Transfer Mission: The Blackbird's Dilemma

Kana nodded lightly when he made his correction, watching as he waved the waiter over. "Bacon and eggs, sunny side up, and a side of toast. Oh, and orange juice," she said, looking back at Felix as the waiter went off. "I was..." she paused as he said he had an idea, tilting her head. As he explained, she frowned and sat back. "No. No way in hell." She was not about to just let him waltz into enemy territory without being fully recovered enough to even run a mile. Just...just no.

"It wasn't up for debate," he told her firmly. "The Sand wont suspect me to keep up with the mission after I'm ordered to go back home. So I'll go in and get the ninja, whether you like it or not. You want them out before the attack, this is the only way, so such it up and shut up." Felix's blue eyes narrowed. "Because I'm not letting you go, your arm is still messed up. I can handle this, you can't."

Kana took a quick glance around when he mentioned the Sand before looking back to him. This could turn into an argument if one of them said something wrong. So far, Felix already had. "My arm is almost healed, but you're not," she told him lowly. "If it comes to a fight, at this point in time I'd be better going in than you would be." She leaned back again. "You're not going in there Felix. It's not the only way, I can go in and get them myself," she told him, her eyes just short of glaring at him. There was no way. He could get seriously hurt. He could lose another one of his chances. She couldn't allow that.

Felix sighed. Kana was always a difficult person to work with, but that was okay. He didn't plan on arguing because he didn't want anyone to overhear their conversation. He hoped Kana was smart enough to keep it down as well. The walls were always listening. "I'll be out of the village. Off your service. You won't be able to tell me what I can and cannot do." He grinned, his silver hair falling into his blue eyes. "Besides, what are you going to do without chakra?" The grin widened. "Hand to hand combat only goes so far, kid."

"Yeah, but the Crested can," she replied when he told him that she couldn't tell him what he could or could not do. She paused and swallowed lightly when he mentioned that she had no chakra. She didn't remember mentioning that to him. Maybe one of the doctors had told him. "I'm working on getting that fixed," she mentioned plainly. "I can do this," she told him lowly. "I'm more competent than you think." More importantly, this was something she wanted to do. Needed to do. Or maybe that's what she was telling herself. The truth of it was, she just didn't want Felix hurt.

Felix shrugged. "Whatever you say Kana. It doesn't change the fact that they'll let me do it. I've been along longer than you. A lot of people owe me favors. I don't mind collecting them." Felix looked at her and then to the waiter who was coming back with their food. "Thanks," he said. He then looked back at Kana. "How do you plan on getting there to them and back for the battle?" He asked. "Explain that."

Favors. Of course he wouldn't mind collecting them, he's immortal, he has an eternity to collect more. Kana nodded to the waiter when he brought the food. "Thanks," she also said. She looked back to Felix, picking up a piece of toast to start buttering it. She wasn't kidding about being hungry. "I'll figure something out," she told him. She'd get a summoning or something. But for now she had something else she had to ask him. "I have a question for you. Who's Hunter, and how do I get to him?" It was out of the blue, yes. Like, really out of the blue, but she wanted a change in subject before they started getting into details that shouldn't have been discussed in such a public place.

Now she was asking him questions that weren't on topic. Nice. Hunter. Felix tilted his had. "You mean, what is Hunter," he said as if correcting her yet again. Felix wanted to know what she wanted with Hunter. "Hunter is in the Unknown. I'm guessing this is part of your riddle. But I don't remember reading anything about Hunter." Felix started to eat his biscuit. "Is there more to it?" He asked. "Or did someone tell you to find it."

Kana almost swallowed when Felix corrected her, saying what is Hunter, rather than who. She'd been hoping it was a who. She really didn't want to be dealing with some werebeast in the Unknown. "Sure. If it is an it, then what is it?" she asked, then paused. That had been confusing. "Er. Yeah, it's part of the riddle. Kyla mentioned....it," she said. "She said he...it, might know something about that Silence's Breath bit of the riddle," she told him. Well hell, Kana was immortal now. She had to find something to occupy her time. Although, currently her plate was a bit full. After this mission was over, she'd have to go find Hunter. Whatever it was. Breaking the yolk of one of the eggs with the corner of her toast, Kana dipped the toast in it and took a bite, waiting for Felix's response.

Felix shook his head. Now he really didn't want to talk about this. Kyla was nothing but trouble and apparently she was trying to get Kana killed....well she was an immortal, she couldn't die, but that was besides the point. The point of the matter was that she was a bad apple. "Hunter is an immortal. A very powerful immortal that lives inside the Unknown. The only person to live there and tell about it. He's cursed and dangerous, and unless you want to spend all of eternity locked in the Unknown, I'd advise you to stay away from him."

Kana looked at Felix as he explained what Hunter was. And the more he spoke of it, the more Kana came to realize that Hunter actually was a he and not an it. She raised an eyebrow as Felix warned her to stay away from him. "Clearly you know this well enough to have met him. Seems to me that you made it out of the Unknown just fine," she said, taking another bite of her toast. No, she wasn't putting herself up on the same level as Felix, but surely if he could make it out of there, she could.

