What Lies Beneath:

It was in a strange sequence of events that Watsuji would find himself on the docks of a shinobi village walking from ship to ship, unloading cargo from one to another, checking the catalogues to ensure proper supplies were allocated to each vessel. It was grunt work, but it was a way to get to know this village all the better. It was no hassle whatsoever slipping into the work of the busy bees that seemed to have swarmed this area. Not even a total fool would have been confused about the nature of this sudden amping up of activity. This land was preparing for something intense. Something they were not prepared for in normal day to day circumstances.

Watsuji had not broken a sweat just yet, hard work having been a key aspect of life in a very tiny village away from the “civilized” world of the mysterious and illusive shinobi. The samurai boy raised a piece of salted jerky to his mouth, provided  by passing children who were delivering water and ration quality food to those assisting with the intense efforts throughout the village. It must have been bizarre in some way or another, the youngsters seeing a boy no taller than them working the difficult jobs that even they were not trusted with handling.

The blue haired boy wore a white muscle shirt with cargo shorts and sandals, his tanto and katana sheathed at his side but on this day they would likely remain in reach but unnecessary. Watsuji had experienced quite a bit since arriving in this land. Chasing down pirates with his new friend Kirei, battling rather deadly cat assassins in the woods which was one of a few instances he believed he was going to die. He had saved a lovely red-haired surgeon girl by the name of Izumi Karisuma from an immoral vagrant on a boat and had only destroyed a small portion of the dock when anchoring.

So far, Kirigakure no Sato had been the biggest adventure of Watsuji’s life, and as someone who wanted to make the most of his stay here, in a place that had offered him a chance to grow, it only seemed natural that he offer his aid in this preparation effort. He found himself looking out at a ship with a man who seemed to have not the slightest idea of how to check the sails of a ship. The young man tugged and jerked, rummaging on the ropes with frustration before Watsuji stepped over to help. This would have went smoothly had the man not been startled by the boy, knocking him into a counter weight for which the connected rope wrapped around Watsuji’s leg loosely and shot him upwards and over the ship, directly into the salty water below.

Watsuji of the Miyamoto did not know how to swim.

---

478 |

It was almost sad to watch. Several people were just half looking over at it, watching while they were pretending to see nothing. The way this man fumbled and tugged and messed around with the ropes. Somebody fumbling with such basic skills exposed their background as a foreigner. There was nobody in Kirigakure who should struggled with sailing, or at least there shouldn't be. It was a skill that was taught to a basic extent in the academy, and one that many would have to deal with if they ever wanted to travel between the many islands that made up the Kirigakure Archipelago. Not knowing how to sail, even if it was only having basic skills, crippled one's independence in this country. Fishermen and merchants all needed to know this skill out of necessity, as did shinobi for obvious reasons. What profession could one enter without knowing how to sail here? Chigetsu couldn't think of one. It was why he would stare, dumbfounded by this display.

Luckily someone seemed to have finally broken the silence and took pity on the poor guy. Whoever this kind soul was deserved some sort of reward. Chigetsu sighed in relief, a weight being visibly taken off his shoulders. Awkward situations like that tore into him and consumed him from the inside out, even if he wasn't the one going through them. Just watching was painful. The wooden box he had been carrying in his arms would be shifted back against his torso, and then placed down in the loading area a few steps away. The splash happened as he set the box down. Stiffening up and standing again, Chigetsu reluctantly would turn back to look at the mess.  

The same blue-haired young man who had went to assist with the rigging was now flailing about in the water. Drowning. Another skill that everyone in the Land of Water should have was the ability to swim. Still, this rose other questions. What were these foreigners doing assisting in these jobs? To hire labor from Konohagakure wasn't uncommon, but something that Chigetsu doubted would have been done now of all times. The accumulation of weapons, making last minute checks on sailing craft and equipment, preparing supplies... The preparation for Kirigakure's charge into Sunagakure was a matter of national security. Could it be that these men were spies or saboteurs?  

