots that he would find. But the hair was his, and he was loath to cut it.

The assassins had been... odd, but it seemed they weren't the only ones attacked, but he still could not grasp the why of the situation. Why had they announced their presence so boldly? Why hadn't they used the element of surprise? Why hadn't they all sought to overwhelm them? Why? The woman... her power was impressive, and Kosan was sure she was holding back as he and Takko had been doing, the idea that there could be more people of her level was distressing. He was pulled out of his musings by the sudden flare of pain in his ribs, the adrenaline no longer dulling the pain to where his mind could ignore it. Looking down, there was a large purple bruise covering a good portion of his right ribs, moving his hands down, he probed them feeling for any broken bones before pulling his hand back as he let out a sharp hiss through his clenched teeth. Nothing too serious, seems she had hit him with one of her Earth Jutsu, he was no medic, but if he had to guess, a few of his ribs had hairline fractures.

Kosan's blue eyes snapped up to Kiyoko as she closed the distance between them and made her demands clear. He could not help but think, once again, that her hair truly did match her personality. He let his blue eyes roam her face before meeting her own, yes, it seemed he wasn't going to be able to tell her off even if he could, "I would never turn down your offer," Kosan said his half smile falling to a hiss of annoyance as the words causes his ribs to expand and shake, putting pressure on the fractures, "I value my life far too much to risk it against your... fiery wrath."

Takko only chuckled at the medic’s demands. Kosan wasn’t nearly as stubborn or prideful as some of the others when it came to accepting the help of medic-nin, perhaps because he’d been married to one and his best friend was another. Perhaps it was only because his quest for vengeance tended to injure him a lot, and he’d simply accepted that needing their assistance was the price he paid for that. Whatever the case, he was not at all difficult to convince, and the Raikage was glad. It pulled at him in a way little else did to see his friends in pain—and that was what most people would think was his first mistake. To him, they were not and never had been purely subordinates. They were his friends, his family, even, and that made him vulnerable in ways no amount of stoneskin could protect him against.

But there was little he could do about it, and nothing he would. He preferred things this way, even if he was more vulnerable because of it. Takehiko fully and genuinely believed that a person fought better when they were fighting for the things they truly cared about. Maybe not with better technique or more elegant execution, but better in the sense that defeat was not accepted. And that willpower was worth whatever pain he had to endure, because they were worth it.

Glancing down, he examined himself in a cursory fashion. He had a tendency not to notice when he was becoming injured, so it was always important to check. He noted that his granite “skin” was cracked in a few places, and raised an eyebrow. That was impressive, and took much more strength than the average shinobi would ever possess. “Would you look at that,” he murmured. It would seem that his life really had been in considerable danger. He counted himself a fortunate man that things had ended when they had. This whole exchange struck him as more of a feint than an actual blow, but he wondered what they were supposed to be missing, when their attention turned to it. What was the real attack to be, and why?

He let the jutsu fade, his flesh returning to normal, as unblemished as it ever got, considering the number of scars he sported, most of them white lines crosshatching his tanned, callused skin. A few of them were blotchier, like old burns, or pink in color instead of pearly. He flexed his hands a few times, about to glance back over at the other two, when a small noise caught his attention. Turning, his visible eye widened in surprise when he caught sight of Kiriko, looking much worse for wear and leaning against the architecture to support herself. “Kiri.” The word was spoken low and urgent, entirely lacking his usual bombastic cheer, and he was beside her as fast as he could be, which considering just who and what he was, meant nearly instantaneously.

A large hand found its way carefully to her shoulder, providing additional support for her to lean on, though gently enough that he wouldn’t inadvertently aggravate any injuries. “Are you all right? Have you been treated?” His expression was one of undisguised worry, and why should it not be?

Kiriko had barely entered the building before a large hand grasped her shoulder gently, which caused her to stiffen instantly until relaxing at the knowledge of who the other person was; it seemed that Hiko would find her first, rather than the other way around. While she wasn’t normally one to use him as a giant, vertical bed, Kiri found herself leaning against him to keep her balance. She was still panting a little heavy, but a small smile found its way to her lips as she relaxed just a little against him. The words he spoke were low and troubled, and Kiriko had difficulty not giving a bark of laughter from the situation, even though she knew it would seriously hurt if she did. "I don’t recall seeing that face whenever a meeting was going on. How the tables have turned, huh...” The sarcasm and harsh undertone she threw at herself was subtle, yet blatant. The fact that she was requiring another to stand was obvious enough that she wasn’t good enough for the job.

