“It has been quite a while, has it not, old friend?” Midnight asked his blade, Youtou: Angoku Dama. Of course, it was a rhetorical question, as his blade was far from being alive. Midnight was only asking because he had been on an extended vacation. For this, he was truly sorry, to all those it affected. He was well aware that things would be worse off without him, but he trusted that those he left in the village would be able to take care of it as he intended. It seems that this was a foolish idea.

Midnight had just dressed himself and suited up for the day ahead, as was indicated by his full arsenal on his person and his speaking to his weapon as if it were an old friend. It was indeed old, but it was certainly no friend of his. This.. demonic blade was an enemy to him just as much as the demon that cursed his people was. That being said, this curse was also a blessing that he could not deny using to the full extent possible. If it meant using a demonic blade to harm his enemies, then so be it. This didn’t exclude his dagger, either. Though not specifically a demonic blade, it was a blade with which he had to use to hurt others, and in doing so, he would be doing what the demon intended.

Saying it like that it seems as if Midnight would prefer not to be doing as the demon wants... but this is not the case. He would gladly harm anyone should he find it fun to do so. What he does not care for is a demon cursing his fellow villagers. In respect to the fact that he loves his cloud villagers and that he only wants them to be happy does he disagree with the demon. This is not important, though, the personal relationship between the demon and Midnight is.

Midnight grimaced and put a hand on the katana’s hilt. It was time for Midnight to make a return to his village. He double checked all of his equipment, glancing at the sheath for his dagger and tapping his eyepatch with his free hand. For some reason, he felt that his armory was a bit lacking. Maybe I should prepare some new equipment sometime soon? he pondered before making his way to the door. It was still very early in the morning, so the general public probably wouldn’t be awake at this time. That was really the main reason he even bothered to get up at such an ungodly time. If he did not care for such things he would have slept in for much longer than most ninja ought to. Sleeping and dreaming are such wonderful experiences, after all, but nothing can compare to the real fun of real life.

Midnight opened the door to the outside world, letting a light breeze of cold morning air flood his house. The cold was especially evident now, as winter was just beginning to set its grasp upon the world. The early morning air did nothing to help this case, only causing the air to have a small nip of frost coil around shadowed parts of the village. This particular cold was felt easily by Midnight, as his flowing outfit made it easy for the atmosphere to slink in between the folds of cloth and reach his skin. He did not mind such trivial matters. Much more important things needed to be dealt with than the temperature of the air.

He closed the door behind him and spun on one foot to turn and face it. He then locked it and returned his gaze to the village. It was always a beautiful sight for him; he could never grow tired of looking at it. This was his home, his upbringing, his life. Especially since he was the Raikage. Being such an important person granted him freedom with some things, but at the same time, he was responsible for many more things. This responsibility was shirked while he was away and now he has returned to correct this matter. He hoped that there would not be a terribly large amount of things he would have to be fixing upon his arrival to the administration building. With a worried look on his face, he sighed, “I’d better prepare for the worst then, I suppose.”

Midnight began his sprint towards the administration building. Contrary to popular belief, he did not actually sleep in that building, though he could if he so desired. With his speed he would be able to make it to the building in a matter of moments, but that didn’t stop him from looking at the sights around the village. There were only three bridges for him to cross to get to his destination. Since his home had such height, though, he could easily see nearly all major locations in his village.

Of particular note was the Tower of Heaven. He had previously gone there to train a new jutsu, taking his sweet time preparing for the occasion. However, this place was of particular notice not because of that, but because he had been gone for some time. As he had instructed so long ago, its construction was still taking place. The tower had increased in height since he had last seen it, but what was even more noticeable was the amount of seals covering it. Midnight was no master architect, but he knew for a fact that buildings could only go so high before they were likely to collapse. As such, the building had to be augmented with stronger material and many seals to sustain its foundation. The tower reached far into the clouds by now, now taking a much whiter appearance due to the amount of tags placed on the outside of it. Midnight made a mental note to check out the seals that the architects had used at a later time so that he could study it a bit for himself, and maybe learn a thing or two. Though not outright good for battle, the intricacies of using multiple seals on a single building had to have some complexity and therefore afford him some good teaching. Being that he had ordered its building, he felt a particular attachment for it, though he was never directly involved with it at all other than asking for it to be built.

Unknowingly, Midnight had spent all of his few moments staring at the tower, as he had already arrived at the administration building. This was made evident when he suddenly stopped sprinting. As his body had learned just how long and far it was from his home to the administration building, it was merely a reflex to stop running when he had arrived. Good for him too; he probably would have ran into a wall or something if he did not stop. Midnight quickly snapped back to reality when his legs stopped moving, the sudden change enough to be noticed in his thoughtful state.

He looked the building over. It appeared no different than any of the other times he had come to it. Well at least it’s not burnt to the ground or anything; that’s a good first sign. Since it was apparent that there was no gigantic revolt involving the overthrowing of his building, Midnight thought that he might as well just go back to work as he normally did. No longer in as much of a hurry, Midnight took his sweet time in getting to his office. As he had been gone, it was likely that the building would be chock full of people at all times of the day, trying to get all the paperwork done that he wasn’t around for. The only reason that there would be so much of it was because in his absence several papers needed to be filled out saying that it was acceptable to be replying to things when he was not present. Walking in the front door, Midnight’s expectations were correct.

The woman that was normally at the front desk was now holding a large stack of papers rushing down a hallway to some other room. Another office worker was at his left filling out papers as fast as he could, paying no mind to his presence. Midnight smiled at their hard work, making careful steps not to interrupt everyone’s hard work and be noticed. Midnight quite enjoyed paperwork, so why shouldn’t they? He made his way up a spiral staircase, narrowly dodging another office worker with a pile of papers stacked so high that it almost entirely blocked her vision as she went down the stairs. Since he continued up the stairs with no one stopping him, he presumed that no one had seen him enter the building or go up the stairs. All that remained between him and his office was one more hallway and a flight of stairs.

