The first stage of the Chunin Selection Exams was beginning within the next few days. All he felt was anticipation. The words Nozomi had told him echoed within his mind whenever he happened to have free time, apparently taking advantage of the time he took for himself to train harder than he ever had. The possibility of injury was always present, he realized that when he had been training the previous day after parting ways with his sensei the past evening. Surpass me... They echoed, his swings became swifter, his body twisted and rotated as he maneuvered past invisible opponents in order to get to his target, his feet carried him smoothly, it was like a choreographed dance. It felt as if his feet floated over the ground based upon how smoothly he moved, his feet barely touched the ground for a moment before they were moving again, changing his stance and position within an exhalation of the air, and then his arms reared backwards and he delivered the two handed strike upon the tree.

Potential...

He breathed heavily. In his mind's eye countless enemies had dropped down to either side of him, leaving him behind the bodyguards of some indistinguishable important figure. The tree had taken on the shape of his target, and he exhaled the hot breath from his mouth onto the face of his mission as he dropped to his knees, Yasutake's blade slipping out of his chest naturally as the angle he had inserted it in was forced to push it out. There wasn't a touch upon the metaphysical form of Yasutake, his opponents had missed every single chance to harm him, simply because he had been too quick. The physical form of the Kiri ninja was unharmed as well, mostly because it had never been threatened except by being exerted to an excessive amount.

He had been training mere minutes away from the Hidden Cloud Village, and once the tree had been penetrated by his blade, his day dream had begun to fade around him, and with a single palm, he pushed away from the tree, some odd sap upon the upper half of the blade, leaving it glinting in the dwindling light. Turning around, he jogged back to his things, and as soon as he threw his pack over his shoulders, he had picked up his cloth and had begun to wipe down the blade as he headed back to the Hidden Cloud. He had spent the majority of the day training. It was dangerous to push himself to such limits in one day, especially with the Exams so close, but it was a worthy risk to hurt oneself, or to bring recognition and renown to yourself and village...

Victory.

A small smile appeared on hsi face as he gave his identification as a visitor and a participant of the Exams to Kumogakure's Gate Guards, and within a moment he had been ushered inside and had begun to head towards the Inn that the majority of Kirigakure's shinobi were staying at. They had sectioned off an entire inn, simply for their own shinobi, and when he had first heard of that, he had snorted in response, but he had soon come to be corrected when they had arrived. His disbelief had come to pass when they had been a few hours away from the Hidden Cloud.

He remembered how he had entered the Inn and had seen the red / orange tinge colour of his squad mates hair. It was Uzumaki Riss, and although he held no ill will towards her, he also didn't like her, and he believed that if they were upon the same squad then they may as well get to know each other, right? After all, Nozomi-sensei had said she had something in store for the team's composition, and in anticipation of that, he wanted to get to know his team's way of thinking and point of view on things before their sensei's surprise came to pass.

He had said her name, and he had asked her to meet him at the resort at the top of Mt. Ikkyu to go the hotsprings. He even remembered assuring her that it wasn't anything more than to get to know each other before she had even given a response. Thankfully, she had accepted and that's how we got to be here.

His well endowed body carried his consciousness to the top of Mt. Ikkyu. He had left his main weapon, the Odachi and his other weapons back in his room in the Village now behind him, but had still deigned to bring some form of protection in the form of his ninja pouch. Once he had gained admittance to the resort, he passed through the buildings following through on the directions, and then soon enough, he had arrived at the changing rooms and he had entered after a few moments of looking around, wondering if he'd catch a glimpse of Riss down the hallway doing the same, but alas he didn't and he pushed through the doorway and entered the changing room. Once he was ready to enter the hotsprings, he realized there were two doors. One that was exclusively to a single sex, so in his case, 'Male,' and the other for the option of those who were like him, and were no doubt on their way to encounter someone else. Or maybe they simply wanted to be there for the opportunity to mingle with members of the opposite sex, Yasutake couldn't take a guess, nor did he care, he had only asked Riss there for a day of relaxation and to get to know one another before the Exams had begun. It was also a reason for him to stop training before he hurt himself because he had been pushing himself over his limits and was thus injured, preventing him from taking part.

He pushed open the door that would take him to the 'mixed' hotsprings, burgundy bathing suit concealing his lower body down to his knees, and he folded his towel and placed it into one of the many 'cubby holes,' and entered the water where it was relatively free of people, ebony gaze flickering over the people in the hopes of finding Riss within the next few minutes.

WC: 1070

She thought back to her time on the road to Kumo. Upon starting the long travel to the Lighting, she was overconfident and ready to take the exams head on. Unafraid of getting injured and unwilling to lose to anyone that stood in her path. Of course this feeling only decreased as she continued on. Worry started to consume her and eat away at her confidence. The moment she stepped through Kumo’s village gate, she felt cold and a bit empty. After checking into the hotel meant solely for Kiri ninja, she seemed to spend more time in her room, panicking over what would happen to her. Losing was the one thing she was fearing the most. And this fear was starting to consume her.

