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From the moment the ice had left Nowten's grip, Sai's body was already twisting to dodge the chunk while moving to lunge at the young boy. The gun that had previously been dangling from his fingers was now fully gripped and the barrel of the weapon was firmly pressed against the boy's right temple. With the man stand to his right of the child, his arm holding the gun to the young boy, he turned to look at the other member of the party. His fingers blurred through one hand seal to the next before until the ice that littered the ground around Soba pierced up to restrain his body completely. "You must not be a very bright child... You seriously wanted to wake me up with a chunk of ice? You know if that had actually hit me I would more then likely be knocked completely unconscious."

The man's words were spoken softly and almost as though he barely cared, but the gun never left the boy's temple and with each word he twisted and pushed the gun roughly against him. With a heavy sigh, the man brought his free hand to his face and brushed his messy hair back nonchalantly as he leaned his head back to look at Voir. The large beast was hovering just above the three, it's blood red eyes surveying the scene curiously.

However, being much less patient and by far more curious, Vyrin swiftly shifted from his seat on the Dragon before leaping down to the ground. Landing in an overly dramatic and flamboyant way as he came down on one knee with both arms held behind him, Vyrin grinned playfully at Sai and then the two that were currently in his custody. "Hey, guess what you're being blamed for this time Pops~" The nineteen year old boy chimed, his body elegantly raising up to stand. "Seems as though there was a little incident in some little village in the middle of nowhere land. Yep, yep~ The place was totaled and after you going monkey scalping around here, they're blaming it on you.... what's with these two monkey turds?"

Sighing heavily Sai shook his head at Vyrin before glancing between the two that had arrived just before his allies. "These... two? Hn.... Just some more scalps for my collection. Lets go check out what exactly that I'm being blamed for this time, shall we?" He said gently, a sweet note playing in his voice. With a quick motion he spun around to face the other direction, his free hand now holding a strange looking syringe that he quickly jabbed into Nowten's neck. His other hand brought the Razor up to eye level to Soba, his finger reaching to pull the trigger but just before the sound of a gun shoot came from beside him and the one arm man was sent flying through the ice retainer. "Sorry... I've been itching to use this for a while~" Shaking his head, Sai grabbed Nowten before he could hit the floor and slung him onto his shoulder, Vyrin doing the same for Soba. With a silent nod to each other, the two and their carry-ons made their way onto Voir's back before disappearing into the distance.

Kent groaned softly. It had taken him an hour but he had managed to get through one of the more complicated pieces of paper work. It was all about one of the more recent missions that had gone on. He had heard about some problems near one of the mines that had been set up a ways out in the desert. He had sent out a team to look into it some months prior, and they hadn't returned yet, and so he had sent another squad to look into it. It wouldn't have been a problem had the mission gone the way that routine missions often went. Had it been one of those 'We went and couldn't find them' responses that wouldn't have been a problem either. The problem came up when they hadn't been able to actually make it to the mine. Apparently there had been a rather terrible dust storm that had kicked up when they were getting close. They had attempted to wait it out, but not only did it not die down, but it didn't appear to move, like it was centered around the entrance to the mine.

It was a troublesome thought that someone might be messing around in a mine, that someone might be messing around with him, using the mine as a medium. Everyone was already on edge because of that purple haired geezer, and now they had things like this, where people were already missing and natural disasters seemed to be cropping up with the intention of stopping them from finding their missing people. It wasn't a good place to be as a ninja village, and even less of a good place for him to be as the head of said ninja village. He knew that there was probably going to be a problem if he ignored this, and that he should probably set up a squad to look into it to see if the people who went to the mine were still alright

Of course, he had started work on that paperwork as well. He knew what needed to be done. No one was going to accept it if he didn't send someone to look into it. They were going to tell him that he hadn't tried hard enough to find them, or accuse him of starting to abandon his people. He really couldn't continue with something like that. Even if it turned out that they were already dead. He couldn't afford to leave anyone unless he had pictures that proved that they were a corpse.

This wasn't easy though. He hadn't ever thought that being the Kazekage was going to be easy, but he had thought that it was going to be filled with more fun parts than it was. He thought that there were going to be adventures and all those kinds of things. He had thought that he was going to become famous instantly and suddenly everyone was going to know his name no matter where he went. Really, those were the parts that he had been taking part in, but there was more to it, and he supposed that was why Akane had always pushed him to do his own paperwork. This was several volumes more difficult than he would have ever imagined from watching One-eye do it. That guy had always made it seem like a walk in the park...had always made it seem like it was a non-stop adventure...

Maybe that was what he had that he could offer to his gennin. He could take them on adventures and do all of that kind of fun stuff. That could be what old man One-eye had been trying to do. Maybe he knew that he didn't fit into their social dynamic simply because they were so much younger than him or something, and in order to keep them from realizing that he didn't fit in they had given them adventure after adventure to keep their minds on surviving instead of wondering how their mentor fit in with the rest of them.

