Lips are for speaking:

    'Mind...' Aethir inhaled, feeling the winds rush past him. 'Body...' One more deep breath before the man continued. 'Soul...' The feeling of being detached from the world became apparent, the ronin opening his eyes to the world before him. Fog... Fog surrounded him with a blue tint in the background. Before him was...himself. However, the other man didn't appear as he did. His hair was white, draped over his face. Between the bangs were hints of red, his eyes hiding behind his hair. "Howdy." he spoke, Aethir slowly nodding. "Hey." The brown haired man nodded. "I think we'll be heading into town to live there for the moment." He stared at the white haired man raising his eyebrows. "Really now? ...Well, why the change?" he asked. "Aren't you happy with the apple pie woman?"

    "Well, of course I am!"  Aethir smiled, then looked over to some random piece of the fog. "I just... You know, I don't want to feel like a burden to them." The other man laughed, nodding. "I get ya. I get ya..." Aethir nodding to the other man. He was about to speak until he felt something pelt him on the side of his head. This snapped him out of his meditative state.

    "H-huh...! O-oh no!" Aethir shouted, loosing his balance as he feel from the top of a tree. He was sitting, crossed legs, on the flat top of the tree. However, now, he was falling rapidly to the ground. With the a strong rumbled as he hit the ground, Aethir groaned, looking over to a nearby old man. "If you have time to meditate and train your mind, you have time to train your body!" Aethir stared, slowly sighing. "Never gonna get any rest with you around, huh gramps?" the man commented, rising from the ground. "Look at you! If you were really training, you'd of dodge that rock!" Aethir grined, patting his head. "Ugh, point taken..."

    The man slowly stood, groaning as he did. "Go get some physical training in! Do a mission!" Aethir stretched, his bones cracking. "Ugh, alright, alright..." he sighed, walking around a tree. "Let's do a mission and...whatev-" A hard object hit the back of his head, causing him to fall to his knees. "A little respect wouldn't hurt!" Aethir nodded to the old man, smiling. "Sir, yes sir-" Another rock hits his head. "Wh- That was maximum respect! What's the deal?!" The ronin received another rock. "Ow- What's your problem?!" One more rock was given to him. "Gramps, hold on!" A few more rock were thrown. "I'm going! I'm going!!"


    Trudging into the mission outpost, he was covered in bruises. "Oh....n-no.... Rocks... Rocks are my enemy- Doton is my ultimate weakness, yes. It has happened." The clerk turned to with a smile, which soon curved into a worried expression. "H-hello again," she spoke, blinking rapidly before speaking, "how may I help you...?" Aethir looked up to her with a smile. "Oh, you know... Y-you know..." he casually reached for the A-Rank basket full of mission scrolls. He quickly read the mission details before sliding it over to her. "I'd like this one." She chuckled before reaching for the scroll, giving it a read. "A-are you sure? It's an A-rank mission..." He nodded to her as she began to read the mission once again. "Well, I know I just saw you read it, but...I have to go over it. Job description, you know..." He nodded once more, hearing the mission description. He was then told of the location and was given the supplies for the mission. "Got it... Thanks." he nodded to her, walking out of the missions office and soon leaving the gates of Konoha. 'I should really see what's up with Gramps now-a-days. He seems angrier than usual.' he sighed, hiking up the bag full of surveillance  equipment as he continued. He then stopped, hearing someone call out to him.

    Turning, he saw the clerk panting, holding out a piece of paper. "T-this is...the map!" Aethir's eyes widened as he took it. "Thanks! I had nearly forgotten I guess." he laughed. "A lot on your mind?" she question before turning halfway back towards the village gates. "Yeah, something like that." he nodded and then waved to her as she ran back to her office. Turning back to the way he was headed, he began down the path. "Alright, now let's see where these guys are loc-........No way..." Aethir's eyes widened even more than last time, now breaking into a sprint down the path. 'Impossible...!' his heart thumped, glaring at the map location. 'This is exactly where I parked me... I...I mean, my... Ugh, I'm talking like a damned pirate now...'

