Koto stood upon the cracked earth, the copious amount of fissures dotting the landscape in front of him, a cool breeze rolling across the wasteland, causing the few loose pebbles that littered the ground to roll in whatever direction the breeze dictated. It was funny really, how the pebbles seemed to follow whatever the wind dictated, similar to how the ninjas of their respective villages followed whatever the leaders of their silly establishments told them too. The life of a ninja seemed to always be about following what your higher ups told you, whether or not they were stronger then you or even if they were weaker then you, just like those pebbles that were rolling across the barren grounds that so many ninja attempted to become stronger upon. The breeze seemed to be always there, pushing the pebbles around, like it was some sort of higher power, as if it was better than them, better than him. Nonsense. He wouldn't be pushed around by the likes of those buffoons; he would mold his own path in this world of weaklings, annihilating the opposition from wherever it came, whoever it was, and whatever it threatened. Though the village was not to his liking ever since it had stolen him from his amazing life among the samurai of the Land of Iron, he would protect it from the cold judgment of the other nations, as it was the only place that he had anywhere to stay if something bad were to happen, at least for now it was.

257/2000 Iaijutsu B Rank

His purpose in life was rise above those petty fools who believed in nothing but greed itself, and take control of a land with an iron fist, righteous in his pursuit of justice, without greed, without favoritism, but not without hate. His hate would allow for him to pursue his goals with a greater passion than without, and allow him to be callous about his duties, forever moving onwards towards his goals. But not before he removed the disgusting demon spawn that was the orange from this world, as those abominations of nature were the worst things to have ever existed upon the plane of this realm, and most likely the afterlife as well. Koto would pick up a nearby stick, surprised that it was almost perfect for his purposes, as it was around four feet in length, allowing for one foot of the stick to be used as a handle, and luckily enough, it was sturdy enough to strike something hard without breaking. Best of all though, was the fact that it was smooth, allowing it to be taken from his belt with great speed, augmenting his ability to perform Iaijutsu with such a crude weapon. Koto placed his feet upon the ground, grinding the soles of his sandals into the coarse dirt under his feet, adding a fair bit of traction and stability to his stance, his left knee bent far enough that if he looked down, he would be unable to see his sandal. His right leg was locked straight behind him with his foot placed upon the ground, though his knee was kept slightly bent as not to allow his joints to become worn after years of training and to cause his muscles to remember the position in which his legs were placed in order for his fighting ability to be augmented if he was to really enter true combat. This forward stance was strong and balanced; at least to the direction he was facing, and was one of the basic stances that one would use when performing Iaijutsu techniques.

601/2000 Iaijutsu B Rank

The muscles in his legs tensed slightly as his right leg would slide across the floor in a sort of S shape moving him forward, his right hand gripped upon the ‘hilt’ of his new stick weapon, as he would pull the stick from his belt, his hand moving diagonally to his right shoulder as the ‘blade’ would move in an upward diagonal line at a forty-five degree angle. He placed the weight of his body upon his right leg locking it into an almost exact duplicate of the original stance but with the opposite legs. The move he had just performed was one of the basic opening attacks that one would perform if they were a user of Iaijutsu, he had even accomplished almost perfect form while attempting the move. He wasn’t perfect though and that was a problem. He needed to be perfect if he was ever going to reach his goals. He continued to perform this move a large multitude of times, being careful in order to avoid falling into one of the fissures, as that could put furthering his goals even farther behind then they already were. If he was able to become a master of Iaijutsu, he would be able to take out an enemy in an instant; before they could even blink in fact. That was the principle behind the technique as a whole. Strike quickly and decisively. Show no mercy. Show no fear. Cut an opponent down with each swing of the blade. Of course, cutting someone in half with a glorified twig was going to be a challenge of sorts, unless he eventually got his hands on a real blade. The stick would have to do for now though, and with that in mind, he would continue to drill himself on his form, attempting to perfect it through his own eye for detail.

912/2000 Iaijutsu B Rank

It would be better of course, if someone were to come train with him, or spar against him in an attempt to get better through fighting a real, thinking opponent. At the moment, there weren’t very many ninja around that would be inclined to spar against him as they all seemed to be training solo or with partners already. He would just have to wait and see if someone wanted to challenge him to a quick bout of combat, but he decided that he should still continue to train solo while waiting for someone to arrive. He drilled the move over and over again, correcting small mistakes when they occurred and mentally scolding himself whenever he did in fact; notice a mistake he was making.

