What? This again?

[7eleven]

Ekitai was sitting in his room, enjoying a nice book, when a paper airplane floated through the window he had open. As he bent over to pick it up, he sighed. "Oh, looky there. I wonder what this is!" But, of course, Ekitai knew exactly what it was. He picked it up, unfolded it, and read the following.

EKITAI. STOP. MY HOUSE. STOP. URGENT. STOP. BRING TEA. STOP.

At that, Ekitai left the house in a blaze of blue hair and green hat. That "urgent" was underlined. Underlined. He did, of course, stop at his fridge to grab a gallon of sweet tea.

[Toshi]

"No, I would not like to upgrade my long distance coverage," Tousha said impatiently as he walked around his humble abode, old fashioned looking phone in hand and his jitte spinning in the other. "Do you know who this is, dude?"

"Uuhh... my next customer?" the teenager answered excitedly on the other side of the phone.

"No, this is Umezawa Tousha."

"Never heard of you."

"... What?! I'm the Ho-freakin'-kage, where the hell have you been?"

"That's nice, Sir. So... about that long distance coverage?"

"I don't even know what that is! In fact, I'm pretty sure this Verizon place you supposedly work at doesn't even exist!"

"So can I sign you up for our two month plan, sir?"

"Listen, kid. I'm hanging up this phone right now and using all of the power and resources at my disposal to find out where you're calling from so I can personally end your pathetic little--"

"Sir, you don't need to get snippy with me. If you didn't want to try our two month plan you could have just asked about our other deals."

Tousha slammed the phone back into its holster and tried to pry it from the wall so he could throw it out the window, but it was too securely fastened. "Freaking... quality... instillation!" the kage screamed as he repeatedly stabbed the phone with the razor sharp tip of his jitte.

[7eleven]

Ekitai was stopped mid-step at the open doorway, frozen in place, watching Tousha's display of anger at what used to be a phone. "Er, please tell me that the underline wasn't for this."

[Toshi]

Tousha tugged hard on the jitte's handle as Ekitai walked into the cabin, attempting to dislodge the defensive weapon from the phone that it was currently impaling. "Hardly..." Tousha replied with a slight grunt as he placed his foot on the wall beside the ruined phone and pulled with all of his might, this time managing to pull the jitte's metal shaft free of its latest victim's corpse.

The kage twirled the weapon through his fingers before wedging it under his belt and saying, "That deserved italics at best. Maybe an exclamation point. No, the underline is an entirely different matter." As he finished speaking the Hokage arched an eyebrow at his former student.

"Did you bring the goods?" he asked seriously.

[7eleven]

Ekitai glanced over his shoulder before pulling the door shut behind him (quietly, of course, to avoid suspicion), and locked it. He reached into the brown paper bag he was carrying, and removed the gallon of tea that was approximately three-quarters full. "Given the current circumstances, I figured it was best to head over without taking the time to stop and shop. Luckily, I had this in my...stash. I hope it'll suffice." He approached the Hokage's desk, placing it on top.

[Toshi]

Tousha walked over to the desk and pulled out (seemingly out of nowhere) a large monocular to better inspect the jug of tea that Ekitai had produced. The kage leaned down and hrmm'd and hmmm'd to himself as he adjusted the monocular's focus, checking the tea for any imperfections. After doing so he removed the cap and touched the surface of the tea with his index finger before raising it to his lips and sampling the small dose. He gave a satisfying nod as he deduced that the tea had not been watered down.

"Most excellent thinking, my young apprentice. I sense a great amount of laziness within you," Tousha said in a raspy tone you would expect to belong to a decrepit old Chancellor, rubbing his hands together wickedly as he spoke. "Good... Good..."

[7eleven]

Ekitai approached the table and poured himself a glass of tea. He raised it slowly to his lips, took a sip, and gently set it back on the desk. He didn't immediately swallow, but instead swished the liquid around in his mouth, savoring the sweet taste. Satisfied, Ekitai swallowed the drink, and nodded. "Devour this tea, we must."

[Toshi]

"Indeed," Tousha agreed, grabbing a glass of his own and pouring himself a nice helping of the tea that Eiktai had ever so graciously brought with him. The kage took a quick sip before plopping himself on the ridiculously comfortable couch at the far end of the living room.

He took another quick sip of tea before shooting a glance over at his old pupil. "Believe it or not, I didn't just call you over here so we could have a few drinks," Tousha said seriously, though he couldn't stop a small smirk from spreading across his lips. "You may want to sit down for this one."

[7eleven]

Ekitai took a seat on Tousha's desk, making sure not to sit on any important looking paper work or sharp objects. This was probably going to actually be really good, or really humorous. Tousha wasn't one to take things seriously. "Well, what is it, then?"

[Toshi]

"Oh man... where to start?" Tousha muttered to himself, running one of his scarred hands down his face as he thought about how to suggest such an unusual idea to his former pupil. The idea still sounded crazy to him, which was pretty impressive considering he wasn't exactly all there in the head anyway.

Tousha scratched at his stubble ridden jaw and adverted his gaze to the ceiling as he said, "You know how missing nin are sort of a problem and whatnot?" He knew darn well that it was a pretty blunt question, but he didn't know haw to word it any less conspicuously. "Well, what would you say if I was trying to make them... less of a problem and I wanted your help?"

[7eleven]

This caught Ekitai's attention; Tousha was actually being serious for once. "My help how? If you want me out hunting missing nin, I'm sure I could handle it, but I get the feeling that it's more than that considering you could just give me various missions to do it."

