Corner of my Eye ( Solo )

A hazy mist covered the field that the four of them were in. Well, really, they considered it to be only three of them with Furozan watching from the tree line. He sat cross legged and watched his two brothers practice hand to hand combat with each other. This was often the case as his elder brothers practiced and Furo sat in the background watching, unable to contribute anything of value. He admired the two of them. They were taller, more muscular, and took their training very seriously. His father, Saito, watched over them and gave advice every now and then. 

Their voices were muffled and a wisp of air blew from behind him, it was chilly, and it was foreboding in a way. Almost like a warning and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Furo put his hand on his neck and turned around to view the tree line. However, the tree line was not there, instead there were about fifteen shinobi all with weapons and looking threateningly at the group of them. Furozan stood up, frantic, and fear took over his body. He turned to yell out at his brothers and father who somehow did not see the men but he could not speak. Trying as hard as he could not sound would produce from his vocal chords. He then tried to trudge towards them but his entire body felt like it was made of stone. 

The shinobi took off and ran towards Furo and his family. All he could do was stand there but, just like everyone else, they ignored him. They ran right passed him with zero desire to do him any harm. For a brief moment, he felt relief that they were not after him, but that moment passed as he realized that they only ignored him because he was not a threat and they were going for his brothers. With great effort he turned and watched as they ran at his brothers and father. 

They put up a fight but they were unable to stop the uneven number of shinobi they were fighting. First his eldest brother was cut down by a sword and he yelled out in pain. His second brother was cut down shortly after, his head stripped clean from his body, and his father cried out before receiving a sword directly to the gut and falling to his knees. Furozan tried to cry out but his voice was still stuck and he closed his eyes for a moment to try and gain some sort of clarity. However, when he opened them, everyone was gone except for the bodies of his family. 

He went to take a step and he realized that his legs no longer weighed him down. He slowly approached the corpses and stared at them. His elder brother lay with his eyes open and his other brother’s head lay beside him. Both of them were staring up directly at him. He heard movement and he quickly turned on his heel to see that his father was still alive. He rushed over and knelt down beside him and grabbed the back of his head, propping it up on his leg. “Father I….”

“Failure…..” The words were muttered by the dying man, but they were easily understood, and they cut deep. Tears began to stream down his eyes as he held the man, who stared daggers into his eyes. “Failure.” The words did not come from him and he turned his head to see both his dead brothers heads saying the same thing. They repeated it, over and over, “Failure, failure, failure.” Like they were on repeat. Furozan dropped his father’s head and he stood up, backing away from the terrifying scene before he stumbled and found himself falling off of a cliff. The words still echoing in his head as he came crashing down to the earth. 

He awoke from the dream and shot up in his bed with labored breathing. He looked around the room to get his wits back and catch his breath. He realized he was covered in sweat and he had been crying so his cheeks were streaked with tears and his throat was sore from attempting to scream in his sleep. His head pounded from the crying in his sleep and when he realized it was all a dream he let out a sigh and pulled his feet over the side of the bed and sat there with his head in his hands for a few moments. 

The nightmares were becoming more and more frequent and he guessed it had to do with the fact that he had been working himself a little too hard. It was the same when he was studying in school, if he stayed up all night studying, his dreams would become more vivid. He was unsure as to why this was the case but he knew it happened. Maybe he would make his next research topic the study of dreams. Maybe he could figure out what was causing the nightmares. He knew the base cause of it, his insecurities, but maybe there was a way to circumvent the nightmares. 

That would have to go on the backburner for now. He had more pressing things to attend to. Most notably he was sick of not being able to use the one technique that the Yuki Clan was known for. Ice Release. Here he was, seventeen years old, and he was a Yuki who could not even perform their kekkai genkai. It was shameful to him and since he had met Ballian he felt completely inferior. How could he help with the study of their clan if he could not do the one thing they were known for? Not to mention when other shinobi met him and expected him to have this unique technique and yet he could provide nothing to prove that he was significant in any way shape or form. 

