Understanding [p]

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

"Understanding"

Day 8

Several days had gone by since Yoroi had chosen to stay at the temple for a while to train and learn how to keep himself restrained. Having spent the most of his time learning new forms of taijutsu, he had not been getting a whole lot of training in terms of control over his impulses. When he thought about it, he had not seen much of Modoroki at all during the past days he had spent at the temple, which was also why he had taken a momentary break to go and see his sister about some of the things he had managed to find out from some rather questionable sources, as well as to apologize about what had happened to her husband. Yoroi had expected that she would not be able to see past the fact that her husband was perfect, though this seemed to not be the case this time. No, she had chosen to hear him out and get Toshiro's story at a later point, not blaming him for something he had not provoked. Even though she was noticeably angry and upset with the both of them, the fact that she did not blame him right away was a big step towards improvement between the two. For once, he had felt like he was no longer considered as the incompetent little brother, even though this had not been able to last for more than a few minutes. Once he started explaining all the things he had managed to figure out thanks to a Nukenin or two and the information they had for him, she had shrugged it off as if it was nothing more than the ramblings of a mad man. Not just that, but his capture of the spy from Kumogakure did not seem to shake her much either.

His plan had been to take him back to Kumogakure to see if anything he could find out there would help him in finding out who was responsible for it, to figure out who it was that the Nara answered to, the person that sent him to Konohagakure in the first place. Voicing his displeasure towards her idea of tossing him into prison and trying to reason with him, it seemed that Kimiko did not like his idea either. Unfortunately, the thing that pushed her to become mad at him again was the fact that he had pushed Uriko Nagase into training him how to become a medical ninjutsu user. The ability to heal people had always been something he wanted to learn, something he could use to help people, something that was not always tied to beating someone up or having to kill someone. Even though that was his task as a shinobi, killing people was something that started to get dull. Of all the people he had faced in his life, there had only been one person that had ever managed to get close to killing him. That however happened years ago during the time he had just gotten into the village as a mere Genin. If the time to face the same man would ever come again, he would not be so lucky as he was during their last encounter. What had pushed him into working with a Nukenin, something that was so very childish and stupid of him in the eyes of his sister was that some people were branded traitors for something they were not responsible for, placing them in a Bingo book that would mark them for death for the rest of their lives.

For years now, the man that had been coming after Yoroi time and time again to mess up his operations and missions had been an enigma. After all the things he had done, no one could tell who he was and would therefore not be put in said book due to a lack of information, meaning he would get to go about his business while lesser threats got way more attention than they deserved. The rather obvious threat of the man that had been after him for some time had spread over the years, as did the boldness of his actions. So far, he had already entered the village when Yoroi was going around with Mana to take care of a couple of simple criminals. The criminals Yoroi was sent to check up on were known as the Abura clan, a group of people that had always been known to gather money from questionable sources and performing hostile take-overs on functional companies to increase their income. When Yoroi last went to see them, he had threatened them to stop what they were doing if they did not want to be exposed to the Daimyou of the fire country along with all the documented proof he had gained. During his check-up, the entire clan eventually turned up dead, a Genjutsu in the room making it seem as if they had been alive and well to those that entered the house and thus got caught in the illusion. Once they found out, the two were blocked by a man Yoroi had killed a year ago, as well as a skilled mercenary known as the Scorpion. Dispatching the corpse and sentencing the Scorpion to a life in Bachi prison, the two took a briefcase and a scroll that was meant as an exchange between the two, something Mana and Yoroi put a stop to.

