Haunted Mansion [Mission/Solo]

Mission:

It seemed it was time for a spooky mission.

Nova stretched and ran her hand through her hair; her sides were starting to grow out again. She didn’t really particularly care for her appearance - her side shave had been a decision of practicality, not one of vanity - but having to keep on top of it was annoying. If she could just figure out a way to use her chakra to slow hair growth she’d be a happy woman. As it stood, though, she’d just have to do hair maintenance like any regular human being.

Anyway, that was something to do on the way to the mission. Not here in her flat where there was currently a huge mess from the previous night’s cooking attempts. The less said about that, the better.

Right, back on track. Nova was going to do a mission today, one that, as mentioned early, was apparently quite spooky. Nova didn’t get scared easily and in fact couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually been properly scared by something that wasn’t almost accidentally murdering an old man. This so-called ‘haunted house’ was probably just a group of dumb kids who thought scaring people was funny. Nova was no stranger to scaring people, but she didn’t think pretending to be a spooky ghost was the way to go about it. It was simply much more fun to get up in people’s faces and scare the crap out of them with a threat or two, in Nova’s opinion at least.

She took a few minutes to clean up her flat and was just about to step through the door when a thought struck her; how long would this mission actually last? Nova didn’t possess any skills in tracking or sensing, so the mission could end up lasting longer than a single night as she’d initially anticipated. She sighed and turned back to the now cleaned-up kitchen. She had some rations in the fridge she could use, which was a blessing since it meant she wouldn’t have to cook anything. She still felt ill thinking about that… Disgusting conglomeration of ingredients that could only just charitably be called poison she’d made in the kitchen last night...

They were supposed to be cookies. Normal, delicious, chocolate chip cookies. Her mouth watered at the thought of what could’ve been, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

Rations secured safely in her Storage Dimension, Nova finally left her flat through the front door. She reread the mission scroll as she walked through the door to the apartment complex, to properly affix the address of the Mayberry Mansion into her mind. When she’d first skimmed through the scroll and read the word ‘Mansion’ her heart had frozen, as she had a sudden nightmare about being forced to guard her parent's mansion from whatever assassin cult was gunning after them. Fortunately, the mansion had been completely unrelated to her parents’ one. She’d been forced by her parents to mingle with plenty of Kumogakure’s socialites during her youth, but the Mayberry name was unfamiliar to her. That just showed how old this mansion was.

Nova moved through the streets quickly and efficiently, only stopping to grab a pastry from the small stall just outside her apartment. She was fast now, faster than most ninja in the world. It felt good, seeing how far she’d come.

She made good time travelling across Kumogakure and soon arrived at the Mayberry Mansion on the outskirts of the village. It was definitely old, and in need of a good tear down. There was a point where it was better to bulldoze things than attempt to repair them, and this mansion had definitely surpassed that point. If Nova wasn’t a hardy, strong ninja, the concept of having to go in there when it looked like it was going to collapse at any point would be scary. The amount of termites that had to be living in those walls was almost enough to make her skin crawl.

Finishing with her assessment, Nova spotted a crew of workers all sitting around the front talking amongst themselves; they looked slightly shaken but were doing a good job of hiding it. They hadn’t spotted her yet, so she went over to them and made her presence known by standing there menacingly until they noticed her.

“Ah, good, good. You must be the ninja we hired.” One of them guessed as he took note of Nova’s physique and headband. He stood up, fat gut swaying as he did so, and walked over to Nova. He was about 30-years-old, by Nova’s estimation, and had thinning hair that came out from underneath his hard hat as little frizzy whisps. He offered a hand to Nova which she just looked at disdainfully. He coughed into his outstretched hand to mask the uncomfortable air that had settled between them, and scratched his neck nervously. “My name’s Mar-”

“Don’t care.” Nova interrupted with an annoyed glare. While recently she had gotten better at talking to people, people like this worker still rubbed her the wrong way. It wasn’t even for any particular reason, she just disliked him. “Where do I start?”

