Know Running Water | M

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Name: Wishy Washy
Rank: C
IIC Length: 24 hours
Difficulty: N/A
Description: There seems to be several swindlers in the capital of Mashimizu. More often than not, they are seen lurking around the gates of the place, tricking foreigners out of their wares way before they visit the Sekiranzenshou. Because of the mysterious nature of the lootings, shinobi of Kirigakure have been authorized to investigate.
Objective: Observe and catch the culprits red handed.
Reward: 38,500 Ryo


Name: Odatme
Rank: C
IIC Length: None
Difficulty: -----
Description: The alacritous feline Kaguya Uijo is at it again: he challenges any in the village to 'tag' him. Known as perhaps the fastest shinobi in the entire realm of Thales, Uijo sprints here and there with near limitless amounts of Shunshin. He is a master of silent killing.. so always be vigil of his whereabouts.
Objective: Catch the lightning speed ANBU Cat operative.
Reward: 38,500 Ryo


Name: Murky Situation in Clear Water
Rank: C
IIC Length: 96 hours
Difficulty: Unknown
Description: There have been various outbreaks of reported crime in the capital Mashimizu. Shinobi have been given the go-ahead to check out the areas throughout the village that has been hit the worst. There is an arsonist, a thief and a "soul magician." It is unknown if these three men work together, but find them and apprehend them.
Objective: Hunt down the three stooges.
Reward: 38,500 Ryo

Her target was Uijo, a man known and regarded as the fastest man in all of Thales. Luckily, Shango knew better than to believe the hype. The man's normal movements were no faster than anyone else, evidenced by her observation of the man right now. She was in Mashimizu, the capital city, inside one of the many taverns where Uijo had a large tab. She had been here for hours, watching the man drink himself into a stupor, from a vantage point she found efficient for her task.

She had been his bartender. The actual bartender was tied up, unconscious, wrapped in rope and taking a nice time out from his daily responsibilities. Shango had assumed the bartender's form while he was on bathroom break, and had been spiking the man's drink with a mixture of deed-breaker metal flakes and chakra inhibiting poison. He seemed blissfully unaware, drinking to his hearts content as the bar filled and emptied its patrons in a mindless cycle of booze and food. When it seemed like he was ready to leave, he stood to his feet shakily, holding onto the bar top for support.

"Whoa. Guess I had more than I thought." His words sounded a bit slurred, and Shango smiled with the bartender's face. Once she told him what he owed, he smirked quickly before glancing at the opened door behind him. With a brief salute, there was suddenly a puff of smoke and a flash. The infamous Uijo had run out on his tab again, and his shunshin was as impressive as the stories had led her to believe. She walked calmly from behind the bar top and peered out the door he had just exited. The other patrons laughed and clapped, having grown used to Uijo's antics over time.

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She left the bar in pursuit, only to immediately be surrounded by a mist too thick to be natural. Her eyes flared with soul energy as she peered through it. The unmistakable aura of a human being lit up the mist. It was Uijo. Reports on him mentioned his use of the silent killing technique. The Hidden Mist techniquet that she was now wading through was the precursor to an attempted murder.

Within the mist, it would be easier for him to strike a target unaware...normally. Shango followed his position easily. He began darting back and forth, using his shunshin to displace the fog in ways that should have made him more difficult to track. But her soul vision could not be so easily evaded, and she turned her body in timing with the positions of his own, facing him no matter what direction he tried to approach from. A frustrated 'hmph' resonated throughout the otherwise silent mist encroaching.

She heard him speak then, a gruff voice where even the words were rattled off quickly. "Poison doesn't do much to me. Nor does alcohol. The flakes were a nice touch, had sort of a bitter cinnamon taste. Juda would never poison me, I've been drinking his swill for years. He's never made my drink the second I asked without a bit of banter in between. So you must be..." His voice trailed off and he was suddenly behind her. "...a ninja!"

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She swung her gauntlet covered fist behind her recklessly. Uijo was simply not there anymore. In an instant, he'd gone from behind her, to ten meters away, running at full speed. He augmented his sprint with the use of shunshin and drifted over the land like a ghost. Silent and purposeful, fleeing yet another genin sent to stop him. When would they learn?

They had never caught him once, only his shadow clones, and the fact that he knew the technique and it had never been officially documented meant he always had the upper hand. Confident in that knowledge now, he raced ahead of Shango. It was clear from a few minutes of pursuit that she could not keep up. His command of shunshin seemed absolute. He chained together multiple flash steps and had covered a distance of 100 meters in the same time it took her to cover 30.

With that type of headstart, it seemed impossible to catch him at all, and she cursed herself for not merely stabbing him in the bar. She would learn for the next time this situation happened! She kept moving in the direction he did, even though she couldn't really follow him as she did others. An hour after her pursuit began, it ended just as abruptly. Uijo was nowhere to be found. The trail of his passage was only scuff marks along the ground and the displaced air. After an hour, it seemed that even the scuff marks made no sense. She would not be able to track him in this fashion. She glanced back towards the bar with a defeated sigh. She would have to head back. How exactly was she going to catch him?

[Deleted]

She unraveled the bartender's form and returned to her default appearance. She walked lazily back in the direction of the inn. A few feet from the entrance she could already hear trouble brewing inside, and she backed up out of instinct, blending into the shadow of nearby bushes. She could hear a familiar voice, louder than the others. Uijo. He'd double-backed and found the real bartender. Shango wondered what she was going to do, and then, the entire bar burst into loud flames that shook the mist with the shock of their happening.

Piece of frigging crap!

The force of the explosion blew her away from her hiding spot, skidding on her butt before making it a bit more sled-like to smooth the slide. She stopped her motion by jerking her soul back in the direction of the bar, landing on all fours, growling. Before her, laying on the ground, was every single patron of the bar, completely unharmed. Uijo lay on the ground, his body burnt almost beyond recognition.

He had used his shunshin to save everyone inside. Carried them out one by one so fast, but. Couldn't escape the flames. A tear fell out of Shango's black eye and into her mouth. She didn't understand why, but she knew what she felt. Uijo-san. You truly are the fastest man in Thales. Her senses then alerted her to the presence of powerful chakra, and soul energy warped her vision, lighting upon three new arrivals. They were strong. Really strong.

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"Good grief, Arsonist. You couldn't even kill one of them." A deep voice, rough and simple, coming from the strongest aura. In response to it, a lighter voice, the voice of a woman, responded. "Should I have --- expected the ----- fastest ---- man in all ----- thales to be in this ------- hole? Should have -------- seen that he would ----- do this, you fool. Some ------- Soul Magician you turn out to be." The woman's curses seemed to blend into nothingness, to fall away into half-whispered grumbling.

A third voice, young, the voice of a boy barely arriving at puberty. "I'm going to search them for anything valuable." Shango then heard the sounds of shuffling as the unconscious bar patrons had their belongings rifled through. What exactly was going on? She stood up abruptly and started laughing loudly, alerting all three of the strangers to her presence, and they turned around in surprise before taking on battle-hardened stances.

Shango stuck out her tongue and giggled, then began hopping on one foot, taking three big jumps, switching feet, and then three small jumps, all towards the trio. They looked back and forth among each other with confused expressions, backing up slowly. The most powerful aura stepped forward, his eyes also calling forth soul energy, staring her down. "Who are you? Where did you come from?" It seemed he was aware that Shango was a Soulcaster as well, and she clapped her gauntlets together in answer, laughing louder.

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The Soul Magician shot his palm up towards Shango, and her eyes showed them light with energy before firing off a wave aimed to bathe her in light. She had never seen the technique before. It was beautiful, but obviously deadly, at least to her soul form. She had been expecting such an attack, however, had only seemed irreverent. A burst of light accompanied the Soul Magician's.

Her own soul flickered out of the way in response, veering sharply right, before appearing in the thick of them all. In the quickly settling wind, her hand was touching the Soul Magician's shoulder. She faced him, her single black eye gazing deep, the red pupil smoldering like flame. The crack running alongside and underneath the eye quivered. Something like eyes seemed to peer out from within, and the Soul Magician was afraid. He squinted, throwing his hands up in pure defense.

He jerked away, his soul sight blinded by the closeness of her flashing step, and she used that moment of disorientation to crush his throat in her grasp. Her gauntlet was like an iron rod, it slammed the full knuckled fist into the soft space of his esophagus, choking him, doubling him over. She pushed him down lazily, the black eye staring at her prey thrash. Her other eye rolled around freely in its socket, only occasionally focusing on the Arsonist and the Thief.

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Shango bent over his body, punching him, headbutting him, chewing on his lips, pulling at the bones of his neck, smashing her face into his. The Arsonist and the Thief could do nothing but watch in horror as Shango pulled the Soul Magician's head off of his body, shifting her fingers into more clawed like appendages to assist with the ripping. She stroked the removed head lovingly, sang to it in a voice that defied comprehension.

She kissed the face passionately before swallowing his teeth, plucking off each of his ears. She lay down in the mess of his brain and licked it off of the ground as his comrades watched. His body was still twitching. The Arsonist and the Thief spoke with panicked voices. "Okay, we give up, please don't...do that...to us. We're done. We surrender. Oh please, god, no." They began vomiting and crying, and Shango sighed, wondering what could possibly be wrong with them. Crazy folks!

Shango nodded and waited patiently for the two to write down the names of all their accomplices, and signed confessions of their illicit dealings and criminal enterprises. They also told her about a swindling ring they had also organized for the following night, where a bunch of kids had been hired to trick people out of their property and money. Shango told them to dispose of the body, and after waiting for them to comply, she knocked each of them unconscious. She would report their locations to the ANBU and await the coming of night.

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At night, she made her way to the bustling center of Mashimizu. Downtown! Bright neon lights and people everywhere and each instance something to sell at a deal! She realized quickly the futility of trying to find a few specific faces in the sea of mock criminals. Everyone here was swindling everyone else.

