It was supposed to be like any other day. The sun was out. People were going about their day in Iwagakure. Yet perhaps, such a serene scene, with clouds almost like a distant memory to the sky, was merely a mockery of reality. For despite such an aesthetically appetising sight, the atmosphere was tense, the air heavier than lead. Perhaps the mutters, the screams within the living quarters were the most obvious sign. Yet, to those not in the living quarters at that time, it meant nothing. And the day was looking to be like just any other, still at its early hours, and perhaps showing promise of a pleasant time.

Clad in body armour, their identity and voice hidden behind the clothing that perfectly portrays the life of an ANBU, an agent stood among a couple of their fellow, masked peers. Speaking in hushed whispers, the trio were positioned just outside the administration building, perhaps determining what best to do for whatever seemed to wrack their minds. Finally, it seemed some sort of agreement had been met as the three ANBU agents nodded to each other, dispersing with the body flicker technique and going about separate ways. Wearing a mask whose features had the resemblance of a monkey, this particular shinobi did not travel far from where they just were; now perched on the windowsill of the Tsuchikage, waiting outside for them to be allowed inside. A knock on the glass was all the indication the ninja would give before opening the window, allowing themselves in. Whatever it was, it was urgent. However, not urgent enough for the ANBU to speak without permission from the Kage.

(OOC: I know it’s a short post, but, posts’ll be longer after the scene is set~)

It was... calm and cool... the wind blew through the open window in Karumo's office in light gusts. Not enough to push up any of the papers or throw things around the room but enough that it would push his hair and the woosh would fill the quiet sound beyond the pen strokes striking the various documents and papers on his desk. He focused intently, was quiet between the wind and the breath from his nostril, it felt... out of place.

It was a quiet that worried him, no one had visited him in some time, turning in forms or other busy work forsaken. The pen swished his name across the paper to leave his name at a line on the bottom of a page. The pen pressed harder and the quill cracked under the pressure, just as the sound of a knocking came at the window. The tension built into the air he sighed and dropped the pen in the paper.

In dashed three bodies, he leaned back in his chair as they moved in and set themselves up across from his desk in a line. Heads down, they made their greeting to Karumo, it seemed urgent as they barged in, Karumo's eyes followed and he sat up a bit and looked on them. Three ANBU members, dressed in their gear and masks to go along with it. Karumo spoke up calmly and clearly, "What's the emergency?" he spoke and began to stand up behind his desk, waiting for whatever news they would deliver.


[258 words]

The monkey masked ANBU was the first to speak up, replying in response to the question posed by the Kage. Voice emotionless from the mask, the only hint of discomfort in their voice would be apparent from the slight hesitation with which he spoke. “Well, lord Tsuchikage… In the living quarters, there… Appears to be something we can’t figure out. A body, but… Well, I suppose the state of the body alone is what is confusing…” they said with a slow nod of their head. Taking the hint, the ANBU to their right stepped forth, speaking and stepping forward with some papers. Almost as if something they were reciting, having no personal thoughts or emotion prevalent at all as the snake-like mask looked down to the papers. “Lord Kage, down by the residential district roughly 2 kilometres to the south, several local residents awoke this morning to head to work, and en route discovered what we’re still trying to identify. Judging from what we’ve been able to gather upon first inspections, the individual was a missing ninja from Sunagakure – whoever it was, they had their forehead protector on when they died. There are signs of a conflict, and the body has sustained multiple wounds, some of different types. Cuts, bruises. There’s even a broken bone. Although perhaps the oddest thing about this individual is that their eyes were gouged out. But, they weren’t stolen. The eyes were found near the body. For the sake of not tampering with the scene, we left everything as is, and have a perimeter set up. We are here to request you come with us, and personally investigate the matter. It’s not every day you have a missing nin from a foreign village, brutally dead at your doorstep. The choice is there for you Lord Sekuro. We’ll await your decision.”

At this, the three ANBU simply stood, ready to do as instructed. If they were dismissed, they would go. If the Kage were interested in investigating the matter personally, the trio would escort him at a quick pace to the scene of the crime. A mystery is now afoot in Iwagakure.

