No escaping allowed [Mission/Solo]

Spoiler:

It had been about a week since Nova had finished her mission with Shin, the taijutsu master, and truth be told she still wasn’t feeling good about it. It was her win! She should be ecstatic that she’d bested an old master in one on one combat, but she didn’t. The man had very nearly died right in front of her because of her own thrown shuriken. He’d been remarkably calm about the whole ordeal and had even praised Nova for her combat ability. He obviously didn’t care about his own life as much as Nova did

Still, though, Nova felt sick.

She ran her hands through her hair - wearing it down instead of in a top-knot for once - and looked at the haggard woman staring back at her in the mirror. She hadn’t been eating well or keeping up with her exercise and could already see the small tell-tale signs of atrophy in her physique. It was subtle and was the kind of thing that would only be noticed by other ninja or civilians who exercised a lot, but the signs were there: her cheeks were sunken and gaunt, clothes that were once well-fitted hung a little loose on her frame.

In summary, she looked about as shit as she felt.

It was times like this where she wished she had some kind of social life since the only person she could speak to at times like this was a shadow clone. Nova wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of mental health, but even she knew that using a clone as a therapist was a step in the wrong direction.

Today she was going to finally get out of her apartment, she decided. It had been a while since her last mission, and she needed to get back into the swing of things. Staying in her apartment stewing in her misery was not how she was going to feel better about things. One thing that never failed to bring her spirits up was a sense of progression and moving forward; growing stronger and more skilled brought her great joy. She wasn’t even particularly sure why.

Nova stepped out of her bathroom into her dark bedroom and almost tripped up on some discarded clothes left on the floor just outside. She turned on the light and wrinkled her nose at the sheer state of her room; clothes were literally strewn about everywhere. The air was oppressively heavy and warm and, had Nova not already adjusted, it would likely be hard to breathe in. She was lucky she wasn’t the kind of person to invite people over.

She needed to clean up her apartment before she left, for peace of mind. Yeah, that was it. If she went outside now with a messy apartment, she’d be stressed out and wouldn’t be able to perform optimally in her missions! She’d need help, it would take too long to do by herself.

Her hands went through, by now, the familiar hand signs, and a perfect replica of herself appeared beside her in a puff of smoke, looking at her with a decidedly unimpressed face. Despite herself, the original Nova felt herself shrink under the judging stare of her clone.

“You look like absolute shit.” Her clone deadpanned, crossing her arms over her chest.

Nova-Prime spluttered incredulously but deigned to not give her clone a response lest she incites more mocking. Instead, she gestured to her room with a lazy arm movement.

“You know what we need to do.” Nova huffed, slightly annoyed at the tone of her clone.

As she bent down to pick up the pair of trousers she’d almost tripped up on earlier, she saw that her clone had yet to move. Still standing still looking at her with her arms crossed.

“Can you help?” Nova asked once again.

“You literally can’t fool me, you know. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nova said, keeping her voice level. She picked up a discarded vest and threw both of her discarded clothes into the washing hamper in the corner of her room, studiously ignoring her clone.

“Hiding from our problems isn’t going to make them disappear, you know.” Her clone continued with a sigh. She started helping clean up the room as well, however.

“I don’t-” Nova tried to repeat herself but was cut off by her clone.

“Look, Nova… We’re in a bad spot mentally. You’re distracting yourself, trying to stop yourself from having to face the outside world. Look, I’ll stay here to clean everything up, and you can go and accept a mission somewhere. Sound good?”

“But it needs two people…” Nova tried, her reluctance apparent.

Her clone just gave her a flat look before walking over to her, grabbing her by the shoulders, and leading her to the front door. “I can do this by myself. Go. Shoo!”

Before she had a chance to put up a token effort, Nova was roughly shoved through the front door of her apartment. She tried to turn around to go back in but was met with a shut door - which was more of a symbolic gesture since she could easily just have walked through if she wanted.

She groaned, feeling naked without any of her weapons on her; she’d been shoved out in a light-blue tank-top, black joggers, and the standard ninja sandals. She didn’t even have the Bo Staff she’d come to love at the moment. It was too late now though. For one, she doubted her clone would let her back in for at least another hour. She also didn’t know if she’d be able to go back outside again if she went back in.

Psyching herself up, Nova headed out of her apartment building and to the streets of Kumogakure.

A few people gave her odd looks as she walked since she was wearing what was essentially just sleepwear and sandals. Nova had never particularly cared about what other people thought of her appearance, and she wasn’t going to start now. She let the stares roll off her back like water in a shower as she headed towards the mission center. Hopefully, there would be some more menial missions; she wasn’t equipped for any serious stuff.

On the way to the center, Nova spotted something suspicious on the rooftops: a ninja moving particularly fast. Now, ninja roof-hopping wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence - Nova did it herself quite a bit - but that ninja had been moving incredibly fast. In the short period that she’d caught sight of him, Nova had spotted his face and had instantly recognized his expression, having seen it on her own face a few times. It was one of someone who was about to do something incredibly stupid. A sort of grim resolve that told anyone looking that you were aware of just how stupid what you were about to do was.

It was also a dangerous expression, so Nova jumped up to the rooftops and began trailing the man as fast as she could.

He was moving fast, she realized. Nova was probably in the upper-tiers of movement speed in the world, but it was still taking her a while to catch up to him. She could see him, about 50-meters ahead of her. He hadn’t seen her yet, which gave her a little time to scope him out. He was roughly Nova’s age, if she had to guess, and held a scratched Kumo headband in his right hand. Since he didn’t have any other markings to affiliate himself with the village, Nova pegged him as a Genin about to hand in a stolen headband… Or as a Missing Ninja.

Her eyes narrowed, loose hair flipping through the wind reminding her why she usually tied it up. If this was a Missing Ninja… The expression she saw would make sense. That made him a danger to the village of Kumogakure, and one that Nova would take great pleasure in taking down. Judging from the speed he was moving at, it would be a fun fight.

Nova smirked as her skin darkened further and the air surrounding her began to shimmer from a great heat. She slowed down for a split second to admire the pure power radiating through her muscles. Man, she’d missed this. Staying inside in a depressive spiel... That wasn’t her. That wasn’t what she was.

With a loud bang of displaced air, Nova took off at a speed faster than she’d ever moved before. Civilians on the street gasped and looked up just to be smacked in the face by a large gust of wind, some even falling on their asses from the sheer force being expelled. The ninja Nova was chasing looked behind him with wide eyes as he saw quite possibly the scariest sight he’d ever seen in his life.

His hands tried to come together to form some hand seals to perform a jutsu of some kind. Unfortunately, Nova was just too fast and had reached striking distance before he’d even finished the second seal.

Nova sent a sucker punch directly into the man’s stomach and then as he was bent over she grabbed the back of his head with her other hand and careened her knee into his nose. Of course, she made sure to drastically hold back her strength so as to not kill the man outright. Such an attack would still likely leave some permanent damage.

“Aghh!” The man backed up away from her holding his stomach. His face was completely messed up, and Nova doubted even family would be able to recognize the man in front of her right now. The fact that he was still on his feet after such an attack, though… He was strong. Nova only then noticed that the man was still somehow holding his hand seal through the hole combo. He laughed, a wet sound. “You dumb bitch. Think you can stop me!”

Nova tried to close the gap again to prevent whatever he was doing, but the man only had to complete one hand seal. A huge fireball blew from the mouth of her enemy and she had no choice but to go straight through it. Remarkably, thanks to the defense boost of the gates, Nova remained completely unharmed as she ran through the fireball.

She roughly knew where the man was so, despite not being able to see, she stuck out an open hand and managed to wrap her fingers right around the man’s face. Before he could pull back, Nova pushed forward and pushed the man’s head into the ground with a loud smash. Thankfully, the building held under the force of the blow.

Nova felt her muscles scream as she released the Eight Gates, it felt as if she’d just stepped into an ice bath. She’d known this was a side effect from when she’d been researching, but feeling it first hand was something else. Opening the first gate hadn’t hurt at much as the third.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nova snarled through gritted teeth, still leaning over the man with a hand forcing his head to the ground. Realizing that he couldn’t actually answer her like this, she removed her palm and instead placed a foot on his chest to keep him down. She still felt weak, so the man would’ve likely been able to push her off if he wasn’t so injured.

He coughed out blood and smiled up at her with blood-soaked teeth. He looked deranged.

“Don’t you see it? The system? It’s fucked!” He screamed the last word which prompted another coughing fit, “We ninja are expendable, just cogs in a machine to fight and die for the Raikage at the drop of a hat. Do you really believe that all that propaganda bullcrap they sprout in the Academy is true? You may be strong… But your will is weak.”

Nova sighed and took her foot off the man’s chest. “It’s true. The system is fucked. But that’s just how life is. Do you really think life would be better if you’re constantly on the run from Kumogakure’s ninja forces? Is that really freedom? Or are you just trading one collar for a new one?” She flipped the man around and used his own scratched headband to tie up his hands and fingers into a position that prevented the use of hand seals. She was annoyed at having to chase the man so she didn’t even see the irony in such an act, “Anyway, I have to take you in. Hope your little… Attempt at an escape was worth it, since I doubt you’ll ever get the chance again.”

“What? No! Fuck you! Fucking bitch!” The man started struggling as Nova picked him up from the headband keeping his hands together, like a violent sports bag. “You’re blind! You’re just propagating the corrupt system we live in! Join me! We can leave together! Total freedom!”

Nova rolled her eyes and jumped back down to the street, people were definitely giving her odd looks now. “Please shut up or I’ll drop you and kick you all the way to the prison.”

The man went limp and remained quiet all the way up to Kumogakure’s prison. She dropped him like a sack of potatoes in front of the desk.

“Got a person who tried to go missing ninja right here, if you need confirmation you can probably just ask him. He’s a lunatic.” Nova drawled, wanting to go home and get changed. Her clothes had been slightly burnt in the man’s fireball leaving some of her skin bare, though not enough to make her indecent.

The man behind the desk stood up to get a better look at the raving Genin on the floor, adjusting his glasses. “Dare I ask what happened to his face?”

“He didn’t exactly take being captured lying down. I did what I had to.”

The receptionist coughed politely and signaled for some guards to help carry the ex-Genin away into the medical room. “Right… Thank you, you’ve done a great service for our wonderful village. I’ll send a message to the mission center. If you head there now you should get the appropriate rewards.”

Nova nodded, “Right, thanks. I’ll do that.”

Without sparing the struggling ex-Genin one more glance, Nova left Kumogakure’s prison and went straight to the mission center to get her rewards. Going outside and getting into a somewhat normal fight had been good for her - It made her feel like her usual self again. It had proved that she could still participate in combat without nearly killing her opponent.

‘What an interesting day.’ Nova thought.

WC: 2452
Claims:

• 4100 Ryo (4000 Ryo from C-Rank + 100 extra from Genin)
  
• 20 AP
  
• 24 stats (All into Strength)
  
• 1500 words into Jab to upgrade it to A-Rank, previously trained here.
  
• 500 words into learning Storage Displacement
  
• 350 words into Tsuri-Goshi to complete it, previously trained here.
  
• 100 words into Block
  

Approved