Finally after waiting for a long time, the boy’s broken arm finally healed and was now better. Feeling a rush of excitement the boy decided to accept a mission and get back into action, he was sure that by this time all of his acquaintances would have moved forward but he is not about to fall behind. But he is not insane so he decided to start a bit slowly and do a simple mission, and he found one that sounded simple while still being important enough. The case of missing children in a remote village a bit far away from here, “it says the suspect are the wildlife surrounding the village, that and the fact that the forest is a bit hard to traverse. This should be simple, I will be ready just in case I met some unpleasant folk out there.” He said before checking all of his gear and heading out of the village to the location specified in the mission description, the boy walked all the way to the village. On his way he met familiar people he met before when he was in the village, he felt that his injury only brought him closer to the entire village and made him open his mind more, especially the meeting with Shizuka.
After one hour of walking the boy began to realize that this village was further away than he initially thought, so he stopped and sat by a tree and began to drink some water. The boy looked up at the sky and it was still cloudy, which was nice. The boy sat there in complete silence to let everything sink in, it took him 5 minutes before getting up and running again towards the village. He wanted to finish this mission before it gets dark, he wanted this to be a simple test of his skills. Eventually it took him two hours and thirty minutes to reach the small village from Kumogakure, once there Momo saw a small humble village popularized by simple farmers. The boy noticed that the villagers eyes were all on him, he took a couple of steps forward and declared. “I am Azai, I am here from Kumogakure. I am here to help you with the case of missing children, I need one of you to come to me and explain to me the details of the situation so I can better understand the situation.” The boy said with a commanding tone, he had to finish his job as quickly as possible, for all he know there could be some people out there still alive waiting for the rescue to come.
“Thank you so much Azai-sama, you are our hero. Allow me to take you to the village elder, she will know what to tell you.” Soon after an elderly man said that, the village folk all began to chant Momo’s name, and tell him how happy they are that he is here. Confused Momo shrugged this off and followed the old man who began to walk at a direction of the shrine, once there the man opened the door only to reveal an elder lady sitting at the end of a large hallway surrounded by the statue of buddha and his guardians. The boy walked up to her and sat in front of her, the older man made the introductions and introduce the lady as lady Michi, the man then immediately left the temple and closed the door behind him. Michi then waved her staff around and ignited all of the unlit candles around the temple, surprising Momotaro who tried his best to not look startled.
“Azai-Dono, on behalf of the village we would like to thank you for your bravery and also apologize for lying.”
The boy raised his eyebrow confused, what could the village have lied about ?
“I am not sure I follow you Michi-sama, what do you mean lie. Am I not here to find the missing people. What else could be the problem.”
Michi looked down, almost as if she is ashamed of herself. Azai was so honest and easy to read, which is why lying to him was all the harder to do for old kind Michi, but she already did and there is no way to reverse time. He will have to help them with their problem, as there was no time to waste anymore.
“actually no, you are not here to save missing people. There were missing people but they are already food for the youkai that threaten our village. I know you have a lot of questions, allow me to explain. Around this land, 2 months ago two Youkai were found. Their origins are quite the mystery to us, but what we do now that they have been kidnapping and feeding on our people. We tried to retaliate, managing to slice one of the two’s eyeball, but that turned out to be a mistake. As this only invoked their wrath even more and the Youkai attacked our villages and destroyed our crops. Leaving us poor and hungry, they declared that today will be the day they destroy our village once and for all. And we had to rely on you guys for help, we know we should have hired some chunnin or a group even but this is all that we have to offer and we could only get one Gennin, please forgive us Azai-sama.” Michi then bowed her head to Momo in shame of what she has done to him.
Shocked the boy took a couple of seconds trying to wrap his head around it, but when it came down to it. Something inside of him moved, his hand twitched the idea of using his sword to defeat powerful foes sounded tempting for the boy. He took the challenge for the sake of the people and also to see where he stands right now as a fighter. “Alright I accept Michi-sama now are the Youkai located on the cave specified in the description ?” Michi got up from her bow and just nodded yes, tears flowing through as she could not believe that the boy accepted her mission even though it was unreasonable. “alright you sit here and wait, I will take care of the Youkai myself.” The boy said as he got up and took his sword with him and began phase one of the operation.
The boy used stealth and began to creep up on the Youkai, remaining as hidden as possible. Studying them for when he decides to engage. Studying their bodies, he saw that one was big and lumbering and kind of slow, he was the one who had his eye destroyed by the farmers. The other one was small and looked nimble, the two switched from guard duty to watching the cave and the other one sleeping inside the cave. upon further investigation, Momo found a terryfing scene, a pile of mangled corpses that were likely eaten by the two demons were spread across the cave, it made the boy sick to his stomach. which is why he had to kill them.