Her legs got weak again as she tried to look up and focus on Hiko’s face, but got a little dizzy and decided against it as she thought of how to actually answer Hiko’s question. ”Being all right is subjective; I don’t think I’ve been alright for a while. Pretty sure Mom knew that too.” Kiri’s mind was wandering again, her path of interaction diverting at the smallest change in thought, as it seemed to do. She finally met Takko’s eyes, the piercing blue now seemingly clouded as she couldn’t think straight still. "Currently, I’m not fine. I...” Kiriko’s mind clouded over as she recounted all of the details again, and her head fell back down to look at the dirt. "I failed, Hiko. I... failed. Hard.” The words came out softly, almost painfully, but they were the truth; she had failed.

Kiyoko raised an amused brow, the corners of her lips tilting up slightly as she regarded Kosan. "Fiery wrath?" she questioned, rolling up her sleeves in the process. "My wrath shouldn't be what you are concerned about," she stated, a small smirk forming at her lips. "And you'd better not turn down my offer. I only offer it once," she continued, smirking fully as she placed a hand on her hip. She shook her head softly and sighed, moving her arms so that she could fully assess the situation. It was a good thing he wasn't wearing his shirt, otherwise she'd have had to ask him to remove it. This way, she could see the damage already and get to work quickly. She could see already, on his right side, the large bruise on his side forming. She pursed her lips together, placing her forefinger and index finger along the side to feel against it.

"Well, I'm sure you're already aware that your ribs are partially broken," she muttered more to herself than to him. She continued feeling against his ribs to find how far the damage went, and was satisfied that the damage wasn't too severe. Her eyes glanced towards Takehiko as he walked away, spotting Kiriko off into the distance, before returning her attention back to Kosan. She sighed and summoned her chakra to her hand, waiting for it to manifest correctly before she began applying her Shōsen Jutsu. Once his ribs were taken care of, she grinned broadly and placed her hand back against her hip. "There, that should do it. Anything else I can do for you?" she stated, raising a brow in the process.

Kosan raised an eyebrow in curiosity, not afraid of her wrath? Well, did that mean he should tremble at her generosity? He opened his mouth to tell her something truly witty, or at least, it sounded so in his mind, but his thoughts were cut off when she touched his rib with her fingers, the light pressure earning a small hiss that escaped from his clenched teeth. It was easy to ignore pain in battle or when he was focused on it, but he had not been prepared for it which was more his fault then hers.

The pain was short lived, and his attention was quickly nabbed by the appearance of his fellow Kumo Shinobi, Kiriko, she did... not look well. If anything, she looked far worse then either Raikage or himself. It confirmed his belief that they weren't the only group targeted which made the situation slightly more... complex if nothing else. Still, he was surprised to see her in such a condition, she was a fierce Shinobi.

Kosan eyed the two of them, ignoring the feeling of the alien chakra entering his system, or the slight unsettling feeling that came with bones being fused back together. It was a fairly short process, and it wasn't his first time being injured, so it was something he had grown accustomed to coping with.

He turned his blue eyes back towards Kiyoko, "Unless you have a spare shirt and a cup of tea hidden somewhere on your person, I believe I shall be fine. Kiriko, however, does not look to be in prime condition."

Takehiko looked less than pleased; in truth it was Kiri's words that upset him most of all. Still, here and now was not the time to be having this discussion. She was obviously in need of rest, and he still had to find and ensure the safety of the rest of his cohort. Then there would probably be meetings, and accusations... he wasn't looking forward to any of it. But first things were first.

“Okay, well... everyone go rest. I'll find Rei and Nari and get them back here, too. In the meantime, focus on recovering, and don't answer any questions without me here. I'm not sure who is responsible for this, beyond those people we just fought, but it's clear that they knew where we were, and probably why, so we have to be careful." He looked down at Kiri, feeling very strongly the urge to pull her into a hug, but he was also worried about what that might do to her injuries--and perhaps her dignity. She took her duty very seriously, and he didn't want her to think that he was any less serious about it than she was. He'd never invalidate the effort she or anyone else put forward, especially not when it was on his behalf.

So for now, it was business. But later... later he would be tracking her down. Because she hadn't failed at all, and she needed to understand that.