Finding strange drawings, sketches and blueprints, the briefcase included a lot of detailed documents describing the work performed on various kinds of blood types to see what the results would be, using a lot of words and formula's Yoroi personally did not understand. When he kept reading, he also found that some of the experimentation's that had taken place involved living test subjects from various villages all over the world. One of the things he had been trying to understand was the purpose behind it all. Once he had gone over a couple of pages, he had decided to leave things for what they were and locked them up in his basement so no one would be able to get to it without his permission. Since that time, Yoroi's understanding over the medical arts and the human body had grown proportionally, meaning it would be time for him to go through it all again sometime. When he met with Uriko, one of the reasons behind his urge to learn about medical ninjutsu was so that he could figure out the secret behind all of the things he had found in the briefcase and scroll. Though Kimiko had no way of knowing about any of this, the way she responded to his actions made it clear that she considered him to be nothing but a child that was not fit to be a Sennin or the adviser to the Hokage. In Yoroi's mind, the things he had done had not harmed the village or anyone else in the process while helping him in his quest and actually benefiting the village as a whole, something Kimiko was not able to see due to her clouded state of mind.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Letting a deep sigh escape his lips, the Kaguya continued staring at the ceiling from the bed he was laying in. Though it was not nearly as comfortable as his new estate, having a bed and a personal room to sleep in was better than not having it, something many homeless people would no doubt find themselves agreeing to. Thinking about the behavior his sister showed when he told her about all the things he had been doing for a good cause, he could not help but think that she was in fact the one that had been behaving like a child. Yoroi was not stupid, he knew very well that the information he took from Nukenin was not to be acted on without doing some additional digging to find out whether they had been telling the truth or not, though it was information none the less. Information, no matter how questionable it's source might be was never to be wasted because someone did not like where it came from or what it was about, at least that was what Yoroi believed. Unfortunately for him, Kimiko had not shared these thoughts. When she looked at him, it became clear that by the end of their conversation, she had gone back to pinning the blame for what had happened to Toshiro. It was fine with him, after all, he had been doing a lot of growing up since he had beaten the man. Coming to realize his weakness, Yoroi no longer considered him a threat to him or his status as strongest shinobi despite sharing the same rank. Now that Kimiko pinned the blame on him, she would no doubt find herself agreeing with Toshiro, allowing them to at least share some common ground.

Having different beliefs was something that could help in ruining a marriage, so for all that it was worth, the two believing Yoroi to be at fault for all the bad things that happened just meant they had one less thing to disagree on. Thanks to all the times he had been hurt by someone close to him, he had been capable of building up a barrier that shielded him from the awful things the people close to him could do. Where he might have broken into a full blown argument before, he just remained quiet until his sister left before kicking a table through the window of the Administrative building, something he personally considered to be less violent than yelling at his sister again. Now that she was mad at him, Yoroi felt far less inclined in heading back to the village, something that helped him stay in the temple, even though Modoroki had not been doing much to further his training. The whole reason behind him coming here was so that he could restrain his anger and other violent impulses, as well as to improve other social factors, a strange thing to learn in a temple where people did not care much for small talk. Thinking the day would become relatively boring if things kept up the way they did, he suddenly heard someone knocking on the door. Getting up from his bed, he opened the door to find that one of the monks had been given a message that was to be passed along to Yoroi by the council of monks. Taking the note from the man, Yoroi closed the door and locked it as he sat back down on the side of the bed, opening the note to read it's content.

Note:

Wondering what it was that the man wanted to discuss with him, he figured that it was rather important if he did not want to write it down in the note. This meant that the old man no longer trusted the servants of the temple to pass on information without fear of exposing it to a third party. He could not blame the man for feeling this way, not after experiencing the attack on the temple first hand. At the time, Yoroi had been asked to defend the temple from a threat that had been announced prior to it happening, much like a terrorist organization would do. Asking the monks about any information they might have regarding the problem, they stated that they had seen old friends, relatives and former allies wandering around the temple at night, performing acts of hooliganism by breaking things on the outside of the wall. The most notable thing about the things they said was that all of those relatives and friends had died years ago. When Yoroi set out at night to defend the temple from a small group of walking corpses, he had been caught in a trap that pulled him through the soil and tossed him into a room below the temple, a room that had been used by the man Yoroi had started calling the Puppeteer as a field for battle. Nearly killing both Yoroi and his companion Shakreido, Yoroi had managed to land a rather low blow, sending several pieces of bone shrapnel into the man's chest, forcing him to execute a tactical retreat that had not been planned. It had been Yoroi's first real victory over the man that had been making his life as a shinobi very hard for at least five years now.

To think that the man had access to the temple and had even been hiding walking corpses as monks that wandered around while gathering intel was upsetting to say the least. It made Modoroki's secrecy all the more credible, after all, he did not want to risk passing a note for Yoroi into the wrong hands, allowing the Puppeteer to exploit it and get his revenge on the Kaguya. Ever since he had stared into the face of death, he wondered what the guy wanted with Yoroi specifically. There had to be some reason to it, something he needed from Yoroi. Whatever it was, he was not about to give the man what he wanted, fighting him until he could no longer draw breath. Ripping the note to shreds, he burned it until there was nothing more than ash and left the remnants on the floor, stepping outside to go and meet Modoroki in his private quarters. The walk from his own room to that of the old monk was but a short one. The bad part about it was that he had to pass through the main hall where there was always some kind of singing or humming going on, a tone that had become rather annoying due to it being repeated every single day, once in the morning, afternoon and the evening. Trying not to seem disrespectful of their customs, Yoroi always paced through the place rather quickly as opposed to covering his ears or humming a tune of his own. Passing through the hall in the blink of an eye, his physical speed proved to be a blessing when out of combat as well. Now, all that remained was to head up the stairs and he would be able to figure out what all the secrecy was for.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

By the time he had gotten up to the top of the staircase, the first thing he noticed was how quiet it was on the top floor of the temple. Normally, there would at least be a few men around, some guarding the private chambers of the elder council or the unfortunate ones that were tasked with cleaning. That was not the case now. At the end of the small hallway, the door to Modoroki's room was left open, a faint light shining through the opening. To be fully honest, Yoroi could not help but feel like he was running into one of the more obvious traps by doing as a note suggested and walking down an abandoned hallway far above the room where most of the monks had gathered up for a loud and powerful chant. Walking on regardless of it being a trap or not, Yoroi was certain that he could handle whatever might come out to get him. Slowly pushing the door open far enough for him to pass through, he could see the old man sitting by his desk, writing with an inkwell and a feather. Being quite happy with the invention of the pencil, Yoroi understood why some people chose to stick to the old ways, being a practitioner of calligraphy himself. Looking up from his writing, the old man made a gesture at the young shinobi, telling him to take a seat.

"You must be wondering why I called you in here like this. I made sure to send all of the guards away until we are done here, so everything we say here will stay between us. I wanted to ask you, how much do you remember of the attack on the temple?".

It was a question that had come at a strange time when all things were considered. Back when it happened, Modoroki had made no attempts at speaking to him, yet now he wanted to know about what he had seen and what he had managed to remember. That said, it had been a hard thing to forget the only time when he had nearly lost his life to an unknown enemy that was better than him in every way. In fact, it was something he still dreamed about from time to time, laying on the floor after having been knocked around like a sack of grain, awaiting death. Though he was still haunted by the experience, he had been growing at an alarming rate from that day. It had pushed him to become less soft and take on any kind of mission, no matter how high the chances at dying might be. Yoroi had come to understand that it was often the hardest things in life that were worth doing the most. Dangerous or not, he would do what needed to be done even when his sister did not approve of him doing it, this being part of the reason why she was so angry with him now. Even though his sister always complained about him not understanding her, he could count all the times she tried to understand him on a single finger.

"I remember everything quite clearly from the moment I got sucked through the earth and got dropped in that room until the moment when I almost died. In case you're wondering, no, I have not seen his face, I only know how tall he was and that he was not much for showing anything that could eventually be traced back to him. Would that be all?".

