The walk through the mountain path had not been easy. It had been a long road between the Land of Lightning and the Land of Earth. His squad had been guarding a caravan from his clan compound. Jerrick sat on the cart with the reigns in his hand. There was an occasional breeze that passed through his coat, but it didn’t bother him much. The cold wasn’t hard to deal with. He had dealt with it all his life. The sights that he saw were incredible. The natural landscape was truly amazing. It had been a long time since he traveled on land. He had spent most of the six years or so traveling on the ocean fighting and drinking his fill until he felt the need to come back home. The difference between being a soldier and a mercenary was vast. There was definitely a lot more freedom and money in being a mercenary, but that past was over and done with.

The last couple of years had been productive as far as trade had been going, but they needed to spread their influence to distant lands. The sea raiders that charged their compound angered him to the point where he wanted to through his fist at a wall. They weren’t sure who sent them or where they came from. It had been many years since he had left his military service. He thought back thinking that if the military would have been there things may have changed, but that wasn't the way it worked. Him leaving his military lifestyle wasn't purely by choice. He could have gone back if he wanted to, but he didn’t feel like he was being drawn in to service like he once was. Jerrick still was young, but he still had some ways to go. The number one thing that he would focused on was restoring honor to his clan. The fact that he had to write hundreds of letters to their clients about the misfortune made him angry as well. Though, this was the last thing he would do for his family for awhile. He was to make contact with the merchants guild in Iwa and set up a supply line of products. The capital would be a great place to start as well, but there were other things he needed to take care of.

His party had appeared at the village gate. The whole gate and the whole village was literally made of stone. The village looked to be one giant mound of sculpted rock, but he knew not to underestimate the occupants of the village. Though ugly, there was a lot of potential for entrepreneurship. He just had to get the caravan past the gate. His associates would deal with the rest until later. They had a lot of goods from the coast such as salt, but they also brought silk and other goods that were hard to come by. It took Jerrick a solid two months to gather all the materials they had access to. The products had been what was left of the product from the compound while others were scrapped from clients. To ask assistance from the other branch of the clan wouldn’t have disrespectful, but they were too full of themselves to do it.

They met with the guard at the gate to register themselves with the village. After filling out some brief paperwork and having their cargo check they entered into town. They traveled until they arrived at a large sign that said “Back Alley.” This was the place they needed to meet. Though not fancy, this place held a lot of power on the market. The warrior sought to also build a compound on the edge of the Land of Earth to have access to the ocean. Jerrick pulled the reins on the horses and hopped out. He walked to the front of his cart near the horses and placed his hand on the horses mane. A couple of his men went with toward the front of the building while the others guarded the caravan. A man wearing a hooded cape and a white frilled shirt came to greet him.

“Ah, Lord Jerrick! It’s been awhile. You seem a lot thinner than you use to,” he said while they hugged each other, “I’ll go ahead and start the talks with your ambassador. We’ll finalize things with you in the morning. He'll let you know what we come up with.”

“Myamo-sama, It’s been a long time. I’m surprised you haven’t secured the market for yourself. I say you look a bit fatter than I remember. I’ll leave you to your work. I have other things and people to talk to.”

Jerrick moved on from the Back Alley and went on to a tavern and grill down the street. He received a letter from an associate that he met years ago. Jerrick was only told to sit at a booth at a back corner. Though, he wasn’t sure the full details. The associate had claimed that he information on the attackers, but he wasn’t sure how much he had or if it was a trap. The young heir had entered the tavern while keeping his eyes open. He adjusted the axe on his waist as he made it to a booth in' the back. A waiter came up to him and asked him what he wanted. Jerrick asked for a lager with steak and gravy. He waited and kept his eyes peeled. He wasn’t sure what time the associate would be there, but he didn’t want to be open for any kind of attack. There were a number of shinobi and others eating as he sat in the back corner waiting.

975

The young Uchiha was sitting at a table in a tavern, enjoying a light meal of chicken and observing what was going on around. Hoping that something interesting might happen, Aikiko had been bored of late. Sure she'd had time to torture her most hated enemy, Ryo Fujita. But that is so easy, just as it always had been. The teen was dressed in her typical informal wear, a black tank top with the symbol of her great clan on its back, the top was paired with shorts to complete the outfit. The chicken was a bit dry and the water was warm, however the water's warmth was thanks to how long she'd been sitting there. Truth be told she didn't know what she was doing in the tavern, something just told her it was the place to be tonight. She continued sipping and nibbling, watching the people come and go. A couple brawls broke out which was amusing enough. Aikiko took up a favorite pasttime of messing with people using subtle illusions. The house was far too crowded for people to find out who was casting them, besides they were cast without a trace to the normal abilities of human perception. Aikiko loved the art of subtlety, not that she wasn't capable of more obvious changes, it just didn't make sense in her current setting.

As fate would have it, something of interest did occur that night, a strange, dark skinned man in foreign clothing entered the tavern. He had tattoos covering his arms and scars on various spots. He had the look of a soldier, which given his foreign clothing, made him even more intriguing. The Uchiha girl considered the man, watched as he adjusted his axe while walking towards the corner the girl was situated in. The girl wanted to have some fun with the man, see how he'd react to some minor tricks played on him. Nothing that would harm him, just a clever way to get his attention. The man would sit in a booth alone and order some beer and a steak. Aikiko would first make her existence known to the man, in a subtle way. Only her voice, she would speak to the departing waiter in a tone loud enough for him to hear, "Could I have another glass of water, this one seems to have gone warm on me.", the man of course agreed to retrieve it for her. For phase two of her unecessarily complicated introduction, Aikiko would wait for his drink to arrive. When the man would go to lift his mug to take his first sip, the golden liquid would show a visage of Aikiko which would greet the man and offer an invitation, "Greetings stranger, my name is Aikiko, and I'd like to invite you to dine with me at my booth. I wish to hear of your foreign lands, as well as treat you to a meal for gracing our humble village with a visit." Should the man be clever enough to figure out where she was, as well as gracious enough to accept her invitation, he would find Aikiko smiling warmly, in welcome to the intriguing stranger. Aikiko would take a quick sip of water, before resigning to wait, her smile prepped and ready to go.

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135/150:

He sat there waiting and started to get a bit impatient that the one who invited him hadn’t shown up. It seemed that a brawl had started which didn’t bother him too much. As long as they weren’t trying to fight him he was fine with it. He had seen and engaged in many various fights in his day. Though, he felt like he was getting too old for them. His mind was set on meeting whoever sent him the invite to this place. His hunger was starting to grow from all the smells of food around him. Jerrick was even tempted to get up and knock out both guys who were fighting each other.

At last, his lager had arrived. It had been awhile since he was able to get a beverage that he felt he could hide his troubles behind. Jerrick released a gasp of air as he lifted up his mug. For a moment he thought that he was tripping. It was a voice that spoke to him. The first thing he thought was this a result from his PTSD, but then thought better about it. The voice was that of a young child from what he could decipher. His eyes searched around the room trying to figure out where it could have possibly come from. It didn’t take him long to realize a young girl who seemed out of place from the other individuals here. She was very petite in size and was smiling warmingly.

Jerrick would throwback the cold liquid before he got up from his table. Once he approached the booth that the young girl sat at he pursed his lips slightly before sitting down on the opposite side of the girl. “Aikiko?” he asked. He wasn’t sure what to say exactly. Never in his life had any one greeted him in such a way. Her skills were quite impressive to him who didn’t care too much for the tricks of genjutsu. In his previous line of work, he hadn’t seen too many genjutsu users. Everyone had either used their fist or were bukijutsu specialist like himself.

“Thanks for the invitation,” he started with his deep thunderous voice, “I’m Jerrick Shinkai of Clan Shinkai from Kaminari no Kuni. You said you wanted to know of my foreign lands? What exactly would you like to know?”

He was a bit cautious about giving out information. Though, this girl seemed to be innocent enough. If he were to guess, he would figure that she had some level of shinobi training. Maybe she was a genin. Jerrick was curious about her as she probably was of him. He also wanted to hear her voice from her mouth. There was still some uncertainty that he actually had the right person. One would look foolish to be just spouting out randomly to the wrong person.

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[Thread Exit/Inactivity]

REA: 1075/1075 [E-0 to D-1]
END: 300/300 [E-3 to D-0]

84 unused words