It would have been weird behavior if Youkai were like wild animals, but they were far smarter than that. The boy then decided on the approach he would use, he waited the one with one eye was working the guard duty to make his strike. Firstly he dropped a smoke bomb by the Youkai and began to shoot ranged Jutsu at the beast, making him think that someone was nearby to drive him crazy. Shortly the demon would run away from the cave trying to find the person who attacked him, as Momo jumped from tree to tree and hitting him from a far to drag him as a far as possible from his other friend. Once the distance was enough the boy got down and began to fight the demon with his most powerful techniques.
The two traded blows, the Hachiman was strong enough to trade with the demons’s club, proving that its no ordinary sword. But after a heated clash the demon managed to overpower Momo and throw him to the ground, the demon then walked up for the finishing blow. But the boy was crafty, managing to throw a dagger at the demon’s good eye and ruining both of his eyes blinding him, the demon then wailed in pain as its loud moans echoed through the forest. The boy used this time of hesitation to finish off his opponent grabbing his sword, the boy rammed the Hachiman throw the demon’s heart killing the demon. But before the boy could get even a second for downtime the other faster demon caught up and attacked Momo with its spear, deflecting it with his Hachiman at the last second, his toughest challenge came to face him. The spear wielding demon looked at the boy of the other demon Momo just killed and shed a tear, this confused Momo to know end, why would it care, after he saw the cave filled with human corpses. How can they care for each other when they killed countless of people, this made no sense for Momo but he had to do his job.
The spear demon let out an angry roar filled with grief and sorrow, before rushing towards Momo. The two clashed, as their weapons were equally matched in terms of speed, the demon even managed to land a bunch of hit on Momo, notably stabbing him in the shoulder. But Momo had one advantage, all that rough training he has been doing, it all paid off and now he got the strength advantage. Managing to disarm the demon and send its spear flying the demon tried to use their arms to strike Momo’s head. But swiftly in a simple two strike motion the boy managed to slice both the arm and the head of the demon.
Falling on his knees the boy took his time to process his first kill ? but that did not count, they were simple demons who prey on the innocent, so they do not count right ? the boy convinced himself that, killing those two demons was the only choice and so he did that. The boy decided to go to the cave and check if they have allies and or things he can bring back to the village.
Once there he found nothing of note, or so he thought as he began to hear small chirping noises. Looking around he found a small black creature, going to it the boy kneeled down and listened to it.
“….Pa……papa…Ma…..ma……ma…mama?”
It was at that moment something hit Momo, he could not believe was this the child of those two demons ? the boy almost threw up at the idea of killing the parents of this little guy, but he did not. The boy did not know what to do, so he took out the box he stored his food in and placed the small guy there, he then poked holes in it so it can breath just case it needed to. The boy then head back to the village with the good news and was lauded as a great hero by the citizen, but he was not able to join in the celebration. He stood idly by and waited for the celebration to be over so he could go back to the main village and see what he can do about this little guy, even though the mission was officially over. It seemed he still had a ton of work to do.
After one hour of walking the boy began to realize that this village was further away than he initially thought, so he stopped and sat by a tree and began to drink some water. The boy looked up at the sky and it was still cloudy, which was nice. The boy sat there in complete silence to let everything sink in, it took him 5 minutes before getting up and running again towards the village. He wanted to finish this mission before it gets dark, he wanted this to be a simple test of his skills. Eventually it took him two hours and thirty minutes to reach the small village from Kumogakure, once there Momo saw a small humble village popularized by simple farmers. The boy noticed that the villagers eyes were all on him, he took a couple of steps forward and declared. “I am Azai, I am here from Kumogakure. I am here to help you with the case of missing children, I need one of you to come to me and explain to me the details of the situation so I can better understand the situation.” The boy said with a commanding tone, he had to finish his job as quickly as possible, for all he know there could be some people out there still alive waiting for the rescue to come.
“Thank you so much Azai-sama, you are our hero. Allow me to take you to the village elder, she will know what to tell you.” Soon after an elderly man said that, the village folk all began to chant Momo’s name, and tell him how happy they are that he is here. Confused Momo shrugged this off and followed the old man who began to walk at a direction of the shrine, once there the man opened the door only to reveal an elder lady sitting at the end of a large hallway surrounded by the statue of buddha and his guardians. The boy walked up to her and sat in front of her, the older man made the introductions and introduce the lady as lady Michi, the man then immediately left the temple and closed the door behind him. Michi then waved her staff around and ignited all of the unlit candles around the temple, surprising Momotaro who tried his best to not look startled.
“Azai-Dono, on behalf of the village we would like to thank you for your bravery and also apologize for lying.”
The boy raised his eyebrow confused, what could the village have lied about ?
“I am not sure I follow you Michi-sama, what do you mean lie. Am I not here to find the missing people. What else could be the problem.”
Michi looked down, almost as if she is ashamed of herself. Azai was so honest and easy to read, which is why lying to him was all the harder to do for old kind Michi, but she already did and there is no way to reverse time. He will have to help them with their problem, as there was no time to waste anymore.
