Red Sky at Night Kiri take Warning [Travel to Sea Country]

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Watching the guard at the village gate made sure the required paperwork to leave the village was in order, Hinamori Toshiro wondered why it was that no matter how frequently something was labeled "urgent" it always seemed to take forever to go through this process. Three hours ago he had been in the section of the Administration building that handled bounties and such, filling in for an acquaintance who was currently getting his hand crushed by his girlfriend who was in labor. That hum-drum routine had been rudely upturned when an ANBU appeared at his side with a burst of smoke, said the Hokage required his presence immediately, and yanked Toshiro along in another Body Flicker that deposited the jounin inside the village leader's office. Without preamble the latest figure to hold the title of the Hidden Leaf's strongest ninja handed the snow-haired jounin his marching orders.

Toshiro was to travel to Sea Country and after meeting the ruler of that minor nation find and put an end to the Kirigakure warships that had been harassing shipping in the area. Simple enough but the inevitable difficulty came in that while this was going on another team of Leaf-nin were simultaneously trying to reach a (somewhat) peaceful end to the Hidden-Mist blockade around Hot Springs Country. If Konoha could be directly linked to the attack on Kirigakure ships that outcome would be an outside chance at best and the team itself could be placed in immediate danger. A team that happened to include someone Toshiro was very close to, so the outcome of this assignment had suddenly become extremely important. If it succeeded the diplomatic team would have some extra leverage to bargain with as ships were pulled off the blockade to make up for the damage inflicted. If it failed though the consequences would be... unpleasant. So it wasn't surprising that an hour after accepting the assignment Toshiro had been packed and ready to go. Of course even packing light so he could travel fast didn't help beat the beast known as bureaucracy, the bane of all shinobi.

Thus it was with a sigh worthy of a long-suffering martyr that Toshiro took back the papers when the chuunin was finished. Then he was off at full speed, the backwash of his exit kicking up a cloud of dust that caused those waiting and just leaving to erupt into fits of coughing. Something Toshiro pretended to be unaware of as he did his best to make up for lost time. It certainly didn't hurt his mood though and added to the almost perfect weather (warm but not searing and sunny with just a few clouds) suggested the possibility that for once the jounin's only problems would happen when he got to his destination. Both the ultimate one of Sea Country and his immediate one of a small port in the gulf that was formed by part of the nations of Fire and Tea. The later he hoped to reach in just a few days then it would be up to Lady Luck to determine how quickly he could get passage on a ship headed to his final destination.

Since so much of the second leg of Toshiro's journey depended on chance the jounin couldn't, and wouldn't, waste time planning it. Instead he just ran in the most direct path he could think of that would take him to the port in the quickest time possible. In a way it felt good to finally be out of the village after weeks of shuffling papers and putting his genin through hell in the form of D-ranks, a few in-village C-ranks, and torture disguised as training. Toshiro was going to enjoy this unplanned vacation from the devil incarnate (aka paperwork) for a while.