The Hunt [Travel]

[Hana~Kyo]

Toshi exited the village and began to walk down the path that led to the docks the puppeteer was sighted leaving from. He was moving at top speed jumping through trees, the target had a puppet which meant he was weighed down and was no match for the speed of a kirigakure ANBU. If there was anything that Toshi hated, it was traitors, they betray those who place their trust in them and only cause pain to the people of their country in the end. He would be sure to kill this man swiftly and ensure that he could bring no harm to his beloved Kirigakure.

The target had made a bad choice leaving by the docks, the nation was on high security and there were ANBU watching every dock, any one leaving unpermitted would be found instantly. That was only the first place his luck was bad, the second was the fact that Toshi was the one who got the call to hunt him. Before long he reached the dock and approached the ANBU watching it. He pulled the documents out of his cloak and handed them over, they scanned them quickly and handed them back before allowing him passage. "Where did he take a boat too?" asked Toshi.

"We believe his destination was the land of fire, Good Luck" After hearing this, he moved down the dock and jumped on board the steam boat that waited there in order to make passage across the sea to the fire nation. Once he got there, things would get much harder depending on how well his target was at travelling. Hopefully he was only an amateur at evading capture and this would turn out to be rather easy.

[Exit to post in Docks]

[Hana~Kyo]

[Enter]

Now on board the boat, Toshi was ready to make way to fire. After a few minutes the boat pushed away from the dock and they were underway. While he had little else to do, Toshi pulled the paint brush from under his cloak and screwed off the empty side. He then reached inside his pouch and pulled out and ink cartridge which he placed inside it before screwing the top back on and stowing it away inside his cloak again.

Once he reached fire, he would question the dock workers there, assuming they were still alive and see if they happened to notice the puppeteer and what way he headed off. Atleast that way he could get a general heading and maybe find some more clues as to where to go from there.

[hotoka]

Moved//

[Hana~Kyo]

The boat came to a stup with a dull thud as it hit the dock, he had arrived in the land of fire. Toshi jumped down from the boat onto the wooden planks below and made his way over to a small house nearby that belonged to the boat master, his black cloak flapping back and forth in the sea breeze. When he reached the door he raised his gloved hand and gave a simple knock, behind the smoother door he could hear the skittering foot steps of some one scurrying across the floor to get to the door.

The door swung open"Who is it at this hour, don't you know what..." the man's words came to a halt when he set his eyes up on the masked figure that was Toshi. It was to be expected that some villagers may find the appearance some what intimidating."Good morning sir, I was wondering if you happened to see some one come through here a few hours ago. They would have had a large object with them on their back, a puppet." After Toshi had finished, the man scratched the stubby black hairs on his chin aparently deep in thought. "Hmm... Nope can't recall any one like that." he replied in a very blunt tone before slamming the door shut.

Shaking his head at the impoliteness of people here, Toshi turned and looked around. There were a few people working on their boats at the dock, he would just have to check one by one. Fifteen minutes of talking to ship captains and dock workers with no leads passed by until he finally found some one who had some information for him. It was a fisherman who had been doing some early morning fishing along the shore line when he noticed something like a man in a boat with a large object on his back coming a shore and hiding the boat.

"So you say you saw the man with a large object on his back pulling a boat to shore and hiding it in some bushes?" Hidden by his mask, Toshi had a deep grin spread across his face as he spoke. "Uh, Yes sir i did..." The man he was talking to seemed rather nervous, as if Toshi was going to kill him if he didn't talk. "Ok then, did you happen to get a direction that he was heading?" if the man had in fact gotten a direction for him then this could turn out to be easier than he thought it would be. "No sir, but his boat is right over there," said the man as he lifted his arm to point off in a direction to the south west near the edge of the forrest.

After thanking the man properly, Toshi quickly moved off in the direction that he had been directed by the fisher man. When he reached the edge of the forrest, he quickly scanned the area for any areas large enough to conceal a small boat, there were several so he would have to search them all for traces of his mark. The first place he checked was a tree that had fallen nearby, it's branches creating a large area that could be used to hide things. As he approached it a flock of birds came rushing out from it's tangles mess of branches, skattering in all directions. Toshi jumped atop the fallen tree and looked around inside the maze of branches to find little success in this location.

Things continued just like this, moving from area to area until he came across an overlay of branches. He could not see anything there from a distance, but as he neared it the fact that something was hidden there became apparent. He had to crouch down to see in, but there was indeed a boat here, a small wooden boat. Toshi reached in and ran his finger along the bottom slowly before retracting his hand and looking at his finger; the tip of his finger was wet, this boat had been used fairly recently. He slowly moved around the area observing everything until he spotted the best clue he had yet, foot prints. The foot prints were deep, a heavy man, he had not been told that the man he was chasing was a large man but he did however have a puppet which would cause extra weight and make deeper tracks.

[Hana~Kyo]

A recently used boat hidden no more than a few meters away, the thing about these tracks were the size. The size of the foot was no where near that which should be left by a man heavy enough to leave tracks this deep, but the fact that they were this deep but left by an average sized man, meant the person who made them had something quite heavy weighing them down. Not only that but the first few tracks were wet and had small bits of sand in them, indicating that he one who made them came from the water. With his first lead, Toshi took to the trees and began moving as fast as he could being sure to check the ground every so often to ensure that he was still following the trail that he had located.

The trail continued off in a westward direction, if they continued in a straight path the first destination would be the river country but that didn't mean that his target was headed there. He could have changed course some where along the line or he could have went straight through the country to the wind country. After a while he dropped down from the tree tops and landed near one of the foot prints he was following. The spacing of the foot prints meant he wasnt rushing to fast at this point, he reached his hand down and touched the foot print; the ground there was still tightly compacted, normally after you leave a foot print the grass and the earth slowly resume their previous state but this was still very tight meaning that they could not have been made all that long ago.

Retaking his places among the trees, he continued on at the fastest speed he could muster. The tracks were spaced moderatlely meaning he was not moving too quickly, and on top of that he was weighed down by a puppet. If all went well, he should be able to catch up to the man quick enough. Eventually the trail lead him past a small shack, tucked away in the woods. This was a good spot to check to see if any one who lived there may have see him passing by since the house couldn't be more than thirty or fourty meters from the tracks.

Toshi jumped down to the ground, being sure not to interupt the trail he was following, and moved toward the house. Due to the length of his cloak it looked more like he was cliding across the ground rathher than actuall walking. When he had come up to the house he went to knock but some one had apparently spotted him and came to answer the door "Hello there, how can I help ya?" the man at the door was a fairly young man, maybe in his late twenties, the most noticable thing was the long scar down the side of his face and neck.

"I am following a path past here, I was wondering if you may have seen a man with a large object with him pass by here. Couldn't have been more than a few hours ago." He had asked as calmly as he could, but it appeared he had no need to force himself to be polite as this man was clearly not intimidated at all by his presence. "Nope, can't say i have. I only woke up not to long ago." As he finished his sentence a small figure can blazing past him and collided with Toshi's mid section. He looked down to see a small girl clinging to his waist, her arms grabbing hold of his cloak almost enough to force him to bend over. "I saw him!" she said playfully, "I was playing while i waited for daddy to wake up and he came past the house! I remember because he had a really big doll and i wanted one like it!"

The father stared off into space a for a moment before speaking again. "Well hell... now that you mention it I do remember her going nuts about some new doll this morning." Toshi crouched down so that he was eye level with the girl and raised up his mask, something he probably shouldn't do but he was trying to give off a good impression for now. He placed a hand on the girls head and spoke to her, "Thanks, your were a big help. Here take this." Toshi reached inside his cloak and pulled out a small rabbit's foot tied to a string. "It's a lucky charm, keep it and something good will happen."

The girl's expression grew to one of even greater excitment, she turned to her father, "Look what i got dad!" The father had a smile on his face when he replied to her, "I see, why don't you go inside so we can eat now.." the girl nodded and ran inside the house behind her father. The man watched her enter and then turned back to face Toshi, "Thanks for that, your a good person. Not like those others. Well anyway Good Luck" After the man had finished Toshi nodded and the man entered his house and closed the door. He was curious what he meant by 'not like those others' but Toshi had more pressing matters to attend to and turned to continue following the trail.