A quick hand sign would be made. Chigetsu's left hand would extend out, taking the form of a squelching octopus tentacle. This new slimy limb would extend over the ship that they had been working on and dove down into the water. It would wrap around the young drowning boy's midsection, aiming to haul him back up and out of the water. The sucker pods would attach immediately to his skin and clothing where the tentacle touched him to ensure a solid grip. Even if he struggled or resisted against the tentacle itself, detaching himself from the sucker pods would be difficult. Raising the boy up with the single tentacle arm would be somewhat difficult, but Chigetsu would manage it. Luckily, he was rather small. The now drenched little boy would be pulled through the air above the ship by the now retracting tentacle, placing him back down firmly on his feet on a stretch of the dock a few feet from Chigetsu. He didn't let his grip on the boy go just yet though.

The kid would be eyed up and down, Chigetsu staring down at him with an oppressive glare. There weren't any signs of village loyalty on him. No headband in sight, of Kirigakure or otherwise. The idea of frisking him down with the tentacle came to mind but was pushed aside. "What's your name? Where are you from?" Once his visual checking was done Chigetsu would move to interrogation. While he had no practical skills in anything like detective work, interrogation, or torture, he knew enough to imitate how he thought it would go. He adopted a scary looking expression, even though it looks a little bit unnatural on his youthful face. "You're not from the Land of Water, are you?"

---

[701]

Chakra 175/190:

The sound of gulls crying out as their wings cut through the sky, each flap pushing their fantastically aerodynamic bodies upwards and away from the ground as they prowled for food both within the water and upon the docks and vessels. Watsuji looked up at them as they flew overhead, kicking and struggling but not crying out as he realized he did not know how to swim and he had never learned how not to drown either. He would not need to think about this for long as a young man with white hair, not too far from him seemed to grow his arm into an enormous appendage, like that of an octopus or a squid. It wrapped around young samurai at his stomach area and hoisted him out of the salty blue water with quite some strength. It would come at first as a relief, a friendly shinobi using some unique and powerful Ninjutsu to save this strangers life.

It was only when the young man with the tentacle sat him down that Watsuji felt the negativity flowing around him. That slightly uneasy feeling you get when you meet someone face to face who looks at you a particular way. He scanned Watsuji up and down and kept his eyes on him in an unfriendly manner before the question came. It was straightforward but stills accusatory in the same way the masked shinobi had been just before beating Watsuji within an inch of his life. The blue haired boy would clench his teeth and look downward before placing a hand firmly upon his tanto’s hilt. He would not be pushed around again while he still had life within him. “I am Miyamoto, Watsuji from a distant land. I am acquainted with and and good friends with Uchiha, Kirei. If you value this nifty limb of yours I would recommend asking me these questions in a different tone after taking it off of me, before I remove the goddamned thing myself.”

He would look with a pointed and deadly determination back up into the shinobi’s eyes, letting him know there was no humor in his words. This was not the way Watsuji liked to present himself, but it was beyond necessary at this point. The young man had finally started to realize he couldn’t be so modest and kind or he would be taken advantage of in this world of underhandedness and distrust. Should the man have let him go, Watsuji would answer the next question without delay. If he persisted with his heavy handed approach and did not release the small samurai, Watsuji would unsheathed his tanto with blinding speed, slicing the tentacle on its way out before jamming the blade straight downward into the soft tendril.

“I am not from the land of water, no. But I know more of sailing than a few I’ve met since here in these lands. I do not know what your village prepares for, I simply help when I see a need. Your war or lack thereof matters little to me at this moment. I only aimed to assist to make the day pass more quickly. I am a wanderer.”

---

532 | 1010

Many emotions. He hadn't been firm in his judgement. Even if he tried to adopt a scary face the same emotion wasn't present in his heart. Part of him knew there wasn't anything he should be concerned with. This little boy was drawing just mere moments ago. How could somebody like this be a spy? Interrogation wasn't his strong suit. Words weren't something he enjoyed playing with. Fake emotions either. The scary face he had been wearing was dropped quickly. Not because of anything Watsuji did, but because of his own inability to keep up the façade. Still, he had a tentacle. He wasn't going to let go just yet. A bit of spine existed in Chigetsu's watery form, somewhere. The concerns he had weren't illegitimate. A foreigner coming down to these docks in wartime preparation was a strange thing, too much for him to ignore. Creeping suspicion. It wasn't unreasonable to probe.  

