OMG, Civilization!!!

(OOC: Taking cues from the prior entrance topics as to the state of the entrance. You ONLY need to read the very bottom bit below the lat line of asterisks. I would suggest the section before that, for context. Hopefully my writing is sorta decent, I got into it more than I expected.)

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It had been a painful few weeks. Even for Mujitsu, who had gotten used to going hungry so the children depending on him could eat. Growing bellies over mostly grown lads, where possible. But, that was all behind him, with a new adventure on the horizon.

He trudged through the endless sand. He mentally pointed as he checked his instruments.A pilfered map and a primitive sundial indicated the nearest town to be in... that direction. Sadly, there were almost no other landmarks in sight, that was kind of integral to the entire desert identity, yanno. It was so booooooring. His footsteps were slow, partially from exhaustion, and mostly because he ran out of new things to see about 5 minutes into his trip.

"Oh look. Another cacti...." His voice was uncharacteristically gloomy, his throat parched from extensive rationing. It was barely audible. For a few moments, the only sound was some minor scratching and a trickle. Even the plant was struggling to get by. Or someone else had been here and Mujitsu just hadn't seen the cut. Either way. Tough luck, even for him.

A faded and patched waterskin was withdrawn, with plenty of room should the cacti provide. A sharpened stone as well. The poor soul Mujitsu had jumped still had the knife, or Mujitsu would have grabbed a second waterskin as well. At least he had the one, or he would have surely perished alone in the shifting sands.... His first waterskin had broke shortly after the encounter.

That was a big oof for sure.

From his home village to the tiny oasis that sustained him until a large caravan showed in the distance, desperate for sustenance. Then to the exhausted traveller who was game enough to fight a battle neither could win in this horrendous climate. Now onwards. To Sunagakure. Hopefully.

He had counted dunes as he traveled. Partially because he was genuinely curious how many dunes were between his home village and Sunagakure. Partially to help pass the time. Partially so he wouldn't go insane from boredom. He had tried counting lizards and birds, and was rapidly able to identify several species. All of the other animal life had disappeared more than a week ago, so all he had left was sand. Time was now irrelevant. And he could happily live his entire life without seeing another damned sand dune.

And to think others longed for more sand, on those mythical beaches.

For the 1204th time, he asked if he was there yet. Silently, to not disturb the dead beneath the ground rock. And to conserve water. He could only speak freely in a village with clean water, or an oasis. Or a ruin, if he was lucky.

Slowly, a dot grew on the horizon. It matched with the map and the sundial, at least as far as he could tell. As a moderately experienced desert traveler, Mujitsu was fairly sure it was real. But having been bored and parched and sunbaked for so long, he fought down the surge of fear that maybe, it was fake. There was no telling how long he could scrounge through the desert like this with his food finally running low. The last lizard he had found was definitely rotting now, left a few days behind as an inedible pile of bones.

Maybe it would fertilize a cacti. Even now, his mind wandered. And every time, he had to bring it back. He couldn't afford to lose his focus now, not with his survival on the line. God, next time he would sneak on a caravan or something, this was just messed up. What kind of sadistic bastard would put someone through this.

The sun set, and he continued walking. The dot had not gone away. He tried to ignore the extremely faint glow by the dot, suppressing hope in case it too was a mirage to trap the unsuspecting traveler.

The last cacti had given him a day's worth of water at most. That gave him... three days tops. At least his robes were still intact. Tight, warm clothing, would have been a death sentence.

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The next day, the dot was still there, grown into a long line. At this point, he had to believe it was real. If it was fake, he would die anyway.

Mujitsu began walking as much as he could during the night, and resting in fit and spurts during the daytime. He could see the lines reliably even during night - hopefully that was a city behind them, up and running.

He literally lived under an overhanging rock before. But news had filtered through to even his tiny insignificant village, that Sunagakure had been through a... "transition" period. Wars and infighting and death and massive destruction. That was as far as he knew. Mujitsu prayed, despite a lack of religious affiliation, that the city was up and running. Further, that it had some friendly faces who might spare a chap a glass of proper water. Or if it was ruined, that there was salvageable materials.

Because if there wasn't, this was it. Zip.

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As he approached, the line stretched in all directions, growing into an imposing cliff face many kilometers away. There was no break in the wall though.

Mujitsu swore, speaking for the first time in days. His hope faded, and he fought back the onset of utter panic. His hands shook as he fumbled for the map and the sun dial. Surely, he hadn't been led astray? Not after all the shit he'd just been through?

The cliffs were far away, but he was able to make out a specific peak noted down on his fading map.

He did the mental math, his mind moving extremely sluggishly. Dehydration does that to a guy.

It clicked. He needed to move south. He had gone too straight, and had ended up off course.

He sighed in relief, before the heat of the desert shut him up.

