[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare found herself doing another of the many missions meant to make the archipelago a new village for the country of Mizu no Kuni. This time around, she actually had someone else to do the mission with, which should allow it to go by that much more swiftly, although this kind of mission wasn't really Homare's strong suit. They were supposed to find out what was going on with the missing children, and return them to the archipelago, which was rapidly being given a nickname of "Neverland". It wasn't really the kind of nickname Homare liked, especially with the kidnappings going on; this was no place for fairies or pirates, especially since this was supposed to be a civilian location, not a military outpost. As it is, the blue-haired kunoichi is standing firmly on the edge of the roads leading through the archipelagos as the small town is slowly being built. It had a few of the most necessary buildings already constructed, but it wasn't fully built just yet. Her lowest arms are holding onto the head of her axe on the right side of her waist and the sheathe of her katana on the left side of her waist. Her middle arms were crossed over her chest, and the highest pair of arms were behind her back. She wore a fairly pretty looking ensemble; a white top with a purple floral pattern over her left shoulder that trailed along the back of her outfit. The sash around her waist made her look slimming while also providing a place for her weapons to stay attached. The dark blue shorts and the matching sleeves over her arms as well as the dark blue ninja tabi on her feet complete her look.

Her pink eyes are open and somewhat listlessly gazing out across the construction of the town, wondering at their hurried scuttling and having little clue about why people would bring their children to a place that isn't even fully constructed yet. Now some of the children were missing, which wasn't usually a good sign. Their mission might have only been a C-rank, but it was exceedingly important not just to Kirigakure, but also to Neverland that they complete the mission successfully. She knows very little about the other shinobi that is meant to take this mission with her, except for his name and a description of his appearance.  Granted, she knows he must be a swordsman because he has a sword, and she knows the famous Hozuki clan well enough, so she has some information about what he can do. She wonders what he might think of her, with her six arms.

SPOILER: Click to show

FAMOUS LAST WORDS
MISSION RANK: C
NPC REQUIREMENT: N/A
PARTICIPANTS: Unassigned
DESCRIPTION:
Ever since the archipelago discovery and the merchants moving in, there have been a series of child kidnappings. Run an investigation, if you can find any kids in the scattered archipelago bring them back, if not make an acute report of what has been found.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

Today's mission was one of those which made Ken understand why he had wanted to become a Shinobi as a child. In his particular case, his parents had died trying to protect him and the rest of the village during the Sanbi's rampage. For him, that had been a reason for him to become a powerful ninja that could protect the village in their stead, feeling that he owed it to them to do so. And when a mission such as this one came around, he truly felt as though his calling as a Shinobi was being brought out into the light. For today's mission had to do with children being abducted by some unknown syndicate, either in the dead of night or in broad daylight. And when children were being targeted, that was when Ken could get rather... upset.

In his eyes, children were meant to be left alone. If the adults had any issues, they should take it out on other adults, or people who could protect themselves. And the way he saw it, kids were neither of those things. While he could only guess as to why people would abduct kids, the likely scenario was that they would use them as hostages to get whatever it was that they wanted, or to use them as a human shield so that no one would come for them at risk of losing the children. Once he arrived at the meeting point, he looked at his fellow genin that was to be undertaking this mission with him. And for a moment, his eyes fell on the fact that she seemingly had more arms than he did, which quickly told him she likely belonged to a certain clan. That was good.

Appearances were among the great many things he did not give an honest to god shit about. He knew some would denounce others based on how they looked, or praise others for the same reasons, though Ken belonged to neither side. He didn't believe that there was any merit that came from looking a certain way. In his eyes, merit came from behavior, from action. So whether someone had two hands or ten, at the end of the day, all he saw was a fellow shinobi working the same case as him. And as it were, if she was going to put all of those hands to good use, he was certain that between his liquification abilities and her spider techniques, they were going to be bringing all of those kids back in no time flat.

"Greetings, i'm Ken. I see you're one of the spider-folk, that ought to come in handy."

