Her boots clicked loudly against the street as she walked down it. The street was surprisingly short on people but it’s not like that bugged Vesta. In fact it was quite the opposite; it gave her room to breathe. It made it so she wasn’t just crowded by people. Where she was walking she didn’t quite know yet, but she figured she’d know when she got there. However, she had been walking for a while now, and hadn’t come a crossed anything that peaked her interest in the slightest.

Her green and black uniform completely contrasted the bright coloring of everyone else’s uniforms around her. Her skirt flowed gently as she walked against the small breeze. The people around her didn’t bug her though. They were of no concern to her. The information they held was very little as most of them weren’t shinobi, and most of them were probably annoying as hell. So Vesta had no use for them. However, she could put up with shinobi for a little while seeing as how they might hold information to the village that could be useful.

Vesta rounded a corner, almost skipping at this point because she had nothing else to do, and she came upon the training grounds of Konogakure no Sato. The place where shinobi trained… She certainly became interested. She slowly walked over to the fence and sat unto it, and crossed her legs. Her eyes watching one girl in particular. She had white hair. About shoulder length and blue eyes from what Vesta could see. She seemed the most interesting and Vesta decided she would watch her. In whatever she was doing.

---

WC:283
Total WC:283

Harue walked down the busy streets of Konoha dressed in her usual attire, dodging groups of people scurrying to get to their destinations. Her right hand went to her ninja pouch, which dangled from her right hip, and fingered the faint outline of an ocarina through the soft leather of her ninja pouch.

It had been such a long time - too long, in her opinion - since she had felt her lips around the mouthpiece, the cool ceramic brushing against her tender lips, as her fingers glided over the finger holes and subholes as she blew in, and relishing the sound of the soothing notes at the end of the whistle. Her tenure in Konoha had seen her unable to continue pursuing the activity that had kept her occupied for days on end back in Takara’s village. Harue had, not by choice, put aside her ocarina completely when she had stepped foot into Konoha, finding the hectic schedules of a Konoha ninja far too restricting for her to fully unwind with her musical instrument. Genin weren’t particularly wealthy, and their monthly stipend didn’t truly amount to much more than daily meals which consisted of white rice and some meat, so she had taken to working missions upon missions to afford least of all her seventh floor apartment in the southwestern region of Konohagakure. Furthermore, her desire to avoid disrupting the locals with her music had also been a large deterrent from her favourite past time.

Today, however, she had managed to find enough time in her tight schedule for some much needed - and fairly overdue - rest and relaxation. She could have done any manner of activities, like going to the hot springs or the masseuse to unwind after three months of grueling hard work, yet she had decided instead to pursue a less expensive activity for the afternoon, given her increasingly tight budget. Her mind had immediately settled on the ocarina, her dearest activity never having been far from her mind at all throughout the three months. Of course, if anyone asked, she would deny that she had only remembered the ocarina being in the top drawer of her reading desk, stowed away collecting dust, because her dog Nikko had dutifully been scratching at a mission report.

Knowing she couldn’t just play it in the middle of the village, she decided to go to the outskirts, where the noise would be welcome by the few, more peaceful villagers, whose schedules weren’t as hectic as those concentrated in the center of Konoha. It would be far enough from the village that she wouldn’t really be bothering anyone with it, yet not far enough for any nearby Konoha ninja to worry that she was defecting. Said area in her mind also coincidentally coincided with the numerous training grounds that encircled the village.

The trip itself didn’t take long. Harue was practically skipping at the halfway mark. She very soon found herself standing in the middle of a lush, green training field, with a river running straight through it. Several rocks large enough to double as makeshift seats were littered around the training ground, with a respectable number lining the riverbanks. At the far end of the training ground were endless clumps and clumps of trees, signalling the beginning of the thick and dense forests that surrounded Konoha and gave it its name. Meanwhile, behind her, separating the training grounds from the village itself, was a simple, modest wooden fence that had probably seen better days.

Harue trotted over to one rock beside the river and took a seat, admiring the beauty of the landscape before her and idly wondering if the picturesque view that she was taking in had been the result of some finetuning by the local ninja, or if it was a miracle of nature itself. Her hand reached into her pouch and withdrew her ocarina, oblong in shape and deep blue in colour, with a few scratches courtesy of her kunai (what was she thinking, honestly?). Without delay, the object flew to her mouth, and she proceeded to play her tune for mother nature.

WC: 691

Shisu wakes up in his bed, in his luxurious room. He looks left, then right. He realizes he is soaked in his own sweat. He looked back. Same nightmare. Same blackness he couldn’t escape. He looked at his hands. The nightmares of the twisted man plague him so much. Shisu took a deep sigh, and got out of bed. He slept quite late. He stairs on, and takes a deep sigh. He gets up and puts on his usual clothing. He takes his mask off his dresser, and applied it on around his neck. He walked out of the door of the apartment. He was full of anxiety, though it was unbelievably random, it was expected at the same time. He has been having horrible nightmares of endless blackness, and suffering.

He walked out of the door, looking into a what seems like empty streets. Not many people were seem hustling and bustling around. Shisu put his head down. He steadily walked through the somewhat abandoned streets of Konoha. He was looks up in horror. Everything around him was...wrong. The sky was black, and everything looked as if it was deteriorating. Shisu slowly closed his eyes, and looked up again. All appears as if it was in the status qua. Some people were staring at Shisu, making him feel uncomfortable. He put his head down once more, and didn’t stop walking, feeling the eyes around him burn onto the skin through his clothes.

Shisu went to the training grounds, feeling weary of himself. He didn’t feel as if he was ill, just anxious. He would be horrified if he was to come upon another episode of a random vision. He wasn’t feeling like himself, feeling much paranoia. He climbed over
the fence. As he hopped down, he begin to hear small whispers. They stopped just as instantly as they started. Shisu clutched his head and just started to walk, not really looking where he was going. He inwardly growled at himself, not knowing what was going on with him, and started to question his sanity. He accidental tripped over something, landing in some body of water. He looked got up to see what was that he tripped over. His eyes widen to see it was a young girl who he knocked over with him into the water He got up quickly and offered her his hand. “Sorry about that.”