After giving his explanation, the expression on Modoroki's face changed, showing that he too was bothered by the lacking description Yoroi could give him. It bothered him a lot that he had not been able to figure out who the man was at the time, knowing that if he had been able to spot his face, he would have been a lot easier to find. This was something the Puppeteer used to his advantage, moving through the crowd and getting anywhere he wanted to go without raising any suspicion due to no one knowing what he looked like. The only thing Yoroi had to go on was the wound he had inflicted upon the man when his last resort attack hit it's mark and sunk bone shrapnel into various parts of his chest. Though this was the kind of information people would only benefit from if the man was actually walking around without clothes, it was still something in the eyes of the Kaguya. He had not brought it up because no one other than himself had to know about. Wondering whether this was all Modoroki wanted to hear from him at the moment, part of him hoped that it was so that he could head back down and get some training done. Watching the old monk rise up from his seat, the young man knew that this was not going to be the case.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

"I wish it was, though I can't let you walk out of here without telling you about the man you fought. You see, my people found similarities between several attacks that have taken place all over the fire country. The person you and I are after is unknown to us all, though I managed to figure out that he has been at it for at least twenty years, making use of medical facilities all over the shinobi world. His goals are unknown to us, though we know that he has been responsible for attacks on various kekkei genkai wielding shinobi clans and sending their blood for testing. More often than not, these things were done right under your nose, disguised as missions from the top brass of the village.".

While his thoughts rushed through his head, he was trying to link things together as soon as they came in. Through the years, he had been doing a lot of questionable missions for the sake of his village without ever asking questions, killing people that got in his way or tried to take his package from him on the way to the village. As such, he had been responsible for a Nukenin, a group of black ops shinobi from the land of forests known as the Prajñã group and various others without batting an eye. At the time, all of these people were against him, coming at him with the intention of killing him if he refused to give them what they wanted if they even asked for something before straight up attacking him in an attempt to rob his lifeless corpse. He had never felt bad about any of the people he killed, knowing that it was for the sake of the village. Now, that feeling changed. The mere thought of him killing the wrong people for a cause that was not even his was sickening to say the least, though it seemed that there was a lot more to be said by the old monk. Even though the young Sennin really didn't want to hear any more of this talk, he knew that he would not be helping anyone by pretending to be deaf, least of all himself.

"Yoroi, you have to understand that this man had his people all over the world, some in positions of power, others merely walking the streets and gathering information from the common people. You were told that your parents were originally spies sent to spy on Konohagakure and the Fire country by Kirigakure, though this is not true. They were good people, former shinobi that relocated themselves to the fire country when they had a child coming. This man...".

Listening as the man made his case, he could not help but wonder why he stopped talking so suddenly. Noticing a tear forming in the corner of the old monk's eye, it must have been quite a terrible thing. It was true that his parents were put down on charges of them being spies for Kirigakure, though he had never been able to find any files or documents that backed up such claims in the slightest. In truth, Yoroi had always considered it to be a strange case, one he often investigated when he was not busy figuring out other things, things like the meaning of the blueprints commissioned by the Scorpion. With some help from Mana, the Scorpion had been detained and stripped of his belongings, including the briefcase and scroll that seemed so very important to his contractor, the Puppeteer himself. Once Modoroki was done talking to Yoroi, he promised himself that the first thing he would do would be to go through the documents and the blueprints, set on figuring out what the Puppeteer wanted so badly that he would use one of his more potent minions along with an overpriced yet deadly mercenary. Feeling increasingly worse as the tears started rolling across the old man's cheeks, he could not even begin to guess what might be so awful that it would make a grown man cry like this.

"This man is the one who is responsible for making people believe that your parents were spies. It is because of this man that the hit on your parents was ordered and executed. When your parents got wind of this situation, they chose not to run but to leave you in my care, though you know how that ended up instead. This man, the puppeteer as you call him is the one that had your parents killed. Whatever the reason might have been, we believe that they were targeted because of their kekkei genkai. If this is indeed the case, it would explain his attempts at drawing you out. I am sorry if this is too much for you to handle right now, so feel free to go back home, we can resume training at a later point in time.".