Important to point out was, however, that the arm related pun was not intended.

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare turns towards the somewhat odd greeting that she receives from behind her, blinking at the somewhat unintentional pun, but also at being called "one of the spider-folk", but she considers it to certainly be a step-up from being considered some kind of demon or monster or a curse upon the land, so she somewhat brushes it off and greets him as she normally would. Her uppermost right hand reaches up and tucks one of the blue locks of hair behind her ear, although it gradually shifts back to the side of her head as she responds.

"Ken it is then. I'm Homare, and yes, I'm a member of the Mayonaka clan."

She bites back her desire to call herself the princess of the Mayonaka clan, since she'd only ever known her parents to be part of that clan, and she wasn't actually royalty, despite her desire to bring the entire clan together under a single banner once again. Homare turns back towards the village under construction, although it was rapidly coming together, it had still been over a year since this construction had started, and they still weren't done building. She wonders mentally if it will ever be finished, or if these constant set-backs will make people believe the archipelago is haunted or cursed, and therefore become unwilling to venture out to it. It didn't help that it was so far from the ninja village.

"Do you think we should interview the parents and see when their children went missing? Try to find a link that ties all of these disappearances together? It seems like a good idea to me, but if you have a better one, I'd prefer to hear it."

Regardless of his answer, Homare assumes that the first step will still be the small village, so she starts walking towards it now, clearly ready to begin the job and get the children back to safety. Homare's own parents had been killed during the Sanbi rampage, with her only being safe because she had been living with and adoptive family, and friends of her parents, though both of them had retired from the shinobi life when she'd gone to live with them, and they couldn't really train her in the use of her clan's unique jutsu. They had provided her with love, and a home, and a safe place to rest. Homare is more than aware of the meaning of these things for children.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

Investigating the village was likely their best bet for now, or so he thought as he walked after the Mayonaka girl. Running a plethora of different possibilities through his head, it wasn't the worst thing to not be the one leading the pack. That was not to say that he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings or their conversation, it just meant that he could put that much more effort into his thought processes. While it might have felt preemptive, Ken was always trying to think as far ahead as he possibly could, trying to make sense out of issues whether they were present or not. That way, an effort was made at making sure he would not be caught off guard nearly as easily as one normally would.

And while he was still a Genin now that could really only factor in those things he knew about at this point, as he got older and more experienced, he was confident that this ability would end up becoming highly useful. Because in his mind, as he had already established, the only reason why anyone would kidnap a kid was to either use them as a human shield to protect them from any kind of hostility, or to sell them back to the family they had been taken from for a large sum of money. The latter of those only worked if the family said kid had been taken from actually had a sizeable amount of money to their name, or caused the kidnappers to believe that they did.

"Lets speak to the people first. One thing to consider however is the fact that the kidnappers likely already know that we're coming. As far as I know, most kidnappings happen so the 'bad guys' have a human shield to hide behind, ensuring no hostile steps towards them can be taken. But that usually goes for local gangs and criminals that plan on staying put."

Deciding to vocalize his thoughts so his current team member would be able to also 'enjoy' his musings, he hoped that they would not end up having to deal with intelligent kidnappers or worse. Because if they ran into the kind that was intelligent and the one that was more than willing to maim or kill in order to make a point, they would likely be in a lot of trouble. It was highly important that they remained under the radar until it was time for them to strike, or they risked the chance that the kidnappers might kill the child and ditch their plans altogether. Only time would tell which kidnappers they were dealing with.

"The only other angle I see being that whoever kidnapped the child would be after a hefty sum of money, after which they'd likely disappear from the stage entirely. In either case, if we act hastily, they kid might not survive. If they are still alive to begin with, that is."

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare pauses momentarily on the walk towards the small town when Ken brings up the possibility of it actually being a kidnapping, but she returns to her normal pace again immediately, speaking aloud but not looking directly at him, as she's still focused on walking forwards. She does turn her head slightly to let him know that her ear is turned towards him so she can keep up the conversation as they approach the village.

