Hidden In the Stars

Going off world had been a little tougher than the Knights had expected. While they were not Konoha shinobi and not beholden to their rules, as in, they wouldn't be labelled as deserters or international criminals, it didn't mean they were free to move about as they wished. While they weren't super famous, they had become somewhat known figures, and people expected them to be present at certain times.

Shamal was expected in the hospital at certain times, and her not being there would be a bit suspicious. She also couldn't afford to offend Koharu by missing her lessons. The fact that she could do so many more things with her rings than she'd thought had actually inspired Shamal to learn quite a few new things, amongst them different ways to bind people. Many of them were fairly useful off the battlefield. Normally, the bindings she used automatically snapped into position where she thought them most useful, but there were lots of different ways to bind people.

It was a lot easier to work on surgery when you got people bound in the exact position you wanted them to be.

Using her device as weights attached to the end of a wire was also far more useful than she'd thought it'd be. Her device, despite its purpose as a healing implement, wasn't any more fragile than Graf Eisen or Laevateinn. Sure, it did not have the shape of a sword or hammer, but it didn't need to. Shamal didn't think she'd ever be a frontline fighter, and didn't wish to be in the first place, but it was much easier to work with her comrades if she could stop people from capturing her with relative ease once they closed in.

Zafira had his training with his… self proclaimed Eternal Rival, Maito Gai. Gai, and Gai's team. The three of them had made it into the Chunin Exams, and Gai was actually taking the time to train all three of them. However, he couldn't quite train all three of them and at the same time keep up with his own training, so he had requested help. It just so happened to be that Zafira was looking for training himself.

Some believe that teaching things can help you understand them more than you ever would before, and Zafira was actually of the mind that it was true. He'd learned Gai's fighting style from training with the man, and helping Lee correct the differences between his own rendition of it and Gai's taught Zafira more about the style than he'd thought he could learn in such a short time. It helped that the entire team was really dedicated and motivated. Even the fatalist Hyuuga Neji wasn't one to give up even when he was overwhelmed.

Signum had actually been hired by the Hokage to provide some swordplay instruction to the ANBU, mostly because she, as well as the rest of the Wolkenritter, had a great deal of experience in all forms of assassination. Despite Laevateinn being larger than most of the weapons the ANBU utilized, there was still much she could teach them that had less to do with a specific sword style and a lot more to do with sword usage. While most of them were experts, none of them had the kind of experience one earns over centuries of being a killing machine.

Somewhere along the line, she'd also been drafted by the teachers at the academy. Apparently, one of the ANBU was a former school teacher and gave the suggestion to the Hokage that swordplay teaching should begin a lot earlier, and as such, Signum was 'invited' to the Academy once every few days, either for a demonstration and spar or for a practical lesson. Learning to hold back so she could teach children without beating them up was… definitely a new experience. It was quite a bit more difficult than just fighting at her full strength, which was surprising.

The three adults of the Wolkenritter had expected responsibilities, and people would notice they were missing, which they hadn't quite expected.

The only one who didn't have such responsibilities was Vita. She was the one who went on the hunt most often, for certain, but few knew that the Wolkenritter worked as missing ninja hunters for Konoha, and they didn't particularly advertise it. Instead of training as the others, she'd instead taken more of those missions, preferring to train herself through real combat. Just about everyone agreed that, given her temperament, it would probably end with less injuries on Konoha's personnel than forcing her to train with them would.

This meant that Vita was actually in a prime position to hunt strong Linker Cores off world. Which she did. Most of the animals that abounded around the nearby worlds were very strong, though, and most of them had evolved in what amounted to Death Worlds, also known as "Those Worlds in which Everything Is Trying to Kill You." There was an overabundance of horribly strong giant worms with too many teeth. Even worse, despite how tough they were, it was a fact that they actually gave the greatest reward for their efforts.

However, they had another problem.

Vita had returned with a noticeable wound and several bruises once, clearly too exhausted to mind herself…

… and Naruko had actually seen her.

The Wolkenritter were very loyal to their master, regardless of who it was, and they were particularly loyal to a master who would be kind to them no matter what. That was why they would act beyond that master's orders to ensure her safety and continued health. Unfortunately, their master… disagreed with their priorities.

To say that Naruko had been mad at seeing Vita beat up as she was would be an understatement.

"…Why do you do this to me?" Naruko had asked, not looking so much angry as she looked disappointed. It tore at their hearts, to see their master like this, but they knew that they couldn't stop. To protect the person who would be so kind as to be worried and sad for their sake… To make her dreams come true, they'd endure any pain and heartache.

Suffice to say, Naruko had since not let Vita out of her sight. It'd taken quite a bit of convincing to allow her to let Vita leave to continue doing her job as a hunter for Konoha, but she'd forced Vita to always take backup with her. Zafira had volunteered.

It was now that the time spent as a wolf would come in handy. Most of the time spent in his animal form was spent, one way or another, hidden from view or doing something uninteresting. Naruko had nearly permanent ANBU watchers, but they hardly ever thought about him. The less people who knew about the Wolkenritter's excursions, the better.

While Vita could only go out on sanctioned 'hunts' without arousing suspicion, Zafira had a lot more freedom to move around.