“Right, sorry…” He cleared his throat again and pulled his shirt away from his neck to get some more air, “Things are bad here, like really bad. When the… Weird shit started happening, we could deal with it. A window randomly cracking, children laughing. It was manageable, and truth be told we just thought it was some kids playing a prank on us…” He sighed and Nova saw his eyes suddenly become slightly wet with tears, “Until last week, when my friend and coworker was found dead with 19 stab wounds in the lower pantry.”

“Fucking hell,” Nova exclaimed, taken aback by the sudden information. This mission was turning out to be a lot more serious than she thought. There was no way a group of prankster kids would stab a guy to death. Nova refused to even humour the idea that the mansion was haunted, perhaps a ninja that had gone mad? It wasn’t so rare that the possibility was not there; after all, the ninja life was a very psychologically damaging career and led to many ninjas having to take an early retirement.

He nodded at her exclamation, “We’re all stuck here until management decides what to do with us, except none of us want to go in any more. Thank fuck they decided to hire a ninja to help us out.”

Nova hummed in acknowledgement and stared past the man’s shoulder towards the knackered mansion. Now she knew that a person had been killed in such a brutal manner inside, it suddenly felt a lot more menacing. For a second she swore she saw a shift of movement in one of the top floor windows in the corner of her eye, but centering her vision on it showed there was nothing there. She felt a tingle crawl up her spine, like she was being watched.

“Anything else you think I’d need to know?” Nova asked, sounding a lot more confident than she felt.

“I think that’s everything, miss.” He confirmed. After speaking he turned around and looked towards his coworkers to see if there was anything he missed. After they all gave small gestures of encouragement he turned back to Nova and gave a small nod with a grim expression. “Please… Be safe in there, miss. That place… It’s haunted, something’s not right with it.”

Nova fought the expression to roll her eyes, despite her apprehension. While there was certainly something sinister, and dangerous, going on in this mansion, it wasn’t a ghost. Seeing as how there was no need for her to be around the workers anymore, Nova bid them adieu and walked past them towards the menacing mansion. It was about two hours till sunset, by Nova’s estimate. That gave her a bit of time to explore and see if she could find anything useful.

She stepped through the large, broken-down gates that marked the entrance to the estate and pushed through towards the front door of the mansion. Now that she was so close, the ugly, decrepit smell seeped through her nostrils and made her gag. It smelt like rotted wood, decay, and… Nova didn’t know how to describe it, it was almost like the mansion itself smelt lonely. She felt the usual concrete grip she had on her thoughts start to slip as the smell hit her. She stumbled and through half-lidded she saw the looming mansion. So big, so scary…

Nova’s head lolled to the side and her whole body followed as if her head suddenly weighed 50 more pounds. She fell to the ground as more and more of her thoughts started to slowly slip away. She felt so, so tired. What harm would it do to rest her eyes? She rolled over on the comfy mattress that almost enveloped her like a warm hug and felt the most comfy she had ever felt in her life. Why hadn’t she ever bought a mattress like this? She wouldn’t be so angry all the time if she got a good night's rest like this every night… Imagine, restful, eight hours of sleep. She’d be a changed person!

Her hold of consciousness started to slip, when all of a sudden she felt a part of her grow suspicious and wary. Why would it do that? Didn’t Subconscious-Nova know that she was safe and comfy now? Silly. She chastised that wary part of her but still, the feeling remained. It was getting stronger now, something was wrong. Even comfy Nova was feeling it now, that innate sense of wrongness with this situation. What was it? For the first time since she’d laid down on this comfy mattress, she listened to what her subconscious was now screaming at her.

In the threads of sleep, mere moments from passing out, Nova activated a technique she had mastered a long time ago; the Genjutsu Release.

Chakra surged through her coils and almost instantly Nova felt awake. She sat up from the ground with a sharp intake of breath and looked around. The mattress she thought she had been laying on was actually just the hard dirt path just outside, and the mud had gotten stuck to her cheek and clothes. She took a deep breath and stood up slowly, nerves now going haywire. That had been the first time she’d ever been put under a genjutsu… It was unpleasant. If that had happened while fighting an already difficult opponent…

Nova brushed the thought from her mind as she did the same to her clothes and cheek. The difficulty of the mission in her mind rose considerably as she looked back up at the haunting mansion. The smell was gone now, she noticed. It seemed that it had been the trigger for some sort of genjutsu, and now that the genjutsu was dispelled, the smell was gone. Genjutsu was scary to a physical based fighter like her; her chakra control was dogshit, and it meant dispelling a genjutsu was heavily taxing to her meager reserves.

Gathering her courage once more, Nova pushed on through the front door.

The entrance room was absolutely gigantic, reminding Nova of where she used to live as a child. On either side of the door leading to a walkway that overlooked the first floor were two staircases with lots of shadows underneath them. Normally unnoteworthy, but Nova was feeling pretty spooked at the moment. Anything could be hiding in them. Just in case, Nova stayed still for a few seconds to let her eyes adjust to the low-light level inside the mansion.

As she began to walk through the mansion, tensions rose. Every sound, Nova flinched. Every time the shadows in the corner of her eyes danced, she drew a weapon. After twenty minutes of exploring this forsaken mansion, Nova kept her personal bo staff in her grasp at all times - its hefty weight was somewhat comforting. The knowledge that not a lot of people would be able to hold her staff was a point of pride for the dark-skinned genin.

“So, another ninja enters my domain…” An echoing voice of indistinguishable gender was suddenly heard by Nova as she circled around one of the many empty hallways. It came from every direction, and Nova couldn’t find the source by turning around. She growled as that feeling of drowsiness from before came back, swiftly dealt with by another use of genjutsu release.

“Boo!” The odd-sounding voice came again, this time right over her shoulder. She spun around with her staff, only to hit air. She seethed as the voice laughed again, echoing all around her. “Little girl, lost in a mansion. All that training for naught…”

“Cut the shit,” Nova shouted back at the empty air, “Stop being a pussy and fight me already.”

The voice chuckled once more, “Very well. I hope you do not come to regret the challenge.”

Nova blinked, she hadn’t actually expected that to work. There was usually a little back and forth, followed by an enemy declaring ‘you will never beat me!’ followed by Nova beating them. The cold confidence in this unknown assailant’s voice was… Unnerving.

From either side of the corridor she was in, dark silhouettes appeared. From the shadows they appeared, revealing two men dressed in the same dark cloaks. In spite of their faces being covered, Nova could tell they were the same person. They wielded weapons in the exact same stance, had the exact same build… Shadow Clones, or one of the many derivatives.

“Nice trick…” Nova smirked, her hands coming together to form some seals, “But you’re not the only one with that jutsu.”

Two additional Nova’s appeared in a puff of smoke either side of her, each wielding copies of her staff. They all shared a look between them before splitting off and rushing at the now worried-looking clones. What followed was a short fight where a wholly unprepared ninja got his ass handed to him by Nova. He was a genjutsu expert, and had expected his various genjutsus to deal with Nova, who’d he’d pegged as a brute without any finesse. He was half right, but that half that was wrong was what allowed Nova to get the win. It was a bit of a shame, all that suspense for a shit fight.

She slumped the unconscious man over her shoulder, wondering what his story was; why was he terrorising some random mansion on the outskirts of Kumo? She thought about it for a second then realized she didn’t care enough to ponder it further. Bottom line was, he was a dangerous man who had somehow received ninja training and was killing people. If Nova hadn’t accepted the mission when she had… Who knows how many people he would have continued to kill.

After dropping off the ‘ghost’ at Kumogakure’s prison, Nova went home and had an absolutely splendid nap.

WC: 2505
Claims:

• 4100 Ryo
  
• 20 AP
  
• 325 words to finish Split Second, other words trained here.
  
• 188 words to learn Mark Seal
  
• 750 words to learn Summoning Technique
  
• 1125 words to learn Instant Armoire
  
• 2 AP with remaining words, don't believe I can claim AP and use max stat discount with the same words but if I can I'll claim 50 AP as well.
  

Everything besides 50 Bonus AP approved (you were correct)