Kyo

First Name:
Kyo

Last Name:
(No Last)

IMVU Username:
Kyos

Nickname(s):
Commander Chief General Colonel Sargent Captain Kyo

Bloodline/Clan:
Clanless

DOB:
10/18 - Age 22

Gender:
Female

Blood Type:
O-

Affiliation:
Baragakure, Hoshigakure

Shinobi Rank:
Jounin

Occupation:
Shinobi

Personality & Behavior:
While usually a loud, happy, animated person, Kyo can also sometimes be unintentionally rude and judgmental. She is a rather vulgar and sarcastic speaker, and some may find how talkative she can be to be a bit annoying or obnoxious. She would ease up, but excessive silence drives her up the wall and makes her extremely irritable. As a Jounin, she can be slightly mischievous with her peers, as well as those above or below her. As a teacher, she is an adamant believer of tough love for her students, and gets a kick out of choosing missions that bother or bore them. She loves toys, knick-knacks, tricks and riddles, and she always has several pockets on her person dedicated to snack food, something she rarely shares with anyone and takes serious offence when her offer is declined. Kyo is a also a hard sleeper, a heavy eater, and, when she can find even the smallest justification, an eager rule breaker. In battle, she tries not to take things so seriously in order to keep a fight from becoming too personal, and normally chooses to spare defeated enemies, rather than killing them. On that same note, during a mission she will always choose the path that she thinks will cause the least possible amount of harm, while at the same time, the most possible amount of fun.

Appearance:
Kyo is a bit on the leaner side at 118 lbs, and comes to an average height of about "5'8". She has light gray skin, white-ish gray hair, and golden eyes that are much, much duller than the shine and luster of the actual mineral. She has no notable scaring or tattoos, but her lips and nails are a dark gray, almost black. She dresses in all black, with her scythe hanging off her back, her tanto secured to her waist, and her Hoshigakure headband tied around her right arm.

First Chakra Nature:
Lightning

Second Chakra Nature:
Wind

Advanced Nature / Kekkei Genkai
Swift Release (Limited)

Chakra Color:
White

Weapon of Choice:
Scythe

Summoning:
Tonkers the Crow. Tonkers is an average sized crow that assists Kyo with her complete lack of ability in genjutsus. While he has many other skills that can prove useful, his main purpose is to serve as Kyo's oldest friend and companion.

Jutsu List:
Academy Jutsu:

Body Replacement Technique - Rank E

Clone Technique - Rank E

Transformation Technique - Rank E

Rope Escape Technique - Rank E

Genjutsu: Release - Rank E

Enclosing Technique - Rank E

Unsealing Technique - Rank E

Lightning Release:

A-Rank Lightning Strike

A-Rank Lightning Release: Shadow Clone Technique

A-Rank Lightning Release: Spider Web

A-Rank Lightning Release: Rat Violent Quake

B-Rank Lightning Blade Kunai Cutter

Wind Release:

A-Rank Blade of Wind

A-Rank Wind Release: Air Bullets

B-Rank Wind Release: Vacuum Blade

B-Rank Wind Rlease: Air Current Wild Dance

C-Rank Wind Release: Gale Palm

Other Techniques:

S-Rank Swift Release: Shadowless Flight

A-Rank Hiding With Camouflage Technique

B-Rank Shadow Clone Technique

C-Rank Chakra Transfer Technique

C-Rank Sensing Technique

C-Rank Chakra Levitation Technique

C-Rank Ball of Light Technique

C-Rank Healing Technique

Weapons Inventory:
§  Kunai (cost 2 pieces): 6 (Twelve Pieces)

§  Shuriken (cost 1.5 pieces each): 4 (Six Pieces)

§  Senbon (cost 1 piece each): 1 (One Pieces)

§  Makibishi Spikes (cost 0.5 pieces for set of 10): 0 (Zero Pieces)

§  Small Scroll (cost 3 pieces each): 2 (Six Pieces)

§  Medium Scroll ( cost 4 pieces each): 1 (Four Pieces)

§  Large Scroll (cost 5 pieces each): 0 (Zero Pieces)

§  Smoke Bomb (cost 3 pieces each): 3 (Nine Pieces)

§  Paper Bomb (cost 4 pieces each - Max 20): 2 (Eight Pieces)

§  Any sword (cost 6 pieces each): Tanto (Six Pieces)

§  Any other weaponry: (cost 8 pieces each): Scythe (Eight Pieces)

TOTAL = 60 (Sixty Pieces)

Allies:
Akatori Yamanaka, Jiro Hyuuga, Nayru Namikaze, Menma Namikaze, Kemuri Iburi, Shizuo

Enemies:
Your mom's ugly mug.

