THE LOST ADVENTURES OF HARUPIA - Part 1
"Do I dare to ask what made you choose that name? Cause if you're about to tell me the world is actually flat I might need another drink.."
The Mayor would smirk and give a slight chuckle as he pulled out a cigarette.
"Flat? Who knows, but we give this location that loving name because this is, in essence, the end of our world. The World of Wind Country. Past this point is a stretch of land that has been ventured upon or seen by human eyes for, our best guess, nearly 300 years. Maybe longer. Who knows. Anyways, our employers would like for us to actually lay eyes upon what hasn't been seen before... so, that's the gist of it. A cute name but definitely an exaggeration."
And with that, he would pull out his lighter and begin to take a drag while he watched the Sunaku approach his task. Within his mind, Harupia wasn't entirely sure what he was getting himself into, nor was he certain that going along with the Mayor, and more specifically his employers, was necessarily the best course of action. That said, the alternatives within this moment would have been to confront the Mayor and his workers or to flat out refuse and earn the ire of the Mayor and lose whatever ability he had to gather more information from the situation.
Well, it is just removing what is basically a wall... not like I am doing anything too dangerous, but what am I missing?
These thoughts would swirl around his head as he approached the large earthen obstruction. Tapping the rock surface he would look around a bit more before placing his hands upon the obstruction.
"I know you had a lot of thoughts; blowing up, sinking... but the fact is there is a rather less climatic path ahead that will reach a similar outcome."
From his body, the chakra would begin to swirl, mold, and push outward. It would concentrate on his palms and then begin to spread out from his body and into the stone wall before him. The object's large size would require more time to be utilized, which meant more chakra as well, but slowly the Mayor and other onlookers would begin to notice the changes Harupia was making.
It wouldn't be immediate nor would it be flashy, but grains of sand would begin to rain down from on top of the obstruction. The Mayor and the workers would pause, as sand would continue to fall down from the structure.
"Hey boss, is the hill getting smaller?"
The cigarette would fall from his mouth as the process would pick up speed and become much more noticeable. Harupia was turning the stone that blocked their path into grains of sand before their very eyes. It was a simple solution, but of this size, it was a magnificent feat. The mere power of a man to reduce a hill of this size into nothing but sand in a few moments was truly terrifying. It is why many prized the Sunaku bloodline, as much as they did the variant of the Sunahoshi. Before Harupia, this very country was his playground, should he choose to twist it and bend it to his whim.
"Get the gear... he doesn't know what happens next... HARUPIA GET BACK!"
Harupia was surrounded by the falling sand, cascading down like an amber waterfall. His ability to manipulate it would cause it to pass around him as if a barrier was coating his body. While he was immune to being crushed by his newly created sand, he wasn't immune to the noise it would cause. This would in turn cause him to miss the yells of the Mayor. The hill was almost completely reduced when suddenly large pincers would come erupting before him.
Harupia was a veteran shinobi, one who had seen many things, so his natural reflexes would have kicked in utilizing his newly created pool of sand to provide a protective barrier from the attacking creature. The sand wouldn't completely stop the pincers but was also not intended for that, instead the sand would tighten its grip around the portions of the pincers that had pierced its veil, creating a lock that snared the beast. Raising his hand the sand would begin to pull upwards and drag the creature along with it to give Harupia a better look at what he was dealing with. There would be a strain that would overcome his body as the creature's size would be felt by his efforts before being seen by his eyes.
"What the..."
Before him would be an ant. Not a common ant, however. No, this ant was nearly three times the size of the Sunaku. Its body was a yellowish hue with red markings. Upon its back were two separate serrated plate-like objects. The six legs of the creature were wailing frantically.
At that moment, the ground below him crumbled apart, as more of the strange ant creatures would begin to emerge, causing the ground to give way in their surfacing. The last that Harupia would hear before falling would be "Ok their hill has been breached, the soldiers will be swarming! Mercs, where the hell are the merc--"
Harupia would enter darkness before slamming into the earth and bouncing upwards, before slamming back into another wall of earth. While disorienting, he would immediately notice that he was within a tunnel underground. It seemed he was now plummeting deeper into the ant hill he had disturbed. The giant ants would continue to pass him by, clearly not seeing him as a threat or maybe prioritizing his singular self as less of a threat than those humans on the surface. Either way, he would tumble a bit more before finally coming to a rolling stop.
"Well, that wasn't ideal."
Dusting himself off, he would stand up and begin to look around his new surroundings. He appeared to be in a chamber-like room that had various openings dug into it. This seemed to be an intersection point for the ants, a room that connected their various pathways. He would look around, peering at each of the several openings. Not knowing where each path would end, fearful that he may walk into a larger population of ants without any means of retreating, he would begin to consider his next course of action.
Holding out his hand, the ground below him would turn to sand, creating a platform that would rise up. The platform would push him upwards into one of the openings burrowed into, what he would consider, the ceiling of the chamber. His thoughts were simple; go up to return to where I was. Using his sand manipulation once more, he would create a pair of sand hands from the earthen tunnel walls. The hands would latch upon him and start to drag him upwards.
