Standing on the edge of the badlands, Gen looked across the expanse of the are, looking on the giant blot on the edge of the horizon. That was the nearest major village. The village of Iwagakure; Some people would claim that you'd never find as large a hive of scum and villainy, whereas others found it to be their own paradise. That being said, those who found it to be a paradise did tend to be the criminals that the first bunch were so fond of hating. The place was over-run by the scum of the earth, they were the people that were bringing the city down, although it was pretty obvious why the area was so full of criminals. They had really not had a good history of kages within the last... god knows how long. There was Dengen, there was Arashi, and now there was Kazu. They were pretty much living in a land of muck and filth, and it was only natural that people from such an area would inevitably breed people who were like their situation. Although, from what Gen had heard recently, there were two kinds of criminals that were haunting the village as of this moment. The first kind of criminal was the obvious one, the illegal one who did anything they wanted to because they wanted to. That sounded a lot like Set, if Gen was thinking about that, but what he was paying more attention to was the second group. The first group were normal, every day criminals that you would find in every village no matter what time period you were in. The second group were professional criminals. You might think that every criminal was a professional criminal since that was how they got their money, but that wasn't the case.

It was a ridiculous thing to think about, but it was apparently true - The kage had actually hired criminals to be better criminals than the actual criminals within the village. They were supposed to overtake the independent crime syndicates within the city and then give the city back to the kage. Whoever ran Iwa would have to be an idiot to believe that was how it was going to work, but that was just his opinion. Maybe he had a great reason for doing it, but no matter how much Gen had thought about it he couldn't find out what the reason behind this bizarre decision was. Although, that being said, it wasn't even definitely true, since he had heard this information from his sources in the underworld of the criminal world. Well, by his sources, he really meant Set's sources. Set's sources seemed to be in every underground den that he had been brought into by Set, they were all over the place. Set had only been awakened for, what, a few years but he was still so much better at manipulating the world than Gen was. It was like he was able to manipulate everyone and get every last thing that he wanted out of the world without even having to try. That being said, it was hard to tell when he was actually trying. Set had a way of making friends with criminals, it was strange. Still, at least he didn't have a habit of getting said criminals to want to kill him, that would be a problem.

So, as he stood on his hill overlooking the village, he smiled slightly. If the village was so full of criminals and other people who broke rules and laws, that made this place an absolute haven for gen, the shangri-la of his quest. This place might give him the chance to purify some of the criminal organizations that were plaguing the city. If he was able to purify this place, then surely he would get good karma for what he was doing, and from that good karma something good would happen to him. Of course, he could feel Set smiling inside his mind about what else they would be able to find within the city. They were going to be coming up against criminals, and from what he remembered about this city, it was not illegal to kill criminals. He was going to be able to have fun here, there would be all sorts of dirty little secrets about the village that he would get. It would be so interesting. However, they had to do one little thing before they got into the city proper. It was why they hadn't just had Horus fly them into the city. They were currently walking over the barrens that surrounded the city, the entire area having only bare glimpses of grass, but almost entirely covered in dirt. This was a trick that they were using to get their body more accustomed to the bare earth.

This was Iwagakure, the village hidden by the rocks. The entire village was supposedly skilled with Doton-based techniques, and if that was true then to blend in properly they should probably evolve their own doton abilities. Now, since fire chakra could be boosted by simply being in a hot area and allowing the body to acclimatize to said heat, or water was boosted by being in water, it only makes sense that being able to get more in touch with earth, rocks and mud that made up Doton chakra. At least, that was the logic that he was using to explain his actions in this little scenario. He was almost wishing that he'd chosen another way to do it now, since he could feel the mud oozing beneath his feet, and it was rather quite disgusting. His shoes were in the bag that he had slung on his back, so they were still safe, but he was seriously wanting to put them on right now so he could stop feeling the earth under his feet. But, he could feel his earth chakra adapting to the situation, and it was probably doing him good in the long run, but it did not feel very good - He didn't know why people enjoyed putting mud on their face so much, it felt slimy.

He continued walking through the area, occasionally feeling the grass of nearby patches rubbing against his legs. The area was, he noticed, extremely pretty. Well, pretty for somewhere that was dead. He couldn't help but wonder how frequently it rained around here. It had rained recently enough that this was all still basically fresh mud, but to not be a lush grassland like how Konoha was and for it to not be the desert that Suna was had to be a careful balance. It was almost like the badlands around Sunagakure, the area that everyone was warned about. He could feel the cracked earth as he walked through the area, areas hidden underneath rocks that had not been able to get enough water from the apparent rain storm. This place must have a lot of hot days, unfortunately today was also one of them. What was worse was that the high amount of water vapor in the air that had come from the recent storm made it all the more humid, and humid heat was always a lot worse than dry heat. It was almost like he was burning up, he'd had to sling his coat over the bag so that he didn't overheat. He could just imagine overheating in an area like this, it would probably leave him in a place that nobody would find him until he had already passed on, they would only find a desiccated body that they would be unable to place to him.. Wait, this wasn't normally how he thought. Set had to be meddling with his thoughts, he didn't know how it was possible with them being mentally separate entities but this was definitely the kind of thing that he would make him think about. Probably the man trying to find his damned "fun" that he was so needy about.

He knew that if he was put into a situation like that, Horus would be able to find him before any real danger came upon him. It was the good thing about having a partner who was always at his side, if he was to fail and get ill, or to be unable to go any further he was able to get his friend to take him the rest of the way. In fact, it was only because of his need to manage his own chakra styles that stopped him from being in the village already, if he had just allowed Horus to fly him into the village then he'd be able to not have these mind games playing with his emotions. He would be there already, finding his way to the nearest missions that the kage would ask him for, he would get his first job out of the way and earn more karma... It was that, he decided, that allowed him to have these thoughts. He was delaying doing the right thing, which was a sign of sloth and self importance, which earned him bad karma, and hence why he was being tortured this way.

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