"A kid?!"
Nobu's expression turned sour when the caravan leader pushed past his associates, exclaiming the words in disbelief. Indeed, the ninja standing in front of him was a twerp, a boy barely taller than 5 feet and youthful in appearance. Though only thirteen years old, Nobu was a genin of Sunagakure. He was wearing a flak vest and forehead protector, and despite his youth, he was impossible to mistake for anything else.
"I'm Domen Nobu, the shinobi you requested." the boy replied, forcing himself to remain polite. He wanted to chew this old man out like nobody's business, but this was part of his job. He wasn't going to end his first job with his blade in his client's skull. Even the temptation to give the man a knuckle sandwich for his disrespect would need to be resisted. "Despite my youth I assure you my skills will be satisfactory. It's either me, or you travel to Wind Country unprotected." he added, a touch of venom in his tone.
The caravan leader put his hands on his waist and huffed. The caravan had stopped several days of travel outside of Soon's Haven, at the meeting point Sunagakure and the clients had discussed just outside of the area where the bandit attacks had happened. Other than the dunes and rocks there was nothing to be seen all around them - and dozens of skilled desert bandits could be hidden behind those dunes and rocks, unseen until their attack. Of course, as a shinobi, Nobu's senses were sharp enough to realize nobody was there, but the caravan master was just a civilian. While it was obvious he didn't like the idea of just having a kid around to escort him, his worried glances at the desert scenery around him betrayed that the prospect of going on without a shinobi guard was something he desired even less. "...Fine." he eventually replied begrudgingly. "Three wagons down, there's room for you. Keep your eyes peeled."
With a nod but no further words, Nobu walked past the man. The caravan leader soon started bellowing that the caravan was continuing, his voice carried across the vast emptiness around them. Glancing around, Nobu saw a couple of bored-looking guards, mundane men carrying swords and spears. As a sensor, Nobu could easily sense their strength. Even he, as a genin, could probably take the bunch of them out alone. Considering their reported numbers, the bandits would probably slaughter them all without Nobu there.
The wagon Nobu got onto was a simple covered wagon. The man on the perch was a thin man with graying hair and a sunken face, who made small talk with Nobu as he got in. It was a pleasant contrast to the caravan leader's belligerence, and despite Nobu's haughty attitude, the man continued the cheerful conversation with the boy. The caravan would reach the border to Moon Country before the day was out if everything went well.
Three hours from the border was where Nobu started to notice odd things. He could peek between the cloth cover of the wagon and the wood of its body, allowing him to look outside while remaining hidden within. Even the desert of Wind Country had hints towards the presence of humans. Distant dots on the dunes were footprints, hard to see for someone without the visual acuity of a trained shinobi. Every so often he could see a desert beast scurrying away, another possible hint of humans. Most damning of all, Nobu started to pick up distant, vague hints of human chakra signatures near the caravan. Two hours from the border was where Nobu's senses starting picking up more hints. He had a bad feeling, reinforced only by further flashes of human presence skirting the edges of his senses. Nobu knew the road, as it was one of the main routes outside of Wind Country and into Moon Country.
When the old man on the wagon perch turned around to return to his conversation with the young shinobi, he stopped with his mouth open. Where Nobu had been seated was now an empty space. The old man swallowed. That could most certainly not be a good thing.
The shinobi's senses had not fooled him. Bandit scouts had indeed been tracking the caravan, scouting their defenses and waiting for them to get to the ambush point. The road led the caravan through a small fissure, with the walls rising up on both sides. About a little over a dozen armed bandits hid behind craggy rocks and sturdy desert shrubs or laid prone atop the edge, ready to ambush the caravan. The covered wagons were about to turn into the fissure, the plodding horses and rolling wheels kicking up a dust cloud behind them.
