The forest around noon was lovely; its sounds were vibrant and diverse, and the life that flitted about during the day thrived. It stood in stark contrast to the last time Shinako had been this far out, cutting through the darkness on an unauthorized and fruitless mission. That had been in the wilds to the north of the Hidden Leaf Village, and now her duties brought her to the lower lands to the east. There had been reports of Shinobi from other lands lurking in the trees that guarded Konohagakure, and special hunter teams had been sent out to find and study them; to apprehend them, if necessary. That was not what had brought Shinako so far from the safety of her home village.

She was a Chuunin, and an administrative peon at that. There was no way that anyone would have sent her on such a mission with a team of highly trained fighters, let alone on her own. However, the last time she had ventured out into the wilderness, she had brought something deep and terrible home with her. On her days off, the presence of it (him?) clung to her shoulders and threatened to pin her down, drowning her in the depths of some dark place she did not wish to go. It was the mornings when she woke up to the sound of its name, breaking through the barrier of her own lips like an unexpected intruder, that she found the stillness of her ancestral home unbearable; and so she left.

It was not terribly difficult, as she had found out in the past month or so, for an off-duty Shinobi to disappear into the shade of the majestic forest of the Land of Fire. The administrators within the Village limits did not much care for one Chuunin on leave, and the ANBU Shinobi were not used to looking for targets travelling outward from the red-roofed bastion and into the thick, mysterious danger of the green. Just a few hours earlier she had easily evaded a lone, porcelain-masked figure as it stood out against the dark trunk of a tree. The Kunoichi knew these wood very well from her orienteering courses, and from the time she had spent in them with her brothers growing up. She had not dared to tell her brothers where she was going, and fancied herself the only soul with loyalty to the Hidden Leaf with knowledge of her whereabouts. She liked it that way.

The air was a little bit crisper than the summer days which had preceded it, and Shinako walked almost lazily, keeping her senses alert, but not quite focused. Her shadow lay relaxed at the tip of her toe, and she paid no attention to it. Under the shade of the trees she did not quite feel invincible, but she felt something that she no longer felt within the confines of the village. With every step further away from the watchful gaze of the Hokage monument, Shinako felt a little bit freer. This was her state of mind when she caught on to the scent of something not native to this part of the forest.

Carried on the air was the stale scent of sweat and blood, and she knew that it must be close. She stopped, standing stalk-still and taking a knee. She strained to hear, see, or smell something nearby, but only succeeded in confirming the scent. It was not exactly a body-odor, like the smell of a live man perspiring, but was older and mustier. She swiveled her head in an attempt to locate its source, settling on a massive, gnarled tree. Perhaps the source of the disruption was behind the trunk. Her hands almost shook with apprehension, so she formed the tiger seal for strength and focus. Her voice, in contrast, was low and melodic, cutting through the air as if to convey her own docile nature and lower the guard of anyone who might be listening.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

The even, conversational timbre of her voice seemed almost supernatural when thrown against the surrounding scene. The wildlife went silent, and something in Shinako knew that hers was the first human tongue to sound in these distant wilds in hundreds of years….perhaps ever. It did not quite achieve the tension that she thought it might, but the fey nature of it was surreal.

730/730

The sheathed blade clattered against the moss and roots, causing Shinako to jump backwards. She was surprised to have received such a response, and could not say that it was entirely unpleasant. At the very least she had not received a salvo of steel. However, there was always the possibility that this was a trap. The katana seemed to indicate that the man was a fighter, either a Shinobi or a Samurai. She certainly would not have thrown her own weapons away at the approach of a stranger, even to signal that she was not hostile, and she guessed that a Samurai would not either. Her quick calculations led her to believe that she was dealing with a Shinobi who was either very confident in his own abilities or very foolish. The words of Lord Shikashige echoed in her mind.

*It is a deadly mistake to underestimate your foe, but to overestimate him can be just as fatal.*

She drew a kunai knife from her weapons pouch, where it hung from her sash near her lower-back. She gripped it firmly and cautiously in a reverse grip with her left hand, but did not make an aggressive move, preferring to continue to scan for traps or other perils. Her shadow, short though it was in the noon sunlight, now lay in a dark dagger between her and the trunk of the tree, straining against its natural limits as though it desired to grow longer. Shinako didn’t pour her chakra into it yet, unsure of whether the expenditure would be warranted. The forests were a dangerous place, and it was not a certainty that she would be able to find food or shelter enough to recover from chakra exhaustion. She strived to control her breathing and her heartbeat, though she had not quite mastered those arts. From the location of the voice, she was fairly certain of at least one man’s location, though as she spoke she continued to search for others.

“I’m not looking for anyone….”

The Kunoichi managed to impress herself. Her voice remained cool and calm, almost musical. It was the type of tone she might use while talking to a volatile suitor in a parlor, in order to hedge her bets against any adverse reaction.

“….I was just startled to find you here.”

She let out her most convincing fake giggle. It had fooled many a man before, Shinobi included, and there was no harm in trying it. At worst, she figured she might come off as nervous, which she was. In the silence that followed her words, Shinako was still unable to detect anyone else in the immediate area. That did not necessarily mean that there was nobody around, but so long as there was only one detectable threat, she might as well focus on that.

“Are you alone? Injured? Would you mind coming out to soothe a girl’s nervous mind?”

It was not often that Shinako referred to herself as a ‘girl.’ It was considered a desperate attempt to appear youthful in polite social circles, and the deep maturity of her voice probably betrayed her age. However, she wanted to maintain the image that she was not a threat to the stranger behind the tree. In truth, she did not know if she was, but there was no use in escalating an already apprehensive situation. She steadied herself against the ground in her crouched position with her right hand. She was not exactly camouflaged, though the maroon of her qipao dress was slightly difficult to see in the shade of the canopy. She had to be small.

Yet, there was something in this interaction that did not feel like her twitchy standoff with a young Sound Shinobi a few short weeks ago, or her aggressive battle with a bear. She thought back to the tone of the stranger’s voice, analyzing it after the fact. Did she detect a hint of resignation there; the blue and heavy tent of sadness? Like with so many other things in the Shinobi world, there was no way for the Kunoichi to be sure. Regardless, there was no way discernible way through this situation but forward, and they would have to get through this thicket together.

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Shinako wasn’t quite sure how she should answer the man. She still had no frame of reference for who he was, but she certainly hadn’t seen anyone who looked like him in the Hidden Leaf Village. There was probably very little chance that he was a hunter-sweeper from Konoha, so he probably wouldn’t be looking for stray Shinobi like her. However, this far away from civilization, there was very little chance that he would buy the excuse that she was simply out for a stroll. It seemed that the situation would require a little bit of finessing.

The Kunai knife in her hand had probably already betrayed the fact that she was a Shinobi, so her fabrication would have to encompass that much, at least. However, she did not wear the distinctive and renowned vestments of a Konoha ANBU operative, so she could not go that route either. It was in the depths of this quick deliberation that Shinako began to feel ashamed. This was the furthest she had ever been from the village without permission and accompaniment, and the stigma of that stung her. However, what shamed her even more was the fact that she was considering a well-crafted lie to give to a complete stranger. She dropped the pretense in her voice, and it sounded normally through the relative silence of the trees, all magic stripped away from it.

“I was simply tired of the village. I had to get away for a little while.”

There was something slightly unnerving about the stranger’s eyes, but nothing that told her that he could not be trusted with the truth. She could scarcely conceive of an actual consequence in telling him, other than the relief that she had finally stopped lying. It seemed, those days, like everything she said was some mixture of truth and fiction, designed either to appease or to distort. That was the true art of the Shinobi; the art of deception. She had not come out into the woods to be a Shinobi, but to escape from all of that; and so, she told the truth, for what seemed like the first time in weeks.

Knowing that she was unlikely to encounter another person any time soon in long trek through the solitary, lovely woods, something prickly and inquisitive in Shinako began to prod at her. Not trusting it, she held her knife a little bit tighter and looked around once more, still seeing nothing. It was only once she was satisfied that she was not falling into a trap that she gave in to her curiosity.

“Now that I’ve answered, what brings you here?”

It was probably only the desire for human interaction that kept her rooted to the spot. There was no mission objective, and the man had disarmed himself and come into plain sight. All of the pieces were in place for a peaceful de-escalation and retreat, but Shinako was not afraid of this man; certainly not after all that she had seen and done on the border with the Hidden Sound. Besides, there was a lonely part of her that craved to know why another lonely soul would come to this same place.

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“I was frightened.”

The truthful answer, this time, came almost effortlessly to the Kunoichi’s lips. Perhaps she had left the Shinobi world behind more effectively than she had thought.

“I detected you and thought I might have walked into a trap.”