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Finally. The cleft of the cliffs. The gate to Sunagakure.

But even Mujitsu, inexperienced in the art of war, knew the stench of death when he smelled was overwhelmed by it. This was... not good. But there was nothing he could do about it, and it was too dark to see anything.

He looked for a spot to spend the night. A rock and stretched robes with a stray tree branch formed a temporary shelter. He struggled to sleep, as he had the rest of the many-week journey. He was almost to the big city, a place he always wanted to visit as a child. And his throat hurt.

He ignored the pleas of parched innards and drank as little as possible to ease the pain. If the worst case had come to pass, and his childhood dream destination was no more, he might need all the water he could get. He had survived for close to a month with few supplies, he'd be damned if he kicked the bucket. If there were village guards watching through the night, it would be obvious that he posed no threat, distanced and easy to see as he was. If bandits showed, at least he wouldn't be thirsty anymore.

It was a likely bet that any nearby bandits had already looted the corpses or been chased off by the survivors though.

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Finally. Dawn.

Mujitsu couldn't wait any longer. 26 suns and a few hours, and he was hopefully going to set foot inside the village and get some fucking water. Then some sleep. Maybe at the same time, if people felt nice. Hopefully there was no bounty for him out here, but you never could be too sure. He had no idea what to do if he was turned away though. Taking some regular jobs could solidify his standing in the village if he was admitted, though.

Whatever. He'd cross that when he got to it. Enough thinking, he'd already tried to make it clear he was no threat, by waiting for dawn's morning glory to approach from several kilometers away, starting from a very conspicuous encampment.

He took his morning sip of water.

This was it.

He put the tree branch back where he found it, adjusting and re-wearing his robes as he did so.

Slowly, mostly due to exhaustion, he approached the cleft in the cliffs. The stench of death grew stronger, and he began passing a lot of shapes. No water pouches, any left over must have been looted already.

He had forgotten how much time had passed since the war actually broke out. No matter. All that mattered was getting through those gates. Hopefully alive.

There was nowhere to run or hide, doing so would be counter to his purpose. He took the straightest, most open route possible towards the gap in the cliff. The bodies were mostly easy to avoid, a few times it appeared a path had been cleared for some prior traveler.

Any people watching from the village gates through telescopes or the like, would see a shabby looking teenager almost shuffling towards them. The gait was a little uneven - Mujitsu had sprained his ankle on a surprising rock - and consistently slow. Really ugly dark bags hung under his eyes, and he looked rather... shriveled. His hair had surrendered some of its reddish-brown hue to the forces of sunlight and starvation. His body was mostly obscured by robes, but his forearms and ankles were visible. His shoes had collected so much sand they had been discarded long ago, and his bones were very, very visible. It was pretty obvious he was emaciated. Even his footprints were bony, for those able to see that far in the distance.

A water skin hung by his hip, the strap pulling his torn, gaping robes to show how much weight he had lost. The water skin itself was mostly empty, rattling around and adding a little cacophony to liven his day.  He still had the little sundial in one hand. The faded map flapped in the other, loosely in his grip, threatening to fly away any second. Not that he needed it as anything other than a memento of his journey and the friends/dependents left behind.

His shuffle would continue, at first making him look like a distant caterpillar crawling on canvas, before finally pulling into clear view with the naked eye. He would come to a stop about 50 meters out, trying to look as non-hostile as an emaciated soul could achieve.

Too bad this isn't just an epically skilled genjutsu, due to the sheer level of detail. Maybe a genjutsu master could even replicate the weird footprints I've been leaving behind. I didn't know my foot bones were shaped that way....

His thoughts turned slightly optimistic for the first time since he could remember. Must have left a few brain cells behind in the dirt. Snarky, but it was an improvement.

His shuffle came to a halt. Which was easy, given how little mass he clearly had, and the pathetic pace he had maintained. Sundial in pocket, he cupped his hand to his mouth. His voice, cracking from dryness and disuse, was completely overshadowed by the wind howling along at a good clip around 10km an hour. In fact, said wind nearly knocked him over, and he stumbled, barely catching himself.

Damn.

He wanted to signal his intentions, but that would be difficult from this distance.

He waved his hands in greeting, then reached down and weighed his water skin. Two mouthfuls.

Someone would get a nasty mouthful of water and his life savings if they decided to murder him. Who knows. Could be the best haul they got this month.

He fought the urge to chuckle at a lame joke as he gulped half the remaining water.

Can't find water without more water.

He tried to warm up his voice while the painful dryness partially receded. He approached at his old old-man shuffle, his body beginning to give way. His knees shook as the end goal approached. Hopefully nobody felt like flinging stuff at him. He couldn't dodge a boulder in his path if it had no limbs.

Yeah. The heat had been getting to him.