Background:
Kyo was found as a baby in a crate of herbs on the back of a supply caravan arriving at Hoshigakure in early October. She was swaddled up in a large, intricately woven dark blanket, and was partially buried in the colorful leaves that filled the box in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to keep her small body warm. She was assumed by the merchant who rode the cart to have been placed there at some point on the winding road he had taken from the Land of Lightning through vast stretches of land and hilly terrain during ever worsening weather, until finally arriving at a small town settled and located between the borders of the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth. The man had had several stops along the way, but seeing as though he went the length of the whole trip, days since he last handled his cargo without hearing a peep, he assumed the child must have placed in his care less than a day ago, in the last few towns he had driven through. However, he was wrong. Though he would never find out the real origin, or even meet the child again.

He first discovered the baby in the midst of unloading his packaged goods, and was shocked, to say the least, and mildly disgusted by the little person's coloring. The girl had the same color of skin as a storm cloud does right before it lets loose, a light but menacing gray, and her eyes where an unwavering, bright gold, with much too large a shadow being cast over them from her eyelids and lashes. It gave the young one the appearance of being sad or distraught even when she smiled and lifted her arms. On top of that, despite the newborn's youth, her short, stubby, barely-quite-there hair had the clear coloring of an old miser's snowy white locks. A color that they would had to have acquired with years of stress and age. The infant's lips were a dull shade of black, and upon even closer inspection, the little girl's minuscule fingernails and toenails were a dark raven's black as well. One of the village guards that stood nearby, lazily observing every box unloaded from the wagon as was mandatory for his position, along with monitoring the sales and making sure no one acted out of turn or got too pushy, frowned visibly at the sight of the child when he watched the seller pull off the loosened lid of the ratty wooden crate and reach in to take a hold of the baby and pull it out into the exposed air. She made a few noises matching that of newborn with no language skills happy to see someone that could pick her up. The guard, standing opposite the driver and the gathering crowd of customers, who among their chatter, heard nothing, took step forward. It was a brief interaction between the two men wherein the homely shop-keep worriedly tried to explain to the armed guard that he had no ill-intentions, and had in no way attempted to bring something otherwise not allowed into the small, vulnerable village. The guard listened halfheartedly to the man, knowing that a regular merchant in the village such as himself would never have intentionally broken the rules and angered a village that made up quite a good portion of his clientele. But regardless, it was expected of him to do his job. So as such, once he confiscated the child, the man proceeded to take it with him to the village leader. And although he was also slightly unnerved by the infant's unsettling appearance himself, he hoped that it would somehow make it past the harsh judgment of the not-so-revered village elder.

When presented before the man who would presently decide her fate, the child, now hungry, began to cry and twists in the dark silky blanket, tangling her short limbs up in it and filling the room with an unpleasant cry only to succeed in agitating the middle-aged man who sat in his large, high-backed, luxuriously cushioned chair, centered in the middle of the room. The chair was towards the back wall on a platform to ensure his head was always held higher than anyone else who entered. He too seemed to share the common distaste for the baby, and the added dislike from the headache it was giving him. The child's coloring gave him a feeling of unease and suspicion as well. With an unyielding voice and a commanding flick of the wrist he ordered the baby to be taken to his confidant; an old, secluded, wise hermit on the outskirts of the village, just outside the thick ring of dead trees, and residing in a worn, weathered house. He didn't wish to dirty his own hands, but he knew he could trust the hermit to complete the task of 'ending' the problem, on his behalf.

She was immediately delivered to the old man, and the order to exterminate the child was relayed to him. As soon as he had come, the messenger was gone, and the feared, respected, and lonely old alchemist was left with a hungry, very unhappy, baby girl. Oddly enough though, he paid no mind to her appearance, and even commented on the rarity, and therefor to him, beauty, of her coloring, before turning and taking her inside the dusty old house with him.

Unlike the man's usual obliging self, he chose to go against direct orders and kept the child to raise her as his own, and he was careful to keep her under the cloak of secrecy for her own safety. Except into the age where she had acquired the ability to run faster than he could as an old man, at which point he clearly no longer had the ability to keep her detained. He could only advise her not to stray too far from him in broad daylight. It was at age five he finally named her. Before only calling her 'little one', the new name he gave her was 'Kyo'. It was meant quite ironically though, as its meaning was and still is, 'cooperation'. The child never seemed to listen to him, or even hear him half the time.

