Blood in the Water [Hunter]

Mission:

Murata steps alone through the Water Gardens and thinks on the nature of wealth. The thoughts are not particularly original or groundbreaking. At first, she had simply found the gardens unimpressive for what she'd heard before her visit, though they are of course beautiful. Only through the context of considering the surrounding desert can she see the true nature of the gardens in their expression of power. It invites her to look upon the quiet, meticulously-organized gardens like they are made of gold, though that does not necessarily make them more beautiful.

Now, where is Ban?

All the while Murata enjoys the quiet, gentle noise of the gardens, she is scanning her surroundings for signs of her compatriot. Murata is early, of course - the offhand invitation she had offered to the other woman had been for a half hour from now. She half-expects the other Kiri-nin to be early as well, however, so she is sure to keep an eye out. The other two should likely be busy training or enjoying the city. She has done her best to be hands-off, but their time together as a group has been tense, and it makes her worry that she is being overbearing.

This area of the gardens stretches out at least two hundred meters in all directions, shallow pools and artificial rivers and lilypads, well-maintained shrubs and sparse trees and small pagodas. It is a myriad of vignettes, open and pleasant, never making one feel too small or isolated. Murata keeps to the paths between the various ponds, unwilling to disturb the koi by stepping over the water.

She wears her silk shirt and black pants over the full-body base layer of her armour, helmet-hood pulled from her face so she can enjoy the warm sun without overheating too badly. Her Kusarigama and other various equipment are worn for the sake of communicating her purpose here, hitai-ate wrapped around her belt, but it is a casual sort of day. In case of emergency, she has means of accessing her other tools, be it via the seal on her shirt underneath the armour or summoning.

353

Stats:

Karado was tasked with a very important job, and for quite a lot of money. Too much money for him to refuse, and the buyer happened to pay in gold bars, so there was no way to back out of the deal or counterfeit them, and so his shadow group got quite a pay day... that is, if Karado here managed to take out his target. It was going to be a bit difficult for him, as the person he was pursuing, according to the information that he had received, was a young woman that was probably in her early twenties, but the file did not have her exact age. This woman was a chuunin of the Mist Village, so it would be difficult if he did not take her out instantly, as it was hard to track the strong bastards of Kiri, with their mist techniques and strange stealth technique that made them silent as a ghost. Still, Karado would attempt to do the mission to the best of his ability, even if it cost him his life. Karado had already infiltrated the village, the fake passes that dictated him as a member of Rice Country passed the inspection easily, as they were very good at what they did. Karado had been making his way towards the garden, as the woman he was pursuing was last seen heading in this direction, at least that was the information he had received from his contact in the village. Karado walked into the garden, and saw a couple of people walking around, but they seemed to be groundkeepers from their simple but elegant attire, and they were walking around looking at the plants that were there periodically, almost as if they were checking their health. 

As he made his way deeper into the garden, he happened across his target, a woman, standing around by herself, as if she was waiting for someone to meet her. Karado pretended to pay her no heed as he walked closer to her, but off to the side. They were in one of the more beautiful spots inside of the garden, so it shouldn't be suspicious if he casually strolled over there. He didn't have any weapons on him, simply a disciple robe and an arm guard on his right arm. Other than this, he was wearing a simple robe that seemed like that a person who was not very well off would wear, and the nape of the robe near the neck had a few dark stains on it, while his left long sleeve would also have a bit of dark colored stains on them. Karado also had a simple pair of wooden sandals and a conical hat on. As he got closer to his target, he made sure to give them a fairly wide birth, about 5m from them, which was pretty decent as a distance in this garden, which had quite a bit of planters, benches, and other features like statues that one would find in a high end garden setting. Karado made his way to one of the fountains in the garden, which was about 3m from the target now. Karado pulled out a bottle of alcohol from a sewed on pocket in his pants, because with Hoshi's strict laws, he wasn't even sure if alcohol was allowed in here. Karado took a big, messy swig of the nondescript brown liquid, before sighing in content and looking towards the woman. 

