Titanium

sd

"Another god damn hot day. Who would have thought the land of fire would have been so hot all the damn time?" Hidoi would look into the sunny sky, cursing every single square inch of it. It was just about time for the old man to return back to the mine so he could delegate to the best of his abilities, spending all of his energy swearing and cursing the heat in the air. He stood up from the wooden stool that he was sitting on and stretched his back, cursing every pop that came from it. As he finished stretching his back, he stood up straight and he was fixing to reenter the mine to get back to making the other young ones work.

Hidoi had been working in the mines for the better part of his entire life, but he had just been moved to this mine when there were reports of the miners beginning to find a special type of metal called Titanium. It is said to be one of the strongest metals on the Earth and was a hot seller, so they brought in Hidoi, the most veteran mine foreman they had at their disposal. While he originally did most of his work in the land of Iron, he took the job as a change of scenery and he was regretting it. 

Most times you could find this old man sitting on his stool either inside the mine, or just outside of the mine. He was the foreman, already paid his dues so now he got to coast through the rest of his time just yelling at others and getting paid for it. It was a good life, but Hidoi was never the type to be happy about anything, especially when he lived in a new place that was always hot no matter the time of the year. He stood about six and a half feet tall with short white hair being covered up with a bandanna and beard reaching down to his chest. His skin has been burned by the sun a few too many times and his wrinkles tell the tale of an old grizzled miner. His body was still that of a fighter, scarred but stalky.

As Hidoi had his hand on the handle to the mine's door, he began hearing footsteps coming up the walk way to head into the mine also, at least that is what he assumed as there was little else to do except sit on his stool and bitch to the sky. He turned his head and he saw a woman dressed in short form fitting clothes with bottoms on that barely covered up her skin. Hidoi would drop his head, shaking it side to side in disappointment. "Why don't kids wear clothes these days?" he thought to himself. Hidoi didn't bother with introducing himself to the woman that was walking up to the mine. Based on the apparel that this girl was wearing, he knew that this girl must have never stepped foot inside a mine a day in her life. "What do you want?" Hidoi would speak in his low grumble, loud enough for her to hear, but to barely understand. 

WC:535

sd

"A ninja, imagine that. Damn kids and a damn ninja. Why do they ask for these kinds of people so damn often." Hidoi griped within his mind. Hidoi was waiting for the rest of his crew and she was the first person to show up so she certainly had something going for her. She pulled out a slip of paper to remind herself of what type of metal that she was tasked to gather, his concern of this child began to grow more and more as to what she was doing in this mine.

She began swinging her pickaxe at the vein that was directly next to Hidoi. After a few minutes, he began checking his watch, trying to figure out just where exactly his crew was. She stopped swinging the pickaxe to ask Hidoi if the vein that was directly next to him if there was Titanium within when she found a shiny substance within the Earth. He placed his face into his hand and rubbed his eyebrows. He wasn't entirely sure how to answer the child, not wanting to deal with her kind in the first place. He slowly turned his head and looked down at the woman that was standing to the side of him. "No." He would say plainly and simply. 

He knew that this girl was going to keep swinging her pickaxe wildly at every vein until she found what she was looking for, or thought she found what she was looking for so he decided to explain his answer to her. "That is not Titanium, but Stainless Steel." He didn't judge her for getting those two things mixed up, most people did at first. He kneeled down and he grabbed a small fragment of the ore that had come out of the ground upon her swinging of the pickaxe. "Stainless steel has, on average, more of a sheen look to it. Titanium does not shine like this steel alloy does. Titanium is more dull in a sense of look. Which is also why it is not used nearly as much in making jewlery, despite being hypoallergenic and a much better choice. The hardness actually poses an issue when it comes to crafting with it, as it makes it extremely difficult metal to work with." Hidoi didn't enjoy many things, but if there was anything he did enjoy, it was talking about minerals, rocks, metals, alloys, anything about Geology in general.

He then looked at the woman as they were eye to eye with him being on his knee. "Does that make sense? If not, I can show you. I have already located a vein of Titanium just up the way a bit. It's on the other side of an underground cavern though. We are in the process of building a more permanent bridge. I had a temporary bridge there, but after almost falling off of it, it was taken down and the project was put on hold. Been waiting down here for a couple hours, waiting for the crew to get their shit together and get their asses down here so we can actually get our hands on the Titanium."

Hidoi guided the small girl to the cavern. The depth was uncertain, at least being 50 meters deep but they had yet to measure the depth just yet. The sound of a small stream could be heard coming from the bottom of the cavern. The width was about 10 meters from ledge to ledge with a slight decline to the other side of the cavern where the Titanium was found. "Long drop to the bottom, the water doesn't sound to be even a meter deep so it won't really break a fall worth a shit. The fall is at least 50 meters but it certainly could be more. The leap is only 10 meters, but no real good way to mine out a decent amount of the Titanium and cart it across without a bridge." 

The old grump then turned around and he began walking over to the vein of Stainless Steel, back to the place that the girl had found him. He continued to wait for the rest of the crew, unless he was stopped by the girl.

