The Reforging

As the dust and smoke cleared, the full extent of the damage became apparent. What was once a tall albeit worn older building was now a chaotic scene of twisted metal, shattered glass, and rubble. Fires burned out of control throughout the remnants of the construction, filling the air with thick black smoke and the smell of burning.


The night was late as Kali sat atop the village wall, as the youngest member of the city guard she was often stuck with the least popular shifts, tonight she would have much rathered be relaxing at the festival, or curled up in bed with a nice book, or even training in the village’s training grounds, unlike many of the city guard’s she aspired to more than the simple life of a guard protecting some minor town

She had been working hard for years to become a ninja like her idol, a traveling warrior who had once ruled over the land of fire, every morning she would train to sharpen her senses, to awaken her chakra and strengthen herself as the man had once shown her… but without the proper training of a ninja she was left to her own devices, doing what little she could to emulate the techniques that she had only seen briefly as a child. All the same she fought to grow stronger, to embody the will of fire that she had been shown and to become one who could protect her comrades even as she stretched her wings and flew from this nest; and todays training session had been a particularly grueling one. She had pushed herself to her limits, testing her skills and endurance in an ever growing sequence of katas, and challenging exercises to prepare her for a coming tournament in a neighboring village. Kali was exhausted, but even so she would not shirk her duty, she stood stalwart against the night, her eyes calmly scanning the trees that surrounded the village in the distance, searching for any signs of someone trying to sneak their way into the village, but as expected there was none; there were far better ways to sneak into a village like her’s than under the cover of night and she knew that just as much as her superiors, she was here to alleviate the fears of the townspeople more than to serve as a true line of protection for the village, at least that is what she thought before she saw a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye.

Suddenly, just as she was turning to look for the source of the movement a loud bang echoed through the village, followed by the sound of screams and alarms; a moment later a wave of rippling force through her off her feet, her mind barely registering enough for her to catch herself on one of the rough parapets that lined the wall before she fell off the side, she breathed a sigh of relief, straining her muscles as she pushed herself up from the unbalanced and precarious position as she looked around, a massive plume of smoke rose up into the air in the distance, a silver blue barrier of flames visible for a moment as the wind blew the smoke aside. Crows circled the towering spire of blackness as if vultures waiting for their carrion and Kali could feel nothing but a bone deep dread fill her heart.


Akira made his way through the crowded festival grounds. He could hear the cheerful sounds of laughter and music all around him, and the air was filled with the mouthwatering scents of grilled yakitori and steaming bowls of ramen.

As he walked, Akira caught glimpses of people enjoying themselves in all sorts of ways. Some were dancing along to the traditional taiko drumming on stage, while others were admiring the intricate lanterns that hung from the trees. He saw families enjoying cold cups of sake and cups of ice cream, and groups of friends taking pictures with the new ‘camera’s’ that had been imported from the village of Tanbogakure, in front of the colorful banners and flags that adorned the buildings.

Meandering through the festival, enjoying the sounds and merriment, Akira eventually made his way to the food stalls and ordered himself a hearty bowl of udon noodles, one of his favorites though one that he only ever allowed himself as a treat during festivals. He found a spot on a nearby bench and watched as people of all ages walked by, their faces lighting up with excitement and joy at the various wonders the festival offered them. He took a bite of his noodles and savored the savory, warm flavor, feeling grateful to be able to experience the lively atmosphere of the festival as he enjoyed this brief respite from the stress of his daily life.

Suddenly, just as Akira finished his noodles, without any warning, there was a loud explosion that rocked the festival grounds. People screamed and scattered in all directions, some of them falling to the ground in fear. Akira felt the ground beneath his feet shake with the fury of an angry god and saw a huge plume of smoke and debris rise into the air in the distance.

For a moment, everything was chaos and confusion. People were running and shouting, he could hear an echoing screeching cry like a bird of prey feeling its prey fall into its clutches, and above it all the sound of the explosion echoed through the air. Akira looked around, trying to make sense of what was happening, and what stood out to him the most was that one of the food stalls had been completely destroyed, the wonderful stall that produced his udon noodles, the one treat he allowed himself, lay ruined and overturned as people ran past, fleeing from the direction of the smoke as fear gripped their hearts.

Akira stepped back, taking cover in the shadow of a doorway as he tried his best not to be trampled by the panicked crowd barreling against him, seeing that fate befall the vendor who had just so recently sold him his noodles. Akira could feel a surge of fear and concern as he realized the seriousness of the situation, but there was nothing he could do, as the festival, which had been a place of joy and celebration just moments before, was now filled with panic and destruction. He didn't know what had caused the explosion, but he knew that it would forever change the way he thought of the festival.

These scenes and many like them played out across the village, as terror gripped the hearts of the villagers; though the few explosives that hadn’t been found and deactivated throughout the night still detonated no one was injured by them directly, the efforts of the city guard with the assistance Rin had provided minimising the physical damage to the village, but that had never been his goal

From the shadows, the villain, known only as the Raven King, watched as the explosion rocked the festival grounds through the eyes of his many spies. He had been waiting for this moment for weeks, and now he could see the chaos and destruction that he had caused. People were running and screaming, and he could hear the sound of panicked guards approaching in the distance.

The Raven King allowed himself a satisfied smile as he watched those few first responders rush to the scene. He knew that they would never be able to trace the explosion back to him. He had been careful to cover his tracks, and he had planned the attack down to the smallest detail, the explosives looked like they were created by a bumbling fool and even if they managed to work out they had been created with a modicum of intelligence they would find the trail leading them to a scapegoat he had prepared well in advance.

The Raven King watched with a cold sense of excitement and power as he watched the havoc he had caused unfold; this was just the beginning. He had bigger plans in store, and he was eager to see them come to fruition. He would continue to operate in the shadows, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike again. And when he did, the world would tremble at the power of his wrath; As the smoke cleared, he could see the extent of the damage. The village itself was relatively unscathed, that blasted woman having rendered much of the seals he had prepared inert, but the damage to the village was only a secondary goal for him, no his goal here was terror, to spread fear and mistrust amongst the townsfolk, and prime them for what came next, it would take many years before these plans came to their true fruition but he had time, and when his plot finally flowered he would be left with this entire country as his own personal plaything. The shadowy figure chuckled to itself as it turned to leave, not a soul would notice the faint touch of his will upon the events that would begin unfolding here.

Rin awoke to the sounds of distant screaming, her throat felt horse and worn, like she had been breathing in smoke for hours and all she could smell was smoke. Her mind felt fuzzy and slow, her thoughts running away on their own as if pulled in many directions by a will other than her own… She felt a voice calling for her… at least she thought it was calling for her, she could feel something on her side, like a light pressure, but it paled in comparison to something else, there was a dull ache within her spiritual body, like she had eaten far far too much… she really should look and find out what that feeling was, but… it felt like such effort. Rin wanted to just roll over and go back to sleep but she couldn’t help shake the feeling there was something important she was missing, and that voice kept calling her, something or someone kept shaking her, and most importantly that mild discomfort, the feeling of being overfull just kept growing, eventually she had no choice but to give in and deal with the distractions, even as her mind screamed at her that she needed to rest.

Still half asleep she opened her spiritual senses first, turning her gaze inwards and looking for what was causing her such discomfort, and what she saw was like being drenched in a bucket of ice water, her mind reeled, its gears turning as it tried to process what she was seeing. Her shattered star core, which had been a small star was now thrumming with power, like a sun it blazed power and all around it more power flowed filling her to the brim, everywhere she looked her chakra channels were filled to bursting with power; she could already feel cracks starting to form in those pathways, the source of the pain she was feeling, and through it all she could feel more power still flooding into her in droves. It felt like fire, filling her with the power of a blazing bonfire, it thrummed within her, the pleasant charge of electricity darting through her pathways at an insane speed, it felt like a torrential storm of wind; and she couldn’t contain it all she could do was desperately look for a way to put it to use; some way to vent it before it could shatter her pathways and ruin the beginnings of spiritual recovery that she had managed; but she couldn’t focus. She moved to vent the chakra into a fire technique, but her spirit rebelled, part of her mind pushing her chakra in the pattern for a Great fire annihilation technique whilst another part attempted to push her chakra in the pattern for the lightning illusion flash pillar, meanwhile the roiling sun of power within her continued to drink down the chakra it could in droves, the Sun growing brighter and brighter as it grew, its spiritual weight feeling heavier and heavier on her soul. She tried to switch techniques, shifting from the great fire annihilation technique to the lightning illusion flash pillar technique but as she did so that other part of her mind switched to the tree binding death technique. Rin switched again, and again her spirit refused to obey her, the bulging pressure within her chakra pathways only getting worse as it began to take on aspects of her chakra from being cycled in such obscure ways without being released, and Rin was fast reaching her breaking point. With one final push Rin did the only thing she could do. She lent on the long years of ingraining the use of her spiritual chakra into genjutsu, she pushed as much of her chakra as she could through the meridian she had most infused with the Yin aspect and, converting as much of the elemental energy raging within her to the element she pushed it out of her in a roiling wave of spiritual energy.



Zach panted as he rushed through the streets, the last of the talisman’s the odd woman had given him clutched in his fist, the rest of the guard he had been able to assemble on such short notice had done their jobs, each taking a portion of the talismans and scattering to the various locations they had identified explosives had been hidden, personally he’d been run ragged before this whole fiasco, the town’s guard was grossly understaffed and the budget had been cut over and over again as the towns revolving door of mayors kept looking for budgets to cut in order to fund their campaign promises, this blasted festival was just one in a revolving series of festivals thrown by politicians seeking to buy the populace’s vote with frivolous wastes of tax payer funds, and it was men like him that were paying the price.

Zach rounded the corner of the dark shadowed alleyway that held the last of the explosives; panting and sweating from the exertion of running all over the city neutralizing these blasted explosives he barely managed to stagger up to the wall, his hand trailing along the posters as he felt for some outlier or marking that would show him where the last paper bomb was hidden; unlike many of the other explosives this one proved far more well hidden than its kin, which in the end may have been what saved Zach’s life, moving past the seal’s hiding place he trailed his hand all the way along the alley’s wall before reaching the alleyway’s exit. “Must have missed the blasted thing on the first pass” he grunted, stumbling around tiredly to head back down the alleyway and take a second look for the hidden explosive. It was only because he had reached the other end of the alleyway and was a few meters from the seal that he had any warning at all as a near invisible pulse of chakra flowed through the village streets, a poster half way down the alleyway beginning to glow with power as the seal behind it began charging its payload. Zach spun around dashing for the nearest cover he could see, a small alleyway angled to run parallel to that of the alleyway with the hidden explosive, he dived for it as soon as it came within reach, just as he heard the explosion detonate behind him. The ground shook and a deafening boom echoed through the air, sending a shockwave rippling through the surrounding streets. A bright flash illuminated the darkness and blinded Zach for a moment even as the alley he lay huddled within sheltered him from the worst of it. All of this was followed by a thick cloud of smoke and debris that rained down on the street outside. It took a moment for things to calm, and a moment longer for the ringing in Zach’s ears to fade enough that he was able to leaver himself off the ground and to a sitting position. Tentatively turning his head to look out the alleyway he was shocked at the damage a single explosive had done; even from here he could tell the damage was not insignificant in the slightest, the powerful explosive having wreaked far more damage than they had ever thought possible.

Pushing himself awkwardly to his feet Zach limped out the alleyway, assessing the damage, the explosion had sent shards of shrapnel flying in all directions, tearing through anything in their path. The force of the blast had been enough to knock over boxes and strew the street with debris, but worst of all where the alleyway and the buildings that had made them up once stood the explosive had left nothing but a crater in the ground. Zach’s soul trembled at the carnage and callous disregard for human life, those buildings had not simply housed businesses, he knew for a fact that they housed some of the cities poorest, he had spent many hours here wrangling the burgeoning street urchins of the cities more disenfranchised families and those buildings had housed more than a few of those families; now much of the buildings had been reduced to powder, vaporized in a flash of power and not even given the dignity of leaving some small mark of their existence behind, but for all that indignity perhaps they had been the lucky ones for the upper levels of the buildings had not been so lucky; their foundations reduced to powder in an instant, any support stolen out from under them the remaining construction had collapsed in an instant, explosive force reducing them to rubble even as gravity tried to pull them down, everywhere Zach turned he could see stray limbs, broken bodies, torn and sundered families. Under one piece of rubble he glimpsed the head of the Akura families youngest child’s cot, under another the Shou families eldest child’s arm peaked out, what little was left of her body sheltering what could only be the body of her youngest sister from the debris that had collapsed atop them; he could tell from here, even with such a noble sacrifice, neither had survived in the end, their wounds had been too great, they each bled from a hundred different locations, and that was when the smell hit him, sulfur and iron, and copper, the scent of blood hung heavy in the air and even as his ears rung with the aftermath of the explosion he could tell there would be panicked voices in the distance, but what worried him most was the woman who had been assisting them, he had just sent her off to the old demolition site with piles upon piles of these explosives, no matter how powerful she was if one explosive could do this… she was in grave danger, if she wasn’t already dead then he needed to help her.


Zach looked up as a group of the guards he had recruited to assist with clearing out these explosives rounded the corner, looking worn and run ragged from the work of the night many of them looked like they were about ready to pass out on their feet, but they all held a grim look of resolve. Zach stood, stumbling a little as he did so, his sense of balance thrown off from the force of the blast, before stumbling forward to the men. He went to speak but heard nothing; a look of confusion crossing is face, but the men seemed to react, it took a moment for his mind to catch up realising he had made a sound his ears had just been deafened. He tried to speak again, to give the men orders but they just gave him a look of confusion, Zach had never considered how hard it was to speak without hearing what you were saying. Letting out a frustrated grunt Zach gestured to the nearest guard, miming for something to write on. It took the guard more than a moment to realize what he was asking for and a moment longer before he reached into his back pocket, pulling out a small leather bound black notebook and pen.