Karumo stood at the ready, his gaze was more intense and focused than normal, he listened as the first ANBU member spoke up, “Well, lord Tsuchikage… In the living quarters, there… Appears to be something we can’t figure out. A body, but… Well, I suppose the state of the body alone is what is confusing…” Karumo didn't waver or move in the slightest. He had no need for the run around but before he could say anything another ANBU member stepped forward with some papers, Karumo reached out to take them and listened as he spoke up,

“Lord Kage, down by the residential district roughly 2 kilometres to the south, several local residents awoke this morning to head to work, and en route discovered what we’re still trying to identify. Judging from what we’ve been able to gather upon first inspections, the individual was a missing ninja from Sunagakure – whoever it was, they had their forehead protector on when they died. There are signs of a conflict, and the body has sustained multiple wounds, some of different types. Cuts, bruises. There’s even a broken bone. Although perhaps the oddest thing about this individual is that their eyes were gouged out. But, they weren’t stolen. The eyes were found near the body. For the sake of not tampering with the scene, we left everything as is, and have a perimeter set up. We are here to request you come with us, and personally investigate the matter. It’s not every day you have a missing nin from a foreign village, brutally dead at your doorstep. The choice is there for you Lord Sekuro. We’ll await your decision.”

Karumo nodded and folded the papers under his arm, "I suppose that's everything then? I'll let you lead the way..." Karumo would motion towards the exit and prepare to follow them out as he was. He had his pouch with a few ninja tools and a few cigars and a lighter along with it, not that those would matter. Within moments he would emerge past the desk at the ready, thinking over the details in his mind, gruesome and tough to hear, already trying to wrap his head around the mystery before him. He had zero intention of letting this one slide under his watchful eye, and beyond that, a good mystery was the perfect way to escape away from the boring paperwork of the administration.


[411 words, 669 words total]

The ANBU nodded, leading the Tsuchikage to the scene of the crime. It took roughly two minutes of running for them to arrive, keeping up at a sustained run to get there while the weather was optimal. It was a parklike area, a square that was likely intended for use as a social space, or perhaps for stalls during the summer. However, the cobbled area that was surrounded by houses and shops of assorted degrees of fanciness, was now blocked off by the wardens, likely to prevent civilians from getting near the area, and cordoning off the area with tape. Upon arrival, one of the ANBU stepped forwards, speaking with the nearest warden. It was a brief exchange, and with a nod, the warden stepped aside, allowing access to the scene for the Tsuchikage and his trio of ANBU escorts.

Within the boundary of what was clearly defined as the crime scene, not yet modified or removed, the sight was gruesome. The very first thing notable was the wooden beams of a nearby shop. Lodged into the wood, two shuriken were stuck, a third left scattered upon the ground in several pieces. Scorch marks stained the ground, the smooth of the cobbled stone broken at several points. Somewhat burnt at the edge, a wooden staff was left out in the open, splintered at several points. The monkey masked ANBU stepped forward, crouching down and pointing to something written on the floor, writing in blood.

This is the sin of greed.

The third ANBU who until then had yet to speak now pointed to what was the main cause of concern. As described, a body was left, slumped against one of the nearby houses side walls. Clad in a white jacket that was now stained red, the individual had silver hair that seemed in a mess, singed at several points. Their head looked down, and the slump of their posture was perhaps exaggerated by the grotesque distortion of the body’s right leg, which appeared to be snapped and bent to the side. A kunai was stabbed into the characters left hand, through the back, and perhaps most terrifyingly of all, was that the persons eyes, which held a black and red swirl – likely a dojutsu of some form – were currently on the cobbles next to the person. Were Karumo to look at it, the face would be entirely disfigured, the eyes having been brutally and messily gouged out, and the mouth covered with tape. The entire situation was bloody, and to make matters even more brutal, the body had scratches and bruises all over their body. Lastly, but not least, covering the users forehead was a now bloody forehead protector for Sunagakure, with a line scratched down the middle horizontally.[/color]

Karumo was led through the streets of the city, by his ANBU agents, thinking calmly and quietly on his own people. Their... focus and thinking on the situation ahead of him. The perimeter set around the area kept every civilian entity away from the scene, unable to even glance towards the site that was restricted.  

Karumo entered around the corner to a grueling site... the ANBU moved around into their various positions, there was one man writing into a notepad, probably the detective assigned from the police force. Karumo immediately noticed the burn marks around, immediately taking note of the body as the ANBU pointed to it, Karumo stood back to the scene as a whole and took it in. Of course, the gruesome disfigurement and beating of the body an obvious source of clues and information, but it would never tell the whole story. Instead he looked thoroughly to the scorch marks that stained the ground, noticing their intensity and location, the direction they pointed, then the broken staff laying in the middle of the ground and the cracked earth.

