A puff of snowflakes sprang out from around her feet as she landed from the high roof up above. Her legs had bent upon impact, causing her to drop into a couch as she eyed the gates. She was still on another roof but not to far from the ground now; her form hidden among the shadows from her original perch. Her green hues studied the area carefully as she listened all around. For a moment her sensory range extended outward as she searched for chakra signals outside the gate. Not a soul.

Her head tilted towards the long road leading straight to the Hokage Monument. She gazed at it for a moment before a sigh left her and she leaped off. She landed in another crouch, digging the souls of her feet into the earth, before she gave a quick leap to her feet. From there she walked up to the gate keepers and revealed her ID. They wouldn't be able to see her face due to the wolf mask and ANBU attire but her ID provided enough information otherwise. Afterwards she presented the "on leave" card which explained she was granted permission to exit the village. She was about to go on a solo mission despite the dangers that lied ahead. So, with the access granted and gates open, she began her journey.

With her filled gourd weighing her back down and the necessary scrolls in her pouch she was ready to begin her mission.

Utilizing the minimal tracking skills she had within her arsenal, Ayame searched far and wide for the ANBU black op kunoichi that Ayame likes to refer to as “insane” on much more than a single occasion through various means that didn’t include her usual ways, such as asking random villagers where she was because she already knew that her job was to stray in the shadows as much as possible so Ayame would have to resort to her own ANBU training that was practically forced within her knowledge by a majority of her clan who expected her to join the few and the proud ANBU.

Using her training, Ayame stood high and tall on one of the tallest building, trying to find any foot prints around her size amongst the roofs of many of Konoha’s buildings, knowing the kunoichi liked to travel by those means quite a lot. Given that it as snowing on this day gave Ayame a little more to work with than what she would have on another day. Hoping from building to building, Ayame checked each foot print she saw and continued to attempt to match them up with Nasamea’s size as much as she could until she was finally able to catch what looked like it would match her shoe size and style.

Following those footsteps, Ayame went ahead and propelled herself throughout the air onto different sets of roofs based on the direction the initial footprint was and head in that direction, keeping her eye open for another foot print until she found it and studied the direction of the other one, hopping over to that direction until she found another one matching it, working like this over and over again until she found what seemed to be Nasamea’s figure heading towards the east of the village.

Keeping in mind that she should probably stay a good distance away in order to not be detected while attempting to find out where she was going, Ayame continued to follow the ANBU kunoichi quickly but quietly, studying her every move while keeping in mind what she was told earlier. Once Nasamea finally found land, Ayame quickly took note of her surroundings being that of the gateway to the outer shells of Konoha. The blonde kunoichi sighed as she realized that it was just as she feared in the fact that Nasamea was leaving the village on a mission probably.

Ayame simply dashed over to the last roof Nasamea was on before hoping from it and landing somewhere behind the gates just in time to see her on the way out of the gates. Knowing that she didn’t exactly have permission to leave the village in her own right, Ayame had to make this quick if she didn’t want to be detained. ‘Shihouin, you owe me big time for this.’ Once that thought crossed her mind, Ayame braced herself for a second as she prepared to utilize her natural speed in order to hit blast off before the gate would close by leaning forward until her fingers were on the snow and her rear end was popped up, taking quick advantage of the guard’s distraction from Nasamea.

Just when the gaurds were closing the gates, Ayame used all the potential energy she was storing up in order to dash towards the gate and get through with just enough time before the gate would close. She would then spot Nasa not too far off and attempt to stop before she would collide into her, but started to lose her footing as realized that she hadn’t ran this fast with her weights on in a long time, causing her to not be so good with controlling her halting motion.

So once she was a good distance within Nasamea’s range, Ayame would have to veer a bit to the left, causing her to lose her balance even more and fall onto her face somewhere on the right front side of Nasamea. After raising her head a spitting out the snow that made its way into her mouth, Ayame quickly brushed blouse off and stood up in front of Nasamea, looking her dead in the eyes as she said. “Hold on a second, Shi told me that you can’t leave the village right now and that he needs to talk to you or something.”

Arcadia had continued walking until she would be roughly away from the village. By then she would start running but figured no need to rush just yet seeing as how she was just outside the gate. With her game plan in mind on where to go next and her thoughts running over what was carried in her small prepared backpack, Arcadia was completely ready. That is, until, someone stumbled her way.

She heard the sudden dash of air behind her, causing her to shift her weight and pivot. She would face this near head on as she watched what seemed to be Ayame trip and fall nearby. Truly she didn't know what the hell happened but suddenly Ayame took a face plant in the snow in dirt. This caused Arcadia to stare for a bit in slight puzzlement before a crease crossed her brow out of sheer agitation. What was this? She requested to go on this mission solo and was granted access to do so by the Hokage himself (he said i could). Now the overall captain comes stumbling along, what for? She quickly got to her feet and stared her dead in the eye;

Arcadia tensed as she stood her ground. Ayame may have been taller but at this moment she felt it wasn't necessary for her [b]not[b] to go on this mission. She was granted permission, she had finally stopped the mind tearing headaches, and now she wished to finally shake some dust off and try to get back into a ninja-like style. Patrolling was getting annoying after all.

“Hold on a second, Shi told me that you can’t leave the village right now and that he needs to talk to you or something.”

Her eyebrow twirked a bit as she stared right straight back into the dead center of Ayame' eyes. Difference between the two of them though was that hint of growing agitation. The ferocity of her green hues may only intensify had she not tried to calm down.

"And what, are you Shi's lapdog now? No disrespect but if did not want me to go he could have made the effort to stop me himself. What business is it that is preventing me from carrying on a beneficial task such as a mission? These missions are sitting around you know and someone needs to do them before their time runs up...."

The thoughts of hearing them fail their last mission sounded through her head. Those Jounin depended on them and yet they failed to recover them. Arcadia was mentally distressed from all this changing. She just wanted to go on the mission to not only test her abilities but relieve the building stress from ANBU, those headaches, etc. She was already near being demoted due to the headaches and truly wanted to prove herself one way or another.

Here fists tensed then relaxed twice as she waited for an answer.

After Nasamea gave her response in the form of irritation and other negative responses, to which Ayame just looked at her with a confused expression for a moment. She really didn’t know what was going through the young kunoichi’s mind and was only half tempted to even wonder what could possibly be going through it as they speak. Once again, she recalled the times of their first “reunion” that would most likely forever plague her memories with the thoughts of pure instability from both her and her make believe boyfriend, which caused a nice new little red decoration in front of her own home.

Taking this nice moment of awkward silence used to conjure up such a memory, Ayame would then proceed to sigh before shaking her head lightly and placing both of her hands on either side of her, trying not to show any type of irritation towards Nasamea for her tone or the comments that she was making, especially considering the fact that she didn’t even want to do this in the first place, but, being the natural pure hearted girl that she is, Ayame just couldn’t help but lend a hand to a friend when he apparently needed it because the dramatic tone from within his voice was beyond that of urgent.

Ayame simply shrugged her shoulders as she responded to the question that was being asked to know. “I truly and honestly do not know why he feels the need to call you up at a time like this, I didn’t bother asking him in the first place, he just told me that he needed you for something and that he couldn’t do it himself so he asked me to fill in for him as a sort of messenger or something, I think he was training some gennin or something like that, I’m not sure. Fact of the matter is, he seemed to really need me to fill out this request so I said ‘Sure, I’ll help’. Now, if you would please…” Once she was finished with her explanation, Ayame held her arms out towards the direction of the village gates in a fashion that gave out a silent statement saying “Aright this way, madam”. Once she made this motion, Ayame also added in for Nasamea’s own comfort. “You can go on your mission in minute, Shi just needs to have a little talk with you anyways.”

A sense of being reasonable now seemed to overcome her. However, rather than dropping her irritation all together, because she still felt fairly mad, she simply let out an expressive huffing sound. She closed her eyes behind the wold mask then as though in deep thought. In short, she was weighing out her options. She could go now into the wilderness to continue on with her mission or actually listen to the higher authority for once and go to Shihouin. She still felt a sense of stubbornness but given her current stature in the ANBU ranks; telling Ayame off and fleeing was not entirely a good idea.

Her eyes reopened as she peered over the woman before her. A mark of jealousy was there for a bit as thoughts of her being the new piece for Shi created inner resentment. However, being a bit more of an adult than that, she let it slide and dropped it all together. She felt this wasn't worth fighting and that her thoughts of Ayame were fairly unreasonable. To be a comrade or not to be... Nasa was still confused on how to act with this woman. This was mostly due to all her previous events before her. In a way it were as though Nasa created this false sense of who she was to Ayame and now she couldn't break the cycle. Question also was did she want to break the cycle? She finally stepped forward.

Severing the distance between her and Ayame, Nasa walked with a sense of grace and odd calmness. She lacked an expression and kept her eyes to the ground as she walked. Soon enough, she stood directly beside Ayame but rather than turning and facing her she kept her eyes forward. For a moment there was silence, Nasa's attempt to see how Ayame would react, but soon enough this was shattered by a calm collective voice.

"I suppose the mission could wait," she mumbled, obviously a tad bit reluctant to agree with her words, "so I suppose I will find Shi. I have a feeling I know where to look, given your response."

With that small talk she stepped forth and began to retreat from her previous standing point and sank back into receiving orders. She knew it wasn't best to question the authority and act on her own. Seeing as how her memories were all coming back her previous relaxed thought process would too.

"By the way, we should go on a mission again" she said back to Ayame, not peering once over her shoulder, "but this time... no distractions...and maybe not even Shi."

A small chuckle somewhat left her. She could read Ayame's partial displeasure to travel with Nasa which was what Nasa tended to feed on. For some odd reason she always tried getting under Ayame's skin but never knew why. Maybe because she knew Ayame's strength and tried to challenge it to eliminate it. However now she was changing the playing field a bit.

Of course, making her also seem fairly bi-polar as well.

[Topic Completed]-Archived