Early in the morning on the day following Juyo’s incident at the Training Academy, the birds and the bees began their daily bustle in Kumogakure no Sato. The clouds cleared up around the city, letting the sun warm the cool houses from the long and cold night. Down the streets doors were opening and closing as many men left their homes to go work the hourly grind.. Stores opened their doors, keys jiggled as bike locks were unlocked and delivery boys making their rounds with the Kumogakure newspaper. The clamor of the village was like a long, drawn out crescendo from an orchestra where the maestro had a shoulder injury that impeded movement. Hours would go by and the sun made its rise into the sky, finally getting that perfect angle to seep through the windows of those that had slept in. Through this perfect angle, blades of sunlight slipped through Juyo Dākuchairudō’s window blinds and hitting his face as he slept.

Dying in a realm of inhospitable madness, Juyo leapt up from his bed in a frantic scream as he woke from a bad dream. The sunlight blinding him as he sat up in his bed.The dream was him dying alone with his chest ripped open. Slowly, he calmed himself down and laid back on his bed. The sheets were damp from his sweat and the sheets clung to his skin. Getting shivers, Juyo got up and took the sheets off his bed. Packing up the sheets with the rest of his dirty clothes, he headed for the laundromat on the ground floor of the apartment building. Since it was the middle of the day, everyone was busy doing work to bother with laundry. Sorting through his clothes and putting them in the washer, Juyo wondered how long it took for people to get their clothes washed before washers and dryers were made.

Post WC: 318
Training Jutsu Speed Trance 318/1500

While Juyo began switching his clothes from the washer to the dryer a loud crash came from outside. The sound was a hard and brash noise, thumping through the building. Quickly walking outside, Juyo had to reel himself back inside. Peering around the corner, he watched from outside the door as a group of his clan members barged into his apartment at the top of the stairs. They all funneled in and he heard sounds of a lot of things being broken, tossed around, and closet doors being busted open. So they had found where he lived. He knew it was from his sprint back home after teaching at the Ninja Academy. Though they didn’t need to be so rough if they were looking for him. He could here words being exchanged and a lot of yelling, but nothing clear. Although he’d like to hear what they were saying, there was no way he could risk getting caught. Juyo closed the dryer door and set it to continue before exiting out the back door.


Exiting through the back door led Juyo into the ground floor’s main hallway. He took a left and went all the way to the main lobby, which wasn’t the best idea as he soon found out. At the lobby’s front desk were two clansmen asking for which apartment was Juyo’s and the hurriedness in their voice. Quickly he back tracked down the hallway and found a door leading outside. Once he was outside, Juyo found himself in between his apartment building and another in a cramped alleyway clattered with trash and litter. It smelled awful of moldy bread and assorted foods that had sat under the ever-changing weathered sky. Water trickled down through a wall gutter into the alleyway and dipped to the center of the dented alley floor, winding it’s way down to a drain. Here, Juyo waited and observed the clansmen move around the outside of the apartment as they checked other rooms. They knocked for the other rooms, but after an hour they gave up, leaving two to watch the apartment building’s front entrance from a cafe across the street.

Post WC: 366
Training jutsu Speed Trance 318+366=684/1500

Seeing his chance, Juyo went back inside the apartment building and grabbed his clothes from the dryer.  Sneaking his way around the back, he would have to climb in through his window so he didn’t have to go to the front and use the stairs.  Using Supernatural Walking Practice to climb up to his apartment window, Juyo climbed in safely and was able to calm his nerves.  They had found him and that meant he needed to move.  That meant he needed to only grab essential things.  Looking around his apartment, it was an even bigger mess than before.  The door was in shambles, pieces of wood laying all about and the mattress was thrown off the bed.  He sighed, trying to get to grips with how rapidly his life had escalated in just a few, short hours.  If they knew where he lived, and were watching, there wouldn’t be a way out of this apartment with all of his things.  Besides that, they’d most likely be back to check if he’d gone into his apartment.  There was only one way to truly get away from them and that was to leave the village.  If he left, he could possibly work for Kumo outside the city.  He ran with this thought in his mind, going over what all had to be done to accomplish this.  There was paperwork to fill out, plus his leaving the village would be noted and if any of his clan asked pretending to be in concern, his whereabouts would be discovered and being outside of the village would already mean they could kill him without worrying about the law.  He shook his head and fell on his mattress.  It seemed there wasn’t any way around it.  The solution to his problem was a grim one, but his only one.  He had thought of it earlier but didn’t want to admit that it was his only way.

Defection.


The word was whispering repeatedly around in his head.  It would mean his own village would turn against them once it was known that he had left the village without permission.  Any shinobi that left without reporting was committing an act of treason.  Deserting ninja could reveal secrets and other knowledge of the village’s ninja, effectively wounding the village as a whole.  Juyo didn’t want to ever be one of those defectors, instead he had dreams of being ANBU.  His clan was known for their hunting prowess so he thought for sure that ANBU was the place for him in the village.  Yet it was also why he was so scared of his own clansmen.  He already had a nasty scar to prove their brutality and he didn’t want to let them have a second chance at ripping out his heart.  It was what he had to do to survive.  There was no other way.

Chakra 245/250:

Post WC: 486
Training jutsu Speed Trance 684+486=1170/1500

Where would he go? That was something he’d need to consider. He could run to Konoha, they were close to Kumo, although that also meant that it’d be the first place the ANBU would look for him. Juyo sighed, collapsing completely on his mattress. The grey ceiling of his small apartment had two spots of mold that looked back at him. He needed to think quickly and get out of the area at least before his clansmen came to check if he’d gotten back. His frantic thoughts ran circles around in his head as he tried to piece things together, when all of a sudden whispers came to him. The whispers seemed to pierce through his thoughts, as if they were louder and yet still subtle enough that he had to strain his mind to concentrate on what the whispered words were. After a moment of quieting his thoughts, the whispers became understandable. “Iwagakure,” they said. “You must go to Iwagakure.”


This was the fourth or fifth time he had heard these whispers. Each time they had helped him either learn new jutsu or evade danger. So when he heard the words whispering in his head again, Juyo didn’t hesitate to comply. Almost immediately he hopped up from the mattress, its springs creaking from the sudden motion. He gathered only what he could carry which of course had to include bean jam cakes. He also gathered his weapons and stuffed a duffle bag with two extra pairs of clothes as well as a sleeping mat for traveling. As he gathered his things, Juyo turned away from his bed that he’d been using as a makeshift desk and headed towards his door. Voices came outside the door and Juyo remembered he couldn’t go out the front. Shifting into a panic at the thought that the voices were his clansmen coming up the stairs, he jumped out of his window. He used the adjacent apartment building to bounce off of, going back and forth from wall to wall as he made his way safely down to the alley.

Post WC: 352
Training jutsu Speed Trance 1170+352=1500/1500 COMPLETE
Travel WC: 22/600

Juyo squirmed around several alleyways, ducking away from any main streets as he found his way to the south gate of the village.  Stopping short, still hiding behind a corner in an alley, he swore at the guards for doing their job.  It was the middle of the afternoon, so villagers were walking by to go out into farms or other areas outside the village.  Picking one of those travellers, Juyo transformed into their likeness.  He then ran around the alley, back quite a ways from the entrance before entering the street.  Finding a group of four farmers heading towards the south gate, Juyo tried to look inconspicuous.  His frow seemed to be melting under the sun even though it was rather chilly.  For some reason he felt that all eyes were on him and that whenever he looked at someone they just were turning their heads away in time.  Trying to focus and participate in the chatter of the group he was walking with he couldn’t help but be at a loss for what to say.  One man began a discussion on what type of fertilizer to use for the rice paddies next year.  The only lady in the group was arguing that they shouldn’t use fertilizers so as to keep the rice healthy and not risk killing them with the wrong kind.  A second man agreed with the first saying fertilizers were the way of the future and that it’d help save more of their crops then letting them die off because of not using them.  The third man seemed indecisive and turned to Juyo for his opinion.  The whole group turned their heads as they walked, finally realizing that Juyo had slipped into their group.

Chakra 240/250:

Post WC: 291
Travel WC: 22+291=313/600

-sigh-

I have to do this, kinda part of my job T_T

xd

Juyo hesitated in talking, his throat freezing up as they crossed the gates and passed the guards. The third man elbowed Juyo in the ribs just to get his attention, making Juyo flinch a bit. They again asked for his opinion as if he was some kind of expert on the subject of fertilizers. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the guards were out of earshot before he spoke. The words flowed out in his ‘I don’t know’ response, the voice surprising Juyo a bit as he forgot that he could impersonate the person’s voice, or at least what he thought would be the person’s voice. His group of farmers seemed to be irritated a bit at having to wait for his lousy response and quickly turned to the third man who had dodged the question earlier. He rubbed his hands together nervously, his eyes dancing between the stares he was given before finally caving in to the lady’s harsh gaze and saying that he sided with her. They all agreed that Juyo needed to settle the balanced debate by weighing in with a real response and when they turned back to him they found that he had disappeared. While the group stopped for a bit in a confused state and looking around, Juyo continued walking down the road. He had dispersed the Transformation Technique and was on his way to Iwagakure no Sato. As he walked, Juyo shed his hitai-ate, cutting a slash across the metal symbol with his kunai before dropping it along the path. It was set in stone now and there was no turning back. He picked up his pace after dropping it, knowing it would only be a matter of hours before his hitai-ate would be found and the hunt would begin. Tightening his grip on his duffel bag, Juyo followed his map to the next town where he would hitch a ride with traveling merchants or just continue on solo to his destination.

Post WC: 337
Travel WC: 313+337=650/600 COMPLETE