He had only been here for around a week at this point, having arrived through the badlands on Saturday and now it was Tuesday. He had been doing a lot of missions however, so it seemed a lot longer than it actually had been. Still, with as long as it seems, it seemed way too soon since he'd last had to do this. Once again Gen was having to boost his doton chakra levels, knowing all too well what was coming his way. See, since he had arrived in Iwagakure, he had seen more and more criminals within the city, and whilst that was kind of expected in the kind of city that he was in, he kept hearing the same name everywhere that he went. "Blue Rose". Of course, even with his meager connections he had managed to hear about it before he'd actually entered Iwagakure, but that didn't seem to matter one single jot when it came to the fact that he had never really understood what they were. See, normally it was the job of the kage to take out criminal organizations, or at least to organize people who would go out of their way to wipe out said criminal organization. Normally they were shinobi or they were ANBU members, since they had a lot more loyalty to the village than a foreigner ever could. However, that seemed to be different with this kage, something that had become increasing obvious the longer and longer that he remained inside Iwa.

Despite the amount of importance that most people put on getting rid of criminals, Iwa had somehow become infected by their disgusting presence anyway. The kage had apparently been sending people against the criminals more and more, although unfortunately there was very little proof about what was happening, despite it being almost common knowledge that there was a seedy underworld going on beneath the village. Everyone knew about it, but he couldn't make a move against them for fear of angering the people of the earth country. This was why Gen had never been a fan of politics, people were in danger every single day because people refused to pay attention to these crimes, but the moment that someone actively went out of his way to protect people he was instantly classed as a criminal simply because there was no proof. He was no psychopath like Set, but they both agreed that that little political situation was full of so much bullshit that it could be used as a reliable farm. However, the kage had been given an opportunity that most people would never have even considered possible. The kage... was working with mercenaries.

What people frequently forgot about Akatsuki when they were looking back at history was that that group was not originally a terrorist organization. For many years, they were simply just mercenaries. They were the group that villages worked with when they wanted something done off the record books, they had worked for almost every single village at one point or another, whether the kages would willingly admit that or not. It was, after all, the easiest way to get what they wanted without having to start a war. If they found a squad of Iwa ninja trying to ambush and torture a group of Kiri ninja to try and get information out of them, then it was clear who sent them and a war between the villages would break out, something that no village wanted no matter how much they disliked the other villages. However, by using an impartial organization that all villages would have to come to rely on sooner or later, they were able to attack another village without fear of retribution until they were hired against them. It was only when Akatsuki started working under it's own agenda that they were widely hated and hunted. They might have been hated beforehand, but that was merely villages putting a tactical slant on things again. It was how politics worked, if you didn't want to get in trouble you had to be a two-faced villain. That was the only way, it seemed, to survive in the world of politics.

So, now that he was openly working with mercenaries again, that was probably a bad sign of what was to come. See, the Blue Rose was made up of missing nin from all over the world, rumors had it that even the elite Hyuga of Konoha were among the ranks of the soldiers in Blue Rose, or rather that he was one of the ones leading it. Konoha, Kiri, Kumo, Suna, the only place that that group didn't allegedly have members from was Iwagakure, and that was because criminals from Iwa would have to be suicidal to still remain inside the village. Though it was truly only a contract for now, they had already made their base within the city, and whenever Set had the chance to get information from people within the underground, he found some interesting things that most people would find really rather interesting.

See, there were many contradicting factors. Some of the members of Blue Rose took over and run already active slave gangs within the cities, other destroyed the slave gangs, some worked legitimately for the kage and did nothing that could possibly hurt him, whereas others did stuff that seemed to be written in a bad book about how to spot a conspiracy. This made it impossible for Set to get a lock on what they were looking for, and since Gen had very little understanding of the criminal mind, having been raised in very selective circumstances and preferring to stick to his holy books than to go into the darker corner of the world, they had no idea what was going on, and quite frankly he didn't truly want to know. But, there was one thing that was absolutely hideously clear. Sooner rather than later, there was going to be a civil war, and he was not going to let it catch him off guard even if he was not an active participant.

