Lin's throw missed but that didn't catch Maigo off guard, she seemingly aimed for the less targeted spots of the board anyways. But... he was, struck for a moment, the very idea of staying with her. It was... well, was it something he'd considered? He'd blocked it out really, the consequences of returning back to Kirigakure and leaving her here. His face turning a bright red but before he could interject she'd continue with wanting him to stay, his posture and appearance would be shortly like a tomato as he scratched his cheek with a single finger, trying to avoid the attention of such. But it faded, more resentment at the Raikage and perhaps deservedly so, Maigo merely nodded along with her words, he understood them well enough and was plenty aware. It's why he'd forsaken his headband upon arriving in the village and why he'd try to keep a low profile, gulping as she went on about how he might have been tortured and forced to talk if the Raikage got ahold of him.

Maigo offered a nod with a stuttered laugh and waited as she continued on, their game came to an end and seemingly neither of them had the snuff to win. It was absolutely a rigged game though, most of them were, at least in Maigo's eye. Always some excuse or not to be made about its execution at these carnivals. Maigo smirked at her wink and then helped push them through the mass of the crowd towards their next destination! The next game of things to be involved in. Goldfish catching, they paused for a moment and Lin pointed to the sign, drawing Maigo's attention towards it. Goldfish, catch as many as you can before the buzzer, keep the ones you like! Only 100 ryo per play. It was certainly a steep price but Maigo ignored that for now, turning back to Lin as she explained quite intricately how to go about the game. Lin smiled and nodded finishing with a small note of her own, "I wonder how tasty a 100 pound Koi would be. I have had goldfish before, but I can only imagine how tasty one that is a hundred pounds would be."

Maigo tilted his head and raised an eyebrow as he glanced at her, chuckling to himself a little, wondering what in the world she was going on about really. Still, he would stick to the curious glance for now and leave asking her about why she was curious about eating goldfish for later. Reaching back into his kimono and pulling out more ryo, 200 in total so they could each get a shot at it for now, handing it over to the man who so apathetically ran the stall and pulled two nets from the stack behind him, handing them to Maigo. Maigo turned to Lin in front of him and smiled, holding a net out for her to take before looking at the oval shaped pool in front of them for a brief second before back at her. Lots of little orange and white and speckled koi floated all around inside of it.

Maigo smiled at her as he waited, rolling the net of his own in his fingers and feeling it out, it was... flimsy to say the least, just a normal piece of paper inside that little sphere with hardly any tension to it either. With a nod Maigo would speak up towards Lin, "Alright goldfish eater, you go first, show me how it's done..." Maigo chuckled and leaned against her a bit playfully before stepping back to give her a chance to try her hand at catching one, still rolling his own net between his fingers.


[632 words]

Lin approached the stand, knowing that she was going to pay for it, but Maigo had his Ryo out faster and handed it to the man before she could. She put up a finger to protest, her mouth open, before placing it on her lips in thought and smiled at him, "Alright, well, I have next game." She nodded to him, taking one of the nets. The man was distracted by a man who had caught 4 fish and was now trying to teach others to do the same. He had only caught some of the smaller ones, and apparently wasn't a Koi connesseur. Well, lucky for Lin, she had read up on the catching of Koi when she was younger.

Looking into the pool, she talked to Maigo in a low voice, "You want to hold it above the one that you want,
behind them, and if they swim away, then you are in their field of vision, it is hard, because sometimes they turn on you with no warning. So what people sometimes do is they grab the cup like so." She grabbed one of the cups and dipped it into the water, the fish moving away like the ripples in the pool. She was going to get one that would bring her a lot of money.

"Normally you want to go for one that is a grey color with a yellow spot. Like that one there." She pointed to one, "But not in Kumo. There are some koi vendors that will pay for the bigger and older the fish that you catch." Of course, she was going to go for one of them, she just didn't know which one. The older ones would tear through the flimsy paper, made of one sheet and stretched taut it was going to be an uphill battle for any of the Koi that were not only just born. She looked for one with the coloration she wanted, that was about 1/10 ratio for the paper that was inside of the net. Finding one, she moved the net behind it, making it go in circles, tiring it out. She did this for a good minute and a half before putting it into the fish's blindspot. There were people grabbing and trying to catch the fish with other methods.

