Silence. Sadness. Almost surreal senses at the event that was currently occurring in Iwagakure. Crowded at the cemetery, multiple groups of people were mourning in their own ways, saying their final farewells to a grave. A grave that housed a young child, one who hadn’t even reached the age of six. Family, friends, and generally a large amount of people were gathered. It was far too young an age to die. And watching from the distance, a silent bystander of the sorrow, was a large man, sat along the rocks of the Cliffside, respecting and taking part in the silence.

For once on his own, the man was colossal, standing at a tremendous six foot and five inches. His shirt was a deep black, as was the jacket that was clad above it, flowing down past the back and sides of his legs. Around his neck like a scarf was a metallic chain, his legs covered by black combat trousers. His feet, large like the rest of him, were protected by heavy metal boots. Hands, covered by matt like hair that was black and thick, were tipped with claws where one would expect nails. His stern face wore an expression of sadness, hair patted down seemingly with his hand rather than neatly combed, a complete mess of black hair. A pair of brown eyes gazed down upon those mourning, and with a sigh, the man began to move. The man in particular was the bear ninja, Oki of the Kuma clan. Today, his mission, was to avenge a dead child.

In particular, the mission that had occurred was a large rock python that had until then caused minor nuisances to the locals. It had eaten livestock, and now, taken the life of a child. This meant someone had to deal with it. Of course, the ninja that was assigned to deal with it was Oki. Likely because he was a big guy. Equally as likely because everyone else was busy with other jobs. The reason he was chosen was unimportant. So, shaking his head, the bear ninja looked away from the funeral. He had the rough location of the snake sightings, and so his mission would begin. He made west. For the Wild West.

After a run of half an hour, the bear man had arrived before the great expanse known as the Wild West. The ground here was rough, cracked, and all around just dangerous. A wide expanse of desolation and unpleasantness, an atmosphere that all at once contrasted the subtleties of the village itself. While one could imagine tourism to the village of stone, here there would be no imagination, no expectation. It was, in a word, harsh. Footing in this area was something to be careful, as among the increasingly sporadic patches of grass, separated by expanses of broken stone, were areas of danger. Locations where, were a person to fall, it would be their final fall. Death. Yet still, life out here existed. Sometimes even thrived. Creatures that were so deadly and dangerous themselves, which the dangers presented by the ground itself meant nothing. One such creature, of course, being the python that Oki was tasked with eliminating.

Oki, being the rather unsubtle person he was, decided perhaps it would be best to try the easiest approach to finding a giant, man eating snake. What was such an approach, one might ask? Well, the simple answer to that question, would be finding out by just waiting. Of course, waiting is too boring, so, instead of that, cupping his hands around his mouth, Oki simply shouted. “OI SNAKE. LUNCH IS HERE!” at the top of his lungs. Aside from birds flying away from the noise with haste, nothing really seemed to come from this. So, he waited. First a minute. Then half an hour. Finally, after an entire hour of simply standing in the damaged earth of the west, Oki heard a noise. The sound of ground dragging beneath great weight. A low drumming hiss of a sound seemed to re-spring to life the almost meditative Oki, who was rather bored from the lack of a snake. Yet here, to his delight, was the snake. A behemoth of a reptile, one of the few things Oki had met that was larger than him. Slithering its way out of one of the patches of nearby shrubbery, Oki crouched low into a defensive stance as the creature sped up towards him. It was clearly quite used to eating things that entered its territory. Little did the big snake realise it had bitten off more than it could chew.

The snake lunged at Oki, the bear man reaching out with speed surprising for one of his bulk, gripping the snake around the middle section of its body. With a grin, he proceeded to wrap himself around the snake, a rather comical reversal of the general role of the snake’s serpentine body. Squeezing with his pure physical might, he begun to spin in circles, the snake’s upper and lower body swirling with him. His intentions with doing this were simple. How can a snake circle you, when you’re making it circle already? That and he just loved to make things spin before slamming them. It was just his preferred way of fighting.  Simple, dramatic, and hurt to be on the receiving end of it. These reasons made it suit the big lug of a man perfectly, although the rock python probably had different thoughts on the matter.

With an audible crash, Oki proceeded to slam the snake into the ground with all of his weight, and all of the momentum from the spin. It was quite fortunate not only for him, but for the snake, as the creature ended up landing face first on the ground. The raw impact force on such a vulnerable body area resulted in a near instant death for the snake. With a sigh, Oki waited a moment, watching to see if the serpent moved. It didn’t. Patting himself down from the brief task that caused his combat trousers to be dirty, he grabbed the serpent by the tail, turning back towards the main village. Killing the snake would not bring back the child whose life it had taken. Nor would it bring comfort to the family, who were in the process of mourning, of grief. But it would do something equally as important. No more children were at risk of the large snake. No more parents would cower in fear of their child’s life. Oki would first show the body to his superiors, the ones who assigned him the mission, as proof of its completion. Then, he would see to it that the snake was given a proper burial. And he would mourn the death of the creature. After all, Oki knew better than anyone else that the poor thing was just trying to survive. Nobody would mourn the snake if Oki didn’t. So, picking up as much of the body as possible, Oki made his way to the rest of the village, saddened by the dead creature. It would take a long time to bury.

1190 WC DONE
[EXIT THREAD]

Trading reward for C rank jutsu

Training: