Mission:

Ryo was still stationed in the forward base camp of Kumogakure so that he could be deployed into the land of wind in order to complete various missions. Thankfully, he didn’t have to deal with the erasing of Suna this time. He had been told that he would be set against the independent factions of the land of winds. He would be happy to kill as many of them as he could. They were not helping anyone by uniting people to try and fight against the takeover of Kumogakure. From what Ryo could see there was no reason they should be fighting against Kumo. Kumo had taken Ryo and his clan in with open arms, and his clan was once more thriving under the rule of the Raikage. It seemed to Ryo that the Raikage didn’t have anywhere near the level of problems that Sunagakure had. With the people that were under the Raikage’s protection and rule there seemed to be a lot of peace for them.

He sighed and was ready to head out to do his mission. Dressed in the sand colored duster coat of the Knetegawa he blended in very well. He rushed over the desert heading towards the location of one the small camps that had begun to spring up. He managed to arrive there before mid-morning. The location in question was old, and it seemed like it was abandoned. The few dwellings that were there were dilapidated tents. He sighed and pulled out his kunai knife slashing away at the tent material and cut down the poles breaking them into little pieces. This wasn’t the hardest mission that he had so far, and tents were easy to destroy. However, he saw a monument of something strange, he wasn’t sure what it was. It was some feeble attempt at something, he couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be the Sunagakure hourglass, or something completely different. It was made of sand, and wood with a sigh he began to forge hand seals. As he brought his right hand up to his mouth in the trumpet playing style he sprayed the monument with high pressured water. The torrent of water slammed into the monument destroying the weak wood, and the half solid sand that it was made of. When he was sure that the majority of the statue was destroyed and beyond repair then he was happy to leave it alone.

He had a map of several other stops that he could make, and so he moved off to the next one. As he moved he saw that there was another camp mostly made of tents, and also wooden huts of some kind. This one however, didn’t seem to be abandoned. In fact, Ryo could see that there was someone coming towards him. This person was rushing towards him. He stopped dead and waited to see that this person was some kind of rogue ninja. Taking a defensive position, he waited for the rogue shinobi to near him. As he drew closer he saw the man was weaving hand signs. He got close enough that Ryo could see the hand seals had finished. The man opened his mouth and began to fire out bullets made of water. He spit a total of five of these shots, but thankfully as soon as the man had stopped hand seals he started to run. Only one of the bullets made contact and it slammed into Ryo knocking him back a few meters.

He hit the sand with a grunt of pain, but he was quick to lift both of his hands pointing them as guns as the rogue shinobi drew closer. Focusing the chakra to his fingers holding them like pistols he shot out the electrical bullets at the man who was now closing in the distance. Ryo kept shooting until finally, he couldn’t fire any more. Twelve of the fifteen shots that were fired found the rogue shinobi he was slightly stunned, and it was enough for Ryo to form the next few hand seals causing a jet of water to rise from the ground and slash into the man’s legs. He gave a grunt of pain which Ryo used to get to his feet again. Snapping his hand to his ninja weapon pouch he pulled out the Senbon that were tucked there throwing them towards the man. He was far too slow due to his injuries to his legs. The three Senbon that Ryo threw were accurate and struck the man in the chest. The man did his best to weave hand signs again, but Ryo didn’t allow this to go any farther he closed the distance stabbing the man with his Kunai knife repeatedly. He was not used to fighting without Kuro, but he knew that he couldn’t allow himself to be boxed in like that. When the man finally dropped dead under his attack Ryo panted heavily inhaling deep breaths of hot air. He was not used to this, he found that this lack of training was not something that he wanted to continue. He would have to address it, and he knew that his mother would be the best to ask. She had trained in puppetry and Bukijutsu as well as Tailjutsu. Now that he thought about it Raphael had also been trained in Taijutsu. He was fairly skilled at it as well. He would be sure to inquire of his friend if it would be possible to train him in the skill. Yet, he thought that Bukijutsu might be the better option to take first.

