Searching for Tera

[Hakuturi]

The Fang country was a fairly simple village, not many shinobi roamed the country but always there was a sense of pride from its inhibitors. Hyoshi moved a strand of hair from his face back behind his ear as he scanned the country with byakugan, mountains were off in the distance a long ways off, the actual country not containing much other than the homes of the residents. Why Arata would have anything to do with this country didn't make sense to the Hyuuga.

Deactivating byakugan, Hyoshi approached several villagers if they knew anything about Etsuko Teramune, none responded with any knowledge of his existance. Hyoshi moved swiftly throughout the village, it was becoming quite obvious that none of these villagers knew one thing about the other man, though one did state that there was a strange disappearance of several villagers traveling towards the mountains, but this was all the information the man received.

"Hn.." nothing..his only lead was the mountains he had spotted earlier. The Hyuuga decided that they would be his best bet and headed to the outskirts of the country, running through to close the distance between he and the mountains as fast as possible. While running through, he thought of his past struggles with the Uchiha, these brought up memories of..her, "Tch..", not good. He still planned on returning to explain himself, but his mind was on more important matters at the moment. The fire, his uncle...

Hyoshi absentmindedly arrived at the bottom of the mountains while reminiscing on his past. He looked up the vast structure and activated byakugan, looking throughout the entire complex of the mountains, no one in sight other than the odd samurai walking around, at least they may be able to give a clue.. The man started his trek up the mountain, unaware of what was to come...

[lash]

The man's short hair blew gently in the wind as he watched the Hyuuga he had recognized earlier as the same one within the City of Aramis. When he started the trek up the mountains, Lash moved out quickly, his blue robe fluttering as he ran to move in front of the shinobi before he started the trek up there. It took effort, but since the Hyuuga wasn't moving at the fastest speeds, Lash was able to move ahead of him and eventually move directly in front of him. He called out, his voice loud and echoing.

"Hello, Hyuuga. May I help you?" Lash himself would be standing about thirty feet away from the Hyuuga shinobi, looking at the man with a smile on his face. He only hoped that the Hyuuga remembered him from before, otherwise a fight was more than likely to happen. Lash shrugged at the thought; let whatever would happen... happen.

[Hakuturi]

Hyoshi stopped as another man appeared seemingly out of nowhere about 30 feet in front of him, his voice echoing over the mountains asking if he could help him. The man was somewhat familiar, the same one who had left with Teramune at their meeting in the City of Aramis. If the man had wanted conflict, he would have probably attacked by now, so the Hyuuga simply replied back without any anger in his voice.

"I would like to know where you and Arata went after leaving the City of Aramis..I have decided to help with whatever he wants to accomplish because well, it will be quite hard for you to succeed if you make enemies with the biggest villages." flashbacks to Sound villagers talking of going to war with a strange village in Fang country ran through Hyoshi's head, he didn't care much for the difference between what was right and wrong. He only cared for his own principles, his own rulebook. And right now joining this side of the fight seemed like the best decision.

"So where is Teramune? I want to know where he is hiding," the boy reiterated his point and stared back at the man in the flowing blue robe. "By the way, for future reference my name is Hyoshi, yours?"

[lash]

"My name is Hitogoroshi Lash, the former Raikage of the Village Hidden Within the Clouds. It is nice to meet you, Hyuuga Hyoshi. Unfortunately, you've come at a bad time to find the Village Hidden within the Mountains. The Kage, the one known as Uchiha Arata to myself and probably Etsuko Teramune to you, since he is the person that I left with, has himself left recently. He had heard a proclamation from the man known as Etsuko Shiro stating that the successor to Soenai is within the Earth Country.

"After that was heard, he took off to the East, mentioning something about finding a shinobi who works for him, a Kaishin by the name of Shimoyaiba, to tell him of the news. That was several weeks ago, and since then I have gotten no word from him. I was actually on my way out of the Village that the organization has set up to head in that direction. I would like to see what is occurring there myself.

"However, if you require an escort to the city, then I shall be more than happy to provide you with one. "

[Hakuturi]

Hyoshi listened to the man's introduction and bowed slightly, still a habit from his childhood when meeting new people. "It's a pleasure," if this man truly was the former raikage, which he surely was as there would be no reason to lie at this point, then Hyoshi believed that he must be a greatly skilled shinobi, at least as strong as himself and Arata.

The Hyuuga listened to the details of Lash's story of Arata leaving speaking of a successor to the organization. Knowing the Uchiha's unstable personality, this couldn't be good. Hyoshi nodded his head as Lash finished his story. "Interesting, so Arata is away. And yes if you could escort me to the city it would be great," this was the moment that Hyoshi had contemplated upon for seven years, whether to stay in Oto or leave the country behind. Hibiki's leadership had broken the last fibre of patience he had for the village, having the possibility of going to two wars at once was a terrible idea that could not be stood by without the proper shinobi, which the village had not done very well at raising.

