Food... he could smell it. The entire district smelled of it. Delicious, delicious food. He hadn't eaten since before he left Kumo; he'd basically carried one of his charges the entire way after a bout of cliff diving cared her senseless for a good three days. Whoooo!~ As he had settled her into a bed in one of the hotel rooms he'd reserved for the Kumo group; he figured he was free to go settle his raging stomach. Oh, he likely could have pried her off himself long enough to eat; but better to make good time at a solid run, make sure they stayed hydrated; then risk getting to Konoha too late for check in. He'd been walking the streets of the district for a while; looking for anything promising. After a while; he'd realized he'd passed the same pub a few times, and that his nose kept leading him back. Good enough. He could use a drink, and plenty of food.

He slipped inside fairly quietly; as much as anyone wearing clothing as colorfully loud as he did could anyway; sauntering up to the bar and grabbing an empty seat. Given it was the middle of the day, and the exams where in progress; most of the village was at one of the arenas watching the fights. Or else in the bars that catered to gamblers and the like; which this did not seem to. All the better; peace and quiet was needed, for the moment. Or, peace and some good conversation, maybe. He kept it simple, ordering nothing more then a middle shelf, cold sake and some onigiri to start. He needed to readjust to the lower attitude, and the prospect of food in his gut after four days without eating. Yanno, 12 hours of guard duty right before a three day run to Konoha. Yeeep. Starving; but smart enough not to quick gorge himself into the hospital.

'Where to take a break, where indeed?', had been the thought running through her mind. She'd been working alongside Ashi for the past few days, and was desperately in need for a good break; a break and some food. The urge didn't hit her often to eat, but she sure had worked up a big appetite. The only question now was did she want to deal with large crowds of rowdy people, or find some place a little less busy? A little less busy won, hands down.

So, she'd entered into the pub, ignoring any questioning looks she might've been given due to her young age. She wasn't here to drink, she was simply here to eat. She sat herself at the bar, taking up one of the stools without caring much about who was nearby. After a quick order of food, without really caring what she'd ordered, she finally took pause long enough to notice who she'd sat herself by. She took note of the colorful gentleman, an eyebrow raising in curiosity. 'Must be one of the people in to watch the exams...', she mentally pondered.

The bartender passed him the small, ceramic bottle of sake and his cup just as the new person joined the (nearly empty, it was just him and a floor server sitting at the far end) bar. The onigiri would be a tad longer; he's gone for grilled and a specialty type. Seriously, grilled beef onigiri? Oh my gods yes please. His sake was poured with little fanfare, just a full cup and a happy noise. His attention trailed to the new comer after the first cup was downed; soft sigh of contentment hiding his eyes flickering her way. Hmmm... fairly young to hold herself that way. Stressed; extremely so. And thin as a rail. Weird; by the cut of her headband, she was... special jounin? Maybe even jounin; they did it different in every village. He just had the plate of his sown into his robe top for the duration of the trip; normally he would just wear it as a loose belt overtop his obi.

"Bit young to be here, eh? Or they got the pub age down low here? Back home it's closer to 17; but it's almost law that ya gotta drink inside. More likely to cause shit if you don't, then if ya do."

Weirdness, engage.

She gave the briefest smile of thanks as a glass of water was placed in front of her. She picked the glass up with her right hand before holding it with both. After a small sip she turned her reddish gaze to the gentleman who'd spoken to her. She nodded a bit. "They tend not to care as long as I don't try ordering anything with alcohol in it." She gave a slight shrug. "Besides, it's not like I'm the type they'd have to worry about causing trouble. In fact I'm likely to keep the trouble down just by being here.. if it were busy enough for that sort of thing, anyway."

Her gaze traveled over him once more, in an assessment sort of way, though there was no judgement at all in her gaze. She was indeed curious over the one she was speaking to. She placed her water down on the counter in front of her, but didn't remove her hands from the glass. "So, I take it you came with one of the groups for the exams?" Another slender white eyebrow rose in curiosity as she waited for his reply.