Beyond that, the shuriken and a shattered shuriken with it and a gruesome and archaic message scribbled in blood amongst the ground, This is the sin of greed, the words were... a calling or reference maybe? A message perhaps, it was often that vigilante left their calling and motto about their actions. It was so often for fame and notoriety instead of serving justice with their types but still, there was a story here to be told. A build up of actions, the climax, a motivation to it all and a reasoning and justification for its intensity, whether it would truly justify anything could be decided in the future.

For now, Karumo stepped closer to the body, ignoring its disfigurement, he hadn't spoken a word since he'd arrived, but suddenly he spoke up to the officer while inspecting the body and its details, "What can you tell me about what we know? And how much of the scene has been documented and collected for evidence?" he started out, waiting and listening to his response of whatever he would have to say as he would draw a kunai, hovering it above some of the cut wounds to see if it lined up, if they were done with the tools of a shinobi specifically or not. Then... close observation of the socket of the eyes, the cut marks and wounds that showed where they were gouged out, were they clawed at like a beast or did that come afterwards, the condition of the eyes themselves, he tried to note it all to form a picture. The tape still over the mouth and bruised, beaten, and tattered all around, it was gruesome to look at it and he wouldn't get it out of his mind for some time. But he held the contents of his stomach, his shock, his horror as he thought through the situation and listened intently to every detail that the investigator or even the ANBU after him, could offer.


[514 words, 1183 words total]

The man seemed surprised by the Kage’s inquiry for further information, unsure of what further information he could provide. Still, despite that, the investigator spoke up, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke. “Well, lord Kage. I believe first, it may be important to talk about when the body was discovered. This morning, at 2AM, a couple of the local gang members, the harmless one might I specify, were out and about, doing their usual meetings outside of common hours. One of the gang members, who wishes to remain anonymous, suggested the group hang out at this particular location. They weren’t sure on what it was at first, due to it being dark, and stated that as soon as they realised what it was, they ran. The gang’s leader was the one who informed us, and we arrived to section off the area as soon as possible. Other than that, we don’t have much information. We called for ANBU as soon as we could, and, well, the ANBU seem to have deemed it as requiring a step higher in terms of investigational importance.”

Before he could speak further, the man was cut off by one of the ANBU, who spoke rather plainly, holding papers in their hand. “If you wish, I can call them off, however, I have just instructed a forensic team to arrive.” He stopped, looking at what the Kage did with the kunai. The cuts seemed a perfect match, signifying the wounds to have come from kunai. The inspection that the Kage did then to the eyes revealed more… Interesting results. Light scratches grazed the skin, just below and above the eye, and the eye sockets were damaged, likely gouged out in a cruder, more violent way, with as little details of the eyelashes left – as if someone had just punched the eyes out. The eyes themselves however, were more… Unique. They only seemed damaged at the back-most point, where they would have been connected to the brain. The iris and pupil were not on the eye however, instead having a form of dojutsu that was akin to the Sharingan, however, not; a total of 8 bladed, scythe like shapes, all emanating from a centre point.

The ANBU sighed, deciding to do investigating of their own. One of them body-flickered, the monkey masked one disappearing. The other two went about general investigations, the one with papers simply flicking through the documents they held in hand. This was odd…

The investigator rubbed his neck, “Well, lord Kage. I believe first, it may be important to talk about when the body was discovered. This morning, at 2AM, a couple of the local gang members, the harmless ones might I specify, were out and about, doing their usual meetings outside of common hours. One of the gang members, who wishes to remain anonymous, suggested the group hang out at this particular location. They weren’t sure on what it was at first, due to it being dark, and stated that as soon as they realised what it was, they ran. The gang’s leader was the one who informed us, and we arrived to section off the area as soon as possible. Other than that, we don’t have much information. We called for ANBU as soon as we could, and, well, the ANBU seem to have deemed it as requiring a step higher in terms of investigational importance.” Karumo mused upon the details, the plot thickened up, more of the story unfolded before him, the beginnings and the background to the intro gave light. But for some reason it all seemed... misconstrued in some sense.