Of course, she did not have very much experience with the types of sophisticated traps that Shinobi deployed in the field. There had been in-depth discussions of the different ways to ensnare a foe in academy, but ultimately all such measures depended on the circumstances, the location, the abilities of the parties in question, and the desired effect. In truth, she had hardly though on her training with nets and pongee sticks as she traipsed through the forest, much less when she had detected a potential threat. Her skills were still not quite that sophisticated. Her mind still worked in static squares when it came to armed engagement and espionage, unlike the nuanced and urbane workings of her social mind.

It was for those very reasons that Shinako continued to hold the Kunai knife between herself and the stranger. She was unsure if the danger had truly passed, or if the situation had been intentionally designed to appear that way. For all she knew, this might have been an elaborate Genjutsu, though she saw none of the tell-tale signs. Perhaps the situation called for a change in perspective.

Shinako stood and glanced around again. It had not escaped her notice that the man opposite her had indulged in a similar gesture, scanning the scene briefly. However, his hesitation in answering her question did not exactly put her at ease. She was still operating on the strange gut-feeling that this occasion was quite unlike the traumatic events that had driven her out into the woods to begin with. She stopped her breath control technique and breathed freely, letting out a small sigh that neither betrayed relief or exhaustion. In the following moment, the woman reached her left hand behind her and placed the knife back into her tool-kit.

“I hope I was mistaken.”

The dark blade of her shadow did not relax, and continued to angle toward the stranger. Shadow manipulation as the only Shinobi skill she had practiced since childhood, and it was truly second-nature to her. The shady specter was almost invisible under the canopy of the trees, but Shinako had an innate perception of where it was. On some level or another, it gave her enough comfort to put her steel away. She showed the man her hands and flashed a nervous smile.

A cold trickle of sweat made its way down the back of her neck and down past her collar-line, and Shinako had to fight her nervous system to keep from shivering. The sensation brought the odd and prickly feeling of goosebumps to her skin. Her mouth was dry with the tension, but she did not dare move away from the situation until she was certain of what she was looking at. If she truly was a target, or a hostage, she had not been able to figure it out.

“I’m Shinako….”

Something told her that humanizing herself a little bit might discourage the man or any comrades he might have lurking in the foliage from harming her. She bit her lower lip and wet it with her tongue, bringing a little bit of moisture back to her mouth. Luckily her voice had not cracked with stress. Her bright brown eyes surveyed the man’s features once again, searching desperately for something that they could trust; searching in an incredibly hopeful way for a hint of safety in a dangerous world.

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For a few moments, Shinako thought about taking Yuudai up on his dispensation allowing her to brandish her knife. Ultimately, she decided against it, but she could not stop her eyes from flashing to the sword which lay just a few feet away from the strange man. As he examined his bandages, she wondered how quickly he could access it to levy it against her. The harsh sound of a bird broke across the scene; a crow, by the sound of it. Crows had always been omens of bad luck in the Land of Fire, but Shinako decided she would ignore it.

“I would say you’ve been hospitable enough, Yuudai-san. At the very least, you haven’t attacked me.”

She circled to her left, countering Yuudai’s change in position. The movement was casual, but a Shinobi would probably recognize it for what it was. Shinako was now a little bit closer to the sword, and got a good look at it. The weapon was more finely crafted than any that she owned, and, looking at it, the Kunoichi became sure in that moment that her conversational partner had taken life before. The revelation did not exactly make her more nervous, but she did swallow hard, adding another bit of information to her mental index of the scenario at hand.

Shinako reached up and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear, wondering what kind of injury lay beneath the man’s bandages. The few moments of motion brought the sour smell of his clothing even more vividly to Shinako’s senses. Her nose crinkled slightly reflexively, and she guessed that he had been out here for a long time. In contrast to his clothing, though, his hair and face seemed relatively clean. The situation grew stranger and stranger. The Kunoichi knew a technique that might work for long enough for her to get away, but did not want to escalate the situation. Never had she been as unsure of her abilities than she was just then. There was something about Yuudai that she could not quite place immediately, but she was sure that she could pin it down at this point in the interaction.

Shinako had felt the lengendary “killing intent” of Jounin from the Hidden Leaf. Her Jounin sensei had given her the distinct and predatory impression of a weapon many time; the warm, almost panicked feeling of having an arrow trained on you. This was different. Instead of a primal unnerving feeling, Yuudai produced an almost physical sensation of coldness, even from ten or so meters away. The young woman rubbed the upper portion of her right arm, the exposed flesh closest to her newest woodland companion. She didn’t quite have a frame of reference for this situation. Of course, she had met foreign Shinobi before, and was always a little bit surprised when they did not have accents. However, she had never gotten such a mental impression of distance from another human being. Perhaps not all Shinobi were human.

