[attr="class","dramaturgypost"]



It’s seasonably bitter and cold for the Land of Iron this time of year.
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Kōki has lived through a few incommodious winters in the Hidden Mist, when the temperatures dipped below average and ice glistened on tree branches and clay roof tiles, and the passing snowfall that painted the village was heavy and thick. More often than not, his family’s forges and a few extra blankets were enough to stave off the winter winds; Kurogane Clan members tended to run as hot as the fires that temper their blades. This land he finds himself in now, however, proves itself to be a different beast entirely.
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He wonders how the samurai live here as what’s left of the sun’s light disappears behind heavy grey clouds, blanketing the land in a shade of winter dark. Gingerly, he dips his reddened chin— skin battered by rough winds— behind the cover of his thick scarf, and continues to march ahead, though he sees little aside from a tapestry of white and grey stretching for miles in every direction. About a dozen other shinobi march with him, each bundled in warm clothes for the occasion. They grumble to themselves and each other, equal parts annoyed and worried about the mission assigned to them.
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The land is unfamiliar, their enemies unknown. Kōki doesn’t fault them for their hesitation; they are, in every sense of the word, at a disadvantage in this land. Still, when a few declared (however jokingly) a desire to desert their duties, Kōki wasted no time in brandishing a bandaged Samehada at their throats— stopping an inch from allowing one of its protruding scales to puncture the skin of their necks. “If you're done talking... shall we continue?” He asks. The threat is clear from his tone alone, and the shinobi fall quickly back in line.
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He reaches to his destination— a meeting point designated by strict orders— and before he even registers the figure in the distance Samehada writhes in happiness, having recognised a familiar chakra signature.
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“Kouki? You’re here too? What are the odds?”
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“Ren.” He replies with a nod, greeting a fellow shinobi— though he wishes it were in better circumstances; the yakiniku place they visited before comes to mind. “Did they send you alone?” Kōki asks, gesturing for the group of shinobi behind him to stop in their tracks.
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"Any news on the targets?"
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The swordsman shakes his head in response. “No information you don’t already have.” He says, before lazily gesturing to his ‘entourage’. He doesn’t know when he became the de facto leader of their little group of Mist shinobi, seeing as how he was just a lowly genin, but at some point it seemed he walked ahead of everyone else, and they simply followed him in turn. “I was too busy keeping these laggards in line.”
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“Visibility is low. It’ll be hard to gather information even from this vantage point. One of our sensor-type shinobi managed to pick up an odd chakra signature further north.” One of them, a shivering chūnin, reports, having left briefly to scout for nearby dangers. The snow is picking up with the wind, threatening to turn into a storm in the coming hours, perhaps even sooner.
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Kōki regards the assessment with a stiff nod, and myriad thoughts cross his mind at once. He turns to Ren again, “Could be worth investigating, but the weather is not on our side. Thoughts?”