Konoha

The sun shone brilliantly in the cloudless sky, it's radiance accompanied by the singing of birds and the hustle and bustle of the village as its inhabitants went about their day. The academy was filled with the laughter of children as they talked and trained, their dreams and ambitions still ahead of them, as well as the bitter work of training. Kokiro had gotten into a habit of walking past the academy on his morning jogs ever since his nephew had signed up, though had long since graduated. He was now a Jonin on a mission in the Land of Earth... Perhaps that was the route of his nostalgia this morning...

Or perhaps it was the grey hair he'd found this morning...

The thought caused Kokiro to sigh as he ran a hand through his hair while he attempted to push away the thought that had haunted him all morning.

He was no longer in his prime... Though by no means was he getting any weaker. He still felt he was able to take on any of the youngsters in the village like he did in the war, but he'd be a bit winded afterwards.

"Maybe some food will clear my head... or a fight..." Kokiro said to himself, bit decided to eat and then fight... after his food settled of course. So he headed towards His friend Tatsuya's restaurant, making his usual entrance of hearty laughter and announcing the might of his hunger to Tatsuya, as though it were some beast for him to slay with food... Though there were worse ways to slay beasts he supposed...

It had been another normal morning for Tatsuya, well, as normal a morning as a ninja chef working in a restaurant called the Wooden Dragon could have anyway. The usual gang had stopped by that morning for breakfast before setting out on their missions, and now as the morning was turning into midday, the lunch crowd were coming around. Already the place was half filled up, even the famous Naruto, who was now finally a chuunin and leading his own squad, had come by for a bowl of ramen.

Suddenly the restaurant doors burst open as Kokiro entered, given his usual speech, which prompted Tatsuya to throw a rice ball at his face. Anyone who came to the Wooden Dragon often enough would know this to be a normal occurrence, though anyone else would likely thing a fight was about to break out. There was always the chance it would, but usually this didn't happen.

"Go ahead and take a sear wherever Kokiro, I'll be with you in a minute," Tatsuya says, heading to the back kitchen, "But if you eat all my rice again I'll flash fry you!"
-=-=-=-=-=-

Raiden stood on the highest branch of a tall, ancient oak tree, looking out across the vast forest that surrounded the village known as the Hidden Leaf. He could see many people moving about in the streets, but despite the fact that they were mere minutes away, it seemed no one had noticed his small group approaching yet. Turning back he looks down at the dozen or so men and women who had chosen to follow him to Konoha. Thanks to the training regimen of their home village, they were all well trained shinobi, though he didn't personally know any of them, which made him a little uneasy.

It was rumored that some of the Uchiha didn't care about what had happened to the 'original' clan that had been in Konoha, and that some thought this revenge scheme was rather pointless and unnecessary. In reality, that was true, but he wouldn't let them know that.

"Alright men," He says, after leaping from the tree to stand before them once again, "The village is just on the other side of this patch of trees. I want someone to disguise themselves and sneak into the village. Use genjutsu to fool them if you have to, but I need to know where the Hokage is, he is our first target," he then reaches into his shirt and pulls out a poster, showing a man with white hair and one eye covered by his headband, "His name is Kakashi, and he stole the eye of one of our fallen Uchiha brethren!"

Shion eats his rather late breakfirst because he just returned from a mission and just got back home where he is all alone because his parents are at work and his siblings were training.
After he finishes eating it he decides to go lie down a bit,even so its a bright and sunny day with rather warm climate, and get a bit of rest before the next mission is going to start.
As he just lies down someone knocks at the door as he immediantly jumps up and goes to answer the door while thinking to himself " Please don't let it be another mission...".
He opens the door as an ex-anbu stands right before him and Shion asks him to come in.

As they both are inside the rather big house the ex-anbu hands Shion some scrolls while saying calmly " Here are several mission requests. You can decide which one of these you will take."
Shion sighs but still opens the scrolls and reads through them.
"Hm the usual A and S rank missions hm..."he mumbles while reading.