"Kumo. Saw a buddy of mine and some of the local villagers here. Not to many of us left; so we just came as a group; yeah. Waiting to see just how fast Skye kicks ass." He cackled some at that; but it was soft; reserved almost. He was respectful of being inside, for once. Hey, he was the highest ranked member of his village here; he had to give some kind of decent impression. "Kinda impressed. Ya'll keep the law heck of a lot better here. But that must come with having a thriving village. Bit too easy to lose yourself in the sauce back home. Nothin' to do, anymore."

The bartender returned about then, his plate of onigiri in hand. Raijin's attention was instantly focus on the food; stomach growling fairly loudly and salivating mouth shut long enough to swallow hard. "Damn, that looks good. Hadn't eaten in a few days. Kinda ran the entire way; carried one of my groupmates too. Think I terrified her, getting her down the mountain."

That was a pretty obviously leading statement; a hint to ask, if she wanted. Curiosity, the best way to keep conversations going.

She couldn't help the smirk that formed across her face. She took another sip of water and nodded her head a bit, setting the glass back down before speaking, "Yeah, well... myself, Ashi, and a few others have been assigned to keep everything in order and keep it running smoothly. You might've seen Ashi around, she's been everywhere... usually with a huge white dog, terrifying looking if you're not used to seeing 'em around, to most people anyway." She shrugged a bit.

She gave another brief smile of thanks as the bartender brought out her own food which consisted of mostly vegetables and only a small bit of meat. "How did you terrify her, if you don't mind me asking?" Yup, curiosity had got the best of her. She took a small bite of her food, chewing while she awaited an answer.

"Is that who that was? Think she was the one that checked us in; then. Bunch of people out there though; saw three or four big dogs." Shrugging some, he grabbed one of the still roasting hot balls and shoved the entire mass into his mouth; face going beet red as he worked to swallow the mass of liquid hot agony in his mouth. But holy crap was it goooooood. Starvation was the best flavoring and all. Chomp chomp chomp. "Frmph norahg doow nah." Course, he realized that nothing could understand the babble of sound and rice bits cutting off his speech. He grabbed the entire bottle of cold sake and poured it over the mass in his mouth; swallowing so hard his throat nearly cramped from the work. A moment of hacking and more sake swallowing had him calming down; softly panting to catch his breath as the lump cleared into his stomach.

"Oh god, hot and good is amazing right now. Anyway; Those dogs where adorable. I kinda wanted to run up and pet them; but I needed to get Himitsu laying down and Skye checked in."

Hey signaled to the bartender to give him another bottle of sake; pointing to a larger, and higher shelf. The last bottle was good; but he was gunna need something slightly stronger for this. "Ya ever been cliff diving? I have. I love it; too. Perfect to live in Kumo and be one, yeah. However... one of the women I was escorting; a buddy by the name of Himitsu. She's... not a cliff diver. At all. Afraid of heights, actually."

Bottle arrived, was uncorked, and promptly poured into his cup to be sipped at. "Well; I kinda picked her up, ran off the side of the mountain with her. Prolly should have taken into consideration that she's blind too; so she kinda didn't take the experience well. Clung to me from the moment I picked her up to the moment I detatched her in the hotel room when we got here. Letting her sleep some; left one of the Iki boys to watch her; since Skye's busy fighting for his life."

She nodded with a light smile. "Yeah, the larger the group the more dogs she probably had with her, and I guess adorable is one way to put it. Wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of one of those dogs, though." She shook her head a bit. "Doubt I'd even be able to fix myself up after one of 'em got through with me, let alone one of the larger groups that have been roaming around recently." She smirked a bit.

After hearing his explanation as to how he'd scared the female an eyebrow rose again, head tilting a little bit as she all but ignored her food for a moment. "Really? Nah, never have been cliff diving, though I did a bit of climbing. I enjoy the view, needless to say." She took another couple bites of her mostly vegetarian food, not having bothered to touch the meat on her plate at all, yet. Depending on how full she felt here soon she probably wouldn't either. In fact, she took a long enough glance at her plate to push the meat off to the side before turning her gaze back to the gentleman before her.