The response would come. None of the things that Chigetsu had expected to hear. Miyamoto, Watsuji. From a distant land? Unspecific and purposefully vague. There was something obviously hidden there. Kirei Uchiha was a familiar name though. Chigetsu remembered him fondly, that smiling boy and his dog who startled him while he was drinking a carton of orange juice and caused him an unfortunate amount of pain. Seeing his face at Lord Osada's manor had been a relief. The way that this boy just dropped that name as if it were supposed to mean something to him though was strange. Kirei wasn't a particularly famous person, at least from what Chigetsu knew. He hadn't participated in the Chuunin Exams, and thus it wasn't as if his name was household or anything along those lines. That Kirei was a shinobi from Konoha made it odder.  

Was it that this boy knew that Uchiha, Kirei was a name that meant something to him? That Chigetsu would lower his shoulders in relief upon hearing the name of a friendly acquaintance?  It was such a specific mention. Furthered with that threat. Indignant. He could taste it in this boy, through the way he tensed against his tentacle. Constructed. There wasn't anything Chigetsu was surer of now. This boy was a spy. He must have had some information on the training camp held at Lord Osada's mansion. He knew Kirei. He must have known Chigetsu as well, using the information he collected to construct that reply. All of it was specifically targeted towards a man of his character, based on his timid behavior at that training camp. Introspective thought revealed it to be true. He had been cowardly back then. It was something he could admit now. It made sense. It made sense. It made too much sense. How long had this 'Miyamoto, Watsuji' been watching him? Was that even his real name? What else did he know?  

Everything was unraveling in those moments within Chigetsu'shesitated had hesitates for a long time with his reponse. Just silence. An unreadable expression, his gaze flowing right past Watsuji and to the ship behind him. No movements. Chigetsu would begin to sweat. It would come quickly in those moments, the turn of his expression from manufactured anger into silent shock and then intensity that melted away at his skin and released perspiration that streamed down him and fed into the atmosphere. He struggled to speak. So thoroughly played, what could he say?  

"You." He would say with a pant, breathing heavily now. His tentacle was moist, sweating as well. Perhaps it made his grip a bit looser, the perspired grim that leaked from his pseudopod's pores. The way he spoke as if he were pushing for air with each syllable when none wanting to come. "Tell me what you know. Tell me every-" He didn't get very far. Watsuji had been truthful with his threat. Chigetsu, in his delusional haze, hadn't noticed the tanto. It sliced through his sticky limb easily. It was a movement difficult for Chigetsu to see. His tentacle-limb was now down on the wooden planks of the dock. Already as it seperated from him it would begin to melt. There would be no blood from the severed limb, only water. Melting and melting and melting until only an arm was where the massive coiling octopus limb had been. Water poured off it and flooded through the separations in the planks down to the ocean below. Water seeped from the severed limb, the hand still twitching and moving slightly with its last ounces of energy. Water dripped down from where it had separated from Chigetsu, flowing like a half turned facuet against his shirt. It was clear there was no blood. Looking into the injury would be like seeing the inside of a leaf of aloe. It was a clear and sticky goo that seemed to be his internals, rather than bone or muscle or blood or veins, or anything else that made a human what they were.  

He hadn't felt it, just seen it. Liquefication worked funny like that. He could feel the blade moving through his arm, so he did feel it. But he hadn't felt it. There wasn't any pain. Not a flinch came from Chigetsu, or any other indication of injury. He had paused with what he was saying though. The show that Watsuji made of piercing the severed limb would be watched carefully. What he had to say next was listened to carefully. His tongue was frozen on the same syllable it had been when the blade was drawn. Liquid dripped from his severed arm. Sweat now, instead of water.

