Kamui Uzumaki
Konohagakure | Chūnin | Sleepy nin
TIME: Present Day | LOCATION: Konohagakure - Forty-Fourth Training Ground | INTERACTION: @Reflection @Syn (Mentioned)
In despite of being fairly near the battle against Sano - at least compared to the other battles - it wasn't in the somehow epic combat of three chuunin against a monstrous humanoid shark that Kamui was paying attention too, for something much greater was happening a tad bit further, nearing the end of his sensorial range, a fight of epic proportions erupted amongst figures so powerful that even the weakest technique used would easily eclipse the chuunin's fiercest attacks - definitely not something he'd wish to be inserted into. Even so, he actually didn't immediately run away when faced by such an abnormal view for a simple reason: He recognized the main combatant's chakra signature as the one belonging to the Hokage.
Intrigated by the abnormal scene that was seeing a hokage fighting personally and incapable of simply ignoring the fact that he actually seemed to be gradually starting to loose momentum, Kamui helplessly watched the whole ordeal through his mind's eye, accompanying the Hokage's struggle against a group enemies who each had the power to challenge him by themselves and finally presencing a scene that triggered him into closing his mind eye's and preparing a simple message that he would attach to the leg of a summoned messager hawk in the following minutes, sending it towards the village to deliever what could be the biggest news since the end of the war: The Hokage, Ginsho Omawarisan, had fallen in battle.
TIME: several days later | LOCATION: Konohagakure - Hokage's Funeral | INTERACTION: N/A
By the time of the Hokage's funeral, the usually gloomy Kamui actually managed yo surpass his limits for the first time in a while and emit an even gloomier aura as he stood by the side, watching the whole ordeal. While Kamui wasn't even a true shinobi of the village and thus had little to no attachment to the hokage, showing little to no emotional reaction even after having "personally" seem the Hokage's demise, by the time of the funeral his actions became increasingly gloomier, with an aura of depression hanging around him - a reaction that could as well be confused as mourning for the recently deceased village leader by those who didn't know the young shinobi that well.
The reason behind his depressive demeanor, though, was considerably more selfish than being sad over someone's death: He was mourning for his peaceful life instead. It wasn't that hard for anyone to notice what the attack to the village and Ginsho's death represented, after all, and for Kamui, it was the thing he wanted the least to happen during his lifetime: together with their symbol, the peaceful times were now dying and once more giving place to a period of war and struggle - a period where even a sloth like Kamui would be forced to join the fight with his life on the line.
Hikaru
Iwagakure | Chūnin | Explosion Addict
TIME: Present Day | LOCATION: Konohagakure - Forty Fourth Training Ground | INTERACTION: @Reflection
"Crazy is an euphemism. My family I-... Was utterly insane." The chuunin candidate answered with naturality, barely wavering as he corrected himself and even managing to show a small smile as the fox boy continued with his shenanigans, hopefully hiding the brief pain he felt in his heart as he was once more remembered about how he was by himself now. Luckly or not, the subject died before he could think more about the matter, as the fox quickly yelled a warning and jumped towards the back of an overturned tree, triggering Hikaru into doing the same just in time to see the forest behind them getting completely wrecked by an invisible force - quite the sight to behold, if he had to say it.
"Now that was something." He couldn't help but mutter to himself, feeling the cold sweat dampening his skin when faced by such an apocalyptic view.
By the time he recovered his composure, Bumu was already brushing the dust away from his clothes, taking his time to talk with the Iwa-nin now that the danger was seemingly gone.
"Yeah... I should probably search the others, actually. At least one of my team members was in the observation tower, so it may be better to check their safety now that we're safe." The iwa nin said with a shrug, hardly really interested in playing babysitter for his companions - specially when the Tsuchikage was there just to do that.
"Still, thank you for the offer, bro. Good to know that life and death situations come with some advantage." He said with a smirk in answer to the fox offer, walking away nonchalantly in the following second to do his job as a chuunin under iwagakure and check the safety of his comrades - after all, he still wanted that promotion and lazing around wouldn't make it easier for him get it.
