[Hōzuki Keneō]

In spite of recent tragic events, it seemed that for the first time in some time, something had been working in his favor. When he had put in a request to head to Otobe for the Chuunin exams early, Ken had more or less imagined that he would be hit with a hard No, and honestly for good reason. Traveling outside of the village could be quite dangerous, and most of the time, a Genin was not allowed to venture outside, period. So while it seemed like it would have been a silly request from the get-go, the Hozuki had not expected that there would be a Jounin willing to step up and act as his escort to the land of storms. More than that, a Jounin he had never met personally before.

It made him wonder even now as he was eating his breakfast in the comfort of his own home, what the goal behind it might have been. Maybe it had been some kind of mission that was hidden as just an escort task, while the Jounin might have other dealings to take care of in Otobe for the duration of the exams. Or maybe they had just wanted someone to travel with while they headed over to the city in order to watch the next generation of shinobi fight for the chance to become Chuunin. Taking a bite of his sandwich, the ashen haired boy wondered just how many other Genin would be joining in on the exams this time. There were honestly a lot of things he was wondering about even more than that though.

[Hōzuki Keneō]

Out of the hidden mist, he knew that at least Homare was going to be joining this round, though he had no idea who else might try their hand at it. In truth, he had never really mingled a whole lot with the other Genin of the village, though that was very much a two way street as the majority of them hadn't bothered to really get involved with him either. In fact, it was mostly due to chance that he had gotten to meet Homare and Taiso, as one was put on his team and the other was the first individual he had ever undertaken a real mission with. There was also Yuzuki, though she was a Chuunin already, so she didn't really count as far as the Genin troupe went.

Because if he counted Yuzuki, he would also need to count the other Chuunin he had trained with or got on friendly terms with. People like Taru who had been working hard to try and teach him how to better dodge both instinctively and by sharpening his own reflexes and insight when going up against a bow wielder. Difficult as it was, she had been nice to him and really helped him gain a far greater level of insight against the kind of weapon that was known for being a shinobi killer. The fact that it could be used to fire from immense range with deadly accuracy and making next to no sound at all as it flew at breakneck speeds meant most ninja wouldn't have any proper defense against it.