Reaching the top of the first staircase led him to another hallway full of hard work. This time though, it consisted of many more people, and included a couple rooms. There were two rooms right across from each other and there seemed to be a constant flow of people between them, making it a bit more of a difficult task for him to get by without their notice. He wasn’t worried about the fact that no one had sensed his presence, being a foreign person to their daily activities since his leaving, as he was trying hard to stay out of their attention. He was confident that they would have noticed a person with malicious intentions long ago, but then again, his confidence might have been a bit misplaced...

Seeing that it would be a difficult task to get through the flow of people without them noticing, he decided to put a bit more effort into it, using his swift element to get past without a single soul to notice him. There was still the displaced air in his effort, so he quickly started up the stairs as a gust of wind blew from his movement, making papers fly about the rooms. He was in the home run now, he so casually walked up the stairs to his office, no longer caring if anyone knew he had returned. This was certainly for the best, as all the office workers who were dumbfounded by the sudden gust of wind now had their explanation. Midnight opened the door to his office and entered it to find two ninja already present.

He stood silent for a moment to look at them. They were black ops agents. Why were they here? This doesn’t bode well... Midnight sighed and walked into the room, closing the door behind him. The two ninja didn’t bother to turn to face him, as they knew full well that he would return to his seat before addressing them. While generally a fun loving guy, and a person who tends to find fun in nearly everything, black ops agents usually meant that they had to deal with something. Since they had to deal with something, that means someone somewhere wasn’t having fun. This displeased Midnight. He walked around them and jumped into his chair at the center of his circular desk. He then assumed the posture; That posture being his right foot resting on top of his left knee, his left elbow atop the arm of his chair, and his face with a bored expression lying on the open palm of his now upright left arm. “Okay, so what happened?” he asked, taking on a much more serious attitude.

There were no chairs for the two to sit on, so they continued to stand and explain what they needed to. “Based on the reports Daisuke has demolished the Cazorlo household area using firebombs and defected from the village,” the left one explained. “He also fatally wounded Zabuuza before he left,” the right one elaborated. Midnight was annoyed. That is, to say the least. He was actually entirely furious, but he wouldn’t let his emotions show, that was unprofessional. With few things in life that motivated him, having one of those few things attacked by such a person-- a person that he trusted, respected, and overall was rather fond of-- was crushing. His emotions were going everywhere. A part of him told him to be sad, but that made no sense in this situation, retribution was a much better alternative. Another part of him said that he should immediately leave and go looking for the traitor, but that wouldn’t help either, as he would have been long gone by now. So instead of becoming an emotional wreck, Midnight chose to simply simmer at the moment. His expression did not change from the bored one he already had.

“We don’t currently have a lead as to his whereabouts either, but we’ve added him to the bingo book,” the right one told Midnight. This was good. At least now others might take him down. ... Who was he kidding? Midnight wanted to deal with Daisuke himself. He knew that the Akako were not guilty for this incident, so there would be no need to punish them. Rather, relief efforts would have to be put in place for the Cazorlo family. Midnight decided that he would need to train in the meantime as the participants of the Chuunin Exam had not returned just yet, and he would need to see how well off everyone was doing before he did anything. After all, he did think that as it was that the village would be okay without him. Now that it had been explained to him that he was dead wrong, he felt that he would need to immediately correct this error of judgement. And beyond that, he would need to ensure that his villagers were loyal to him. Though he decided all of this in his head, in reality he had made no movements to let the two black ops agents know that he had heard them.

“Er, Raikage, sir?” the left one inquired. Midnight snapped back to reality at this question, glaring daggers at the two of them. Everything had sunk in by now. The two of them flinched at this, feeling the killing intent exuding from Midnight now. Midnight had his teeth clenched and his eyebrows had furrowed. It was lucky that he didn’t make eye contact with either of them, as they would have likely fallen victim to the hallucinogenic effects of the pure killing intent that he was feeling at the moment. Even so, anyone would have been able to feel that it was a dangerous situation staying in that room. “Leave me,” Midnight told them through gritted teeth. He knew that he could contain his emotions enough not to go on a killing spree, and not to kill the messenger, but that didn’t make it any less harmful for anyone in the same room as him. To spare them from this, he preferred to be alone for a time. They left as he had asked.

Finally alone. Considering what had just happened and what he had been told one might have expected him to just blow his top and start flipping tables and such... but that’s not what happened. Midnight put his right hand on the table and began rolling his fingers, thinking about what he should do now. There were incoming Chuunin, a relief effort he needed to start, a traitor to hunt down, and training to be done. Considering that the Chuunin would come in their own time, he decided not to worry about them, as they would not be an issue until they arrived. Just telling someone in the office to start the relief effort would be easy, and he wouldn’t need to be too involved with it should he choose not to. He was sure they would understand, since the perpetrator was still at large. Training was a higher priority than hunting Daisuke down, though it was often a higher priority than anything else anyway. Midnight glanced down at the table underneath his hand. There was a paper on it.

Midnight stopped rolling his fingers and picked up the paper, bending it slightly so that he could read it. It seemed to be a detailed report about Kirigakure... but why was there such a thing before him? He read further, learning that the village had been burned to the ground. Well that would certainly be news enough to land itself on his desk. He put the paper back down. It seemed he was lucky that Daisuke didn’t try to destroy his entire village. Or maybe he was lucky that he never got the chance to. Since it seemed that Daisuke was rather malicious towards the village, he would only continue to be. Midnight would not even try to be kind to a traitor to his village. If they made such a decision, then they were deserving of his wrath. However, this isn’t what was important about the report about Kirigakure. It seemed that they were asking if anyone would be willing to help rebuild their village. Midnight mulled it over in his head. He had no previous relations with this village, nor was there anything between them that caused issues. Unless that bastard traitor went there. Midnight sighed. As Raikage it was in his best interests to keep a good relationship with the other villages. As such, he would allow his villagers to go there and help rebuild. Midnight found a pen and signed off on the matter. If any villagers of his wished to help, then they would be allowed to do so without having to ask his permission to leave the village, though they would still need to travel in a group or be of high ranking. Midnight paused for a moment. And if there was any sign of Daisuke, they would be told not to engage him, but only report his location. Two birds with one stone, it seemed, though there was no guarantee that he would even be there. Still, it would be beneficial to him if there was any information to be gathered while they were helping.