He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned back in his chair. All of this thinking, and the paperwork was exhausting. He really needed to take another nap...or get a break from here and go somewhere and beat someone up. That sounded like it might put a bounce in his step again. It was a really nice thought, just going someplace, beating some thug up to make up for the fact that he had recently lost a match. Of course, Akane wouldn't like that any better than she would like him falling asleep here at his desk. He supposed the best option was just to head off somewhere and take his nap at home or something. Maybe if he took a nap he'd be able to figure something out for his team to do when they got back...something exciting.

-=Flashback/Dream Sequence is BEGIN!=-

The journey had been a relatively quick one. They had ended up in a place that was much more rocky than the village hidden in sand. In all honesty, Kenta hadn't minded the change. It was nice to get away from all of that sand every once in a while, and really he hadn't had many opportunities to leave it all behind him. Of course, he knew that at the end of the day he'd be headed back to the barren wasteland of sand, but it was nice to trade it sometimes for a place like this.

The first question that entered his head was just where it was that they were. As he understood it, this was one of the countries that sat between countries. Before the start of the war it had a little ninja village in it, but at the very beginning of all of the craziness, all of the small countries like this had mostly folded in on themselves. They had run to the bigger countries like the five elements to reach out for any protection that they could receive and a lot of them had been swallowed up just like that. Others had just been left without ninja villages as all of the ninjas fled for fear of being caught between the larger villages that would get into skirmishes with each other out of desperation to survive, and others were wiped out, or recruited as mercenaries by the Akatsuki who had all at once made an enemy of everyone...and with any group that made an enemy of everyone they often found themselves beset upon on all sides by those people who wanted to see and end brought to them.

As Kenta understood it, this had once been the bird country, or grass country...or maybe rain country. Apparently the peace that had lasted for so many years before everything had happened here had left the door open for a whole lot of really tiny countries with stupid names to pop up, each one of them having their own ninja group, because everyone was afraid that what had happened would happen and no one wanted to lose their land. Kind of silly now, because all of those little countries that had been scurrying around to gather up big troops of soldiers had found themselves with a false sense of security just before all of their ninjas ran away to greener pastures, or faced destruction...or just been swallowed up due to alliances that no one could afford to break now that the world had gone to hell.

“Why are we here?” After realizing that the answer to the question of where they were was hardly important, he had moved onto the next topic of concern. They were here. There had to be a reason for them to be here. They didn't wander around out into countries that weren't their own for no reason, and this was all for a mission anyway, wasn't it?

“What kind of question is that? We're here for a mission.” If there was one thing that old man one-eye was good at, it was being cryptic and vague for no reason other than to amuse himself. Of course they were here for a mission. They had covered that much. The question he had meant to be answered was what did their mission entail. What were they here to do?

Before Kenta had the opportunity to speak up the woman who had been hanging behind One-eye stepped up. Her hair was the color of fire, and she appeared to be afflicted with heterochromia, but it was possible that one of her eyes was false just like One-eye. It was hard to tell. What Kenta did know was that in her dress and her armor she looked like someone that he didn't want to have to fight against, and her expression spoke volumes about how 'we're on a mission' should have probably been enough to satisfy him. When she spoke up her voice was calm and cool, “We're here to beat up bad guys.”

One-eye rolled both of his eyes before finally speaking up himself, “Now, Kumiko, you know that wasn't any more the answer that he was looking for than the one I gave him.” His eyes turned to Kenta for a moment, “I heard a rumor that there are 'angels' in bird country.”

Kenta's eyes grew wide for a moment. Angels? Seriously? People with wings who flew around casting god's divine judgment over the land? With halos and s**t? His mind quickly produced an image of some of the most beautiful people he could imagine, wearing all white, with the palest skin imaginable making them almost glow. It was easy to imagine a pair of wings sprouting from the back of someone who looked as beautiful as that, and from there the title of angel wasn't hard to be put to it, but rumors about angels didn't spread with just stuff like that. Rumors about things like angels took things like divine light and holy powers and all of that to spread around, otherwise they'd be bird people.

“I don't get it...aren't angels supposed to be good things?” They were, weren't they? A bunch of angels could fly all over the world, put an end to all of the wars, and bring down some punishment on the people who really deserved it. Perhaps whatever divine being was watching over them had decided that the war had gone on long enough. It made all of the sense in the world, didn't it?

“Don't be stupid.” Takahiro, who had been silent so far in the conversation looked down over the edge of the cliff that they had stopped at, his gray eyes scanning the bottom of the cliff, “Angels don't exist.”

