Sayuri wandered around the marketplace, looking for a new food vendor to get breakfast from. It was a futile venture really, since she’d been living in Konoha she’d visited every single vendor here, nearly every day. So much so that she knew them all by name at this point. She sighed and shrugged as she walked up to her favourite one, and gave a cheerful wave to Michi, who without even missing a beat turned and gathered up a box of rice and dumplings for her and handed it over with a warm smile. Sayuri handed over some coins and Michi who, just like every time they interacted, showed Sayuri the coins and handed back the ones that were unneeded. “You know Miss Sayuri, I think you’re getting better. A few more times and you’ll have it perfect. Enjoy your breakfast now, and I’ll probably see you tomorrow!” With that Michi winked to the woman and turned to the next customer in line, taking more coins and serving more rice and dumplings.

Sayuri took her food in it’s small box and walked along the street munching happily on the warm food and smiling at anyone that caught her eye. It was a lovely day in Konohagakure no sato, the streets were fairly busy and for the most part everyone was going about their business in a relatively good mood. There was the usual children running through the streets, being underfoot and getting barked at occasionally by grumpy people in a hurry, which Sayuri found hilarious and for a moment considered joining in before remembering that she was not in fact a child anymore. She sighed sadly at the thought, it was a shame that she couldn’t just run and play now that she was older. She was expected to actually do important ‘adult’ type things, whatever that was supposed to mean. It made her long more and more to just go back into the woods and hide again. But if she did then she would never see Mitsuo, Tsuyo or Shiro ever again, which she couldn’t have. They were the only friends she had and she couldn’t lose them, even if it meant doing boring things like missions or shopping.

She was just about done her meal when she saw a young girl standing in front of the mission board holding a piece of paper, which considering it was the mission board she assumed was a mission. Curious she walked up the girl, she looked far too young to be taking a mission by herself, not that she was one to talk really, most people assumed she was pretty young, younger than she was anyway. She would tug her long white hair to one side, a nervous habit, as she approached the female shinobi just in time to overhear her speaking about tracking down a wolf pack. An interesting proposal, especially for someone that didn’t appear, at least to Sayuri, as though they tromped around in the forest on a regular basis. She would try to peek at the paper the girl was holding, assuming she was able to glance at it, it was just squiggly lines. So she would clear her throat quietly to try to gain the girls attention before speaking, a shy smile on her delicate features.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but I couldn’t help but overhear that you were talking about tracking wolves. And I don’t mean to be rude or anything but, you look like maybe you could use some help or something? I mean. . . you look, not used to the forest, or well, what I mean to say is, I grew up in the forest. So I could help you. Uh, I mean. Sorry, let me start again. I’m Sayuri, and if you need help, I’d be willing to help you.”

655

Soft words often resonated like thunder to the wise mind.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but I couldn’t help but overhear that you were talking about tracking wolves. And I don’t mean to be rude or anything but, you look like maybe you could use some help or something? I mean. . . you look, not used to the forest, or well, what I mean to say is, I grew up in the forest. So I could help you. Uh, I mean. Sorry, let me start again. I’m Sayuri, and if you need help, I’d be willing to help you.”


The words from behind hanbei were like that of a mouse, prompted to turn quickly Hanbei could see that the person that was standing there didn’t seem to be much larger than herself, and probably not that much older either, though, had Hanbei to take a guess, she would say that she herself appeared to be the younger of the two, even though she knew that was likely wrong. However, while the manner in which she had heard the ninja speak was what garnered Hanbei’s attention, the idea of having help on this mission was something that Hanbei could not help but agree on … if she really knew the forest she could be an invaluable ally, plus, she was cute, which was always an added bonus. Feeling a little nervous around the girl, Hanbei would smile for the moment and look at the mission paper before handing it over, in so doing she would simultaneously explain the mission, solely to summarize what her immediate thoughts were about everything for the most part. Konoha was a brilliant village, but its ninja weren’t the smartest in the world. They fell all too often for the trap of oversimplifying a problem, and should it not be assessed correctly, they would often then over complicate it to compensate.

'Seldom was there a middle.'

"Basically, there is a rogue wolf hunting people in the forest, it’s gotten pretty strong in hunting people, it’s likely made it keen and powerful over time. But, I refuse to think that an animal in the wold in this country just decided to turn evil and attack people out of nowhere. That’s not what animals do, something must have happened to the poor thing, and I figure if we find the pack the wolf used to belong to, maybe we can find what’s driven it to attack people as a response without killing an animal as strong as it is… Powerful beasts that become like this have strong spirits, and are often guardians to the forest… I made the mistake of trying to fight one a few weeks ago… and it didn’t go well. If we just kill the wolf like the mission says, we may disrupt the flow of nature."

Having a new found respect for the life of the forest Hanbei responded. Finally finishing with a quick quip about being more than happy to accept the help of the ninja before her,. Hanbei would introduce herself in full as Hanbei Guanyin of the Guanyin clan in a slightly formal manner, not wanting to appear rude to another ninja. Drawing two of her needles, Hanbei would tie up her hair including her long tails that fell from the back of her head in plats into a bun wrapped in them, penetrating through the bun with two of her black family senbon to keep everything in place as Hanbei would take a look out in the direction of the forest. The two of them had a heading where the attacks had began from, the mission compiling the history of attacks that had been made by the wolf, the earliest of which came from north east of their location moving towards the shoreline. Out that way was an old fishing hamlet, and though they had not been attacked since their first incident, it was likely the location closest to the territory of the pack this wolf used to be in… But Hanbei didn’t know the way in the slightest…

"So, Sayuri, if you’d like to lead the way, i will happily follow you. I don’t know all the roads along here, and i feel the sooner we deal with this problem the sooner these farmers can get along with their lives and the forest can return to some relative peace. "

Sayuri’s eyes went wide as the young girl handed over the piece of paper and started explaining what the mission was. They were expected to kill a wolf? And what’s more the word was that a lone wolf was killing people? That didn’t sound right to her at all. She’d spent more than half her life in the forest, and plenty of that around wolves, either avoiding them or observing them, and she’d never once been scared that they were going to attack her, let alone kill her. That simply wasn’t in their nature. As with all creatures in the forest, they wanted to live out their lives in peace, and as long as they weren’t meddled with they’d leave humans well enough alone. Which to Sayuri meant there could only be one answer, someone had meddled. She looked down at the slightly torn bit of paper as the girl spoke, trying to decipher the squiggles as she went, hoping in vain that they would suddenly make sense, which of course they didn’t. With a frustrated sigh she handed the paper back to the well dressed shinobi, “You should hang on to this, I can’t read it anyway.” She hated having to admit to not being able to read, but it also did absolutely no good to let anyone think she could do something that she couldn’t either. And with that in mind she continued with her thoughts on the task at hand. “I’ve never had to deal with a lone wolf you know. In fact I’ve never even seen one. I’ve seen plenty of wolves of course, but they’re always together, you know, with their families. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that a wolf would be by itself in the first place. And that it would ever kill a human. I’ve been near wolves my whole life, or close enough to it, and they’ve never hurt me. It just. . . I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense to me. You should know though, I won’t kill it. Not unless there is really no other way, I don’t kill things. I thought it would be fair for me to tell you that before we go.” She didn’t think the other girl would have a problem with this revelation based on how she had spoken about upsetting the flow of nature.

"So, Sayuri, if you’d like to lead the way, i will happily follow you. I don’t know all the roads along here, and i feel the sooner we deal with this problem the sooner these farmers can get along with their lives and the forest can return to some relative peace. "

Sayuri nodded to the girl and after checking, again, that she had her tanto secured at her left hip and her pouch with her kunai and shuriken on her right thigh she started walking towards the market. Stopping at one of the food vendors she purchased a bag of scrap meat and tied it to her belt, and satisfied that she couldn’t think of anything else they’d need she set off into the forest.

She lead the way as best she could, trying to stick to the more well beaten paths for the sake of the other girl. Herself she would much rather be climbing over rocks and swinging through trees, but that would hardly make her a suitable travelling companion. She hummed and danced a bit as she walked along, tapping briefly on various plants and flowers, in time to the song she sang in her head. “I think this is a good idea,” she would say to the girl as she pranced along. “Trying to solve the problem without hurting the animal I mean. The wolf might be just sad, or lonely, or scared. If we can just find it’s family then we can send it home and maybe it’ll be fine again.” As she spoke she would hear the tell tale yipping in the distance of wolf cubs and she slowed her pace, holding a hand out to her companion excitedly. “I think they’re up there! Oh this is so exciting! Have you ever seen baby wolves? They’re adorable! But uh. . . don’t try to touch them. The parents don’t like that.” She would crouch down and motion for the girl to come with her as she crept along through the underbrush, beaming from ear to ear.

773/1438

Hanbei tilted his head quizzically to one side at hearing that the girl was not able to read, wasn’t reading in konoha taught to children from a young age? The fact there was a chuunin ninja within the village hidden in the leaves that was not able to so much as read rasied so many questions, hanbei wasn’t quite able to cope with the thought process that surrounded it, so, taking the mission scroll back and sliding it into the pouch she carried at her side she would continue with the explanation and listed to what Sayuri had to say. She seemed to have a great amount of insight when it came to the natural world that surrounded konoha, a field of expertise that Hanbei knew would be beneficial in the long run.

“I’ve never had to deal with a lone wolf you know. In fact I’ve never even seen one. I’ve seen plenty of wolves of course, but they’re always together, you know, with their families. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that a wolf would be by itself in the first place. And that it would ever kill a human. I’ve been near wolves my whole life, or close enough to it, and they’ve never hurt me. It just. . . I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense to me. You should know though, I won’t kill it. Not unless there is really no other way, I don’t kill things. I thought it would be fair for me to tell you that before we go.”

The thought that a child had been around wolves their whole life made Hanbei think, where were Sayuri’s parents? What kind of person would allow that to happen in the slightest? Though it probably said something about the illiteracy, whatever the reason, it was becoming more and more apparent that Sayuri was a unique person to say the least. A person that Hanbei would have a good time getting to know a little better. Her face would furrow as she thought about what Sayuri would have to say, while it was true that wolves were usually a pack animal, lone wolves could occur occasionally, though they didn’t tend to live very long. “You’re right, wolves don’t tend to happen very often, but I’ve heard of times when you would come across a lone one. When an Alpha is overthrown by an aspiring wolf being one of the main times, or a wolf being chased out of the pack for being sick or any number of reasons… But to even begin to look into all of that, we would need to find the pack and see what we could do. ”

Soon enough, through the forest they would wander to the point that they could hear the sound of wolf pups. Sayuri seemed distracted and excited, Hanbei’s eyes also lit up as she would follow Sayuri for a small time, catching up with her as they peered over the ridge to look at the pack and the newborns. The little faces of the pups playing was enough to melt the heart, but, taking a glance over the rest of the pack, there was no Alpha wolf in sight. There were a number of beta wolves that seemed on edge and discouraged while there seemed to be a young wolf in the midst of them all, where one would expect the alpha to be. Hanbei looked for a while, but it appeared that that young wolf was what alpha the group had… that wasn’t right. ”There’s no way that adolescent fought off an experienced alpha wolf, at least without some serious scarring, and i’m seeing not even a tarnished coat. Something here’s messed up. We should head to the vi-” Suddenly, in the distance there was an earth shattering scream, the wolves’ ears perked up, all looking in the direction it came from before they all darted back into their homes, some even fleeing the area entirely.

Hanbei would look to sayuri before nodding in affirmation and darting towards the sound as fast as he could, taking the high-ground when the road dipped suddenly. Jumping from branch to branch and tree to tree expertly before finally landing in one that overlooked a large field. In it, was a huge beast of a wolf growling and snapping at a wounded farmer that had a gash-mark on his side. The wolf in question looked marked, symbols had been shaved out of its fur and chakra could be felt radiating from them. There was something wrong with this wolf, something had been done to it…

Sayuri was overjoyed at watching the tiny wolf pups play, rolling and tumbling over each other in the low grass and underbrush. Despite her earlier advice to the girl who she only realized now she had forgotten to ask what her name was she, desperately wanted to go over and play with the tiny balls of fur. Their playing and innocence, perfectly content to growl and snap, oblivious of any danger that might lurk because they were safe in the knowledge that their pack were watching over them brought a happy smile to her face. She knew better though, she’d made the mistake before of getting too close to wolf pups before, and been snapped at, never bitten, she wasn’t exactly threatening and she had backed off immediately, but she had made sure to never make that same mistake again. Sayuri’s thoughts were interrupted as the girl beside her spoke quietly.

”There’s no way that adolescent fought off an experienced alpha wolf, at least without some serious scarring, and i’m seeing not even a tarnished coat. Something here’s messed up. We should head to the vi-”


The scream that cut off the girl's words chilled Sayuri to the core. She looked in the direction it had sounded from, the same direction the the wolves heads had snapped to, and was already rising to her feet as the girl nodded to and took off with surprising dexterity through the trees. Sayuri followed suit, climbing and swinging through the trees, her route somewhat less graceful and conventional, due mainly to her lack of being formally trained as a shinobi. She paused at the edge of a clearing seeing a man lying in the grass, clearly wounded with a huge wolf standing over him snarling and looking as though it intended to attack him again. The wolf had strange markings in its fur, shaved it looked like, and she could feel chakra emanating from it. It was wrong, and unnatural. She knew that many strange things were possible through the use of chakra, but turning usually peaceful wolves into man eating killers didn’t seem likely to be one of them.

The distressed screams of the man and the sights of his torn open side awoke an instinct within Sayuri, and she would bolt straight towards him without a word to her companion. It was a truly foolish decision, one born of empathy and not out of any concern for her own well being or out of knowledge of strategic planning. All she knew was that the man was injured and she was not, and the best hope that she had of stopping him from being injured further was to place herself bodily between him and the snarling wolf. Perhaps the wolf was too interested in the man lying on the ground, or the sounds of his screams muffled her approach, but as luck would have it, the beast did not notice her arrival and as she slid into position between them, keeping her arms as close to her body as she could, her heart was beating so loudly she was sure that everyone as far as Konoha could hear it. This wolf was large and rage burned in it’s yellow eyes, while blood dripped from its teeth and muzzle, still upturned in a snarl.

She was careful not to stare directly into the wolf’s eyes, she didn’t want to anger it any further, she just wanted to stop it from attacking the man lying on the ground behind her. Not taking her attention away from the strangely marked and agitated wolf, she would speak in as calm a voice as she could muster to the bleeding man. “Stay calm and do not scream. I am here to help you, do not draw attention to yourself. I have another woman here to help as well. This wolf has been altered in some way, but as long as you stay quiet and still he should leave you be now.” Upon hearing her voice the wolf would growl low and menacingly, lowering its body to the ground and flattening its ears further back preparing to attack again.

In those few seconds Sayuri thought of all the pieces of herself that she could live without, and decided that if she had to give up something to this wolf that she could live without her left arm. So as it sprang at her with its jaws open wide ready to tear open her throat, she would swing her body to the right while propelling herself forward with her back foot and meet its charge, firmly lodging her left upper arm in between its powerful jaws. While she didn’t weigh very much, the force of her springing forward was enough to knock the wolf off balance and both girl and beast went tumbling over into the grass. Sayuri screamed as the wolf bit down and she came crashing down on top on the blood matted canine. She would struggle to keep it from rising, using her weight to keep it from rolling over onto its feet and her arm in its mouth from doing more lethal damage. She yelled out to her travelling companion in the hopes that she was nearby, not daring to take her eyes off the beast she was wrestling with. “I’ve got him distracted now, this was as far as my plan got! I could use some help, if you have some rope, or some other way of pinning him down, now would be a good time for it.”

938/2376

Sayuri was relieved when the wolf’s body went slack and his jaw and sharp teeth loosened from her arm. At first she was terribly confused as to why it had occurred, it was certainly nothing she had done, but when she saw the girl she had travelled here with come up and begin scolding her it became abundantly clear what had transpired. Sayuri’s face quickly went as red as the blood leaving her arm, being scolded was not something that she had planned on happening to her today. She hadn’t thought at all about what might have happened to her. Well not entirely, there was that brief moment right before the wolf sprang at her, but so few things had ever attacked her before she wasn’t used to making choices like that. “The only thing I had thought at all really was that I could live without that arm if I had to. I didn’t have a lot of time, and I figured it was my arm or my neck.” Sayuri winced as the girl tended to her wounds, it was incredibly painful, not nearly as painful as when she had had her leg injured in her foolish attempt to kill Mitsuo but painful all the same. She would look in despair down at her coat, she imagined that Tsuyo would be quite upset with the state of it now, holes and blood everywhere along the sleeve. She would have to figure out a way to repair it before he saw it, she didn’t want to disappoint him at all.

Looking down at the now sleeping wolf she would reach out her uninjured arm to pet it gently, the news that someone had done this to the poor creature hurt her heart deeply and she could feel a rage building up inside her as she listened to the farmer try to pass blame onto the hermit. As far as she was concerned they were all to blame, and she turned to face the farmer with an icy stare as the girl asked for her thoughts, speaking in a low menacing voice. “I think I understand now why I was made to make that promise. You have no right to try to force your will onto to nature, neither does he. You’re both wrong. You should feel lucky that that wound is all you have. Go home to your family and don’t take what isn’t yours.” Sayuri would turn her attention back to the girl, tears now in her eyes as she fought to control her emotions only moderately successfully. “I think we should leave them to whatever hell they’ve created for themselves. The jutsu is gone now right? We can come back sometime and check, but I think at least for now no more animals are being hurt. And we should tell someone at the Village about this, it seems. . . wrong.” Sayuri would carefully get to her feet and start moving back towards Konoha with a heavy heart, wondering if making a promise not to kill anyone was the right choice after all.

{Exit Thread}

523/2899

Mission Complete 2500/2500

399 WC left over