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Hitomi smiled softly. "S-sure. That sounds great." Hitomi had had a thought cross her mind, as well. Although her methods were slightly different in their conclusions. In Hitomi's mind, Ryo was third in charge of wanting a material possession. The first was stealing. Short sweet and to the point. The second was coercing. Seduction, bribery, trickery, those were slightly more complicated, but were still easier than money. Money was complicated and full of variables. Money required itself to be made. This required both a service to offer and a customer to request the service. This service had to be unrelated to the previous two methods, else it would be pointless to have resorted to this course of action. It required, then, the money to offer and the service desired to be offered by a capable and willing donor. If just one of these conditions wasn't met, then money wouldn't work. Which is why Hitomi usually stole what she needed. But stealing something for that reason would seem... Hypocritical... I need to earn it to let it sit right. Two choices, then. Hitomi gave somewhere near a full smile, however her shyness still showed, as she raised her hand to her bangs, turned her head downward, and began playing with them nervously, in truth making sure that they covered her scar and her false eye.

"I'm not exactly the best with art... But I'd be glad to try it with you. If nothing else, I'll at least be able to help you sell it..." not to mention a little bit of an alternate income while we're haggling over price. Hitomi wanted to show at least Navalie that she could be useful, because it seemed no one else thought so. Anything Hitomi could do to help Nav was right by her. "It's a big world, who knows who we'll run into to sell them off, right?" Hitomi smiled again, beginning to loosen up now that they had a goal in mind that she could focus on, rather than the beauty standing before her.

EDIT: (( I's disappearing for about a week... I will be back soon, but I don't expect you to wait. Do as you will. Just tell Hitomi to wait for you to come back or something XP if you want. You'll think of something.


I'm sorry...))

"That...was oddly enough quite tiring...but yet so interesting." He had to do this some more, maybe he'll finally get some mission where he can beat up some bad guys. But that's been running through his head for quite a while already and it was time to stop thinking about it before it came true to the point where he would regret saying he wished fighting some bandits or evil guys. Then soon enough he heard some one yell out for their sensei, it made him feel like yelling out the word too to see Krayte again and his intriguing persona's and to tell him about his very first mission to go on. Letting out a sigh he would continue walking from the academy and towards the district to where his home was located at.

Houka seems to suffer every single step he took. In faq, he had several bruise on the left leg and he slowly made his way through the village. His boo was out this time and he seems to be using it like a walking staff. He have been several days in the moutain...lost in a maze of stone. He manage to survive the ordeal, though not withouth a scratch. His cloth where all dusty, and his ankle keep hurting him like searing fire. He was thursty and hungry. The familiar village seems to lighten his day and has he look up before him he suddenly saw Zanza, one of his teamate.

''Howdy Zanza'' said Houka with a parched voice. ''How'v ya been? Long time no see.''

The local gaming arcade. To be simple, this was Roy's home away from home now that Kinami had gone missing. When he wasn't training or being bugged by someone since the Tsuchikage was away, he was here. Most times he ran here anyway just to avoid the damn crowds. People could be so annoying sometimes. Thats the way he saw it anyway. They'd bug him to no end about this or that...damn he hated it.

But ehre, he coudl forget all that. he could forget about loosing Kinami. He could forget about being so damn lonly when his mom was away training and his sister was off at school. Granted, it wasn't a horribly bad time but it was still lonly. No one really got him...no one really understood why he was the way he was. Only Kinami really seemed to get him and even then it was only a little bit. She had to much crap of her own to deal with for him to try and get her to understand him more. He looked back and wondered what he could have done differently. What he might have been able to change about life itself had he really put some more thought into it. But in the end, there was nothing he could have done differently. No change in his tactics. No alteration to his approach. He lived his life the way he wanted to live it. Peacefully and happily.

A grin slipped across his face as he hit the final button in a long combo to a fighting game. That had to be about the 3rd person in the last 30 minutes he had beat. Not to many people could mess with him in video games. Well, to be more exact, RPG's but they weren't really all that popular at arcades. Still, his skills in fighting games was pretty good and he loved to try rhythm games...even though he had none. Yep, he couldn't dance to save his a**. He coudl sing but that was about it. Pretty close to the only thing he could do properly was probably play the little fake guitar games. He had hit the high score a few times but that was about it.

Abou another hour passed and Roy noticed that the lines around other games began to get thinner and thinner. Something was up and Roy was getting irritated. Not cause the lines were getting smaller, but because they were collecting around a single item. This translated into a huge amount of noise coming from a relativly small area. It was a grating thing to deal with to be sure.

His ears began to twitch as did his eye. He was trying to play in peace...well, as much peace as one could get in an arcade but still peace none the less. To have all that noise focus to one direction nearly drove Roy insane. He ended up loosing his game...which meant he lost his cool pretty quickly and began to march his way over towards the crowd. Grumbling the whole way, he was ready to knock every person there to the side. But of course being so short, he easily just slipped underneith a lot of the much taller gamers...stabbing them in the leg with a Kunai as he went, and made it to the front of the pack. He hadn't noticed that the general direction was of the Guitar Hero's gaming stage. It was a pretty sizable stage that the arcade owner had installed for the weekly Guitar Hero tournaments. it was an easily convertable stage so he could use it for other game tournaments if he wanted so it was a good investment in the end.

