It had been a tiresome day of little to no activity. This was the first day of it's kind for Bas. Nothing like this maddening sensation had ever swept over him the way this one had. It had been about a week of going through the finalities of rounding off his graduation from the academy. Not the standard shinobi academy, but that of the Hosokawa clan's particular sort. All who finished out training for the Hosokawa would leave with a diverse assortment of specialties. The jack of all trades. But why were his eyes bloodshot and glued to the ceiling? This was meant to be cause for celebration. Something was swelling and festering within him. Something that he could not put a finger to. He pulled himself from his bed and slammed his fist hard onto the side table. He could do this no longer. It was time to go. Anywhere at all, just not in this accursed room.

He would take himself somewhere with much activity and where at the very least he could stare at something more entertaining than the flaking paint of his ceiling. Bas was just looking for a way out of his own head. The sandbox strip club offered several avenues of escape. His combination of an olive jacket and a sandy-brown longsleeved shirt with khaki colored cargo pants likely gave off the indication to any passerby that he was a shinobi, but it was casual enough for this. This sensation creeping upon Bas was existential dread. He didn't know this, obviously. He was in desperate need of a purpose. A stronger one, at that. He loved his village and the wind country. There was nothing he wouldn't do for Sunagakure. His resolve seemed useless, however, when the land was desolving into lawlessness. The loving people of Sunagakure that made his childhood a warm and forgiving experience were long gone now. Replaced were the smiling faces by the sad devils either starving, drug addicted, or both. Such poor leadership it took to bring this great nation to its knees. Meanwhile, less deserving villages like Kirigakure thrived.

Bas entered the Strip club with his head lowered, making his way to a small half circle sofa which seated him before a curvy dancer of dark skin tone and little being left to the imagination. The troubled man was attracted to her, but that fact didn't seem to draw his mind too far out of the place it was. He winced a bit in discomfort as he recognized that this may not fix things either. Once the first couple of rounds of sake went down, that shifted, however. His worries melted away and the dancer and Bas slowly became more and more familiar with one another. Inevitably, Bas spent enough to push the encounter to the VIP section. This is where lap dances occurred. She lead him by the hand, he stumbled uncomfortably across the dance floor. This room had more than a few shady looking characters in it that Bas paid little mind to as the dancer did her work.

Bas was enjoying himself, up until a scruffy fellow with a facemask walked up and pulled open a small pocket-knife.

"I've decided you seem to be having too much fun with this one, I'll be taking her for myself now. You won't mind that, will you? "

The man grinned a like a devil. The small pocket knife must have been some sort of gesture. Against common citizens, a town drunk even, it would have been a good way to ward off any contest. He was evidently a member of one of the few gangs that had rooted itself in Sunagakure under failing leadership.

The situation wasn't frightening to Bas because of the man waving about a small pocket knife. This individual was likely well under the capabilities of a trained shinobi. No, what was frightening was the way his mind was taking it all. The alcohol at this point was doing nothing other than amplifying those strange feelings, which had become violent now. In the blink of an instant, after staring with no response for several seconds after the thugs initial statement, Bas was hit with a revelation of sorts. This man before him in this place, at this exact moment. He represented every bit of what was wrong with Sunagakure. Every cry in the night. All of the foreclosed businesses. This man may have been but a leaf on the tree of this invasive species, but one less leaf from such a tree could only be a positive thing, right. Bas was the fury of Sunagakure.

With no other words Bas's hand flew out and grasped the wrist of the thug, at which point Bas would leverage the man's elbow by delivering a quick chop to the bend of his arm, using the momentum and surprise of it all to drive the small knife into the man's eye with his own hand. With that move, it was only a matter of time before the authorities responded to the panic and screams of those surrounding. So Bas wasted no time. He pulled the blade from the man's eye and attempted to cut out the tongue. When he was met with clenched teeth, Bas began to repeatedly smash his fist into the thugs mouth, all while holding him down on the ground. One. Two. Three. Four.  Teeth were bending backwards against the gums. Not quite detaching from the mouth though. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. The font most top teeth broke loose and fell into the man's throat. Nine. Ten. The rest came. Bas held his hand over the man's mouth to ensure he choked to death in his own teeth, and after around 30 seconds of intense struggling, the thug stopped and fell still. Dead.

Bas would spend the night in the Suna jail. Contemplating. Thinking even more now. After being released from the cell the next morning a small bag of ryo was placed into his hands as he signed off release paperwork.

"What is this about?" Bas asked in confusion.

The guard replied "It's the bounty for the man you killed. We kept you in the cell overnight because you were too intoxicated to be returned home. We realize you were only tracking from the bingo book. Good work cleaning up the streets."

It was with that statement that the feeling which had been plaguing Bas for all this time simply dissipated. As if it had never existed in the first place. Sunagakure was sick, and there was only a single cure for it at this point.

WC: 1119

What a night had that been, but no price would have been too high to pay for the courtesy of curing the nagging, helpless sensation inside of Bas's skull. He was grateful that it had passed and now within him was a sense of direct purpose. Bas recalled a childhood of living within a forgiving and caring society that took care of one another. He remembered the greatness of the people of Sunagakure. The nagging sense of purposelessness had existed only to move him to this new point. It wasn't that this purpose didn't exist within him before he busted out the thugs teeth and choked him to death. That was mostly symbolic.

Within Bas lay a staggering sense of national pride. He loved his village and it pained him emotionally to see it so misguided and struggling. Leadership of Suna had been piss poor for years now, and whole on the academy most people didn't realize that. One would be too busy with studies and training to consider the idea that maybe they were preparing to serve a village that was falling apart at the core. Someone had to fix this, and yet nobody seemed to care. The villagers had become complacent to the idea of gang rule over them. Mugging, rape, and underground drug markets were an every day reality in the deeper slums. The shinobi themselves were part of it, too. Even some more prestigious lot had been turned over to the side of the lawless. There was no longer any place for these sort of people to exist. Not within Bas's beloved village. Not while he had the strength of the Hosokawa and the wind daimyo at his back.

It transformed from a revelation to an obsession. Bas began spending an outrageous amount of time and effort training himself. Strengthening his body for the personal war he was preparing to start. It had always been said to him by his trainers that Bas had immense physical strength. It was his biggest asset.

As he pulled himself repeatedly over the iron bar, doing pull-ups in high repetition, he saw images of grandeur. Sitting upon the Kazekage seat with that green colored hat and robes. Bas would bring law to the village. His strength would crumble the criminal empire. Nothing in this world could ever stop him. His motivation would border on mania. It was unchecked and rampant. It was only after a few choice encounters en route to training that Bas began to develop a sense of calm direction to his goals. Allowing himself to exhaust his muscles in hopes of achieving the position of Kage in the next week was unrealistic. This was the point when Bas reached the point in which he was truly formidable. For now, his passions were being controlled. He was ruling them as opposed to just the opposite.

And just as he reached a point of comfort with his physical strength, Bas would soon realize he was lacking in a particularly important area. Political understanding. He was a fan of debate knew well what he favored in terms of a system of rule. The issue being that he didn't truly understand those deep intricacies that surrounded political systems. Thus, from that point forward Bas added onto his standard training regiment the reading of manuels and books in general. Sharpening his mind would be a necessity.

Bas opted to train in this way because he felt it necessary to first improve upon the trait he knew he had an advantage in. His strength would carry him further than anything else at these early stages of development. When encountering someone of equal standing as a shinobi, Bas wanted his crushing strength to be the first thing noticed. The ability to overpower and overcome all which sought to stand in his path to salvation, for that he would work himself to exhaustion each and every day. As the seasons changed, his routine did. He saw himself becoming stronger at an incredible rate.

Bas began to involve himself in the rather small and insignificant attendance of villager meetings, where the brave civilians would come to voice concern over one issue or another taking place within Sunagakure. Bas also took the liberty of guarding them from potential mugging which happened often. Those brave enough to speak would be beaten down until they stopped doing so furthermore. Bas put an end to the muggings if he could. Beating into submission the thugs of Sunagakure was a brilliant way to pass time and improve fighting prowess. It was in motion. He was in motion. A freight train of vengeance against the scum of Sunagakure. He wasn't a superhero, but a vigilante of sorts. One who could change this village. There could have been no better a time than this for Bas to have awakened to the nature of things.

WC: 819

TWC: 1938

Strength: E -> D-3 (1925)