"You're making an early assumption that this is an intentional kidnapping. For all we know, they might have simply become lost, and the town doesn't have enough volunteers to do a thorough search through the wilderness for those same children..."

Homare herself is doubting now that the children had become lost, now. If they didn't have enough volunteers, they could just ask any number of the neighboring small towns for additional volunteers to help them find the missing children. There would be no reason to pay the ninja village for a pair of shinobi to assist in the form of a mission, unless there was a potential for something more foul or dangerous to be at play. She keeps this thought to the back of her mind, however. Regardless of whether or not it was a sensible assumption to make, it was an assumption all the same, and she knows that assumptions don't always pan out to be the truth of what's happened. Once they reach the small town, she explains to the guard at the gate who they are and what their duty here is. They're quickly brought to the leader of the small town, giving them the opportunity to ask her any questions they like.

The kunoichi is quick to ask about when each of the children disappeared or were noticed to be missing, and she finds it somewhat odd that the children all seem to be disappearing near a local wood that is regularly searched and hunted through to ensure there aren't any dangerous animals. This meant to Homare that if the children were still in the forest, they would have been stumbled upon at some point by any of the various hunters that trekked through it. She pauses in her questioning, giving Ken the option to ask his own questions that she might not have considered.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

"You raise a good point, but if people don't have a reason to believe their kid might have been kidnapped, I doubt they would sign it up as one. After all, lying when signing a request for shinobi aid is a punishable offense."

Continuing to follow the girl as they got closer and closer to the village with every step, Ken considered the point raised by Homare. It made sense to factor this much into his reasoning, as excluding the chance of people lying for faster aid might lead them to prepare for something that might not even end up happening. Because in Ken's case, he was entirely prepared and equipped to go into battle in order to reclaim a stolen child. He was trained to be a shinobi, and to be able to kill with relative ease due to the way in which his clan's hijutsu functioned. It was something that he was very much prepared to do if it came down to it, and he honestly wouldn't feel a whole lot about it afterwards, which was something he had come to find out about himself during the academy graduation exams.

"Most of the time when a kid goes missing, people would just run with that. Though you're right about me assuming. Some people might consider lying for the sake of receiving aid more quickly, willingly risking the punishment that comes after."

It seemed like an odd outcome, to risk punishment for lying just to get higher up on the list of missions that needed to be finished on account of being time sensitive. But if this turned out to just be a kid that got lost, it meant that an actual kidnapping reported later might have to take a backseat for a bit until this particular case got handled. In all honesty, Ken just hoped that they were going to have to deal with a kidnapping, no matter how strange that might have sounded in case anyone were to hear him say such a thing out loud. At the end of the day, it meant that no one needed to get punished. Or rather, it meant that good people wouldn't need to get punished. The kidnappers however, they were going to be punished no matter what, that much he vowed at this time.

By the time they arrived at the village, Homare was quick to ask one of the guards about the disappearances, who in turn claimed that most kids went missing around the same general area: the neighboring woods. Given the description, it seemed that the place didn't exactly have any dangerous animals and was prowled by hunters quite frequently, meaning they were more than likely not there anymore. But seeing as how he knew next to nothing about the locale, he imagined it would be worth looking into some more.

"Are you aware of any caves in the forest, either above or below the water? Any settlements in the area that might have been abandoned? And while we're at it, what would you say the degree of criminal activity is around these parts?"

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare is quite happy with the quality of questions Ken is asking of the guard, who seems to not know of any caves in the forest, although he states that a few of the trees have deep root systems, and sometimes after a good strong rain it can soften the ground enough that some of the root system ends up above the ground. That might have been something like a cave, but he thought the kids would have been warned against going underneath any trees. At the mention of criminal activity, the guard shrugs, but then he looks left and right, something Homare marks as somewhat shifty, but then the reason for his apparent guile is made evident when he whispers to them both something that he doesn't want the others to hear, mostly because of the incredulous nature of what he says: he claims that sometimes, between the trees, he can see the glow of a will o' the wisps floating through the forest.