Karumo stepped back from the body and holstered his kunai, he didn't actually touch anything so the kunai was clean still, but the cuts, at least some of them, were obvious marks from a kunai. So another ninja did this... was it an Iwa ninja then or someone else? He couldn't necessarily rule out anyone specifically, but glancing back and forth between that headband, Iwa ninja had a directive when dealing with missing ninja from other lands. To apprehend and arrest them, or to alert one's superior(s) if the suspect is identified to be a dangerous or high ranking ninja. But this face, what was left of it, didn't remind Karumo of anyone specific in the bingo book either. “If you wish, I can call them off, however, I have just instructed a forensic team to arrive.” The investigator was cut off, Karumo had inspected the eyes, violent tears at the skin but lightly at that. They weren't deep tears in the slightest, no wild cuts across the face and emanating down. The eyes themselves as well, seemed intact except nearest the back of the eye and near the ocular nerves connecting point.

To Karumo, this meant the eyes were torn from their socket with anger and malice, maybe not anger but with emotion, it wasn't precise in any form, the victim probably resisted where they could. But at the same time, it seemed a foolish resistance, the pattern of black and red in those eyes concerned Karumo. He spoke as he mused about the situation in front of him, "No no, let the forensic team run through, but I'll be keeping a very close eye on everything at that..." he smirked, a small test to see how advanced Iwa's forensics were. With the university nearby, they trained the best of the world's minds in a variety of disciplines and under Karumo's leadership, the school expanded it's core sciences funding, curriculum, and research to all time high levels in terms of capacity and per capita funding.

With a delayed reaction, one ANBU member flickering away, Karumo's eyes moving with him, and then watching another flip through papers. He glanced back at the eyes on the ground and a thought struck him, he took a few steps to the ANBU agent with the papers, placing a hand on his shoulder to grab his attention and speaking up loudly enough for the investigator to hear as well, "There are very few dojutsu of any kind that constantly stay active. By the unnatural pattern in the eyes, it's obviously a dojutsu of some kind, but few and far between have the ability to retain their power and prowess constantly." His thoughts ran to his own eyes, a color of deep purple with a cross of lines throughout them, signifying the full unlock of his own clan's kekkai genkai. "Tell me, did you run chakra sensors over the eyes to see if they were still active? Obviously looking for traps was first, but I've never seen eyes like these before... their power is a mystery and a dangerous one at that..." depending on how the agent responded, Karumo would either hear out his answer or dispatch him to do so immediately. However, this would still only be offering little details amongst the whole of the mystery here.

Regardless, he had confidence unbound, and beyond that... he was even having a spot of fun thinking on the mystery within. But he wanted to see what his village could produce, a former Captain of the Oracles and headmaster of the university, Karumo was confident on his ability to unravel the mystery here.


[817 words, 2000 words total]

The paper scanning ANBU stopped what he was doing, listening to the Tsuchikage as he spoke his mind. He hummed, nodding his head slowly as he listened to the musing of the Kage, and the question thus posed. The masked ninja began thumbing through the papers in his hand, clearly looking for a specific part of the document, before speaking up in reply. “We have indeed run chakra sensors, and searched the dojutsu for any information on it. So far, what we know is that whatever the dojutsu does, it was active at the time of the users passing, and rather than most dojutsu where they need to be kept active via the constant supply, this one is… Odd. From what we can tell so far, it works more akin to the summoning contracts of sealers, and the supply of chakra is just to open or close the seal. When we wait for forensic results, we’ll find out if there’s any information in the database about anything like this. I can tell you now though, sir, that the dojutsu is not dangerous right now.” The man tidied his papers, before looking back down into them.

The ANBU that flickered away returned swiftly, several medical ninja with them at their side, who hesitated at first from the bloody sight. However, the hesitation soon faded away, the medical nin setting to work. Four in total, they each went about different tasks. The foremost one that moved first went straight to the corpse, putting a glove on a single hand. Using the gloved hand, the person then plucked a single hair from the corpse, before stepping out of the way for another medical ninja, and instead heading towards the Tsuchikage. Forming a few hand seals, the medic made a clone using the strand of hair, revealing the pre-death appearance of the corpse. A small figure, whose androgynous face couldn’t have been any older than 14. Their hair was simple, and the non-gouged out eyes were a deep blue. The ninja simply stood there with his reflection clone, before gesturing to it. “Feel free to inspect the victim for details, Lord Tsuchikage.”

Meanwhile, another medical ninja began scraping at the bloody writing, putting it in a small tube, before doing the same for the blood from various things, places, and from the eyes. The third medic was looking at the shuriken embedded in the pillar, musing to herself in thought. Something about the situation seemed odd to her, and so she stood there, thinking and observing. The final medic was at the body itself, specifically, looking at the area where the eyes should have been – the eye sockets.

