Private An Unexpected Journey [Private|Michino]

[Chiyo]

Before Sunagakure’s new artificial sun flooded their little world with daylight, a nondescript young man would stroll through the Toraono dojo with a satchel of newspapers hanging from his shoulders. He deposited a newspaper in nearly every mailbox or slot he passed. Some would be getting their news from other sources, some didn’t take any news at all, but someone here took a very specific kind of news. As the man passed the home Chiyo shared with Michino, another man was coming back up the sidewalk with his own, nearly empty, satchel. Lucky punk, the former man thought as they passed, wishing his own route was that close to over. Mind returning to his task, he didn’t notice the other man disappear a few paces behind him.

Sitting in the kitchen, golden eyes flicked toward the door at the small thud the paper made as it hit the floor. Setting her coffee cup on the table in front of her, the petite woman stood and padded over with bare feet to retrieve her reports from the floor. As she returned to her heavily doctored coffee, Chiyo flipped her long hair over one shoulder to keep it out of the way of her reading and took a sip of the sweet drink with a long exhale, trying to calm her racing heart. Shortly after their village had taken to its new normal, the Uzumoreru had sent the majority of her forces down into the mostly collapsed underground to recover anything they could. Outwardly this was a humanitarian effort, a vast majority of the people working for her had still called the caves home and had belongings that were now all but lost.

Beneath the philanthropic exterior, however, Chiyo had instructed her men to keep a keen eye out for any signs that might point to the work of Ryuu Tama. The scientist may have disappeared with hardly a trace, but damned if his research would be lost in the same way. As much as she hated to admit it, the giant jerk had still saved her life and she couldn’t forget that no matter how hard she tried. Unfortunately, none of them had managed to find anything as of yet, but still she persevered. At least they had been able to recover quite a lot of belongings and keepsakes in the rubble, and she took heart in that.

Today, however, Chiyo had a feeling that would all change. An unshakable tension had plagued her half the night and pulled her from sleep. Even snuggling up to the warm body of her lover hadn’t rid her of the anxiety she was feeling. Unable to return to her dreams, even after what felt like an eternity of laying awake, she had reluctantly freed herself from Michino’s embrace and headed for the kitchen to wait.

Finally, the courier had come to relieve her suffering. Now there was just the matter of finding out what exactly had her feeling this level of anxiety. Setting her coffee down once again, she opened the newspaper and scanned through the pages. At first glance, the document would read like a whole lot of fluff with a healthy smattering of errors and typos. To the ex-assassin, however, it was an intricate code to keep their findings safe from prying eyes. The first several pages held no real updates, just more of the same reports that they had been able to clean up more of the underground. A couple of bodies had been found and their next of kin notified. The surveillance experts she still had watching some of the old blood that hadn’t fled the village had nothing of note to report.

Then she reached what appeared to be the classifieds. There, in the center of the page, was a long rectangular section that appeared to be an ad for a clothing store, but reported a scout having found what seemed to be one of Tama’s safe houses. They hadn’t found any research, but what they had found, was a letter addressed to one Suchiru Amejisuto. Freezing with her eyes locked on the name, Chiyo’s small hands tightened on the paper, crumpling the sides in her fists until only that one section was visible. The letters blurring slightly as her eyes filled with unshed tears, she continued to read. The woman who had found the letter had read it, not knowing the significance, and had passed on its contents. It was from Ame’s father, who had remained in Suna when she left with Uzu, and detailed the location of an heirloom sword.

Blinking the tears away, she laid the paper on the table and frantically smoothed it out. Following the set of numbers beneath the text to a page near the end of the periodical, she found a tiny scroll carefully tied into the fold. With shaking hands, she reached out to touch the scroll, sending a small jolt of chakra into the item. The tiny scroll returned to normal size and for a long moment the normally unshakable woman simply stared at the aged parchment. This was the real letter Ame’s father had sent, rather than the forgery that had sent her to her death. Remembering this was what her mother had died in pursuit of lit the fire in Chiyo’s heart once again and she took the scroll in her right hand, peeled the wax seal away with the thumbnail of her left, and unrolled it carefully.

