The market street was noisy and crowded as ever. It was so long and tangled that you by no chance could see the end of it. People were shouting at each other trying to get a discount and pushing each other to sneak into the que. Some were just carelessly chatting in the middle of the road blocking the path for hurrying passengers. The whole atmosphere was drained with irritation, but not a harmful one. The chaos was at its peak as it was midday and everybody needed something like it couldn‘t wait a day or two. In a normal situation, it would be too much of frustration for Kitsune to be in such a place at such intense time of a day. However, she had a plan to pursue, so had to stay focused and put her personal likings aside.


As a wave of people was passing the street, only the girl was sitting quietly and still by the corner of the fruit stand. She was all covered in white cloth and reminded of those of the desert wanderers from a sand village. Only the animalistic hazel eyes were piercing trough the small gap in the cloth. Considering how tiny she was it was hard to imagine that anyone else could be hiding behing the cover but a little girl. All of the noise and fullness of the street was to her advantage as it was hard to catch even your own thoughts in this messy atmosphere.


All senses were itensified, trying to catch any trail of the hunted. Kitsune kept raising her head once in a while and throwing a glare towards the roof.  The white spot kept appearing there like a cloud passing by that kept the girl calm and secured. “ Just stay focused, they‘ll pass soon.“ In some minutes two guys passed the fruit stand, both chatting with each other and seemed quite normal. They looked rough as were quite musled and one was carrying some kind of scroll. The girl glared at the scroll wanting to see if it has any seal on it, but saw some deep scratches on man's hands. She sneezed in a reflex and her face started to change, she barely could keep her anger and wanted to jump out of her cover just the same second. Untill she heard a growl that reminded her to stay calm and focused.  “Right, you‘re sometimes way more smarter than I am.“ Kitsune rose her eyebrow in surprise.


She suddenly realised, that while she is dealing with her emotions, the guys kept walking and making the distance. They were far enough for her not to see them, but still near enough to follow their smell. That‘s the smell of the blood afterall, even if you want to get rid of it, you need to bathe for an hour or two. Kitsune jumped from her corner right into the middle of the crowded street and barely seeing from the gap of her cloth started walking quickly guided mostly by her nose. The cloth was too long and kept tangling between her legs testing her nerves and patience. She was making her way pushing people though, eager to get to the targets quicklier and only for a second she glanced up to see if she is being followed by her partner. With every step Kitsune‘s heart was bumping faster and she felt a bloodrush going trough her body so that she hadn‘t noticed how she started running. The feeling was intence and all of the crowd just blurred into the backround, it was only her and the targets moving further.

________________
Perception training E->D-3 611/1925  Words

How out of place he must have looked, the tall, bandage-clad Hayato standing in the middle of a cheery and colorful sweets shop. The small, old woman behind the counter giggled to herself as she watched him browse her merchandise so intensely. His sharp and piercing eyes darted back and forth as he examined all of the choices in front of him, taking in each and every detail of the sweets he looked over as if he were inspecting equipment that his life would depend on. But that was the only way Hayato knew how to be, intense and passionate. It was the only way he had ever been. In truth he was fascinated by the sheer number of choices that were presented to him. He had always had something of a sweet tooth, but being a wanderer, sweets weren’t always readily available to him. Having so many choices, both familiar and exotic, was in some ways overwhelming.

After making his purchase Hayato would exit the shop, bag in hand, perfectly satisfied with his selection and eager to get back to the hotel he was staying at and try them for himself. Stepping back out onto the crowded street however, would snap him out of the sugar induced bliss of the sweet shop and back to reality. The sweet aroma of baked goods that wafted through the air inside of the shop, inviting customers to indulge, faded as the smells of the market and everything associated with it took hold of his olfactory. As excited as he had been to take this trip to the sweet shop and as satisfied as he was with his purchase, that still did not change the fact that Hayato hated crowds. A loner by nature, he was hard pressed to trust other people, let alone a large and chaotic gathering of them. People in crowds were prone to lose grip on their sense of reason and propriety, especially in a setting like a market which existed solely to entice people into giving into their impulses. As far as he was concerned, crowds were nothing but trouble.