Since that matter had been attended to, Midnight decided that it was about time that he deal with the other issues left from his absence. The easiest one for him to complete at present was certainly the relief effort. As such, he found a piece of paper that was nearby and wrote up a report for it. He described the situation and wrote that proper services would be required. In the report he asked that there be a proper burial for those that died, replacement homes for those that want them or repairs to those that don’t, and of course personal condolences for those that need them. He knew that it would probably be better if he simply arrived at the scene, gave a speech and then began the relief, but he didn’t have the time for that. More pressing tasks like training to kill the traitor that caused the commotion needed to be done instead. Since that was finished, he left the paper on his desk for an office worker to pick up and begin the proper work for and walked out of the door. He continued down the stairs trying to think of where he could go to properly train and let loose the pent up anger. He paid no mind to the hallway he had so carefully crossed before, nor any of the office workers that were still dealing with the mess he left them. His mind was almost entirely wrapped up in thought over what exactly he should be training. He knew that he wanted to train some with his sword, but he also knew that he couldn’t overlook that his sealing techniques were quite lacking in comparison. Or maybe it was the other way around. His skill in Iaido was certainly stronger than his in Fuuinjutsu, but by quantity he would likely end up with more sealing techniques than sword techniques. Well, there was no point in thinking about such things at the moment, he didn’t even know where he was going yet. He continued down the other set out stairs into the entrance room and was met with the office workers that he had ignored before.

His receptionist was looking directly at him with a worried look on her face. “Going out so soon, sir?” His receptionist asked him, concerned because he hadn’t been in the office as long as normal; leaving even earlier than he normally did when he was in a good mood and finished all the paperwork early. Midnight was glad that someone had paid mind to him, but there was no cause for concern. “Yes, a certain issue has come up that I’ll likely have to deal with personally, so I’ll be leaving a bit earlier from now on,” he explained, giving the receptionist a weak smile. “Everything will be fine,” he assured her. With that being said, he continued on his way out the door and back into the village.

But Midnight didn’t leave the administration building per say. He’d only walked out the door. Not wanting to stray too far in case he was needed he decided that he would be training on the building’s roof. Being where he was at, this simply wasn’t possible-- he was at its base. Midnight corrected this as quickly as he could, running straight at the wall next to the doorway. While a normal person would probably smack into the wall or make it two steps before succumbing to gravity, Midnight was not. As a ninja, he began wall walking straight up the side of the building, being careful not to break anything on his way up. There were quite a few windows along the way, so it was slightly embarrassing for him considering his outfit, but Midnight didn’t pay too much mind to it, since it would hardly be a moment of seeing him anyway. More than anything he was worried about the chain that was wrapped around his neck and the ball attached to the end of it. If he wasn’t careful the ball might swing too hard and smash into a window, causing it to break, shatter, or crack, and that was something Midnight really didn’t want to deal with right now. Paying more careful attention to the location of the chain and ball he continued up the side of the building, scaling the wall with ease.

As he did so, he noticed that it was much easier to feel the atmosphere. The air was quite thin and was only getting thin as he ascended the building. It was colder than it normally was, obvious evidence that winter had arrived. Midnight never much cared either way for the seasons, but winter was one of those seasons that he had to pay a bit more attention to simply due to his choice of clothing. With such frigid temperatures, it was a tad bit more dangerous for Midnight to stay outside for long periods of time. This meant that he would either have to warm up inside more often or just move around more while he was outside. Of course, he’d lived in Kumogakure all of his life so it wasn’t like winter temperatures were anything new to him. If anything he was more prepared for it than any other time in his life. Even so, it was probably better to be safe than sorry.

Midnight even had the chance to appreciate the sheer size of his village--let alone the sole building he was scaling. The scale of everything seemed to be just massive when he thought about it in comparison to Konoha. Not to mention that everything was much more spherical than rectangular like Konoha. It made sense considering the environment the two villages were in; Kumogakure having to work with the mountainous area while Konoha could focus on efficacy from the flatland they had. That was just another thing that made his village better than theirs, they were lazy in comparison to his. While his people had to have extreme determination to settle a village in this place, Konoha just had to sit down and build right where they were at. Lazy. He couldn’t blame them though, it was the logical place to put a village, but as far as tactics, his own was the better location. Wait, why was he even thinking about such things, he was supposed to be thinking about what he would be training once he got to the roof. Speaking of which, wasn’t it about time that he--

Midnight took one extra step too many going up the building and ended up extending his leg too far into the air before properly stopping. Instead of falling over and hurting himself on the roof he pushed with his other foot to jump into the air. This was merely a reflex, so he didn’t think much about how to react to his stumble. Once in the air he turned himself around and landed correctly on the roof of the administration building. The ball and chain landed with him, but wasn’t exactly prepared for the sudden stop and made a little crack on the ground. Ugh, I’m not dealing with that. While normally Midnight would be a bit excited about having to to tell someone to repair the crack, he wasn’t because he was still fuming over having a villager betray his village. Which was why he was here now.

Midnight walked over to the center of the area and sat down cross legged. He still hadn’t thought of what exactly he would be training. It wouldn’t much matter in the long run, as he would still have to train anything else he didn’t train at the moment at a later time. Which was actually a great point. No matter where he started, the end result would be the same. Midnight jumped up and drew his katana, he would be practicing with his sword first. Wait, why did I draw my sword? I don’t know how to use it like this. Midnight shook his head at his moment of stupidity and sheathed his sword. It seemed that all this anger was getting to him-- he could hardly even think straight. Looking around, he surveyed what all was able to be used by him for practice. There seemed to be plenty of trees and... that was about it. Further above him, up the mountain, was the Durian Tree of Demonic Knowledge, but there was no need for him to go up there. Besides that, he might just try to damage the tree, and that probably wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Midnight had to think again about what exactly he needed to do to become stronger. A new sword technique and some new fuuinjutsu would always be good. Currently he had few useful jutsu of either type. I suppose now is as good a time as ever to change that, then, he reasoned. What was something that he needed in battle? Should someone get close to him he could use Shadowless Flight. If he wanted to surprise attack someone that didn’t realize he was an enemy he could use his Touch-based Sealing Method. At long range he had his daggers that he could use. At medium range... there wasn’t anything. At that range, he could use Doseki or Ha or even Yuuan, but none of them would be particularly lethal. Yuuan would aid in getting close for a kill, and Ha was essentially its opposite, so it too would be useful in such a case that he needed to alter his enemy’s eyesight. Doseki could be used as a distraction, or offensively, though it wouldn’t be a very powerful move. What really seemed to be lacking was any kind of defense, fuuinjutsu or otherwise. Sure there was the explanation that with his speed he would have no need to defend, but that can’t always be the case. Well, in this case it might just be true.