As one of the bandits turned to pick up his weapon, he froze to a particularly confusing site. Sticking out of the earth was a white-haired child's head. For a moment the bandit could only look in confusion before his brain finally registered the metal forehead protector with the hourglass symbol of Sunagakure. Before he could react, the rest of Nobu's body popped out of the earth, his hands already making seals. The bandit barely managed to cry out before Nobu finished his jutsu, powerful winds whipping up around him. The Wind Release: Tempest lifted him off the ground and chucked him over the edge - a fall he would not survive unharmed.
By now the rest of the bandits were reacting, but before any weapons were drawn Nobu had felled another with a Wind Release: Air Bullet through the leg. The man cried out and gripped his leg just as the first bandit reached Nobu. As the man swung a wicked-looking sword at Nobu, the boy brought up his right arm. Though it sent a painful blow through his body, the boy's metal bracer stopped the sword from doing any more. The man suddenly gasped for air as Nobu's Wind Release: Gale Force kicked in. The gasp was the last mistake the man would make before Nobu drove his tanto between the man's ribs and through his heart.
Two bandits dead and one incapacitated - ten left. However, Nobu's victory was short-lived, as three arrows drilled their way into his back. Three of the bandits had taken up bows and arrows behind him. The one that cried in victory was cut off in a gurgle as a Water Release: Impaling Hydro Jet punched a fist-sized hole all the way through the left side of his chest, lung and all. The elemental clone Nobu had switched out with after his Earth Release: Inner Earth Reflection Lure that the three archers had turned into a pincushion disappeared into a gust of wind.
The two archers attempted to drop their bows and reach for the shortswords at their waists, but Nobu's hands were faster than theirs. The Lightning Release: Lightning Torrent did not kill the men, but left them jerking and twitching on the floor, unable to move their bodies voluntarily. In a manner of seconds, Nobu had killed or incapacitated six of the thirteen bandits.
The bandits were now approaching, five of them with swords drawn, and two more with bow and arrow. As Nobu started to make the hand seals for another jutsu, he had to jump to the side to avoid catching an arrow with his torso. The dodge, however, left him unbalanced - all he could do to the second was twist his body aside. His flak vest caught most of the impact and prevented the arrowhead from going deeper than a superficial cut, but it nonetheless knocked him off his feet. Abandoning his jutsu and silently thanking his teachers for teaching him proper chakra conservation, Nobu rolled backwards along with the impact, allowing it to give him space before rolling onto his feet, already performing hand seals again mid-roll.
As he extended his hands outwards, the armed bandits raised their weapons to guard against whatever borderline-magical attack the boy would sent out, their eyes focused on the boy so they could respond quickly. An act that would come back to bite them as Nobu activated his Photon Release: Flashbang. The bright flare struck their alert eyes dead-on, causing all of them to cry out and guard their eyes, some of them dropping their weapons.
Before they could recuperate Nobu had already made the handseals for Lightning Release: Thunderclap. Lightning started pelting the area, causing the bandits to cry out in pain as they were hit. Even the loud crack of the misses caused them to jump and stumble. As the men tried to come back from this sudden disorienting combination of jutsus, Nobu finished signing a Water Release: Grand Waterfall. Already blind and frightened, the bandits were easily overwhelmed by the sudden crashing wave of water, sending them sprawling into a heap of limbs. By now, Nobu was panting. Though he was nowhere near to spending his entire chakra load, this would be an unpleasant situation if it continued, or if the bandits had any incoming reinforcements.
As it turned out, it wasn't the bandits that had reinforcements incoming. The few men that struggled to their feet were soon overwhelmed as the handful of caravan guards finally made their way up the side of the cliff. Though bored and scruffy, the bunch were hard mercenaries - before long they were finishing the fallen bandits. Should they be brought before a court, their crimes would land them an execution anyway. "Keep this one alive." Nobu said as the mercenaries were about to execute the man Nobu's clone had hit in the leg with a Wind Release: Air Bullet. He was a mess, surrounded by the corpses of his friends. The Air Bullet had torn all the way through his leg, shredding muscle and probably cracking bone. He begged to be allowed to sell out his friends, clearly preferring treason over death. He gave names, locations, even physical descriptions, all of which Nobu made sure to note down on a scroll. There were more roving bandit groups around here, all apparently under the same leader, but this group had been the only ones lurking on this path. Once he'd gotten his information, he left the prisoner to the guards. There was nothing more he wanted from the bandit.