Lin watched as one couple was reprimanded for the man trying to catch one with his cup. She took the opportunity to do a hand seal and send some chakra to cover the net. It would help solidify it a bit, as long as she didn't keep it up too long it would add like... 1 second to the time it could be under water. She placed the net into the water, swimming behind it, not width wise but length wise, making it so that the fish couldn't see it. Fish have an extraordinary peripheral vision angle, almost 180 degrees with both eyes, but there was a vantage point, about 10 degrees of space right behind the fish where they were blind. Too late the fish realized as Lin flicked her wrist that there was a net right next to it. It spun to try to move to the side, but lin moved the net beside it, if she had held the net the other way, there would be too much drag and she would have torn the flimsy paper, as it was, she scooped under the fish, keeping with it with the plastic side moving and held her cup underneath where it came out of the water.

She flipped the fish like a skillet, on its forehead there was a symbol like that of Kumogakure's headbands. So it, when it got older would be worth a pretty penny. As it was, she had won a fish that was probably worth a good 300 ryo. She hoped that it wasn't too tired, and spoke up to the man, "Well,
I would say that I caught this one, may I have a bowl for him,
or her?" She didn't know if the fish were male or female, but it was one of the more rare of the fish in the tank. The ones that were big and a solid color were rare too, but they were too big and were there to attract the attention of those seeking a paycheck. They would fetch a price of over 1000 ryo, but were much too big for the paper nets.

She smiled triumphantly at Maigo, her fish in the plastic cup. "And it goes something a bit like that."

WC: 789

Maigo watched carefully from just behind her as she began to explain in further detail how to go about it, how to trick the fish into your net and all of that. Then she went into detail about which sort of fish to go for all the same, she pointed out one in particular and Maigo nodded along, glancing around through the rippled water and dark container at the variety that was within the tank as well. He paused though, standing just behind her and using his height to his advantage, leaning forward to watch as she targeted in and began to hunt down some of the goldfish within, weaving her net behind them slowly as she aimed to tire out the goldfish. From Maigo's perspective, he found it a little hard to believe that she wasn't an expert and hadn't won this game before.

Still, Maigo payed attention within the commotion, watching Lin make a quick hand seal and dunked the net under the water, moving quickly and grabbing the goldfish and drawing it out of the water. Maigo held back a laugh as he'd known a bit of what she'd done, using some chakra to keep the net intact and grabbing the goldfish within a single maneuver while everyone was looking away, but he had been paying attention very carefully. Maigo would pause and keep to himself as she waited for a bowl, giving the shopkeep a chance to find one for her and such before listening she continued on, "And it goes something a bit like that."

Maigo chuckled at her and lifted his left hand towards her head, giving her a couple of light and brief pats to the top of her head before speaking up while still chuckling, "I'm sure that that's all there is to it..." his chuckle carrying over past his words as he rotated the net again, letting the game keeper bring over a small bowl or plastic bag or whatever while she stood with her catch triumphantly in her cup. Maigo stepped forward though, looking through the pond of fish for one to focus on in particular. He found it, one that was mostly white itself with some orange speckling across its body but less than maybe a quarter of its area.

Maigo leaned in, letting his arm float over the water as he traced the path of the fish, the length of his arm casting a bit of a shade over the area directly in front of him. One girl further down splashed a bit as she tried to quickly pull up her own catch, Maigo stayed his breath and quickly submerged the net, thinking that he could channel a bit of chakra even easier than Lin with his Bukijutsu prowess, but he wanted to try it with his own hands first. Besides, there was some way to win, somehow with a normal net and such. Maybe the fish was a little bigger than he should have targeted outright, but Maigo was no stranger to going all out directly!