Chigetsu's face twisted upwards, his lips curling. It was a smile, maybe. Something like a smile. "Hey." His voice was soft. Delicate, a throaty whisper. "Do that again." He took a step forward. Watsuji had been placed down too far from him now for a polite conversation. It was something he realized now. He had to get closer. "Do it again." Chigetsu would cough out as he approached the Samurai. "Cut me again. Cut off my other arm too. Please." The 'please' was tacked on. An afterthought. He smiled, although it wasn't a smile. It was clearly a demand, rather than a request. Chigetsu tried to say something but failed. He got closer. He got closer. He got closer. Take it out of its sheath again, please." His head was spinning. The sweating made his mouth dry. Maybe having his arm cut off had something to do with that too.

He remembered then. They were in public. There were others around them. His vision widened. The spinning and frantic conversations happening inside his mind stopped. People were stopping their work, looking at the display. Chigetsu having his arm cut off and treated rather roughly by this knife wielding child. Treated in such a way that he turned into a sputtering whispering wreck he was trudging forward like a zombie. It wasn't a good look. He felt a prickle in his spine. For some reason he was itch now, and wanted to scratch at his head. He did, although he would realize a few moments later that the hand he was scratching with wasn't there anymore. It was something he barely noticed, the entire limb being cut off. Gaining a little bit of composure he would straighten his posture. "No, I'm sorry. That was an odd thing to say, wasn't it?" Wiping away a bit of the sweat from his forehead with his remaining hand, Chigetsu would address the male with a nervous smile. Maybe he hadn't heard any of that outburst? His mind still felt like it was going to burst. All of his weaponry were screaming out at the same time. It was hard to hear. "Why you don't you... tell me more about Kirei?"

---

[1346/2047]

Chakra 140/160:

The surroundings grew weary and unsettling as the blade of the young samurai cleaved through the Kirigakure shinobi’s tentacle appendage. The slice which parted said appendage from the body left a clear jelly-like wound, the rest of it liquefying and dropping to the ground in a slosh before it began to dissipate and trickle between the wooden planks of the dock. Watsuji knew better than to keep his eyes off of the threat before him, taking his gaze away from the severed thing in the ground and looking back to the man who stood in front of him. “The word of a samurai is a bond. I do not make threats lightly.” Watsuji would speak with jusr a bit of shock in his voice. He then felt a welling up of anger again. “Moreover, I should be asking you who you are, interrogating someone assisting with your motherland’s own preparations. More and more I’m learning that you shinobi lot enjoy harming others first and asking questions later.”

“You're finally beginning to understand, young Watsuji.”

The blue haired young boy returned his tanto to its sheathe. If this escalated any further it wouldn’t be the tanto he reached for, but his katana. He watched on as the man before him appeared to react in the strangest of ways. Sweating profusely, he was struggling to form his words. It would sound like a strange paranoia had spread across him before suddenly a mania. He approached Watsuji, asking him to cut him again. Goading the samurai to slice him, strike him once more. There was no longer any real ability to understand the scenario, the Miyamaoto clansman looking very concerned as the man stepped closer and closer. Onlookers would all stand a safe distance aside, having started watching since the moment Watsuji had fallen into the sea. Without context, things would seem bizarre. Being saved from drowning and immediately turning ones weapon on his savior. Watsuji appeared to be the offender here, in the eyes of anyone looking upon the scene.

Additionally, Watsuji might have been the only person in the scenario who had never heard of the Hozuki kekkei genkai. This alone was enough to generate intense feelings of uneasiness, as he had begun to wonder if the deranged man before him was a human at all. He reached down and placed a firm grip on his katana as the shinobi suddenly seemed to snap back into reality. Apologizing for what he had done, he asked to learn more of Uchiha, Kirei. Watsuji was uneasy at first, but he would invite the interesting person to work with him on the last few vessels while describing the events of his meeting with Kirei and the friendship they shared, excluding any mention of the Ninekko, wondering if they’d perhaps been more of a clandestine encounter.