As the girl grew older still, she began to help him grow plants in his garden, and herbs just outside his windows where they could both care for them safely from indoors. She retained much of the information needed to grow plants even throughout the years as she aged and even much later, when he was gone, and she'd no longer had a use for those skills. Though even back then, as hard as she tried with the man at her side that she regarded as her father, she couldn't seem to cook anything with the ingredients they grew with a positive, edible outcome.

It was about the time when she had reached the age of seven that she had begun to stray farther than halfway into the thick of trees at night, and started to curiously creep into the village when the moon was high. Her first few attempts were futile, and she had to trip and scramble back home to safety the many times she was almost seen by the guards, barely having gotten into the village by a step. And each time the old man would warn her that her curiosity would be the death of her. But, within a few months by her trying her hand at her stealth incessantly every other night, she had reached the point where when the moon was a little bit hidden by the clouds at night, and the shadows cast on the ground stretched a little wider and a little longer, she could move soundlessly about, undetected. Slowly at first though, and being scared of every step, she feared that the noise she would make when she shifted her weight from one foot to the other would cause her presence to become known, and then abruptly snuffed out by the lingering guards. Or as she assumed would happened, when recalling how adamant the old man Sotaru was about his warnings. He told her to be incredibly careful if she really must visit the village as often as she chose to. And she knew from him, that it wasn’t safe there. Well, at least, it wasn't for her. And with her being as afraid as she was to move at times, she often found herself, frozen in suppressed fear in the dark shadow cast by a small building's walls, staring at the guards nearest to her that she hoped, and thankfully always were, utterly unaware of her presence. However, the fear died away when she discovered her invulnerability, and was eventually replaced with nothing but happy curiosity and wonderment when she sat and watched the older gentlemen laugh with each other in the night as they passed, or occasionally spar with dull, rusted swords in the moonlight. Seemingly without any qualms, just simply out of boredom. She began practicing at home in the yard, with her father's pet crow that was almost always with him taunting her with its incessant squawking. She spent many days with her feet trampling over the same patches of dead grass while she attempted to copy the moves she had witnessed the night before, smacking a slightly crooked, broken stick at a single tree stump near the house.