Riss was angry that she was thinking this way. It was incredibly unlike her and scared her in a way. Feelings of fear and failure were not common feelings, and they certainly put her in a worse mood. Though she was in this state of minor depression and gloominess, it was a bit of a surprise to see that one of her teammates had asked her to meet him at the hotsprings. As awkward as she thought it was that someone she had only met one time asked her to such a place, she felt inclined to accept his offer. It was a possible way to reduce her stress and even get to know her teammate a little bit better. She already met and knew Ryota well enough, yet she had never even heard of Yasutake until her team was put together. In a way, his offer was a bit of a mixed blessing. She needed the relief, yet didn’t exactly want to meet a teammate in such an informal way. Riss accepted his invitation nonetheless.

In her room, Riss prepared to meet up with this unknown teammate. Seeing as she over packed to begin with, it was no trouble at all to find a bathing suit within the cluster of clothes she brought. Riss grabbed her light blue bikini, as well as a similar colored cover. She wasn’t exactly fond of changing while there, so simply heading there in the clothing of choice was a simpler option. Taking a moment to calm herself down, she took her time leaving the hotel. Though there was continuing doubts in her mind about the whole situation, she blindly followed her gut feeling and made her way to Mt. Ikkyu.

Leaving behind a good bit of her gear, she was rather nervous as she approached the resort. She felt safer with a kunai on her side, but it was a feeling she would have to get over. The resort’s doors impressed Riss a little. She had only been to a hotsprings once before, but nothing ever as clean or grandiose as this one. Once she had made it inside, she started to follow the signs to where the hotsprings were located. There were a fair amount of people there, yet each one of them seemed to mind their own business and relaxed without a worry in the world. Riss stared at a few of them, a bit envious of how calm they were. Making her way to the ‘mixed’ pools, she passed through the female changing room and made her way into the pool area. She spotted Yasutake almost immediately. Glancing around, she noticed it was really only him in the certain section of the pool, which caused her nerves to act up again. Slowly walking her way towards her teammate, she nodded her head and forced a small smile. “Hi…” The greeting barely came out as she reached a toe down and tested the water. A chill ran up her spine as her foot entered the water. The change in temperature was not what she expected, but it felt good in a way. Gradually submerging herself into the water, she quietly sat next to Yasutake and kept her eyes forward.

[663 Words]

Despite her acceptance of meeting him at the hot springs, Yasutake's impassive features hid the thoughts that laid siege to the young shinobi's mind. They weren't friends, he noted and therefore they owed each other nothing, but the Hattori was relying on the fact that they knew little of each other already to be a factor to garner Uzumaki Riss's more adventurous side to get her to come to the hot springs with her own team mate. He could understand why she'd accept the previous day. His head lolled back whilst he bathed in his thoughts as much as he bathed in the heated water the relatively few hot springs inhabitants found themselves in. Simply to prevent embarrassment. For both of us, and he raised his arms to prevent his head from laying on the more than damp enough floor that it'd otherwise be resting on. In those few thoughts he no doubt over analyzed countless things as he tried to find a reasonable description for each member of his squad's appearances and abilities that he knew nothing about.

We're all possibly Ninjutsu users. It was a valid assumption, as ninja most had a natural affinity towards ninjutsu, taking up after it from a young age once gaining acceptance into the Academy. Genjutsu? He shrugged his shoulders, the two people in his mind surfacing being Uzumaki Riss and Suzuki Ryota. They seemed small and oddly lanky enough to hold the typical appearance of a genjutsu specialist, but he had little to not information on to justify that. If his arms weren't behind his head at that point, he would've shrugged them as he inhaled, allowing himself to take a deeper breath and holding it before exhaling the air from his toned form, just as the sound of what seemed to be someone stopping above him was heard, and he cracked his eyes open and lifted his head, lowering his arms back into the water as he saw who it was that was entering the water beside him.

Everything about her seemed so strain, as if she were unused to the environment, and he could understand why. To assume that Kirigakure wasn't a place that put a lot of time into making hot springs a priority in their village was right. Their village was renowned for it's assassination techniques and it's silence as they performed them, not their relaxing locations. But, even though he was unused to the location, he was making the best of it and for all exterior purposes it looked as if he were a constant visitor to the hot springs. He felt nothing to the notion of a hot spring, they were simply things that existed and Yasutake was a person that reflected that sentiment throughout every day and in almost every situation, seemingly nothing affected the male and he put a lot of unnoticed effort into being painfully average.

His head dipped towards her in a greeting. He may as well acknowledge her for forcing herself into the establishment, and for that much he was glad. "I'm glad to see you made it," the words slipped from his mouth after she had gave her own silent greeting, almost as if she didn't want to even be noticed in that building. She made no apparent move to even look at him, and his head moved backwards again to rest on the arms that had risen up out of the water again. "I could only imagine the lack of results this place has on someone who remains tense in a place of relaxation." He said, an almost amused smirk trying to gain notoriety on his lips was beginning to tug at the corner of that mouth of his.

"Thank you for coming, nevertheless."

WC: 646