Knock. Knock.

Bokuden threw himself up to a seated position in his bed and reached for his sword that was kept at his bedside as he performed a visual scan of his room. Satomi peeked her head over the foot of his bed and stared at Bokuden, having been woken up by the sound as well. “Nothing looks to be out of place,” Bokuden thought to himself as his eyes shifted back and forth around the room, “I don’t sense anyone either. What the hell was that sound?” Bokuden stopped looking around the room and instead turned his attention to Satomi. “Anything?” Bokuden inquired, wondering whether Satomi had picked up something that he had missed.

“Whoever it was, they are gone now,” Satomi replied immediately in an alert tone, “But that noise came from the window.” She broke her gaze with Bokuden and turned her head towards the window, staring intently at it and prompting Bokuden to do the same. “I’ll go check it out,” Satomi continued, raising herself up from her bed and beginning to walk towards the window.

“Stop,” Bokuden said immediately, causing Satomi to stop in her tracks and turn her head to face him once again, “I’ll go. I don’t sense anyone out there so there shouldn’t be a problem.” Even though he said those words, they didn’t stop Bokuden from grabbing his katana before he got out of his bed and made his way towards the window. Upon arriving at the window Bokuden paused for a moment, examining the window closely for signs of tampering. Once he was satisfied that there were no traps set he slowly slid open the window to and looked around the surrounding rooftops for signs of his uninvited guest. A breeze blew causing strands of Bokuden’s hair to fall over his face and causing an audible flapping sound to be heard from directly below Bokuden’s window sill.  Bokuden looked down to see a piece of paper flapping in the wind, fastened with a wire to a kunai that had been stuck into the wall below his window. “Obviously this was meant for me,” Bokuden thought to himself as he yanked the kunai from the wall and pulled it inside with him, closing the window behind him.

“What is it?” Satomi asked curiously as she saw the kunai with paper attached to it that Bokuden had in his hand, “A message of some kind?”

“Seems like it,” Bokuden replied as he examined the seal on the paper, noticing that it was that of the raikage’s office, “Looks like we have work to do.” Bokuden then used the kunai that he had pulled from the wall to break the seal on the paper and unfolded it to read the message.

Another monster has been attacking travelers outside of the village, this one seemingly more powerful and ferocious then before. Having dealt with the first one, we find you have the most experience and are therefore the most qualified to stop one of these… creatures… once again. It needs to die, no exceptions. All we request is a sample for testing here within the village, any sample will do.

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Word Count: 535/2500

“And?” Satomi inquired, tilting her head in curiosity.

“I was right,” Bokuden answered stoically, “We definitely have a job to do.” Bokuden walk over to his bedside table and placed the kunai and letter down beside his alarm clock before proceeding to make his bed. “You remember that monster that we were sent to take care of a few weeks back? The one in the cave?” Bokuden said as he tucked the overhang from his sheets under his mattress.

Satomi stretched her body out as she begun the process of waking herself up after their abrupt visit that morning. “You mean the one that caught you in the ribs?” Satomi asked as she let out an exaggerated yawn, “It can’t be the same one, can it? We buried that thing, we saw it with our own eyes.”

Bokuden cut the paper free from the kunai it was strung to and carried it with him as he made his way over to his closet. He folded it and placed it into his pocket as he reached into his closet and put on a t-shirt. Placing one sleeve in at a time Bokuden turned his body around to face Satomi once more and spoke as he popped his head out through the top of the shirt, “Yes, the one that caught me in the ribs. Although I had no intention to refer to it as such. But no, I don’t think it is the exact same one. As you said we were there, we saw the life leave that beast with our own eyes. If there was even a shred of life left in him before we left I would have picked up something, but there were no electrical signals going through his body, not even breathing commands. So no, not the same one, but apparently something similar. Similar enough that they are requesting we go after it personally due to having experience with the last one.” Bokuden closed his eyes and shook his head a bit before continuing, “Honestly I was hoping that we’d never have to encounter something like that again, let alone a bigger one.”

“Bigger than the last one?” Satomi responded with obvious surprise in her voice, “The other one was huge, how the hell is there a bigger one?” Satomi shook her head as well and began walking towards the door before continuing, “You know what? I don’t even think I want to know. If we have an assignment to complete we’ll complete it. I’ll let you worry about the details.”

“Oh, thanks,” Bokuden replied sarcastically before following Satomi out of the room, “I’ve always appreciated your sympathy in these kinds of situations. Now let’s get something to eat before we get ready so we can leave. Judging by the tone of the mission briefing and the way that it was delivered this morning, I don’t think that they want there to be that large of a window between time of delivery and time of completion. This should probably be taken care of asap.”

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Word Count: 1052/2500

“Another one? How is that even possible? It isn’t like any animal I’ve ever heard of, there has to be more to this whole situation. That thing was a monster in every sense of the word, but when I looked into its eyes it seemed almost… human. For all of the primal rage and monstrous roaring its eyes were filled with sorrow. Those weren’t the eyes of some mere beast, you wouldn’t see that expression in the eyes of a troll. It seemed almost as though it wanted to cry. Even the way I killed it was curious. With its strength it should have been able to free itself from that rubble, even after the injuries that it would have sustained. Why didn’t it? Did it want to die?”

“Bokuden! Will you focus? You’re the only one of us who knows where the hell we are going,” Satomi yelled waving around her tail back and forth in front of his face, “We’re on a mission, this isn’t the time to be spacing out." Satomi then circled around to Bokuden’s back and nudged him forward, "Walk, the quicker we get this over with the better. You said it yourself, the village wants this thing dead and they want it dead now.”

“Oh… yeah,” Bokuden muttered as he shook himself out of his daze and began walking, “We aren’t terribly far from the designated location now. Once we get there finding a ten foot tall, murderous monster should be a breeze.” Bokuden abruptly sped off, jumping into the forested area nearby and began travelling by tree top. Satomi was right, this wasn’t the time to be over analyzing things. Regardless of what Bokuden thought about the situation one thing would not change: He was assigned to take this beast down before it did any more damage and that is exactly what he intended to do.

“Hold on,” Satomi exclaimed, a bit surprised by Bokuden’s abrupt take off, “Don’t just go out ahead so suddenly!” She then immediately took off after Bokuden, hopping from branch to branch through the forested area and following Bokuden’s scent in order to track him as he had already gotten out in front and her view of him was blocked by the thicket of trees. “One minute he is standing completely still, spacing out and the next he is running full speed through rough terrain like he wasn’t just in his own world,” Satomi said to herself, grunting it out a bit as she was using her full speed to try and close the gap between Bokuden and herself, “I’m going to kick his ass.”

Bokuden brought himself to a complete stop in a tree branch overlooking a clearing in the forest, taking a crouching position in the tree as he vigilantly scanned the area. Satomi arrived only moments after, clearly annoyed with Bokuden’s actions. “If you think you are just going to-“ Satomi began to chastise Bokuden before being interrupted by one of their hand sings telling her to keep quiet as an enemy was near. She looked around herself for a bit, not seeing anything yet, but soon picked up the scent of their target. The monster was upwind from them and not far off by the smell of it. It was heading in the direction of the clearing, giving Bokuden and Satomi a fortunate opportunity for to launch a surprise attack from the cover of the forest.

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Word Count: 1641/2500

The duo stood in complete silence as they awaited the monster’s approach, its thundering footsteps seemingly shaking the earth itself as it approached the clearing. As its stomps drew closer and closer to Bokuden and Satomi’s location, echoing through the forest with each loud thud, animals began to flee the area. Perched atop a branch in the tall tree Bokuden and Satomi could see deer and other forest animals running in the opposite direction while flocks of birds emerged from the surrounding trees and began flying away. Apparently every creature in the forest knew better than to stick around and face whatever was coming their way except for Bokuden and Satomi. They continued to listen for the approaching stomps as they began closing the distance to their location. It wasn’t long before those stomps were accompanied by loud, animal like grunts and the sounds of rustling in the nearby shrubbery. The image of their mark eluded them as the source of those thundering footsteps was veiled by the lush greenery of the forest it was trudging through.