He knew he was going to have to learn a second element and that was going to be wind. He had discovered this through reading the archives and history of his clan. There was little about them which could be explained by the complete destruction of their old village and what he assumed was a complete washing of the records due to the systematic hunting of them after the great civil war that preceded its destruction. The more he learned about his culture the more he realized he did not quite fit into it. Maybe he would have been better served being born into a more peaceful village? 

Those thoughts were long passed being relevant to him at this point. He had to go all in now and there was no turning back. No matter how much he did not like it or enjoy it he was a shinobi and he would do whatever it took to be a good one. He would prove the people of the village wrong, but more importantly, he would prove his father wrong. The idea of proving him wrong seemed to strong in his mind but what would it really accomplish? He would still be the bitter old man who looked at him as a failure even if he went out of his way to be something he was not. 

His thoughts continued to dance around as he readied himself for the training area. He was more than accustomed to going there now and people were starting to recognize him. He was not the strongest shinobi but no one could doubt his dedication to improving himself. He pulled on his lightweight clothing and he strapped the katana to his back and organized his weapon pouch so that he had everything he needed. It was a continuation of his thought process that in order to be fully functional as a ninja one had to train with the clothing that they would be using out in the field. 

It was a relatively nice day as he began his jog to the training facility. It was not raining and while there were clouds in the sky, the sun was peeking through every now and then and warming him up. It felt quite nice to have a day that was different from the overcast and rainy conditions the village was known for. It did, however, feel a bit strange as anytime the sun peeked through most people in the village saw it as an ill omen. The calm before the storm they would call it. Furozan thought it was all superstition but he did not care enough to correct them. 

He arrived at the training facility ready to practice his new technique. Learning a new element was not going to be easy as he was used to the water element. The wind element was one he had been studying but had not really spent a lot of time perfecting. Everything he was going to practice was more theory than anything else. He had studied a few jutsu that used the element but whether or not he would be able to use them was another topic entirely. 

He made his way into the simulation room where he knew he would have plenty of room to navigate around. Plus, not a lot of people used the rooms, and he did not want anyone to see him trying out the new techniques. He figured they would make fun of him and he also anticipated falling flat on his face a few times. He was going to be trying a simple technique, one that would hopefully not drain his chakra, but would let him know whether he was successful. It was a technique that would create wind that would give him a boost to his jumping. It could come in handy down the line if he learned it but that was IF he learned it. He was not exactly optimistic about the day.

Feeling the chakra in his body had become simple. With Water Jutsu he built it inside of him, in his stomach, or at least that was where he thought it was. He could feel it building in there and then he would release it. Wind, however, could not just be built up from the inside and came from various areas of the body. His feet, hands, legs, and arms. Those were all places that he could augment. Today he was going to be trying to around his feet to give him a boost. He chose this because it was a feeling he was already familiar with. When he was pooling chakra in his feet to try and climb surfaces. It was the same in theory but he would be giving himself a “boost.”

Standing in the middle of the room he focused by closing his eyes and trying to get in touch with his chakra network. That part was easy but trying to use a different element was a little confusing to his body. Mostly because it had gotten into a routine and he was trying to force it to change all of the sudden. He held still while keeping his breathing steady and then he did his hand signs, ram and then dragon, and feeling the chakra he tried to “release” it by jumping forward. When he did so he prepared to go further than his normal jumping capabilities but as he jumped he went no higher than he normally did. 

This was to be expected. It was his first attempt at learning something new. So he repeated the process. Then again. Then again. Then about twenty more times while getting nowhere. He realized that he had jumped across the training room and turned around and tried again getting all the way to the other side. He was getting absolutely nowhere with this. He grumbled and then walked over to his backpack and pulled out his book and flipped to his saved pages. He spent about an hour rereading what he had already read in the hopes that maybe something would stick out to him this time. 

Nothing of note really stuck out to him so he slammed the book closed and tossed it to the ground and stared around the room. Maybe he really was not cut out to be some amazing shinobi? Was it so bad that he was just average? He was sure he was not the first person in his clan to come to terms with this but that did not make him feel any better. If anything it made him upset at just how weak he truly was. For a moment he considered giving up and going to do something else but then he remembered the nightmare that he had and the world failure being repeated over and over again. Somehow that motivated him to keep trying.

He stood back up and went to work trying to get anything to happen. He spent another three hours trying to have anything happen but, in the end, nothing was going to work. Sighing, he decided it was time to leave, and he packed up his gear and left completely defeated at his lack of progress. 

It was starting to get dark by the time he left and the village was relatively empty. People were starting to head inside and have dinner with their families. This made him jealous as he knew he would be eating alone again this evening. His father had been gone for a few days now with no indication of coming back. He did that from time to time and Furozan had learned to just not bring it up or question it. It was strange the things he learned to live with. Something caught the corner of his eye and he peered over out into the darkness. Did he just see something? 

He stopped in his tracks and focused in the area where he thought he saw a person or maybe an animal. There was no movement so he shrugged his shoulders and continued back to his home lost in thought. However, he could not shake the feeling that something was watching him, but he also did not want to let whatever it was watching him know he was on to them. He kept walking home as if everything was normal but he kept his eyes peeled in case he could catch a glimpse at whatever it was. 

Furozan rounded a corner but did the Tiger hand seal as he did and created a water clone of himself. He dashed into an alley way and watched as his clone continued to walk forward. If someone was following him they would continue following the clone. Furozan watched from a distance as his clone went out into a clearing and then out of nowhere a Kunai came flying from the top of a building. His eyes glanced up and he saw a man wearing a mask, skinny, an assassin. 

His kunai hit his water clone and it poofed and vanished into a puddle. Furozan returned the favor as the assassin looked on in what was probably apparent confusion. He reached into his pocket and fished out a kunai and tossed it as hard as he could at the man. The assassin, while confused, was able to pick up on it and they pulled out a blade to block it just in time. “Crap….” Furozan said under his breath as the assassin locked onto Furozan. For a moment the two locked eyes before the assassin leaped away. Furozan gave chase.

The two jumped across the rooftops and Furozan kept his eye on the person to make sure they could not get away. Why were they trying to kill him? It made no sense what had he done to deserve an attempt on his life? Was it the merchant he had gone after? He was not sure but he was going to find out that was one thing he was certain about. 

The assassin jumped and turned midair and flung two kunai at Furozan who was caught off guard because of his thoughts. He was barely able to get his Katana out in time quick enough to deflect the two of them. The assassin finished his spin and landed softly. The last two did not seem to be an actual attempt to kill him but maybe a way to distract him? He was answered quickly as he felt a pain in his side and he was tackled off of a roof and realized that there was another person. This one was a bulky man, also wearing a mask, and he tackled Furo so hard his katana fell from his grasp and the two of them landed hard on the ground. 

His breath left his body and he gasped for air as the man leaned up and reached into his vest for a Kunai. Furozan was not going to die like this, not being attacked by two thugs and killed in the street like some peasant. He glanced to his right and saw a puddle and while the man was distracted with killing him he replaced himself using the water replacement jutsu and he felt his body warp to the puddle. The man stabbed down and hit Furozan, thinking he had killed him, and then his body morphed into water right in front of him. Letting out a sound of surprise was the last sound he ever made as Furozan’s katana was stabbed right through the back of his neck. 

Furozan gasped for more air and turned around to see the other assassin still on the building above him and he jumped up after him again and the chase was back on. They neared the woods and Furozan realized it was going to be much harder to track him. He did the proper hand seals and he used the body flicker technique which boosted his speed. The man did not see it coming as Furo wrapped his arms around him at the waist and tackled him roughly to the ground. 

Furozan made the Ram hand seal and a whip of water rushed out and latched onto the assassin by the arms and pinned him to the ground. “Why?” Furozan still felt the impact from being tackled off of the building and was still struggling to catch his breath as the adrenaline began to wear off. “What was the point of killing me?” Furozan began to catch his breath and he stood up straight, holding his Katana firmly and pointing it at the man. 

“Same reason anyone else gets killed.” The man said through breaths as he struggled to fight out of the water whip wrapped around him. It was no use but he still struggled. “You have information that does not need to get out.” Furo narrowed his eyes and immediately tried to think of what information he could possibly have that would be detrimental if it was revealed.

“I know nothing of importance that does not make sense.” Furo tightened the whip around him and the man yelped a bit in pain and finally stopped struggling and looked up at Furo. He could make out his eyes through the mask and Furo took his katana and put the tip on the bottom of the mask and lifted it up and over his head. He did not recognize him in the slightest. “Who sent you?”

The man did not move at all and then Furozan saw something that he was not quick enough to stop. While the man was struggling he had been reaching into his pocket and he pulled out a pill and flicked it up into his mouth. Furo reached down to try and stop it but it was too late. “It wouldn’t matter if you knew.” The man said before he started to grumble and Furo let the jutsu fall into water around him. Furo watched as he struggled before foam began to form in his mouth and then he finally stopped moving. 

He sighed and sheathed his sword and bent down to try and find any signs of who this man might be. He had nothing on his person and no marks indicating where he may have come from. He had no distinguishing tattoos or anything of note. Taking a deep breath Furo figured he had better let someone know what had happened so he scooped up the body and brought him back to the shinobi headquarters. 

A few hours later Furo found himself at his home replaying the night over in his head. He could not for the life of him figure out why someone would want him dead. The comment about him knowing too much made very little sense to him as he did not have any pertinent information that should be leaked. It was not the village itself because if that was the case they would have killed him. They would have sent more than two assassins and they would have been much stronger than the two men that had come for him. 

He lay awake in his bed contemplating what his next move was going to be. If someone was looking to kill him then he was going to need to get to the bottom of it. But where to start? He doubted there was a person who would just willfully give up the information and if the man was willing to kill himself rather than give out information than whoever had ordered the assassination was someone powerful enough to incite fear in their followers. One did not kill themselves if they knew they were going to survive after a failed mission. 

He sighed and reached over to grab the book he had been reading earlier about elements to see if there was anything he had missed. Even though he had read through the book cover to cover three times already he did not see any harm in giving it another try. His thoughts wandered as he was reading through the book and realized he was not retaining the information so he slammed it shut and sat up in his bed and peered out his window. 

When he was younger everything had seemed so simple. Now things seemed complicated for the sake of being complicated. He had done what his father had always wanted and yet he received nothing but disdain. Since becoming a ninja nothing had really changed except for the fact that he had ryo in his pocket and now apparently he had to worry about being assassinated by some mystery group. On top of it all he could not master the one element that made his last name unique. If he had been able to perfect it then he assumed that was why the assassins would be after him but it could not be it. Maybe they knew he was getting close?

He shot up and put on some clothes in a flash. Maybe that was it? Maybe they saw him practicing and knew he was trying to gain access to the ability to manipulate ice? Maybe he was getting close and he did not even realize it. He ran outside and he tried what he had been trying at the training facility. This time, he did not focus as much, when he was dealing with his water chakra it just seemed natural to him so why focus so hard? 

Then, without even thinking about it, he leapt into the air and he was shot way further than he was capable of. He let out a yell which was sure to wake everyone around him but he did not care. He was able to do something that he thought was impossible just a few hours earlier. Maybe after all he was not the worst ninja in the village? Sometimes it just took an assassination attempt to kick someone into gear. 

Satisfied with himself he went inside and was finally able to get some rest. He closed his eyes and that night he did not dream. The next morning when he awoke he would just be a ninja who was trying his best to improve every single day. He hoped it was enough but if it was not then he would be satisfied with himself and that was all that really mattered in the end. A persons relationship with themselves was more important than what other people thought. At least that was what he was going to keep telling himself to keep moving forward. 

WC: 4,081
+51 at 20% discount stats. +25 to Chakra, +25 to speed, +1 to strength

4k words towards a second Element of Wind.

Approved