Sun sure did take her time to get to Kumogakure. Normally it would take like 2 days. For her it was 5. Did she look like those extra 3 days were worth it? No. When leaving she had packed for 4 day travel, but she just couldn't pass on staying those expensive inns along the main road connecting the two countries.
The first she stayed at was called "The bubblebath". It was more like a ranch - it was near oasis and had no baths or bubbles. But the clean water sure was an extra to pay for. There were some pineapple trees and tangerines growing in the fertile soil of the oasis. Of course the fruit cost a lot more than Sun could be able to buy at the local market in Sunagakure. But the owners were very friendly and Sun liked it there.
"Missing sand" was an interesting inn because it was the first building that was built on hard ground instead of sand. It was first of it's kind Sun had seen. The building was located just a few kilometers away from desert. You could still see vultures fly after animals on the brown earth. It was also weird so see trees and more animals. Some more green fauna that was outside the greenhouse sure surprised Sun. She was so excited when the owners of the inn told her that she can touch and pick up all the green strands of grass. Thus she spent more than just the evening and early morning here walking barefoot and playing with the plant life. This was clearly why she gained an extra day to her plan.
The next place she stayed at had an hot spring. It was the first time she was cold standing half-naked outside. And it was so weird to be warm as soon as you jumped in the water. Was it not for Kyoni, Sun might've caught cold or even some worse illness. She was reckless for being a medical-nin. And it's not just the huge amount of trust she puts on her little parasytes, it's her actually being dumb and not knowing limits of an average human. This was also the first inn she stayed at in The Land of Lightning.
And after that she just couldn't miss the opportunities to try out local foods and talk with all the people she meet. She was so excited and cheerful about being abroad. Sun was talking all the time - regardless if someone was listening or not. Thus she stayed at an expensive inn that offered her a lot of VIP treatment. Sun got a massage ABOARD, she got a pair of new shoes ABOARD, she was given flowers ABOARD and did alot of other things ABOARD. She just couldn't keep all the excitement in her for one day, thus she just had to settle in an inn and leave more than just one day's travel ahead before reaching Kumogakure.
The last inn sun stayed at was the most disappointing one. It was called "The musculine breath". Yes, she was the only girl staying there and she had to fight off men who maybe had more on their mind than just talking to the underage girl. It was a shabby accomodation that didn't serve her dinner. Thus she started the last day of her travels with an empty-stomach. She wanted to get off the property as soon as possible after waking up, therefore she didn't even wait if someone would serve her breakfast (which was unlikely anyway).

And thus she had safely entered Kumogakure. Sun's stomach was growling and she was shivering - it was way colder here than in sunagakure. A person who has lived their whole life in comfort of warm weather sure was at uneasy position here. And to put Sun through even more trouble - the village was located high in the mountains. She was exhausted from climbing. There were no mountains back in The Land of Wind.
The vilage itself was quite weird. There were very little houses on the ground. Most of man-made structures rested at the mountains. It seemes very unstable and Sun decided not to wander up there for now. Currently she would just stroll around a little in hopes to find something to eat. She could settle for anything really - salad dish, fish, meat, cooked vegetables or something spicy. She missed her mother's cooking now, that was evident..

The girl was wearing her kunoichi clothing that had a leather armor covering most of her body, but the limbs were actually covered with simple fabric that could be pulled apart with little force. The greyish clothing didn't make her stand out for Kumogakure wasn't as colorful as Sun had imagined before leaving her home. On her feet she had new sandals with red design. This was her first purchase of clothes in The Land of Lightning. Probably a foolish bargain - her feet were extremely cold. On her arm she was still carrying her bag full of medical equipment. Some might think she was lucky not to forget it anywhere, but this bag was quite precious to her. The brown thing with dark strap was important and she would never forget it. It was like her to remember to always pick it up.
899

Lin was chasing down someone that was wounded, didn't want to come in for questioning, and apparently would rather bleed out than turn her fool self in. She sighed, looking around for signs of where she went. It wasn't every day that someone got away from Lin, but she had her moments of, well, distraction. She had been distracted by a cat, of all things, in the middle of a chase. It was a tabby bengal, with beautiful coloring that was caught in a mouse trap. Ironic or no, she wasn't going to just let the poor thing lose a paw or worse, so she rushed over to help it and it took a bit longer to dislodge the feline from the terrifying thing than she wanted. By that time, the blood trail was cold, and she had to search.

