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A pale skinned ninja with large black eyes sat at a the edge of a lake scribbling fervently into his journal while staring off across the lake at a team of young shinobi who were practicing chakra control by running drills on the surface of the lake. His face was placid but his eyes shone with enthusiasm at the team as the went about their work shouting at one another. The familiar sound of heavy boot steps were soon heard from behind and immediately the young shinobi knew who was coming but before a formal greeting could be given the rough voice called. "You know, you spend all your time drawing picture and writing you're going to look back on your life and wonder why you never went out and did anything fun!"

Kiyoshi leaned over his shoulder placing a gloved hand on his friend's shoulder as both his eyes scanned across the images his friend had drawn. They seemed hauntingly more vivid that life itself, but familiar in that Kiyoshi had seen his friend's work many times before. But something in today's venue pulled his attention in so powerfully he couldn't hear Chen's words as he replied. He merely stared in awe at the center piece of the art, a girl with red hair that were drawn to look like fire in a perfect stillness. Her eyes showed uncertainty in her pose mid parry against one of her team mates. After sometime Kiyoshi glanced back from the art to the scene on the lake and wasn't surprised that the art, while exaggerated, was spot on.

The team on the lake now were collecting around their sensei after the exercise and conversing but out of Kiyoshi's earshot. Instead he closed his eyes and gave his head a shake before turning to Chen, "I'm sorry Chen what were you saying? Something about your art today captivated me today." He smiled down at Chen. Chen was a fellow clan member, but unlike Kiyoshi he had a different set of skills and abilities specific to his art.

"Well good! I would hope some of my new works are doing their job. I'm trying a new ink that uses visual sensory to instill Genjutsu traps, so far though this hasn't worked on anyone but you though. I'll have to take it back to the shop with us later and we can see if anyone else gets anything from it."

SPOILER: Click to show

Akane
(her)

Shinji
(Best friend and long time partner of Kiyoshi Tenzo)

"Ah, Yokumaru the Commander himself," Kiyoshi muttered from behind his collar as he closed his eye furrowed his brows in silent concentration a moment before seeing the world around him in chakra. The commander's chakra was strong indeed, even the young lady sitting beside him seemed to have a formidable strength about her. Kiyoshi smiled opening his crimson eye and looking directly at Yoku maru before he continued, "I'm sorry I'm just exhausted, I was up all night and I've only just gotten around to finding a place to eat. I'll be much better once I've had something to drink. So tell me, are you and this pretty girl here on a date that I've callously imposed upon or is she one of the shinobi you work with?"

Effectively shifting the attention from himself slightly Kiyoshi reclined in his seat tipping backwards a little before nonchalantly snatching a cup abandoned by an ignorant patron of the bakery. Pulling it up he gave the drink a quick sniff recognizing it as tea that had turned lukewarm. A gentle heat radiated from Kiyoshi's fingers through the cup and the dark liquid in an undetectable manner and within seconds his cup of tea had heated up to a more appropriate temperature. He sipped the drink casually leaning forward again to listen intently to his company for the morning.

The familiar odors of food wafted throughout the restaurant but distinguishable to Kiyoshi was the smell of stew at the ready. He smiled knowingly as they talked and soon enough the waiter had returned and began placing their respective meals before them. "Well, right on time..." Kiyoshi began before trailing off into indistinguishable mutterings as he leaned over his and stirred the contents slowly before taking a steaming spoon of the stew into his mouth without hesitation.

Tension and curiosity could be felt throughout the room as Taiga sat down to begin the negotiations. A small murmuring carried throughout the crowd of miscreants from the boy beginning the negotiations rather than the elder of the two. Kiyoshi couldn't manage to hide a smirk at their confusion. Unlike these people he was almost positive Taiga could handle this. As their conversation progressed it became clear the leader had some bias against this pair working as messengers and felt that he was worthy of speaking to the Mizukage for something as trivial as a small security look out? It was nonsense but Kiyoshi remained silent and watched on as Taiga continued confidently presenting one or two well reasoned points and arguments to the leader.

