The dark blue tones of the night sky seemed to bath the village with the soft blue light of the moon, silence filled the village hidden in the clouds it was the exact opposite that it had been just the night before. The celebrating was over, most of the visitors that had travelled to the village to watch or participate in the exams had left leaving only those who lived in the village or still had business here. Raphael sat alone at the top of the battle plateau, it was times like this that the young shinobi found to be the most enjoyable. He had been coming to the plateau almost everyday since his arrival in the village, however this was the first time he had it all to himself. The boy sat shirtless in the middle of the plateau on top of a boulder thinking back at all that had happened to him over the past few weeks since his arrival in the hidden cloud village, it seemed so surreal to the boy almost as if it was just a dream. He had arrived here a lowly shinobi without a home and in just the short time he had been among the Shinobi of the cloud village found himself rising in their ranks. From his spot on the battle plateau the young boy could see most of the village that he now called home bathed in the moonlight that seemed to only add to its beauty, something that he had not been able to see in the recent days due to the exams and all the lighting of the village street. Now with the exam over the village was slowly returning to normal, which meant that one could actually see the stars that filled the night sky and marvel at the beauty of the village in the low light. The boy closed his eyes and began meditating, normally he would be training his body, however consider it had been so long since he found himself alone he decided he would take advantage of the silence of the night and train his mind. Raphael took a deep breath in through his nose holding it for a few seconds before breathing it out a lowly through his mouth letting all of his thoughts amd problems flow out of him with it. For the first time in several weeks the young shinobi found himself at peace, everything that had happened since the destruction of the sand and him leaving his home just washed away. As he sat there a small amount of chakra began pulsing from him into the air around him, he was not going to let something or someone to sneak up on him with his guard down especially at night. His jutsu would be able to stop just that, even if he was not focused on his surroundings while he meditated the chakra in the air would act like a sixth sense alerting him to anyone or anything that would pass through it.

---

504

Chakra 210/220:

With the Chuunin Exams coming to a complete stop just days prior, at least half of the increased population Kumogakure had seen had already been wiped clean from its grounds. No longer were the streets busy with excitement and blood lust; nor with men and women alike in drunken stupors. Without the Exams, and the destruction of Suna behind everyone by now, life came back to a calm, lazy serenity that hadn't been experienced in quite a while. Usually, Lynn would have liked such stillness in the world, where he could focus purely on himself and his thoughts. But for the life of him, he could not; instead, anxiety bridged on the edge of a breaking point in his fragile mind. Losing Sunagakure made him realize he could not be away from his true home for much longer. Konoha, being where he was born, was such a place; where his father lived, and where he felt a tug of the supernatural proportions iminiating from so far. Why did he want to go back so bad? Was it guilt of leaving the place he secretly cherished, in fear of seeing it destroyed in the same vain? Or was it simply a calling? Nothing he thought of made sense that would ease this train of thought.

Either way, he knew that it was only a matter of time before he would give in to the insistent pulling his former home had on him. For now, he pushed it away deep down into the bowels of his heart, knowing he needed to spend as much time here as possible first. The Cloud Village had given him salvation after becoming a refugee, so he owed them a debt of some kind. At the very least, he would wait to become Chuunin before abandoning Villages all together and becoming a Wandering Ninja. It would probably be better that way, he mused; wouldn't be tied down by any obligation in any way. With that firmly implanted in his mind, he set his way off, not truly able to comprehend what he was about to get himself into.

The unknown ninja that saturated the air with his chakra had him completely unawares as he passed through, triggering the movement alarms quite abruptly. From how Lynn moved, it could be assumed he was merely passing by, but the pep in his step as he decided to head home could disprove that theory. It didn't help that he began to mess around with the metal plating on the Sunagakure headband across his shoulder, letting out a resigned sigh. If he was lucky, Raph would not go to check him out, but luck was not his best friend at all, not to mention he made no efforts to hide himself. The only semblance of danger he felt was from the darkness beginning to cover the alleyway he walked through, and feeling as though something was wrong. It could be down to simply being insecure as always, but he didn't have the answer to this.

Not being used to surprises wouldn't help, too.

[WC: 517]

With his mind now clear of all the distractions of all the stuff that had gone wrong in his life, which was not easy for him to do in the first place. With an eidetic memory such as his it was impossible for him to forget anything, to him it was both a gift and a curse. His memory was one of the reasons the night of Suna's destruction constantly replayed as a recurring nightmare when he would sleep, but with him conscious and focused he was able to push that to the side and focus on what he really wanted. Raphael replayed his most recent spar against Ryo in his head, each second of the fight was played frame by frame as he worked out what could of been done differently. The spar against his former teammate from Sunagakure had been something he had looked forward to since the day he met the young puppet master, though now in the aftermath he regreted some of the decisions he had made during the fight itself. As he replayed this fight in his head the boy took mental notes of his mistakes that he made during the fight as well as possible solutions that could prevent such mistakes in the future. Raphael knew that not every fight would be the same considering every fighter has their own way of doing certain things, but he strongly believed that if a person could identify their own weaknesses or mistakes then they can improve themselves for the future fights, just because every fight is different did not mean a person could not make the same mistake in two different fights. Raphael continued to watch the spar as it had happened up to the end, this time instead of surrendering as he had done in the actual fight he imagined what would of happened if he had gone through with his attack. The white wolf charged at him with it's stinger drawn, just before impact the boy watched as if he was a spectator as he dropped low to the ground to avoid the stinger while charging his fist with chakra. He would not of been able to dodge the attack completely he noted as the stinger struck him in the left shoulder, but he would use that momentum to rotate his body and strike the puppet with his charged right hand just under the head of the puppet, essentially shattering its head.

Raphael was pulled from his thoughts and back to reality as he came alerted to the movement within his sense, he could tell by the way the object was moving that it was a person but he could not tell exactly what that person was up too. He quickly calculated the odds of whether or not the person was coming to attack him, however upon monitoring the person's movement he was able to judge that this person was no threat for the simple fact that they were not even trying to be sneaky in the least. The boy was about to resume his analytical analysis of his spar when he was alerted to two more coming into his range, judging by their movements it was not Raphael they were moving towards, but the first person he had sense. Unlike the first person they were moving a lot more quietly and Raphael could easily assume they meant to attack the first one, wasting little time the boy jumped to his feet and headed in their direction. The boy could not possible know if the first person was aware of the other two, but that did not matter to him as a shinobi he pledged a vow to protect all and he planned to do just that.

Raphael would arrive at the opposite end of the alleyway that Lynn had entered from, without saying a word he would quickly draw two of his Kaminari Shuriken from his pouch on the back of his belt. Throwing them so that they would pass by the lone boy and hit their mark on the two that moved to jump him. If the boy saw Raphael one would assume he meant to attack the boy, however once the true targets let out a cry of pain from being struck by the Shuriken his true intentions would be known. The shuriken would not stop the two men outright, but it would provide what Raphael needed which was to let the boy know that he was not alone in the alleyway. He had no idea whether or not the boy he was trying to save knew how to fight, with the darkness of the alley he could not even see the boy's face, but if the boy did not know how to fight Raphael hoped he would at least know enough to get out of the way.

---

1315

Chakra 205/220
-5 maintain wind sense