Damn, his journey in Iwa was truly remarkable in its vigor, danger, and success. He had traveled all the way from Konohagakure to the Land of Earth's hidden village of Iwagakure. There, he had made his way to their Administration Building in order to deliver a letter to the Tsuchikage, who he ended up having a very... insightful discussion with about the war between Kumo and Kiri (which Kashizudoto had, at this point, concluded was a power play on Kiri's part). As soon as he was given the OK to leave and dick around, he began dashing out on crazy adventures, fighting crazy girls at a university, criminals, animals, mutant beasts, and geographic structures alike! He had met and interacted with so many kinds of people: skilled people, silent people, loud people, and even an old friend from Konoha along the way. Of course, he barely got any rest during those adventures; what really broke the camel's back was the fact that he proceeded to take six dang missions, not to mention that they were the most dangerous that he'd ever taken during his shinobi career, due to his inner overachiever, having the time to do so because of the Hokage's late arrival. As a result, the jonin council promoted him to tokubetsu jonin only a short while ago, word reaching Kashizudoto by messenger hawk; however, he was too exhausted to really care about the fruits of his labor, ironically. Thankfully, some genin helped him with his sleeping problem, using some basic skills known to all shinobi; as a reward, he took them on an A-rank mission in his burst of energy.

Kenta and his entourage were soon to arrive indeed; however, there were some more urgent matters than even the arrival of Hokage himself that needed to be attended to. When he was loitering around in the Administration Building, only really for a few seconds, he caught wind of an assassination plot on the Tsuchikage from Iwa's intelligence department; he would be paid bigtime for eliminating this threat right at the Stone Bridge itself. Of course, the Tsuchikage would be powerful enough to slaughter this guy if they confronted, based on the current intelligence reports on the assassin's skills, but it would be a public danger to the people of Iwa as a whole for an assassin to sneak in, possibly killing people along the way. Speaking of reports, for some reason, this assassin,  was always reported as having different faces every time. Creepy. And probably very dangerous, but the tokujo felt that he was ready...

He approached the Stone Bridge with his usual attire, wearing a black swordsman's robe embroidered with gold on the edges, a gift from Master Piandao after his apprenticeship under him. On his left hip was a bamboo sheath holding the Tentetsutou or the Sword of Heaven, a glimmering black katana which he forged out of a four billion year old meteorite while apprenticing under Master Piandao. Next to it was a coil of wire measuring about fifty feet. That thing was useful in almost... every situation, especially during his adventures here in Iwa. He had used it so much: whether it was to ensure that he could cross a chasm safely, backtrack his steps when he was lost in the tunnels with Oki, or capture as runaway drug dealer while Kashizudoto was too busy dealing with his daughter's kamikaze. It could also be used to rappel up surfaces without the aid of the Supernatural Walking Practice, propel oneself towards a location, or set up traps to slow down, or even capture enemy shinobi. Below that extremely versatile utility was a holster containing basic projectiles: one kunai and three shuriken. On the top of his head was his Konoha hitae-ate, which would display village pride and protect his forehead from basic strikes. With these assets at his disposal, the tokubetsu jonin would wait for his opponent at the Stone Bridge, ready to fight what could perhaps be the hardest battle that he'd ever faced in his life.

WC: 685

Winds blew gently across the Stone Bridge, sweeping Kashizudoto's loose hair to the right side as he awaited his challenge. He heard a clapping on the ground: he squinted to observe a suspicious figure from the distance. Clearly this was the assassin. Upon closer observation, this man (with a remarkably handsome face) was wearing a suit and tie, not really the appearance of an assassin. The man walked up, reaching the opposite end of the Stone Bridge with a smirk on his face. All of a sudden, a jolt of fear ran through the tokujo; he ws too young to die and maybe this level of mission was way to risky for one like him. Still, he tried to regain his confidence.