Tension climbed in the room but took a turn for the better when the leader accepted and spat on the floor. Quaint. Taiga handed over some papers that explained what these men would be doing and with that Taiga turned and approached Kiyoshi. "Went perfectly you mean," Kiyoshi whispered back before turning back and following after his partner towards the door and outside into the fresh air. They began to begin the walk back and the lingering odor clinging to their clothes deteriorated swiftly in the gently blowing wind. Once they had some distance between them and the Gulch Kiyoshi broke the silence, "You handled that well, Taiga but I'm afraid there's a side effect to your perfection that you may not like so much. We're going to have to go on a mission again soon with a bit higher stakes and stress so I can see how you do in those circumstances."

Kiyoshi looked down to Taiga and smiled warmly, "After all my curiosity is sparked to see just how impressive you really are. I have my suspicions that there's far more to you than meets the eye, and I'm anxious to find out what that is." Kiyoshi held out his outstretched hand again to the boy, "Is that alright with you partner? And of course you as well..." Kiyoshi added with a slight nod to Shirohime noting the animal's stake in Taiga's life and choices.

"A few ideas, nothing I've decided on yet though..." Kiyoshi could see the silhouette of the Gulch looming out of the mist shortly ahead. "I figure we do this by the book though, start it out nice and diplomatic y'know? If they place nice we play nice. But..." Kiyoshi paused noticing a sentry ahead as he mumbled under his breath darkly and standing up straighter so his mouth was concealed from view by his high collar before speaking up audibly again but quieter now so only Taiga could hear. "But if they wanna just be big scary thugs, we just have to play their games and beat them at it I guess."

As they approached closer the sentry became more clear through the mist and he stepped out to meet them drawing a cutlass from his side and holding it at the ready before barking, "Who's there? The hell do you want?" He had a jagged scar that ran from his cheek bone to his jaw line, tattered and worn clothes and his breath wreaked of cheap alcohol. As he eyed the trio he began laughing hard and stumbling to his side to a tree for support, it wasn't hard to tell he was drunk. "Hahahaha sir, you can't take your son and his dog for a walk around these parts! It's a dangerous place," he stood up from the tree again holding his blade tightly and moving in closer on the two grunting, "if you give me your valuables now and turn around you can leave here unhar-"

SMACK! The back of Kiyoshi's gauntlet struck hard across the man's face sending him teetering back face first into the tree. Catching a drunk off guard wasn't very difficult work, but now Kiyoshi's voice grumbled down menacingly and deadly calm at the drunken oaf. "We didn't come to see you, insolent cur," the transformation was now complete. Kiyoshi had gone from friendly and outgoing to annoyed, hostile, and about three inches from total chaos. The bottle the man had been drinking from had fallen to the ground and now rolled towards their feet. "You're master is expecting this young man as an honored guest! Did he not tell you or have you simply had to much of the sauce to do this simple job?!" CRASH! Kiyoshi brought the heel of his heavy boot down shattering the bottle beneath their sturdy soles. "You have fifteen seconds to get your act together and lead us to him!"

The man stumbled and hurried wiping drool and a few drunken tears from his face before getting up and leading the way! "You smell putrid, stay far enough ahead that we don't have to waft your sickening odor or I swear to god I will find a decorative use for your spinal column!" The man took hurried steps forward giving space to the company and tripping slightly as he did. With him now out of ear shot Kiyoshi leaned down towards Taiga mumbling darkly still unable to shake the tone from his voice, "I'm a little worked up right now, you think you can try and handle the diplomatic side of this when we meet whoever's in charge? I'll just stand behind you and back you up if you need it. Sound good?"

"You've never traveled? Never left the country?" Kiyoshi folded the book gently on his thumb to mark his place lowering it to look at the Taiga. He outstretched his other hand to help the boy to his feet but made no mention of the stumble. "Traveling is one of the things in this world everyone should do. Sooner rather than later. Don't hold yourself back from it waiting for an excuse to leave, Taiga. Go on an adventure." Kiyoshi began tapping his small book against his chest thoughtfully as he continued, "I mean, always stay true and faithful to your home and don't just abandon them. But the world's a big place and an even bigger audience! The world loves stories and if you've got the grit for it why not go write your own? Figuratively of course, I don't need another writer to compete with in the market as it is."

They began walking again and Kiyoshi began musing over some thoughts about the boy more and more. He seemed rather innocent and... tolerable as far as company went, which perplexed even Kiyoshi. Normally Kiyoshi was driven to dark and angry rantings like a lunatic around most but for some reason the boy didn't have that affect on him. It was as if his innocent and child like nature excused him from the harsh radical judgments Kiyoshi analyzed most with. An odd thing to find a good friend in one so small. But perhaps there was opportunity in this for both Kiyoshi and the boy, but things still needed to be seen before Kiyoshi began preparing any hasty plans.

The book raised Kiyoshi again and the soft crinkle of paper sounded the turning of the page to something fresh. On this page he scrawled rapidly scratching down a multitude of words. This time they weren't ideas but places of interest he had been or had always wanted to go. The ones he had yet to see were circled in a group on their own while the rest were merely tagged with short descriptions of the wonders to be found there. Among the places he had been were, The rains of Ame, The forest of the fire country, The desert of the Wind Country, and the small heavenly haven known as the Wave country. Among the places he still wanted to see were the Lightning, Earth, and Tea countries. He smiled reviewing the list happy that he had at least done quite a bit of the travelling he had wanted to do when he was younger.

Kiyoshi chuckled softly. "My story? Oh I'm sure there's a few bits here and there that would be worth mentioning," he mused before bringing his laughing to a sudden halt and fixing the boy with a cold stern glare waiting for him to look back up from the scroll. Holding the gaze for a moment of uncomfortable silence before he continue in a dark serious tone, "but if I told you that, I'd have to kill you..." Moments of silence followed before the corner of his lip curled up just before Kiyoshi nearly exploded with jovial laughter. After he stopped laughing, this time with a smile he answered the question somewhat more geniunely, "Ha ha ha. My life's been slow. I mean, I've seen so many things in what time I've had but I can't really say I've done all that much with it. Probably the reason I'm the only one in my family still alive though, we were all a bunch of hot heads getting into more trouble than we could handle..."

Family. The large man smiled affectionately as he looked ahead at Shirohime's activities while thinking back on his own family. The hound was treated like a family member? It was no wonder the she seemed so happy and faithful towards Taiga. Now if Shirohime looked after Taiga, then surely that freed Taiga up to look after this old man. "Do you have any family besides Shirohime? I have to imagine you do, since I don't know how someone so young could be living alone with no one around all the time...." Kiyoshi asked cheerily before realizing the answer to the question could be far more macabre than anticipated if he wasn't careful.

Looking forward avoiding Taiga's eyes he reached into his robe before withdrawing a small book with his hand that had hung slack from his robe until now. Opening it to the freshest blank page he began to write down some foot notes for ideas he had already today. There weren't many but perhaps he could stretch them out yet? Or maybe the day was too young for the ideas to fully form. Kiyoshi frowned realizing that neither of those were the case, he simply didn't have the inspiration to develop the ideas yet.

Kiyoshi stood in an isolated corner reviewing the available missions in the compound for the day, his eye darting across various scrolls for something of interest. The missions held little appeal to the shinobi as he closed his eye scratched the side of his head frustratedly and mumbled, "Just another day in purgatory I suppose." He resolved to merely strike out his hand and grab any mission at random with his eye still closed but just before he moved he felt a gentle tug on the vacant sleeve hanging from his left shoulder.

Turning, Kiyoshi found himself looking at the receptionist of the compound who held forth the scroll with a warm smile. "You look a little more frustrated than usual Kiyoshi. I was holding on to this assignment for another shinobi but perhaps you can join him on it. Although he is somewhat younger than you, it is still a little more interesting than anything else you'll find here today."

Kiyoshi looked down at the receptionist flashing a brief polite smile and bobbing his head, "Thank you. I doubt age will be a problem since most shinobi seem to be younger than me these days..." Kiyoshi turned his head looking about the room at the collection of kids all around him mumbling darkly to himself for a second before turning back to the receptionist and against flashing his smile, "Where can I find him?"

The receptionist snickered quietly at Kiyoshi's peculiar behavior before quick stifling as his head turned back. "He'll be in at any given minute. You can come have a seat if you like while you wait and review the assignment. When he comes in I'll let you know and you can both get started together." Kiyoshi mumbled a quiet thank you and followed quietly after the receptionist before pulling a chair up behind his desk and rocking back to recline against the wall before he opened and read the scroll quietly.