If the man accepted his offer to work on the last few ships, he would say to him “I apologize for any harm I may have caused disarming you. I have not had good experiences with your lawmen so far. Despite being a wanderer and nothing more complex than that, I have been treated with great hostility here. My only purpose here is to learn of shinobi society and traditions.”

He would take a long drink from a glass of water and offer some to the still yet to be named man, laughing slightly as he said “All of this while listening to this stupid talking tanto of mine. Be glad you don’t have to deal with his nonsense and only mine.”

Exit Thread

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601 | 1611 (1500/1500) Mission Complete

- Using to take 1 C-Rank Jutsu (Void Echo: Breathless)

He would slowly regain his composure. Everything was fine once again. There was a moment in which he hadn't been able to think straight but that had passed now. Chigetsu wiped again at his forehead, attempting to wipe away a bit more of the sweat before it fell into his eyes. It was difficult at first hearing what the boy had said to him. It wasn't that he was being quiet. The chaos inside his mind made it difficult to focus on any individual voice though, leaving it all a garbled mess where words flowed into each other. They had all reacted at once, screaming nonsense out as he had been sliced open by that tanto. He would begin to control his breathing, the unruly pants of a mad beast being restrained back into something resembling a polite human. Chigetsu barely knew what happened. The only reason he had snapped back to his senses was the various eyes all trained on them in the moment,

The way that Watsuji was looking at him was something he could see clearly when he came back to his senses. It was a hard to describe emotion. The earlier details of their conversation were blurry now to Chigetsu. The words he had said and emotions he felt seemed as though they were held by somebody else. The suspicion he had felt was discarded as though it were trash. He couldn't maintain that emotion any longer, even if he had tried.  

It seemed as though his attempt at making peace in the tense situation had been successful. It was a good thing for both of them. Who knows how onlookers would have interpreted Chigetsu's behavior. He would have been seen as delusional, mad, or maybe even poisoned. ANBU would have likely been called, and the blame put entirely on the young samurai who had sliced his arm off. There were so many witnesses here to see how it happened. That was an outcome which wouldn't have been pleasant for either Watsuji or Chigetsu. Watsuji, as it would have landed him a round of real interrogation from someone much more competent at it than Chigetsu, and Chigetsu, as it would have sent him off to some sort of medical care. The idea of doctors probing into his mental state was something he'd rather not entertain. The moment that others found out he could speak to weapons was the moment that he'd be stripped of his chuunin title and thrown out as a defect. They wouldn't understand.

As Watsuji invited him to work with him Chigetsu would recall that his arm had been cut off. Very casually he would reach down to take it up off the ground. The severed limb would be picked up with his remaining arm, and then held under his armpit as he tried to wipe a bit of the grime and sweat off it. It would be placed back after, the gooey severed limb being placed back on his shoulder where the cut had been made. Sensation would return instantaneously. His previously severed arm would be clenched into a fist and then released. Good as new.

With his limb reattached Chigetsu would take Watsuji up on his offer. He would do his best to keep his cool the entire time. The sweat and panic would eventually stop, and Chigetsu would return to normal as the manual labor progressed. It had a calming effect, moving boxes around and tying ropes. He could focus on what his hands were doing rather than what was going on inside his mind. The story that Watsuji told made it easier. Hearing more about Kirei was pleasant as well. It seemed as though Watsuji really was a friend of Kirei's.

The offered glass of water would be taken happily, and Chigetsu would take a long sip. Too much hydration had been shed with all that sweating. The apology that Watsuji offered would be accepted with a nod. "I'm sorry for questioning you in that tone as well. I didn't have any reasons to be suspicious of you in the first place. You seem like a good man. You're lucky though. If you'd cut off anyone else's arm it would have been a national incident." Chigetsu would let out an awkward laugh.

The way he laughed while talking about a talking tanto would cause Chigetsu to sweat again. He would place the glass of water down and quickly excuse himself, walking off very quickly in the other direction.

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[763/2810]
[EXIT]
[-1500] Mission
[-1200] Extra Pay