The Long Departed

Spoiler:

The earth around the wooden post turned to mud and it began to sink into the ground. As it started to sink, Inpei flashed several more hand signs and stomped the ground. Five pillars emerged from the ground around him, tilting towards the post before plummeting down and crushing it. With another several hand signs, he stomped the ground once more – the earth shattering around the pillars and swallowing them up.

Panting, Inpei bent over with his hands on his knees. His mastery over earth style jutsu was beginning to increase, granting him access to more and more powerful abilities. He spent a lot of his time training – and any time he wasn’t training, he was undergoing a mission. He hadn’t touched any of his books in weeks, but all that time spent had been paying off.

The earth settled as Inpei watched, the un-buried parts of the pole were completely splintered from the force of the jutsu. Inpei grinned. He’d been working on his taijutsu as well, but there was something satisfying about that combination. Plus, his fists were already bruised and bloodied from yesterday. “Maybe I should have thought about taijutsu practice BEFORE I sunk the pole,” Inpei thought to himself, rubbing the back of his neck.

He walked over to a nearby tree – he’d already left a bucket there with several cleaning supplies. He scooped it up and headed off to the graveyard – the destination of his latest mission. He had been assigned the task of cleaning off the gravestones of some of the older ninja there. A lot of the missions he’d been getting had been focused on bettering the village or maintaining it’s legacy, and he certainly didn’t mind – ever since his patrol training, he’d been trying to make a difference in improving the village.

As he walked through the village, Inpei tried to think about the people there – all of them paying taxes to the Mist, likely cursing their luck for being a part of it. He was sure they used to be proud – sure the people of the other villages probably still were – but because of the actions of some of the very ninja lying in the graveyard, their lives were more difficult. Inpei was hoping he could change that – give people a reason to be part of the Leaf.

Easier said than done…

Inpei signed and continued on, his bucket echoing as the cleaning materials within clanking against each other. Eventually, he came to the graveyard – walking along the tomb stones. There was a handful of people visiting already – a man pouring two drinks and setting one on a grave before drinking his own, a woman leaving flowers and leaving, a couple looking over a small grave.

Some of the stones looked to be relatively recent, but already were overgrown with weeds. Stopping short of his destination, he kneeled down and began pulling weeds – removing them from around a gravestone so that the name can be read. “Nane Monokoji,” he said, giving a bow. He did the same for several other graves, clearing off the stones and reading their names off.

Eventually, the graves were cleared and Inpei headed to the back part of the graveyard where the older shinobi’s tombstones were – those shinobi that had effectively created the village out of nothing. Inpei wondered what they would think of the village as it is now. Would they be ashamed? Would they understand? Did they ever expect the Mist capable of supplanting the Leaf the way that it has?

I guess it doesn’t really matter – just have to get back on track.

This area of the graveyard clearly had less foot traffic – whereas the rest of the graveyard had paths worn over time by people walking back and forth, here the grass grew long and crowded around the graves. Weeds had sprung up, as well as vines that wrapped themselves around the graves. Inpei sighed, looking at the work he had cut out for him.

Inpei began with the area around the graves – cutting the grass down and trimming the weeds that had grown up along the graves. It took some time and was exhausting for the young genin – going up and down the rows of graves detailing the path as well as he could. Once that was done, he began working on the graves themselves – clearing away the vines and using his cleaning supplies to wipe away years of grime.

As he worked, Inpei thought about his recent mission of trying to bring the Leaf back to its former glory. He had no illusions that it wasn’t the kind of thing he could do alone, nor was it the kind of thing that could be done overnight. That was why the missions he’d chosen lately had been focused on building the village back up – repairing bits of history that had long-since been forgotten and impressing on people how important that history was and will be to the village.

After all the graves were cleared away, Inpei slumped down in the middle of the lane. A grove of trees overlooked this area, hiding the time of day. By the time he was done, the shoots of light shining down from the sun had faded and eventually disappeared. Inpei sat in the darkness of the graveyard for a moment before he stood and left the way he came.

As Inpei walked back along the path, he saw something that stopped him in his tracks. One of the graves he’d cleaned in the newer part of the cemetery had massive hole in front of it. Inpei stood frozen in shock for a moment before he dropped the bucket and ran over to Nane Monokoji’s grave. The casket was open, the body disturbed within.

“No way,” Inpei said, staggering backwards. “How could…why would they…” He grit his teeth. The body was punctuated with several clean cuts along the torso – even the eyes had been cut out and removed from the body. He was unable to tear himself away from the scene for a moment before he ran out of the graveyard.

--

“She’s missing most of her internal organs,” the shinobi said, jumping out of the grave with a grim look on her face. “Village records say that she had Senju blood – that was probably why they targeted her. It’s a powerful bloodline.”

Inpei had run to the ninja headquarters to report what he’d found. They sent someone from the medical corps with him, a ninja named Kuto. She looked to be in her twenties with red hair in a short red bob cut and piercing green eyes. She wore the Leaf uniform with her headband around her neck. They hadn’t talked much on the way over.

“You’re saying…” Inpei started, clenching his fists. “Someone cut her open to take her organs and…”

“Transplant them,” the ninja finished, looking back down into the grave. “Either into themselves, or to sell it to someone else. Like I said – powerful bloodlines are in high demand.”

“It had to have happened when I was cleaning the older graves,” Inpei said, stepping alongside the shinobi to look into the grave.

“Look, kid, you don’t have to-“ the ninja started, trying to move him away.

“No, I want to see what they did,” Inpei protested, slapping the protective arm away. He felt his temper flaring, so he closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply for a moment. “…sorry. I just…I could have stopped them.”

“Doubtful,” the shinobi countered, now turning back and allowing Inpei to look down into the grave with him. “If they’re skilled enough to infiltrate the village without altering anyone and then steal these organs, they’d probably be more than capable of dealing with you. Count yourself lucky, kid.”

“Who said they infiltrated?” Inpei responded, looking back to the shinobi. He could feel himself shaking. “Could it have been someone already inside the village?”

“Hard to tell,” Kuto shrugged. She regarded the body with a practiced guy, taking in all the details from the same angle that Inpei initially had. “Safe to assume foreign interference, but I suppose it could have been a black-market merchant or someone like that. Do you remember seeing people around here?”

Inpei stepped away, crossing his arms and bowing his head as he thought back. “There was a man who was sharing a drink with one of the graves…a woman leaving flowers…a couple visiting their child…that’s everyone that I saw.”

“Well, could have been any of them,’ Kuto responded. She was bent down around the grave, one hand on the ground as she investigated the area around the grave. “These footprints are probably yours – I don’t see any others. More to my theory than yours, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe,” Inpei responded, pacing as he thought. “There’s got to be some sign of…something.”

“Stop that,” Kuto snapped. Inpei stopped abruptly. “Look, I understand you’re upset – but I have to investigate to try and find out who took these organs and you pacing is not going to help that.”

Inpei nodded sadly. “I’ll…I’ll get out of your way,” He began making his way out of the cemetery.

Kuto sighed before speaking again. “Kid, wait,” she said, standing back up and turning towards him. “When my investigation is done, the village is going to want to find out who’s doing it. There’ll be another mission – one to try and find out who’s doing this. That’ll be your moment.”

Inpei thought about that for a moment before he nodded his head. “Can you let me know when you file your support?”

Kuto looked back at him for a moment before she smiled. “Sure, kid.”

--

Inpei was frustrated. How could he have let his happen? He was in the graveyard, toiling away thinking about the future of the village. All the while, that same village was being ransacked by some inhuman bastard. He actually hoped that Kuto was correct and that it WAS some foreign shinobi that had slipped by undetected – and not just because that would mean they had the skill to sneak by Inpei.

The most terrifying thing to Inpei was that someone could defile a ninja of their village in such a way. That they could break into a graveyard – a place of rest for the long departed that had laid down their lives to defend the village – and cut the organs from the very people that had died to protect them like they were their own family.

Inpei absently walked through the village, not really thinking about where he was going. Eventually, he found himself at his own home. He stepped inside and saw his mom waiting for him. She had been asleep on the couch, but as he entered, she woke up. “Welcome back, Inpei,” she said rubbing her eyes and smiling. When she got a clear look at him, her smile fell. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Inpei didn’t say anything – he couldn’t bring himself to. He stood in the doorway, his jaw clenched as tightly as his fists. He didn’t know how to bring himself to even tell her what he was thinking or what he’d seen. Wordlessly, Inpei’s mother stood and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around him. Inpei hugged her back, resting his head on her shoulder.

As much as he thought of himself as an adult, it was moments like this where he remembered that he was only a child. Most of them were – children fighting for a village that didn’t have the adults to do so in their place. Inpei was the latest one to join those ranks hoping they’d be able to make a difference that would make things better for the kids that came after him.

He and his mother stayed like that for a while before they headed to bed. Inpei’s course was set, though – as soon as Kuto finished her investigation, he would do everything he could to find who had dug up his fellow shinobi and stole their organs – no matter where that might lead him.

[End]

WC: 2010

374 into Leaf Whirlwind. The other 1636 will be going into Swamp of the Underworld.

Stat-wise, I'm looking at +6 SP into Strength, +10 SP into Speed, and +4 SP into Vigor.

4000 Ryo / 20 AP for mission completion.

approved