Then to his surpise the ex-anbu replies." Want something else?" he says while smiling which is quite rare for him.
Shino wonders for a second why he is smiling then replies " Sure what else have you got?"
The ex-anbu hands him another scroll and Shion reads through it again as his eyes widen of the content of that scroll. " Is this for real?...."
Ex-anbu smiles and answers " It sure is ..want to do it?"

Shino smirks and says with a rather happy and for him quite unusual facial expression"Would not let someone stop me from doing that".
After saying this he adds" Same rules as always?"
The ex-anbu replies " No since you don't have a contract with a familiar yet you will need people to relay your informations. I would say you need at least two other people but you can choose which one. Oh and before I forget it you are not allowed to show your heritage even when your life is a stake unless told otherwise."

Shion wants to punsh the ex-anbu in the face fore those two rules because he loves to work alone and to do his work like he wants to and without restrictation but he reliases protesting won't help him in any way.
Shion then says calmly " Understood when will I have to depart?"
The ex-anbu answers " Today in the beginning of the evening so be prepared oh and don't tell a soul about the mission itself or to where you are heading after all this mission is clasified as the absolute highest rank SS and you are only allowed to do it because of your fathers position. Oh and the last thing the two other members of your team have to at least be jonin level shinobis like yourself."
Shion nods as a symbol of his understanding.
Right after that the ex-anbu leaves the house and Shion goes in the room and packs his stuff while thinking about the possible members of his team.

Sandra woke up at the crack of dawn that morning to do a little bit of 'daybreak training.' Or at least that's what she tells her parents when she leaves in the mornings. When she does leave, she tends to go and lay on some random roof in the village and sleep a little more, then go and get a bite of breakfast or lunch, depending on the time.

Opening her eyes, Sandra wakes up again to find that it's midmorning, so it was time to get either a late breakfast or an early lunch. So she decided to head to the Wooden Dragon, one of her favorite places to go and eat. It was a very cool place.

Walking over there with her arms behind her head, Sandra stops suddenly and scans her surroundings. Something just didn't feel right. Some sixth sense was telling her that something was wrong, but what? Or was she still tired? Shrugging, she continues walking, but now her guard was up.

Mizuki's eyes slowly open to the heat of the outside light. She slowly turned her head to see her empty dark room. The room only had a bed, a small table, closet,two picture frames, and her halbed. She looked up at the ceiling, before getting off the bed. Mizuki then went to her closet to pick out her clothing. Today she was going to wear a black fighting kimono that had red cherry blossom print and the uchiha sign on the back. After a couple minutes of changing, she left her rather lonely home and outside. She looked around to see many other Uchiha training. "hm...." Mizuki began to walk slowly thinking of what she should do.

Meanwhile Shion finished packing up his own stuff for the mission and after purposely leaving his headband behind because he wants it to make easier for himself to cover up his identity while he is in Konoha during his mission, he goes outside still not much of an idea who he should pick for his mission.
So for now he walks around the city with an activated Sharingan to see the peoples chakra levels to maybe find someone suitable for the mission since he knows most of the people of the village of course but he as well never really cared for the abilities of other people with exception of his own family and because of him never attending the ninja academy he never really got to know much other ninjas when they were about to go to combat.
Not to mention that he seldomly worked with other ninjas during a mission.
While he walks around in the village,and analyses chakra levels, he wonders why everything good in life has to have a negative side as well.
In this case the good thing is to get the first SS rank mission which was appointed since the last great ninja war and the negative side being, having to do this mission in a team, not to mention as its leader.

As Mizuki walked around looking at things blankly, something caught her eye. Why is that man not wearing his headband...? She just shrugged off the question, before weaving some hand signs.Some ninja around her watched. Once her hands finished, a small cloud of smoke consumed her. When the smoke disappeared, nothing was left of Mizuki.

At a close by training ground there was another puff of smoke, only this time something was there when it disappeared. Actually it wasn't a something, it was a someone and that someone was Mizuki. She seemed the same as before ,but she wasn't. On her back there was a large halberd, Its blade resembles that of a large double edged sword and its hilt had a large, half-moon like design. It would seem Mizuki made a couple of trips before she reached the training ground. Her hand reached for the halberd's hilt, and she lifted it up effortless. People were very surprised when they saw her around with the halberd. Can someone like her really fight with a large halberd like that?! They thought but Mizuki had years of practice to master the weapon, so logically she was fine.