He set his net behind the fish and turned it to the side so that the water would run perpendicular to his net and not directly into it. Tracing the fish towards a corner and bringing it up, he felt the fluidity of the net, and dragged it up a bit quickly, gracefully in the same maneuver. Hardly disturbing the water except for centimeters around his wrist and where the net was submerged, he had the koi on it, bringing it up as it floundered under the force of being pulled up and it seemed like it would have worked until Maigo's net emerged from the water. A small tear showed in the flimsy paper, first a small tear in the paper near the koi's head but the fish found it, wiggled and tore it further, sliding head first through the net and plunking back into the pool.

Maigo looked at the net a bit dismayed, his mouth slightly ajar as he was so confident that he'd almost won it, and an urge to go again, to try and win started to overcome him. He sighed a bit and turned towards Lin after the fact, "You know, all things considered, it wasn't a bad first try... I suppose it's better I didn't win though, then you'd have one to sell and one to eat..." he smirked at Lin and nudged her just a little bit, playing back to her reference earlier about eating a koi and how... well, weird that thought was.


[775 words, 1407 words total]

Lin smirked as he caught on to her trick, blushing a bit. She watched as he tried, tried for too big of a fish, but still tried. It was a valiant effort, but resulted in a broken net and an agitated fish. Oh well.

"Oh, like you wouldn't have wanted to try my fried Koi anyhow." She teased back, Goldfish, especially Koi, were very tasty if prepared right, and if they were the right size. However, most people kept them as pets, but Lin had eaten one that Gora brought home from the lake, a good 3 pounds in weight, and it was delicious.

Lin and Maigo caught a couple of other fish, of course, Lin didn't catch any more with her chakra, and so it lessened the number from 1 caught to 0 caught for the rest of the time, both of them laughing as the other struggled to grab the fishes. Maigo caught two, due to his perceptive abilities and watching others successful attempts. Lin, however, couldn't catch another without cheating. They walked by the other booths, when something caught Lin's eye. The maze was open, and in their time at the other two booths, it had turned dark.

She pointed to the maze, ablaze in twinkling small lights. She smiled and hugged his arm to her chest, "Let's go in there! I have always wanted to get lost in a maze with a cute guy." She giggled, looking up at him, seeing if she had elicited a reaction. They were approaching it anyhow, so why not? The night was young, and the date had gone swimmingly so far... No pun intended. The Koi on her wrist, attached by a string in a small plastic cup that was sealed by a lid with holes poked into it jerked a little bit, annoyed at its new little home and lack of friends.

Lin wanted to get him into the maze perhaps, even sneak a kiss. Quite the deviant little succubus. But she wanted to make this a night that would be forever burned into her mind. She wanted everything to be... perfect.

WC: 1153

Maigo shook his head at her comment back to him, he quickly responded with a few short blinks at her, "I don't think I'd eat goldfish at all... regardless of who cooks it." He chuckled to himself a bit and they continued on with their game. By some miracle, Maigo was able to figure it out and grab two koi of his own, albeit much smaller than the one he initially tried for, they'd make good koi friends for Lin's own fish maybe. Still, they continued on to two other games and appropriately became lost in killing time at the various arcade games. A quickly past setting sun and they found themselves outside the maze, Lin tugging on his arm and pointing to get his attention.

"Let's go in there! I have always wanted to get lost in a maze with a cute guy." Maigo blinked for a second while looking at it, but quickly looked down to her with a bit of red running under his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. Mumbling about for his words he blinked and shook his head, clearing his throat a little, "Oh, umm... yeah, right, yeah... we can do that." He chuckled a bit and scratched his neck with the arm not being held onto. Maigo would lead the pair within, paying any sort of entrance fee that would need to be before hand if necessary.

Once within, Maigo would take note of the hedges that weaved around them, another foot or two taller than Maigo, he smiled and looked at Lin, stepping behind her. Directly in front of them, there was only one path within the maze that immediately hooked to the right. If he would be able to move behind her, he would place his left hand on her left shoulder and take his right hand to hers, holding it up and placing her right hand with her palm against the edge of the bush to their right.

"You know, there's a rule for finding your way when your lost and not on a time restraint. It's a right hand rule, if you put your right hand against the wall to your right and walk forwards without ever lifting your hand up, eventually you're guaranteed to find the exit. Well, at some point..." he chuckled a little, stepping close behind her and leaning his head over her right shoulder, offering a smile to go along with his words.

