[x] Event Info

Sunagakure had been a most strange experience for the kunoichi. The memory of how she had felt during the chaos and ruins pressed hard upon her mind, pulling most of her attention away from the road ahead as she travelled towards Konohagakure.  Much like the battlefield had turned the Village upside down, so too had it turned her points of view on all she was learning and doing upside down. The images of the dead and the dying played over and over again in her mind, but unlike her first kill with Lin they didn't shock her any longer. It was more the troubling thought that the arts of her father, which she had long seen as a burden towards unnecessary killing, had now been a grace as she could end the suffering of those who no longer stood a chance to survive within the burning remains. People dying of their wounds and those trapped and maimed by the debris had almost begged for her to finish them, and so she had given them a swift ending. Mizuki could only wonder what this meant for herself. Was she growing numb for the act of killing? Was this truly mercy for the lost?

Ronin, the companion she had briefly picked up, seemed to think so. She had called it the 'blade of compassion', one of the three paths an executioner could take. While Mizuki had understood her explanation and the differences, she couldn't quite grasp how the former samurai was able to perceive it as such. To her, all roads of the Arts simply lead to death, no matter the intention used to achieve this. But Ronin had somehow tried to teach her. With her deathwish, she had taught Mizuki that execution wasn't always about removing society's rot. It had been an act of mercy to end Ronin's life, to end the suffering of which she had no strength left to endure it. Mixed feelings were all that Mizuki felt at that point. Partially shame for not being able to help Ronin in another way, partially solace to know that there were other ways to wield a blade still.

As Mizuki's thought rummaged on, the sands of Sunagakure made room for solid earth. The barren lands growing more fertile, lush grass holding the earth together and giving it colour. The heat of the desert became an agreeable breeze, and the growing amounts of trees offered plenty of shadow. She had reached the Land of Fire. She had heard stories and read up on the country, but even then nothing could have prepared her for the beautiful environment she saw now. Continuing her pace, Mizuki couldn't help herself as her eyes greedily took in the lush growth of its wildlife. It was such a stark contract with Kumogakure, or every country she had visited so far, that she almost believed herself to be trapped in a genjutsu. So as she spotted a hotspring a little off the road, she followed the narrow pathway for a brief stop. A bath, food and fresh water was just what she needed to recover from the whole ordeal and Sunagakure and allow herself to acclimatise to this new country. Not much later, after greeting and a brief interaction with the hotspring's owners, Mizuki found herself soaking in the warmth of the bath's waters, experiencing the comfort and pleasures of a hotspring for the first time.

If this comfort was what Konohagakure had to offer in the nearby future as well, her stay would be a most pleasant experience.

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[EXIT]

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