Home
Search
Register
Log in
Madrigal KaguyaCitizen
Ryo : 0
Training and A Massacre
Sat Jun 10, 2017 4:39 am
We find our hero waking up with the intent to step out of the village this morning to begin an arduous training trip. After he was absolutely crushed by the man known as Kenshin he knew he needed to go out and become more powerful on his own terms. He needed to be in more situations where the odds were stacked against him so that he could overcome the challenges and become more powerful as a result. It was for this reason that Valen awoke that morning with a sense of excitement. He didn’t generally get excited over things, tending to take things in stride. This was not the case this morning as he quickly went about his morning ritual of a shower, breakfast, and dressing in his usual crimson cloak, black undershirt, black cargo pants and black boots. He stood in front of his mirror as he carefully tied his Hoshigakure headband to his arm, making sure it would easily be covered by the cloak should he wish it to be so. He then proceeded to grab his blade, Crimson End, and tied it to his waist, wishing the sentient blade good morning as he did. ‘Good morning you psychopathic fuck’ He’d think toward it as he moved into the other room to gather his already sealed away supplies and fulling gearing himself up. You never knew what you could run into out there in the desert after all, so it was good to prepare for the trip. Which is why he packed ten each kunai and shuriken, a map of the elemental nations, fifty meters of shinobi wire, ten explosive tags, ten flashbangs, a demon windmill shuriken, and basic first aid supplies. These supplies included fifty meters of gauze wrap, bandages, antiseptic, soap, thread, a sewing needle, and chloroform. All in all he was more than ready to head out. He moved toward the end of the counter to pick up his temporary travel papers, signed by the kage himself. To allow him to travel out to train for an extended period of time. The neat flowing script of the Kages signature was evident on the paper, making sure that any guardsman at the entrance would know to allow him through. He began to step toward the door, grabbing another scroll as he did so. This scroll contained water and food rations. Of course as a shinobi one could always hunt, but that didn’t mean the opportunity presented itself. He nodded his head at his finished preparations. For himself before grabbing one last scroll. This one contained all of the perishable foods he’d be leaving for a while. He was going to stop by a nearby church on his way out and donate it to them. Lest it go bad while he was gone. With this final item he stepped through the doorway to his abode and reset all of the traps he had in placed after locking the door before turning and walking down the paved walkway that led toward the church as well as the village exit. The sky was a multitude of pinks, purples, and reds as the light of the dawn sun illuminated the sky and clouds into a beautiful tapestry of colours. Valen would take a moment to enjoy the scene before continuing on his way. A light breeze blew through the street, ruffling his cloak a bit in the wind. His hands absently ran over the Fuinjutsu scripts that Hikari had engraved into the cloak. He smiled at the memory of that day. It was the first time someone had actually wanted to teach him, and did it without it seeming a burden. It helped that she was sweet, a little naive perhaps, but who wasn’t in some ways. He’d certainly hope to run into her again, but those were thoughts for after he returned.
After a few minutes of walking through the quiet and nearly deserted morning road he would arrive at the church earlier specified. He stepped in quietly, giving a soft knock on the door and set the scroll on a nearby pew. He’d proceed to unseal the food, he knew these people would not take kindly to him being around as they knew he was a shinobi and were rather violent toward them in viewpoint. But he didn’t care, the food had to go somewhere and just because the church people themselves were backwards as hell didn’t mean they didn’t do good in other ways. He’d silently leave the food behind, all of it in containers of course. The attending priests would see the food and knew what it was for. After all it wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened in a church and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last. He continued on his way, after making sure the door was closed as quietly as possible so as not to arouse suspicion. In all reality, he knew they would still take the food if they knew it was from him. But the bottom line was that it would cause an unnecessary scene. Which he wanted to avoid, he had things to do and places to see after all. At this point he would begin to move out of the village into the desert that surrounded the great village of Hoshi. It was still early in the day, and he intended to get as much ground covered as possible before the sun became hot enough to really take a toll on his stamina. He had his cloak on either way, and when the sun became too hot he would simply bring the hood up to protect him from the harsh rays of the great orb of fire in the sky.
The following seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to hours as Valen pressed on toward his first stop, It was midday now and the sun was at it’s zenith, beating down on anything and everything in the harsh desert with a fiery fury that caused even the most stalwart of men to fall to it’s might. Valen had long since put his hood up, using the shade it provided to protect him from the sun and he regularly used his chakra to regulate his body temperature to keep himself cool enough to keep going. As he moved through the desert the sand dunes would constantly shift and fall under his feet as he trudged on. This of course made it difficult to navigate through the shifty terrain until he learned how to use his chakra to help with that. It was similar in practice to the surface walking technique only inside of only using the chakra to stick to the sand, he shaped the chakra into a kind of ‘snow shoe’ shape at the bottom of his feet, which allowed him to walk normally. Valen judged it to be about two o’clock as he looked up at the sun and judged its position, his eyes easily able to look at the bright orb due to his bloodline. He would then look down and blink a few times as a town could be seen in the distance.
He’d close his eyes and shake his head a few times before looking again, making sure he wasn’t seeing a mirage. He would think back to when he left, and realize that he had been traveling for almost eight straight hours. He decided that was quite enough travelling for a while and decided to rest in that town. So it would be no surprise when he began to move toward the town once more, moving easily through the sand with his new method of traversing the desert. The town slowly got larger and larger as he got closer, proving to him that it indeed was in fact not a mirage. This spurred him on more so, the promise of a cool bed and a cold drink keeping him motivated. With this motivation it wasn’t too long for him to get to the town and he walked into it about thirty minutes later, the desert wind blowing sand around as he did. Most people were inside, probably to avoid the heat of the day, he couldn’t exactly blame them. There were a few people dotting the streets though that didn’t have the ability to wait. That was of course their problem, and he certainly wouldn’t interfere with their business.
He walked into the town a ways and came across a town square, the buildings throughout the village were wooden so it was fairly a fairly simple architectural design. He walked up to the building that was clearly the local watering hole and stepped inside to see it busy with lots of villagers inside. It was to be expected given the heat as they would understandably try to get out of such weather while it was the hottest part of the day. A few people turned toward him when he entered but simply went about their business when they noticed his headband tied around his arm. Deciding to leave the shinobi to whatever business he might have. Valen would walk up to the counter and order a glass of water. Of course that wasn’t free out here, as in the desert water was an extremely precious commodity and as such was priced as one. The sword wielding shinobi wasn’t worried about that at all though and the barkeep passed him the glass of the ice cold beverage after Valen slid him the required ryo. The shinobi would take a long drink from the glass and sigh in relief. He had water in his scrolls yes, but it wasn’t cold as this was. As such it wouldn’t be nearly as refreshing. It was good in case of emergencies though and that’s why he brought it. He would finish his drink before standing and nodding toward the barkeep, signaling his thanks for the service and setting some more ryo down as a tip and stepping out. As he walked outside the doors he would see a notice board next the door and he’d glance at it. One notice in particular caught his eye. ‘Beware bandit activity along shadow country border, four caravans lost this month.’ He’d narrow his eyes at this notice and wonder why they didn’t hire shinobi from Hoshigakure to deal with the bandit issue before realizing that such a mission would be an A ranked mission and with a lack of supplies they might also have a lack of ryo. He wondered where the water was so easily obtainable before remembering that one of the towns not too far from Hoshi had it’s one well system with an underground groundwater reserve. “Well that answers my next question of what town I’m in..It has to be Malva” He would say to himself as he finally exited the building and began moving out of the village toward the borders.
The journey down toward the border took hours as Shadow was the border that was furthest from Hoshi itself. The young shinobi had decided to start by the forest country borders however, as that was where the caravans would come from. He was willing to wager that the caravans would come through Forest country and into Hoshi, where the bandits would ambush them and then take them toward the shadow country border into some kind of base. He’d have to clear that out if there was to be any peace and quiet in this part of the country. Luckily he was more than willing to do so. As he traveled he began trying to channel his light chakra into his sword, trying to make it brighten to the point of causing discomfort for others to look at. This would be useful in combat if he was swinging a weapon that literally no one could safely look at. He’d channel his light release chakra deep into the sword, feeling the energy flowing steadily into the weapon as the weapon began to glow brighter and brighter. Of course since his eyes weren’t able to be affected by bright lights than he didn’t actually know the intensity of the light on one’s vision so he would simply have to practice it in combat and try to figure it out. He would proceed to sheath the powerful weapon and practice drawing it quickly and causing it to instantly brighten up, almost like a strobe light in speed. This would allow him to surprise people with the technique as people almost always looked at the sword when they were drawn so that they could see where the blade was coming from. If said sword was bright enough to force them to close their eyes it might guarantee the blades strike on their person. Which was something that would be useful indeed. He continued to practice causing the sword to brighten and darken as he traveled through the shifting sands of Haven country.
As he finally approached the border of forest country he would run along the border to find the main road, intending to wait for a caravan to watch to help with any bandits and then capture one to grill for information on the location of their base. He was confident in his abilities in handling any bandits that he may come across so he wasn’t worried about attacking a base of them. ‘I can’t wait till you kill them ya know. It’s been so long since I’ve tasted the life blood of a being and you haven’t killed yet.’ The voice of his sentient sword would say. Valen would frown at this as the blade was correct. He’d need to steel himself for the coming endeavor as this would require him to take life. He shook his head at the thought, these monsters were praying on those weaker than them. They didn’t have the power to take what they wanted from something as strong or even stronger and so they prayed on the weak like vultures. These type of people disgusted Valen to no end and he decided that they needed to be removed. He could deal with his personal feelings on the matter later when he returned home to Hoshi. As he strengthened his resolve for the coming fight he heard screams from not too far off. He immediately sped up his search and after cresting a hill came across the main road. With a caravan already under attack and bandits killing their armed escort.
