Mission:

Maikumaru spent spent more of his time on the mountains not too far outside the village. He had woken up at the break of daylight to go to the Fissure Training Grounds. It was a lonely place at the time. He was there to do something he had found great interest in doing, which was creating Jutsu. He brought many books with him. Going to the library had become a pastime for him as well. After doing some physical training exercises, and making sure his Taijutsu style was up to par by shadow boxing, he had taken a rest to reflect on how much he had grown in such a short time. From becoming the immature boy who was a failed mercenary with a dead mentor to becoming a leader at the battles of Suna Against Bandits. And now here he was. A man with a sharp mind, and one that was getting sharper. He picked up the book. It was a large book of the art of using Doton, Maikumaru’s favorite basic element. He stood up and looked at his hands, his mind wandering. He needed to figure out a style of Ninjutsu. Not necessarily limiting himself to one form of fighting, but an effective way of fighting that suited him. He wanted to delve further in Earth Release. And create something truly magnificent. He knew he was going to have to face opponents stronger than him. And that was a bit of an issue that could not stand.

Pacing around he continued to examine the books. He had a lightning release book as well. He looked through it, seeing that there were a lot of abilities lightning can do. If he tried hard enough, he could force Raiton to beam down from the sky and smite his enemies. It was an interesting technique indeed, considering if he tried it he would have to find someway for the enemy to become locked in place. But that wasn’t his forte. He was more interested in something else. He wanted to preserve his chakra. Maikumaru had decided to work on a technique. It was vibrating his body using his chakra, which would vibrate the earth. A not so simple taijutsu technique that would cause an Earthquake. He had practiced it before, but he was having trouble of finding the right magnitude to vibrate and create and earthquake. He had decided to throw caution to the wind and use a lot more chakra this time. At this power it would become a B rank technique. He realized how close he was to accomplishing the effect with less chakra, but it was only a small shake. He started to surge his chakra throughout his body. It started to shake, having him feel his body move and vibrate. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, but he was going to have to get used to it. He looked around him and saw the ground had started to shake, just as he did. Rocks were moving all about, and even boulders were shifting in place. He decided to amp it up slightly more, pushing harder. Things were really starting to look good, as the small rocks had begun to bounce up and down on the ground, and the boulders had moved more pronouncedly. When he realized how tired he started to become, he stopped, and doubled over. Catching his breath, he pumped he clenched his fist in triumph. He had succeeded.

He sat on his butt, and yawned. Maikumaru needed more jutsu however, such as Guardian Chakra Mode. He could use Earth Release, and even Lightning Release to manipulate the battlefield to his advantage, and use Jutsu like his father had showed him. Jutsu that made him stronger. He needed jutsu that worked against his opponents advantage, and to his own. He needed jutsu that made his opponent weaker, and the area around them a hazard for only them while at the same time using jutsu to make himself stronger. With this form of fighting he could even make the strongest of opponents become oppressed by his own abilities. Thanks to the Mysterious man he had met in Konohagakure, Maikumaru had learned interesting ways to use Medical to aid him in this. But instead of rotting his ability for damage he could rot their effectiveness in combat. And this can easily be combined with environmental effects that make it harder for his opponent to combat him. He smirked to himself. He was excited to have found this way of fighting rather than throwing whatever jutsu he knew at his opponents.

“Excuse me.” Maikumaru turned around to find a man standing behind him. “Otsuka , Maikumaru is it?”

“Yes?”

“You have a mission. It’s very important.”

“Get to the point.”

“Well...they are mutants. Mutant Animals. No one knows where they came from. They have been going from village to village, around the Valley of Mountains, killing villagers and leaving them with not much left.”

“Eating them?”

“Yes. You and a group of Genin-”

“Let me stop you right there. A group of Genin? What purpose is this for? I am going on a dangerous mission, I don’t have time to-” Maikumaru broke his train of thought. If Genin go on dangerous missions like this, they would no doubt gain experience from this. Far more than the average Shinobi. “You know what. On second thought, it’s a great idea.”

“Well then you know the drill. Meet them at the village gate.” Maikumaru watched him body flicker away. Maikumaru picked up his books and placed them in his bag. He ran towards the village gate.