He came to another stop about 25 meters out. His body was collapsing, he could feel it. No point holding the water if he was on the verge of death anyway. Fuck that. He swallowed the rest, carefully swishing it in his mouth. This needed to count. There were no guards he could see in his horrible state, but they could still be there. Just hiding. He was hoping that was the case.

The water skin, ever his faithful pilfered friend, fell to the sand in a sad little heap. This was his final gambit, perhaps. He gently cleared his throat, making sure he could speak audibly. His hands were held up in a gesture of non-hostility as he spoke, his voice projecting towards the entrance.

"Hi. I come in peace."

He almost asked to be taken to their leader, but he didn't think he could survive the decorum. It would also be horribly cliche, and he didn't want that, did he.

"I'm just a guy looking for a new home. Hard time of it. You'll see. I'm no threat, hydrated and fed or..."

His grammar failed him, but he couldn't help but attempt one last joke, before fading from exhaustion. His voice trailed off, there was no more real information he could convey that mattered. If they were civilized, they might take him in and throw him in jail. Or they might kill him. Either way, the decision was out of his hands. He was sleeping in the bed of his choosing. Literally.

With a sad little sigh, the teen fell to the ground as his words ended, faceplanting in the sand. It took a lot of energy to turn his head so he could breathe, his lungs lightly pushing up the fabric of the robes. Any dojutsu user with half a brain could see it was not a magic trick. If only.

If there were guards and they were having their lunch break, he was gonna take them with him to the grave. Or haunt them - make them stub their toes really badly every day or something. He giggled to himself, lying on the ground under the sun. It was either some genuine humor, or the madness of full-on heatstroke. He wasn't sure which.

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(OOC: fuck, that's 2420 words, ignoring asterisks and the OOC comments up top)

Little did he know he was in full view the entire time. That would have been metagaming but it could have saved him a bit of water, though definitely hampering his character development. Not that this really mattered in the end, it was the journey that counted.

If it ended, that is.

Mujitsu's spilled from his lips and bled onto the sand, followed by a deranged laughter, when a reply was immediately sent. Only two words registered at this point.

... Entrance... Hospital...

So there was a friendly soul after all! Talk about motivation, baby! He almost forgot how badly dehydrated and baked he was. His optimistic assumption was that the guards weren't allowed to leave their post, or had a huge lineup. Perhaps there was a lineup of people that he had missed. Maybe... the bodies around him were others waiting for their ticket to be called?

Well lucky him.

You snooze, you lose. Somewhere deep inside, he was aware that the bodies were dead and long gone, but his conscious mind couldn't handle such concepts. To be preoccupied with death was to face it head on and admit one could lose, and he was sincerely terrified of missing on an open goal. His body felt unusually dry, eliminating the normal drag one would experience when creating mud. Another knock in his favor. Today was shaping up to be amazing!


More laughter erupted from his body in sporadic fashion. It took him a minute to get it under control. He could laugh all he wanted when inside, but right now he needed to conserve his energy. He imagined he was in a race, by choice, and that he had only traveled a short time.

He blankly stared at the wall to his left, eyes twitching a little as the sun rose in the sky. He needed to move, or someone would eat the complimentary breakfast before he did. One arm stretched feebly in front of him, fingers bent into a claw, before scratching at the ground. His grip was as solid as it was ever going to be. He fought back growing hyperventilation and took a deep breath. His body tensed, and he managed to push his body into a leaning position. Wobbly on his legs, but standing nonetheless.

His head spun, and his body seemed like it wobbled to match, as he took a few shaky steps. One foot after the other.... Right... Left... Right... Left... Right... his feet dragged themselves through the sand, elongating his footsteps and making them seem like the imprints of a much larger, stranger fellow. Faster and faster he scrambled, somehow in the zone and dodging small obstacles in his path. This couldn't go on for a lot longer though. He could feel it in his bones, in the swirling mass of sand around him, and in the growing weariness showing itself past the protection of adrenaline. His body began to tilt dangerously far forward and he frantically sped up his legs, moving in a strange combination of a ninja run, a zombie shamble, and an outright spring. His legs bowed outwards several times before giving up again, and he ate dirt, narrowly missing a stray rock. It wouldn't have been fatal, barring excessive bloodloss, but it would have made life very, very uncomfortable.

Damn.

He was lying in the dirt again, his limbs occasionally twitching at strange angles. A corp of war drums pounded out tunes in his head as he lay there, and the brass seemed to join in when he craned his neck to check his progress. He was... halfway there. That was the optimistic view. No looking back. He didn't travel endless kilometers just to give up now. Not with salvation at hand.

Mind over matter, they say. Unless one's cells were depleted and severely damaged, while lacking proper nervous control. His hands were stuck in claw like positions, but they held no strength against the sand. Cursing became a cloud that enveloped his headspace and not much else. He wasn't the vulgar type, but he probably could have made bounty hunters blush.