One-eye's expression had become incredibly cold and hard, “That is the concern.” He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a long breath, “If someone is going around claiming to be an angel, they're most likely doing it to prey upon the people who believe, or they are a symptom of a much bigger problem.” He spoke as if he had a great deal of personal experience in this particular area. He let a long breath slip past his lips, and then suddenly his face had stopped being the hard and cold expression that it had been before and turned into a softer look, like the kind of look that a kindergarten teacher would have when they were explaining something to a child, “We're just going to go take a look, after all, if it's a real angel then we want to make sure we're on their side, don't we?”

-=Flashback/Dream Sequence END!=-

Kenta sighed softly, his fingers thrust into his pockets as he rounded the corner to the place that he had called his home since he had started his ninja training. It was a little apartment, one that he hadn't been able to bring himself to part ways with, even after he had been given the position of Kage. Something about the Kage's quarters didn't feel right. Every time he was there he felt like he was hidden behind about 20 feet of solid steel. It was probably true, no one had told him, and he had decided that he didn't care enough to find out.

Hanging from the corner of his mouth was one of the delicacies of the Wind country slums that had recently caught on most everywhere. It was some kind of lizard. He wasn't sure if it had been fried, or cooked, or jerked or just what had happened to this lizard after it had met it's end aside from being pushed onto a skewer, sold, and now eaten, but it was moderately good. He knew that he could probably find out what kind of lizard it was, but really, if he knew that he'd spend all of his time running around hunting the damn things, and that wasn't helping the local economy.

These also weren't the things that he was thinking about right now. Instead his mind was on the topic of his daydreams, and what they could mean for him fitting in with his team. There had to be something there. He knew that if he thought enough about his old team and the way that everything had fit together with them that he'd find the answer as to how he could fit together with his current team. He knew that if he could get them to trust him, instead of leaving him behind to go on some wild adventure they'd probably be more than willing to ask him to tag along the next time, even if he had gotten beaten up by some random thug with purple hair...

He was going to have to do something about that too...he just wasn't sure what yet. He had been tossing around a few ideas about that one too. Maybe if he was lucky it would resolve itself.

-=Flashback/Dream Sequence is BEGIN!=-

The fiery haired woman had been put in charge of them once they had stopped at the bar to try and gather information. Her eyes remained set on One-eye while they sat at their table. Takahiro had remained calm and relaxed as always, always seeming to be bored with everything that was around him. At this moment Kenta was sucking on the end of a straw that headed down into a cup that was now only half full of a fizzy orange drink. Old man one-eye was off discussing something with the bartender, probably wherever it was that they were likely to find this 'angel'.

And that was what had Kenta frustrated and upset like he was. Everyone seemed to have already accepted that angels didn't exist, that this was them going on a quest to beat up someone who was running around pretending to be an angel. Who would do that in this kind of time? They were surrounded by so much war and despair...weren't the people that they needed to be looking out for warlords and crazy people who charged into battle and bathed in the blood of their enemies? An angel wandering around sounded like a blessing. Someone who might work at healing the wounded and spreading the message that everyone should get together and stuff like that. The sort of talk that came from hippies or whatever. How could that be a bad thing?

For some reason they were ready to rush in, guns blazing and mow down someone who could be an agent from heaven. The only reason they were of this attitude was because no one in this group could believe in things like angels. Everyone believed that everyone else was just out for themselves. Everyone was sure that there was no such thing as a divine presence that was watching over them. It was just scary monsters and even scarier people. Kenta didn't want to get older anymore. Who wanted to be old when all that happened when you got old was that you stopped believing in good things?

The fire haired woman slowly turned her attention to the young boy who was glaring daggers at her over the top of his soda, “Look. I know you're just a kid...” She took a deep breath as Kenta started to blow bubbles into his soda, as if he thought that acting as childish as possible could prove her wrong, “If angels are wandering around among us why would they let the war start anyway?”

That was the part that made him angry the most. The things that they were saying...the explanations as to why angels weren't real, or at least why this one wasn't real...they all made sense. Of course, the red haired woman was the only one who had tried to explain to him that this wasn't an angel. Taka had decided that he had done enough explaining when he had called him stupid, and One-eye hadn't really said anything about the topic since he had mentioned what it was that they were here to do. Kenta was starting to think that this whole situation before the mission was why he hadn't been let in on what their mission was until they had started. Evryone had known that he'd flip out or do whatever it was that he was doing now.

His lips left the straw that was sticking up from the top of the glass and he took a long breath. He was tired of being treated like a kid all of the time. He was a shinobi now. Things were different. He was going to be strong and everyone was going to know his name. No one was ever going to treat him like a kid again. One day he'd run all of the wind country, and everything would be peaceful again...and then he'd let everyone start believing in angels again. Just because no one had seen them didn't mean that they didn't exist. Aside from picture, he hadn't seen an elephant before, but that didn't mean that there was no such thing as elephants.

