[IC] Gobigakure no Sato - A Naruto Roleplay

[The Mad Hatter]

Our story begins on a beautiful morning. The sun was just about to rise; breaking the darkness that covered the world with reds and golds peeking through the gaps in the mountains and lighting the sky like a scene out of a play. The birds were chirping in the vast forests, bringing the firsts sounds to break the silence. At the coasts, the birds' songs were not quite as pleasant and the voice of a gull could barely be called song.
The village itself, which would only have looked like a fly's waste on the map if it had been on one, never slept. When those who lived the day began to get up, those who lived the night were just going to bed. With all the burning, red lights of the small village, people rarely took the time to enjoy the sun's rise.
Despite this day being a beautiful one, by all means, it was not a special day. Special days were rare in this small village. They had their festivals, of course, but for a place that prides itself with being one of entertainment, the festivities of those arrangements were just routine.

As a village divided into people of the day and people of the night, the regular citizens rarely paid any heed to those in the middle; the shinobi and kunoichi of their village. Their warriors and their guards; the ones that kept them safe from the wicked ways of the outside world and made it possible for the small village to remain one of entertainment by their own rights, rather than following the word of a larger village.

---

For Haruka, this day was not special at all. No missions. No training. No nothing. Even if she had wanted to, there really was nothing for her to do. It had been months since her last mission and it had been the easiest one she had had for years.
Most of the time, she just got stuck guarding the village entrance. She was a chuunin already; she wanted some more excitement. Some of the other chuunin, she knew, trained kids at the Academy. Even that was better than guard duty. Heck, even working with her mom at the restaurant was better. She at least got to punch stuff in the restaurant. It was mostly dough, but still.
Sitting around, all alone, without anything to do but stare off into the horizon really gave a girl time to think. Sadly, Haruka was never much of a thinker. She was more of a sleeper. In fact, that brings us to the present setting.

As the sun rose and filtered through the leaves of the trees above, Haruka was awakened from her slumber by that annoying, flickering light. She groaned at the disturbance, throwing one arm over her eyes in a desperate attempt to stay asleep just a little bit longer without a single regard for the fact that she was supposed to be watching the “gate” for intruders. This was her third day; she was allowed to sleep.
Back when she had been in training, just a little academy runt, she had been taught that ninja should be able to stay awake for a week at a time, with an hour of sleep a day. Needless to say, she never really felt like following that rule. She needed her ten hours of sleep every single day. She was taught that a true ninja could go without food for three days, just as she was supposed to here at the “gate”, but she had never been a fan of that rule, either. Thus, her mother packed her food enough for a family of ten and yet Haruka always felt like a staved dog when she returned to the village.
Every three days, she was replaced. Someone else came, sat at the “gate” and guarded it. She had no idea if that someone followed the rules of not sleeping or eating, but she doubted it. Who in their right mind would do that, anyways? What if something actually did happen? Then they would be tired and hungry and unable to do anything. Not that they were really supposed to do anything; they were supposed to run for it. Run back to the village and alarm the others. That's how it went. For a ninja, running at full speed, it would take just a couple of hours, unlike the full day the journey took at a normal walking pace.

After battling with the sun for a little while, Haruka finally did get up. She was going to be replaced and she knew that she would likely get in trouble if she had been fast asleep when her replacement showed up.

[Pasta Sentient]

The past five days had been simultaneously tedious and utterly boring. Patrol for a Gobikagure Shinobi was somewhat pointless, Ryuu thought as he sped through the trees. Considering Gobikagure's status...it was not like the young man would detain any foreign shinobi from entering the borders. His only job was to observe, take out a bandit gang here or there, and make his route.