Before leaving the bright red awning that hung over the entrance to the sweet shop Hayato would reach down to his neck and grab the slack from the bandages wrapped around him, pulling it up over his face. When adjusted the cloth would reach above the bridge of his nose, covering the entirety of the lower half of his face, which when combined with his long black mane left only his intense, light brown eyes exposed. “Tch!” Hayato hissed through the thin veil of cloth that laid over his lips, “At least the client asked me to meet them later on at a private location. The less time I spend dealing with this mess, the better.” Letting out an irritated huff and tightening his grip on his newly purchased sweets he would trudge forward into the wild and unruly crowd of people that swarmed the streets of the mid-day market.

---

505 | 505~

The  feeling and senses were at their highest level, the girl‘s speed increased even more. She was excited that finally after several days of investigation and careful following she will get the chance to take action. However, Kitsune‘s euphoric state was interrupted by a really hard bump. It appears that while going she didn‘t see the man right in front of her and she ran right into him, hit her head to a man‘s hard chest. The man, due to the sudden hit, dropped the bag he was carrying, all the good got spread on the pavement. The girl was so surprised and confused so that she stopped for a second to realise what‘s just happened. She looked around and rose her head in motion. Hear lip suddenly trembled in fear as the girl saw the man all covered in bandages, even though his face was also covered, she could see in the eyes that he was irritated and angry about the situation.  


As Kitsune stood there for a minute surprised, she saw herself in an intensive brown man‘s eye. Then her mouth opened in confusion. It appears that the piece of cloth got somehow removed from her face. “Noooo...Now he noticed my face. The worst scenario ever, I have to run.“ She feared that someone could see her and recognise, especially the ones that she was following or the targets from before. Kitsune could never know if her cover was effective all of the times or if someone was already looking for her.


She covered her face with her tiny hand and turned around to run. However, Kitsune didn‘t see another man coming from behind, so unfortunately she bumped again. The bump was even harder as another man was even more huge and rough, than the bandage one, so the girl got knocked down. “Urgh..such a luck.“ She stood up and having no choise turned around again to the bandage-man. She thought it would be a better choise than to face that giant behind her. The situation seemed so hopeless that Kitsune needed to let her negative energy out. She started shouting at the bandage man like all of this was his fault.


“Hey! Are you blind!? Let me pass already!“


The shouting seemed funny from a tiny woman like Kitsune, so that made her even more frustrated and she growled in animalistic manner. The only one who was smart in this situation was Loki, at least he didn‘t revealed his cover and stayed invisible there on the roofs. And here they say that humans are with the highest level of intelect among all of the species. With highest level of emotions as well, unfortunatelly.

______________
Perception training E->D-3 611+457=1068/1925

In his mind Hayato would do as best he could to drown out all of the noise from the busy street around him that was flooding into his ears, attempting to fill his mind with trivial and irrelevant things. He had no interest in humoring the calls of the street vendors pedaling their wares to the people passing by, nor did he take any particular interest in the people who were advertising upcoming events from the festival or the roar of hundreds of personal conversations filling the air. All of those sounds became little more than white noise, each work spoken or sound made around him becoming background music for his day. It was this ability to tune out the noise that enabled him to tolerate the chaos of crowded areas for extended periods of time.

And so that was how he would go on about his trip through the market, eyes trained straight ahead with a gaze that radiated purpose and ears that would block out all of the nonsense that might otherwise distract him. Or at least, that was how he planned to go about his day until his focus was broken by a loud thud and a harsh impact against his chest. For a brief moment he wondered what the impact could have possibly been. Was he being assaulted in broad daylight in a busy street? The setting and the fact that the impact was not all that forceful, at least not by combat standards, made him inclined to believe otherwise. Instinctively his eyes would immediately dart down to the source of the impact, a smaller masked person who was recoiling from colliding into him.

In that moment of recoil the cloth that was covering the person’s face fell away revealing the face of a young woman. She was very beautiful, in an exotic and almost animalistic way, so much as to make him forget about the initial anger he felt when he thought it was simply some random, careless shopper crashing into him. To his surprise, her reaction was one that seemed to be driven by fear. Almost in a panic she would hurriedly use her hand to cover her face and try to run off in the other direction rather than face him. Hayato knew that his appearance with the bandages could be somewhat intimidating, but he didn’t think it scary enough as to cause strangers to run off. Was there something else that was driving this fear of hers?

