The events of that particular day had been draining for a young samurai. Even with the rigorous training and stalwart discipline he carried with him like a badge, nothing could have prepared him for his very first kills. Although his heart sang out with sadness, he was also sure of himself in his actions. He remembered Bushido and it’s codes, they gave him the necessary mental fortitude to press on. Traveling alongside his now hooded companion, Kirei, Watsuji took plenty of time in his strides forward to admire the scenery. This forest was rather lush, for the time of night they were venturing, it was also quite noisy with wind, insects, and who knew what else. Nothing could have truly shaken the slight feeling of uneasiness that came with traveling through the darkness, which had been illuminated by a very impressive and useful looking fire-based technique.

There came a time during this walking in which Watsuji spaced out within his own thoughts, but quickly Kirei brought him back into the present. He mentioned the Land of Fire, which Watsuji knew of but couldn’t quite remember the name of the primary village within it. His strong suit in his education was not geography. The more interesting piece of information, formed within a question, was about Hideyoshi. Kirei had noticed a chakra signature within the tanto, which gave way to a few more required explanations. Watsuji chuckled slightly before he began. “I’m sure he will have much to say as I begin to explain the unique traditions of my home to you. Inside of this tanto rests the spirit of one of my ancestors. At birth, his ashes were sprinkled into this tanto and I was branded. Our destinies are now bound, I suppose you could say. He is able to speak to me sort of telepathically.”

As if on cue, an angry voice shattered Watsuji’s train of thought. “Boy! Do not share such details with this shinobi of all people. Do you not know anything of holding your tongue?” Hideyoshi angrily boomed this and Watsuji only slightly winged as he continued on. Before anything much more could be stated, almost as if a switch had been flipped, the forest grew silent. The useful flame technique seemed to dim in power dramatically as darkness crept up and swallowed the surrounds. The young Miyamoto was not one for risk-taking and immediately placed his hand lightly upon Noko Zai. His anger at Hideyoshi for blunting his train of thought would have to wait, and instead manifested itself as vigilance.

Watsuji would glance upward, trying his best to maintain a line of sight on his acquaintance as the darkness folded inward. A campsite may have just become the least of their concern. Kirei looked to Young samurai and requested of him to wait, suspecting that they may have been being followed. Hideyoshi had his own piece to state “Why have the two of you begun to look about as though something odd were afoot? The state of the woods have changed not a bit..but alas. This shinobi could be correct. People of their cause and creed make more enemies than one can count. You may have been roped into something far more deadly than you imagined.”

The young swordsman gave Kirei a direct look and asked outright “Do you have any enemies who might have tailed you on your last mission? It feels that things are getting more dangerous.” It was at this moment that Watsuji would notice the intense glow of red eyes peering back at him from Kirei. It was startling to ya the very least, but it was not Watsuji’s first nature to judge this as some sort of evil omen. He had no idea what those eyes were about but he would slow the shinobi a chance to clarify as his grip on his katana strengthened.

---

653 |

It was with a strong grip on his blade that Watsuji shook the feelings of fear that had all but entrapped him by this point. One of the major virtues he was meant to uphold was heroic courage. There was no better place for that than right here, right now. As Kirei seemed to recognize the situation a bit better a loud noise sounded not too far off as four felines launched an all out assault on the shinobi and samurai. Shuriken and kunai, all tools of the shinobi trade barraged the boys. It seemed hardpressed that they would not be scathed by at least a few. As the propelling motion of the assailants began at rather close range to the samurai himself, the impressive stone barrier would not come up quite in time to guard one of the projectiles. Watsuji unsheathed his katana and swatted as quickly as he could, knocking the projectile aside with a quickness just as the structure enveloped him alongside Kirei.

“What the fūck are those things?! I was told shinobi behaved similarly to these creatures. Am I deceived or were those cats?!” The harshness and complete baffled nature of Watsuji’s words were apparent. He was beyond confused and this day in itself had gone too far. Cats or not, when the barrier came down Watsuji was angry enough that it did not matter. Kirei then shot words toward Watsuji that resonated deep within him. Trust for a shinobi was something he had been taught unwise. This was a situation in which teachings could be overruled. Zoning out angered scoffing from Hideyoshi, Watsuji looked over to Kirei with his hand on his blade and said to him “A samurai’s word is a promise of its own. You have mine, Uchiha Kirei. My blade is yours.”

As the barrier crumbled away, Watsuji knew well that his opponents were far too nimble for a fight without chakra. He would need to expend all of his surprises to do his part here. With the use of his breeze pass technique, Watsuji would burst forward at great speeds enhanced by futon chakra, slicing at one of the attackers as he passed. He seemed to have nicked him just barely on the chest with that maneuver. Watsuji slid across the dirt from the momentum, and before another moment could pass he utilized breeze pass once more, seemingly flickering back and forth. This second pass was aimed much better at the mid-air feline, cutting more deeply into his side. His opponent would likely expect a third strike, but one was not to come. His powerful streak came to an end there, however, as his two opponents did not hesitate to descend upon him instantly with claws and tanto alike. One of the two quickly sliced across Watsuji’s cheek, the other across his back as he attempted to block one at a time with his katana.

The pain was mounting and building in young Watsuji as the clawing was now connecting at almost predictable intervals due to a lack of blocking ability from two incoming threats. The Miyamoto clansman roared in fury as Hideyoshi spoke calmly to him “Use me.” That was all it took for Watsuji to unsheathe Hideyoshi with haste, calling forth lightning to guide his strike with the black tanto in use of a powerful samurai technique called Viscious Light. This strike was potent and faster than one of the attacking felines could react to, sending him skittering back into the dark a little ways with a more severe gash.

It was at this time that darkness seemed to creep forward even further as Watsuji fended off the still highly aggressive remaining combatant. Watsuji loaf sight of Kirei at that moment, trying to retreat as he went on the defensive, backing toward where he remembered seeing the shinobi last. There wasn’t much of a chance that Watsuji could keep up against this endless barrage of claw and tanto strikes for much longer. He needed Kirei, and soon.

“The boy grows tired, shinobi. Both of you act as though you cannot see a damned thing. He will not be able to repel the remaining assailant for much longer.” for the very first time, Hideyoshi sought the aid of a shinobi on behalf of Watsuji.

---

720 | 1373

It was a brief moment of relief as Kirei arrived just in time to cushion Watsuji’s efforts. The young samurai was not as experienced in combat as the shinobi he fought alongside. It was impressive to say the least, just the bit of action Watsuji was able to gleam in his peripheral vision from the blonde shinobi in the Cheshire mask. Watsuji took a moment to remember his training and loosen up his rigid feelings of anger. He tossed aside his desperation and sheathed both of his blades, now holding just his tanto by the hilt, in its sheathe. Iaido would guide him through this. These cats moved with such a haste that flailing blades about was not going to bring them down. He would strike like a lightning bolt, power and precision down to a single point.

Watsuji did a strange thing at this moment. Closing his eyes to the darkness that obscured everything, he utilized his other senses. The cats had blades upon their tails it seemed, so as they moved through the air they made a peculiar “whirring” sound. In a sage-like manner, Watsuji calmly stood with his smaller blade gripped, waiting for the opportunity. It came without fail. Slightly to the left, a whirring attacker had chosen to engage him directly. The bait had been taken. The Bushido adherent immediately gripped his katana with his idle hand, unsheathing it with exceptional speed as a surprise attack, but just as the cat adjusted himself in the air to evade Watsuji had already reached out with a free hand to grab the cat by the neck and immediately toss him away into the forest. A thud indicating it had made contact with some surface.