He was distracted from his thoughts by the movement towards him. It looked like at least three more people were coming towards him however, they were not ninja at all, but they did carry some weapons that were interesting. Ryo smirked as he looked down at the body that was in front of him. He knew that there was something very powerful about puppet mastery. He was able to do a lot of very fun things with weapons and even the corpses of human beings. In his clan human puppetry was almost forbidden, yet, the manipulation of a corpse was not counted among that taboo. With a smirk he brought out the chakra strings that were his multiple control strings. He could control up to four puppets, or in this case four corpses and weapons. He dropped his Kunai and then brought his right hand up attaching two and three strings to a pair of his Senbon, while his left hand was solely in control of the corpse of his former opponent. Bringing the corpse up he used his right hand to let the Senbon bob behind him unseen while he himself stood behind the corpse and walked in his shadow. The man was larger than Ryo was, so he was able to hide fairly decently behind the corpse’s bulk.

The Trio pulled up short as they saw the wounds in their leader. One of them closed the distance even more asking “Hey boss, are you okay? You look beat up.” He looked around “Where is the body of the other guy?” With a snap of his left hand and a twitch of his fingers the corpse moved forward brought the kunai up and stabbed the man in the throat without a sound. The other two gasped and stepped back only now seeing Ryo who was standing there with a wicked grin on his face “The Knetegawa clan, has come for you. You shall all be my puppets.” He said as an icy hatred filled his eyes making those piercing blue eyes go glassy. It was clear that Ryo no longer saw these two opponents as people, but merely as pigs put to slaughter. With a snap of his right hand he brought the two Senbon up stabbing them like a yo-yo into the second man’s arm and leg. He gave a grunt of pain, and then the third man who wielded a sword that was more rust than steel ran towards him. Ryo with contemptuous ease flicked his left hand towards the man a few twitches of his fingers forced the corpse to bring up the kunai it held and intercepted the blade. Another few twitches of his fingers made the corpse land a kick on the man’s chest sending him sprawling in the sand.

Ryo felt the man on his right start to move and he snapped his hand back to remove the Senbon before the man brought down an axe on the purple chakra threads that connected the Senbon to Ryo’s right hand. The axe was slightly better cared for, but it looked dull not able to cut into much of anything, still it was heavy. He would have to be careful, but with a snap of his right wrist the Senbon sank into the man’s legs on in his upper thigh and another in his calf. He sank to one knee in agony leaving Ryo to focus on the other man lashing his hand towards him which sent his temporary puppet to land down on him stabbing him repeatedly with the kunai knife that Ryo had given him. He stabbed the man repeatedly while Ryo was twitching his left hand he used his right hand in order to remove the Senbon and throw them once more yo-yo fashion towards the downed man’s throat. As soon as he removed them the man’s out heart pumped his blood out of his body.

With the threat done Ryo looked around and smiled widely as he licked his lips “Red sand. Perhaps one day I can I can surpass Sasori. Still, today I will paint a lot of sand red, it looks so beautiful.” He said to himself as he returned his Senbon to their holster attaching strings to the other three corpses. All of his puppets were now ready and with the grace of a master playing the piano he lifted the four corpses to their feet had them draw their weapons and get ready for a fight. With the puppets in front of him as a wall of bodies he made his way towards the camp. They were all so much bigger than him, so he was completely hidden from sight. It looked as if they were ready to return home.

As he walked into the independent force’s village. The rest of the company some seven strong all approached the group ready to congratulate them. However, they all stopped like a bunch of predictable idiots once they saw that the blood-stained wounds in all of the corpses and the fact that none of them were blinking or breathing for that matter. Once more Ryo couldn’t believe the stupidity of all of the bandits that he was running into. His hands began their flurry of movements and the corpses began to move. Controlling four puppets was the limit of his ability at this stage in his puppetry career, but soon enough he would be able to control one puppet per finger on his hands. Still, that wasn’t important right now instead he focused on using all four of his corpse puppets to attack the remaining men.