"Ha... Ha.... Ha... They sent a child after me? A foreign one, at that. Iwagakure must be low on skilled shinobi. Still, your face is very nice..." began the psychotic assassin, "I claim it." With that, the man took out  a whip with a sword at its end; the tokujo had never seen such a weapon before. With speed that Kashizudoto could not even attempt to match, the man swung his whip sword at Kashizudoto from afar, prompting the tokujo to pull out his own katana and parry the attack; as a result of the disparity in their strengths, the tokujo was pushed back a few meters as a result, giving the man another opening to attack him, which Kashizudoto attempted to block again. Meteorite rock scraped against cold, hard steel, pushing the tokujo back again, this time rolling at a higher speed. He was used to winning; he couldn't keep this up with physical skill alone.

Thankfully, he had mental clarity at the moment and quickly inflamed his sword with katon chakra; if the two blades clashed, this time the whip sword would take on significant damage from the jutsu. It seemed that the assassin cared little, flinging his sword towards Kashizudoto in a succint slash that Kashizudoto could barely parry; however, while Kashizudoto was still knocked back to the edge of the bridge, the opponent's blade took significant damage from the flames of Kashizudoto's sword. The man in the suit and tie, likely being very perceptive, noticed this and retracted his weapon.

"Heh, damn you, cretin," the assassin uttered with an evil smirk on his... face, "Perhaps a bullet is the only method that will eliminate you." What did this man have in his arsenal? The tokujo would prepare to cast the only defensive jutsu in his arsenal as the man made a string of hand seals and shot out a bullet, stronger and faster than anything that he'd ever seen: it was probably an S-rank jutsu. He formed a snake seal with his left hand and a thick barrier of chakra surrounded him, taking the hit for him and violently dissipating upon impact. He was safe: for now.

Kashizudoto Chakra:

WC: 1174

"Gah, what simple tricks you use to try and delay your death, pronounced the assassin, "But in the end, you know that I will have your face. There is no stopping it." This guy was much more skilled than Kashizudoto by a longshot, using much stronger jutsu that he guessed would be fatal on impact, but Kashizudoto's strong willpower allowed him to push forward despite the odds, that boy just couldn't be held back, even if it would cost him his life one day.

"Where laceration fails, incineration succeeds," the man of many faces recited poetically, his suit and tie still on firmly through the entire fight; after all, Kashizudoto was still not able to get him in within the range of his Tentetsutou. Kashizudoto liked burning stuff: when that "stuff" was on the opposing end, but he wasn't really a fan of getting burned himself. The assassin began to weave hand seals and inhale deeply, sending Kashizudoto into quick thinking mode as he tried to figure out what to do in order to NOT die.

First stage of quick thinking: assess the damn situation. He took a look around and recognized that, as a result of their swordfight earlier and the recoil that Kashizudoto experienced from it, he was right on the edge of the bridge and that the assassin was at least a good 40 meters or so away, in the middle of the bridge, same position he was in before the fight begun. He was pointed straight forward, meaning that his jutsu would run straight across the bridge.

Second stage of quick thinking: figure out options. The first option was the easiest to throw away: die. There was only one more option that he find from the info that he had gathered about his position: jump off the Stone Bridge and down to the bottom. Sure, it wouldn't be the most graceful thing in the world, and, more importantly, the assassin would gain the high ground; however, it sure was better than the other option.

Third stage of quick thinking: execute a plan without hesitation. As a result of step two, he decided to go with the lesser of the two evils and jump right off the bridge as the man began to exhale a giant wall of flames that rushed at 35 meters per second; he barely escaped total incineration, but he did it indeed: that was all that mattered at the moment. To prevent the steep drop from breaking his bones, he reached into his holster and opened it up with his left hand, releasing the shuriken and kunai up in the air with Kashizudoto. He grabbed the latter and stabbed it into the side of the bridge to help counteract gravity; therefore, he fell down slower as his kunai scraped through the bridge. He landed on his feet with a thud, at least the kunai helped to soften the landing so that no body parts actually broke. He had successfully dodged the S-rank jutsu with this maneuver, but the assassin now had a clear advantage, as he could attack the tokujo from a higher elevation.

Kashizudoto Chakra:

WC: 1700

The majestic wall of flames, an S-rank jutsu, ran through the bridge at an incredible speed in comparison to its size, incinerating anything that wasn't rock atop that bridge. Damn, he would've been dead if it weren't for his quick thinking. He couldn't celebrate just yet; not only was he in a positional disadvantage, but the opponent probably had another S-rank jutsu up his sleeve. While the assassin was still exhaling his jutsu; he made a last minute decision to set up a decoy, creating a shadow clone while the real Kashizudoto would take the long way around to get back to the top of the bridge, the shadow clone attracting the man's attention and jutsu while the real one would try and sneak up behind him. The reason that he didn't use a normal clone was in order to cast jutsu from it was that in the case he used some lower ranked jutsu first in an attempt to tire out the tokujo, the shadow clone could block them with jutsu of its own so that the original did not have to reveal his cover by casting a jutsu. Perhaps this could work, only time would tell.

"Heh heh," yelled the assassin from the top of the bridge after he was done exhaling the jutsu and noticed the shadow clone (who he thought was the real boy) under the bridge, "You did me a very valuable favor. I... wasn't thinking when I tried to incinerate you. If I did, your beautiful face would be turned into ashes, poor, poor me. Thankfully, you protected your beautiful face; now I can kill you without inflicting too much damage on your visage." The assassin then began to make a string of hand seals before covering his mouth and releasing a large beam of wind and dust headed straight for the shadow clone; he couldn't let it hit or the clone would dispel. Thankfully, he was primarily a katon user, so dealing with an A-rank fuuton jutsu was no biggy. The shadow clone filled up his throat with a thick layer of katon chakra and released it in the form of a flaming dragon head, a B-rank katon jutsu, that headed towards the fuuton jutsu, both exploding and dissipating on impact with a loud bang that would rock the ears of the assassin, the clone, and the original Kashizudoto alike. Meanwhile, the real him was able to quietly scale up to bridge undetected by rappelling up with his wire (attached to a kunai), as the assassin's senses were distracted by the bang and the fight with the shadow clone. Kashizudoto knew that with the assassin's superior hearing though, he could probably hear it if the boy took any more steps closer, so he stood still, readying for charging once the guy was vulnerable.

"Heh heh," yelled the assassin again in a mocking tone, "This time, I will have your face!" He formed a large string of hand seals, creating a large pool of water all around the shadow clone that required all his concentration. Now this was the chance! He began charging towards the assassin from behind while he was busy with the jutsu! Huge bullets of water began knocking the clone up and down in the air until it dispelled in a puff of smoke. By this time, the flaming blade of Kashizudoto was swinging right at the assassin, who was too busy basking in the glory of barraging an enemy with water bullets to realize his mistake and react in time to stop the strike.

The Tentetsutou cut 2.25 inches deep through his back in a straight line, third degree burns running through the entire cut; the impact caused the assassin to be knocked over the edge of the bridge, flailing and cursing as he attempted to shield his face from the impact using his arms. Neither he nor his face made it alive from that unexpected free fall. The boy did not wish to look any further at the downfall of a man, literally, who died due, at least partly, to his vanity. He had no interest in checking out what his face truly was; it all didn't matter. What he really cared about was how this man became what he was: to consider appearance so highly that he would kill people to obtain their looks. It was all so sad.

He left the Stone Bridge as quite a mess, a giant puddle of water spanning more than a dozen meters was left down below the bridge and everything on top was thoroughly incinerated; ashes covered the Stone Bridge as a replacement. He could only imagine the reaction that a traveler would have upon seeing the bridge in such a state; this truly was the greatest shinobi battle that he had ever had, considering that the man was capable of using S-rank jutsus in the battle. This was the kind of stuff that Kashizudoto would be expected to do in the near future, a big step up from those tasks to kill third-rate bandits; now he'd have to go fight the best of the best and win.

Kashizudoto Chakra:

Kashizudoto Shadow Clone 1 Chakra:

WC: 2576

[Exit]

A-rank Mission: 2500/2500