Rain poured down on the Chronopolis that was lit up in neon signs advertising new apartments, a few hole-in-the-wall bars, and a couple of sketchy clubs that couldn’t make the list in the entertainment district a bit further up in the main parts of the city. Pot holes were filled with water and some of the lower sections were kind of flooding from some of the poor house planning. Thankfully, due to being on a mountain, the water happily cascaded down but the strength of the rain kept making those on the lowest end of things worried; at least those on the first floors, anyways.
A youth in a trench coat with a leather hood sewn to the collar, up, held his jacket close and his face down to keep others from seeing it. His hands looked scratched up and his walk seemed to denote a bit of intoxication. On his feet were spatters of red smears where blood had soaked in and was being quietly washed out by the pouring rain. Everything about the young man screamed “danger”, which was in a field of irony due to the fact that he was a member of the military; a soldier trained to protect the interests of Kumogakure.
Shinjo was not in a good way. Beneath the coat he shook but not from the cold air of the mountains; that he eventually acclimated to unlike his damaged lungs. No, the male shook from a lack of an addictive substance he created to help combat his asthma. The poison itself, which it was, wasn’t actually addictive in anyway but when combined with alcohol produced a sensation akin to a type of blissful ignorance. It helped clear his head to do missions and keep his psychosis from spiking into dangerous territories that it tended to lately. However, since his last botched job, work had been coming in slower if any at all. The money he had saved back dried up a quickly with his frequent trips to the advertised sordid clubs of his neighborhood. The special herbs used in his specialized poison were somewhat rare in their mountain home, and the Yamanaka cousins that grew the gardens in the forests above Kumo had started to bar his entrance. They demanded instead what herbs he sought, knowing full well he had picked more than enough of that specific flower to last most people years instead of the months Shinjo burned through. Without that specific flower to create his homemade concoction, the Training ANBU found himself in a world of withdraw that was as painful as it was terrifying.
He could see her. The only person he had stupidly opened his heart to and then murdered by accident. She was right beside him, right now, tormenting him by calling the fake name he had given her. Shin knew better than to turn his head towards the voice, because when he did so all his eyes were filled with was the hallucination of her broken face staring daggers of accusation. His body suddenly shook hard enough to nearly be a seizure and it caused the shinobi to miss a step. He fell against the building he was near with a racking cough that quickly brought on wheezing. Slamming his hand against the wall the shinobi cursed his weakness and caught himself before fully stumbling into a fall. For a moment he leaned against it, still feeling eyes on him but unsure if someone was actually watching or if it was his paranoia again.
The gods knew he had plenty to be guilty for. His killing hand had laid to rest some scum in the streets down here but for no reason other than being randomly insulted, and again it had happened seemingly without his control. There was just something in his head that would snap when the wrong string of words hit his ears and since his last botched mission, the snap had caused the death of at least three more civilians. Those who had been ended weren’t good people by any means. One was a drug dealer, another a pimp who hid in plain sight as an eccentric man with a lots of arm candy. Another had been some kind of stalker and, tonight, a would-be rapist was left butchered in an alley a few blocks back. But instead of capturing these people, instead of pushing them through the fine mesh that was their new social justice system that could of possibly seem at least one of them reformed into a productive member of society…they were dead. Murdered violently with their remains left for the ugly world to see. All to quench a maddening thirst, a need to punish to escape from his own guilty conscious that tormented him even now.
The wheezing slowly settled before Shinjo caught his breath and stood back up straight. The shinobi turned his head back and lifted his eyes a bit to the tall apartment buildings that surrounded him to make sure no one was watching like the hairs on the back of his neck kept raising to warn him. Something told the youth he was being tracked, recorded, but there was no real way of knowing that. Many of the ANBU’s elite were far more practiced at this position than he had been, despite being all but a genius when it came to chakra and swordplay, and he had never finished the quota to move up in rank after his second mission that had been his mental undoing. Turning his head back down the hooded youth turned down a street ally that lead back into one of those sordid clubs. To escape what he presumed was his very branch waiting for a perfect moment to end him.
[MFT]
A youth in a trench coat with a leather hood sewn to the collar, up, held his jacket close and his face down to keep others from seeing it. His hands looked scratched up and his walk seemed to denote a bit of intoxication. On his feet were spatters of red smears where blood had soaked in and was being quietly washed out by the pouring rain. Everything about the young man screamed “danger”, which was in a field of irony due to the fact that he was a member of the military; a soldier trained to protect the interests of Kumogakure.
Shinjo was not in a good way. Beneath the coat he shook but not from the cold air of the mountains; that he eventually acclimated to unlike his damaged lungs. No, the male shook from a lack of an addictive substance he created to help combat his asthma. The poison itself, which it was, wasn’t actually addictive in anyway but when combined with alcohol produced a sensation akin to a type of blissful ignorance. It helped clear his head to do missions and keep his psychosis from spiking into dangerous territories that it tended to lately. However, since his last botched job, work had been coming in slower if any at all. The money he had saved back dried up a quickly with his frequent trips to the advertised sordid clubs of his neighborhood. The special herbs used in his specialized poison were somewhat rare in their mountain home, and the Yamanaka cousins that grew the gardens in the forests above Kumo had started to bar his entrance. They demanded instead what herbs he sought, knowing full well he had picked more than enough of that specific flower to last most people years instead of the months Shinjo burned through. Without that specific flower to create his homemade concoction, the Training ANBU found himself in a world of withdraw that was as painful as it was terrifying.
He could see her. The only person he had stupidly opened his heart to and then murdered by accident. She was right beside him, right now, tormenting him by calling the fake name he had given her. Shin knew better than to turn his head towards the voice, because when he did so all his eyes were filled with was the hallucination of her broken face staring daggers of accusation. His body suddenly shook hard enough to nearly be a seizure and it caused the shinobi to miss a step. He fell against the building he was near with a racking cough that quickly brought on wheezing. Slamming his hand against the wall the shinobi cursed his weakness and caught himself before fully stumbling into a fall. For a moment he leaned against it, still feeling eyes on him but unsure if someone was actually watching or if it was his paranoia again.
The gods knew he had plenty to be guilty for. His killing hand had laid to rest some scum in the streets down here but for no reason other than being randomly insulted, and again it had happened seemingly without his control. There was just something in his head that would snap when the wrong string of words hit his ears and since his last botched mission, the snap had caused the death of at least three more civilians. Those who had been ended weren’t good people by any means. One was a drug dealer, another a pimp who hid in plain sight as an eccentric man with a lots of arm candy. Another had been some kind of stalker and, tonight, a would-be rapist was left butchered in an alley a few blocks back. But instead of capturing these people, instead of pushing them through the fine mesh that was their new social justice system that could of possibly seem at least one of them reformed into a productive member of society…they were dead. Murdered violently with their remains left for the ugly world to see. All to quench a maddening thirst, a need to punish to escape from his own guilty conscious that tormented him even now.
The wheezing slowly settled before Shinjo caught his breath and stood back up straight. The shinobi turned his head back and lifted his eyes a bit to the tall apartment buildings that surrounded him to make sure no one was watching like the hairs on the back of his neck kept raising to warn him. Something told the youth he was being tracked, recorded, but there was no real way of knowing that. Many of the ANBU’s elite were far more practiced at this position than he had been, despite being all but a genius when it came to chakra and swordplay, and he had never finished the quota to move up in rank after his second mission that had been his mental undoing. Turning his head back down the hooded youth turned down a street ally that lead back into one of those sordid clubs. To escape what he presumed was his very branch waiting for a perfect moment to end him.
[MFT]