WC:705

sd

Hidoi did not want to admit it, but this girl seemed to be different than many of the knuckle dragging, mouth breathing punks that he had dealt with before. While she lacked a love for the metal and her technique of extracting the element from the ground was inefficient and damaging to the element itself, she had a spark that he enjoyed to see. She followed the old disgruntled bastard to the edge and began offering different ideas on how she would be able to get over to the other side. Her ideas were ideas that he would expect someone inexperienced would offer. Titanium, while lighter than steel by about 33%, it was still a metal and heavy to merely carry across. Even if one was able to do it, it would not be a very efficient way to carry it across. 

"I knew a child that was a similar age to you, if I remember correctly he was from this village to be quite honest. He had the most remarkable ability to create wood out of the ground. Would place his palms on the ledge and build the most remarkable bridges made with pure wood. In the land of Iron he was a legend and was very sought after. Many of the bridges he creates are still in use today." The old man would look across the cavern, memories filling his mind and dancing across his eyes. For a moment, he wasn't angry with the memory of his dear friend. He looked down to the small girl as she confirmed the dimensions of the cavern. He had seen those types of eyes before. Their abilities were truly fantastic, but God given talent had very little against decades of experience. 

He grinned and spoke to her. "If you were to collapse one side of the cavern, both sides would come down most likely. You are more than welcome to go over there. But I do want to tell you that if you plan on using this for weapons or armor, you should know that it scratches very easily. While it is indeed one of the strongest metals out there, it was not a very hard metal, if that made any sense. He watched as she used her "chakra" or whatever they called it to get across the cavern to begin mining the metal. The old man walked back over to his stool that he had, so he could continue to wait for his crew to finally show up. He could hear the girl in the cavern going to town on the Titanium, while he did appreciate the hard work she was putting into it, she was going to be swinging that pickaxe for a long time before a big enough chunk would come of it.

He leaned on his stool and he went back to reminiscing on the days of old, trying to remember the days that he used to be able to swing the axe himself and didn't have to wait for others to decide to actually show up to do their jobs. But unions form and people get lazy, not caring about honor or respect, it is all about money. Getting something materialistic usually turns to people becoming more and more greedy. 

WC:544

sd

The cantankerous old man leaned against the stone that was behind him. Finally he began to hear the sounds of a couple dozen footsteps begin to fall hard onto the pathway that led into the deeper parts of the mine. He looked to his left and he saw hunks of the titanium being tossed across the cavern and landing only a few meters away from his location. He smirked and he thought to himself, "These ninjas. The guys are not going to like seeing her." Hidoi would begin to criticize his lazy workers as they began filling the shaft with angry workers. They all began to talk among themselves asking how the titanium got across the cavern without a bridge. 

The men then began questioning Hidoi as to what he had done to get the Titanium over the cavern. Hidoi glared at the men standing before him. "I want to let you know that while I was waiting for your bastards to actually come and grace me with your gloriuos presence, a woman came and literally did your whole days work by herself in only an hour! Now ask me this question you bunch of dolts. Why the fuck do I pay any of you pieces of shit when I can instead hire one woman to do it in an eighth of the time!?" Hidoi's eyes would pierce into the souls of all of the men that stood before him.

The men all began to yell back at Hidoi and ran over to the cavern and began throwing rocks into the cavern that the young white haired ninja would have been standing in. Hidoi ran to the ledge of the cavern and he punched out the two men that had thrown the first stones. Both of the men landed on the ground unconscious while Hidoi would call over to the white haired ninja. "You okay youngin'?" If he would hear her say no. He would start knocking out every bastard that were within the mine, dealing with the type of men that would hurt women with no good reason, they deserved nothing but the worst. 

If she would call back saying that she was fine, then he would turn back to his men and yell at them some more and order them to begin putting the bridge they needed together so they would be able to work the titanium mines even after the white haired ninja would leave.

WC:408

sd

Hidoi watched the woman as she jumped across the cavern to confront the men herself. As she did so, the men took a quick step back, knowing that this woman was a ninja and they would have no chance against her. The men would still glare and talk among themselves about their displeasure toward the new worker within the mines. Hidoi still stood there between the young lady and the old men, with a scowl on his face toward the men. "No, you may leave. You may take some of this titanium with you and leave here. I will deal with these bastards myself." Should the young ninja leave quietly, he would reprimand his men, not only for being late, but for also being so childish to the girl that was benefiting the mine as a whole. The men were obviosuly concerned about their own jobs when a ninja would be able to perform the same job in much less time than it would take them to do the same. 

Hidoi watched as the girl leave the mine with her hunk of rock and he would continue to reprimand his men as they began scurrying around the mine gathering the supplies they needed to begin building the bridge so they would be able to mine the remainder of the titanium that was within that cavern on the other side of the underground valley. 

WC:233
TWC: 2425
+12 stats for Ikari Senju, +10 AP, 1 x Titanium, +4100 Ryo 
1500 towards One Thousand Needles of Death (completed)
+514 towards Great Vortex Technique (Completed) (Previous Progress)
+411 towards Mind's Eye of the Kagura (411/2500)