The ANBU thumbed through his pages and prepared his response, they ran the chakra sensors, and it was certainly unique. It seemed to have summoning jutsu chakra imbued within it, nothing like Karumo had ever heard of, thought they were still searching for any data to it and forensics still could take their own look through. But in the end, it didn't seem like it was dangerous at the moment, which was a relief in some sense and another part of Karumo wished that the eyes might still be active so they could see what was really at work there.

But before Karumo could wonder too long, the other ANBU returned with a team of medical ninja in tow. Two medics went to the corpse and immediately began to construct a Reflection Clone of the corpse, Karumo knew the jutsu from Harichimo himself, but the clone of the body was so unique. “Feel free to inspect the victim for details, Lord Tsuchikage." the medic spoke up over the body of the victim. The second medic stayed at the corpse and began to go over it while the third medic began to scrape some of the blood from the writing for evidence and the final medic took a look at the shuriken and mused to herself.

Karumo would start with the clone though, giving the others time to collect and work out everything and make their own thoughts, Karumo stepped forward and began to observe it. The body was that of a child, the lack of age in years showed abundantly over the preserved clone, Karumo looked through at their face and their structure, knowing the eyes behind the closed eyelids should have been of that dojutsu but were instead of a blue color. "Just a kid, huh? Is there any I.D. for them in any bingo book or a missing ninja post from any of the other villages that we have?" he would ask aloud to either the medic or the ANBU, looking over their features. He knew there wasn't much he could deduce from the body of the clone, but this is where he would start, and wait for the answer he would receive. Otherwise, if the medic had anything he wanted to walk Karumo through then he'd hear that out too, anything to build the full picture of events here.

---

With the clone of the victim gone through, he would leave that medic alone and continue on to the other medic that remained at the victim's true body. A few feet behind them, Karumo would speak up, "So, what can you tell me. Walk me through it." he spoke rather bluntly hoping that his own insights could cover any potential gaps in his own deduction and then on top of that, to see how well he'd been able to gather and deduce information of his own accord, a sort of mental test or mark of his own skill.


[496 words, 2496 words total]

Upon him asking the question, the medic shook his head, not sure how to really respond – instead, the monkey masked ANBU stepped in, speaking up to explain what he knew for the clueless medic. “We have currently no instant access I.D of the individual. Whoever they are, they aren’t in our Bingo Book. We can send a carrier bird to Sunagakure, and ask about any missing ninja featuring the appearance or dojutsu of the victim, but other than that, we have nothing.”

Upon walking closer to the medic at the body, it would become apparent that they were staring at the body, humming in thought now. As Karumo spoke up, she turned around slowly, before speaking up. “Well… Something doesn’t add up, lord Kage. Specifically, the eyes. Whatever or whoever took the eyes out, those that are down there are definitely that of the victim. The optic nerves are completely wrecked in the same manner that the victims are. Furthermore, from the way the eyes were removed, at least given the damage to the eye sockets, I believe they were gouged out by hand. That in itself wouldn’t be surprising – many shinobi that hunt dojutsu tend to do this to avoid cutting the eye, or because they’re in a hurry. Here is the odd thing…”

She lifted one of the arms of the body, gesturing to the hand, which upon inspection, had the fingers covered in blood. Sighing, she dropped the arm back down gently. “If my hunch is correct, then the blood on their hand was their own. Which means they gouged out their own eyes.” She sighed, shaking her head. “It just… Doesn’t make sense to me. If we could see the victim’s chakra when they were alive, we’d be able to know if it was the result of a genjutsu or something, but otherwise…”

The medic that was scraping up blood gathered a few more samples before body-flickering away, while the one at the shuriken turned around, walking a distance away and humming. She turned to look at the shuriken once more, before nodding to herself. “Lord Kage, if you’d please.” She stated. When Karumo arrived, she’d point to the shuriken. “The shuriken shouldn’t be like this. From the state of the body, if the victim was beaten that brutally, I struggle to believe they would have thrown shuriken with enough accuracy that two of them would land vertically in the same area. Plus, the broken shuriken… It feels like it was broken on purpose, since, due to the shape of a shuriken, it would have to be struck either with immense force, or more likely, struck from above, to break in the way it did. To make it more confusing, there are small shards of metal from the broken shuriken, where it is. To the point that, if I had to guess, there was no distance between the ground and the weapon when it broke.” She finished her musing, before sighing. “I don’t know, it’s just odd to me. I’m going to take a sample of the victim’s blood, and we’ll get it analysed to see the nature of chakra the victim had. It’s a long shot, but it might give us another clue.” She stated, before walking over to the body, taking out a needle, extracting some blood, and like the prior medic, flickering away.