He narrowed his eyes in focus as he looked at the guards, none of them were shinobi. This meant they were simple mercenaries. The bandits weren’t using any kind of shinobi related techniques nor seemed to have the speed and strength training of a trained killer. He nodded his head as these thoughts crossed his mind as he placed his hilt side hand on the hilt of his sword before dashing toward the nearest bandit. His blade was poised to kill one of the guards who was disarmed before Valen himself drew his at blistering speeds and cut the simple katana the bandit was using clean off at the guard. He’d then instantly change the momentum and direction of the blade, using practiced, small movements to do so and expertly slit the throat of the bandit before moving on to the next. He dashed through the scene like the trained killer he was and quickly dispatched the low life thugs that tried attacking the supply shipment, leaving one alive of course. Whom he knocked out and tied to the end of one of the mercenaries horses. The bandits had already killed a few of the protection detail so they had at least one extra horse. Of course as a shinobi he could outrun the beast but it made for a decent interrogation tactic for when the man came to. It helped that most mercenary groups kept well taken care of and highly trained animals. They had to be in battle situations after all. This meant he could use the horse for his intention when the criminal awoke.
He moved to the leader of the caravan now that the bandit was taken care of and secured. “Are you all okay?” He would ask as he moved to help up the leader of the caravan. The man appeared to be about middle aged and looking around like a frantic child. Valen couldn’t blame him though, he had almost been killed. “Y-Yes” The man would say as he fought to get himself under control. Valen would not his hand and place a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder before moving toward his prisoner. He used his sword and cut the man once on the arm, forcing the man awake to scream in pain before he looked up to Valen. Our crimson eyed protagonist proceeded to stare dead at the man and uttered only a single word. “Base..” He would say, the man would snort and laugh at the audacity of him and refuse to tell him. It was at this point that Valen placed his sword right in front of the simple bandit “I’ve been working on a technique, I think I’ve almost got it down. I could use it you know and see how bright I can make it. I might evening be able to permanently blind you.” He would say with a small raising of his eyebrow. This would cause the man to scoff. “Yeah right, you couldn’t do that without using the sword to cut out my eyes themselves.” Valen would shrug his shoulders and channel a very large amount of light release chakra into the blade at a very fast rate. Instantly causing the blade to light up like the sun in the man’s face. The light of course drew the man’s attention to the sword and his screams as his retinas were burned out by the exceedingly bright light echoed throughout the area. It was at this point that Valen would grab the man by the throat. “Base, where?” He would say simply, leaving the man to wonder what he could or would to do him next.
Raising a shaky hand the man would point north, directly north down the border. “Cave system” He would say while whimpering frantically as her couldn’t see. Valen had learned enough and quickly executed the bottom feeding fool. ‘Yes, I rather enjoy you doing that..” The sword would say in Valen’s mind. He’d shake his head at the voice and merely turn to travel north. He left the caravan with a nod of his head toward the leader and the man would nod his head back and continue on toward the safety of Hoshi. Valen would continue on north before pulling out a simple kunai and deciding to practice another technique. He decided it should be relatively simple to channel lightning chakra through a bladed weapon and began to focus and channel his natural lightning element into the kunai. He began to feel the element cackle and spark as it slowly empowered the kunai. Valen was of course moving at a rather simple pace, deciding to take his time getting to these bandits so he could do a little bit of training on the way. Simple techniques like the one he had in mind wouldn’t be difficult to learn while walking. He tried swiping the kunai at rocks he passed by, but did nothing in particular in terms of damage. This annoyed him but he continued working on it. Slowly kneading the lightning element chakra into the blade of the simple kunai knife . The blade would merely crackle and pop as the powerful element shot through the blade without a focus. Valen would sigh at this for a moment before trying to look at it from another angle. Most techniques required hand seals. Maybe this one would too, he opened up his Jutsu Encyclopedia and perused through the raiton techniques section and nodded when it was listed that it had a single ‘dog’ hand seal in other to activate the technique and allow the kunai to absorb the channeled lightning chakra easier to improve its cutting edge and speed.
After finding this out Valen would simply perform the dog hand seal before channeling his lightning chakra into the blade again. This time he’d feel the lightning chakra but much more focused and he could literally feel it being channeled into the metal itself, not simply through it. This would cause the the metal to use the lightning chakra to increase its own capabilities like it’s sharpness and how well it cut through the wind resistance when thrown. Valen would toss the kunai at a rock a ways away and the blade would sink into the stone. The boy would shake his head in dismissal of the the attempt. An attack like that should easily go through the entirety of the stone like it wasn’t even there. He’d have to keep practicing obviously. That however was the nature of training it was meant to be practiced, over and over until the technique was used successfully and that was alright. He’d shelve that particular one for the moment and try focusing on using the lightning affinity to further increase the speed to the blade. This decision would cause him to leaf through the encyclopedia again to track down the required technique and discover that the lightning style technique Swift Cutting would be perfect for it. The technique also didn’t need to be only used by kunai and shuriken. Something Valen very much liked the sound of. It also seemed that the technique could become much stronger. He read up on the technique and while the book had information on the move up to the C rank he decided he could probably try to push for the A ranked version and get it out of the way. It’d also be a decent trump card until he learned some more powerful techniques. He leafed through the techniques description and hand seals before nodding his head in understanding of what he would need to do. This time he would actually stop traveling toward the bandits den for a bit and really train this one out. He’d found a decent place by the stones, it had a great many standing stones lying around that would be extremely helpful for target practice. Each stone stood at about his height and there were a good twenty of them scattered around. So he could easily practice his technique until he got it down. He opened up the book again and took a good long look at that technique, specifically the hand seals. He’d have to spend some time memorizing each one and getting the sequence down so he could perform it without a moment of hesitation, lest you screw up and get himself killed because he missed one or didn’t act quick enough. Such a death would be unacceptable to Valen. After all that would mean he could let down anyone he might be fighting with and he refused to allow that to happen simply because he didn’t memorize some damn hand seals. He held the Dog hand seal for a few moments, allowing his hands to get used to the feel of the hand seal. He didn’t generally use them unless it was for one of the academy three techniques. He would have to get used to them however if he wanted to use this technique. He’d move on to the next hand seal now. Rat, this was similar to the Ram hand seal only instead of the hand on top having the pointer and middle finger pointing up they were folded over the bottom hand.
He held this sign for a few moments as well, making sure any discomfort was worked out so that his hands would easily flow into the seal faster. After getting used to the feel of the Rat seal he began to switch quickly between Dog and Rat, letting his hands get used to the movements. This took a few minutes before he was comfortable with this stage. So he began to get his fingers used to the next seal in the line up. The Dragon seal, this seal was interesting as it was physically the most complicated looking hand seal. The user interlocked the majority of their fingers with palms down. The little fingers and thumbs would not be interlocked however, the little fingers would be pointing down and touching each other. While the thumbs would be folded over each other with the left one on top. This one actually felt a lot more natural than the other two for some reason but he still held it and went through the process of doing the rest of the hand seals in sequence to get used to it. Finally was the last hand seal. Which was luckily, the Dog one again. This one was merely the right hand put into a fist with the fingernails facing down, and the left palm placed on top with the fingers together and straight out. Obviously he had this one down as he had practiced it for the first hand seal in the sequence. At this point he began to practice the full sequence of seals, practicing getting them faster and smoother until he could perform the sequence with absolutely no issues at all. This took a little while but eventually his fingers were naturally making the movements with almost no thought from him at all.
Now it was time to focus the chakra. He performed the hand seal sequence, channeling his chakra as he did so. The hand seals did their job of focusing his chakra in a certain way and he channel with lightning chakra into the sword at his hip. The naturally chaotic, yet precise energy energized the blade with increased cutting potential and speed. The blade as black as lacquer would cackle with electricity as streams of the lightning infused within would spark and crack across the surface of the metal. The energy felt like it was almost too much for the blade to handle but he knew full well his sword could handle strain like this. It wouldn’t break that easily. ‘Damn right I won’t, now finish this killing technique already so we can use it later’ He’d hear in his head. He’d shake his head at the sentient weapon, it was always so damn impatient when it came to killing. He test swung the blade a few times, getting a feel for how easily it cut and moved through the air. If he wasn’t careful with that he could hurt himself. After all the easier the blade moved the harder it was to compensate for while in combat. He nodded his head as he got a feel for how easily the blade moved and swung it at the top of the nearest rock formation. The blade easily sliced through the stone as if it wasn’t even there. It was actually quick enough that he wasn’t prepared for it and kept going, slicing through the one next to it as well. This had surprised him as he wasn’t prepared for, nor expecting such a sudden increase in cutting power. He nodded his head as he learned this and begun to perform his sword katas with the technique active. He’d have to get his body completely used to how the blade swung and cut through the air. The buzz of electricity also filled the clearing and he’d have to get used to that, lest he try to react to an attack that doesn’t exist and make himself look a fool. ‘The sound and light of the lightning will make a stealth mission impossible with this technique, but that’s okay.’ he thought as he finally fully felt comfortable with the technique active.
