Meeting New Friends (Open to All)

His expression drastically changed after she spoke about her experience during the two wars, his eyes narrowing and the words coming out of his mouth icy. Her own blood began to boil as he mentioned having expected her to talk of beheading or brutally crushing someone, as if her talk of being a medic went straight through his ear and out the other. His following words about wanting to hear of her healing or reviving someone cooled her temper slightly, due to how disappointed he still was about not hearing war stories. What is so great about stupid wars?

He paused momentarily and it took everything in her not to lash out at him, reprimanding him for wanting such a foolish thing as war, yet fortunately for her he continued talking, mentioning how Kiri was the strongest village ever. She stopped herself for rolling her eyes at such a typical Kiri comment, since no one truly knew if their village was the strongest until they conquered the entire world. But she had a role to play, and playing it well meant she needed to agree with him even if she knew it was an outrageous thing to say. So with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, she said, “Yes, Kiri is of course the strongest in the world and no one even comes close to rivaling us!”

Soon it was her time to talk again, as she spoke about fighting and how pointless it all really was in the grand scheme of things. Sakuragi smirked as he thought about his reply, and she braced herself for whatever outrageous thing he said next. All he thought that mattered was whether a person made a name for themselves or not, which apparently Xyxer had done during his conquests.

“But what was his cause? Do you personally know why he did it? Was it a vendetta against them or just because he wanted to take over a village?” Her voice was calm as she challenged him, not out of anger or spite, but curiosity and intrigue. She wanted him to truly think about his reasoning, to see if he could explain why he felt so passionately about a shinobi’s only purpose being war and death.

A few minutes passed as she gave him time to reply or for their discussion to continue further, and after it did or he decided to not say anything, she gave her own view on what a shinobi’s life could be made of rather than fighting. Never before had someone given her such a disgusted look as he had done at her opinion, and the look in his eyes seemed as if she had grown a second head out of nowhere. When he finally voiced the thoughts running through his mind, she tried to keep her composure. She had done it. She had thoroughly fucked up her facade of being a Kiri shinobi so badly that a Genin had been able to see through her. Hikari had tried so hard to pretend, saying things she hadn’t meant just to get in the good graces of those she encountered, and all for what? A violent young child to call her out?

No, she couldn’t and wouldn’t let him win, her life and purpose relied on her making it out of Kiri alive. She could get through his accusation, she could say any amounts of lies to gain his trust again. And that was exactly what she was going to do.

“Of course my words sound foreign to you, you are a soldier. I’m a medic, it’s in our blood to want people to survive. You wouldn’t understand where I’m coming from even if I showed you what it truly means to be a medical ninja. And that’s okay, because we need both kinds of people in this world. I just wish you were more understanding of those around you instead of trying to shun them for being different. After all, Kirigakure is a very progressive village, even our Lord Mizukage has called it such.” After a brief pause she crossed her arms over her chest, a slight disappointed look across her visage. “I guess I shouldn’t expect so much from a young kid like you, my apologies.”

She then shrugged her shoulders, faking an apologetic look, and ignored the latter question he asked for it would’ve ruined the dramatic effect she was using in order to get him to believe her cover up. It felt like a pretty solid reason in her eyes, yet she didn’t know much about him and couldn’t pinpoint how he might react. He would likely get angry at her, yelling about how he wasn’t a kid and was mature enough to understand such things, or he could reflect on her words and come to the realization that she was right, perhaps even changing his ways for the better.

If their conversation continued as planned, they would move on to discuss their age with Hikari going first. It was no surprise to her that he didn’t expect her to be twenty-two, most people didn’t think she was older than sixteen with her short stature and petite frame. Her features were child-like despite her personality being too mature. His entire demeanor seemed to change after she revealed her age, as if he had been acting so casual because he thought she was younger than he, quite the compliment to her in all fairness since he was only fifteen. Although she hadn’t thought anyone could mistake her for being practically a baby shinobi, she figured it might happen more frequently than not.

She couldn’t help but chuckle slightly as he called her a beautiful lady, despite mere minutes ago acting as if she was the craziest person in the entire world. How strange it was that age could make someone do a 160 degree turn in the way they interacted with someone. Were kids really this impacted by how old a person was? Did it really matter whether she was fourteen or twenty two for her opinion to matter?

These questions would remain unsolved as the duo sent into a brief moment of silence, the young boy looking around at their surroundings before his focus locked on to something behind her. It wasn’t hard for her to notice how his eyes didn’t waver and with only that indication she knew something was off, activating her Byakugan immediately to scope out the area. Hikari saw the two insects coming towards them but scanned the area of anything dangerous, finding it hard to believe that he would consider two bugs to be cause for concern. Yet in the second it took for her to survey the surrounding area, she found nothing that could be making him react the way he was. He acted so tough earlier and now he’s worried over some tiny creatures. What a turn of events this interaction has been.

Before he could even begin to pull out his senbons, Hikari used her clan’s signature gentle fist sixty-four palms to create just enough force to blow the bugs away, since she didn’t feel that they needed to be killed unless they tried to come at them again. For the technique she turned on her heels to face the bugs and stepped forward, as the jutsu requires, and only used the first two strikes in the air since that was all she needed to push the bugs away. They took the hint and flew off in another direction away from them, and once she was sure Sakuragi wouldn’t be weary of them again she deactivated her clan’s doujutsu and turned back to face him, hoping he wouldn’t ask too many questions about her abilities. The last thing she needed was to have to kill this child for trying to steal her eyes.

Luckily it seemed she was saved from his barrage of inquiries by a dark brown hawk swooping down and landing on her shoulder, a letter wrapped around its leg. She carefully unraveled the note, her eyes scanning the page quickly.

“It would seem we are needed at the hospital and will have to be cutting this conversation short. I’ll see you around.” She would give him a small wave as she dashed away, Kuro keeping up with her as they both made their way to the Kirigakure hospital. All the while she was wondering how to feel about her encounter with the strange Kiri boy, still trying to figure out how someone could be as cold as he at such a young age and without ever having seen the horrors of war. However, those thoughts were fleeting as she had to prepare herself for work, needing to get her head in the game and focus on the patients to come.

(Exit)
(TWC: 2,600)
(Claims: 2574 words towards Creation Rebirth Mastery, putting it at 3000/3000 with max stat discount & the previous wc from here,
the remaining 26 words towards Eight Trigrams: Storm Senbon to put it at 26/2625 - yes I just did that XP,
and 13 stats for Kuro <3)

Approved