Raised Inhibitions (p,nk,Aki)

So, extremely cyclical weather? That hammered hard into Kozai's psyche. Well, he'd have to break it to her this time, if he was going to make things right. However, he was interrupted. Beneath the sands, Kozai could easily sense the scorpion that Akihana was trying to get to. Was the woman insane? Kozai was about to shoot a stream of water straight through the arthropod, but considering that Akihana was a medical expert, she most likely had some kind of plan. Still, Kozai couldn't help but feel concern for the woman's mental state. What was she doing? Was this what people meant by "respect for life"? 

Kozai left things well enough alone, but if there was some animal (or human, for that matter) that got in his way, he had no issues killing it right then and there. Perhaps that was why people were hesitant to accept him, he thought to himself suddenly. It was pretty clear at some moments in his life that people could sense the constant killing intent coming off of him as he went about his daily life, or at least what little of it was left. It was a good decision to shy away from him, after he thought about it. Although, what other approach to life was there? He couldn't possibly live like everyone else.

Besides, Kozai had his precious individuality to worry about.

Wait, was she suggesting that they follow the scorpion?

"Fine. But don't blame me if it leads us to a cactus." That was the most likely result, he knew. After all, those were the most easily accessible sources of water around. He knew the animal mentality well; it was better to spend less energy looking for a good source of water than to dig down and take risks. However, plant life might help him a bit.

Kozai might have doubted the scorpion's ability to lead them to water but Akihana wouldn't give up on the little guy. As they followed the desert creature, the young man beside her more reluctantly so, Akihana found herself wondering not for the first time how he had gotten this... Was cynical the right word? Or was he just practical and she the anomaly? It wouldn't surprise her for though she saw the world with considerably sympathetic lenses, she knew she was more often than not the odd one out. The blonde couldn't help but wonder if she was as much of an oddity to Kozai as he was to her.

"So what brought you to Haven," she asked casually. It wasn't difficult to keep the scorpion in view but even if it had been, Akihana had made sure it would always find it's way back to them. After all, not all jutsu had to be flashy. The young woman practiced and in fact preferred techniques bothering on the subtle. "Kozai had mentioned not having a mother and she had known better than to ask if he was on the run from someone. Shinobi didn't live into adulthood without making enemies and the less she knew about it, the less she could be implicated.

But that didn't lessen her concern for the young man any. "Wouldn't someone be worried for you? You mentioned leading a village once. It's not a position one holds without making emotional ties." Of course, the kunoichi herself had hardly led anything but she had worked closely with village leaders, Yaju, Misa, Maku, even Den - as much as he disliked the position - had cared for their people. And those people in turn had cared for their leaders. To find one all alone and trying to sneak into a shinobi village for simply the sake of sneaking in was odd to say the least.

The scorpion crawled along, oblivious to the to ninja following in it's wake.

Kozai kept a close "eye" out for any water sources nearby, of course. As they moved along (slowly) behind the small arthropod (it was actually an arachnid, not an insect), Kozai noted that the surrounding area would be great for some kind of recreational area. The sand here wasn't too bad, it was better than the constant gravel of Iwa. What made him particularly anxious, however, was that he had no jutsu that were capable of helping them along in their search. He had spent his entire life developing techniques to kill that he had left very little time to the other things in life. Still, he had his two sensory techniques, and that was enough for him most of the time. 

Hmm... what had brought him to Hoshi? Really, it had been nothing in particular. He had been roaming around, with no direction in his life until he had started to meet people outside of Hoshigakure. The residents of Haven (and that one missing-nin from Konoha) were entertaining for Kozai to talk to. Some, like Arthur, had actually had some experience, while others were great conversation for their lack of worldly wisdom. Come to think of it, there was now a paradox that Kozai had to resolve within his own personality, one that made him uncomforatable:

If he put no faith in human beings, why did he enjoy being around them so much?

Was it because, perhaps, he was a human too? People flocked to each other, he supposed, but he knew that there was probably another reason. Something in the subconscious, perhaps? He knew that he'd never be able to fully trust people, but at some point he would have to decide whether or not to go it alone. The real question, in a sense, was: did he need other people? This looped around well to the question that Akihana had just asked. Within a split second, he made his decision.

"I'd been wandering around for a while, going to places like Ame and Konoha. As you might imagine, I didn't get along too well with the people there. Some people are incompatible, after all." Kozai's eyes narrowed as he thought of the Hokage in Konoha. Hmm, maybe he'd have to take a trip back there someday and show him real power. That kid kage had no idea of the world he had gotten into... the philosophy of "being able to protect everyone" crumbled very quickly in the face of reality.

