Kameko walked with the Kumo messenger back to the hotel where she had established herself for her week-long visit to Konohagakure. The middle-aged man waited downstairs as she went upstairs to pack. Before beginning, she changed out of her training clothes and into a more utilitarian set of travel clothes, the same hunter green shirt and black pants that she had worn when entering the hidden village, actually. It did not take her very long to pack up her belongings; she had not over-packed when traveling here, and she hadn’t made any big purchases during her visit. Shouldering the sturdy bag, she made her way back downstairs.

Settling things up with the innkeeper took only a few minutes and some ryo changing hands. There was only one thing left to take care of before leaving the village, and after a brief explanation to the messenger, they made their way down to the Market District. The young woman had a fair sense of direction, and it did not take her long to locate the boulevard that she had been walking down when she wandered into a music shop; however, revisiting the scene of her failed espionage was not her purpose, but rather, she sought out another store that she had wandered into before that one. She led him into a glass-blower’s shop. The owner recognized her and pulled out a little figurine for her approval. Picking up the little black and gold cat, she held it up to the light, inspecting it. With a grin, she congratulated the artist, saying that it looked just like her kitty back home. Kameko had glossed over the fact that her “kitty” was actually a simulacrum of her sensei in the Henge no Jutsu he had greeted her with upon their meeting. As the merchant packed it up for her, she hoped that her trip home would be just as uneventful as the one here; she meant it to be a souvenir for Flynt-sama, and it’d be a shame if the fragile little glass tricket got broken along the way. After paying him and carefully finding a place for the gift among her belongings, she re-shouldered her bag, and they were off!

Her companion was a talkative fellow. He had reached the rank of chunin and was quite content to remain as such; he enjoyed serving Kumogakure in any capacity and was often sent out to carry low-risk messages to and from Konohagakure, such as the one calling her back home. His task to seek her out wasn’t too difficult of one. Even though she had not announced where she was staying, the description of a dark haired girl wearing a Kumo hitai-ate was an easy enough one for passer-bys to identify her by and point him in the right direction. Most inns were in the same general area of the village, and there weren’t that many Kumogakure kunoichi running around Konoha.

He filled the days with stories, some about when he was her age, but most of them were about his wife and kids back home. He was very friendly, and by the time they entered Kaminari no Kuni, she was not disappointed to be leaving his company soon. As nice as the visit to Hi no Kuni had been, she felt a sense of belonging here that she hadn’t there: it was nice to be home. In time, they arrived at the gates to Kumogakure and parted ways. She was off to stop by her apartment to change clothes and clean up from her time on the road, afterwards she would check in and see if the Raikage was available.