+++

[WC: 819/2500]

    The ronin had a crooked smile, his right eye twitching as the surveillance equipment dropped from his hand. "You've...got to be..." he spoke, seeing multiple lights hovering around a huge metal structure. "Not....the ship..." Before him was his own unique item, a large ball of steel which could traverse the lands. It wasn't stealthy, but highly durable, able to withstand almost a whole day's worth of firepower from rogue bandit's neighboring ships. However, his recent escape from his exploring caused the vehicle to be in bad shape, the ronin leaving it far away from Konoha so that no one would find it. However, the lights floating around the ship lead the ronin to believe, "The Zorata has been found...by a group of criminals..." He smiled wider, clenching his teeth as he gave an angry glare to the Zorata. "Criminals...on my vessel..." He couldn't help but chuckle slowly, trembling as he did. "Oh....they will pay for-"

    A masked man landed near him, slowly raising his ANBU mask. "Are you the one who's taken my mission?" Aethir nodded to the man's question. "Great. Listen, I don't know where this structure came from," the man leaned closer to whisper to the ronin, "but I think they may be heavily armed pirates on a heavily armed ship." Aethir tried to contain his laughter, slowly nodding. "P-pirates huh...?" he smiled, looking off into the woods." The ANBU officer nodded, patting the man's shoulder. "Yeah, I think so. The ship is unknown to Konoha's records. I think we'll mark this spot to excavate it with reinforcements." Aethir's face twitched as he said this. "Dirty pirates! Having no honor... Just placing such a large object here in the middle of the forest like this without permission, just waltzing in on our lands!" Aethir took a deep breath, lowering his head. 'I've had just about enough of you...' Aethir turned as the ANBU began to inch forward, leaning forward. "Let's split up on two parts of the ship. We have no clue what we're dealing with yet." He turned to the ronin, nodding. "Once you've set up the cameras, we'll meet back up and explore together. If we find something, we'll shout to another." He turned back to the ship, smiling. "The pirates won't be on board once we're done with them, and will probably be unconscious. We can be as loud as we want-"

    The ANBU had fallen to his knees after a bright flash was given off, burns present on the back of his neck and hand. 'I'm fully aware of your ANBU armor's prowess. To save me the disappointment of a failed knockout, I decided to just cut to the chase.' He then grinned. 'I suppose  I'm more pirate than I thought. And I also suppose you're right about one thing.' The ronin picked up the survellience items, walking over to the ship. 'We have no honor.' And just like that, he had appeared to have vanished, heading towards the large steel vessel.


    "Can't believe this was just here." spoke a standing man, playing with a dagger. "Yeah, but it's too bad it's shot. It ain't movin'." The man with the dagger nodded to the man sitting on the ground. "It's cool though, ain't it?" he laughed, looking up to the vessel. "Yeah, I have to admit." answered the sitting man. "Man, can you imagine how fast thing thing can go? I bet it-" the standing man went silent, the sitting man turning towards him...or where he was. Only his dagger rested where he was, the sitting man now standing. "H-hey! Where-" the standing man yelped as he was snatched up, a crunching sound being heard shortly after. Dropped from the darkness was Aethir, looking around before setting up a security camera where they were sitting. "Alright, a few cameras on the outside..." he nodded before turning off the lights where he was. He turned, seeing more lights present on the ground level, repeating this process. When the last light was extinguished, he sighed with a smile. "That's the outside handled..." he nodded, activating one more camera. "Now for the inside..." He began to climb the side of the steel ball, putting his hands on a carpet surface. He stared at a few people hanging about in the room, Aethir waiting for a free moment to enter.

    "Hey," a man came in, everyone turning to look to him, "they've got food in here! Let's eat!" The men gave grunts of agreement, standing and moving out of the room. 'Alright, that's a lucky break...' the man smiled, climbing into the room. He glanced around, and then gasped as a man in the corner was nodding away. "H-hey, who's-" the ronin brought his leg down upon the man's head, knocking him out. Before taking further action with the now unconscious man, he set up a camera within the room.


    Now traveling down a hallway of the vessel, which connected with the room he was in earlier, the ronin kept an eye out for anyone. "If I can get my mask, they won't know who I am... Then, I can-" Aethir gasped, leaping out of sight as he crouched behind a large crate in the hall. 'I got to clean this ship up one day... But luckily, I haven't yet.' He watched as guys with sandwiches walked by,  'Not yet... Not yet...' he eyed them as they walked back into the room he had just left. He then began to walk around the crate, crouching on the other side so they couldn't see him. Placing cameras around the hallway, he followed it as it began to curve. The hallway made a square, Aethir slowly coming back to the room full of criminals. Not wanting to get into conflict, he walked back down the hallway, making a huge circle back to the crate he was at. 'Now, the mess hall...' he nodded, moving over to one of the rooms with a symbol of a knife and a fork above the doorway. He peered inside from around the corner, seeing no one inside. "No one's accounted for... So I'll just ease in a place a camera...here." he smiled, reaching above the mess hall's doorway to place a camera. He then sneaked over to the opposite side, placing a camera there as well. "Might as well put it four by one..." he sighed, adjusting the cameras. They were now in the corners of the room as he made his way into the mess hall's kitchen. Placed two cameras on both sides of the kitchen, the ronin left the mess hall. "That's that down... Now, let's- ...And I'm talking to myself again..." he sighed, lowering his head.


    Outside on the vessel's catwalk, three criminals were speaking to one another. "Man, this ship might be big, but god damn is it tiring to patrol..." one of them sighed, looking over to a larger man next to him. "I'll say. I'm tired from simply walking from here to the kitchen." the large man sighed. "I wouldn't mind if the boss made this our new base of operations, just give us certain posts and patrol times or something."  One of the men grunted from above, the two below looking up. "Yeah, well, I think this whole ship sucks. I mean, it's unarmed. The hell...? I prefer the old base, back in the land of the birds." The man on the lower level of the catwalk chuckled. "Well, if we're lucky, the boss'll leave this place. Then we'll-" Looking to his side, he noticed the man was gone. "...Guess he got tired of waiting. You still up there?" asked the man to the one above him. He got no answer, which made him curious. "Where'd everybody go-" Swiftly, a pair of hands wrapped around his neck, squeezing until he went limp. His body was then dragged away by the same hands, into the hallway of the ship. The man's body was tossed onto the others. Exiting the hallway was the ronin, looking to his left and then to his right. "All my no, to you guys being on here. All my no." He then placed cameras on the corners of the catwalk's railings on all of it's levels, walking into the hallway located above he had just come out of, the second floor if you will.


    Aethir continued down the second floor halls, his foot kicking a metal object on the ground. 'Hello... What's...? Ah!' He crouched down quickly, picking up a welding mask. "Here we are..." he grinned, sliding in on. His voice sounded somewhat metallic from the echo of the mask, the ronin now standing with his welding mask on, taking several deep breaths before walking down the hall. More criminals chatted among one another, unaware of the slowly approaching welder. He raised a hand, pointing his fingers at the men, smiling from behind the mask. 'One shock bullet to knock them out, that's all.' he nodded, beginning to fire at each men's cerebral or cerebellum areas. As he figured, one bullet was enough to shock the brain to disable either physical movement or the ability to think straight, the criminals slowly slouching to the ground.

    With the hallways and other rooms now cleaned of the disabled criminals, he smiled once more, setting up the cameras onto the rest of the ship. As he made his way to the main room, a steering wheel present in the room, he was surprised that...no one was here. "I'll take it." he shrugged, walking over to the steering wheel. 'No criminals on board, triple checked... Cameras in every room... And the wiring is...' Near the steering wheel was a small button panel that had a monitor just above it, the ronin poking a few as the monitor flickered. The cameras Aethir had placed around the vessel appeared to be operation, the man smiling. 'Green... Good...' He sifted through all of the cameras, looking into the empty mess hall, the hallways, and even outside the vehicle. "Then there's only one thing left to do." With a few more buttons pressed on the control panel, a loud hum was created along with a strong tremor. 'Pile of criminals just in front of the ship...?' he smiled, reaching for the steering wheel to pull a lever down, the mechanism slowly rolling forward. The ronin listened carefully as the sound of squishing and grinding could be heard past the gears and metals' cries. "What bodies?" he snickered, a large red splotch now present on the rolling metal ball.


    "The cameras were defective...?" the missions clerk stared at Aethir in shock. He nodded with a smile. "Yeah, but...on the bright side, I did take care of the criminals." the ronin lied.

    "Did you happen to hear anything? Or get anything out of them?"

    "Well..." Aethir thought for a moment before grinned. "S-somewhere in the land of birds! That's where their true hideout is!" The clerk nodded, writing down the details. "I'll send this in for the intelligence team." she smiled, about to walk away. "A-actually, what about my pay?" the ronin pointed, the woman turning with a smile. "Ah, yes, I'll hand you the payment when I return." she nodded, marching off. She then stopped, turning. "Ah, where's the ANBU officer that assisted you?" Aethir laughed. "Well, he said go on ahead...so... You know. One of the criminals shocked him, so he's resting up. Can't blame him if he's asleep. It's pretty late after all!" he nodded to her, the woman nodding back as she left.

    And so the ronin awaited his payment, deviously getting away with the surveillance equipment on his vessel. 'No one knows. So there's no crime. Wonderful.' he hummed, lightly tapping his foot as he waited...

[WC: 2045]
[TC: 2864/2500]