Welcome to Gaia! ::

Andou barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and ask, "Do you live in Kirigakure? Do you live in an island freaking surrounded by water? Have you honestly never learned how to swim? What kind of upbringing did you have?" But since he knew that that was a loaded question with many answers, and also knew that Shisei was not a native. But seriously. Okay. This was going a little far here. Andou really did roll his eyes this time.

"First things first," he said. "I didn't teach Hiru any swimming. He went off and did that himself as extra-curricular work. Besides, although I did expect you to be able to swim, you shouldn't compare yourself to him because he has gills. Obviously swimming is his specialty."

Glancing at Shin, he couldn't help but to be reminded of Batou, who had been his former cellmate, in the past. And well, Kiketsu mirrored his past self quite nicely too. It would remain to be seen whether the third member would mirror the last member on their team... Cassie. Oh, her. Andou was tired of all this; there was too much to worry about at any given time.

"What about this," he said, his emotions now calmed and back to their original dry state. "We're waiting for your last team member anyway. So we'll go to the shoreline and practise a few strokes, as well as rudimentary breath-holding. I have scuba equipment but it never hurts to brush up on basics. I'll leave a note behind for him, which he should be able to find." Although should be expected to be able to find was the more accurate way of putting it. Fishing up a pen, Andou tore a piece of paper from his clipboard (that looked suspiciously like the back side of the sales figures of the Bloody Blade) and wrote,

'ETEHYAE. MU QHU QJ JXU IXEHUBYDU. -JUQC 1.'

Hikaru would have to decode this rather simply-ciphered (if Andou could say so himself) message to figure out where they were, if he came. Looking at the other two, Andou stated, "So. We're done here. Let's move," before heading off to the shoreline, expecting the two to follow him.

[Pon, if you come go to this site: http://secretcodebreaker.com/caesar.html and play around with the Deciphering thing

This is your training to decipher the message.
Decipher code
d20 + Int mod
DC: your int + 10
5/5]

(( Lets try this again... ))

Well, I don't know what this says.., Hikaru looked at the not and let out a chuckle. Andou really was a a card. Lets see. Counting again? Hikaru then counted the letters of the next two words to himself. There where two in the first and three in the second. What has two letters in it? There was another short pause. He, Is, We, Hi?, Hikaru said with a smile. "That one may be easier after the third word." Hikaru went through his vocabulary. There weren't that many choices. After trying many combinations, Hikaru decided on 'we are' So now he knows the note says,'Hikaru. We are QJ JXU IXEHUBYDU. -JUQC 1.

Hikaru stood from the base of the fountain to be upright. Counting seemed to have worked well. I should do that again. Holding the paper in out hand he read what he hadn't figured out, aloud."Odoriko. we are QJ JXU IXEHUBYDU. -JUQC 1." The small boy looked at the fourth and fifth words of the note. qj has two letters and jxu has three. What words have that many letters in normal speach? Hikaru thought of many words. In? He? At? "Well, its not going to be we, so I think I'll say in or at." Odoriko. We are at/in JXU IXEHUBYDU. -JUQC 1. The paper read. "Well, the most logical word now is 'the'. So now there's only two more!"

Kiketsu watched silently as the youth tried to figure out the riddle. The snake like boy did not check to see the difficulty of it or if he could figure the question out. His mind was beginning to wonder about the last member of the team. “So strange…”. Without much as a glance in his peer’s direction the dread hair walked to catch up with his sensei and ‘teammate’. They were probably getting started without him. He didn’t need someone else to push far ahead of him. Not like Hiru, who most likely did.

”Don’t make us wait…” Kiketsu stated at the boy, without looking back. He continued to where the others are.

+1 Hikaru

-Exit-

Hikaru stood from the base of the fountain to be upright. Counting seemed to have worked well. I should do that again. Holding the paper in out hand he read what he hadn't figured out, aloud."Odoriko. We are at/in the IXEHUBYDU. -JUQC 1." The small boy looked at the next word of the note. Ixehubydu has nine letters. What word has that many letters in normal speach? Hikaru thought of as many words as possible. . "Well, it has to be a place.." Hikaru thought of as many places as he could. There weren't that many choices. After a few minutes, Hikaru realized it must have been Shoreline! The boy was so excited, he let out a small squeel. So now he has ,Odoriko. We are at the Shoreline. -JUQC 1. But what did the last mean?