Inside was a letter that held all of the love the old blacksmith had clearly held for his only daughter. Having never had the chance to read the forgery Tengokai had sent in its stead, Chiyo only hoped he had kept this part of the letter untouched. It was breaking her heart all over again knowing Ame may never have gotten to read these words in her final days. Within the reassurances and remembrance, were the true instructions pointing to the legendary weapon her mother had set out to recover on her father’s behalf. As she finished the letter, she rolled it back up and clutched it gently in one hand. The strategic mind Toushin had cultivated within her had already started to turn. There was no question that the weapon needed to be retrieved, if it was even still there after the 30 years that had passed since this letter was written. The only questions were when she would leave and how much of a fight Michino would put up to keep her from going.

[MFT]

 

[Toraono Michino]

Beaded sweat flung from the Toraono’s lord’s fists as he punched the air. Quickly his fists rolled against the speed bag, the left first and then the right with about ten reps a piece before swapping between them. With a final strong right that pushed the back back up into the metal contraption it hung from, the plate pulled back into near plain wall. A rectangle cut itself out from the same stone and opened to reveal a punching bag that slowly exited out. A few feet from the wall, it stopped and hung there for scant seconds before Michino’s fists and feet were striking it; each blow sounded like a gunshot.

His training equipment was build exclusively for him. Nearly anyone else would have broken their hands on the hard leather made from the local predators, or the iron sand he had them packed with. For him, though, it was necessary to progress even an inch further than he already had.
Muscle was finally starting to appear on his frame again in bulk. His hard-wirey tuned core was replaced by legit power once more. No longer muscles fueled by chakra, his choice to step down from Kazekage allowed the man more time to actually train his body for impending problems their rouge village might have. Creatures unknown to man that had resided in the old sandworm tunnels were nothing to scoff at, and held just as much death in their claw as anything else in the Wind Country. To ensure the rails continued to be built without stopping their movement for long, he personally had seen to overseeing and helping with the construction. The result was the return of a triangular upper body, and the need to buy a stronger framed bed after he had accidentally broke the first with his weight alone.

After the 1000th punch, and kick, a beep sounded and the bag slowly receded back into its housing before the stone wall slid back into place to hide it once more. Michino breathed a little heavy, relaxing his muscles through various stretches within his own home. Training between Chiyo and himself had become something she insisted they started to do more in secret, and he supposed it made sense. So the third unused room, more or less a basement within their housing inside the clan’s dojo, had been converted into a gym. Originally it was for children, as all of these larger apartments had been created, but they weren’t able to have their own children and held no desire to raise any; so a training room it was transformed into. Taki-matted, chalked arena rings, a subtle brown stone with golden trim, and training equipment hidden into the walls all around the large room; they made great use of it.

There was still cardio to do though, and Michino preferred doing that in the Dojo’s track. It allowed him to cut loose, as though the space of his own gym was rather large it wasn’t anything he could actually run in. As he ascended the stairs he heard Chiyoko’s gasp and sensed that uneasy feeling. Normally around this time she’d be reading her spy’s well coded messages so, he could only assumed something had come up. Dread filled his stomach - was it the village? Her father? Something nefarious found in the old ANBU crèche she had her agents picking through? One of Tama’s labs holding something unethical and terrifying? There was a huge, list of things that gasp could be about, but as he ascended the stairs to witness his fiancée reading an old letter, he could have never guessed what it was about.

Despite his size, Michino was incredibly silent and though it was exceedingly rare - he did occasionally get to sneak up on the prima assassin that was his future wife. This, was one of those times. He had arrived at the top of the stairs when she unrolled the scroll. With a blink, his purple eyes turned red, reflecting in them the magatama of the Sharingan that could catch every single letter from the distance he was viewing it at. His heart sank a little, knowing how rough it had to be to come across that letter. Chiyoko’s mothers, either of them, were a taboo subject he was not allowed to bring up. They were emotional scars left by parents of a different time in a world that was far more dangerous than the one they lived in now. She had never known Kitani, or even where she vanished when she had grown old enough to look for her. Ame, on the other hand, she had been raised by to a certain point and only had fond memories of leading up to her death. He knew that moment there would be no stopping her, or even trying to slow her down. Chiyo, for the first time in decades, finally had a connection to one of her mothers; of course she was going to hunt it down.