Ever since he had activated his sharingan, it seemed that the only missions the Village Leader would assign to Ryuu were information gathering in nature. A scowl crossed Ryuu's face as he thought of the Jounin Hyuuga Hiroshi. Despite numerous attempts to gain information, the Village Leader would never give more information regarding his bloodline beyond that it was cursed and Ryuu was better off not knowing. Of course, the man would follow these simple statements with a new BINGO book for Ryuu to memorize. There were certain people that, should he see, Ryuu was to report back to base immediately. Though Gobigakure had open borders to shinobi, Hiroshi liked to know when S-Ranked ninja were in the borders. Ryuu did not mind the nature of the work, but he did long for combat. It was...stifling being a shinobi in a Village that did not even have a Kage.

"Such thinking will do me no good," Ryuu thought with a sigh, "I'm stuck here for now. I wonder what Myuubi has in store for dinner tonight. My paycheck from this patrol should be decent enough for us all to get some decent food. Plus the rabbits I caught."

Black, moppish hair was thrown back as Ryuu moved at inhuman speeds back to his village. The young man's form was lithe and almost graceful in his movements. Dual Wakizashi were strapped to his back and waist respectively, but a satchel of fresh, raw meat rested upon his back. A small smile crossed Ryuu's face as he exhilarated in the joy of the chakra flowing through his body as he ran. It was one of the few things that gave him joy in life. Noticing the road that lead to the village entrance, Ryuu slowed his speed to a simple walk as he approached.

His eyes turned to the guard and observed her for a moment. Though he recognized her from around the village, he could not recall the name. The first thing that stood out to him was her height. The girl was abnormally short and for a moment Ryuu wondered if she was perhaps eight or nine years old, but the bulging muscles and matured look in her eyes dispelled that notion. She was not unnattractive, Ryuu thought. Or perhaps she was attractive in an ugly way? He really could not tell. Being surrounded by prostitutes tended to give a child a skewed sense of what was beauty. No matter. The young man approached stoically and nodded at the lavender haired girl. He pulled a small package of papers from his belt and offered them.

"Myuubi Ryuu, back from patrol. Chuunin. ID Number 5040," He would state simply as he looked down to observe the girl. The young man could mentally hear Myuubi chiding him to be more sociable and so he asked awkwardly, "Um...many people entering the village today?"

[Sathanas Rex]

Shou | Day 1 | Places, People, Things

A single ray of light entered the room through a small gap in the curtains. It lingered on the wall for some time before it slowly started to inch its way down. Below it a man slept. Not much could be seen of him, since he slept curled into a ball, with his covers pulled up almost all the way over his head. The only thing you could say for sure was that he had blonde hair.

As the ray of light travelled down the man turned around in his sleep and ended up on his back, snoring lightly. A few minutes later the now tiny ray positioned itself right over one of the man’s eyes. At first it didn’t look like he noticed, but then his eye opened and he was instantly blinded. He groaned and closed the eye again, but it was too late. He was awake.

About half an hour later he was dressed, the bed was made and he was eating breakfast. The slim salary of a ninja without a mission couldn’t sustain a very high standard, but he had enough to get by, even if he had to cut down on the meat sometimes…

After breakfast it was time for some light training. Three reps of ten pushups, three reps of twenty crunches, three/ten leg squats, three/ten pullups…
Time passed quickly and before he knew it another half hour had passed. He had barely broken a sweat and realised that he’d already managed to do everything he had planned for the day. Well, almost, doing the dishes didn’t count.

He looked around his home for some form of stimuli. He had some shelves, and some books. he’d read some of them, but not all. He looked at them for a while and decided that he could read another day. After casually dismissing every other form of stimuli he could find he decided to leave his home and find something to do in the village. He could swing by the academy and see if they needed any help.

He got ready to leave, but stopped halfway through the hallway, in front of the mirror. His blonde hair was normally standing straight up, but the nightly tosses and turns had gotten to it and the perfectly straight line of hair looked like a disaster area. He formed a seal with his hands and small sparks began to form between his fingers. He raised his hands above his head and then quickly slammed them together with his hair caught in the middle. When he removed his hands the hair was standing straight, just like it should. With a smile he turned toward the door and opened it.

