Training [done]

Age : 32 Posts : 1178

Nukenin. Ever since Hiruzen had joined the Academy as a boy, he had heard about the kind of people that were supposedly ruining the world for everyone else. Though there were several other shinobi villages out there with different views as to what the world was supposed to be like, Nukenin had always been viewed as the most dangerous people there were. They had defected from their village, took sensitive information of their former home with them and used this information to either harm the village personally or sell it to someone else so that they could use it to hurt the place instead. Due to the way in which he had grown up, leaving the village to become the kind of thing he had learned to hate was not an easy thing. Though most of the villagers had already been hating him for the simple fact that he was a member of one of the founding clans, it was still a hard decision to make. After all, he left his family behind, and while they no longer respected him after what he had done for the sake of the village and it's people, they were still his family. When he eventually left the Hidden Cloud, he did so in a way that let his family know that he was done with them and in doing so, let the village know that they were not responsible for the things he might do.

To him, this was the best way to leave the place behind him and make the people of the village see that he was no longer affiliated with them. What they wanted to do with him was entirely up to them, though he had made it abundantly clear over the years that he was not the kind of person that was to be taken lightly. Whenever people underestimated what he was capable of, they ended up incapacitated or worse. While his killing days were mostly behind him, he was still very capable of ending a life if he was forced into it. Today, Hiruzen was doing something he had not been doing for quite some time. Ever since he got word of the Nukenin coming to the land of lightning to start trouble, Hiruzen had been doing his best to persuade the local criminals not to affiliate themselves with them. For them, Hiruzen was the devil that they knew while the outsiders were unknown to them. The good part about this was the fact that they knew exactly what Hiruzen was capable of due to the things he had done to the organization formerly known as the Prajñã. Though it had made the masses afraid of what he was capable of, the rumors had spread all the way to the borders of the country, meaning everyone heard about his exploits. While no one knew the specifics like Hiruzen and the Raikage did, most criminals now knew better than to stand in his way.

The personal undertaking of a mission he had taken part in that made the entire village consider him as a murderous demon that had spawned from the lowest regions of hell was in many ways similar to what he was going to be doing now, minus all of the killing. At the time, he had used his ability to sense chakra signatures in order to scout out the location after using clones and disguising them as the people who were supposed to bring in a shipment of weaponry for the assassin organization known as the Prajñã. At the time, he had to spend a lot of time setting up the entire operation by using shadow clones and taking over a small cargo ship after spending a week shadowing people and figuring out their routine. Now, he was a lot more confident in his own abilities due to the amount of training he had been through. His perceptive abilities had grown so much that he could register things way sooner than he could before. His Sharingan could always register things incredibly fast, though he no longer had t rely on it anymore. Thanks to his training, his sensory abilities had grown more than he believed possible was for him at the time. Through the years, Hiruzen had managed to master his chakra sensory to the point of sensing chakra signatures more clearly and from far larger distances.

Shortly after he had taken what he needed from his underground base, the young Uchiha had set out to find a group of Nukenin he had brawled with before. Having been very clear with all of the criminals he had managed to capture over the past couple of days, they were the only ones that refused to listen to his orders. As a fellow Nukenin that was considerably more powerful than all of the others that roamed the surface of the lightning country, most of them had learned to respect and knew enough not to upset him. When the people he was about to get to refused to heed him, they had earned themselves a visit. Walking for a good thirty minutes, he reached a small settlement that was hidden rather well. Had he not been tracking the three criminals he had scared away from the location that was now used as Hiruzen's base of operations, he would not have been able to find it this easily. Wandering into a cavern system located at the bottom of a large canyon, his senses would tell him whenever something wandered too close to him or whenever something containing chakra got within his range. Hell, if any rocks dislodged and make the passage he was currently in dangerous, he would know that it was time to get more defensive. After all, Hiruzen was a shinobi that possessed earth chakra, so he had nothing to worry about even if the entire place came down on his head. Still, it was relatively dangerous to the people inside if a tunnel went down.

Not everyone in there was a shinobi, and not every shinobi possessed the earth release that would help them get out in the worst case scenario. It was for that reason that Hiruzen would use it as a threat in case they were still going to ignore his wishes. Following his sixth sense through the maze of tunnels, his sense of direction was not the only thing that was gradually improving. Among other things, the amount of people he could sense inside of the tunnels proved to him that the main room in which they were all held up was not that far anymore. As well developed as his sensory skills had become, there was still a lot of room for him to adapt to it more. One of the reasons why he had come all this way personally was so that he could put his skills to the test before all of the fighting would happen. It was like he had told Mana and Meiko, it was never a good thing to enter a potentially dangerous situation without testing ones own level of skill. If the people he was supposed to fight were truly as strong as they were made out to be, Hiruzen could not afford to get rusty, if such a thing was at all possible for the young Uchiha. Finally stepping out of the shadows and setting foot in the large open space that had been turned into what seemed like a living area, a gambling area and a drinking area in one, he grinned a bit at the sight of how these ants lived. Forming a quick string of seals, Hiruzen blew a large violet torrent of flame straight up into the air to get everyone's attention.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could seize your attention for a moment, there is something I wanted to discuss. I have tolerated your presence here up to this point because we had clear rules in place. Needless to say, these rules have been violated when you refused to heed one simple wish. That is why I decided to visit your cozy little den personally, showing all of you just how serious I am about this. If you in any way affiliate yourself with any Nukenin from a shady organization, you will not have me to worry about. Rather, you'd need to worry about the ceiling that I will bring down on your heads. You are entitled to making your own choices, but do not believe for one second that any of your pathetic lives matter once you stand in my way. Now, all of you may go back to your activities.".

Finishing his little speech, he looked around at the people that had gathered to hear what was going on. Capable of telling that some of them were rather scared where others were angry to the point of almost ripping out of their shirt, none of them said a word. Making sure that the things he said sank into their thick skulls, he no longer had to stay in the warm and damp caverns. With that, the Uchiha formally bowed his head before turning around and leaving the way he came. He had been very up front and personal about his dealings with these people, so there were bound to be some of them that did not feel like taking it laying down. That said, every single one of them knew who Hiruzen was and what he was capable of. Maintaining his field of sensory, he would see them coming if they chose to come after him. Wandering through the tunnels at a steady pace, he eventually reached the end of the tunnel system. In a way, he was both surprised and a bit dissatisfied when it seemed like no one wanted to try and put him in his place. Shrugging his throat, he spat on the ground at the entrance of the caverns. At the end of the day, criminals would be criminals, putting self preservation above all else, even money.

1676/1600
Finished