“actually no, you are not here to save missing people. There were missing people but they are already food for the youkai that threaten our village. I know you have a lot of questions, allow me to explain. Around this land, 2 months ago two Youkai were found. Their origins are quite the mystery to us, but what we do now that they have been kidnapping and feeding on our people. We tried to retaliate, managing to slice one of the two’s eyeball, but that turned out to be a mistake. As this only invoked their wrath even more and the Youkai attacked our villages and destroyed our crops. Leaving us poor and hungry, they declared that today will be the day they destroy our village once and for all. And we had to rely on you guys for help, we know we should have hired some chunnin or a group even but this is all that we have to offer and we could only get one Gennin, please forgive us Azai-sama.” Michi then bowed her head to Momo in shame of what she has done to him.
Shocked the boy took a couple of seconds trying to wrap his head around it, but when it came down to it. Something inside of him moved, his hand twitched the idea of using his sword to defeat powerful foes sounded tempting for the boy. He took the challenge for the sake of the people and also to see where he stands right now as a fighter. “Alright I accept Michi-sama now are the Youkai located on the cave specified in the description ?” Michi got up from her bow and just nodded yes, tears flowing through as she could not believe that the boy accepted her mission even though it was unreasonable. “alright you sit here and wait, I will take care of the Youkai myself.” The boy said as he got up and took his sword with him and began phase one of the operation.
The boy used stealth and began to creep up on the Youkai, remaining as hidden as possible. Studying them for when he decides to engage. Studying their bodies, he saw that one was big and lumbering and kind of slow, he was the one who had his eye destroyed by the farmers. The other one was small and looked nimble, the two switched from guard duty to watching the cave and the other one sleeping inside the cave. upon further investigation, Momo found a terryfing scene, a pile of mangled corpses that were likely eaten by the two demons were spread across the cave, it made the boy sick to his stomach. which is why he had to kill them.
It would have been weird behavior if Youkai were like wild animals, but they were far smarter than that. The boy then decided on the approach he would use, he waited the one with one eye was working the guard duty to make his strike. Firstly he dropped a smoke bomb by the Youkai and began to shoot ranged Jutsu at the beast, making him think that someone was nearby to drive him crazy. Shortly the demon would run away from the cave trying to find the person who attacked him, as Momo jumped from tree to tree and hitting him from a far to drag him as a far as possible from his other friend. Once the distance was enough the boy got down and began to fight the demon with his most powerful techniques.
The two traded blows, the Hachiman was strong enough to trade with the demons’s club, proving that its no ordinary sword. But after a heated clash the demon managed to overpower Momo and throw him to the ground, the demon then walked up for the finishing blow. But the boy was crafty, managing to throw a dagger at the demon’s good eye and ruining both of his eyes blinding him, the demon then wailed in pain as its loud moans echoed through the forest. The boy used this time of hesitation to finish off his opponent grabbing his sword, the boy rammed the Hachiman throw the demon’s heart killing the demon. But before the boy could get even a second for downtime the other faster demon caught up and attacked Momo with its spear, deflecting it with his Hachiman at the last second, his toughest challenge came to face him. The spear wielding demon looked at the boy of the other demon Momo just killed and shed a tear, this confused Momo to know end, why would it care, after he saw the cave filled with human corpses. How can they care for each other when they killed countless of people, this made no sense for Momo but he had to do his job.
The spear demon let out an angry roar filled with grief and sorrow, before rushing towards Momo. The two clashed, as their weapons were equally matched in terms of speed, the demon even managed to land a bunch of hit on Momo, notably stabbing him in the shoulder. But Momo had one advantage, all that rough training he has been doing, it all paid off and now he got the strength advantage. Managing to disarm the demon and send its spear flying the demon tried to use their arms to strike Momo’s head. But swiftly in a simple two strike motion the boy managed to slice both the arm and the head of the demon.
Falling on his knees the boy took his time to process his first kill ? but that did not count, they were simple demons who prey on the innocent, so they do not count right ? the boy convinced himself that, killing those two demons was the only choice and so he did that. The boy decided to go to the cave and check if they have allies and or things he can bring back to the village.
Once there he found nothing of note, or so he thought as he began to hear small chirping noises. Looking around he found a small black creature, going to it the boy kneeled down and listened to it.
“….Pa……papa…Ma…..ma……ma…mama?”
It was at that moment something hit Momo, he could not believe was this the child of those two demons ? the boy almost threw up at the idea of killing the parents of this little guy, but he did not. The boy did not know what to do, so he took out the box he stored his food in and placed the small guy there, he then poked holes in it so it can breath just case it needed to. The boy then head back to the village with the good news and was lauded as a great hero by the citizen, but he was not able to join in the celebration. He stood idly by and waited for the celebration to be over so he could go back to the main village and see what he can do about this little guy, even though the mission was officially over. It seemed he still had a ton of work to do.