Scroll 30: Night Missions & Chocolate Dragons

Jino-sama coughed up her chocolate kunai as she rolled out of the Nothingness Box.

"DAMN Bastard KENTAROU! It's about time you let me out of there!" The brown-haired, size-C cupped woman struggled to her knees - in the dark. It was a great thing to be out of the void and into the night; as this apparently was now. She looked up to see stars in the black-purple sky. She had been caught up in Kentarou's Seal ritual and had no choice but to join him in his prison or let the two other Bastards get away.

"I HATE YOU WITH PASSION SO DARK, KEN-BAKA!" The leader of a group of elite ninjas hailing from the Village Hidden in the Dragon Wing – Ryutsubasagakure – slowly stood up and looked hatefully as that apprentice cook Skiminachi entered the glade.

Skiminachi looked down, his eyebrows widening in momentary surprise. He hadn't seen this woman in awhile, and if her language had been any indication, she'd been too close when Kentarou had activated the sealing ritual.

"So that's where you've been hiding. You're just in time, they were about to take off for a lengthy mission and if you hadn't gotten here sooner you would've been left alone, eh Jino? Come on, let's get you fixed up." he said, picking her up and putting her on his back. He'd noticed her struggling to her knees; so he had assumed she was exhausted or momentarily weak. "Joma might be happy to see you again come to think of it."

Standing a tall 7 foot solid; the brown-skinned woman made a show of dusting off her dark-brown ninja shirt and pants. Her outfit looked incredibly like the Konoha ANBU regulation uniform; only the under clothing was dark-brown instead of black and the armored vest and bracers were a chocolate-brown. Her kunai pack, a shade of black-green had the Dragon Village symbol: a thrice waved line with a smaller triangle on each tip. Being built like a weeping willow tree, the woman had no fat nor bulging muscles. No, her muscles were tightly coiled and packed.

It was natural for her; but might have been looked at as incredibly skinny. No bones showed, but neither did an average figure. The oddities that did show were her shimmering earth-green scales that speckled her face, limbs and digits. The scales weren't anything fancy or flashy; it was just thumbnail sized, inter-linking, and similar-to-fish-scales patches of skin.

"Kami damn it, Skim-san, what the hell is going on here? Last thing I can remember is coming into your village to haggle out a trading deal with that spawn of Wheels, Kentarou. I knew instantly that there was a fight, and leapt in to kick ass; but I ended up being sealed with those bastards of the Darkness and Twisted." The brown-skinned woman huffed her ruffled pride as the large cook slung her over his shoulder. "How the hell was I to know THAT series of events would happen?" The chocolate-wielding Master grumbled. "Kami knows how long it's been; the star placement here in the sky is all wrong."

"It has been about six months, Jino-san. And you weren't, none of us were. We'd barely gotten enough notice to get far enough away, I'd assumed you'd just gone in a different direction when Kentarou started the Sealing Jutsu." The two of them stood about the same height, but Skim's armor and natural bulkiness made him appear much larger than her. Though his usual nature made him more Santa-like than anything else. "Now that you're back, we'll get somebody to send off a message that you're alive and well. I'm guessing your hungry after all that time?" He smiled over his shoulder at her as he walked. The sound of voices could be heard as they approached; it appeared they would give the Leaf Shinobi another surprise.

"Hungry as a dragon; Chibi-Cook." Jino would laugh deeply as the green-tinted scales around her face rasped in joy. "Where the hell are we now, anyway? I don't see a sign of my home mountains nor any dragons. Rice-chan? Was she with you when I vanished?" The tall, brown-skinned woman looked up and around, hoping to find her partner. "I am so lost here, damn it, not good; not good at all."

Having been a Leader of her Village, the Ryuukage had the honors of working with a namesake dragon, Rice. The black and shimmering white dragon was the size of her head; with the power of a mountain. The lizard was young compared to other dragons, but it didn't matter since there would only ever be nine dragons in the world.

"You know, I have heard many people say that. I've seen a dragon eat before, and let me tell you that no one has been able to compare their appetite to dragons, not truly. We are near the village of the Leaf, in the nation of Fire, and you will soon be traveling with a few to the village of the Sand, in the nation of the Wind. And no, I do not know where Rice is. If you wish, I could help you find her? Don't worry Jino-san, you will get your bearings quickly enough." He smiled, pulling out a bag of jerky from under an armor plate and handing it to her. About that point, they walked back into the camp.

XXX

Almost as quietly as it had come, the feeling that he was being watched would slip away from Okamizu. James had decided on a less direct approach and eventually utilize his sibling Youy. They would visit him again, but for now they let things lie. He withdrew himself from a nearby wall and put on a rather normal appearance so as not to alarm others, and began to walk out of the village whistling all the while. This was probably the last time he would be here, at least he hoped. It was troublesome to move around in a place with so many powerful nin.

Meko watched from his hidden roof cranny as James walked freely about the village. Then, saying nothing, doing nothing, the cat promptly melted back into the shadows to start his journey home.

XXX

Baro looked down at Usagi as she went about her business. "What all is it that you need to do here? Will there be a problem with telling your parents where you're going?" His tone indicated it would be best for everybody's health if there wasn't a problem. No problem at all.

"No, of course not, Okamizu-sensei has it all covered. He sent one to pack my supplies, another to inform my family, and he himself is going to inform the Hokage of my mission." The black-haired girl pointedly avoided looking at Yukari as her cousin, the medic nin Hani and Kakashi were all ready to depart for the mission themselves.

"Did you and that med-chick kiss or something?" Usagi was good at picking up body language of females and Hani was continuously eyeing Barokendo with affection.

"No, we merely had a few drinks and talked. That was at the suggestions of Kentarou; whose voice I'd heard about the time the Takimoto women asked." he took a deep breath and looked up, as though at the stars themselves. "Much of me has been promised to others. So very, very much." And then his eyes hardened, getting the look that anybody that bothered him outside of Usagi would get attacked.

By this point, Gilligan had fallen asleep but had somehow melded her clothing into Kakashi's, making it so that the man would either have to strip, ruin his clothes, or carry around the previously broken-child.

Yukari had to help Wydra to her feet and secure the unicycle to the girl's back. The kunoichi mimicked her cousin, and ignored the other red-eyed girl. Naruto would kick her and Usagi's ass for acting like brats; and since thinking of the Bijuu-container, Yukari straightened up and nodded boldly to herself.

"What is…?" The question came as Kakashi looked haplessly at his student. The clinging girl was hanging off the jounin, making him once again support the bulk of the child with is arms.

"Gilligan, Off." Yukari blinked as the cloths stretched and pulled as the Teddy-bear wielding kid stuck to Kakashi.

Gilligan's eyes fluttered open, then widened in momentary shock, then she started crying again and wrapped her arms around Kakashi. Wydra stumbled to her feet, walked over to the pair of them, and began tickling Gilligan. Slowly, Gilligan began to unstick from Kakashi.

"He was like this for a few days after I met him. This is the least violent way to get him off." Wydra yawned, but kept on her feet.

Shozaku, seeing Skiminachi enter with a strange woman on his back, spoke up. "Okay, is everybody ready?"

"Oho! Well, wouldja look at that! A scarecrow, a teddy, a bird, a rabbit, a gambler, a wheel, an emo-less, a chick, a dog, a ninja, a sand-babe and a kid." Jino entered the darkened clearing and near-instantly visually analyzed the scene. Kakashi, Gilligan, Yukari, Usagi, Shozaku, Wydra, Barokendo, Hani, Reena, Joma, Yamira and Sheena all were greeted and memorized. "Would wants chocolate, I think the three squirts want chocolate!"

Doing eighteen insanely fast one-handed signs, the Ryuukage plucked the whole bag of jerky from Skiminachi's hands and another one from within his armor with her other hand. The flowing way she moved was impressive enough to make Kakashi lift his cloth barrier and watch with the Sharingan. Hani just stood open-mouthed as the extremely foreign woman entered at the same time that Okamizu's jounin team did.

The camp clearing was illuminated with torches as the jounin jammed temporary flame-sticks into the ground and lit brands to give light. They too, gaped as fish as they viewed the dark-skinned woman.

Jino, being tall, thin and lithe enough to be mistaken for a young willow tree, knelt down next to Wydra, Gilligan and Sheena; this of course would freak them out until those kiddy eyes would alight on the three six-inch statues of themselves – made completely from chocolate and chakra. The mini-statutes would mirror the movements of the children while they sat on Jino's hands. But the moment they were removed, the movement would cease and the statues would be reduced to edible treats.

"Allow me to introduce myself, Sharingan-User." It would seem that even the infamous Uchiha eyes were known by the far-hailing stranger. Jino did, after all, come from the same area from another far-flung piece of continent that Kentarou was. "I am Jino Ryuunaka, Ryuukage of Ryutsubasagakure: Village hidden in the Dragon Wing."

Usagi was stunned at the visual knock-out that had entered with the Cook-san. The lady had even identified her animal; the rabbit. The dragon-lady, as this woman had to be, was as tall as the Cook and looked dressed up in Konoha ANBU gear; only in hues of brown. Usagi only nodded absently as one of the jounin handed her the gear he had packed from her apartment.

