;; transcending across time (p/i)

Her dream would teleport her back to Yukigakure, transport her back in time to when she was still but a Genin of the village. Like many of her recent dreams she would find herself exploring the part of her past that detailed missions. She wasn't sure how dreaming about her missions in full detail was going to stimulate her present memory of the past but she guessed that was still a part of her past and she needed to respect that. It was still a dream and for the most part she was fine with it. The only question now is what sort of mission she would find herself immersed in this time. And she would have her answer in just a few moments.

What was scary about dreams was that some of them seemed so realistic in the dream sense that she often wouldn't be able to differ between reality and illusion. A dream was a replay of the past for her where it was an illusion of sorts. If she became too immersed in the dream setting, she would no longer be able to pull herself out. But she had much more self control than she gave herself credit for and it would be too much of a problem especially when the place that she was situated in mirrored that of her home country. It was quite the coincidence that they rivaled each other in harsh weather conditions since she had not heard of a place other that Yuki no Kuni which had an abudance of snowfall. 

But the again, she didn't know many many things. She wasn't aware of the mysteries behind Tetsu no Kuni. She didn't know that it was what the new world was, that had sprung after the war had taken out many of the lesser shinobi villages and countries. She didn't know that the grounds she had come onto was neutral land that all remaining shinobi villages respected due to it's neutrality. She didn't even know who governed this land, much less that there were samurai. There was one thing she did know--and that was when she would finally find the will to leave this place, she would take all the memories of her home, of her past with her.

It was strange how memory worked. Sudden sparks of unexpectedness could arouse it or diminish it. In a way it was so fragile; like glass but so strong; like crystal. People guarded their memories of their past, some choosing not to reveal certain if not all details of it for fear of becoming too trusting in absolute strangers. And then there were people like her who desperately hung on to shreds of recovered past and tried to find more with every passing moment; while fearful that the shreds she already had would also disappear in one sudden moment. Fate had made her forget and fate had brought pieces back. So why did fate want to make her forget in the first place? There was no logical explanation for the question.

She remembered how scared she was that one day she landed in the little town, in the middle of nowhere. All around her she couldn't find even a little detail of her past save for the headband that she now wore proudly representing the fallen snow village. Through the year or so of searching, of recovering, of hoping, she had finally started to be able to piece together small pieces of the puzzle. But it was exasperating at times when all she wanted to do was to remember it all and not have it fed to her in little pieces. She simply didn't have the patience to put together puzzles. But she had been forced and so that was what she did for all this time. She wondered when these pieces would finally give her one complete puzzle.

flashback

And her prediction was correct as a customer walked out of the restaurant, obviously satisfied with the food he had just eaten. After a moment of clearing of the table, the waitress out in front would call to Sayuri, telling her to follow her inside. Nodding her head, she followed the girl's lead into the restaurant interior and to the newly emptied table. She ordered a glass of ice lemon tea to start off and would sit herself comfortably on one side of the small table. The small tables in this restaurant had very comfortable seating and she was able to actually sit back against the sofa-like chair and breathe in the scent of freshly cooked food around the room. Perhaps the only bad thing about this place was the noise level. Since there were many people packed together, it was literally like she was in the middle of a marketplace.

The familiar sounding of a little bell indicated when new plates of food were ready to be served to the appropriate tables and customers. There were speakers around the restaurant that the owner used to play music from. But the amount of chatter and noise from the customers alone was enough for any music volume to be drowned out. A waitress carrying a menu walked up to her and smiled as she set it down. Even the workers here were a lot more pleasant than the other restaurants that she had seen. She had been to another restaurant that had closed down recently where their service was so terrible, she'd come out of the place thinking that she owed each and every living being working there a million dollars or something. The owner must have put a lot of thought into who he hired to work on his staff team, which was equally as important as the food that was coming out of the kitchen.

After a thorough glance at the menu pages, she would find that she wasn't craving anything in particular. Though there were a few things she knew she wasn't craving tonight. Anything too oily was not a good choice because she naturally was much of a fan and also she wasn't in the mood for sandwiches. Taking a couple of minutes to decide what she wanted to eat, she would finally make up her mind on a plain and simple Caesar salad. As if on cue, one of the hostesses would walk to her table and take her order. She was craving a little more cheese and so she requested that her salad have a little more cheese on top. That noted, the menu was then taken away and she was left alone to wait for her food to arrive. She looked around the place and found that oddly enough the jolly owner wasn't anywhere in sight. Perhaps he was working in the back of the restaurant, she thought.

The place was lively and filled with good vibes which should come with every restaurant. She looked at the paintings hanging on the walls. Some were of plants, others of food and some were so abstract she didn't even know where to begin to look for clues of what the painting was supposedly drawing. The walls were painted a warm cream color, the sofas and chairs painted in peach. There was supposedly a second floor to this restaurant which was for large groups of ten or twelve people. She personally had never gone up to the second floor because she always came to either eat alone or with one or two of her friends. There was no need for such big rooms. There was a bar area that was seperated from the main part of the restaurant where it was divided between dining and bar. While waiting for their food, some of the people who fancied a drink could head over to the bar and get themselves one before returning to the dining area to eat.

The ding of the small bell near the small window that was designed for hostesses to pick up ready food sounded and soon she would see that her Caesar salad was ready. The salad was bigger than she thought and when she looked at her dish, she was surprised that she found an extra mound of cheese. She had only asked for a little bit extra and they had gone ahead and she got a mound, which was good. She craved cheese after all. She smiled at the hostess as she set down the plate and told her to enjoy her food. Nodding her head, she would begin to eat her salad, a very good salad that the chef had made. For a Caesar salad production this was heavenly. She didn't regret choosing to dine here tonight.

flashback

He would nod his head and then bow to her, thanking her for the help she was willing to offer. She assured that it was nothing and promised him that she would return to his restaurant before midnight that evening with the mission complete. What she was missing now was the envelopes containing the money. She would have to first make a trip to the mission board in the Yukikage Tower to have her mission slip officially approved and stamped by the receptionist before she could actually carry out the mission. That meant that she would have to go now since the receptionist wasn't at the tower all day. She needed to go home too. Checking the clock on the wall of the man's office, she had exactly three minutes to get there. With her running speed, it was close to impossible. Bowing swiftly as an exit, she would take the money from him as well as a written address for her to get to his mother and then put it in the cloak and headed down the stairs. She really didn't have much time to do anything else if she wanted to carry out the mission before tonight was over. She would have to get a move on.

She would be met by a cold waft of air as she exited the restaurant. She knew that the Yukikage Tower was two streets down and three minutes just wasn't enough time. She would have to use the help of Shunshin to get there in the allotted. It was her lucky day her chakra had been active all this time or else she would have had to build up her body's chakra which would waste at least a minute of her time. The chakra though scattered wasn't scattered so that it would take forever to group it to the balls of her feet. Soon she felt the numbness of the streaming of it in her feet and also the wanting of her energy to push past the chakra points. As she ran down the street, her chakra was released simultaneously to power the run. She was going to have to use Shunshin twice at the D rank level to the maximum distance of ten meters per use. In a few seconds she had already reached the end of the first streets and another few seconds would get her to the front of the tower. Her footsteps were brisk as she passed the guards standing at the door and headed straight to the missions section of the first floor.

Good, she had caught the receptionist while she was still here. The blonde haired woman looked up from the magazine she had been reading and glanced at the clock on her desk. ”Well you're a late one aren't you?” Sayuri nodded her head and quickly walked towards the mission board where she scanned the slips for the one she was looking for. Seeing it as the second one on the list, she quickly took it and headed for the receptionist for stamp and approval. Looking at the slip, the woman would tell her that if she couldn't finish this mission before the tower closed for the night, she could take the mission slip with her overnight. It just must be stamped and approved by the restaurant owner indicating that she had completed the mission before midnight. Nodding her head in understanding, she bowed out of the tower and now was headed out the village gates to Yuki no Kuni. Checking her watch again, she had a little more than four hours. Sufficient time was sufficient!

The walk towards the gates wasn't far from the tower at all. In fact it was but a block or so away distance-wise. She veered right as she came out of the tower and headed down the snowy sidewalk towards the gate. The guards at the gate allowed her passage without a word or motion. They had seen her so much in the last couple of days that any inquiry of her need to leave the village was almost nulled. It was always for a mission. Ether that or she was visiting the neighboring towns and needed to exit the gates so that she could get there. There were no other reasons. Exiting the gates she would enter the country. Yuki no Kuni was just a vastland of snow and she knew from experience that the town her client's mother lived was literally at the opposite end of Yukigakure no Sato. It would take a good forty five to an hour walking distance. She hesitated in using shunshin since she had sufficient time to walk. If anything were to happen to delay the trip either to or from the town, she would resort to using the jutsu but for now she was alright.

She would begin walking, knowing that no matter which direction she walked in, it would get her to the destination in the long run. She started by walking straight, to the north direction. The snow was piling high in her path but she had had enough experience with the inches of snow that it made maneuvering around it much easier now than it had been she had first walked out of the village. She tucked her hands into her overcoat pockets and just walked. It was going to be a long stroll after all. The good thing was there was no snowstorm or blizzard or else the one hour trip may as well take two hours. She was determined to finish the mission within the hours allotted for it.

flashback

She would arrive at the entrance of the last town some half an hour later, having felt the lag in movement by the increased amount of black ice embedded in small mountains of snow nearer to her destination. She was now slightly wet from the fall which added to the cold feeling she had already had to deal with in the temperature change between country and village. She was definitely a little tired of having to constantly treat the grounds of Yuki no Kuni like a warzone. She walked through the entrance and immediately noticed the difference between the town and the village. And it wasn't just the obvious size difference that struck her.

The size of this town was one of the smallest. Having been to almost to every town and done a thorough sightseeing adventure at each, she noted that the towns were obviously smaller than Yukigakure no Sato since they were home to the non-shinobi population that couldn't necessarily afford to live in the village. They would conduct their shopping and other needs in the village though in case their town wasn't sufficient for that. She noticed as she walked into this particular setting that she had reached the poorest of the country. Not a lot of people resided here. There wasn't much on the main street that led her through the town. In fact there wasn't much at all. It was a main residential town that had almost no businesses.

She now knew why the restaurant owner had wanted her to deliver the money right away to his mother. The town was barren, save for the small shack sized houses that were grouped together. It was small to the point that there was only one street. From what she could tell of the people who came out of these houses, they weren't peasants but they were not far from that level. She really wondered why nobody had ever asked for the council to do something about this town. But then like the annoying snow out in the country, they probably had a million different reasons to deny funding. She guessed this was also the reason why the town was the farthest from Yukigakure no Sato.

The house which her client's mother lived in was in the middle of the cluster of small houses. It was easy to find as there were only a small number of houses in the clutter anyhow. She would find herself staring at the place with a pitiful eye. She didn't understand why his mother didn't just go to Yukigakure and live with her son since she guessed they couldn't possibly live together in this very confined space. She walked to the front door of the house, the door hinges almost falling off completely and tapped it lighting with her knuckles as though any harder and the whole door would fall down. After a few seconds of waiting, the door would be opened by a frail old lady with dark grey hair.

She was a lot shorter than Sayuri which was of course the case because of her old age. Her face was wrinkled and her eyes were droopy. She could tell that she had probably interrupted the old lady from taking a nap. It was getting late any way and most elderly people took naps or just simply went to bed earlier. The girl gave the woman a bright smile but was met with a suspicious and cold stare. Sayuri had a secret fear of old people because they were normally not what people would assume them to be; old and without a temper. This one certainly had a flare in just the look she gave her, adjusting the bifocals so that she could see clearer.   

flashback

The night sky proved to set a lot more obstacles for Sayuri than she had first thought. Not only was there an added hazard of walking in the snow, but she literally could not see her way past about two feet from her. The night came down quickly, overcoming the sun's rays almost immediately after the sun sets. And now that it was getting closer to midnight, it was even darker than before. In broad daylight she still had problems maneuvering in the inches of snow on the ground, having to take precautionary steps. So the night would be a true obstacle challenge when it was close to impossible to see ahead. There was no way she could make it back to the village gates with just a little over an hour left to go. She would need assistance to get her there. And thankfully, she knew just what she needed.

She noticed that her chakra was still active from the shunshin jutsu she had used before. The chakra had not moved since she had last called on it to release to the balls of her feet. She had originally planned to use this jutsu again because it added speed; much faster speed that would allow her to get back to the village in less than ten minutes. Such was the power of an enhanced chakra run. And this was especially the case now that her vision became impaired due to the night fall. She would ready herself and run across the snow, her feet carrying her as fast she could with her normal speed and then using her chakra, she would power the run with the speed that was faster than lightning. When she had first learned this jutsu, she had been awed at the way it was used and knew that she would be using it for awhile to come.

She made haste for the village, first going in the left direction as she had come from the right, traveling eastward past the long line of towns. This would take no more than a few minutes because her chakra had done most of the work. There would be chakra drain though that would be felt the second she stopped releasing it from the chakra points in her feet. As the chakra was retracted, she would then skid to a sudden stop, almost falling face first into the snow again as her foot slipped on yet another piece of black ice. Black ice certainly didn't like her very much she noted. She would then veer her direction to the south, traveling approximately another five minutes or so before she would finally get to the gates.

The power of shunshin was quite evident as the village gates slowly came into view. She noticed that the gate patrols and guards had been changed to the night time shift. How difficult it must be for them to hold graveyard shifts out here in the cold. If it was less cold in these bone-chilling temperatures, she would have guessed it would be somewhat easier for them. But the fact that they would have to face the cold as well as any snowstorms that raged during the night was quite deserving of some sympathy as she knew snowstorms tended to rage during the hours that she would be fast asleep in the comforts of her own bed. She wondered when the next snowstorm would hit; hopefully not any time soon.

The guards looked at her quizzically as she moved closer to them. They had probably seen her walking slowly before she had used the shunshin jutsu twice to get to where she was at now. Because they weren't familiar with who she was, she flashed the mission slip and her Yuki headband to show that she was no some intruder wanting entrance into the village. Satisfied at the evidence she had shown them, they would allow her passage into the village gates. Good, now she had over half an hour which was sufficient time for her to get back to the restaurant owner.

Sayuri would wake up with a start, a little surprised for a moment that it sort of mirrored Yuki no Kuni. It would take a few before she would remember that she was in Tetsu no Kuni and had only fallen asleep while sitting against tree. Sighing, she would get up from where she was sitting and brush off the snow on her clothes. She may have to find a place to stay for at least the rest of the night. Her companion had left on his own little adventures and she was going to have to wait on him for his return. They had come together and she wasn't going to leave without him. Like her, he couldn't remember anything about his past, just his name and it was just not safe to leave him around in a country on his own. She was going to take him to Kaminari no Kuni.

She began walking towards the shoreline again, looking out at the waters and then giving a sigh. She really wanted to stay here but didn't know if she could possibly being at a place that reminded her so much of home but then realizing that it wasn't her home. She took a step forward, her eyes staring blankly at the ocean waters. Ren wasn't there yet as she knew that perhaps he was still trying to find himself a boat from his friend. Her silver lobes took in the glistening liquid, her frail body absorbing the impact of the chilling air that was now washing over her. She then realized she was still wearing the coat Shizuka had given her while they were coming to the country. It was why she felt unusually warm even under such harsh weather conditions.

And it made her uneasy. as warmth had slowly become uneasy over the years. Even though she had lived in the tow for such a long time and had not been trudging in chills that could mirror that of her home village, warmth still made her uncomfortable. And it wasn't just because it was the difference between temperatures that made her uneasy. The fact that she was deprived of the only physical feeling that she still had with her country, the only thing she remembered when she woke up in the town that could tie her to her past had disappeared. And as more of her memory came back, so did her search for snow. But the little town never snowed. So it made her feel homesick--

She took off the coat and placed it on the ground, neatly folding it so that if Shizuka was to walk on these snowy grounds again at some point in the near future, he would be able to pick it up again. The bone chilling weather overcame her completely and she shivered, closing her eyes. She would stand there for what seem like an eternity, having the icy air come over her in constant streams. She was freezing, her pale skin losing of all color on her face, her fingernails beginning to turn a bluish-purple color. But she would stand there and not move. Her eyes still closed, her frame was turned towards the ocean. She was not sure why she needed so much to be cold.

As the coldness began to feel painful against her skin, she would cross her arms. In this kind of weather and with her current attire, she was really trying to freeze to death. No matter how much she thought about it, she still hated herself for not being able to recall any of the details of her time as a Yuki genin. She did recall it through dreams which only managed to recall her memories but not the feeling. She couldn't remember when she had been truly happy or what she was doing then to render the happiness. It was as though someone was only playing a movie back for her in her mind. None of the memories connected with emotion--