Mission A Snatch and Grab [Debriefing]

[Goro]

The Omni-Prime Medical Complex loomed over the surrounding district, a massive structure of sandstone and steel that served as a beacon of Suna’s resilience. Inside, the air was a strange mix of sterile antiseptic and the earthy, pungent scent of desert herbs being brewed in the Arboretum. High-tech monitors hummed alongside ancient clay pots of healing salves, creating a triage center that was as eclectic as it was efficient.

Goro moved through the polished halls with a heavy, rhythmic gait. The two children were still suspended in his silk-mesh carrier, looking small and fragile against the backdrop of the state-of-the-art facility. He didn't look at the doctors or the nurses who paused to stare at the six-armed boy carrying a bundle of bleeding urchins. He didn't look at Shindaor Sabishii. He simply walked until he reached the intake desk.

The nurse behind the counter began to ask about the incident, her pen poised over a clipboard, but Goro cut her off with a voice that was flat and devoid of its usual tremor.

"Treat them please," he said, his red eyes fixed on the form. "Tab the bill to the Tsuchigumo Clan."

The nurse paused, her eyebrows shooting up. The Tsuchigumo were a lesser clan, though still a prominent, reclusive power in Suna; invoking their name for a pair of nameless street kids was unheard of. Goro didn't wait for her to process the request. He simply unbundled the children onto the waiting gurneys, watched the medical staff wheel them away toward the trauma ward, and then turned toward the waiting area.

The moment the children were out of sight and the "mission" was technically over, the stoic mask Goro had been wearing didn't just crack, it shattered. He found a secluded corner of the waiting room, far from the hum of the R&D wing and the prying eyes of the staff. He sat down on a low bench, his large frame hunching over. Then, in a display of total sensory overwhelm, he buried his face in all six of his hands. Behind the safety of his palms, Goro was absolutely spiraling.

"What did I just do?"

The "free will" he had been so curious about in class had just manifested as a coordinated, multi-armed assault on a civilian client's genitals. He had:

1. Disobeyed the primary objective (to simply "clear" the area).
2. Attacked the person paying for the mission.
3. Committed literal highway robbery by running Toshi’s pockets.
4. And to top it all off, he had just committed his clan’s to the medical bills of two orphans.

The abject horror of his situation began to set in. The Mission Council would have his head. His clan elders would likely weave him into a cocoon and leave him in a dark tunnel for a decade. He was a laborer, a tool of the village, and he had just spent the last twenty minutes acting like a rogue ninja.

He stayed like that, his fingers digging into his scalp, worried about the potential issues he will face. However despite the chaos, he oddly felt.... good... right.

 

[Kyouketsu Shinda]

Shinda stopped a few paces away and didn’t sit. He leaned against the cool sandstone column instead, arms folded, the bonework at his wrists faintly clicking as the building’s lights hummed. He watched Goro from the corner of his eye not intrusively, just enough to know he was still there. Shinda glanced toward the trauma wing doors the children had vanished through. White light. Clean floors. People who knew how to fix what could still be fixed.

“They’ll live,” Shinda continued. “You made sure of that with your choice before anyone could stop you. That matters.”

He would pause, his thoughts filtering through is head before he spoke again, softer. “The higher ups will be upset, they always are.” His red eyes flicked back to Goro. “But villages don’t survive on obedience alone." Shinda finally pushed off the wall and crouched slightly, bringing himself closer to Goro’s level but not touching, not crowding before he said. “You acted like someone who saw a problem and refused to pretend it wasn’t there.” His voice spoke these words in a tone that wasn't based on comfort. The words were assessment, the kind given after conflict and funerals. It was the truth.

“Feeling bad doesn’t mean you were wrong,” he added. “It just means you’re not empty", his eyes finally blinking with normalcy. Everything would have to be reported and in this case, there would be little in the details that he was ashamed about. At least, outside of the pain inflicted on two of the children....that is what made his chest feel pressure.

[WC: 287]
[Topic Entered]

 

[Goro]

The sterile glow of the Omni-Prime overhead lights seemed to mock Goro as he sat in the corner. He peeked up from the safety of his many hands when he recognized Shinda’s low, gravelly voice. Shinda stood there with that calm tone he so often used, a presence that was as steady as the stone foundations of the village. Goro didn't feel steady. He quickly buried his face again while his two extra limbs tucked inward, clasping around his own torso as if trying to hold his fraying nerves together.

He finally released his face and stared blankly at the ceiling as Shinda offered words of comfort.

"You're right, but I was just lucky...." Goro whispered. To prove it to himself, he tried to channel the green chakra of the Mystical Hand once more. He focused on his palm, praying for that emerald warmth to return, but the energy only flashed for a brief, erratic second before it flickered out entirely. He sighed with a heavy exhale, his head falling back against the wall.