Lin looked at the blood trail, it was not a fast bleed, but if she kept running, she would eventually pass out and could die before Lin got there. She sighed, nothing for it then but to continue following her.

Lin's white hair flew behind her as she skated across the rooftops, narrowly missing another ninja that was doing the same. The village hidden in the clouds had a lot of blind spots, and it was a wonder that she didn't collide head first with people that were barreling around the corner, not watching where they were going. She was trained well, however, and was able to react before they were, side stepping and using some of the tiles to slide to the gutter, and using that to jettison back up to the highest part of the roof. They shouted a hurried "sorry!" at her as she ignored them, following her quarry. A left, and a right, and then the trail ended. No. It went down to the ground.

She hopped down, her tonfas clattering at her sides as she did so, and her skirt, the one that she was wearing, not revealing much since she was wearing tights. She had forgone the formal Kumogakure vest, and instead had her headband tied around her head, keeping her bangs out of her eyes. Her scar was noticeable, it ran around her right eye and down her right cheek, but she payed little attention to the people staring at her. Another... another left. She sped off towards the blood. The person was getting closer, her footprints were slowing, her stamina must be as well.

It might have been luck that brought that cat, because if Lin found a person that was less close to death than she was, she might have had a fight. As it was, she found the woman, hobbling, going towards the hospital. Well, that was reasonable at least. She sighed, "Stop." She held up a hand as the woman whirled on her with a kunai in hand. "Now, we both know you're not in any position to fight me, so what say you put down the Kunai and I'll bind you and take you to the hospital?"

Her opponent, a woman of about 24 or so, clutched the stolen necklace to her chest defensively, her wound bleeding freely now, the kunai in her unsullied hand, "It's mine, you hear me, it's mine and I only took it from that ungrateful man because he said he was divorcing me!" She had tears streaming down her face. The woman, hurt by a shinobi of Genin rank, was too fast, and had done some serious damage to the Genin before taking off. That is why Lin was called in to handle it. Though, to be honest, she didn't really need to bother, with a wound like that the woman would be forced to a hospital anyhow.

"He says that it is his mother's. Now, I am not a marriage counselor but-" Lin was cut off by the kunai flying past her. She growled at the woman, but was too late to hurl an insult her way for throwing the projectile. The woman's eyes lolled into the back of her head, her lips white from blood loss. Lin rushed to her side, claiming the necklace and tying a rope around the woman's wrists so that she couldn't escape when she did this. Well, She should not do this in an alleyway anyhow.

She dragged the woman out of the alley, blood smearing the ground as she did so and almost ran over a woman, a tourist of all things, probably looking for a place to eat. What a fool Lin would look, or a bandit. The necklace hanging out of her pocket, and an unconscious bleeding woman in tow behind her. She let go of the armpits of the woman, making sure her head didn't hit the ground she spun on the girl, "It's not what you think." The girl had an interesting hairstyle, a brownish color with her hair curled up on the sides. She had green eyes, and was wearing some sort of armor. Perhaps a shinobi.

"Anyhow, Er. Just a second." She said to the girl, before forming some hand seals and enveloping her palms in teal chakra. They took the form of a set of Panther Paws that were about .5 meters in length, no claws to this form. She touched her open palms to the wound on the woman and made a pass over with the cat's paws before letting them fade. The color returned to the woman's face as her eyes shot open.

"Give me back my necklace!" She Screamed. Well... Now it was Lin's word against this woman's.

WC: 974

She was wandering around with only one thing set in her mind - find a place to eat in. Maybe it was the local custom, but most building didn't feature any information about them on the outside - they were all just rock houses with some windows seldomly, placed high enough so you couldn't peek in. Who could guess what was in the building? And if it smelled of fine cuisine, who could guess if it was a local family preparing something, or it was a professionaly chef just doing his job and awaiting for Sun to enter. Streets weren't busy with people so it was easy to wander off the main street. Which Sun had done - she was passing through some dirty alleys with dumpsters on both sides and saw rats occasionally pass by in front of her. Creepy. And the situation got only worse, because there was someone closing in on her, pulling someone with it.

