Defend The Bath House

It was a start to a new day in Sunagakure, the sun rose from behind the 100 meter wall that surrounded the village casting a shadow over the Desert Rose Inn. Within one of the rooms sat a tall young man with a series of tattoos scattered around his body, his name? Satoru Jugo.

Satoru sat on the edge of his bed, holding a small card that contained todays contract briefing. Over the course of a week Satoru had completed a dozen contracts within the village; his commitment allowed to secure better paying contracts with the one in his hand paying a total of three thousand ryo.

“One more person…” he reminisced in silence, thinking back to the mission briefing he received. Something about doing a mission in tandem with another individual unnerved Satoru, especially since he hadn’t met the other individual involved. He stressed over it throughout the night, effectively losing sleep because of the thoughts on his mind.

The only information he had received was that another individual would be assigned to the contract over the next 24 hours. With the nature of the contract revolving around protection and security of a bath house, Satoru was confident that a strong individual would be assigned to guarantee the success of the mission.

As the sun rose over the city, Satoru pushed himself out of the bed, slipping into a thin light blue shirt and some black combat pants. He slid each foot into it’s designated sandal before retrieving a small paper bag containing his recent purchases.

To begin with, he strapped two weapon pouches to either side of his hips, filling them with an assortment of Shuriken, Kunai, Smoke Bombs and Explosive Tags. Next, he open a small sealed contact case made of a combination of light plastics and wood. With his pinkie finger, he gently removed one of the two white contact lenses prior to slipping into his right eye. He repeated the process for the left eye, tossing both the liquid lens solution and the empty bag to one side.

Satoru clenched his jaw at the thought of having to parade around as an old man again. He thought long and hard about whether he should disguise himself with the intent of avoid any potential KKG poaches. With the start time of the contract quickly approaching, Satoru wrapped a jet black scarf around his face, exposing only his pale white eyes. He donned his regular jet black cloak, concealing his entire attire, and leant forward, creating the pretence of a frail old man armed with a charred piece of wood for a cane.

Before long, he departed for the Bath House. He periodically checked his surroundings for any followers as he made his way towards the business situated by the very northern wall of the village. This part of the village was bustling with activity at all hours of the day, which was to be expected considering it was a heaven for gamblers, crooks, prostitutes and general tourists.

Satoru avoided eye contact with the mean muggers on every corner and before long he found himself in front of a large multi-gender bath house, the exterior made from wood, guarded by two exhausted gentlemen wearing Sunagakure Headbands, ready to be relieved from their duties...

The room was quite hot, in spite of the controlled climate outside the walls of the village. As the redhead woke up, a single sheet of silk covering his hips and one of his legs, as the rest dangled away, covered in a thin sheet of sweat, his mind foggy and his brain pickled. As he moved about in the rather luxurious bed in the rather luxurious room afforded to him by his hefty salary and newfound position, Kaito could feel the repercussions of his actions as his body trembled and the room spun in place as he tried to sit upright in the bed.

The memory flashed, explaining why he felt like an absolute asshole right now. He got up from the bed with effort, moved towards the table with paper and ink, and scribbled a message on it; eggs, bacon, beans, coffee and orange juice. He blew carefully on the ink to dry it, rolled the paper into a cylinder, and slid it into the vacuum tube where the paper would land on the kitchens or wherever. Room service was quite the thing to have.

Whatever that meant. He moved to the bathroom, brushed the film in his teeth and tongue, then moved back to the kitchenette to get a glass of water, before getting under a hot shower. The hot shower opened his pores and allowed any remnants of alcohol still clinging to him from the night before. He rubbed the soap against his skin, allowing the substance to break the bonds of his sweat and oil, cleaning him and making him feel immediately cleaner than just a minute ago. When it was time to wash the soap again, he turned on the cold water, which would compact his muscles and close his pores. He couldn’t stay too long under it though; after fifteen minutes, a human body would start experiencing hypothermia, and as such, within two minutes Kaito was finally done and ready to towel himself dry.

