It seemed to Mezuki that he had been walking in a forest that has no end, but he knew he would eventually reach his destination. This would have been the fifteenth time Mezuki would have walked back to the hidden hospital in the fire country. The sky has become black now, and only the crickets made noise in the forest. This has always calmed Mezuki whenever he was upset at something; the smoothing tone of the crickets' music, the innocent trees, and the lack of violence had all played a vital role in the boy's calming.

After another hour of walking, he saw a dim light that grew brighter the closer he went to it. He now was at the Fire Country's Hidden Hospital. The hospital wasn't very large, only three stories high with a small basement for hiding whenever shinobi came around. The hospital staff was very cautious of ninjas from villages because they were not to be trusted due to the fact that their hospital might be uncovered and ransacked, or even worse, destroyed. Due to this, the hospital had always had a hard time finding supplies they needed to cure an injured passenger, and they have never charged a patient for healing them.

The hospital had barely any windows; just eight; two on each side of the building. The material used for it was pure concrete, which prevented the building from ever collapsing. The front door was wide enough for three averaged size people to walk in all at once.

Mezuki stopped and stared at the poor excuse for a hospital that he considered his true home. Not like in Otogakure, where he was forced to pretend he was a ruthless criminal who served an evil leader. Here, he was able to be himself, his true self; a boy with the desire to help anyone but also not afraid to fight when the time called to him. He was ashamed of it, but at the same time, proud of it for all the lives she has saved over the years.

Out of the front door, came running a girl with long, black, silky hair. She had black eyes, and wore white shorts that extended to her thighs and a white, short sleeve shirt with white sandals. This was the common dress attire for the nurses at the hospital. The girl came charging at Mezuki, and jumped on him, giving him a huge hug; almost knocking him over. She looked like she was around Mezuki's age, but a little more innocent.

"Mezuki, you finally came back! I missed you a whole lot!" The girl cheered as she had let go.

Mezuki smiled, "Hi Kasumi, I missed you also." He got serious again when he saw someone else come out of the hospital. It was a middle aged man. The man had short; casual messed up, white hair. His skin had a dark tone to it, and the man's eyes had a droopy look in them. He wore the average chunin garments and had worn a village headband across his forehead. It was a headband representing Kumogakure, or the hidden cloud village. The chunin was moving around as if he was looking for someone. Mezuki had an idea of who that person may be looking for. He turned to Kasumi, but still keeping his eyes on the shinobi, "Kasumi, who is that?"

She turned to where Mezuki was looking, and smiled, as if sensing his discomfort. "Oh, that is Darui from Kumogakure; he was injured in the forest while looking for someone from his village. I think the person's name is Yaki or something like that."

'Yoku Simmuri…' His suspicion proofed itself correct.

Kasumi continued with her explanation. "We found him unconscious and took him here. We explained to him to keep this place a secret from everyone else. He asked us if we have found his friend, but we told him that we haven't. I invited him to stay here for as long has he wants, but he said he is in a hurry and thanked us." Kasumi exhaled, "Anything else me lord?" She joked.

He did not find her humor that funny as he would have normally had. "Well okay…" He gave the bag with Yoku's legs. "Here are the legs that you needed for the operation.

Kasumi took the bag with no hesitation, and she knew that Mezuki knew that she was disappointed in his action in gaining the legs, but she also knew that it had to be done, and that Mezuki did it in for a good cause. "Thank you Mezuki, meet me in the lobby later. I will give the legs to the head doctor, and then I will take a shower. I should be done in three hours." She half smiled and walked back into the hospital. Mezuki waited until Kasumi was completely in the building before walking to confront the man called Darui.

He got the man's attention by appearing directly in front of the man's path. Darui looked down upon the boy and smiled in a polite gesture. "Well what do we got here? Are you another kid who wants to learn how to be a ninja?" All day, kids from the hospital have been asking him to teach them ninjutsu.

'How arrogant...whatever, I will get answers from this shinobi...' He smiled in a childish manner and replied, "Yes sir, can you show me what you can do? I want to learn everything there is to be a ninja!"

Darui smiled in self-enthusiasm. "Sure kid, just one jutsu okay?" Mezuki nodded his head in agreement. The man made performed some hand signs and shouted, "Raiton: Kobushi o hikiokoshita! (Lightning Release: Sparked Fist)" Chakra quickly enveloped Darui's right hand and turned into lightning.

'Lightning user uh...still, I sense he has more in hiding...' Mezuki's stared at the man in a false amazement. "Cool, anything else?"

The man became agitated with the boy. "Look kid, I'm in a real hurry, so can I show you some other time?"

Mezuki decided to ask a question that he was dying to ask since he met Yoku, but he asked it in a real serious voice. "Why was Yoku away from the village? Was he a traitor to the village?"

Darui's assumptions of the kid totally changed. "That is none of your business kid, go away!"

"Tell me what I want to know!" Mezuki ordered, as if he was the man's superior.

"Look kid, if you don't leave now, I am really going to hurt you. So scram!"

"Like you can lay a finger on me..." Mezuki replied, taking the challenge.

"Since you asked for it kid..." Darui smacked Mezuki across the face with his lightning palm, sending a shock across the boy. Mezuki fell to the ground shaking from the electricity that ran through his body. "I told you kid, leave!" Suddenly, Darui noticed something odd about the boy, and when he looked, he saw that the being that he had assaulted was a clone, that had vanished in white smoke. "A clone huh? I guess this boy didn't appear compared to what he is."

Mezuki appeared from behind Darui and kicked him in the back, sending the man to the ground a few feet away. "Now, give me that information!"

'I guess I really underestimated this kid...I think I should give him a taste of my true lightning...' Darui stood up and dusted some dirt off of his pants. "Now you're getting me mad kid." Darui made some hand signs and shouted, "Suiton: Hōsui jū! (Water Release: Water Cannon)" From his mouth, high pressured water appeared that was aimed at Mezuki. Mezuki dodged it, and threw a kunai at perfect accuracy. Darui tilted his head to the right, making the kunai miss its target.

Mezuki, still off the ground, performed hand signs; "Fuuton: Shinkūgyoku. (Wind Release: wind spheres)" He exhaled hard, and shot out dozens of small wind pellets at a fast speed. Darui turned and began running away from the spheres, barely dodging the pellets with each step. He rolled to the right and threw a chakra enhanced kunai, but was repelled by the wind pellets.

"Not bad kid, but try countering this!" Darui back flipped away from the incoming wind and quickly performed hand signs and said, "Raiton: Kuropansa! (Lightning Release: Black Panther)" All of a sudden, lightning natured chakra began shooting out of the man's body. But this was no ordinary lightning chakra; the color of it was black.

'What is that?' Mezuki stopped shooting his wind spheres and began analyzing the jutsu. The black lightning began taking the form of a giant cat as it violently raced to the boy Mezuki jumped up; dodging the cat's charge, but the lightning turned and began another attack. 'I guess I underestimated this guy. Regardless...' The panther tackled the boy and surrounded the boy in swirling lightning before exploding, causing smoke to surround the entire hospital.

"Sorry kid, but you pushed me to that point. You can't just ask for confidential information." Darui informed the boy, who he currently presumed to be dead. He turned and began to walk.

"Don't they teach you in your village to never let your guard down, even if your opponent is small?" The boy appeared from above Darui. The unguarded man looked up, and got kicked in the face. As he fell down to his defeat, the boy caught the man by his arm, and slightly raised him. "Can I just get the information so I can stop this one-sided battle?"

Darui looked up at the boy as he stood up. "How did you get away from my black lightning? I could have sworn I got a direct hit on you. It should have killed you."

Mezuki looked back at the hospital, hoping that Kasumi did not see the battle that just ended. When he was sure, he turned back at Darui and answered his question. "Black lightning huh; interesting jutsu; I might want to learn it one day." The boy noted. He noticed that Darui had a huge tattoo on his left shoulder, that in kanji, represented kamanari, which means lightning. "Anyways, the way that I dodged the lightning was actually quite simple. Before the lightning had made contact with me, I noticed that it was blocking your view of me, which gave me just the time to cast two jutsus that you were completely unaware of."

"And that is?" Darui asked, still ignorant over the situation.

The boy smiled, "I guess I can tell you…" The boy jumped a few yards away from Darui. "It is like a Kekkei Genkai ability that I have, though I don't know what clan because I never knew my family or the clan that they might have come from." Mezuki looked up at the sky, as if remembering the first time he used the jutsu. "Meiton: Kanpekina shīrudo! (Perfect Shield)" He stretched out his right arm forward then bent it. At a quick speed, Mezuki's dark chakra took the shape of a rounded shield that surrounded his entire body. "Meiton: Dākurīpu! (Dark Leap)" He closed his eyes and suddenly disappeared.

"Where'd he go?" Darui asked himself.

"Behind you…" Mezuki appeared from behind Darui.

"Look who has the interesting jutsu now."

"Now, for my answer…" Mezuki quickly set the topic back to what it was.

Darui was still hesitant about giving the boy the information, but soon decided that it wouldn't be dangerous for the boy to know the truth about Yoku. "Sure kid, but I must tell you that it really isn't that much information to tell you. Mezuki just looked at the man, waiting for Darui to tell him the information. "Yoku Simmuri is a shinobi from the hidden cloud village. Three months ago, he was caught and charged with stealing large amounts of money from the village's income to gamble it away in other villages. We suspected that Yoku was the thief but we have never got any evidence on him until that night. When the village's jounin were sent to arrest him, he fled the country. We tracked him down this much. I know he is either in the fire country or near its borders."

He took a brief break before starting again. "Yoku really is really not much of a fighter, but he is extremely greedy. Probably will do anything for some ryo; even kill I presume. That is what the Raikage fears the most. If Yoku kills a high positioned person, and someone catches him, it can start a war with Kumogakure. That is all that I know about him. Why do you want to know about him? Have you met him?"

Mezuki believed everything that Darui had told him because Yoku would have killed him for the ryo that Orochimaru was promising if he would have actually won the battle. "I thought I saw him in the Hidden Leaf. But I could be wrong." Mezuki lied so Darui doesn't track Yoku to the Otogakure. "Sorry I had to fight with you."

"Thanks kid and I have one more question for you."

"Yea?"

"What village do you come from?" Darui asked.

Again, Mezuki had lied; "I am not from any village. I just travel from place to place learning all that I can from various people." For some reason, Mezuki truly believed the first part of his lie, which he was not from the Hidden Sound. But he doesn't know why. He was raised there in fact. Something deep inside made it almost impossible to call Otogakure, home.

Darui acknowledged it and began leaving the hospital. "I see…well, I best be going now." Mezuki nodded his head as the man ninja jumped away from the hospital.

"I didn't need to fight him for information that I half knew already. Oh well…" Mezuki began walking to the hospital front door to get some rest. When he was a few feet away, about twenty kids came running to him, almost crushing to him to the floor. "What the hell? Get off of me!"

"Teach me how to do that!"

"Mr. Ninja, show me how to throw a kunai!"

"Do that jutsu again! It was cool!"

And so on. Mezuki looked bummed out and annoyed. "No! Ask someone else!" But the kids kept begging. He looked up at the third floor window and saw Kasumi smiling at him. Mezuki smiled back.