The silence of the hospital wing felt heavy. Shinda spoke of the higher ups and the mission council, but Goro was more preoccupied with the lie he had just told at the intake desk. If only Shinda knew that he had used the Tsuchigumo name just to get the children faster service. It felt like a reckless, foolish move. The clan valued the web and the order of the hive above all else. To disturb the web so clumsily was a sin in their eyes, and Goro had just practically shredded it.

However, his teammate said something that Goro wasn't expecting. Shinda paid him a compliment. Goro looked at him with a deep, quiet confusion. Shinda always seemed so much older than his years, as if he had already seen enough life to fill three lifetimes. He told Goro that he was not an empty tool because his actions had a motive. "How can you be of use if not guided," Goro wondered aloud. In the tunnels, you followed the rules and you stuck to the code. He had always been a small cog in a massive machine, and he never thought there was an option for him beyond simple obedience. Yet, today he had acted on his own. He lacked the discipline his elders demanded, or at least that is what they would tell him when they found out what he had done to Toshi.

Then his mind drifted to the third member of their team. A chill that had nothing to do with the hospital's air conditioning ran down his spine.

"He didn't get her," Goro said, pausing as the realization settled in his chest. "Sabishii... he didn't get the girl.... And that attack he did." Goro thought back to the moment in the alley. He remembered the way Sabishii had looked, dazed and strangely excited by the pool of red on the ground. It wasn't just the efficiency of a shinobi; it was something else. Sabishii had ignored a direct command from the person leading the mission because he was too enraptured by the blood he had spilled.

WC: 519

 

[Sabishii]

Sabishii had been drifting behind a few paces with lightly he walked. He didnt make himself known to a degree, but that was the level of his existence. Goro and Shinda were strong, respectfully so. Sabishii could sense them. . . the shadows and ghosts did as well. They all knew, even with the coins that had been given to the urchins for this that there was much work and effort to be done to get their lives to where they wanted to be. Sabishii didnt understand that if h had taken the lives of one of those children that he would be in a world of damnation. That was never anything he would consider but when he finally turned the corner of the complex and saw Shinda and Goro there. He would take something to heart... the pain of those who were not used to the same loss as he was... it changed them.

He didnt move to touch Goro, but he did listen to the words of Shinda, the bone boy, saying to the spider boy, "...I... am empty.", Sabishii sounded off. His voice distant and cold, but his words ringing powerfully and stout. He meant it. He felt as if he were a broken soul at times, and on the days after he watched his father die, he would cry endlessly. His tears mixing with the blood of those he had to slay himself and the look of their lifeless eyes as Sabishii would kick their motionless bodies over and over with all his might, wanting every kick to bring back those that cared for him.

But they would be hollow. And the ghosts would continue to speak into him, keeping him up, taunting him with their endless banter.

It would never stop. Not until he was dragged into the pits of hell where he would find himself in an endless sea of darkness and ultimately... loneliness....

"You... still feel. You are... alive." he would speak down to Goro with a... smile? Well what could be thought of as a smile on Sabishii's distant eyes would be a look of a crazed individual that hadnt slept in over a decade and hadnt didnt know what to do with happiness. An emotion that Sabishii didnt have alot of, especially now. However, the quiet boy would linger there for a moment, "...I... want... them to...", 'pay', he didnt finish the last part aloud but he would huff and lean back looking to Shinda with a simple nod, odd boy he was.

"yesss Friend~"
"Friend will feel better, no?"
"Once he learns the waaaayy~"

And with that Sabishii would stand there awaiting for the end, before he would return to the Hokkyoku complex.

[Topic Enter]

 

[Kyouketsu Shinda]

Shinda didn’t answer right away, letting their words linger in the air, allowing them time to reflect. He shifted his weight so as to stand, the faint click of bone at his wrist the only sound he offered while Goro spoke himself into that spiral. When Goro mentioned Sabishii, Shinda’s red eyes lowered not in surprise, but in confirmation. He had already been thinking the same thing but had not yet brought it up. “He didn’t,” Shinda said quietly enough for Goro's ear's to hear. “And that matters.” He let that sit, "That wasn’t luck.” His gaze flicked briefly to Goro’s hands, still faintly trembling. “That was judgment.” Shinda’s expression tightened though not with anger, but concern sharpened by experience. He had seen that look before that Goro possessed. In the Bonehalls, that expression was on people standing too close to the edge of something they couldn’t name yet.

“Empty isn’t the same as broken and it’s not the same as lost.” He turned slightly then toward Sabishii, not fully but enough to acknowledge him. Enough to show he wasn’t dismissing him and wasn’t afraid of him either. His gaze flicked briefly to Goro, still folded in on himself, then returned to Sabishii. He took a slow breath, grounding himself. “You keep walking the way you’re walking and one day you won’t even remember why you started. Only that it felt good to keep going. Alone.” There was no judgment in his words, just a warning delivered the way one warns someone they have some care about; factually, impossible to ignore.