The caravan leader was somewhat pale in the face when Nobu simply walked down the side of the cliff to get down. With his blood-coated appearance and the deaths of a dozen bandits on his hands, Nobu's power move definitely had the desired effect. "You, uh." the man stammered, before hesitating. "You... did good. Thanks. They probably would've killed us all."
Nobu simply smiled up at the man. Nothing threatening, or aggressive. A simple smile on the bloodied face of a child. This was the reality of being a shinobi, a killer before his voice had fully broken. Perhaps he would regret his actions upon coming home. Certainly, the faces of the men he had killed on that cliff would visit him at night. But for now, the mental conditioning and indoctrination of the Sunagakure academy was keeping hold. The smile, too, was meant as intimidation. Childlike innocence twisted into a mask of death was enough to make grown men shiver.
After Nobu cleaned himself off with a wet rag and the caravan guards had cleansed their blades of the blood of the fallen and divvied up the loot, the journey continued. The rest of it was uneventful and quiet, except for the conversation with the wagon driver Nobu was lifting along with. Despite the bloodshed, the old man didn't miss a beat. This wasn't his first rodeo. He'd been robbed in the past, and he'd seen failed robberies gone awry. None as fast, he remarked, as what Nobu had performed today. He seemed more impressed than intimidated. Nobu decided he liked the old fellow, who seemed to skate right over status and power without being insulting, and simply enjoyed conversation with the child shinobi.
When the caravan reached the border between Sand and Moon, Nobu could no longer travel with the caravan, and the caravan no longer needed him. With a happy goodbye to the old driver, a smile to the caravan leader, and a respectful exchange of nods to the guards, Nobu departed back into the dunes. For his first mission... Not too shabby.
Nobu's expression turned sour when the caravan leader pushed past his associates, exclaiming the words in disbelief. Indeed, the ninja standing in front of him was a twerp, a boy barely taller than 5 feet and youthful in appearance. Though only thirteen years old, Nobu was a genin of Sunagakure. He was wearing a flak vest and forehead protector, and despite his youth, he was impossible to mistake for anything else.
"I'm Domen Nobu, the shinobi you requested." the boy replied, forcing himself to remain polite. He wanted to chew this old man out like nobody's business, but this was part of his job. He wasn't going to end his first job with his blade in his client's skull. Even the temptation to give the man a knuckle sandwich for his disrespect would need to be resisted. "Despite my youth I assure you my skills will be satisfactory. It's either me, or you travel to Wind Country unprotected." he added, a touch of venom in his tone.
The caravan leader put his hands on his waist and huffed. The caravan had stopped several days of travel outside of Soon's Haven, at the meeting point Sunagakure and the clients had discussed just outside of the area where the bandit attacks had happened. Other than the dunes and rocks there was nothing to be seen all around them - and dozens of skilled desert bandits could be hidden behind those dunes and rocks, unseen until their attack. Of course, as a shinobi, Nobu's senses were sharp enough to realize nobody was there, but the caravan master was just a civilian. While it was obvious he didn't like the idea of just having a kid around to escort him, his worried glances at the desert scenery around him betrayed that the prospect of going on without a shinobi guard was something he desired even less. "...Fine." he eventually replied begrudgingly. "Three wagons down, there's room for you. Keep your eyes peeled."
With a nod but no further words, Nobu walked past the man. The caravan leader soon started bellowing that the caravan was continuing, his voice carried across the vast emptiness around them. Glancing around, Nobu saw a couple of bored-looking guards, mundane men carrying swords and spears. As a sensor, Nobu could easily sense their strength. Even he, as a genin, could probably take the bunch of them out alone. Considering their reported numbers, the bandits would probably slaughter them all without Nobu there.
