[hirana kizumi]

A HEART'S A HEAVY BURDEN

Kizumi had received an… interesting letter. From Toshi, so she didn’t doubt its sincerity, but the contents still gave her pause. He asked Kizumi for a meeting with him… and with a wanted Ryuujin fugitive, a woman who had murdered an investigator, a council member, and had set fire to a number of investigative case files before fleeing the country. They had never recovered the information she burned, though rumor was that it pertained to the perpetrator of the plague. Toshi vouched for her innocence. Kizumi was doubtful, but her old sensei had more than earned the suspension of her disbelief. He requested that they meet in Mountain Country; Kizumi acquiesced. At least two of her bodyguards were not far behind, though Kizumi preferred to enter the meeting alone; it seemed disrespectful to Toshi to bring an armed guard into a peaceful discussion. The three would meet at a teahouse in Mountain Country, and Kizumi was the last to arrive: she knocked politely, then entered the room. She wasn’t visibly armed, though Toshi knew her well enough to understand that all she needed was the leather straps on her wrists to summon a weapon to hand. "Hirana Kizumi,” she said by way of introduction, offering a short bow in greeting to both her sensei and this Invisible Saber. "Thank you for meeting with me.”

Ryuujin Shiina Hatake Toshizō -- 224

LAIKA OF THQ

[Hatake Toshizō]

"back to the fold". "A man who can't uphold his beliefs is pathetic, dead or alive." MEET AND GREET After sending word to Kizumi and receiving her reply accepting to meet with them, Toshizou would guide Shiina to the Mountain Country. They chose a remote town, with a simple inn to stay. They didn't want to draw a lot of attention, considering how delicate this matter was. While waiting there, he would try and reassure Shiina things would be okay, and that he trusted Kizumi. "The new Raikage is a great leader. She has a good head above her shoulders, and I'm sure she will at least listen to your side of the story. So... Be open with her, and earnest, like you were with me. I will... For her sake, use my abilities and tell her whether you are lying or not, like I did before." he spoke to the missing-nin, hoping that this would help ease her concerns regarding the meeting. When Kizumi was finally near, he would notice that in advance thanks to the Mind's Eye of the Kagura, and he would inform Shiina of that, so that they could sit at the table and wait. He neglected to mention the guards, as they seemed to be stationed a fair distance from the teahouse/inn they were in, and then, after a short time passed, Kizumi was close enough to the door. "She is here." he informed Shiina shortly before the Raikage could knock. Toshizou quickly opened the door to let her in. "Kizumi-sama, thank you for responding to my letter so quickly, and for making all the way to this place." he responded, with a proper bow, one meant for the few people who held Kizumi's position. "Please, take a sit." and the sit he offered was across the table from Shiina, while he was sitting on the side, between the two of them. "You can train a dog with food. You can buy a person with money. But there isn't a man alive that can put down the Will of Fire. Some things will never change. The Will of Fire will never be extinguished" Mountain Country Teahouse's room [hirana kizumi Ryuujin Shiina] [305 words]

[Ryuujin Shiina]

In the city of fools, I was careful and cool but they tore me apart like a hurricane.

TAG - Hatake Toshizō && hirana kizumi



NOTES -

How ironic that the meeting place for the three of them was to be in that of a teahouse. Or perhaps it was the most logical, given the circumstances. Shiina was not afraid of meeting the Raikage, even though she had doubts of her own of this new leader's capabilities. The Raikage she had known that had ruled over Kumogakure once upon a time was not one to be taken lightly, and even then her innocence had not been able to be cleared. The purple-haired woman was in her own right allowed to have the skepticism that she had for this new person, although she gave her the benefit of the doubt because of Toshizou. If he could vouch for her, then she was perhaps not such a bad person or of character after all.

The woman simply nodded her head at what the man told her, aware of how the meeting would and should take place. She was still a missing nin after all, and under no circumstances should this meeting be regarded lightly. It was not an everyday occurrence that a missing nin was allowed to meet with their Kage, especially the Kage of the village she had become a nukenin of. Shiina felt forever indebted to Toshizou, despite the closeness of relationship they shared. It was one thing to hold a person to high regard, to hold them with a special position in your heart, but another to try and clear that person's name, especially under such circumstances. There was really not reason for the man to believe her, even if he had used his ability to see through whether she had lied to him or not, and the truth of the matter was, she hadn't expected him to extend such a hand to this issue that had plagued her for so many years.