Felix shook his head no. "Yeah, I made it out, but at a cost. Another immortal was with me at the time and he didn't make it. Immortal's don't die, the fade away until there is nothing left. And when an immortal fades, there souls are shredded. There's no up or down, they're just...gone." Felix bowed his head. "And what's more is that I didn't just waltz in there and waltz out, I was trapped, for a very long time. Try spending nearly 2 centuries in the Unknown, fighting against everything at every second, at every corner." Felix looked at the kunochi.

Kana looked at him when he said that there had been another immortal with him. Just how many immortals were there in this world? So far, she knew of five that were still alive, including herself. She frowned as he further explained. "The Unknown sounds like a nasty place," she muttered. She knew it was bad, but nowhere nears as bad as he was telling it to be. And if Felix thought it was bad, then it was really bad. Giving a sigh, Kana put her toast down and leaned back. What a drag this was. She'd just started her immortal life, she wasn't about to spend time trapped in the Unknown unless she seriously had nothing better to do with her life. She wondered how many centuries that would take. "Didn't realize it was that bad in there." She wouldn't even have suspected Felix of lying about something like this, really. She at least trusted him enough to take his word on something like this. But man...though she'd heard horror stories about that place, she never expected it to be that bad.

Felix only shrugged and finished his first biscuit. "Answer me this. Why would Kyla want to make you go to the Unknown? Does she have something to benefit from it?" He asked. Kyla never helped unless she had something to gain. Felix had figured that out the hard way about a year and half ago. The end result was catastrophic. Felix pushed the memory to the back of his mind and looked at Kana, waiting for her answer.

Kana's gaze drifted back up to Felix when he asked her why Kyla would want her to go into the Unknown. "I don't know. I asked her if she knew anything about Silence's Breath, and she told me that Hunter might know," she told him. "And then she told me, and I quote, 'talk to Felix or Serenity'." She paused, then looked off to the side. "I decided it would be...er...simpler, to just ask you." Yeah. That and it would be hella awkward talking to Serenity. Serenity might not have known what happened between Kana and Felix, but Kana herself sure did. With a small sigh, Kana took up her fork and started eating one of her eggs.

Felix sighed. Smart girl not to speak with Serenity. Well, more like convenient. "Silence's Breath. I'm guessing you'll have to find Silence, but he's not going to just walk up to you. The chances of meeting him is 1 in 9 billion. More than that really. He's the guardian of the Unknown, in a way. I suppose Hunter would know what Silence's Breath was since he lives there, but you'd live longer if you spoke with Silence instead."

Kana tilted her head a bit when he sighed. "Well I know that much," she told him lightly when he said that Silence wasn't just going to walk up to her. Felix almost sounded like he'd seen Silence before, but Kana wasn't about to jump to any conclusions. "That's an odd choice of words," she commented at his last statement. "So, if I go looking for Hunter, I could be trapped there for upwards of two centuries, and if I go looking for Silence...probably the same thing." Well wasn't that just a bitch. She sighed and took a drink of her orange juice. "Ngn. Jeez, how troublesome. Who knew one riddle could be so impossible to solve." Okay, so maybe impossible was the wrong word to use. At least, now that she was immortal it was. If she'd been mortal, this task would have literally been impossible for her to complete.

Felix looked up. "I'm suprised you haven't just decided to toss it all out the window. That's what most people do and it tends to get them killed." Was that a dark grin that followed? "My point being is that in order to solve this riddle, you've got to approach it from every angle. It may be talking about the past, present or even the future." He paused for a heartbeat before continuing. "Riddles never have a direct meaning, there's always something more, no matter how simple they sound." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Your two main concerns should be the Golden Wind and the darkness. The Golden Wind may have answers that I don't. And the darkness may be a threat, one that could result in someone's death."

(Kyla sooooo knew Ser was the Golden Wind. That's why she said talk to Felix or Serenity. Yeps, that's what I'm going with.)

(Haha, sure. We'll go with that. But wait though...Kana never told Kyla the entire riddle...)

Kana shook her head. "I haven't tossed it all out the window because it keeps me thinking. And thinking about something other than the mission from time to time helps me come up with ideas," she told him with a shrug. "Every angle, huh..." she muttered, looking at her plate before cutting off a piece of egg with her fork and putting it in her mouth thoughtfully. Hm. The problem was though, there was nothing simple about this riddle at all. "A darker demon," she quoted. "Hardly sounds like anything good." She was almost positive that bit of it was a threat of some sort. Part of her wanted to believe that had to do with what happened with Felix and the Blue Demon. And the fact that the Blue Demon's chakra was repressing her own. That made her frown a bit. "The first four parts of the riddle seem to have to do with beings of some sort, but I can't be sure. The Golden Wind could even be an event of some sort. You know, like a time of year or something, like how the western wind is called a zephyr," she said with a shrug. There were just so many possibilities. If she just knew what Silence's breath was, this whole riddle might make a bit more sense. It could have just been a metaphor to lead them into the Unknown though. She wasn't going to make any assumptions. And if the riddle had to do with the future, how was she supposed to make sense of it! After all, the guy had given her the riddle after Felix's meltdown, and that part about a darker demon seemed to be placed in the future tense....


