The sound of silence filled the cold, morning air. A light fog obscured visibility and the odd droplet of water could be seen lingering on a surface here and there, signifying that it had rained recently. It didn't rain often in the village. A more suspicious individual could regard that as a bad omen.

Norio was sleepy as always, long, unhindered yawns escaping his gob as he walked through the empty streets. The sun was still asleep, much like he would have liked to be, but some of its rays were spreading lazily across the ground, lighting his way through the fog. Though he couldn't stop himself from trying to break his jaw with every wide opening of his trap, the boy walked purposefully and made fast progress, as if sliding swiftly across the floor like a ghost.

Finally, he arrived at the gates, first to be there. The guards looked up at him suspiciously, but they had already been alerted that he would be coming and that two others would be with him. He was however early, hence the surprise of his superiors.

The youth had been debriefed the night before. His father was the chosen bearer of the news, which was perhaps the worst possible way in which the village could have given him the task they had given him. Frankly the boy was a little surprised. He had been moaning and complaining about the lack of challenge which most of the missions he went on involved, but this seemed like a very over the top reaction from the administration (or perhaps his clan). He liked the difficulty of it, sure, but what was expected of him and his team was perhaps a little too much.

The debriefing was short and sweet. The objective was clear, but the reasoning behind why he and the other two shinobi were chosen, and how they were supposed to proceed, was not clear at all. In fact other than specify that the team should meet at the gate, there was little else to be found out. Two names were given and the first, the boy recognised immediately. Inzeipoop! The other, he was not familiar with. It was inevitable that the golden freak would try to take lead on this mission, and Norio would likely have to put up with it. Of course, that is, if he didn't kill the young genin first. Sigh.

The boy would sit himself down by the gate, having produced a small book from his pocket; it would have to entertain him until his team-mates arrived. His figure was adorned by a long dark green cloak that one could say was too big for him (it indeed was, resting awkwardly on the ground around him). It came attached with a hood, which was down for the time being, allowing his messy white hair to show. Under this, he was wearing a grey long sleeved top and dark grey pants, to fit the top secret-y nature of this mission. His genin kit was present of course, as were all his puppet scrolls.

He used a piece of paper, with small short hand notes on the upcoming mission, as a bookmark. Hakuren Bakuho. Med Nin. Reincarnation (question mark). Alive corpses: look like us. Unpredictable. LofRain. Former Ame.   

The boy had waited for over an hour and yet there was no sign of his teammates. He was beginning to wonder if anyone was coming in the first place. The mission had been given to him in utmost secrecy, or at least, his father had stressed as much, spouting nonsense about "hidden dossiers" and "how this would be a career changer" for the boy. It seemed odd then that three individual genin, with no real prior knowledge of each, would be informed separately and tasked with completing it. Sending just one genin on a suicide mission seemed far more appropriate; sending an actual shinobi team sounded even better. Still. He couldn't question the logic of all this now, even if the challenge ahead of him sounded awfully like punishment or a test... but a test of what?

The waiting time had a clear toll on the boy. At first, his foot started to tap impatiently. He would look up from his book every few seconds, in hopes of spotting a figure or two walking in his direction. His finger would start tapping on the binding of the tome and he would lose track of the page he was on or what he had just read, his mind instead occupied by increasingly worried and annoyed thoughts. The guards, who had previously noted his early arrival, were also a little agitated by the clear visual lack of his teammates. Good. At least he wasn't the only one.

It wasn't like the test seemed too much for him to tackle alone. The youth was simply following orders... for a few more minutes. If a team was set up for the purpose of tackling this dangerous mission, then it was foolish not to make use of your team-mates. Heading alone into a foreign country, with just your own abilities and a few shinobi tools at hand, was far from perfect. But, as the sun grew more active in the sky and the fog lifted, the boy was becoming more and more convinced that no one else was coming and going solo was his only choice.

He got up, stretched, placed the book back in his pocket. A yawn escaped him, but it lacked the magnitude and power of its predecessors. The youth looked more awake, more focused, and more agitated, as his eyes darted around him, in a last-ditched effort to locate his team-mates. But no such luck.

He came up to the guards, to be handed a backpack with some basic provisions. Some food, money, a compass and map of the Rain Country, water and Military Rations pills to keep him awake and invigorated over the long journey he would have to make on foot as fast as possible.  

"Thanks" he muttered absent-mindedly, as some last-minute wisdom was imparted on him. The words were white noise to him, for his mind had already focused on the mission ahead. "Tell my teammates that I've gone ahead" he asked the guards, as he handed over his forehead protector. He wouldn't want to be identified where he was going.

Norio broke into a run the moment he was out of the gate. He knew the direction in which he had to head. Frankly, he had dreamed of going there since he had first arrived in Kumogakure, but today was not the day for reminiscing about the past and for nostalgia. Once he crossed into the Snow Country, he would have to make his way to the Hot Springs, then through Rice, which brought him to the potentially most dangerous part of his journey - cutting across the Fire Country. This would be the slowest portion of his adventure. He wouldn't want to attract too much attention, so the use of roads and maybe even horses would be preferable, over cutting his way through the wildlife like was planning to do in the first three countries he passed. The last thing he needed was to be caught by curious Konoha shinobi.

As the youth rushed down the road, a shadow fell over him. It was avian and huge, unlike any actual birds. The boy looked up immediately, seeing what looked like a big plastic hawk... plastic, or maybe something else? The boy's irises transformed, the veins around the eye popping out in an ugly fashion. He hadn't see this kind of "thing" before, but was safe in the knowledge that it had come from the village. Still, he was curious as to what the creature was.

Sure enough, it wasn't alive, just like he had guessed, though he could not identify the material with his Byakugan alone. There was however something atop of the bird that drew his attention away from the bird itself - it seemed like the golden freak himself was commanding the creature. Inzeipoop didn't seem aware of Norio running below him. In fact, he didn't seem like he was paying attention to anything but the journey ahead...

Indeed it took only a few seconds for the bird to rush past the boy and there was nothing to say that Inzeipoop had any intention of meeting up with the white-haired puppeteer (or that he was even aware that the genin was actually accompanying him). The boy looked incredulously at the creature and its owner from below. What sort of king abandoned his people? "I guess I will see him when I arrive" the boy thought to himself, as he intuitively increased his speed in vein hopes of racing the creature.

He would dog the fake-hawk for a while, but eventually, nature would get in the way of following it closely. The boy would stick to roads for the time being, as there was only really one road from Kumogakure to anywhere and that was to the Snow Country. It was as straight as it could be, and running on it was faster than trying to pirouette and parkour his way through forests and around mountains.

A long journey was ahead of him.

[Topic Exit]