---

While the recently awoken N.C.4 of the 11th corps was sent out on a mission, strangely enough for no apparent reason, and no questions asked from higher up as to why Chihiro Hyuga and Gin Kakiyama had both suddenly vanished with this person, almost as if this had been planned, the rest of the village was still in relative peace. Several jonin and chunin were also out on missions, but the largest part was in the village, waiting for a sudden surge in missions. It seemed to be something that occured frequently, you were waiting for a mission for a couple of days, and then when you finally thought you could relax, a guy showed up with a paper stating you had to go here and there and do this and that. It was the shinobi life, and you got used to it, but it never got out of the annoyance factors of many shinobi.

Today, it seemed like one of those days where nothing happened. Though the office area around the Hokage's office was busy, more busy than other days, the other areas were quiet. Even the financial district seemed a bit quiet, although traffic was still big there. However anyone paying attention would also notice the many ANBU on site at the Hokage's office, taking positions atop buildings and in the streets, patrolling like usual, but obviously also looking out or guarding a specific area.

Then, at precisely 11:45 the message came to every shinobi. The Hokage, Zeno Hakarasu, was going to have a small speech at 12:00 in front of the Hokage's office, the usual spot. That would explain the many ANBU preparing the site, making sure it was clear from any threats. The Hokage was still a very powerful man, but it was better to take precautions as there are always organisations and lone wolves that wanted rid of the Hokage, and with that, Konohagakure. The message would arrive at all shinobi's disposal through their cellphone, receiving a simplistic text message that would alert them to the event.

Greetings, all shinobi of Konohagakure,

today the Hokage, Zeno Hakarasu, will be giving a motivational speech followed rapidly by an explanation as to the policies for the coming five years at 12.00 precisely. Missions rated C-rank and below are canceled for the day, and will continue tomorrow instead.

Attendance is mandatory for all shinobi not currently on a B-rank mission or higher. That will be all.

Hope to see you there,
Ayame Choko.

This short message was enough to alert people about the time, as the location would be the same as always. Upon arrival to the scene the shinobi would find a large mass of shinobi concentrated in the square at the center, but there was enough room to get to the front anyway. That was because the shinobi were, indeed, shinobi and had enough decency to simply stand comfortably in their own clique's of friends, whilst maintaining a solid line formation. If one were to walk in, it'd be almost as if it was an army meeting that had just ended, as everyone was still in line but standing very informally.

At precisely 12:00 the Hokage walked outside, guided on one side by an ANBU member and on the other side by a woman who wore her hair up, and had a pair of glasses sitting on her nose. Anyone would recognise her as the woman sitting behind the front desk handling visitors in the office, but many would be lead to question where Ayame was at this point in time. Whispers said that she had been missing for a long time, and some even said that she had gotten pregnant. Fujitora was completely forgotten in this, as he was expected to simply arrive later. They knew better than to think he wasn't going to show up.

The Hokage soon silenced the crowd as he stepped up to the microphone that was on the wooden platform. With a slight grumble he started his speech. “Friends! Comrades! Brothers in arms.. today we meet here because I had a feeling you could all use a morale boost. I know that work has been tough on you, but that's the shinobi life. Never the less, I am grateful to you all.” His words echoed through the plaza as everyone stood in complete silence, only the off cough or whisper being audible to any listening.

“I am grateful because it isn't me that makes Konoha great, beautiful or big. It's all of you!” he said loudly, making a wide gesture with his hands. “And in a way, I owe you all my job as Hokage. One of the most honorable positions I can imagine. So thank you, for that too. Now.. I was instructed that you also needed to be updated on policy changes for the coming five years.”

He would pause for a moment as his secretary handed him the papers that detailed most of the changes, and there was a lot of them. The shinobi were going to be forced to sit through them and he wasn't finished just yet..

---

---

Yamato had, just like Aoi and Daiki, received the message a bit earlier, and they'd also received a slightly different message. He was told to come to the academy at 11.55 and help guide the academy students to the square. That was a boring task, more fit for people like Haruka, who enjoyed doing the mundane and unnessecary twenty times over. But Yamato didn't grumble or moan about it, he simply accepted it as a task of a jonin, just like Aoi and Daiki should.

He headed out in full battle-ornate, in his battle armor of metal as he always did. It was about 11.45 at that time, only moments after receiving the text. It was lucky that he'd been up earlier since he'd still have stuff to do now that he lived alone. It was barely a five minute walk, too, since he could really only afford a Downtown appartment. He'd never realized what a shithole Downtown was until he lived there. The fact that he lived on the outskirts of Konoha had been a blessing and a curse and he only realized it now. Such a sheltered life, simply by living there. In Downtown he was confronted with the harsh reality of the poor people living there. And it didn't change his vision of them. They were still scum. It just made him realize that they were supposed to be treated like it too.

With a sigh he opened the gate to the academy, looking around quickly to see if Aoi or Daiki was already there. He did see them in the recipients list for that special text they received.. there was no sight of them yet anyway. He headed inside for that reason, as there was nobody to talk to about what was going on precisely. He quickly found sensei Chuboku, in classroom 1D as he'd always been. The kids there weren't that young, they were all around the age of 12 really. Probably preparing heavily for their genin exams, if anything.. “Do they really need guidance? Most of these kids could kick the hokages' ass any day.” he said, with his remarkable discontent with the current hokage. What were the jonin thinking when they accepted that lazy shit as hokage.. atleast now that he was jonin he could influence these kind of things. “Shh, Yamato-kun. Don't say such things in front of the children.. and I agree, they don't need guidance. They're not 8 anymore.. but orders are orders, you know that.” sensei Chuboku answered Yamato. “I know.” the answer was.

Yamato clapped in his hands and got the attention of all the students in the room at once. “Good morning. I am Yamato Minamoru. I will be your glorified tour guide for the day..” Yamato didn't see it, but behind him sensei Chuboku sighed heavily and put his head in his palm. There was simply no getting rid of Yamato's attitude was there? Ever since he was a kid, Yamato had had this attitude.. “You will follow me. No running, no dancing, no jumping, no laughing, no crying. Nothing. You will follow me and you will talk with eachother.”

“Hai, Yamato!” the class sang in unison, and they got ready to get out. “Let me add to that. You will also refer to me as Yamato sensei. Show respect to those that deserve it. That includes anyone with a higher rank. Understood?” Yamato added, a particular authoritarian choice of words, but a semi-friendly voice to say it. Semi friendly, because it was hard for Yamato to sound friendly even if he tried. “Hai, Yamato-sensei!”

With that bussiness finally handled, Yamato and the class made their way to the square. He guided them all the way, even talking with a few of the students on the way. It wasn't a full blown conversation, but he wasn't picky about answering questions. He was brutally honest with them though, that much was to be expected. “Did you ever kill someone?!” “Yes. More than once.” “Was he a bad guy?!” “No. He was just a guy. He did what he thought was right.” “Nanda?! Why did you kill him then!?” “Because he tried to kill me. And he failed.” The boy gulped and drooped off to the back where he'd whisper to his friends about how cool Yamato was. If only they knew the whole story. A girl now approached, looking giddy and giggly. “Y-Yamato-sensei! D-Do you have a girlfriend?!” “No.” “C-can I be it?!” “I am engaged. Sorry.”

The entire trip went something like that, until they got to the square. Yamato lined the children up nicely and made sure they stood at attention, though he realized they were kids and he did cut them some slack. That was rare for Yamato. Perhaps he did have something resembling a heart. And so he stood next to then, keeping an eye out, until the hokage appeared. That was when he started paying attention himself, to listen what this glorified moron had to say for himself.

---

Konoha's 11th Corp, the band new fancy name for the Root organization created as a replacement about a century before current events, was having its head council biting its nails over a piece of information barely disclosed to even the Hokage. They had put up a plan to eliminate what stressed them so much, an assassination mission using their brand new soldier known as N.C.4, a shonobi with little to no humanity left in it. Unlike most extensively trained shonobi from such a cruel environment, this went beyond cruel conditioning and headed straight for complete tampering of one's body structure. Along with it came Chihiro Hyuuga, the heir of the Hyuuga clan and their only viable key to accessing the targets without causing a global scandal. Finally, Gin Kakiyama, the Kiri native who transferred to Konoha. Because none of the members knew of the mission's context, there was no risk in including a rather loyal foreigner into the team. That and both his capabilities involving mist manipulation and his status as a foreigner made him perfect to insure Konoha's behind being covered.

The operation was, in theory, a success. They had assassinated both Cho Tonaka, the head of the most influential family in the country of Earth, and Fi Tonaka, his daughter and Chihiro's childhood friend. The involvement of these people left both Chihiro and Gin to question the consistency of this mission, much to N.C.4's dislike. Eventually, the way the assassination was performed left the robot rather perplexed about the whole execution, notably how Gin may be a liability and how Chihiro may be affected by the fact that she had to assassinate her friend because of Gin's cowardice. The team's leader's suspicions came to a reality when the Princess' catatonic-like state caused her to be dangerously hurt by a surviving employee of the mansion. Despite that, they all left and managed to bombard the Tonaka residence without any trace of the remaining. Well, everything except a couple of witnesses ...

Now rested at a prepared safehouse before they'd rush back to Konoha by taking old, uncertain roads to avoid as many encounters as possible. Chihiro was hurt, but only a short rest was a required before she would be ready and they'd pierce through the perimeter imposed by the Shinobi in the small village. Still on edge, N.C.4 remained on guard while Chihiro attempted to say something. The robot was all ears, but she opted for a written communication due to her wounds blocking off any possible effort to use speech. When N.C.4 would finally see what she was trying to express, the robot's cold expression became one of worry, a rare occurrence but a justified one. As N.C.4 put on its trademark black gloves, proof that it was ready for actual combat, it put itself close to the hurt Hyuuga, knowing full well they were likely more exposed than ever in this residence. And finally, the wall exploded.



Massive amounts of debris and large bricks were hurled right at the group from an unwarranted explosion. This was somewhat unexpected, such a direct approach when everyone in the village was on edge seemed like a rather foolish thing to go for. Perhaps these individuals were beyond the care of what would occur if they were caught. If this was the case, N.C.4 would have a lot to worry about. With every dangerous piece of matter projected right toward it or Chihiro, it would perform slashing motions with its hands, using its wires to butcher the pieces thrown to kill them, reducing them to an irrelevant fragment of what they were as well as being greatly halted in their momentum.

It would only be when the smoke would clear out and both parties could see each other that N.C.4 would assess the situation more firmly. There was a man with white hair, holding a strange looking weapon. A quick glimpse on it allowed N.C.4 to process what it was. The legendary Blastsword from Kirigakure now in the hands of a thug. Yopparai Ramu Koku he went by, and a rather shady character associated to multiple counts of questionable activities. As much as the robot would have liked to question Kiri's communication regarding the status of its precious weapons, there were more important matters at hands. Without actually consulting its group for backup, N.C.4 quickly entwined the wires it used to slash the debris to form a large, blue spiderweb it'd hurl right at the drunkard as he blathered about something it barely acknowledged. he could just block it, causing the whole thing to halt, but at the same time blocking his way. His sword would easily break the structure of the web with an explosion and let him pass. But the goal was to get enough time to retreat.

"Mister Gin!"

Upon calling his name, the robot assumed the Chuunin would understand as it quickly when to pick up Chihiro the same way it did before while maintaining the web as long as it could. If Yopparai were to escape quick enough, N.C.4 would deliver a flash bomb in response to his explosion. This would leave enough time for the robot to dart out of the kitchen's window and speed off. Hopefully, Gin would cover them with something like the hidden mist while he himself would retreat from this mess.

