To the Land of Our Forefathers [travel]

[41 Summer, 419 AV]

---[Flashback]---

It is not long through the night when Satoru is awoken by a ruckus downstairs in the main lobby of the inn. This is the same building which the Nara has decided to place the civilians from Hoshigakure. Most of these people were likely sound asleep, it being the middle of the night after hours upon hours of walking with few breaks. These people deserved a long rest free from disturbance. Among them are young children who should be quite well commended for having made the trek. Satoru, on the other hand, is a trained shinobi. He can afford to spend so much energy and have his sleep interrupted midway through. The Nara’s chakra is replenished enough for him to physically examine the ruckus in the lobby without being in mortal danger and without self defense.

Satoru rises from the couch upon which he had decided hours ago would be his to sleep on. The bed, after the fiasco that was his entrance into the room and the couple’s complete lack of preparedness despite his warning, had been deemed henceforth unclean. From the green couch, Satoru sits up and rubs his eyes, the sound of shouting and glass breaking quite audible from below. The room is too dark to see anything, but the Nara has the layout quite well memorized. Every wall is in its place in his head, along with all of the furniture and windows within the walls. The doors are closed, he imagines as he left them. The image in his mind is superimposed over the black void into which he stares, to create a sort of imagined holographic layout of the room as he looks around. He turns his head left and right to test his memory, to ensure that he can conjure up the makeup of the room to his left and right as he looks about. There is no skip in the materialization of the room, proof that Satoru knows the space well enough to get up and move about.

The Nara wears the more comfortable clothes which he had packed before leaving Hoshigakure. His plan, the reader may remember, was to leave the village in the first place when he stepped out of his house. It was only a coincidence that Valen Akari had appeared and changed his course of action to one where he would be leading a caravan of civilians. At times during the journey to this inn, Satoru has wondered where he would have gone if his original vision had come to fruition. His destination would not have been Sunagakure, so he may not have moved south of Haven country’s border towards Wind Country. It is likely that he would have moved east towards Rain Country in order to meet up with the clan of salamanders which he calls his summoning race. The goal of this would be to prepare himself for a one-man siege unto Amegakure, this action having the further goal of avenging his fallen pride. The Nara would prove his strength to those who would dare tread upon his home.

It is difficult for one to see miles down their path. The perceived future is often inaccurate or subject to change at any given moment by any given force, natural or artificial.

Satoru, fed up with his inability to sleep due to whoever is in the lobby pushes him to exit his room. In walking to the door, he need not grope about for the handle. The previous night, the Nara had destroyed the door itself. In its place are two of the extra bed sheets stored in the room. The are hung such that they block nearly all of the dim light that makes the hallway visible. He takes a few steps into this hallway, his head inclined slightly to his left so that his ear is pointed partially towards the floor. Satoru would prefer to hear the cause of the disturbance to the best of his ability. He suspects that it may be one or multiple shinobi from Hoshigakure who have tracked him and his caravan down to this location in order to bring them back to Hoshi, with Satoru dead or alive.

The Nara’s predictions, predictions like this one in which he imagines one of the worse scenarios, are rarely correct. In most instances, the things that could be worse than they are, turn out to be mundane. Satoru has been trying to worry less, his pessimistic imagination often making him miss opportunities that would have bettered his life in the long run. In this instance, for the first time in quite a while, Satoru’s prediction has been proven accurate. He descends the stairs to the lobby of the inn to find two ninja, a man and a woman, dressed in the attire worn by members of Hoshigakure’s forces. Satoru makes eye contact with the male of the two, who looks over as though any random civilian had appeared. And indeed Satoru had the expression of any random civilian, an expression of surprised indifference as though he had seen a dog suddenly wake up from a dream.

The shinobi glances at Satoru, the two made eye contact, and then they looked away. The two looked away for different reasons. Satoru’s reason for averting his eyes every so slightly was in order to seem as though he had nothing to do with the man. By the looks of the situation, the man and the woman had been pressuring the inn-keeper to spill any information he had on suspicious activity in the area. Maybe they had given a description of Satoru. For this reason, the Nara looked away in order to give the man the impression that he was not in fact Satoru Nara, but a person of no interest.

This tactic fails. The shinobi looks again at Satoru, who preemptively churns the chakra within his body and turns himself towards their direction. Before the man even begins to speak, tendrils of shadow spring from Satoru’s shadow, eight of them in total. All of these things happen within one second, of course: Satoru’s gaze looking away, the man doing the same, the man then looking back at the Nara, and Satoru activating the shadow sewing technique. The man from Hoshigakure has his words cut short when three of Satoru’s threads dart towards his face. The same with the woman, who ceases to interrogate the inn-keeper and draws her eyes towards the Nara.

“Who are you here for?” Satoru asks, his voice cautious yet dangerous at the same time. It is more of a demand than it is a question. The sheer darkness in his voice is evident, despite his tone not deviating from what it normally is.

Recognizing the gap in power between Satoru and themselves, the two shinobi did not attempt to retaliate. Rather, they remained still. The woman answered. “We were given a notice that there was a disturbance here. A tanned man with short black hair broke into one of the suites at this motel using immaterial black tendrils as sharp as needles. We aren’t looking to arrest or attack anyone. Just… please keep your actions from further negatively impacting the people in this area.”

Satoru takes a moment to think. These two are not on a hunt for the Nara, on a mission to track down a traitor. Rather, the two love-makers from hours ago had filed a complaint and these two have been dispatched to deal with the situation.

“This man was actually quite helpful, really. Those two had overstayed their welcome and refused to pay rent. I couldn’t throw them out, you can see that I’m just a bag of bones.” The inn-keep began defending Satoru whereas he had previously been silent. “This man is my hired muscle. His methods are unorthodox, but he is no criminal, I can assure you.”

The man responds after seemingly working up the nerve to do so. By now, the shadow threads produced by Satoru are beginning to recede from the two Hoshigakure ninja. "I see. Even so, do try to prevent further complaints. Thank you for your time. Have a good night."

Like that, the two leave, walking slowly out of the inn. Satoru’s eyes follow them the entire way, his threads remaining pointed towards them in the case that he had misjudged their motives. But the room is empty aside from Satoru and the inn-keeper.

“Thank you.” The Nara expresses his gratitude for the older man’s handling of the situation.

“Don’t worry about it. But I can do without Hoshigakure’s shinobi policing the area. I appreciate your actions, but I also agree with keeping a lower profile.” He states.

Satoru’s threads are completely retracted by now. “Yes. Sorry about that.” His response is simple but enough to satisfy the inn-keeper. With this, Satoru heads back up to his room.

For the rest of the night, out of paranoia, the Nara fails to fall asleep. Rather, he sits restfully, waiting for the sun to rise.

---[End of Flashback]---

With the multitude of civilians from Hoshigakure safely hidden in plane site among an obscure inn, Satoru Nara finds the time right to do some thinking on his own. The metaphorical path upon which he walks is one with an unknown destination and even unpredictable turns and forks in the road. From his hijacked room in the wooden motel of a building, he comes to a conclusion.

"Valen Akari. I haven't been in contact with him since I left Hoshigakure. He's taken longer than expected to track myself and these civilians to this place so that we can go to that new home he talked about. Sunagakure..." Satoru stares at the ceiling, laying on the couch in the room, itching to to something, anything to remind himself that his journey is not stagnant. "I'd rather not wait here doing nothing. Ever since I spoke with Max in Hoshi and he showed me that scroll, I've been intrigued by the idea that there are written secrets of the Nara clan that I could be learning from. Absorbing that information from the roots of my family ability would prove useful beyond anything I could do by training on my own. Max told me that he found the scroll by scavenging in Kumogakure, but the Nara clan originated in Konoha..."

Satoru rises from the couch and begins to prepare his things for travel. Following this, he leaves the room and approaches the inn-keeper.

"How much do I owe you for the stay?" The Nara asks, removing his pocket book.

"Oh, don't worry about it. That couple had the most bizarre interests.... Almost every night, they kept up half of the inn with their antics. For driving them out, I'll let you and your caravan stay for at least a month without rent." The proposition made by the inn-keeper caused Satoru put his pocket book away. "This country barely has any ninja such as yourself. If you can protect this inn for me, you won't ever have to pay much to stay."

"I can't thank you enough. Look, I'm heading out for a few weeks. When I return, we'll talk." Satoru begins walking towards the door. When the inn-keeper answers affirmatively, the Nara steps through the entrance of the inn and into the morning air. A small black cube is in his hand. It stretches around his body and becomes a suit that takes on the appearance of his normal ninja attire. "Time for a road trip."

- 1 AP for applying Manipulated Fabric

(1,888/1,888)

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[Claims: 9 stats, 250/250 to master Genjutsu Release for no handseals, 1,500/1,500 towards Genetic Progenitor: Clan Pureblood (complete with my last 25% WC discount coupon found here), 138/2,000 towards Hiding in a Summon Technique]