While rapidly ascending, he would notice that there were a couple of side holes dug into the path he was following. He would take note of it in case he needed to double back, but mostly hoped he would not need to do such a thing. Soon, he would see a light above him, and the end of the tunnel was vastly approaching. Before he could gain too much hope, the light above him would darken and become obscured. In its place would be darkness and the sound of rushing water. It would seem that whatever was happening above ground, eventually a decision was made to use water to flood the hill. Unless they had a large amount of water, what would need to be an sea-level amount, they were merely buying themselves some time. That said, it didn't change his current situation.
The sand hands carrying him would release, causing him to freefall once more as the waterfall continued to bear down upon him. Slapping his hands together, another hand would jettison out of the wall of the tunnel and slam into his chest pushing him through a side pathway, just narrowly allowing him to miss being crushed by the downpour that filled the primary pathway he once traversed. He would sit for a moment, watching the water, mixed with debris, giant ants, and the bodies of the Yamori workers, come pouring down before him. It truly did look like a waterfall, and it seemed to have quite a bit of volume as the stream did not seem to show any signs of slowing down. Pulling himself back up, he would begin to venture down this new path.
---Some time later---
In the dark of the subterranean tunnel, he wasn't certain how long he had been walking. He wasn't certain when the last time he had a meal, the minuscule rations he carried on his person already depleted. The only saving grace was that it seemed no ants were already in this tunnel, hopefully meaning that he was approaching an endpoint that did not put him in the heart of the giant insects' lair. More likely, he was venturing down a tunnel that either served as transport or exit, or he was ultimately wandering down a path with a dead end. He also could sleep, which he rarely did. All he had was determination and moving onward.
Eventually, coinciding with him reaching a point of complete exhaustion, he would happen upon an ant. Several ants. Their bodies, however, were torn apart. Mixed in with the insect corpses were strange humanoid remains. While human-like, upon closer examination, it would become very apparent that they were not human. Instead, he would realize fairly quickly that these were the remains of Unbent. In his mind, it would seem that the Swarm and the giant ants had happened upon each other, and at the conclusion of the battle maybe it was a stalemate.
He would be wrong.
From the wreckage of ants would emerge several Unbent. They would look odd, more so than normal Unbent. It would seem that these variants would somehow have taken on several characteristics of the ants. Could these Unbent gain these new features from eating the ants or did these Unbent grow from the ants? Were Unbent even capable of either thing? He wasn't certain. He was certain that no matter how they were created, they now set their sights upon him.
The battle would rage for what felt like an eternity. He was low on stamina, due to starvation and sleep deprivation, which lowered his chakra output. The wiley Jounin had to use his smarts. He would maneuver around, creating space between him and the charging Unbent, and would lay traps by creating small pools of quicksand. Eventually, he would wittle down enough that he could focus on one Unbent at a time. Then using spped and precision he would move to terminate the creature as quickly as he could. His goal was to kill one before another could free itself from his traps. This process would continue. And continue. And continue.... and continue.
---Several days later---
A wreck and ragged Harupia would stare down the last Unbent. They would both lunge at each other. A cloud of sand would erupt as the clone would disperse, allowing the real Harupia to appear behind the creatre., Taking it by the head, he would begin to pull with his full force of remaining strength.
"How long did I wait to use that clone... how long..."
His voice was weakened and faint, but the brutality of him ripping the head off of the Unbent would be the opposite.
"Finally..."
He would collapse upon the ground, breathing heavily. His eyes were heavy. His body was heavy. Luckily the battle was over..
Except it wasn't.
One of the decomposing ant carcuses would begin to shake violently before bursting open. Within the visceral, Harupia would notice a strange object, a rather large egg. Protuding from the egg would be a creature that seemed to be a perfect combination of the humanoid build of the Unbent paired with the appearance of the giant ants. It stood on two muscular legs, it possessed two muscular arms, but upon its face were modified pincers. It's eyes were also insect-like. While the previous Unbent he fought seemed to have the features of the ants, this new creature seemed to be a perfect marriage of the two. It was a true abomination. There was another thing, something that made it far worse.
"Cha... chakra..."
The creature seemed to be giving off an aura of chakra. Could Unbent do that? Could the giant ants do that? What was happening?
His mind was racing, his vision was fading. Harupia was stubborn, however. He began to push himself up off the ground once more. While doing so, he attempted to manipulate the ground below him into quicksand but the effort would be in vain.
"Guess I'm out..."
Instead of creating a puddle of quicksand, he would instead tap both knuckles to the ground as sand and chakra, what little he had left, would begin to swirl and coat his fists. Now there was a faint coating of sand upon his hands, not enough to pad them, but enough to do something else.
The beast would let out a guttral roar and would charge him. Harupia would dodge the first strike of the beast and counter with an immediate right jab into the face of the beast. The sand coating his hands would serve to be like sand paper, the course shards of earth of glass would grate across the flesh of the beast drawing blood almost immedaitely. A light would emerge, a figurative one, as it now seemed he could damage the beast with his new sand-boxing strategy. It would be short lived as the beast would send another might punch hurdling outwards and connecting directly with the gut of the Sunaku. Harupia would be launched off of his feet and collide into the wall of the tunnel with a sickening thud.
The beast would approach its now downed prey. Blood would come pouring from the sides of Harupia's mouth as he would look up at the approaching monster. There would be a loud explosion, but he wasn't certain if it was the after effects of being hit that hard. Maybe he had a concussion and was hearing things? Maybe his exhaustion had finally driven him to the point of madness. Either way, the Sunaku would push himself up off the ground and read his sand coated fists once more....
TO BE CONTINUED
