A Declaration of War [P - solo topic]

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Watching that sunrise but not seeing it as his eyes roved the shattered remains of the bridge that less than a day ago had been the sight of a massacre, the mind of a certain white-haired Konoha chuunin was miles and weeks away. To be exact Toshiro was trying to dredge up how it was possible for a gold pin he had last seen in the possession of a sibling he had all but sentenced to death and an unmarked grave under a hill in Shi Mori could find a way to trigger the events that had sent him back here. All because when he had gone through the pouch belonging to the courier he and his genin had been tasked with intercepting he had found something he thought safely buried. To be exact, it was supposed to be buried under tons of rubble and earth below what had been a hill inside the aptly named Forest of Death. Found it he had though and it had briefly sent him into the kind of rage that the stuff of horror stories.

With the frantic run from his team's camp to the bridge acting to clear his head, Toshiro had the time to admit to himself that he really had flown off the handle after finding the pin. In that blind rage he had been very close to doing very rash things that he would - when he had been-clear headed - regret dearly. All because he had found one small pin and one that wasn't all that remarkable. In truth it wasn't the pin itself that almost had him ready to do things he considered abominable. It was the memories tied to the times Toshiro had seen that pin and the person who wore it during them that had brought back a lot of memories, bad and good, he had hoped to forget. Why he had let go when he had, he had no idea but he was grateful that he had stopped. Of course he was only less unhappy with what had come after; leaving two genin - one of them hurt - and a summon in the middle of potentially hostile territory wasn't very responsible. Even if he did have a fairly good reason in wanting to see if he could find some independent verification that his rogue sister was alive and active instead of safely dead and buried under a hill in Shi Mori. In truth Toshiro had needed to get away before something ignited his short-fuse again and this time he didn't stop - checking the sight of the slaughter created by himself and one of his genin had been just an excuse at first.

Now the white-haired chuunin was searching the area where he and one of his genin had slaughtered a group of bandits and captured a courier for evidence that he hadn't laid one of his worst nightmares to rest. Looking over the remains even from here, it was obvious to anyone that the search wouldn't be easy. Not only had his opening water dragon shattered the bridge but it might had sent the very items he hoped to not find into the river where the current would wash them who knew how far downstream. The same might have happened if what he sought was on the corpses of the two ronin who had jumped into the river only to be skewered. Even if it (whatever it was) still lay on the field of battle it could be in pieces since he hadn't

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Looking back on the incident, Toshiro would later comment that if he had known he would have been back to search them he would have taken his time killing them. From start to finish the entire fight that had produced the corpses he had been searching had taken maybe three minutes of which no more than thirty seconds had produced the bulk of them. Searching the corpse had taken considerably longer, almost three hours of solid searching in fact. In that time he had had to shoo off several persistent crows that hadn't wanted to stop eating long enough for their dinner to be searched along with tracking down pieces of bandits who had taken especially unlucky hits from the Shuriken Kage Bushin. The only good thing was that, because the clones simply vanished after impact, Toshiro hadn't needed to take care to avoid getting sliced while searching the bodies. He had also been able to retrieve all six of his shuriken, although two of them were only useful as a scrap, from where they had lodged in the hide of a bandit.

It wasn't until he searched the last bandit corpse, ironically the one who the courier had kawarimi'ed with to save her own hide, that Toshiro noticed some differences. While the other corpses had been typical bandits - ill-shaven and smelling of alcohol and unwashed bodies (along with other odors), this one had clearly made some efforts at personal hygiene before such would no longer concern him. The chuunin also noted that his general dress was better - the same rough clothes but not tattered or heavily soiled. Combined with the well-maintained kodachi still in its scabbard and the bow held in the left had, those deviations from the other corpses made Toshiro... curious. It was almost as if this person had been trying to fit in with the others instead of being a part of the group. That possibility was enough to have Toshiro take the time to start checking the corpse more carefully than the others. He even went so far as to remove the corpse's clothes and check for concealed pockets of which he found none. It wouldn't be until he got to the corpse's boots that he found something unusual. At first he thought the bulge to be a knife - it wasn't uncommon for weapons of last resort to be concealed in such a manner - but removing the bulge proved otherwise. Instead of a weapon what came out was a long and very narrow envelope made of what looked like oil skin that had been sealed shut with wax. As the chuunin turned the envelope over he almost dropped it when his hands started to violently shake as the last rays of sunlight struck the wax itself. Pressed into the wax was the reverse image of the pin that rested in his equipment pouch.

It took Toshiro almost fifteen minutes to reduce the shaking in his hands enough, but eventually he managed to use the edge of a kunai to open the wrapping without disturbing the seal. What he found inside made him wish he used a lot more explosives in Shi Mori - say a few tons worth. What he found were three pieces of paper; one in plain language that for all intents said "don't screw up or else" and was sign by someone calling themselves "Hayabusa", the second a list of what seemed to be targets for bandit raids inside Fire Country itself, and the third something he recognized immediately from having seen its twins for nearly 17 years. That third piece of paper was a single seal that had Asusha's proverbial fingerprints all over it. It was the proof that his sister was all too alive and up to no good.