Junshiro was confronted to a dilemma at this point. If it took the high grounds, they'd be easily spotted by the assailants and be attacked from the rooftops. If it took the streets it'd be easily noticed by the villagers and shinobi, nervous from the latest explosion, as it held a hurt princess on its shoulder. Taking dark alleyways would likely be the best method to proceed, taking out passers by with a swift chop behind the head to knock them unconscious.

"Hiro. Can you use your Byakugan? We must lose these individuals. However the perimeter around this village and their level of skill will make this impossible without some kind of strategy. I suppose you know where I am going with this."

It said with a weak voice, hoping the girl had not lost consciousness at this point. It had halted in an alley's corner, since it was deserted barring a stray cat eating from a trash bin. It was picking up its strength while letting Chihiro a chance to talk without the bot's footsteps plaguing any form of fluid communication. Not too far, the tall clock tower of the village shined, leaving ideas for both individuals to possibly utilize and finally break free from this situation.

---

---

It was obviously hard for Aoi to wake up, especially ever since Akio moved in and things got a little more different in terms of patterns and general behavior at home. (Insert previous waking up scene here). With both ready, the two lovers were ready to head out and do another typical mission to meet their daily needs. As both Akio Tendou and Aoi Don Maquia left their home, Aoi received a text from Ayame Choko nonetheless, bringing to a complete null her plans to visit many Sunagakure tourist traps and instead attend some stupid ceremony or whatever it was involving the Hokage. Sighing, she kissed Akio's cheek upon showing the text before pausing.

"... I'm getting a sense of deja-vu~ Aren't you?!"

She said right out of the blue, even though it did make much sense, she felt like she had experienced this Suna thing before and the act of having to use her phone as she left her house. The text however felt completely new. Somewhat curious as to what they should do now, the first idea coming into her tiny, altruistic mind was to warn her future colleagues of that was going to occur. But before doing that, she spent another minute to fixate the text sent by Ayame. This time, she analyzed the whole, 80 word text, like it was some sort of giant book page and noticed she had a job to do beforehand: Warn her shinobi buddies to meet up!

"Hey Kiki, can you help me with that?~ Pretty please! I don't think I have everyone's number ..."

She said, both out of sloth and probably sincerity too. She gathered as many as she could find in her rather massive contacts list, starting from her initial teammates for today: Rin, Shouken, Akio (accidentally). Then, Yamato, Daiki, Jaakuna, Chihiro, Momoi, Katsu (to annoy him) and Shin. They would all receive the following message.

Yoyoyoyoyoyo, every1!!! letz meat @ EAST SCWARE 4 hukag meetin! 0k?! =^3^=

And now they all had the message, at least those Aoi had selected, the rest would be solicited by Akio. The order was to simply group the clic of chuunin friends to make things look a little more "formal", all of them wearing flak jackets of course but that came without saying in such events. Holding Akio's hand as the usual ritual dictated, she smiled at her girlfriend as she felt a little relieved to not have to run around right to Sungakure in the end.

"Hey, do you think this'll be another one of these super boring speeches?! Oh! Did you bring my gameboy?! Please please please! I'm so close to beating Vaati! It's like so haaard!~"

She ventured in her little video game fantasies, of course ever since she got one of those portable games, she was often glued onto them until someone caught her attention with something a lot more interesting. Eventually, they'd reach the city's square at the point she indicated in her text. There she'd notice Yamato who probably blocked off her texts again, but she'd wave at him to capture his attention as the event started. As usual, she was shameless and it didn't bother her whatsoever to embarrass her lover in that regard.

Gin had shielded Chihiro with his body from some of the debris as Jun handled most of it. A few chunks impacted his back as expected from a blast from the infamous Shibuki blade. He turned to face the intruder with a glare that represent both fear intensity. He may not have known who the man was aside from his introduction, but with him wielding Shibuki, there was no denying it, that was "The Drunkard" Yopparai, one of the seven swordsmen of the mist, someone who should not be taken lightly.

"Mister Gin!"
"All ready on it." He muttered to himself. He had an idea of what he was dealing with. He immediately put up his Hidden Mist as thick as he could get it while Jun took Chihiro and got her out of there. The mist would bring it vision range to about 8 inches as the mist stretched around the house and over to a few nearby alley ways. He withdrew two kunai wrapped with explosive tags that he threw in the direction where he saw Yopparai before he disappeared, hoping they either made contact with him directly or in front of him. With that he followed suit like Jun while using his silent killing technique to hide the sound from his movement as he escaped through the window that Jun had exited from. Gin hadn't looked behind him as he escaped but only in the direction of where Jun had went off in. With this he spoke quietly into the mic low enough for only his team to hear.

"Jun you already know this but I'm going to say this anyway. Get Chihiro-sama out of here as quickly as you can and don't fucking worry about me. I'll try to hold them off if need be. I don't know for how long, but whatever time I can give you, use it well...She was right Jun... I'm a failure. I shouldn't be a ...But I'm going to make it up to her...One way or another...Gin out."

It was only a last resort but if it came to it he would give his life for his comrades. His gaze harden in front of him as he ran through the mist placing his hands together he made three water clones, and quickly put a henge over the two to make them look like Jun holding Chihiro as the clones disappeared into the alley that led to a street opposite of them. Gin would follow a safe distance behind the real Jun and Chihiro as a defensive measure against the drunkard and an unknown target that he had only glanced at. It would only be time until those to caught up but when they did he would be ready.

---

“Damned fool,” muttered Tsukiya as he watched Yopparai peek through an abandoned home like a drifter. His feet edged the roof he stood on, ready to descend and pay them back for the resource taken from him. However, Yopparai, in a loud bark urged against it. Reluctantly, Tsukiya listened.

As soon as the white-haired man returned, Tsukiya crossed his arms impatiently. Yopparai explained that one was wounded and wielded the famous Byakugan. What he proposed was foreign to him but he wasn't above it. It seemed fair. They had taken a valuable information broker from him, so a new ocular or even the entire being would be given in penance. A light smirk touched his pale lips.

“Sometimes I forget how smart you can be.” Tsukiya let his arms unfold from his chest once Yopparai launched off the roof and towards the home. He stared with anticipation as Shibuki wrecked a hole in the side of the home. He landed near with muted thuds before starting his approach. As he walked, his kekkai genkai, Kokuoken was activated. The space of his sphere stretched thirty meters out, encompassing well pass the home. He would not tolerate would-be escapes and he never took chances with enemies.

He weaved five seals with a single hand. “Lockdown,” he said as the earth shook and made a make-shift cage of rock. Thirty meters high and thirty meters in radius, all that existed of a exit was a singular four-foot hole at the apex of it. Which meant the ninja inside, who believed they would escape would only be met with a wall of dark, hard rock.

What he saw inside the home had little effect on his frown; Tsukiya saw that a ninja was confronting Yopparai with visibly chakra-enhanced wires. The work of his space if they weren't already visible. Tsukiya maintained four feet between him and Yopparai, surprised that they would even consider putting up a fight against the swordsman. He was a daunting foe for any person.

One of the ninja, in a hurry to escape, threw explosive kunai towards them. The act of which was known—through the mist—due to them being in his space. He outstretched a hand towards the metal and redirected it towards him and the one with the girl on its shoulder. He wondered how they would fair with the concussive blast since they were retreating. How their minds would try and comprehend his sight through the mist. It was always fun to watch.

“Get it together, Yopparai. Don't make me regret bringing you along,” he said with a slight smirk. He let his arms sink into his black cloak and with their positions clear in his mind. He floated up into the sky and like a darkened deity, looked down on them with malice. “You have two options,” he told them, hoping to provide Yopparai time to advance upon them. “One, give me the girl with the Byakugan. Or two, die … And I rip them from her sockets anyway.” His explanation would leave little known about his motives for attacking them, perhaps sending fear and apprehension into them. Perhaps not.

---

---

Approaching the square with his own line of kids, Daiki made sure to line them up adequately—perhaps not as diligently as Yamato though. He stuck his hands into his pants pocket, his flak-jacket uncomfortably rubbed against his neck. He tilted it back and rolled it before ignoring the other ninja and waiting for the meeting to start as well.

Lately, Avaron had been occupying his mind. He needed to find a way to separate himself from her but for whatever reason, he found it impossible to accomplish. With a sudden shake of his head, he let the thoughts fly from his ears and focused on the Hokage again.

“This is going to be a long day,” he muttered before catching sight of a boy attempting to grasp the attention of another. He reached over with a long arm and placed his hand on the lad's shoulder. “Eyes front, kid.” The boy turned back around without a word, leaving Daiki to do the same.

Akio couldn’t help but give a slight nod of agreement at Aoi’s comment, it did feel like they had done this before. She quickly shrugged it off, however, as Aoi asked her to help her in telling everyone where to meet up. Seeing no harm in it. even if she knew that Aoi was just trying to weasel out of doing some of the work, she sent her own, much more understandable text to anyone that Aoi had missed.

Everyone’s to meet at the East square for a meeting announced by the Hokage at 12 o’clock sharp. It’s important, so don’t be late.

With that done, she followed Akio to the meeting place, somewhat disappointed that they weren’t going to Suna after all. One of the things the Akio loved about shinobi work was the traveling and sightseeing you got to do on the less important missions, plus she wanted to see if she could find a Suna-nin willing to teach her a thing or two about puppet techniques. Oh well, another day, perhaps?

“You know, a jonin should be setting a better example to her subordinates by paying attention to the lecture . . . but yes, I’m almost positive it’s going to be a bore.” Akio chuckled, handing the clown her device while she pulled out one of her own. Her’s was more up-to-date, a 3DS, and she was currently playing Ocarina of Time on it, trying to get past that stupid water temple. By the time she had gotten to the square, she’d put it away for fear of breaking the thing in her frustration. Unfortunately, this meant that when Aoi started waving over to Yamato, she didn’t have anything to distract her from all the attention she was bringing. While she didn’t feel like running, as Aoi had helped her get over that last year, she still felt a little uncomfortable when a good portion of eyes turned back to stare at the loud jonin.



Tatsuya stifled a yawn as he made his way to the square, smelling of metal, sweat, and fire due to the fact that he’d been working on a custom-ordered blade when the call had been made. He’d had his father take over for him, then quickly gotten dressed and hurried out the door, not eager to be late to what seemed like a very important meeting. As he arrived, he happened to see one of the newly promoted Jonin, whose name Tatsuya couldn’t recall, waving towards the prodigy child, Yamato Minomaru. The sight of the dark haired jonin prodigy made Tatsuya a little nervous, as it was no secret to anybody how much his clan despised those who possessed Kekkei Genkai. While he was sure the jonin wouldn’t do anything, he still didn’t want to get on his bad side.

With that in mind, he took a detour around the two and took up a spot somewhere near the upper edge of the group of shinobi, stifling another yawn as he cursed himself. He had been up for a better portion of the night working on the blade, and instead of resting like a sane person, he’d decided to get to working on it as soon as he’d woken up, not even stopping to eat breakfast, a choice he was beginning to regret now.

Man, I hope this doesn’t go on for too long, or else I might just fall asleep where I stand. Goddammit, why do I have to be such a workaholic!

Stifling another yawn, Tatsuya tried his best to pay attention to what the Hokage had to say, as well as to ignore the loud growling of his stomach, a pained look appearing on his face as his body cried mutiny against him for failing to provide it with sustenance. “What I wouldn’t give for a bite to eat right now . . .”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shouken peered from atop his general store before the speech was to be given. He had a wonderful view of the mansion and was basically eye level from his father's store. He had been somewhat meditating (sleeping) through his High and was now awaiting the Hokage. He had read many things about Zeno and thought him to be more than capable of performing his tasks. However, Shouken, always sees the best in people when he's one or two hits deep..

While he slept, fantasies of being Hokage or even possessing such power flourished through his mind.

Think of the money that guy makes...The women....

Suddenly he was awoken by the annoying cell-phone ring that he puts off changing. It was Aoi trying to round the Chunin up, but Shouken wasn't neccesarily feeling the moving idea and instead held his power button down, shutting off his phone.

"Next time Aoi, next time..."

He grinned at his laziness and resumed his slumber. He was comfortable knowing that from this distance, the Hokage would more than likely wake him up.

Now where was I? Oh the ladies....

"Hmmmmm hmmmmmm...hmmm hmmm hmmmmmmmm..."

A sweet angelic humming echoed through the small bedroom on the highest floor of the Hōjō Bathouse and Inn, as the eyes of a small child were lulled into the blissful unaware. The melodic tune went on for several seconds thereafter until absolutely certain the child had dozed off. Yuna, a young mother, was tending to her restless daughter, who seemed to have been frequently suffering from nightmares. Yuna's humming seemed to help her daughter's unwanted dreams.

"Her nightmares, they seem to be getting worse you know...", a gentle voice spoke from nearby. Yuna looked up from her daughter's resting face and frowned softly. "I know, but I didn't think she'd be having them so early. And the bathhouse was so busy last night, I didn't have much time to help her go back to sleep". It was an unusual trait that the Hojo's possessed, that as the Batthouse was passed down through the generations, so was their clans propensity from obtrusive and frequent nightmares. It was an unfortunate and inexplicable disorder they seemed to suffer from. Sleeps were sometimes restless when the nightmare was particularly unfriendly. A complete nights sleep was certainly a blessing for them.

Yuna received the message to her phone and stood up, briefly bending down to kiss the forehead of her child before she headed towards her mother. "It's a miracle your nightmares stopped when they did". Yuna froze, and then slid past her mother as she headed for her own room nearby. Her mother crossed her arms. "Yuna...what is it?" The ginger stood behind her clothes changing screen as she changed into her combat uniform. "Actually...they didn't stop."

"Oh?", her mother curtly responded as she raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry. It's so unlike me to be dishonest. It's just that I had this strange idea in my head that Noh wouldn't have the nightmares if I stopped acknowledging my own. So when you asked if I was still having them, well--I said no."

"Ah. Self-fulfilling prophecy?"

"Something like that."

Yuna walked out from behind the screen, finally changed and ready to head out to the meeting at the square. This would be her first mission since moving to Konohagakure. She couldn't deny that she missed the comfort of her old chunin team in Getsugakure. A new experience, a adventure. Certainly she pained to have to leave the presence of her daughter for an extended period of time, but it was something that was required of her profession. Hopefully she'd be back soon. Probably not though. In all honesty, she wasn't particularly thrilled about being the "new girl" and meeting new people. Once you start talking, they want to know all about you, where you come from, your history. She liked to keep her personal life to herself. She just had a very mysterious and secretive persona about her.

But now was not the time for discussions about nightmares. She had a duty to fulfill to Konoha. Rushing through the floors and elusively evading through the busy morning bustle of the Bathhouse, she finally made her way outside and sprinted towards the meeting square in front of the Hokage's office. Yuna started off on the outskirts, so when she was finally getting closer and had structures she could hop on and off from, she immediately expedited her travel speed. When she arrived, she stood on a nearby building rooftop and looked down. A mass of ninja crowded the area. It looked particularly stuffy, uncomfortably so. With her keen perception and watchfulness, she scoured the crowd for a place to stand.

The wind was somewhat strong today. It was causing her long flaming ginger hair to dance with the wind as if it were waving in water. She moved a bit of her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear as she spotted a ninja standing with a group of kids. Kids. This was comforting to see. They reminded her of her own daughter, even though they were way older. But it was this simple correlation between the two that was enough to draw Yuna in. But the ninja and his kid-nin were a bit too far away for her to jump to in one leap. So she did the next simplest thing. Pulled out her bubble pipe, blew a giant bubble around herself, and gently floated above the crowd until it settled near the children and released her with a subtle *Pop*. Her Drifting Bubble Technique. It was a relatively slow moving technique, but it had its uses. Certainly not useful for long distance travel however.

She briefly looked at the ninja who was apparently in charge of the kids. Her expression remained blank, but brightened into a lovely smile as she looked at the children near him. Yuna wiggled her fingers at them dotingly, but paused as one of them was pushed to the ground by a fellow classmate. A young boy with glasses who by appearance alone, looked like the youngest of the group was the victim. "Don't be a baby", the one who pushed him smirked. Yuna calmly stepped near them and knelt down to the injured boy. It was a small bruise on his knee. Not too bad, but when she touched it, he winced. Yuna smiled warmly as she placed her hands over his knee. "Don't worry love", she whispered gently, as an enchanting aquamarine light engulfed the wound, and after a few seconds, healed it completely. The Mystical Palm Technique. The boy turned red and blushed, briefly rubbing his knee in amazement to see the bruise had vanished. "Errr--ummm--th-th-tha-thank you", the stuttering boy replied as he pushed his glasses back up on his nose. Yuna stood up slowly and winked at him. "Your very welcome dear..."

She didn't even acknowledge the bully who pushed the glasses wearing boy or the supposed ninja watching over them. A reassuring smile appeared on her face as she looked back towards the front.

This was a pleasant way to start her day.

Chihiro drank from the container that Gin gave her and looked at them as they began to take action. Using her Byakugan again to check on the position of the men, her eyes grew wide "Ju-!" instantly, she closed her eyes and she was deafened from the sudden explosion and her vision was extremely blurry. Watching Gin and Jun take action against the now sudden threat of the white hair boy. Trying to sit up, Jun already picked her up and started moving, making Gin stay behind "Wai-" yet again they were running and Chihiro held on tight. Going through the window of the kitchen, mist was already apparent and her Byakugan picked up Gin, the white haired boy and then suddenly...a much much stronger man appeared and she gripped Jun "Alright...let me catch my breath and thoughts for a moment but dont stick here to long alright? That plan sounds good, but right now that wont work, the third guy, he's making a dome around us about-" she looked around through the mist and focused on the wall "Thirty meters high and thirty meters, and about a yard thick" wincing from the amount of movement she was going through. "Run to the left and then you'll hit the wall, alright?" there was no response but Jun quickly ran towards the wall as it was set up.

Manipulating its wires as it always did, a rapid succession of slashes with every step it took rendered the portion of the wall blocking the robot essentially a fragile pile of sedimented rocks. all N.C.4 had to do now was to not stop running and tackle through the sliced structure, piercing through easily as they landed down into the dark alleyways. They now had an advantage, and they both could notice the dark sphere surrounding the building they were in. As Jun worked at the wall, Chihiro turned half her body and watched their behind, seeing Kunai being sent towards them Chihiro pushed her arm out "Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm" and sent the explosive tagged kunai back towards a building. Once making contact, they exploded and caused not only the building Gin and the White Hairs man was in to cave, but also cause debris to get in the way of anyone chasing after them. As they breached through, Jun didn't stop running, not until they were away from the enormus dome over top of it. Stopping in an alley way, Chihiro tapped them, to let her off, before sitting for a second and catching her breath.

"Hiro. Can you use your Byakugan? We must lose these individuals. However the perimeter around this village and their level of skill will make this impossible without some kind of strategy. I suppose you know where I am going with this."

It said with a weak voice, hoping the girl had not lost consciousness at this point. It had halted in an alley's corner, since it was deserted barring a stray cat eating from a trash bin. It was picking up its strength while letting Chihiro a chance to talk without the bot's footsteps plaguing any form of fluid communication. Not too far, the tall clock tower of the village shined, leaving ideas for both individuals to possibly utilize and finally break free from this situation.

Thinking, she had her headset in, and from Gin's end she heard the mans demands and smiled "I got an idea, so they want me right? How about cat and mouse, I'm not at a hundred percent, but I have had enough sitting still, Get me somewhere high likeeee-" looking she searched until it hit her practically in the face "that clock tower exactly, I'm in no shape to fight, but why not use what the want against them, I'm practically a walking sensory machine, get what I'm trying to say?" she looked up at Jun "Good? good, now im gunna ask you to help me out here, cause im kinda hurting..."

---

"Four-hundred ninety-eight... four-hundred ninety-nine..." The black-haired and well-endowed woman, sometimes known as The Honeybadger, was finishing her morning workout. With one final extension of her left arm, she completed her last one-hand pushup. "Five hundred." Considering she was already on her hands, more or less, Tsukiko leapt off the floor of her apartment in a handspring in order to get back onto her feet rather than the conventional way. Now on her feet, she glanced over at the mirror hanging on her open bedroom door.

Am I getting fat? She approached the mirror, making sure to examine her body thoroughly by twisting and turning. I don't seem to be, but I feel like I am... and my face... She leaned in to examine her face in the mirror. No wrinkles... I think... I'm not that old yet. But... wait... A scowl formed as she raised her hand, carefully grabbing a specific hair and plucking it from her head. Holding it in front of herself it was clear to see that it was not a vibrant black but instead a dull grey. Another grey hair. With a scoff, Tsukiko dropped the hair and let it fall to the ground, where it would eventually be disposed of via vacuum cleaner on some other day.

Now satisfied with her appearance, Tsukiko adjusted her clothes one final time and walked to the kitchen. As she began rummaging through cabinets she could hear a strange sound. "What the hell?" Turning around she spotted her cellphone sitting on the kitchen table. It had made a loud vibrating sound. Though she was no stranger to owning cellphones, Tsukiko had a bad record of neglecting them and generally not caring about them. So the small device was rarely used. She snatched the phone up and opened the text message, reading the orders from the Hokage. "Why does it always have to be on short notice? Would've been nice to know yesterday. I could've gotten up sooner. Ugh..." Tossing the phone carelessly back onto the table, Tsukiko gave up on scavenging for food and made her way to the front door.

After closing and locking the door behind herself, Tsukiko turned to walk down the apartment building's hallway. There were three thug-looking teenagers leaning against the wall several meters away, minding their own business. Tsukiko glared at them for a moment before approaching them. "Shouldn't you assholes be in school or something?" The sound of her voice startled them. These kids clearly knew her, as they all immediately tensed up in fear once they laid eyes on her. "Probably..." The older woman glared at them a moment longer, creating strong tension in the air. She leaned in close, to look eye-to-eye with the boy that spoke up (who was quite nervous of her proximity). "If you ain't in school and you ain't trying to fight me... then are you perhaps planning on breaking into my home again?" By now the boy instinctively backed up, accidentally into his friends. All three of them took a few steps away, no longer leaning against the wall. "What? No no no! We aren't trying to die. We're just hanging around here. Our buddy lives here, we're waiting for him. It's the truth, I swear."

Tsukiko glared at the trio again, crossing her arms over her chest. "You aren't trying to fuck with me? Every time I see you little shits I'm either getting jumped or I come home to find my place has been robbed." Tsukiko reached around to her back and drew her ninjato, The Equalizer, pointing the blade at the boys. All three of them were very shaken now, visibly trembling in fear. "I think I haven't sent any of you to the hospital in a while. Today may as well be the day..." The three boys turned around and began to run, but before they could get far or Tsukiko could make her move a door opened across the hall. An urban-looking teenage girl opened the door, drawing the attention of all the others in the hallway. "Matsuri!" the boy called out, almost like he was pleading with the girl. "Tell this psycho bitch we were just waiting for you!" The girl seemed confused, but after realizing that Tsukiko had her sword drawn and trained on her friends she herself adopted a look of panic.