1037/2000 Iaijutsu B Rank

Karasu had to get started with his day. The mundane appeal of the time of day was too much for him and it saddened him to deal with such a thing. His artistic heart no longer cried out in apathy and instead it settled off to do some fashion of training. He went off to the area full of fascinating fissures and chose to take refuge there. In the time it took him to get there he found a branch that had a split at the end with would use for a good slingshot. Karasu got an idea from this and decided in his head that it would be beneficial to start his training with the craft of his clan and the uniqueness of his Kyujutsu specialty which would include slingshots due to their bow like concept. The sun was on its way to setting due to the afternoon and Karasu took a long time to make the slingshot. He ripped off a peace of his stretchy apparel to make the holder and mechanism that makes the slingshot a slingshot. Speaking of his apparel he was in a gloomy black outfit. An outfit no man could truly wear without having a feeling of pure darkness and bad moodnessess. He was 4’1 short and wore a dark dress shirt, jeans, and a stretchy apparel under said dress shirt. He had cleats on that would dig into the ground to ensure easy climbing and running through the collapsed fissure ground because he was in a fucking fissure for all we know. Well, it took him a while to get into the fissure as he had to drop down. Once down there he chose to pick up a large number of rocks and the works in order to start off his training. It was going to be a long and annoying one.

309/9,000

Kyujutsu SS Rank

The slingshot he made was a small and weak one. He would find small rocks in the middle of the large fissure. Small rocks that reminded him back when he was at home. The small rocks also reminded him of small bugs for some reason. The small kind of bugs with the stingers and the rounded backs. Kind of like those ninja bee wasp things. Sometimes, when he took the rocks and shot them into the side of the fissure. Aiming at specific sites, he would in fact think of them as little wasps. They would hit the side of the fissure and some would shatter due to their weakness and the fissures hardness and some would ricochet in a purely perfect fashion. It was all the average day in the ninjas boring training scenario. Karasu chose to walk alongside the fissure and pick at random rocks within his way. He would use them as ammunition and have specific marks as locations. He would dive towards the harsh ground with his epic and trusted slingshot in his right hand and take aim. Taking a small rock by his side which had such a rough exterior as he moved his fingers through it he could feel the pure roughness of it and stuff. He would put it within the slingshot and pretend to fire an people in the distance. In reality he was firing at no one. Like a war veteran with post traumatic stress or whatever the hell it’s called when Veterans start reliving shit in the middle of every day life because of what happened to them during the time of war. Karasu was trying to relive that appeal because it made him feel nice inside. Despite all the gloominess of the world pretending to be something he’s not, pretending to live in the glory, and in the excitement. It gave him a fascinating outlook on things and he felt a very nice essence of enjoyment from it.

638/9,000

Kyujutsu SS Training

As he continued on with his trusty slingshot he ran into a small group of stray thieves. They looked at Karasu in awe as the short boy carried a slingshot in his right hand. They would tease and mock him before coming out with their weapons. Why would a band of thieves be trailing around the fissured up area of Iwagakure? Karasu was so oblivious to the fact that they were there that he almost didn’t move. He thought that there was a chance he wouldn’t be able to deal with these ruthless enemies. There were three. One had a longbow and a bunch of arrows in a strapped on little container thing on his back. Karasu set his eyes on that so he could get it and use it for training purposes. All he had was a slingshot that was about to break and couldn’t shoot very far, but with the right rocks it could do damage at close range. The other two evildoers had knives on them. Small knives. Like daggers really. Karasu didn’t know how to address the situation so he took one medium sized rock and loaded it up while one of the thieves charged at him. The other two standing there with their weapons drawn. The guy with the bow about to shoot if anything went wrong. Karasu took aim and shot the man running at him right in the forehead with a medium sized rock. The hit was so direct and perfect that it caused the thief to fall back on his back and whimper for a couple seconds. The trio were all appalled and Karasu didn’t hesitate to reload with a smaller rock this time because the ‘string’ was about to become overwhelmed and break. Karasu noticed that one of the thieves shot an arrow at him and he had to lung to the left side of the deep fissure to it wouldn’t hit him and instead slide against the opposite side of the fissure. He would consider that a close one.

977/9,000

Karasu would quickly lung forward, but in antecedence to him lunging he would throw his shitty slingshot right at the thief with the bow and arrow. It would hit him right in the chest and break into a dozen pieces. Causing small pieces of shrapnel to cut into his chest. He dropped the bow due to the force of the hit and the angle that it collided into the center of his chest. Karasu would then have a small grappling match with the other thief. Karasu would do his best to avoid getting knifed, but that didn’t stop the occasional cut here and there. In the end he managed to kick the guy in the nuts and take his knife and stab him in the chest multiple times. He did so due to his sadistic nature and the fact that this faggot struggled the most with the battle and gave him the hardest time. This he did not like and because of such chose to torment the poor lad with multiple knife wounds. Karasu would get up and throw the knife to the thief was that was with the bow and arrow. He was closer to him after all and the other thief was getting up and on the prowl. Ready to strike back at Karasu due to what he did to his other little minions.

