I'm on a mission?!

After locking up his hot spring Ryalt made his way to the country's border. Yes, his hot spring he will go to fists over it. Ame had been kind to him, or what was left of it, but it was time to explore another land. The air was warm and moist with a light breeze and the sky was partially cloudy, a perfect day to go for a walk. The tall male pulled out his outdated map and began planning the shortest route to his destination. While reading said map Ryal noticed an elderly woman walking by. That's strange. He thought.

Her clothes looked rather tattered like she’d been sowing them back together for years. Despite that, she herself seemed rather clean, although her hairstyle wasn’t quite normal. But that could easily be a defense mechanism so that people would think she’s crazy and not bother her. That or she was no longer able to properly style it in the intricate way she used to. Ryalt shrugged it off and the shinobi wannabe walked over to the woman. "Hi, don't bother going to that town it's completely empty." As he spoke he couldn't help but notice an interesting trinket that the woman was holding. It wasn't anything special but it seemed to put him in a trance. Against his better judgment, he wanted to reach out and take it. Then the woman spoke.

"Oh, thank you for letting me know." She said and then kept walking. "Excuse me." He closed the gap between them again, standing in front of her. "What is that thing you're holding?" The woman looked down at her hands. "Oh, this old thing..." She looked to the left and right checking for eavesdroppers, even though there was no one around and Ryal had already explained that. "It's magic." She said with the innocence of a child.

A weird look must've appeared on the male's face because the woman frowned and turned her torso away from him. In actuality, he was making a face because he was thinking that this woman might be insane. But the thing interested him so he quickly changed his attitude. "Really? Can I hold it? I want to get a better look at it." She glared at him for a moment. How to convince her?

That's it! Suddenly Ryal had an idea. While he didn't have any younger siblings of his own, at least none he knew of, he did spend a lot of time playing with the kids in his village. If this woman was slightly demented or just plain stupid this should work. "Look at my eyes." He told her as he bent slightly and copied her by looking to his left and right. "I'm a dragon in human form." The old lady raised an eyebrow at his claim.

"These markings beneath my eyes are proof. I'm searching the world for magical items to restore my former body." The woman's bored relaxed as she faced him fully. Who knew that they would actually come in handy one day. Ryalt extended his hand to the woman. "Only for a second, okay." The blue haired male nodded and the woman placed the trinket in his palm. Steal it. He could hear Yuumei say in his head. The male sighed.

The woman began to look at little sad. Not paying her any attention Ryalt held the thing up to the sky so the light could hit it. A huge smile flashed across the elderly woman's face. "That's what makes it special." Ryal glanced at her as she spoke those words and then back to the item in his hand. What he saw was a small jewel hidden in the center, the woman probably didn't even know it held any value.

He sighed again. He was really tempted to steal this thing now, but this little old lady is traveling all by herself. She must be poor as well, he can't do that to her. Why not she's old and like you said she's alone. No one would notice if she went missing. Ryalt closed his eyes. He couldn't believe that Yuumei was suggesting that he kill this innocent person. Too bad he didn't know any advanced ninja techniques, he could run away with it right now.

Heck, he could probably run at half speed and she wouldn't be able to catch up. But Ryal wasn't sure he wanted to take that dive so soon, he survived this long without stealing from poor and killing. He looked back at the woman, still smiling. A smirk crept from one corner of his mouth, the golden eyed god hand the trinket back to its rightful owner. Tch. Rightful owner my butt; you don't know who she stole that from or killed to get it.

Right about now Ryal was wishing that he'd never unlocked his dojutsu. Surely there was a way to silence this backseat driver, he just had to remember it. Good luck. The voice sassily shot back. Ryal ran his hand over his forehead causing his bangs to temporarily be pushed back. "That's one impressive item you've got there." The woman nodded. He then walked past her to continue on his way. The woman turned, "Was this not what you were looking for?" She said with puppy eyes.

Ryal rubbed the back of his head with one hand while the other was placed on his hip. "I couldn't ask you to part with something that's so precious to you." Whether she noticed it or not the woman was clinching the trinket to her chest. "Maybe we'll meet again once I've collected all the other items I need. That way you can watch me transform." He said with a kind smile. Yeah right. Someone will have beaten you to the punch and have gotten rich. Hopefully, she couldn't see his slight annoyance through the smile.

"You're a kind boy." The woman turned back around and started to walk away. Pfff. Yuumei burst into laughter. Ryal rolled his eyes, then he too turned to continue on his way. I can't believe someone so soft could be a "Touched One". He didn't want to think about it but it would be really easy to kill her and take the trinket. Ryal was so conflicted that he simply turned and started following the woman at a distance.

This would go on for about twenty minutes. The woman didn't seem to have a real destination, stopping here and there doing random things. Like cleaning tombstones and watering plants, it was painfully boring. Hopefully, she would take a break soon and he could just swipe the damn thing from her bag. Sure he had all the time in the world but he would never be able to get back the time spent following after her.

She's on the move again. Ryal began to walk behind her as he had been when he stepped on a plastic bottle that crunched as he did so. Crap. He thought and quickly hid behind a wooden trash can not too far off. The woman took her time turning around. Instead of investigating what could've caused the sound she simply walked over and placed the bottle in its proper place. Ryalt thought for sure that she would've seen him poorly hidden but she appeared not to.

The male sighed a quiet breath of relief. He began to wonder if there was a jutsu he could use to silence his steps, he wasn't entirely sure because he never bad attention much in school. Could plain chakra expelled from the feet do the job? He would try this once the distance between him and the woman had doubled from what it was before.

Making the seal of confrontation the blue haired giant focused his chakra to the soles of his feet and took a few steps. So far so good, this time he would intentionally look for some trash to step on. Five minutes later and nothing, damn this was the cleanest abandoned road he'd ever walked on. But that was probably because this lady was always walking by.

Did she really not have any family or a home? This is really weird and starting to confuse him, maybe Yuumei was right. I mean she had to come from somewhere right? It's not like she really was a mystical being in human form, last time he checked bijuu didn't have that ability. During his pondering the male happened to kick a dented bell that the woman dropped but didn't seem to notice.

Having nothing to hide behind he quickly used the transformation jutsu to turn into a small squirrel. The woman's eyes widened when she saw the cute creature. Walking over to the misshapen bell, she petted Ryal before picking it up and placing it in her coat pocket. Damn. Ryal thought, if only he had turned into a bigger animal he would've been able to snag the trinket. It was in perfect view and the woman's grip on it wasn't as tight as it had been earlier.

To keep up his facade rodent Ryal nuzzled his head in his paws before scurrying off into the tall grass. Once the woman's back was turned he ended the jutsu. He really needed to stop dicking around or he'd be following this woman forever. He just needed a non-creepy plan that also didn't involve death. The male scratched his head, hopefully, an idea would fall out. The male stared at the woman for a long time, inspecting the subtle moves she made.

Maybe he was reading too much into things but from what he could tell she had a guard up. Nothing stronger than what an academy student could muster but it could easily be a trick she learned in her years. This was starting to intrigue him and he wanted to test his theory. For if he was correct attacking her wouldn't seem as deplorable, it would also be fun to spar with a living person.

I think it might be better to test her skills from afar. He thought to himself needing to work up more courage. Not that he was normally a coward but he did have morals. Shit, maybe he was a punk when it came to missing ninja standards. Ryal shook his head, that wasn't important right now. He could test it later once he ran into another of "his kind". For now, the male would make the hand seals of the animals he thought made the most noise.

Ram, Horse, and then Ox, it was kind of backward to do the seals of loud animals but he thought it was worth a shot. He didn't look at his feet to see if there was any visible change but he did wait a few seconds before beginning to walk. So far so good, just as before. Ryal would take a deep breath before charging at the woman, intending to punch the back of her head.

Just inches away from his target Ryal chickened out and turned the punch into an open hand slap. He realized last minute that she slightly reminded him of Ma, although they’d had plenty of fights over the year he could never actually harm her. Then the woman dodged, this act surprised the blue haired male. He almost fell over due to the abrupt unexpected change, officially embarrassed despite them being alone Ryal was determined to retrieve the trinket. The male closed his eyes to focus bringing his courage full force, the second he flicked them open the woman spoke.

"Finally ready to stop playing around?" He chuckled. "I knew you weren't some crazy old lady." She turned to face him. "Not in the least." She smirked and then sent four kunai flying at him, two on each side. The male caught one, using it to deflect the other blades and went straight for the woman, he didn't intend to waste his own weapons. His confidence was in full effect knowing that the old woman would be able to hold her own. If he were lucky she'd turn out to be some super powerful person who could either teach him some awesome stuff or would reward him with something, other than the trinket of course.