Wait. Who was afraid? A knock came to his door, and he opened it with the towel wrapped around his hip; the food was ready and delivered to his door, what a wonderful system. Before he even got dressed, he started eating the food while it was warm. Crisp bacon strips, runny egg yolks, they even got him toast bread when he didn’t ask for any. He gulped down half of the mug of coffee in one go, and as it went down his throat, he could feel himself getting better already. As he put his pants on, a note fell down. An address. “Come to this place. Help me.” Fuck.

Nearly an hour later, Kaito walked the streets of the Sunagakure dressed in his usual attire, second generation Darkened Skies with his Jagged Claw, also an augmented article. As he approached the bathhouse, he noticed an elderly man approaching the front of the establishment, where two Sunagakure guards awaited to have their shifts relieved. “Howdy, fellas. Yer boss is waiting for me.” He looked at the older man once again, who seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

“He—” Satorus utterance interrupted by a new arrival, a man with distinctively red hair, wearing what appeared to be a tempered metal armor coupled with a black balaclava and hoodie. The man had appeared to carry himself with an air of pride and pomposity, addressing the stationed Shinobi with a nonchalant and direct tone despite showing no signs of being affiliated with the Sunagakure Shinobi forces.

“Likewise.” Uttered Satoru with a deep forced tone, feigning old age. “Ahhh— you must’a picked the short straws todays fellas, cause this is the dulle—.” the silent Shinobi of the two, nudged the talkative one mid sentence, immediately silencing him. “They’re not Sunagakure Shinobi,” whispered the previously silent one. In that moment, having overheard the duo, Satoru shifted his gaze back toward Kaito, his pale white eyes looking up at the red haired gentleman through two narrow gaps in the makeshift mask/scarf.

Within a matter of a few seconds, the two Shinobi previously stationed at the bath house began to depart, the loud mouth muttering something along the lines of “Lets hope the foreigners don’t get themselves killed.”. Satoru rolled his eyes as he assumed a position in front of the bath house, his makeshift cane supporting his upper body with every slight bit of movement. He couldn’t help but feel unnerved by Kaitos presence. There was something about him, much like the Kazekage that Satoru couldn’t quite put his finger on.

The armor the man wore, appeared well crafted, judging from Kaitos stature and the relative dimensions of the armor, Satoru surmised that the man had to have gone through some extensive training in order to be move casually while so well equipped. It wasn’t until Satoru repositioned that he noticed what appeared to be a large jaggered sword in Kaitos possession. “Kenjutsu isn’t common aroun’ these parts.” he muttered, his statement loud enough for Kaito to hear, his vocal cords straining to continue the old age charade.

Hailing from the eastern country, Satoru wasn’t accustomed to meeting new people. In his previous line of work, he was a carpenter on a 100ft sailing vessel, having worked on the ship for nearing on 10 years, his interpersonal skills had deteriorated to some extent. He maintained a good relationship with his former crewmen but became out of touch with society which made social interactions quite difficult for him. The anxiety that Satoru experienced during social situations, brought out the worst in him, quite literally.

The anxiety was form of a trigger for his Natural Berserker Kekkei Genkai. He struggled profusely to contain himself during his initial interaction with the Kazekage of the village. With every passing day he felt himself becoming more and more of a threat to this village and the people around him.

“KILL HIM.” echoed through Satorus mind as his left eye began darkening on the back of a premature Berserker Transformation. Satoru clenched his jaw for a moment, his left hand quickly ascending to his head as he effectively slapped the area over his left eye. “SHUT UP.” He muttered under his breath, breaking character for a moment in order to bring himself back under control.  

The elderly gentleman beside Kaito spoke softly in a raspy tone, a single word that denoted he too would be taking part in protecting this bathhouse for the day. The redhead had gotten pretty drunk, so he couldn’t be too sure, but the despair in the owner’s face when he had asked that Kaito show up to protect him had been the sight to see. Why he would’ve hired an old man to protect him alongside Kaito was a good question indeed; did he urge Kaito to join him because the only other person that had accepted it was an old man? Or was this old man a veteran of the force, like the geriatric menace at the gates had been? Been being the operative word. He didn’t look much capable anymore, unless he had some trick up his sleeve.

As they relieved the duty of the previous guards, they muttered something about hoping the foreigners didn’t die. Kaito certainly hoped he wouldn’t die. He had things he wanted to do. Meals to cook. Weapons to forge. People to kill. He was a busy man. He took the left side of the house, so his back would be to the door as he faced the street before them, to his left the door, and further to his left, the elder.

Standing guard in front of the bathhouse, the sun beat down on them, albeit the cool air of the conditioned climate of the Sunagakure abated the potential heat. It was a good thing too; clad in black and darkened metal in the unrelenting sun of the Wind Country had not been the best decision making Kaito had displayed to date. The elder beside him commented on how elusive Kenjutsu was around here as an art. “I’m not from around these parts. Where I come from, only those who die with weapons in hand get to pass the gates of heaven.” He understood from the man’s comment he might be from around here, however something about his posture bothered him. “So, how come an elder such as yourself got into guard duty?”

Before he could proceed though, Satoru slapped his face, telling Kaito to shut up. This disturbed Kaito a little further; With his face facing forwards, he flooded his byakugan with chakra, activating it and taking a gander at the elder. Something… weird, was taking place. Something he had never witnessed. Somehow, particles of chakra were floating towards him, as if he was absorbing the chakra of the world. It was fascinating to see, as he had never been able to see free-floating chakra, nor had he ever heard of someone being able to absorb the chakra of the world, if that was even a thing. Moreover, he wasn’t an elder at all, but rather a strapping young lad covered in rags and hunched over to pass for an elder. Without allowing his face to turn, he disabled the Byakugan before taking the measure of the world around, noticing a group of people making their way towards them from an intersection, and would be coming into their view within the minute. “I didn’t know theater was such a praised art around these parts either”, started Kaito. “Why the disguise?”

After a moment of silence, Satorus eye returned to it’s natural color, now free of his inner berserker. He looked over his shoulder, taking in Kaitos utterance, out of the corner of his eye he noticed a short man peering out of the window of the bath house. The man eyes widened at the sight of a small group that was approaching and he quickly vanished from sight. Turning to the road ahead of the bath house, Satoru took observed four men, one armed with a tanto and the rest with a short bats. It was at that moment that Kaito made the reference to theatre, before querying into Satorus disguise. A small smile formed under his hood as he shook his head in disbelief. “Can’t keep anythin’ under wraps in these parts.” He responded with a raspy voice just as the group of men approached the duo.

“Get out’ the way if ya’ know what’s good for you!” shouted the one with the tanto in the most cliché way imaginable. Satoru observed the mans facial features, if he were a betting man, he would stake his saving on the man being the brother of the bath house owner, after all what were the odds that two unconnected individuals had the identical hideous block nose? There were other characteristics visible in the front runner that could be paired against that of the bath house owner, but the fact that the group had arrived so early into the shift gave Satoru the opportunity to swiftly conclude the mission.

The front runner armed with the tanto stepped forward into a 5 meter radius of Satoru. Naturally, the young Jugo mimicked the mans movement, stepped forward to confront him. “What’s an ol’ man going to do?” he cackled as he unsheathed the Tanto with the men behind him sharing in the laughter. The tanto wielding buffoon aimed the blade at Satoru, taunting him with “What are ya’ going to do, eh?... OLD MAN!”.

“I guess there’s some benefit to this charade.” Satoru muttered as he extended his tattoo'd right arm out from below his cloak. With his left hand, he released grip on his makeshift cane. “I’ll leave the two on the right, to you.” Satoru said clearly, his voice no longer sounding like that of an old man.

Meanwhile, the grin on the tanto wielders face began fading from sight. “Your arm… doesn’t look, ol—.” Before the man could finish the sentence, Satoru closed the 5 meter gap at top speed, his right arm extended over the tanto, level with the mans nose. With a blood curdling crunch, the inside of Satorus arm made connection with the snout via the Lariat technique.

