Karui had found that learning to control her own impulsive behavior was a hard lesson, but a necessary one. Were she a few years younger she would have taken out her sword and threatened the lion riders for belittling her, but the situation was hard enough without any additional hostilities. Being told that she was responsible for the villagers was just the thing to impress the weight of the situation to her. Different cultures, different customs, it was never easy to play by someone else's rules, especially when you don't know them.
The "eyes of the people" they had called her. Though meant to keep an eye on the villagers to ensure they didn't do anything reckless, she found herself keeping watch on the lion riders around the group and riding through the tall grass nearby. She was responsible for their safety, and as far as she was concerned these new people were still a threat.
It was obvious what was on Kiba's mind. How they knew him as a member of the Inuzuka Clan. This island was too far away from the mainland where the founding clans of Konoha were from, and the Inuzuka were one of the first clans to join the Senju if her knowledge of shinobi history was correct. The similarities were too clear to be mistaken: lion riders, talking animals, and chakra enhanced speed. Though hunters of the plains they moved all too similar to Hunter-Nin she had encountered.
After an hour of traveling along the plains, it was clear they were approaching the village as the number of hunters and lions surrounding them increased. Some of the villagers were tired from the walk; having spent the previous night huddled in a cave for shelter they had not gotten sleep in some time. She remembered the attack which had knocked her unconscious the night before, it had thrown off her rhythm and she would need a proper night's sleep by the evening or her performance would be off.
"Ougo Village." A'rai announced aloud.
The village was up towards the start of the foothills of the mountain, which seemed to loom over the entire horizon. There was still something odd about that peak, a mystery she hoped would be solved soon as it was unsettling for her. Growing up in the mountains, it was not a feeling she liked having.
A large ring of stakes surrounded the village, which looked like a miniature forest from all the treetops she saw rising above the defensive wall. The grass around the village was cleared for two-hundred meters or so. Slightly darker soil patches showed signs of old wildfires, which made sense – with a village like this a fire would be a large threat. Hate it as she did, the lioness was right to fear the smell of gunpowder on Kiba and the army that was threatening the island.
The gate was adorned with feathers and unidentifiable bones, and the wooden stakes were more solid and deeper in the ground than she had first estimated. Between the patrols and the guards, the village seemed fairly well guarded by traditional standards.
Finally in sight, the trees proved to be a great curiosity. Each tree was in fact part of a house. The uppermost branches grew free, the middle and lower branches were shaped and woven together to form roofs and walls. Each house had a distinct shape and style, gained from the natural growth of its tree, but they seemed surprisingly stable and very well crafted.
All around villagers looked up for a moment before returning to their daily work. As many men as women were doing menial tasks such as carrying large gourds full of water from any of the town's wells. The sense of gender equality made sense, as the ratio of men and women hunters was approximately equal.
Small children were the ones most fascinated by the strangers in their village. A group of small girls, each with a lion cub running near them came as close as they dared and chatted amongst themselves. Most of them had dark brown hair and a light caramel skin color a few shades darker than the lions. They wore durable-looking linen clothes of earth-tone, red and blue colors. Each villager of age had similar tattoos on their shoulders, a square made up of one red triangle and one white triangle, a clan symbol most likely.
Reaching the back of the village, the procession was called to a halt and Kiba was brought out from the rest of the group to go into a tree house made from a hollowed out baobab tree. The scale was impressive; the house was four stories high with windows showing activity from inside.
Thankfully Kiba was not by himself for long, he came out of the tree with a large man whose body was covered in scars. He carried a staff twice as high as he was, the wood looked treated for strength, it was clearly not normal. An old Sabertooth lion walked beside him, its mane had more silver hair than dark gold.
"Take them to the unused drying hut and the hospital, there should be enough room. Bring the sword woman the three Kiri Nins here."
The inside of the house was simply adorned; ladders connected one floor to the next. Taking a seat on an embroidered rug next to Kiba, she wondered when the "formalities" would be done and she could give a piece of her mind to these strangers.
"I apologize for the way our hunters reacted to you. We don't necessarily have any issues with those who live by the coast, we struggle more against other clans. However your Clan is known to us A'Kiba of Inuzuka. You say to us that the island is under attack, but you are a stranger to Shinsei Island and the plains beneath the holy mountain."
"Karui, this is A'toki. He's chief of Clan Yozo, the lion sitting to his left is Moto, his counselor." Kiba was holding back his frustration, but self-restraint was never her strongpoint.
"Really, I thought the Sabertooths were the ones running the place." Karui had been waiting to lay a zinger into someone for a while now, shame it was at people who could potentially be allies instead of the people who had attacked the island.
Moto made a strange noise which sounded like a laugh, "Oh I like her."
A younger man sitting across the room crossed his arms and coughed. A slender lioness sat by his feet with calculating eyes. When he rose Karui could not help but notice different markings on his shoulders than the ones everyone else on town had – a red triangle pointed downward seeming to stab into a yellow oval.
"You Yozo and your rituals." The man spoke up with arrogance and disdain. "You let in outsiders upon word of war, and trust them at their word. You give them a mouth and eyes but no ears to hear they are not welcome in our lands. You empty your sacred lodgings to house them like they were honored guests." Karui found it hard to believe that a 'drying hut' would be considered sacred, but in many cultures places of healing were considered sacred or supernatural.
"For all these things you are a fool, but for letting an Inuzuka into your village-" The man spat at Kiba's feet and behind him his lioness growled at Akamaru.
"Do you have a problem with me?" Kiba stared at the taller man, this was clearly a challenge.
"You have no right to issue a challenge while under the hospitality of my roof O'de." A'toki spoke against the younger man, but this O'de was unshaken.
"Against one of your kinsmen, that is right. But this is no kinsman now is he?" Circling Kiba like a predator, he smelled the air and swaggered like this was his house. "Let me tell you something of our ways. We believe in a sort of karma, that no matter where we go in life, everything we are follows us. This is why when we travel anywhere we always bring something with us to compensate our hosts for whatever trouble we may bring under their roofs. We can all smell the trouble on you, so now you will show me what you have brought."
He walked out the door and into the open center of the village. The lion following him picked up a bundle of spears wrapped in skins in her jaws and handed it to him as she took her place by his side. Gesturing with his arms, he was calling Kiba out.
"Not much of a choice then." Kiba took off his flak jacket and knelt down next to his bag. Finding his leather jacket packed away he put it on and seemed to finally feel complete. "Watch our stuff Karui, this shouldn't take too long." Stopping for a moment, he went back to his bag and picked out the long knife he had received from the weapon smith, placing it in his belt he spoke over his shoulder to A'toki. "I get the feeling this is mostly about me being an Inuzuka. When I finish this, we're each going to have a story to tell the other."