The thrill of the hunt

An eerie skin crawling scream pierced the absolute silence of the night. The sound sank fear deep into his heart and panic high into the chest of Miyamoto Terumi.  He shuddered involuntarily. There was something out there...something moving about in the cool night. His heart was beating so fast and loud that he thought it would give away his position in the trees, holding absolutely still that even the young man thought that he might suffocate for breathing so quietly. Another slicing razor edged scream jolted through his ears, causing Miyamoto to shudder. He could hear it clearly now. A muffled crunching and ticking moving about in the night. He wanted to be gone and did not want to be there, so how was it that his life had led him to this exact moment? When did this incident become inevitable? What choice did he make that had put him in this creature's path?  “Dammit”  He thought, it would not be long before he would need to answer that fight or flight trigger that was blaring like an alarm in his head.

He could tell that it was near. It was too black to see anything, but he could feel it, even while suppressing his chakra, all he could sense was a large creeping...thing and it was very very close, the stench of the damned thing was putrid and the urge to vomit began to rise in his throat. Miyamoto honestly thought he might black out, he felt hot all over and the sound of his heart rang loudly in his ears, as if it were pounding out the last minutes of his life, one deafening beat after another. The icy night wind blew across the shinobi, and with it...that once mentioned unfamiliar and horrifying smell. Honestly...he couldn't describe it accurately...for If he was to say it smelled like death...one would most definitely get the wrong impression. It didn’t smell like rotting meat or decay. It smelled as if the essence of death had been distilled down to one smell. It was mild almost, like water, but so god forsakenly horrible. It made Miyamoto feel like he was already stepping through that doorway to the other world. It made him feel weak and afraid and full of nothing. It sapped the will from his soul; what was the point of all of this if he was already dead? That smell was the worst thing that has ever happened to him...and the young man had seen the most horrifying things a boy should never have to endure. Silent tears crept down his cheeks and he struggled to keep his breathing silent. He felt like he was drowning in the cool night because he couldn’t take a full breath. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!” He thought in a panic. He wanted this to end. This awful waiting and wondering if he would make it till morning. He wanted it to stop. 

---

Movement...A chance to escape and hide again…

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Another shriek moved through the air above the young shinobi. It sounded like a whisper now, and Miyamoto hated that more. It was so quiet that his straining ears thought they had imagined it. he pressed his back to the boulder that he was now hiding behind. The hard stone felt like it was no protection at all, surely a creature who breathed death would not be stopped by a boulder. For that matter, what hope did he really have of staying hidden? Whatever was out there was going to find him eventually, that was certain. He held absolutely still and did not breathe. His blood pulsed through him at a frantic pace. His hot skin burned in the cool night wind. The sound happened again, and Miyamoto could tell it had only left from the place of its origin moments before. It was fresh, and close, and accompanied by that awful smell of death. The beating of his heart became high and light, pounding away in my throat once again and his body screamed for air. The adrenaline inside of him was frantic to get out, his panic tearing around inside of him like a beast ready to be freed from its cage. The young shinobi could feel all of his limbs buzzing, his seemingly distant hands shook. The whisper of the scream oozed, like hot oil being poured into cool water, passing through the air above him again. Miyamoto thought his body might combust from the fear raging within it. Death trickled over him, like the drool of the beast that had cornered him here in the Reserve. 

IHe made his choice...he ran. He pushed his body, so much harder and faster than what he thought he could do. His body took control as he snapped, his feet were scrabbling forward before his mind even completely figured out what was happening. The darkness rushed forward to greet him in a cold embrace. He scrambled over everything that the shinobi encountered, boulders and rocks and low spiky bushes, sliding under branches and stepping into the muddy water. Yet the shinobi felt nothing, he could have broken his leg and not have noticed, nothing was going to stop him from getting away. 

There it was...he could hear the loping stride of the thing behind him. Miyamoto could hear its clicking breath, he swore it was right behind him...

It was then that he screamed– no, he shrieked. He couldn't help it, the boiling red-hot panic inside of him needed to get out, that release. Miyamoto had returned to something deeply primal, his brain and body moving in perfect sync, he remembered when he was being hunted in the Amegakure ruins. He flew over the rough night-covered landscape...he was not going to die here, he needed to survive. The eerie skin crawling sound of the thing sliced the air behind his body. Letting out a panicked hysterical gasp,  hurtling himself madly through the blackness before him. 

