Welcome to Gaia! ::

Isato sat silently on a rooftop, the long thin toothpick clenched between his teeth. He looked up at the sky for a few moments, enjoying the break between missions. It didn't look like Hatari was going to drag him on any other missions, at least not any time soon. He smiled softly and closed his eyes before leaning back a little bit more on the rooftop. He then reached into his pocket, drawing out a piece of paper and a pen. He had written two lines on the paper and stared silently at it, as if he was contemplating what else he should write down on the crisp white piece of parchment. His yellow eye looked over it carefully, his sharingan closed so as not to interfere in the creative process of whatever he was doing, as if he was afraid that if he opened his eye it might be to find that the answers came to easily, or were too mechanical to actually be enjoyed. He took a long breath, moving the thin piece of wood that he always carried clenched between his teeth around in his mouth a bit. Someone who hadn't seen him do this before might have thought that he was trying to find a place where it was comfortable in his mouth. What was actually happening was that he was thinking, and the nervous twitching and movements that he was making were just part of the process of his thought. There had to be an answer to this, but he supposed the fact that he was trying to force it was the opposite of what he was actually supposed to be doing.

He sighed and took a long breath again before folding the paper and sliding it back into his pocket again. If he had been paying attention to the politics of of the Mist village he might have been able to foresee an approaching mission. Because he didn't pay attention to Mist politics, because he liked leaving that sort of thing to Hatari since he was the Mizukage after all. He opened his eyes again and looked up at the clouds, "I guess I'm going to get to enjoy a nice long break again. I always enjoy these breaks. They are so nice." He let out a long yawn, still looking up at the sky. Well, if he was allowed to stay on this break he'd be having a very happy time for as long as he needed to. Sometimes he wished that he could go out and train for as many skills as he could possibly get, collect a few more water skills to add to his arsenal of techniques, but then again, he couldn't really think of any skills that he would need any more other than defensive skills. Now that he had his own skill set, branching out into other things seemed dangerous and pointless unless he could work it out so that everything worked out properly. With the way things were now, if he tried to branch out into a whole bunch of water skills, he'd just be wasting time. It wasn't like there were that many places that he'd use water skills, other than to make ice swords or other sorts of things. He had heard that there was a water sword skill, but even that was from a different village than the village hidden in the mist, which Isato found to be a bit disheartening since the Mist village was where the legendary seven swordsmen had come from.

He closed his eyes and took a few more long breaths, enjoying the break. Nothing had happened yet, and he had been able to keep away from annoying situations so far. He sighed softly and then heard the faint jingle of bells. He closed his eyes and muttered a profanity as the other reason that he had been enjoying some quiet time caught up with him. He looked over his shoulder, "Kumiko...you can't sneak up on me. You have to know that by now."

Kumiko, the orange haired girl who's hair was tied up in rather long pigtails with what appeared to be ribbons and bells frowned and glared at Isato from behind her mismatched eyes. She seemed to be pouting, "You are no fun. At all." She tapped her fingers against his knees and took a few long breaths before flopping down against the rooftop and looking up at the sky. Her navy blue dress hanging from her frame as she looked up at the sky. She brought her fingers down, tracing her fingers over her skirt for a moment she then pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked over to where Isato was sitting. She looked at him for a few moments before speaking again, "Why are we sitting here again? I mean, I don't keep track of all of the things that you say and think about because so often your plans are stupid." She chuckled at that.

"Stop it. Seriously." He turned his eyes to the girl and sighed softly, looking at her with mismatched eyes of his own. He looked at her for a few more moments before turning his attention back to the sky, "Just go to sleep or something, Kumiko. The whole goal of my relaxing time between missions is that I, and everyone who works as closely with me as you do, takes the opportunity to relax." He smiled and closed his eyes for a few moments again. Kumiko had taken the opportunity to pull down on her right eyelid with her ungloved hand and stuck her tongue out at him before proceeding to make a series of other funny faces at him, trying to prove a point, or to communicate something that was most likely just all of her rage at the situation that she was in right now at not having anything to do. Being bored was bad in her books.