The woman wouldn’t get far though, as just as quickly as she turned to run from the first man she collided with would she find herself bumping into another, this one even taller and more frightening than Hayato. She would turn back to face Hayato once more, glaring at him with a look of frustration in her eyes before lashing out at him. He stopped for a moment, confused as to what had triggered such a rapid change in attitude with the woman. One moment after crashing into him she attempts to run without saying a word, and the next she is raising her voice, shouting at him and actively antagonizing him. That sudden and unprovoked outburst of anger from her would cause him to react in kind, now clearly agitated with the woman.

It was only then that his mind would also go back to the bag of sweets he had just purchased which now laid mostly scattered all over the thoroughfare. Seeing his items soiled and ruined on the dirty ground combined with her sudden attitude made Hayato remember why he was to be angry with her in the first place. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” he growled back at her angrily, “You bump into me, ruin my food, and then have the nerve to insult me? Who do you think you are?”

---

648 | 1153~

After letting her anger out, at one point the girl wanted to apologise for the ruined candies and for not paying attention in the busy street. However, that couldn‘t be done because of the sudden reply of bandaged man, which made Kitsu even more mad. She was tempted to to give a reply, which could take this argue even further, it was easy to see how the girl was controlling her emotion by sqeezing her fists. However, she was under the pressure of time, so couldn‘t allow any further conversation to happen.


With one hand she fixed the cloth on her face and smelled the air like trying to sense something.  For a normal person all of the bakeries and food stands here would block the smell, but being the member of this clan all senses are deepened, thus even in the mixed up atmosphere one is able to seperate all smells. After noticing something in the air the girls eyes narrowed a little and she threw a very quick glance to the roof. “You can continue, the trail settled at one place. I will finish here in no minutes and will catch you there.“


In no time she got back to reality, it seemed that Kitsune was spaced out for a minute in front of the bandaged man. He was standing there looking at her, still waiting for an answer or at least an apology, which was the right thing to expect. Her attitute changed again as her mood somehow improved. She curved a smile, which couldn‘t be seen because of the cloth covering her face again, only the animalistic eyes brightened in a playful manner. And she finnally spoke in a cheerful voice.


“Who am I? You could get in a big trouble by knowing the answer to this question, mister. I apologise, but I have no time to continue this fliendly conversation.“


Kitsune giggled a little. She in no circumstances could reveal her cover, even now she was forced to work separately with her companion, so that no one could assume which clan she could be in and what kind of innate abilities she could have as a shinobi. Being able to surpass the oponent‘s expectations is one of the vital steps to success. And by now she was doing a really great job, which made her proud of herself. Loki was already at the place and  only this incident with a bandaged man was keeping Kitsune herself from reaching the goal, so she decided not to engage in it anymore.


Kitsune passed the man quickly, but stopped for the second right behind him. She bent her body and snatched two pieces of candies from the ground. That was an ironic thing to do, but it is the way how she was. After doing that she gigled again.


“Thanks for these by the way, I adore sweets.“

And then she ran off leaving the man without wanting to hear anything else he might say. The situation itself have already messed up her plan a little, but as she knew the exact spot she would find her targets at, Kitsune  was not getting nervous too much about the incident.

___________________________
Perception training E->D-3 1068+ 535= 1603/1925

Hayato stood and waited for an answer from the shrouded woman before him, his impatience growing with each moment that she remained silent. What could she possibly be waiting for? She obviously spoke the same language as him. She made that more than clear when she decided to mouth off to him after crashing into him and causing him to drop his bag. Someone with as much attitude as she had couldn’t possibly be taken aback by someone responding to her with venom in turn. He would tilt his head curiously as her attention seemed to be drawn elsewhere, with a glazed look in her eye as if she was not even acknowledging him. When she looked away from him completely and glanced over to what appeared to be an empty rooftop he would only find himself irked by her behavior further.

When the mysterious and rude woman turned to face Hayato once again however, it was like she had become a completely different person. The fire in her eyes and the anger in her voice that she had previously exhibited were gone, now replaced by an almost playful and cheery disposition. He would listen to the woman answer him, speaking in riddles and abruptly announcing her departure. Hayato said nothing as his mind attempted to make sense out of the irrational sequence of events that had just unfolded before him. Here we was, riled up and ready for the argument he was sure was to ensue, just as he was sure she was prepared to do as well, but almost as quickly as she had come crashing into his life she was now taking her leave. She offered him no answer to his questions or explanation for her actions, only the curious act of picking up two chocolates from the ground before making her exit.