Except that it wasn’t black anymore, there in the distance lay a single glowing windowpane. It was as if the gates of heaven itself had come to deliver Miyamoto from the evil that followed him. A jolt of relief flooded through him followed by a strong redoubled panic. He just had to get there, nothing would stop his charge.  He ran crazily through the night...the thing was gaining on him. Its crunching steps drew nearer and nearer and nearer. He was breathing hard now, his lungs were on fire and adrenaline and panic were the only things keeping Miyamoto from losing himself...to continue going through this torture. 

The light drew closer. He was almost there!

“Help!!!” He screamed wildly, “Help me!! Open the door!!” A blossoming rectangle of light opened in front of the young shinobi, a young man dressed in a crisp uniform partially blocked the doorway. Miyamoto saw the homeowner’s face contort with horror as the light from inside illuminated the thing behind Miyamoto. 

“Quickly!” The man yelled, stepping aside. Miyamoto never moved faster in his life than at that moment. He hurtled frantically through the open door, somersaulting on from the dirt and onto the wood as the man slammed the damned door behind him.  THat was when they both heard the creature skitter to a halt. It let out another of its mind ripping shrieks, and the two of them could hear it gently butting at the door, In a sense...he could almost feel its mind busily working, trying to figure out how to get in. The adrenaline began to slow, and the fear filled shinobi collapsed on the ground and burst into hysterics. Tears flowed from his eyes as the breaths came in great gasping sobs. 

A single shot echoed off the walls. The soft tapping on the door stopped, and a strong hand touched my shoulder. 

It was time to face this creature, pushing his chakra into his body to heal whatever aches he had brought onto himself...he was given a simple set of kunai as the homeowner wielded a wicked looking sword.  The two prepared as the creature broke through the walls of the home, which before the creature did what it did...Miyamoto was actually able to see that whoever this man was, he was an avid hunter and lived on the land itself and depended on it for support.  “Stand and fight, we will not have another chance to do so and there is nowhere else to run boy.”  THe man said, and in a moment...the heartbeat of the two humans slowed as they felt ice run through their veins...The creature stared at the two of them, a bloodlust in its eyes and a predatory smile crossed its twisted snout.  A seven foot tall, large mutated bear had somehow made its way into the Tachibana wildlife reserve and now that it had found its latest prey...the killing machine was about to do what it did best.

---

Miyamoto Terumi was the only one that walked away from the hunters house as the sun rose...the ashes that were left had already been moved away with the earth as the Terumi warrior used his chakra natures to finish what was started...a simple training mission that took him onto the brink of his physical and mental capabilities...being hunted by bandits, creatures, and the shadows of his past was a exhausting task...and once again the blood of an innocent stained his hands...but he still remembered the hunter’s last words before he was destroyed by the creature that had barged into his home.  “If you fight, fight for what you believe in, not for what you are told.”  The simple advice left an imprint on the young shinobi’s heart as he stumbled away and out into a clearing.  His body collapsed from overexhaustion, he did not have the strength to continue on...and he was asleep, if anyone were to see him they might mistake him for a body unless personally examined.  His dreams were haunted by the faces of the dead, the faces of those that hunted him, and the fresh hell that was the creature that he had killed.  The kunai shoved into the death machine’s key points before finally unleashing all purifying terumi style lava with no intent on stopping until it was over.

The young Chuunin did finally wake up, much to his own chagrin as the morning dew slid down his face.  He slept for an entire day and his body was sore, his muscles felt like multiple places had torn and he had lacerations that were now crusting over, but he knew better...if he was outside for twenty four hours then he would need to regroup and realign himself.  He got into a meditative position; legs crossed as he sat down upon the earth, arms resting on his legs as he took in ten deep breaths, inhaling through his nose, then out of his mouth.  He began to focus on gathering his chakra, taking in natural energy around him...his Terumi, Jugo, and even Senju chakra natures were all starting to fill up as he went over his current wounds inside of his head.  He wanted to make sure he was able to get himself mended and back to fighting shape as soon as possible  “The body is like a cup, filling it with the necessary chakra to move throughout the chakra nodes inside of my body...finding the damaged nodes, reactivating them and starting the healing process.  My body is a vessel, Chakra is the fuel.  My body is a vessel, Chakra is the fuel.”  He repeated the mantra over and over as he felt the warmth of his chakra begin to spread through the gates...putting his focus on the healing gate, the place in which chakra becomes suitable for moving and starting the healing.  “Four cuts, 2 broken ribs...achilles tendon is pulled, muscles in knee are damaged, and shoulder blades are worn...This is going to take a while.”  He said as he began to focus his energy through the gate and then through his body.  Slowly the cells began to fill with the life energy, and his bones began to be enriched by his chakra.

After another twelve hours he finally felt his body was back to at least operating level...his inner soul and energy cultivation had reached a new level...he felt more at home healing himself now than he had ever done before.  “I should look for something to eat...I do not wish to return home just yet after all...I must make sure that my own needs are met and I do not wish to betray the words of the hunter that sacrificed himself...so that I could go on.”  He wrung his hands and was nervous for a moment before finally standing up and stretching.  Breathing deeply, his lungs activated and he felt his body enriched with nutrients from the world around him before he took off, back up into the trees so he could hunt from above.  

He watched for a few minutes, keeping his movements to a minimum, the creatures of the wildlife reserve were scarce for the moment, due to that damned creature, but he DID manage to find a wild boar...nature’s most stubborn occurrences and he looked around for a way to fashion a weapon but without making a lot of noise...he was left with just a simple option...to use his damn jutsu to do so.  Performing the hand seals needed, he used the knack for hard work jutsu and created a small bullet from his volcanic sweat and shot it off like a damn gun at the boar’s head.  It was barely a minute later when the squeal of the boar could be heard in the air and then...silence.  “Looks like I have to collect my food.”  He grinned before hopping down from the tree and then landing on the forest floor and taking off like a bolt towards the downed boar.  Once he arrived he made a quick fire and began to clean his kill.  The warm blood on his hands felt...when he was living in the ruins once again...it made him stiffen for a moment and breathe harder, cut deeper until he nicked himself on a piece of bone.  “FUCKER!”  He roared, his chakra rose up and he prepared himself to cast yet another jutsu...but he did not...instead he just took a deep breath and continued as the throbbing pain in his finger reminded him that he was alive and in the here and now...not twenty four hours ago when he was being hunted...not months ago when he went to Amegakure with his family to escape...not 14 years ago when he was escaping that same home to come to Hoshigakure as a refuge and...he had evolved.  

After three hours he had managed to cook and eat most of the meat that was available to him, and now animals had begun to approach him, his jugo bloodline, making him one with nature...the animals did not see him as a threat and eventually when the normal bears arrived and wolves...he left the remainder of the boar to them and left the area after putting out the flames.  He traveled for four more hours to the edge of the reserve, near the border and nowhere near humanity.  This...this was his goal the entire time he was in the reserve.  He breathed in the cool air and felt his body full of energy before he began to practice the hand seals for Empty Disaster, focusing the chakra needed for the jutsu.  When he had been told to learn it from Ayato he took it worth a grain of not needed salt, but still he knew after a while he would need a technique that could render even the most powerful of enemies demoralized when he was on the field...he was the herald of death in Hoshigakure afterall and that reputation was hard to keep up with...without the proper tools to do so.  It did not take him long to do so as he felt the earth around him begin to twist and churn around him as if the energy was making it wither...a likely side effect of the Jugo DNA, with his feet firmly planted in the earth he was wanting to release the technique at its full strength, but from all that he read through the scroll...this technique was deadly and often considered as a battle ender...a finisher.  “Good, good...finally it is all coming together now for me.”  He said before stretching once more and feeling joints pop he focused more chakra into his body until he felt himself reach that peak.  Smoke began to roll from his mouth and he had a sickening smile on his face that showed exactly what the youth was thinking…

A breakthrough.

After achieving what he came to the wildlife reserve for...he returned to the training grounds by nightfall...still covered in blood and then soon back to his own home.  Where he stripped, showered, and then collapsed into his bed and looked up at the ceiling.  The next step in his journey was to learn how to effectively use weaponry so that he would have yet another avenue to exploit in protection of the village and all of its inhabitants...hopefully though Ayato won’t have him doing meaningless tasks like leading a damn squad again or signing up to do border patrols again...he was happy to make the shinobi of the village stronger, but he did not want to waste his time...perhaps he could make them attack dummies made out of food or some other dumbass task.  He could make them break into Ayato’s house and steal some of his things though as a prank...that would be both funny for him...and a learning experience for the Genin...if that was to happen.


WC:3,015

[EXIT]

Claiming:  Queens Gambit 1,500/1,500 Max Stat Discount
Empty Disaster 1,328 WC towards finishing learning the Jutsu
Banking remaining WC: 187

If Queens Gambit is approved, changing clan spec to Med. which opens up a spec slot for Miyamoto

Was informed I can’t bank wc. So disregard that last part

Approved