“Seems two are out of commission, perhaps we should take each other’s backs to ensure they cannot take us by surprise!” Watsuji shouted this as the clinking and clashing of both of their blades rang out in the dark, now both of them close enough to see one another easily. By this point it was more than apparent that Watsuji was being worn to bits. He had claw marks on his back, his thighs, a rather deep set across his cheek on the left side. Blood covered his clothes and dripped down his face and despite how angry he was from the pain, the young man smiled over at Kirei, channeling that fury into his katana as he continued to repel the assault while looking for an opening. It was at this time he realized the troubles of fighting in a perpetual abyss. The moving ground which had aided him before was gone and now unable to see where he stepped, Watsuji would block an attacking tanto flurry only to trip on a log and fall backward. He knew as he fell backwards that the next thing to occur was not going to be pleasant. Katana being too long to defend himself quickly while on his back, he drew Hideyoshi once more and began to repel the incoming feline when he was caught by surprise. Like a dart, the creatures tail whipped forth and pierced into Watsuji’s leg.

As if it were some kind of poisoned blade, Watsuji’s leg went numb almost instantly as he flailed his hilt in a backhanded motion to swat the cat away. The pain was nonexistent from the wound, but the bleeding was Watsuji’s biggest concern. “You will need to remain as still as still as possible, at least on that leg. Defend yourself with your upper body and you may yet live.” Hideyoshi seemed not to be judging the boy for once, but offering words of wisdom to help the boy survive. Watsuji quietly accepted, glinting his tanto against the assaulting tanto once again, twisting it in a motion to disarm. Another eruption of steel and sparks would occur at the site of the fallen samurai, when suddenly an uncomfortably quiet would descend. It was at that time that the attackers assaulting Kirei would retreat. In an effort to test his resolve further, they hatched a devious plot. In a square formation, all four assassins regrouped and approached the fallen Watsuji from different directions, winding up for a final pounce.

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708 | 2081

It seemed they weren’t geared to strike simultaneously after all. This made sense in the situation, but not to Watsuji. The test, afterall, didn’t truly involve Watsuji. He would have been nothing much to dispense of. The only reason he was attacked was likely to throw off Kirei and illicit weakness from him, forcing him to not only fight his own battle, but protect the weaker counterpart. The last fleeting bit of the attack was aimed just to do thag, before the ninneko made a final retreat. Watsuji, now slumped against a tree on his ass, unable to use his right leg, watched Kirei scuffle continuously with the cats, now implementing the use of powerful jutsu to do what he could to end things. Watsuji may have been injured and exhausted, but he was absolutely fuming. He shouted into the dark ahead of him, knowing at least two more assassins were lurking “Come and get me, damned cowards!” He gripped both of his weapons as he shouted, ready to fight it out to the bloody end if he had to. No dead leg was going to stop him.

From within the brush a bright flare did shoot forth, a large fireball made its way toward Watsuji as he winced slightly before a small grin curled at the corner of his mouth. “Farewell, you mangy rats.” Watsuji unsheathed his blade with blinding speed, enhancing it with chakra and essentially swatting the large ball of fire directly back at the source at the same speed it had approached at. There was nothing left he could do. It was with some luck that the skilled assassins had been slightly arrogant, taking attention away from the boy after feeling as though they’d sealed his fate with the jutsu. The fireball would nihilists the tree where they stood, sending them falling to the ground. It was at that point they were asked to retreat.

While slumped against the tree, Kirei joined Watsuji. It appeared he was worn down as well. With the words he offered after everything, Watsuji couldn’t help but burst into an exhausted chuckle which blossomed into painful and loud laughter. The two tired and exhausted boys would spark up a campfire and rest up. The adventures they would take on from that point forward would be as far and spread out as the imagination could draw up. Watsuji had no other connections in this land, and Kirei seemed to be nothing other than a wonderful potential friend. He was fierce and capable, as well as close to Watsuji’s age. That was a relief. The many adventures the two would go on would cumulate ultimately to a good friendship.

Exit

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436 | 2532
RT: D-1 ~> D-3 (850) + 125 Ryo
Perception: D-0 ~> (325) + 25 Ryo
Strength: E-1 ~> D-0 (675)
Endurance: E-1 ~> D-0 (675)