1,203/9,000

It was too late for the thief that rushed at the mighty Crow! He found his bow to the bow and the stock of 30 arrows. He found his way to one and shot it right in the center of the mans knee cap. Emphasizing the shot in the knee joke. As he even made a reference to it by saying ‘You were once a thief, but you took an arrow to the knee!’ It was a joke and Karasu went onward to kick the thief in the balls, take the arrow out of his chest, and stab him with it a couple times until the tip became longed in his chest. It was then that Karasu used the remaining stick part to gouge out the thief’s eyes and then he shoved it down his throat. Karasu would then saunter off to do something of more epic proportion since he had the proper training supplies to do something equally as great! So he would go on towards the horizon that he faintly saw in the distance to find his location somewhere else. Somewhere with less blood shed and a more pleasant scenery.

1,395/9,000

Karasu chose to just keep going onward with his journey. He was to long a long walk before he would find anything that could be used for a marksman like himself. He traveled through rough land and harsh soil until he finally stumbled towards a location more suitable for his demands. Not until the time it took him to do so many other things. First of all he had to dig himself out of the fissue he was already in and once out of said fissure he had to find out the nearest location to some vegetation. Which he never found because the land is just so so so so very barren. Barren to the point where it was melancholy and mundane. So barren that its barrenness couldn’t even correlate with the rough texture of the bow in his hands or the arrows on his back. Such barren and rough land that not even the scaliest scale of a snake or a dark skinned mutant alien could put a damper on such a cruel and usual place. It would take Karasu time before he would find an area that actually had animals roaming around. Lizards and birds scooping down to eat smaller prey. A scorpion here and there. Their red color was beautiful and it made them look like wannabe lobsters. Their long stingers were scary and they bulged and formed a tip at the end almost as if it had a weird kind of physique or something. The wannabe lobster dug into the harsh soil, but it used its huge clawns and powerful legs to burrow itself inside the ground. Somewhere Karasu wasn’t expecting as he kind of wanted to test out his new bow skills and shit.

1,684/9,000

Karasu took a deep breath in order to find the sex appeal of his next target. There was a large bird flying the sky and Karasu figured that since the sun was setting soon it was be ideal for him to get food, start a fire, and such before it got too dark. Due to this Karasu took his bow and arrow and placed it in front of him. The arrow was held in his left hand and his index finger held the arrow to the target. He would smirk brightly and laugh. He would hold it carefully. Taking deep and careful breaths so he wouldn’t abruptly miss his target and waste an arrow. He would take his right hand and take the arrow. He would tug on it far back to ensure a pure balance of pure power and speed. Karasu would pull on that string like he never pulled on a string before as he began to eye around the bird that was flying in the sky. Karasu chose to shoot an arrow in a fashion to intercept the birds path of flight and it worked. The beautiful arrow struck the bird right in the chest with such ease and precision. The arrow would hurl down to the sky like a meteorite hurling down to crush shit in its path for no reason. Blood spewed around Karasu’s general vicinity due to the bird spewing said blood. Such blood that Karasu was even partially appalled. However he didn’t have much to do and he had to go onward to find the bird and cook it for its beautiful meat. Now how would he do that?

1,960/9,000

Karasu managed to cook the meat by creating a little fire using a whole bunch of sticks he found earlier. After some friction he managed to get it started and chose to camp out and eat while the situation at hand was taking place. He wondered who else was out there and who else would he possibly manage to find? He had 29 arrows left and a longbow he would use only for the training purposes that lay before him. When everything is done the longbow will no longer be able to be used IC because he hadn’t bought an official one yet and he didn’t want to abuse the system. So he rested on the harsh floor because you only live once and had the warm fire obnoxiously close to him because you only die once. He did in fact wake up the next morning to many carnivorous animals trying to snatch at the left overs of the cooked bird he ate the other night. Whose tender meat was something to reckon with as it was so gorgeously and natural spiced. The pure epicness of the meat made Karasu want to dig deep and eat some more, but he couldn’t because there were coyotes surrounding him from all fronts. Karasu wondered what he would have to do to get out of this situation. He was confused and rather lonely in it all. The coyotes held their stance as if awaiting for the most opportune time to strike. Those god damn partially intellectual animals. Trying to have stand offs and shit. What was the world coming to? First you have all this ninja nonsense and now coyotes are trying to have a stand off with a human because apparently they can. Karasu wasn’t believing what he was seeing as he pulled out his for training purposes long bow with his left hand and reloaded an arrow with his right arm. Using his fingers to ensure stability of the arrow and all of its aim and such. He almost never missed. There was a pack of six coyotes. How was he to stand off in the situation? He was about to get easily overwhelmed. Karasu decided that he’d pull the first shot before any of those damn coyotes could. The first shot is always an enjoyable once. Especially when it’s a kill. The first arrow he shot managed to lodge itself right into one of the coyotes heads as he quickly reloaded another with ease. Once at a time he’d turn and launch them off towards their destination. One would occasionally hit the coyote in the side and have him squirm and squeal. Karasu thought that they deserved the pain for being such dicks and trying to surround him like that. Karasu wouldn’t let the coyotes behind him get any satisfaction either. He would turn around and shoot a coyote that was jumping at him right in the center of the forehead. Causing it to fall limp at his feet. Karasu only managed to kill three so far and there were three left. With the option of an opening he chose that it would be the best idea to burst forward in quick speed and then turn around. He would backpedal away from the chasing and gradually catching up coyotes. Shooting one of them at a time until finally the last one was supposed to be dead, but the last arrow only grazed the beast before it lunged up at Karasu and managed to strike his chest. Karasu toppled down without a chance to rethink plans and the coyote went straight for the neck. Karasu’s reflexes kicked in and his right hand would grab the coyotes jaw and his left arm would karate chop the side of its neck. His right hand pushed in the opposite direction of said karate chop. A click or crunch kind of sound emitted from the beasts neck and it fell limp. Cursed to die like all of the others. Karasu threw it off of him in a very sad fashion and he proceeded to retrieve his longbow. He only had 23 arrows left. How shameful. He couldn’t retrieve any others due to the fashion of the wounds on the dogs and how the one that missed crashed and burned into the harsh soul. It was such an early morning victory that Karasu didn’t know what to do with himself. For a second there he thought he was dead and had no chance of coming back. His life tried to flash before his eyes, but death wasn’t close enough for him to grasp it. Karasu began to wonder about how death feels like. The emotions it can cause before the very end. It always made him curious how simple life could be taken away in such an easy to even mediocre fashion. The pain in such a ritual made him think all forms of weary thoughts. He didn’t know whether he should simply shake his head and proceed with his training or sit down and have a philosophical lesson with himself. Karasu kicked the hay and went up stream since many people seem to do that nowadays. Kick the hay away after hitting it and going up an imaginary stream in a hot and barren location because fissures are like lakes you know? Didn’t change the fact that Karasu was preparing for his next big and expensive journey. He would keep going until he found himself in another landscape. One with a couple dead trees all around him. He chose that it would be an excellent idea to use his bow and arrow to cut off branches as a test of accuracy. How could the young male resist? It involved everything he enjoyed. Kyujutsu and tearing things up. It was truly was splendid situation for him. It was turning out to be a fast and onward going day. Karasu enjoyed this very much because he doesn’t like slow and mundane days. Yes, despite hi dark, cold, and mysterious personality, he doesn’t like gloomy and slow days. He liked things full of action and boom boom! Or something along this pathetic and childish lines. He would put himself a couple meters away from the most pathetic looking tree. He would take aim at one of the thinnest branches and he wanted to find out if he himself could shoot enough arrows to completely sever the branch off. It would involve true accuracy and marksmanship to do such. He would take the bow with his left hand and get a feel for it like he gets a feel for his women and he would do the same thing when it came to the arrow he had to get from the small container on his back. Karasu was ready to start firing his booty off in an attempt to get work done for the day of training and everything that chose to come in its way.