Hyoshi took several steps towards Lash and looked up ahead, "Lead the way,"

[lash]

With Hyoshi's agreement, Lash turned himself about and began walking up the mountain paths. His pace was slow, waiting for the Hyuuga to catch up since he had started off ahead of him, and during this time, Lash decided that he would take the time to get to know this man who was probably going to be another ally within the Organization which had, by itself, managed to surprise Lash. They had had contacts almost as wide as his own spy orginzation, but that was as far as Lash went. He had even heard rumors of this Shinobi, of his supposed death but then found alive again. He smiled.

"So... would you mind telling me a little about yourself? It is alright if you do not want to, but it would amuse me greatly if I learned a little about a potential ally. Beyond that, the conversation that you two shared within the City of Aramis still has me ever-so-curious." He smiled here. "To start it off, I shall give you a little bit of background information about myself. I am the Master of the Bloodline of the Two Mirrors of Heaven, which belongs to the Hitogoroshi Clan of the Cloud Village. I was officially a Chuunin of the Village of Cloud when I was then elected to the position of Raikage by my fellow Shinobi. However, I left that position to come out here... to find out what was out there, what was going on in the world outside of my village. I wanted to explore and experience, not be locked within an office.

And so... what about you?"

[Hakuturi]

Hyoshi nodded and sped up a bit to walk at the same pace as Lash. He looked up the vast mountain and thought a bit of the other man, former raikage, now missing nin. There must have been some great mental stress in the other man's mind to make that decision, though whatever the reason, the Hyuuga knew it was probably for the best. As if the other man had read his mind, he asked of Hyoshi's history and proceeded to tell of his own, explaining that he left because of wanting to explore the world, not be trapped in an office. It seemed Lash was more like him than he previously imagined. Once Lash finished, Hyoshi took a deep breath and would tell his own story..

"I am..was, the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan, expected to become the elite warrior of the clan. I believed this for a while, worked my hardest to achieve that goal, for I believed that serving my clan was the ultimate goal and nothing could keep me from that. Those were my early..naive years. Soon enough I started to doubt the Hyuuga clan, my family becoming more and more paranoid of the branch members. Though I am a main, I felt that the evil growing in the clan was too much to handle. It was at this point that I met Arata." a small flicker in Hyoshi's eyes went by as he remembered that day..the one that probably had him walking up this mountain at the very moment.

"Well..one thing led to another and I found myself fighting his brother, leader, Shiro. He was more powerful than anyone I had seen previously for his age. I barely held him to a draw with the help of others. At this point I knew that just staying in my village wouldn't be enough to become great or to protect.." he stopped speaking for a second to catch his tongue, he didn't mean to bring her into the story.

"Anyway, I left the village and once more found Arata, this time in Cloud country. We found ourselves in nearly the same situation and snuck into the Sound village, killing two wandering villagers and stealing their headbands before earning citezenship virtually unnoticed. Teramune left after the first few months but I stayed, training in the Sound village and almost falling in love with the place. That is, until the Otokage left the village unguarded by leaving without permission, compromising our country. It was at this point that I noticed how impossible it was to finish the goals I had originally set out to accomplish in that city..so I'm going to explore..much like you, to find out what I need to do," finally, the man finished and looked back at Lash, he had talked for a while, much longer than he intended. But he found something he liked about the other man, he was easy to talk to for him.

[lash]

Hyoshi's story was very similar to his own, although that was not something that Lash was willing to share; how his clan took all the efforts of an individual and called it their own. Lash had trained by himself, with the help of his brother, had worked hard to become the Raikage- indeed, most of the Clan hadn't even seen him once in the seven years that he trained by himself, and then when he returned they were so quick to offer themselves as the reason he had achieved greatness. It had disgusted him. Even Bukase had been no better, but one cannot really say anything about that. It would not be good to diss the current Raikage simply because he had done what he was supposed to do as a member of the Hitogoroshi Clan.

From there, Lash and Hyoshi walked in silence until, finally making it through the winding paths of the mountains, they reached the Hidden Village within the Mountains. Lash looked over towards Hyoshi to gauge his reaction. Then he smiled. "Welcome to Yamagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden within the Mountains." He moved his right hand outwards expansively, like a shop-owner showing his wares to a customer. "I hope that you enjoy your stay here, but I believe that I am going to be leaving shortly. I must search from this man named Zexion within the Country of Earth. To do anything else would be dishonoring myself."

[Hakuturi]

After walking in silence for a while, the pair finally came upon the village, it was quite grand and this surprised Hyoshi a bit, how a village like this could go virtually unnoticed. He quickly gathered himself and turned back towards Lash, "Thank you, good luck with this Zexion..if he is the successor and an Etsuko than you may need it." Hyoshi smirked a bit as he looked back out at the village, removing his Sound headband and placing a slash through it with a kunai, signifying his official turn to a missing nin, not that the people of Oto would care anyway, he had been largely ignored in his stay there.

Hyoshi then looked at Lash out of the corner of his eye before he would depart, "I will most likely reside here..if I am not around the village when you return I will more than likely be in the Fire country, Grass or Leaf..I have some business that needs tending to in that region." with that he smiled and headed off into the somewhat large village, in search of an apartment or place where he could build a home...