Zach took them shakily, his hands quivering as he struggled to grip the pen as he scribbled down orders for the men to follow before shoving the notebook back into the hands of its owner and darting off in the direction of the demolition site. The guard to his credit glanced down at the instructions and without a second thought passed them onto the rest of his team, rushing from rubble pile to rubble pile, searching for survivors and putting out the few fires that sputtered in the streets before they could spread.

Zach on the other hand bolted in the direction of the demolition site, his ears still ringing and his breath catching in his chest with every step, thankfully with the night so late few were out in the streets, and with the explosion behind him even fewer were game enough to be heading in the opposite direction to him so he had little trouble moving through the streets at great speed, which unfortunately for the guard meant that he arrived just a few moments too late to warn the woman who had been assisting them, and yet still arrived with enough time to witness the beginnings of the explosive chain reaction that would no doubt reduce the city to rubble. As he rounded the last corner zach could feel that something was deeply wrong, even with no real spiritual sense of his own his untrained senses screamed danger to him, the wind itself blew inwards, towards the demolition site, as if drawn there by some otherworldly force, and as he stared at the site of one of the town’s old decrepit buildings, all he could see was a figure cloaked in black, flying backwards from a brilliantly white light that throbbed with more power than he had ever thought possible, just the sight for an instant almost blinded him and he was forced to look away, covering his eyes from the harsh glare that shot forth and only able to sneak glimpses of what was happening through the corner of his eye.

Zach wasn’t sure if it was the odd angle he was looking at the figure from but tas they flew backwards they almost seemed to blur, splitting into two; zach followed along, trying his best to discern what was happening but watching something move so quickly through the corner of his eye was far beyond Zach’s meager abilities, he was just about to write it off as double vision, no doubt a result of hitting his head during the earlier explosion, or perhaps a result of over exerting himself so thoroughly, when one of the figures blurred and split again, a third figure, identical to its kin splitting off from the others and darting off in another direction. The light had become unbearable at this point, though only a moment had passed the power flowing past zach made his hair stand on end and a primal fear well up in his heart. He turned to run the other way, to try to find some place to hide or take cover, not that it would do any good, the shere power contained here would be more than enough to vaporize the city, wall, buildings and shelter included, but zach couldn’t resist the instinctual need to hide, to spend his last few moments trying to survive… but just as he turned from the light, just as the dread started to settle within his heart, the light faded, not going out entirely, but softening from a harsh, blinding glare to that of a silvery blue light, flickering stronger and weaker, like the ebb and flow of a river. Zach stopped himself, mid run as he turned to catch a glimpse of what had happened, if he were to die here then he would at least see his death coming. But what zach saw was not death, but rather salvation, a brilliant silver white barrier blazed in front of him, the raging energies of the explosion he had witnessed a moment ago thrashing against their captor as they fought furiously against containment, the three figures he had seen before were more visible now, not hidden by blinding white light as they had been before, rather Zach witnessed a figure cloaked in blood red, the woman that had helped so much already, standing against the destruction, Zach had to blink more than a few times before accepting that he was not in fact seeing triple, there were indeed three of the woman standing against the explosion. Zach relaxed a moment, relief flooding his body as the exhaustion of the entire night crashed down upon him in waves, thank goodness she was okay, thank goodness she was powerful enough to contain this destruction, thank goodness they had been fortunate enough to have someone this powerful on hand and thank goodness someone so skilled was willing to help. All these thoughts and more flooded the weary guard's mind as he sank to his knees, tears of pure relief welling up within him. The universe on the other hand must have had other plans, for just as Zach was about to collapse to his back in relief, ready to finally rest, the woman disappeared, first one, in a shimmering light she dissipated into glimmering white and silver light, then another, falling to the ground before bursting into silver blue flames and dissipating to nothing. The last woman stood still a moment longer; the weight of the destruction fully upon her for a moment before she too collapsed, her body falling forward onto the barrier that contained the roiling force that had taken so much from her.

Zach’s heart went cold as he saw a crack start to appear in the silver barrier, first one, then another, and then another, cracks stretching throughout the barrier until it looked like a spiderweb, covering the entirety of the protective force. The tears of relief that had been budding under zach’s eyes dried up as he was overcome with terror once more, his throat went dry as he resigned himself to death. Which is why yet again he was so thoroughly surprised as the silver barrier began to shrink, the cracks within it starting to seal over even as more cracks continued forming. The silver white flames that lapped at the walls of the barrier seemed to flare stronger drawing in energy from within the sphere, and flowing around the barrier, into the woman who lay slumped and unconscious against it; the flames gaining strength even as they were battered by the destructive force barely contained within the barrier. Still the barrier confined to shrink, slowly but surely gaining ground against the chaotic forces within. Growing smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until all that was left was a tiny sphere no larger than a marble, glowing a brilliant white, silver and blue, looking as though it contained the fires of both heaven and hell within.

The sphere sat there, floating in space for a moment longer before dropping to the ground, the flames within rippling in response to the force as their container hit the ground. Zach could do little but collapse to the ground in relief, almost blacking out for a moment before, taking a deep breath and recovering his will, he pushed himself up and rushed over to the figure lying upon the ground


When Rin came to the first thing she felt was an aching headache that throbbed through every fibre of her being, pain radiated from every part of her body and the mere thought of movement made her feel like she was going to vomit. The second thing she felt was a tugging sensation within her new core, as if power was being pulled from it in droves, yet like a bottomless well her core never seemed to run empty, the power within barely seeming to flicker as power continued to be drawn from it. Following the thread of power being drawn Rin found it flowed out of her spirit and into a second star of power, one that felt like a distant part of her,, but as she reached out to that distant star with her spirit she felt a trickle of power begin to push against her, a barrier unwilling to yield, at first she tried to push against it, to force her way through and find what was drawing such energy from her, and yet the more she tried to force her way within, the stronger the barrier seemed to become. Rin paused, trying to let her mind clear as she pondered how best to approach the situation, her newly restored power was no doubt going to her head, she had never been one for brute force, her talent had always lay with the careful gentle coxing, the manipulation of subtler energies, twisting around walls and barriers to find a way that achieved her goals, often without one even realising she had done so. She took mentally took a deep breath, feeling the chakra of the natural world flow into her as she did so. She wrapped consciousness within it, taking a small strand of chakra from her core and weaving it through the natural chakra, creating a cloak around her spirit; one that was almost indistinguishable from the chakra of the world, one that had the same signature as the energy that was being drawn into the barrier from her.
Wreathed in the power of the natural world, and infusing that cloak with a touch of her own spiritual energy, Rin's consciousness flowed back up to the barrier and, rather than push against it, she allowed herself to flow through it, as if an energy to be used. As she passed through Rin could feel energy being leached away from her cloak, being drawn into the barrier to sustain it and, as she passed through the barrier to the realm within, the last of her cloaks energy was drawn away, leaving her mind and spirit unveiled. What Rin experienced in that brief moment was sheer, unbridled power, not the boundless sensation of a carefully controlled flame that her own core gave off, but rather the infinite roiling power of a volcano, a boundless source of destruction , a hatred for all life, and a desire to see the end of all things. In that brief moment, she felt like a god, like all the world could do naught but kneel before her, like even the shadow that had plagued her for so long would be destroyed in an instant at her whim. Then she screamed, she felt power flowing through her veins, through her chakra channels, power that would destroy, destroy her enemies, destroy her allies, destroy her friends, destroy her world, power that would destroy her, power that was destroying her, flooding her spirit and overwhelming it.
She thrashed, trying to pull back, to escape the source of such raw destructive energy, but she couldn't escape, the same force that had kept her from reaching within this barrier now kept her from escaping, her hubris had left her thinking herself safe and now she was trapped within an energy so destructive that her mind and spirit would be shattered, broken into fragments, the fragments ground to dust, and the dust burned away till not even smoke remained. Fear filled her, Panic, terror, pain, she felt like that same lost child who had been tortured so long ago. She could feel that black all consuming corruption flooding her veins, the tendrils of endless night digging into her eye, the blinding pain and sticky sensation as her eye was crushed into paste. In her fear she screamed, flailing against the barrier with all her will, and the barrier cracked, a small crack but a crack all the same, one which she slipped through on instinct, her fractured spirit taking any chance at freedom...

Rin shot up, spirit still screaming in pain, as she heard footsteps approaching from behind her. Looking around she realised that she was alone, in a room that she had not been in before, a large stone table in the centre with several chairs surrounding it, looking at the ground she lay upon a makeshift bed roll, one that had clearly been put together in a hurry. A sharp knock at the door shook her out of her examination, turning to face the doorway behind her the door creaked open, a figure stepping through the into view from the shadows, stepping closer until a sliver of moonlight peaking through the window revealed him to be a man, his face shrouded by shadow. "Who are you?" Rin asked, unable to keep the tremor from her voice, with everything that had happened this night she was worn, tired, and on edge, a mysterious figure stepping out of nowhere was more than enough to set her on edge. The figure stepped forward again, hands held up in a placating manner, an old man with a weathered and haggard appearance, but a genuine smile upon his face, coming into view as the moonlight illuminated more of him. "Please young miss, there is no need to be on edge, you are safe here." He said, his hands waving placatingly as he saw her looking around for a weapon.

Instead of putting her at ease the man's words meerly served to set her even more on edge; she had learnt long ago that safety was a lie, and anyone claiming to offer safety was almost invariably up to something. Rin's eyes narrowed as she met the man's gaze, a touch of the cold detatchment that she wore like armor leaking into her voice as she spoke. "Who are you?" she asked simply, her tone leaving now room for argument or deflection, it was more a command than a question her chakra leaking into her voice as she spoke.

The man paled a little at the power rolling off of her as she spoke, but he answered her all the same. "I am but a humble business owner, one who cannot express his gratitude enough for saving his business. The Night watch captain let me know of the situation and asked me to watch over you while they finished calming the rest of the populace and cleaning up the few remnants, again i cannot thank you enough for saving my bath house, and my clientele, no one even knew what was happening until the captain dragged you in here."

Rin tilted her head at his words, it made sense in a strange sort of way, the last thing she truely remembered was passing out while trying to contain the explosive force being released from the piles of recovered seals, certainly someone would have had to drag her in here, but who was this captain the man was talking about. The bath house proprietor opened his mouth to continue but Rin held up her hand. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific. The captain? Which captain would that be, I'm not from the city and I haven't learnt the ranks of each member of the city guard that i've interacted with so far." She said wearily. It wasn't that she didn't trust this man, although of course she didn't, how could she trust anyone after what she had been through, no she was simply tired of running, of watching for betrayal at every turn, distrusting so thurroughly kept her alive, but it was so draining.

At a glance, something as simple as asking for a name would be innocuous, a simple request for clarification, even if this man was trying to deceive her then it would be simple enough for him to make a name up, or indeed if he was a resident of this town as he claimed then of course he could simply choose the name of one of the guard captains without much issue, but that said Rin had been burnt more than once by a simple and innocuous question. Once, she had rescued a supposed merchant who was being attacked by bandits, not that she had had any intention of rescuing the merchant of course, she had fully intended to kill the bandits and take the scraps of the destroyed caravan for herself, but of course the merchant was in fact no merchant at all, he had spun a tale for her of how he and his caravan had been ambushed by the bandits in the dead of night, when she had asked a simple enough question about how many guards the caravan had supported the man had pulled a knife, trying to, quite litteraly, stab her in the back. She had worked out after that the man had been the ring leader of the bandits, masquerading as the merchant in an effort to escape her when he had seen his men fall to her so easily. She had nearly lost her other eye that day and had long since learned her lessons from that day. one, never trust anyone, even if you've saved them they still will get you, and themselves killed at the earliest oppertunity; two, never let your guard down, even when you think you are safe death is right around the corner; and three, if someone thinks their lies are falling apart then they are just as dangerous as a cornered animal. They will lash out at you if they think your about to unravel their lies.


The Bath house owner of course was none of these things and his response was that of a simple and honest man, "Ah, of course, my apologies miss, in my haste i forgot myself. That would be night captain zach, who dragged you in here; tall man with a scar, black hair, grey eyes, quite a handsome fellow really. I should have recognised him sooner, he has been a regular customer of mine for years, ever since he arrived from the north."

Rin nodded her head slightly, hoping that the man was telling the truth and not lying to throw her off track. "I see, thank you for your help." Rin replied softly, she had all but forgotten about the man completely her mind drifting off to ponder more of the events of the evening, only a small fragment of her mind left to keep an eye on the man as she did so.

"You're very welcome miss, you were lucky the captain was there to calm the crowd down, most of the soldiers have barely gotten their act together, indeed from what i heard if the captain wasn't there a lot of the people would have thought that you had caused the explosion yourself, it is not common for the guards to be so lax in their duties." The bath house owner said gently, his voice tinged with concern.

Inwardly Rin cringed at the thought of being labelled a criminal by those who had witnessed the event, especially because she had saved lives, certainly she wasn't the most upstanding of citizens but at least here she had made sure to operate within the bounds of the law. Even cringing inwardly as she was Rin forced herself to remain calm projecting a calm disinterest, for all that she had become used to being hunted by the law she had put enough effort and resources into protecting this town that being forced to flee now would be... costly; especially if she had to do so without getting paid first.

"Well then, Thank you for your hospitality" Rin began slowly, "this seems like the perfect time for me to take my leave. Would you happen to know where I could find the captain you spoke of? Zach was it?" She asked politely, her tone still lacking any emotion.

The man smiled slightly, nodding his head gently. "Indeed i do, he has made his quarters are upstairs for the time being, a makeshift command station to co-ordinate the clean up efforts while keeping you nearby if i remember his words correctly. I can show you the way if you want." The man offered, wringing his hands as he spoke.

That set Rin's senses on edge, someone wanting to keep her nearby would already put her on high alert, but the man wringing his hand's the way he was, turning her focus to him she could see a faint bead of sweat running down his forehead. "No that is fine, thank you for the offer but i should be able to handle it myself."

The man shrugged slightly and sighed. "Of course, my apologies for any inconvenience it may cause you, perhaps another time then." He said, bowing slightly.

Rin nodded her head slightly, then turned her attention back to the door, waiting for the man to withdraw before taking a few steps forward, tentatively at first as she checked the condition of her weary body, almost stumbling a few times before catching herself. She reached out with her chakra to check for any sign of danger, finding nothing she took a step forward into the hallway and started to walk towards the stairs.

Her foot hit the bottom stair and she stopped suddenly, a sense of wrongness washing over her as she felt something brush against her, for a moment she was back in that grand Amphitheter again, the corrupt chakra of the Ragdoll pouring over her in waves, the figure of the man she sought an alliance with siting still, ignoring her as she approached... but then she was back in the bath house. That uncomfortable sensation still sweeping over her, but it was nothing compared to that of the pressure the Ragdoll exerted, this sensation had a hint of that same corrupt power that the ragdoll's had, or at least one similar enough to it, but compared to that of the original it was barely even there. She frowned slightly, wondering what it could be, and whether it posed any threat, she could feel the chakra shrink back as she approached the door the bath house proprietor had indicated as the room this Night watch captain had claimed as his command center; From within she could hear the muffled sounds of argument, perhaps between the captain and his staff, followed by a loud crash, sending a shiver down her spine.

Slowly she touched the door with her palm, feeling the chakra of the man inside permeating the wood, but it was weak and ineffective, unlike that of the ragdolls. Steadying herself with a deep breath she knocked on the door. Pushing it open a moment afterwards. Certainly it would have been more polite to wait for acknowledgement, perhaps an invitation to enter, but she was already on edge, and whatever that sound was she had no desire to stand around waiting if her presence was needed.

Stepping through the door she saw two men standing glowering at each other, one man, the guard she had first encountered and offered her assistance to earlier that night, standing behind a table that had clearly been turned into a makeshift desk. Scraps of paper and writing implements strewn across the desk; a map of the city, one of a clearly much higher quality than the haphazard makeshift map the two of them had drawn up in a few minutes, lay spread out across the table, a small number of sites Rin recognised as locations where bombs had been placed were circled across the map and a number of hurriedly scribbled notes were scrawled across the boarders.

The other man, a tall man, dark skinned, with black hair tied back in a ponytail and grey eyes glared daggers at the guard. His face a mask of anger and hostility, the man's fists clenching and unclenching as he spoke to the guard. "You're a fucking idiot, you know that don't you!" The man roared at the guard, "you almost got us all killed! If it hadn't been for that girl you'd have probably sent us all to our deaths." The man spat, "and you call yourself a 'professional'!? The council should have dismissed you long ago, you're incompetent!" The man shouted, his rage building, "unreliable, unreliable, unreliable..." the man muttered under his breath.

The guard looked at the man, his expression hardening, "i did everything i could, we were understaffed and overworked before this, i couldn't have done anything else!" he snarled back at the man, his voice low and menacing.

The man shook his head and clenched his fists tightly. "It doesn't matter, we wouldn't have been caught unaware if you weren't such an incompetent fool!" he yelled.

Rin stepped in cautiously, not trusting either of them. "Excuse me." She called out quietly.

Both men glanced up at her, the man who had been speaking to the guard looking at her suspiciously. "What do you want!?" He snapped, turning away from her to glare at the guard.

She took a few steps toward them, keeping her voice as quiet as she could. "I'm sorry to interrupt you but I am here to see the captain, I can see he is busy at present-" She began, glancing between the two men, "but I need to speak with him urgently." She finished quickly, hoping to keep the situation as civil as possible.

"He's busy at the moment." The man growled at her. "Who are you anyway!?"

Rin swallowed nervously, "My name is Rin, I was in fact the one who assisted the captain in defusing much of the situation at hand." She said calmly, ignoring the man's tone.

The man snorted derisively. "Oh yes you were, was that before or after you nearly blew up half of the city!?" He shouted angrily.
Rin swallowed nervously, not liking the tone of the man in front of her. "It was before, and I was quite careful with how I handled the situation, we didn't want to harm anyone." She said quietly, trying to ignore the mans angry outburst.

"Then why was there so much damage!? This will cost the city a fortune!" The man shouted, his voice rising in pitch. Rin heard a stifled cough from the captain behind the desk, a slight smile seeking to creep across her own mouth as she realised he now doubt hadn't even informed the man in front of her of her agreed upon price for her assistance. Rin smiled thinly to herself; she had no intention of letting him know of that agreement, nor did she intend to let him know what she was capable of.

"That's because we were doing our best with what we had, we had limited resources, manpower, equipment and time. With all that in mind you should be amazed the city has remained in such a good condition. Without my help you would have been lucky to have a city left at all" she said coldly, her tone suggesting that she thought the man was a fool.

The man stared at her, speechless for a long moment, his face turning red with anger and rage. "You little bitch!" He spat, turning away from her and glaring at the captain behind him. "you think you're so great!? You think you're better than everyone else!?" He screamed, his voice shaking the room. "You think you're so special!?" He shouted, his voice growing louder as he continued, but Rin had had enough of the man's attitude. Turning her spiritual senses inside for a moment she checked her chakra reserves, she hadn't fully recovered yet but she had more than enough for this. Looking the man in they eye she took a step forward, her chakra radiating out of her, thick enough to exert a pressure upon everyone in the room. The guard captain's breath seemed to slow, the man struggling with the increased effort that breathing now took; but he was not the one Rin's had trained her full intent upon. The Man who had been so rudely ranting at her on the other hand began to quite literally shake in his boots, his face begining to turn blue as he was unable to take even a single breath. Rin continued striding forward towards the man until she was mere inches from the man's face. From here she could see his eyes spinning around in his head, the pupils wide and panicked, and as his eyes darted around she stared into them, calmly waiting for the man's eyes to focus on her own. The moment they did so she spoke one word. "Quiet" she said, her voice ringing with power, and as she felt the technique take hold she released her power, the ambient chakra levels in the room slowly returning to normal as she did so. The man dropped to his knees, quivering and shaking in sheer unbridled terror. Rin had to stifle a smirk, it had been a long time since she had been able to illicit such a reaction, even from an untrained commoner, and glancing over it was not just him that had been so affected. The guard captain, Zach if she remembered his name correctly, was leaning against his desk wheezing, his own face thick with sweat.

The man held his head in his hands, his whole body trembling as he fought to regain control of himself. "Please stop, please..." he begged, his voice a pathetic whine.

Rin glared at him, her voice dripping with contempt. "don't debase yourself so much by begging, i have no quarrel with you." she said, disdain staining her voice. She had formed some small degree of respect for the man as a result of how well he had handled the situation so far and how he had stood his ground against the fool who now lay quivering on the ground in silent fear, trapped within his own mind and surrounded by shadows of his own deepest fears, but that respect was quickly draining away, the man may be competent but to fold to begging so quickly did not speak well of his character.

The man swallowed nervously and straightened his posture, "please forgive my rudeness, I was just so shocked by... whatever that was that I lost control of myself for a moment" he said, looking at her apologetically and giving her a far more formal bow than he had when they had first met in the streets.

Rin nodded slightly, her face betraying nothing. "it's fine, I understand. I too have experienced such techniques before, though I must say it is always unpleasant. You should try and avoid them where possible." She said, a slight smirk hidden behind her mask. "Now then, we have some business to discuss, but first, some privacy" she said, turning her gaze to the man still laying prostrate upon the floor. "Release" Her voice again rang with power, the chakra she had flooded the man's mind with flowing back to her, a faint hint of the man's fear flowing back to her with the technique's release. "Leave us" she said, still glowering at the man.

After a moment the man complied, moving hurridly past her to the entrance and leaving them alone. Turning back to the night watch captain Rin continued "now then, we have quite a bit to discuss don't we." She said, striding forward and pulling out a seat for her to rest upon, her feet swung up to rest on the table as she leant back, looking the man in the eye defiantly. The man paled slightly at her gaze, before nodding his head, "yes i suppose we do. Where did you want to start?" he asked hesitantly.


Rin smiled thinly. "with your payment. I believe it is only fair that you pay me for my services, as agreed." She said, her voice dripping with thinly veiled distrust.

The man paled even further as he began to reply "of course, I'm a man of my word, I will vouch that i agreed to your payment as we discussed, but it will be up to you to handle the council, they will certainly not be happy covering the bill, especially since they didn't have a month to argue about it amongst each other before hand." He said, sighing. "In truth it will likely come out of the guards budget again, which will leave us even further understaffed. Not a good thing when there are bandits roaming the countryside again." The man sighed heavily.

Rin shrugged, "that's unfortunate, but it's not my problem. The council is required to cover the costs for my services since their agent arranged and agreed to the deal as per the countries laws and I have no reason to let them out of it regardless of where they end up taking the money from." She said, her tone implying that she really didn't care where they got the money from.

The man sighed again "Of course I wouldn't expect you to give up payment, still we're going to be short on guards for quite a while after this, I dont suppose you'd be willing to hang around for a few days and assist with the patrols?" The man asked hopefully.

Rin smirked again, her mask still hiding her face, as annoying as the mask was at times it also was quite handy, hiding her reactions during negotiations like this. "That would depend entirely on whether you're able to afford me or not, and after everything you've seen here today, I can tell you that you probably wont be able to. Why don't you get back to me once you have spoken with the council? I will consider your request and perhaps reconsider my position." She said, her tone cool and distant.

The man was visibly taken aback, he opened his mouth as though to protest, but paused and closed it again, shaking his head slightly instead. "Fine, i'll do that." He said with a sigh. "You're most likely right, even if they dont cut our budget again we're not likely to be able to afford you and if its not a crisis situation like tonight then I'm not going to be able to make you stay." He said, smiling wryly. "Still, I hope you do reconsider, I know you are rather good at what you do so I would hate to lose you to another employer."

Rin nodded, "I'll keep that in mind, thank you for the offer. Now then, we have more important things to discuss. First, i wanted to thank you for handling the situation tonight so well, you have my gratitude for keeping us all safe." She said, bowing slightly to him. The man's face turned up in a display of genuine pleasure and surprise, a rare sight indeed on the face of the usually sullen guardsmen of the city.
"Thank you for your kind words, I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the show, though I must admit I wish things had gone differently tonight, in all honestly we thought you weren't going to make it for a bit there. That barrier was quite impressive, though I must say I couldn't even begin to guess how you pulled off half of what you did tonight." The man said, his face tinged with embarrassment.

Rin smiled thinly again. "you flatter me, but I assure you most of what you witnessed tonight was more luck and desperation than any real skill." She said, speaking lightly. "Indeed most of what i did tonight are only half formed ideas that could hardly be called a technique by someone with any real training. But hey, at least it was successful wasn't it?" She said giving a half shrug of her shoulders as if the hundreds of lives her failure would have cost, not least of which included her own, wouldn't have bothered her in the slightest. Of course it was a facade, her own life was just about the only thing of value she had left and despite everything she still held onto it with the last fragments of the stubborn willed prodigy that she had once been.

The man nodded silently, clearly uncomfortable with her directness and blase disregard for life, both her own and that of his kin.
"At any rate, thats not what i'm actually here for, yes i wanted to remind you of our agreement, and yes i did also want to check on the condition of the city" she said, gesturing towards the map and the number of circled locations, detailed notes, and markings that had given her an accurate idea of the city's current situation before continuing. "But more importantly I wanted to know exactly what happened between forming that barrier and waking up downstairs" she said, leaning forwards intently.

The man gulped audibly before answering her, "whatever do you mean?" He asked awkwardly, his eyes drifting to look anywhere but in her eyes as he searched for a distraction; at the very least Rin could say with confidence that this man would make a terrible liar if he was ever pressed. "What i mean is i remember passing out whilst trying to contain that explosion and the next thing i remember is waking up downstairs in a bath house which i can only assume was half way across the town from what i can see here" she said gesturing at the rough map once again.

The man nodded with obvious reluctance, "Ah yes, well i suppose i can tell you my side of the story if that is what your looking for, I was just finishing up placing the last of your... Talismans?" he said, pausing in question for a moment before continuing. "I suppose it doesnt really matter what they were, we didn't have time to clarify when you gave them to us and they've served their purpose at this point so we may as well keep calling them talismans. Anyway I was just searching for the last of the explosives from our portion of the map and had managed to make it to the alleyway you identified when the explosion went off, shaking the street and blowing the alleyway i was about to search to rubble, i was lucky i had only been standing at the entrance when it went off or things would have been much worse" He said, stumbling on his words for a moment before continuing once again with a slight shudder in his voice. Rin nodded gently for him to continue, as much as she appreciated quick and succinct responses from people she had years of experience manipulating others and with the man so obviously shaken she could tell pushing him would only result in him taking longer to recover and get back to the story.
Brushing off his moment of weakness the guard continued "Yes, well after that I managed to pick myself up from the rubble, dust myself off and get my barings, my hearing was absolutely shot by that point, and looking back i was probably more than a little concussed from what the town's doctor's have said. The rest of my men that had been stationed nearby were darting over to check on the explosion by that point so i remember borrowing someone's notepad to write down orders. They had shown up at a perfect time to help any survivors and since i hadn't heard any other explosions go off at the time i figured that might have been a pre-cursor to the rest of the explosives being detonated. Since you had only rushed off to disarm the pile of explosives you asked me about a few moments earlier, i thought i might be able to catch up to you and warn you before the one's you were holding onto detonated." He said, pausing once again as he took in a shuddering breath, that chunk of his story being told in one long breath as he tried to get through the story as quickly as possible. Rin was surprised at that, she could understand him being in some level of shock from being caught in the explosion himself, especially with how close he had come to death, but he was past that part of the story now, she had to wonder if there was a part he was skipping over or if he was just that heavily shaken by the nights events. In any case she sat patiently, waiting for the man to collect himself before he continued. "I of course didn't get to you in time, i rounded the corner to the demolition site you used for the disposal and disarment just as the explosives went off." At that he let out a shakey laugh, "Honestly that explosion was so much worse than the one i had weathered a few moments before, i thought i was going to die, hell i knew i was going to die and was about ready to give up and lie down then, accepting death, but you saved me, hell you saved all of us, if the council had been there to see that..." He paused for a moment, collecting himself again as he caught himself starting to ramble before shaking his head. "Well its not important, they weren't there to see it so sufice to say the crusty old fools would have been throwing money at you in gratitude rather than kicking up a fuss the way they are now. You saved us all, and for that you have my grattitude." He said finishing his explanation.

Rin let a look of irritation cross her face for a moment, sparing a moment's grattitude for the mask that obscured the look before replying. "I appreciate the thanks, but that doesn't actually tell me much more than what i already knew, what happened after i passed out?" she asked, probing for more information with a tone that barely veiled her iritation.

"Ah yes of course, my appologies, it was a bit of a stressful night and obviously my own near death experiences stuck in my mind a lot more than the surrounding circumstances, after witnessing you put up that barrier... all three of you now that i think about it." He said, pausing and giving her a questioning look. Rin waved it off, she had no intention of explaining her abilities or known techniques to the man at this point and frankly he hadn't given her enough information to incentivies her sharing that kind of knowledge. It took a moment of her staring passively at the man before he once again continued. "Yes, well after you passed out things started to get a little strange, you fell forward, landing against your barrier, I remember because i felt so panicked when you fell forward, i thought you were going to fall through the barrier and get yourself killed in the contained explosion, or fall on the barrier and have those silver white flames consume you. Thankfully that didn't happen, you passed out ontop of the barrier and it seemed to..." The man paused, seeming genuinely confused as he strugled to find the right words. Eventually he shook is head continuing as best as he could "I'm sorry but i can't really explain what happened, or even describe it particularly well. Your barrier seemed to crack and weaken to the point of breaking before... feeding on..." The man paused again, looking for the right words before once again shaking his head in confusion "Feeding on something i guess, like i said i can't really explain it, but that happened a few times, the barrier weakening to the point it almost broke before repairing itself somehow, getting slightly smaller and smaller each time until it reached the size of a small marble where it seemed to stabalize; in all honesty I dont know how long i spent there waiting for that marble to crack, for it to let that explosion loose and kill us all but it seemed to remain stable, and eventually i pulled myself together enough to crawl up and check on you. You seemed mostly unhurt, you were running a fever though so i took you to the nearest place i knew would be able to offer some degree of care while i kept an eye on you, the marbles still floating there after all and i'd hate to think what would happen if you died, I mean it could remain stable but for all we know its tied to you, and if you die your barrier goes with it" He finished, Rin's mind already churning through the details, if the town thought her death might release the barrier that was useful information, it kept the city's ruling council from trying to have her assasinated to avoid paying her which, whilst she doubted anyone here would be a threat to her even while she was asleep, especialy with her powers re-kindled, but it was nice to have the extra insurance, even without attacks being a threat they were still inconvenient to deal with.

She would certainly have to investigate this 'marble' when she got the chance, for now however she had other things to focus on. "So Zach, it would seem that i need to arrange a meeting with your village council" she said, her voice not harsh exactly but certainly stern. Perhaps you can help me with that... she said, trailing off as she left the technically implied request hanging in the air. The Night watch captain paled slightly, sweat beading on his brow again as he spoke. "I think i can arrange something, they're already aware of the situation so they shouldn't be too hard to gather together" He said, pulling a sheet of paper out from the stack next to him as he began scribbling something down, no doubt instructions to give one of his aids in order to arrange such a meeting. "Good, Good" Rin said continuing on. as she considered her next move. The flame within her still burnt as bright as a star, she felt boundless energy from it and it was hard not to let that energy suffuse her body, mind and soul, hard not to let it fill her with energy in droves. Just focussing on it for a few moments was more than enough to have her start anxiously pacing back and forth, her mind and body suffused with energy and suddenly far too energetic to rest for the night.

It was strange, a few moments ago she had just woken up, having passed out from overtaxing herself and suddenly she was revitalized, filled with more energy than she had felt in ages, perhaps even more energy than she had ever had before, her mind racing she started to turn over ideas in her head, plots, goals, ambitions, there was so much she could aim for again, with the corruption cleansed from her body and soul, and with this new power suffusing her... having finally had a moment to stop and think following the purification of her body she sudenly realised the innumerable possibilities that had suddenly opened up to her. Goals she had never thought possible were within reach, goals she had long since given up on, the ragdoll's accursed stain rendering such achievements well out of reach, were suddenly a possibility, and most of all, the pipe dream she had clung too, knowing it was futile, impossible, unachievable even in the most far of of possiblities, was now possible. It was a distant chance still, far far far from, something any reasonable person would choose to spend their second chance on, even the insane didn't cross the ragdoll, not after what he had done to her... but now there was a sliver of a chance that she could have her vengance... and if she was to take that infintesimaly small sliver of a chance and turn it to reality she needed allies, funds, resources... she needed to grow stronger, stronger than the ragdoll, stronger than whatever allies, armies and weapons he had gathered over these past years. He had already been a monster when he had ruined her, both in the literal sense and in regards to his power. With two years too grow, develop and solidify his power he would be akin to a god, his strength no doubt would be beyond the ken of most mortals, but more concerning would be the political power he would have solidified, the military might he no doubt had at his disposal.


Rin needed an military force of at least equal strength if she had even a chance to get her revenge, and that would require alliances, she would need the renown and respect of those who commanded those forces, she would need wealth beyond imagination to equip those forces, she would need wealth to equip herself, not to mention access to knowledge, she needed so much knowledge now. She needed access to records, training resources, experimental devices. The question of this flame still hung in the air over her, it obviously had something to do with the ragdoll's own horrible corruption of the natural order, but what that connection was she did not know, and without knowing what this flame was how could she rely on it; but as deep and complex as that problem was, as numerous as the goals she needed to achieve to even begin the path to her revenge were, her first steps were clear. She needed wealth and lots of it. Not just that she needed to start making allies or if not allies at least collecting debts that she could call on when the time was right.

Turning to the guard captain she examined the man in detail, during the rush of the night she had not paid much attention to him, assuming him to be a nameless grunt not worth her time, but now perhaps he would be worth some attention. First turning her attention inwards for a moment she began to cycle her chakra, she could feel that quivering spark of fire in her new core trying to flow out, to infuse the technique she was using, but she pulled it back, keeping a tight leash on it. This was not the sort of flashy technique that would benefit from having flames infused into it, no this was something far more subtle. She pushed her chakra through her meridians, savouring the feeling of having them cleared of the thick dense blackness that had made its home inside of them, scoured clear of their obstructions she was able to infuse her chakra with the desired elemental nature with ease, Indeed rin couldn't help but marvel at the scope of her newly cleansed network. Each of her meridians had been widened beyond normal limits, each one widened as the corruption grew outwards, forcing them open further and further even as the chakra within her dried up being drained by those same threads of corruption, similarly the pathways between her meridians had been pushed to breaking over and over, every time she had tried to force chakra past those horrid obstructions that had plagued her, and now they were wide enough to allow power to flow through them at a rate far more than she had thought possible. That may cause problems for her in the future, she simply did not know what such a widened and distorted network would do to her abilities as her chakra reserves grew, but she could already feel its potential.

Taking in a deep breath she felt the chakra of the natural world around her, swirling aimlessly as it ebbed and flowed around her, commanded by the greater tides of the natural world. Pulling on that chakra she pulled it inwards, drawing it into her meridians even as she continued cycling chakra, her own reserves were too depleted to fuel this technique, without drawing on the flame inside of her she had to turn to another source, thankfully for her she had always had a skill for manipulating the energy of the world around her, it had been one of the few abilities that she had been able to use without the interference of the ragdoll's curse disrupting it, though even that control had been severely limited compared to what she had been able to do without the infection of his chakra... not had, but rather could, reminding herself that she was free now she took another breath and the slight trickle of power that had flowed into her turned into a torrent, then a wave, then she felt power crashing into her meridian's, flooding them and radiating through them, so much energy flowed within her, the lack of any chakra within her own network to keep it in check allowing it to continue filling her until it filled her to the brim. She could feel that energy flowing within her, trying to turn her to stone as it had long ago. The natural world hated imbalance, just as it hated to be used and controlled, she could already feel her pathways starting to fill and clog with the impurities of natural chakra and even as she finished forming her technique, pushing it outwards as an almost invisible quiver in the air flowed out around her, forming a bubble around her and the guard captain; but that had not emptied her channels of the raw energy of nature, and it continued to twist inside of her, seemingly pulling more and more in from the world around her even as it was pulled deeper and deeper into her chakra network.

Ignoring the odd look the guard captain gave her as he noticed the slight shimmer of air that had formed around them, she turned her full attention inwards, watching as nature chakra continued to be drawn into her even without her active attention, looking for what could possibly be causing such a thing. Everywhere she looked meridian's and tenketsu were drawing in energy... no not quite drawing it it, as she looked closer it almost seemed as if the energy was being drawn in on its own, like water following the flow of a river, pulling back her attention from individual points of her chakra network she surveyed the entirety of it, and what she saw at first disgusted her, then surprised her before finally filling her with wonder. Her network was by all conventional forms of wisdom, a mess, the fight between her chakra and the corruption as it continued to grow within her, filling her pathways as it warped them, as it grew inside of her, had left the channels her chakra moved through warped and twisted, branches connected at odd locations where the threads of corruption had burrowed deep within her and other pathways that should have been open had atrophied into non-existence; but what was surprising was not the damage but what it formed. Now that the corruption had been burnt away, now that her network was free to flow on its own the entirety of her chakra network was structured like that of a giant sealing formula. It was not perfect mind you, but as she looked closer she saw how the formation of the structure seemed to be almost purpose built to draw in nature chakra, how the natural chakra she had drawn in fulled the formation within her as it continued to pull more and more on the natural world.

Rin couldn't help but look upon the effects of the formation in wonder, how was this possible, why was this possible, what could possibly have happened to cause this, it couldn't be shear dumb luck right? could this be something the ragdoll had meant to do? but why? What possible reason could he have had to warp her body like this? it couldn't have been for her sake, the corruption itself had always prevented her from using her chakra in any significant way, and he had certainly not given even the slightest indication that his actions had been intened to help her. No thinking back on her words she was certain they had been done with nothing but malicious intent, so why? Could this have been part of some plan? The corruption had pulsed with that same horrid nature as the ragdoll's own chakra, it had never changed from that no matter how much of her own chakra it had feasted upon, thinking back there had even been the occasional time where the corruption seemed to act with some sort of primal intelligence... Could it have been that the infection he had filled her with had been intended to do more than ruin her life?

As she stood there pondering the idea a thought crossed her mind, a horrible thought that made her blood turn cold and her mind turn cold with fear, not fear for the future, but fear for what could have been. Could it have been possible that this infection had actually been intended as a way to prepare her for something? She had once heard tales of powerful shinobi in the past who jumped from body to body, warping them and twisting them to hold the spirit of the shinobi even as the host was devoured and destroyed. The thought was terrifying, was this what the ragdoll's chakra network was like? had he modified himself to such an extreme degree? If so had he intended not just to ruin her life and spirit but also to eventually consume her soul? or was this worse still? was she some sort of experiment, a new step forward as he tried to create a body who's meridians and chakra network itself was tailored to the use of his horrible perversion of the natural order. If that was the case then she was one of many, all inflicted with this horrible affliction with the eventual survivor's only reward being a life as a puppet to be consumed by the Ragdoll's own horrid spirit.

The thought that she had only just avoided such a fate by sheer dumb luck, that whatever she had managed to do had saved her from something so horrific terrified her even more than having been forced to live her entire life under the curse of the ragdoll's horrid corruption. That his experiment had seemingly succeed on her did little to comfort her for even with whatever advantages this new network offered it served as a constant reminder that she had come oh so close to being his play thing all over again.

Distracted by the horrible realisation Rin had let the natural energies of the world continue to be drawn inwards by the spiral of energy that her new chakra network created, like a funnel it pulled the energy into her, swirling and condensing it, but with nowhere to go and nothing to use it for the energy began to condense and solidify, calcifying along the sides of her chakra network even as it began to fill her meridians with that same dense energy. Rin could feel her body beginning to solidify in turn, the natural energy of the world seeking to turn her to stone for taking too much. She panicked, not knowing what to do. She had always known the dangers of using nature chakra, of drawing from the world in this way, never take too much and always keep the energy you took in balance, those were the two rules that had been drilled into her even as she experimented with new ways to use such energy. Now however she couldn't help but break those rules, the energy around her was drawn in at such a rate that she had no control over it, and certainly no way to put it to use as fast as it was drawn inside of her.

Desperately Rin reached out with her senses, trying to find something, anything, that she could use to cleanse this energy before it turned her to stone, through the panic and the fear all that she could think was, 'no, not now, not after all this time, not after i've finally found freedom from his stain' she though to herself, the though echoing in her mind again and again as she franticly tried to expel the energy from her body. But try as she might she couldn't push that energy out faster than it came in. Try as she might the chakra continued to fill her meridians, coalescing where her corrupt core once sat. That observation as it turned out was the clue that Rin had needed. The formation her pathways had been shaped into was made with one purpose in mind. To draw energy from the natural world at an incredible rate. But it had no way to store that energy, for Kenshin Uzumaki, for the accursed ragdoll, the butcher of sunagakure, the demon of the sands and bane of her life the energy no doubt would have simply fed into that horrid corruption that seemed to sustain him, but for Rin that was not possible, and even if it was she would never take that path, she would die a thousand times over before she even began to consider such a thing. No the path Rin would take, the path Rin needed to take was far more complicated and yet at the same time it was one of the simplest things she could do.
Understanding what the formation was intended to do was the first part, and in many ways the hardest part, for from there she could see how it could be altered, in simple and small ways she could change the flow ever so slightly, redirect it so that though it was drawn inwards, though it continued to flow into her, it pooled somewhere else, somewhere that had been on the edge of it's influence before, almost untouched by the natural energy. In her minds eye Rin marked the pathways she would change, the alterations she would make, to have the energy collect around her own core, the fractured star that blazed with the hunger of a thousand stars, but knowing the changes, and making them were something entirely different. Dropping to her knees and folding into a meditative position she began to draw a string of energy from that same core, a tiny thread of silver white fire that she pulled through her network, allowing it to feed upon the raw energy of the world that was collecting within her veins, she could feel it devouring the energy hungrily, eating away at the solidified chakra that had begun to collect and calcify along those pathways. Rin couldn't help but breath a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods were listening, had her pathways not been so massively distended, had they not grown so massively out of proportion from the pressure of the corruption that had lived within her for so long, she would have had her entire network obstructed long before she had even had a chance to realise how to do what she was trying now, and with that obstruction the natural energy would have flowed outward, turning her to stone faster than she could have even reacted.
Fortunately for Rin her pathways were wide enough to handle the influx of natural energy long enough for her to draw that string of silver fire throughout them, forming a horribly intricate sealing formation within her own soul, the energy of the fire devouring energy even as it continued to pour inwards, feeding that same fire as it burned brighter and brighter, her body and soul shining a blazing, briliant white as the energy continued to build. She could feel the fire getting bigger, pushing against the edges of her pathways, and even though the fire itself had not burnt her before, even though even now it didn't burn her itself. She felt a burning sensation as the pathways within her body strained against the pressure of the energy that had built within them. The fire could cleans and devour, could purify the energy as if fed into the fire just as the corruption had once fed upon her own network, but that energy had to go somewhere, or else the strand of fire would continue to grown out of control until it consumed her.
Gritting her teeth to avoid biting her tongue for the next part Rin took the end of that strand of fire and began to pull it, not through her pathway as she had before, but rather through her flesh and spirit. Simultaneously she carved out an entirely new pathway through her body, and at the same time she pulled on the energy that had been collecting throughout the thread of fire, just as she carved a new channel through her body, she pulled enough energy into that pathway that it manifested not just in the physical, but in the spiritual, her spirit warped and shifted under the pressure of so much chakra flooding through it and that power in turn seared itself into her spirit, imprinting it's presence on it forever more.
Ever so slowly, painfully, and torturously Rin continued her work, pushing the energy forwards millimeter by millimeter, then centimeter by centimeter, then inch by inch. it felt like it took forever, seconds turning to minutes and minutes turning to hours, hours to days and days to months; but even then she could not stop to look at how long she had left, even as her mind, still cracked and wounded from the nights earlier mishap, began to break under the pain and stress, even as she had to cast aside all thought for who and what she was, she continued, her mind and will focused down to a scalpel with one singular purpose. To keep moving forwards. Months seemed to pass, turning to years, and years to decades and still there was no end in sight, for if she looked up from her task for even a moment she knew she would loose it and the working she was barely holding control of would break, lashing out and destroying her and whatever remained of the world around her, for right now she was working with more power than she thought possible even for a god, but still she marched onwards, forcing reality to bend to her will even as she reforged her spirit in the fires of her soul. For that was what it was, her own personal soul's fire, burning and tempered with her will and hunger, and then, as if the universe was finally bowing to this realisation she felt a crack, give within her own soul, her will being realised into the reality of he world as she forged a new pathway, a new meridian in her body, one that surrounded and encompassed her shattered star core, and through that pathway, flowed all the energy that was drawn in from the natural world, the energy building within her new meridian as it was sucked into that core, burning away under the infinite hunger of that fire, the energy not gone but rather purified tenfold, a hundred fold, a thousand fold and so on, being refined endlessly as impurities were burnt away and energy of all but the purest quality burnt away to strengthen and refine what sat within her soul.

Opening her eyes Rin was treated to the sight of a pure white gate guard huddled in the corner of the room covering his eyes, the room itself, once dark with nothing but the candle on the guard's desk and a few dim candelabras along the walls for light, now was as bright as if lit by the noon day sun, light covering the entire room, barely a shadow in view. Looking down Rin found herself glowing, not figuratively but quite literally, the thread of silver soulfire, for that was what she had decided upon calling it, that she had threaded throughout her meridan's blazed a brilliant white under her skin, her own body almost looking like a purified parody of the accursed monster that was Kenshin Uzumaki, where he had been covered in horrid black stitches and marked by the corruption he cultivated Rin's own body now bore swirling white lines of glowing white light that radiated a sense of purity. Her chakra similarly felt like an endlessly deep pool of pure hunger, though unlike the chakra of the Butcher, of the ragdoll, her chakra even in its hunger was not a corruptive force. It sought to consume, to feed and grow strong, but it did not destroy, it did not corrupt or mare the purity of the world in its presence.

Still, as beautiful as the swirling white lines of chakra flowing through her body like a work of art were she could hardly walk around like this every day, nor could she keep a low profile or take part in any undertaking of stealth looking like this, so again, for the umpteenth time that night, she turned her attention inwards, pulling on that thread of fire, drawing out the energy from it into her core, pulling and pulling until it drew the last of that energy into herself and emptied her pathways of the last of the natural energy of the world, the silver strand of fire dimming to barely a flicker, though it stayed there, a framework for when she would no doubt next need it.

Pulling her attention back out to the rest of the world she turned, looking to find the guard, Zach if she remembered his name correctly, still hunched in the corner, his eyes covered and shielded against the light. Looking closer he had even tied a strip of cloth around his h head, the spot he had torn it from his trousers clear even now that the light of the room had returned to normal. How bright she must have blazed for him to take such lengths. Rin could hardly imagine, though now she thought about it her own eye ached a little, as if even through her skull the light had been bright enough to reach it. Still that was not something worth thinking of right now, speaking up she let the man know he was free to stand. The barrier of air that she had pushed out at the beginning of all this still surrounding the edges of the room would prevent the sound from reaching any eavesdroppers, though she suspected that brilliant white light would have given away any eavesdroppers anyway, still if the barrier was still there she had to wonder just how long that had actually taken, it had felt like centuries, not just as a figure of speech but the time had genuinely felt like it had taken her multiple hundreds of years to do what she did, whether that had actually been the case and some quirk of the universe, had extended time and extended her pain in an attempt to dissuade her from what, by all conventional schools of thought, should have been completely impossible, or if it had simply been that the pain and fractured state of her mind had made the event seem like it had taken so long, she simply did not know.

"you can stand up now, its over... zach wasn't it?" she asked, though she knew the answer. The man shifted and tentatively uncurled, hesitating a moment to check that it was safe before slowly taking off the blindfold and then, carefully opening his eyes. Looking at him she could see that his pupils had retracted to a point so small she could barely see them, even his body straining itself to block out as much light as possible. She could see him look around, a worried gasp escaping his mouth for a moment as he no doubt worried he had gone blind, before his pupils began to dilate, slowly returning to a normal enough level of contraction that the man could see, at least somewhat.
"W wh what, what happened" the man asked hesitantly, his voice stuttering and slow as he tried to regain his wits. Rin, pondering for a second decided it was best to brush it off as an unknown, after all though she was fairly confident that the many, many, many assumptions she had just made were the truth, they were technically just theories and leaps of logic that she had just inferred from what little information she had gathered together, so when she said "just a bit of a mishap with some new techniques, nothing i couldn't handle but it shouldn't happen again anyway." she was technically telling the truth. Of course a half truth like that was best said without leaving much time for follow up questions so she continued on barely giving the man time to process rather than letting him question things further. "Now that thats done, I've put up a barrier around the room so we cant be overheard, not that i'm all that worried about eavesdroppers myself but I thought it would make you more comfortable when i ask you this next question" she said, pausing for a moment as she walked over to the desk, hiking herself up onto it so that she was tall enough to look the man in his eyes.

"So Zach, tell me honestly what you think of the ruling council of this village" She said, allowing her chakra to flow through her, being shaped through her meridians even as she made eye contact with the man, her chakra flooding his untrained system and filling him with a subtle need to tell her the truth, just as she had done earlier with the urchin boy she had captured and brought to him.

Zach's eyes went distant for a fraction of a second as she felt the technique take hold, the man wringing his hands slightly before beginning to speak. "How exactly do i know i can trust you?" he asked, the question bringing a slight look of surprise to her face, her eyebrows raising underneath the mask, even if it was not technically working against the technique she had just put him under it showed a surprising amount of will and self awareness that he would be able to both disregard his emotions and desires enough to resist the subtle compulsion she had placed him under, as well as a not insignificant capacity for self introspection if he was aware enough of his own thoughts and actions that he could recognise the risk of telling her his honest opinions about the city council. Of course the question in and of itself gave away that his opinions were not positive, which, really, told her all she needed to know about where his loyalties lay. If she wanted to turn him against the council she could likely do so simply by offering him a better alternative... But first she should probably work out if that alternative was something that would be to her best interest, or if it would instead end up being the case that the council could be pushed and manipulated to serve her purpose.

"A fair question, lets start with something a little less... Controversial then" she said, pausing a moment to stress the word, if the man was as perceptive as he seemed to be he might even pick up the underlying implication in the word. "What do you think the council's reaction to paying their debt to me will be?" she asked, genuinely curious. "Will they throw a fit? Will they try to weasle their way out? Will they try some trick? Or will they simply pay what is owed and send me on my way" she asked, watching the man's face for reactions as she spoke.

To her surprise the man had an answer already on his lips before she even finished speaking. "The odds of them simply paying you are almost nonexistent, their reactions and their approaches will vary depending on the individual members, but none of them like parting with money, and certainly not the sort of sum of money that your expecting; You saw what just one of them in my office was like, now imagine all of them being told they owe that sort of money" He said, letting the tirade flow out now that he had broken the floodgates.

Rin nodded along, the man's words confirming what she suspected, both about the man's opinions and loyalties, as well as the dispositions of the members of the village council; which left her mind quickly putting together a burgoning plan. "Well then i think i have a proposal for you zach" she said, a smirk playing at the edges of her mask. "I find myself eager to try out some new techniques and abilities, and you obviously have very little fondness for the members of your village council, so how would you like to try to drain every coin possible out of them" She asked, feeling the energy brimming up inside her as her excitement grew, she wanted to run and fight and let that energy loose, and if this went the way she was hoping she would have just that chance.

Zach's expression visibly brightened for a moment before he quickly schooled his face. "What exactly are you proposing" He asked cautiously, though his interest was already quite clear at this point.

"Well, it's actually quite simple really, nothing untoward or illegal. I find myself with the rest of the night free and, apart from a shopping date i promised to a beautiful young lady, I have the rest of that day free as well. A village this large no doubt has a bounty board and a number of jobs approved for contractors and bounty hunters to undertake." She said that same playful smirk playing at her lips again as she spoke. "How many bounties and jobs do you have approved?" She asked, continuing on "Would it be enough perhaps that, if they were all completed and called in at once, that the council would have a hard time pulling the funds together all at once?" She finished, the crucx of her plan finally clear.

She could see the emotion's clearly on the guard captain's face as he looks first shocked, then pensive as he considered what she was suggesting, before he took on a thoughtful expression, no doubt quietly running the numbers as he worked out just how many bounties they had to be called in, then finally to a smug look that she took as acceptance. He nodded to her, walking over to the stack of papers on his desk and rifling through them as he pulled a number of them out, taking a few blank papers and scribbling a few handwritten notes on them before adding them to the pile and passing the stack to her. "There should certainly be enough to give them pause, perhaps even enough that some of them would need to liquidate personal assets or be forced to step down for miss management if these were all called in at once." He said, a cautious look crossing his face before he continued. "I wouldn't let them get wind of what you are doing mind you, if they do they'll either try to stop you, or try to have those bounties revoked before you can turn them in." Rin simply gave the man a playful smirk as she replied again. "oh dont worry about that, I'm not new to keeping things somewhat secret." She said as she reached out, pulling the spiritual energy that she had forged around them apart, allowing the chakra to disperse back into the air around them.
"Now then, with that done I shall take my leave" she said, giving the man a cocky smirk that played at the edges of her mask. It had been far, far too long since she had been able to make that expression with any degree of genuine confidence behind it, and being able to do so now was refreshing. Letting out a joyful laugh she turned, striding out the door with a spring in her step and a smile on her face.

Stepping out into the hallway she turned, looking about for the exit. It wasn't all that hard to find, whilst the hallway she was in seemed fairly non-descript, simply following it in one direction eventually led her to what she could only describe as the entryway of the bath house. She could see the proprietor rushing towards her, a small bag jingling with coins held in his hand. "Excuse me miss, before you go I just wanted to show my thanks for saving my humble establishment, no doubt you will recieve a much more substantial payment from the city for your assistance, but I wanted to show you my gratitude in turn." He said, proffering the small bag of coins to her as he spoke.

Rin pondered for a moment, before giving the man a short nod of appreciation, taking the bag of coins in had. "Thank you, it is much appreciated" she said simply, not really sure what else to say. They stood there awkwardly for a moment before, giving the man another nod of appreciation, she turned and stepped out the door, pulling out the sheaf of bounties she had acquired from the guard captain. Rifling through them she quickly sorted them into some simple categories, identifying which ones would be easiest to complete, which one's would cost the village council the most in the least amount of time, and which ones were closest together. Even knowing that with the return of her power and the dramatic increase in her abilities that had come with it, she could no doubt control this town by force, and easily defeat anyone else in the area, she wasn't willing to take such a stupid risk so soon after her recovery, it would be much better to take her time in finding her feet; not to mention getting the village and it's ruling council, albeit a different ruling council from the one that was currently in charge if things went to plan, on side was a much more benificial outcome in the long run.

Flicking through the ordered stack she quickly decided upon the first job, a simple one there was a bar not far from the bath house she had just been sheltering within that was being frequented by a number of bandits. The group was crafty, none of them were ever explicitly seen breaking the law, their money was always clean, filtered through shops and businesses that were more than willing to cover up the origin of their wealth and slowly filter it back into circulation for a price, and though merchants had been robbed, killed, or blackmailed, the evidence was always circumstantial at best. It was effectively an open secret that these men were hardened criminals, responsible for these many, many illicit activities, but the city couldn't officially do anything about it without breaking their own laws. Which was why there was a 'bounty' authorising anyone who could apprehend or stop the perpetrators of the crimes. It was worded quite artfully in fact, carefully dancing around the subject of who the targets were, the information of who they actually were and where she could find them, instead scribbled down by Zach on an attached scrap of paper. More importantly, the bounty was worded in such a way that all she had to do was make sure that the crimes were ended, and provide evidence to support that. She couldn't just rock up with the heads of these men of course, that would leave the village council with room to deny she had actually prevented the crimes and had instead commited crimes of her own, killing the men in cold blood. But she had no need for a warrant or, indeed need to be ethical in her investigations.

Striding through the streets she took in the differences, not much had changed in the few hours she had been out, thanks to the efforts of herself and the guards the vast majority of the city had been saved from any significant structural damage, the buildings were intact, the streets still clean, but whilst the city itself had been left mostly unscathed, barely a handful of explosives being set off without first being neutralised by herself and zach's team. The population itself was another matter, where before many of the streets echoed with festive cheer, the participants of the festival singing and celebrating joyously, now the streets were quiet; though she could still see the glow of lights that were no doubt the festival lights and stalls, illuminating the night's sky, the streets that emanated that light were markedly silent, the sounds that did come from the far more quiet and reserved than they had been before the incident.

She passed one of the few unfortunate craters that they had been unable to prevent, the building the bomb had been placed upon collapsed, a small chunk missing from its foundation, causing the collapse of the upper layers of the building. It was a shame, but perhaps the fates had been smiling upon the city, for though she could see guards and volunteers clearing away the rubble, there were no bodies in sight, no injured, and reaching out with her spiritual senses she could feel no signs of life under the rubble. It would seem the occupants had been away at the festival, or at the very least those that had been inside had had a swift death.

Continuing on through the streets Rin wove her way back and forth, making her way towards the solid wall that ringed the city. Even from where she stood she could see one section had collapsed, the stonework collapsing in on itself, its own foundation no doubt removed by the same explosives that had destroyed the house she had just passed, although... Rin paused in her steps, thinking back, if she remembered correctly she hadn't detected any explosives along the village wall, nor had the urchin reported any, that was an oddity. Though it had taken her time to reach her web of spiritual power that far she had made a point to scour every part of the village for bombs, for one to have destroyed a part of the wall like that... Only two possibilities really jumped out at her. Either the Explosive had been placed after she and the guards had begun their work, removing the other seals; or, perhaps more troubling still, the explosive that had been placed upon the wall had been deliberately different from the other explosives, it's method of charging and effects on the natural aura of the world completely different from what she had felt from the others. Of course there was the possibility that she had messed up, but that was, in Rin's mind, such a far fetched concept that even considering it was a waste of her time. 'Regardless' Rin thought with a shrug, starting up moving again 'that is a problem for another time, perhaps i will discuss it with zach after we have finished with the rest of our plans.'

Making her way right to the boundary of the village, its large stone wall framing a large gate that allowed travelers, merchants and farmers access to the city, she turned to a rather small inn, sitting just inside the village gates. The inn was a simple thing, a plain wodden construction made from planks, its rooftop a pointed tiled construction with a steep enough slant to keep water flowing off it during storms and urchins from traveling over it with any degree of speed, from some of the exposed rafters hung a haphazardly constructed sign that bore no name, but rather the simple image of a headless man, holding a deck of cards in one hand and a jar of dice in the other. The Headless gambler was what the guard captain's note had named the inn, and from what he had said it was the premier place for criminals and scum of all walks of life to rest their heals.

Striding forward towards the buildings old wooden door, she went to push it open, before noticing that, much as the underground bar she had visited earlier in the day, this one too had a sliding viewing bolt, but of course compared to the other bar, she had no need to be stealthy in her entrance, nor did she deed to have someone let her in from the inside. Stepping up to the door, she placed a hand on it, pushing, as if to assertain that the door was truely sealed, Rin found the clink of a metal bolt being pushed against its holster.

Flexing her hand and pushing it against the door she gave it a sharp shove, and as she did so she allowed the chakra within her body to flow and pool, colecting in the open fisted palm of her hand as she moved forward. The energy collected there, building into a roiling mass of energy until it came into contact with the door. Then, just as the energy was about to explode she cut off the flow, pulling the energy closest to her hand into a hardened protective shell, even as the rest of the energy exploded outwards, the makeshift shaped charged that she had created in her hand, exploding into the wooden frame of the door with such force that the door was reduced to splinters, shattering inwards with the sound of a shattering boom that echoed throughout the building.

She could hear the sounds of chairs being pushed over, blades being drawn as the inhabitants of the building drew arms against the intruder, but she paid it little heed, instead looking down at her hand, flexing it in wonder and joy. Her powers were back, and only seemed to be growing. The energy she had drawn in from the world earlier had only seemed to increase the potency of her chakra even further, she couldn't help but smile in joy, even internally that attack had taken such little effort, such an infintesimally small amount of energy, that she could perform the same technique again a hundred times over, letting out another joyous laugh, even as she strode forwards into the building, her heals clicking ominously on the floorboards with a Clack, Clack, Clack; every man there stood perfectly still, weapons drawn and levied against the intruder.

She could see the gears turning in their minds, the decisions being made as they evaluated the threat that she posed to them, she considered waiting, allowing them to come to the obvious conclusion that even together they were so far out classed by her that fighting would be tantamount to suicide... then she reminded herself that these thoughts of men were foolish and prideful, if given the chance, they would convince themselves that her strength must be some sort of trick and that they could easily overwhelm her with their own strength.

Speaking up before any of them made a move she would give them all an ultimatum. "Now now, no need to be pulling out toothpicks like that in such confined quarters ladies and gents" She said, her eyes scanning the crowd and picking out individuals to keep an eye on before she continued. "I dont think any of us here are going to deny that this entire establisment is a hive of scum and villany." she said, reaching to her side and unsheathing a kunai from her belt. Pausing for a moment an idea popped into her head and she began to test it, figuring the intimidating effect of the burgoning idea would be intimidating enough succeed or fail.

Splitting her attention she looked inwards towards her meridian network; pulling a strand of power from her fractured star core she wove that streak of soul fire through her meridan's, tempering it with earth chakra, forging it in fire chakra, passing it through water chakra to quench it before allowing it to flow down her arm and into her hand where she allowed it to be drawn out from her spiritual body.

Turning her attention back outwards she allowed the chakra to pool and collect in her palm for a moment, the wisps of etherial white and silver fire begining to drift up from her hand even before she began shaping the chakra. Pulling it up along the blade until the metal seemed to glow with a light so bright it was almost blinding, and as that fire continued to burn she could feel it quivering, reveling in its freedom, but more than that she could feel a sort of kinship with it, the fire reflecting and magnifying her own emotions. Still holding onto a thread of soul fire she began to feed it, giving it a taste of her anger, her fear, a piece of the terror she had always felt deep inside of her, ever since that day when her blood stained the sands of the ruind city. She fed the flame with pieces of herself she hated, fractured memories she wished only to forget, tossing more and more onto the fire as it continued to blaze, devouring incessantly with a hunger that only grew the more it was fed, and as it grew it took on those feelings, those emotions, fears and sensations. Radiating not just power, but pain, fear, terror, despair, and a myriad of other emotions, the sensation of those feelings permeating the air around her and seeping into everyone and everything around her.

Rin couldn't help but let out a chuckle, not a joyful laugh but an ominous exclamation that radiated a menace those small time villains around her had no chance of matching. Feeding those emotions to the flame had done nothing to rid her of them, but it dulled the pain those feelings caused... and what an effective tool that was, Rin watched as the armed men all around her shifted uncomfortably, more than a few of them eying the blazing white iron in her hand with raw terror, whilst others shrank back into what little shadows remained at the edges of the room. Turning to make eye contact with the nearest supposed patron of this business Rin gave the man a toothy smile.

Rin almost felt sorry for the man, almost. If it wernent for the fact that the man was so obviously an unappolagetic criminal then she might have softened her gaze a little, loosened her grip on the technique that had already bombarded him with enough terror to scare a dragon. But that was not the case, the man, covered in tattoos and adorned in more than enough stolen gold and jewels to hire a small army, was obviously a criminal, and likely the one she was looking for. "Now then, no need to fear, if you all just behave then we wont have any issues. I'm only here to make an example, so tell me who's the one thats been leading the attacks on so many merchant caravans recently?" She asked, glancing around the room at the terrified men. "Come now, i promise no one else will be hurt as long as you co-operate..." she said pausing menacingly for a moment before finishing "Well no one but that particular criminal that is" she said, letting her toothy smile grow out until it was an inhuman grin.

She must have been quite a site, a one armed demon with an eye of fire who burst in with a blade blazing with an unnatural light. The odds were strong that this would leave rumours circulating throughout the town for months if not years to come. In fact though Rin didn't know it at the time, the legend of the one eyed flame would spread throughout the countryside, striking fear into the hearts of criminals... and with events to come shortly afterwards, nobles, in equal measure. Regardless of what would happen in the future, the effects of her intimidating visage was already showing on the faces of the assembled criminals throughout the building. Almost as one they all pointed at their leader, surprisingly not the heavily tattooed and scared warrior who had at some point during this whole exchange fallen off his chair trying to get away from her.

As one the mottly assembly of cutthroats, criminals, and thieves all pointed towards the one individual within the bar who was not frozen in terror. Unsure how she had missed it now that he had been brought to her attention the bartender of this tavern stood at his bar, calmly cleaning a mug as if nothing about this was out of the ordinary, nor was it a reason for concern.

Rin narrowed her eyes, examining the man closely, stretching out her spiritual senses to examine the man within her minds eye even as she looked him over for hidden weapons, signs of tricks or weaknesses. The first thing she noticed was perhaps also the most obvious, much like herself the bartender was missing an eye, an eye patch fashioned from simple brown leather wrapped around the right half of his face, keeping what was no doubt a gaping hole in his head hidden from view. The next thing she noticed was the complete lack of any spiritual pressure from the man at all. When she closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, focusing solely on her spiritual sensem despite her best efforts and full attention the man, as far as she could tell, simply didn't exist... no wait that wasn't entirely true... or rather that was true in an entirely different way from what she had meant. As she examined her senses closer she found the space the man occupied seemed to be non-existant, as if that small portion of the world had been folded over and squeezed out of reality.

Hesitant to keep her eyes closed for even a moment Rin opened them again, still deeply troubled by the implications of what she had felt, if this man was capable of hiding his presence from her so thouroughly, even after she had regained her former strength, them he was a force to be rekoned with. Continuing to eye the man carefully she examined the rest of his attire and apperance, searching for some sort of indication or hint of a weakness.

The picture of an utter gentleman the man was garbed not in leather or armor of any form, but a simple white dress shirt, neatly tucked into a pair of plain black trousers that just barely peaked out from where he stood behind the bar, picking up another glass to clean. She could see him watching her however, eying her from the corner of his vision even as he pretended to focus on a speck that marred the otherwise perfectly clear glass, feigning a lack of concern and the mess rin had already made of his bar room.

Rin frowned for a moment, evaluating the man with a calm eye for what, to the assembled bandits and criminals on the edge of pissing their pants, must have felt like an eternity before uttering a single word. "Out" she said, flicking her blade of blazing light in the direction of the door with impatience when the men all looked at her with confusion.

The men all stayed perfectly still, perhaps stunned by the unexpected mercy that the heaven's had decided to grace them with, but another word from Rin, a simple "unless you would rather a bloodbath" was enough to have them all tripping over each other, and their own hands and legs, to be the first out of the door.

Once the bar had emptied out in its entirety, leaving none but Rin and the tavern's proprietor inside, Rin finally made the decision that had been circling around in her head this whole time. Killing the man should, given the new found power she had aquired, be reasonably simple, but she could already tell she had been acting rashly over the past few hours. She could remember somewhere in the back of her head an old medical text book that she had read once that mentioned it as a possible reaction experiencing a near death experience, something she would have to be careful of, she already had enough cripling trauma's to deal with, she didnt need another one, but that was an issue for later, right now she had a supposed bandit lord to deal with, one confident enough to at lest feign disinterest when she burst in radiating enough power to level this entire building into the ground. Which meant either he was far more competent than he appeared, or he was a fool of such unparalleled talent that his command of even a single man would be a miracle the likes of which even heaven itself would be unable to produce.

Given the possible threat the man represented Rin's mind started ticking over ideas even as she strode towards the bar, her eye still trained on the man as she approached, keeping watch for any sudden move or threat the man might pose. In the end the choice was simple enough, if the man represented a possible threat then he was best removed with the element of surprise, and since Rin didn't currently have that she may as well see if he was suitable for the second option. To be a useful pawn in her manipulation and eventual subjugation of this town.

Finally Reaching the bar Rin pulled out a seat, a long wooden stool that very clearly had seen better days. She took a seat at the bar, watching the bartender's face closely before her eyes drifted up to browse the vast array of bottles and glasses lining the shelves of the bar. "I don't suppose you have anything stronger than this?" She asked, peering into the depths of the well stocked liquor cabinet before finally settling on a bottle of Western Ironhold Whiskey. A lack of reply from the man made it clear she would have to settle "No? Well, I guess that's fine, I'll take a shot of that one then." she said, waiting to see how the bartender responded before adding a few coins to the bar top.

The man, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the entire bar had just fled, picked up the bottle and poured a shot into a glass, which he handed to Rin with a nod of approval. Gesturing to the man to pour himself a glass of his own Rin sat there for a moment, her eyes wandering from the man to the bottles lined up on the shelves, and back again.

"So, whats your name?" Rin asked, taking a sip of her whiskey, it tasted pretty good, and it was a damn sight better than the watery stuff she had been drinking for the past few years.

"Name's Tetsuo." The man replied after a second or two of thought.

"Tetsuo, so you're the leader of these bandits then?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I am, or was, until you showed up." He said, giving her a look that said he knew what she was here for, not that she had made that hard to work out.

Rin frowned at the man, "You mean you were running a gang of bandits, and then I showed up and scared everyone off?"

"Pretty much, even if I got rid of you it would take an age to drag them all back in here now." He said with a shrug.

Rin smiled slightly at the man's response, "Well, I'm not going anywhere, so unless you have any other plans then we can just sit here and talk for a while, you seem like a reasonable fellow, I'd hate to have to kill someone in a fight I could have talked my way out of..." She said, offering the man a sly smile.

"That's true, I suppose we could do that..." he replied, a slight smile spreading across his face as he realized his first mistake in dealing with this woman. "But I'm not sure how long you plan on sitting here, if you want to stay you'll have to pay, and I doubt you have enough money to buy me out" the man said, returning her smile with a grin of his own.

Rin couldn't help but smile at the man's confidence, he seemed to believe he could hold his own against her, something that Rin found oddly endearing. "Well, I'm not going to pay you, I'm not the type to spend money on someone I've been hired to kill, and I don't think you have enough to pay me off either, but I am willing to offer you a deal." She said, flourishing a hidden blade she had been holding between her fingers for a moment before tucking it away in the lining of her belt.

"A deal? What kind of deal?" Tetsuo asked, his smile turning into a frown.

"Well that's rather simple, I have a rather large debt owed to me by the elders of your fine little city, Tetsuo, and reluctant to pay as they may be I fully intend on collecting." She said smiling at the man "Of course, these elders have already made it rather clear they have no intention or desire to pay. In fact, I suspect that they will try to avoid paying altogether, which means I need a way to get them to pay up, and make it clear what happens to those who try to cross me." She said, locking eyes with her erstwhile target

"What do you mean?" Tetsuo asked, his frown turning into a scowl.


"What i mean is, I am going to bankrupt the town's elders with debts and leverage their unwillingness to pay as a way to move allies into their seats of power my good man, and I'm going to do it all without ever spending a single coin of my own money." She said, finishing her whiskey and setting down her glass, "Now, all i'm saying here is theres a bounty on getting rid of the bandits, no where did it say i had to kill all of you. So keep your men in check, keep your nose clean for a few days, and swear your loyalty to me and we very well might see you in charge of the city one day."

"And what do you want in return?" Tetsuo asked, his scowl turning into a slight smirk.

"Well, it goes without saying that I'd like your word that your men will stop attacking travelers on the road, and that you'll leave the rest of the townsfolk alone too, but more than that I want you to follow instructions when they are given to you. You can do what you want with the town as far as i'm concerned, as long as you follow three simple rules." She said raising up three fingers to the man's face. "One, you make sure the money keeps flowing, as long as the town keeps paying me i'm happy. Two you keep the town's military strong and well trained; and three, the most important one, on the rare occasions you get an order from me, you obey it without question." she said, dropping her final finger and offering the man her hand. "So what do you say, do we have a deal... Or shall I kill you now instead?" She said pausing for a moment before letting out a hollow laugh as if her threat had instead been some sort of joke.

"I suppose I have no choice then." He said, taking her hand and shaking it. "I'll do what you ask, but I warn you, once I have control of the city it won't be long before I start making demands of my own..." the man said only for Rin to wave him off.

"Dont bother with demands, just do what you want with the city, you already know the three rules, as long as it doesnt violate those rules you can grind the villagers into dust and sell them as beauty cream for all i care." She said, pulling her hand away from the man and standing up from her stool. "Now that that's settled, I'm going to go see about my next contract." she said before pausing and holding out the glass again. "One for the road?" she said, tipping back another shot of whiskey from the reluctant bandit leader turned co-conspirator before turning and leaving.

Stepping out onto the street again Rin glanced around and saw that Tetsuo's men had well and truly cleared out of the area, and they had taken the criminals and ruffians that had been lurking in the surrounding alleyways along with them, which was perfect for Rin, that left Tetsuo weakened enough that he shouldn't try anything stupid before she had stabilized power and left her with just another charge to add onto the village elders bill, all at the same time. Turning to look at the guard who had been manning the gates she called out. "Hey you, make sure to report all the criminals and bandits have been run off from the area." She called out, turning and striding off in the direction of her next target even as the flustered guard called out after her, no doubt looking for a name to report back. She considered giving him one, but with the blood red garb she wore it was hard not to recognise her, and this way she would leave more of an impression on the city as a whole, which suited her perfectly. The more she was seen dealing with these jobs the harder it would be for the elder's to avoid paying.

The next stop for her was a shady looking apartment building rather deep in the village's slums, there had been a murder here, or rather a poisoning, whether it was intentional yet or not was yet to be seen. Regardless of how high the bounty was for this job it was blatantly apparent right away how little the cities higher ups cared about this If the crime had been committed anywhere else the building likely would have been cordoned off with investigators exploring the crime scene, collecting evidence, interrogating possible witnesses and so on. Instead the building was functionally unattended, certainly urchins and wastrels loitered around, beggars sitting in nearby alleyways begging for scraps from those who barely had enough scraps to survive on themselves, but none of them were there to watch the entrance to the building, none even seemed to care when she started to stride towards the building, which just drove home how little the powers that be within this town cared for the poor folk.

This would certainly be something zach would see changed if he took power, and something Rin could see benifiting her in the long run if it was remedied, certainly letting a killar like this run amock was bad for the town in a slew of ways, but at the same time something like this probably wouldn't even garner tetsuo's attention, whilst she had only had a brief interaction with the former bandit lord it had been enough to understand both the man's shrewdness and his personality. Indeed each individual was almost a complete polar opposite of the other, and yet Rin was no fool, she had chosen the two personalities carefully.

Zach, the Night watch captain who very clearly had more than a few issues with the town's existing power structure, the fact that one of the most powerful and competent guards in the city was sitting at such a low rank, more than enough evidence on its own to indicate there was someone above him trying to keep him underfoot so to speak, but once given a chance to excersise his power without such stifling oversight Rin was certain the man would blossom into a competent commander of the masses, one who could elicit the faith and trust of the people even as he worked to lift them up.

On the other hand Tetsuo was the sort who was willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of others for his own goals, that had been more than clear from the disregard he showed towards his compatriots lives. He was also capable of keeping a clear head during high pressure moments, and knew how to keep a poker face, the lack of any reaction or response to her presence and the ability to keep up a persona of strength even in the situation where your all out of cards and have been completely outplayed would be invaluable.

The two would either balance each other perfectly or clash until the stronger and more cunning of the two succeeded in ruining or controlling the other. Either way Rin benefited from the outcome, but the cities new ruling faction was a topic she would turn her attention to more when the succession was in place, for now she needed to focus on the task at hand.

Stepping into the fetid old apartment building she took a moment to survey the building's lobby, she couldn't help but notice the smell of death and decay that permeated the air, it was a strange mix of the musty smell of the building itself and the sickly sweet scent of rot that seemed almost to be seeping from the ceiling. The carpet was stained and torn, the walls were covered in graffiti and the lights were flickering, the building had clearly been abandoned for some time, the only reason the building had been allowed to remain standing was due to the fact that the local government had been unable to afford, or unwilling to 'find the funds,' to tear it down, and of course the exhorbitantly inflated rent designed to exploit those desperate enough to live in a squalid building like this was likely far too high to justify the expense in demolishing this appaling structure, and so the building had been left to rot...

Which, come to think of it she vaugely remembered a job being offered in one of the tavern's she had been frequenting earlier this week that involved expelling a number of tenant's who had failed to pay their rent from a number of buildings within the cities slums, she had never rhad any intention of venturing into the slums at the time so she had never taken up the job, but she did keep a notebook with the copies of all the jobs she had seen in her travels, you never knew when an easy job would fall into your hands after all. A perfect example as it happened, being this building which also housed a number of occupants who the landlords wanted expelled by any means necessary.

Deciding to save herself some time and accept the oppertunity that had so graciously fallen into her waiting lap, Rin quietly added the eviction of the building's tenant's to her list of ongoing jobs, a mental note joining the physical one to deal with that minor task once the job at hand was finished. Walking into the building proper and making her way over the the stairwell she began to climb the stairs, coming to the top she turned the corner and entered the hallway, taking a moment to study the layout of the building before deciding on the best route to take, the building was laid out in a somewhat haphazard fashion, the building's original landlord had simply divided the building into a number of rooms and then rented them out, there was no real attempt to make the building look nice or uniform, and so the hallways were a hodgepodge of small rooms with doors leading off, some of the rooms were larger than others, but none of them were particularly large, and as such Rin was able to move without having to worry about disturbing anyone.

Eventually giving up on any semblance of stealth she decided to just wade her way through the building, trying doors semi randomly as she attempted to make her way to the apartment in question, though with each and every step she became less and less sure that this was even worth her time, the odds of finding an undisturbed crime scene, or indeed even any scene at all which hadn't been completely marred by whatever small child, door knocker or bored stranger wandered in off the street. Fortunately the universe must have been watching, waiting for a chance to prove her wrong, or perhaps the city guard weren't quite as incompetent as they appeared, for as she finally found her way to the apartment in question, a not insignificant number of accidental entries into apartment's who's residents had, for some ungodly reason, thought it safe to leave their front doors, or in one particular case the poor woman's bathroom door, open.

When she finally found the apartment in question, rather than an open door, her crime scene contaminated and any number of valuable clues to the winds, she found the apartment's door had been sealed shut with layers upon layers of high grade tape that the village's guard team likely used to cordon off crime scenes, moreover that tape itself had had a number of well crafted fuinjutsu seals layered across it to ensure the room wasn't tampered with by outside forces, a fact Zach had failed to mention to her when he had offered her the assignment, though given how disorganised the town's guard was it was quite possible he had no idea. Whoever had been first on scene finding the body had simply cordoned off the set of rooms and left a report for their superiors to follow up on. the report likely sat on someone's desk for a few weeks before complaining from the landlord or perhaps the victim's neighbors had caused the job to be outsourced without anyone actually following up on what resources would need to be provided for the contractors to access the scene.


Fortunately Rin was not like other contractors and had long ago developed the basic skills to remove simple obstructions such as this one, though the door had been sealed shut by what, within this small town was no doubt a leading tallent within the arts of fuinjutsu, to Rin it was like a child had been playing with a seal once again. Stepping up to the door she placed her hand upon one of the seals, closing her eyes as she reached out with her spiritual senses, feeling out the structure of the rather basic single circle sealing array.

The seal was made from only a single circle. something tha, generally speaking was either the sign of a master very short on tools and resources, or the sign of an inexperienced sealsmith who was mostly self taught.

The seal in this case was certainly not the work of a master, which left only one real option. A master might design a sealing circle in such a way that it drew in energy from the natural world to sustain itself all the while designing the change in the flow of the world's ambient chakra to be drawwn into the seal in such a way as to cause the desired effect, completely removing the need for supplementary sealing formulae, This seal on the other hand looked like someone had tried to use the same sealig array that drew in energy to sustain itself, to also keep the doorway sealed; not just that but the way in which the seal was designed to protect said doorway was... rather crude. The seal took any incoming attempt to open the door or pass through the doorway and pushed back against whatever force was attempting to intrude. The concept itself was sound, if a bit of an odd choice for an appartment where entry from a hundred other locations, not least of which was the option of entering through the ceiling or floor, but that was something she could write off as the seals being mass produced, no the issue she immediately found with the seal's construction, not counting the lack of any supplementary arrays of course, was the seal's complete lack of any way to handle or regulate the flow of energy through the seal.

That left Rin with two options for entry... well three options if you counted picking apart the technique piece by piece with a fuinjutsu dismantling technique, but given how flawed this seal was it would be much easier for her to take the second method if she wanted to take that path. The first path to entering she had was to go around the seal, it as far as she could tell, covered only the doorway, the paper thin walls within this apartment leaving her plenty of ways to simply tear into the crime scene if she didn't mind causing some minor property damage, which of course she didn't; but there was something perversely satisfying in dismantling the flaws in someone else's work, and given how shoddily created this formula was it should only take her a moment to disable. Reaching out to the doorway, trailing her hand down the seal, she reached out with her spiritual sense, feeling the flow of the world's natural chakra through the seal. She could feel the energy flowing into the seal, barely a trickle actually being used to power the seal, the rest being lost to waste and inefficiencies within the formula itself.

A simple exertion of her will, a quivering in the natural chakra around her for a moment before the chakra that was, up until that moment, flowing into the seal began to slow, the tide of energy reducing until barely a trickle still slowed into the seal, a moment later the barrier the seal maintained flickered and died, the effect dispersing back into motes of light and energy as the power that sustained it ran out. Rin couldn't help but smile at how quickly and quietly she had disabled the seal, even as that very same fact worried and irked her. talented though she may be that didn't change the fact that many others were capable of this level of control, which meant any number of others could already have tampered with this crime scene if they had so wished. She couldn't even rely on the seal still being intact when she arrived, the method she had so easily used to dismantle the technique also leaving the seal perfectly intact and ready for reactivation with only a slight influx of chakra.

Sighing as she forced herself to acknowledge there was little if anything she could do to remedy the matter after the fact, Rin pushed the door open, ducking under and through the tape covering the door as she stepped through into the crime scene. The sight that met her was grisly to say the least. Despite the death in question seemingly being a result of poison the room was covered in blood, the decrepid old apartment almost looking as if it had received a fresh coat of paint were it not for the ocasional spot where the apartment's old cream wallpaper peaked out, well that and the overwhelming smell of week old blood that had dried into the building's carpet, walls and ceiling.

Sniffing her nose in distaste Rin took another step into the room, gingerly putting her foot down even as her finely honed senses cringed at the sound of a thousand crystalised blood fragments shattered under her weight, the floor beneath her feet more than likely having been coated in the same substance as the walls. The carpet was stained in the same shade of red as the walls, the only real difference being that the blood on the carpet was a darker red than that of the walls, the blood having collected in a far greater quantity and congealed into a slimy mess.

Rin had to pull out her notebook of jobs and double check that the description had been right, this hardly looked like the crime scene she would expect of a poisoning, but that is what it had been marked down as, letting out a sigh that was cut short as she realised how horrid the air within the room smelt, the faint coper and iron smell mixing with what she could only describe as an overwhelming smell of pickled vegetables, Rin took another step into the room, examining it closely.

The small studio apartment looked... well modern wasn't really the right word given how shody and haphazardly the building had been constructed, but it did at least attempt to mimic popular open floor plan designs. She had stepped into a basic living and lounge area, the single half wall separating the room from the humble kitchenette on he side whilst what was likely the bedroom was separated from this hybrid living area by a long dining table that looked entirely out of place within the building, the hard wood construction clearly more expensive than anything else here and likely more expensive than anything else that she would be able to find within the building too.

The kitchenette set off to one side as it was, offered the only source of natural light into the room, a large window looking out onto the street beyond, though only a trickle of light penetrated into the room, the window's curtains drawn and hiding the blood covered apartment from being observed from outside.

Thankfully the body itself wasn't hard to locate, the rock hard cadaver lying on the floor by the dining table, the corpse's head turned to one side, the man's eyes open wide, the whites of his eyes showing, the pupils dilated and staring straight ahead, the skin around the eyes and mouth a deep red, the lips curled up into a look of pain, the man's face frozen in the final moments before death.

From every orifice of his body, from the eyes and nostrils to the ears and anus, the man's flesh was covered in a thick layer of congealed blood, even the man's skin was not free, the man's pores widened to an entirely unnatural degree had obviously been leaking blood in the man's final moments as well, the corpse an odd white figure speckled with deep black marks where part of the man's blood had stuck and congealed within him.

Rin made a mental note to ask about the man's diet, the man's physique being a bit of a mystery until she could get whatever amounted to an autopsy report in this backwater village, if the guard had bothered to examine the cadaver at all that was. The man's clothing was equally as macabre, the man's shirt and pants both soaked in blood, the fabric sodden and clinging to the man's body like a second skin.

Covering her mouth with a hankerchief that she tied around her mouth and nose Rin reluctantly got to work, she started off by testing the composition of the days old blood, stretching out a sliver of her chakra to extend into the cadaver and give her an idea of how far the coagulation process had gone. Unsurprisingly the blood that had flowed through the man's veins was either spread out across the apartment floors and walls, or what little remained was congealed in the man's pores. Perhaps what was more interesting still was the condition of the body however, even when focussing her spiritual senses to the finest she could manage she found not even the slightest hint of bacteria within the body, something that was reflected in the condition of the body.

Rin could see no evidence of decomposition, which whilst the room had been reasonably cool, was still entirely out of the bounds of expectation for a cadaver that had been left here for an indeterminate amount of time. Glancing down at her notes again she rifled through the papers until she was able to find the one pertaining to this job in particular. Thirteen days, that was what the date at the top of the page said, which, given that date was when the order had been written, it was much more likely the body had been here for well over two weeks. Running her mind over what sorts of poisons and chemicals might have been responsible for such an occurence she flitted through a number of options before being forced to conceed that either her knowledge was outdated, a serious possibility given how removed she had been over the past few years from the criminal underworld's more ambitious movements; or equally likely, that this was some sort of new creation. Accidentally nudging the body with her hand she couldn't help but wrinkle her nose as the blood that had congealed underneath the body was exposed to the air slightly, the more moist substance letting off a wave of that same harsh pickle like smell she had picked up on earlier.


Rather than ignore the smell Rin began running through her mental catelog of ingredients that could cause such a scent, hoping she might find one that provided at least a hint to the poison that must have been used here, odd though it may be. Eventually she snapped her fingers in exaltation, she had almost forgotten the chemical ingredient, having only encountered it once, but now that she had it at the forefront of her mind she could confirm that the scent smelt strongly of formaldehyde. Having only encountered it once when her erstwhile master had been showing her how to preserve a body she had almost forgotten it's existence until now.. Mentally scratching at the back of her head in curiosity she made a conscious effort ot to touch anything else with her hands, instead coating them with a thin layer of chakra that should serve as a protective layer between her skin and the chemical.

Whilst its primary use wasn't as a poison it certainly could do a decent amount of damage to the human body, at least that was what her master had told her when she had applied the strong smelling substance directly into the veins of their charge, although now that rin thought back her master at the time had been very clear about their the effects of formaldehyde and the rapid expulsion of blood from every possible orifice was certainly not on the list of common effects. Whatever this poison was, it had to be made of at least two substances, perhaps more curious though was, if whoever had created this poison had done so with any degree of inteligent thought, why would someone add formaldehyde to the list of ingredients in their poison when the other ingredients could cause such a response.

Humming to herself slightly she couldn't help but wonder if there was more to this than just a simple poisoning, formaldehyde was notorious, at least within the right circles, for it's ability to cause pooling of fluid and eventually necrosis within the body, something that could potentially be fatal in large enough doses certainly, but it's use in a poison like this would serve more to preserve the body than anything else. Whatever other ingredients had caused the rapid expulsion of blood from the victim's body were far more effective killers after all. Moreover the guards had left the body here without bothering to make any arrangements for it to be preserved or cared for, which meant either they were vastly more incompetent than even she thought possible of them, or they knew that the body would be preserved, if the answer was the former then the odds of her finding any more evidence on this crime was effectively zero, the guards likely having made a mess of anything she could gather, meanwhile if it was the latter that was the case then the city guard obviously knew at least a little more than they were letting on, either they were in some way shape or form responsible for this poison, whatever it was, which given the job specifically asked for the poison to be identified seemed unlikely or they had encountered the poison before, which would indicate a string of similar murders, each of which would be a prime way to gather further information on the poison.

Making a mental note to visit the guard barracks and see if she could track down any of these other phantom poisonings Rin stood, dusting herself off with a wave of her hand before she started to explore the apartment, looking for any evidence as to what might have been the source of the poison, but try as she might there was no obvious evidence that might indicate a transmission source and the apartment itself had been so heavily contaminated by the explosive release of blood from the victim's body that any hope of finding traces of the poison that hadn't already been through the victims body was nigh impossible, eventually she was forced to give up. Sighing Rin traced her fingers through the air, feeding chakra into them once again, the motion almost automatic at this point, as she tore open a small space and reached inside. Pulling out a syringe from her stock she knelt down to the pool of blood that had congealed under the body and drew a small sample out from the liquid before standing back up and putting it away in her storage space.

Sighing at the relatively lacking supply of evidence Rin turned back to look over the apartment one last time before stepping outside, sealing the door behind her and, with a small puff of nature chakra, reactivating the seal on the apartment before starting the long winding path back out of the complex.

When Rin finally stepped back out onto the street, having eventually found her way back out of the maze of the building the sun was beginning to rise over the skyline of the city, the day having begun with a bright orange glow that slowly faded to a rosy pink as the sky continued to lighten. She was just about to start her way off towards the cities guard house when the hairs on the end of her neck began to stand on end. Looking around she saw nothing but the usual bustle and commotion of the streets, people going about their business as normal, but as she watched she noticed that there was a slight change in the crowd, a flicker of movement amongst the crowds that she couldn't quite place, as if there was something hidden amongst the crowd that she just couldn't quite see.

Feigning ignorance she began to walk out onto the street, rejoining the bustling morning crowds as she began to make her way across the street, not quite right to where she had felt the disturbance, but rather as if she was rather absentmindedly heading towards an alleyway that divided this street of the slums from another. As she walked she subtly glanced around, trying to find the source of the disturbance, but she still couldn't quite place it, finally she reached the mouth of the alley and began to walk down its length, passing the occasional small shop and tavern as she went, finally reaching the end of the alley and turning left, putting her well out of view of where she had seen the disturbance.

Pulling up against the side of the street she closed her eyes for a moment, stretching out her spiritual senses in the direction of the alleyway searching for any hint of a disturbance within the chakra of the world. Of course the energy of the world swirled and flowed through the space, the day to day life of the bustling morning traffic of the city, the smells of the cooking wafting from the nearby restaurants, the sounds of the people talking, arguing, laughing, crying, and the ever present hum of the air itself, but those were not what she was looking for; training her senses even more closely on the entrance to the alleyway she began to search for any hint of chakra being used within the area. A sign that someone might have been using a technique or artifact to cloak themselves.
Her senses probing the area she began to feel her way carefully along the alleyway, following the flow of the chakra of the world, feeling for any signs of a concealed presence. Finally she found what she was looking for, a faint trace of chakra in the air, but only barely, it was a subtle thing, as if someone rather inexperienced had tried to conceal it from her, but it was there. Reaching out with her spiritual sense she followed the trace of chakra and found it to be flowing into a small doorway at the end of the alleyway, a small wooden door that led into a small storeroom.

Both intrigued by the oddity and rather irked at being interrupted by what was most likely a rather incompetent spy, Rin made her way down the alley towards the storeroom, passing the occasional small shopfront or makeshift tavern, that had sprung up from the ramshackle buildings that coated the slums, as she went until finally reaching the end of the alleyway, where she stopped and looked around, listening intently for any sounds from within the storeroom. Finding none she took a deep breath, reaching out to the world and drawing her spiritual sense back inwards she began to channel her chakra. She could feel the spark of fire within her start to flare up, eager to be used, but she ignored it, as powerful and useful as it was, this was not a technique which required raw power or hunger, rather it required a fine hand, a deft touch, and an iron tight control in how one allowed their chakra to interact with that of the natural world. Breathing in and out in a meditative pattern that was, once almost second nature to her, she began to cycle her chakra through her channels, relishing in how freely the energy flowed, passing through her meridians with no resistance at all. Though it had undeniably been a curse, she couldn't help but marvel at what had become of her chakra pathways. Her body had been wracked and ruined by the King in Thread's corruption, and the obstructions had well and truly warped her spiritual body, but now that they had been cleansed the chakra flowed through her like the purest water flows through a cobbled stream.

Weaving a serious of hand seals even as she shaped her chakra she felt an odd sensation, a subtle tugging on her chakra in a distant corner of her mind, as if she was trying to perform another technique at the same time... or perhaps the same technique? It felt almost as if the chakra was being shaped twice, once under her control, and then a few moments later a perfect replica of what she had just done, an echo of her own will if you would, disrupting her own technique ever so slightly. She tamped her will down on her chakra, reinforcing her control and returning her chakra flow to normal, but she still felt that tugging sensation, as if her subconscious was trying to shape the chakra for her. Shaking her head she focused her attention on the task at hand, ignoring the odd sensations in her mind, she concentrated her will on forming the technique, letting a thin layer of her chakra release out from her body in a mist that clung tightly around her body, warping and bending the light ever so slightly to render her all but invisible. Once that was done she looked down, checking with her eyes that the technique had taken even as she waved her hand's in front of her face, the technique rendering them entirely invisible even to close inspection, then with a push of her hand against the door she stepped into the unknown once more.

The door to the storeroom was unlocked and swung open easily, revealing a small room, barely large enough to fit a small table and two chairs, with shelves along the walls and a single window set high up in the wall opposite the entrance. The room was empty save for a small pot, a few small jars and a pair of straw mats laid out on the floor. Despite the aperance of a storeroom from the outside this was being used as anything but. Even to a cursory examination it was clear that this building was being used as a safehouse, likely to keep watch on the appartment building she had just visited, the table had a deck of playing cards strewn out across it, the cards looking like they had been arranged in the middle of a game of dead dragons eye, a popular game in the underground that required two players to play against each other with ever increasing wagers; whilst the pair of straw tatami mats were still squashed down where they had been recently slept in. Those two notes on their own were more than enough evidence to suggest there had been not just one, but two people in here; likely so that they could keep watch in pairs. The more interesting question however was what had prompted someone to hire two individuals with, at least enough talent to mask their presence, albeit poorly, to keep watch over a crime scene that seemingly offered very little valuable information as to the killer.

Reminding herself that she was invisible Rin had to suppress the urge to hum in interest, this was a mystery that actually tickled her interest, the poison itself was unique, or if not unique then it was at the very least entirely foreign to her, moreover whoever had used it had been cautious enough about the results that they wanted to keep track of who and what witnessed the crime scene; and yet the way they had gone about acquiring that information was so inefficient if all that they wanted to prioritize was gaining knowledge of people going in and out of the crime scene, no instead they had devoted a not insignificant amount of resources to remaining undetected, in a backwoods like this the flawed technique being used would have rendered the watcher, whoever they were, all but undetectable, and yet despite that their benefactor had stationed the watcher's across the street from the actual target, only keeping watch on the entrance to the building at large rather than watching the appartment where the body itself was kept. Of course there was also the possibility that she was jumping to conclusions, these individuals could, in theory, be watching the building for completely unrelated reasons, indeed given where they were there were likely hundreds of shady things going on every moment, but none of them tickled her senses like this did, and she had long ago learnt to trust that feeling when it came.


Tentatively reaching out with her spiritual senses again she began to probe the room in small, almost impossibly gentle stints. Focusing on the area around her own body she probed at the air, attempting to sense any residual traces of the individual she had sensed before, but there was nothing, she even looked for a hint of the poison, but that two was lacking, not even the slightest trace of the poison itself. Sighing and adding this to the growing list of questions surrounding this mystery she turned to leave when she noticed something slightly out of the ordinary. Crumpled up by the table, the parchment itself worn as it lay on the ground. Sat a simple note, a short string of letters and numbers that made absolutely no sense. "EWfuhw aewiufh waifu Eohf owafejwa Seae soine 392 210 329 23094832 wehw wehw spdfkwef waeuwha" It looked like absolute giberish, but the fact was that whoever had written the note had only wanted to obscure the words being conveyed, they had no intention of obscuring the fact that a code itself had been used here. In Rin's experience it was a fool's decision to encode vital information in such a way, either the information was captured and immediately identified as a cipher of some kind, or it was captured and the lack of any obscuring details made it significantly easier for some protegee to crack in a few moments. Of course in this case the former was more true than the latter, whilst she was incredibly talented in a vast array of ways she was, unfortunately, no protegee when it came to the cracking of codes and ciphers. Still with a shrug Rin picked the note up, carefully tucking it inside what she expected to be her jacket to be before standing and heading towards the entryway, careful to leave everything else as undisturbed as possible. There was a reasonable change that if this building was empty of both parties they either knew that they had been discovered or one of them had been sent to deliver a report of her visiting the appartment complex in general. Whilst the former seemed more likely it certainly didn't hurt to try and obscure her presence here if at all possible.