The first thing he saw was the extremely bright shine from the sun, and a closed fist coming closer. There should’ve been someone at the other end of the fist as well, but that didn’t matter much. His right hand formed a guard and shot out toward the fist as fast as it could move. At the same time his eyes went into overdrive to clear away the excess light so that he could see, yet he couldn’t afford to blink. As each microsecond passed his vision became clearer and clearer until the human shape that held the fist became embarrassingly familiar.

His hand stopped a few inches before the fist in an awkward half-guard and floated there for a second before it dropped down to the man’s side.
The man outside the door was much younger and wore his golden red hair long. He was both bigger and stronger, so the block wouldn’t have done much good if it had actually been an incoming attack.

“Hayashimoto Daiken” The lesser man said, before he corrected himself. “Dai.”

His fist rose to scratch the back of his head and he laughed. "Hey, Shou, relax, I'm not going to try and kill you just yet."

"Relaxation is a comodity we cannot afford, you know this." The man known as Shou gave his companion a stern look. "What brings you here anyway? Have we finally gotten a mision?"

Dai raised his eyebrows. "Good words, from a man who prefers to spend his days sleeping." He laughed again, a deep, rumbling laugh that came from the depths of a cave. His face crinkled in mirth, like a particularly happy sheet of paper. "You'll be glad to see me, then! We don't have a mission," and at this his eyebrows furrowed, "but I was going to suggest training."

"Training?" Shou asked as he thought back on the excercises he'd already performed. "I've already done my training for today, I was on my way to the academy." As he spoke he pushed himself out of the doorway and past his companion, closing and locking the door behind him. "You're welcome to join me, I guess..."

"The academy is so dreary," his companion replied, stepping in beside him. "Patience, Hiroshi will say," Dai did his best to imitate their mentor, "for impatience leads to demise." He paused. "I was actually thinking of a hunting spree. Much more interesting."

"You shouldn't make fun of Hiroshi-sama like that." Shou said, but was unable to completely hide his amusement. With the door locked he swiftly put his keys away and turned to face Dai.

He chuckled. "You know I love the old man, really." Dai began to walk briskly. "So, off to the academy it is?"

"By the holy spirits, have I managed to persuade you?" Shou asked, adding a bit more drama than was necessary to the phrase.

Dai's eyebrows furrowed. "There is nothing to do here, Shou. I would go anywhere to relieve my boredom. Even if it means listening to one of the old man's lectures." He paused, scratching the makings of a beard. "They're good joke material, at any rate."

Dai was right, of course. In his own impulsive and simple way, he had put his finger right on the problem. Of course he could not have known that Shou's own motive for visiting the academy was his own boredom.
"You'll be glad of his lectures one day.. but for today I'll go easy on you and only poke you when you start to snore. And perhaps today you will be rewarded, we might get called up to demonstrate something."

Daiken laughed. "Let' be off, then."

[The Mad Hatter]

Haruka had been walking around, stretching her legs a bit as she waited for her damn replacement to show up. The morning air was still damn with dew and she wished, not for the first time in her life, that she could actually do something with her water-based chakra other than smash boulders and uproot trees. What was the point in having a chakra nature when her chakra was useless for nature transformations, anyways? It was just sadistic, having her take the test for no reason other than curiosity.
Kenta had always been a bit of a sadist, she thought to herself with a small, nostalgic smile. He was not sadistic in the wants-to-hurt-people-for-fun, sort of way; that had always been more of Suzaku's forte, even if the golden-eyed boy had preferred to do it verbally over physically. Kenta was more discreet with his sadism; human-experiments kind of sadistic. Luckily, he never really acted on those impulses. It had to be hard, being so kind-hearted and yet having the urges to cut people open to understand what was going on inside of them.
She shook the thoughts of her old teammates out of her head, sighing a bit at the uselessness of those memories. Kenta was an instructor now; he taught medical ninja just like himself. Suzaku was long gone from the village and she probably would not ever see him again, even if she tried to find him. He had always been good at hiding things.
The worst part about her faulty chakra, she mused silently as she flexed and clenched her fingers a few times, was the fact that it was not really faulty. It worked fine and there was plenty of it. She could sort of walk on water and all that. She was just too stupid to mold the chakra and form it into techniques. Her chakra just would not answer to her.