Homare's face instantly hardens, and she considers beating the man for wasting their time on superstition, but then she considers what it might actually be, other than fairies. A lantern, perhaps? Someone sneaking about in the forest late at night? But what did that have to do with the missing children? She thanks him for the additional information, although she's somewhat dubious about the importance of that info. She looks sidelong at Ken now, wondering if he's thinking what she's thinking; that the possibility of a kidnapping case might have just gone up. The children disappearing in the same forest that was producing lights at night couldn't just be a coincidence, although Homare was refusing to think of them as "fairy orbs". That wasn't really something she believed in, and it was much more likely to be a kind of lantern.

"Hmph. I guess that means we can't go to sleep within a circle of mushrooms tonight, right Ken?"

[Hōzuki Keneō]

Hearing the man out and taking his words to heart, he could honestly say that he had never heard of anything like a willow wisp, will o the whisp or will'o wisp or however it was pronounced. As such, when Homare made a remark about not sleeping in a circle of mushrooms tonight, he honestly had no idea what she meant. Just sending a soft smile in her direction, he figured he wouldn't ask into it while the guard was still around. He wasn't the kind of person that knew a whole lot about mythological creatures or folklore, which was why this whole thing more or less went over his head. Figuring he would ask Homare about it later, his mind was more preoccupied with something else.

"I've got one final question though. These kids that have gone missing, did they go out there by themselves or did they disappear while they were with other people?"

It seemed to him like it was the final important question that they had not asked yet, and it was very much a bit of information that he needed if he was to figure out more about what could potentially have happened to the kids. If they were snatched up in broad daylight under the watchful gaze of their parents or friends, or whether they had been allowed to just venture out on their own and ended up being taken.

Only after the guard would no longer be within earshot would he start pondering on what they might find once they looked around the root systems underneath the trees. If there was in fact something there, it seemed to him like the local hunters would have taken note of it at some point. After all, most hunting hounds had extremely well developed senses, so unless every trace of the kids had washed away before the dawn, he wasn't sure if they would find anything there. But seeing as how the guard would no longer be able to hear them anyway, it was time to educate himself on whatever the hell he had missed from the earlier conversation.

"Say, mind telling me what a 'Willow Wisp' is? It sounded like something silly, but I still feel like I should know what it is so I can figure out whether or not it might be related to our case."

Asking in a rather serious tone of voice, he proved that he honestly hadn't the feintest clue as to what a willow wisp was or why they had to avoid mushrooms after dark.

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare listens in to the final question that Ken asks the guard, about whether the children go alone or with other people, which makes sense to her, and the guard admits that they often go out by themselves, or at least in groups of playing children, but they seem to only disappear one a time, in the case of groups of children who come back from playing in the woods with one of their friend group missing and none of the other children aware of what had happened to their friend, but also seemingly unworried about their disappearance, which is quite strange to Homare. She wonders about the folklore after all, since she was certain most children would be at least a little worried about their friend if they were suddenly gone.

After thanking the guard for the information and Homare moving away to consider what they should do in order to find who or what took the children and then catch them, the kunoichi is surprised to hear Ken ask her what a will o' the wisp is, but then realizes that he might not have been told such silly folk tales. She'd been told such tales not just by her parents, but also by her adoptive parents, and so had assumed for years that it was simply a common experience. But then she realizes that plenty of other people don't have the same upbringing that she does, and especially with having two families. Patiently, she does her best to explain it for the man.

"The will of the wisp is just an old folk tale. It's a light made by fairies to lure people away from the safety of the road and have them follow the light into a forest so that they get lost, and then taken by the fairies that made the light."

She pauses to let that sink in, then gives a somewhat more logical explanation, at least for their current predicament.

"In this case, it's probably just a lantern. More than likely, the guard didn't see the person behind the lantern because he had his night eyes, and the light of the lantern made it impossible to see anything behind the light. So, to him, it looked like it was just a floating ball of light. Fairies don't exist..."