(See now, this is actually my thought process about the riddle on this one. ) (Also, decided to look up 'The Golden Wind' on Google, and apparently it's some type of Zen healing based on nature. Healing? Ya?)

(Kyla knows all. And that is very ironic)

Felix shrugged. He wasn't too worried about it. As long as the riddle wasn't given to him directly he was fine. But Kana had to go dragging him into it. He'd said in the beginning that this was none of his business. Still he felt that way, but Kana was his responsibility which meant he had to deal with riddle that had his name written on it. "Who gave you this riddle?" He asked. "Was it Kyla?" He wasn't sure Kyla would give such a riddle. Yes, she was none to give hints, but this sounded more complex than something she would dish out. He thought it over. Not her style.

Kana was pulled out of her thoughts when Felix asked just who it was who gave her the riddle, shaking her head when he asked if it was Kyla. "That's the thing. I don't even know who it was. I was heading out to the training grounds to get my ANBU started, and this guy..." she paused and leaned back with a frown as she remembered. Even in memory, his image haunted her. Everything about his appearance had been entrancing, and no one but her had noticed him. She was beginning to question if he'd actually been there.

Realizing that she'd paused in her speaking, she continued on as if she hadn't stopped at all. "Wearing the strangest clothes I'd ever seen, passed by me, speaking that riddle," she said, her gaze down on the table. "It looked like he was wearing some kind of priests robes, but I've never seen anything like them." Another pause. "The robes were white and red, and he had black clothes on underneath." There was a reason for her telling him this. "And he had white hair and grey eyes." Another pause and she finally looked up at Felix. "If you see him..." It was obvious that she wanted Felix to tell her if he saw the being, but she ended up trailing off, lost in thought. She seemed oddly distant now. She was really trying to think of things that might help her find him, so she could ask him what the riddle was about. He'd also had a staff. A weird staff that looked like it was glowing in the middle of the day. But she would leave that part out for now.

"I'll keep a look out," he told her after she'd described the man. Felix had never met anyone of that description. He still couldn't get past the fact that someone would give Kana a riddle. Why her? She was new to this immortality thing. Felix stopped himself from frowning and looked at Kana. "In the time being, while you let this riddle take it's course, you need to figure out what you're going to do. I know we've discussed this already, but Aidelia is a problem. You need a concrete plan on getting rid of her." Felix looked around before he continued. "You need to find out who works for her and who she's working for. If you can find out then maybe our people in the Sand can take them out. Aidelia's a smart girl, but without orders coming in she'll hesitate. And you have to be there when she slips up. "

Kana gave a small nod of thanks when he said he'd keep a look out. She looked at him when he completely changed the subject, back to something more pressing. The mission. She bit her lower lip as he said she needed a concrete plan to get rid of her. She knew that. The problem wouldn't have been so complicated had she not been involved. She blinked when Felix said that Kana should be looking for who Aidelia worked for. How come she hadn't thought of taking out her superiors? Probably because the first thought she'd had was that her superior had to be the Kage of the Sand. But now that she thought about it, maybe not. It would be simpler to not have the Kage know about espionage missions. Was easier that way during political discussions. Kana couldn't help but smile. "See, this is why I wanted your opinion on the matter. I hadn't even thought of that," she said, a renewed spark in her eye. The memory of the strange man who had given her the riddle was wiped away with new ideas forming in Kana's mind. Unfortunately, here and now was not the right place nor the right time to be discussing just who Aidelia's superiors were. The walls were always listening. Felix Kuriyama. Kana had to be one of the luckiest kids alive to have had him to teach her.

Felix smirked. This is why you need me on this mission. You're not even fully in charge and already you're cracking under pressure. I'm made for these kinds of situations. "Glad to know I could help," was his answer. He'd be doing a lot more helping very soon. She just wasn't aware of it. Felix was such a sly fox. He could work in and out of situations without problems, but how would he work on getting rid of Aidelia to stop the slaughter that was occurring in the Rock. He knew with the idea he'd put into Kana's head that she would come up with something.

Kana saw his smirk, but said nothing on it. Agh, he had a right to be full of himself. This time around. Mission or not though, Kana couldn't help but to be grateful things had cooled off between them. She paused. She wondered how long until Felix's trial. As much as she wanted him on this mission now, she wanted him to go home even more. This mission would pass. She would make sure it was a success. Kana started on her food again, picking a bit at it before taking a bite. What now? "Hey. How long is it until your trial again?"