Upon arriving he found that he was the first one there. He simply shrugged, and took out one of his books, and continued to read, awaiting the young faces for this mission.

973WC

“Excuse me.” An oddly cordial man landed behind a ninja with a large straw hat hanging from his neck. The ninja with the hat unabashedly ignoring the newcomer, intensely focused on the task before him. Prior to the messenger’s arrival he’d been working on a new dish and was currently testing the recipe. He sat out in the middle of a large plateau just outside of the village where he wouldn’t disturb anyone if his dish went terribly wrong. The meal he was preparing was brewing in a massive pot which was currently bubbling over a massive makeshift fire.

Without missing a beat Ishiro dipped a ladel into the soupy concoction, inspecting it for a moment completely perplexed, before popping it into the messenger-nins mouth. The messenger-nins eyes flared wide as the initial heat both scalded the roof of his mouth and startled him. He found himself thinking, ‘Did this guy really just do this.’ As the messenger began looking up and blowing the steam out of his mouth the chef looked at him with curiousity in his eyes. “I can’t quite tell what’s wrong with this. Any insights?” It wasn’t often that an unfortunate soul would wander up to him while he was experimenting, so he made sure to take the most of the opportunity. After all it was the messenger’s own fault. The Stone-nin had gone out of his way to avoid others, and this guy wandered here all of his own volition.

As the heat slowly faded and his tastebuds reactivated, the codially mannered man’s face slowly went from a painful grimace to a deep frown and scrunched eyebrows. A deep greenshade slowly took over his face as a sublime disgust sent shivers down his spine. He swallowed forcefully and deeply to clear the slimy substance out of his mouth, too afraid to spit it out the stuff in fear that he would be unable to stop the rest of the contents of his stomach from spilling out. “Frankly.” The polite man cleared his throat to make sure that’d he’d be heard loud and clear. “It is absolutely abhorrent.”

“Hmm.” Ishiro responded. “It’s as I feared.” He rubbed the bottom of his chin. He’d have to scrap this recipe, but he knew that half an hour ago because the smell was off. He sighed heavily before tossing a bucket of water onto the fire beneath the person sized pot. Teary eyed he sighed heavily and his posture slumped.

“You seem to be taking your duties rather seriously.” Though the tone was incredibly polite, they were laced with vitrolic salt. Ishiro clenched his heart as if his heart had been pierced straight through by a kunai falling to his knees dramatically still teary eyed. “As you know, while you are on you probationary period, you are expected to be completing missions for the village, and since you’ve been on your probationary period you succesfully completed zero missions.” Ishiro’s watery eyes widened again as he intensely clenched his chest with his left hand again reeling backwards in psuedo agony. He fell forward holding his weight with his right hand.

“So you’ve been assigned a mission.”  Ishiro stopped feigning pain for just a moment focusing on the man’s words. “A jonin will be taking a group of genin on a mission.” The man paused for a moment to get serious the salt vanishing abruptly from his voice. “You will be joining them, Ishiro. You have to complete a mission and soon, your probationary period is about to expire.” Ishiro would feel a scroll tap on his left shoulder which he would accept with the hand on the same side keeping his back to the man speaking to him. Ishiro’s face was a bit dispondent as his eyes cleared from his psuedo-comical bout of sadness. His gaze moped about the ground beneath as he stood up keeping his back to the man.

“Ishiro, you could be a very valuable assett to Iwa.” The ninja would take a few steps before stopping again a smile grew on his face. “Also, I hear that there are mega-fauna.” With that the messenger body-flickered away. Ishiro’s eyes were alight with a renewed vigor. The Iwa-nin opened the scroll reading its contents and a smile spread across his face. Ishiro looked at the pot awkwardly and a deep sigh escaped his lungs.

When he finally arrived at the gate he had his Iwa headband tied to his forehead, and his straw hat nowhere to be seen.  His kunai pouch hugged the top of his left hip underneath a sky blue overcoat. He scratched the back of his head as he arrived Slowly making his way over to the jonin waiting at the gate. Ishiro would slowly walk over towards him feeling out the atmosphere as he approached. “Ishiyaki, Ishirō,” with a small nod, he’d continue. “I take it you are waiting for the rest of the ninja that’ll be joining us on this mission, yeah?” A light smile accomponied his words as he spoke. Though he was talking to the nin in front of him, his mind was racing thinking about the strange creatures they were about to encounter.

[WC= 890/2500]

Makoto was tossing and turning, rolling around and around all over the ground as he ended up falling out of the bed as he just could not sleep. He was nervous and his heart was racing as he wondered if he might end up dying on that day, he was going to attempt a B-rank mission with some high ranking shinobi. What if the mission ends up even more difficult or if he loses track of the group, what would he do if things went wrong. He could not understand this feeling he felt as he just could not stand being this scared and this afraid as he just screamed out in the night as he was now living in the wilderness, he had moved out of the apartment after getting annoyed by the neighbours who kept making these banging noises and strange echoing cries of pain. At some point he heard them mentioning creating an earthquake as he wondered if that was why the floor above him seemed like it was moving, he did not really care but he moved out and someone else moved in as he felt this wild home was better. He could not take it anymore as he just went outside to the waterfall as he took a bath under the weak stream of the falls, he was shivering like crazy as it was really cold. He did not care as he had to get used to the cold waters since he was a water user, how could you master the element if you were scared of it or could not bare being in it yourself.

He started reflecting on the events that would unfold later today, would he be good enough and would he be able to reach new heights as he wanted a chance to test his jutsu once more. He prepared his clothing carefully once more as he began to get dry near the smoking hot fire he made, while it might end up attracting wild animals, the most dangerous animal in this location was him. After drying off he proceeded to make preparations as it was time to get dressed and equipped for battle.

The thing that Makoto first equipped was his light fiber vest for upper body protection, since he could not risk dying from a stray attack or random blows that may still probably hurt a lot even if his armored. However at least he will not die in one hit as he began to wonder how things would go along in this mission. Then to advertise his greatest love in this world he put on a new loose large white t-shirt with an image of the hidden mist jutsu with the words written in fire 'Jutsu Life' on the front near the chest area, while on the back of the t-shirt was a small Iwa symbol on the top near the center as he then got his forehead protector and tied it around his neck since it was just too much hassle to keep it from sliding down or moving around on his forehead. It also made him feel itchy sometimes for some reason as he was thinking of replacing it later on.

Makoto then stretched his arms out as much as he could before looking around and put on the usual bottoms with a plain dark blue shorts as he realized he forgot to buy a new pair of shoes and sighed as he would be going on this mission barefoot. He had decided to tie up his longer hair that he was really letting grow all out as he tied it into a small little pony tail at the back while his fringe was hanging mostly in the middle and to the sides leaving to open points for Makoto's two eyes that had this strange appearance to them as he was wearing the new catalyst lenses in his eyes, not yet ready to train the renzugan just yet. Then Makoto tucked any hair that was free inside the other hair or into his neck to be held by the forehead protector which was now more like a neck guard.

After that Makoto took his shield and placed it on his back, it was equipped with his short little tanto that had a special weapon slot inside the shield itself. Makoto then proceeded to divide the shuriken and kunai between his two pockets of his shorts as he had one extra kunai on the right and the one extra shuriken on the left. When this was all done he proceeded to put on his over cloak to keep warm as he began to do a bit of extra training in the night as he did the basics of a warm up first.

Makoto stretched to the right to touch his toes, then stretched to the left to touch his feet and then realized he was more flexible on his right then his left which bothered him as he did an extra stretch on the left as he decided he would need to do more training again. After doing these stretches a few more times for a few minutes he then began to do the splits to stretch his thighs and noticed he was still easily able to do that as he sat down in a split formation as he began to think to himself before standing up again. Then as part of the basics he dropped down and did about ten push ups, as he stopped since he did not want to over work his weak arms. After that he took the shield off again and proceeded to do a few sit ups to work on his non-existent abs, he did this for a while until he started feeling a burn around that area for a bit before stopping as he then did a hand spring to get back up and fumbled the landing slightly. He then picked his shield back up and equipped it again as he went to go take a nap nearer to the meeting location.