"I'll let you lead the way while we get lost." he smirked and leaned back, leaving the path open ahead for her but leaving his left hand on her left shoulder. Waiting to see how she would respond to his words and moves.


[462 words, 1869 words total]

"I er..." Her eyes went wide with embarrassment, and she matched Maigo's robes, his eyes when he was using his sharingan. She giggled nervously. He stepped behind her, his had carrying warmth to her shoulder, she stepped back a little, running into him, leaning against him as he took her right hand.

The cool leaves beneath her hand were shocking, she felt like she was on fire, she was burning up in embarrassment, in raw emotion. The giggle trailed off, and she bit her bottom lip to try to keep composure over herself, "A nice little trick, but I want to get lost first." She leaned against him, feeling his breathing, feeling his pulse through the kimono. It was... bracing. She shook her head, feeling the lightness in it leave all of the sudden. Perhaps they should take this a bit further from the entrance.
"So... let's go forward then." She wrapped her hand around his own, on her left shoulder, and leaned against him. They took a left, a right, and another left, finding a dead end, and a small bench to rest, should they need it.

WC: 1352

Maigo's quick step behind worked, or rather, Lin didn't try to fight against it outright, his hand placing on her shoulder as she stepped back into him. Maigo's face turning a little red but continuing on with his bravado and his little speech about his trick, holding against Lin's shoulder and leaning forwards. Maigo watched as she bit at her bottom lip and spoke up, pushing some desire in his own heart, but she wanted to get lost first. Maigo smirked deeply at the end of her words as she leaned back against him, Maigo held his hand against her and nodded offering a simple, "Alright then..." in response. The bit of red would no doubt be lingering around, but he was still trying to play up to his calm demeanor, not letting him get the best of himself, for whatever that was worth.

Lin made the suggestion to move forward which Maigo nodded along to, her own hand having set itself over the hand that Maigo placed on her shoulder. Maigo took a step to the side, so that they wouldn't be walking over each other, and let her lean into his side and holding her mostly under his arm as they walked, reminding him a little bit of that time in the underworld. Just the two of them kinda lost and heading to wherever they would end up, well... except Lin probably had some idea of that city anyways. Taking a few turns as they walked along, Maigo using his hand to pull her lightly towards him and hold her steadily as she leaned against him. They quickly found themselves at a dead end with a bench sitting in the middle an equidistant from the back and each of the side walls, not much else there. Maybe for those he'd been walking so long that they'd tired out but Maigo wasn't tired, they'd been on their feet all event though, maybe Lin would want to sit and rest for a minute?

Maigo would pull her a bit and look down after sighting the bench, "Want to rest for a second?" he asked just below a conversational tone, still holding a bit of a smirk on his face. He was fine continuing on, but was it courtesy to ask? Or was it rather him wanting to sit and hold onto her a little more closely? Well... it depends on what he'd admit to. Probably his only slightly devilish plan. He wasn't sure if she counted them as sufficiently lost yet though, but he still had a relative idea of where they were, maybe taking a short break would be enough to throw his memory off.


[457 words, 2326 words total]

Lin smirked a bit to herself, for a split second before turning to him and grabbing both of his hands if he would let her. "Let's sit down for a bit, enjoy the night air, and make sure that we aren't tired for the rest of the maze." Of course, she wasn't tired at all, she was used to travelling much further than she had today, and staying still and on her feet much longer as well. But she had a plan.

Her heart was going overtime, and she seemed a bit nervous. She couldn't help that her face was flushed and her breathing shallow. It was the first date that she had been on that seemed to be going... well... fantastically. Lin didn't want to ruin it with some sort of nosedive towards the end, and so she continued on. She wante to make this as special for him as it was for her. She had fond memories of her past here, with her parents. She really needed to see her dad... Wait, no... Back to Maigo... He looked... well, he looked very handsome in the dying light of the sky and the glow of the lanterns. The lanterns brought out the color of the robes, along with the honey color of his eyes. It seemed as though she could see the reflection of the molten pools of sweetness in his eyes, and well... there was something else there too. A... perhaps it was untrue, but she saw that he liked her quite a bit as well. Well, that was a good thing. She giggled, squeezing his right hand with her dominant, her left.