[Toshi]

Tousha scratched the back of his head and flashed a little grin at Ekitai's response. "Yeah, it isn't that easy..." he said a little nervously. "Screw it, I'll just tell you everything. But you have to promise me that what I'm about to say stays between you and me." Tousha stared at his student with a look that screamed "Seriously dude, don't dork up or I'll break your wrists."

[7eleven]

"Dude, not cool. You realize that if you break my wrists, I'll never be able to play ping-pong again, right? And you know you can trust me, you pretty much raised me. You know me better than anyone else in the village. The secret's safe with me." Only after speaking aloud did Ekitai realize that Tousha's words were implied, not spoken. Hopefully that would help cement the fact that Tousha and Ekitai knew each other well enough for him to be let in on the secret.

[Toshi]

Tousha nodded slightly and sighed deeply, trying to think of the best way to word what he was about to propose to his former pupil.

"I met with a very dangerous man a few weeks ago. Ruisan Ishiro, to be exact. I'm sure you've heard of him," Tousha began, his deadly serious expression matching his tone perfectly. "Basically, he wanted to pitch the Hokage his idea about making a place where it was safe for missing nin to visit and turn themselves in without having to worry about losing a limb. An entirely new village, dedicated to absolving missing nin of their crimes. If they aren't too extreme, of course."

Suddenly the look in the Hokage's bright green eyes became intense. It was clear that Tousha was more than a little bit interested in the idea of ridding the world of a few pesky missing nin. "I agreed to the idea. 'Only problem is, me and Ishiro don't have a lot of resources to work with..." The kage trailed off as he gave Ekitai an inquisitive glance.

"Interested?"

[7eleven]

"Hell yes, I'm interested! Not only will this give me an opportunity to make sure that the Ruisan clan name is never forgotten, it'll give me a chance to meet the only other remaining clan member other than Jaku and myself. Tousha, I kid you not, I feel as though the most awesome opportunity just descended in a golden chariot." Ekitai stood up off the desk, his excitement visible in his face.

[Toshi]

Tousha couldn't help but chuckle a little at his pupil's reply. He'd expected Ekitai to be interested in the idea of meeting Ishiro, but he didn't know the young jounin was determined to keep his clan's reputation from being completely shattered by the Ichibi attack. Remembering that day still sent shivers down the kage's back. A lot of good ninja died that day, many of them he'd known as a child.

"Glad to hear it," Tousha said with a crooked grin, "But here's the kicker. I want you to help me recruit new members for the team." After saying this the Kage took a long swig from his glass of tea and then shrugged nonchalantly. "Considering I'm sort of the leader of an entire village, I can't just go wander around wherever I want. So if you really want to help this thing get off the ground (pun definitely intended) I'm going to need you to meet with some... less than respectable people."

[7eleven]

"Yeah, I can handle that. Sounds like pie. I mean, I was hoping for a more important role than running errands, but I can do it. I'm sure that this is probably pretty important at this stage in the plan, though. Do you have a list of people I'd need to go track down?" Ekitai leaned backwards against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest, and crossing his right leg over his left one.

[Toshi]

"Not yet, but I'm working on it." Tousha replied with an apologetic expression, "Finding missing nin who'd be interested in this idea isn't exactly the easiest job in the world. In fact, it's damn near impossible. But there are a few gems hiding amongst the grime out there."

After the Kage said this a flicker of sadness flashed across his otherwise pleased expression. "And about what happened during the Ichibi attack... I'm sorry about what happened to your clan. If it makes you feel any better, we probably wouldn't have been able to stop that thing without them."

[7eleven]

"Nah, don't worry it, man. It couldn't be helped. I've actually been meaning on meeting with the kid to tell him that I don't blame him at all for what happened. I'm sure he's caught a lot of hell for it, and I think he may appreciate knowing that he's good in my eyes. If it weren't for him, I'm sure a lot more people would be dead." Ekitai scratched the back of his head, not sure of what else to say regarding the attack on the village. So, instead, he changed subjects back to Team Sky. "So, did you have any of those gems dug up yet?"

[Toshi]

"More or less," Tousha replied casually, hiding the fact that he was glad Ekitai didn't need any therapy after the Ichibi attack. He had the feeling an already half crazed kage wasn't exactly the best person to go to for that kind of thing.

"Working on a few leads here and there. It's hard enough to find the bastards, let alone trying to keep the council from sticking their collective bulbous nose into my business. Seriously, it's like those old farts think I'm the enemy." Tousha ranted on, arching his brow high across his forehead. "You think the rest of the village would frown on the idea of putting them in a retirement home or something? I mean, we could take them for little drives around the parks and stuff and set up a few crochet fields."

The sad thing was, the Kage was only half joking with Ekitai.

[7eleven]

"Nah, dude, I like the sound of that. We could schedule bingo games for them, and the winners can have little pieces of sugar free chocolate or diabetic safe socks. They'd have a blast!" Ekitai laughed at the Hokage's joke, but knowing full well he'd do it if he could get away with it. "So, yeah...when should I start this new job of mine?"

[Toshi]

Tousha got up and slammed his glass against the desk Ekitai was sitting on, a triumphant grin stretched across his lips. "Right now. Welcome aboard, Ekitai! We'll send your uniform in the mail as soon as possible." The kage offered the jounin his clenched fist and added, "Once you initiate the sacred bro-tap there's no going back."

[7eleven]

Ekitai walked forward, raised his hand, and casually connected his fist to Tousha's. "Well, dawg, I guess I'll be rolling, then. Y'know, now that I got this new job, I got shit to get done, SON. Ladies be all up on me now. Peace out, daddio. Catch you on the flip side."

Cut!