Meanwhile, the medic with the clone finished with the fake body, dissipating it and nodding, before flickering away. Whatever information he’d found, he’d concluded all he thought he would – leaving just one medic left at the scene.

There was no ID on the person before them, anything they found or searched though came up nearly empty entirely. Karumo nodded along with a bit of dismay, it was unfortunate that they couldn't come up with anything concrete but still, with diligence more would be uncovered. The next rant came back towards the eyes, the unusual method and standing about them, Karumo turned his head towards the scene and began to let the medics words unravel in his mind.

A quick gesture towards their hand and revealed blood at their fingers and finger tips, “If my hunch is correct, then the blood on their hand was their own. Which means they gouged out their own eyes. It just… Doesn’t make sense to me. If we could see the victim’s chakra when they were alive, we’d be able to know if it was the result of a genjutsu or something, but otherwise…” Karumo nodded and interjected promptly. "Right, it would help uncover more but the idea of gouging both of one's eyes out... there are very few genjutsu that can survive past the pain of tearing pasts ones eye and tearing the optic nerve. Much less both eyes be removed..." Karumo glanced down.

Without much more thought he chimed in again, "Still, knowing that they were self-removed is a much bigger part of the story unfolding." He paused to be interrupted, “Lord Kage, if you’d please.” Karumo turned his head and walked over towards the woman examining the shuriken and the nearby staff.

“The shuriken shouldn’t be like this. From the state of the body, if the victim was beaten that brutally, I struggle to believe they would have thrown shuriken with enough accuracy that two of them would land vertically in the same area. Plus, the broken shuriken… It feels like it was broken on purpose, since, due to the shape of a shuriken, it would have to be struck either with immense force, or more likely, struck from above, to break in the way it did. To make it more confusing, there are small shards of metal from the broken shuriken, where it is. To the point that, if I had to guess, there was no distance between the ground and the weapon when it broke.” she sighed and continued on, “I don’t know, it’s just odd to me. I’m going to take a sample of the victim’s blood, and we’ll get it analysed to see the nature of chakra the victim had. It’s a long shot, but it might give us another clue.”

So... the shuriken was broken on the ground and they must have been either thrown before the person was beaten or throw by someone else? Perhaps a bystander or someone finding the scene who jumped into action? Less likely, that would have caused a much greater commotion and there would be... less mystery that way. So the more likely answer that there was a fight or at least standoff beforehand, combined with the cryptic message, and this was far more than a simple run in with some thugs or rogue ninja. And thus departed the other ninja who took off with another blood sample of the victim, and the reflection clone soon dispelled. This left one more medic at the scene of the crime for the moment, Karumo slowly approached from behind and spoke up cordially, "Alright, so walk me through it. Made any deductions yet?" he paused and waited to catch their attention and hear out what would be the, hopefully, final piece to the puzzle and at the very least, another piece to clarify things.


[617 words, 3113 words total]

As the Kage asked for any deductions, the medic merely sighed and shook her head. “Nothing concrete, sir. I have a thought that maybe… Well, it’ll need to be confirmed by forensics, but, I think that not only are the blood samples here all the victims, but I think the weapons are as well.” She moved to the side of the body, gesturing to a small pouch at the side. A weapon pouch. “It’s empty. And on the side, stitched into it, are initials, the victim’s maybe. C.F. Given that the forehead protector is a struck through one from Sunagakure, we’ll send a message asking if any of their ninja, missing that is, have the initials, and we should hopefully at least figure out who it is. Other than that… I don’t know, I’m afraid. Except, the way that the leg is broken, I think the victim fell from a high place. Maybe the roof or something. The way the bone’s broken, it’s not only split at the joint, but broken half way down the bone as well, suggesting it took a lot of pressure.” She shook her head. “I’m going to take the broken shuriken, get it sent to a blacksmith for reconstruction. If we find anything out about it, we’ll let you know. Otherwise, inspect the scene as much as you want, I’m sure you can make more deductions than us of this mess. We’ll have the files sent to you when we have everything. Fare well, lord Kage.” With that, the final medic turned and walked off, leaving the ANBU and Kage alone.