“Sabishii, you're powerful, but that’s the dangerous part.” He exhaled slowly taking a moment to gather his thoughts, his right eye starting to water. “We're not broken. Not yet. But we're all walking toward something that won’t stop asking once it starts getting fed.” He stood there, hands resting loosely at his sides, posture unchanged but something behind his eyes had shifted. A set of tears fell along his right cheek..

“We’ll keep an eye on each other” Shinda finished. “Together. That’s also part of the job.”

[WC: 338]

 

[Chikamatsu Shin]

((OoC: Topic Entered with Location NPCs Model #K-0019 and Model #H-0064))

The intake nurse's eyes had gone wide when Goro invoked the Tsuchigumo name, her pen hovering over the clipboard as she processed the implications. But before she could formulate a response, two figures approached with the synchronized precision of well-programmed machinery.

The first was a woman in a hospital gown with blue undergarments, a Kankoshi model. Her snow-white skin and crimson eyes marked her immediately as one of the Chikamatsu homunculus creations that staffed the Omni Prime Medical Facility. She moved with practiced efficiency, her voice soft and measured as she spoke.

"I will process the intake," the Kankoshi said, her tone carrying no judgment, only professional competence. "The children require immediate trauma assessment. Lacerations, possible internal injuries from blunt force trauma, malnutrition, dehydration. "

She took the clipboard from the stammering nurse and began filling out the forms with mechanical precision, her crimson eyes scanning the children on the gurneys with clinical detachment.

Behind her, a second homunculus approached, a Hosa model, distinguished by her grey undergarments and the protective stance she maintained. This one's attention wasn't on the children but on the three young shinobi who'd brought them in, particularly the six-armed boy currently spiraling in the corner.

"The Tsuchigumo Clan billing authorization has been noted, " the Kankoshi continued without looking up from her paperwork. "However, all medical expenses incurred by active shinobi during sanctioned missions are covered by village medical protocol unless the injuries were self-inflicted or resulted from gross negligence."

She paused, her crimson eyes finally lifting to meet Goro's position across the waiting room.

"The children will receive full treatment regardless of payment source. That is the purpose of this facility."

Then the Kankoshi stepped away to file the paperwork. The Hosa model moved closer to where the three students had gathered, her motherly presence filling the space with unexpected warmth despite her artificial nature. She didn't speak immediately, instead positioning herself near enough to be available but far enough to not intrude on their processing of the mission's aftermath.

When Sabishii spoke his hollow declaration "I am empty" the Hosa's crimson eyes focused on him with something that might have been programmed empathy or might have been genuine concern. It was difficult to tell with homunculi.

"Emptiness is a medical condition that can be treated," the Hosa said softly, her voice carrying that maternal quality the models were designed for, though her voice sounded more artificial than the Kankoshi's. Perhaps it was because of her model being more simple in design or because her voice box was damaged. Either way she sounded as though she spoke from a 1950's broadcast radio. "Physical, psychological, or spiritual? Do not fret for the The Omni Prime Medical Facility has resources for all three."

The Kankoshi returned from processing the intake forms, her movements precise as she addressed the three students directly.

"The children are stable. Treatment will proceed under standard trauma protocols. Estimated recovery time: seven to ten days for physical injuries. Psychological trauma assessment will be conducted once they are conscious and coherent. "

She paused, tilting her head slightly as if accessing some internal database. She turned her head upright again before gesturing down the hallway to lead the children to a room with a few beds. She spoke as she walked. Her heels echoing in perfect unison with the other Kankoshi and Hosa homunculi.

"A mission debrief has been automatically flagged for review by protocols set in place by previous Medical Branch Chief Chikamatsu Shin. You will be contacted between one and twenty-four hours regarding the incident report and any disciplinary proceedings. Please do not leave the facility until medical staff arrive. "

The words were delivered without emotion, simply stating facts as they existed within the facility's protocols. She spoke after everyone entered the room and the door was shut.

The Hosa model stepped slightly closer to Shinda, acknowledging his tears with a gentle observation that carried no shame, though still at the door to prevent escape.

"Emotional responses to traumatic events is healthy," she said quietly. "It indicates functional empathy systems. You may remain in the as long as needed. I will bring water and basic nutrition if you require it."

Both homunculi stood ready, the Kankoshi to handle any medical questions, the Hosa to provide whatever support the three young shinobi needed as they processed what they'd just experienced.

Artificial beings designed with enough care and craftsmanship that their presence felt almost comforting in the sterile chaos of the medical facility's trauma ward.

 

[Kyouketsu Shinda]

Shinda didn’t answer right away.