Mizuki stabbed the blade into the ground, before making some hand signs. Clones of herself appeared around her, there was a silence, until one clone mades its move toward Mizuki. She then grabbed her weapon, pulling it out of the ground, then she charged toward the clone destroying it with a slash of the blade. Another silence, but all the clones charged at the same time with kunais, shruikens, etc in their hands. Mizuki stood in the middle calmly activating her sharingan. Once she had the sharingan everything was a blur, if people were around the training ground, they would hear metal clashing at each other, and sounds of poofing. When all the noise stopped, there left on the training ground was Mizuki. She was wounded, but not badly just a few scrapes and cuts here and there. Mizuki let out a sigh. That took to long... Well that was what she thought, it actually took her 30 mins to defeat the hundred of clones. She stabbed her halberd into the ground, before leaning on a tree and sliding down. Once her bottom hits the ground, she closed her eyes resting.

Kokiro caught the rice ball, having become used to the joke and treated it as a sort of appetizer as he waited on Tatsuya to catch up with the customer flow. He sat down at a table and smiled gently as he looked around, knowing most of the people here. He'd always been a friendly sort, making a point to talk to most everyone he saw in his younger years, even volunteering to teach taijutsu at the academy every semester when he was able. He looked up to see one of the Nara clan enter the restraunt and waved to her, recognizing her a bit as one of the academy students he'd taught years ago. He looked over at Tatsuya as he took a bite of the rice ball and grinned.

"What's a Shinobi have to do to get some service around here?" He said with a laugh, then took another bite of the rice ball. He and Tatsuya always bantered about like this, having been on several missions together in the past, and were once considered the dynamic duo of Konoha.

Noticing one of the guys wave at her, Sandra gives a little wave back and sits down at an empty table. The guy looked familiar, but the his name didn't come to mind. But she has seen him before. Just not sure where.
Placing an order of sweet-n-sour chicken with sauce ((I'm not sure what y'all serve)), Sandra leans back in her chair, waiting for her order to arrive. She had a list of things to do today: go buy flash bombs, smoke bombs, and exploding tags because she was short of them, work on her new jutsu, and that was pretty much it. Kinda boring, but those things had to get done sooner or later.

"How do you know that idiot?" Tatsuka asks, looking up at his father he he prepares and order of sweet and sour chicken. This causes Tatsuya to promptly knuckle his son in the head, which in turn causes him to let out a yelp, "Hey! It's not my fault if you have such weird old men as friends dad!"

"Be careful what you say son," Tatsuya says, turning and getting a plate ready for the mean he was preparing, "That guy's name is Kokiro, and he's saved my life quite a few times over the years, so show your respect. Which reminds me, remember Isamu? The chuunin that comes around every now and then? Kokiro was his team leader when he was about your age now...thankfully I showed him how to cook though. Everything Kokiro makes tastes like mud..."

Shaking his head and smiling, Tatsuya takes the sweet and sour chicken from his son, who's still laughing, and makes his way back out into the dining room. Purposefully ignoring Kokiro another moment longer he walks over to Sandra and sets the plate before her, "Good morning...or afternoon. I don't really know what time it is. Anyway, is there anything else you'd like or need?"

-=-=-=-

Meanwhile, Raiden had moved onto the action phase of his plan. As he watched from high up in the trees surrounding Konoha, his shinobi made their way into the village. Some of them simply walked through the gates, using genjutsu to make it so that no one noticed. Some of the more skilled ninja took out the ANBU guards and stole their masks and uniforms, taking their place. When everything was in place, and the five most skilled Uchiha members he had brought with him were inside, he entered Konoha himself, wearing a worn, faded black cloak and hood to disguise himself, keeping his Sharingan hidden for the time being.

Nodding to his five generals, they split up, three going in opposite directions, fanning out to cover more ground, two of them making their way casually to the Hokage's Office. Those two would sneak in and capture the Hokage and gain any information they could from him before ending his life.

While they did this, he made his way down the street until he finally smelled something delicious in the air. Looking about, he finds himself standing before a place called the Wooden Dragon. With a small smile he hides his face in the shadows of his hood before making his way inside.

Mitsuki continue to walk thinking. a mission, huh..hm.. "well the answer all depends on the question what kind of mission is it..." She shift her halberd alittle holding it to her comfort.

Mitsuki closed her eyes taking in all the information. After a few seconds of silence, she abruptly stopped walking. Then she looked over shoulder. "Count me in Shion.." Mitsuki then began walking again, remaining quiet for anything else Shion had to say.

Sandra smiles and takes her order from the man. "Thank you sir. I don't need anything else." Before taking a bite however, a person in a black cloak with the hood over his face caught her eye, and Sandra would've groaned in disbelief, but didn't. Why? People in dark clothing and hoods over their faces were always the sneaky types, no doubt about it. Why can't people learn that? Using that sort of outfit to 'blend in' is stupid. Too 'blend in,' you mustn't do that! "Actually," Sandra says to the man, "can you please explain to me why suspicious people just keep wearing black cloaks and hoods? I don't get how they think that's normal. There are better ways to get around unnoticed."

Mitsuki gets up slowly, she looks around, before placing the frame in her pouch. She was about to make varies of handsigns but she stopped. ill just walk... She opened the door, to leave. Once she reach the front door, Mitsuki opened it to have a small problem. The door was lodge closed, from the lack of use. i haven't used the door at all... She whipped out a kunai and started to lodge it between the cracks of the door. When the kunai went all around the door, she tried to open the door again. This time she successed, Mitsuki began to walk toward the main gate which was close by. Her eyes peer around seeing kids training, adults, shops, etc. Nothing interested her, finally she saw the main gate. Looking closely she sees Shion waiting.

Mitsuki nodds slowly "yes im ready.." She stops in front of him, looking at him with emotionless eyes. "What is the plan exactly when we reach konoha..?" She waited for a response but something came to mind. "Or have you not made a plan yet..?"

Takeshi waits eagerly at the top of a tree as he watches for the signal that the infiltration is successful. He'd been scratching his legs with his claws in boredom, waiting for the boogie man to let him know when to start killing.

"I hope its soon..." Takeshi whispered, his grin widening. He'd been in an accident years ago when he had just turned twenty, and it had warped his mind to an almost childlike state... and rather than gain their wonder of the world around them, he lost his sense of empathy and became a sadist... a horrible combination. He also kept a close eye on Shion and Mitsuki to make sure they stayed on task... the boogie man wouldn't like his minions falling behind...

He'd rather they be dead He thought to himself, smiling even wider as he watched the village for the signal.

-=-

Kokiro payed little mind to the man who entered, too distracted by the food Tatsuya had prepared for him to realize someone had even entered...

"You know Tatsuya, I'd get fat if I came here more often..." Kokiro said with a laugh, annihilating his food in a matter of moments. His appetite hadn't lost its might in his later years, that was for certain. He'd nearly out eaten Naruto at Ichiraku's...

Finally, after his belly was full, Kokiro noticed the cloaked figure that had come in and smiled and waved, believing him to be just another patron.

"Come. sit and introduce yourself young man. I promise I don't bite... I just ate afterall" He said, letting out another hearty laugh.

"Well, no one ever said he wasn't trying to be noticed." Tatsuya says, laughing a little, "Some people do actually just dress that way you know. From the looks of him...I'd say he's a traveler, probably just passing though, no big deal." He gives her a small smile, then turns and makes his way over to Kokiro, watching as Tatsuka brings the serving plate over and holds it while Tatsuya places the food on the table, "Thanks son. Why don't you go take a break for a little while?"

"Sure thing dad, I'll be back in an hour!" Tatsuka says, grinning widely as he takes off his apron, tossing it onto a hook set into the wall as he hurries to exit through the kitchen.

"Kids..." Tatsuya says with a laugh as he turns back to Kokiro, "Well, I suppose I'll take that as a compliment this time." He pauses, waiting for his friend to finish his meal, then begins to gather the plates as he asks the stranger to join them. "I'll bring out some tea then, always good when we meet a new person."

As the man serving tables heads back into the kitchen, Raiden looks over at Kokiro for a moment, his eyes cold under his hood, but turning warm and soft as he lowers it and gives him a smile, "Ah, it is always nice to find such nice people in a new village. I believe I'll take you up on the offer my good man." Standing he begins to walk over, leaving the cloak on but not bothering to close it, allowing him to see the dual swords he carries. "My name is Yori, nice to meet you."

A lie, of course, but why would anyone suspect it wasn't his name? The Uchiha were thought to be wiped out nowadays here, and with his Sharingan closed for now his warm brown eyes could be seen, a sign that his blood was not as strong as some of the other members, who had the black eyes of the original clan.

Shortly after Raiden has taken his seat and introduced himself, Tatsuya returns with a pot of tea and two cups.

Mitsuki ran right beside Shion, her face devoid of any emotion. She peers at Shion wondering what he is thinking about, before looking forward.
Questions of how Konoha will look like, how they train there ninja, etc filled her mind. Mitsuki was usually not the curious type, so she really wanted to see Konoha.
Placing more chakra on her feet to help her she ran a bit faster.

After Shion notices that Mitsuki starts to run faster he matches his own speed to hers by utilising a bit more chakra then he says playfully "Should we make the situation a bit more interesting ?"
Without really waiting for an answer he suggests"Maybe we could make a little running competition,... with a little prize maybe?"
While suggesting this he thinks that this little running competition could break the ice between them a bit and also the way she will answer to that request could give away quite a bit about her personality.
Shion also thinks that is quite a crucial thing towards the way they will cooperate during the mission and so influence the chance of the success of it.

Mitsuki blinked at his question. There was a small silence until she asked. "well whats the prize exactly..?" She knew that she wouldnt want to do anything with out a good reason to. She continue to run, looking ahead. Why did he suggest it anyway i wonder...

Shion thinks for a second because he totally forget to come up with a good prize not to mention he expected a bit of a different answer but then again that was to be expected since he does not know much about Mitsuki.
Then he suggests playfully again "Hm how about we make it simple? The person who looses has to do a favour for the winner the winner can choose without limitations?"
Then he pauses for a second and adds" Besides its more entertaining than just run around for half a day without a reason, isn't it?"

Mitsuki nodded. "sure...lets do it.." Waiting Shion to start she thought if i win...what will i ask of him..? Not wanting to wait longer she, stored chakra in her feet boosting her speed. Then, she dissapear in a black blur going ahead of him. She easily dodge the trees, wind making her hair fly. Mitsuki felt the corner of her lips lift but she shook it off. Her expression became emotionless again.

As soon as Shion sees Mitsuki dashing of he concentrates more chakra,which is around by now around 50% of his whole chakra, into his feet to boost his speed and while doing so he does not even bother to hold back chakra for later purposes after all if it should be needed he can as well eat a chakra pill or to but he did not want to think about that at the moment, rather he concentrates on the little match now.
As soon as the chakra boosting takes effect his speed increases significantly which allows him to catch up to the former black blur pretty quickly but while he does so he really has a hard time dodging the trees.

Mitsuki felt Shion's chakra signature get closer. She also sensed that he had a hard time dodging the trees. hm... She add a small amount of chakra, again going ahead of Shion. at this rate will get to Konoha soon... If people around were to watch they would see 2 black blurs, one in front of the other. Most actually wouldn't be able to see the 2, there speed were quiet admirable to many.

While following right behind Mitsuki he wonders how much stamia she has after all its been a while since the last time someone actually was able to be a competition for him.
After that he thinks hm ...at this rate we should be there soon ....maybe I should not use anymore chakra ...after all I will have to take care of the guards....besides it would be interesting to know what she wants me to do.
After he thinks that he keeps up his current speed without any change.