His legs joined the fight, scrabbling against the sand in tandem with his clawed hands. No bueno. He managed to lift his body a few centimeters off the ground, but collapsed again before making any forward progress. His eyes stared wistfully at the gates in front of him. Idly, he wondered if sticking one hand inside would suffice. A 12 meter arm might have come in handy for once. He needed to find another way.

A large rock nearby was a good foothold. It would have been a terrific idea if he had slightly more energy. He wrapped his fingers around an edge and pulled.

Hey look. Free water! He was so far gone he didn't realize he had cut himself for a few seconds. Instead, he blissfully stared at it, imagining the taste of liquid - any liquid - upon his tongue. His hands ached and he let go of the rock.

Turns out. A body half-mummified from deydration can be pretty creepy when it writhes in the sand, laughing to itself maniacally, licking it's own blood and smearing it all over it's face without a care in the world.

His madness subsided again after a very awkward few minutes. He was still no closer to the goal though. He stared at the rock blankly, for a minute. The ingenious mind that sent him on a suicidal mission with no backup plan, had a second bright idea, of much lesser consequence.

"Of course. Rock and roll, baby..."

He was far too tired to exclaim anything. Awkwardly, he twisted his hips and his torso while his arms flopped uselessly at his sides, and his legs acted as radar for passing rocks.

Flop.

And again.

Flop.

And again, and again, and again. Until he needed to rest.

This time, he was on his back for a change. The sun waved idly to him as it rode a chariot up into the sky. He tried to wave back in response to nobody in particular, but his arms barely moved. The heat in his face made him blink a couple of times, before noticing the underside of an overhang. His eyes idly followed the overhang back to its place on the cliff, then down as far as his head allowed.

Somehow he was almost there. Perhaps he miscounted his bod rolls by a few, or a dozen, or a hundred. He could almost see the window for what must be a guard house, and the sand beneath him felt smoother.

A jolt of energy surged through his body. Adrenaline had forsaken him earlier - giving up after lacking success over the last few weeks. Now it returned in a last-last-last ditch effort to safe him.

He flopped on his face, towards the gates once more, noticing a desert lizard slowly crawling up a rock wall. Another flop of freedom, and he was staring back up at the sun, with nary a cloud in sight. Then again. And again. Building a stunted, awkward rhythm in which his body rolled and his limbs spazzed at similar times to help push him over.

He stopped being able to see. Everything became a blur, as he rolled right through the village gates (sideways orientation) before finally bumping into a large rock. His world exploded in pain - he must have hit an internal organ of some kind. Horrified, he examined his next obstacle, not realizing he was on the other side. His hands reached up, almost blindly, trying to find purchase and failing to support his bodyweight as he attempted to climb.

He landed hard on his back, as the man in the sun winked at him one last time before riding off. Something felt wrong, and it took him a minute to place it. The gate was in the wrong direction, and it  took him another few minutes to figure out why. He had blindly rolled through the village entrance, it was a small distance behind him. He would have happily saved those ten meters of energy, thank you very much.

His eyes, partially clouded with madness, roved the sky and the city skyline, searching for a savior. Part of him was terrified that the voice from earlier was a hallucination. He cried all his tears as a little boy, but now his dignity was only spared by empty tear ducts.

"Please...."


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(OOC: to sum up, he struggles, crawls/runs, collapses, then rolls slowly - sideways - through the gates. Doesn't realize he made it at first. Is unsure if the voice was a hallucination. [Pls no])

The sky shed tears for him, it seemed. Nothing could spoil this beautiful character development, not even the sight of a grizzled and scruffy old man who might have been a kidnapper at first, but was probably the guard based on context.

He had made it! Optimistically, Mujitsu considered what he would do when he escaped was discharged from the hospital. Somehow, he assumed he would be gone in a a day at most.

The rain was quite the fortunate event. Ordinarily, wet clothing would have driven him nuts, but here it soothed and cooled his heat rash, lowering his body temperature away from its dangerously high point. His unusually high temperature might even have been apparent to the sturdy fellow carrying him off.

Despite his awkward position, he tilted his head and tried to drink as much of the rainfall as he possibly could. He was tired. So, so tired.

He fought to stay awake, desperately curious to see what Sunagakure looked like. Or the outside of the hospital. Anything at all. He'd been bored out of his skull so long, anything was interesting at this point.

"Thank you."

He lost the struggle, and fell asleep, dreaming of sunglasses to beat the heat.

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(exit)
TWC: 4017

Let's say +20 stats, 2750/2750 WC towards A rank Chakra Chains (a' la Tadashi), 500/500 towards Storage Displacement, 500/500 towards Temporary Paralysis, 267/1000 towards C rank Impact Fluids

Approved