Kakashi was the first to blush at the scaled-face woman, seconds passing before he recognized the symbol on her nin-head-band: one depicting the Dragon; a highly skilled and powerful clan of ninjas that were extremely talented and versed in all of the four chakra elements: earth, wind, fire and water. The way the foreign woman showed to be strong in all four as her chocolate creations required an exact measurement of each.

"Dang, why are you calling us by animals?" Yukari asked, her brain as clutched as Usagi's. "Has Skiminachi and Shozaku been hiding you!"

"If I had one of her, do you really think I would hide it? I mean, I've got a few secrets but none of them regarding women. I would've shown her off like a trophy…" Shozaku said with raised eyebrows at the woman's appearance. She was familiar to him but not very, so he looked to Skiminachi for clarification.

"Ah, she had been slowly making deals and treaties with Kentarou so that our villages may have been allies. You know how both forgetful and how slow Kentarou is about telling others these things. She had been trapped in a void for the past few months as a result of what Kentarou did, but for some reason she is now free. However blunt or foul mouthed she may get, she is good at heart and a valuable ally. I have even seen her fight a couple of times." The big man rattled on, looking around the clearing as he did so. The children were busy messily devouring the chocolate. Or rather, Gilligan was. Sheena watched Wydra eating it because, as one might be able to tell from the look on her face, she had never seen chocolate before. Not in that form that mirrored herself.

Barokendo blinked a few times, staring very curiously at Jino. Something about her, something in the way she looked or what she said, clicked in his mind and felt as though it was the key to a large secret, but had only budged the door open ever so slightly. He shook his head and continued to look around with his usual 'piss off' tone of eyes.

Yukari watching the children eat the chocolaty gift that the tall new-comer woman had seemingly pulled out of thin air with her different colored skin. Yukari wasn't a bigot, but she had never seen that color of skin before. More likely, it was the patches of snake-skin that drew the Konoha's interest. Standing there staring as the obviously Hokage-leveled woman ripped into the bags of jerky that she had filched from Skiminachi, Yukari flinched when Kakashi nudged her to get her attention.

"Huh?"

"It's time to move out, Yukari-chan." The jounin smiled lazily at her. "Usagi-san has her pack and is ready to join us for our mission."

"Oh, ok. I'm ready…" and already overwhelmed by the mission's development. Yukari mentally said to herself. A Dragon-nin? In Fire Country. This was as rare, if ever recorded, as a heat wave in Snow Country. Legends were made of Dragon ninjas; and they all hailed from far past the Wind Country's Southern deserts.

"Are you lost yet, bird-face?" Usagi's quip snapped Yukari out of her thoughts as her team was already moving away from the three, torch-bearing jounin.

"No, not as lost as your sense of smarts, rabbit-head."

Kakashi and Hani exhaled audibly as the two girls began again. Further away, Genma and Otou had already moved out; their direction heading towards the Water Country.

XXX

Wherever she was, Rice would hear a source-less voice, one that sounded very old and wise, talking into the area around her.

"Rice. The human you had allied yourself with has resurfaced into the human world from whichever void to which she had disappeared. Is it your wish to re-unite?"

"Risssse-chan sssaysss yess: I want to know where Jino-ssssama isss." The little dragon spoke with a hiss instead of a lisp. Those brown-silver eyes looked all about in wonder.

The source-less voice went on for a few moments with 'hmmm' as though in thought or some inner complication. but it spoke, the mental-issue resolved.

"It is…good I have spent time among these people, so rather than reprimand you; I advise against calling any body with 'sama'." as the voice continued to talk, a large pair of eyes appeared in the air before Rice, and at the end of its sentence, smoke fissured out of the ground and formed into a hand.

The smoke-hand quickly turned into the large and scaly hand of a dragon, before reaching out and tapping Rice on the head with the edge of its nail. Rice would get a vision of Jino, though from behind, and the area she was in. Moments later, she would get a sense of direction as to where she was, letting Rice know which way to go.

"Go. Know that I am ever-watching and that your actions may prove…very interesting, very…beneficial, for your future…" and like that, the hand was gone, the eyes closed and disappeared, and the voice was silent.

Rice's small nostrils emitted whisps of smoke as the small dragon snorted in glee. "Thankss sso very much." With that the dragon leapt up and flapped those gossamer leather wings and scuttled into the trees. Following the vision, the pre-dominantly white dragon saw the torchlight and zeroed in on that. Staying well hidden within the darkness-slathered tree branches, the beast wriggled closer and closer to see what and where it was.