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Nothing. For a moment, Yoroi felt, heard and saw absolutely nothing but an intense black void in front of his eyes, the world around him muted and put on pause. The man that had almost killed him several years ago was the man that had set everything in motion, that much was known to him, though he could have never guessed that his plans had such old and deep roots. The fact that he had never known his parents was something he had to live with his entire life, not having a clear picture as to what they looked like or if they were remotely good people. Still, finding out why he lacked the thing that brought both pain and joy to regular people made him feel terrible in ways he could not begin to describe. It made the pain he felt because of his sister and her inability to believe in his abilities as a shinobi and a person fade away in comparison. Though he could feel the urge to cry, there were no tears coming out of his eyes. It was like this time was the one where Yoroi no longer felt sad, that this was the time where he gave up on humanity as a whole. He had opened his heart up so many times when he was a child, letting the people in that were kind to him, only to eventually disappear and leave him alone again. For many years, he had believed that his parents were the same way.

Thanks to Modoroki, he had figured out that his parents had been killed on grounds of them being spies for Kirigakure, something Yoroi despised them for, this being one of the events that lead up to his loathing towards the Kaguya clan. He hated his parents for what they had done and never felt any anger towards the village, believing they had done what they had to for the sake of village security. He also understood that everyone had been silent about the subject, afraid of Yoroi becoming the kind of man that would seek vengeance upon the village for what had happened to his family. With this new information, it seemed that all of his resentment towards his family and mostly his parents had been entirely misplaced, all because he and the entire village had been fooled into doing something they deemed necessary. How easily had they all been fooled by a single man that was fueled by his own strange ambitions. Fighting back the urge to rise out of his chair and toss it against the wall, the young man was trembling in his chair, the old man sitting in his own seat while drying his own tears. Feeling the rage he always had been fighting back boil back up inside of him, Yoroi rose out of his chair so that he would not vent his anger near the old man.

"Thank you for this information. If you don't mind, I will be in my room.".

Bowing towards the old man, it seemed like the most respectful thing he could do before he left him to be alone with his grief. Leaving the gloomy chamber, the young man walked down the hall like a zombie, barely even realizing that he was in motion, his head filled to the brink with everything Modoroki told him. It was so very hard to believe that almost every bad thing that had ever happened to him came from a single source, one that had been tormenting him ever since the day he was born. His fear of abandonment, his lack of faith in humanity, his inability to trust people, everything originated from the things that happened as a result of one twisted old freak. Tightening his fists to the point where his nails sank into his skin, he tried his hardest to recall everything he had seen about the man when he had shown himself to Yoroi, hoping that he could find something he could use to find out who it was. Needless to say, he was just as clueless now as he was when he first met the man and sank bone shrapnel into his chest. As he passed through the main hall, he could tell that the monks were trying their hardest not to make eye contact with him, no doubt knowing all about it already. There were very few places as tight as a the fire temple, something he had found out about when he first came to it as a Chuunin ranked shinobi.

Ending up in the hall leading to his personal chamber before he even realized it, he knew very well how messed up he was right now. Moving into his room as quick and as silently as possible, aiming to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Shutting the door behind him, he sat down on his bed while staring blankly at the door. Modoroki was torn up by this new information and because he had to be the one that had to tell Yoroi about the one that was responsible for murdering his parents while Kimiko was angry at him for doing what needed to be done for the sake of the village and blaming him for what had happened to Toshiro, meaning there was no one around that could handle this kind of information, leaving him with no one to talk to. Still trembling with sadness and rage, he noticed that he still couldn't shed a single tear, even though he had never been so alone before in his life...

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

[Finished & Put up for Evaluation]