"Hello, I hope you are enjoying the gardens as much as I am." Karado would say, before taking another large swig of his alcohol, so now he looked rather rosy cheeked and tipsy. Karado was laughing a little bit, leaning back and forth, and he would use this movement to go back and forth until he was 2m from the two, and then suddenly struck. Karado was not going to play around, and immediately went for the killing blow on the lone woman. He was going to start off strong, as he looked like he was simply stumbling towards her, but he would suddenly lean forwards, and attempt to stab Murata's chest, using his Drunken Fist style as a ruse as well as an increase to his momentum and abilities. A single finger would suddenly start heading straight for Murata's heart, but Karado was also going to go for multiple spear finger stabs, and would attempt two aimed at her heart, and two against each of the shoulder blades, one finger stab to each one. He had no idea what the woman's dominant arm was, but for most people, it was the right, so he aimed their right after the two stabs towards the heart, with her left shoulder blade coming right after. This would hopefully rip through her clothing and disable her arms, should she immediately guard her heart somehow. He had his feet slightly swaying when he did so, and he was also hypervigilant, ready to respond to her hopefully surprised fight or flight response. 
------
WC: 834

NPC Stats:

Jutsu, AP, and Maths:

Murata pays the man little mind, at first, but the part of her that worries over Kiri’s welcome in this village fusses over running into a stranger in such an isolated area. She side-eyes Karado, looking quite unapproachable, but of course that does not stop him.

“Mm,” she replies unhelpfully.

This man is bad news, she decides, tensing - she has yet to decide in which fashion, mostly expecting some drunken flirting to follow more so than a physical threat to her safety. Then he lurches towards her.

Murata’s instincts were honed in a time and place of civil war where anybody on the street could try to take her life. This is a little startling on the surface to her present self, here and now, but the paranoid fifteen year old within her is prepared and knows what must be done.

Her mind - or perhaps the memory of her body - goes back to when she had first been taught how to fight for her life. With a spear in hand, she was told that her greatest advantage, and what she must be mindful of at all times, is reach. Human beings, particularly trained fighters, can reach much further than one could expect. She needs to negate his reach, and establish her own - and as much as her instinct tells her she needs more space, it tells her she needs a weapon in hand.

Adrenaline floods through her as she immediately moves backward in response to his forward lurch, her own speed picking up as she strains the limits of her body (Blood Tastes Like Iron). He has taken the safe option (presuming that he continues with his attempt, with Murata catching on to his intentions and getting flighty at the stage he was closing distance) and struck from near the edge of his arm’s reach, negating some of the advantage of the speed of a Nukite strike.  

She steps backwards with intent to maintain her distance - she cannot quite match the sheer speed of the strike that he throws, but she may be able to compete with his footwork, as uncanny and unpredictable as it is. Like a boxer, she dances back, aiming to achieve and maintain a meter’s distance from the man’s maximum arm’s reach (if he stands still or advances towards her, she will react in turn to achieve this - and obviously, if he changes tack and seems to turn to non-Taijutsu means or himself retreats, she will adjust strategy as well). In addition, she will tilt her right shoulder towards him as something of a failsafe, so that even if she has grievously misjudged her distance he will catch her there instead of with an immediately fatal blow. As she is now quicker on her feet than Karado is, his strike to her heart and any followups will naturally fall short as Murata moves beyond his arm’s reach.

Her retreat is along the previous path she had traveled through the gardens, so she is careful to maneuver in such a way that avoids stumbling over nature’s features or stepping backwards off of one of the bridges, her feet finding reliable cobblestone. The fountain is to her left, leaving it safely out of her path.

At the same time she begins her backwards movement, her left hand flashes one-handed through handseals, mind stumbling through the beginnings of a plan. Space - she needs space - something to trip him up - and a weapon that this man won’t break like a twig, if he is a Taijutsu specialist. He’s fast, far too fast for this to be a normal drunk. Alright. She is already weaving as she thinks - Hare, Snake, Boar, Ram, Tiger, Ox - her right hand slips a kunai from her hip as she continues to weave, which hums to life with her chakra - Dog, Snake, Tiger, Ram, Snake, Dog, Snake, Ram, Ox. She weaves as fast as she can, of course, meaning that her techniques will be ready before either of the two physical fighters can cover much distance.

Murata’s chakra floods the air around her, ready to pick up whichever weapon she needs it to. Her Wind chakra visits the kunai in her hand, which she slings with a dispassionate flick of her wrist towards the center of the man’s throat as soon as she has finished her seals, aiming to slash straight through his windpipe and spinal cord. At the same time she moves to loose that kunai, two weapons are summoned from the seal on her shirt in twin puffs of smoke. Samehada’s hilt manifests neatly into her now-free left hand as though it has always belonged there, and the mammoth sword chatters excitedly. Her poleaxe, Fish Eagle, appears and hangs sideways in the air with its midpoint hovering two meters to Murata’s left, suspended by her Psychic Weapon Manipulation.

Murata is silent all the while, jaw tight, eyes cold, taking in the movement of Karado's body as a whole as she tries to spot a pattern to his drunken movement and keeps tense and ready to react to his movements.

857
TWC: 1210

Blood Tastes Like Iron [Enhancing to 160 Speed, 110 Strength, -40 AP, +1 Damage Marker upon deactivation]
Psychic Weapon Manipulation [45 Power, 45 Speed, -28 AP]
Verdant Mountain Gale [40 Power, -28 AP]
Basic Sealing Technique [-13 AP]

Legacy Kunai [75 Health, 75 Sharpness, 175 Throwing Speed, Range 87.5m, 135 Impact Force]

Remaining AP 651/760

OOC:

Karado had grossly underestimated this young gir, as she immediately reacted to him attempting an attack, and although the attack was blazingly fast, the girl somehow managed to perform her own style of enhancing her physicality, making her slightly faster than him in terms of bodily movement, allowing her to barely dodge the lethal strikes of his finger technique by shuffling backwards. It seemed that the girl did not have a thought process or plan immediately, and Karado would not let her have time to do so, and he already had a plan formulated when he was walking around the gardens, as if one looked around the area, it was nice smoothed stone and cobbled steps as far as the eye could see, along with the beautiful flowers of course. As the girl was shuffling backwards, Karado immediately used a jutsu he was extremely proficient with, which was the Moving Earth Core technique. Karado made the earth that the young girl was on sink slightly, starting from directly behind Karado, and ending about a meter behind where the young woman was. This meant that the earth core was a small one, only 4 meters, as they were already 1 meter away from each other when this started, and the young lady only got a slight distance away from him, making their distance between them now 2 meters. The earth that they were on would quickly lower, not bringing them harm, as it kept their feet firmly planted on the ground, but it did make a ledge that the young woman could not quite see, threatening to trip her if she kept walking backwards into it. 

Karado was intending to bury them around 40 meters into the earth, but ninjutsu was not what he was a master in, so it went down fairly slowly, compared to the both of their current speeds, but it was definitely fast enough to sink 1 meter into the earth before the girl reached the edge, meaning she would most likely topple over going the speed she was going. Karado would be looking for a jump, as if she noticed that there was now a type of curb behind her, the only real way out was to jump, or fight Karado head on, which is what he wanted. As the earth core was lowering, Karado made a single seal with his left hand, as his right hand, the one with the armguard on it, was ready to take the brunt of anything the woman threw at him. The single hand seal, which happened at the same time as the earth surrounding them lowered, was the Ram seal. Karado chose a path that was fairly simple, as with the lowering of the earth, it would make a wall that was now 3 meters away from Karado, and 1 meter away from the girl. He chose a trajectory, which was one meter forward and to his right, which would put him now 2 meters away from the wall, and then he chose a spot that was 6 inches away from the wall, meaning he would travel almost 2 meters forwards after the initial forward path. The girl would be in his path, as Karado was intending to smash her into the wall that was forming, attempting to damage her back, as the wall formed by the descending earth would be almost perfectly at the mid point of her body. He was going to damage himself, but hopefully he would cripple his target.

Jutsu, AP, and Maths:

Murata's chakra sensory detects Karado's chakra in the earth around them, and her eyes dart to where she sees it influencing the ground near Karado, where a small lip begins to appear. He's sinking both of them, boxing them both into close quarters. Murata stops her backwards advance to allow herself to be backed against where there will be a wall (where she senses the chakra in the ground behind her, surely forming an identical lip), continuing her actions as described within the time frame of the earth dropping and before Karado initiates his body flicker, kunai sailing harmlessly past Karado as the ground drops him beneath its trajectory. As she had begun initiating her handseals at the same time she began to initially evade (with Karado still throwing his Nukite strike), she has time to move through her handseals and summon her weapons while these actions take place. This leaves her well-prepared to react to his subsequent actions.

When Karado forms the Ram handseal, Murata tracks him through his chakra signature as he proceeds to pick up speed. He's fast, but not too fast to get the drop on her. As soon as he initiates the flicker, Murata grips Samehada's hilt confidently in her grasp. When his trajectory aims towards her his plan to at the very least close distance becomes apparent, and Murata makes use of her new blade's range. She braces herself and jabs Samehada viciously, blade's end pointed directly in Karado's incoming path (judged by the movement of his signature, with Murata assuming the intent of another taijutsu strike as soon as he is close enough). This jab is timed to intercept with his chest as he comes towards her and is still bound to the predicted trajectory of his flicker, the end of the blade shredding apart his armor, flesh, and bone like tissue paper at the same time the mammoth blade flexes its spines outwards at its midpoint to catch his broken body on the scales' dull faces like the wings of a boar-hunting spear. If he has no way to escape his fate, his chest will be entirely obliterated, swiftly killing him.

359
TWC: 1569

Blood Tastes Like Iron [Enhancing to 160 Speed, 110 Strength, -40 AP, 2 Damage Markers upon deactivation]
Samehada

Psychic Weapon Manipulation and Verdant Mountain Wind dropped.

Remaining AP 611/760

As Karado was speeding towards his opponent on the projected path, he made a fatal error, and misjudged exactly how fast his opponent could move. He assumed she just reacted fast the first time, or used flicker just like he was doing now to avoid his Nukite earlier, but he was mistaken. Karado could not stop himself as he sped closer and closer to his doom because the woman did not show her full speed earlier, it seemed, or Karado mistook it for a one time thing that she could not use repeatedly. Soon, all there was in Karado's vision was red, as his upper torso was completely shredded by the strange looking blade that the woman had, almost looking like a popsicle dipped in shark scales, which seemed absurd to Karado. He was unsure why he was thinking this, but he had a bit of a slow down of time around him due to his adrenaline spiking before his death, and he had to look on in horror as the blade, if you could call it that, destroyed him. 

As Karado's body was now in two halves, the earth stopped sinking, only managing to get around one meter down. As quickly as this scuffle and confrontation started, it ended, with Karado dying in regret for not even being able to touch the hem on the woman's clothing, and making a fairly rookie mistake in his excitement for the kill. It seemed like the surrounding people finally took in that what was happening was not a simple dispute among garden viewers when the fountain of blood suddenly splattered around, and the civilian members of the village screamed in horror, before running off to find one of the royal guard to come and investigate. Since everyone else ran away as soon as they realized what happened, the garden was suddenly very quiet and tranquil at the moment, only likely to be broken by the sounds of nature... and the inevitable royal guard or village ninja.
--------------
Exit - Karado is dead.
Technically you can claim the armor, although you straight up destroyed it, but the forearm protector is fine. 
WC: 334
Second post word count because I forgot to put it: 584
TWC: 1752
--------------
Using 1102 words to complete Four Symbols Seal with 25% discount, previous training HERE
Using 650 words towards Chakra Scalpel - 650/1875 with discount

Almost as soon as it started, it's over. That's how it is, more often than not.

The stink of blood in the air is an old companion. Murata's heart pounds hard in her chest, body still prepared to fight further, and she forces herself to take a deep, even breath. She has naturally reached the limits of her burst of adrenaline, and she does not push further, allowing it to fall away from her and for the resulting exhaustion to settle into her body. She becomes aware of Samehada's initial excitement as it is allowed to feast freely, and subsequent disappointment as Karado swiftly dies, his chakra slipping away faster than Samehada can claim it. A small rush of energy visits her, and feelings and memories of hunger and satisfaction, as Samehada shares chakra with her.

"That will be all from you," Murata murmurs to the blade, returning it and the poleaxe lying on the ground nearby to their shared seal. Karado's body slumps to the ground, and Murata approaches him, placing a hand to his forehead to commune momentarily with his dying mind. He is unconscious already, and quite doomed, her attempt to bid him peace like trying to shout to him across a great chasm. Murata is aware of the panic of the people around, and pays them little mind, waiting for Hoshigakure authorities to arrive to see what has gone on. She has done too efficient of a job - it would have been far less complicated for her to have tried to knock him out. Far less mess, too. The gardens are quite beautiful.

267
TWC: 1836


Samehada giving Murata 50AP and draining 50AP from Karado
-13 AP for Basic Sealing Technique again to put Fish Eagle and Samehada back in the shirt seal

Claiming:
20AP
8,000 ryo
Forearm Protector
Shujin Disciple Armor (Broken)

250 WC into acquiring Adzuki
1,000 WC into training Third Eye at C-rank
500 WC into training Hangover Cure up to D-rank
36 AP

Approved