epic of Hysterio pt 2 (solo training)

Hysterio continued researching the Learnean Hydra, but the fight with Nemean the Lion kept popping up in his mind, and he was not sure why. It was not because he was gay, he knew that much. That was not what stuck in his mind. The fight had gone reasonably well, though he sincerely wished he had the ability to make true clones just in case Nemean the Lion had only been playing dead and had not been truly incapacitated. The genjutsu he had tried, the Genjutsu: Yuumei Shibari technique, had worked reasonably well actually, and for the most part there was nothing he could think of that would improve the genjutsu much. He had probably been a little slow with casting it but that was hard to avoid. He reviewed the hand seals for the genjutsu again, practicing them over and over until they came to him second nature, with only a thought. Having to think over each individual handseal and not having it memorized might get him killed if there were multiple enemies. He had been lucky this time but… maybe not next time.

Hysterio continued pausing his research on the Learnean Hydra, thinking over what else he could improve from the fight with Nemean the Lion. While not invulnerable, the Hydra was a far more dangerous opponent. Hysterio found himself outside, which was fortunate as the image of Nemean the Lion surged up in his mind, the one from after Hysterio had killed him while he was paralyzed. Unbidden, the image filled his mind, and he clutched at his throat, gasping for breath, retching, unable to contain the feelings of revulsion pulsing through his body. He had finally killed someone, another human being, and it did not feel good. Collapsing to his hands and knees, he began to cough and hack in an alarming manner. All the while he tried to calm himself down and tell himself that it was necessary, it was him or Nemean the Lion, but he knew it was not true. Nemean the Lion had been the one who had been attacked by Hysterio, he knew instinctively. While Nemean the Lion had killed many others, and their loved ones were currently grieving for the most part, Hysterio had accepted a mission to kill another human, which was wrong. That was not what nature intended. Nature wanted species to compete with one another, not internally. That was probably why he felt so sick.


His stomach surged again and a small pool formed under Hysterio’s head, as he barely managed to hold himself up. His arms shook, trembling more from shock than from physical fatigue. He began to have cramps everywhere as images of Nemean the Lion, once a living breathing ninja, was killed in cold blood. No matter what Hysterio said to others, he knew who started the fight with the other ninja. This kill would stay with him forever, it seemed. His stomach heaved, and Hysterio managed to catch himself before he fell completely to the ground, and soiled his clothing. Relieved at that, he heaved again, images of gore filling his mind. Eventually he got to his feet, and got some items to clean up the mess he had made on the pavement.


Walking around the Village of the Ducks, he tried to calm himself down, and, watching the fuzzy little ducklings, some taller than him, waddling around and looking cute at least from a distance, he believed he found his answer, his solution to blocking out the pain of having to kill another human being, or, frankly, anyone else for that matter. As he saw them, he saw the parallels between their Village and that of his own. Images of various people he had befriended in his Village, popped up in his mind, blocking out that of Nemean the Lion’s corpse. As long as Hysterio was killing people to protect his friends he would be ok. He silently vowed to never kill needlessly, swearing it upon his heart and hoping his Yuumei would kill him somehow if he ever forgot or broke the promise. He was not sure if he would stay sane, he had almost went crazy from killing one enemy already. No matter how many times he washed his hands, he would never cleanse the blood from them, metaphorically speaking. All he could do was make sure his ulterior motives were good, and hopefully his own death when it came, would be as mercifully quick as he would make that of his enemies. He had trouble with his body shaking though, his body wracked by spasms, though they were lessening.


He wondered if hiding for a while from the outside world would help him a little. He gathered chakra around his hands and dug down beneath the ground. This was kind of easy actually, he was willing to bet that when Mitako had tried it before he had not been paying attention and had not gathered chakra around his hands in quite a precise manner. Hysterio’s own hands remained fairly clean unlike those of his friend when he tried to do the same just before. To be fair, Hysterio had the benefit of experience and a lot of wisdom gained from studying a little too much, but still, that could not account for everything.  Part of it had to be simply how Hysterio went about practicing the Hiding Like A Mole jutsu. The Hiding Like A Mole jutsu had a weird name, why it could not be named something like the “tunneler jutsu” or something a lot shorter than “Hiding Like A Mole Jutsu” he was not sure. It seemed that somebody who did not like people was in charge of naming, frankly.


He was feeling better, sitting underground like this helped him calm down. Perhaps he should learn ninjutsu later so he could do this more. He chuckled at the thought. He felt much better in fact, it was as if training helped him soothe his mind, after killing people, ironically so that he would be more efficient at killing people. He dug his way back to the surface and walked back to the Duck Library, so that he could study the Learnean Hydra. It seemed the race of earthworms were so prideful of their “little” monster that they gave information out on it freely, certain nobody would be able to defeat it.


Hysterio thought over the Learnean Hydra’s quirks, the ones he had learned of anyway. It liked, could Hysterio remember correctly…? It liked chocolate chip brownies, same as Hysterio. The LEarnean Hydra also liked Duck made chili, something Hysterio vehemently disagreed with. Chili! Why Chili! Sloppy-joe all the way man! Evidently the Learnean Hydra was not very cultured if it preferred chili to sloppy-joe. Infuriated, Hysterio’s eyes blazed with passion as he began noting down all the characteristics fo the Learnean Hydra, hoping to find something he could use against it. There was no way he would poison brownies and feed the Learnean Hydra them, it would be an insult to chocolate chip brownies, if he was completely honest with himself he might have been tempted to eat them too, poison or no.


It seemed the Learnean Hydra grew extra heads wherever it was cut, after some time. It also tended to believe that it was invincible, and could not swim, dig, or fly. That truly made it a disgrace to the race of Hydras though. It seemed re-growing heads was all that it could do. Hysterio thought that it was hysterical that such a beast could be so feared. Too bad there were no accounts of its size either. Well, how big could it possibly be anyway? Hysterio wondered too, his thoughts in sync with that of the author of the book he was suddenly reading. It seemed the author had very little to go on as well when it came down to dimensions. Unfortunately, Hysterio would have to figure out the size of the Learnean Hydra himself.


Hysterio was stocked up on equipment courtesy of the ducks, ready to fight one of their mortal enemies. He liked explosives so there were a lot of explosive tags around inside his bag. He had managed to also acquire some extra sharp swords to try and lop off the heads of the Learnean Hydra, much good that would do him. Ready to go, but not sure of everything in his bag, Hysterio departed from the Village of Ducks, and headed away for Greener Pastures. Literally. The Learnean Hydra was said to be located in the Earth-Worm’s place, Greener Pastures. He, Hysterio was headed there.


The name “Greener Pastures” was true to its words. The grass was so green it had obviously been coated in something to obtain that color, bits of it flaked off at Hysterio walked, leaving a darker line behind him showing the trail by which he had walked. Greener pastures indeed, it seemed to be propaganda frankly. Hysterio thought it was a little amusing though, until he came to what could only be the Learnean Hydra. He tried not to laugh, and managed to mostly. A few small snickers escaped, turning into hiccups on the way out though. The Learnean Hydra was a furious little creature, indignant at its own uselessness. Hysterio would be too if he were the Learnean Hydra. It was shorter than him for starters, its eyes were mismatched, ugly as hell, and foaming at the mouth. Fortunately the Learnean Hydra seemed to be blind as well. It turned towards the direction of the hiccups but did not notice Hysterio at all it seemed. Tha or it wanted to show off when it ran straight at a tree, stunning itself. However, it seemed to pick up Hysterio’s scent, so he tried digging underground again, so he could figure out what he would do. He had come prepared to scale a monster, not chop down something the size of a medium height dog.  He heard scratching above him from his underground hiding spot he had made with the help of the Hiding Like A Mole jutsu. It seemed the Learnean Hydra had found his hiding spot. Tense, he dug away slowly, and the scratching did nto follow him. It seemed the Learnean Hydra could truly not dig either, unfortunately for it.


Hysterio emerged from the ground on the other side of the short hill, having finished using his Hiding Like A Mole jutsu for the time being. The Learnean Hydra seemed to be still feebly scratching away at the ground where Hysterio had become intimate with dirt, and was not seemingly capable to notice that Hysterio had emerged ten meter behind it. Hysterio felt bad, and wanted to make its death quick and painless. He clapped his hands, doing the hand seals for the Moving Earth Core jutsu, and slammed his hands to the ground, dropping the ground under the Learnean Hydra to trap it in a pit. Grabbing ten kunai and ten explosive tags, he attached each tag to a kunai, and walked over to the pit. Activating all of the explosive tags, he threw them into the pit around the Learnean Hydra, ran to a safe distance, and detonated them.


The resulting explosion shook the little hill he was hiding behind. And smoke curled up reaching for the clouds. A twig snapping behind him got his attention though, and he whirled around, drawing the VibroBlade as he did so, ready to defend himself. Oh man. There was a huge version of the Learnean Hydra staring at him. Shit. Perhaps this was the real one and he had killed the baby. The thought filled Hysterio with regret, that had been a life he might not have needed to end in that little pit. Well, at least there would not be more Learnean Hydras, if he killed the large one as well, or so he assumed. This was a bit of a miscalculation on his part, as the Learnean Hydra could be a lot stronger than him, and there might be more. Well, he could at least go for it and see what happened, no?


His eyes were feasting upon two creatures, not one in fact, as a little one of the giant ducks was running at him full speed, obviously fleeing the large hydra behind it. Hysterio charged to the side, the Learnean Hydra moving at full speed and ignoring him, apparently it did not see well either, as his backpack was no match in size for the bright yellow duck running in a different direction. This Hydra also happened to have a shell, which rang hollow when Hysterio tapped on it. That was good. The shell was hard, and the hydra was not paying attention so Hysterio might be able to climb up the shell without being noticed. Hopefully the hydra did not roll over or such, that would prove annoying, if Hysterio did not end up as a nerdy pancake smeared on grass painted a fake green.


Putting his items away into his various holsters and packs, Hsyterio applied chakra to his hands and feet. He then scaled the side of the hydra, which took longer than one might expect. He had to climb up all of 50 feet, and fortunately the necks he needed to sever were relatively thin. The shell did not extend to the ground, or along the legs of the hydra, but its legs could barely support its weight so he was able to grab on relatively easily. Scaling the shell itself was easy if a little tedious, as the shell had lots of little knobs good for hitting one’s head on if one was not careful. Hysterio nearly lost his glasses several times that way. When he got to the top, he found there was a hole in the center of the shell, which seemed to be all the way through the shell. The shell was several feet thick it seemed, it should contain lots of explosions handily.


Hysterio looked up again to watch where the hydra was headed. The hydra was running in circles around on the field, having left the greener pastures, chasing the duck which had taken to the air and was flying in a circle. Hysterio snuck over to one of the necks, the one on the far right. He pulled out his Vibro-Blade, and prepped an exploding tag. His theory was that if he cauterized the wound with an explosion, the wound would heal or at least close before anything could grow from it. He readied his blade and the exploding tag, and took a deep breath. Using one of the weaponry techniques he had acquired in his studies of the ninja arts, he swung the sword at an abnormal speed, and immediately after attached the exploding tag and set it off. He barely made it, and he was knocked off of the hydra clear, landing on the ground with a thump, rolling and then coming to a stop, and immensely thankful he had no broken bones. Whew.


He looked up and only saw 8 heads. He breathed a sigh of relief. He had waited too long to attach the exploding tag, frankly. He should have attached the tag, activated it, cut and run literally, setting it off at the same time so that he would not be injured but would also be able to set it off quickly. If he had taken the extra moment to place the tag after cutting it, he was sure he would have been facing two additional heads instead of one less. Perhaps he would be able to cut more effectively using that technique he had learned. He was sure there were still inefficiencies in his movement to be eliminated that would improve the speed of the swing. He decided to try the next head. For some stupid reason apparently, the hydra believed the duck had somehow gotten rid of one of its heads and was even angrier than before, chasing the duck with renewed ferocity. Hysterio took advantage of the distraction of the Learnean Hydra and managed to attach 3 of the explosive tags in one go. Swinging the blade and running, 3 simultaneous explosions rocked the shell. The hydra noticed. Infuriated at the loss of four of its 5 heads, it finally turned, but fortunately could not quite see Hysterio. What kind of monster was unable to reach its own back?!? Was that not standard for monsters? Otherwise, how would they attack heroes who were wise in how they tried to slay them?!? Hysterio watched the struggling heads, unable to quite see him, and shook his head sadly. This was a sad monster. He wanted to try a new jutsu while training on the back of the Learnean Hydra.


A long time ago he had learned the Taijutsu version of the Body Flicker, yet ironically he had never learned the Body Flicker itself. He would rectify that now. He walked up to three of the remaining necks, and attached explosive tags to each of them. He activated them, swung the blade and attempted to use chakra to stimulate his muscles, allowing him to move faster, or so he hoped. There was nothing like a little danger to speed up the learning process, he had learned this fact previously when training his technique, the Genjusu: Yuumei Shibari technique. He could feel himself moving faster than normal, the Body Flicker was working but not as well as it should be. Fortunately he had time to practice. When he had covered just enough distance, he activated the tags. Checking behind him, he saw he had crossed the majority of the shell in time but had managed to close the wounds with the exploding tags. That was good. He was starting to get the hang of this.


He walked back, the remaining two heads rather frantic, as he had systematically taken out the ones from the right hand side, and slowly working his way over the left. He slapped on a single tag onto the one of the necks, the one that was closer to the middle of the shell. He swung his blade and attempted to Body-Flicker away, succeeding in moving faster than last time, detonating the exploding tag as he moved away. Wow. He could feel the massive speed increase this time, and he was brought up short, gasping for air. The last neck he also cut in the same way, but only marginally faster than before, it seemed he was almost as fast as possible. Perhaps if he was able to increase his chakra levels he would be able to move faster, as he would have more chakra so he would be able to boost his muscle activity by more.


As he cut down and burned the last head, the giant beast collapsed to the ground, still feebly trying to move. He took the remainder of the exploding tags and kunai, attaching them together, and dropping them down the hole he had found in the middle of the shell. He jumped off the shell, detonating the tags remotely, and a fountain of blood rained up from the hole in the shell. He had the presence of mind to draw his throwing weapons and dip the extra ones in the blood of the Hydra, reputed to be poisonous. This very fact was confirmed when he tried throwing one of his extra weapons obtained from the ducks, at a hungry bear, and the bear died quickly despite the shuriken dealing a non-fatal wound on its own. His second mission complete, he returned to the Village of Ducks to report.


*****
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Approved.