At the announcement of the other woman's arrival, Shiina would rise from her seated position, bowing to the new Raikage as she entered the room. From the brief moment her eyes rested on the other, she couldn't tell of anything about her, other than the fact that she seemed to have the air of a kage, if that made any sense at all. She bowed again as the woman introduced herself to be Kizumi and glanced at Toshizou as he spoke. He seemed to always be so respectful that if was a little off-putting to her at times, the formalities having not been extended to Shiina herself. Not that she minded, of course, but it was always a little strange to hear him speak this way. The woman preferred to stay quiet while they all took a seat, knowing that formalities such as introductions were not needed. Instead, she simply eyed the woman in front of her in silence, wondering how this meeting would pan out.

MADE BY MIZO

[hirana kizumi]

A HEART'S A HEAVY BURDEN

Drop the -sama nonsense, was the first thing that instinctually rose to her lips, but Kizumi bit it back—while she preferred being casual, and it was all fine and well to do so in private, it probably wouldn’t be wise to undermine her own authority with a fugitive in the room. It didn’t mean she couldn’t be cordial, but the situation did call for a certain degree of formality, she supposed, regardless of how it itched at the back of her brain to be addressed so formally by her mentor. "Of course,” she said, and took her seat, directly across the table from the nuke-nin. "I appreciate you bringing the situation to my attention.” The woman hadn’t yet spoken, and Toshi hadn’t introduced her. Despite what she knew—or thought she knew, apparently—about her, it seemed unnecessarily disrespectful to talk about her as if she weren’t there, so she addressed the woman directly. "Ryuujin Shiina, right?” she asked, crossing one leg over the other. Her mouth quirked, a small grin tugging up at the corner. "I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but these are unusual circumstances. A nuke-nin, a councilman, and a kage walk into a teahouse—there’s a joke in there somewhere.” A light attempt at easing the tension, though gods only knew if it would land. Even a forced chuckle would be something, so long as Kizumi was able to communicate that she wasn’t primed for violence. "Forgive me for skipping the chit-chat, but it’s probably wise to cut to the chase,” she said. "Toshizou-san will be able to tell me if you’re lying, and I trust his judgment and perception implicitly. With that in mind, I would like to ask you to share your story with me—and I will keep an open mind, though I may have some questions.”

Ryuujin Shiina Hatake Toshizō -- 302

LAIKA OF THQ

[Hatake Toshizō]

"back to the fold". "A man who can't uphold his beliefs is pathetic, dead or alive." KAGURA MIND'S EYE Toshizou nodded, remaining quiet as Kizumi started addressing Shiina. He had informed her of her name in the letter, as he wanted the Raikage to come prepared to ask her all necessary questions so that they could hopefully define a way in which she could prove herself to the village. Toshi did chuckle a bit when Kizumi mentioned a joke, as it did well to light the tension, at least in regards to the Hatake. After that little joke, she went straight to the matter, and when Kizumi mentioned that Toshizou could identify a lie, he would confirm it. Once Kizumi was done, he would look back at Shiina. "Go on, speak freely. You already told me the story. I will do exactly what I did before. Let's put all cards on the table." he told the Ryujin, hoping to ease any concern she had. Toshizou had his Mind's Eye open and ready to detect any fluctuation in Shiina's emotion, so that he could tell Kizumi - as they talked - if anything she said was far from the truth, but with minor interference to the story. Of course he didn't expect that her truth would be able to solve all situation; what he hoped for was that it would open a reasonable path for redemption, one he was more than happy to contribute to, if his services were needed. "You can train a dog with food. You can buy a person with money. But there isn't a man alive that can put down the Will of Fire. Some things will never change. The Will of Fire will never be extinguished" Mountain Country Toshizou opens his mind's eye [Ryuujin Shiina hirana kizumi] [237 words]

[Ryuujin Shiina]

In the city of fools, I was careful and cool but they tore me apart like a hurricane.