She was startled out of her slightly depressing train of thought when someone spoke to her. Heck, she was a shitty ninja; she had not noticed the young man walking down the path right next to her. She probably would not even have noticed a full army sneaking in through the “gate” once she was in thinking mode. She was glad she rarely thought.
The boy told her his ID number and all; very professional. She almost wanted to snort at him. After all, she had been sound asleep just a little while ago. Nonetheless, she checked her pad of ninja-on-mission to make sure his number checked out and looked over the papers she offered him, like a good little guard. Everything was good.
His attempt at socialization was a bit awkward, at best, and she vaguely wondered why he bothered with small-talk if it was not really his thing, but decided to let it slide.

“I've had a delivery of sugar come through; that's the most action I've seen for the full three days I've been stationed,” she responded dully, lazily offering the young man a crooked smile, “Luckily, my replacement should be here any minute now,” she added, looking back at the “gate” over her shoulder to confirm that he had not shown up.
“You have a good mission?” she offered as counter-small-talk. She had already been able to tell from the papers that his patrol had been just as boring as her guard duty, but it was polite to ask anyways, right?

[Halvtand]

Daiken | Practicing
After a short walk the two ninjas had arrived at the academy, or at least the old warehouse that served as an academy in Gobigakure. They entered the building together and were greeted by a score of young children and about as many others. The building was only one big room, with an upper floor you could reach by a few ladders placed along the walls. They didn't notice any creaking or strange shadows that would betray a participant above. Instead it seemed like everyone had gathered in the big room. At the other end they could see the village ninja leader, Hyuuga Hiroshi. He was the only one in the room facing the door, and gave the two chuunin a welcoming nod, but didn't stop talking to his students. Shou placed himself at the back of the crowd, taking care not to draw any attention away from the teacher.

"Old man!" Daiken greeted, loudly. "What's today's lecture on?"
Hiroshi paused, only for a second, and looked straight at the loud ninja. "As I was saying. Daiken. We will move out to the practice field shortly and do some sparring. The students will work on their kawarimi no jutsu". Then his voice softened somewhat "Those of you who are already famailiar with the technique, pleace watch and help them in any way possible."
Hiroshi walked over to the side, where a primitive black board was set up, and grabbed a piece of chalk.
"We've been through this already, but just to be sure, I want to give you a quick recap of the technique you'll be working on." He started to draw and write on the board as he spoke. "When you're in battle every move you and your opponent makes can be an opening to strike, even the enemy's attack itself. That is where the replacement technique comes in. Right before you're about to be hit you must use the super fast movement that I've taught you to do three things.
1. Fetch a nearby object that can take the hit instead of you.
2. Preform a henge no jutsu on it, to make it look like you.
3. Find a place to hide.
The technique's focus shouldn't be on getting out of the way of the attack, but finding a good hiding place. If this technique is done correctly you should be able to convince your opponent that you've been hit. When he let's his guard down, you can strike."

"Substitution, how boring," Daiken said.
"Quiet, this is important for the students." Shou whispered back.
Hiroshi looked at him. "If you can dismiss it with such arrogance, perhaps you should come up here and show it to the students."
"I, uh..." Daiken was acutely aware of the stares on him. "No problem, I can do this easy."
He stepped forward, in front of the students. Hiroshi threw the chalk at him.
"Kawarimi no jutsu!"
There was a poof. Daiken materialized immediately behind Hiroshi, who flicked him on the head.
Laughter. Daiken tried to melt into the floor.
"See, students, in battle, we'd have lost a ninja," Hiroshi said, gravely. "This is why one should practice chakra control more often, instead of swinging a chain around all day." His stare was meaningful.
Shou was one of very few who managed to restrain their laughter when Daiken so utterly failed to excecute one of the most basic techniques in the ninja arsenal. Daiken rejoined him as a spectator and Hiroshi went into great length to explain exactly what the chuunin had done wrong and why it was wrong. Shou couldn't help but feel a little bit smug, he had mastered the kawarimi in the academy. Being a ninjutsu specialist, he practiced chakra control every day and could pull of a kawarimi in his sleep. Daiken was more of a taijutsu-guy, Shou was sure that his companion would rather take a punch to the face than rely on the element of surprise.
"Hide behind sensei? Not even a student would've thought of that." He whispered, trying his best not to interrupt the lecture.

"And now for a proper demonstration... Kobayashi-san, the chalk-piece right by your left foot, could you toss it over?"
Shou bent down and picked up the small white cylinder and with a grin he threw it as hard as he could at his master. It hit the white-eyed old man straight in the throat and he staggered backwards and fell over, clutching his neck as if he was suffocating. Two older students rushed in to help him and everyone else turned to give Shou the evil eye, but all became utterly confused when Shou only returned a smile.
Behind Shou, with his hand extended like the blade of a kunai stood the leader of Gobi, Hyuuga Hiroshi. A poof of white smoke and it was revealed that Shou's throw only had hit a leather ball the children used for playtime between lectures. It now featured a big white chalk mark.
Hiroshi moved his extended hand across Shou's throat and with as much theatrical flare as he'd ever mustered Shou closed his eyes, tilted his head forward and made an incredibly unconvincing last "blergh".

A few minutes later everyone had left the building and was walking around the open area outside known as the training field. The students plit up into pairs and started to practice their replacement techniques. Most of the older participants was content with watching the children, but some took the opportunity to train.
"Kobayashi-san, Hayashimoto-san." It was the voice of their master, and as they turned around the white-eyed old man stood only a meter away.
"It warms my heart to see my old students again. Thank you both for participating in my lecture. I find it is always best to entertain the children and teach them at the same time."
Shou bowed respectfully. "It is always good to revisit the basic techniques."
"I'll, uh," Daiken said, looking at his feet, "be sure to practice the kawarimi, old man."
Hyuuga Hiroshi eyed his old pupil thuroughly before speaking. "Make sure you do, why not take this opportunity to do so? The students are all set and you may practice as much as you want. I am sure Kobayashi-san would be willing to test you on this technique." Suddenly the old man's eyes darted across the field and stopped on a small group of children. "If you excuse me, a teacher's work is never done..." The old man bowed once again and then left.

"So, you're going to throw knives at me until I can substitute properly?" Daiken asked.
Shou thought about this for second while his eyes scanned the field. Then he hunched his shoulders and said "Yeah, sounds like a good idea."
They found an empty patch of the field and took their stances. Shou waited for a little while, hoping his companion would get impatient, before he threw his first kunai. He made it easy for Daiken and aimed for center-of-mass, all the big guy would have to do was the most basic replacement technique.
Daiken responded with honed reflexes.
"Kawarimi no jutsu!"
And indeed, the dagger thunked into a log. Shou blinked, and looked quickly around.
There was a poof, and Daiken reappeared about half an inch next to the aforesaid log, looking quite confused.
"I did that on purpose," he said, recovering admirably. "Next time will be proper. You've been warned."
"How about this, the point of the kawarimi is to confuse your opponent. So I'll just keep throwing daggers at you until you can fool me into thinking you're somewhere else. Deal?" Shou said and picked up a few new kunai.

Daggers were thrown, and Daiken promptly failed to avoid them properly each time. Shou tried as hard as he could not to feel smug. He knew exactly why Daiken failed the technique over and over again. He kept shouting 'kawarimi no jutsu' every time he did it. But Shou was convinced that his friend would not learn unless he discovered this fault by himself and kept throwing dagger after dagger. This went on for a while, punctuated by not-even-fazed "This is nothing!" and "I'm just going easy on you, seriously!"
Finally, Shou ran out of daggers to throw and Daiken stopped, sweating and scowling.
"Don't you think practising a single move over and over again is kinda boring? I sure think so. We should have something like an actual fight. It'll be more rewarding for both of us, I'd say. For me. Once I've beaten you." Daiken said.
Shou thought about it. He wasn't bored, but his throwing arm was getting tired and his am was getting worse. He needed something else to do for a while. Still, a proper fight with Daiken could be devastating, he wasn't one for holding back.
"Alright!" Shou yelled back. "But we should probably move away from the kids, f we go all out they might get hurt".

[Sathanas Rex]

Shou | Up and about

Daiken stretched, grinning. "Let's make this good," he said. Finally, something to interrupt the monotony. "We probably don't want any weapons."

Shou looked at Daiken's axes, and his comparatively huge arms. Unarmed combat wasn't Shou's strong side, but he'd much rather take a punch to the face than an axe to the head. He yanked on his own weapon and it uncoiled just like it should. With a few swift movements he'd gathered it all up and thrown it aside far enough for it not to interfere in the fight.

He fell into a stance, center of gravity low, legs bent, and circled around his opponent. Shou positioned himself in a similar stance and tried to match his opponents movements.

Daiken knew his opponent was older, and probably more skilled. He couldn't make any brash movements. He did have the advantage in strength and reach, however -- getting Shou into a grapple would probably be a good idea. He threw a jab.

Shou blocked it easily with his right arm, surprised at how little force his opponent had used, it didn't stun him for long and he immediately threw out his left hand against Daiken's face, using the momentum from his block to fuel the attack.

Daiken stepped outside the attack and moved to grab Shou's thrusting arm. If this succeeded, it would be followed by an elbow to the face. Daiken was confident as he moved that a similar attack would finish the fight. He grabbed hold of the limb, but Shou's long, slender arm offered little in the way of grip. before the elbow could connect Shou had mannaged to slip out of Daiken's hold and retreated just far enough to avoid the attack.

"You have to try harder than that." Shou said, but took an extra step backwards. If that elbow had connected he would be walking around with a black eye for a week.

"Good job on avoiding that," Daiken replied, cheerfully. He moved closer to him, trying to angle for his blind spot.

Shou didn't let him. The thinner ninja watched for the short time during a step where you're standing on one leg, when your balance is at its worst. Just as Daiken moved his foot Shou attacked. He raised his left leg, which had been behind him. At the same time he turned his right foot around almost to the point where his toes were pointing backwards. His hip was forced to go along with the movement and Shou extended his left leg to strike.

"Not the best of ideas!" Daiken blocked the kick with an arm. He grimaced as it connected, but was unfazed. He tried to grab Shou's leg with his other arm, twisting as he did so, already preparing to throw him out of balance. The leg proved much easier to grab than the arm, and the twist was more than Shou could handle. His right foot left the ground and he was falling with no chance of saving himself. He landed hard on his back, but managed to keep his head up. Daiken still held his leg firmly and everything Shou could think was "He'll use me as a club".

Daiken was going to lift Shou up and spin-throw him -- a better opportunity would never present itself -- but Shou kicked his hand with his free leg and scrambled back.

"You're done!" Daiken exclaimed, gathering chakra in his fist. It crackled and pulsed like a gathering storm, materializing as blue flickers. He let loose a punch. "Canopy Trimmer!"

Shou was flung back like a rag doll, limbs flailing. The ground rippled as if stirred by an ethereal wind. Daiken's opponent lay limp before him, convulsing.

"Well, at least I stretched," he said, grinning while Shou's convulsing body stopped moving.

Daiken moved towards him. He extended a hand. "Stand up, if you can. We should go grab a drink, or something."

"Not until we're done."

The voice came from behind, and in front of Daiken's eyes Shou disappeared in a puff of white smoke. As he turned to see where the voice had come from his eyes widened in surprise.

His opponent, Shou, along with four perfect clones. They were al standing in a basic fighting stance, some defensive, some offensive. Before Daiken had any chance to speak all five Shou's attacked in unison. They all attacked differently. One made a flying kick from the left, another a straight punch to the face from the right, the third went for a straight kick to the stomach, the fourth went low, aiming for Daiken's legs and the last used accelerated speed to attack Daken from behind. All five attacks would land aproximately at the same time. No chance to dodge them all.

Daiken hit the ground, crippled. The clones vanished, leaving an amused Shou looking down at his opponent.

"At least you stretched," he said.

"Oh yeah."

The backhand sent Shou flying. He grimaced and spat. "Was that," he asked, "was that a perfect kawarimi?"

Daiken extended a hand. "All thanks to our bout, I'd say. It's good to practice some old techniques."

Shou took it. "That drink sounds nice about now."

[The Mad Hatter]

Ryuu observed the girl as she took his papers. His sharp eyes noticed her light flinch when he spoke and a part of him wondered if they had assigned a genin to the post instead of a chuunin. It occasionally happened, but Ryuu knew that Hiroshi generally liked to have chuunin on guard duty. The young man observed the girl carefully as she looked over the papers and nearly snorted at her words. Guard duty was nearly as boring as patrol. His ears perked up though at the mention of a sugar delivery. The children of Haven loved sweets and Ryuu wondered if Myuubi had already planned a 'raid' on the sugar merchants.

So deep in his thoughts of the children was he that Ryuu nearly missed the girl's question. He turned and offered an awkward smile,

"It was alright I suppose. There were a few bandits harassing a caravan, but they were fairly easy to take out. Civilian thugs. Not a lick of chakra amongst them. Any other patrols stop by recently?"

Haruka shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as a way of saying “Nothing like that. Shit happens,” without actually having to say anything. The conversation was strained and awkward enough that she almost preferred waiting by herself for her replacement.

Just as that thought had passed through her mind, the door leading to the tunnels that took the travelers to Gobigakure opened and a young man stuck out his head, looking just as dead inside as Haruka currently felt; he was definitely her replacement.

“I’m here for guarding duty..?” he halfway asked, as if he was unsure if that was the reason he was there or not.

Haruka grinned at him; a big, wide grin that made her eyes scrunch up a bit and stretched her lips over her gums rather than her teeth, which also resulted in her missing tooth being flashed at the poor sap.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you, buddy,” was her only reply before she simply dumped her papers in his hands and then was on her merry way through the tunnels.

As Haruka had had a lot of guard duties lately, she was intimately aware of the time it took to travel the tunnel back to the village. A day if you walked, but just an hour at full ninja speed. Obviously, she was too hungry and tired to go at full speed, even with the home-packed snacks and cat naps, and she never was the fastest ninja around, so the trip would take her about three hours if she ran so hard that her legs would feel like rubber by the time she actually got home.

Of course, Haruka would not take that as a possibility. Other ninja could run the tunnels in an hour, so she would try her best to do the same. She knew the tunnels like the back of her hand, anyways. She knew every little twist and turn just as well as she knew every little knick on her blade.

Despite her hard attempt that left her feeling like she had just used up all of her chakra without ever using a lick of it, Haruka managed to get back to the village in just over two hours. It was an hour better than she had anticipated, but also an hour slower than she had wanted. She wanted to go home. She wanted to eat and sleep at the same time, but she wanted to just relax for a while, too. She rarely did something like that.

“One drink…” she mumbled tiredly at herself, causing a few of the surrounding people to give her a glance, but return to their merry way as they realized she was a ninja. People even moved out of her way. She would have moved too, had she been a civilian. She was pretty sure she looked about ready to murder someone and that coupled with her muscle mass and the giant blade on her back probably did make people a little bit uneasy by being around her.

She flopped down gracelessly onto one of the bar stools at a small pub called The Fireball. She was sure there was some insider joke in that name, since the owner was a retired ninja and his son, who usually tended the bar in the day, was a ninja by night. She rarely came to places like this; alcohol, cigarettes and spicy foods are just the way to ruin a perfect body. Not that Haruka thought that her body was perfect, but she was trying to get there, anyways…

“Beer, please,” she told the bartender, “and some coffee.”