"Anyways, I guess I came to Hoshi in the hopes of being accepted. I was tired of being cast out, and I guess something... irrational inside me took hold. Silly, isn't it?"

When she mentioned Iwa, Kozai's face showed no signs of emotion. It took real effort, though.

"I really only had one person I was emotionally connected to in Iwa. I've been careful never to get that attached again." In a way, he had been partially responsible for Agito's death. That guilt had never left him since.

The blonde nodded as he mentioned wondering around. It sounded like a tiring life. Perhaps it was her luck but she had now met two such wanderers in a short amount of time and both Takeo and Kozai didn't sound particularly happy with the whole wandering aspect of the situation. Was it true that the heart desired a home? Perhaps, she would never delve into philosophy like that. Akihana had always believed in a much simpler fact, that home was with the people you loved. Her home was wherever Arata felt at home and that was Hoshi now.

Perhaps Kozai suffered from not having anyone to call home. If homes were made of people and he lacked human connections, Akihana suddenly understood the desperation to be wanted, needed, to belong to someplace. She would never embarrass the young man by voicing her thoughts out loud but she wished she could hug him - the very instinct she'd had of him even as he'd stood threatening the innocent of Hoshi with a Display of Power so gruesome, it likely gave children nightmares. Not for the first time, she could see how Kozai was really just a child. But now she knew he was a child looking for a home.

And she wished she could tell him that Hoshi would be that home.

"Sad about Konoha," she said instead, fighting all her maternal instincts to reach out to the librarian. "I heard their Hokage passed away. My brother visited me a while back with the sad news. He was quite young from what I heard." Jason Senju's death had indeed been a blow to Hoshi. But sympathy letters were sent as were new treaty offers towards the new Kage who also happened to be Akihana's former superior, the Raikage. Though from Kasuga's account, Kurisu-sama had mellowed a bit. He'd have to, Akihana had only ever seen him once, and even that too in the heat of a war of nations.

"One second," the kunoichi stopped, having lost track of the scorpion. Bending down in the sand, she drew a rough circle, pouring a tiny bit of chakra into it. With a poof, the scorpion appeared once more, treading along it's merry way as Kozai spoke of his ties in Iwa, or lack thereof. He didn't want to talk about this special person and Akihana would never make him. But that didn't mean she wouldn't try to make him feel better.

"Village destruction... well, they happen. I used to stay wake and agonize about what it was that i could have personally done to stop mine. But perhaps there was nothing I could have done, you could have done." Turning her golden eyes to his, she spoke softly. "It wasn't your fault."

Just as she finessed speaking, a cluster of cacti loomed ahead of them. Kozai had been right, there was no water source nearby.

Hmmm...? So, the Senju kid had died. Kozai regretted not being the one to do the deed himself, but he realized that it probably didn't matter anymore. He had more than enough Senju DNA for fifty lifetimes. The Seed.... it was more than just a DNA library after all. When he stabilized one of its copies within someone's body, it provided access to something new. Strange how that worked, wasn't it? Anyways, practical things aside, he didn't feel comfortable with how Akihana made him feel. She certainly wasn't forcing herself on him (or if she was, she was doing a very good job of it), but her counsel made Kozai feel guilty about his worldview. He'd have to do a bit more thinking, that was for sure. 

"Oh, that kid hokage died? Hmph, looks like I may have to take a trip back there." Kozai stopped himself from saying what he REALLY meant. He wanted to take a trip back there and see what he could get. DNA, information.... insiders... anything at all. Akihana might not approve of his methods though.... wait, why did he care what she thought all of a sudden? He tried to rationalize it as quickly as possible. Forced thoughts like 'I must maintain a reputation in Hoshi' rushed through his mind, but he soon realized that he was just lying to himself. No, the reason he felt this way was because Akihana was somehow inexplicably filling an emotional hole that he didn't know he had. 

Clearly, this might be a problem in the future.

The village though, was a different matter.

"Of course it wasn't my fault. After all, I wasn't the one who blew it up." He gave her an unintentionally baleful gaze, and they both would know what he meant.

Maku.

Where was he, anyway? He hadn't seen him in forever.

So he planned on returning to Konoha? She wondered if he had been close to the fallen Kage and wanted to deliver his condolences in person. But she hadn't pressed him about his connections in Iwa and she wasn't about to press him on his connections at the Leaf. There appeared to be no word of her own family from Konoha - the few travelers who came from there unaware of the family's existence let alone movement - and that was good news. When it came to the Akari, no news was always good news.

She'd just have to believe that.

Hearing him deadpan reply about Iwa's destruction caused her no small amount of stress. They had never really talked about it but she knew who was behind it. Somehow she'd always known and yet she had done the thing she claimed to never do. She'd lied to herself about it. But that lie had come with a price and as it turned out, she was the only one responsible for paying it. She probably deserved it too, it would teach her never to lie again, even if to herself and even if for just a moment.

Averting her gaze from his, she motioned to the plants ahead. "I guess the scorpion really was leading us to a cactus, one of several," she stated the obvious, shaking her head in disappointment. "Any more ideas on where we should look? Maybe we're misreading the map?" It was possible that there was more information to be dug in this miracle cure and they just weren't looking in the right place.

"Or has the famed guardian decided we aren't worthy?" she added to inject a little humor into the situation. The blonde had no idea how much she believed in a scribbled note about a guardian dispensing this cure to the pure of heart but at this point, anything sounded better than returning home empty handed.

Kozai only realized that Akihana was being humorous about one second after she spoke. He really was slipping. At any rate, he took stock of their options. He now knew things that probably no one else knew about this area, not even Akihana. After all, who else had a sensory technique like his own? 

"Well, these cacti could get THEIR water from one of several sources. Naturally, rainwater is an option, but it could be an actual aquifer... that doesn't explain why we aren't able to find it, though." 

Kozai looked around him, not just to his left and right, but below him as well, extending his senses as far as they could go. Since he couldn't perceive color in his sensory, he'd have to do a bit more than he had wanted to at first. 

"I've got a hypothesis. If it's right, there's an easy long-term solution. Can your slug go down and collect rock samples?" Kozai took a step away from the cacti, spreading his arms. This was Kozai's didactic side, the one that loved not just to collect knowledge, but to share it with other people.

"If I'm right, the temperatures around here are somehow causing the layer of rock here to shift seasonally, causing it to cover the aquifer, or something like that. Cacti aren't like other plants, they don't need water as often. In fact, they even have a special path for photosynthesis. As such, the aquifer might be exposed to our probing during small time windows throughout the year."

He'd then indicate the cacti.

"We can try and approximate those windows based on the 'cycles' of that cluster of plants. I'd certainly need more data, but this is a much better start than any of us could have hoped for, given the circumstances." Kozai would return to a normal posture, then turn to Akihana.

"So, we'd have to come back out here several times a year. How does that sound?"

After listening to him, the Kunoichi nodded, letting the small slug still dutifully collecting nature energy on the blonde's behalf out of her sleeve. "What do you say, Cream?" she asked the creature, petting its tiny head with her index finger. "Can you get us a rock sample?" No sooner were the words out than Cream let go, falling from her arm to the sands below. In a moment, his tiny body was covered by the desert as he burrowed deep underground, looking for what they sought.

While the slug was away, both shinobi took to studying the plants, Akihana keeping a an eye out for the original scorpion who had brought them there in the first place. Though she could always track him through mark seal tracking now, the blonde still preferred keeping the little thing in sight. It took a while, gathering all the samples and postulating on the different seasons and timings of the aquifer to "appear" but it was pleasant company. When Cream finally returned with the samples, Akihana extracted it carefully from the slug's person before handing it to Kozai.

"That sounds fine to me," she replied to his final question as they got ready to leave. It seemed Kozai was more at home in the middle of nowhere and it helped him relax, talk about himself. The young woman had a feeling that regardless of whether they ever found the miracle cure, these excursion might result in one positive thing: a possible friendship.

(Exit, claims coming in a bit)

TWC: 3, 773

1, 500 - Temporary Paralysis
1, 500 - Mark Tracking
750 - Marked Area Circle Seal
23 - to charity

Mm, that was quite the slug, to be able to survive in the low moisture environment of the sand. Still, Kozai had already known that it wasn't a normal animal. Taking the rock sample, he would bow to Aki, and depart, heading back to Hoshi. As he went, he realized that there were no geological surveys of this desert area. Whaaaaat? He'd have to come out here himself now and make some. Oh well, now that he was settled down somewhat, he had plenty of time to do as he pleased. The surveys were no problem.

(exit
claiming nothing, because CD)

Approved