She sat down on the bench and tried to drag him onto it gently. If he would oblige, she would scoot as close as womanly possible to him and would gaze up at the stars that were just starting to bud into existence, like flowers of the night. "You know, this has been the best date I have had in... well... forever." She smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.

WC: 1709

Lin took both of Maigo's hands as he blinked and looked down to her for a moment, she spoke up and made a request to sit. Maigo's only response came in the form of a quick smile and nod as they would move towards the bench and Maigo would take a seat as he was pulled down by Lin. Pausing a moment he would lean back and lounge against the back of the bench, crossing his right leg over his left so that his ankle rested over his knee as he looked up to the sky after noticing her doing it.

Blinking and taking in the few stars that were apparent, the skeletons of constellations and the likes, the moon shone brightly through it all and a few sparse clouds sat in grey against the darkened sky. Maigo's gaze fell down the sky as the glow of the festival sparked in contrast just above it's shallow horizon, the flicker of lanterns built around them as he just enjoyed the moment and gave a small sigh. Lin made a final comment and let her head fall against his shoulder, Maigo smirked at it, glad he was doing well enough so far.

He would let his right arm wrap around her and pull her body in closer to his, her head would having fallen more towards his chest than his shoulder as a result if she didn't move, he would turn his head a bit with a smile and speak up, "Well, it's been the best date for me outside that one time I was dead..." he smirked and chuckled a little, trying to tease Lin just a little bit. His head would turn back ahead of him as he looked back up to the stars and he fell back into his seat, a small exhale feeling to clear some weight of his chest as a thought slunk into his mind, "The stars at night are always so nice, but it always makes me start to question the motives behind things existentially..." he focused intently on the stars for a moment.

"Like, how small and insignificant we are compared to them, and whether or not anything we're doing is worth it." a small downing thought on his mentality, but a bit of openness and honesty of the attitude towards the mindset behind the man who embodied apathy and was so victim to the sin of sloth.


[411 words, 2737 words total]

Lin listened, looking at the stars twinkling on beyond her reach. She wanted to take a hold of them and keep them in her pocket, but she knew them to be bigger than that. A lot bigger than that. Science had taught her that lesson. Still, here they seemed cool, a flashing brilliant thing that should be admired, and that she wanted to hold. She scooted in closer, not taking her eyes off of the stars until the last second, she looked to him, turning quickly.

She kissed his cheek, a light butterfly alighting on a dewy leaf in the dusky air. Retracting she looked up, "The things that go on down here might be inconsequential when it comes to the heavenly bodies, but that makes them no less significant to the people that live their lives here." She giggled, resting her head on his shoulder if he would allow it. "And my mother used to tell me that the stars would gladly give up their everlasting lives, their burning bright bodies to live a flicker of a moment down here." She smiled, "But I am still jealous of how pretty they look."

She puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and then smiled, this was really... well... it was... idyllic.

WC: 2564

Maigo sat and leaned back into the bench, a small sigh as he looked up at the stars and let the pause fill the air between them. His body was relaxed, he felt a bit comfortable there in that silence, for whatever that was worth. He hadn't noticed Lin move in closer even though his arm was wrapped around her, his attention focused intently on above for the short moment. But when she moved to kiss him, his attention was completely broken from the sky, his face turning red and his posture stiffening in place. He didn't dare look over to her, not at first, letting it set for a moment as she started to talk.

After a moment, he would bring his gaze down and turn it towards her, focusing in on her facial features as she spoke about the stars for a moment, his expression neutral as he was listening in. Her head fell against his shoulder and he let his fingers curl gently scratch her opposite shoulder as the two waited there for a moment and continued to listen in.

With a small pause after, Maigo returned her own smile with his and lounged in his spot before continuing on, "That might be true, I don't have any regrets of existing as I do, but I just wonder what sort of life we all live in comparison of the grandeur of the universe..." he paused and glanced back up. "Where's the impact that we have when even a single star is such a small blip against time that they aren't considered anything special when it's all counted up."

"Truth be told, I'm not sure whether I should be vying for a quite and comfortable life, where I can enjoy things and exist happily or if I should be fighting tooth and nail for an existence to be remembered, the grandeur behind it and trying to leave my mark upon history itself..." he sighed a bit in an exhale and turned back towards her, letting his expression soften and his eyes rest on her for a moment.


[356 words, 3093 words total]

"Well." Lin cleared her throat, "If the scientists are right, all of our existences,
even the first humans are just a blip on the radar of the universe.
That's sorta scary, but... I like to think of myself down here, and just live my life day to day. I mean, it's not like I am ever going to be Raikage, and I am certainly never going to ever have my own students, though I would like to have them some day. No... I am probably just going to have all of my free time spent on missions or some other trivial thing like that. But inbetween running around for Sano, I want to be with you as much as possible." She placed a hand in the crook of his arm and snuggled in close, her body pressed against his. It was unusually quiet in the maze, almost startlingly so. She could feel the warmth of him against her.

Her heart beat faster, her face growing red and hot. She didn't really know what to do, so she sat still, her head on his arm, wrapped around it. It was... it was serene, and she felt a lot more herself when she was around him than she had been anywhere else.

WC: 2783

Maigo turned his head down and listened as she continued on, only able to think about how often she looked towards the future for someone wanting to live day to day. But really, Maigo couldn't blame her for it  or anything like that. He merely smirked as she affirmed that she wanted to spend time with him, a sentiment he'd easily share. Leaning in towards her as she set a hand to his arm he would speak up rather softly, "Me too." and hold his smile towards her for a moment, if she looked at him before his gaze would return upwards for another moment afterwards.

For a moment, Maigo would just sit there and try to enjoy that moment, savor it as long as it would last. Part of him wanted to speak up, ask if she were ready to move on and find their way out or, what the next event on the list for the evening was? But he still found himself too nervous to interrupt with something trivial like that, he was still blushing as he always was but content at the same time. But would it be weird to just sit there in silence? The tense of what he should do would run long enough in his mind that he'd end up just sitting there for a while, basking in the silence in the maze and the atmosphere of the festival outside it.


[241 words, 3334 words total]

Lin looked up at the stars again, snuggling her cheek into his shoulder a bit more. She wanted to stay like this for the rest of the evening, but the bench was a tad uncomfortable. She readjusted and frowned. Oh well, perhaps it was time to go anyhow. She cleared her throat and squeezed his arm.

"Shall we go ahead and continue on through the maze? Or... or we could go back to my place?" She smiled and tilted her head, as she always did when she was uncertain whether she was being awkward. She really didn't know how to approach this sort of situation, having been bad at it in the past.

((OOC: I am easing back into it, sorry for the short reply))

Maigo turned his head towards her as she squeezed his arm to break the bit of silence between them. His eyes focused on her with the obvious question of 'what' instilled into them as she asked a question about continuing on or returning to her place. Maigo smirked and looked at her a bit confused, she tilted her head and was a bit adorable doing so but Maigo leaned back a bit further and spoke up, "Unless you want to run across the top of the hedges, then we'll have to finish the maze to get out." he chuckled a bit and shook his head as he tightened his arm around her a bit.

Still, he got the jist of the question and even though he was trying to be difficult and a bit foolish as he always was he would let the pause play out before continuing on again, "But it doesn't matter to me, if you're done with the festival that's fine and all, I just thought you wanted to be here for it, I hope it's not me you're running away from here." he would rub the back of his neck with his free hand and laugh a bit awkwardly, hoping that their date wasn't really going as bad as it was implied to. Still, with her answer to confirm or deny he would leave it up to her to decide on what was next, on whether she would leave Maigo behind or not and whether they would continue on with the festival or not.


[265 words, 3599 words total]

[Exit Thread due to inactivity/Lin's leaving]

Training: