[Arai Shimako]

Receiving a letter from the crimson tyrant of the forest really had been quite unexpected. While Shimako was a social person, she had never bothered herself much with the affairs of other villages or the people from them, except for when she had need to fight them. Sunagakure was the village that had saved her dear friend and her loyalties rested primarily with it, and even then only tangentially. As a sage, her true loyalty was and always would be to the hawks and to nature itself. Sungakure had simply never given her reason to distrust them.

Still, an offer to train with such a decorated shinobi was too good an opportunity to pass up! Not to mention that it would be terribly rude. Shimako sent her own letter in return, agreeing to the meeting and setting the location in a relatively empty stretch of desert north of Sungakure, so that Uzumaki Kurei would not have to travel the full distance through the disorienting, shifting sands. It was better to take such unofficial meetings away from the hidden village anyways.

Out in the sands, Shimako waited, already perched upon one of her puppets. Noh Mai in particular, a massive metal puppet that looked not unlike a praying mantis. It would make her a landmark all her own, allowing the leaf shinobi to find her without difficulty even in a place as featureless as a desert. Shimako rarely appeared on the field outside her puppets, so she was just keeping the tradition alive standing atop it.

She wore a set of reddish robes which partially covered her face except for her eyes, all as protection against the elements, as well as black face paint around her eyes to keep the sun from reflecting into them. Not the most fashionable look possible, to her chagrin, but it helped to disguise her appearance well enough! Being showy was for her home village.