Of course, Homare was currently having that assumption questioned after having learned that the children seemed to not care too much about the disappearance of their own friends. That was actually extremely odd, and she didn't have an explanation for it... yet.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

Fairies and folklore.

Honestly, throughout his own upbringing, the amount he had heard about either had been slim to none. Sure, there were always old wives tales going throughout the village, as well as ghost stories and the like, though he had never really paid them any mind. As a child, Ken had never been afraid of any monsters in closets or hiding under beds, of shadowy creatures that took and ate children. No, his only fear had been one of not being good enough, of the point he was currently at being the point he would strand at. But up until today, he had never really ceased growing as he improved both his body and his mind whenever he got the chance to do so.

So to him, the stories about dancing lights in the dark had him agreeing with the idea that it was more than likely some sort of lantern. Because fairies indeed did not exist. But this did pose a bit of a problem that might be best handled after dark, as that was when the lantern could be seen best. The issue with this being that they would need to wait for several hours, seeing as the sun was still quite high in the sky by this point. It made Ken wonder whether or not he should pose the question to his current compatriot, or if he should just keep his mouth shut. He didn't want to be seen as someone who was willing to waste hours while children were potentially in danger, like someone who didn't care as long as they completed their mission.

"So... the way I see it, there are two things we can do. Investigate the roots now in hopes of finding a lead, or waiting for nightfall in an attempt at catching a glimpse of the lanterns. I can see why one would take priority over the other, though both pose a certain benefit the other lacks."

But he was who he was. And luckily, in this particular case, getting the missing kids and putting an end to the problem were intrinsically interwoven. So, him being the kind of person that he was, he began thinking out loud as he tried to pose his ideas for how to move forward as clearly as possible while at the same time mentioning the potential downsides of picking one plan over the other. After all, the ideas he did have both had a huge upside and an equally huge downside.

"If we head out there now and investigate the roots, there is a chance we will find the kids right away. There is also a chance that if the people responsible are monitoring the area spot us, they will go into hiding and ruin all chances of finding the kids."

It seemed like a good idea, as they would have the added benefit of daylight by which to do their searching. That, and they had a lot more time to use while they looked through the area for clues. But as was mentioned before, there were downsides to this plan too.

"If we go under the cover of darkness, there is a chance they won't be able to see us coming while we descend upon them. Though it means the kids will be in the clutches of who or whatever took them for several more hours."

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare frowns as she considers the two options that seem to be laid out before the two of them, where they might go out during the day to investigate the roots, but there's no guarantee that the children are actually underneath the trees, and it might alert whoever did actually take the children, leaving them without a culprit and, unless they do find the children, without the poor kids they were hired to find. It seemed to her that the only real option was one that she still didn't like nearly so much, but it had a higher chance of success for at least getting the children back home, so she felt it was necessary to pick the option for going in at night.

"As much as I despise the idea of leaving those children to their fates for a moment longer, they've been under the control of their captors for this long already. If they're still alive right now, they'll still be alive for hours yet..."

She let the last part of the idea hang in the air because she can't bring herself to voice it aloud. If the children are already dead, then they'll not be harmed waiting for them anyway. Still, Homare was worried about the children. She couldn't guarantee their safety with their captors, but risking failure of the entire mission on the off-chance that the children were just hiding under the roots of the trees was not a great idea. It sounds like Ken has similarly struggled with coming up with any other plans, and that these are the only two options that seem to work well for him. The blue-haired kunoichi also considers attaching a very light, but strong spider string to a child that hadn't been abducted yet to see if she could use them as bait. She refuses to risk endangering even one more child to these strange kidnappers, though, so she'd already scrapped that idea, as well.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

Even though it had been his own plan, or at least one of two plans, it still sucked to hear that the older Genin agreed that the latter was likely the better of the two. It meant that they would need to wait for a longer period of time to make sure the kids were fine, and he didn't like it. But, there was nothing to be done about it. If nothing else, he had made the cases for both of the attack plans, as well as presenting their downsides on a silver platter, so hearing that the one he disliked most was the approach Homare believed to be best only stung because he too had determined as much. Personally, he would have liked to be told that his ideas sucked and that there was a third and better idea that he had not perceived in his noggin'.