The wagon Nobu got onto was a simple covered wagon. The man on the perch was a thin man with graying hair and a sunken face, who made small talk with Nobu as he got in. It was a pleasant contrast to the caravan leader's belligerence, and despite Nobu's haughty attitude, the man continued the cheerful conversation with the boy. The caravan would reach the border to Moon Country before the day was out if everything went well.
Three hours from the border was where Nobu started to notice odd things. He could peek between the cloth cover of the wagon and the wood of its body, allowing him to look outside while remaining hidden within. Even the desert of Wind Country had hints towards the presence of humans. Distant dots on the dunes were footprints, hard to see for someone without the visual acuity of a trained shinobi. Every so often he could see a desert beast scurrying away, another possible hint of humans. Most damning of all, Nobu started to pick up distant, vague hints of human chakra signatures near the caravan. Two hours from the border was where Nobu's senses starting picking up more hints. He had a bad feeling, reinforced only by further flashes of human presence skirting the edges of his senses. Nobu knew the road, as it was one of the main routes outside of Wind Country and into Moon Country.
When the old man on the wagon perch turned around to return to his conversation with the young shinobi, he stopped with his mouth open. Where Nobu had been seated was now an empty space. The old man swallowed. That could most certainly not be a good thing.
The shinobi's senses had not fooled him. Bandit scouts had indeed been tracking the caravan, scouting their defenses and waiting for them to get to the ambush point. The road led the caravan through a small fissure, with the walls rising up on both sides. About a little over a dozen armed bandits hid behind craggy rocks and sturdy desert shrubs or laid prone atop the edge, ready to ambush the caravan. The covered wagons were about to turn into the fissure, the plodding horses and rolling wheels kicking up a dust cloud behind them.
As one of the bandits turned to pick up his weapon, he froze to a particularly confusing site. Sticking out of the earth was a white-haired child's head. For a moment the bandit could only look in confusion before his brain finally registered the metal forehead protector with the hourglass symbol of Sunagakure. Before he could react, the rest of Nobu's body popped out of the earth, his hands already making seals. The bandit barely managed to cry out before Nobu finished his jutsu, powerful winds whipping up around him. The Wind Release: Tempest lifted him off the ground and chucked him over the edge - a fall he would not survive unharmed.
By now the rest of the bandits were reacting, but before any weapons were drawn Nobu had felled another with a Wind Release: Air Bullet through the leg. The man cried out and gripped his leg just as the first bandit reached Nobu. As the man swung a wicked-looking sword at Nobu, the boy brought up his right arm. Though it sent a painful blow through his body, the boy's metal bracer stopped the sword from doing any more. The man suddenly gasped for air as Nobu's Wind Release: Gale Force kicked in. The gasp was the last mistake the man would make before Nobu drove his tanto between the man's ribs and through his heart.
Two bandits dead and one incapacitated - ten left. However, Nobu's victory was short-lived, as three arrows drilled their way into his back. Three of the bandits had taken up bows and arrows behind him. The one that cried in victory was cut off in a gurgle as a Water Release: Impaling Hydro Jet punched a fist-sized hole all the way through the left side of his chest, lung and all. The elemental clone Nobu had switched out with after his Earth Release: Inner Earth Reflection Lure that the three archers had turned into a pincushion disappeared into a gust of wind.
The two archers attempted to drop their bows and reach for the shortswords at their waists, but Nobu's hands were faster than theirs. The Lightning Release: Lightning Torrent did not kill the men, but left them jerking and twitching on the floor, unable to move their bodies voluntarily. In a manner of seconds, Nobu had killed or incapacitated six of the thirteen bandits.