"Yeaaaah, I'm waiting to have to fix some of them up. S'why I figured now was probably the best time to try and take a break before I got called into start the patch ups." She shook her head a bit, spearing another piece of one of the veggies on her plate and popping it into her mouth. Chew, chew, chew, swallow. "I'm Amaya, by the way. Amaya Uchiha." She figured if she was going to converse with him, he might as well know who he was talking to, and vice versa.

"Medic? Awesome. I got a look at that shark boy from Kiri; he looked nasty. I dunno; if they're half as smart as they need to be; there won't be much to work on." Uchiha eh? Huh; he'd never seen one before; outside old mission records. White hair though. Wow. "You rock climb? No offense; but you seem a tad small to be a climber. But that thin frame prolly makes it easier to pull yourself up."

He dug into another of his rice balls; slow this time; an actual, normal sized bite. A swig of sake chased it down before he spoke again; " 'm Raijin. Raijin Tsukino."

She nodded a bit. "I'm hoping they don't rip each other apart too badly, but some of them did have a nasty look about them." She rolled her eyes a bit at the prospect before spearing another vegetable and popping it into her mouth. Another round of chew, chew, chew, swallow, and she was clear to talk again. "I don't rock climb often, don't really have time now that I've got my own squad to worry about. Occasionally though, I'll escape long enough to do it. Being this small helps to some degree. Mostly I do it to prove a point - when I do it at all." She grinned a bit, obviously leaving room for him to ask more.

She took another bite of food, momentarily pondering mentally, 'Can't quite explain why I feel like talking to him. Normally I don't care to speak to many people at all... something about him, though. Oh well, just going to go with the flow.' She followed this with taking another sip of her water which ended up with her downing the rest of the glass.

"Oh? Guessing you got the whole 'Yer too small for this, so don't bother' crap as a kid?" Raijin flashed an almost amused smirk her way; leaning back over the stool to stretch; nearly groaning when his back cracked and reset wonderfully.

"I can kind identify with that. Not the small bit; I'm frigging gigantic in my family. They use to tell me I was insane. Well; they're partially right, but not in the right ways. I do things with seals that make most peoples head's explode, yeah."

She glanced at the bartender, tapping her empty glass to indicate she wanted more water before turning her gaze back to Raijin. "Eh, not exactly. I was super sick most of the time, so people told me not to try anything because they figured I was too frail and sickly to do it. People figure that's also why I'm the only Uchiha to have white hair and red eyes, albino as it were" She shrugged a bit. "Needless to say, I've made it further then the others I grew up with, least most of them anyway." She shrugged a bit, glancing to the side as her glass was refilled and placed back in front of her.

"Seals? Don't think I've ever met anyone to use those before, not in any mind blowing sort of way, at least." She gave another nod. "Everyone was shell shocked that I was able to do the stuff I can with my medical jutsu, tends to keep most people from commenting anymore like they used to." She grinned a bit. "Though, I sometimes wonder if my brother had something to do with that.. them leaving me alone that is. Or maybe they were simply afraid I'd kill them all in their sleep or something." She smirked a bit, shrugging, before spearing another bite of food.

"Sound about right; yeah. People always gotta knock on the little guys; the sickly. Tend to be the ones that end up kicking ass. Told ya how I'm half nuts, yeah? Same thing happened to me; only 'cause they thought I was... anti-social; I guess. I never did well with people, eh. Nearly killed a kid back in the academy. Frigging bully; was jacking with the smallest first year; frail little thing from a civilian family; so frail compared to us clanners. I'd been reading ma grandad's ol' journal; saw a seal he'd marked as 'paralysis something'; it was in the high sage language; couldn't read it yet. Found out when I used it that it was 'Perfect Paralysis'. Perfect to the point it stopped his lungs. Ya see the problem, there. Nearly got me pulled from the programs; locked up in the clan temple and left there to just be a temple sage. Prolly woulda gone nutters proper if they had."

Sipping at his sake a final time; the bottle was nearly gone, as he'd been draining it while she spoke; he spun around in the chair a bit; giggling the laugh of the almost drunk. Not a lightweight; he was drinking the strong stuff; like he did on the rare occasions he drank at all. "Then again; I am pretty insane!~" Properly cackling for a minute; he had one of his famous mood snaps; calming instantly, if still wobbling a tad when he shifted. "Yer good company, neh. Rare thing, now a days."

