Some Can't Resist (P)

Salzem sat up against a tree near the edge of the training grounds, not even bothering to hide the fact he was sleeping. He lay comfortably, head propped up where the trunk diverged into roots just above the ground on which he napped. His chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically, up and down up and down. He had tied taken his headband from its usual spot around his neck and tied it loosely around his eyes so that it hung lopsided, a lazy attempt to block out the early morning light. He had come there to train, to see if he could get back into the old swing of things, but he lost patience half way through. Everything was too soft, to breakable. It was all wood, dirt or stone, nothing he couldn't break with a good punch. With that in mind, there was very little reason for him to even attempt to get stronger if everything around him bent and broke like Styrofoam. No one bothered to approach him to train either, which he could understand perfectly. His reputation proceeded him. He was one of those ninja that betrayed the village, became a missing ninja and left for almost two years before being brought back home. No doubt that girl that finally did was praised like she was the patron saint of ninja because Salzem was treated quite the opposite. It was like the good old days back when he wore the respirator except now they were tossing stuff at him because of what he did more than how he looked. Just like before, though, he didn't really care all that much. None of the garbage ever hit him and their anger was laughable if nothing else. They didn't know anything beyond him running around with a "MN" tag stuck on his bingo-book profile. People were stupid like that. Made him wonder why he even bothered to protect these kinds of people. He was sure someone would say that they would protect them because they couldn't protect themselves or that they are family or something like that. Salzem shook his head at those notions. To him, a village wasn't a family. A concept of a bunch of people settling in one place wasn't what really brought people together. He should probably be getting back into the "Konoha Spirit" or "flame-soul" or whatever they called it again but what did he care? He went on his little missions, he did the work he was required too, he stayed out of the way of as many people as he can as often as he could... It was better than Sunagakure, but it was somehow worse than before, before he left the first time. It was probably the garbage.... yeah... that was it.

Salzem snoozed underneath the tree, the cool shade keeping most of the sun's blinding glare from disrupting one of the many nightmarish scenarios that played through his unconscious mind. He went through them so often, he had the misfortune of concluding they had grown dull, unexciting and certainly not frightening. just... repetitive and frustrating. He knew he couldn't do anything about them... He wasn't there... He couldn't save them because he wasn't there too and he knew that... So why was he having all these damned nightmares?

How wrong he was to believe the nightmares wouldn't escalate. Blood and bodies everywhere. They hung in the sky, they lay half-buried in the ground. Metal both jagged and forged stuck from several places on and around their forms. Blood ran from them like rivers of water, endless, pooling around his feet... up his legs into his eyes. Vision bled too.... colors mixing, fading... red... black....

Salzem awoke to someone's voice, someone asking something. He groaned in frustration, pulling his headband back down to it's normal place around his neck, blinking his eyes as light flooded back into them. As his vision returned, he saw some long, dark haired kid standing a few feet away, looking down at him in a strange way he couldn't identify. Salzem sat up, placing a hand on his forehead as blood rushed back into his skull, disorienting him for a moment.

"That depends..." Salzem grumbled, running his hands through his spiky black hair in an attempt to get the leaves and dust out. At least it wasn't sand. Nothing was worse than hot, itchy sand running across his scalp. "What are they saying?" T'was a dumb question really because he already knew what "everyone" was saying. "He's a traitor! He left the village! Why isn't he in a cell?" Or better yet, "What was the hokage thinking letting a wretch like him back here?" He loved how everyone in the village could stand around and critisize him for something they couldn't understand themselves. He should probably take their stupidity and bash them across their arrogant little faces with it, but that would take too long and Salzem wasn't inclined to beating up defenseless (if stupid) civilians.

"Don't believe everything you hear around town." Salzem advised, not bothering to get up from his spot. At least this guy wasn't immediately tossing insults at him for simply being there. That already made him worth interacting with. When one spends day after day dodging garbage and enduring all manners of... creative insults, one must take what they can get in the form of non-hostile social interaction.

"The villagers tend to blow things out of proportion. I'll tell you what I did them." Salzem adjusted himself, bending his knee and resting his arm upon it as he looked on at the arrival. "All I did was walk out of the village." He let out a sigh, obviously tired of giving the same explanation. "I didn't kill anyone who didn't attack me first, I didn't steal, threaten or maim anyone, etcetera etcetera. It's not my fault it took 2 years for your ninja to track me down." He waited for the kid to leave, anticipating this would be enough to sate his curiosity. Salzem couldn't help but feel a certain frustration at that blank expression he gave him, as smooth as polished marble, as featureless as a piece of paper. It reminded him of certain someones who could never move their faces again from their own blank expressions. When this new guy didn't leave, when he just sat there still, Salzem appeared visibly confused. What more did he want, his full life story in novel format? Well he was going to have to wait another year for that crap because Salzem wasn't ready to write a book yet. The lycanthrope frowned, his finger tapping on his knee anxiously as he waiting for the newcomer to realize that his presence was not required.

"Alright, I'll bite." Salzem conceded, pun notwithstanding. "What is your name and what do you want?" He figured the only way he was going to get this guy to shove off was to show some minor interest in him. He'd end up feeling satisfied sooner and Salzem could go back to his satisfying nap sooner. He had to hope couldn't he? Villagers certainly weren't making it any easier.

"Well then, perhaps you should go find her then." Salzem noted. The name Ari seemed vaguely familiar. He was sure he had met someone named Ari back in Sunagakure, though their interaction was.... brief. She was what some people would describe as "interesting." She hardly spoke a word to anyone and instead, she simply stared, stared for all it was worth. Despite Salzem's comment, however, the kid named Enyo continued, passing over his words as if they weren't spoken. Enyo seemed to go on some tangent about power, something about it not being used for war or something like that. The lycanthrope kind of tuned out of his words about half-way through, completely uninterested in this philosophical discussion he seemed interested in having. He simply stared back at the boy blankly, only coming back to reality once he asked his particular question.

"If you can't stop them by other means and they are a threat to human life then yes. It would be necessary. Its what the ninja code teaches us to do, after all. Kill, maim, murder and all that good, ninja-ly business is something one can't simply avoid in this job. Incompasitation isn't always an option." Salzem spoke flatly, dutifully, but there was a slight twinge of sarcasm in his voice, a signal that he was actively preforming a parody of the average, blindly devout ninja. Enyo seemed to stare thoughtfully, the look akin to that his apparent cousin gave everyone back in the sand, though with more obvious brain power behind it. Spontaneously, the other kid seemed to take the staff from his back, holding it out for Salzem to see. He claimed that some monks gave him the staff, selling him on the idea that if he didn't kill anyone before a battle, that he would be granted a great power. Salzem snorted at that, slightly amused in a spiteful way. It wasn't as if it was a bad philosophy. By all means, if it meant he was saving people, it was a GOOD way to live one's life. The one minute detail Salzem hinged on was that it would grant him a "great power." What kind of garbage was the monks trying to sell with that? Isn't that a bit over the top? Along with a stick and philosophy, they promised power? He couldn't help but find that amusing. Enyo asked if Salzem thought he could accomplish this goal, if he could unlock the stick's potential. The lycan shook his head.

"I don't see much potential in a stick, Enyo." He said. "But probably not and besides... There's still someone I want to kill. I don't imagine you or your magic stick would be happy with that."

"i kill when its necessary." Salzem said somewhat defensively. Somehow, this kid was judging him in his own strange way. He didn't like it. "Your philosophy will crumble in the face of death, kid. When you are on the ground and the only way to survive is to rip out the throat of your opponent, chances are you will do it. We are simply wired this way. " Salzem didn't truly believe the words he spoke, rather, it was simply a test for Enyo, to see what he would do. Salzem expected him to fire back with his own little retort or to justify his claim with some sort of philosophical garbage but instead, he began chanting to  "platypus" or something like that, asking for strength to get through... whatever was going to happen. The stick's end began to glow a bright yellow-ish, the color powerful enough for the lycan to squint in annoyance. Nice lightshow, but it proved nothing. A simple signless jutsu could produce the same result.

Salzem glared in frustration as the kid first, called him strong, then lazy, then proceeded to challenge him to a fight like he had something to teach. People like this... He might have been better than those villagers, but not by an exponential amount. With a sigh of resignation, Salzem stood from his spot a the tree, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.

"Listen, kid." Salzem addressed. "You can't handle my full power, if that's what you're looking for. If you get in a fight with me, you're going to regret it." He spoke this as a warning more than a threat. He wished him no ill will, despite everything. He would give Enyo a chance to back out if that's what he wanted, giving him a full 3 seconds of silence to make his choice. Once the time was up and he didn't change his posture or voice his decision, Salzem would simply shrug before disappearing behind him, circling around the kid in an instant at a speed of 125. He wouldn't even know he was gone, still seeing the flickering of his afterimage in front of him. Salzem would throw a straight kick into the back of Enyo's head, colliding with the base of his skull with a speed of 90 and a strength of 9. The force of the hit would send him flying forwards, likely to have his forehead slam into the trunk of the tree where Salzem once sat, leaving him with a painful bruise on both sides of his skull.

"Seen enough yet...?" Salzem would ask, running a hand through his black hair. "Because I don't like beating up on people who can't defend themselves..."