She walked through a few stalls, just trying to overhear random bits of conversation. She listened for any talk of someone making a bizarrely unfair trade, or of goods going bad upon delivery. This sort of talk was unfortunately all too common. Mashimizu swarmed with con artists. Even as she walked, she felt eyes roaming over her figure, focused on her pockets.

She was soon approached by a weathered old man with a cane selling something called a Chakra Battery. She pretended to have never have heard of chakra, and listened to him explain it incorrectly with a look of wide eyed wonder. He pointed out her strange black eye and said, yes, the Chakra Battery could cure that for her. If she were tired and needed a rest, the Chakra Battery could replenish her strength, gods willing. She was fascinated and annoyed.

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She tried telling the old man that she didn't have much money, but he waved away her concerns as if they were flies. He seemed untrustworthy, and she listened to his pitch with a feeling of discomfort. "Just need a bit of chakra. Sell some of your vital energy, and I'll give you the Battery." Shango looked appalled.

She had heard of such deals before, and knew them to be wholly illegal. It was like asking for a finger! Well, a finger would have been alright, she had like fifty of those. She stared at him with a look that said "I will kill you and wear your skin as a camisole", but the man lacked her kedoin hive-telepathy and did not understand the psionic warning. She laughed and clicked her teeth together, exposing their many fangs, her voice modulating to the point of distressing those who could hear her.

Her expressed chakra flared up visibly and the fury of it pull at the air disturbed the layered noise of conversation permeating the market. All eyes turned to Shango. She did not speak words, only reached out, her left hand disappearing, her right hand splitting into two as her right arm snaked out. Elongated. Wrapped around man's eyes with one hand, and around his throat with the abomination of another clawed appendage, burst from shifting flesh. She was not angry. She smiled. She had definitely found a swindler, right?

[Deleted]

The old man passed out shortly after. Someone would have called the guards, but everyone was too busy gawking and assuming someone else would do it, so the guards never came. For a while, Shango just held the man's limp body, as those around slowly began carrying on with their own business. The few people still staring now looked at Shango like something was wrong with her. She did not move, afraid of ruining the moment.

It was weird.

When the swindler came back to, Shango politely asked him for any accomplices whose lives he would like to trade in exchange for his own. As she asked him this question with her head and mouth enlarged to the point of swallowing half his body, he quickly complied, without bothering to fight back or resort to trickery. His hands were jittery, but he led her to his house and neighborhood. He showed her how the Chakra Battery would have knocked her unconscious if she'd tried to activate it alone, and she used it on him a few times laughing at the effect.

He had essentially written down everyone he knew, family and friends included. Shango shook her head in disgust. These nin ain't loyal. It hurt her heart for a second, before she tied the captured swindler to a metal fence and set out again, taking to the shadows with speed. Catching just one of them wasn't enough. She had to put an end to it all. She would begin at the market.

[Deleted]

She returned to find that the busy nightlife of the market stalls had not changed in her absence. People were still everywhere. Good! This would fit her not-quite-a-plan perfectly! She just needed to find someone who was a known swindler, someone on this old man's list, someone people knew. Hopefully a dangerous thug!

Shango moved through the crowds shifting her form in timing with people look away from her. Her surveillance could not be detected in this fashion. She listened to the ebb and flow of people talking, of the bargaining as it happened, of those masters of haggling falling prey to a perfectly executed con. It was invigorating to be in the thick of it, though much of its complexity involved types of deception she found difficult to comprehend. So much treachery. Better just to stab people in the face.

And then she found him. It was one of the old man's nephews or cousins, a tough youngster a few years older than Shango, and much larger. He'd failed the shinobi academy but was now selling shadow clones of expensive jewelry that disappeared after he was long gone with his customer's money. Everyone knew him. Knew not to mess with him. Shango unraveled from the skin of a stray dog and rose into her default form, her Kirigakure headband clinking into place around her right pig-tail. It was time to dance!

[Deleted]

The boy looked at her with his mouth hanging open, staring at her partially exposed chest. Her bazoomba's were bobbing up and down heavily with the the speed of her transformation. Instead of being ready to fight, he just stood their, his nose bleeding a bit. After a few seconds, his cheeks grew bright red and he passed out. Shango turned around to look at those who'd noticed him feint.

They began the "is someone going to call the guards well someone will i'm not calling them i called the guards last time" game with each other while Shango approached the downed boy. She made her right hand massive and wrapped it around the boy's body, and in her most vexing voice grunted for the attention of those around her. As heads turned, she held the boy's body up high. She squeezed her massive hand. The boy's head popped off, spraying gore everywhere. Shango laughed and danced in this, her mouth open, as if she wished to drink the blood.

As people screamed and fell, ran, tried to cover the eyes of children, Shango would finally speak words. She gestured to the body she still held before throwing it haphazardly into the crowd. "See he? Cheated me. Not the brightest gas explosion in the baby kennel. Swindler's! Ye be warned! The Mist is always watching." Nobody said anything after her, merely scattered. For the first night in several decades, nobody traded anything in the market. The ANBU guards came by to clean up the body in the morning, discovering that most of it had been eaten. Those observing Shango's mission completion merely made markings on their clipboards and faded into the shadows. She had done well for only a few days. Who knew what the future held?