And with that she disappeared into the crowd of the market, as mysteriously and abruptly as she had begun their encounter. Like a ghost she vanished from sight, leaving him with only a brief glimpse of her face, a giggle, and empty hands that once held a bag of chocolates to remind him that any of it really happened. “Tch, whatever,” he snarled as he turned away from the direction she had run off in, refocusing on the task at hand, “I thought I would have time to head back to the hotel before the rendezvous, but maybe it’s better if I just head there early and scope the place out. They seemed like the type to try something shady.”

Removing a folded slip of paper from his pocket, Hayato would bring it up to eye level in order to read the message’s contents. On the paper was written the name and address of the bar that the men who contacted him wanted to use as a meeting point to discuss the details of the job. For whatever reason he had an uneasy feeling about the whole ordeal, even though they said it was a simple matter of defending a caravan of cargo until they got to their destination. Something about imports for the festival, but Hayato did not ask too many questions about the contents of the cargo. What kind of merchandise he was protecting that was to be sold at the festival was of little consequence to him. This whole event attracted numbers, so it was only natural that traders were trying to peddle their wares there. Sliding it back into his pocket he would be on his way to the bar to get the details for the job.

---

600 | 1753~

After getting away from the spot where the incident took place, Kitsu accelerated her speed. In less than ten minutes she stopped at a place, which seemed like a quite popular bar of the street, as people kept going in and out quite frequently. “No way. This couldn‘t be the actual place. Maybe they stopped just for a drink or two and will head to their goods later.“ Even though she had some doubs, the smell was most intense here, so the girl assumed that two men must have entered the place just to rest a little before their big operation.  


Kitsu jumped in a little alley, which was separating the bar from the book store there. She made herself „comfortable“ behind the container, which, as her nose has unfortunatelly noticed, probably was used to accumulate the trash. The alley was really narrow and even for so tiny creature like Kitsune was hard to fit in. However, it was a perfect spot, because she could see people going in the bar and out and as well by jumping on the cointainer could reach the window to see what‘s happening inside the bar. That is was Kitsu was planning to do in the first place, but suddenly she heard a disturbing noise behind her. When the girl turned around, she saw two shiny eyes creeping on her in the darkest corner. Can it be some kind of  a follower? Maybe those men have already noticed her and knew that she was plotting against them, so they organised an ambush? The creature was getting closer and the girl‘s heart started bumping like crazy. The paranoia took the girl‘s mind and when the beating speed was at its highest, the creature from the darkest corner approached Kitsune by jumping and frightening her. She either could have screemed and revealed her cover or jumped out of the alley and again revealed her cover. Either way, Kitsu didn‘t want to risk, thus she closed her eyes in reflex without thinking of the consequences. And when she was expecting something horrible to happen to her, the next thing that she felt was a soft lick of a tongue right in the middle of her face.


“Daaamn Loki! How did you manage to do that, you sensoric freak! You will pay for that!Shhhh...have I raised you to be such heartless?“  She pushed the white canine from herself with a big strenght and growled at him. However, it seemed that the dog didn‘t care less, he sat there with a mimick on his face like he would be the happiest dog in the world. That irritated Kitsune even more. Up until that moment when her concern with a canine companion was interrupted by a familiar smell.


“Candies?“ At first time she thought. “That smells so nice“ Then she moved nearer the corner to see what was that. And suddenly,  Kitsu was stupefied from what she saw over there. The same bandaged man was passing the street, the same street she was spying on. That wouldn‘t be such a problem if the man would have passed the street and went somewhere far far away, at least that is where she wanted him to be at this moment. But no. The man entered the same bar. The only one person who saw her face now is in that bar where Kitsune was planning to stay invisible and try to sneak on what her targets might be talking about.  


“ Oh Lord, have some mercy upon my soul!“ Considering  the situation, Kitsune should have already been disappointed and should have already abandoned her mission here. However, her mind was working  in an unexplainable manner, like she was always thinking and acting against the logic, so she decided to stay. Or maybe that could be called the determination. “I must figure something out and make sure that this candy lover will not notice me there.“


After deciding to continue, Kitsu jumped onto the container to see what‘s happening inside the bar, also to monitor the problematic area, which would be the area where the bandaged man would sit or do whatever he came there to do. BUMP. Lets just assume she‘s out of luck today. The window was totally dusted, even though Loki has wiped it with his furry tail, it still was all covered with dust from the inside. And even though Inuzuka clan members have very high senses, none of them could see straight through the wall unfortunately. Kitsune and Loki glared at each other, knowing exactly what each of them were thinking. “We must go in. No. You stay here, I must go in, just in case if something would happen.“ Loki lied down on the container and let a little moan out of his mouth while watching how the girl was waiting by the corner for the opportunity to sneak inside the bar.

