Board Thread:Important Logs/@comment-34754862-20170603232159/@comment-28920809-20170610044042

Hitoshi ended up getting pulled back prematurely. He wasn't going to close the entire distance to the girl rather just barely outside the grasp of the Jounin's arms. With the big of tension building up he instead let his bare feet shuffle him backward allowing the jounin sensei to take the lead on this one. Whether he heard Aurora's comment or not he didn't show. He spent the entire academy getting looked down upon for one reason or another and the insults were dime a dozen.

In this case, he attempted to take lead for one very specific reason; he was disarming. Not through his techniques or training but by his movements and appearance. At a glance one of these people was not like the others. He didn't look like a ninja, really move like a ninja, carry the equipment like a ninja as made evident by the rings and full bulky backpack, or even really act like a ninja. Instead, he was somewhere between a beggar and a monk. Ascetic in every way even if he didn't keep up certain grooming standards with his hair. In all the time on his own, it was this outward appearance that let him skate on by or get the drop on someone when a person who was obviously combative may have faced hardship. Realistically he was the person least likely to get a reason and the first person to slip in somewhere unnoticed by simply staying out in the open.

As the dynamic changed he fell back into line and would from then on silently defer to the Jounin. Much to the distaste of the voice on the inside. “Ohhhh come on!”

“I thought you weren't going to interfere?”  Hitoshi's own thoughts rang back in response.

As the events played out similarly regardless of the path they took Hitoshi inevitably ended up in the same situation. Poised near his sensei with a pair of potentially opposing shinobi walking past him (at what distance?). It was in this moment that he mentally withdrew. There was a certain lightheartedness to him for the entire trip. A strange aloof behavior physical even in the loose movements of his limbs. This all vanished the moment they reached the village. All emotion vanished entirely and he became as calm outwardly as the mirror-like surface of a lake. This was the training from the monastery. Easily mistaken for fear.

Inwardly he was burning up. A rage as bright as the sun boiling and churning deep beneath the surface threatening to burst outward. Kenta even reeling momentarily before he could try to calm his host. “Whoa, whoa... Hold up. Don't do anything stupid. Just don't do anything. I need you alive, kid.”

“Why...?”  A single word barely more than a whisper. To anyone that may have been able to detect Kenta's words in the teen's head may have thought Hitoshi was audibly questioning his mentor. Otherwise, the question was strange and out of context.

The switch to a silent and stony exterior would've happened much earlier had his sensei chosen to slay the girl. Otherwise, there'd be little else different.