A dark soul finds a companion

Suzume seemed to be leisurely chatting with the shinobi on the other side, but her senses were honed and waiting for something to happen. She knew that it was probably not going to be so simple, so she was still on guard, even though the shinobi opposite her was saying things like they should be able to share the rock and it should not end in violence. Suzume was about to interrupt her own second sentence to start speaking back to the man, when she suddenly heard some clanking behind her. This sound was created by not only the sudden appearance of the second ninja in his large plated metal armor, but as Suzume was turning her head around and manipulating the chakra within her, the man was also using some sort of quickdraw ability with a sword, so the slight grinding of the sheath against the blade when it was starting to get drawn also signaled that there was a person with bad intent behind her. 

She was already pretty nervous about this, and so when this person was suddenly noticed behind her, she thought it was some sort of sensory technique, as space time techniques were not very common, so it was far less likely, and so Suzume was not thinking about that at all. In fact, she was only thinking about how not to die, so as the man was drawing his sword, three fireballs the size of dinner plates were forming around Suzume, slightly three meters away from the man behind her. They formed by the time the man fully drew his sword and was swinging it towards her. She thought that she would not be able to avoid taking a hit, so as the fireballs formed, they started flying towards him. The fireballs were one foot away from Suzume above her and to the sides of her head respectively, so the fireballs flew in a rather direct route. The one at the top aimed for the man's chest, the one on Suzume's right side aimed for the hand the man was using to swing the blade towards her, and the one on Suzume's left would aim for the man's legs. These spheres of pinkish flame would be traveling at a speed of one hundred and five, with one hundred and five power, attempting to scald the man, evaporating the water inside of his body and mummifying him if he did not reach the same amount of strength as the fireballs had power. 

Suzume, still thinking there was not a way to get out of getting hit considering the man was mid swing. It would be nearly impossible for him to stop his swing at this moment, even if he saw the fireballs coming towards him, unless of course he had some sort of technique that allowed him to shift or change his momentum on the fly without hand seals, but Suzume was hoping this was not the case, as she shifted her body to the side as much as possible. She had forgotten about the seals she was about to start forming as the threat of death loomed over her, and so she simply attempted to shift her body towards her right side. It seemed the man was aiming for her neck, and so as she was leaning to the side, she would be able to get one point four meters away from her original location by the time the sword swung and the blades from Rupture reached her. Since the man was aiming for her neck with the sword itself, although it was fast, she manage to shift her position enough to where the sword would go over her head by a couple of inches. She noticed that it was not going to be enough to dodge all of the chakra blades that were flying towards her however, so she twisted her body a bit during this and held her arms over her face and neck. Four of the blades would slash her, two of them cutting into her arms, one of them into her torso, and then one into her left leg, as she twisted towards her left when she was moving out of the way, but was not quite fast enough to completely face the man as she turned.

Luckily, the slashes of chakra were not incredibly powerful, so they simply slashed to the bone on her arms and leg, and cut into her side and messed up her stomach. But she was not dead, although she would most likely have to limp out of here, and her hand seals were essentially neutralized. This would of course only happen if the man did not have some way of suddenly stopping himself and abandoning the swing. But if he did not abandon the swing, Suzume's fireballs were only slightly slower than the sword swing, but faster and stronger than the waves of chakra, but only managing to destroy three of them, which was why the other four would strike her. The fireballs would then hit the man and mummify him, so she would not have to worry about him anymore, although she would be at a disadvantage against the other person. If the man did have some way of stopping his momentum from the swing, he would still have to contend with the three fireballs chasing him around at one hundred and five speed, and Suzume would simply twist and avoid to the side, rolling through the sand.
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WC: 915

AP Jutsu and Math:

The young Shinkou's words did not do much to keep the woman's attention as soon she had shifted her attention toward the approaching comrade of his. He knew that there was no way that he was going to be able get her attention back, so he was just going to move on to the next phase of his attack, his plan B as it were. The moment that the woman shifted her attention and her words became even slightly distracted towards his approaching comrade, Kurayami would lower his bow from it's upright position and he would draw three arrows from his quiver, keeping two in his hand that he was holding his bow in.

While holding the bow, he would have his other hand free to grab a kunai out of his pouch, this would be a kunai knife that he would be grabbing out of his pouch. The kunai would have an explosive tag wrapped around the handle and it would be ready for throwing, assured that the explosive tag couldn't just fall off during it's flight. He would note that he was 40 meters away from their opponent at the moment, so he would begin to sprint forward the moment that the woman's words became distracted, as he knew that there was no way that the woman was going to focus on him again.