500/3,070

A sound in the forest in the direction from which Shinako had come drew her gaze for a few moments, and she felt a deep sense of fear, visualizing a white cloak and a porcelain mask. It was only the sour smell of her new companion’s clothing that brought her back the moment. She thought briefly of the maps of the nation she had studied, and decided on a course of action. The Kunoichi crossed the remaining distance to the katana, and knelt to pick it up.

Instead of drawing it, she held it by the center and walked calmly but decisively toward Yuudai, shooting another glance into the woods. She extended the instrument of death that he might take it from her. Her training had not encompassed the use of swords, and she doubted that she could even swing it properly.

“I don’t know why you’re out here, but the Village had hunter ninja out in the woods today. If I could pick up on you, they surely can. Follow me.”

The woman’s voice was decisive and authoritative, and she turned her back on Yuudai without a second thought. If he struck her down, at the very least it was a calculated risk. Shinako knew the penalty for desertion, and it might include killing her on the spot. Even the darkest places in her mind could scarcely imagine what the trained dogs of the Konoha ANBU would do to a Shinobi from another land caught trespassing here. Against her better judgement, and at the behest of something wild and unpredictable in her, she decided that the right thing to do was to help Yuudai evade the hunters. That started with a short trip to the nearby lake.

The dark-haired girl hardly paused at the edge of the clearing, though she managed to break into the brush almost silently. All of the time she had spent recently skulking through the woods had given her a sort of heightened sense of how her feet fell. She had even picked up the trick of leading with her shadow, using her innate sensation of it to get a feel for the terrain before she met it physically. One of these days she would have to find a scroll that detailed stealth techniques. Though she doubted that she would ever have to use them for covert operations, they would make her excursions out into the wilderness much easier.

A lone squirrel seemed to watch Shinako rather intently, and she briefly made eye-contact with the animal. All of her study of village techniques had never mentioned anything about tracking squirrels, so she found the creature’s attention rather odd. Usually the wildlife around this area was very tame and skittish. At any rate, the Kunoichi pushed the thought of the animal from her mind. If her hunch was right, and there were hunters in the area, she would need every ounce of her incomplete and inadequate training just to keep one step ahead of them.

500/3,570

Shinako continued on now that she was sure Yuudai was following. It surprised her how quickly the ragged-looking man was able to fall in line with her. She was no expert, but something about Yuudai betrayed his competence.

"If they find us together they will attack first and ask questions later. I'm an active Leaf Shinobi, absent without leave, meeting alone in the woods with a foreign Shinobi. The optics of that are exceedingly bad. I'm sorry to have put you in danger. When we make it to the lake, we can wash your clothes and make you more difficult to track. Then we can part ways."

It was true. Shinako was incredibly sorry to have accidentally imperiled someone who, by his own admission, simply wanted to lie down and rest for a while. In the Shinobi world, such rests were few and far between. In the past few weeks, Shinako had been unable to rest even in the safety of her own home. Somehow, she had felt more at ease slipping by some of the the most dangerous Shinobi in the world, risking her life to wander around aimlessly. The physical effort it took to travel through the forest was a bit much for her, but the escape was reward enough to justify the expenditure.

The Kunoichi did not stop to wait for Yuudai’s reply, but instead continued to pick her way through the underbrush. Soon, she thought better of that strategy. Finding a suitably solid arbor to the left of her, Shinako flowed chakra through her feet and took four long strides directly upwards, to a sturdy branch. This way, she would not trample the tender limbs of the bushes below, and would not leave an easily discernable trail. A few moments later, she was bouncing rather easily from limb to limb, carefully choosing the path of least resistance, even when it was not the most direct.

It was only then that she realized the implicit implications of the man’s question. It dawned on her that only someone completely unafraid of the ANBU hunters would risk meeting them in foreign land for any reason, let alone as casually Yuudai proposed. The question only reassured her that her new companion might be much more than he seemed on the surface.

380/3,950

After a few moments of traveling, a certain sense of stillness overtook Shinako, raising the hair on the back of her neck. Upon turning and looking back, she found that the mysterious stranger had vanished.