Satoru knew his foe, despite the taunts, he couldn’t go all out on the man without the risk of killing him. Instead, he performed the manoeuvre with just enough force to break the beak of a nose, before sending him flying into one of his buddies. The pressure applied on the nose was enough to immediately incapacitate the man. With the lariat making a clean connection, the tanto fell from the mans grasp as he edged off the ground, flying straight into the man behind him. The velocity and weight of the mans body on impact translated to so much force on area of impact that the second, left most man immediately passed from the shock and pain generated from the collision with his flying comrade. The area of impact in this case was the chest, so when the group leader crashed into him, not only did he force the air free from his lungs but he also broke a few ribs on impact with some of the leaders vertebrate cracking in the process.

Kaito smirked. Ghost’s Byakugan once again served him well, better than it had ever served Ghost, to be true, since Ghost could never see how his actions could have consequences. On a more practical level, Ghost never saw Kaito coming either. So much wasted potential. The lad couldn’t keep his true hidden under his wraps, but soon he would unveil himself.

The group that Kaito had seen coming in made themselves visible to the regular eye when they crossed  into the main street they were in, and the first guy leading the troop appeared to be remarkably familiar. The way he spoke was quite distinctive though, nothing like the meek and scaridly brother Kaito had met in the previous night.

The way he spoke struck a nerve within Kaito, who was naturally inclined towards violence as long as he knew he had a chance to bully someone, and the way this person held themselves told Kaito all he needed to know about them: they would use intimidation as a way of never having to engage in confrontation, and in that way get what they wanted. Not someone who would usually push too much if they got minimal pushback. It appeared they liked the odds of fighting Kaito and an elder though.

The elder and the tanto wielding fool engaged in a slow paced dance, each circling while looking at the other. Satoru allowed his arm to peek light from ‘neath the cloak, a sturdy arm with skin that betrayed the younger age of the actor. The tanto wielding fool seemed to be confused by the youth of the arm, unlike Kaito who had already pieced that together via the sight of the Byakugan. The two on the right were for Kaito, heh? “Cocky bastard”, he whispered. The two men to the right seemed to be entranced by the motion of the Jugo as he parted into a Lariat, a move well known in Kumogakure for its destructive power but also for its showmanship. It was his turn.

Taking a deep breath and drawing inspiration from the night before, he stumbled to his right, then to his left. As the two men on the right were now focused on Kaito, he blitzed forth, closing the distance between the three drastically. They would try to react and throw hands and feet at Kaito, but to no avail: the first punch went in between Kaito’s head and right shoulder while Kaito’s own right hand shot onto the chin of the man. He wouldn’t be able to react; not only did it come out from under his own arm, preventing him from seeing it in time, by the time it connected, lights went out, and the man would only come to realize what happened within the next couple hours.

The second man had tried to kick forward with his leg towards Kaito, but Kaito arched his back to allow the kick to go under his chest, and with his arm over his leg he locked the limb against him. After the punch was delivered and the man fell like a ragdoll, and Kaito moved into the man with the leg, pushing him along the way and forcing him to bend the leg against his chest before finally falling on his ass. Now on the ground, helpless, Kaito violently swung his leg as if it were a ball to be kicked into a goal. Clean knockout. Both victims would live to tell the tale, but no amount of bullying the weaker would restore their pride.

All four miscreants were now on the floor. “That was quite clean, for an old man.” Kaito approached the door of the bathhouse; no point in guarding it now if all of them were on the floor, right? He knocked on the door to draw the attention of the frontdesk lass. “Call for the hospital to send a unit, we got people out here who need medical attention.” Kaito adjusted his gloves as he walked back to the lad. “Y’know, back where I come from, the strong don’t hide. They are worshipped. I don’t see any identification on you, so I’m assuming you’re a missing ninja, hiding out from… someone. Gambling debts? Loan sharks? You could just go to Lightning Country, make enough money to start your own loan company.”

Tilting his head to the right an inch and towards Kaito, he couldn’t help but arch his lower lip at the level of finesse brought about by everyone of Kaitos moves. While Satoru was focused on his own little exchange, he couldn’t quite capture Katios attack from a visual perspective, but the auditory queues that accompanied his movement painted a clear picture in his head. The sound of an initial feeble punch flying, followed by the sound of lengthy hair manoeuvring through the wind by the topped off by the sudden crunch of an uppercut that moved so effortlessly through the air that Satoru only picked up its sound on connection with first of the men.

As he shifted his attention to Kaito, all four of the men hit the ground with a series of thuds. Kaito quipped the attack being clean for an old man, to which Satoru simply grinned from below the cover of his scarf. There was something about Kaito, his approach, the way he carried himself and the way he fought that resonated with Satoru. He could tell that the man was not a push over, he wasn’t arrogant like a lot of the stronger people that he had met on his travels and most importantly he seemed to have a sense of humour, either that or Satoru was rather naïve about the ways of the world and the people that inhabited it. On the topic of the old man, Satoru was unfortunate in that everyone that he had come across in this sand ridden city was able to quickly discern the fact that the old man aesthetic was simply a disguise.

As Kaito knocked on the door of the bath house, the owner quickly rushed out, to his brothers side. His eyes immediately welled up at the sight of his brother in such a awful state. Satoru couldn’t quite grasp the situation, the mission brief explained that the brother intended to kill the bath house owner, yet the owner was quick at forgiving his brother indiscretions rushing to his side armed with a small first aid kit. Meanwhile, one of the clerks began sending word to a local doctors unit on the back of Kaitos instructions and just as silence filled the area once again, Kaito addressed Satoru.

“Strong don’t hide, they’re worshipped?” He recited under his breath a handful of times while Kaito continued. The moment Kaito began covering the Missing Ninja topic, Satoru slowly straightened his posture, now standing taller than the Jounin by around 7 inches. He rolled his shoulders and flicked his chin as Kaito continued, the combination pushed his hood back, no longer concealing his head. Still facing the group that the duo had just dispatched he raised his palm, tugging at his scarf. As the scarf slipped away, it revealed his bright orange hair, his face and the assortment of jet black tattoos, two on either side of his eyes, two on either side of his jaw, extending down towards his chin.

To a mindful observer, scars, blemishes, deep tissue bruises and burns would be visible, simply concealed by the black tattoos. Having revealed his hair, he turned to face Kaito, his silver lenses falling from his eyes to reveal their natural bright orange color. By this point, anyone who had met a Jugo would be able to effortlessly attribute his appearance to that of a Berserker.

As Kaitos short speech came to an end, Satoru responded. “Hiding from my past, some would say…”, he forced a smile as his left eye turned black once again, his tone of voice, deep, firm and carrying a hint of charisma. “My name is Satoru, and yours?” he would continue, extending his right palm out to Kaito with the intent to shake his hand. Naturally, he would await a response, before continuing with “If fate would have it, we might cross paths again in the Lightning Country.” he’d pause, throwing his scarf over one shoulder “For now, farewell.” He’d utter, briefly waving the right palm at Kaito before strolling down the bustling city streets, quickly disappearing into the crowd.

The lad reminded Kaito of someone he had once met; the kid at the battlements of the great walls of Kumogakure, on that fateful night. Now standing taller than the redhead by over half a foot, the lad with whom Kaito had just shared a brief but outstanding fight appeared to be as fond of tattoos as Kaito was, judging by the tattoos not only on his face but down his arms. Kaito himself had gone for the forehead rather than the face, but the neck and arms were good matches. He also appeared to have been in his fair share of confrontations, exhibiting as many scars as Kaito might’ve had. He could respect that. A body without scars was either a representation of a combat genius, or a coward. And the latter was always more likely than the former.

They faced each other for a moment, Kaito looking up without allowing his expression to change from the dispassionate gaze he held, as if he was bored and annoyed at the same time. The man introduced himself as Satoru, extending his hand. A sign of respect among warriors, as far as the redhead was concerned. He allowed his dark eye to travel to the hand, before lifting it back to the orange eyes of the berserker and bringing his own hand to meet him, giving him a firm shake. “Noboru Kaito, Deputy Kage of the Kumogakure. When you get there, tell them the one eyed redhead sent you. They’ll let you in.”

Before letting go of his hand, he left a warning. “Keep in mind… entering the Kumogakure will be easier than leaving it. But, I got a feeling it’ll feel more like a home to you than this wasteland.”

They parted ways, and Kaito stayed behind for a moment. “Farewell, Satoru.”