"I hope you're right. For the time being, we should split up and look around the town to see if there is something, anything of use we might be able to uncover. Lets meet at the entrance to town at dusk."

With that, he would linger just long enough to hear the woman come up with a response before he would disappear into the town. There were a lot of things he wanted to figure out, though he was quite confident that he would not be getting the answers he wanted. After all, if the people here knew things that they wouldn't tell them for whatever reason, they were effectively sentencing their own children to whatever fate might befall them. As such, Ken figured that the people here would be truthful when asked questions of importance. Or rather, he hoped that it would be the case. His first stop was quite the simple one, to check in with the parents and any local businesses.

________________________________________

By the time darkness had begun falling across the land, Ken had managed to learn surprisingly little. It seemed that the people who had lost kids could not tell him much about any possible enemies they might have had or anything else that really covered multiple bases. Because when one kid went missing, it was easy to point in the direction of an enemy or rival these people might have had. But when it became a threat these people all had in common, it made it a lot more different due to the broader scope in which one needed to look. But for what it was worth, the young Hozuki knew which questions to ask in hopes of getting something that might have been of some use to their search.

While they had been told by one of the guards that there were hunters roaming the nearby woods, what had not been shared with them was the fact that not everyone in town had been happy when some of said hunters had their licenses revoked when they tried to stand up for a bunch of people from a nearby fishing settlement that had been closed down. Apparently, the settlement had slowly started becoming more closed off to outsiders and took on an almost cult-like mentality to where they only catered to their own and behaved strangely when they were out in the town. Though some of these people had since moved back into town and became part of society again, others had since gone missing without a trace. An ominous prospect.

If these people were somehow responsible for the disappearing kids, it made sense that they might try to use them as leverage in order to get their licenses back, or have the status of their settlement restored so they might move back into their old homes. Whatever the case, there was a saying about a cornered animal being incredibly dangerous that came to mind. If these people were the ones they were dealing with, at least they knew how to potentially deal with it. He had memorized the appearance of one of the former settlers, which was something that was certainly going to come in handy if these were in fact the people they were dealing with. So when Ken went back to where he had said he would meet Homare, he came with a plan up his sleeve, one he would tell her about along with his other findings.

"I managed to speak to a bunch of the locals, and as it turns out, a bunch of hunters had their licenses revoked when a nearby fishing settlement had been closed off. Apparently they were deemed dangerous when they closed themselves off from the outside world. Perhaps these are the people that took the kids in order to use them as leverage to get their former homes and licenses back?"

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare herself felt horrible about her choice, but now that she'd made it, she's going to have to stick to it or risk losing her nerve and allowing Ken to go out searching in the woods and end up losing their potential to actually find the children by alerting their captors. She needed to stick to a plan she made, or risk giving confusing and contradictory orders, which would put the children, and their mission, in jeopardy. She agrees with his idea about splitting up and talking to more people around town, although she silently hopes they're at least more helpful than the superstitious guard for the village.

Upon her return to their starting point hours later to meet with Ken before they go searching and comparing the information they'd gathered, she reviews what she herself had learned: that the fishermen had their own tales about the forest and apparently some kind of strange inhabitants, and this was why the hunters had their licenses revoked; the fishermen had apparently desired secrecy and despised outsiders, and so the hunters had been punished for encroaching upon their lands. It was a strange situation, but she had to expect that they would avoid the fishing village, and so would the children, she hoped. When Ken brings his own information that he thinks perhaps the hunters were the ones responsible, she has to admit that this also seems to be a possibility.

"Perhaps. I also heard that the fishermen in that village are extremely secretive and quite protective of their village, but I don't know that they would stoop so low as to harm children. The hunters seem like a more likely culprit."

No, the fishermen are likely just a red herring, nothing to be worried about, as long as they also avoid getting close to the fishing village.

"But we've spent more than enough time here already, we need to get a move on or I'm going to be too worried about those kids."

Homare ensures that her sword and shinobi axe are appropriately ready for action before she heads off into the woods, slinging out a spider thread and then using it to leap upwards and into the trees, almost disappearing with the speed of her movement; the spider thread certainly helped her to maintain mobility without having to sacrifice on speed, and it also gave her an aerial view that should help her in seeing the surrounding area much better.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

By the time Homare took to the trees and gained herself a proper vantage point, Ken had an entirely different plan. Having made sure to memorize one of the former hunters that had decided to return to life in the town rather than trying to stir the pot, the young Hozuki was going to have to borrow him for a little while. Using a specialized Hijutsu, the boy liquified himself, allowing the water to twist and bend into a different shape and a taller stature. Though it might have seemed odd and strangely painful, by the time Ken was done performing his technique, he had become the spitting image of the former-hunter he had encountered in the village.

If Homare were to use her spider-like abilities to move through the trees and keep an eye on things from above, maybe spotting threats from afar and locating the strange lights or lanterns, Ken would pretend to want to return to the hunters... wherever they were holed up. If he could make people believe that he was willing to return to the fold after having a change of heart, he might be able to check up on the children and get them out so Homare could get them to safety. Though he hadn't exactly put his idea to words, he imagined that when the Mayonaka woman went up, she would likely have seen him in the midst of his transformation technique.

Because of how much more advanced it was than the regular transformation technique most shinobi learned in the Academy, even if they were to poke at him or lash out at him, the transformation would likely hold for as long as he would be able to keep up the charade. Since he wasn't certain if he could do the voice right, he would refrain from speaking for as long as possible while he tried to follow Homare from the ground. Letting her lead them since she had the high ground and would be able to see what was going on before he could, his job was to get into whatever kind of camp or enclave they were to walk into and make sure the children would be able to get out safe without anyone getting hurt.

But if someone had to die for the kids to make it out alive, he would not hold back from putting people down.

SPOILER: Click to show

NAME: Zōkyō [Augment]
RANK: D
CHAKRA USAGE: Very Low
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu [General]
ELEMENT: Suiton
HANDSEALS: --
DESCRIPTION:
Water is malleable, mold-able. Taking the shape and form of whatever container it is put into. While using the Hozuki Hijutsu, this container is normally the shinobi's own body. With this technique the user is able to mold and shape their body's features using chakra. At this level it's mostly capable of simple things. Changing facial structure, changing body portions ect. While in combat this technique is mostly useless as changing your body structure doesn't offer you any real changes in your combat ability. This jutsu is mainly for supplementary use. Blending in with a crowd, changing your face and body to throw pursuers off your trail.

[Mayonaka Homare]

Homare does indeed see him changing his form, though she turns her attention back to the forest around them, helping to keep him safe so he won't be caught during his transformation by the very hunters they're actually looking to hunt down, while also keeping an eye out for any other lights. After a few moments, his transformation is complete, and she can continue her search until she actually does see a cone of light, one that could probably be mistaken for a floating orb if someone with night blindness saw the lantern pointed directly at them. She stops where she is so Ken is aware of the change as well, directing his attention towards the lantern, where she can see a dark figure behind it, looking around for something, or perhaps someone.

The Mayonaka isn't exactly sure what's happening, but she also doesn't actually see any house, not even a shack or a cabin, out where the figure was, so it could be that their hideout is somewhere even deeper into the forest, or that it might not be a hideout above ground. All she can do is let Ken do his part of the job while she maintains a close overwatch of what's going on. The lantern even stops when it hits Ken for the first time, and then she can watch as it approaches, and two other lantern lights appear, making Homare glad that she hadn't immediately dropped down to tackle their first lead. The other lanterns follow after the first on their approach to Ken, and Homare keeps a hand on her axe and her katana, just in case the situation turns south quickly. She wants to be able to react at a moment's notice if something goes awry, and she even takes up a position directly above the group, so she can drop directly on top of them if need be.