Finally Home

Arashi sat quiet and sullen as he was caught up on what happened in the village. Things were tense when he had left... the battle they fought was testament to that, but to see how much things had fallen. He had looked up and respected Ser Meryn... and he betrayed them. Ser Florent was a strong and loyal guard... but he betrayed them. It seemed that his delusions of the Queensguard were highly unfounded. But that was old hat. They existed in name only; part of the tradition of Hoshi that was integrated into the shinobi village.

"You're the right hand of the Kage; you have as much say in the village that he does. I'd say you did fine yourself. I was just the wandering Prince, remember?" he said, giving a smirk as she pulled out the paperwork for the Chunin exams.

"We seem to have good representation from the other villages.. except for Konoha, but trust me when I say they are barely a village right now. The Leaves seem to have held their Major Village status as more of tradition than merit. Being a vassal to another village will do that." he stated, looking at what was offered.

"Standard 3 part exam.... Knowledge and Morality, Teamwork and Adaptibility, and Combat and Determination. The second test.. it says Proctor open-ended, and varied bell test? Proctors are free to test pairs in any way they see fit within the confines of a bell test; only limitations based on ability to obtain the bells, as well as restriction on power use... that makes sense; we don't want to kill them. But open-ended... so there isn't an established test for the second exam, its all up to us?" he asked, flipping through the ninja records of the applicants. To his surprise and pleasure, all three of the genin he would be leading after the exam were participating. Maybe he wouldn't be leading a team of genin... maybe it would be chunin.

"So whats the success rate we are shooting for? Obviously we have no say in the other villages, but for our own, how many are we looking to promote?"

“The wandering Prince? That’s quite the title. I wish I had something similar for myself, but alas, we can’t pick the ones our enemies give us. The Grimma Hunter is going to me until my denying breath.” Shina sighed, feigning sadness. In truth, she enjoyed her nickname because unlikely the popular Hoshi heroes, like Arashi, Ayato, and Dusk, could only think like heroes. She could feel like a villain and knew where to look for them and bury an ax between their eyes.

“Do I sense a question on your lips?” Shina asked. The son of Akihana eagerly examined the rules of the tournaments that Shina gave him in the paper, and after a few minutes, his expression seemed to change somewhat.

The questions he delivered might have had an obvious answer to those in the loop, but Arashi Tekiatsu had been away for a while, so their nature was understandable. Thankfully, he had caught Shina in her smiling mood and almost willing to address them.

“I can’t say for other villages and don’t know much for the participants’ abilities. We will see them in the tournament itself, I suppose. We do know of one, though. A relative of our Kage’s representing Sunagakure. The son of a cousin of Ayato’s father. One of the living ones, I think. Or the dead ones, I don’t recall. These Hyuuga are a large bunch.”

The brunette said with a smile, took hold of the half-empty silver cup, and drank the remaining wine in one thick gulp.

“ For our forces. I would say two or three promotions to Chuunin would be ideal. I suppose it’s about time I give you my prediction of who one of those is going to be.” She assured him, with her usual smile now been absent from her lips.

“Enishi Kurosawa, a name you no doubt don’t recognize. The boy goes above and beyond the average Genin. He has seen war, fought in the Valen’s coup, and survived in the wilds after escaping the Hoshi traitors that had kidnapped him to return home. By all accounts, he is the ultimate favorite to win the entire thing.”

She placed a soft hand underneath her chin in consideration. This was an excellent time to break the news to him. "I don’t think any of the Genin in your assigned team will be able to go toe to toe with him, but you just might. Provided he passes the written exam, and rest assured he will be. You will be the proctor of his bell test.”

wc:441

Due to Arashi's networking issues, I'll be exiting this topic.

TWC: 2,711

Claiming with 25% max stat discount

187 x 2 =374
Ro the wise E-rank
Mamoru E-rank

1875 to Aoi the Sadist A-rank
375 to level Hiding like a Mole in my stat page from C to B-rank [750 +375 = 1125/1125]

discarding the remaining 87 words

Approved,