The woman didn't move instead bracing for his attack. She wanted to see all he could do before showing off. Noting the woman holding her ground Ryal sent a chain of fists to her face. Oddly the young male noticed that his hands were moving faster than normal and with more force. Hmm, guess the self-training is actually showing results. He thought. Watching the circular motion in which the male's fists moved the woman assumed that the attack was simple enough. Little did she know the hits would be quite draining if they were successful one after the other.

Skillfully dodging on punch after the other Ryal decided to change up his tactics. It was also at this time that he realized he didn't have any other tactics. While he was good at fighting he hadn't studied taijutsu and he didn't really want to be a ninja so he didn't study ninjutsu either. He didn't care whether he was seen or not so no genjutsu, he didn't mind cuts and bruises so no medical ninjutsu. Puppets never brought him much entertainment and weapons only did so for a short amount of time, however, he did show talent in fuinjutsu. Although they never taught any in his school, he also had an interest in space-time ninjutsu that of course wasn't taught either.

Any way you looked at it the boy was fucked. His only options were to flat out kill the woman or think like a ninja... Let's see, what could be done? Make a clone, distract her, find a rock or something to use transformation on and run away? No, he'd probably have to knock her out first, she seemed pretty relentless. Alright, that seemed like a good enough plan, time to act. The blue haired male folded his hands together in the appropriate fashion creating not one but two illusory clones, for good measure, to distract the woman. For now, the three of them would continue with the chain of fists while the real one shuffled his feet around to find a decent sized rock.

With the addition of four new arms, the old woman had to move even faster than she already was. She would get worn out quickly which meant he didn't have that much time to find his false trinket. The second one of his clones failed to hit her when it should have she'd get her second wind an come at him even harder. Luckily Ryal was able to find what he was looking for in good time, he too was beginning to tire. Suddenly his clones disappeared and he dropping down to retrieve the item while sending a foot up in a kick the woman jumped avoiding the attack. Damn! He thought. Doing that put her at a good vantage point to see what the male was really up to.

He needed to recover the element of surprise and fast. The first thought that came to his mind was to use ventriloquism to make it sound like the clones were behind her. Once again distracted Ryalt'abi took the few seconds he had to lunge at her while performing the three hand seals required for the jutsu. The woman would be turning to face the golden eyed god just as he planted his hand in the middle of her chest. Had he been a Hyuuga her tenketsu would be blocked but even without gentle fist, she'd have the wind knocked out of her. This motion afforded Ryal some space, allowing him to stand on both legs and swiftly deliver a karate chop to her neck as she fell.

The woman fought well but ultimately Ryal was able to outwit her. Tucking the trinket in a safe spot Ryal looked at the woman he'd defeated and laid on the ground. It was a possibility that she had more items of value other than just this but Ryal wasn't a thief, not normally anyway, he wasn't about to pick the pockets of this old woman. But someone else might or do something worse to her so the small part of her that resembled Ma caused Ryal to take the woman with him to the black market. If she got robbed there well he didn't have to feel guilty about it, he'd have left her in a semi safe place rather than out in the open. Tossing the old broad over his shoulder he began to make his way to the place where missing ninja got their goods.

Interestingly enough it was one of the few places he knew how to get to without that map, that and his home village. The trip shouldn't take very long though, by the time they arrived the woman should be ready to wake up. It's a good thing she was unconscious though, if she were awake Ryal would probably get his ear talked off. He would much prefer to listen to the chirping of birds that likely wouldn’t flock because of the presence of this unknown human he was carrying. It would suck not having his little buddies to keep him entertained while he traveled but it was something he was prepared to deal with.

When he thought about it he should probably be using the fireman's carry since she was a woman not to mention old. But that would quickly drain him of his energy and he couldn't have that. Especially if she woke up and wanted to fight again. He then had a brief thought that he could use her for weightlifting while he walked. That gave him a smile but he knew it wasn't wise because that would cause her to wake up even sooner. He would just have to suck it up, he'd be there in no time. The sun was still shining bright overhead so he had plenty of daylight left to waste on whatever he decided to do after he dropped the woman off and exchanged the trinket for cash.

He didn't just yet what he was going to do with the money but he did need to get some supplies. He'd be a sitting duck if he didn't get any ninja tools, E-rank jutsu can only get a person so far. Keeping that in mind the tall blue haired male thought of all the items the black market would have to offer. The standard shuriken and kunai obviously but he wanted to see giant axes, wicked swords, maybe a spear or two. He wasn't very imaginative when it came to them but he was always intrigued by seemingly normal or harmless things that could do great feats. As he walked the woman began to slight, he readjusted her on his shoulder and tightened his grip slightly. It'd be a real shame if he were to drop her. He also noticed that he hadn't heard from his irremovable "friend" but he didn't dwell on it for too long. It was better that Yuumei wasn't bothering him right now.

He imagined what he must look like with an old woman slung over his shoulder. Hopefully, no one got the wrong idea or started a rumor about him. He liked his free life and if he were to have a bounty put on his head for a misunderstanding that would really be a drag. The Shinkou also thought of what places would have the best grub, he sort of had eidetic tastebuds. Once he tasted something he could recreate it with almost one hundred percent accuracy. Being poor had its downfalls but at least he could lay low as a food cart chef if he ever needed to. Heck, maybe he'd settle down one day and open up a restaurant. The male instantly laughed out loud at the thought of that.

Some of his buddy's old humor must have rubbed off on him. With the laughter came a stirring from the old woman, he patted her back gently with the hand that was holding her in place. Another thought of her being a baby came to his mind and also caused him to laugh but it would be held back this time so that he didn't disturb the woman. Thinking of his old friends always reminded him of why he had to leave. But here in this moment, Ryalt'abi decided he would no longer dwell on it, in fact, he would actually start to teach himself the jutsu that went along with his eyes. Maybe if he could become one of the greatest shinobi out there then his village would stop being so exclusive.

Of course, he didn't want them to become a villainous community but they needed to see that those with the "gift" could more than protect themselves and others. That there was no need to fear the outside world and they could in fact possibly become one of the five great shinobi villages. Or rather the new fifth great shinobi village, it was a shame that Suna wasn't independent anymore. Ironically as he thought about this two men walked by talking about how there were Kirigakure ninja in Konoha. It would be a shame if the most positively famous village fell and to Kiri of all. It was also a reminder that he should probably get out of here quickly, they might be planning to move north and Ame was under Kumo's jurisdiction as of late. Having ninja on both sides trying to kill him wouldn't be pleasant.

However the fact that he was starting to see people meant that he was extremely close to his destination. Luckily they seemed so engrossed in their conversation they didn't notice what Ryal was carrying on his shoulder. Now if everyone could be like that... He said in his head. Just a little bit more and his embarrassment would be over, it's a good thing he wasn't red right now despite his complexion. This was probably the most embarrassing thing he'd ever experienced in his twenty-three years of living. Though the more he thought about it these people around him might not be reacting because they're desensitized to dead bodies. Luckily for him, his conscience was clear, he hadn't accidentally or intentionally killed this woman. The blue haired males also had extra luck with his vertically slit pupils hiding his un-bloodedness, he'd probably get bullied into killing someone by a drunken asshole or just some dick who wanted to see a murder. Of course, he knew the day would come but Ryal would avoid it for as long as possible, he just wanted to have fun and travel the world.

Nearing even closer to his destination with it just barely in sight Ryal began to think if there was any special password to get in. That made sense right? These people are serious criminals and/or committing serious crimes. For him to just waltz in would be kind of shady, especially if the woman woke up in the middle of the transaction. Ryal quickly, but calmly, looked around for a place to leave the woman. There was no way she wasn't going to try and fight him when she woke up again and that would look really fishy to the clerks running the market. He also needed to figure out the password if there was one. Time was running out fast, ultimately every place with a porch had mean looking people that would likely cause a scene if Ryal just left a body there. Man, this was such a drag, and the woman was getting really heavy. Walking through the doors of the building that held the black market Ryal walked straight up to the counter, not bothering to look for an empty chair or bench to lay the woman on. The blue haired male pulled out the trinket and placed it on the counter. "What can I get for this?" He asked. 

He was instantly given a weird look. He was turning in the trinket but didn't seem to know who he was carrying. "You can place her there while I gather your reward." The clerk said referring to a chair behind the counter. "Seeya." Ryal whispered as he let go of the woman and she began to wake. Seeing where she was she sighed and grumbled, then the clerk returned with his full reward. He had no intentions of skimping the man who brought back the trinket. Ryal nodded to the man and left without looking back.

TWC: 4,116 [Exit]
Claiming: 10 stats; 7 ap; 3,000 ryo; Quiet Footsteps; Chain Fist

Mission: