This Land of Hidden Mist, or so the shinobi often referred to it, was a serene and pleasant place when the sun began to set. With an unclear path forward and being in a strange place nearly all on his own, it was the samurai’s idea to take a stroll down to the docks to watch the sun hide itself behind the ocean. He still bore some scratches and aches from his experience with Kirei of the Uchiha. The “Ninneko” assassins, as he was later informed of, were nothing to be joked about. Watsuji had experienced quite a bit already since entering into the land of shinobi. He was strong, even so. Stronger and more knowledgeable now, if only by a small margin. Learning about the ways his people had essentially been hiding from for years was an interesting adventure all on it’s own. Each day brought new surprises, good and perhaps not so good. The young samurai looked down at his two blades, his mind separating them into “good” and “bad” automatically, but not with confidence. Hideyoshi had done a strange strange thing the night Watsuji fought the Ninneko. Since then, the blade had gone silent. Hideyoshi had offered advice and assisted Watsuji in his battle. It created a strange tension between the two.

The mindless trot of the boy lost in his thoughts brought him to an expansive dock with ships lined across the ocean which seemed to have no qualms with the land on this day. A woman with long red hair stood near the edge looking out at the sea. She seemed primed to board a ship, the only other person nearby was a young looking sailor who seemed to be engaging with her. Watsuji approaches at a fair enough distance that he wouldn’t interfere with their dealings as he cast his gaze into the pinkish sky. “You must sharpen yourself if you are to survive on this path you have chosen to walk. You clearly possess some sort of talent for Iaido, but do not allow my words to go to your head. You will not likely survive such an encounter again.” Hideyoshi spoke with a seriousness to the boy, the sounds radiating through his mind. Watsuji could no nothing more than smile. When he did so, Hideyoshi notably grumbled but spoke no further.

As he stood in admiration of the sea, he felt an arm upon him begin to pull him away from that serenity. The girl with the red hair appeared to be pulling Watsuji toward the boat she was aimed to board. “Uhm..hey there. I do not think I am meant to be traveling anywhere tonight, friend. What is going on?” Watsuji would resist, planting his feet in the ground in hasty confusion, his temper flaring up as he was pulled from his serenity and several of his wounds ached. “Do not allow this! You may be a newcomer to these lands and you may not understand the traditions but you are a samurai of the Miyamoto and you must not allow yourself to be pushed around.” Watsuji pulled himself to a complete halt and looked at the woman with now annoyed confusion. He couldn’t tell if this was a situation to be seriously fearful of, or something of a joke. His heart was racing either way.

It would seem she wished him to board the ship with her, perhaps he was being mistaken as someone else or misidentified altogether. He asked her with a sternness “Where does your ship travel then requires my boarding? I was only here to witness the sunset!” He couldn’t help but be upset and baffled, he could have easily been mistaken for some sort of innocent 12 year old to be abducted and trafficked. It was fair to say he had no idea whatsoever what was going on.

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648 |

The answers Watsuji had sought so fervently had come around only after a few moments of angry pulling back and forth between himself and the red haired woman. It would seem that she was experiencing some trouble with a strange man on her boat. Perhaps it was an obligatory ferry off to one of the other islands or an unavoidable ride to somewhere she needed to be. One way or another, she needed a “bodyguard” and young Watsuji was obviously not a risk to her in terms of attraction or courting purposes, for he was only twelve. The woman was enough to illicit a small child crush out of Watsuji, who had yet to experience romance and desire. In this life of a samurai, a man was considered a man far too early to have developed those things out. He would do whatever he could to help the woman.

As she played out the scene to account for Watsuji’s resistance. He played along “Damnit woman. You know I hate the water and sea altogether. I could spend the rest of my life without seeing it again and I’d be one happy fellow. But alas, your fathers anger is nothing to be trifled with. Let’s carry on.” Watsuji would grab her arm like some kind of prestigious armed escort, a funny sight for someone as short as himself to be doing, and walk her onto the boat delivering a passing intimidation glance at the man in charge of the piloting the ship to the chosen destination.

There was one piece of security in this venture, and that was the fact that Watsuji had been taught to sail, oddly enough. As a younger boy, during the early parts of his rather informal training, his father had taken him to a different coast than this one, one which the boy couldn’t remember from the top of his head. There he taught Watsuji how to sail, the boy had a knack for it too. But he had not done so in ages. As they boarded, everything was generally quiet as the seemingly disappointed blonde man set the sails and took them forth into the sunset. One would expect this to be a wonderful time, as it was aesthetic. But the circumstances were bad and somewhat awkward. He looked down at his blade and tapped the hilt a few times in boredom.

The distance between the two of them and the sailor was ample for whispering unheard. Watsuji would speak first, as he needed some answers and had concerns. “Where are we being taken? I am not from these lands and I am not a shinobi.” he would take a pause to make sure the sailor was still unaware of the conversation and then continue. “My name is Watsuji and this man is not very skilled at sailing. Where did you find him?” Watsuji said that in reference to the fact that now, a long distance from the docks, the man had pulled the sails back and they sat still in the middle of this ocean. It was at that time that the sailor turned to the pair with a dagger in hand. “It is unwise to reject the sailor responsible for your safe travels, miss.” Watsuji was no bodyguard in actuality but he was a samurai. Upon seeing the drawn blade he placed an arm in front of the red haired woman, unsure if she were also a powerful shinobi like Kirei or not.

He gripped his hilt and said to the man “One wrong movement now and I will have to remove that hand, my hasty sailor.”

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608 | 1256

“His confidence and disrespectful behavior are annoying. Do not allow him to speak to you that way, Watsuji. It makes me look as bad. Give me his hand.” Watsuji would listen to the words of his predecessor while he gritted his teeth. He had always been highly aware of his short stature. There was surely no lack of practice in keeping his cool. His parents both knew that was a potential target and soft spot for Watsuji. His stature honestly gave him greater reflexes and maneuverability, but that did not matter much. As he stood his head hung toward the ground with his hand on the pale katana he radiates anger. Evenso, he felt bad for the red haired woman. She appeared to be completely terrified of the situation unraveling before her. Watsuji had not caught on that this was a clever rouse, and believed she was being genuine. Taking that into consideration he spoke a few words of wisdom “Mrs. Karisuma, if you would like to look away I will wait for you to do so.” with that, he would look back for only seconds to view her decision and then he would move. Before the man could truly realize what was transpiring, Watsuji would move with blinding speed, elapsing the mere 5 meters that separated him from the man in only half a second, slicing his left arm at the bend as he passed. He stopped just a few inches behind the man, his back still toward Izumi. Before a reaction could even take place Watsuji plummeted his katana backwards at an angle, intentionally to the side of where the man’s bone would be, piercing through his calf and down into his foot, continuing quite deep into the wooden deck of the vessel.

The wound looked disgustingly painful, and it likely was. The man held the dagger in his right hand, and would, as a reflex, attempt to swipe his attacker with it in agony. Watsuji allowed the dagger to land, just into his bicep on the right side. This gave him the opening to grab the man by the wrist draw Hideyoshi with extreme force. The hand holding the dagger would continue doing so, but the man was no longer attached to it. Watsuji kicked him, causing him to fall forward and slice open his leg even further, and as he landed on his face, the katana would cleave his foot directly in half. Watching the heel split in half was enough to cause Watsuji to look aside and retrieve his weapon to clean it, jerking my from the ground with apathetic roughness.

He looked back at Izumi Karisuma with a look of frustration, realizing she was probably concerned about the ship. With a quick swipe of his blades on a clean cloth from his satchel he resheathed then blfh and walked leisurely to the sails and drew them out, then took his place at the wheel. He had ignored the dagger as his training had detailed. Until he returned to the village for medical attention, removing the blade would not be wise. It would have only bled more.

The fate of the unsavory man on the deck would remain uncertain. He had sustained some pretty grievous wounds to his leg and had lost a hand. It was his sort in particular, however, that Watsuji felt no need to expend an honorable death upon. If he hadn’t been around this man would have likely taken advantage of Mrs. Izumi. With that he would break the awkward silence and speak first “Mrs. Karisuma, I’m sorry to say that for tonight we will be best suited to return from where we left port. Our wonderful navigator seems to be out for count and oh boy do I have a sharp pain in my arm that I need to get looked at.” he would smirk as the ship turned about and caught wind toward the docks. A sense of humor aided these solemn affairs. The world was a miserable place with despicable people.

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676 | 1932

Watsuji of the Miyamoto was a samurai. Bushido was his code, and indeed it had been tradition for centuries that a samurai ought not meddle in the affairs of shinobi, but in this moment the young swordsman could only smile and appreciate the circumstances. Had he not come to this shinobi village and been in the exact location he was, this woman might have met an undesirable and horrible fate. For that alone he was proud of himself. The man who caterwauled on the ground went limp as Mrs. Karisuma walked passed him. Perhaps it was with a final realization that he had failed. Maybe it was because he had just lost enough blood at that point and his brain gave way to delightful sleep.

The young woman approached him and placed a peck on his cheek as he gripped the large wheel of the boat, which seemed ridiculously large in comparison to the short boy. His cheeks flushed a red that would stand out but he would attempt to maintain a stalwart and proper stance. She then approached him with mention of being a surgeon and an offer to tend his wounds. There was an undeniable motherly nature to this woman. She asked permission to which Watsuji would nod, adding “I would not mind that at all, but please don’t waste much effort on this task. Otherwise I might have to buy you a lunch some day.” And with that, a painless motion slid the imbedded dagger from his arm. Watsuji could not be sure if it were the result of being incredibly skilled with her hands or if it was a result of adrenaline flooding and numbing the injury altogether. She was obviously no ordinary person. Her talent for wound dressing, Watsuji thought, would have to be the result of superior medical training and systems in Kirigakure.

They would arrive at the docks after around twenty minutes, the two exchanging brief chatter revolving around the nature of Izumi’s career as a surgeon and Watsuji would spend time explaining the relevant details of his origins. He shared with her the truth about his pilgrimage from his home village to Kirigakure, the fact that he had only reached the elemental shinobi village just recently. He looked down at the unconcious man and the blood-soaked soaked deck and said “Normally my code recommends, if not requires, that I show mercy when possible. I feel that this gentleman deserved his fate. I stopped him from becoming something no man should ever become. One could say I saved him from himself in this instance, yes?”

He would aim that question toward her in hopes that she did not view him as some brutal, senseless slaughterer. Internally he knew he was faulting on his virtue of rectitude. He was becoming unsure of himself on the wings of all of the killing that had suddenly become required of him. He would snap out of his thoughts and remember to drop the sails, but as he realized he was rusty at sailing, it was too late. The ship broke through a few feet of the wooden dock, splintering it and shattering it in every which direction. Watsuji stood wide eyed, like a deer in headlights as a few dockworkers stared st the now settled vessel. The blue haired boy pulled the lever to lower the anchor, which fell and busted through an additional part of the dock.

“Miss Karisuma, I really think we should leave now.” he said as he scratched his head and groaned.

Exit Thread

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592 | 2524

Raiton: D ~> C (1500)

Perception: D-1 ~> D-3 (850) + 125 Ryo

174 Discarded