Spoiler:

There was a loud obnoxious knock on his door. The warmth of his covers caused him to turn over. Then it happened again. A loud rasping on his door. He sat straight up and through his sheets off. There was a loud voice, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was saying. Rubbing his eyes, he got closer to his door before being able to tell what it was. Tomohiro wondered who would be screaming at the top of his lungs at the crack of dawn. His neighbors were probably furious. The young chuunin opened his door to a small girl with purple hair and a slightly full mailbag. His eyes widened red from his deep sleepiness.

“Nakir-san! It’s good to see you again. I have a mission for you. It’s said to be urgent.”

“Oh? Thanks, I wasn’t expecting this just yet. I’ll take it. Good luck with your mission.”

“Thanks, Nakir-san! Same as you,” the girl said bowing before dashing off.

Tomohiro opened the sealed parchment and read it to himself. Scouting mission? I do remember signing up for something like this,” he thought to himself. He closed the parchment and went to throw on some clothes. It was a good thing that he bathed before he went to bed. This would have made things more time consuming. He started to grab his gear as he looked outside his window. Snow had plunged the village into a white screen. The wind he could be heard outside his large bedroom window.

Tomohiro put on his usual black one piece bodysuit. He grabbed one of his straw kasa and looked at a huge blade mark in it. It took him a minute to remember that it got damaged when he was training with his younger brother. He put it back and it back in his closet and pulled out a straw kasa painted black. Usually, he would where this formally, but he didn’t want to go out with just his hood. The kasa had imprinted in a deep red flame of the Nakir on the top. He placed the Kasa on his head as it slightly covered his headband. His belt and his blade were the last couple of things to he put on. Lastly he put on a black trench coat in place of his poncho.

Once he had completed dressing, he left his apartment and parkoured over the balcony of the stairs to the adjoining rooftop. He started running to the village’s main entrance from rooftop to rooftop. The snow would have made it difficult to run on, but he had gotten used to it. One had to when you lived in this climate. He almost made it to the village entrance before he noticed something strange their were a group of what looked like thugs standing outside a pub. They looked to be intimidating an old woman walking back. Tomohiro thought nothing of it before he stopped in his tracks and watched to see what they would do next. He wasn’t part of the police force or anything. As a shinobi, it would be disrespectful to just pass up on this. It was none of his business, but he would wait a bit.

The man grabbed the woman and pushed her down on the ground. They then picked up her purse. The woman then started to get up slowly as someone else came in and helped her. The young kid was a young boy that wore a genin shinobi headband. The genin started to yell at the group of thugs, but they just stood and laughed. The genin jumped at the man that had the woman’s purse to get knocked back by one of the others. Tomohiro got a bit tired of standing around. Once he saw the genin, he wanted to see how well he would do, but it didn’t seem like much. He leaped from the rooftop he was on launching himself boot first into the man’s face. Tomohiro then took the woman’s purse and handed it back to her. Looking at the other guys, he yelled out “Scram!”

“Who do you think you are telling us how to have our fun?”

“If you keep on I’ll personally deal with you for disturbing the peace. You’re causing me to waste time. I have a mission to resolve.”

“Sorry, not sorry. You knocked out our friend you’re going to have to pay for that.”

“Oh really?” he questioned sarcastically as he pushed back his coat to reveal his katana.

“We’re leaving.” One said as they picked up their unconscious member and walked off.

Tomohiro didn’t say much to the other genin and the old lady. He just waved his hand and started to run through the streets. The village gate came into view as it looked like a bunch of shinobi had gotten back from their night patrols. He started to weave and dodge his way through the groups of shinobi as he exited the gate. One of the gate guards raised an eyebrow as he realized that Tomohiro was wearing a trench coat instead of a poncho. There wasn’t much time to talk. He would need to hurry now since he delayed too much.

He started to slow his pace so he wouldn’t tire out too much. The area around the smaller villages had been a large area to travel. First he would need to make contact with the original client or talk to the local populace once he got there. He needed to figure out what was going on. The mission parchment didn’t give much detail about what was going on. It just said scout the area. It wouldn’t hurt to at least let the client know that the village was actually looking into it. Tomohiro was no ambassador, but he could at least try and act the part to not dapen the villagers spirits too much. The villagers probably already had dampened spirits from whatever was going on.

Tomohiro spent approximately an hour investigating the area around the villages before he attempted to speak with an one. He didn't find anything in particular other than random corpses that looked like dead bandits. From the look of where they bodies were situated, the bandits were looking fighting each before someone else cut them down mid fight. This was mostly the only thing he found suspicious at first. There wasn't too much else to see for awhile anyway. As he moved on, he started to see smoke in the distance. Tomohiro’s face sort of contorted when he saw it. That was in the direction one of the villages he had planned to go to. This sort of changed his original plan. He guessed that talking to the client would probably be out of the question. The smoke started to get thicker as he approached. He could smell burning wood and human flesh. This made him pick up his speed as he got closer. The young Nakir wondered what could have happened there. It wasn't everyday that a village would burn down. The villages in these parts were more than likely get attacked bandits than burned down.

Tomohiro arrived to the whole village burning. It was a deep red. The sight almost made him drop to his knees. This was one of the worst things that he had seen in awhile. It was almost as bad as seeing Zeref’s clan compound, but the smells made it a lot worse. He instinctively reached for his sword as he kept an eye out around him. There wasn’t much to see, but he would still need to do find in evidence to find what happened. He noticed that the bodies weren’t in any type of way until he made his way further into the village. In the middle of the village, there was a pyre that was still burning. A body was scorched as it was tied to a pike in the middle of the flames. He wondered what this could mean.

The bodies around the pyre were laying in a very specific way. They were spread out with their bodies lying a certain position. It was almost ritualistic in the way the bodies were set. He checked them carefully lifting up their cold bodies. Their deaths seemed to be all made by a blade. The cuts were deep and sometimes multiple ones ensued where others only had one. After going through the bodies, he realized they were set up in some weird kind multiple pointed star. He then started to search over other corpses that had been randomly sprawled out. From the looks of it, there weren’t many defining features on the bodies. The scene looked like it could have been hours old. There would have nothing he could have done to prevent it if the perpetrator was still there. This village was a lost cause.

Tomohiro shook his head and began to exit the village. There wasn’t even anything worth looting. Even the fields that surrounded the village had been burning. The chuunin moved away from the village and started to make his way back to Kumo. It was a massacre. He would have a long report ahead of him. There wasn’t much else to do. Looking out around the surrounding area would be pointless with everything burning. His clan were accustomed to heat and smoke, but he wasn’t sticking around to get consumed in that mess. He wondered who or what could have caused that. It could have been a shinobi or some crazy cultist. Though, the wounds look like it was done with the same blade. It may have been one skilled shinobi that caused this. Tomohiro glimpsed back at the burning village and pushed his way forward. The scene he saw would be unforgettable.

Once he got back to the village he walked through the front gate with a hardened scowl. He took his time as he made his way back home. Once he made it home, he pulled out parchment paper and started writing his detailed paperwork on what he saw and found. He made sure not to spare any details on what he found. Tomohiro figured that higher ranked shinobi would probably look into it. He sort of wished he could have done more, but there wasn’t much he could do. Though, seeing the scene made him want to become stronger. He really slacked at his current training and didn’t needed to make himself the true warrior he saw himself as. Tomohiro then reviewed his paperwork and made his way to the Raikage’s administration building. He kind of hoped Lord Hastur would make some sense out of this. The strangest mystery that he had ever scene.

[Exit Thread]

1821/1500 [Mission]

300/300 [Extra Ryo = +75]

21 unused words