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Putting the papers which proved that his sibling was alive into his equipment pouch, Toshiro slapped several explosive tags onto the body that a lighter purloined from another corpse ignited. Having quickly retreated to a safe distance, he watched the explosives do their work of reducing the corpse into unrecognizable chunk. So assured that no one would easily or quickly figure out that the incriminating documents had been found, the chuunin turned and started walking back to the camp. He had gone maybe a mile from the bridge when that commonly known as a “danger sense” screamed for him to hit the ground. That he did too, experience having him face down and rolling towards the wood edge for a second before vaulting upright with both his katana drawn and at the ready. Just in time too as both blades blocked the black-clad figure’s lateral slash with a nodachi. From that close distance he couldn’t miss it as the other figure lifted his head up enough that brown eyes could look out from under the brim of the conical straw hat to meet Toshiro’s teals. In that brief eye to eye contact the chuunin had to fight down the urge to shudder - there had been something very wrong in those eyes. A view that the words that the assailant’s words, along with the child-like voice they was spoken in, only reinforced. “Now why did you have to do that? It wasn’t very nice or respectful to the dead. Now you have been a bad boy and Mistress will want to punish you. Yes, she will punish you will Asusha-sama.”

Whatever else the unsettling... person would say was cut off after the last words. The shock of hearing that this person worked for his rogue sister was enough that cause Toshiro to briefly let up on the force holding back the nodachi. A lapse that his attacker immediately capitalized on with a surge of strength to continue the interrupted cut. Instead of fighting to get back the ground he had lost though Toshiro let the force of the other swordsman’s blow push him back. Then the chuunin dropped underneath the strike and slashed at the others mans legs when the momentum of his strike carried him into reach. Of course such a basic ploy wasn’t enough to actually incapacitate a competent swordsman which - whatever else he might be - the other fighter was. Instead of jumping back like a beginner the black-clad blade-wielder leapt up just far enough that his folded legs barely cleared the path of Toshiro’s blade. The jump did provide enough time for the aforementioned chuunin to gain some much-needed breathing room and assess his situation. The later not being very good. Still low on charka from the fight at the bridge he couldn’t afford an “exchange of jutsu” or a failed attack. Nor was time on his side since a prolonged fight would draw unwanted attention from Hidden Sound patrols that might be in the area.

Just as Toshiro was starting to run out of options he ran out of time to consider them as the other swordsmen again rushed forward. Unlike before though the Konoha-nin had enough time to meet the charge with one of his own. That in turn let him catch the descending nodachi’s blade high up on his own then guide it away while delivering a vicious backhanded slice at his opponent’s eyes. That strike in turn was avoided as the black-clad swordsman bent first his neck then his body almost parallel to the ground - at the same time scoring a solid kick to the Leaf-nin’s gut. Taking as much force out of the kick by moving backwards as he could, Toshiro’s simultaneous response took the form of his off-hand katana in an under-handed cut that carved a shallow but long slice off the offending leg. Landing feet-first against a tree and briefly sticking to it, the chuunin spared an instant to take stock of the situation. When he did so he was treated to one of the most disturbing sights he had ever seen in his almost seventeen years of living. Instead of the sort of reaction that a normal person would show to having a quarter inch of their thigh removed, the figure was just standing there and... giggling. Not laughing as if in mockery or to mask pain - he was giggling like a perverted school girl. It was the look under the brim of that straw hat that convinced Toshiro that this fellow was completely unhinged though. Before they had just been disturbing but now his eyes had the glazed look that was oh so typical of madmen.

Still those precious moments when the lunatic was laughing gave Toshiro time to gamble everything. A quickly as he dared the chuunin gathered chakra to be spent in one explosive do-or-die attack.

Toshiro: 53 CP - 6 CP = 47 CP

Spoiler:

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Pushing the assassin's deranged an disturbing laughter to the back of his mind, Toshiro built up as much chakra for his planned attack as possible. As he did so he kept up a silent prayer that the lunatic would keep laughing so he would have enough time for the technique. A prayer that may or may not have been enough as the madman abruptly cut off his laughter to glare at the chuunin before rushing at the ninja with his nodaichi poised for a massive slash. Just a fraction of an instant after the start of that rush Toshiro began his own rush, sprining off the tree with a thought of 'it's now or never with his katanas held behind his back with the blades parallel to the ground. In the tiny span of time before the two combatants collided several things happened. The unnamed male started a lateral cut that had enough power behind it to bisect a bear, Toshiro threw one of his katana into the air and stabbed the other into the ground, and almost inaudibly whispered "Konoha Kage Buyou" as went into a slide. What followed those words would have made some swordsmen green with envy and others shake their head at the recklessness of it. As the black-clad assailant tried to change the angle of his attack to catch the chuunin his sword was stopped cold as it hit the blade embedded into the ground. At the same time the white-haired ninja slide like a baseball player between his targets legs and slammed a kick through the other males guard and sent him skyward. Then the Konoha-nin followed his victim, now helpless in the air, where at the apex of the jump he caught the katana at the apex of it's own flight with both hands. The word Toshiro spoke as his opponent's eyes went wide in horrified realization summed up the situation completely - "checkmate." Then his opponent felt nothing as the blade based through their neck

After that the landing and recovery of his second sword was rather anti-climatic even with the twin thumps of body and head hitting the ground. Even Toshiro's slightly ragged gasps for breath as his eyes searched the trees for more threats were hardly what most civilians would associate with the outcome of a life-and-death struggle that left one man dead. At that point the white-haired ninja could have cared less even if he had noticed that he had even avoided getting covered in blood. All he cared about was that he didn't see anything moving among the trees so he could lower his guard. He didn't even bother to search the still-warm body - he knew that his sister wouldn't have left tangible evidence of her involvement on an expendable assassin. Instead he sheathed his blades and began to make the best speed he could back to his teams camp. The whole time he was keenly aware of several things. First was the need to get out of this place as soon as possible before things really went south. Second, he was going to have to really ratchet up his genin's training. Lastly, that his sister had declared war against her family and village. A declaration that would have to be matched.

[Exit post]

Toshiro: 47 CP - 19 = 29 CP

Spoiler: