Patrols were steady, for once. Yet the gaps between the shinobi watching the roads were becoming longer and longer; especially at night.
“As to any wonder why…” a simple farmer said to himself as he ruminated on the morning news. A family of five, all slaughtered on the road just north of their farms on their way back from Kumogakure. Bandits? The first question asked during the emergency town hall, and one quickly shot down. The shinobi sent there to warn their humble people to stay off the roads assured them, that whatever killed their own did so with the ferocity of a beast. Murmurs through the crowd quickly became angry. Where was the military? The patrols? Why wasn’t the road that close to the Raikage’s seat being watched? Hyo listened to the questions quickly be lobbed at the poor soldier picked to deliver the bad news; and left soon as they did. Now he stood in front of a payphone.
It still looked new despite the five or six years it had been out here. When the government installed it, it finally felt like they were really being looked after for once instead of just fending for themselves while the noble lords played. Yet all it took was a single small revolution and a handful of bad choices for the group to plague the country with an infection that was slowly rotting them to the core. While his fellow farmers continued to rear their fury at the very first slip of that security, Hyo acted calmly, and did his duty. As the village chief of his little farming operation, it was on him to make sure the idiots that worked under him didn’t try to follow in the footsteps of foolish rebels. His hand snatched up the phone, gently placing it against his large neck as he reached into his overalls to fish out a little worn out notebook. It was covered in an amateur tanned casing with little strings that kept it closed. Pulling them apart, Hyo thumbed through until he reached a number.
If there was a single person in the country who could solve their problem, it was Lady Rei of the Ryuu Clan. Years ago the woman had reached out to them after the war to help him rebuild his farmlands. He owed the new shinobi clan much, but they assured he owed nothing. That, if he ever needed any kind of help to simply call a single phone number and the Ryuu would come running. It was a favor given he had only used once during a drought, two years ago…he hoped they were still willing to share another. The dial tones beeped in his ears gently before a tone. Someone picked up on the other side, first ring. Silence. It was like this last time and the intimidating weight on his shoulders of who, he could be speaking to was just as heavy. And, just like the previous call, he simply spoke his grievance in a single sentence,
“I have a wolf problem.”
The phone hung up with a heavy click. The simple farmer replaced the black plastic weight in his hand on the receiver and breathed a heavy sigh. It almost felt like cursing someone, asking for such a task. Last time he called the Ryuu they sent two blue-haired twins to fix his drought problem; but they were little more than children. He hoped, in all sincerity, that they sent an adult as he could not bear the death of children to be on his hands - even if it meant his livelihood.
Not long after the call, Hyo was in the fields when he felt a presence. It was barely an hour to noon when she showed up, like a breeze gently ruffling the back of his neck. She felt like an elephant on his shoulders without laying a single finger on him, and as he turned to greet Rei, that feeling lifted; if by nothing else but befuddlement.
There she stood, barely. Leader of the Ryuu Clan looking haggard and far beyond her actual years. She was wearing a large jacket tied around her waist, but the sleeves hung off her frail limbs like some exaggerated wizard’s robe. Bags were starting to show beneath her eyes where the reflective round shades couldn’t hide, and in her hair, streaks of honest gray. No madness in there, no; just years of service. Hyo’s guilt did not lift, but neither did he hesitate,
“I assume you’ll have heard about the murders up the roads? I need whatever did that removed from this area, I don’t care how you do it. They’se simple people, the farmers o’ this land, and they spook easy.”
“Never mind you,” she said with a warm tone that caught Hyo off guard, “I know full well how the Low-Landers spook easy. I already have a lead. Return to your job, I’ll have it handled by sun’s setting. Oh, and I’d till a touch more if you want bigger pumpkins next season. They were looking a little sad.”
Before he could rebuttal, Rei was gone. Right before his eyes she slipped under the ground as if stepping into a sinkhole and that was just…it. He dabbed a bit of sweat off his paling skin, to wonder exactly what she was capable of.
As lesson learned not long after. Rei’s head popped out of the road’s natural dirt path to examine the area where the family had been torn apart. Traffic had already long resumed over the path that had been, badly, cleaned up to keep from inciting panic at the grisly horrors in the trees just beyond. Lifting out of the ground, she gently kicked at the dirt with a shock of chakra that illuminated the debris that wasn’t part of the road. Within seconds she deduced it was a family of six, or at least, a party of. There was a trail leading off the road and into the woods. With a sigh, Rei shrugged off her jacket before bending over to roll up her slacks. Socks and shoes came off and then her sleeves were rolled up before she focused herself.
The trail wasn’t Lycan. For certain, she could say that, but it did seem like something darker than simply a wolf. She patted the little case in her left pocket as an assurance - the serum, just in case - before stepping off of the natural road and into the forest. Her senses were instantly assailed as the natural earth’s chakra seeped into her pores. As always, it was a feeling of both dread and exhilaration as the wolf inside of her screamed to run and hunt; while she clung to the human that said, “Steady.”
A little chakra to the eyes and she looked down at the trail of blood that continued to lead further back into the forest beyond and heading towards the Heartlands; which was a whole bag of stupid she really didn’t want to deal with. Thankfully, the trail turned suddenly back in a loop and she found a cave nestled beyond some thick shrub. With a wave of her hand the protective vegetation offering the cave a hiding place shrank away; and from it exploded a man.
Long dark hair, overly muscular and seething with power. His body was covered in the rotting rags of random people he had killed, and his face seemed distorted into something wolf-like. Rei side-stepped the initial rush as her brain quickly processed what she was dealing with. Her nose gave a whiff, her skin felt the heat of his passage. The kunoichi’s feet absorbed the impact of the man’s feet shake the ground. All of these things required chakra to be of such magnitudes, but he didn’t seem to be actually using any of it. It was all a feral reaction of something playing with a power they didn’t fully comprehend.
“Ah, a sage,” she muttered as he turned on heel to rush again. His jaws opened to scream and reveal canines sharper than a normal man’s. Before he could get within three feet of the ex-sennin, a rush of foliage exploded from beneath him and wrapped around his body. With a kick of her feet, Rei cleared the dead leaves on the ground and drew a handful of kanji with her toes before bending down to shock chakra into the ground. The plants holding the wolf-sage turned black, and began to absorb the chakra he was haphazardly using back into the earth. Slowly, his features began to wane until the wild in his form seeped out. The wolfman was no bigger than an average teenager by the time Rei finished flushing his chakra out, and malnourished by the looks. Who knows how long the kid had been out here. No doubt he was being trained by a powerful summon to take a step forward as a powerful shinobi. Far as Rei could tell, the boy had the chops but not the willpower; yet. Sadly, her catching him out here in search of a murderer meant he had a harsh future ahead of him - but at least it wasn’t death.
Hyo felt the woman’s presence again, nigh but an hour later. He turned to face her to give a report that the situation had been resolved. It had actually only taken but ten minutes in full to find the “wolf,” but longer to get it restrained and back in Kumogakure for further testing; but also assured Hyo that it was not a Lycan. Simply a dangerously large predator. She would get on the shinobi who had been slacking in their rounds, too. The village leader nodded his thanks and turned back to his work.
Another day, another catastrophe averted by the Ryuu Clan.
[Word Count = 1600+]
[Using Contract Card of Choice: Wolf]
“As to any wonder why…” a simple farmer said to himself as he ruminated on the morning news. A family of five, all slaughtered on the road just north of their farms on their way back from Kumogakure. Bandits? The first question asked during the emergency town hall, and one quickly shot down. The shinobi sent there to warn their humble people to stay off the roads assured them, that whatever killed their own did so with the ferocity of a beast. Murmurs through the crowd quickly became angry. Where was the military? The patrols? Why wasn’t the road that close to the Raikage’s seat being watched? Hyo listened to the questions quickly be lobbed at the poor soldier picked to deliver the bad news; and left soon as they did. Now he stood in front of a payphone.
It still looked new despite the five or six years it had been out here. When the government installed it, it finally felt like they were really being looked after for once instead of just fending for themselves while the noble lords played. Yet all it took was a single small revolution and a handful of bad choices for the group to plague the country with an infection that was slowly rotting them to the core. While his fellow farmers continued to rear their fury at the very first slip of that security, Hyo acted calmly, and did his duty. As the village chief of his little farming operation, it was on him to make sure the idiots that worked under him didn’t try to follow in the footsteps of foolish rebels. His hand snatched up the phone, gently placing it against his large neck as he reached into his overalls to fish out a little worn out notebook. It was covered in an amateur tanned casing with little strings that kept it closed. Pulling them apart, Hyo thumbed through until he reached a number.
If there was a single person in the country who could solve their problem, it was Lady Rei of the Ryuu Clan. Years ago the woman had reached out to them after the war to help him rebuild his farmlands. He owed the new shinobi clan much, but they assured he owed nothing. That, if he ever needed any kind of help to simply call a single phone number and the Ryuu would come running. It was a favor given he had only used once during a drought, two years ago…he hoped they were still willing to share another. The dial tones beeped in his ears gently before a tone. Someone picked up on the other side, first ring. Silence. It was like this last time and the intimidating weight on his shoulders of who, he could be speaking to was just as heavy. And, just like the previous call, he simply spoke his grievance in a single sentence,
“I have a wolf problem.”
The phone hung up with a heavy click. The simple farmer replaced the black plastic weight in his hand on the receiver and breathed a heavy sigh. It almost felt like cursing someone, asking for such a task. Last time he called the Ryuu they sent two blue-haired twins to fix his drought problem; but they were little more than children. He hoped, in all sincerity, that they sent an adult as he could not bear the death of children to be on his hands - even if it meant his livelihood.
Not long after the call, Hyo was in the fields when he felt a presence. It was barely an hour to noon when she showed up, like a breeze gently ruffling the back of his neck. She felt like an elephant on his shoulders without laying a single finger on him, and as he turned to greet Rei, that feeling lifted; if by nothing else but befuddlement.
There she stood, barely. Leader of the Ryuu Clan looking haggard and far beyond her actual years. She was wearing a large jacket tied around her waist, but the sleeves hung off her frail limbs like some exaggerated wizard’s robe. Bags were starting to show beneath her eyes where the reflective round shades couldn’t hide, and in her hair, streaks of honest gray. No madness in there, no; just years of service. Hyo’s guilt did not lift, but neither did he hesitate,
“I assume you’ll have heard about the murders up the roads? I need whatever did that removed from this area, I don’t care how you do it. They’se simple people, the farmers o’ this land, and they spook easy.”
“Never mind you,” she said with a warm tone that caught Hyo off guard, “I know full well how the Low-Landers spook easy. I already have a lead. Return to your job, I’ll have it handled by sun’s setting. Oh, and I’d till a touch more if you want bigger pumpkins next season. They were looking a little sad.”
Before he could rebuttal, Rei was gone. Right before his eyes she slipped under the ground as if stepping into a sinkhole and that was just…it. He dabbed a bit of sweat off his paling skin, to wonder exactly what she was capable of.
As lesson learned not long after. Rei’s head popped out of the road’s natural dirt path to examine the area where the family had been torn apart. Traffic had already long resumed over the path that had been, badly, cleaned up to keep from inciting panic at the grisly horrors in the trees just beyond. Lifting out of the ground, she gently kicked at the dirt with a shock of chakra that illuminated the debris that wasn’t part of the road. Within seconds she deduced it was a family of six, or at least, a party of. There was a trail leading off the road and into the woods. With a sigh, Rei shrugged off her jacket before bending over to roll up her slacks. Socks and shoes came off and then her sleeves were rolled up before she focused herself.
The trail wasn’t Lycan. For certain, she could say that, but it did seem like something darker than simply a wolf. She patted the little case in her left pocket as an assurance - the serum, just in case - before stepping off of the natural road and into the forest. Her senses were instantly assailed as the natural earth’s chakra seeped into her pores. As always, it was a feeling of both dread and exhilaration as the wolf inside of her screamed to run and hunt; while she clung to the human that said, “Steady.”
A little chakra to the eyes and she looked down at the trail of blood that continued to lead further back into the forest beyond and heading towards the Heartlands; which was a whole bag of stupid she really didn’t want to deal with. Thankfully, the trail turned suddenly back in a loop and she found a cave nestled beyond some thick shrub. With a wave of her hand the protective vegetation offering the cave a hiding place shrank away; and from it exploded a man.
Long dark hair, overly muscular and seething with power. His body was covered in the rotting rags of random people he had killed, and his face seemed distorted into something wolf-like. Rei side-stepped the initial rush as her brain quickly processed what she was dealing with. Her nose gave a whiff, her skin felt the heat of his passage. The kunoichi’s feet absorbed the impact of the man’s feet shake the ground. All of these things required chakra to be of such magnitudes, but he didn’t seem to be actually using any of it. It was all a feral reaction of something playing with a power they didn’t fully comprehend.
“Ah, a sage,” she muttered as he turned on heel to rush again. His jaws opened to scream and reveal canines sharper than a normal man’s. Before he could get within three feet of the ex-sennin, a rush of foliage exploded from beneath him and wrapped around his body. With a kick of her feet, Rei cleared the dead leaves on the ground and drew a handful of kanji with her toes before bending down to shock chakra into the ground. The plants holding the wolf-sage turned black, and began to absorb the chakra he was haphazardly using back into the earth. Slowly, his features began to wane until the wild in his form seeped out. The wolfman was no bigger than an average teenager by the time Rei finished flushing his chakra out, and malnourished by the looks. Who knows how long the kid had been out here. No doubt he was being trained by a powerful summon to take a step forward as a powerful shinobi. Far as Rei could tell, the boy had the chops but not the willpower; yet. Sadly, her catching him out here in search of a murderer meant he had a harsh future ahead of him - but at least it wasn’t death.
Hyo felt the woman’s presence again, nigh but an hour later. He turned to face her to give a report that the situation had been resolved. It had actually only taken but ten minutes in full to find the “wolf,” but longer to get it restrained and back in Kumogakure for further testing; but also assured Hyo that it was not a Lycan. Simply a dangerously large predator. She would get on the shinobi who had been slacking in their rounds, too. The village leader nodded his thanks and turned back to his work.
Another day, another catastrophe averted by the Ryuu Clan.
[Word Count = 1600+]
[Using Contract Card of Choice: Wolf]
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