A few weeks after the investigation.

The same, paper holding ANBU walked into the Kage’s office, holding in his hands a large pile of documents and papers. Without saying a word, he simply plopped the papers on the desk of the Tsuchikage, speaking plainly. “Lord Kage, this is about the white haired incident a few weeks prior. We’re sorry for the delay in gathering the information, but as you can imagine, getting the information from the land of wind took most of the time. Regardless, there are the documents. In summarisation, the victim was indeed a missing ninja from Sunagakure. Specifically, they were one Chiaki Fukitsuna, a genin that was reported as missing only recently. From this, I looked into the Fukitsuna clan, and discovered that they are a clan of silver haired people with a Dojutsu named the Onigan. From what little information I was able to get out of them, the Dojutsu works as a summoning contract for the clan, and allows them to cause creatures and limbs to be summoned from the eye itself. Furthermore, supposedly, the clan does not like deserters, or those that displease the clan in any way, and have a tendency of removing the eyes of those that have done wrong by the clan, and reclaiming the Dojutsu for burial later. Does part of that sound familiar?”

He paused, taking off his mask for a moment, and taking out a cigar from the side of his pouch. His face was stern, grizzled, and covered in a multitude of scars, one eye faded over, and likely blind. He held out the cigar to the Kage. “Want one?” If Karumo accepted the offer, the man would hand over the cigar, lighting it, before getting out a second. Regardless, the result was the same, and he’d put a cigar in his mouth, smoking somewhat before speaking again. “Regardless, they deny any claims that the body was their doing. All forensic signs show only the victims DNA in the crime scene. Furthermore, the shuriken at the crime scene were definitely from Sunagakure. The blacksmith found out the details from the medic, and decided to forge a few replicas for you, something for you to test out if you feel the need. So, enclosed are three shuriken, the same make as the victims. Lucky you.” He let out a puff of smoke to the side, sighing. “Still. Forensics suggest this was a suicide. Pure land only knows what went so wrong for someone to want to go out like that… The victim was only fourteen sir, so whatever’s going on in Sunagakure… Damn if I know.” He lot out another couple puffs, coughing slightly. “I’m going to drink this one off at the Rock Pit. You’re welcome to come, take a break from this madness for a while” he turned, now walking for the door as he put his mask back on, muttering under his breath. “Poor kid…”

[EXIT]

CHIAKI FUKITSUNA IS NOW OFFICIALLY DEAD

Karumo sat at his desk, filling out his paperwork and going through forms as the tedious work that he always ended up doing ended. His work was interrupted as an ANBU agent came in, bringing along with him a bag containing some kunai and shuriken and a whole handful and a half more of papers. Karumo sighed a bit and sat back up, looking towards him as he began to fill him in on everything, the details of that shinobi that was killed.

He nodded along and hummed, more retributions of clans and their vindictive actions, he could only but help sigh as he knew his clan was much the same. Halfway through, he offered a cigar to Karumo who accepted and began to puff away as he lit it, leaning back in his chair and holding the bag of weapons as he glanced over them. “Regardless, they deny any claims that the body was their doing. All forensic signs show only the victims DNA in the crime scene. Furthermore, the shuriken at the crime scene were definitely from Sunagakure. The blacksmith found out the details from the medic, and decided to forge a few replicas for you, something for you to test out if you feel the need. So, enclosed are three shuriken, the same make as the victims. Lucky you. Still. Forensics suggest this was a suicide. Pure land only knows what went so wrong for someone to want to go out like that… The victim was only fourteen sir, so whatever’s going on in Sunagakure… Damn if I know." he finished his musing, Karumo sighed along with it, not knowing what to think himself.

He ended with an offer to join him to drink it off at the rock pit and all, Karumo declined the offer, clearing his throat a bit. "No, that's alright, I appreciate the offer but I have a few more things to finish up tonight before I head off." he paused and looked back up, "Thanks for the cigar though..." then in a flash, the ANBU agent was gone, back to his duties or getting off his shift. It didn't matter anymore, this was over, and whatever problems Suna had, well, they were Sunagakure's problems.


[376 words, 3489 words total]
[Exit Thread]

[Taking 1 kunai, 3 shuriken from Chiaki (deceased)]

Training: