A Wierd Day WIP

It was nap time, the day before Hado’s first day of training with Ferus the rat, his loyal, well, follower was a bad word, more like a friend or partner perhaps.

Flopping on his little bed, his eyes shut, and he began to drea of being a ninja, with lots of cool jutsu at his disposal. Sadly, though, he would wake up later, with none of it having taken place, but it was an interesting diversion for a good few hours or such.

In his dream, Hado yawned. He was not very happy at having to get up for anyone, especially for a mission that he believed to be rather silly and pointless. See, the thing was, he was due for doing another mission. This was on top of doing the information gathering for the Hoshikage, and the training that was intended to boost the power of the other Hoshigakure ninjas, but unfortunately, this mission was going to put a big whole hole in all of his plans for tonight, and likely a lot of other nights too if truth be told, since he was supposed to investigate another village.

Why did he have to go examine this other village? Because one of the high ups had determined that a new village was on the rise and needed to be investigated. Hado’ own cynical opinion was that, as he was by far the most busy out of anyone he met, aside from possibly the Hoshikage, who was not allowed to go on missions, that that had meant he was the ideal candidate for making to do off another mission. Why that twisted logic should make sense, he was not sue, but he was at least able to earn some much needed ryo, and his body would gain a bit more in the stamina department. Hopefully he could also practice some cool jutsu, and he had always wanted the physical arts to become his area of focus, given that ninjutsu was most of his abilities, adn medical was soon to be as well.

Well, in any case, there were some jutsu he wanted to practice. The first of which was the Yin Wound Sealing Desturction technique. This technique worked by forcing ones body to begin healing before the body was damaged so the effective damage sustained was in fact reduced, or the users effective health was reduced, however you wanted to look at it. Regardless, if Hado got into trouble and needed to recover, or to tank a hit, using some one elses vernacular, Who’s vernacular he did not truly know but he had heard the term used before and it sounded cool so why not. Fortunately he might have time to practice using the technique on the road.

But enough of that happiness about learning new jutsu, it was time to go back to the grumpiness of not wanting to get up for another long ass mission that would likely be rather unpleasant. So, what was this mission he had to undetake? Well, there was a rising village, a certain “Village Hidden in Tejas”, a hitherto undiscovered region of the world that appaently specialized in cooking barbeque, in wearing straw hats, in being big and burly and tanned, in wearing a weird type of close toed sandals, that covered the entire foot, in talking really weird, in smoking, and in using specialized kunai launchers that sent small kunai flying everywhere. Trly fearsome, he people of the Village hidden in Tejas would loom over anyone not of the Akimichi clan. It was like these people in the village hidden in Tejas ate a lot of meat or something. Wierd. Wierd, and yes he was fully aware that whoever controlled his every action said that word far too many times to be an acceptable way of lengthening the mission.

So, yeah, this here home boy was supposed to check out the village of Tejas, so that he could go and get some important intel on the new stars in the world of ninjas, ya hear? Well, the first thing he had to do was figure out where the Village hidden in Tejas was actually located.

Appropriately enough for their climate there, the village hidden in Tejas was hidden away in some arid bits of the world, past the Land of Wind which was famous for being rather inhospitable. This meant that how the meat was raised, was indeed a bit of a conundrum. Maybe Hado would find out some of that on his way out there, as that would potentially be useful information for Hoshigakure when in times of drought.

Hado reviewed the mission details in his mind. So yeah, yeah, yeah, he was supposed to check out a new rising village, one hidden in the strange land of Tejas no less. At this rate he would have to explore the massive supercontinent said to exist across the sea, far away from Kirigakure, at this rate. Little did he know that he was gonna be set up for something like this anyway later just because some thought it would be funny and a cool twist of fate. Perhaps he would meet a loved one there,though who that would be would be a secret. For now though that would remain a secret for the time being, so please do not tell anyone anything about the plotline for the next mission.

Anyway, the reason the local village isolationists, war hawks, average people, council men, and politicians running for election or to keep their seat of power, were all a flutter about this new rising Land of the people hidden in Tejas, was that this could become a hot topic of conversation for years to come, like the legendarily short battle with the invaders from Sunagakure that was talked all about for a week or so in Hoshigakure, it was said. Anyways, anyway being another overused word in Hado’ word vocabulary,all these different interests, including the aforementioned groups, weapon merchant consortiums, food stall owners, and gamers, were all interested in checking out this new place. However, weirdly enough, the entire collection of mostly groups that wanted to know about this new player in the politics of the worldly stage, none of them wanted the job of checking out the place. Some were, quote unquote, too busy. Others were obviously scared shitless. Other others were scared but tried to not hide it. Then there were those who legitimately were too busy to go check the place out. Then there were those whose only logical reason for not going, was that they were actually scared, though this was not apparent at first glance, however. So, they had all chipped in the small amounts of ryo that they were willing to spend or spare for potential windfall in business opportunity, and they apparently had collected it together, and given it to the Hoshikage to make it his responsibility and liability instead. The grand total was about 5 thousand ryo, a disappointing amount considering that about two thousand, four hundred and ninety nine people were interested in this venture, this exploration avenue o golden riches for some, and blood for others. Hado, being one of the few people who was not politically affiliated with anyone, including ninja unions, he was on the shortlist for the mission, even if he was not interested in the mission, not that he had much choice regardless. Being that his competition for the job that he did not want, were largely academy students, and the rest were pretty wussy, then it was natural to force the unsavory job upon Hado. Well, the job was unsavory because Hado had not tasted the food at the village hidden in the land of Tejas yet. Once he did though, there would be no going back, culture wise and cuisine wise, anyway.

So, yeah, that was why he was supposed to go to the village hidden in the land of Tejas. BEcause this was a mission for a mission not expected to have any real action despite the wording of the mission. So, it was time to review the mission details, what the consortium wanted Hado to find out before they dared set foot outside the safety of their own village.

The first thing was to determine the leadership’s goals. However, this did imply that there was leadership in the village hidden in Tejas, and Hado should first confirm whether the village was in fact, instead, a dis-proportionally good or bad anarchy, in which it was every man, woman, ninja, child prodigy, child dunce, neighborhood handy man, or village leader wannabe, for him self or her self depending on who it was and how politically correct you wanted to be. The one good thing about this politically incorrect or some what correct anarchy that would result though is that it would be unlikely that any organized efforts to the detriment of other villages, would be likely. God knows Hoshigakure had enough trouble going already, and this would not help. On the other hand there was a chance that they could work something out. Hopefully it was the latter, but that would be a far time away. If the leadership was amenable, Hado would try to get them friendly with Hoshigakure, so that Hoshigakure’s own strength could be bolstered. Sort of anyway. First though, he had to determine if there was a leadership anyway.

The second goal was to obtain the important details about the village military. This included such interesting tid bits of the village’s history and social economics like the state of the military, whether there were mercenaries, the composition of the armies, etc. Unlisted but also potentially useful to learn, were things such as the grunts quantities, how friendly they were to their commanding officers, what age the soldiers were generally, whether they were liable to succumb to mental disorders such as I dunno, im trying to fill up the word count here dammit! Anyways, disregarding the ooc comments that are purely in bad taste here, it is time to return to the story of Hado.

So, Hado needed to dig up some useful information on the military of the Village hidden in Tejas. Hopefully that was not too hard, or secret. He would have to make his presence known.

He continued on reading the scroll that he had been magically reading due to the power of re-conning and vague manipulation of stuff that was actually already entirely controlled to begin with. It seemed the third of his seven goals for the mission, was to determine if there were any major factions in the village. This would be usable both for winning over the village if necessary, or if the village seemed hostile, to be able to instigate a civil war or the like to keep the potential opponents busy. Hopefully it did not come to that, Hado had not seen much of many of his friends, hopefully they had not died or something because that would be tragic. Any way, as Hado often said, there was a possibility that the ninjas were divided, or that there was a rift between the ninjas and civilians, or between the council and village leader, or such. Hado had no true way of knowing, unfortunately, so that was honestly why he was sent on this mission. With a little luck, if the village was not on Hoshigakure’s friendly list, or even if they were, the factions could potentially be manipulated for Hoshigakure’s benefit.

Lessee, reading on… Hado was needed to go and get the latest scoop on the village’s technological advances. If there was secret technology he was presumably supposed to go and steal it, or at least get an idea of their technological capabilities. The presence of massively powerful area of effect weapons, or laser beams that could decimate villages, would potentially change the outlook of Hoshigakure towards this new place. That should be easier said than done if there were scientific journals he could get his hands on, from the library or such.

Making a map would be easy, as following the next point on his shopping list. However, sneaking into the more important buildings to map those out too, would be easier said than done. Hado, being a bit of a perfectionist, would try to do all that unless it was truly impractical to accomplish without revealing his presence.

Oh yeah, and he had to get the information to his leader, and escape without revealing his presence. To do otherwise could prove catastrophic, unless…. Wait, if he lawyered the information… that meant… yes. Hoshigakure should not be implicated in the spying, but, he could potentially make it look like he was a ninja of another place, in stead, if necessary. He just had to make sure his head band from Hoshigakure was hidden, and that meant he probably had to leave it behind.

**************
Leaving the village for the mission was easier than he expected. Granted, the guards were expecting him to be exiting from that direction in the village, and the Hoshikage already knew that Hado was going off on this mission, given that he had given the mission personally, so yeah. Too bad the interaction would not count for anything. Far too bad really, Hado liked to have useful influence. He was sneaking out of the village to the east, implying to any prying eyes that he was going to be going to the coast, perhaps, since the cover reason for his potentially long absence, was that he was scouting the ruins of Kirigakure, and that, due to the danger involved, none of the other ninjas, and civilians, were to get involved. This was a good story. There were a lot of rumours in the village that Kirigakure, the old site, not the new one, that the ancient stronghold was haunted by ghosts. As a result, Hado, himself a little, well, more than a little spooky, was the perfect candidate to go on that job, his one Fun metal sensing being a good reason to send him by himself. His Fun metal sensing would have been a good way for him to check the substance behind ghosts, quite literally. However, as stated before, that was not his actual mission.

After leaving the village with little more than the clothing on his back, and some money, Hado walked through some bushes, pulling off a series of jutsu in rapid succession. First, he made a shadow clone, while immediately after hiding his own chakra signature. Then the clone began running off towards the sea, in the general direction of Kirigakure. Hopefully any pursuers would think he was off in that direction. After a while, when he doubted that anyone was watching his hiding spot, Hado switched tacks, using the “Hiding with Camoflauge” technique. As a result, of using the null version, that eliminated pretty much any actual traces of his own body, Hado was largely undetectable unless any pursuers were very clever. He began running in the opposite direction, in a large skirt, err, round shaped path around the village of Hoshigakure, in case there were guards paying attention to his area in this time of night, doubtful but possible though it may be. This was going good so far. He was making good time, even in this undetectable mode, he moved pretty damn fast. His shadow clone had probably dissipated by now, as any pursuers would be at this time realizing they had been duped.

After a long time of travel, he eventually came upon the edge of the village he was supposed to spy upon, but the first thing he saw was a large metal object headed his way. His last thought was that his dang metal sensory was too short. Ending in a bitter harrumph of an old man.

He woke up in a cold sweat, believing he had foreseen his death, or some other ominous feature of his life.

***************************************

Shaken, he went about his day, and found, woe betide him and Ferus, that their food stores were depleted!

Skipping forward a few hours as of his wakey wakey time, and Hado the Octopus Sage Wannabe was attempting to do many things at once. On the one hand, he was trying to train up a new jutsu, the swamp of the underworld. On the other hand his attention was also divied up with a good portion going to helping his familiar friendly face, Ferus the rat, trying to keep him alive. On a non existent third hand, he was trying to fend off a swarm of bandits. This was complicated by a couple of items, firstly that he had no idea how to do the swamp jutsu attack so he would play that by ear. The other bit was that Ferus, while a noble, well intentioned young rat, was also rather weak due to a recent, minor bout with near death by starvation. So he was trying but he was even more feeble than Hado and that said a lot. Not that Hado did not appreciate the effort but... Yeah. His appearance though was referring certain bandits from approaching Hado however so that helped a bit.

Hado had originally been taking Ferus for a walk to the fish market, which comprised of dead fish and very unhappy or disgruntled fish. Also some fishmongers but we will get to that later. While he recognised other ninjas skulking around the area, spying on fish vastly dis-satisfied with their current, barely edible condition,  he himself was only there to get Ferus some grub on his own tab, a minor pension from passing the genin exams held enmasse due to a recent influx of immigrants, including Hado among their numbers. However a little girl had been robbed of her fish rather abruptly. Remembering the hunger he had faced before, Ferus likely as well, Hado did the noble thing.

He spent his money on buying the girl another fish. All of his money. He only realised this after the deed though, meaning that he now had to track down the bandits who stole the fish. Otherwise neither he or Ferus would get any dinner today. It was not hard to find the bandits when upon his return to the marketplace it appeared that the bandits had taken some hostages and were demanding the ejection of the ninja who they believed to be evil beings intent on destroying the world, or at least Hoshigakure. It was true in a way, the coming of the ninja would radically change Hoshigakure into something new and hopefully better. He wanted to argue with the bandits who were nomming on his only hope for dinner at the moment. He also wanted to ask them to kindly stop threatening people as that was not very nice, especially when done with one’s mouth full, but he felt that this would not go over well with them, nor help the prisoners significantly.

It seemed things would get, well, hairy. And gruesome perhaps as well. It seemed that becoming a human porcupine, and shooting human quills, err, prickly hair at the bandits provided enough cover for Ferus to slink behind and release the hostages using his extremely weak claws. Sadly, Hdo made the mistake of snatching up Ferus as they escaped instead of letting Ferus find him later, though his concern for his partner was legitimate indeed. What it meant was that the bandits got to rage at Hado directly, chasing him and Ferus into deserted alleys, away from help, as opposed to through the streets, though trying to carry a feeble rat over one shoulder was not going to be very endearing either. At least the hostages escaped in a blind panic, though Hado seemed to not be about to get a meal and might be in trouble if he was not very careful.

This brings us up to the present, with Hado having his earth chakra being concentrated into his hand, slamming it into the ground to soften the ground until it could absorb the footfalls of the oncoming bandits. It kind of worked, one of them tripped, and this tripped up the rest of the bandits as well. Fortunately they were kind of suffering from malnutrition themselves, so it took them longer than it should have, and it seemed their only reason for being able to hold prisoners earlier was the possession of, ironically enough, ninja tools, such as shuriken and kunai.