[Enter] The Color Out Of Time

[Santaru Rin]

Rin stepped out of the writhing cloud bank and into the clearing before the Gates. Her hand lingered over her kaiseki for a moment, then plunged beneath the fabric and withdrew the mission papers, ready for whomever would welcome her home. Her steady breaths released fading plumes of steam into the icy, thin air. Yes, Kumogakure was home. It was small, but it was home.

[Requesting Entry]

 

[Takaki Saeko]

"Alright, Numa, just one more step, and we'll be free of this prison we call a body!" said the Hyuuga to himself as he carefully tiptoed out to the edge of one of the parapets overlooking the gates threshold, a thick length of rope knotted in a noose around his neck. The other end had been tied to a nearby, random metal hook on the outside of the stone edifice with the best sailor's knot that the academy could teach a genin how to tie. "Alright! So long oppression!" he exclaimed, a satisfied smile across his face as he leaped off of the parapet.

With a sickening snap of the rope, as opposed to his second cervical vertebra, Numa suddenly entered freefall as the world upended itself and he crashed to the ground in a dusty heap, landing squarely on his face. Akin to being punched in the gut by his friend Jenosaido, the sensation was not so much disablingly painful as it was merely humiliating... Especially because as he picked himself off the ground, rope still around his neck, he happened to spy the regent Commander of the ANBU herself, the famous fucker-upper of birds and husbands, Santaru Rin.

The hell? Where'd she come from? Did the guy modding her mission get banned or something? Numa wondered, as he reflexively bowed to her. "Er, welcome back to Kumogakure, ma'am. You're free to enter the village..." he mumbled, somewhat sheepishly.

 

[Santaru Rin]

Rin stared down at the absolute waste of human space before her, then pulled a scroll out of her belt and removed from it part of an iron toilet. "You're with the Deathwatch, right?" She hefted the item and gave it a calculating look. He still had the noose around his neck, but had tied the knot incorrectly.

"You need a little help?" she asked sweetly, and then swung the tank lid downward...

 

[Takaki Saeko]

"ERMAHGERD!!!!!" squeaked Numa with the type of shrill, absolute hilarity that only a ten-year-old-at-a-McDonalds-at-a-highway-rest-station can manage when being told that he has to wait in line to get his food order in ("My GOD! I can't even order any FOOD! The line is SO long and I'm VERY HUNGRY!" is how it went, no joke). In probably the deftest moment of his young life, he fell backwards on his ass while trying to skitter away, which was the only thing that saved him from certain skull-crushing-by-toilet, and immediately ran full-tilt in the opposite direction. Back to the safe, warm, loving embrace of the village and Uchiha Jenosaido. The end.

 

[Santaru Rin]

The hefty cast iron lid plonked into the dirt where Numa had stood less than a second before. It left a cloud of dust and a huge dent in the earth. She considered pouting, then discarded that after a moment's contemplation. A Sennin did not pout. That simply was not done. She picked up the lid. More of the scorched and cracked ceramic glaze had broken away, leaving so many tiny pieces of black eggshell-like material behind.

"Tadaima!"

[Entered/TLUS]