He would sprint at full speed towards the woman, kunai in hand until he would see three orbs form behind her, seeming to made of pure magma. The moment that the orbs would be created, he would send the kunai with exploding tag flying towards her position, aiming for center mass as he would not be concerned with a precise shot, as he was going to be using an exploding tag to finish the job. The kunai would be sent flying at a speed of 115 and the range of his throw would be 58 meters, more than enough to cover the 35 meters that was left to cover by his kunai knife.

As soon as the knife left his hand, he would form seven hand seals with his right hand to replicate the kunai knife fifty times, causing the exploding tag to replicate also. The newly formed wall of explosive kunai would be 12 kunai wide, four tall, and one deep, with two trailing behind the first wall directly in the center, aimed for the opponent. Each of the kunai would be spaced out two meters, covering a width 12 meters, a height of 8 meters, and a depth of 4 meters between the main wall and two stragglers, aimed for center mass of the opponent. He knew the blast radius of the explosive tags was 1 meter, so the wall would make sure that it would have no gaps in explosion. Immediately after forming the hand seal and creating the wall of kunai knives he would also, while continuing to run, draw an arrow in his bow, ready to fire the shot in any direction that the opponent may decide to dodge the initial barrage of attacks.

He would try to close the gap, but he would stay twenty five meters away from his opponent, just in case he was going to need to dodge something come back towards him. His teammate should be out of the range of the blast, but even if he wasn't, he was hopeful that he would come up with something to not get hurt.

WC: 578

AP:

As Suzume was twisting her body and dodging away from the man that was slashing at her, it seemed he simply did a small twist, letting go of his sword and grabbing it with his other hand. It seemed that he had abnandoned the initial swing that he was doing, so luckily Suzume was unhurt, but she still twisted and moved backwards a bit, which was to the right of the man that had swung at her. He jumped back and started weaving hand seals with one of his hands, and so Suzume was not going to simply sit there and do nothing. She was now on the man's right, and was facing the man's left, meaning she could quickly glance with her eyes darting back and forth, keeping an eye on both of the people. It seemed that the other person started sprinting towards their location through the sand, and was getting ready to throw something at her. Suzume cursed silently, wondering why the hell these two Hoshi ninja were being so blood thirsty, as this hunk of metal, while valuable, should not be something that you simply murdered someone over without talking about it. Suzume acted, quickly forming a single hand seal in each of her hands, which were finished a split second before the man formed his lightning clone. 

The lightning clone started forming, and the other man with the bow threw the shuriken, and it suddenly plit into a bunch of smaller ones. Suzume was preparing to attack the man in front of her with the clone with the first jutsu prepared, but it seemed like she could not do that anymore, so she simply switched targets. The spheres of fire were only slightly slower than the man, and Suzume could control them freely with her thoughts in a small area around her, so she was using two of them to attempt to move between her and the clone. The first sphere would move with the clone left and right, staying a meter in front of Suzume, and the other sphere was a foot behind this one, and Suzume would move it should the clone try and get around the first sphere. The clone would be mummified just like the man would have been, should either of the spheres touch it. The third sphere would simply continue chasing the original man who had stepped back and was now observing her, even shouting that he was going to do so, even slightly complimenting her in the process. 

Suzume was thinking over time, and she knew that she would most likely not be able to defeat these two, and they seemed to be going for the kill, so now she was just going to figure out how to get out of this mess in one piece, and so she started stepping backwards as fast as she could, which was heading to the right of the man that had the lightning clone. She could dart her eyes left and right keeping an eye on both of them while doing so. The first jutsu she completed would start forming just as the shuriken shadow clones had finished forming, and this would cause Suzume's hair to bristle out, and fire a massive amount of hair follicles, fifty to be exact, in a large cone towards the shuriken shadow clones that were coming after her. This would knock most of them down, piercing through them and ruining their trajectory before heading towards the man, as they had a sharpness and power of ninety, which would cut through the shurken quite readily. There were still some, however, as she could not possibly focus on the task enough to have all fifty perfectly hit each of the shuriken, but she could at least very easily dodge the ones that had not been knocked off course, none of them landing within two meters of her as she stepped backwards. 

"Damn, since when were Hoshi ninja so bloodthirsty? Take the damn rock if you want it that badly!" Suzume was never going to kill them, as the ire of the hidden village would be brought down on her should she kill the village's ninja, and she was not a missing ninja or anything, so they would also most likely be severely punished if they killed her, but that was only on the grounds that anyone figured it out. This was also why Suzume was mostly using things that were very painful, but not lethal. The mummification of her elemental spheres would only be extremely uncomfortable for an hour or so while the water in your body refreshed itself, faster if you had a buddy to water you. The needles, while painful, would most likely only debilitate movement, unless the ninja was unlucky or stupid enough to have it his them in their eye or something. So, Suzume was going to focus entirely on escaping now, her second jutsu at the ready should the people not heed her call and continue trying to kill her. The Steam Kill spheres would simply stay between her and the clone, while the other sphere simply harassed him should he try and move closer to him. It was not lethal in its own right anyway. She still had to keep switching her attention to the man with the bow that threw the shuriken, the clone, and the man with the clone, so it was still quite nerve wracking and tense for her.
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WC 911
NPC exiting unless interrupted
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AP Jutsu, Math:

The kunai wall would be flying through the air and he would be readying to draw an arrow with his bow when suddenly he saw their opponent perform a form of attack with her very own hair. Her hair would grow suddenly, and with a simple swish of her hair, fifty tiny senbon would fly through the air directly through his wall of kunai. While this by itself was only an inconvenience, he did note that the senbon was stronger than his kunai, and this was no small feat to consider. He was just about to drop his bow to deflect the incoming senbon with his katana, when he noticed that the woman turned her body to face away from both of the shinobi and began to retreat.

This visual of the woman running was cut short when two rather large walls sprung up from the ground shortly after hearing Tsuna yell out "Summoning Jutsu!" Before the senbon drew near Kurayami, they were cut short in their trajectory by the walls, but this was not something that was concerning to the young Shinkou, the main concern was the fact that an obvious enemy of the village was running off, and Tsuna had just prevented his ability to shoot the enemy down before she got away. 

He would sprint to the side of the wall, bow in hand, ready to draw an arrow back when he would hear his comrade yell out that that was enough, telling him to stop chasing down the enemy that was an easy target at the moment. Kurayami felt angry, no, he felt furious and confused. He would get to the side of the wall and he would see that the enemy was a far off blip on the horizon now, a shot that even he couldn't make, so now he was going to turn to face his comrade and ask him just what he was thinking about the situation.

He threw his bow back around his shoulder and he gathered his kunai with the explosive tag around it, realizing that he hadn't even infused his chakra into it. But he was thankful as it meant that he could reuse the explosive tag that he had thrown, and the kunai. Although he was going to be going back to the village and getting himself some stronger equipment, as he was already quite displeased with the performance of the cheaper ones that he had gotten with his starter set from the equipment shop in the village.

He walked over to the meteor, and he would turn his attention to Tsuna. "Why did we just let her go!? We could have run her down without an issue. Hell I could have shot her down, I'm accurate passed seventy meters!" He wasn't sure just as to why they had let the woman go. She tried to kill Tsuna, and then turned her attention to him and sent senbon directly for him. She was an individual that didn't belong with any village, and unlike the shinobi that had been visiting Hoshi, she was actually violent. 

He wasn't so much angry at Tsuna, but rather confused at the fact that if it wasn't for his interference, then he could have deflected the senbon that had been sent towards him and shot the woman down before she would have been able to get away. Not to mention the fact that he himself could have dispatched the woman, especially with the clone that he had created to hold her down. He wasn't too sure just what the plan was, but he did want at least an explanation so he could understand what his thought process was as it was far from his own.

If he had gotten it his way, then the woman that was running off would have an arrow sticking through her torso right now and would be brought back to the village for examination. But it was all to obvious that Tsuna had a different thought on how they should have handled the woman, and he was very curious to hear just what it was that going through his comrades mind, to see what someone more experienced had to say.

WC: 700

Picking up: Kunai with exploding tag

As the young Shinkou was obviously upset, he let out a little bit of his frustration on his teammate, allowing his volume to be raised as he vented his frustration at the fact that they had let the woman go, even though she would have been an easy target for the two of them. But even though his anger was seeping out of his body, feeling the pull from Yuumei from within his soul, his comrade did not seem to be affected by his anger. His comrade instead seemed to switch from a perspective of a fighter, to the perspective of a teacher.

As he saw Tsuna walking closer to him, he had thoughts of pulling his sword on him and running him through, the anger was coursing through him, and with every step, his hand would get closer and closer to the hilt of his sword. He was furious at the idea that they had let an enemy of the village go, now who knows just who was going to come after the village due to their lack of follow through with this woman. When Tsuna had finally come into range of his strike, he could hear chanting ringing through his ear, a tugging on his hand.

It wasn't until Tsuna stopped walking towards him and paused, he took responsibility for his feelings and asked for forgiveness. There was something about the way that he spoke, the genuine tone to his voice that took the young Shinkou by surprise, smiling at him all the while. This when something clicked in Kurayami's mind and the chanting went away. He looked into the eyes of his comrade, and his hand simply fell away from the hilt of his katana, and shame began to set in. He had true thoughts of trying to kill his own comrade, just because he had let a possible enemy of the village go. He listened to the words from Tsuna, trying his best to understand just what the thought process of letting the woman go was.

"You let her go, because I wouldn't?" He thought to himself, pondering just what the implications were to that statement. Was it bad that he wouldn't have let her go? She tried to kill them both, but of course they were the ones that in fact struck first. Hell he even tried to keep the woman's attention so his comrade could take a cheap shot at her, he was not just willing to help his comrade take the woman's life, but he was hopeful that he would succeed. He hadn't felt such mixed feelings about anything in his life, he wanted to protect the village, but it wasn't until what he said next that truly caused the young Shinkou to feel shame for their actions.

He listened to Tsuna speak on what Hoshi truly stood for, and it was something that he had never heard before. His parents believed more like Kurayami did, to kill all those that stood opposed to not only them, but the village at large. For if they had the misconstrued belief that an individual's needs came before the village, then they deserved nothing more than an arrow to the heart, or a thrust from their katana. This was just how he believed the village at large believed. But now he was hearing something so different, it was something that had the drive of honor more than that of blind killing of the supposed foes of the village. 

It made so much sense, but it was so different than what he had been taught, that he had such a hard time accepting it. This was when his comrade placed his hand on the young Shinkou's shoulder, and when things started to make a little more sense to him. He spoke on how the woman was only defending herself, which was true. It was possible that they could have been cordial about the situation, but Tsuna went straight for the kill and Kurayami was aiding in the attack, something that he now understood was a shameful move. It was shameful as it was possible for them to have handled that situation without weapons or bloodlust, but they didn't.

"Not weapons forged?" The boy thought to himself as he thought about his purpose as a shinobi. He always thought of himself as a mere tool of the village, without truly having any thought for himself, except for eliminating those who posed a threat to the village or those who reside within the village. But the use of the metaphor that we are not swords, but shields that made more sense to him. We are to defend the village, not just kill all those who oppose them. He spoke of his belief that Hoshi is the superior village, but not by feats of strength or power alone, but by the way that they live and that we understand that our words and comprehension carry us father than our fighting can try to. 

The young Shinkou listened closely to Tsuna, hanging onto each word. Listening closely because he felt that he was learning a life lesson that he needed, a principle to stand upon that would help him fight off the urges from Yuumei, the dark and sinister feelings he would be overwhelmed with when his soul was more susceptible to his callings, or the evil chanting that would play through his mind.

Tsuna spoke on his idea that the woman was holding back the entire time, and that largely her techniques were more for self defense and not even all that lethal, to which Kurayami did think back for a moment, realizing that what he was saying was true. The woman did not pull out anything that was too much for them to handle, even though she had to have known something stronger than what she was showing. But this to the boy felt like more of an insult, rather than a reason to keep her alive, but that was when he remembered the shield metaphor, and how they were not supposed to just kill aimlessly.

He pointed out that he had forgotten to infuse his chakra into the tags, a piece that was quite embarrassing to him as he prided himself at being an expert with his weaponry, but on his first combat assignment he made such a mistake that he couldn't believe someone as experienced with weapons could have made it. He rubbed his neck with his left hand, trying to soothe himself from the embarrassment that that mistake brought to him. He was very appreciative that he received a compliment from Tsuna though, as he was not sure that he had done nearly enough to be worthy of praise, he smiled at the thought of him doing something that would make another shinobi uncomfortable.  

When he was done speaking, it was the boy's turn to speak, to which he held onto the opportunity for a moment, allowing each of his words to truly sink in. He would follow his comrade over to the spot that his clone once stood before he would finally respond in earnest to what his comrade had just explained to him. 

"I see now, that we are not to be just sellswords for the village, but instead that we are brought up to be shields of the village and all that inhabit the village. My clan members and my own parents had so much anger and hatred set in within their hearts that they believed that any person who could be a threat to the village was deserving their death immediately. I believed that to such a strong degree, I even had thoughts of turning my blade to you after you had stopped me and let the woman go. I could hear the chanting, the sinister words that my clan had once chanted over me, the same chanting that rings through my ears when I feel the pulling and urging from Yuumei the strongest." He paused for a moment, taking a breath to calm himself as he noticed he was beginning to hyperventilate.

"I wanted to kill her, I wanted to run her through with my sword and eviscerate her, as she was not worthy of life in my eyes. If it wasn't for you I likely would have run her down, stopping for nothing until she was dead. But you are right, we were the ones that showed the first sign of aggression. She had even asked us to leave so we wouldn't have fought her. She didn't do anything that worthy of lethal attacks, yet that was all I could think of. It didn't even cross my mind to handle the situation with anything less than lethal force. I feel so ashamed of myself, I truly don't know what I was thinking. My thoughts were clouded and my vision so set on killing her, that I didn't even ask myself what was right, or what was just." He wouldn't cry, but his voice would begin to soften as he internalized the lessons that he had learned today, and as he would also internalize the observations that he made of himself this day.

WC: 1531