At this point he began to practice his more aggressive katas and used the standing stones as makeshift ‘enemies’ for the practice. He dodge and blocked non existent attacks while countering and assaulting the stones in response. He cut through a good majority of them at different angles and locations. He finally got used to how easily the blade could cut through the stone and was able to control it much better. But there was still one more thing he needed to try the technique one. With this in mind he sheathed his sword and stepped back from the standing stones. He took a moment to roll out his shoulders and focus his chakra for the task at hand. All of a sudden he began to fly through the hand seals for the technique before reaching for a few kunai knives, as he channeled the force of nature that was lightning. As he grasped each handle of the versatile tool he felt his lightning chakra add it’s charge to the blades. The same electric crackle and buzz could be heard through the clearing as he one let off multiple sparks of electricity, putting on quite the light show as he expertly threw each and every toward a different target. The resulting effect was satisfactory as the knives seemed to fly through the air at a blinding speed and pierced right through the first of the small stone spires before cutting completely through it and continuing on with the continued momentum from the throw. Not even the sheer density of stone could slow down the knives as they pierced through multiple stones before finally falling to the ground. He nodded his head in satisfaction as he moved to pick up the knives and put them away. He could practice that technique more later against the bandits to make sure it held up against other weapons well. For now there was still one more he wanted to get good enough with to use in a combat situation and that was the shadow shuriken technique. It was a useful skill that would simply allow him to hide a shuriken in the shadow of another as it flew. It would be even more useful if he combined it with the technique he just used as the streams of electricity would do a wonderful job of hiding the second shuriken as well.
He stepped away from the stone constructs again and reached into his weapons pouch once more. He pulled out two shuriken, the small four pointed metal stars of death easily fitting into his palm as he got used to how they felt. In his hand. He calmly and with practiced ease tossed one over to his other palm, catching it before throwing both, aiming them both for the same object. Then he smirked at how easy the skill had come as, just as the technique required, one shuriken was hidden in the shadow of the other. The only reason he was able to distinguish it so well was because he threw the shuriken and because of his eyes. He nodded at that before deciding that he would have to obviously learn how to throw them that way one handed. As he obviously couldn’t throw two shuriken and somehow make any attentive opponent think it was only one. With this in mind he palmed two more of the small four pointed throwing stars and took careful aim. Making sure that both shuriken were carefully held as throwing both shuriken at the same time while making one hide in the shadow of another would be very difficult. After being satisfied with their position in his hand he threw both at the same time. They both flew across the field, but he did not manage to pull the technique off this time it seemed. As the throwing stars flew side by side, both clearly visible. He signed and reached for two more. He wanted the technique to be useable in combat before he went to stamp out the bandit camp. One never knew what they could find in one after all. With this in mind he palmed the next two shuriken and threw them again. This time the small metal stars were at least much closer together, being in a tight pair and landing merely centimeters from each other. This time Valen nodded in satisfaction as this meant he was getting closer to finishing the technique.
Now Valen would grab two of the now very familiar stars of death and throw them together with a single hand, focusing fully on letting one release an instant before the other. This had the desired effect of hiding one in the shadow of the other. Valen smirked in acknowledgment at the technique before going to pick up all of his shuriken and kunai and putting them back into his pouch. It was time to find the base and clear it out. He made sure his sword was properly fastened before nodding in satisfaction and traveling along the border once more, leaving the now decimated standing stones behind him our crimson garbed hero would travel around the border at a moderate pace to allow for him to be fully rested and not out of breath in case he runs into patrols. They would needed to be taken care of with no survivors or else the main base would be warned of his arrival and he couldn’t have that now could he? As he ran along the border the terrain slowly changed into more mountainous area’s making it obvious to Valen that he was at the Haven and Earth Country border. Soon after the terrain changed he began to hear voices and he quickly slowed down and began stalking the voices silently, following them to their source. Eventually he found a group of three bandits moving along the stones, there were multiple large rocks in the area for Valen to hide behind and he watched and listened to them closely as they moved.
“We’re almost back, just a few more miles to go. Then the next group can head out.” One would say. He was rather short, with a wiry build and a few crudely done tattoos on his skin. His eyes were looking around, as if he were actually doing his job and not just lazily walking around. “Yeah, then we can get some grub and sleep. Hell, maybe if those two women aren’t broken yet we can have some fun.” Another would say. This one was rather tall and well built, he had a carefree, and easygoing attitude it seemed based on his posture and gait and a pipe was sticking out of his mouth before he took it and blew out some smoke. The last one remained silent, he was about the same size as the second one, he seemingly stared off into the distance the entire time as they walked and he generally just seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Valen narrowed his eyes at the patrol. Based on the way they talked then they were the only one out right then. This worked out well for him. As it meant he could take out these guys and then plow through the cave entrance to back without having to worry about reinforcements. Of course he’d have to find the two women they spoke about to make sure they were okay. After all it simply wouldn’t do to leave them in the hands of these barbarians. Sighing quietly he reached back into his pouch and pulled out three shuriken. He narrowed his eyes in concentration as he tossed all three of them at the three men and all three landed with a dull, wet thunk. If one were to be standing in front of them they would’ve seen a look of pure agonizing shock as their eyes widened and went white as they were killed instantly. He sighed again, more loudly this time as he walked over to them and picked the shuriken out of their skulls, being careful not to get blood on him or his clothing while he did so. He then proceeded to white off the throwing stars and put them back into his pouch before continuing up the border, making sure to be on the lookout just in case.
After about another five minutes of traveling, ninja speed of course, he arrived at a cave entrance that had two guards. The cave was directly inside of a mountain that sat on the border of Haven and Earth countries and seemed to span for miles. This meant he had no way of knowing how big the cave actually was but if it was even half as large as the mountain it was in then he would be clearing it out for awhile. The two guards were standing outside of the cave entrance and Valen was able to see them well before they saw him. This is why we find him where he currently was, using the surface walking to run up the side of the mountain. He was quickly moving toward where he would be able to entrance to the cave and hence, above the two guards. At that point he let himself drop, falling a good thirty meters while he drew Crimson End and swung, as he fell the blade extended into a whip like form and he easily fell within the ten meters range as the whip reached the first target, cutting through his head from above, cleaving it in half. The whip like blade would continue toward the next one as he turned to look at his fellow guard in horror as the blade reached him, cleaving his head in half as well. Of course this left both of the men a bloody corpse on the floor and Valen landed with cat like grace between them before turning and walking into the cave.
Now inside Valen would begin to move through the cave stealthily, moving through tunnel after tunnel, using the surface walking technique to cling to the ceiling of the cave system and above the heads of the bandits. They couldn’t sense or use chakra at all so they would have no idea to even look up and they seemed to keep the place dark except for in large areas where the smoke from any fires and torches wouldn’t bother them. In these areas the ceiling was easily high enough for him to remain unnoticed while he looked for the two women he heard the patrol mention. He must’ve been in the cave for what seemed like hours before he found what must have been the third or fourth large area in the cave system. He had no idea where he was anymore but luckily the bandits collapsed most of the side caves to prevent people from ‘sneaking’ in or at the very least made attacking them HAVE to be straightforward this of course had its pros and cons as on one hand you knew where the enemy would be. On the other the enemy, if they found out that all of the side tunnels had been collapsed, knew where you were as well. Or at least that you had no escape. Valen would make liberal use of this when he found the women as it meant as long as no one got by him on their way out that no one would be able to get to them. As he walked over this particular large congregation area he realize that there was no way out in the back. That meant this was the last one and that meant that the bandit numbers stopped here. Valen had since been impressed with the numbers, it was almost as if they were trying to start their own village or city in the mountain. Or launch an offensive against a large force. It was incredible, down below he noted cages toward the back and he moved toward them, looking down at the hundred of bandits that were in the area to make sure none of them were looking at him. His eyes could see perfectly in the cave system of course and that put him at a massive advantage over the bandits as no matter how ‘used’ to the cave lightning your eyes got you’d never see perfectly in them like he would. As he approached the area the caves were he noted the two women were in one of the cages and both looked very much worse for wear. Both of them having been ‘used’ by some of the bandits. Valen narrowed his eyes at the state the women were in and made sure no one was around before dropping down by the cage. One of the women, the older of the two, looking to be about a decade older than Valen but easily having the eyes of someone who saw far too much horror noticed him immediately and her eyes brightened. He quietly drew his sword and cut the lock off, simply frail iron couldn’t possibly hold up to the strength of his Crimson End after all. This drew the attention of the younger of the two of them. Easily about three or four years younger than Valen’s own sixteen years. The dead, defeated look in her eyes as she turned toward him and didn’t even seem to care about her possible freedom drew from him a rage the likes of which he had never felt before. The older of the two came over and he looked to her, his narrowed eyes softening slightly. “Are you alright?” He would ask to which she would nod “We can walk, but there’s far too many.” She would respond with a slightly saddened voice.
This made Valen even angrier, not the fact that she was sad that she thought there were so many. Or the fact that she didn’t think he could save them. No, what pissed him off the most was simply the fact that she was so excited and brightened up so much at seeing someone from the outside world. This meant she had been a captive for far too long and our extremely angry crimson eyed hero would be putting a stop to that. He would look to the women and speak, a firm edge to his voice as he fought to keep the anger from his tone with them. “Get out, I’ll be taking you from here.” He would say as they began to move, the younger of the two moving far more sedately, as if she barely had the will to move on. “Do not move passed me, they’ve collapsed all of the side tunnels so as long as you stay behind me no one will be able to you.” He explained as he turned and began to walk out with a slow pace, with crimson eyes falling to the nearest bandit as he focused on him before reaching into his pouch and tossing a shuriken at the man. He didn’t even bother to take in his appearance. It didn’t matter to Valen anymore, he would kill everyone in here for what these monsters had done. After the throwing star pierced the man’s skull everyone in the area heard his corpse collapse and turned to him as he performed the hand seals he spent so much time practicing earlier. The bandits began charging toward him in a massive rage at the death of their comrade. As he finished the four hand seals he drew his sword. The lightning instantly infusing the metal with his cutting properties as the ebon blade streamed with what was probably the most precise element. As they closed the distance to him, their own swords, knives, and spears drawn Valen would lazily swing his weapon at the first bandit that got within reach. The man would futilely attempt to block his sword with his own but it was for naught as Crimson End sliced through the metal as if it wasn’t even there and beheaded the man in an instant. This caused most of the men to pause due to how easy it seemed for the boy with the blood red eyes to cut one of them down. This was all Valen needed as he instantly sped up and began to cut the rest down like cattle. Every time they tried to block his blade the lightning infused sword would simply cut through and kill the or woman behind it. For the few who tried to throw spears or fire arrows Valen would toss out a shuriken and on a couple of occasions would even have to use the shadow shuriken technique he learned earlier due to the fact that a few of these bandits seemed to have some decent reflexes. As Valen continued to cut down any man or woman that got too close to him or the prisoner’s he would begin to move out of the cave system, beginning to long, extremely bloody trek to the entrance once more. Eventually the lightning encasing his sword dissipated, it couldn’t last forever after all. But even then he swordsmanship was more than adequate enough to handle the amount of the weaponry coming at him. Plus there were more than one occasion where he would use their own swings or thrusts to his own advantage to redirect the deadly blow into another bandit. At one point he sidestepped a katana thrust only for the blade to hit point first into the stone wall. Due to the strength behind the thrust the end of the blade broke off, flinging an eight inch piece of blade into the air which Valen gladly caught and flung at next closest bandit with a practiced ease as he brought his own sword up and sliced the first one clean up the middle.
As he moved through the bandit camp, cutting them down like sheep or cattle to the slaughter the two women would move slowly, letting him finish with one area before moving on. He could tell they were trying their best to not let all of the combat and death get to them. He’d have to hurry or he might cause just as much damage to them as these monstrous individuals did. On that note as the combat got thicker and more and more of the bandit bodies piled up Valen began to wonder. ‘Does this make me a monster as well?’ He would think as he dodged a sword swipe and instantly cut the head off of the woman who tried it. ‘Are shinobi in general monsters?’ He would ask himself as he cut down another group in a blinding display of speed. These thoughts would capture his mind as he let himself drop into a state of instinctual combat and movement. Not a single soul got past him to attack the women in this entire time and if he had his way not a single soul would. He had yet to find anyone that could possibly be the leader of this bandit army but he had also killed a lot of people that he hadn’t necessarily paid attention to. It was entirely possible the person in charge was dead already. He fought his way through the large cave system and managed to get through three of the four large rooms so far. The women were far enough back that he wasn’t worried about the enemy getting a lucky shot off on them so all he had to do was make sure that there were no survivors. Something that so far he thought he had proven himself rather apt at. As he approached the last room before the exit he noted that the anger over what happened to those women was still fresh in his mind. He felt as if he had to find every last one of these people and leave them a bleeding corpse. He knew evils such as what happened to the women happened in this world, quite a bit more often than he’d like to admit actually. But that didn’t mean he approved.
After entering the next room he took in a deep breathe before performing the four hand seals he’d done earlier before reaching into his pack and pulling out a group of shuriken and kunai knives. He palmed them all as the electric charge energized each one to deadly proportions before flinging them across the room. Each one pierced the head of its target and kept on going, sowing a path of death throughout the room. It was after this that he dashed into the room and began cutting down bandits left and right again. Each one dying to the quick work of his sword and his brutal method of fighting. He aimed for torturous parts on the body, stabbing his sword into joints, cutting off arms and legs at the elbows and knee before finishing off opponents, cutting the target open leaving them alive enough to bleed out. The screams of the bandits would forever etch themselves into his memories. As he ended the life of the final bandit he heard a blood curdling cry of anger. Turning to the source of the bellow of rage he found a man about his height with a sword on his hip. He had tribal tattoos on his face and his teeth were clenched in sheer, unfathomable fury. “What have you done to me men?!” He would yell as he drew his sword and began to walk closer. “I leave for long enough to investigate the disappearance of the patrol and I come back to THIS?!” He yelled as he swung the blade at Valen. The ebon haired youth would catch the sword on his own, but at the same thing would be shocked at the fact that his sword didn’t cut through the man’s either. He also began to get overpowered as he was starting to be push backed. He set his feet in and shoved the man off with a healthy dose of chakra and proceeded to analyze the man.
He was certain he had felt the presence of chakra in that swing. The man’s sword was also not your average blade. If his earlier declaration hadn’t done so, these two facts would’ve proven himself as the leader. He must’ve been in the first room and Valen had started the massacre. That timing would matched up to when the man left to investigate the deaths and when Valen got to this point. The bodies of the men surrounded them as blood seeped into the sand and stone around them. As the two fighters stalked each other like hunters on a prowl, both with sword at the ready and chakra reinforcing their blades. Valen couldn’t afford to pause to do hand seals for his lightning technique, so he would have to do this with technique. His eyes narrowed in focus as he activated his eyes, feeling himself become faster and being able to react to his opponent’s moves easier. The man would swing his sword expertly at Valen’s head, channeling his anger into the swing to increase the ferocity of the blow. Valen would be ready though and would easily catch the blade with his own, knocking it away and trying to slide in for a kill shot. The man would be far too nimble for that to work however and he’d dodge the crippling blow and tried to bring the offense to Valen. Around and around the two would go, swinging, blocking, parrying, dodging, each one going for the kill on the other, each one angrier than they ever had been before. The man had obviously been trained and he was clearly using chakra to augment his blade. This meant problems for Valen because he didn’t know if he needed to back up to keep him from getting the better of him in close combat or get in there so he couldn’t use any of his bigger moves. He decided to go for the latter and keep in close because it was where he was strongest as well of course. This of course meant that it was where he would be able to fight the most effectively and where he had the biggest chance of getting through this. So continue on the fight did, easily lasting quite a while where neither combatant could get an upper hand on the other. The two men seemed completely equal, one due to his training and experience. The other due to his own training and his eyes that gave him the precious time he needed to counter or guard. He knew that if he didn’t have them he would’ve been killed long ago in this fight. He began to think about what this man would do to the women should he lose. He’d probably take them again and do the things he’d done to be them before, or he might just kill them in a his sheer rage. Neither of which was a fate he could allow them to go through. So he grabbed hold of his anger and began to think of a way to handle this situation. It was at this point that Valen thought of something that he hadn’t considered before. The next time the two warriors locked blades, where the two would glare into each other’s eyes with a blind hatred before pushing off each others blades. Valen would use his Crimson Flash ability through his sword. The technique that caused his blade to fire a concentrated disk of chakra that could cut through a great number of things. The human body being one of them. The deadly crimson coloured disk would shoot out of the blade while the two were in their lock and immediately cut the head off of the man at the neck.
At this point Valen would sheathe his sword and loot the cavern of any kunai and shuriken while the ladies caught up and he would then usher them out of the cave. Before actually heading toward the town though he would turn and leap into the air and, using every ounce of his strength, strike the area of the mountain on top of the cave entrance with the bad end of his sword. This would cause the cave to collapse in on itself. Creating a mountain tomb for the bandits who dared do this. He’d then turn and begin moving back toward Hoshi with the two women in tow after giving them some food and water. The women would seem to not want to speak to him much, likely due to the massacre he just took part in. He could understand that and would simply try to get them to Hoshi safely. As they traveled in silence he opened up his encyclopedia again and looked through for another useful technique. It was called ‘Storage Displacement.’ With it he’d be able to instantly store something in an alternate storage ‘dimension’ and pull them out at a slower rate. It was one he could practice with a kunai or shuriken while they traveled. He read the hand seals needed and noted that it only seemed to need two of them. Rat, and Dog, both of which he was familiar with. So he performed the hand seals and channeled his chakra, focusing it on dematerializing the kunai he was holding. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but slowly he could see the kunai begin to seemingly disappear into a cloud of particles. The book said this would be normal. So he performed the hand seals again and focused on pulling it back out. He concentrated on pulling it out of the dimension and back into his waiting hand. Sure enough after a few moments of concentration the kunai began to appear in a mass of particles again. Appearing into his hand as if he had never sent it away to another dimension. He nodded his head, but decided that he should easily be able to get to technique to happen faster. So he performed the hand seals once more and focused on his cloak. The cloak would quite suddenly disappear out of existence in a mass of particles, leaving Valen bare chested for the moment before he performed the Rat and Dog hand seals once more. Slowly causing the cloak to reform on his body exactly as it had been before. Quickly checking to make sure Hikari’s seal was still on it and satisfied that it was, he performed the technique again. This time the cloak seemed to instantly vanish, fast enough that Valen almost missed it himself and he was certainly no slouch in the speed department. But the fact that he missed the storage of his cloak even with his eyes was something to note. He nodded his head in understanding as he performed the hand seals once more and pulled the cloak back on. He began to consider the combat applications of such a technique. Coming up with interesting ways to use it. If he could learn how to perform the technique with no hand seals then people could suddenly find themselves without their weapon, armor, or item. He read the continuation of the technique to see that the dimension could only hold about fifteen items before it couldn’t hold anymore. He wondered what might happen if he tried to push a sixteenth in but decided that maybe trying to push the boundaries of a space time jutsu that was in the encyclopedia, meaning it was well established in the shinobi world was a bad idea. That meant that someone had tried it and the technique still had the warning of only fifteen items. He decided to put that out of his mind however. He had evidently learned that technique as well. He looked around to note that they were not far from Hoshi at all so he turned toward the women and offered them some more food and water. He had packed plenty after all. He would’ve offered first aid but they had no outward injuries. All of their pains were in the mind and psyche. Those were things that they would have to work through with professional help. They gladly took his offer of food and water and they continued to walk while they ate. “You’ll be safe in Hoshi, of that I promise. I’m sorry for what I did back there, but I couldn’t let those monsters escape” He told them as they moved. They nodded their heads at him in understanding but still chose not to say a word. But Valen could live with that. They were alive and would be able to recover some semblance of a life in Hoshi. So they trudged on.
Soon the familiar appearance of his home would peak itself on the horizon, this gave them a new hope and they picked up the pace toward their new home while he smiled softly and easily kept up. Within a mere couple of hours they made it to the village and the guards called someone to take care of the women by giving them a thorough checkup before taking them to refugee sector to be taken care of. He hoped they would be okay here. He himself went on home and open stepping in stretched and yawned. He hadn’t intended to some home before the day was done. But finding the women who needed a place to survive and getting them here safely took priority over his training. He did get a lot done however, so he was extremely happy with that. With that thought in mind he performed the storage displacement technique he had just taught him and caused all of his gear, his two weapon pouches, his sword, and his cloak to all disappear into another dimension where they were be safe until he needed them. Then he showered and was getting ready to sleep while the sun was setting. It had been a long day and he pushed his body far while fighting the bandits. ‘I suppose all shinobi are monsters, and in the end how powerful you get depends on how big of a monster you want or need to be.’ He’d think as sleep took him.
[Exit]
WC: 10011
Claiming: 50 stats, Blade of Truth, Kunai Cutter, Swift cutting A rank, Shadow Shuriken, and Storage Displacement
After a few minutes of walking through the quiet and nearly deserted morning road he would arrive at the church earlier specified. He stepped in quietly, giving a soft knock on the door and set the scroll on a nearby pew. He’d proceed to unseal the food, he knew these people would not take kindly to him being around as they knew he was a shinobi and were rather violent toward them in viewpoint. But he didn’t care, the food had to go somewhere and just because the church people themselves were backwards as hell didn’t mean they didn’t do good in other ways. He’d silently leave the food behind, all of it in containers of course. The attending priests would see the food and knew what it was for. After all it wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened in a church and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last. He continued on his way, after making sure the door was closed as quietly as possible so as not to arouse suspicion. In all reality, he knew they would still take the food if they knew it was from him. But the bottom line was that it would cause an unnecessary scene. Which he wanted to avoid, he had things to do and places to see after all. At this point he would begin to move out of the village into the desert that surrounded the great village of Hoshi. It was still early in the day, and he intended to get as much ground covered as possible before the sun became hot enough to really take a toll on his stamina. He had his cloak on either way, and when the sun became too hot he would simply bring the hood up to protect him from the harsh rays of the great orb of fire in the sky.
The following seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to hours as Valen pressed on toward his first stop, It was midday now and the sun was at it’s zenith, beating down on anything and everything in the harsh desert with a fiery fury that caused even the most stalwart of men to fall to it’s might. Valen had long since put his hood up, using the shade it provided to protect him from the sun and he regularly used his chakra to regulate his body temperature to keep himself cool enough to keep going. As he moved through the desert the sand dunes would constantly shift and fall under his feet as he trudged on. This of course made it difficult to navigate through the shifty terrain until he learned how to use his chakra to help with that. It was similar in practice to the surface walking technique only inside of only using the chakra to stick to the sand, he shaped the chakra into a kind of ‘snow shoe’ shape at the bottom of his feet, which allowed him to walk normally. Valen judged it to be about two o’clock as he looked up at the sun and judged its position, his eyes easily able to look at the bright orb due to his bloodline. He would then look down and blink a few times as a town could be seen in the distance.
He’d close his eyes and shake his head a few times before looking again, making sure he wasn’t seeing a mirage. He would think back to when he left, and realize that he had been traveling for almost eight straight hours. He decided that was quite enough travelling for a while and decided to rest in that town. So it would be no surprise when he began to move toward the town once more, moving easily through the sand with his new method of traversing the desert. The town slowly got larger and larger as he got closer, proving to him that it indeed was in fact not a mirage. This spurred him on more so, the promise of a cool bed and a cold drink keeping him motivated. With this motivation it wasn’t too long for him to get to the town and he walked into it about thirty minutes later, the desert wind blowing sand around as he did. Most people were inside, probably to avoid the heat of the day, he couldn’t exactly blame them. There were a few people dotting the streets though that didn’t have the ability to wait. That was of course their problem, and he certainly wouldn’t interfere with their business.
He walked into the town a ways and came across a town square, the buildings throughout the village were wooden so it was fairly a fairly simple architectural design. He walked up to the building that was clearly the local watering hole and stepped inside to see it busy with lots of villagers inside. It was to be expected given the heat as they would understandably try to get out of such weather while it was the hottest part of the day. A few people turned toward him when he entered but simply went about their business when they noticed his headband tied around his arm. Deciding to leave the shinobi to whatever business he might have. Valen would walk up to the counter and order a glass of water. Of course that wasn’t free out here, as in the desert water was an extremely precious commodity and as such was priced as one. The sword wielding shinobi wasn’t worried about that at all though and the barkeep passed him the glass of the ice cold beverage after Valen slid him the required ryo. The shinobi would take a long drink from the glass and sigh in relief. He had water in his scrolls yes, but it wasn’t cold as this was. As such it wouldn’t be nearly as refreshing. It was good in case of emergencies though and that’s why he brought it. He would finish his drink before standing and nodding toward the barkeep, signaling his thanks for the service and setting some more ryo down as a tip and stepping out. As he walked outside the doors he would see a notice board next the door and he’d glance at it. One notice in particular caught his eye. ‘Beware bandit activity along shadow country border, four caravans lost this month.’ He’d narrow his eyes at this notice and wonder why they didn’t hire shinobi from Hoshigakure to deal with the bandit issue before realizing that such a mission would be an A ranked mission and with a lack of supplies they might also have a lack of ryo. He wondered where the water was so easily obtainable before remembering that one of the towns not too far from Hoshi had it’s one well system with an underground groundwater reserve. “Well that answers my next question of what town I’m in..It has to be Malva” He would say to himself as he finally exited the building and began moving out of the village toward the borders.
The journey down toward the border took hours as Shadow was the border that was furthest from Hoshi itself. The young shinobi had decided to start by the forest country borders however, as that was where the caravans would come from. He was willing to wager that the caravans would come through Forest country and into Hoshi, where the bandits would ambush them and then take them toward the shadow country border into some kind of base. He’d have to clear that out if there was to be any peace and quiet in this part of the country. Luckily he was more than willing to do so. As he traveled he began trying to channel his light chakra into his sword, trying to make it brighten to the point of causing discomfort for others to look at. This would be useful in combat if he was swinging a weapon that literally no one could safely look at. He’d channel his light release chakra deep into the sword, feeling the energy flowing steadily into the weapon as the weapon began to glow brighter and brighter. Of course since his eyes weren’t able to be affected by bright lights than he didn’t actually know the intensity of the light on one’s vision so he would simply have to practice it in combat and try to figure it out. He would proceed to sheath the powerful weapon and practice drawing it quickly and causing it to instantly brighten up, almost like a strobe light in speed. This would allow him to surprise people with the technique as people almost always looked at the sword when they were drawn so that they could see where the blade was coming from. If said sword was bright enough to force them to close their eyes it might guarantee the blades strike on their person. Which was something that would be useful indeed. He continued to practice causing the sword to brighten and darken as he traveled through the shifting sands of Haven country.
As he finally approached the border of forest country he would run along the border to find the main road, intending to wait for a caravan to watch to help with any bandits and then capture one to grill for information on the location of their base. He was confident in his abilities in handling any bandits that he may come across so he wasn’t worried about attacking a base of them. ‘I can’t wait till you kill them ya know. It’s been so long since I’ve tasted the life blood of a being and you haven’t killed yet.’ The voice of his sentient sword would say. Valen would frown at this as the blade was correct. He’d need to steel himself for the coming endeavor as this would require him to take life. He shook his head at the thought, these monsters were praying on those weaker than them. They didn’t have the power to take what they wanted from something as strong or even stronger and so they prayed on the weak like vultures. These type of people disgusted Valen to no end and he decided that they needed to be removed. He could deal with his personal feelings on the matter later when he returned home to Hoshi. As he strengthened his resolve for the coming fight he heard screams from not too far off. He immediately sped up his search and after cresting a hill came across the main road. With a caravan already under attack and bandits killing their armed escort.
He narrowed his eyes in focus as he looked at the guards, none of them were shinobi. This meant they were simple mercenaries. The bandits weren’t using any kind of shinobi related techniques nor seemed to have the speed and strength training of a trained killer. He nodded his head as these thoughts crossed his mind as he placed his hilt side hand on the hilt of his sword before dashing toward the nearest bandit. His blade was poised to kill one of the guards who was disarmed before Valen himself drew his at blistering speeds and cut the simple katana the bandit was using clean off at the guard. He’d then instantly change the momentum and direction of the blade, using practiced, small movements to do so and expertly slit the throat of the bandit before moving on to the next. He dashed through the scene like the trained killer he was and quickly dispatched the low life thugs that tried attacking the supply shipment, leaving one alive of course. Whom he knocked out and tied to the end of one of the mercenaries horses. The bandits had already killed a few of the protection detail so they had at least one extra horse. Of course as a shinobi he could outrun the beast but it made for a decent interrogation tactic for when the man came to. It helped that most mercenary groups kept well taken care of and highly trained animals. They had to be in battle situations after all. This meant he could use the horse for his intention when the criminal awoke.
He moved to the leader of the caravan now that the bandit was taken care of and secured. “Are you all okay?” He would ask as he moved to help up the leader of the caravan. The man appeared to be about middle aged and looking around like a frantic child. Valen couldn’t blame him though, he had almost been killed. “Y-Yes” The man would say as he fought to get himself under control. Valen would not his hand and place a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder before moving toward his prisoner. He used his sword and cut the man once on the arm, forcing the man awake to scream in pain before he looked up to Valen. Our crimson eyed protagonist proceeded to stare dead at the man and uttered only a single word. “Base..” He would say, the man would snort and laugh at the audacity of him and refuse to tell him. It was at this point that Valen placed his sword right in front of the simple bandit “I’ve been working on a technique, I think I’ve almost got it down. I could use it you know and see how bright I can make it. I might evening be able to permanently blind you.” He would say with a small raising of his eyebrow. This would cause the man to scoff. “Yeah right, you couldn’t do that without using the sword to cut out my eyes themselves.” Valen would shrug his shoulders and channel a very large amount of light release chakra into the blade at a very fast rate. Instantly causing the blade to light up like the sun in the man’s face. The light of course drew the man’s attention to the sword and his screams as his retinas were burned out by the exceedingly bright light echoed throughout the area. It was at this point that Valen would grab the man by the throat. “Base, where?” He would say simply, leaving the man to wonder what he could or would to do him next.
Raising a shaky hand the man would point north, directly north down the border. “Cave system” He would say while whimpering frantically as her couldn’t see. Valen had learned enough and quickly executed the bottom feeding fool. ‘Yes, I rather enjoy you doing that..” The sword would say in Valen’s mind. He’d shake his head at the voice and merely turn to travel north. He left the caravan with a nod of his head toward the leader and the man would nod his head back and continue on toward the safety of Hoshi. Valen would continue on north before pulling out a simple kunai and deciding to practice another technique. He decided it should be relatively simple to channel lightning chakra through a bladed weapon and began to focus and channel his natural lightning element into the kunai. He began to feel the element cackle and spark as it slowly empowered the kunai. Valen was of course moving at a rather simple pace, deciding to take his time getting to these bandits so he could do a little bit of training on the way. Simple techniques like the one he had in mind wouldn’t be difficult to learn while walking. He tried swiping the kunai at rocks he passed by, but did nothing in particular in terms of damage. This annoyed him but he continued working on it. Slowly kneading the lightning element chakra into the blade of the simple kunai knife . The blade would merely crackle and pop as the powerful element shot through the blade without a focus. Valen would sigh at this for a moment before trying to look at it from another angle. Most techniques required hand seals. Maybe this one would too, he opened up his Jutsu Encyclopedia and perused through the raiton techniques section and nodded when it was listed that it had a single ‘dog’ hand seal in other to activate the technique and allow the kunai to absorb the channeled lightning chakra easier to improve its cutting edge and speed.
After finding this out Valen would simply perform the dog hand seal before channeling his lightning chakra into the blade again. This time he’d feel the lightning chakra but much more focused and he could literally feel it being channeled into the metal itself, not simply through it. This would cause the the metal to use the lightning chakra to increase its own capabilities like it’s sharpness and how well it cut through the wind resistance when thrown. Valen would toss the kunai at a rock a ways away and the blade would sink into the stone. The boy would shake his head in dismissal of the the attempt. An attack like that should easily go through the entirety of the stone like it wasn’t even there. He’d have to keep practicing obviously. That however was the nature of training it was meant to be practiced, over and over until the technique was used successfully and that was alright. He’d shelve that particular one for the moment and try focusing on using the lightning affinity to further increase the speed to the blade. This decision would cause him to leaf through the encyclopedia again to track down the required technique and discover that the lightning style technique Swift Cutting would be perfect for it. The technique also didn’t need to be only used by kunai and shuriken. Something Valen very much liked the sound of. It also seemed that the technique could become much stronger. He read up on the technique and while the book had information on the move up to the C rank he decided he could probably try to push for the A ranked version and get it out of the way. It’d also be a decent trump card until he learned some more powerful techniques. He leafed through the techniques description and hand seals before nodding his head in understanding of what he would need to do. This time he would actually stop traveling toward the bandits den for a bit and really train this one out. He’d found a decent place by the stones, it had a great many standing stones lying around that would be extremely helpful for target practice. Each stone stood at about his height and there were a good twenty of them scattered around. So he could easily practice his technique until he got it down. He opened up the book again and took a good long look at that technique, specifically the hand seals. He’d have to spend some time memorizing each one and getting the sequence down so he could perform it without a moment of hesitation, lest you screw up and get himself killed because he missed one or didn’t act quick enough. Such a death would be unacceptable to Valen. After all that would mean he could let down anyone he might be fighting with and he refused to allow that to happen simply because he didn’t memorize some damn hand seals. He held the Dog hand seal for a few moments, allowing his hands to get used to the feel of the hand seal. He didn’t generally use them unless it was for one of the academy three techniques. He would have to get used to them however if he wanted to use this technique. He’d move on to the next hand seal now. Rat, this was similar to the Ram hand seal only instead of the hand on top having the pointer and middle finger pointing up they were folded over the bottom hand.
He held this sign for a few moments as well, making sure any discomfort was worked out so that his hands would easily flow into the seal faster. After getting used to the feel of the Rat seal he began to switch quickly between Dog and Rat, letting his hands get used to the movements. This took a few minutes before he was comfortable with this stage. So he began to get his fingers used to the next seal in the line up. The Dragon seal, this seal was interesting as it was physically the most complicated looking hand seal. The user interlocked the majority of their fingers with palms down. The little fingers and thumbs would not be interlocked however, the little fingers would be pointing down and touching each other. While the thumbs would be folded over each other with the left one on top. This one actually felt a lot more natural than the other two for some reason but he still held it and went through the process of doing the rest of the hand seals in sequence to get used to it. Finally was the last hand seal. Which was luckily, the Dog one again. This one was merely the right hand put into a fist with the fingernails facing down, and the left palm placed on top with the fingers together and straight out. Obviously he had this one down as he had practiced it for the first hand seal in the sequence. At this point he began to practice the full sequence of seals, practicing getting them faster and smoother until he could perform the sequence with absolutely no issues at all. This took a little while but eventually his fingers were naturally making the movements with almost no thought from him at all.
Now it was time to focus the chakra. He performed the hand seal sequence, channeling his chakra as he did so. The hand seals did their job of focusing his chakra in a certain way and he channel with lightning chakra into the sword at his hip. The naturally chaotic, yet precise energy energized the blade with increased cutting potential and speed. The blade as black as lacquer would cackle with electricity as streams of the lightning infused within would spark and crack across the surface of the metal. The energy felt like it was almost too much for the blade to handle but he knew full well his sword could handle strain like this. It wouldn’t break that easily. ‘Damn right I won’t, now finish this killing technique already so we can use it later’ He’d hear in his head. He’d shake his head at the sentient weapon, it was always so damn impatient when it came to killing. He test swung the blade a few times, getting a feel for how easily it cut and moved through the air. If he wasn’t careful with that he could hurt himself. After all the easier the blade moved the harder it was to compensate for while in combat. He nodded his head as he got a feel for how easily the blade moved and swung it at the top of the nearest rock formation. The blade easily sliced through the stone as if it wasn’t even there. It was actually quick enough that he wasn’t prepared for it and kept going, slicing through the one next to it as well. This had surprised him as he wasn’t prepared for, nor expecting such a sudden increase in cutting power. He nodded his head as he learned this and begun to perform his sword katas with the technique active. He’d have to get his body completely used to how the blade swung and cut through the air. The buzz of electricity also filled the clearing and he’d have to get used to that, lest he try to react to an attack that doesn’t exist and make himself look a fool. ‘The sound and light of the lightning will make a stealth mission impossible with this technique, but that’s okay.’ he thought as he finally fully felt comfortable with the technique active.
At this point he began to practice his more aggressive katas and used the standing stones as makeshift ‘enemies’ for the practice. He dodge and blocked non existent attacks while countering and assaulting the stones in response. He cut through a good majority of them at different angles and locations. He finally got used to how easily the blade could cut through the stone and was able to control it much better. But there was still one more thing he needed to try the technique one. With this in mind he sheathed his sword and stepped back from the standing stones. He took a moment to roll out his shoulders and focus his chakra for the task at hand. All of a sudden he began to fly through the hand seals for the technique before reaching for a few kunai knives, as he channeled the force of nature that was lightning. As he grasped each handle of the versatile tool he felt his lightning chakra add it’s charge to the blades. The same electric crackle and buzz could be heard through the clearing as he one let off multiple sparks of electricity, putting on quite the light show as he expertly threw each and every toward a different target. The resulting effect was satisfactory as the knives seemed to fly through the air at a blinding speed and pierced right through the first of the small stone spires before cutting completely through it and continuing on with the continued momentum from the throw. Not even the sheer density of stone could slow down the knives as they pierced through multiple stones before finally falling to the ground. He nodded his head in satisfaction as he moved to pick up the knives and put them away. He could practice that technique more later against the bandits to make sure it held up against other weapons well. For now there was still one more he wanted to get good enough with to use in a combat situation and that was the shadow shuriken technique. It was a useful skill that would simply allow him to hide a shuriken in the shadow of another as it flew. It would be even more useful if he combined it with the technique he just used as the streams of electricity would do a wonderful job of hiding the second shuriken as well.