The battle that broke out was very simple. Ryo was indeed outnumbered, but that didn’t mean that he would fall easily. With his hands and fingers flying as fast as was possible the corpses started to move along as best they could. Sadly, none of the ones he was fighting were anywhere near the level of power that Ryo was, and the corpses while not very mobile due to the nature of his chakra strings. He paired up two of his puppets per one guy and used the two on one to take down opponents quickly. The bandits seemed to be doing their best to fight back and did as much damage to the corpses that were acting as Ryo’s puppets. Yet, they were corpses so despite the wounds they were taking they were bleeding true, but there was nothing that could stop them. At least, that was what Ryo thought before two of his puppets dropped. They had been cut into pieces and cut off from his chakra strings. He sighed shaking his head and focusing on the last two puppets he had. He jumped back pulling the C rank corpse and one of his other corpses the one with two short swords. He made his C rank corpse pick up one of the swords and now he reassessed his situation.

He still had two puppets left, and there were only three of the bandits that he was supposed to kill left. They seemed very disturbed by what they were seeing during this fight, but they were unable to stop it. Ryo looked to his puppets frowning as he saw the despicable state they were in. His short sword puppet was missing a leg, and his C Ranked puppet was about to lose an arm due to a very deep slash through one of its arms. He shook his head in irritation as he looked to the bandits. Throwing his arms forward he made his puppets move and sent them towards the targets. He would have to fight them one on one right now, otherwise they would simply destroy them. He managed to fake out two of them and decided that he would try to do just this kind of fun ploy. They challenged two separate targets, only to turn as one onto the remaining target stabbing into the third man with all of their weapons. The man was so surprised that this was the case being that he had gone to help against their former boss that when he turned around he was too close and had no time to dodge the attack he didn’t know was going to come his way.

With this man down Ryo was quick to try and turn his puppets on the remaining foes. Yet, this was impossible for him to do simply because by the time he turned his one-legged puppet it was cut away from his chakra strings. As soon as it dropped to the ground Ryo held up one hand in the ‘tiger’ hand sign. He kneaded his chakra as quickly as he was able to, forming it in his mouth as water. In rapid fire fashion he shot out all six water bullets. Each one found their mark in the two remaining bandits the knock backs were a bit troublesome, but it didn’t stop Ryo from firing, nor did it stop him from sending his puppet after them sinking its borrowed blade, and its kunai into the first of the targets sending him to the grave. Ryo on the other hand turned his own attention towards the second man reaching to his ninja tool sheath and pulling out three of his Senbon throwing them at the last man standing as he tried to rush towards him. The Senbon sank into the man’s chest stalling his movements for only the briefest of moments before he tried to start forward again. Yet, that hesitation was all that he needed, Ryo’s arm shot out leading his puppet towards the man slamming into him full force knocking the pair to the ground where Ryo made the puppet use the kunai to cut the man’s throat nearly taking his head off. Ryo was close now and he used his puppet to travel forward and use Ryo’s kunai to slash up the banners, and from where he was he could see an idol of some kind. Yet, it was out of reach, so Ryo had his puppet bring back his kunai dropping it to the ground in front of him. He then focused all of his power and strength into sending his puppet forward towards the monument and throwing the corpse at the thing cutting his strings at the proper moment. The force was just barely enough to topple the monument, that would have to do.

Finally, the whole thing was done, and he sighed shaking his head in disgust. As he stepped forward he let out a gasp of agony dropping to one knee. Looking down he saw that one of the bandits in all the chaos of the too close quarters fight had managed to deliver a slash to his right thigh. He swore loudly as he pulled his the kunai out of the ground in front of him. When he did so he used it to cut off the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt, first the right side, then the left. When he had them both he tied them together making sure it was tight before he wrapped the fabric around the wound tying it tightly and knotting it in place swearing loudly. He had no real ability to stop anything, but he hoped this would be enough to let him get back to the camp in relative safety. He swore in agony as he crawled over towards the man he had just killed removing his Senbon to stick them back into his weapon sheath. He was not about to lose more than he had to.

Looking at the wooden buildings he frowned. He had no way to destroy them, and in his present state he would be lucky to even attempt to do so. He found the pole-arm that was nearby crawling towards it he lifted himself to his feet and using the Pole-arm as a staff he hobbled his way back to the forward base. He had done all he could, now it was time to leave the rest to those who could do more. For now he needed to be healed and needed to rest.
[Exit Thread]

WC: 2,991
1500/1500 for the C rank mission.
1200/1200 for double the Ryo bonus 300 extra Ryo
Remaining: 291 words
This thread has elapsed 2,500 words. I think that means I gain 1 additional EP