The bandits were now approaching, five of them with swords drawn, and two more with bow and arrow. As Nobu started to make the hand seals for another jutsu, he had to jump to the side to avoid catching an arrow with his torso. The dodge, however, left him unbalanced - all he could do to the second was twist his body aside. His flak vest caught most of the impact and prevented the arrowhead from going deeper than a superficial cut, but it nonetheless knocked him off his feet. Abandoning his jutsu and silently thanking his teachers for teaching him proper chakra conservation, Nobu rolled backwards along with the impact, allowing it to give him space before rolling onto his feet, already performing hand seals again mid-roll.
As he extended his hands outwards, the armed bandits raised their weapons to guard against whatever borderline-magical attack the boy would sent out, their eyes focused on the boy so they could respond quickly. An act that would come back to bite them as Nobu activated his Photon Release: Flashbang. The bright flare struck their alert eyes dead-on, causing all of them to cry out and guard their eyes, some of them dropping their weapons.
Before they could recuperate Nobu had already made the handseals for Lightning Release: Thunderclap. Lightning started pelting the area, causing the bandits to cry out in pain as they were hit. Even the loud crack of the misses caused them to jump and stumble. As the men tried to come back from this sudden disorienting combination of jutsus, Nobu finished signing a Water Release: Grand Waterfall. Already blind and frightened, the bandits were easily overwhelmed by the sudden crashing wave of water, sending them sprawling into a heap of limbs. By now, Nobu was panting. Though he was nowhere near to spending his entire chakra load, this would be an unpleasant situation if it continued, or if the bandits had any incoming reinforcements.
As it turned out, it wasn't the bandits that had reinforcements incoming. The few men that struggled to their feet were soon overwhelmed as the handful of caravan guards finally made their way up the side of the cliff. Though bored and scruffy, the bunch were hard mercenaries - before long they were finishing the fallen bandits. Should they be brought before a court, their crimes would land them an execution anyway. "Keep this one alive." Nobu said as the mercenaries were about to execute the man Nobu's clone had hit in the leg with a Wind Release: Air Bullet. He was a mess, surrounded by the corpses of his friends. The Air Bullet had torn all the way through his leg, shredding muscle and probably cracking bone. He begged to be allowed to sell out his friends, clearly preferring treason over death. He gave names, locations, even physical descriptions, all of which Nobu made sure to note down on a scroll. There were more roving bandit groups around here, all apparently under the same leader, but this group had been the only ones lurking on this path. Once he'd gotten his information, he left the prisoner to the guards. There was nothing more he wanted from the bandit.
The caravan leader was somewhat pale in the face when Nobu simply walked down the side of the cliff to get down. With his blood-coated appearance and the deaths of a dozen bandits on his hands, Nobu's power move definitely had the desired effect. "You, uh." the man stammered, before hesitating. "You... did good. Thanks. They probably would've killed us all."
Nobu simply smiled up at the man. Nothing threatening, or aggressive. A simple smile on the bloodied face of a child. This was the reality of being a shinobi, a killer before his voice had fully broken. Perhaps he would regret his actions upon coming home. Certainly, the faces of the men he had killed on that cliff would visit him at night. But for now, the mental conditioning and indoctrination of the Sunagakure academy was keeping hold. The smile, too, was meant as intimidation. Childlike innocence twisted into a mask of death was enough to make grown men shiver.
After Nobu cleaned himself off with a wet rag and the caravan guards had cleansed their blades of the blood of the fallen and divvied up the loot, the journey continued. The rest of it was uneventful and quiet, except for the conversation with the wagon driver Nobu was lifting along with. Despite the bloodshed, the old man didn't miss a beat. This wasn't his first rodeo. He'd been robbed in the past, and he'd seen failed robberies gone awry. None as fast, he remarked, as what Nobu had performed today. He seemed more impressed than intimidated. Nobu decided he liked the old fellow, who seemed to skate right over status and power without being insulting, and simply enjoyed conversation with the child shinobi.
When the caravan reached the border between Sand and Moon, Nobu could no longer travel with the caravan, and the caravan no longer needed him. With a happy goodbye to the old driver, a smile to the caravan leader, and a respectful exchange of nods to the guards, Nobu departed back into the dunes. For his first mission... Not too shabby.