After some time of spending her evenings following the guards on their routes and camping out in an exact, calculated spot that they seemed to migrate around but never examine to watch their behaviors and sword play, she had finally acquired the courage and know-how to sneak in closer to the center of the settlement where the largest home sat. And she noted that it was, indeed, the largest building in the village from where she sat, crouched down beside the wide set of stairs leading to its front door, head bowed and a decorative bush applying sufficient cover for her small body. She was distracted, however, when she heard the steps and quieted voice of a boy whispering encouraging words to himself as he walked out of a much smaller building nearby, closing the door behind him softly, in what appeared to be an attempt to go unnoticed. As he walked a little ways off, Kyo noticed that there were no guards around the main building she was beside, as they must have already completed their lap out around the village. …except for the sole man leaning against the door frame at the top of the staircase she was leaning against. He was fast asleep, and she would soon learn that he wouldn't wake up under any conditions but the sun coming up. But now, looking back to the boy and squinting her eyes so she could see a little better in such dark, she saw him approach several tall, thick, wooden logs sticking straight up from the ground, all in a row, and begin to continuously kick the post in the exact same motion. Again, and again, and again. After 20 minutes of this, she lowered her head more and silently moved across the terrain, hoping to and fro from shadow to shadow until finally getting significantly closer to him with a much better view. She stayed perfectly still where she was, hidden in the shadow cast by a wagon filled with several heavy sacks of grain. She watched him practice his kicking, and eventually punches, and felt sorely sorry when she witnessed him cut up his hands, feet and ankles. But she stayed silent and watched for countless minutes till he left, disappearing back into the small hut he came from. Since then, Kyo came back nearly every night to watch, and later practice the actions she saw him do herself at home. It was usually the boy who she saw and studied at night, of whose name she never learned, but occasionally it was someone else, trying hard, alone, in the dark of night to improve.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Eventually, near age 9 after even more time of practicing her stealth and speed, and with some newly bought dark clothes and tightly secured shoes she had begged the old man Sotaru to purchase for her, she became able to sneak just about anywhere in the village at any time between dusk till dawn, for the amount of shadow she required to remain hidden from the public eye was becoming decreasingly smaller. With her growing ability, she became able to watch the village guards she still observed at night to being able to see them interact with each other throughout the day, and even the spars between them that a higher ranking man enforced.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">However, being out and about closer to wakening hours, she became an eavesdropper to many civilian conversations. And she was pained by some of the knowledge she learned about their poor, downtrodden lives. There was one man, whose only son was exiled for him refusing to give his wife to an elder officer. A woman whose food money was stolen by the guard assigned to her segment of the town- the one person whose job it was to protect her. There was but a handful of homeless children who had to rely on each other’s strengths to get by (if you could call a cardboard box as a house or one half-meal a day as 'getting by'), whose parents had been sent out to accomplish impossible feats for the demanding village leader. Or at least, that's what Kyo heard from strangers' mouths after they gave the children a sad look and a coin or two. …and no one laughed. The grass was dead, not to mention scarce, the ground maintained a permanent dreary look of sullen gray, and also, the few trees that weren’t part of the dead ring encompassing the village were scattered sparsely throughout it, and somehow looked even more worn. Almost as though the heavy sighs and weary smiles from the people around it had caused them to wither even more so. With nothing better to do, she decided to try and fix things herself, to the best of her ability.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">In just under a year of her doing what she had hoped were relatively unnoticeable little 'missions', there became word (however little of it) around the town of odd occurrences and happenings. Most of which were not spoken off, in fear that if the luck being received by them was found out it would then be taken away. Then after, punishment for having small episodes of good fortune. However, things continued to happen. Such as a poor mom with one too many children finding a small amount of change in a dirty pouch on her porch, enough to buy some bread and fruit from the local market, and just a few days after the same amount of coin had been discovered missing from the desk of an over-paid officer. Or a shirt or two being stolen from each of the more well off families, ripped into rags, and brought back to a home where a girl sat with her proud father who sewed them together as she watched, in seemingly just the right way so that they wouldn't be recognizable as clothes unless very closely inspected. And then soon afterward, the same carefully crafted sheets would be found folded up into a thickness sufficient for keeping someone warm, and found atop a sleeping child curled up in his poorly constructed tent under one of the withering village trees.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">This went on for some time, but all the while she was still watching and practicing. And working on her speed at home, running laps around her home while the old hermit timed her. Or rather, he said he did, but never hit the button. He only watched her and told her she didn't quite beat her personal best, just to see her try, and try again. Though, she was never disappointed with herself; simply more determined.