Sai yawned as he sketched the morning sky, it had been such a long time since it was so sunny in the mist village. It really was a beautiful day, a light breeze blew past rattling the trees. There was absolutely no sign of mist, fog or any kind of dew, just the sun, the blue sky, and the clouds. After his last mission he was extremely appreciative for it too, he planned on going to the hospital later to see how Sorian was doing maybe break him out of the damn place. "Heh, still can't believe they haven't let him out.." He said quietly as he laughed to himself. Yawning again he jumped off his windowsill and and stretched out his tired arms, the joints cracking with a disqusting rythme. "Hey Sai.. Sai! Wake up bud, we gotta go see the Mizuakge remember!" Sai frowned and turned to look back out the window at the sound of his name, "Heh, no way.." He smiled widely as he opened his window and jumped out to land infront of Sorain, "Heh, they finally let you out mate?"

Isato sighed softly and continued to stare at the sky, completely aware of the foul faces that Kumiko was making at him. He was doing his very best to ignore the girl. He had been doing pretty well at it so far, but he was still keeping in mind the lessons that Hatari had put him through with all of that talk about not ignoring women because that was bad, and would result in some very bad things happening. He closed his eyes again and took a long breath. Really, he just wanted to ignore the girl for a few more moments. He let out a low sigh before looking over to the girl who's hair was tied up with ribbons and bells. She quickly stopped making the funny faces at him and looked off to the side, trying to pretend not only that she hadn't been paying attention to Isato, but also that she hadn't been making funny faces at him. Isato smiled as he looked at her for a few more moments and then looked back up to the sky, "You really don't have to hang around with me all of the time, you know that, eh, Kumiko? Why don't you just go do something else, like chase Hatari around or something. I'm sure that with him as powerful as he is that you could find plenty of enjoyable things to talk to him about." He smirked softly at that and then took a long breath, waiting for the onslaught that was sure to come.

Kumiko huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, an action that caused her chest to puff out a little bit more, making her breasts seem a little bit more full. She continued to pout and looked at Isato for a few more moments before speaking in a rather sour tone, "If I leave you alone you'll be screwed later. You're completely useless most of the time, but when you don't have anyone around with you, you're even more useless." She smirked softly and brought her hand up, tracing her fingers through her hair, "Maybe if you didn't suck so badly I wouldn't have to stick around all of the time to make sure that nothing bad happens to you." To this Isato had muttered something under his breath about sucking, which had gotten a rather foul look from Kumiko who had balled a fist and struck the back the back of Isato's head with enough force to cause him to lean forward a bit, "Pervert b*****d."

Isato frowned and then looked over to Kumiko, "I don't need you around in order to deal with problems that come up. I have other ways that I can fight, and there are other people who I can get to fight with me." Isato made a series of hand signs that ended with him biting his thumb and placing his hand down against the roof before him before there was a puff of smoke, from which the warrior nymph girl, Akane stepped out from the smoke and clouds, "I can always rely on Akane if I come to a situation where I require more than one person."

Akane frowned softly, her dull yellow eyes looking at Isato before looking over to Kumiko. She seemed to look at both of them for a moment before deciding to ignore Kumiko and focus all of her attention on Isato, "Yes, Master?" In all honesty, she wasn't such a big fan of Isato's new partner, Kumiko. It may have been some jealousy, or something else there that caused her to be so angry with the other woman. She wasn't even sure. It just felt like someone had moved in on her turf and was trying to steal what was hers. She took a long breath, "You summoned me?"

Isato looked at Akane for a few more moments and chuckled softly, "Nothing important, Akane. Just wanted to-" This was as far as the teal haired ninja had gotten in the conversation before he had been interrupted by the girl with the mismatched eyes.

