Dreams of Prosperity

She would finally arrive. She had lots of work to do.

[Crafting 20 Mannequins with the remainder of her wood supply - Will take 10 days]
[Stealthing in the Land of Birds]

[Still Stealthed]
[Purchasing 64 125 ml Ink Pots - Costs 25,600 ryo]

[Hunting- Ei]
OOC:

Spoiler:

Nozomi had arrived, having traveled full speed to track down the individual who had stolen from Sunagakure. For now, it was the difficult thing of finding her among the village. Nozomi could tell that the person she was following had stopped in the village not that long ago, it wasn't that hard following the tracks here and she figured the person had taken a normal traveling pace rather than the full trek that Nozomi had.

Now it was just a matter of finding her.

Forming the clone seal, Nozomi made 150 clones to spread out and search the village. With the spread they had, they'd be able to canvas the area rather thoroughly.

As stealthy as Ei could be, she made a simple mistake though. Stopping to try and craft near the market place wasn't exactly the stealthiest thing. Having her clones ask around for a new person in town, she'd eventually narrowed it down to a single area, where someone was attempting to make a bunch of mannequins. A new girl had arrived and hunkered down to make things, and that hadn't gone unnoticed by the populace.

It didn't take long for that information to make its way back to Nozomi, as the clone that had that knowledge popped, transferring it to the rest of them, and she let the rest of them dismiss as well, arriving at Ei's location herself. "Well, hello there, thief."

Nozomi was wearing a simple black battle kimono, with long black thigh high socks and a pair of wooden sandals. Her hair was in its usual messy bun, and a single ebony tanto was tied to a sash on her hip. However, there would still be no mistaking who she was. There wasn't a person around that didn't know who Nozomi was at this point. Many were terrified of her, but many worshiped her. It wasn't something she cared about either way, but she didn't need to bother introducing herself.

Nozomi had a neutral expression on her face as normal. She was actually really curious about Ei, seeing the girl. There wasn't much special about her in particular. She was a jounin from Sunagakure, but that was it."Taking a break?"

---
-35 having Fast Traveled
-15 for 150 clones.
150 clones all with 0.1 Chakra

Spoiler:

In the hum of the marketplace a variety of clones would be quick at work- Ei made no attempt to hide the fact that she was a shinobi. The Land of Birds wasn’t so far away from shinobi life, after all. Between Sunagakure and Iwagakure, and with their own hidden village, shinobi weren’t so strange of a sight. She had work to do, after all, and doing it all by herself would only slow things down. Plus, she had every right to take advantage of her well earned spoils. She had already read every single one of those unique scrolls that were in the Kazekage’s office and memorized their contents. Might as well use them to assist in her work.

A variety of carpentry tools would be spread out in a rented out workshop not too far off from the village’s main market square. Having just started not too long ago the mannequins she was in the process of creating weren’t too far along in their development. Most were barely recognizable, but there were a few who had identifiably human figures and dispersed limbs. Four clones would be fast at work in furthering what she had already done, but the original would be acting as an overseer- A very fair distribution of work, having your clones do all of it while you sat back and watched.

Ei would be sitting in the center, dressed in her signature ornate kimono. Despite being technically on the run after committing a serious crime she made no compromises for fashion. Those complicated hair ornaments of fabric carefully folded to appear as flowers were still pinned into her hair, but it was clear that despite this well kept appearance she hadn’t been expecting guests. Her kimono’s obi sash was loose, allowing the silk of her kimono to drape down in a manner which exposed her collarbone and a generous portion of her chest, just barely keeping her modesty. What was most curious about her appearance was the visible heat that seemed to rise off her. Here in the mountainous Land of Birds the temperature was noticeably more moderate than in Sunagakure. As a Scorch Release user her body temperature was extreme, and here away from the desert’s heat that represented itself visibly in the air. Just like visible breath in cold air a strange aura of heat would seem to rise directly from her skin into the air around her.

“Go away. I still have this place rented out for…” She began immediately in a routine, having been suspiciously questioned about her activities already by curious locales more times than she was comfortable with. Only when she noticed who the speaker actually was, and what they were saying, did her tune change. It took her a moment for the recognition to set in. Then she would stare. Ei knew who this was.