As Roy broke through the crowd, he saw what the fuss was about. There was a poster up about a tournament that was going o be held that day. Names had already started to fill up the paper so far down that they had to attach another sheet of paper to it to have enough folks. What a pain...Roy probably wouldn't have bothered if he hadn't have noticed his name already written on the paper. The handwritting was unfamiliar but he was sure it was the arcade owner who had done it...yep the guy was gonna get shut down pissing Roy off like that but it was already too late.

The tournament was going to start in a few moments and Roy was already screwed. Roy began to think about several different ways he could get out of this...maybe a smoke bomb...maybe start a fire. Nope, there was nothing legal he could do. Even if he made a break for the exit, he already noticed that the arcade owner was already standing there, asking those not involved in the tournament to exit. More than likly he was really there to make sure Roy didn't leave. The guy was an ex-huner nin so using henge to try and get out would be usless. Roy just groaned a bit as he lowered his head.

When the room had emptied except those that were entering...it really didn't thin out the ranks that much. Over half the people in the room were signd up so only about 10 or so folks actually left. Obviously parents of underaged kids were allowed to stay but beyond that, the room was packed with gamers raring for the prize. Come to think of it, Roy hadn't even noticed the prize. Before he could look, his name was called to come to the front. It was his time up.

The stage was lite pretty gaudilly, almost hurt Roy's eyes to look down. This was one of the reasons he hadn't entered any of the tournaments. He didn't have much of a choice now though did he? He looked over to the guy he was pitted against. What a slob this was. His oppoenent was obviously a nooby to the game. A kinda fat kid, a little younger than Roy. His mom had to come up to the stage to wipe his nose for crying out loud. When the guitars were handed out, the kid didn't even know how ot put it on properly. Roy just shook his head in disappointment. What was he put into?

The announcer began to spout out the terms and what not of the tournament. He still didn't announce the prize but Roy didn't care much. Since he was here, he'd do his best to win. If he lost, oh well. Either way, Roy looked up and sighed a little for a moment. The general terms for the tournament was that each pairing had to do a best 2 out of 3 battle. The songs would be chosen at random and everyone had to play on the same difficulty level, highest difficulty level preference was the one they'd go with. Meaning that if one person wanted to play on hard and the other on normal, they had to both play on hard or wait till another person who wanted hard came up. Roy didn't care much and chose easy to be nice to the kid next to him.

With that, the game roullete began to spin as Roy stood there. The names and numbers seemed to fly by amost out of the range of human sight capability to follow. And then, it landed on a song.

Motorhead - "Ace of Spades"

The jam was on.

[[Mission Name: Gutiar hero
Client: Hyoumaru "Heavy metal king", hunter-nin leader
Location: Iwagakure
Mission Profile: I the heavy metal king, am holding a tournament for the clasic game of Gutiar hero. I seen many kids belive the can play good simply because they can play a game, and i willing to test there merit agint a true gutiarist.
Reward:
Requirements: *Face three opponets, and if you pass them face hyoumaru.
*gutiar battle dex mod+ 1d20+1 per 10 ranks performance stringed instrament skill vs same (hyoumaru is simply aginst his perfrmance skill unless he choses other wise)
*aginst each opponent three tries 2/3 wins

1st opponenet DC: 10+1d20
]]
[[1st die is mine, second is oppoenet]]

[[continued on 212 ]]

''Heh...just keeping myself healthy...not really big training...been lost..stone maze''

Houka said while catching is breath. He barely noticed what Zanza was doing, has he seem to black out...when he opened up is eye's again, he saw the cup of iced tea. With a sudden and alarming speed, he took up the cup and drink it all up. He stomach was desperate for food too, has it let out a loud gurgling sound. But for now Houka feeled refreshed, has if behing blessed by the heaven's...or hell has is stomach torture him. He let out a long, satisfying sigh. That's when he happened to notice and digest Zanza's last sentence.

''You mean...how could...ya sure about that? I wonder what happened...''

Houka seems to be taking small pause when talking...this was a heavy blow and altough he a teenager now, his inner wasn't far. He was trying to analyze the information...while walking by Zanza side. His face showed now emotion, having mastering them by looking at a mirror. But debt down, he felt a small jolt of sadness. Even though Zanza didn't want to admit it, they did had good time with their old sensei...

''What do you mean by a lot? Hmmmm...''

Ataru strolled up beside Katsuko, a warm smile on his face. On his back was a towering mountain of bags, containing all of Katsuko's possessions. After a swift kiss on the cheek, he pushed his glasses up his nose, and hooked his thumbs under the shoulder straps of the pack, humming a cheery tune as he walked.

He could remember the village from just over 10 years ago, how prosperous it was, and looking at it now he could see the changes. The Masters coming had done a lot to the town, some suprisingly good. A matter of opinion, one might say. Fond memories of the past came rushing back...

His humming stopped abruptly, and he turned to Katsuko. "Katsuko, we should see the Kage first. If I remember correctly the office is over this way." He grabbed her by the hand and began off in the direction of the office. He didn't mind the memories, he had never tried to forget them, but now probably wasn't the right time for them.