The group were becoming more and more powerful with each passing day, and from rumors that he'd heard, the ninja who had killed the leader of the hidden leaf village had actually joined their group, so they were now joined with a known kage killer. For a group of supposed neutral-party soldiers, there was a large amount of anti konoha sentiment within that group it seemed, with the guy who killed a kage and one of the strongest clan's member joining that group, and that was only the ones that he knew about. There were also rumors that there was a denounced kage among their ranks, although with the amount of switch-over of power that had been going on recently, he couldn't be sure who or what that would have been, even if it happened to be true. Criminals had an annoying way of exaggerating the facts to try and make their information seem all the more appealing to those who they were selling it to. Thankfully, since he had been unable to confirm the information for sure and was really just giving out rumors, Set had refused to pay the man until he had something more concrete.

Still, with that information (or rather, whatever part of it actually happened to be true, if any), it was very stupid to believe that the ANBU forces of every village apart from Iwa was not about to come down like a hammer upon the village, trying to exterminate this clear and present danger from the world. Taking out a group that Iwa relied on for it's own protection was going to bring the ire of the Tsuchikage, and most likely he would try to stop them, which would almost certainly forge a divide in the ninja world between those who believed that all Private Military Cores should be wiped out before they had the chance to become like Akatsuki, and those who believed that everyone should have a chance to live. He wasn't sure that was how it was going to work, but there was enough confidence about it in his mind that he was not going to sit back and take a chance simply because he can.

It was this reason that he was currently standing in the Koudo Sutajiamu underground stadium, waiting for his turn. The Koudo Sutajiamu was an illegal underground arena that, ironically, was most often attended by the soldiers of the village, either so they could settle scores with their squad mates or so that they could pick up new techniques simply by watching. It was a really dirty place, filled with hypocrisy and self serving arrogance that made Gen almost wish that he hadn't come here at all. He was not normally a brawler type, which was why he was going to allow Set to use their body during this little game. He still didn't like the man, but it seemed like he would be best to use in this situation.

If he was able to continue his concentration in a dangerous situation like this, then it was almost definite that he would be able to master his chakra styles better. Besides, it seemed more and more that he was allowing his fighting style to rely on Horus. They were partners, but partners needed to be able to hold their own even if they were working together. Their clan had given them minor bone deterioration, so he was all the more dangerous when it came to close combat, he could break his arm simply from being punched. It was this very reason that he had taken to riding on Horus during battles, but what if Horus was made out of action during a mission? He couldn't just go on and force Horus to continue fighting when injured. He had to be able to fight on his own, in case Horus ever got put into a position where continuing to have a presence on the battlefield was dangerous to his continued existence.

The current fight that was going on was a fight between two members of the same village, although that was almost obvious from the area that they were currently. The more important thing about one of the combatants was that he was able to see his eyes, and they were blank and vacant. It was rude of him to see, but this guy was clearly blind. However, he was able to keep up with his opinion's movements and even go so far as to be able to put the other man on the defense, every time that the man moved the blind guy was able to see what happened, and even move to counter it, until the unbelievable happened. He had kicked the other guy's ass. Moving his foot up the moment the man had tried to move his head backwards from a headbutt, the foot connected and knocked him right into the air, where he fell with a heavy thud against the stone floor.

That was interesting, this guy was extremely talented, but what was even more interesting was that he had seen that style of tracking before. That style of tracking was done most often by the tunnel snakes, it was the exact same vibration sensing, he was sure of it. How they had managed to pick that up from an animal that would kill you as soon as look at you (not that they ever knowingly looked at you, with their redundant eyes and all) was unknown, but he liked that clan. Someone along their line had been brave and strong enough to keep paces with a tunnel snake for long enough to pick up their technique. Or, alternatively, it was just a massive coincidence. Though, Set thought with a face of pure determination, Gen always was so adamant about there being no such thing as coincidence. Maybe, just maybe, he was right. Or maybe he was just saying pseudo-religious bullshit like he almost was.