“My apologies. I wasn’t expecting guests. If I had known you were coming I would have … Chosen a less industrial setting. Somewhere more agreeable.” She would have done a lot of things differently if she knew Nozomi would be following her.

“Maybe prepared some sake. Unfortunately I have nothing to offer at the moment. You’ll have to forgive me for being such a poor hostess, especially after you came all this way just to visit me.”

A sweet smile followed. If the Sunagakure jounin was nervous she made no show of it.

---

-.4 for 4 Multi Shadow Clones

Spoiler:

Nozomi eyed the room, watching the mannequin building process of the clones, while Ei seemed content to just oversee the thing without doing anything herself.

"No, no, I don't drink." Nozomi wasn't the most social of people, in all honesty. She didn't actually enjoy talking to people, or holding conversation since social etiquette required that people looked someone else in the eye while they talked, and she was avoidant by nature. When she was drawing, or other people were working, she found it easier to talk because it gave a secondary focus.

Of course, the lack of drinking was a personal choice. Nozomi didn't like to dull her senses. She was almost always 'on'. The world was full of enemies, and she didn't like to put her guard down. Alcohol would likely loosen her up and let her talk to people with less concern, but it would also dull her senses, slow her reactions, lower her functional capacity.

"So. You emptied Sunagakure. How did it feel?" Nozomi asked, her neutral expression remaining as per normal. Despite that, she really was curious. Realistically, Nozomi didn't care at all about Sunagakure's stuff being stolen. None of it belonged to her, and the Suna project was Raijin's failure. A part of her found the entire thing a little funny, not that she'd ever say it out loud.

Looking closer at Ei, Nozomi noticed that she was emitting heat off of her. It was interesting to be sure. A hot girl. If Nozomi was a humorous person, she may have commented, but she wasn't. The woman's fashion sense was impeccable, but her skin looked incredibly soft. There wasn't a single notice of muscle on the woman. And yet, she'd managed to get all the way here, only being caught because Nozomi herself had happened to catch onto the trail. There was more to her than met the eye.

The clones that had been created continued to work. While perhaps a bit rude for their construction efforts to continue even now that a guest had entered their workshop the construction of these mannequins was on a strict deadline. She had planned to only stop here to make these last few before moving on. Ideally she would have gone straight to Iwagakure following this short pitstop in the Land of Birds, but it seemed that would no longer be the case. Even if her plans had been effectively foiled, these clones continued on working as if they had not, only occasionally stealing glances at the woman who had tracked them here.

“How did it feel?”

She repeated the words after they were said. Obviously she hadn’t expected it. She hadn’t expected a conversation at all, much less it to go down this specific route. It took her a moment to think about it, recalling those emotions from a few days prior.

“Honestly? I’m a bit ashamed to admit it, but I was afraid.” Her smile turned into one of embarrassment. Recalling those moments of the theft just a few days prior those emotions of thrilling excitement and fear immediately came to mind again, as if she were reliving the experience.

“Not of being caught. I hadn’t expected that I would be followed. With how Sunagakure has decayed to its current state there shouldn’t have been any shinobi on hand to send after me. I suppose it was just... The thought of leaving home and never returning.”

Pausing in her thoughts, Ei would reach for a moment beneath the robes of her kimono. A scroll was produced and unfurled in the same moment, a quick testament to her skill of sleight of hand. The interior was, with a bit of unnecessarily dramatic flair, revealed to be a delicately painted moonlit scene of the desert overlooking the Sunagakure skyline. The combination of the careful use of ink and the scroll made it clearly an attempt to play with the common fuuinjutsu scroll as an artistic medium. Set down before her, it would become a reference point.

“If I am to never return, what I create will just become an expression of my slowly fading memories. There would come a point where I would never again be able to paint my home again in an authentic manner. Then I would be nothing more than stagnant water, losing all my ability to create beauty. Thinking of that was frightening.”

The scroll would be peered down to now, those blue eyes of her being temporarily lost in the memory of its creation.

“There’s nothing left in Sunagakure though. There’s no reason to return- Ah. I’m talking an awful lot, aren’t I? Forgive me, I hope I’m not boring you.” She cut herself off, peeling herself away from that painting now, back to addressing the woman before her.