Howling Winds Galore!

Let’s blow some sh*t up!


Kohei had been hiding in his hide out, where he had been poring through some documents pilfered from the Claws of Grima hideout. In an awfully written narrative, he had hidden for a long time near their base, with nothing on his mind but making ice spears. Now, though, he was up and ready, preparing for a one man crusade against the Grima Armada.


He had discovered many things from the documents, incidentally and the like. While not all the information was explicitly stated, much of it could be safely inferred from the hinting or actual descriptions of other events, much of it seemed to be beyond the scope of just the Claws of Grima. It appeared that the Claws of Grima and the Jaws of Grima were not alone. There were many sister organizations that all operated within the same conspiracy. The Claws of Grima were originally after the head of the Tenkage, was it Xyzer Gzojin, or someone else?


God, it had been so long, Kohei did not remember who the Tenkage had been. It also displayed a clear disconnect from the outside civilizations.


Of course, the Claws of Grima would hardly have stopped at just the death of the Tenkage, their intentions had been to destabilize the entire ninja corps of Moon Country, allowing the seeds of a rebellion to take root. This seemed to be the foundation of a military coup through external forces. However, there were reports from scouts that detailed that Tengakure’s location had surprisingly few bodies. Maybe Kohei would wander over there and take a look. He had previously ignored such ideas, assuming that the Claws of Grima, the nameless organization hunting him previously, would have been camped out there, ready to nab any surprise guests to the destroyed city. But, a conspicuous lack of dead bodies meant that some thing else happened. What, exactly, Kohei was not sure though. When he was done messing with all this Grima stuff, he might saunter over for a look-see. The exact fate of Tengakure’s remnants was unknown, surely that many people going missing would have been noticed? Kohei didn’t know of anything, but he would go take a look later.


The Jaws of Grima were not much different in perspective or scope. It seemed that they were aiming to destabilize the newly occupied Hoshigakure, formerly a religious hotbed. It was said hotbed of religious fundamentalism that the Jaws of Grima were plotting to use as a foundation of a new regime. Similar to the Claws of Grima and Tengakure, it seemed the ultimate goal was control over the area. It did appear that Hoshigakure was not destroyed yet, or at least, the Jaws of Grima had not been successful yet. As such, Kohei mentally jotted the Star Country as a place to visit as well, perhaps he could combine that with a trip to the Tengakure area.


As much as he would have liked to leave his investigation at just these two organizations, it appeared that they were merely part of some thing much greater. There were actually a multitude of other organization with the same focus. Laws of Grima was the commanding sub division of the Grima Armada, as was implied with their name. Maws of Grima was targeting Konoha. Paws of Grima seemed to be the new recruits, who were in the process of trying to take over some minor villages, evidently they were considered light weight in comparison to the main battle forces. He thought he saw some references to a Cause of Grima, which was confusing at first because he expected a manifesto from them. Instead, it turned out that they were the enforcing division for the Laws of Grima, used to keep the other divisions behaving. He only knew this though, because the Cause of Grima had left a notice, informing the Claws of Grima of their imminent arrival. Of course, they were not entirely bereft of ninjas in their combatant forces. The last division that Kohei could find reference to was a secretive group called the Outlaws of Grima, which was apparently comprised of a large quantity of gathered missing ninjas, who wanted a second chance. Just like Kohei. He could relate to their plight, not having chosen the missing ninja life either, but enemies are enemies. And if they were part of the group that had gotten Kohei labelled as a missing ninja in the first place - hazardous for one’s career aspirations, no? - then they would receive no mercy.


So, the question remained, who would he check out next?




The Outlaws of Grima could be fairly strong, but the others seemed to be primarily unhappy civilians tired of ninja rules. There were some nearby small villages, he might be able to come over there and see if they were going to know of any activities of the Grima.


It would take a while, but he did not have any pressing engagements, or any engagements at all. Being a wanted criminal did come with side benefits. Fortunately, it was not very far away. It was not the one that Kohei normally went to for food, but this other village did produce a fair number of armaments to sell to more major villages, supplying their ninja shops. The Grima Armada might be paying them a visit.


As it turned out, his hunch was right, though his timing was not.


Bodies were strewn in the streets, blood was on virtually every surface. Apparently, the forces of Grima had just invaded this village without bothering to undermine it first. Hopefully they lost a lot of troops, because if the number of thuggish looking dudes cleaning up everywhere were any indication, Kohei would have his hands full even if they were just civilians. He was technically picking a fight with them, as the village was running a new flag that obviously had not been edited very carefully, hinting at a lack of funding for their PR department. All the flag showed was some masked dude, with the words “Grima-Land”. If Kohei didn’t know better, the name could have implied that they were going to set up a theme park! Such a ridiculous flag!


That wouldn’t stop him from levelling their facilities to the ground now. He wanted to try out a new technique he had been secretly working on - even out from under the narrator’s gaze, mostly so it would not look weird if he was able to do some thing useful with a new technique the first time the narrator showed him using it.


He thought of it was the Tornado Tech, but apparently its official name was something like “Fuuton: Kamikaze” or, depending on who you asked, “Divine Wind”. Neither of these was very helpful to him, frankly, why couldn’t it be something relevant, like “6 Wind Tornadoes”. Not like anyone competent would be yelling out their intended attack to startle their opponent with their honesty or anything. 6 Wind Tornadoes was a much better phrase if trying to describe and teach it to someone else. Kohei would be considering paying a visit to a local publisher to see if he could get all this nonsense edited. If he ever got in charge of a village, he would require that all the jutsu be named appropriately, it could be a royal pain examining a person’s experiences and learned jutsu to determine their capabilities otherwise.


The previously unmentioned hedge blocked him from view. He had a good chance to get some stuff worked out before they caught on.


Hidden, he weaved the hand seals Honestly, he wished those weren’t necessary, but there were only 4 required, which was alright for an A rank technique. Dragon, Ram, Tiger, Dragon. It was not nice, but it was better than around 30 hand seals required for another tech he knew of - one that he had stopped seriously considering for precisely that reason. His chakra prepared, the obscenely annoying traditional rituals over with, he reached out with one hand, his chakra springing forth and merging with the very air to take shape.


He clenched his fist, partially for dramatic effect, partially as a mental cue. Slowly, the dust began to swirl on the ground, unheeded by the Grima goons cleaning up the last of the bodies. However, when he tightened up the gusts of wind that he had been forming, the dust began to swirl up, rising a few feet of the ground. This was noticed by one of te goons one who thought it was amusing.


That would prove to be a mistake.


As he approached what seemed to be a dust devil, other goons shrugged and went back to work. While their backs were turned, the thickset goon in question stepped into the middle of the dust devil, enjoying the free air conditioning. Kohei stealthily expanded the range of said dust devil, gently beginning to swirl dust closer and closer to the others working near the entrance to the village.


The blood tinged sand began to whip around more fiercely, the others nearby beginning to take notice. The goons working in the distance however, did not notice, as there was only a bit of dust being picked up. The goons that Kohei was not encircling with dust by the village gates noticed the odd patterns, finally, probably why they were just goons. Having prepared his trap, Kohei suddenly amped up the power of his swirling gusts, forming it suddenly and rapidly into a raging tornado, all of twenty meters tall and wide. The sudden increase in wind speed coincided with a large increase in volume of the low pitched humming that had previously been largely inaudible. In fact, the howling of the rapidly swirling wind would have been enough by itself to rouse the entire village of goons. The screams of those caught inside only made it more obvious.


Kohei had to act quickly, before all of his prey would elude him. The Grima Armada would be missing one of their goon squads soon enough. A shame that the village would no longer be standing, but that hardly mattered, the villagers so far were all dead, that he knew of anyway, and the goons swarmed the place.


Attracted by the screams of their brethren being rent to pieces, more goons began to literally flood out of the larger buildings. It seemed they had been cleaning up the last of the villages, and were arming themselves. Kohei was suddenly very glad that he was hiding. However, there was a limit to how much of the village and the goons that he could kill and destroy from his hiding place - the tornadoes could only be controlled up to about 40 meters away, and from the description he guessed conservatively that that referred to the outer edges of the tornado, and not the center. That being said, he wondered what happened to his man made tornadoes when they went beyond their controllable range. Did they continue on in a straight line or what? This was clearly a question for a more experienced ninja, but he was curiou nonetheless.


He would have to make another tornado while they did not know his location, though he would hardly be stopping there. He might as well make up another few tornadoes. Six was the prescribed number, though he might save the sith’s formation for a critical moment.


The rest, however….


The goons were gaping at the tornado, and some were starting to scatter, ducking into buildings for cover.


Fools.


That just made it harder to escape.


With another un-needed hand gesture, he formed another four tornadoes, intentionally placing them to block off escape for the goons who were already outside near the gates. It took a little while for them to notice. He doubted the goons cowering in the houses would be able to help them much even if they wanted to. The tornadoes he had created, all five of them, began closing in towards the encircled goons.