"Gunta is right! They were just waiting for me! Please, accept our apology for disrupting your day, Honeybadger!" The girl gave a very steep bow, prompting the three boys to do the same. All the while Tsukiko had a bewildered and confused look on her face. "Oh..." After a moment of contemplation she sheathed her sword on her back. At the sound the teenagers all stood back upright. "Whatever. If any of my shit is gone I'm cutting the fingers off the whole lot of you." Not waiting to converse with them any longer, Tsukiko shoved past the three boys and made her way to the stairwell. She could hear them start talking, despite how quiet they were trying to be. "What did you guys do to piss her off this time?" "We didn't do anything. That crazy woman just attacked us for nothing."

Have I really grown so irritable that I attacked them over nothing? Tsukiko thought to herself as their voices trailed off on her descent. I guess they didn't do anything. This time. Doesn't change their history of pissing me off. Little shits deserve everything that comes their way. But that girl. I've been beating those kids up for years and have never seen her before... Little slut's probably new to the neighborhood. Then again... Tsukiko exited the apartment building, stepping out into the street. It appeared the same as it always did. Downtown was a rundown neighborhood, with kids playing in the street more frequently than cars passing by. Maybe those brats are finally growing up. Maybe they'll stop bothering me. They can just get on with their lives as far as I'm concerned. But how did those kids manage to get a girl? They're stupid, ugly, and have accomplished nothing. I'm the opposite of all those and still haven't held a steady relationship...

An angry sneer formed on her face. Tsukiko lashed out, kicking a road sign that displayed the speed limit. The blow bent the pole, tilting the road sign to a slight but noticeable angle. Whatever. I'm still young, I still have time. Plenty of time... Tsukiko reached to her pants' pocket to grab her phone, but she found there was nothing there. The phone was laying on her kitchen table still. "Whatever, I don't need to see the time anyways." Oblivious to the strange looks she received, Tsukiko leapt up onto the nearest house, which was next to her own apartment building. In the manner of the ninja, she traversed Konoha by leaping from rooftop to rooftop at high speed.

She arrived very early to the meeting, needless to say. Her punctuality surprised some of the other shinobi, but her disrespectful attitude and lack of attention surprised no one. Despite the many who would show up, Tsukiko didn't pay attention to any of her comrades or subordinates. She only came out of her own thoughts once Zeno began to speak up. And even then a bored and uninterested expression took hold of her face. Why couldn't this just be printed on a little sheet of paper and mailed to us? That way I could just throw it away and not have to waste my time here... I could be wasting it in way more enjoyable ways. I could watch some soap opera, I could chase down truants, hell I could even watch paint dry. With a sigh, Tsukiko crossed her arms over her chest and drew her attention back to the Hokage. Whatever. He's the boss.

---

---

A loud clang echoed down the alleyway as a garbage can fell over. The man that tripped over it recovered quickly, getting back onto his feet and continuing to run. He clutched the briefcase against his chest tightly as he turned the corner. The alleys between the buildings of the Financial District were tight and often dirty, like this one. However, there were some alleyways that led to dead ends, such as this one. Trapped, the man turned around to change course and run the other way but it was too late. "Alright, you ran into a corner. Now could you stop making this difficult?" Before him, standing at the intersection of the alleys, was a young man. He was significantly larger than the older man, mainly due to muscle mass. But his youth was apparent. He wore a black coat that was buttoned up, and a Konoha Police Department insignia was etched into the left torso of it. "Running is just going to tire you out anyways. You're under arrest. Now-"

The man charged forward, lashing out by striking the boy with his fist directly across the face. While this seemed to do a good job at stunning him for a moment, the man quickly realized that it wasn't enough. The cop straightened back up quickly, recovered completely from the attack except for the drop of blood trickling from his lips. "You're making it hard for me to resist beating you," Shin said, reaching out and grabbing the man by his left wrist. "Let me go! I'm innocent! I was framed! You didn't provide identification!" The man began spouting every excuse in the book, only earning a sigh from Shin. With a twisting motion, Shin managed to get the man to drop the briefcase and pin him to the ground with his arms behind his back. "Detective Shin Maru of the Konoha Police Department." After slapping chakra-restraining handcuffs on the man's wrists, Shin picked up the briefcase.

The thing was locked, but it felt full. Shaking it garnered next to no sound from inside. "This has all that fraud money, doesn't it?" Shin asked the man, keeping his foot on the man's back to make sure he stayed on the ground. "I'm not telling you anything, you fake cop." With a shrug Shin flipped the briefcase upside-down before tossing it against the concrete ground, hard. The lock burst, opening the briefcase and sending paper money flying everywhere. "Well then. Kinda hoped they were taped together a little better. Now I have to clean this up... Stay on the ground, sir. I'll be taking you away in a moment." As the young detective began to pick up the money, stuffing it in the briefcase by the handful, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Figuring it wouldn't hurt to check, he withdrew it and opened up the text. The Hokage was calling for a big meeting in all of fifteen minutes. "Crap, I'm gonna have to hurry this up," Shin said aloud, stowing his phone away again. The pace at which he stored the money quickened considerably. "Guess I'm also gonna have to do the paperwork on your case after the meeting. Hope nobody gets mad at me for putting it off, but I don't have the time for the reports right now." "Are you talking to yourself?" "No, I was talking to you. But I guess I might as well be talking to myself..." With all the money now stashed haphazardly in the briefcase, Shin forced it closed and withdrew a zip-tie. Once he used that to seal it closed, as it wouldn't stay closed on its own now thanks to his act of breaking the lock, he stood up and helped the handcuffed man to his feet. "By the way, you weren't hard to track down. Paper trail was easy to follow. Maybe you should try something other than white-collar crime, because this doesn't suit you." "Piss off."

Taking off at a run, Shin held onto the man's arm to keep him from being left behind. In fact, he was moving faster than his captive, resulting in the man's feet dangling behind in the air rather than staying on the ground. But this was the fastest way to transport him, without a car or some kind of assistance. The two arrived at the Financial District's police station. Shin dragged the man in, bringing him up to the booking desk. "Get him on charges of corporate theft and fraud. I'd stick around and file all the reports and evidence and all but I've got a meeting to go to. I promise I'll get the paperwork taken care of in a couple hours, okay?" The woman behind the desk let out a sigh before grumbling a bit as she wrote something down. "Whatever, kid. Just be sure to actually do the paperwork or we'll have to release him." "No sweat. Oh, and by the way, do you have any plans tonight? Because I'd like to take you out for som-" "Don't you have a meeting or something, detective?" "Oh, that's right. Gotta go see the Hokage. But think about that offer." Shin gave the woman a wink before running out the door, dodging two police who were holding trays of coffee for the whole prefecture.

Shin ran out to the parking lot, withdrawing some keys from his pocket. Wait, taking the car will take too long. I'll be late like that. Guess I have to go the old-fashioned way. Shin pulled out his phone as he began to run up the police building to get to the roof. Apparently he missed another text, this one from Aoi. That girl likes sending silly texts. Cute. Too bad she's already in a relationship. I guess the fact it's with another girl makes up for that though, so it evens itself out... Oh yeah, should probably respond.

I'm pushing my luck right now, but I'll meet you there.

Putting his phone away, Shin began leaping from rooftop to rooftop. That is, with the smaller buildings. The skyscrapers of the Financial District were much above the altitude he was at, so whenever he reached one of those he had to run along the outside of it until he could reach the next building short enough to jump off of. While this was a fairly quick method of travel, Shin was a bit behind schedule and had to go a decent distance. In the end he arrived over a minute before the deadline, so he wasn't as late as he thought. Landing behind Aoi and Akio, Shin wiped his left arm across his brow. "Phew, I was almost late," Shin confessed, standing upright and grinning at the girls. "But alas, I have arrived." Shin made a quick pose, to show off his muscles. This was more out of habit from all his time flirting with girls, as he didn't particularly intend on hitting on either Aoi or Akio. After he finished flexing his arms he stood normal again and put his hands in his coat pockets. "Is nobody else gonna hang out here?" Shin asked Aoi rather bluntly, before looking around.

He could already spot several people that he knew. He could assume that they had also been invited by Aoi, such as Yamato and Daiki. As if those two would hang out together. Then he spotted several genin and chuunin, not necessarily classmates of his but shinobi younger than him nonetheless. They must've taken the kids out of the school too. Eventually he even spotted Tsukiko Umene. And she looks angrier than usual. I guess I shouldn't try hitting on her today, she might well kill me... With his scan complete, Shin returned his attention back to Aoi and Akio. "I'm sure others will show up. We're the coolest kids, after all." A confident grin took hold of his face as he brought his arms up and held his hands behind his head casually.

---

Yopparai looked around the room in a bored fashion, since he wasn't getting a response at all. Well, he was getting a response but it was just some chakra wire net thingie.. bah. “BORING!” he yelled as he swung his sword at the chakra nets, easily breaking the wires without even having to explode stuff. Even when the wires were cut, he continued his spin, going a full circle before lowering himself and placing one foot behind him. He thought he looked cool doing that. However in his spin he did notice that there were kunai with tags thrown at him, and when he was done spinning like a madman, he noticed that Tsukiya had already sent them back. That weird blood.. bloodlens.. bloodlens lemmet? ...bloodlens lemmet that Tsukiya had made it so easy to do stuff like that. The mist didn't make it any more easy to see jackshit, though.

“OI, Hyuga! ..Hyuga? Where is she? Fucking mist!” he said, realizing only now that they'd vanished. What he was unaware of due to the mist however, was that there were explosive tags being sent back again by the Hyuga, and that they were headed right for the building. It was only when the explosion occured that Yopparai responded. “Oi, mist-guy! It seems your team doesn't- AGK! FUCKING BRICKS! MIST GUY, YOUR TEAM DOESN'T CARE FOR YOUR SAFETY! AGK, FUCKING HELL.” he yelled at Gin, trying to play with his morale a bit as Chihiro and Jun just more or less abandoned Gin, and even endangered him by throwing explosive tags at a building that was ready to collapse. Atleast if nobody knew that there were enemy shinobi in the village, then they know for sure now.

Not wanting to get trapped under the building, Yopparai dashed back quickly through the opening in the wall now, escaping ensured death from the collapsing building. He was quite sure Gin was still in there, because obviously he could still see the mist inside. So he simply raised his knee and kicked the portion of the wall that was still sending, making the collapse of that building just a bit faster. Hopefully Gin wouldn't be able to get out, and he'd die under that pile of rubble. “Eat shit! I mean, eat bricks!”

However Gin wasn't interesting enough to waste more time on. He'd gotten hit with a bunch of bricks as the kunai tags exploded, and that meant this was no longer just about the Byakugan, this meant that he wanted revenge. He'd throw some bricks at them in return. Who did they think they are? A bunch of do-good shinobi? Pah! “Tsukiya-chaaan! Let's get those Byakugan!” he said with an annoying voice as he jumped up onto the building he was on previously, and then jumped over the pile of rubble that was the former team N.C.4 hideout. He didn't know exactly where Chihiro had ran off to, but he'd make damn sure to find them.

He did notice a pair of people running. And.. it looked like a person holding another. It had to be them. “Ohh, Hyuga-chaaan!” he yelled as he jumped from building to building slightly above them. He received no answer, so he readied his sword and jumped down, slashing widely at them and exploding the sword on contact. The blast of the explosive tags on his gigantic sword would send bits of dirt and brick out to the surrounding houses as well as throw up a large screen of dust, making it so Yopparai couldn't actually see what'd happened until the dust cleared. And when he did.. “WHAAA?! WATER?” As soon as he noticed that he'd killed a clone that Gin had made instead of the actual targets, he would jump up to a house and make his way back to Tsukiya. He was visibly annoyed at this point. He was gotten by such a cheap trick. “Tsukiya-chaaaan! They made clones! Those fuckers made clones! I'll need you to sense the real position of these bastards with your bloodlens lemmet so I can explode some stuff. Pretty-please?”

---

---

Rei had received the same text that any others had, and had quickly gotten up from the couch, thrown her sack of crisps onto the table and gotten dressed. The TV was left on, since there was nobody home to complain about something called 'energy waste'.. whatever that was. Like they couldn't afford it. She threw on her black croptop and quickly half-zipped her hoodie over it, throwing on her leggings with nice looking cut outs on the side, and then her sandals. A good outfit for any shinobi! Not to mention the expensive branding on it. It was pretty clear that Rei's family was rich, and she didn't really try to hide it either. As she ran down the stairs in a hurry she ran into the living room once more. “Better turn that off, anyway...” she spoke to herself for no particular reason as she gripped the remote control and turned off the TV. With that done she ran away again in a girlish fashion, heading out the door.

Within seconds she returned to the house, heading inside and grabbing her flak jacket from the nearby coathanger. She threw it on quickly and didn't bother to zip it up and then headed out again, closing the door behind her with a loud slam. With all that happening in the span of about 10 minutes, she quickly made her way to the plaza where the speech would be held. On the way she felt a buzz in her pocket, and pulled out her phone again. She expected it to be one of her non-shinobi friends, but strangely enough it was a message from Akio. She didn't remember ever really speaking to Akio.. or any of the other chunin, save maybe Shin. “Weird!” she yelled as she pocketed the phone again and made her way to where the message told her to go.

Arriving on the square she ran through the opening between lines of Shinobi, quickly making her way to the east part of the square. She ran right past Tsukiko-sama, waving at her cheerfully and yelling at her. “Hoy-hoy Tsukiko-sama! You look pretty as always!” Tsukiko had always been a sort of role model for Rei, as she embodied feminine shinobi-hood best. Yamato was still Rei's nr. 1 role model obviously, but Tsukiko had taught Rei something about how to still be feminine when doing shinobi tasks. Mainly it came down to having a big bust.

Her white hair waved behind Rei as she ran at Aoi and Akio, spotting Shin there as well. She was already waving at them and when she finally came close, she would stop and put her hands on her knees as she rested a bit, panting since she'd ran the entire way here. When she felt a bit more at ease she straightened herself and smiled at Aoi and Akio, as well as Shin. “Hey guys, good afternoon! Akio, I like your hair today!”

---

>Yoyoyoyoyoyo, every1!!! letz meat @ EAST SCWARE 4 hukag meetin! 0k?! =^3^= -Aoi

>Aoi-Taicho, The gypsy is already on her way. But the Gypsy would like pass on your invite. Sorry. - Momoi

Pocketing her phone again. The Blonde hair girl made her way to the front of the Hokages building. Traveling from the CBD of the Hidden leaf was very tiring, especially when your friend drinks you under the table in a place that she is looking after. Cringing slightly while holding her head. Momoii changed her slowly pace to a much more faster one, the loud noises where splitting her head apart. "Why of all time does the Shitty Hokage make us come to the shitty village center for some shitty speech?!" she cursed the current hokage. Her anger lessened as she managed to escape the noises and found a more quiet path the her destination. "The gypsy needs sleep...." looking around the blonde haired girl quickly once a bench near the small pond before taking her seat and falling asleep quickly. During her slumber, her phone as died. the nearby pigeons stand on her but surprisingly didn't poop on her and passersby placed money at her feet, thinking she was homeless and needed new clothes, seeing what she wore would make anyone think that.

Sadly to say, this was a usual routine for the Gypsy. On a Rare morning she wouldn't have an hangover and she would be training or going to her best friend's place.

It would be 2 hours before she would wake up again, but this time with not much of a hangover.

---

The Gypsy was now in front of the Hokage's building, half awake was more like it. She had been standing on her feet for awhile, and she hated that, unless she was a on mission. But even so she would need to be on the run or something. "Gahh...the Gypsy thinks this is the biggest waiting of her time!" crossing her arms with a huff, she exuded a intent of pure boredom and impatience, making everyone around her to move away from here. She resorted to tapping her foot on the ground while grinding her teeth "GAHHH!!....OI HOKAGE! GOT THE DAMN MOVE ON, THE GYPSY HAS PLACES TO BE!" this sudden outburst made everyone turn around her before she gave the same evil eye back to him "Got a problem, step up bitches!" she seethed at them before clutching her head "ow ow...too loud...."

Some moved away once again while others shook their head, Momoi payed no mind to them as she closed her eye and tried to think of ways to misdirect her boredom away. Nothing came to mind. Even her best friend Chihiro wouldn't answer since she was on a mission. "I guess the Gypsy will have to bite her tongue for awhile. Why at of all times: does my phone die on me!" she cried dramatically as she pulled out her phone and yelled at it. "Damn you to hell!"

---

Cracking its fingers while checking its surrounding, N.C.4 acknowledged every detail given by Chihiro at this point, considering they were facing not one but two individuals. The robot could only assume that the assembly of mass is disposed of instantly was made of nearby material, which would explain how the lightning enhanced wires cut through without a struggle, was from that mysterious individual it couldn't catch a good glimpse from. Getting around these individuals wasn't going to be an easy task, especially with Shinobi now fully alerted by the recent explosions going on. At least the enemies wouldn't be able to remain static for too long either. The Hyuuga mentioned the clock tower, making it a good vantage point. However the robot contemplated that idea for a moment.

It'd be when Yopparai's blastsword would roar once more elsewhere in the city that N.C.4 would pop back to reality with a conclusion. Going up high would make the wounded girl easy to spot and eventually lead them to a irreversible situation. Not only that but it's a clearly exposed area with little room to go in a serious fight. It was a bad plan, however they needed a place to hunker down and keep Chihiro out until she could at least move autonomously. The Hyuuga could technically see through matter, much like a fantasy-like X-ray visor, and as such hiding behind closed walls could be a viable option. Houses were likely out of the question as they didn't have a problem finding them beforehand in one.

"... Can you keep overwatch? I may have a more efficient plan."

Walking over to the center of the alleyway, it noticed a manhole cover found typically in almost every village nowadays. The sewers would likely be the best choice for them to proceed, as it would keep the concealed why maintaining Chihiro at an advantage. Using its superior strength to lift the cover, it would manage to open the said manhole. It would slowly drop down the sewer access, making sure Chihiro wasn't hurt in the process, before closing the hatch to avoid making this initiative blatantly obvious.

The noxious fumes inside made it rather disconcerting to stick around in, but they were the safest way to move around with the two psychos stalking them in the surface. This village wasn't very big, however, and as such it wouldn't be impossible for them to consider the possibility that they'd be down here. Added to the fact that like most small villages isolated from bigger towns, it was an even smaller sewer system with no way of escaping town by simply using them.

"Hiro. Can you stand? They're going to kill Mister Gin very quickly and we'll still be stuck here. I recommend you start heading toward the closest manhole to the East end of town. When the time will come, we'll head for the nearby mountains in our escape. Our fate relies on your guidance, as of now."

It said, without really exposing its plan. It didn't really have anything to go one, it didn't know much about the capabilities of the enemies stalking them and security was tight because of their recent stunt at the Tonaka castle. To get both the Shinobi and those two individuals off their tail was going to be challenge, but it was designed for this. Quickly sprinting to a nearby manhole, it quietly emerged from it to keep the underground initiative a discreet one before jumping high on one of the rooftops. It was looking for the attention of these men, and possibly the working shinobi guards. A clash of authority versus shady men would indeed be a rather benefiting outcome, but it didn't rely on it.

"Hiro. Do you have them on your radar?"

It asked through its mic, waiting for them to strike just as they did back at the house. Deep down, it dreaded this individual it couldn't even see the face of. The power he manifested seemed to be earth however the black orb surrounding the building was something the robot didn't comprehend at all.

---

---

Akio did in fact bring their portable consoles, and as such Aoi completely forgot what they were going to do today the instant she had that damned tool in her hands. As they arrived, it was already set in stone that this speech was going to be boring, so the Gameboy was going to get one heck of a warm up today, but of course she couldn't find her desired game. Checking everywhere in her girlfriend's bag, the Minish Cap was probably left under her bed or something, leaving her with only a green colored cartridge: Pokemon Emerald. Not really minding that fact, she was still somewhat disappointed she couldn't finish what she started. Either way, she popped it in and started a good ol' game while people amassed around her.

As Shin arrived first from her group of peers, Aoi was already so absorbed in her Gameboy that it would take her about a minute for the clown to turn her head and even recognize Shin's presence. At first all she did was look at him before smiling gleefully. She'd show him what was going on in her game and she was about to name her first creature.

"Hey Shin! I'm going to name Mudkip after you!"

She'd announce as she typed C-H-I-N for the Pokemon's nickname, feeling all happy for her accomplishment and thoughtfulness. Little did she know that her lack of general attention made her forget that said Mudkip was actually female rather than male. Shin would easily notice this as she showed the creature's summary to display her niceness and how much her friends were important to her, of course. Then came Rei, the nice version of Yamato that didn't try to smack the harlequin's face after every lame joke or trick. Although a bit clueless as to how she should react to another female complimenting her lover, she majestically bowed to the pretty looking Minamoru anyway.

"Rei! Rei Rei! Just on time! I'm going to name a Zigzagoon after you! They're soooo cuuuuuuuuute! Eeeeeek!"

Suddenly, her phone vibrated, revealing that Momoi wasn't going to come around despite orders given. That was strange, she was known to be a slacker and a rebellious kid but she always came over for important stuff. Aoi didn't think much of like, like pretty much anything in the world really, but she was starting to feel a bit annoyed that a lot of her buddies where not coming over to see yours truly. She put the game's music a bit louder to distract herself from the uproar coming from the audience gathered for the speech as well as capturing the attention of the rest of her peers.

"Okay bozos! Who brought their gameboy games?! Cause I wanna kick some butt!"

She announced, expecting her friends to seriously have an archaic game device, let alone a way to play together, in such an event. It wasn't uncommon to see Aoi so deluded, but she reached serious levels of absurdity when she was both bored and not in her plate.

---

Tsukiya ground his teeth in a lightening-quick snarl as the “It” of the group plowed through his earthen wall and the wounded Hyuuga sent the explosive kunai back. That was simple task to deal with, as he snapped his hand forwards and halted the debris and shrapnel from reaching him. As Yopporai annoyingly stated his intentions, Tsukiya released the staid debris coming towards him and dropped it to the ground.

On one hand he felt cheated of his resources, on the other—a very indiscriminate—hate for the trio shinobi had formed due to their useless running. He shook his head slowly as he flow even higher, his inky cloak flared out around his slender body. His arms were crossed over his chest, a frown pulled his ghostly face into spectral scowl upon hearing Yopparai. “Clones? Well, I gave them their options, they've tossed option one by running,” he said to Yopparai. “I'll find them. When I do, you better make sure they don't escape. That Byakugan bitch owes me some eyes.” He formed the snake hand-seal with a prominent clap and expanded his space to fifty meters.

“Clones are spreading throughout the city,” he mumbled to himself, seeing the chakra constructs near the fringes of his space. However, nearing the edge he sensed the real ones bending, crouching down. The taller figure dipped the shorter, wounded one into a veil beneath his dome. His brows came together in a moment of clarity. “The sewers … or maybe some underground shelter. I'm not sure. He lowered himself to the ground before releasing Kokouken. The dome would seemingly vanish, the blacken shell fading transparent in a second or two.

Tsukiya stood still for a moment. He vaguely took note of a few wondering ninjas that entered his zone, either curious or stupid. Regardless of the facts, it verified his forethought. Kokuoken would draws eyes, one of the reasons he had wanted to make it quick. Despite his frown, a smirk found its way on his lips as he strode pass Yopparai. The two of them would surely draw attention, not that he cared but he would prefer not to kill innocents. It didn't take long for the two to reach his enemies last location, Tsukiya cocked his brow before striding towards a manhole.

Once there he activated Kokuoken again, sensing small animals, insects, and the pair of ninjas that delved inside. They were easy to track even from his spot; the sewers snaked below the town like a maze. Staying constricted, compact. The taller one sprinted through the maze and ultimately got no where in the process. He snapped a hand out towards the fringe of his zone, relying on her position to guide his will. As soon as she touched the manhole, he applied pressure to it, crunching it inward until the possibility of removing it, even with enhanced strength would prove difficult.

“Yopparai, the manhole over there,” he directed him with a nonchalant finger. “Blow it apart. And, if you can, don't lose sight of her again.” He glared down at the ground where the wounded woman was and willed what he had promised. A certain and undeniable death.

“Great Gaea.” he uttered, the power in those words transferred to his technique.

Spikes of jagged earth started to crash through the brick, metal, or whatever substance was around her. She was underground so the spikes had the possibility of skewering her from all directions but up, all that he made sure of was to keep her head intact. She would pay what she owed him.

---

---

The large petals of pink flowers were glittered with dew. Even still, Giichi watched his mother, with a face similar to that of a loving nun, lightly glaze them with water. He sat on the expansive wood of the Uzumaki manor, the slide doors of his home was opened and inviting. His father worked out extensively with a thin, thick-branched tree several yards away, his body was drenched with sweat as he performed pull-ups.

Giichi sighed with annoyance. The last year or so had been taxing for him but the two of them were taking it all in stride. They've prepping him recently, getting him ready to lead the clan but it wasn't like he had decided to do that with his life. Not that he would turn them down either way, just the sudden urgency really bothered him. In the middle of his thoughts, a loud but peculiar bell wrung from through the halls. It was faint whisper to his ears but he knew automatically that it was his phone.

Slowly he returned to his room and checked the message. A brow raised at the notice. Had his dad received one too? He rolled the tension in his shoulders away, pleased that he had something to do instead of brooding. After a quick shower, he tossed on a orange shirt with the Uzumaki symbol on his left breast, slid into his flak jacket, and headed out towards the meeting area.

Upon telling his mother and father, they bid him farewell with jovial and loving smiles. On his way there, he bumped into a few old friends from the academy. He had time to spare, so he tucked his hands into his pockets and talked about their missions, his missions, and their predictions on how pretty some of their classmates had become. As usual, someone tacked on that Giichi had gotten stronger than all of them and that his relation to the Seventh Hokage was proving beneficial.

In the shadows of his pocket, Giichi clenched his fist and let his mind wander onto younger shinobi passing by. When he returned moments later, he hastily ended their interaction, claiming that he'd be late for the assembly. On the way there, he ignored the fame image of his ancestor on Hokage Monument. Arriving in a dark blur, Giichi took a step behind Reihana and covered her eyes with his hands.

“Guess who, Rei-chan? If you get it right, I'll pull a flower from my mother's garden for ya.” he said with a obvious chuckle, one that mentally drew the picture of his warm grin. Over the years he had grown fond of her, if not, use to seeing her everyday. It felt natural to be around her for some reason.

---

The Hokage sighed slightly as he looked over the list. It wasn't a long list by all means but the things written on it were very big to the village. Very big. In a way they were bigger than what Naruto himself could ever have imagined.. bigger than what Hashirama and Madara could have ever wanted for Konoha. “My comrades. I.. don't know how to tell you this.” A few tears began to form in his eyes as he looked over the crowd and let his arms hang, and in that moment he looked less like the hokage and more like a fellow shinobi. Slowly he closed his eyes before wiping them with his right hand, before continueing. A smile came upon his face as he spoke, “We live in an age of peace. And any violence that happens.. it's too much in my eyes. But it's a lifestyle we adopted as shinobi. It's in us. Well. I say no more. I have spoken with the Kazekage and the Mizukage respectively, and they have agreed to an exchange program. We hope that this will create favorable bonds between us.”

The crowd gasped at first, wondering just what this exactly meant. Would they be forming a unified army with these two villages? It didn't look or sound like it at the moment, but any unification like this is usually followed up by bigger centralizations.. “You shouldn't worry, participation is entirely voluntarily. We hope to send a hundred shinobi to each village, just to start. We'll receive the same amount as we send, so likely it'll be a gamble for you to even get into the program. That.. is big on it's own. No, it's unheard of in the history of the shinobi villages. Those who were so proud of their ancestry can now share this with other villages. This is no reason to drop all your pride for Konoha, believe me!”

“But it is a moment for us to reconsider.” With a wide gesture of his hands he tried to calm down the crowd, which at this point was talking loudly. As soon as they calmed a bit more he continued with his speech, moving on to the next issue. “Furthermore.. all the Kage have agreed to set up a unified hunter nin squadron. Hunting rogue shinobi will no longer be a task for each village, and instead we will do it in a unified manner. Participation in this is, sad to say for some of you that rather remain at home.. not voluntarily. Tributes have been selected by my colleagues and some of them include some of you. I will call out your names now. Don't worry. I press you to believe that if you weren't fit for the task, you wouldn't be selected. And it's an honour on it's own - we hope to form these hunter nin into something similar to the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. These hunter nin, they will be the finest, proudest and most elite shinobi we have to offer. From every village!”

A secretary came on stage again and with a bow handed over a long list of names. There were some older members of the force, some ANBU and some very young shinobi listed. It was part of the program. The younger ones would be trained by the elders, and they would become specialized in hunting down and executing those that defy the laws of shinobi. “If I call your name, please step forward!” It was at this point that Zeno teared up again, his sadness at the fact that these people would be leaving the village becoming apparent now. But it was for a greater cause, he knew this. And hopefully so did they. “Chora Akimichi! Kibamaru Inuzuka! Oichen Yamanaka! Mimi Iramura!..” The list continued for a short while more, and aproximately 10 more people were called out. It seemed that nobody known particularily to the group of chunin was called forwards for now. Until the end of the list was reached. “We are reaching the end of the list. Please bear with me. Aiko Tendou, please step forwards. Aoi Don Maquia, please. Shin Maru. Tatsuya Kajiya-Terumi, if you'd step forward. Daiki Naito, Yamato Minamoru... G-.. Gii.. Giichi.. ugh..” Small droplets of sweat were forming at the top of Zeno's head. Slowly he bent over, placing a hand on his forehead. “Excuse me. I don't.. feel so well.. it must be the nerves.” he said, trying to smile. But when he smiled and opened his mouth, everyone could see the blood that was on his teeth. Just as he was about to stand up straight again he caved in again, almost falling on his face before he managed to catch himself with his hands. A second later he spat out large clots of blood onto the platform.

---

---

A medical nin hurried towards the Hokage, who was abruptly waved away by the Hokage who claimed to be feeling 'fine' despite the apparent unhealthy situation he was in. At the same time, a hooded, masked figure stood atop the hokages' office, in clear sight. Her figure was largely masked by the cloak she whore, but it was just enough that you could perhaps make out the figure of a woman. In her right hand she held an ANBU shinobi at the throat, who was struggling heavily before she finally threw her hand forwards and sent the ANBU nin tumbling to his death. Zeno immediately realised what was going on, and stumbled to get off the platform he was on. With a clumsy movement he threw over the small speech desk that he was standing behind. Struggling to even get up, he realised what had hapened. His eyes flashed side to side looking for someone that could help him, but were met only with people who stared at both him, and at the strange figure atop the Hokages' office. Within a second another ANBU member had reached the cloaked figure and was now engaging her in combat, leaving some of the jonin and others to wonder as to whether they should interfere or not. The ANBU was handling it.. obviously? And what was wrong with the Hokage?

Zeno managed to collect himself a bit and got enough grip on the ground to start a half run, tumbling side to side as he ran down a narrow street. He tried to look behind him at the figure, only to be met with the sight of another ANBU nin falling down onto the roof tiles of the hokages' office, before rolling down and crashing into a smaller roof below. And with that kill confirmed, the hooded figure jumped away before anymore shinobi could even think of reaching her.

It was hard to see just what this woman had done to kill these ANBU, let alone what her next movements were going to be. In fact the whole situation had gotten quite unclear and chaotic, and add to that the fact that there were about sixteen classes of academy students, some old, some younger.. you had a situation that had the opportunity to get out of hand quickly. The hooded figure made clear use of this exploitable situation to land amidst the large group of shinobi, causing many of them to back off. The few that tried to catch her were met only with an empty space, seeing as she had jumped away long before they had even extended their arms. Her target was pretty clear - she was after the Hokage.

Zeno ran away, headed for the mountain with the Hokages' faces in it, though they had long ago ran out of space and since then it had become a monument to the ancient hokages. It was about the only place he could be somewhat safe, since the Hokages' office was already under attack by this person. And he could feel.. something was wrong. He never coughed blood, and he never sweat like this. It was weird, and it was so unlike him. His power and chakra was sapping away more and more, he felt that too. He faced back at the street he was running through, only to end up stumbling and then tumbling, rolling down the street a bit before catching himself again and getting up, only to continue his escape. The only thing he could do at this time was run to offer the ANBU more time to catch this.. person. Who ever it was..

Meanwhile on the roofs, the person in the cloak was giving chase on the Hokage in a rather speedy way of going about it. She jumped from rooftop to rooftop, occasionally coming under attack by ANBU nin, whole squads at once. But she dispersed them with remarkable speed, it never becoming quite clear what she was exactly doing to get rid of these people. Sometimes she just dodged their attacks and then body flickered away, leaving them to find out where she had gone. It would take a bit more than that to get rid of the woman.

---

---

Yamato noticed Aoi waving at him, and all he did to return the favour was give her a deadly look. He was already annoyed with that kid. Didn't she grow up to be 18 around the same time as him.. she'd better act like it a bit more. A single glance to the right showed to him that Daiki was also here. Apparently he'd been given the same task as him. He decided to atleast have some company. Jonin should stick together, even if they didn't like eachother. Tsk.. like eachother.. hate was a better word. But Yamato remembered what father had told him. No more spats with the Naito's. Those days were over, now that they were both adults and jonin. With a slight frown he approached Daiki, passing by several of the children. Two of them were fighting, after which one got hurt. That's the life kid. Get used to it. And he would've gotten used to it if there wasn't some nosy idiot medical nin screwing that up. Yamato let go of a sigh. What's with all these do-good chunin that wanted to help everyone and save the world. Those days, like Yamato and Daiki's feuding days, were also over. But Yamato didn't interfere. He had better shit to do than to yell at a chunin that thought she could help everyone and every soul.

“Yo, baka.” Yamato said as he approached Daiki. His metal armor grinded a bit as he approached, but it was softened by the fact that Yamato had thrown on his flak jacket over the combat armor. It looked impressive to say the least, but for Yamato it had more traditional and respectful values since it was expected to be worn during formal meetings too. “Any idea what this bullcrap is about today?” he said, but just then, Hokage Shitlord himself opened his mouth to explain just exactly what this bullcrap was about today. “Great.”

Yamato sat through most of the motivational, emotional idiocy, but got alerted when the hokage spoke of a missing nin squadron. This could be a chance to get out of Konoha, to leave this shithole and finally do something worthwhile rather than babysitting schoolchildren. “He better say my name.. or else.. I'll fucking kill him..” Yamato mumbled to himself with no shame about his death threats regarding the hokage, barely audible to Daiki, but certainly audible if Daiki was paying as much attention as Yamato was. Yamato didn't like the list of names but he still let out a sigh of relief when he heard his own name. And that of Daiki.. Baka hokage.. BAKA! BAKA BAKA BAKA! Internally Yamato couldn't help but scream at himself. He would've gone on a rampage if it weren't for the fact that the hokage seemed to become unwell. And right at that moment, as if fate was playing a trick, a mysterious figure appeared atop the Hokages' office. Someone that was unknown to the village. How did they even get in? “Daiki.. be alert. Look, there.” Yamato said, motioning with his head towards the figure. It was pretty obvious that this was no coincidence, and the fact that the figure dropped an ANBU down the building to his death confirmed that. Chaos spread quickly as ANBU members jumped from the crowd in an attempt to get atop the building to take down this threat, while medical personnel was running all over the place to tend to the fallen ANBU nin, who Yamato was quite sure, was already dead.

And as if luck would have it, the crowd, which included many more non-shinobi than actual shinobi, plummeted into total chaos too. All the civilians suddenly started running, trying to escape what they thought to be an attempt to kill all of Konoha. Yamato knew better than that but he couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed as people bumped into him. One particular man just ran straight into him, and then continued running without a word. Yamato glanced back and was about to yell several obscenities when he noticed that the children were still there. “God damnit.. Daiki, we need to get these kids out of here. Let me tell the others what we're doing, I'll be back in a second.”

Yamato seemed rather unfazed by what had just happened, since he didn't give too much of a shit about the Hokage to begin with, but added onto that was the fact that he was quite confident that the ANBU could deal with whatever this person was trying to do. With a single leap Yamato landed near Aoi, which seemed to be where most people were gathered. “What are you still standing around for you idiots? Me and Daiki will bring our classes back to a safer area, we'll meet up with you on the way. Aoi, you're the highest ranking shinobi, so get your incompetent ass moving.” He didn't wait around for too long to get an answer - he had delivered his flurry of insults paired with orders, despite the fact that he and Aoi were the same rank. That was enough to kickstart Aoi into actually doing something other than playing on that stupid gameboy she had.

Yamato leaped back to Daiki and nodded at him quickly, not granting him much more than that. What they were doing was obvious. Yamato looked at the kids, some of which seemed frightened and others seemed just about ready to jump into the fight themselves. “Yo, knuckleheads. If you're thinking about going after that person, forget it. Leave it to me and Daiki. We'll take care of it. But I think we have time to bring you guys to a safer place. Maybe then you won't die. Maybe.” Yamato wasn't exactly that great a motivator, but he also wasn't a good comforter. His words perhaps made the kids even more scared, but atleast those who seemed ready to throw their lives away were now scared into submission. Slowly Yamato began to lead them out of there at a steady pace, bringing them towards a nearby restaurant. They seemed to be safe there - the restaurant owner promised to take care of them and began offering them some food, and the fact that there was still a teacher there certainly helped. And then, as soon as he and Daiki were done, they'd head out to rendezvous with whatever shinobi were still around and head for the Hokage to see what had happened. Not that Yamato really cared about the Hokage, but he was more interested in this person and what they were here for. “Oi, Daiki.. just hurry up and throw those kids inside. The teacher will take care of them. You slow ass baka.. dogs like you are so annoying.” he said as he looked away into the distance, trying to see if there was still as much chaos on the plaza. Suddenly he raised his voice. “Hey you! Medical nin, come over here and come with us!” he said, looking at the woman that had healed that little whiny shit earlier in his class.

The Chihiro clone would point up towards Yopparai, who had given chase to them. While the Gin clone would stay close to the group, looking behind, fear in it's eyes. 'I'm gonna kill the boss for bringing me into this shitstorm he signed up for. I WAS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE USED TO SPY ON THE WOMEN'S BATHHOUSES NOT THIS!' It thought as it consistently looked back at the drunkard, tears in it's eyes. They moved down the alley way as Yopparai gave chase, three down from where the real Gin sat and waited. As they turned the corner they could hear the voice of a familiar and dangerous man. “Ohh, Hyuga-chaaan!” The clone that was being carried screamed as it saw Yopparai descend upon them as the one that was carrying the other looked up in shock. It met its fate but did its purpose. Gin didn't have quite a good idea where he was but with the explosion that he heard in the distance and the information that was passed along, Gin was able to pinpoint him about three alleyways down from him.



"Jun...where the hell are you guys." He silently growled into the mic. He moved down another alleyway opposite of the one he had stayed in, his movements silent as the night they came to the Tonaka Castle. As the clones were distracting the Drunkard. He could here the swordsmen some ways down from him. the only way he knew that was from the whiny sound that Yopparai gave off. “Tsukiya-chaaaan! They made clones! Those fuckers made clones! I'll need you to sense the real position of these bastards with your bloodlens lemmet so I can explode some stuff. Pretty-please?” . He could hear in the distance the annoying voice of Yopparai. 'I could make this work.' His eyes focused in down the way to where he could make out a silhouette of what could only be assumed as Yopparrai. He formed another clone, this time fitted with his grid wire. He held one end of it and brought his hands together to form his seals. 'Mist Art: Mist Senbon Barrage' Pars of the Mist above where Yopparrai stood began to form into condense senbon needles and descended quickly upon Yopparrai in hopes that he would move his way. before he would pass over the alleyway as he would hop over the buildings, the clone would jump high, crashing into him, exploding into water as the real Gin would pump lightning chakra into the wire that would entangle the Drunkard and shock him immensely. Should Yopparai find his way down to Gin, the clones only objective was to Kamekazi into the drunkard and allow for Gin to shock him into a numbness. After this would happen he would once again disappear further into the mist and work his way over to Jun.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shouken had awoken as the Hokage's speech began, now sitting up. He was sort of excited for the speech, hoping the kage would maybe announce a tournament or a big mission. However, these thoughts were cut short due to Zeno's abruption in the speech. He stood too his feet, glaring at the seemingly dying kage and was dumbfounded on how to react.

Shortly afterwards, Shouken noticed a cloaked figure above the Hokage's roof. By her thin shape and tiny hands, the boy decided that it was a she...And she had an ANBU operative by the throat. Shouken's eyes widened and his right hand instinctively gripped the hilt of Bachiatari, his new katana, knowing he would be no match for this cloaked women, but instead doing anything he could to buy the Hokage more time.

He glanced and caught Zeno jogging at a slow pace through the alleys. Shouken decided to provide overwatch just in case anyone tried to attack him. Shouken was excited at the fact that he now had an oppurtunity to lay down his life for his Kage. And if he survived, oh, the stories they would tell. He saw this as a win/win situation giving him a solid attitude and determination.

Keeping his hand on the blade, Shouken began leaping from roof to roof in pursuit of the Kage's trail. He was passed by several ANBU pursuing the cloaked figure.

This chick's no joke...

He thought to himself while gazing at the dozens she was ripping through.

This did not phase Shouken, as he ensued Zeno. He would quickly approach the wounded kage and protect him from the rooftops to try and see oncoming attackers.

Hopefully the others will aide me...This is not looking too good...

Shin’s arrival was met with a cordial nod and a smile, as Aoi was clearly amused by his little display. Whenever Shin wasn’t trying to hit on someone in that over obnoxious way of his, she found him to be an entertaining guy to be around. If she remembered correctly, he was doing detective work now, helping the police keep Konoha’s streets safe. As well as drowning under mountains of paperwork. Fun.

“I’m sure people will come here eventually, and if they don’t, oh well, it’s their loss.” Akio said with a shrug, before she turned to see Rei walking up to her, the younger girl’s comment causing her to blush. She still wasn’t used to people complimenting her on her looks, but she would be lying if she said it didn’t feel nice. “Thanks Rei, you looking great as well . . . and I see you’ve got yourself an admirer as well. Better not let your brother find out. He seems like the type to get over-protective.”

Akio chuckled a bit at the display, finding it rather cute of the young Uzumaki boy, though she wasn’t sure if Rei would see it that way. She was about to turn and reprimand Aoi for trying to start a gaming competition at a time like this when the Hokage finally began the speech. She listened with a silent countenance as he announced the exchange program between Konoha, Mizu, and Suna, unsure of what to make of it all. The Hokage doesn’t look well . . . what could’ve happened to spook him, and the other two kages so badly that they’d do something like this so suddenly. Something’s going on behind the scenes, something we’re not being told. As the speech continued, and the hunter-nin thing was brought up, Akio was positive that something was up. An elite, unified hunter-nin division meant that their was a threat out there that couldn’t be handled by one village alone.

But what could possibly be such a threat that . . wait . . . could it be . . .her? Akio thoughts turned to her experience facing Kusaru and Gian, or as it was, watching helplessly as they spared everyone’s lives. She’d done research on the woman afterwards, and had found out that she was the leader of some group known as the Keihatsu. But last she’d heard of them, they were focusing their attention on Yakuza groups and the like. Had something changed? Before she could contemplate it any further however, chaos erupted all around her.

Looking around, she cursed herself for not paying attention as she saw the Hokage make a break for it, a hooded figure following in hot pursuit. Yamato came shortly after ordering Aoi to move her ass, and while normally Akio would’ve cursed him out for being such a dick, she found herself in complete agreement. The Hokage was in trouble and they needed to move.

“Aoi, you heard the prick, let’s get moving.” Akio shouted back as she took to the rooftops, certain that Aoi would follow her. She would quickly come within sight of the culprit but kept at a distance. Running through a string of hand-signs, she quickly formed her Thunder Bow, the construct looking much more refined due to her training with the jutsu, then sent forth a quick fire barrage of five bolts towards the assailants back, each one possessing a Static String attached to it. She wasn’t confident that she’d get a hit, but she hoped to at least slow the assailant down enough so that the Anbu in pursuit could surround them.

@Savato

@j8cob

@Partisan



Tatsuya was on the verge of falling asleep when he was jolted awake by the sound of someone’s shouting coming from nearby, causing him to panic for a second in a half-conscious daze before he found the source of the noise. It was some girl yelling at her phone, or something. As if that was evidence enough to avoid her, the fact that she was out in public wearing the most revealing outfit that Tatsuya had ever seen was. Tatsuya simply turned away from the lunatic chick, keeping as much focus as possible on the Hokage as he began his speech.

Tatsuya was fading in and out for most of it, too tired to fully comprehend what was being said until his name was called. This caused him to wake right up, as he reviewed everything he’d half listened to, then did it again. Wait, I must’ve misheard that, did the Hokage just say I have to be on this Hunter Nin team? B-b-b-b-but I don’t have the skills for that Job, plus I’m only a fucking Genin. This is insane! As Tatsuya began to panic at the thought of what was going on, his attention, he didn’t notice the Hokage take ill at first, until he suddenly lifted up a desk in front of himself. This caused him to look up and before he knew it, chaos broke out as some mysterious assailant dropped an Anbu into the crowd, before quickly jumping down themselves to give chase to the fleeing Kage.

Tatsuya saw several other shinobi give chase, and for a second, he considered joining them. But then he cast a look at the fallen Anbu-nin, and the notion had left his head entirely. Against someone like that, he’d only be getting in the way, especially with no way to fight them from a distance. Right now, he had to do what he could to keep order in the square. With that in mind, Tatsuya began ordering civilians to safe areas, and trying his best to keep things calm and orderly, his stomach and lack of sleep now forgotten thanks to the adrenaline currently racing through his veins.