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">By age twelve she had become faster than anyone in the village, seeing as none of them had shinobi blood like she and her father. She had succeeded in moving past the level of the underlings that were aging along with her. Her taijutsu had become just as advanced, and it was at this age she just had to find a new target to practice on, having beaten the stumps in her back yard to such a thin, abused and brittle state that she feared one more kick would snap what was left of the proof of her hard work and all those nights she spent out in the cold, training. She had also become skilled enough to move freely throughout the entirety of the village regardless of the time of day, day or night, and through her actions, she had become commonly talked about as the local Robin-Hood. When finally reaching her teenage years, her personality hardened, and she became much more daring. And with one of her father's old black traveling cloaks, and a piece of cloth tied around her face, at night she turned into someone much more assertive. Guards who had done things of bad ethical reasoning in the day would be attacked and wounded in the night, left with a broken leg or a concussion. Thugs would be knocked out and blinded with a hot spice she sprinkled onto their eyes after she knocked them out. And thieves would awaken with their thumbs bandaged, now stubs. At one time, when she had beaten a abusive and arrogant man after knocking him unconscious, she took his necklace that all the guards wore and slipped it on her own neck, deciding that she was more deserving to be a protector of the people than any of them would ever be. At her age, she was only able to take on the equivalent of two full-grown men at the same time if she chose to fight fairly and toe-to-toe, because even though they weren't all ninja of ninja blood, they were as skilled in martial arts as any regular man could be. Which was still quite a force to be reckoned with. But luckily, with her advanced element of surprise and stealth, she could take on most groups of men without a problem, and leave them to wake up and have no recollection of what had happened and frightened by the thought that it could have possibly ended much worse for them. So they didn't complain, just in case that would change their unknown attacker's choice from sparing them, to effectively wounding them, or worse. But the few who did remember her flash of white hair, were inwardly infuriated, and livid, because they remembered a small figure, too little to be a worthy opponent, with weak blows in just the right places, taking them down. The authoritative village head cracked down on the guards, and they became much more vigilant than before. Even the slept against the door frame every night was left abandoned as the guard was forced to remain alert at all times. And no one was aloud out after a certain time. And although it got a bit tougher for her to remain unseen and unnoticed, she still always did.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">After a while, the civilians began leaving little snacks on their window panes, and a grateful payment of money hidden under rock or other random objects. The families and homes began to leave their back windows or side doors open to allow her easy access through, and although occasionally some did accidentally come face to face with her, they not once asked her to remove her mask. And then she was gone, and they pretended to forget. But it became common practice for the villagers to give out a melodic whistle when they wanted her to hear them and know they had left her some form of retribution. The money allowed her to raid shops for any supplies she needed, such as kunai, masks, and other items guilt free because she could now leave money in its place. Every visit to the weapons shop in the middle of the night when the light was scarce, she saw in the back of the shop, with the keen eyesight that she had acquired over the years of living her life in the dark, a scythe, dusty and hidden by other many other shelved objects in front of it. Eventually though she had collected enough currency to buy an actual weapon. And as she walked through the dimly-lit, small store space and looked about, she thought with all her practice, she would be best with a sword. But for some reason, anything forgotten to gather dust saddened her. So after leaving the money on the counter, under a book, she took the scythe, wiped it clean with the hem of her shirt, and left.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">After another year or two, she was a fully equipped, wanted Hoshigakure criminal. Her father, now considerably older than he was when he first took her in, was still strong. And although he was too old to practice hand-to-hand with her anymore, he was content with him being able to teach her chakra control and jutsus he had learned from his youth. She was now faster, and there was a very distinct difference in power between her and any man or woman in the village, including the ones they brought in to catch her or kill her. And her actions to wrong-doers had even advanced to the dead bodies of men she had stopped in the process of attempting to rape a woman in broad daylight when they assumed she wouldn't appear, and even crippled salesmen, unable to walk with their broken, twisted legs from being seen selling false hope to a poor pedestrian for every coin they could scrounge up. Even though her choices of action were fierce and brutal, she still tried to do everything just as civilly as possible. Knocking them out beforehand so they couldn't feel it, and even leaving them in front of the medical center of the settlement. The people began referring to her as the SS or Double S; the “Secret Shadow.” Some even chose the name the “Shadow Savior.” And, as upset as the authorities were, they did nothing to the people out of fear for themselves. Even as the people walked and laughed and taunted the guards and the officers with their newfound happiness.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Word spread throughout the surrounding nation and lands, with talk of how life seemed to be coming back to the village. Men and woman who had previously escaped to better lives came back to their loved ones. Travelers increased, and profits went up. But the good times were short lived because, of course, as a population increases, so does the crime rate.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Kyo had grown even older now, currently age 16. Her identity still unknown, and her home, unlike the others, remained unsearched. For Sotaru in his infinite wisdom would never have been suspected for harboring such a criminal. Kyo slept very little. Usually during periods of time less than an hour before returning back to the streets again with bags under her eyes. Her hair became messy and unkempt, but thankfully the old man she loved as her father made sure to wash her clothes and make her a meal she could quickly eat before she was back out the door again. She was constantly plagued by fatigue, her movements seemed ever-slower than they were when she was younger, and she was tired, but infinitely brighter from the happiness she was bringing the people

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Quickly the opinions toward her darkened. The population appeared to have peaked, and the people had come to take their protection almost completely for granted. They wanted too much, right when they wanted it, and they wanted what they thought they deserved, not what they actually did. And trying as she might, she couldn't be everywhere at once. The villagers were angry. Some of them went so far as to claim that Hoshi’s Shadow had abandoned them entirely. And crime was more active than it had been in a 100 years. ...and she tried. But she only had two hands. And she was tired.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Soon, the people had become unbearably bitter, and a few got together and hatched a deal with the village leader; the SS for a sufficient sum of money. After that, it really was quite easy when they worked together. The people told the guards where to lie in weight, and at dusk one night, when all the people had retreated to their living quarters, Kyo heard a clear signal of distress. Upon her speedy arrival and the falsified 'saving' of the victim, and before she could disappear just as quickly as she had come, a handful of the most skilled men that had been recalled from their posts and missions to lend a hand appeared around her in a lopsided but thick circle. The circle's radius was wide, and it seemed that no one wanted to be too close to such a notorious figure with widely unknown abilities. Startled and frozen in place, she momentarily lost her wits- and it only took one instant for the bitter civilian, who she had every intention of saving at the high cost of her own life, to turn and clutch at her mask, yanking it off her face in a furry and tossing it away, causing her small body to stumble back a few steps as her hands shot up defensively, shakingly, to cover her head and face. But not in a way a ninja defends themselves confidently. In the way a scared child defends themselves when someone much older and stronger than them is about to strike them. She brought back her composure in a moment in the silence, and as she turned and looked about the quizzical, surprised faces of the men and woman surrounding her, she knew they were in wonder at her appearance, however strange it was, and from being the first to witness it. She locked eyes with the village elder, who frowned and furrowed his brow. She saw a flash of memory in his eyes and a furious look of realization. He was standing safely behind a few of his own men, and on his word, their numbers advanced. It took this change in atmosphere and approaching doom to snap the girl back to her right mind, wherein she regained her composure, pulled herself together, and applied the use of a smoke bomb that just recently found its way to the weapon store. Using a falter in their form, she escaped as two men had left too wide an opening between them.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">And then she ran. She did the second best thing she was good at, and booked it through the town, over the houses and through the trees. And she didn't stop. She ran to the only place she knew she was safe. Or rather, the only place she'd ever <span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">been <span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"> safe, or even welcome.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">She of course outran the other men, although she knew they'd be headed this way after her. In a quick second of regret she noted that she led them right to her father. But she knew he'd know what to do. They had to hide, or run away. She stopped when she finally broke free of the brush and saw the old, run down house she was raised in, and bent over momentarily to catch her breath. She didn't know what to do. So taking a sharp intake of air, she bolted the last little bit home, and slammed the front door open, running inside and calling for the man who raised her. Her voice wavered and caught in the back of her throat, and her breath hitched, because she didn't think she had a ton of time before the men caught up to her. He wasn't in his room. Or the kitchen. She ran out back to an empty garden and her breathing became more panicked. She was yet again startled as a soft swish of air was heard directly next to her ear, and talons dug into her shoulder as her father's blackbird landed and perched there, quietly. That bird was her only friend beside her father growing up, and now, it lacked the lively look in its eyes that it usually had. It simply looked sad.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Her breath slowed, and her eyes became wet. She was unable to speak. Or scared to. She was afraid to hear her own voice and how weak it would sound. …after a minute of silence and stillness surrounding her, with her eyes shut tight, trying to recall every lesson he had taught her. Every story. Every time he picked her up when she was young because she wasn't tall enough to reach something but still wanted to do it herself, and every story he ever told her to get her to fall asleep. She tried to bring back everything. And imprint it all in her brain while she was still in the yard they had planted and grown together. So many generations of seeds, over so many seasons. There was a distant rustling through the trees, and she swallowed hard, taking a step away from the house. Opening her eyes and getting a last look at the bucket she once hid under. And the roof they would climb out on to watch the stars. ...and the indent in the dirt where she had started so many timed sprints. Her vision shifted as she looked back to the thick brush of dead trees and a few figures emerged. And as they did, she stepped back, just as the last rays of light disappeared on the night of a new moon. …and as she always did, but now for the last time, she vanished into the shadows of Hoshigakure, and was gone.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">AFTERWARDS

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">For the next four years she traveled across the lands. Not by map or directions of course, but by which side her gut told her to take whenever she would encounter a fork in the road. She would take the occasional odd job in an odd town, and she tried to do a little good every once in a while. Luckily, Sotaru's old pet crow kept her company. Eventually she found her way to Baragakure, a village hidden in the woods, and was taken a liking to by the Kage there, Akatori. The city quickly became her home, and she's spent the last three years there earning a spot among the shinobi and meeting its people. Once promoted to jounin, she became close friends with another jounin by the name of Jiro Hyuuga. It wasn't long after that she received her own team, with genin to mentor and educate. She finally felt like she belonged.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">One day she plans to return to Hoshigakure to make herself a life in its success, o <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;font-size:14px;font-weight:400;white-space:pre-wrap;">r more likely, a home in its ruins.

Roleplay Library:
Akatori & Jounin Meeting - 11/28/16

Two Jounin Meet: An Odd Interaction - 12/25/16

Team One Meets: Learning to Play Along - 01/01/17

Approval:
Lady Akatori ~ 🐦