Makoto made his way towards the gate after he woke up from his nap, he got there and noticed two people. As he got there he recognized that man with the huge features, it was the guy from the bridge and the arrows and he remembered that time with the man vaguely as he approached slowly not recognizing the other guy too well. Though there was something familiar about him as well, after which he realized it was that guy as a part of him was still upset at the outcome of the battle between him and Ishiro. He knew this guy was at least a level above him as he did not want to let out his pent up frustration as he met with the two of them quietly.

"hi Maikumaru-sensei and Ishi..." as he gave a mild glare towards Ishiro as he then looked to Maikumaru. "I will do my best, and please look after me sensei"

Words = 1177

I laughed at Makoto’s comment. It was hilarious. “HA! You should know me better than that. I won’t be looking after any of you. I think you are well enough on your own. You at least should be. They said I get free reign on how I do this mission. And I think you both need to become stronger. And hell, the other ninja can catch up on their own. Here is what we do. We split up and go across the country. Might take a few days, give or take. Once we have gotten all of the mutants, we will report back here, at the village gate.” I look at the both of them. I was figuring out where should each of them go exactly. “We will be each going to a village. They aren’t too far away from each other, so if I’m not too bored I might go help one of you out. No promises. These villages will have a group of ninja who are skilled at hunting, hired by the Daimyo himself. These villages are the only ones that have been attacked. So we kill them all, and their young to prevent them from spreading. Ishiro will take the one in the east, Makoto will take the one further wests. I don’t remember the name of these villages for the life of me, but here’s a map.” I tossed two maps at each of them “ I will take the one farther north. Now if you would excuse me, I am going now. I expect you both to get this done.”

I began running away from them both, eager to get to my goal. Eager to get into a fight. Just as I always was.


After hiking a long distance, I finally see the village. Much like Iwagakure, it was surrounded by mountain. Though it was smaller, and the housing spaces were made out of hutts rather than carved from the mountain itself. The village was occupied by Hunters. Most of them had long ranged weapons, such as crossbows and bows and arrows. I slide down the side of the mountain, and into the village. “Excuse me. Can we help you?” I was stopped by the fools who were supposedly protecting the village. “No. I am here to help you. I am the Iwagakure ninja sent by Iwagakure, if you haven’t been able to tell by these clothes. Or the belt. I pointed to my Iwagakure Championship belt. “I don’t know anything about any Iwagakure Ninja coming here.” He put his hand on my shoulder. My expression dropped to the lowest depths of hell. I looked at him. He sensed my malcontent. He immediately removed his hand. I was seconds away from breaking it. That and so much more. One of the hire ups realized the situation and came to his friend’s rescue. “Its okay. He’s here to help with the mutant situation.” I looked into the sky and saw darkness conquer it. The mutants were to arrive at any moment. Nightfall was where they became more violent, and opportunistic. I turned to the fools. “How well have you been defending this village on the night of these attacks?” They both turned to each other. The higher ranking mercenary was the first to speak in his uncertain and embarrassed tone. “Every night we have lost a great deal of men. They are more skilled than we had thought.”

I started to rub my chin. It was an interesting thought. Killed beast. “Do you have any bodies? Of any dead Mutants?” The disrespectful one was the next to speak in shame. “Uh...no. We uh...haven’t been actually able to kill any of them-”

“Where is your leader?!” My voice boomed at them. I was pissed. Fed up. This was a pathetic excuse for a Mercenary Company. It was about time they had a change in leadership. They pointed to the top of a tower. I ran up to the bottom of it. “HEY! Whoever is up there, get the HELL down here right now!” The head of a woman poked out. She looked a bit older than me. Which was surprising. I was more inclined to believe that a little child was the one in charge. She jumped out of her tower and landed right in front of me. “Excuse me, but who are you?” She looked at me up and down. As with most women, she was smaller than me. “Oh...the Iwa ninja. And what is the meaning of your outburst?” My fist went straight into the side of her head, throwing her back a good distance. Her subordinates around her turned their arrows on me. “You call yourself a leader? Don’t make me laugh. How incompetent do you have to be to have men get killed every night? AND NOT KILL ANY OF THEM!?” I shook my head. She sat up, trying to find the words to explain herself. I turned to look at the rest of them. “Now listen up. Tonight, I am going to be the one in charge. Either that or you can get slaughtered because your commander here doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.” I heard a blade unsheathe. My eyebrow raised. I turned around to see that the woman was still on the ground, panting, her katana pointed in my direction. What an idiot. If she was going to draw a blade on someone, she should have at least gave herself the time to recover. I walked over to here, undeterred by her actions. It must have surprised her when I did so, because her eyes widened slightly. I kicked away her sword, and stomped on her stomach, hearing a squeak escape her lips. “Is this what you call a leader? A weakling?? Is this supposed to be the one who takes you all to victor!?” I looked at them all. They all looked down in doubt. They knew I was right. I looked at her, who looked at them. She relaxed her body, and let her head fall to the ground in defeat. I took my foot off her. “Tonight, I am your commander.”