Now, what about the last?, Hikaru said quietly to himself. The boy stood from the fountain. He was clearly excited to be almost finished. 'Odoriko. We are at the Shoreline. -JUQC 1. was was left on the piece of paper. Ok, now Juqc., I'm positive it's something weird. Hikaru then bounced ideas off of himself. Umm, They?, Glue? Hair? Of those three he could think of none of them made sense. "It has to be a person or something. But it can't be Andou.", the boy whispered. There wheren't very many words that only consisted of four letters. TEAM!! Hikaru smiled, as the made sense with the rest of the sentence. He had it now. The note was telling him that his team and sensei where at the shoreline! The small boy took off running. He ran throught the still unpopulated street's of Kirigakure. He ran straight for the Shore.

[ EXIT TO SHORELINE }

Hagane sighed and sat down on a nearby tree root, “My feet hurt, I’m almost out of food, and I used the last of my money to buy supplies off of the last person I met, and I’m still nowhere near where I need to be.” By the end of the statement he was practically screaming at the empty mist around him, Hagane blinked surprised at his sudden outburst of emotion, Well what do you expect I’ve been lost in this bloody mist for hours now. Hagane sighed once again before standing back up and walking again. After a few moments he began to hum the lullaby that his grandmother sung to him when he was small. It was a slow methodical song, almost like a funeral dirge instead of a lullaby. The song was made all the more eerie by the regular sound of his geta hitting the hard forest floor, keeping the beat.

Hagane began looking around him for any sign of the village when all of the sudden he ran head first into something hard and tall. Bloody trees, he gave the perpetrator of his headache another look and realized that it wasn’t a tree at all but a pillar. Hope suddenly rushed through his body, had he finally found his destination at last. He scrambled to his feet and strained his gaze so that he could make out the top of the pillar, and sure enough there it was. A sign connecting the pillar with something off in the mist, another pillar he presumed, and the signed said in big bold kanji, Kirigakure. Hagane let out a sigh; he had found his destination at last. He walked between the pillars boldly at first and then a little timidly. He looked around a little perturbed that there was no one else around, from what he had heard on the road the ninja villages were always supposed to have guards at the front gates, even if you couldn’t see them. “Hello, is anyone here?” His eye scanned the area looking for someone to appear.

[I love your post heart
Zirca is an NPC. You can see him in the NPC Profiles thread~]

"Hmmmm, hah, everybody's looking for something~" Zirca hummed to himself as he set off towards the village gates with only a stick over his back, with a blanket containing all his possessions (as well as those of his shop's) tied to it. He was running low on supplies and needed to go out to the world to find some more. It was quite a clear day, for Kirigakurian standards, but the main island was still a lot more misty than the Witch Market was. With all the fog drifting about Zirca felt like he was walking amongst the clouds. To Hagane, seeing Zirca would probably be like seeing a man appear from nowhere.

Zirca had just reached the village gates when he heard a shout. Looking in that general direction he saw a boy. Immediately, the gears in his mind started turning, although what he was thinking you wouldn't know. The kid was small and decked out in all black, and somehow Zirca couldn't help thinking how hot the journey here must have been. Where was he from? It was clear that he wasn't from Kirigakure. His curiosity piqued, Zirca got closer and was immediately assaulted with the smell of... embalming fluids? Was that what they were? He noticed the boy moving away, in the direction of the forest and immediately ran towards him. Placing one hand on Hagane's shoulder, he said, "Kid, you don't want to go there. Not until you're older and a registered villager, at any rate. You're new, right?" This child really looked interesting and Zirca couldn't wait to show his friends... well, only if the kid wanted. But it was now too early to be making assumptions anyway.

Zirca blinked and took one step back as the boy shot up into the air. Well, this was probably another one of those shinobi wannabes that wandered into the village every so often. Being as perceptive as he was he certainly didn't miss the look of fear that crossed Hagane's eyes. Er. Eye. There was a great gaping hole where his left eye was, but since the Witch Market was a pretty rough part of town, Zirca had seen this sort of thing before. So he was not perturbed in the least. He was perturbed at how the kid suddenly seemed to change personalities, though.

"Whoa, easy there," he said, holding up a pacifying hand, his other hand still firmly on his stick though since he didn't want to drop his belongings. "More like what do you want, really," he pointed out. "Are you new to Kirigakure? Hungry? I could show you around, bring you to Andou-sa..." Actually, that wasn't such a good idea. Zirca's sources had told him that he was teaching today, and he was always cranky when he was teaching. Crankier than usual. Next topic.

"Nothing but a forest?" he echoed Hagane. "Why don't we go there then? I've got some food here. We can have a picnic and talk a bit. I can tell you more about Kirigakure." It was merely a suggestion, but Zirca hoped he would accept. It would be a nice way to spend the day. And the boy would find out about the genjutsu, although Zirca would lessen the effects for him of course.

[Thanks XD It's a randosig so... might be a while before you see it again <.< XD]