[center][color=#11BCC2][h3][u][b]Anzen-sei, Kikuë[/b][/u][/h3][/color][/center][hr]
Her attention shifting from the Totem to the goings on in the room, Kikue noticed Riku’s actions and reached out--as if to direct something at the arrow, only for Yuhi--one of the Tsuchikage’s bodyguards, to beat her to the punch. She pulled the arm back and straightened her hair and clothes making sure she was in order. She did a mental checklist--and then a sensory one--to see if all was well with her physically.

It was.

Shifting her focus, she spoke up, firing a glare at Riku, which she followed up with bits of crystallized chakra--with specific bumps in the fashion of braile--slipping nigh invisibly through the air and against the blind archer’s skin.

The braile read as follows:

[quote=Braile Crystals][I]Think before you act you imbecile![/I][/quote]
It would be clear to him that she was not particularly pleased with his actions, do she did understand his suspicions. Luckily, Yuuhi excused the offense after which Kyoko acted promptly, essentially arresting Norio, if only to assuage concern and ascertain any involvement he might have had.

Kikue glanced out one of the holes in the council chamber and immediately saw Kujira doing as she’d prompted earlier, still assisting in the location and extraction of people from rubble as well as supporting structures with her companion’s chakra.

While she felt the drain it was really not very much given the sheer depth of her chakra pool, so she put it on the backburner and instructed Kujira to stop well before she used even 1/4th of Kikue’s chakra. Who knows, she might need it soon, and it would not be good to be caught unprepared.

She turned her attention to Kyoko and spoke, [color=#11BCC2][b]“What of me? Is there anything I might do to stabilize the situation? I have already bid Kujira to extricate any she can and stabilize any structures damaged by the attack. Is there anything further I might do?”[/b][/color] Her words were only faintly hurried, though her tone was level and calm. While normally Kikue would be concerned with her own, here well…this was a matter of the Bijuu, and they were a thing that had taken two great women from her clan, two women who had meant much to her, even if she had never truly met her grandmother. As such she had every intention of minimizing their damage to all others she could, in addition to making sure that should they somehow escape…that her and hers would be prepared to deal with them.

This was not just a matter of pragmatism, but rather something more personal, for it was something that the tailed beasts had taken from her, it was a matter of family and so it was something that Kikue took very [I]very[/I] seriously.[hr][center][color=#C85E5E][h3][u][b]Sanryōkyō, Meirō[/b] – [i]Mushoku[/i][/u][/h3][/color]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/QDUbfVz.png[/img][/center][hr]They’d finished acquiring sustenance and taken it elsewhere to eat, out of the sun, and into a building. However, oddly, Meirou hadn’t really noticed the presence of their senior…um, Han’you, until the explosion. The man’s movement--and eventually works--had brought him into the genin’s awareness, and he stayed there.

Barely reacting, aside from bracing himself and then looking to his friend, Meirou’s expression changed ever so slightly, shifting from deadpan to the slightest of frowns. The only reason he hadn’t been affected by whatever that blast had been, was pure coincidence…luck, but Toudai had been hurt, though it didn’t look too bad.

Han’you said something about flashiness and the Bijuu being the natural enemy of shinobi, and then Meirou properly [I]tuned in[/I] to the man’s words, looking him in the eyes. Though Han’you would not have the connection that Toudai had with the young, often quiet and hard to read Meirou, he would nonetheless see the tells of worry, tension, and…was that anger, in the young man. It appeared that he did not [I]like[/I] that something had hurt his best friend, or…perhaps more like he couldn’t believe that something had [I]dared[/I] to do so.

It was odd, like he was taking the action as a personal attack.

Han’you asked him to tell him everything he knew about the Bijuu, and in response Meirou’s gaze intensified…and he narrowed his eyes, if only fractionally. A strange sort of darkness settled in Meirou’s gaze, and he spoke [color=#C85E5E][b]“Fix Toudai,”[/b][/color] the boy said, and it was not a question or a request, but an order.

Having been around the two for some time, Han’you would know that Meirou had an understanding of the pecking order in the village, and that he was beyond intelligent enough to comprehend that what he’d just done was not just rude, but a sort of insubordination. Yet he would also know that Meirou did not treat anyone, not even his own clan, squad mates, or teachers, with as much respect and care as he did Toudai. He would know that the usually quiet, somewhat subdued and even apathetic Meirou was acting through emotion--not logic--and he would know that even given Han’you’s superior skill and power, that denying Meirou this would [I]not[/I] benefit him.

What the man perhaps would not realize, however, was that Meirou had already considered all of the above before he’d opened his mouth. It was a scary truth, that beneath the seemingly tactless exterior of the genin’s actions was a mind sharp enough to calculate all that in the space of barely a few seconds.