Before long the stomping arrived directly next to the clearing in the forest, prompting both Bokuden and Satomi to snap their heads swiftly in that direction to identify the source. Their suspicions were confirmed as they witnessed a hulking, monstrous creature emerge from the greenery holding a kanobo rested on its shoulder and dragging a corpse along the ground behind it, leaving a trail of blood smeared against the earth. Bokuden’s eyes narrowed and Satomi winced in disgust at the barbaric sight. That size, that shape, there was no doubt left in their minds, this was their target. The two glanced over at each other and nodded slightly, both understanding what had to be done.

Bokuden took the lead, but fully cognizant of how powerful the last one of these monsters was Bokuden decided to proceed with caution. He swiftly weaved a sequence of hand signs before two masses of water began to condense beside him into clones. With these clones Bokuden could launch a surprise attack and hopefully trap the beast without the need to engage it up close. Both clones then darted out from the treetops and rapidly closed in on the creature, each understanding their primary goal; they were to flank the beast, using the element of surprise and their numerical advantage to get the jump on it and ensnare it in a water prison. Once that was done ending the beast’s miserable existence would have been a simple task. Despite the speed and surprise factor of the clones’ attack the beast seemed to react to it almost instantly, swinging his kanobo in a large arching path and catching both clones in the swing. Bokuden winced as he watched both of his clones return to their water like state, “It shouldn’t be that fast. What the hell is up with this thing?” Bokuden dropped from his branch down into the clearing and stared at the beast face to face. If the beast was strong enough to foil that plan then this mission would have to be completed the old fashioned way after all.

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Word Count: 2170/2500

Bokuden loosely gripped the hilt of his chokuto as he awaited the beast to make its move, breathing in a cadence as he watched for its slightest twitch. The beast made no move at first, merely staring at him, huffing and puffing. “Those eyes,” Bokuden thought to himself, “They’re the same as the last one. Such a pained and sorrowful expression. Just looking into them makes me feel as though they are about to break out in tears.” Bokuden’s thoughts were interrupted as the beast charged towards him, grunting loudly with each stride. The speed at which it closed in on him surprised Bokuden, this creature moved like a shinobi. It was fast, but not as fast as Bokuden who was able to avoid its swipe by leaping over the beast. From this position the task would be simple, draw Suiko-Tenno and end this now. It would be as simple as a quick slash from the draw to kill the beast, but as it turned its head up and looked at Bouden once again he hesitated. Its eyes, those same haunting eyes… Bokuden just couldn’t bring himself to strike as they gazed at him.

Due to his hesitation Bokuden found himself in a compromising position, seeing the beast raise its arm to strike as he was airborne. “Shit!” Bokuden exclaimed as he removed his hand from his chokuto and weaved a sequence of hand signs, creating a water clone right before him. Bokuden used to clone to grab and throw his original body out of harm’s way as the beast’s monstrous arm crashed into the clone, reducing it to nothing but water once more. Bokuden landed directly behind the beast, grabbing hold of his sword once more. “This time, no more hesitations,” Bokuden said to himself as he narrowed his eyes and focused his gaze on the back of the beast’s head, “I will close those eyes for the rest of eternity.” All that could be seen was the initial blue flash emanating from Suiko-Tenno as Bokuden performed a single lightning fast strike and sheathed his blade in one motion. There was a moment of pause before the beast’s head rolled off of its shoulders. Bokuden pulled out a sheet of cloth and threw it over the severed head, not wanting to look at it any further, and tied the head up in the sheet for travel. “This should suffice for a sample,” Bokuden said as he jumped back into the tree where Satomi was still waiting, “Now let’s get back to the village.”

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Word Count: 2604/2500