"He doesn't need you. You can go now." Kumiko stared at Akane with her mismatched eyes, a slight frown on her face for a moment before it shifted into a smile, "It's okay though, I'm sure you've gotten used to the idea that he won't ever need you, haven't you?"

Akane's face remained the same emotionless mask that it had been since she had been summoned. She turned her head slowly so that her almost lifeless looking yellow eyes took in the sight of the redheaded girl, "At least I'm not as useless to him as you are. I provide more of a service than just being a steed upon which he can ride into battle." She blinked and continued to stare at Kumiko, obviously not about to back down on this argument, "I'm not sure why he keeps a wild animal like you around. You're beyond hope. Have you been paper trained yet?"

The hair on the back of Kumiko's neck stood on end, and her face turned into a dark and angry scowl, "Shut up, wench! You don't know me!"

The argument continued like that and Isato once again let himself lay back against the roof of the building. He really wasn't so much a fan of listening to the two women argue, but at least they weren't directly addressing or bothering him anymore. He was beginning to consider following Hatari's example and getting himself some sort of music player so that he could just pull on a pair of headphones and tune out the world when it got to this point in the conversation, like it always eventually did. He sighed softly and closed his eyes. Soon enough this would all be long forgotten and behind him. That would be nice. Eventually these two women would start getting along, and that would be nice too. He didn't expect it to happen today, or to even happen soon, but eventually they would start getting along. Isato wondered how it was that all of Hatari's summons got along together so well, but it wasn't one of those things that Isato was prepared to ask his sensei. Right now things were going well just the way they were, and he was willing to accept that it was just because they were two people who were just so very different. It was sort of like how Isato hadn't gotten along with that Vaun fello or whatever his name had been. Their personalities just worked against each other. Luckily Isato hadn't run into any more people with abrasive personalities like that since...other than Vykin, but that was a different story.

Mikaru sighed, rolling over on her futon. Putting an arm over her eyes she noted she needed to blinds to block out the sun... Wait, Sun? This was Mist and Sunny days were far and apart. Untangling herself from her messy sheets she ran a hand through her hair in an attempt to untangle it without any success. Sighing from aggravation and slight grumpiness from waking up She glanced at her clock. It was fairly early still.... Allowing her eyes to travel she spotted a small parchment she had written as a reminder. 's**t' She thought, flinging herself to her feet and rushing to the bathroom, gathering some clean clothes on the way.

Hurriedly she brushed her teeth, got dressed, brushed her hair, and got ready for the day. Throwing her necessities in a travel bag she armed herself with her typical weapons and ran out the door, grabbing an apple on her way out and locking the door. She sighed as she went outside, pulling up the hood on her cloak she had brought with her. The last thing she wanted was children to be scared, or point and stare. It would most definitely put her in more of a foul mood than she already was.

When she left the house it was about 7:30 so she had time to spare. Making her way to his residence she yawned, taking in the scenery. Her feet moving in a constant beat, although it wasn't audible to anyone but her. Ahead she saw the large Pagoda looming over the city. Her paced picked up slightly as she neared it. Leaning in she knocked lightly then leaned on one of the pillars, her arms crossed and her eyes closed as she waited for Hatari. Knowing him, there was a slight possibility he was still sleeping. She let out another Tired yawn as she waited.

Quote:

17/xxxx

The argument on the rooftop continued. The blond and redheaded woman continued to bicker, use rude nicknames and so on. Isato knew that it wouldn't be long until the bickering with actual points just dissolved into the two of them just throwing rude names and foul language at each other. That had seemed to be the theme between the two of them so far. They would first argue with each other, and then they would start the melt down into nicknames and insinuation, and then one of them would mention that the other was being incredibly childish before joining in on the battle of nicknames and insinuations. After that it was a downward spiral where it almost felt like the air between them was alive with crackling energy. Isato sighed softly and brought his hand up, running his fingers through his hair before bringing his hand down to cover the sharingan eye while he looked up at the sky. Really, if he ignored the part where they were arguing and fighting, this almost seemed kind of nice and relaxing. Even if he thought about the arguing and fighting for only a moment, this was kind of nice, since he knew that both women were arguing over him, who he liked best, and who was the most useful to him. It was definitely a far cry from Kumiko's suggestions that he was useless and would never be able to do anything without her assistance. It was also a far cry from the times when Akane would just scream that he was a pervert and she hated him. This was much nicer actually. He thought about bringing both of them out so that they could argue more often, and decided that he could write it off as strategic planning because he was trying to make it so that they could work together.