And he thought the screaming from the first few was loud.


While he was not sure how the decibel system exactly worked, he was fairly sure from the sounds emitted from within that there were more than five times the number of goons caught this time, and each tornado spouted its own deadly howling too, adding to the general din. The tornadoes had the additional benefit of providing a physical cover, in multiple senses. Most of his targets would likely be worried about the tornadoes he had formed, not looking for a caster perhaps, and likewise, the tornadoes would generally deflect anything hurtling towards him, being between him and the rest of the village.


The goons who had been near the gate all shredded and torn to pieces, more goons from the other areas of the village began coming out to see what happened, finally realizing that the din was not part of a hazing initiation. They were far away though, so Kohei had time to use his tornadoes to start happily destroying all the buildings and walls nearby, flinging debris everywhere.


More screams. A sort of music to his ears.


He had to be careful to not let his revenge blind him to his humanity. Criminals or not, he WAS killing people, he could hardly afford to be consumed by hatred and bloodlust, whether it was a cold or hot emotion.


The nearby gate, walls, and buildings destroyed, he moved into the village, leaving his hiding place finally.


Not a moment too soon. Apparently these goons had been on patrol, and his back was exposed, figuratively. He was lucky to not have the sixth tornado formed yet, as their battle cries as they charged him were barely audible above the din the tornadoes in front were making.


They ran into a wall of wind, unable to reach him as his last tornado available formed rapidly, Kohei only sparing them a glance before splitting up his tornadoes to chase down stragglers.


He might end up deaf after this.


It was a bit harder to control the tornadoes separately, as it was much easier to keep track of a single entity with rotating gusts of wind added into the mix.
It was hardly impossible, however.


As the dust from the initial kerfuffles began to settle, he checked his watch. Damn. He had an appointment to make in a few hours, he needed to hurry up and finish wiping the floor with these goons from Grima before he ran late. One did not simply stand up a worker from the contract center. Not unless you wanted to get all the crummy contracts and dirty work. That had not happened to Kohei himself, but instead to another missing ninja grunt low down on the totem pole. It wasn’t pretty. Enough to make the missing ninja in question pack his bags so to speak, or perhaps literally, and flee to avoid a virtual hail storm of unpleasant assignments, it was rumored that he went all the way to Iron Country.


That meant he needed to hurry up with his mop work here, so he could get back promptly. The tornadoes he had formed were clearly man made. Despite the howling winds tearing at the buildings around them, a swarm of the goons came out of the woodwork, so to speak. Well, in some cases it was literal, many of the houses were constructed of wood products. However, it was also metaphorical, as there were far more goons than Kohei had thought. Enough to fill the remnants of the village square. In a way, it was quite beneficial for them to not be organized enough for actual formations, because Kohei was shoving his tornados at them, any such formations would likely have crumbled. That being said, there was still plenty of chaos as they realized the tornados were controlled. Unfortunately for them, their dens were not intended to withstand a chakra infused tornado, especially not one that could intentionally stay over one spot, slowly breaking everything nearby. So, many were killed initially as they were unable to react to the oncoming tornadoes at all. Probably a significant majority of the goons. However, the numbers remaining were quite enough to cause Kohei trouble, should they come close. Not that he would not have hunted them down anyway. But he would be worried if he went to sleep in the vicinity of that many goons. Thugs also worked as a term for them, but for whatever reason, the term goon worked better for him. Maybe it was the alliteration. “Goons of Grima”. Yeah. Way better than “Thugs of Grima”.


It took him a lot longer than he expected to hunt down the goons. He had to split up his tornadoes, running them around into the different corners of the village. He was careful to not let any escape through the village gates. A few would probably climb the village walls, and there was little he could do when they were so far away, he wouldn’t mind if they ran off and warned the entire organization about him.


Actually, that was just rationalizing his weakness, that he couldn’t catch ALL of the people trying to escape. Or, he thought that some of them might actually be civilians. Ugh. Clearly he was not meant to be a missing ninja, he just wasn’t evil enough, or hateful enough. Oh well, enough of this pity party, time to get this show back onto the road.


It would make things harder if the Claws of Grima and such were on the lookout for him. It would be good exercise for him, but it was not something that should have been necessary for him to deal with. Fortunately, he doubted that any of the goons present would have a clear picture of what he looked like, just that some massive wind jutsu stuff was blowing holes into the village and slaughtering most of their force. Yeah, on second thought he would be mostly anonymous anyway, and the higher-ups would notice anyway if an entire army of goons went missing, and were found slaughtered at their target. Clearly, their troops would have been attacked, so they would have been on the watch anyway, even if Kohei’s earlier “examination” of the Claws of Grima base had not gone awry. Still, it was not good to give the opponents an idea of his strength. This tornado technique was one of the strongest that Kohei was learning, and the Grima organization would be spectacularly foolish to wade into battle with their groups clustered together. Kohei was still making his job more difficult down the line if he had to take them a few at a time. Ugh.


It had taken a good while, but he was largely finished mopping up the village. A cowering group of goons huddled in the middle of the village, penned in by the series or tornadoes which rotated swiftly around them in a rough circle. The volume of the howling only increased in intensity as the sound sources were brought closer together, becoming more than deafening. Kohei’s ears would be ringing for a good while after this was through, he would need to be extra vigilant since he would not be able to rely on his ears for a good few hours. What to do with these goons?


He already knew that a couple of the goons had escaped, some looking fairly agile. He needed to be ahead of them. He needed information. The tornadoes paused their circling. He pointed at one of the closest goons, and gestured at him to come over. A few other goons tried to follow, but went back when gestured away. As soon as the goon was out of the group, the tornadoes began to move, circling like hungry sharks closing in on hapless sailors. In some senses, this was an accurate analogy, Kohei had been moving the tornadoes slightly closer to the goons with every rotation, the speed of their shifting increasingly quick. The one goon that Kohei had singled out slowly approached. Faster, when he had some ice spears sent his way.


It turned out that the goon didn’t know anything useful. His body made an excellent pincushion for some of Kohei’s Certain Kill Ice Spears. The name was correct in this case, as a single spear had sufficed to kill his target, but an extra two or three certainly did not hurt, either. Especially when he was about to make a presentation of sorts.


Abruptly, the wind tornadoes began to dull a little, the noise dropping dramatically. The tornadoes were oriented in a U shape, with Kohei standing at the open mouth, a couple of maximum size spears very clearly pulverizing what remained of the first goon he had called forth.


He had to yell over the sound of the swirling wind pillars.


“This one wouldn’t talk. You’re next.”


It was a commonly known fact that humans tended to break much faster, given a chance to choose their fate when stuck betwixt escape, and death - or worse.


The next goon approached, visibly steeling himself for his meeting with Kohei.


He fell, his hand only partway to the large knife on his hip.


“No tricks. Unless you want your corpse to be unrecognizable.”


A massive ice spear stabbed through the second corpse, a small gout of glood erupting at first.


“You.” This time, Kohei only pointed.


As it turned out, this one was fairly well persuaded. Kohei had no need of threats for this one, before this one told spoke of how this was coordinated with operations in Funkagakure, a village to the south. According to this one, the entire village was infested with them, or their supporters. Apparently, Funkagakure had always been rather… unsavory, and that was something Kohei could agree with. However, recently, with the disappearance of one of their important leaders, the rebellious factionhad broken forth, and a city plagued by suffering and evil men (and women) had become exponentially worse with nobody to prevent a massive power struggle. Perfect time for the Grima to sweep in.


Well, Kohei had no way of confirming whether that information was correct or not, so he checked the veracity of that information with several other, randomly selected goons. For the most part, they had the same questioning and gave the same, or very similar answers. Sounds like Funkagakure was worth a visit later then since he threw some oddball questions about the place, to throw off any liars, of which there were a few.


Of course, he killed all the goons who came to him, pretending to the rest that they had lied, to encourage them to give him the truth. However, unfortunately, none of them knew the extent of the scale of the Grima armada. Oh well, he needed an excuse to kill them all, anyway. Can’t have too many loose ends, this many was clearly enough to swamp a village quickly.


He had never seen a red tornado before, let alone one with five brothers. When he dissipated the jutsu finally, confident in his use of the tornados for widespread destruction, a translucent red mist hung in the air over the village, slowly settling to the ground like red rain. He smiled. The Claws of Grima and their compatriots would soon know what hit them.


A sudden idea struck him, and before he left, he began to search for a body that was fairly clean. One was trapped under some fallen beams, the clothing fairly clean for the most part, rather, being whole instead of being torn.


A few ugly moments later, Kohei had himself a uniform of a regular Grima goon, so he would not have to sneak off a uniform from another later. Masks and everything. Satisfied with the practice with the Fuuton: Kamikaze or whatever it was called, and the information he had gleaned, he sauntered off, sometimes having to step over piles of corpses where they lay on the ground.


(exit)

(ttl wc: 4005)
(claiming +20 stats and http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t23705-futonkamikaze)