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Perception training E-> D3 822+1603=2425/1925 FINISHED

Hayato would travel through the busy streets until reaching the destination given to him by his prospective employers. Upon arrival he would stop in front of the establishment, inspecting the storefront of the bar and the various people going in and out of it for anything suspicious. Although he was a naturally skeptical person, the location seemed too public for these men to try anything shady. It was smart on their part though. It was a rare lesson learned by those who operate in the shadows to learn that crowds often provided more anonymity than isolated locations. Either way, since the place seemed to check out, all that was left was for Hayato to go in and meet the men for himself.

Upon entering the establishment, Hayato would be greeted by a hostess and offered to seat him, only to be interrupted by a man who told her that Hayato was “with us”. The hostess then seemed to back off of the situation entirely, allowing the man himself to lead Hayato back to wherever this meeting was to take place he presumed. The man who came to get him seemed normal enough. There was nothing in particular about the man’s appearance that seemed amiss. If he hadn’t come to retrieve Hayato himself he could have easily been mistaken for just any other normal patron of the bar. As they waded through the floor full of tables and chairs the man would attempt to place his hand onto Hayato’s shoulder in a friendly manner, as if to reassure him of his good intentions, but Hayato was having none of this and immediately shrugged off the man’s hand. There was an important line that needed to be drawn between Hayato and anyone that he was in business with; a line of professionalism that neither of them were to cross. This was not a friendly meeting or luncheon at a bar, this was a business transaction and nothing more. There were going to be no friendships between Hayato and his employers at that table.

Two more men were sitting at the private table in the back of the bar that the man had led them to, who Hayato could only assume were his associates. The men offered sly grins and raised their drinks as Hayato approached, as if to make him feel welcome. “You must be Hayato,” the oldest of the men spoke, “Come, come, sit with us and have a drink. Let’s have a toast to our new business partner. My name is-“

Hayato would raise his hand, palm forward and stop the man before he was even able to introduce himself. “Don’t,” Hayato would say sternly, “I have no interest in who any of you are personally, nor am I here to drink or celebrate. We are not partners. You are paying me to perform a service and nothing more. This is a single transaction and once the job is completed, should I choose to take it, we will part ways and hopefully never see each other again. Have I made my position clear?”

“Crystal,” the man would reply, obviously irritated with Hayato’s blunt and callous manner of handling business, “That’s a shame though. We’re always looking to add talent to our organization. There’s a lot of money to be made in the imports/exports business, more than enough to share the wealth and make us all rich. There’s a lot of opportunity in our industry for someone of your talents.” It seemed as though, despite Hayato’s previous statements, this man was intent on trying to change his mind. His attempts at persuasion would stop immediately after though when they were met with nothing but silence and a piercing glare from the unamused Hayato. “But I guess to each their own,” he retracted nervously before taking another sip of sake, “So let’s talk business then, shall we? You’ve already told us your going rate for this kind of job, and we’re more than willing to pay it, but you wanted details, correct? The job is an easy one, at our warehouse in Takigakure we have our latest shipment of goods waiting to be distributed. We have an escort from the daimyo waiting at the border that will protect our shipment the rest of the way there, but in this country I fear we find ourselves… unprotected. There is nothing particularly dangerous we expect to encounter along the way or need defending from. There is always the chance of highwaymen or bandits, but I suspect that such trivial opponents would be of little consequence to you. There is one thing though, a woman. Some kind of lunatic, we don’t know why she has been following us, but she has. She’s also proven to be rather elusive, but somehow we have managed to prevent the little thief from making off with our merchandise. My men say she is dangerous. If she attacks the shipment, you are to take care of her.”

“Fair enough,” Hayato nodded in agreement after hearing what it was that they actually wanted him there for, “If that’s all then I guess this meeting is over. I’ll see myself out.” Hayato would then proceed to get up from the table, accept an envelope from the man that had led him to the table which he could tell contained the upfront portion of his payment. On the front of the envelope was written the address of the warehouse and the time he was to arrive that night, midnight. He looked at the envelope skeptically, wondering what kind of business men operate at those hours of the night, but dismissed the thought and proceeded to make his way out of the bar.

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969 | 2722~