How did things go to shit so fast? Who the hell was that and how did they sneak into Konoha so fast without anyone knowing? Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!!

---

The assembly had barely started when he noticed several faces appearing. A gentle chuunin, one new to him had seemingly hushed the cries of child. He smiled to himself, acknowledging the act in silence before returning his attention to the Kage. His had just started feeling his mind drifting when he heard a familiar voice directed towards him. It couldn't be though … the aggression in the word “baka” was lacking tremendously.

When he looked to the side nonchalantly, he caught Yamato in his sights. His brow raised slightly, surprise and partial distaste touching him. Normally, he would have stepped up but the feeling in the air between them had changed over the years, it was hostility that tainted the area around them anymore, now there was a mutual respect that layered over it. And that was enough for Daiki to put forth his own effort in mending their past.

“Not sure myself. Guess we'll find out soon.” Feeling, if only a little, awkward.

As the Hokage's speech reached its apex, Daiki felt a storm of emotions develop. Inside his gut, where he hid his excitement, was hope for his ambitions. Trepidation for the unknown future. And a surprising amount of exhilaration. His large hands reached for the material at the bottom of his pockets and gripped it tightly as the names were called. When he finally heard his, he simply closed his eyes and let out a long breath. When he opened them again, the Hokage was bent with illness.

When did this happen? I closed my eyes for only a second! Daiki pulled his arms out his pockets while a medic attempted to approached Zeno. Just then, he caught the slight flutters of a black cloak high above them. Yamato's words came soon afterwards.

“Yea, I see. The kids come first,” he told Yamato calmly, though his heart pounded in his chest. The kids behind him coward as the body hit the ground with a fleshly thud. In the chaos of the crowd, Daiki found himself nudging and pushing aside stampeding villagers. He turned back to his charges. “Stay with me. Don't move unless ordered.” Yamato seemed to have a plan, so he was willing to wait as long as the crowd didn't get any rowdier.

For a long moment, Yamato spoke to Aoi and the others, leaving Daiki with the kids. They tugged on him, asking if they'd be okay, if the Hokage was okay. He could only tense his jaw and remain silent. He wouldn't lie to future shinobi about the situation, so instead he'd let them come to their own conclusions. When Yamato returned and they had led the students to a restaurant, Daiki felt his shoulders lighten. Not in the literal sense.

“Heh, funny that you're saying that. I was just thinking about what a whinny pussy you were being. Cats should really stay the quiet type,” he said with a challenging grin, referring to the Minamoru's ancient tiger symbol, though Yamato often called himself a god. “Let's hurry and join the others.” Daiki dashed back towards the assembly, leaving Yamato to catch up.

The series of events that had just occurred were certainly unfortunate. Beforehand, she had listened quietly to what the Hokage had to say. His words were foreign to her. Having come from a remote village like Getsugakure made her feel a bit irrelevant to the entire thing. Sure, she was aligned with Konoha now, but there was a sense of detachment between herself and her new home that hadn't quite been stitched just yet. And this feeling was even more perpetuated when the Hokage started calling out names, none of which had been hers. Perhaps he would have gotten to her name, but as everyone saw, he never got the chance.

She looked on in concern as he knelt down in a sudden on-struck of illness and her watchful countenance caught sight of the slim cloaked figure toss down an Anbu effortlessly into the crowd. "He's dead", a nearby medical-nin reported immediately.

From the corner of her eye, she watched through the sudden chaos that had erupted around her as the Hokage ran off wobbly towards the Kage Momument. The cloaked figure trailed behind him, cutting down any Anbu that dared intervene in her mission. Assuming it was a woman by her frame. As the shinobi she had seen before escort his kid-nin to a nearby restaurant, she nodded in satisfied assurance. Good, the children are safe. Now onto the more pressing matter.

In one movement, the young mother lept over a crowd of citizens being led to safety by a red-headed genin and landed beside a wounded anbu. It amazed her how lacking their shinobi force was in medical-nin. She had expected far more than were present. It was unsettling to some degree.

Keeping her face relatively blank as she crouched beside the heaving and bleeding anbu, she quickly formed a chakra scalpel and used it to cleanly slice through the anbu's uniform to reveal the deep gash in his chest. He was bleeding immensely. He was certainly on his last leg. Yuna looked at him with soft eyes, though didn't smile. "Do not worry my dear. You shall see another day I assure you."

The Anbu was breathing too heavily to respond. She could feel his heart palpitating dangerously fast as she laid her hands on his bloody chest. And with one hand there, she brought the other to his forehead. After several seconds of maintaining this position, his heart suddenly began to slow and his breathing eased up. His pain, it had been completely numbed. "Thank you", he awed in immediate relief. The Medical Touch Technique. Yuna then smiled ever so slightly as she pulled her hands off his body and cupped them together in front of herself. "Hm. Its better than morphine and you don't need a prescription."

As the chaos still unfolded around her, she tried to remain diligently focused on her "patient". One step at a time. From behind her, the ninja who had been with the kids called for her.

“Hey you! Medical nin, come over here and come with us!”

As his words rang out towards her, a small jellyfish had formed in her cupped palms, its transparent watery body coursing with visible blue coloured chakra. "Understood!", she simply complied. Placing the jellyfish on the wounded Anbu's chest, the tentacles latched into his skin as the chakra from the jellyfish coursed throughout his body and slowly began to heal him. A near fatal gash like that would take some time to completely heal. Luckily her Medical Water Release: Jellyfish technique allowed her to heal without having to remain on site and exercise unnecessary chakra. "Please leave this on your chest until your completely healed. Breathe normally. Move slowly."

And with that, she lept up from her crouched position and followed alongside the ninja with the scars on his face. Beside him was a red-headed ninja. Neither of them she recognized. She stayed quiet, as she liked to do, and remained alert to retrieve her orders.

---

Aoi and Akio were certainly doing well. In fact, a little too well. When the clown girl pulled out her handheld gaming device and declared she was naming something after Shin, he looked confused for a moment. "A Mudkip? Oh, that Pokemon thing you have," he deduced, nodding his head once Aoi showed him the screen for confirmation. "That's a cute little thing... but... uh... it says it's a girl, Aoi..." With a sigh Shin shrugged it off. It wasn't like a minor detail like that would ever bother Aoi, so there was no point in trying to bother her over it.

Rei Minamoru, Yamato's younger sister, and Giichi Uzumaki joined the group. Shin wasn't too familiar with either, being that they weren't in his class growing up. But he knew of them and had seen them both on several occasions. It seemed that Giichi was flirting with Rei, something that seemed foolish to both Shin and Akio. Yamato's calmed down lately, but that kid might be biting off more than he can chew if he wants to go after Rei, Shin thought to himself. He kept his mouth shut, instead smiling and waving to greet the two younger teenagers. If not Yamato, then Reijo...

The Hokage went along with his policy changes. It turns out they weren't as boring as Shin initially expected. An elite hunting organization? Shin wondered, bringing a hand up to his chin. Multi-national at that. That's never happened before. The Kage want someone dead for sure... Zeno continued on to list names. Are these people being selected for the hunter organization or for the transfer program? Wait, did he call my name? He did. Oh boy. Shin smirked as he stepped forward, alongside the others called. His first question wasn't about to be answered, as Zeno couldn't even finish listing off all the names before collapsing.

The smirk vanished. Something was wrong with the Hokage. The man didn't even have time to pull himself together before a cloaked figure appeared. ANBU were quick to react, but it seemed that this assassin, a woman as dictated by Shin's detective abilities and his ability to spot attractive bodies, was more than a match for them. "What the...?" This assassin was bold, striking in broad daylight before almost the entirety of Konoha's forces. Wait a second. That's completely intentional, Shin began deducing, his expression contorting in an angry and irritated sneer. This is a terror tactic. The goal here isn't necessarily killing Zeno but the act itself, right in front of all of us. To create chaos and division. Means to an unknown end...

Shin turned to face his nearest friends, which were Aoi and Akio. Before he could give them a plan, Yamato had already stepped up and gave them orders. Well, that works, Shin thought to himself. He glanced over at the platform that Zeno had previously stood on before deciding what he was going to do. The young detective grabbed a nearby jonin, who was still watching in awe as the assassin gave chase to the Hokage. "Alright, I need you to do me a favor," Shin asked, drawing the man's attention. "Go find either Ayame or Fujitora Choko, then check the Hokage's Office to find out what Zeno has eaten so far today. Be especially sure of where he got the food and who prepared it. Got it?" "Who are you?" "Detective Shin Maru, but that doesn't matter. If we aren't chasing the culprit then we should be working on finding out who it is. Now we need to figure out who poisoned the Hokage. So let's go."

---

---

The only time Tsukiko showed any interest in what was going on around her was when Rei gave a brief greeting and compliment. Rei Minamoru was a former student of hers. The girl was weak when they first began working together, but Tsukiko respected her more than other kids because she acknowledged that weakness and tried to grow stronger. Perhaps she was still weak, Tsukiko wouldn't know considering she hasn't actively checked her progress, but if her older brother was any kind of indicator it could be safely assumed that Rei was at least acceptable. "Thanks, I try," she responded, before giving a polite wave (something rarely seen from the Honeybadger). While her voice sounded dry and humorless, the sentiment was something that few could ever hope to get from her. Such words from most anyone else would be met with hostility or be completely ignored.

But alas, Rei moved on to hang out with friends in her age group as she rightfully should. Tsukiko expected the rest of this meeting to be painful and dull, but the Hokage actually had something else planned. Exchange programs? Hunting parties? What the hell have the higher-ups been talking about? Tsukiko wondered, narrowing her eyes at Zeno as she thought about the news. We've never been so buddy-buddy with other villages before. What prompted the change? Though this elite hunter-nin group... that sounds fun. I'll be damned if I'm not running that show. I'm the best hunter-nin in the world. While her expression remained harsh, on the inside Tsukiko was somewhat elated by this news. Most of her jobs in Konoha have basically been hunting down rogue shinobi or criminals, so the idea would be nothing new to her. It would simply mean she would get to do it more often and, presumably, make more money off it.

Zeno began listing off names. Tsukiko waited for her name to be called, but it never was. As he was getting closer and closer to the end of the list, Tsukiko visibly grew more frustrated. What is this? Has he forgotten what I can do? This some kind of joke? He's listing off kids now but not me? What the fuck!? Tsukiko began tapping her foot, but before her anger could boil over the Hokage began acting strange. His sudden stop and change in demeanor snapped Tsukiko out of her growing rage, instead sending her into a cautious and concerned state. While the Hokage began spitting up blood, which was bad enough as it is, a cloaked woman arrived and began making a mess of the immediate ANBU next to the Hokage. Is this bitch stupid? Tsukiko thought, her concerned expression declining into an irritated one. To think she can come into MY home and try to kill MY boss right in front of ME?

While ANBU tried to kill or capture the strange woman, Zeno began to retreat. An obvious move, considering his sudden signs of weakness. He was surely in no shape to fight. While the other shinobi in the area began to mobilize, some moving to assist in capturing the cloaked assassin and others moving to do other things, Tsukiko remained in place and calmly drew her spear, The Monicker, from her back. There's too many people, I haven't got her scent or chakra signature... But... Tsukiko leapt onto the platform that Zeno had previously been on, to look in the direction he and the assassin were heading. Once I have them, that bitch will have nowhere to hide and I can chase her to the end of the Earth... Tsukiko brought her hands together to form a single handseal. I'm not taking her alive. Tsukiko vanished from sight, the Hiding with Camouflage technique rendering her invisible. Now cloaked and stealthy, Tsukiko began jumping across rooftops like the other shinobi. Only she took an alternate route, heading a different direction than the rest. I know where they're going... and I can beat them there.