[Hana~Kyo]

With this new development, Toshi was now reassured that the path he was following belonged to the ninja he was hunting for. He walked away from the house until he found the tracks he had previously been following and then took to the trees and continued on down the path. Now that he thought about it this man was either just not thinking he would be followed which was way to naive, or he was truly an amateur. He had made it way to easy to follow him, not covering his tracks, not travelling across branches especially when weighed down, not avoiding places that he could be seen. Whatever the case it didn't change Toshi's mission to locate and eliminate him.

After a little while longer the trail he was following disappeared. He had reached a small stream and the tracks were cut off due to the fact that he had to cross the water. Had he been smart enough to travel in the water for some distance in order to eliminate his foot prints from being followed straight to him and then gotten out of the water some where further down the stream where he continue his journey? The first step was to check this area. Toshi jumped across the river and examined the area, he was moving around bent over so far that his face was practically on the ground. With such a delicate moment, he had to be sure not to miss even a single detail or it could cost him the trail.

From what he could see, the area directly across from where the tracks faded out was barren and untouched. He had not travelled across this particular area, his tracks should be more apparent here then before as well just based on the fact that he would have had to step in or on the water making his foot prints wet and muddy. As he looked up and down the bank he was drawing blanks on every aspect of his search, the trail had completely vanished along the opposite bank. It took him a few minutes but he noticed a rock on the edge of the river that look like it had been over turned and dirt misplaced to the sides. As if some one had kicked or pushed it over. After approaching the rock he could see very feint foot prints leading away into the forrest further.

He then figured out why he couldn't find the foot prints earlier, if he had walked across the water then he had been releasing chakra through his feet to stay on top. He must not have stopped releasing the chakra as soon as he got off the water so he was steps were treading lightly over the ground and not causing foot prints like the ones he had been following up until this point. Sure enough after a few feet the tracks returned to the state they had been in before he reached the river bank, but now the steps were different. They more concentrated and precise... he had picked up the pace and sprinted.

From the lack of other foot prints Toshi could tell the man was not being followed so that could not be the reason he was speeding up. The only other logical reason for him to speed up now as opposed to the more leisurely pace he had been making earlier, was that he knew his destination was drawing near and he was getting overly anxious about getting there. Maybe he was going to the River country after all, but to think that he made it so easy to follow him. Was it a trap? That was always a possibility, that he was working with some one and trying to thin out the ranks of ANBU in kirigakure so he left knowing ANBU would chase after him and purposely left a trail to follow so that he could pick them off as they came after him with the help of some one else.

[Hana~Kyo]

Once again hot on the trail of his mark, Toshi had picked up his own pace so that he was moving as fast as his body could possibly carry him. He had crossed all of the fire country and was now nearing the border to River, the place which Toshi assumed to be his destination. As he covered ground, his mind wandered to the man's intentions; why is it that he wanted to leave the country that did no wrong to him? what was it that drove a person to betray every one who trusts them? They were questions that Toshi could never fathom the answers for himself. All he knew was that his mark had betrayed him and betrayed Kirigakure and what that meant, was death. It mattered not the reason, if he had left the village knowing it's secrets and location, then Toshi could not let them live long enough to speak of them.

The tracks led around trees, over hills, and down rivers constantly changing direction to avoid anything that would be troublesome to travel over or got in the way of his path. Based on his knowledge things he had seen in maps, the border to River country was not all that far away and he would know he was there because there was a large river dividing the two countries. With every couple of yards the steps got more and more hurried, for sure now, Toshi could tell that his mark was heading for the River Country and Toshi was hot on his trail.

Toshi traveled for about another thirty minutes before he could hear the sounds of rushing water ahead. Based on how loud it was, the waters had to be pretty fast and pretty large; he was almost there. Within another ten minutes or so he had arrived at the edge of a massive expansive of water that carved a path through the land. It was the border of Fire and River, with out stopping to look, Toshi focused chakra into his feet and sprinted across the river. On the other side he could make out what seemed to be an outpost, Toshi was no naive enough to think he would be able to pick up the trail on the other side of this massive river so easily but maybe he could find some clues, if not his target, in the out post on the other side.

[Exit]

[Sayuri "Cupcake"]

Moved//