Disguised to Protect Part 1 [Solo]

It was at the crack of dawn when Ami woke up, this time not in some random forest or on top of a tree branch. She was actually in her home, her room. It had been such a long time since she had slept in her own bed that it felt quite foreign to her. The girl would open her eyes slowly, adjusting her eyes to her surroundings. Her muscles hurt and so did her head, which had nothing to do with alcohol for once. She would slowly get out of bed, a scroll rolling down from her bed. Right...she had a mission to do, the girl would put on a short black dress, her weapons with her as she headed out of her compounds. Her mission was to protect someone, a diplomat from a less populated village. The man was traveling in secret, and she had been asked to protect him as he traveled from the moon village to the sun. It seemed that he was a highly valued individual because her village had specifically requested that she disguised herself, protecting the man in secret. Of course he would have his own bodyguards and she was only tasked with following his carriage from a safe distance.

"Your green hair would give you away as a moon shinobi in an instant..." the secretary at the administration would tell her. Indeed, she had chosen an odd colour to dye her hair when she was younger and had lived with being the subject of attention because of it. It was probably why she didn't wear her gold eye contacts either, her obvious deviation from the Hyuuga clan features of black hair and lavender eyes had taken its toll on her clan reputation. But she had been young and rebellious. The fact that the elders had allowed the change had surprised her though. Ami still struggled with this concept some three years later. And now she was permitted to disguise herself as someone new, something both exciting and slightly terrifying. Since she learned that she would be disguising, she had thought about the infinite possibilities. The girl wanted to not give away anything about her clan and look different enough that not even her friends or family would recognize her. Call it her playful personality showing itself once in a blue moon. She would spend days planning her new "'look', before finally deciding on what she was going to for. It required a trip to the hair stylist for starters and then getting different colour contacts.

Exciting...

The young Hyuuga would walk down the busy streets of Gekkousato. She was headed to the stylist first. This would be the first time in more than three years she was changing her hair colour. She originally thought about wearing a wig, but wigs were uncomfortable and risked coming off in extreme weather conditions. Her hair was her pride and if she was going to change its colour, even if momentarily, it had to be done the right way. As she sat in the chair at the salon, she wondered if it was a good colour choice, fearing the whiplash that would come if it didn't turn out the way she had imagined. She would bid her lime green strands even if it was only for a few days, closing her eyes with a painful expression. How attached Ami was to her hair was something only she would know. It would be a couple hours before she emerged from the salon, her green strands now replaced by soft pink ones and her lavender eyes now took on a light blue colour. As she passed by a mirror, she was amazed at her own transformation, barely recognizing herself. It had turned out surprisingly well...she was even beginning to like it, as she stared at her own reflection. It was odd...but the makeover grew on her with every passing second.


She had chosen to wear a white dress instead of her usual black one, leaving her Gekkousato headband in her room. Nothing about how she looked resembled the Hyuuga Ami everyone in the village knew. Some people who saw her even turned to stare at her quizzically. Her disguise had worked, for the most part. She would reach Moonlit Grove, where she was supposed to meet one of the diplomat's bodyguards to take her to the secret location of the carriage. It was really annoying when things were as secretive as this at least in her opinion. Ami would sit herself on the ground, her back against a big tree off to the side of the main street. It was where she was told to meet the bodyguard. Looking around, she would see a man approaching her. He was wearing a black jumper-like outfit. It seemed like all guards dressed the same way, she thought to herself rather amusingly. She would say the code words specific for the mission and was led to a forest outside the village gates. A carriage would be parked there, with two guards standing around it. She guessed she would only have three guards to support if there was to be ambush. That was fine, she didn't need many people, just skilled people. "Please follow from behind closely." said the man who had taken her there and she merely nodded her head in understanding. Ami knew the drill well enough and as the carriage began to pull forward, she would remain in her position.

Once the carriage was about three meters away from her, she would slowly begin to move as well, her steps slow and calculating. The girl was simply going to walk down the main road slowly after the carriage, from a safe distance. The only thing that gave away that she was a shinobi were her two katana, sheathed tightly underneath her obi. Realizing this, she would pull on a tench coat of sorts, hiding her weapons. The last thing she wanted and needed were people to see them out in the opening. Ami continued to walk for a good two hours, her eyes never leaving the carriage that was rolling at a steady momentum in front of her. She liked protection and escort missions, both going hand in hand she realized. It helped raise her awareness of her surroundings, a skill that was vital to not just shinobi but normal people as well. Since she had been tasked with more of these missions lately, she found that her awareness had sharpened quite a bit, able to sense or spot things amiss well before they actually were. Her pink hair blowing slightly in the wind, she would continue the mundane task until the carriage turned down Kataki Road. From Kataki Road she would try to follow the carriage among the bushes. This was because there were more bandits roaming here than outside of the village gates and hiding her whereabouts could make ambushes more effective. Ami kept pace with the carriage, her eyes scanning the surroundings for anything.

It was a rather peaceful journey, much to her amazement. She had gone through the pain of disguising herself for practically no reason. Although she liked this new change, she would rather have not gone through the change because of a mission. She would follow the carriage with its guards down the road, turn away from it towards the desert that would house the Sun Village. It had been such an uneventful journey that she was rather happy to be relieved of it. The carriage rolled along the sandy plains and they would be close to their destination. Ami would see the carriage pull up to the gates, before turning to leave, thinking that it would be another mission complete. But she was in for quite a surprise as the carriage would stop, around two hundred meters from the gates. The guards that had been sitting on the transport would jump down, their blades raised towards her. It was a trap....