“The best defense is a good offense, is what some say,” Midnight told himself , placing his right hand on the handle of his blade. He stopped. There wasn’t anything to defend against, really. Sure he could cut up some trees, but that wouldn’t really accomplish much that he couldn’t already do. It would make much more sense for him to create something that he could defend against rather than just cutting up some poor old defenseless trees. Besides, he was rather fond of these trees. Replacing his hand to his side, Midnight reconsidered his plan. The only other option at this point was fuuinjutsu. It seemed that he would need to use fuuinjutsu to create something to defend against so that he could use some kenjutsu. Wow, it seemed there was a bunch of creating for him to do today. Sitting down again, Midnight began putting deep thought into what he should create.

The fuuinjutsu would need to be semi-powerful and useful outside of just being a medium for training his kenjutsu. Midnight’s mind began to wander. He did find it fun to daydream a bit. Wouldn’t it be awesome if he could seal an entire building into one small scroll? Then he could take it everywhere and always have a place to stay! But that wasn’t all that useful for battle situations unless he was going to drop it on his opponent’s head. His thoughts began to drift away from where they needed to be... Or maybe I could make Yuuan into a more physical ball. Or have a seal pelt someone with balls. Hm..... His mind eventually drifted into the gutter. He was reminded of how his Sealing Method: Touch was able to restrain an opponent with only a tap of his hand. That would be... quite nice... but not very useful since it only lasted for a short amount of time. He needed something that lasted longer... and would be a bit easier to use than having to touch someone. Like somehow tying up someone at long range. With his dagger he could send a seal at least close to the enemy, but he couldn’t always guarantee a hit, so maybe something that had a bit more range from the seal. Something a bit more physical than the seal itself. Then one perverted thought led to another and thus, Shokushu Goukan was born. The only thing left was to create the fuuinjutsu, implement it correctly, and then practice his kenjutsu.

Midnight closed his eyes and imagined what kind the seal would need to consist of, putting into mind as well the actual inscription that would be associated with it. The fuuinjutsu itself would be easily implemented, but the physical result of activating the seal wasn’t as easy. He would have to train to get it exactly right. And so, that is exactly what he set out to do. Since he knew only the bare minimum of ninjutsu, he wouldn’t be able to prototype the seal using those abilities. Instead he would have to just jump right into using the seal itself and watch for the results. Midnight opened his eyes and with the inscription he had in mind getting the whole of his attention he grabbed the hilt of his dagger and threw a phantom copy of it at a nearby tree. The seal was placed behind where the dagger had struck and was left behind as it faded away. Immediately after doing so, the seal was activated, causing chakra to flow out from it. It he had had his byakugan activated he would be able to watch it more precisely, but he didn’t, so he couldn’t. The chakra grew out from the seal and solidified into a massive blob. Well that’s looking good, now it just needs to-- but he was cut short as the blob turned back into raw chakra and dispersed into the air. “Damn it.”

Midnight wouldn’t be mastering this technique that easily, it seemed. He sighed and tried to focus once again on what he wanted the seal to do. Then, just as before, he threw a phantom dagger at the same tree. It faded as usual and the seal remained. The chakra flowed once again, though this time a bit faster than before, getting a bit closer to the needed speed. It continued to flow until it reached the needed length of eleven meters. The chakra began to solidify as before, and actually changed into what it needed to... but there was only one of them. There was little use for only one tentacle. His mind was still in the gutter of course, but he shook the thought away; this was supposed to be a battle ready jutsu, not a jutsu for pleasure. With the fact that he had failed to perfect his jutsu still plaguing him, Midnight knew he had to keep going. If it wasn’t perfectly done as he had imagined it, then there was no point in using it in battle. It might even get him killed if it was a drastic failure. At least he was making some quick and significant progress, though.

Alright, third try. Third time’s a charm, as they say. He concentrated hard on the origin of his chakra, the ring on his finger, and the inscription that needed to be placed after he threw the dagger. The concentration caused the chakra contained in his ring to flow and collect in the hand that he was going to throw the dagger with, his right. Then, using his Iaido skill he quickly drew the dagger in the sheath on the left side of body and threw it at the tree. Since it was thrown, only a phantom of the real blade was thrown, which quickly faded away after striking the tree. The inscription was clearly visible on the tree, but only for a moment before chakra erupted from it. It was a very swift flow of chakra that came from the seal, quickly reaching the needed eleven meters. It solidified almost immediately after arriving at the needed length, forming multiple tentacles. Midnight smiled at his accomplishment, though there only appeared to be four of them. That was alright for now, he still needed to practice a new kenjutsu move so while he was doing that this jutsu could be improved upon as well, since this one would need to be what he practiced on. He got up from his sitting position and walked over to the now tentacled tree. The tentacles hung limp from the seal as he had not commanded them to do anything in particular. As he approached them, he commanded them to raise up to stand horizontal with the landscape, vertical from the standpoint of the seal. They did as he willed, as they should have, and this made him happy. As he had gotten closer to the tree itself, the tentacles stretched past him. He stuck his left hand out and grabbed onto one of the tentacles. It was slick, which caused him to lose his grip of it. This was also good. He didn’t want anyone grabbing them and ripping them apart. He then commanded the tentacle nearest to his hand to wrap around his wrist. It did so, gripping his arm tightly despite its slickness. He pulled on his arm slightly, willing it to stay constricted, and it did so, another good mark. Then using his full strength he yanked his arm from the tentacle, easily freeing himself from it. Though it was meant to restrict a person’s movement, it wasn’t meant to be particularly strong. Okay, so the test run for that is pretty much complete, time to work on a kenjutsu.

Now then, defense through offense. This would need to be a strong technique if he wanted it to be of adequate use in battle. Plus since he was an Iaidoka, having his sword out to defend wasn’t very logical. Being speed-based made him not want to have something weird like a shield, either. Besides, he’d never heard of a ninja using a shield in battle. It seemed like it would only get in the way considering the tactics of typical ninja. Precision would be needed so that he could handle anything being thrown at him regardless of what it was. Genjutsu was of no matter since he was immune. Taijutsu was useless against him due to his speed. Of the traditional styles, all that was left was ninjutsu, of which he had little to no skill with. Really it was quite sad considering his skill in fuuinjutsu, but that’s just how it was. Since he couldn’t counter ninjutsu with ninjutsu he would have to simply stop their attack with his own skill. In the event that he couldn’t stop them will speed alone, he would need a new technique to stop whatever jutsu anyone threw at him. This made him think of a good fuuinjutsu that would literally stop any jutsu that came at him, but now wasn’t the time for that, he had just come up a fuuinjutsu, it was time for a sword technique. Plus, it might be a bit more fearsome if he could stop a jutsu without using his fuuinjutsu. The raw power of his sword would surely scare off any would-be attackers.

It was time to put the idea into action. Midnight returned to where he had stood before for his fuuinjutsu. He commanded the tentacles to just flail around a bit, making it harder for him to hit them. Midnight watched them, taking note of their weak points. Though made of chakra, they were still susceptible to powerful jutsu and couldn’t really contest with the raw strength of higher level shinobi. Preparing himself, he put a hand on the hilt of his katana. The strikes would need to be precise, swift, and powerful enough to break the bonds of the jutsu so that it can no longer stay together. Beyond that, it would need to completely rupture the jutsu so that it wouldn’t be able to repair itself. He grasped the blade and pulled it out of its sheath, swinging it at the tentacles as quickly and powerfully as he could before sheathing it again. This wasn’t the end though, he didn’t want to simply cut the jutsu. In the next moment of time he unsheathed the blade again and struck the tentacles at another point, cutting them further. He sheathed the blade again. He then repeated this unsheathing, striking and sheathing of his blade for a total of ten times before stopping, moving at such a speed that he could much more noticeably feel the Jinton chakra in his veins streak through him. It was an extremely fast maneuver, faster than what he was used to as he had used for Shadowless Flight, which was A rank in power. It took quite a bit out of him to move so fast and strongly in such a short amount of time, leaving him breathing at a quicker pace than normal. He was manually breathing through his mouth, panting at this point. He stopped paying attention to how much it took out of him and looked at the tentacles that he had just attacked. They had disappeared, it seems. Unsure if it was because his kenjutsu technique had been successful or if his fuuinjutsu had simply failed, he decided he would need to perform the technique a bit more. He needed to have full composure after utilizing the technique anyway, otherwise it wouldn’t be a proper Swift oriented Iaido move in his opinion.

Midnight properly composed himself, slowing down his breathing so that he was back to automatic breathing. He could feel his heart no longer wanting to burst out of his chest. He threw another dagger at the tree, placing the tentacle seal on it again. This time when the chakra had suitably formed into the correct shape of tentacles, there were a total of five appendages reaching out from the seal. This was good, he was still improving the jutsu and wasn’t stuck in a rut with it. Midnight closed his eyes and focused his mind on the swift chakra flowing through him, feeling the speed at which it moved. It was just like a shooting star, there one second and gone the next, moving incredibly fast across the sky. If one weren’t paying close attention to it, it would go by completely unnoticed, just as he needed to be. Come on now Jinton, don’t fail me now. He opened his eyes and trained them on his target. He did as before and struck relentlessly at the flailing tentacles. Feeling the swift natured chakra get excited within his veins as he attacked the fuuinjutsu he was able to more properly control it, reducing the amount of strain on his body. Still as fast and powerful as ever, he didn’t need to worry about not making it through the tentacles. Taking in a sole deep breath through his nose and exhaling out of his mouth, he looked at the results of his work in progress technique. The fuuinjutsu was no longer active despite the fact that he didn’t deactivate it. It seemed his technique was successful. At least, the kenjutsu was, the fuuinjutsu just didn’t seem complete just yet. To be sure, he decided to try out the new kenjutsu one last time.

This time without a proper jutsu target, Midnight trained his eyes on the tree that had multiple indentations from the dagger strikes he’d inflicted. He blinked and the pupil of his left eye changed to that of a demonic contract. His breathing shallowed. Feeling more confident and powerful, Midnight focused and struck powerfully and swiftly at the tree. Feeling the demon’s contract empower him while the swift nature of his chakra flowed through his veins gave him a natural high as he enjoyed its feeling. It felt so good to be so strong and fast, striking at the tree in front of him. If only it were a person. Strike, sheath, unsheath, strike again. Chopping limbs off with each blow. Lacerating them with each strike. Eviscerating them bit by bit. Flaying them like a fish. Dismembering them. Maiming them. Utterly destroying them. With that final thought leaving his mind, the onslaught of attacks had ended, showing the results of his strengthened attack. Bits of tree bark and chopped up leaves fell all around him. The technique was apparently much stronger than he had originally expected it to be. This was great news. He consciously blinked again, his eye returning to normal, and with it the rest of his body’s strengthening. What a truly destructive technique. Ecstatic at this, Midnight couldn’t wait to try it out on a person. That could be said for his fuuinjutsu as well, but to a marginally lesser extent only due to the effects of each.

Absolutely wonderful. Now that that’s out of the way, what’s next? Midnight pondered. It had certainly covered his offensive bases and defensive, as well. The only other thing was to just help out with making it possible for him to use it. As if he didn’t already have enough ways to do that, Midnight decided that he should come up with more ways to do so. If not used to close the distance between him and the enemy, then it could at least be used to impede the enemy in some way. The matter in which this would be done, though, was yet to be determined. The most recent fuuinjutsu besides the one from today that he’d learned, though not mastered just yet, was one that blinded his opponent for a time. Perhaps something similar to that would be good; everyone knows full well that we rely on our senses to battle. With sight out of the way, that would leave only four senses left to use against him. Why not knock it down a bit more? Midnight’s smile turned into more of a smirk. Other than the more rare tracker nin that use their noses when there’s a lack of sight, the next most commonly used sense would probably have to be hearing. Midnight considered it.

Without hearing, he could move without worry, though he didn’t worry regardless. Plus it would likely throw people off balance and cause some pain. Well, provided that he made the technique correctly. Unless he learned chakra flow he certainly wouldn’t be using his weapons to achieve this goal of his. Even then, it made little sense to do something like that with chakra flow. It seemed to be much more effective if it was done within a certain range so that either multiple people can be affected or it won’t harm allies. But how could he do it anyway? Midnight thought of the various ways that people’s ears were damaged. There was water, intentional penetration with an outside object, infections, sound... He knew that he didn’t have suiton, nor a good way to damage a person’s ears with suiton with fuuinjutsu or kenjutsu. If he had the chance to penetrate someone’s ears with a physical object it certainly wouldn’t be used in a time to just deafen them; the logical move would be to just kill them. Infections were far out of his league because he was no scientist, nor did he know medical jutsu. Sound... He can’t force them to move incredibly fast, but perhaps there was another way. His secondary element was Raiton, as expected of the Raikage, so it could be possible to use that to make the sound. Yeah, that might work! But of course, there was the issue of him being affected as well. Sounds tends to travel quite far.

Midnight sat down as he had to think more deeply. He closed his eyes and focused on the chakra running through his body again. He could feel the swift element coursing through his veins with fervor. Though useful to him in most cases, this was not one of those times. He needed his secondary element, Raiton. Concentrating on what he needed to feel, he focused his mind on electric thoughts. Electric chakra ran through his veins. Fast, sharp, numbing, hot electricity. Then, like a lightning bolt, he felt a jolt go through his system, the realization that he was now focused on his raiton affinity. The boom of thunder would be easy to create because of the ease to develop a simple lightning seal. The seal itself would be the crack of lightning across it, but the issue was still in how it would affect his enemies, but not himself. Could he use his swift element somehow? No, no, adding speed wouldn’t help the matter. However, this thought did get him thinking. Swift release was rather unique to him. He didn’t know of anyone else that had it. That was something he could use. His uniqueness. If he focused the lightning to resonate with his chakra signature it would no longer affect him, as it would simply pass through his system as a norm to his body, but to others it would be foreign and would therefore damage them. Haha, all this learning was really exciting for Midnight. It wasn’t often that he got to actually sit down and concentrate on new things, so the novel experience was really something that he could enjoy. And now it was time for him to enjoy composing a deafening jutsu. Composing. As if it were a beautiful song meant only for his ears. How beautiful.

Midnight opened his eyes and stood again. As his previous testing object had been entirely destroyed, he thought it best to move somewhere else. He hoped that no one would worry about what was going on up here. After all, it was rather noisy all things considered, and with a big dust cloud of bark dust people might start to get nervous. Especially since it was on top of the administration building. Ah well, he figured he would deal with anyone that came up on a case by case basis. No need to make a big announcement or anything, that would just be a waste of everyone’s time. At any rate, Midnight walked on to the other side of the roof, excited to get his new jutsu working. The entire roof seemed to be covered in trees so it really wasn’t a big deal to him that he might damage a few trees. It wasn’t like he was intentionally chopping down all the trees. If anything that might only happen if he was practicing a lot more kenjutsu, but this simply wasn’t the case. At least this time.

Finding a good sturdy tree, though not particularly necessary, he found a good distance away from the tree. He didn't stand very from it, so there was technically a good chance that he would be harmed by any kind of close range jutsu. It was a good thing that the distance for fuuinjutsu rarely ever mattered. Most of the time it was just hit or miss, like other kinds of jutsu. Training time. Yuuan was the jutsu that blinded his enemies. Its name means dark and secluded. It would be this jutsu’s sister jutsu. The new jutsu’s name would be Yuukan. Quiet and secluded. This combination would make a person blind and deaf. And most of all, secluded from the world. Alone. To die by Midnight’s hands. Or rather, sword. It would certainly be a short life for anyone who fought Midnight. I digress, it was time for training, after all.

With raiton chakra at the forefront of his consciousness, it was a bit easier to call upon through his swift element. His mind taking the familiar pattern of channeling chakra from his body to his hand and then shifting it into his dagger was nearly a reflex by this point, making it much easier for him to concentrate. He altered the flow of chakra, grabbed the hilt of the dagger, giving it the ability to inscribe the seal for him once it was thrown, and chucked the dagger at a nearby tree. The dagger stuck itself into the bark and faded, revealing more easily the seal that it had carried with it. The seal flashed like lightning and let out a high pitch screech to accompany it. The screech hurt his ears like a bitch. “Agh!” He couldn’t help but exclaim. Like nails on chalkboard! He thought as he clamped his hands over his ears. The screech lasted for only a second and the seal faded the moment it ended. Well obviously that needed fine tuning. He could easily just leave that as it was, but he’d rather not hurt himself and others with that banshee of a fuuinjutsu.

Whatever, at least it didn’t seem to be that hard of a fix. Which actually reminded him, he didn’t exactly perfect the tentacle jutsu just yet. Taking his hands off of his ears, he returned his mind to that of his plans for the tentacle jutsu. Slick, restricting, long, fast as he, strong as he, and eight of them. He’d had all of those but the last down. Doing hand seals to mold his chakra, he prepared to use the jutsu again. After he finished the needed hand signs he grabbed his dagger and threw yet another phantom copy of it at the tree. As per usual the dagger faded and the seal was left inscribed on the surface in which it was stuck. The seal glowed for a moment and chakra jolted out from it, forming into slimy tentacles that fell limp out of it like dismembered arms from a slammed window. Lifeless. Now that was more like it! Midnight did a quick count of the appendages protruding from the seal. There were seven. Still not quite what he wanted, but it was very significant progress. He was sure that the next time he used it it would be perfect. Now then, back to what he was working on. The progress on the tentacle jutsu was plenty fun and a great confidence booster as well. Oh what joys he could have once his jutsu were mastered.

Satisfied with what he had, he recalled the tentacle jutsu, making the seal and the tentacles attached to it poof into smoke. Midnight then changed his thinking back to the raiton seal he needed to perfect. His own unique chakra signature would need to be used specifically so that he wouldn’t have bleeding ears from using the jutsu. He thought about it for a moment and whistled a high note. That would be good, though of course a much higher pitch. Now with a better idea for what he was striving for he drew his dagger again and threw it at the tree. The phantom dagger disappeared and a high pitched wail resounded from the seal. It was very similar to the whistle sound that he blew just previously, but was of course a much much higher frequency. To him it sounded quite wonderful. The seal then faded away. Off in the distance he could hear some dogs barking. Guess that’s a good sign as any that it was successful. Fantastic! Again happy with his achievements, he jumped up into the air in excitement. When he landed the dirt underneath him was unsettled and made a dust cloud around him. How bothersome.

Midnight didn’t realize how loose the dirt was up here. Of course, there wasn’t a lot of moisture and it was fairly rocky up in the mountains, so it was at least a bit understandable. But more importantly it gave him an idea. Stomping his feet a bit more he created a bigger dust cloud. Soon enough the dust cloud rose in height so that it was taller than him. He couldn’t see that well. It was a regular smoke cloud. Almost like a smoke bomb, though not nearly as potent. What a great idea for another jutsu! Midnight already had a technique for blinding a person, but it would be a great surprise to them for them to return from it only to find themselves in a big smoke cloud. A gust of wind blew through the rooftop, taking the dust cloud with it. It was a shame that it would be cleared so easily, but depending on the opponent, that kind of movement might not ever occur. Considering he had a byakugan to watch his opponent at any rate, it didn’t much matter anyway. Any kind of lapse would be taken advantage of by him to get close and decimate the opponent.

The concept of the jutsu still fresh in his mind, Midnight threw a dagger at the ground in front of him. The seal was denoted with the word “Smoke” and exploded like a bomb. From the explosion came a thick smoke that Midnight couldn’t see through at all. He didn’t bother with his byakugan since he knew it could be seen though very easily. The smoke continued to expand until it was larger than the length of the tentacles. What a good combination, it seemed. The smoke didn’t irritate him at all, but he kind of wished it did. Well, not him per say, just in general so that he could use it against someone else. At least it hung around for a while. As soon as he thought this, a gust of wind came again and blew the cloud away. It seems he spoke too soon. Not particularly frustrated, he was content with how successful the first try at that jutsu was. Since he now had a good fuuinjutsu for smoke bombs, he would certainly use it when he needed to mess with a person or to conceal anything he needed to. Quite a useful jutsu, really. Midnight was about to ponder about what to do next when someone came up to the roof.

“Raikage, sir, are you alright?” A mousy voice asked as it came up the side of the building. It seemed someone had finally come to see what he was up to. Or maybe he’d been a bit too loud. Not one for letting people worry about him, Midnight walked over to where he heard the voice was coming from to meet the person once they made it up, though he didn’t actually say anything.

“Sir, we heard an explosion up here, are you okay?” The voice asked again nervously, now making it over the edge of the building. It seemed this person was at least a little bit afraid for some reason. Otherwise it wouldn’t have made sense for someone to be so nervous when investigating an explosion from where the Raikage was at. If it were only worry, the voice would have been much more frantic, but it wasn’t. The person seemed more concerned about disturbing Midnight than worrying that he was in any actual danger. He couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.

“As you can see, I’m quite alright,” Midnight explained to the nervous man, spreading his arms and gesturing to himself. There was little to be seen on his person since he wasn’t the type of person to be a messy trainer, though there were still bits of bark and leaves on him from earlier. He couldn’t help that, they were of no concern to him since they were incapable of impeding his progress in creating jutsu. All in all though, he hardly looked roughed up.

“Oh, well, that’s good, I’ll just head back down,” the man replied, starting to turn around and head back down, but Midnight had an idea. He was in need of a test dummy, after all, and it wasn’t like he was going to hurt him or anything. Well, he hoped not.

“Wait. I need you here,” Midnight told him before he could even take a single step over the edge of the building. The man froze up and turned back around, looking ever so nervously at Midnight. How cute, he seemed rather scared.

“O-oh, is that so? What do you need of me, Raikage, sir?” He stuttered. He was clearly not enthusiastic about helping the Raikage out, but he was certainly not greatly opposed to it. Otherwise, he probably would have took off as if he didn’t hear what Midnight said. Maybe he was new.

“I just need you to...” Midnight paused to think of the right wording as to not scare him off. “help me out with a few things,” he finished. It wasn’t a lie at all, it was just simple help. Sure the help consisted of being a test dummy to potentially dangerous jutsu, but it was still help that Midnight needed. Well, not needed. Wanted, more accurately. It was much more amusing to test some jutsu on a human being than another jutsu of his or another tree.

With little else he could say, the man gulped and nodded, walking into the wooded area so that he could be of use to Midnight. Then, the man seemed to remember something. “Ah, I have this for you, Raikage, sir,” he told Midnight, no longer appearing to be the nervous wreck he was just a moment ago. The man reached behind himself and was rummaging through a pack on his back. Curious, Midnight walked up to him to see what he had for him. The man finally found what he was searching for and pulled out a scroll, offering it to Midnight. Unsure of what to make of this, Midnight took the scroll and opened it. They seemed to be instructions on how to perform a semi-powerful raiton fuuinjutsu. Wonderful, another thing that he gets to test on this guy. Strangely enough, the man smiled at completing that task and simply stood awaiting orders.

A bit put off by the sudden change in disposition, Midnight reacted in a way he didn’t exactly expect. He attacked. He wanted to wipe off the smug grin off his face, but of course didn’t want to hurt the man. The reflex was thankfully altered due to last minute thinking, a violent response now changed to that of a controlled attack. Of course, the man didn’t notice anything because the attack was so sudden and quick. One moment Midnight was surprised, and the next he was attacking the man. The next moment after that, he was back to normal... and the man’s pants fell down. Caught totally unaware, the man’s face burned into a fiery red. He was immediately embarrassed and quickly pulled his pants back up. Amused at what had just happened, Midnight burst out laughing. It wasn’t so much laughing at the man as it was at himself for changing his reflex so that that had happened instead. What a crazy random happenstance. He could even use this on his opponents, and so he intended to do. The man didn’t even know how to react at this point. He fixed his pants as best as he could and hid his face with his hands in an effort to hide his embarrassment, as it seemed to him that his pants had fell down because he was incompetent in keeping them up. Midnight didn’t want him to feel bad, so he calmed himself down and consoled the man.

“Ahaha, it’s alright, you’ve done nothing wrong, that was my own fault. Don’t ask. Now, do you have any water on you?” Midnight asked. He wondered only because he was getting thirsty from the long hours of training he had apparently put in to the various jutsu he had now acquired. The man nodded and retrieved a bottle of water from a back on his lower back. He offered it to Midnight saying, “Yes, here you are, sir.”

Midnight accepted the bottle, opened it as quickly as he could and chugged the entire bottle. It had already been a pretty busy day. To better illustrate this, it was notable that the sun was now rather close to being directly above their heads, meaning that it was already close to lunchtime. Not thirsty still, but just curious, Midnight asked, “Do you have another?”

The man checked his pouch and found another bottle. He took it out and offered it to Midnight again. “No no, keep it, I was just wondering if you had one,” Midnight elaborated on his question. The reason he asked was because he wanted to try making a smoke bomb seal, but made of something more irritable so as to impede any enemies. He figured that water would probably be the best bet to deal with it. At least, he hoped so. Still unsure, Midnight returned his mind to the smoke bomb seal had created earlier. Focusing more on lethal damage, Midnight began constructing a seal that would fit the bill as he needed.

“Er... okay, what did you need me for?” He asked timidly again. Midnight found that a demonstration would have been much better than any kind of explanation. After all, real world experience is is often much better than academic knowledge. “Just stand there, and be ready,” Midnight told the man, giving him ample time to prepare himself. Of course, the man didn’t know Midnight very well, only knowing of his odd personality, sadism, and hastiness with work, so helping him out seemed extra outlandish to him.

Midnight did the proper hand seals and threw a phantom dagger at the man’s feet, jumping back from him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. The smoke that erupted from the seal was white, but otherwise was meant to cause skin and eye irritation. And it immediately did so. “Ahhhhh!!” the man inside the smoke exclaimed, feeling the urge to just run away right then. However, his duty to the Raikage seemed to be much stronger than that.
“Good, good, now use the water to clean that up.” It seemed another jutsu was a first use, first perfection jutsu. All that was left was the perfection of the tentacle jutsu and the scroll he had just received. The scrolled jutsu seemed to be particularly fatal, so he thought it was best that he not try it out on his subordinate, especially after slightly damaging his eyes and skin. If anything he probably should have let the man go by now. Ah well, he can handle one last test,I’m sure. Midnight reasoned.

The man did as he was told and cleaned his eyes and some of his body of the irritants. This was also rather amusing to watch because the man had to thoroughly clean himself in front of Midnight, being careful not to be lewd in front of the Kage. Not done embarrassing the man, Midnight thought it would be outright hilarious if he helped him a bit. Throwing a dagger at his feet again, Midnight set another seal to go off beneath the man’s feet. This seal too was activated, but rather than being any kind of smoke, eight long tentacles erupted from beneath him and picked him up by one leg. He was screaming of course, but Midnight was having a ball of a time toying with this man. By now the man was done ridding himself of the irritants so the tentacles were of no help at all other than purely for Midnight’s enjoyment. He had the tentacles play with the man, though not in a perverted fashion. They juggled the man, made him do jumping jacks as if he were a puppet, and made his arms hit himself among various other things.

All while this was going on Midnight was reading the scroll that he had been given. He was consciously manipulating the tentacles to do what they were doing, but that didn’t stop him from reading as well. Two times the fun, really. Once he had finished the scroll, he set the man back down. “Sorry for causing you any trouble, you can go back now,” Midnight apologized, though he wasn’t entirely sorry. He was very much enjoying himself.

The man, a subordinate under him, had few options to reply with, so with a huff he replied, “It’s fine,” and left hastily. Clearly he wasn’t having as good a time as Midnight was. Such a shame. All that was left was the scrolled jutsu. It seemed rather easy in comparison to the jutsu he’d already been doing all morning. Not in the literal sense, of course, since it seemed to be raiton fuuinjutsu and involved two barriers. However, in terms of power it was technically weaker than the tentacle jutsu he’d made. It was time to see just what he could do with it.

Midnight, as per the instructions, drew his katana and stabbed it into the ground. The base seal was grounded just then and was shot forward until it reached the place where the tentacle jutsu was. That was his target. The target was then “trapped” within a barrier, though the tentacles at this point were just laying limp upon the ground since his mind was focused on getting the jutsu right the first time. He was getting pretty hungry. He felt like eating something grilled. The outer circles of the seal started to rotate, one clockwise while the other moved counterclockwise. Midnight liked where this was going. Go faster, faster, he egged on the seal. And it was so, the rotation increased in speed, making the friction that was being created more clearly evident. Then, all at once, the static charge that was built over the seal was released onto the target, completely shocking the tentacles. It seemed that it would have been better for the victim to have electrically conductive materials so that the effect would have been stronger, but even so, this was good enough for Midnight. The tentacles were damaged beyond repair and poofed away. Since the Thunder Crest had done its job as well, it too faded away. Now that he had accomplished everything he wanted to, Midnight figured it was about time that he get something to eat. Exhausted from all the chakra he’d used that day, he decided to just eat out somewhere since he was far too tired to cook anything for himself. As such, he ran down the side of the building and into town to look for somewhere to eat. After all this effort it seemed he had mostly gotten over his anger towards Daisuke, though if he was reminded he would be angry again. For now at least, he was content.

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