TIME: Several days later | LOCATION: Konohagakure - Main Village | INTERACTION: N/A
By the time of the Hokage's Funeral, the not-so-desolated Hikaru was happily humming from his position atop of one of the village's highest buildings, watching the whole scene from under his umbrella as he finally found some time to eat something in peace after the chuunin exam. It wouldn't take long for him to get bored of watching the scene and made his way outside of konoha without even waiting the rest of the Iwa delegation, carefreely continuing with his humming as he traveled towards his home village by himself, without even waiting for the results of the examination - that didn't even matter to him anymore at this point. The reason behind such a good mood? After such a long period of rest, the battlefield was once more opening it's doors to receive its lost children, and Hikaru wouldn't lose this opportunity for anything in this world.
TIME: Weeks after the Hokage Funeral | LOCATION: Land of Iron | INTERACTION: @Odin (Reacting to Yogensha's recruitment)
Deep down into the land of iron, in the area where no life would grow naturally, for the violent winds and harsh cold constantly assaulted anything that dared to try to settle the area, a single, run-down looking fort laid proudly, showing clear signs of having been inhabited until recently, with snow barely pilling over its surface with the expection of the main courtyard, that had an odd looking mount of snow over its center in despite of the fact that it hardly had the time to reach such an height since the last cleaning, much less forming a bun-shapped mount naturally. Even more oddly, a single carefree looking man stood laying over the large mount, softly humming a song as he examinated a strangely small paper filled with a somehow messy calligraphy, as if making sure that everything was in order with the message - quite the scene to behold when considering how otherworldly the man looked, with abnormally white hair that perfectly mixed with the snow, remarkably glowy yellow eyes and overall delicate, almost doll-like complexion that would make one wonder if they weren't seeing things if they were to see the abnormal view.
The otherworldly peace of this scene didn't take long to be disturbed though, as before the falling snow could cover the man, a pearl white hawk descended from the sky, landing on the man's arm and directly staring into his eyes, clearly expecting something from the white haired male.
"Geez. I know, I know. I'm late this time." The man said in an annoyed tone, moving his hands to roll the message he was reading up till now into a small tube so it could fit into the container tied to the Hawk's leg just to notice that something was already held inside the scroll holder, forcing him to take it out before he could insert his report.
"Eh? I actually have a message? Now that's surprising." He muttered to no one in special as he took the small scroll out of the container, inserting his own message into the scroll holder and letting the hawk go before he stoped to read the message send to him by one of his associates.
"An expedition to the mysterious east to get some hidden mystical treasure? Pfft. Sounds like even more of a bait than my usual jobs." The man was quicker to dismiss the message as bullshit, taking less than a minute to deduce that the employer wanted something fairly specific that was most definitely not mentioned in the pamphlet - probably something that was worth away more than what they promised to start with but also came with away more dangers, as they'd hardly bother with inviting mercs to participate otherwise.
"Still... It's not like I have anything else to do, and they're paying for this crap..." He loudly argumented with himself, seemingly hardly caring for the fact that someone could see him talking with himself in such an open manner.
"Well, guess I won't let the pamphlet go to waste after all. Now I just need to figure out which side is Amegakure." He finally decided after a few moments of thought, jumping down from the mount - that unstably wavered when faced by the sudden force pressing it -and made his way towards the exterior of the fort, leaving behind the now about to falling mount behind, apparently ignoring the weird phenomena, for snow shouldn't move like this. If one would look closely, though, they'd notice that what the man left behind wasn't a pile of snow, having merely been covered by it for a moment but quickly showing it's true nature as its stability was lost due to the shinobi's act of taking impulse: The identity of the weird mount was, in fact, a pile of corpses armored like rogue samurais, left behind to get buried under the snow now that their executioner formally moved after his next job.