He smiled as he began to think strategy in his head. Really, there was a lot that he could think about on that front, just with the two women who were here with him now. There were questions like who was better for defense and who was better for offense, which wasn't as easy a question as it might have seemed. While Akane had her healing ability, she also had reasonable attack abilities, and was rather nimble. On the other hand, Kumiko's heavysword suggested attack since it had crushing power as well as cutting power, and there were very few things that would be able to deal with that kind of weapon, but it also was an effective shield when it was put into the orange haired girl's hands. He couldn't really ignore either side of either of them, and was wondering if it would be best to just ignore which position each was better at and simple shift them back and forth as was necessary. The problem that arose with that was that the defensive player would be staying close to him, while the offensive player probably wouldn't, meaning that by doing that, unless he was constantly shifting them back and forth, he was going to breed more arguments like the one that they were having now, only they would be along the lines of 'I got to stay close to him. It must mean that he likes having me closer than he does you'. The problem with that kind of argument over the kind of argument that they were having now was that no matter how hard he tried, that kind of argument made him an active participant, even if that hadn't been what he had meant. How Hatari dealt with all of his summons in a way that stopped this kind of argument was something that just went over Isato's head. He'd have to ask the other ninja about that some time.

He sighed softly, the argument still going on between the two girls. This sort of thing was beyond his control. If he tried to stop it he would be accused of taking someone's side, and if he did that, then neither of them would be any good in battle. If he took someone's side that one would become all clingy and over excited, while the other one would become emotional and depressed. He knew enough about the two of them that it wasn't going to lead to a healthy rivalry where they would both work extra hard for him to show how great they were. Really, with things the way they were they were closer to developing that healthy rivalry, and he knew better than to think that they were anywhere close to that. If a battle had started now the might make a contest out of it to see who could kill more of the opponents, but they would battle dangerously, and wouldn't have nearly as much regard for each other as he wanted them to, which would probably result in one accidentally cutting the other in the middle of the fight. This would quickly progress into them having an argument over who's fault that had been in the middle of the battle, leaving him with all of the remaining work. Isato was beginning to wonder if getting the new girl had actually been a good idea after all. So far he wasn't sure, but then again, so far he didn't think he had really actually taken her into battle. He couldn't remember anything like that if it had happened.

"I had him first! I'm more useful to him because I already know the way that he thinks and can help him develop strategies." Akane seemed to not be doing so well at hiding her emotions in this little battle of words that she was having with Kumiko. Her lips had taken on a slight frown and her eyebrows and slanted down expressing her anger and hostility towards the other woman, "A child like you couldn't possibly understand the bond that he and I have."

"I don't need to understand how he thinks. I just have to be able to follow orders. While we're on that topic though, I can go above and beyond expectations because I'm able to improvise." Unlike Akane, Kumiko hadn't even been trying to hide her emotions. She was now wearing a slight smirk and had closed her eyes, obviously sensing that she had achieved some sort of victory, probably just a personal victory, since everyone knew that the argument was far from over, "Because I think so differently from him, I am definitely far more useful to him, because we look at problems with different points of view, unlike you who always looks at the problem the exact same way he does."