At the very least, he didn’t have to worry about Tengokai. Tama was another matter all together but, he had been proven innocent in the whole debacle surrounding Ame; he doubt the giant would get in their way. All that was really left was for them to submit a term of absence to the military and…well, take a trip. Michino blinked again, his eyes returning to normal with something of a blur now compared to the sharp contrast of rotating chakra through them. He walked heavily on purpose, his feet padding up behind Chiyo before putting his heavy hand on her shoulder as lightly as he could. Michi’s fingers curled a little, gripping them just as gently.

“Guess we’ll need to take a break from work then,” he said without needing her to explain anything. “I’ll get the paperwork together and done. Hardest part is going to be finding a substitute for my classes in the Dojo, but I have a few in mind already. Does it say where the sword is?” He hadn’t read the entire thing, some of it was being covered by his lover’s body, but the assumption was not in their own country.

 

[Chiyo]

The sound of footsteps behind her made her muscles tense for a brief moment before she realized it was Michino. The timbre of his stride was one she was acutely familiar with and could usually pick up even when he was trying to be quiet. Impressed he had managed to make it up the stairs without her noticing, Chiyo twisted in her chair with a tight smile to tell him good morning. As she turned, her mind was still mulling over how best to bring up the letter, but the words never moved past her tongue. Instead, her attention was caught by the sight of the bare-chested Adonis walking toward her and her anxieties about the conversation to come were pushed to the back of her mind.

The tough conversation could certainly wait an hour or two, and by the sheen of sweat she knew her future husband would be heading for a jog. Right that moment she could definitely think of a few better ways to get some cardio in. As he stepped in front of her, she scooted forward in the chair in preparation to stand; fully intending to pull him down into a thorough good morning kiss. Before she could, however, his hand gripped her shoulder and her attention was torn from his body to his concerned expression. Once again, the scroll she still held in her small hand returned to the forefront of her mind and she leaned her cheek against the warm hand offering her support and closed her eyes.

Of course the damned man had already read the letter from across the room; so much for delaying the uncomfortable conversation. Having spent her entire life being somewhat unique in her ocular abilities, especially at home, Chichi was finding it difficult to adjust to Michi’s upgrade. At least that made things somewhat easier; now all she needed to do was convince him not to try to stop her. Not that she would really listen anyway, but it would be best to avoid a fight if possible.

Then his words sunk through the fog of anxiety that had apparently muddled her mind. In an instant, Chiyo tucked a leg under her and launched her small body up to throw her arms around his neck. “You mean you’ll go with me!?” After an argument early in their relationship forced her to stand on a chair, the much smaller woman had made it a habit of simply climbing her excessively tall lover in order to avoid a permanent neck ache. A wide smile on her face, she pressed a hard kiss to his lips before speaking again. “And here I was worrying you’d go all over-protective on me." Legs wrapping around him as well to better support her, she pulled back to look into his violet eyes. Truly she thanked her lucky stars every day that she had been in the right place to save his little unobservant self all those years ago. It didn’t bear thinking about to consider what kind of person she would be now without him and just knowing he would be with her made the prospect of the upcoming journey infinitely more bearable.

Continuing as the last sliver of anxiety melted away knowing she wouldn’t have to go alone, she took a deep breath and reopened the scroll to show him the last part. “Apparently she was meant to go to one of the islands around Kirigakure.” Shrugging slightly as she held the old parchment up, the neck of the shirt she had stolen from him for pajamas slipped off her shoulder. “It does say which island it is, but the way he describes it I don’t think we’ll know until we get there. With the ice, there’s no telling exactly how the place has changed.”

Raising her chin, her gaze drifted away as she considered the logistics and her voice trailed quieter, more thinking aloud than to him directly, “If you take care of the paperwork and things for us taking a long leave, I’ll have to see what I can dig up about the state of the area. I wonder if there have been any more recent survey attempts, though I doubt it...”

[MFT]

 

[Toraono Michino]

Seeing her eyes look up at him sent a rush through his body. Those golden hued gems made a part of his spirit tense up in the best of ways, and his heart melt. He could easily get lost in those eyes until she asked him what he was looking at; he had done so many times before.

Arms were flung around his neck and Michino’s core tensed up in reflex, knowing what she was going to do already. His large arms wrapped around her waist as he returned the kiss, a little devilish grin sliding across his lips as he did so. Temptation was a helluva thing, and in his life there was very little that could actually pull the Toraono off his straight n’ narrow - but this girl was one of them. There was a lot to do, just already brought up in the moment, that would mean walking around all day but he’d be lying to say he wasn’t ready to drop all of it for Chiyoko’s idea of cardiovascular exercise. Her lithe and supple form pressed against him, especially after her legs found purchase on the small of his back, brought back some pleasantly vivid memories. His heart rate was increasing, and blood was rushing, but he fought the devil herself to not be too distracted; not if they wanted to leave asap.

“You’d really think I’d let you leave the village alone after the last time someone went to look for that sword? I wish I could be overprotective with you on this, but I know better, Chi-Chi. Even your Dad couldn’t stop you on this, let alone this little ol’ demonboy,” he said with a smile before closing his eyes and putting his forehead against hers. His eyes closed to not be distracted and to listen where they might be going.

….and his heart sank.

He looked up at the letter, and moved a hand to take it himself to look at the old writing and parchment. His eyes shifted from purple to red once more to get a better glean over the entire letter; and it was there he found their first big clue. Written at the bottom of the note in an ink invisible to all but those with a certain type of eye was extra notes. They were written in a different hand. Something more feminine in nature given the small lettering, but they gave details of a shrine trapped within a golden temple. For the life of him he couldn’t think of anything about Kirigakure that involved golden temples but that wasn’t really because they didn’t exist; more that he just had no idea. Geography wasn’t exactly the musclehead’s strong suit. Michino’s eyes caught a little curved arrow at the end of the small paragraph, and he flipped over the letter. On the back, printed like the writer was running out of ink, was a rough sketching of a map. The island in question seemed to be a good distance out away from the majority of Kirigakure’s islands - at least thirty kilometers. Didn’t mean that it wasn’t suffering from the same fallout the rest of the country was under, but at least that far removed it might be manageable to look around. Perhaps even without worrying about being hunted by eldritch critters the land allegedly was full of.

“Hey, check it out. Tune your eyes with a light film of chakra, there’s an extra bit to the letter and a small map,” he handed the map back to Chiyo and, with great willpower, set her to stand on the nearby chair as he moved back enough to bite his thumb. A small bit of blood welled up around the wound, and before it could heal, he smeared it across his palm before shifting his hands with a rush of chakra three handseals. Holding it out into the air the spell erupted through the blood to call and open a gate for his sister to hop out of, appearing in a plume of chakra steam. Her diminutive 3-foot high figure landed onto the floor with a hop before turning to face her giant of a twin brother.

“Yes? You neeeeed something, ONI-chan?” she said, hands on her hips with a wry snicker. It was an inside joke.
“Yeah, got some currier work for you,” Michino replied before moving over to a stationary desk to grab a blank sheet of paper and a pen to start jotting down memos. Owari replied with a groan and slouch,
“Seriously man, when are you going to get into some action!? No offense,” she said with a quick smirk at Chiyo, joking at the double meaning of the phrase, “I’m so booooooored! Been an absolute snorefest in Hell the last couple of months!”
“Aren’t you up for a title match?” Michino asked without lifting his head from the task literally at hand.
“Yeah, but, not for at least another three weeks!”
“Training?”
“Pfft, why? So I can end the match in ten seconds over thirty? Nah, man.”

Michino finished three different scrolls, placed his personal locking seal on them, and handed all of them to Owari who shoved them unceremoniously down her loincloth. They neither bulged or even showed and he could only assume she had some sort of pocket dimension or specialized time/space jutsu active that allowed her to store whatever in there. It was the same place she often pulled out a trident for fighting.
“Okay, who to?”
“Blue one is for the Academy, has my recommendation for a substitute and a letter of planned leave. Green is for Tama, if you can find him. I haven’t seen him in awhile so, probably look in his usual haunts. Red one is…for Toushin,” he could feel the air suck out of the room the moment he said the name, but quickly defended himself before Chiyoko could intervene,
“He needs to know. Just in case something happens to us, he and Tama would be our best bets for a rescue. Now, I need to go hit up the Sennin and let them know that we’ll be leaving and fill out the paperwork for the bureaucratic part of all of this.”

He took a few large strides back towards Chiyoko and leaned in to kiss her again before moving towards the door. He didn’t need to put on any extra clothing beyond what he had on already - this was basically what he wore all the time anyways. Pair of baggy pants.

“Keep me in the loop, both of you. If you run across any problems, just send a message,” he said, tapping his long ear to show off the little pearl stud that doubled as a radio for the shinobi network. Stepping out, he closed the door behind him.

It was going to be a long day.

 

[Chiyo]

Attention snapping back to the letter, Chiyo did her best to keep from snatching it out of his hand to see what it was she had missed. Following his suggestion, she let the smallest amount of her chakra-laden blood trickle into her eyes and the rest came into focus. As distracted as she was, she untangled her ankles and simply allowed him to return her to her chair rather than protesting as she usually would. She did stay standing, balancing easily on the seat as she poured over the hidden portion of the letter and the map on the back. It had been a very long time, but she was certain it was written by her mother’s hand. If that was the case, there was definitely more to the story than what they had known. From what she and her father had gleaned, Tengokai had intercepted this letter before it reached her mother and sent a forgery in its place. The forgery sent Ame to a remote place in the wind country where she fell into the elder Ryuu’s trap and lost her life. The blacksmith could not have touched this letter if that was the case.

Mind reeling, the Uzumoreru barely took notice of the portal opening and her sister-in-law joining them. The laughter in her voice managed to disperse the fog clouding her brain somewhat, but their conversation was hardly more than background noise as she considered the implications of the parchment she held in her hands. Hardly able to grasp it all herself, she could scarcely imagine explaining any of this to Toushin. Of course they’d have to tell him they were leaving, he’d freak out otherwise, but maybe they could just say they were going on an early honeymoon. That way she could wait until they had a handle on what had happened to break the news to the old man.

Just as she settled on that decision, her father’s name pierced the remaining fog and what Michino said clicked into place. Throwing a glare at her future husband, she opened her mouth to argue only to be brought up short. Naturally he was right, the old man needed to know what was happening. Not only in case of emergency, but he deserved to be kept in the loop on this. Stupid men and their stupid logic. Well, she’d have to get to work quickly to make sure she had as much information as possible. It wouldn’t take long for Owari to deliver that note to Uzu and Chiyo knew it wouldn’t be long before he sought her out.

Making a mental checklist of the things she needed to do, she distractedly turned her face upward to return the kiss Michi placed on her lips. The moment their lips connected, however, her eyes fluttered closed and her body arched toward him. His touch cleared her mind like nothing else could, but muddled it in a whole new way. It really was too bad they had so much to do today, staying home sounded so much more appealing. Fortunately one of them had enough willpower to pull away, but the broken kiss caught Chiyo off guard and nearly upset the chair she stood on. With a graceful flip, the martial artist stabilized the chair and landed on her feet to throw a wry smile toward the imp that still stood by.

“You didn’t see that.” An echoing giggle was her answer as Owari snapped her clawed fingers and went on her way. Shaking her head once again, the petite woman headed upstairs to dress for the day; while Michino could get away with just wearing pants out in public, she could not.

[MFT|Topic left]