"…" It said to Jino as the woman's elf-pink eyes met its own for an eternity of a second. Good, it had found the ninja, so it wasn't completely lost.

XXX

The four Wheel nin and Trydna moved away from the main group, waving as they went; Otou and Genma leading them towards the Water Country. They had already said their farewells, and had just been waiting for the 'move out' speech or signal of which Shozaku gave.

"Good, finally getting GOING now! Although I've spent a bit less time here than I have in other places; too much excitement in one place can get under your skin." he picked up his pack and started to walk off in the general direction of Sunagakure with the others.

Sheena, having eaten the chocolate and feeling a bit worn out from today, and the past few days, crawled up onto Barokendo's back. He grimaced for a moment, his lips curling up almost in a snarl, before he it slowly went back down. He went to a look of full on-rage though as Gilligan, and then Wydra, followed suit, positioning themselves on the spikes coming out of his coat and using the coat itself as a cushion. It seemed they planned to just use him like a carrier.

Joma, who'd barely registered most of the proceedings because he wanted to be asleep having been up the night before with guard duty, got up when Yamira poked him and told them to get a move along. The two of them grabbed their packs and began to walk off as well.

"KAKASHI! HATAKE KAKASHI!" A strange nin's voice could be heard shouting towards them and getting louder as it got closer. A nin with the Konoha headband moved up, smiling and waving. The hand he was waving with contained what looked to be a small folder of information.

The nin himself didn't have too many distinguishing features though. His suit was what would be normal for an ANBU, minus the mask. His hair was short and black, and his build wasn't alarming and didn't give any impression of just what his strength was. His skin, or rather his face as the rest of his skin was covered, may offset the rest of his blandness.

It was multi-colored, and not in human tones. Patches of his skin were blue, red, and green, yellow, black, it went on. The colors themselves shifted and moved across his face as though unable to settle in and give him a definite color or appearance. It was like a chameleon's skin; ever shifting in color. The ninja slowed to a stop as he got up to Kakashi.

"It is good I caught you when I did or I may have had to track you all down. This is a letter from Danzo-sama explaining everything, though it would be best read and viewed in private, another time when we are at camp. I apologize for my tardiness, but Danzo-sama had many instructions to give me and told me I would be away for awhile so I had to arrange for my sister to be cared for. Let us get going?" the pushy ninja turned and began walking with the rest of the group, a pack slung over his shoulder. None of the others made an issue of it because they assumed it was Kakashi's business. Barokendo was busy trying not to murder three children that had crawled onto him and stay near usagi.

Yukari watched as their Konoha group grew; first with Usagi, then the Chocolate-Dragon-scale lady, and finally this colorful-skinned ninja. Did the Hokage have an inkling of a clue of how this escort mission would turn bizarre.

Naruto would have most likely taken it with a grain of ramen-seasoning salt and grin his friendly grin and proceed to infect the team with his over-bearing positive attitude. So that is what Yukari would strive to keep in mind. Having had a wild day, she was tired mentally and socially. Being set to put up with a bitchy, 16-year old version of – OH BY THE GODS ABOVE, PLEASE DON'T LET MEIKO BE LIKE USAGI – Meiko, Yukari was going to have to grit and bear it.

The kunoichi saw that Usagi had inexplicably tied herself into the Wheel-Nin, she just didn't know how. The Uzaruki heiress just wanted to safely finish this mission and return home before Naruto did – whenever he was going to come back.

Hitching up her backpack, Yukari smiled slyly at Kakashi as she saw the color-skinned-nin enter and speak to the jounin. Then, watching as the Wheel nin boosted themselves up into the trees, the Okamizu jounin-friends doused the torches to assist in night-time eyes for the departing Ninja in mission with the Wheel until it was just her, Kakashi, the Color-nin, the cook and the just-now finished eating dragon lady. Yukari assumed that the lady would accompany the Cook now, since she was familiar with Skiminachi.

Nodding to Kakashi, Yukari pushed chakra into her feet and leapt into the now-solid darkness of the trees; following the lead that Hani had set. Kakashi, then the mysterious new-comer nodded before following.

There was a bark as Reena was mistakenly left behind. Yukari doubled back and picked the small puppy up before leaping back into the trees; this time aiming for the treetop to get one last look at a night-clad Konohagakure – which sparkled in the night with various torches and lamps that dotted the innards of the surrounding village wall. Looking across the notable distance to the Fourth Hokage's rocky face, she gave a Naruto-styled grin before lifting her fist hand and closing a fist to block the view; a promise to Naruto's look-alike elder that she would continue to grow stronger!