1047/2020

'Hm, he must not have heard me,' Ishiro thought to himself as his eyes scanned the area around the gate for somewhere nearby that was comfortable. He got the impression from the tall muscular dude that there would be others coming. His build was pretty outrageous, from a regular person's perspective. The chunin wasn't small by any definition of the word yet this man towered over him absolutely. He quietly waited to see what else this mission had to offer.

Ishiro had resigned himself to leaning against a wall as Makoto came up, his eyes just slightly widened in surprise as the genin approached the gate. That was the genin from the bridge what were the odds of bumping into him here. The surprise was quickly replaced by a warm smile as the shinobi's gaze followed the genin. He so rarely interacted with genin he was a little excited even just at the idea of going on a mission with one. Ishiro pulled out a candy wrapped in wax paper from his pocket as Makoto greeted him and the taller, more muscular ninja. A subtle smirk spread across Ishiro's face at the glare he received from the newly arrived.

"I will do my best, and please look after me sensei." No sooner had the genin spoke then his superior laughed at the idea.  “HA! You should know me better than that. I won’t be looking after any of you. I think you are well enough on your own. You at least should be. " Ishiro was pretty sure that the ninja's eyes lingered on him for that comment, which elicited a deep sigh. It looked like this wouldn't be a cake walk mission, which made sense for a B-Rank. This was slightly problematic for the relatively newly fledged ninja. He lacked the experience and battle instinct that most other ninja had accumulated through there careers.  

"They said I get free reign on how I do this mission. And I think you both need to become stronger. And hell, the other ninja can catch up on their own. Here is what we do. We split up and go across the country. Might take a few days, give or take. Once we have gotten all of the mutants, we will report back here, at the village gate.” As the Jounin looked between the two lower ranked ninja Ishiro's heart sank even more. It was going to be a rather annoyingly difficult mission, at least for Ishiro. Groups of powerful foes that had great teamwork, sounded like a difficult combination to deal with. He just had to keep focus on how delicious the creatures were probably going to be.

“We will be each going to a village. They aren’t too far away from each other, so if I’m not too bored I might go help one of you out. No promises. These villages will have a group of ninja who are skilled at hunting, hired by the Daimyo himself. These villages are the only ones that have been attacked. So we kill them all, and their young to prevent them from spreading. Ishiro will take the one in the East, Makoto will take the one further West. I don’t remember the name of these villages for the life of me, but here’s a map.” casually lifting up his hand Ishiro caught the map, unfurling it to take it in as Maikumaru continued talking.

The Chunin said a bit more before he made his way to the northern village, but Ishiro's eyes focused in on the location he was stationed at. It was a little river town north of Tatekon, Nakazawa. Ishiro had been there once or twice with his family. They were a city well known for their fish markets and sashimi. There was a very low ninja population in the area. If they were being attacked there was a very low chance that the locals could defend themselves from the onslaught. Ishiro didn't even notice that had Maikumaru left as his mind was else where. The mutants' impact on the economy would be pretty ridiculous if they were left to rampage.

Ishiro would open the wax paper, revealing a hard yellow translucent candy. He'd pop it into his mouth crunching it into a sour powder, and he'd wave back at Makoto reaching into his pocket with his other "I'm gonna head on down to Nakazawa. I'll see you again in a few days for the mission report. I've got really high hopes for you Bookworm. Do your best!" Ishiro turned around and ran through the gate with everything in him. He was going to get to that city before anyone else died or got hurt.

[WC= 802/ 1692]
Splintering