They did the Mash [P, Solo]

They did the Mash

Zaibatsu was currently in the nightmare realm village, Yugakure with no real recollection on how he got here. He had just woken up in a bed that was unfamiliar to him, but as he started to orient himself, he started remembering bits and pieces of why he was here. It was more of the village giving him a reason and that he was asleep, but he had no idea what was happening, so he just went with it. It was sort of like being in a dream, since most of the time you did not really question why certain things were happening or contemplate on the reasons behind them. Zaibatsu knew that he had to go somewhere that was nearby, which was a graveyard, and potentially meet another person that was there. He did not really have any other information about it currently, so he was just going to do what he was told and head over there. As he was walking out of the apartment and onto the streets, it seemed that the people there were giving him strange looks. He was used to getting strange looks from people, but this was mostly due to his hulking size and his inability to find a shirt that could fit him, as he walked around shirtless all the time. These stares were different, however, as they seemed like they were trying to tell Zaibatsu to go away. They seemed to be a bit weirded out that he was even there, and after the initial surprise was simple and unhidden contempt. Zaibatsu ignored them all of course, but it was still sort of annoying seeing everyone give him those looks as he simply walked towards his destination. He had no clue about the direction he should be going, however, and soon he would have to pull someone aside and ask them, and he decided that now was as good a time as any. He found the first person that gave him that contemptuous look but also had a stupid looking face and decided to head towards them.

As he got closer, it seemed that the man grossly overestimated how tall and imposing Zaibatsu looked up close, and so it seemed that he could not help but stumble backwards a bit and stutter. “W-w-whatchu want feller?” the man almost yelled out, his voice cracking slightly from nervousness. Zaibatsu simply looked down at the man who was easily three feet shorter than he himself was, before smiling in a disconcerting manner. “Where’s the graveyard?” Zaibatsu flatly stated to the man in a manner where you would not think it was a question, but a command. That was simply Zaibatsu’s deep and powerful voice at play, as well as his experience in a mercenary corps. He did not know how to talk normally to people, and definitely did not know how to talk to people in a way that would make them feel safe and comfortable, or to empathize with them. He was who he was, and who he was was rather abrasive, to say the least. The man simply pointed in a direction, and Zaibatsu immediately started walking over there, leaving the middle aged man dumbfounded as he looked around, as if he was wondering if that was it, or if someone else was going to come and tell him what had just happened. When nothing happened for about twenty seconds, he scampered off somewhere and never looked back. Zaibatsu started walking over to the area he was supposed to be, and soon he found himself in front of a large square of piled up cobblestones. In the middle of this square was some sort of arched wrought iron gate. The gate was slightly ajar, the wind outside swinging it back and forth slightly, creaking it and making a fairly creepy atmosphere. No one was around here, or at least it seemed that way in the beginning, and so Zaibatsu simply grabbed the gate and swung it open. The creaky gate seemed like it would get ripped off its hinges instantly if Zaibatsu applied even a bit more pressure, as his normal for opening a door was a bit too much for it, it seemed.

Zaibatsu stepped into the graveyard, and immediately an emaciated old man appeared there, and Zaibatsu wondered where he came from, as there was no indication that he was there a moment ago, and there were only tombstones and crypts to block the view, but that was pretty far away. It was as if the old man appeared out of nowhere in front of him. Zaibatsu looked at the old man, but the old man just stared vacantly into the distance for a bit, before he started speaking. “The second guest of the evening eh? If you need help finding anything, or anyone in particular, feel free to come and find me.” The old man shakily said, as if a stiff breeze would knock him over. He was holding onto a shovel as if his life depended on it and using it as a walking stick. Zaibatsu simply nodded before heading into the graveyard proper. Soon, he was pretty far away from the entrance, looking for the other person that was supposed to be there, but as he was looking, he saw something strange. It seemed that a large number of strange… creatures were seemingly dancing around in a circle surrounding a fire. The creatures involved were not doing much but dancing, but were very off putting, and Zaibatsu somehow figured out that he needed to make sure they stopped dancing, permanently. This was for the mission he was supposed to do, apparently, and Zaibatsu would never pass up a chance to scrap, so he decided to just rush into them and start punching, as was his M.O. As soon as he punched a creature it seemed to dissipate in a strange grey smoke that fluttered into the fire, but this did not stop the others from dancing. A couple of moments later of the wild and berserk type of fighting Zaibatsu was doing, all of the strange creatures were vanquished, and a strange little tune played from the fire. The fire then swelled a bit, before instantly extinguishing itself along with the jingle. The old man that was the grave keeper from earlier came over and thanked Zaibatsu before handing him an envelope, saying that it was payment for tonight’s good work. Zaibatsu then turned to the man, asking him a question. "Are there any other strange occurrences like this in the graveyard?" Zaibatsu looked at the man with a more pensive face.

These creatures were easy to destroy, but if it was anything like the normal horror movie vibe that this area was giving off, then the creatures would simply respawn after a while, and he would be stuck going around in circles dealing with all of them. He did not really want to stay here for longer than he had to, so the answer to the question was pretty important to him right now. "Well yes, the undead do this every once in a while. It's terrible too, they go out and catch people to kill them and make them a skeleton, like them." The grave keeper did not look very scared or anything at that insinuation, something that Zaibatsu felt was very suspicious. All of the people in this town were pretty damned suspicious, and he still had yet to see any form of ninja here, although the area called themselves a ninja village. It was of no wonder that this village had so many strange problems, there was a distinct absence of ninja here that could actually solve it. This meant that crime and other underhanded things, or in this case, creepy phenomena, happened a lot. This place sucked, and Zaibatsu wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. The old grave keeper had told him that there were other little congregations of creatures around the graveyard, mostly skeletons apparently, and they wanted to eventually drag people here so that they could strip their flesh and release the skeleton inside of them, who would also dance with them forever. It was pretty damned dark, but Zaibatsu had a morbid curiosity about it, wondering if the skeleton remembered anything, or if it was just another mindless undead that was bent on doing something pre-programmed.

Still, Zaibatsu felt that he needed to hurry up, just in case the situation that he had feared would come to pass, and the undead that he had destroyed here would raise themselves back from the… dead? Undead? He wasn’t sure, but there was something he was sure about, and that was that he needed to go and wipe all of the undead here in this graveyard. Zaibatsu walked back up to the old man grave keeper to get him to tell him the overall layout of this graveyard. He knew that most graveyards were all large squares for the most part, but it would not hurt to know the exact layout of this particular graveyard, and he wanted to know if the keeper knew where he could find the most activity of these strange dancing demons. “Yo old man, is this graveyard just a large square? Also, where should I go if I want to stop more of these damned skeletons?” Zaibatsu was not the most courteous man, but he was currently trying his best. He was just not so used to being like that, so his courteousness came out as rather rushed and rough to others. The grave keeper did not seem to mind at all though, and simply started pointing in directions. After he pointed in four directions, he started slowly speaking again, seemingly not caring about any of this, as if it was a normal occurrence.

“Yes, there are usually five of these little… festivals every full moon.” Zaibatsu simply nodded, and although the old man’s directions were not good at all, he would just go in a straight line until he found one of these congregations, crush them all, and then come back. It should be fine to make it back to where he was if he followed the straight line, after all. He decided to set off, because as much as he liked the old man, which he did not really, he wanted to get out of this dump. It smelled weird and the people were garbage and too easily prejudiced against others, especially one as large and strange looking as Zaibatsu. He was a man with tanned skin and he even had horns, so it was strange that they had yet to chase him out of town using pitchforks at this point. Zaibatsu hurried to one of the locations, immediately seeing some manner of dancing, and quickly crushed all of the skeletons. There were also some strange looking humanoid wolves that reminded him of werewolves, but in all of the stories and art he had seen werewolves in, they were large and scary. These things seemed to be were-dogs or something, as they were small. After crushing a few of these congregations, there seemed to only be one left, and it had taken quite a while. This one however, had some sort of person in the center of the congregation, tied to some sort of post as a couple of the skeletons were slicing off hunks of his flesh to get to the bone. They were doing this every so often, waiting for a beat that only they could hear, but Zaibatsu immediately went over there to crush them. He was not really caring about the safety of the man in the center, whose screams you could hear through his cloth gag, but it was going to be a good by product of crushing them. As he rushed the skeletons, the ones with the blades turned and went to stab him, surprising Zaibatsu with how they were actually able to leave marks on his skin. He was abnormally tough, so it was indeed surprising.

This did nothing to deter or stop him, so soon the skeletons and other strange creatures were reduced to a fine dust and mush. Zaibatsu decided to release the man, and as soon as he did, he woke up in his bed, even though he was sure he was in a graveyard a few seconds ago. He shrugged it off before realizing he had a sack of ryo near his bed that was not there the night prior. Zaibatsu then simply got up and stretched, feeling a bit tired even though he had just woken up, making it seem like that was not a simple dream.


EXIT
WC: 2118/2000
Claiming 4100 ryo from mission and genin
Claiming 20 ap
Claiming 6 event tickets
Using 646 words to complete B rank Jotun Grip - Previous Training
Using 1472 words towards B rank Tank 1472/1750
Claiming 21 Chakra

Approved