Let's take one more breath

[heavenly_earth]

Who: Neji, Sakura, Karin, and Kushina
When: April 17th-21st
Where: Uzushio
Notes: A-Rank mission to assist in the safe transport of Uzushio's historical masks.


An A-Rank mission for a two-man team comprised of a single Jounin and Chuunin was unusual, but as far as they'd heard it, they're a small squadron among a few sent along to aid Uzushio. The probability of running into trouble was low, but as they drew closer to the village, Neji activated his bloodline just in case.

As for his Chuunin counterpart.. Haruno Sakura had recently been promoted from Genin, but she was already highly skilled. He got the sense she'd be recommended for Jounin before too long, and this was about as easy as A-rank missions got if Obito was looking to prepare or gauge her capability.

The gates of the rebuilt village were in sight of his Byakugan before long, and Neji dropped to the ground, signalling for Sakura to do the same.

"It seems there's a small team awaiting us," he mentioned offhand to his subordinate. "Uzugakure Genin by the looks of them. They're likely our escorts to Kushina-san."

Comments

[notveryspecial]

It's not the first A-Rank mission she's ever been on, but it is the first where she was assigned it personally to act as support for other jounin, rather than Team Shirakumo picking up an easy A-Rank for one reason or another. If she were completely honest, it's less the mission itself that is notable to her (given it's easily B, perhaps even C, were the items involved not so valuable and the alliance to Konoha so close) but the company. Rather, the lack of Kiba Inuzuka.

It wasn't like she was never assigned personal missions, or paired up with other ninja than Team Shirakumo, but she did appreciate whenever her partner happened to be more like Shino than Kiba. Neji Hyuuga semed to be of that sort, and if nothing else, she appreciated the quiet trip.

She dropped to the ground after the older jounin only once he signaled for her, and glanced briefly over at him as he spoke. There wasn't much point in scanning the area ahead for the genin he spoke of--some Byakugan could see for miles, couldn't they? That's what she'd heard of the Hyuuga clan, anyway.

"Genin? I hadn't heard Uzugakure had its own Genin yet." Then again, maybe it was mentioned in passing near her at some point. It sounded vaguely familiar, after all.

New Storage Temple

[heavenly_earth]

There wasn't much his Byakugan couldn't see, but there were some seals that didn't allow even his doujutsu to penetrate. And a few of those seals inside the temple were creating cloudy anomalies in his vision now.

With no intention of drawing any attention to that however, Neji briefly took inventory of the other shinobi stationed around the area before grayed vision alighted on the well of chakra that was their client.

"Kushina-san," he said, stepping forward as he released his bloodline. "Hokage-sama has sent myself and Haruno-san to assist you."