Isato sighed softly. Somehow they had gone full circle, and had actually come back from childish name calling to actually try and make valid points. It was interesting the way that these women worked. It was really a pity that they refused to put this much effort into working together. He really had high expectations for what the two women could do if they turned the energy that they had been using against each other into something constructive. Then again, if this relationship followed the theme, it wouldn't be long now until that had gone full circle as well, just like how Akane and Slene had been getting together so well at the beginning of their relationship and then had suddenly turned into polar opposites. If the theme of magic emotional reversal continued they would probably both find something in common and then wouldn't argue so brutally anymore. Isato still though that the chances of that were astronomically low, but it never hurt to dream.

Isato had managed to continue sitting silently on the rooftop, his eyes scanning out over the scenery around him. He really was beginning to get tired of his little 'break', if you could call what he was doing a break. He looked down to the street for a few moments, thinking about getting up and just walking away from the argument that was happening around him. He sighed softly. It was a good idea, and if he did it he would be able to look around and maybe even find a few of the other ninja weapons that he was interested in acquiring. Recently, he had been thinking about getting a chain scythe of some sort. He hadn't really been able to think much on it before now with all of the missions that Hatari had kept him busy with, but that was something else entirely. He sighed softly and closed his eyes for a few moments. He was sure that Hatari wouldn't agree that it was a good idea. Hatari had been trying to tie him down to one thing since he had started his training, and somewhere along the line sword skills had become the thing that defined Isato's style. Arguing with him wasn't a wise idea, since he was a rather powerful ninja and he seemed to be pretty smart in that regard, but really, being a weapon master in general seemed to have worked out fairly well for that gay ninja that Isato had fought on the train mission, well, it had been doing well for him until they had gotten to the point of the mission where they had met and he had killed the weapon wielding ninja.

The difference, Isato supposed, was that pins seemed to be what that ninja had focused on. He had been able to use a wide selection of weapons, but pins were his specialty. It was like how Isato could use a wide variety of attacks that had nothing to do with his sword, but his sword was his specialty. Really, Isato thought that what he could do with a sword he could do with most any bladed weapon really. What was the point to limiting himself to just swords. He could go into town buy some kunai, and shuriken, and while they wouldn't have the reach for slashes and whatnot, they would be able to pull moves such as long ranged attacks, the sort of things that he really couldn't do with a sword very easily. He smiled and reached his hand down to his pocket, pulling out a pair of the baoding balls, slowly circling them around in his hand for a few moments. If he got the other throwing weapons, he probably wouldn't have a need for the baoding balls anymore. That was really a bit of a pity, since he liked them so much, and had spent so much time trying to get them. Well, some things just got lost in time, he supposed. He no longer really had the same need for the baoding balls that he had once upon a time. He would still be able to use them for exercises he was sure, but really, there wasn't all that much point in that other than to exercise his fingers so that he could keep up with what his sharingan was showing him. That would be plenty fun.

Sai's face was turning the color of his hair from laughing so hard, "Oh jeez, oh boy oh boy!! God this hilarious. Dude, who did you bring? I thought everyone that's been here found it on their own." He said as he took in a deep breath before dashing infront of Sorain only to turn around infront of him and start walking backwards, "Heh, blow it up? Why so drastic man. What do ou expect, everyone who has found the lake have all been ninja and ninja attract ninja! So long as somebody is there somebody will be able to find it." He said nodding as he spoke what he thought to be the obvious. Sai started laughing again the moment he saw the Medic-Nin, "Ha! Lookie, lookie the medics are back." He said laughing but immediately stopped and became serious once again as the medic-nin told Sorain that he was released on the orders of the Mizukage and that his squad was now being placed on a S-Ranked Mission. "... No way man, an S-Ranked Mission?! Dude, we're only genin. We almost got smashed to pieces on C-Ranked Missions!!" He shook his head, "Is he mad in his head or something? I hope he's coming on this mission, cause there is no way in hell I'm going to do a S-Ranked Mission without the back up of more then two powerful shinobi." He said annoyedly before letting out a heavy sigh and turning away from Sorain to look into the sky, "Does the scroll tell us who else is on this mission and what are the details of the mission? And who is the three cell of our squad?!" He asked feircely.