2000/2000 Improving Doton Proficiency (C->B) Completed
0009/2000 Improving Futon Proficiency (C->B) In Progress

"That fight was won by Akami Yanagi, also known as the blind bandit! Give it up for one of your favorites, will you folks?" the cheer that went up among the crowd was almost deafening, he was not fond of the way that people seemed not to understand that people were still people and that yelling in their ear was still going to hurt no matter how psyched they were. Standing there patiently, he waited until it was his turn to go up to the center stage. Well, not quite. See, the way that the arena worked was that they would put a crowd favorite into the arena and they would have him fight other people to try and see if anyone could beat him. If someone was able to beat him, that person would be allowed to continue on in the ring and would take on any new challengers. After all, if someone was able to be beaten they were no longer a challenger. However, this method had serious flaws in the way that it had been arranged. For one thing, the person was not allowed any breaks, so they would quickly become tired after several consecutive fights. It would have required someone who wasn't quite human to be able to continue fighting tirelessly all day. Even if Set was above the human race in all other aspects, he still had the human race's dependency on stamina and that meant that even he would get tired if he continued fighting for a long time.

It was only natural after all, even if he was a god he was living inside his host who was a simple human, it wasn't like Gen had managed to become a super human, they were still using a human body and thus they would have human weaknesses. Besides, if a man had no weaknesses then he could never be considered truly strong. Being strong was learning your weaknesses and then finding a way to overcome them (I.E. he was very badly prepared for close quarters combat so he made sure that he flew around on Horus whenever possible to stay out of range whilst still remaining close enough to fight his opponents), whereas someone who had no weaknesses might have been more powerful, but power was not quite as useful as being strong. Being strong was what allowed people to continue through battles, since powerful people weren't used to having to deal with watching other people die, or rather people that they don't want to die dying and them being unable to stop it. Thus, powerful people were most often the ones who became missing nins because they overly relied on their abilities and forgot that they were still human, something that drove them crazy in the long run.

"Anyone willing to come up and fight the bandit?" The commentator asked, and for a moment everyone was unwilling to come to the front. Or at least, that was the way that it looked, since Set was finding it extremely difficult to get through the crowd. There were so many people here that it was gridlocked, it was almost impossible for him to find his way through all these people, and that was making the commentator assume that nobody was willing to come up and deal with the reigning champion. thus, when he spoke, there was clear disappointment in his voice. Matches only lasted as long as there were still people who wanted to fight, that was why a fight could last either an hour or it could last for several days. People could leave and come from the arena whenever they wanted, so there was an almost omnideveloping crowd despite people having to leave either to get sleep or to rush their friends who lost their fight to the hospital bed.

"Come on folks, this fight has only lasted an hour and a half so far, you guys can do better than this, so I'll ask again. Who wants to come up and fight Yanagi?" Once again, there was a moment of pause until he was finally able to get to the front, stumbling out of the annoying crowd. When he was finally free he brushed himself down to get rid of the large amounts of dust that was now cloaking his body, before taking a more dignified posture than should be possible for someone who just had to push his way through a crowd, walking towards the arena as his hands went down, grasping around the bottom of his shirt and pulling it up, taking his coat with it so that as he got closer and closer to taking his shirt off, the coat was just as far towards getting off as his shirt was. the commentator seemed to enjoy this, as did some of the girls in the audience.. as well as some of the girls. The commentator's annoying voice boomed over the crowd

"Wow, would you look at that folks? The new contender is a pretty boy with white hair and a body that he's clearly not afraid of showing off. Take a good luck ladies, that's a prime example of a stud who apparently doesn't mind stripping." Now, up until this point there had been no clue to the Yanagi what was going on with his new opponent, but there was something he apparently found extremely amusing about his opponent stripping for the match. He laughed openly, the sort of laugh that only came from people who were overconfident about their powers. Not that this man didn't have the right to be confident about his abilities, but there was a clear amount of overconfidence in him as well, going past the acceptable amount into sheer bragging that came in his voice as he spoke.

"Oh, you're stripping? Well, I'd like to remind you that the name is "the blind bandit" and that is for an obvious reason. If you were trying to show off with your body to me so that I might be tempted to go easy on you, then you're sorely mistaken. Besides, I'm not into guys so that hope would be dead even if I could see, as good looking as I'm sure you are." The last words were said in that sort of patronizing tone that only true assholes were able to pull off. Okay, he was an asshole, but at least he was talented, Set could use talented people if he was given the right opportunity.
"Don't worry, I wasn't trying to impress you. I just didn't want to get your blood on my clothes, blood stains are a pain to get out of fabric." The moment he said that, the bell ran for the match to begin and, rather than acting as most people did, he gave the Yanagi the first move.

See, the way that their vision worked meant that they saw through vibrations. So, if he was to not move, there would be a reduced vibration, the only thing causing his body to vibrate would be the beating of his heart, and he was able to slow that down through breath delaying methods that were used normally for prepping meditation. As the man moved forwards not as sure where his opponent was, Gen used his abilities as a ninja and his superior speed to dodge the attacks. The mastery of doton and futon attacks also relied heavily on the ability to manipulate the body's movements. The flowing of chakra through the body was important for wind chakra, and doton chakra worked off of someone having confidence and managing to have a strong stance. They were considered the opposite chakra styles because of how different their mastery was, but whether or not they were different they had a similar way of improving the mastery of both.

As the man was surprised about his attacks being dodged, Set moved his hands through the hand signs, forming the signs required for his rock clone jutsu. With a puff, they appeared around him, ringing the area so that the man was unable to get away. Because of the fact that this man worked off of vibrations, he was unable to tell which one of the clones was real, they were all vibrating the same. Unfortunately for the man, they all had higher reactions and speed than him, so whenever he attacked them they simply moved out of the way. Continuing to move away, the four of the clones and Set moved back rapidly before the one left in the middle wove another jutsu, summoning an orb of wind. Even if the man took out the clone, the jutsu was still going to stay there until he was able to break out. He wasn't sure what was going on, with there being no ground based vibration since it was basically just wind, all he knew was that there was suddenly a large amount of wind in the area. But, it was all over, he didn't know what to do. Slamming his fist out, the fist landed inside the wind currents and moved so that his arm was pushed, hurting him slightly until he pulled it out.

Doing the same with his leg, he kicked out and tried to take it out that way. It was going to work, he would have to do an actual jutsu. And that was what he did... beginning to sink into the floor, he used one of the Yanagi clan techniques... and found to his dislike that the wind circle was an orb, blocking him off even when he tried to get out that way. It was a perfect prison, the only way to break through the walls was a jutsu, and he was tired out from his earlier matches. He had run out of his tiny amount of chakra during the first few matches, and now he only had his physical abilities left. He was not going to get out of this. Set was, in a way, disappointed at the man's combat inabilities, although that was most likely because of the way that he had tired himself out through the earlier fights. All he'd had to do was use that to his advantage and now he had him exactly where he wanted him. Looking at the man, despite the fact that the man was not sure what was going on, he spoke.

"You know, you could just surrender right now and spare yourself the trouble of getting embarrassed. Everyone loses once in a while, you're not entirely pathetic because you couldn't even lay a scratch on a "pretty boy" " The clone still inside the wind orb said that, as the man continued to beat against the walls.

"Why do you want to win this so badly?" the man asked, looking at the clone since he knew for a fact that he was at least able to find that one. The thought that he had done this simply because he wanted to win a match was ridiculous, no he had been practicing enhancing his chakra styles, something that he felt like he had done through the course of this match, but still he wanted to talk to this guy.

"I'm beginning.. well, you could call it a business empire. We could use the talents of someone like yourself among the ranks." That surprised the guy, the darkness in that voice didn't seem to add up to the pretty boy image that he had been given until recently. Frankly, everything that he knew about since Set had entered the arena had caused him to peg Set as a serious pretty boy type, someone who cared more about fashion than about actually important things.

"... How much are you paying?" He asked, to which Set merely smiled, before realizing that it was pointless since smiles didn't cause vibrations, there was no point in showing emotions right now.
"I'll give you whatever you earn, because trust me with me you'll be earning a lot if you do your job right. Do your job wrong, and you're getting nothing. Understand?" The silence in the orb was palpable, before he said with a finality that made Set not wish to question his fortitude.
"I understand. I'll take your offer." then, in a louder voice, he added "I forfeit the match!"

2000/2000 Improving Futon Proficiency (C->B) Completed!