Among the Mountains

When they had asked her to elaborate on her original comment, they had not quite expected to be handed so much information surrounding her life. Evidently, she was not one to keep secrets. An uncommon trait for rogues, one they only usually saw with those that had become rather disinterested in life as a whole. When secrets were too burdensome to bother with. Whether they take her words as truth or not is unclear, they know what she has said and claimed, and they are not inclined to think her lying, but they reserve believing anyone until further evaluation. The blade however, is retracted and sheathed.

“You compare your sensory abilities to that of the Kazekage, would that mean your powers are of similar caliber?” they ask, golden eyes alight with intrigue. It wasn’t a power they had researched much on, but it may be rather convenient if that research found them. In the form of a runaway heiress. Given she had fled before, they imagine she isn’t one to offer studies on her abilities however. And they had long since stopped their human experimentation. Especially with Konoha watching them so closely. “Don’t you think divulging that information is a risky thing to do?” they ask her rhetorically, “you never know who may value your powers more than your life.”

She rubbed at her neck instinctively, grateful for the blade to be sheathed. She had long since ceased caring about who knew her story. Especially after the war, she figured shinobi had given up finding her. There were some here and there before the war, but she struggled to remember the last time a team was sent in search of her.

“I don’t know, I’ve never met him,” she shrugged. “I just use him as he’s the most known person with Magnet Release. Most I know with Magnet Release have his kind; they can magnetize objects or people.”

She didn’t want to do a power display for this person, especially since the two first met with a blade on her neck.

“Nice to meet you, Chiyoko!” Jiraiya smiled and stood in his favorite pose. “Nowhere in the world will you find a second person who could call himself a great toad sage! I am a legendary sannin from Mount Myoboku, Jiraiya!”

She could sense their weapons? Now that was peculiar.  They walk around her, the blade trailing around her neck in motion with their steps. Once in front of the woman, they walk forwards, metal to skin, pushing her to be backed in to the wall. Golden eyes meet her with intensive curiosity, head tilting to the side in observation. They read her only for a moment, like a predator sizing out prey, before their lips flicker to a more amused smile. “Someone such as myself does not need to compensate with an abundance of blades my dear,” they say, “I find it more practical to carry light, and to make a weapon of myself.” It was little concern to them if they ran out of the ambush blades, if they were left without a single one in their pouch. They had always preferred their sword, and if not, their summons - or push come to shove… venomous fangs that could deliver a single fatal bite, that possessed enough toxicity to kill over a hundred men. Needless to say, it was impossible to disarm the viper. Not without defanging them first. And who quite wanted to stick their hand near such jaws?

“Now it’s my turn to ask a question,” they say, inquisitively observing her for any hint of a reaction, “you’re evidently a sensor given your choice of diction, but you seemed to pick out a peculiar bit of information. Elaborate on that little ability hm?” To sense the metal in their pouch, instead of their debilitating ominous chakra… how strange.

Chiyoko was not expecting to be cornered to a wall in her own hideout today, but she supposed she would rather talk than fight. They seemed to be genuinely interested in her, in a sense to keep her alive. She glanced back with hazel eyes at their golden.

“I prefer weapons,” she shrugged. “As for your question...”

She glanced down to her ripped kimono sleeve, torn haphazardly to rid herself of her clan’s symbol permanently. She then looked back to the person in front of her, with a blade still at her neck.

“I am a unique sensor and person with Magnet Release,” she said. “The Kazekage magnetizes objects. I am the magnet. I can sense metal within a certain radius. My clan wanted to use me to make more like me, as they always do: arranged marriages with some man I’ve never met. I left.”

“Not a single one, to be honest.” Jiraiya laughed. “But we can go to the bar together and listen to what the people around us will say. It will be fun, in fact. I pay for sake!”

     It hadn’t been long since his last mission, and only to have been handed on just as soon as he got back? Leave it to Naruto to keep him busy, but heck anything for that idiot. Hearing a voice his head perked and glanced over at the newcomer.

     Her question made him chuckle lightly as he unfolded the mission details showing them to her. “I’m meeting up with you I suppose?” Was she afraid to work with him or something?

     Though to be honest he hadn’t worked with anyone since he was on team seven and that was years ago, so he would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous.

Welp.

“Guess I am,” she chuckled. “Chiyoko Akiyama, nice to meet you.”

     She took a moment to read the mission scroll, rediscovering they were being sent to explore an ancient house covered in barrier tags likely from her clan.

“That explains why I’m here,” she said, pointing to a photo of the tag. “This is a tag for a barrier few can cast and control, and I’m one of them. But this version is ancient.”     She took out a spare scroll from her pack and quickly drew a modern version of the barrier tag. She placed the one she just drew right next to a photo from the mission details. Each had a circular design around characters for “SEAL” with characters reading “Magnet Barrier.” The modern had a chain to all four corners of the tag, whereas the ancient’s chain was made up of letters barely legible with its age and small writing.