<strong>Jin-Ryu</strong><br/><br/>Tarui shrugged, "Once or twice."<br/><br/>Kurai and Kay both let their heads sink at their instructor's complete lack of enthusiasm. "We're staying at a hotel cliff-side." The Jounin declared, brushing the hair out of her face, "We can check in and get our bearings there. We've got a week before the exams start."<br/><br/>Kay shrugged and dragged her feet with lamentation behind Jin-Ryu and the rest of the group.<br/><br/>They retired for a night in a quaint little hotel overlooking a canal. Tarui slept in, as she was wont to do. Kay woke up long before Jin-Ryu, no doubt sprinting around the town to stretch her legs out. Kurai also woke up early, as she tended to do. She decided to go outside the village to get something to eat. Jin-Ryu knew that could mean only one thing for a Chakra Vampire...<br/><br/>Jin-Ryu set out for downtown Kirigakure, stopping by the tourist traps, the tea shops, the various fronts for ninja families hiding in plain sight. He heard some interesting rumors, but at the same time also felt himself being observed... A lot of people were talking about the apparent return of the Kaguya clan. After the Great War, the Mizuniwa clan in Kirigakure reclaimed the enemy's DNA research and managed to recreate the Shikotsu Myaku in one little girl. Such experiments were illegal, but the Sixth Mizukage only learned of it when the Mizuniwa clan was wiped out by none other than Kaguya Heikamaro and the clan's 'princess', Himiko. Now the deadly pair were competing in the Chūnin exams but on separate teams.<br/><br/>The other lead he picked up on was the arrival a few days prior of a... problematic kunoichi from Iwagakure named Gorugan. Apparently she had a habit of turning to stone people that got on her nerves... all with just a sharp look from her charcoal black eyes and slit crimson pupils. Thankfully, the damage wasn't permanent... so long as a skilled Earth Elementalist was around. She was here with another troublesome kunoichi by the name of Bakumi, one who seemed quite fond of 'explosions' as a medium of art. Their third team member was also apparently a giant of a man, some eight feet tall.<br/><br/>Then there was the team from Tanigakure which included a young woman with red eyes and an enormity of responsibility on her shoulders. Her particular bloodline limit was said to have only came around once in a hundred years, imbuing her body with phenomenal power... but at the same time, this Mibu Niwa hadn't actually spent a lot of time<em>outside</em>Tanigakure. In fact, she was heard lamenting at length about how the village didn't even<em>want</em>her attending these exams.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">Pick one lead to pursue.<br/><br/>While gathering information, Jin Ryu let slip a moderate amount of information about himself.</div></div><br/><br/><strong>Yuki</strong><br/><br/>"Exploring?" Matoko's voice repeated from within her mechanized puppet, "Sounds<em>boring.</em>" If it wasn't electronic or mechanical, Matoko didn't care for it. Kirigakure was known for being a bit... old-fashioned in that regard.<br/><br/>Kotone instinctively brought her hand up to her chin thoughtfully, "I... could go with you, Yuki-kun." She was still leaning against the wall. Maki lifted her eyebrow, "You sure about that, Kotone?"<br/><br/>"Mmmhm!"<br/><br/>"Well, first thing's first." Maki said with a huff, "I don't know about you, but I've never felt at ease until I know where I'm going to sleep."<br/><br/>Thus they quickly found their way to the hotel and checked in. Kotone went to sleep early- she'd need all the energy she could muster for the next day's journey. Yuki and Kotone set out early in the morning, leaving out the same way they came in.<br/><br/>They explored together for a few hours before coming across a crocodile basking in the mid-day sun. Kirigakure's climate was warm, even tropical, and the mist and murky water seemed to favor all kinds of predators like that. Yuki and Kotone carefully avoided it, side-stepping the crocodile's hunting grounds altogether.<br/><br/>After a little while, they found something rather strange... There were patches of dead bark on some of the trees, barely larger than their hands. They had seen a few along this path, mostly on the larger trees they passed. More seemed to be up there further along the trail. Yuki and Kotone could follow it, if they wanted.<br/><br/>In the opposite direction, there was a distant crack and and a rumble through the air. They could see birds flying out from the treeline in the distance. It could have been a tree falling... or another person.<br/><br/>Kotone, meanwhile, was resting on a boulder as Yuki investigated the two leads. She smiled cheerfully, brushing the hair out of her eyes. Yuki knew she must have been getting tired but that she also wouldn't ever be caught complaining. They could probably keep going on and she'd be fine, but at the same time she was also lugging around that giant instrument all day...<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">Pick a lead to pursue... also, Yuki will get a +2 circumstance bonus to Outdoorsmanship checks during the Exam and to skill checks vs. Animals or Magical Beasts.<br/><br/>He spots a crocodile 30 feet away but it botches its Perception with a natural 1. Yuki avoids it.</div></div><br/><br/><strong>Azuki</strong><br/><br/>Hanabi narrowed her featureless white eyes and huffed, blowing the lock of hair down the center of her face slightly out of the way, "Don't get<em>too</em>friendly." She scoffed, "I'm sure there's shortage of ninja here who'll want to trim the competition before the exams even start... and I don't need any help!"<br/><br/>She scrunched her lips together and looked away from Azuki.<br/><br/>"A d-date?" Kodoku asked, quirking his head at Azuki, "These guys are gonna be our rivals..."<br/><br/>"Our enemies!" Teru chimed in with a sharp-toothed grin. Shiromaru barked in aggreement.<br/><br/>At the end of the day, the rest of Azuki's team decided to retire early. Teru still had plenty of energy, but Shiromaru seemed content to do his own thing. She disappeared at around the same time Azuki decided to hit the town. By the time she came back to the hotel, she'd gotten three decent leads on the other genin that she might be facing.<br/><br/>A strange puppeteer from Sunagakure walked into town in what could only be described as a vaguely humanoid walking tank. She was supposedly a prodigy of the art and no one had ever seen her face underneath her various suits. Chikamatsu Matoko loved to tinker with all kinds of machines and electronics. She arrived in Kirigakure with the exiled Hyuuga that lived in Sunagakure and a talented musician with a Koto on her back.<br/><br/>There seemed to be a lot of talk about princesses, though information about the 'Sand Sisters' wasn't forthcoming, a lot of the locals were talking about Kirigakure's very own Hozuki Kasumi and Mizuniwa Himiko. The former was a peerless swimmer, a fish in the water as many said and an heir to one of the most prominent clans in Kirigakure. Himiko, on the other hand, was apparently responsible for wiping out her own clan as a young girl. She had some help... from another young girl, Kaguya Heikamaro. Rumor had it she was a bit too bloodthirsty for most people's comfort. The two had a third team member, a young man of the Imagawa clan that had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of chakra.<br/><br/>Others talked about the giant from Iwagakure who came in with the snake-eyed woman and the pyromaniac. His name was Haitsuchi and apparently startled some children on his way in, much to his dismay. He even fell behind his teammates when he stopped to help an old woman with her groceries... He was supposedly the counterbalance to his teammates' particular... enthusiasm for turning people into stone or blowing them up.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">While gathering information, Azuki let no information slip about herself.</div></div>