It was a girl with a rather annoyed expression. The most outstanding thing about her was the lightning white hair, but that wasn't what caught Sun's attention first. It was the fact that she was so short. Sun wasn't a tall and strong girl, she was quite fragile and this girl was even smaller. Surprising! And what a sight it was to behold: the little girl pulling a tied up woman in her twenties who was unconscious on top of it. If this was her home, Sun would have interfered with no hesitation. But this was Kumogakure, what if  by helping the unconscious woman, Sun would get the local mafia after her. That would be unfortunate. This act might seem comical to the young Bulate, but she had done something similar previously too - while doing some missions back in Suna. Despite that, she still judged what she was seeing and assumed the girl to be some kind of villain - she even had a scar on her face, after all.

However, after noticing the scar, Sun also saw the headband that represented the girl as a part of local shinobi force. Perhaps this wasn't a crime being performed in front of Sun. The little girl performed an act of healing on the poor woman. It was executed marvelously. Teal chakra engulfed girl's hands in a form of paws. It looked way cooler than the regular techniques Sun had been using. "Umm, interesting," Sun was just standing by and commented what she saw. Soon the unconscious woman had more pink and red pigments on her skin, and then she regained her consciousness. It wasn't a pretty sight for her eyes were dark. She looked crazy to be frank. And she screamed at the medical-nin who had just saved her.

"What's going on here?" Sun demanded an explanation from anyone. She quickly looked around to see if there were any other eyewitnesses in case the ninja of Kumogakure were rogue after all. "You do realize you look like a thief," Sun pointed a finger at the kunoichi, "or maybe even a kidnapper," she tried to observe the girl's equipment more carefully - what if there were concealed weapons that Sun would have to face soon?
"But to be honest, I would like to hear the story from both of you," Sun suspected that both females had a different tale to tell and this could only be resolved by local authorities. Of course, there was nothing Sun could really do about the situation, just get in more trouble, but she would definitely love to have a rumor behind her tongue. Isn't that exciting? Getting inside information of Kumo's crime-life on the first day being here! For Sun it seemed exciting, but she didn't even think of an option that involved her being in actual danger at this very moment.
646

The woman looked at Sun Bulate with an appraising look, before narrowing her eyes and pointing at Lin before Lin could speak, "She is a thief, she is stealing that necklace for my husband. He says that it is his mothers but it's mine. We are getting a divorce and he hired this... this thug to come and beat me up, and steal the necklace. If you hadn't come, she would have killed me! I am sure of it! The woman shrieked, tears coming to her eyes and Lin could only, for the life of her, just gaze in bewilderment at this woman. She had done nothing wrong.

She ran through the past couple of hours in her head, no... no she didn't do anything wrong. certainly not. She had gotten up, received a missive, one that said that there was a dispute between a lady and her recently divorced husband. There was a necklace involved, the one in her pocket, that was apparently some sort of heirloom that his mother had given him. The woman had run, when Lin had confronted her, and had hurt herself in the process, bleeding from the moment that she had to the moment that she had passed out in the alley. Yes, that was the story, but Lin couldn't get it out before the woman spoke up again, "Well, if you're not going to arrest her for taking my necklace, then I suppose that I will have to call the authorities myself!" She started to call 'GUARDS!', drowning out any attempt that Lin might have made to try to amend the situation.

Lin really would have liked to have shut her up, and a spiteful look crossed her face as she sighed and tucked the necklace into her pocket. No sense in trying to explain while this woman was calling for the guards. She hoped that the woman, really, probably a shinobi, would let her explain before she recklessly attacked, but what were the chances of that? After all, the woman had just made her out to be a murderer, a thief, and a violent criminal. She readied herself for whatever would come, getting into a stance to either fight or talk. It wasn't much, but she was not going to stand by as she was beaten up by this girl, Sun, who probably now would hate her guts.

And to think that this afternoon she was looking forward to asking Maigo out on another date. What a damned blunder this turned out to be.

WC: 1410 total