TAG - Hatake Toshizō && hirana kizumi



NOTES -

To say that she was guarded at first, especially with the way Kizumi displayed herself, was not really a stretch. Of course, the woman was quite polite, although it was not unknown to the Ryuujin that there were gaps from what she said and how she moved that wasn't something that she could debunk within a few minutes of interaction. She decided to let it go for the time being for, as she reminded herself, there much more pressing matters at hand for this meeting. She nodded her head at the Raikage's words, and once again at Toshizou's urging, all the while taking a couple of minutes to formulate her thoughts into comprehensible words.

"Perhaps I should start from the very beginning..." the woman took in a small breath, shifting her gaze from Toshizou to Kizumi. "I will preface that I am in no way evading the obvious blame that I was indeed responsible for the death of a council members and his people. It was what was needed to be done and I hold myself fully responsible for the action itself." She cleared her throat, the gaze never faltering from the Raikage's face as she continued. "While I understand that perhaps it was before your time in office, I do believe that the death of a particularly high ranking member of the Ryuujin clan would not be news unfamiliar to you, Hirana-dono..." she had deliberately chosen the honorific, instead of calling her by her rank. "That person was my father."

At the mention of her father her expression flickered to a more pained one, her eyes telling of a story that her words couldn't. "To this day, I still do not know what happened to him, nor why, and for the longest time after his death, I had been investigating on my own accord. I firmly believed there was foul play involved, and that it extended much higher than those who were with or who were at the same level as my father." She took in another breath, closing her eyes momentarily as she continued. "I was unable to find much about what had happened that led to his eventual death, and would have continued to investigate had the plague not happened."

Another sore subject that brought floods of emotion into her heart. She knew that if she opened her eyes then to look at either of the two, she wouldn't be able to contain the sadness and pain that she had so carefully tried to ignore for the many years she had been a nukenin. "The plague came in a ferocity that took a lot of lives, some of whom were dear to me. My mother died in the plague, and some of my closest friends." Shiina's voice shook a little. "To say that I was responsible for it was absurd, and even more absurd that the Kage at the time would believe in the words of the council. I understand that my personality back in the day was one that wasn't welcomed within the shinobi world, but not to the point that such accusations could be made about me..."

And that was when she opened her eyes, the anger that had consumed her when she had first been incriminated once more in her eyes. "I did not take lightly to being accused, to being told that there was evidence against me that I had started the plague which took half my family. But no matter how much I pleaded my innocence, it had fallen to deaf ears..." her voice trailed and for a long moment there was silence. "And so, I took it upon myself to take action, to prove to the people of Kumo that if I willed myself to do something, I would do it with pride and that I would make it obvious that I was the one to blame."

MADE BY MIZO

[hirana kizumi]

A HEART'S A HEAVY BURDEN

Kizumi, as she promised, kept her peace and listened with an open mind. She held Shiina’s gaze, keeping her expression as neutral as possible, even with the series of… interesting revelations that Shiina laid at her feet. That she admitted upfront to her crime was, maybe counterintuitively, a point in her favor in Kizumi’s eyes. Honesty was something she valued highly, and forthrightness wasn’t to be taken lightly. The extended context, however… she didn’t know what to think of it. "If I may summarize,” Kizumi said, once Shiina had concluded her tale, "just to be sure that I understand everything correctly.” Her gaze flickered briefly to Toshi, checking his expression, searching for any hint of… well, anything, in those crimson eyes. "Your father, a notable man amongst the Ryujin, died under suspicious circumstances. You began investigating his death, suspecting higher-ranking shinobi within the village to be responsible, before the—the plague started.” Always, always, always the plague. It never stopped being difficult to talk about. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the weight of it, the enormity of the blame were it to be laid at her feet. So many lives, now nothing but dust. "Some of the council—one man in particular—accused you of starting it. The Raikage at the time… Godaime, right? Believed him. A case was being built against you, so you burnt your bridges, killed the council member accusing you, and ran.” She leaned back in her chair, considering the story. "... Evidence was destroyed in your escape,” she said. "Evidence, warrants, a full case. Nothing was left. If you were innocent, why destroy everything? Why kill the investigator, and all the people he was with at the time?”

Hatake Toshizō Ryuujin Shiina -- 281

LAIKA OF THQ