3117/9000

Kyujutsu to SS rank

He would shoot a couple arrows at each of the branches and due to his perfect accuracy each time he shot he succeeded in cutting off the pathetic little tree branches. This served a purpose as it was helping him with inanimate objects and shooting at specific areas when focused on such areas. This was important for any general weaponry user and Karasu took pride in being able to perform such a feat with little trouble. He did so with wasting little arrows and managed to take out multiple branches before the end of his exercise. He grew tired of not being able to take chase. His fast and ongoing day became slow and mundane once more. Karasu couldn’t bear the thought of such a thing happening to him at the moment. It was grotesque all the same. Something had to show up in order to provide him bloodshed or something. You can’t spell Slaughter without laughter. Karasu was in a desperate need of both. He was growing bored and left the location that had a sea of dead trees and chose to move further out to the abyss of nothingness. That’s a lie. He went in the general location towards the village so he wouldn’t get lost or anything and took his bows and arrows with him. He was hoping that some supernatural enemy or challenge would rise within the timeframe it took for him to get anywhere far, but the chances of such happenings were very slim and at the same time even unknown. Karasu wanted to feel the sense of adventure more than anything right now because he has been training for far too long. The constant training in trying to better himself at something that he just can’t better himself at because he is already the best is hard for him and his little ego! However he was going on an exciting journey and he was heading places. Karasu couldn’t forget all the progress he has been putting up now and chose that it would be better for him to just continue on with his pathetic little journey until the very end so he could complete his task and head home to a nice home made meal that not even his mom or dad made because they are both dead. This made him tear up inside with a cold selection of feels as he contemplated his faith on his long walk to nowhere in order to somehow reunite himself with nothing in order to find out the cause of something. What a poor and isolated teenager Karasu is. When Karasu was done being a super big pansy and finding himself within himself he ACTUALLY found himself near a camp of many thug looking people. On lord, the whole area appeared to be part of a large gang group. Why are these fissures so popular for thieves and other bull shit that lurks its way into the villages affairs indirectly. Karasu has a little over a dozen and a half arrows and he had to contemplate on how to use them the right way in order to kill off these enemies. He saw a dozen openly wandering around and about the camp. Looking pissed off and dirty like most rigid thieves do because it’s just their nature to be all poor and not classy. People like Gambit from X-Men are classy. That guy has so much class he even uses a freaking cane to perform various stunts that defy gravity itself. Did you read that? He is so classy that he defies gravity. Sadly Karasu isn’t this fancy and he can’t defy gravity and if he could, he would be doing something totally out of this world right now instead of having to deal with a whole bunch of thieves trying to act like they’re big, buff, and bad. Karasu was a couple meters away and he is small so it’s not like they would notice him. Also they are too stupid to notice anything. Karasu chose to take aim at the biggest thief there. The guy was huge and appeared as if he was a bull. Karasu has never seen such stature like it. His features from afar are rigid, but in reality he was very ugly and had a hard stone face. Not to be confused with Samuel Stonewall Jackson. At least I think that was his name. I don’t know I haven’t studied for my American History test yet. That didn’t matter in the Naruto world though so it’s redundant. Karasu took aim and cocked back his arrow in such a fashion one could see his determination to do a headshot. He wanted it to be a mystical and magical headshot able to tear down the fabric of existence itself. If it wasn’t anything above amazing he would want no part of it. The only major annoying part in trying to take aim is the fact that the brute wouldn’t stop moving and going from here to there. Yes, it would be amazingly easy for Karasu to target the brutes body, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to go in for the holy and noble headshot and by the gods above he will do so! It was right when the brute turned around that Karasu unleashed an arrow in a fashion that would intercept the walking back of the brute that he established moments before. Karasu was basically going to have the brute walk into the arrow and that he did! It was a glorious day for Karasu and it pained him that he shouldn’t shout out about his accomplishment due to the other thieves whom looked around in a purely frantic fashion.

4,067/9,000

Another move that his was trying to perfect was the move the move the proceeded after the first opening attack. It consisted of turning both hands upside down whilst still grasping the hilt of the weapon while moving your arms in an upward diagonal line towards your right shoulder, all the while stepping forward in the original S shaped motion and locking into another forward stance, now the opposite of the before mentioned opening attack. It was performed this way in order to allow the blocking of other sword strikes as they moved their blade up during the technique, quickly becoming a counter attack as their arms would swing around behind their head slashing in a downward diagonal slash to their left hip. This move was a powerful counterattack and as such could cause the downfall of a foe if they survived the opening strike. Though something like that would be a rare occasion, as those who were masters of Iaijutsu could destroy a foes body with the first slash they performed.

He now drilled the two techniques in unison; the opening strike, and the counterattack. With each successive set, his form became more and more perfected, almost to the point of total perfection with each slice. He would now need to make the moves faster if he ever wanted them to be useful in combat, and as such, began to gradually use more strength and speed with each swing. His speed was becoming noticeably faster, and smoother to boot. Each set would be completed when he slid the stick back through his belt loop as quickly as he could without error, and his perfection was too the point that he slash twice and have the stick back into his belt within 4 seconds flat. A worthy accomplishment.

1335/2000 Iaijutsu Rank B

Karasu figures that it would be a better time to finish his training another day so he runs out of the fissure for the time being in order to begin his works another day.

>Exit<