He sat where he’d sunk down, back against the wall, knees drawn in just enough to keep himself from feeling like he might tip over.

His eyes stayed fixed on the floor tiles, following the thin grout lines like they were paths he could walk out of his own head. The Hosa’s words reached him, but they felt distant, like someone speaking from the far end of a long tunnel. His hands rested loosely in his lap, fingers twitching now and then, as if they still expected to be gripping something. He flexed them once, then again, grounding himself in the simple sensation of movement.

The Hosa stepping closer didn’t make him flinch. If anything, the quiet presence helped anchor him. Not because of the words — he wasn’t really listening to those but because someone was there. After a long while, he dragged the sleeve of his shirt across his face, giving himself a moment of simple privacy.

“…The kids.”

The words were quiet, almost swallowed by the sterile hum of the room, but they carried a weight that made it clear he hadn’t just been sitting there lost, that he’d been thinking. “They shouldn’t go back to wherever they came from.” He paused as his fingers curling slightly against his palms. “They need structure and food. So they're not struggling to eat and being treated as pests scurrying around for scraps.” A faint crease formed between his brows as his eyes lifted from above his sleeve, his gaze settled and focused. He was serious at this moment. “They should be in the academy with us. At least then they’d have protection and see the village cares about them.”

The statement wasn’t emotional in tone not pleading, not angry but the intent behind it was unmistakable.

[WC: 303]

 

[Sabishii]

An odd sensation would creep up the boy's back. It was unlike anything he knew or understood, but... he knew this would be something that he would surmise to go away if he left it alone. Though, it would not go away. He felt it in his core as he would watch the two friends he made go back and forth. Feelings. Emotions. They were... fleeting to Sabishii, being that he felt so empty and devoid of feeble emotions. But he was human, unlike many others, but he was still just flesh and blood. He did feel, he chose not to feel as best he could but under the surface it was always there. A well deep within filled to the brim with every sinking emotion since he watched his father die. However, he concealed it. He didnt feel it. He wanted to let it go, but he was simply unable to... but he could put on the facade of it. The Ghosts knew it too. They knew because they spoke to him. They were intertwined in his emotions to a degree, bu they were something connected within.

The robots? Androids? Boy, was this village getting weird. Would call out to him on his comment of being empty however, he would disregard the being looking away as if not to care about what it said. "...Food... Sleep... they need... care." Sabishii would chime in after Shinda would speak. Though he did not agree they would survive the life of a potential shinobi. He did not agree they would be able to go through the harsh classes they would be subjected to, and ultimately the exams that would test them on their known skills. That would be setting them up for failure. Right? Not just -anyone- could be a shinobi, warrior, fighter, etc. Sabishii was already battle tested in the eyes of the world, but there was so much more for him to learn. So much more for him to experience.

"Not Shinobi academy. Regular school. They are... regular." Sabi would speak flatly.

After that, Sabishii would grow quiet feeling there was nothing left to say on the subject.

[MFT]

 

[Goro]

Goro watched the homunculi move, their steady and mechanical nature grounding him. He thought back to the words of the nurses. The children would be treated. Shinda was right; they would be okay. He listened to Shinda assess their strengths like a team captain. Shinda was better at speaking than Goro, a fact Goro acknowledged with a quiet and internal respect. It was a strength he didn't possess. While Shinda handled the words, Goro leaned in closer to his teammates, his voice dropping to a low and raspy whisper.

"They'll be alright..." Goro murmured. So will we... Well, as long as the clan council isn't informed.

The sound of rattling metal interrupted him. Toshi, the man who had lied to them, was wheeled past on a gurney. Ice was packed heavily against his groin where Goro had delivered his own brand of justice. Toshi’s face was a mask of spite, screaming through the pain that he would see those kids rot behind bars. Goro watched him pass with a cold and unblinking gaze. He felt no regret for the strike.

Shinda spoke out again, arguing that the children needed food and structure. They needed a future. Sabishii countered that it should be a normal one, but Goro saw the reality of the situation differently. "We can’t decide their future for them." Goro said, taking the chance to shoot his teammates some bail. He chose his words carefully, keeping them short and simple. "They have talent. I’m not sure if they’re siblings or friends, but the girl has a Byakugan. With proper training they could be of service... even if not as a shinobi."

The mention of the legendary eye was his way of ensuring the village would value them. Assets were protected; orphans were ignored. Goro turned his attention to the nurse, offering a stiff and respectful bow. He followed the hierarchy of the facility, his six arms tucked neatly out of the way.

"So where do we go to report our mission?" Goro asked the homunculus. He wasn't sure of the process or if they were even allowed to walk out. "Is it okay to leave?" He stood there, a quiet and brooding figure, waiting for the artificial staff to tell him the next step in the chain of command.