She nodded a bit. "Yeah, I tended to be anti-social when I was younger... but that was mainly because I got to see early how nasty and mean some people could be. Made me in no rush to get to know them... " She tilted her head a bit as she listened to his story, eyebrows both raising as her curiosity spiked even more. "Yeah, I can definitely see the problem, there. Sounds like he deserved it though." She grinned a bit. "Lets just say I'm a bit of an eye for an eye kind of person. Which, of course, make people call me a little nuts, or sadistic at least."

She couldn't help the small smile that remained in place as she watched him, noticing how quickly his mood shifted and changed. She nodded a bit at the last words he spoke. "Yeah, I can say the same about you. Most people tend to tick me off within five minutes or so of speaking to them, tends to make me spend the rest of the conversation mentally going over the ways I could kill them with just a touch of a few fingers... You, however, have not caused me to do that. A rarity as it were. Good company, indeed."

She paused in speaking for the moment, taking the time to finish the last few veggies that had been left on her plate. Another sip of water and then a content sigh followed. Despite how little she'd actually eaten she was already for the most part full.

"Heh. Advantage of being a Tsukino and a lightning sage. Tap transferring of sealing jutsu, and a passive shock effect." The abilities of his clan where very, very well known; so he had problem blurting them out without thinking. "All I have to do is come in contact with people and they usually end up flying. If I really wanna hurt you, I just pass a seal over and let it do it's work."

He let a smirk break onto his face again; lopsided and fairly large for him. It was... creepy; in a weird way; with his obviously unhinged personality, a smirk like that could mean anything from simple amusement to psychosis breaking. Or in his case; fun about to start. "Kinda glad I came to Konoha now. Place has been nothing but interesting since I got here. Always been that way; but nice to know there's someone here I can talk to and not wanna watch them go flying into a wall.~"

She chuckled a bit before picking up her glass and downing the water it held. After pausing a moment to place the glass down she took her time to stretch, toes and fingers pointed and a groan of satisfaction slipping from her. "Hehe, kind reminds me of something I've been playing with recently." She grinned fully, between her albino features and the wickedness that was the grin it gave her what could only be described as a very sadistic look.

"I've had my far share of amusement since everyone has arrived, bunch of colorful characters the lot of them, but no one that has interested me enough that I'd want to hold a conversation with for any length of time, save for you." This was definitely true, there was just something about Raijin that held her attention longer then anyone save for Ashi had been able to in quite some time.

He had to agree nearly word for word; which was why he was mentally raging when a clock started chiming the passing of the hour. Fuck; he needed to get back, and fairly soon. Or likely; he should have been back hours ago; but he was lazy and liked to wander. "Yeah. Sadly; I gotta bail, neh. Much fun as 'm havin'; I gotta get back ta my village mates. Or at least back to Himi. I doubt she'd take well ta waking up in a strange room with no one around that she knows. Or talks. I left her with an Iki that I'm not even sure has a tongue. She's prolly got a bit of traumatizin' from how she came ta Kumo, anyway. Dun' need her havin' a fit 'er sommat."

He still had an onigiri ball left; which was easily wrapped in a small, clean cloth produced from a pocket in his sleeve. "Neh, barkeep. Toss her's on my tab; the Kumo group; yeah?" He flashed a smile back towards her; friendlier then anything seen on his face in a while. "Well, my Uchiha friend. I shall see you... somewhere. I dunno. We're here for a while; prolly see ya somewhere. Prolly when I meet with ya Kage in a few days. Er somethin'." Cackling some, he offered a overly dramatic bow and sauntered off; wrapped rice ball in one hand and the rest of his sake bottle in the other.

-exit-

She nodded with a sigh. "Yeaah, I should probably go see if anyone needs me. Hopefully no one's bloodied themselves up too bad." She rolled her eyes with a small smile at the idea of it. Hearing his next words her smile became more friendlier. "Hey, thanks, appreciate it. And you'll probably see me there, or around close by at least." She chuckled. "Or Ashi, if the girl doesn't crash here soon from doing too much." She watched him leave before following suite, heading off to check and make sure no one had broken themselves too badly.

-Exit.-