“I want one of the lizards on a stick.” He wasn't sure why he had said it. Part of it probably had to do with the fact that he didn't want to talk to the red haired woman anymore. Maybe part of it was that he hoped that he would be able to talk to Taka again, find out why it was that he didn't believe in angels. There had to be a reason, right? In any case, he had decided right there that he wanted whatever that lizard on a stick thing was.

The redheaded woman chuckled softly and closed her eyes as she pushed herself up to her feet, “Whatever you say, boss.”

-=Flashback/Dream Sequence END!=-

Kenta pushed on the door. As it opened, leaving the room that it had kept hidden from the elements before his eyes he let his breath leave him in a sigh again. The walls were covered in posters to cover up the half-assed job that he had done in painting the room so that it was a dull blue instead of the girlish pink that it had been before. The posters were from various anime series, movies, mangas, and video games, some of which Kenta had experienced personally, some of which he hadn't. Over to one side of the room was his bed, and a desk with various electronic entertainment devices on it. On the other side of the room was his dresser, a stand for an electric guitar, which now housed said guitar, and the amplifier for the guitar. There was also a set of shelves on the one wall that housed his collection of manga, videos, and video games. On his bedside table was a clay statue of the lucky Buddha that someone had given him.

Really, his room was much more cluttered than the average ninja's and he knew it. He knew that most ninjas lived in spartan living centers with just the things that they needed and nothing else. As he stepped in through the doorway, his foot moved, striking the side of a large white box that had seen better days, and action that caused the front of it to open, allowing the cool air that was stored inside to flow out into the room. He reached in, pulling out a small bottle with a twist off cap, inside was a fizzy orange drink. The bottle had a colorful label with oranges on it that read 'Tanger-tastic'. After quickly pulling off the top he tipped the bottle back against his lips, taking deep and long swallows of the drink for a moment before pulling it away from his lips and screwing the white plastic cap back onto it's top and dropping it back into the door of the fridge. Another kick to the door and the fridge was closed and he was headed into his room, towards his bed.

Voir took a sudden nose dive as he flew over the desert in a silent wind. Pulling out of the dive as he neared the sands, the grand dragon beat it's wings on either side of it to slow their descent to the earth before landing with a large thump and folding its wings into his sides. With a snort, the majestic beast shook it's body for a moment before arching its head to look at the party that rested on it's back. "Get off." Sai said shortly as he spun around in his seat on the dragon and faced the other three, his gun already back in his hand.

Slipping off the dragon with not to well hidden glee, Vyrin threw his arms to either side of him and let out a loud yawn as he stretched. "Feels good to be finally off of that infernal beast! Whoo. So, ya two had a good time, yes? No hard feelings for the near death experiences?"

"Death.... is much different then just a fatal wound..."Sai said shortly, his hand touching the skin over his heart. Even though the skin was clean of any scars... the memory of the former Raikage impaling him there never faded. It was one of the very few misjudgments he had in his life but it definitely was one of the worse.

Letting his hand slide down to the one scar that never faded or recovered, Sai shook his head before looking to Notwen and returning his hand to his side. "Keep it, burn it, do as you wish with it." He said softly before sighing lightly. He had left his armor back in the cave so he was going to have to go bare backed for a while.

"Is that so? Heh, well you didn't do half bad back there. Quite surprising that you held your own against that big a** worm, impressive. But you still got a long way to go" Vyrin said chuckling, his arms folding behind his head as he stared at the setting sun in the distance. The sky a colored painting. "Well, unless you want a spar or something. This is where we part ways, I suppose."

Initiative:
1D100 + 31

Sai chuckled lightly to himself and pat the side of Voir's body softly with his hand. At once the beast uncurled it's wings, with one then two beats of their powerful forms, Voir and Sai raised up into the sky and hovered above the arena for a moment. With a wave at the two from Sai, Voir turned away and soared off into the distance.

"Now that the old man is gone... Let's rock out." Vyrin said happily, his grin spreading across his face in the same sadistic manner that Sai did before a battle. Bringing his hands to his head, he removed the goggles and the head cap before slipping out of his heavy coat and letting them both drop to the ground. "By the way, thanks for the arena Soba. Lets hope this bad boy survives this~" The boy said as he gingerly toed the edge of the stone arena, his hands pulling his gloves back for security before rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows. The veins on his forearms bulged against his skin as he clenched and unclenched his fists, his feet moving him to stand across from his opponent. "Hope you're ready for this, kid." Vyrin said, a ripple of chakra passing from him and through the area as crystals in a group of three formed just above his shoulders. The crystals quickly expelled chakra in a white and blue hue that stayed like little burners on his shoulder. Instantly the burners extended and formed wings that flexed out on either side of the boy before curling behind him.