Golden Opportunities

Her hand reached up to hold his as he gently caressed her face before getting out of bed. She might have spent the night with the man and was playing the part of friendly companion, but Alice still looked out for herself above anyone else. With that quick, gentle touch she would have used the opportunity to subtly mark the ex-Hogokage's hand. It was a practice she had taken up long ago and even now all of her semi-useful minions had been marked in a similar fashion. There would be no real sign and the seal would have faded before Valen took his hand out of hers, so it was highly unlikely the ashen-haired male would have noticed what she'd done. 

With that out of the way, the young Nara rogue wore a genuine smile on her face as she watched Valen's naked form appreciatively as he got out of bed and let the sheets fall away from his muscled body. As wonderful a sight as that was, however, Alice watched with even more interest as her potential ally stepped on a discarded piece of his clothing and it began enveloping his body and forming itself back into the entire set of armor he had been wearing when she had met him. 

'That armor is amazing. I have to get my hands on it somehow. Ugh, unfortunately I'll probably have to play nice with this one for months until he'd be willing to let me in on how it's made or where I can get my hands on one of my own... She had been so deep in her own thoughts that she had nearly missed Valen making a single Tiger seal. Nearly. Her muscles still managed to tense up though as she sat bolt-upright in the bed and prepared for a potential attack after catching the movement in her peripheral vision. 

And then she relaxed just as fast, seeing that the male clearly had no intention of harming her. He had just used a simple space-time technique to retrieve a strange bag, from which he pulled out a cube of some sort and tossed it to the rogue kunoichi. With honed reflexes, Alice caught the strange cube easily enough and began inspecting it. It didn't take long for her to realize exactly what it was. Valen had just handed her exactly what she had been planning on getting from him after months of work a mere moment ago. Had she really shown so much interest and was he really so generous, or naïve, that he would give something so valuable to a girl he had only just met? WELL, it certainly seemed like that was the case. "I, um. Thank you," she said, looking up at him and trying to catch his eyes before returning to examine the cube more closely.

Turning it over in her hands, Alice decided to infuse a bit of her own chakra into it since that was how Valen had said it worked. Immediately she could feel a response. It was almost as if it was sentient, though she knew that wasn't possible. "Train? Yea, sure. I could go for a quick session with you," she said absently, still admiring the cube in her hands and trying to figure out its secrets. She sent another pulse of her chakra into the cube and willed it to form itself into her usual outfit. The sensation she felt was very strange. It felt as if the fabric was literally crawling over her skin as it shaped itself into the new form Alice had commanded it to take. When it had finally finished forming into the uniform-esque clothing that she normally wore, the Nara would finally get out of bed as well after allowing the silver-eyed male to gently tilt her chin toward him and place another kiss upon her lips. He challenged her to keep up and then he was gone in a dazzling flash of light, undoubtedly using Vanish or a similar technique to do so. 

His bold challenge to what she saw as a small game of hide-and-seek made her smirk. Perhaps he would be more fun to have around than she had originally thought. Quickly retrieving her sword and replacing her eye patch over her left eye, Alice would locate his chakra signature nearby and form a series of seals before disappearing in a flash of light herself, reappearing just a few short feet away. "Well, well. Seems like this might actually be enjoyable after all," she teased, moving forward to kiss him again. "As for Kenshin, I can easily summon my underlings at any time so picking them up shouldn't be anything of a challenge, but is it smart to take our time? There's a high chance he could be gone before we get to wherever it is you're taking us. I don't really think it's in our best interests to wait. We should start going as soon as possible." 


[mark seal placed on whichever hand valen used to caress Alice's cheek. huehuehuehue]

She’d stutter upon his gift of the very armor that she had been asking about. Well, almost, it was a bit of an inferior model. However that didn’t mean that the woman couldn’t study it and make a better model herself. He’d give her a shrug at her thanks before moving around the bed to kiss her and teleport away. An explanation as to why was probably in order “Bottom line? You could’ve tried to kill me at any point last night. You wouldn’t have succeeded, or at least I’d like to think so. However considering we’re both going to track down Kenshin, it leads me to believe that we’ll both be working together in the near future. I wasn’t exactly using that armor. It was sitting in a bag, doing absolutely nothing. When instead it could be protecting the back of a fellow shinobi who either is respectful enough to not try to kill me in my sleep, has need of me and so wouldn’t try to anyway, or I’ll be working together with in the near future. It makes sense to give it to you.” He would say, ending the explanation there as if that was all that needed to be said. If they were potentially going to be allies, then it made sense for him to give her extra protection in the way of an extremely useful piece of armor. One that could be disguised as simple clothing.

At this point everything would continue as planned, his gentle kiss to her, his minor taunt, and his teleporting away. It would however only take a minute or two, if that, for her to appear next to him in her own flash of light. “Good follow through.” He’d say simply, as she appeared next to him. He hadn’t even really had time to get into his first kata before she had arrived. She’d take a moment to give him a kiss. Making him curious as to how far they were going to take their intimacy. The bedroom was one thing, but he loved Hikari. More than he could fully put into words. If anything happened to her, well, he didn’t honestly know what he would do if that happened. She’d proceed to inform him that she can easily summon her underlings to her at any point in time, so tracking them down shouldn’t be an issue. It was just traveling to Kenshin that they were waiting on. She would however ask if it was wise to wait until later to travel to his last known location. He could have already left for all they knew. He’d stop his kata to consider for a moment, prompting his inner companion to give her own opinion on the matter. ‘She’s right you know. Max told you about that fight over a week ago. A missing shinobi of Kenshin’s strength can’t afford to sit anywhere long. Or rather, they won’t, because they’ll get bored. We need to track him down quickly, or he’ll move on, and we can’t follow his chakra signature.’ The beast would say, causing Valen to give a mental nod in agreement.

“I suppose you’re right, I can skip my training for a day.” He would say as he sheathed Seraphim into its scabbard. “We can leave now if you want, he’s in Wind Country, last I heard anyway.” He would say as he waited for her response on if she was ready to travel. If she was, he’d give her a nod before giving one last check of his gear and looking up toward her “Let’s get going then” He would say before moving moving off toward the direction of Wind Country from their position. It shouldn’t take them long to get there, and when they did, they’d find Kenshin.

[Exit]

WC: 631
TWC: 7000

Claims: Dependent on claims from this
Finishing Nature Chakra Proficiency with 651 words
Claiming both this and this with 3000 more using the max stat discount (Only the cloaks should be undsicountable, last I checked, which was just now)
The last 3000 words (dropping the extra 349) will go to attuning the following jutsu to Nature Chakra
Elemental Chains
Light of Aetherius
Sovereign Will
Dismissal of Dawn
Shattered Remnants
Steam Cleaning

At least he seemed to have some sense of reason. It was seeming more and more like Alice was actually going to enjoy playing with this one. She hadn't actually expected him to forgo his training session and say they should leave immediately, but it certainly worked out in her favor. "Yea, let's get going. After you," she would say in answer, gesturing for Valen to lead the way.

[exit]
TWC: 3,283
claiming: 16 stats
2,783 toward Sage Mode
500 to nature train shadow imitation field
memorizing Valen's chakra signature
mark seal placed on one of his hands
+1 manipulated fabric

Approved Valen & Alice <3