He stepped away from the stone constructs again and reached into his weapons pouch once more. He pulled out two shuriken, the small four pointed metal stars of death easily fitting into his palm as he got used to how they felt. In his hand. He calmly and with practiced ease tossed one over to his other palm, catching it before throwing both, aiming them both for the same object. Then he smirked at how easy the skill had come as, just as the technique required, one shuriken was hidden in the shadow of the other. The only reason he was able to distinguish it so well was because he threw the shuriken and because of his eyes. He nodded at that before deciding that he would have to obviously learn how to throw them that way one handed. As he obviously couldn’t throw two shuriken and somehow make any attentive opponent think it was only one. With this in mind he palmed two more of the small four pointed throwing stars and took careful aim. Making sure that both shuriken were carefully held as throwing both shuriken at the same time while making one hide in the shadow of another would be very difficult. After being satisfied with their position in his hand he threw both at the same time. They both flew across the field, but he did not manage to pull the technique off this time it seemed. As the throwing stars flew side by side, both clearly visible. He signed and reached for two more. He wanted the technique to be useable in combat before he went to stamp out the bandit camp. One never knew what they could find in one after all. With this in mind he palmed the next two shuriken and threw them again. This time the small metal stars were at least much closer together, being in a tight pair and landing merely centimeters from each other. This time Valen nodded in satisfaction as this meant he was getting closer to finishing the technique.
Now Valen would grab two of the now very familiar stars of death and throw them together with a single hand, focusing fully on letting one release an instant before the other. This had the desired effect of hiding one in the shadow of the other. Valen smirked in acknowledgment at the technique before going to pick up all of his shuriken and kunai and putting them back into his pouch. It was time to find the base and clear it out. He made sure his sword was properly fastened before nodding in satisfaction and traveling along the border once more, leaving the now decimated standing stones behind him our crimson garbed hero would travel around the border at a moderate pace to allow for him to be fully rested and not out of breath in case he runs into patrols. They would needed to be taken care of with no survivors or else the main base would be warned of his arrival and he couldn’t have that now could he? As he ran along the border the terrain slowly changed into more mountainous area’s making it obvious to Valen that he was at the Haven and Earth Country border. Soon after the terrain changed he began to hear voices and he quickly slowed down and began stalking the voices silently, following them to their source. Eventually he found a group of three bandits moving along the stones, there were multiple large rocks in the area for Valen to hide behind and he watched and listened to them closely as they moved.
“We’re almost back, just a few more miles to go. Then the next group can head out.” One would say. He was rather short, with a wiry build and a few crudely done tattoos on his skin. His eyes were looking around, as if he were actually doing his job and not just lazily walking around. “Yeah, then we can get some grub and sleep. Hell, maybe if those two women aren’t broken yet we can have some fun.” Another would say. This one was rather tall and well built, he had a carefree, and easygoing attitude it seemed based on his posture and gait and a pipe was sticking out of his mouth before he took it and blew out some smoke. The last one remained silent, he was about the same size as the second one, he seemingly stared off into the distance the entire time as they walked and he generally just seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Valen narrowed his eyes at the patrol. Based on the way they talked then they were the only one out right then. This worked out well for him. As it meant he could take out these guys and then plow through the cave entrance to back without having to worry about reinforcements. Of course he’d have to find the two women they spoke about to make sure they were okay. After all it simply wouldn’t do to leave them in the hands of these barbarians. Sighing quietly he reached back into his pouch and pulled out three shuriken. He narrowed his eyes in concentration as he tossed all three of them at the three men and all three landed with a dull, wet thunk. If one were to be standing in front of them they would’ve seen a look of pure agonizing shock as their eyes widened and went white as they were killed instantly. He sighed again, more loudly this time as he walked over to them and picked the shuriken out of their skulls, being careful not to get blood on him or his clothing while he did so. He then proceeded to white off the throwing stars and put them back into his pouch before continuing up the border, making sure to be on the lookout just in case.
After about another five minutes of traveling, ninja speed of course, he arrived at a cave entrance that had two guards. The cave was directly inside of a mountain that sat on the border of Haven and Earth countries and seemed to span for miles. This meant he had no way of knowing how big the cave actually was but if it was even half as large as the mountain it was in then he would be clearing it out for awhile. The two guards were standing outside of the cave entrance and Valen was able to see them well before they saw him. This is why we find him where he currently was, using the surface walking to run up the side of the mountain. He was quickly moving toward where he would be able to entrance to the cave and hence, above the two guards. At that point he let himself drop, falling a good thirty meters while he drew Crimson End and swung, as he fell the blade extended into a whip like form and he easily fell within the ten meters range as the whip reached the first target, cutting through his head from above, cleaving it in half. The whip like blade would continue toward the next one as he turned to look at his fellow guard in horror as the blade reached him, cleaving his head in half as well. Of course this left both of the men a bloody corpse on the floor and Valen landed with cat like grace between them before turning and walking into the cave.
Now inside Valen would begin to move through the cave stealthily, moving through tunnel after tunnel, using the surface walking technique to cling to the ceiling of the cave system and above the heads of the bandits. They couldn’t sense or use chakra at all so they would have no idea to even look up and they seemed to keep the place dark except for in large areas where the smoke from any fires and torches wouldn’t bother them. In these areas the ceiling was easily high enough for him to remain unnoticed while he looked for the two women he heard the patrol mention. He must’ve been in the cave for what seemed like hours before he found what must have been the third or fourth large area in the cave system. He had no idea where he was anymore but luckily the bandits collapsed most of the side caves to prevent people from ‘sneaking’ in or at the very least made attacking them HAVE to be straightforward this of course had its pros and cons as on one hand you knew where the enemy would be. On the other the enemy, if they found out that all of the side tunnels had been collapsed, knew where you were as well. Or at least that you had no escape. Valen would make liberal use of this when he found the women as it meant as long as no one got by him on their way out that no one would be able to get to them. As he walked over this particular large congregation area he realize that there was no way out in the back. That meant this was the last one and that meant that the bandit numbers stopped here. Valen had since been impressed with the numbers, it was almost as if they were trying to start their own village or city in the mountain. Or launch an offensive against a large force. It was incredible, down below he noted cages toward the back and he moved toward them, looking down at the hundred of bandits that were in the area to make sure none of them were looking at him. His eyes could see perfectly in the cave system of course and that put him at a massive advantage over the bandits as no matter how ‘used’ to the cave lightning your eyes got you’d never see perfectly in them like he would. As he approached the area the caves were he noted the two women were in one of the cages and both looked very much worse for wear. Both of them having been ‘used’ by some of the bandits. Valen narrowed his eyes at the state the women were in and made sure no one was around before dropping down by the cage. One of the women, the older of the two, looking to be about a decade older than Valen but easily having the eyes of someone who saw far too much horror noticed him immediately and her eyes brightened. He quietly drew his sword and cut the lock off, simply frail iron couldn’t possibly hold up to the strength of his Crimson End after all. This drew the attention of the younger of the two of them. Easily about three or four years younger than Valen’s own sixteen years. The dead, defeated look in her eyes as she turned toward him and didn’t even seem to care about her possible freedom drew from him a rage the likes of which he had never felt before. The older of the two came over and he looked to her, his narrowed eyes softening slightly. “Are you alright?” He would ask to which she would nod “We can walk, but there’s far too many.” She would respond with a slightly saddened voice.
This made Valen even angrier, not the fact that she was sad that she thought there were so many. Or the fact that she didn’t think he could save them. No, what pissed him off the most was simply the fact that she was so excited and brightened up so much at seeing someone from the outside world. This meant she had been a captive for far too long and our extremely angry crimson eyed hero would be putting a stop to that. He would look to the women and speak, a firm edge to his voice as he fought to keep the anger from his tone with them. “Get out, I’ll be taking you from here.” He would say as they began to move, the younger of the two moving far more sedately, as if she barely had the will to move on. “Do not move passed me, they’ve collapsed all of the side tunnels so as long as you stay behind me no one will be able to you.” He explained as he turned and began to walk out with a slow pace, with crimson eyes falling to the nearest bandit as he focused on him before reaching into his pouch and tossing a shuriken at the man. He didn’t even bother to take in his appearance. It didn’t matter to Valen anymore, he would kill everyone in here for what these monsters had done. After the throwing star pierced the man’s skull everyone in the area heard his corpse collapse and turned to him as he performed the hand seals he spent so much time practicing earlier. The bandits began charging toward him in a massive rage at the death of their comrade. As he finished the four hand seals he drew his sword. The lightning instantly infusing the metal with his cutting properties as the ebon blade streamed with what was probably the most precise element. As they closed the distance to him, their own swords, knives, and spears drawn Valen would lazily swing his weapon at the first bandit that got within reach. The man would futilely attempt to block his sword with his own but it was for naught as Crimson End sliced through the metal as if it wasn’t even there and beheaded the man in an instant. This caused most of the men to pause due to how easy it seemed for the boy with the blood red eyes to cut one of them down. This was all Valen needed as he instantly sped up and began to cut the rest down like cattle. Every time they tried to block his blade the lightning infused sword would simply cut through and kill the or woman behind it. For the few who tried to throw spears or fire arrows Valen would toss out a shuriken and on a couple of occasions would even have to use the shadow shuriken technique he learned earlier due to the fact that a few of these bandits seemed to have some decent reflexes. As Valen continued to cut down any man or woman that got too close to him or the prisoner’s he would begin to move out of the cave system, beginning to long, extremely bloody trek to the entrance once more. Eventually the lightning encasing his sword dissipated, it couldn’t last forever after all. But even then he swordsmanship was more than adequate enough to handle the amount of the weaponry coming at him. Plus there were more than one occasion where he would use their own swings or thrusts to his own advantage to redirect the deadly blow into another bandit. At one point he sidestepped a katana thrust only for the blade to hit point first into the stone wall. Due to the strength behind the thrust the end of the blade broke off, flinging an eight inch piece of blade into the air which Valen gladly caught and flung at next closest bandit with a practiced ease as he brought his own sword up and sliced the first one clean up the middle.
As he moved through the bandit camp, cutting them down like sheep or cattle to the slaughter the two women would move slowly, letting him finish with one area before moving on. He could tell they were trying their best to not let all of the combat and death get to them. He’d have to hurry or he might cause just as much damage to them as these monstrous individuals did. On that note as the combat got thicker and more and more of the bandit bodies piled up Valen began to wonder. ‘Does this make me a monster as well?’ He would think as he dodged a sword swipe and instantly cut the head off of the woman who tried it. ‘Are shinobi in general monsters?’ He would ask himself as he cut down another group in a blinding display of speed. These thoughts would capture his mind as he let himself drop into a state of instinctual combat and movement. Not a single soul got past him to attack the women in this entire time and if he had his way not a single soul would. He had yet to find anyone that could possibly be the leader of this bandit army but he had also killed a lot of people that he hadn’t necessarily paid attention to. It was entirely possible the person in charge was dead already. He fought his way through the large cave system and managed to get through three of the four large rooms so far. The women were far enough back that he wasn’t worried about the enemy getting a lucky shot off on them so all he had to do was make sure that there were no survivors. Something that so far he thought he had proven himself rather apt at. As he approached the last room before the exit he noted that the anger over what happened to those women was still fresh in his mind. He felt as if he had to find every last one of these people and leave them a bleeding corpse. He knew evils such as what happened to the women happened in this world, quite a bit more often than he’d like to admit actually. But that didn’t mean he approved.
After entering the next room he took in a deep breathe before performing the four hand seals he’d done earlier before reaching into his pack and pulling out a group of shuriken and kunai knives. He palmed them all as the electric charge energized each one to deadly proportions before flinging them across the room. Each one pierced the head of its target and kept on going, sowing a path of death throughout the room. It was after this that he dashed into the room and began cutting down bandits left and right again. Each one dying to the quick work of his sword and his brutal method of fighting. He aimed for torturous parts on the body, stabbing his sword into joints, cutting off arms and legs at the elbows and knee before finishing off opponents, cutting the target open leaving them alive enough to bleed out. The screams of the bandits would forever etch themselves into his memories. As he ended the life of the final bandit he heard a blood curdling cry of anger. Turning to the source of the bellow of rage he found a man about his height with a sword on his hip. He had tribal tattoos on his face and his teeth were clenched in sheer, unfathomable fury. “What have you done to me men?!” He would yell as he drew his sword and began to walk closer. “I leave for long enough to investigate the disappearance of the patrol and I come back to THIS?!” He yelled as he swung the blade at Valen. The ebon haired youth would catch the sword on his own, but at the same thing would be shocked at the fact that his sword didn’t cut through the man’s either. He also began to get overpowered as he was starting to be push backed. He set his feet in and shoved the man off with a healthy dose of chakra and proceeded to analyze the man.
He was certain he had felt the presence of chakra in that swing. The man’s sword was also not your average blade. If his earlier declaration hadn’t done so, these two facts would’ve proven himself as the leader. He must’ve been in the first room and Valen had started the massacre. That timing would matched up to when the man left to investigate the deaths and when Valen got to this point. The bodies of the men surrounded them as blood seeped into the sand and stone around them. As the two fighters stalked each other like hunters on a prowl, both with sword at the ready and chakra reinforcing their blades. Valen couldn’t afford to pause to do hand seals for his lightning technique, so he would have to do this with technique. His eyes narrowed in focus as he activated his eyes, feeling himself become faster and being able to react to his opponent’s moves easier. The man would swing his sword expertly at Valen’s head, channeling his anger into the swing to increase the ferocity of the blow. Valen would be ready though and would easily catch the blade with his own, knocking it away and trying to slide in for a kill shot. The man would be far too nimble for that to work however and he’d dodge the crippling blow and tried to bring the offense to Valen. Around and around the two would go, swinging, blocking, parrying, dodging, each one going for the kill on the other, each one angrier than they ever had been before. The man had obviously been trained and he was clearly using chakra to augment his blade. This meant problems for Valen because he didn’t know if he needed to back up to keep him from getting the better of him in close combat or get in there so he couldn’t use any of his bigger moves. He decided to go for the latter and keep in close because it was where he was strongest as well of course. This of course meant that it was where he would be able to fight the most effectively and where he had the biggest chance of getting through this. So continue on the fight did, easily lasting quite a while where neither combatant could get an upper hand on the other. The two men seemed completely equal, one due to his training and experience. The other due to his own training and his eyes that gave him the precious time he needed to counter or guard. He knew that if he didn’t have them he would’ve been killed long ago in this fight. He began to think about what this man would do to the women should he lose. He’d probably take them again and do the things he’d done to be them before, or he might just kill them in a his sheer rage. Neither of which was a fate he could allow them to go through. So he grabbed hold of his anger and began to think of a way to handle this situation. It was at this point that Valen thought of something that he hadn’t considered before. The next time the two warriors locked blades, where the two would glare into each other’s eyes with a blind hatred before pushing off each others blades. Valen would use his Crimson Flash ability through his sword. The technique that caused his blade to fire a concentrated disk of chakra that could cut through a great number of things. The human body being one of them. The deadly crimson coloured disk would shoot out of the blade while the two were in their lock and immediately cut the head off of the man at the neck.
At this point Valen would sheathe his sword and loot the cavern of any kunai and shuriken while the ladies caught up and he would then usher them out of the cave. Before actually heading toward the town though he would turn and leap into the air and, using every ounce of his strength, strike the area of the mountain on top of the cave entrance with the bad end of his sword. This would cause the cave to collapse in on itself. Creating a mountain tomb for the bandits who dared do this. He’d then turn and begin moving back toward Hoshi with the two women in tow after giving them some food and water. The women would seem to not want to speak to him much, likely due to the massacre he just took part in. He could understand that and would simply try to get them to Hoshi safely. As they traveled in silence he opened up his encyclopedia again and looked through for another useful technique. It was called ‘Storage Displacement.’ With it he’d be able to instantly store something in an alternate storage ‘dimension’ and pull them out at a slower rate. It was one he could practice with a kunai or shuriken while they traveled. He read the hand seals needed and noted that it only seemed to need two of them. Rat, and Dog, both of which he was familiar with. So he performed the hand seals and channeled his chakra, focusing it on dematerializing the kunai he was holding. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but slowly he could see the kunai begin to seemingly disappear into a cloud of particles. The book said this would be normal. So he performed the hand seals again and focused on pulling it back out. He concentrated on pulling it out of the dimension and back into his waiting hand. Sure enough after a few moments of concentration the kunai began to appear in a mass of particles again. Appearing into his hand as if he had never sent it away to another dimension. He nodded his head, but decided that he should easily be able to get to technique to happen faster. So he performed the hand seals once more and focused on his cloak. The cloak would quite suddenly disappear out of existence in a mass of particles, leaving Valen bare chested for the moment before he performed the Rat and Dog hand seals once more. Slowly causing the cloak to reform on his body exactly as it had been before. Quickly checking to make sure Hikari’s seal was still on it and satisfied that it was, he performed the technique again. This time the cloak seemed to instantly vanish, fast enough that Valen almost missed it himself and he was certainly no slouch in the speed department. But the fact that he missed the storage of his cloak even with his eyes was something to note. He nodded his head in understanding as he performed the hand seals once more and pulled the cloak back on. He began to consider the combat applications of such a technique. Coming up with interesting ways to use it. If he could learn how to perform the technique with no hand seals then people could suddenly find themselves without their weapon, armor, or item. He read the continuation of the technique to see that the dimension could only hold about fifteen items before it couldn’t hold anymore. He wondered what might happen if he tried to push a sixteenth in but decided that maybe trying to push the boundaries of a space time jutsu that was in the encyclopedia, meaning it was well established in the shinobi world was a bad idea. That meant that someone had tried it and the technique still had the warning of only fifteen items. He decided to put that out of his mind however. He had evidently learned that technique as well. He looked around to note that they were not far from Hoshi at all so he turned toward the women and offered them some more food and water. He had packed plenty after all. He would’ve offered first aid but they had no outward injuries. All of their pains were in the mind and psyche. Those were things that they would have to work through with professional help. They gladly took his offer of food and water and they continued to walk while they ate. “You’ll be safe in Hoshi, of that I promise. I’m sorry for what I did back there, but I couldn’t let those monsters escape” He told them as they moved. They nodded their heads at him in understanding but still chose not to say a word. But Valen could live with that. They were alive and would be able to recover some semblance of a life in Hoshi. So they trudged on.
Soon the familiar appearance of his home would peak itself on the horizon, this gave them a new hope and they picked up the pace toward their new home while he smiled softly and easily kept up. Within a mere couple of hours they made it to the village and the guards called someone to take care of the women by giving them a thorough checkup before taking them to refugee sector to be taken care of. He hoped they would be okay here. He himself went on home and open stepping in stretched and yawned. He hadn’t intended to some home before the day was done. But finding the women who needed a place to survive and getting them here safely took priority over his training. He did get a lot done however, so he was extremely happy with that. With that thought in mind he performed the storage displacement technique he had just taught him and caused all of his gear, his two weapon pouches, his sword, and his cloak to all disappear into another dimension where they were be safe until he needed them. Then he showered and was getting ready to sleep while the sun was setting. It had been a long day and he pushed his body far while fighting the bandits. ‘I suppose all shinobi are monsters, and in the end how powerful you get depends on how big of a monster you want or need to be.’ He’d think as sleep took him.
[Exit]
WC: 10011
Claiming: 50 stats, Blade of Truth, Kunai Cutter, Swift cutting A rank, Shadow Shuriken, and Storage Displacement
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum