Land of Tea… Ochagakure... Clan Council... Noon…
The three clan heads of Ochagakure sat. Each wore a green and cloth of silver patterned kimono. With a differentiating haori befitting their respectives clans. Toki, orange and brown. Yuderu, pink and white. Her Clan, the Chamei, green and black. They sat behind a curved desk, scattered with various instruments of their will. Kunais and kaikens for war. Papers and inks for politics. Scales and scrolls for contracts. And their instrument of use in this instance? Their eyes. Each staring arrows through her.
Toki Jun, the old and traditional head of the Toki clan, began first as was his practice. "Jonin Chamei Midori, we have a mission for you."
She bowed more deeply, prostrating herself before them. "My body is but your tool."
Yuderu Nosotchu, the elderly and blind head of the Yuderu clan, gave a haughty laugh. "If but that was true. If your body was our tool. We would not have to deal with your failure."
Chamei Junpei, her great uncle and head of the Chamei clan, his eyes never wavering from her retorted, "There is failure and then there is failure. Failure is a part of life. As long as one doesn't let it ruin them, then there is no shame in failure. However, if one lets failure become a tradition then it is best to retire that blade."
She acknowledged the words with but a tiniest of nods. She knew what her clansman really meant. Fuck up one more time, she would be consigned to a desk. Or worse.
Jun-sama, cleared his throat. "Wise words, Councilor Junpei. Jonin you may rise."
She rose to her standing position with most difficulty, as she tried to conceal whatever anxiety she felt with her close brush with consignment. Her grey cloak still sporting tear and burn marks from her previous fortnight's escape.
Nosotchu-sama, her blind eyes staring past her began. "While your previous mission was unsatisfactory. Especially in the lost revenue that we were forced to provide. We believe that your skills could be in service for a problem that has risen in Degarashi Port that has confounded the local Jonin commander, Yuderu Osaki."
Midori narrowed her eyes slightly, "What sort of problem?"
Junpei-sama pleasantly puffed on his pipe a few times before answering. "A most peculiar set of pickpocketing and robberies."
Midori tentatively crossed her arms, "Isn't this more of a problem for Degarashi Port's chunins to solve."
Jun-sama nodded, "Ordinarily yes, it would be. But these incidents are different from the norm."
Midori dug her nails into her thumb, dreading the answer she was going to get. "Different how."
Nosotchu-sama sardonically replied, "When visiting nobles or tourists get robbed it is problematic. When their shinobi bodyguards get robbed it's positively a diplomatic incident in the making."
Junpei-sama eyes darted between Nosotchu-sama and her, before he nodded, "Yes, we've gotten reports from more than a few nobles and angry shinobi about missing shinobi weaponry or money purses. Most serious allegations, wouldn't you agree Jonin Midori?"
Her mind raced with possibilities. A few coming to mind. Kiri-nukenin causing trouble. Another hidden village's false flag operation. A turned tea shinobi gone mercenary. All situations that could lead to war. And with Kiri in the middle of a civil war, it would get ugly fast.
She nodded firmly, "Of course, Junpei-sama. The possibilities are disconcerting to say the least."
Jun-sama tented his fingers, his eyes baring down her soul. "Which is why this needs to be smothered in the crib, quick and quietly. We do not need foreign shinobi investigating here, it would invite attention that we are ill-prepared to receive."
Nosotchu-sama fingers were rhythmically tapping on the desk to the beat of an old death-march song, "And that's where you come in Jonin Midori. You're an outsider in this situation. You neither have grudges or friendships amongst our Shinobi there. And considering your amicable past with kono and kiri, we believe you to be the perfect investigator for this. Words from you should mollify any offended kono or kiri shinobi."
Junpei-sama puffed his pipe once, before picking up a scroll. "In order to assist you in this investigation, we compiled a list of stolen items and money. Here is also the contact list of offended Shinobi, who are currently staying in several ryokans around the port on our ryo, to assist you in your investigation."
Midori received the scroll, and was mortified by the cursory glance. Many of the shinobi listed were high ranked kono and kiri B class shinobi. The missing ryo was a mere pittance of a few class C missions, easily replaceable. The missing weapons however were concerning. At least forty explosive tags, half a dozen kunai, and at least a hundred shuriken. Enough to cause a serious diplomatic incident. Or a serious loss of life.
Midori bowed deeply, her mind a race of anticipatory plans and actions. "What should I do when I find the perpetrators, honored elders?
Jun-sama coughed and cleared his throat."If it's nukenins? Hack off their heads and present it with the stolen items to mollify the foriegn shinobi."
Nosotchu-sama cloaked her hands into her kimono, and inclined her head, "If you find kirinins or kononins involved. Eliminate them and toss the bodies into the harbor. Return the stolen items with the usual excuses. We'll handle the blowback in such a case."
Midori nodded, her mind stuck on one element though. "And if I should find Ochagakure-nins involved in this?"
Junpei-sama tilted his head, "Bring them to us in such an unlikely case. And cover up any evidence linking them to these crimes and point them to kiri instead. It'll be messy, but kononins won't investigate. Kiri is too busy at the moment to investigate further."
Nosotchu-sama spoke in objection, "Bring them to us? Do I need to tell you how bad an idea that is Junpei-san? Better if we find out why they are engaging in such behavior first, before we initiate the Rite of Entanglement on them."
"Enough. We'd not bother Jonin Midori with such talk. I highly doubt our shinobi would fall for something so base and self destructive. Besides, any person that does so is no longer a shinobi of this village." Jun-sama commanded, his eyes lit with embers of chakra fire.
"Of course, honored Elders. Your will is my will." At this she vanished in a body flicker. Leaving the council alone to debate amongst themselves. Her mind awash with anxiety, anticipation and more than a little fear.
Land of Tea... Degarashi Port… The Degarashi Castle… Late Afternoon...
She sighed dramatically and leaned against a chiseled stone wall of a once powerful samurai fortress that guarded the inner harbor against attack. Now little more than a tourist destination for the foreign merchants, and nobles to gawk at. A fitting tribute to what the Land of Tea was. Little more than a tourist dump bereft of their ancestral lands and confined to two stinking islands.
She shouldn't complain. Even though she wished she could tear her hair out trying to deal with all these arrogant and snobby foreign shinobi she had to deal with. Alternating between threats of punishments from their respective villages at such a slight, and denigrating Ochagakure for not preventing such lapses from occurring. It drove Midori crazy. Of course, if you had paid a little bit more attention we wouldn't be in this situation, she wanted to scream at them. But she was a Jonin of Ochagakure. Even if the rest of the world thought of them as little more than glorified tea servers, she had her job and she was going to do it.
The information she had gathered through the dozen or so interviews she had this morning and the morning before was strange. Most of these robberies or pickpocketing occured in Degarashi Yukaku, a seedy yet clean red light district known for attracting wealthy visiting merchants and nobles. Most of the shinobi garrison avoided that area for good reason.
As the area was controlled by the Wasabi criminal family's muscle. And she couldn't imagine why Wasabi would or could, pickpocket a Shinobi on the best day of their life. Even if the offended shinobis in question were drunk. The Wasabi's were interested in depriving nobles and merchants of their precious ryo through prostitution, gambling and drink. Not thievery. It made no sense. And what was stranger was that there hadn't been another pickpocketing incident in nearly a week at this stage.
What also made no sense was finding the missing weapons.
She had done her homework, looking into rarely patrol areas of the city where one could hide without being detected. One of those being an outflow culvert that fed the port's sewage into the harbor. Midori had found what could only be described as a vagrant's shelter. A makeshift hammock built for a child-sized individual was nailed into the wall with kunai. The inside curved walls were covered with various chalk drawings. The chalk drawings were crude, less art and more nightmarish doodles. With long curvy lines made with black charcoal, cover with dots and smudges making them all the more menacing. Looking at them gave Midori a sense of anxiety that she couldn't place.
A few containers found above the sewage line contained food and water. Most of it had since spoiled. In one of the larger containers, she found the missing weapons. What made no sense was that all the chakra embedded in them were gone. The explosive tags were practically speaking paper. The weapon's chakra batteries drained. And the metal deformed in a way that looked like the elemental structure of the chakra-steel had been separated. Weird.
That's where things took a direction from the strange to the practically paranormal.
Finding most of the missing ryo would at first glance seem like a gift from the sage. Except it wasn't. She found it from a tip off she received about a raggedy figure visiting the old gods temple. A millenial old structure more preserved as a tourist destination than a place of worship.
Built like a square block with cavernous interior and a few scattered pedestals within them. Old god temples were composed of impossibly tough non-chakra laced cement, having been left abandoned with the rise of the Sage millennia ago. Yet someone had taken the time to place a bowl on top of one remaining altar, deposit the ryo and missing money purses in the bowl and scribbled in old tongue on the pedestal in blood. A prayer to 'The Unwashed'; god of thieves, cripples and outcasts. As far she knew, everyone had forgotten the old gods' names outside of feudal lords academic libraries. Ever since the Sage killed the gods millenia ago.
Adding up everything she had just found left her feeling like she stepped into a bunraku theater production. The missing chakra. The child sized opponent. The weird drawing. An old god sacrifice. At home amongst the sewer and crowded slums? She was facing an onibi, a demon said to suck the very chakra from life around them.
In theory. No one at least in Ochagakure had of course encountered one in person. So there was paucity of hard data to base a plan of attack on. The problem was when she suggested that to Jonin Osaki, she was practically laughed out of the station.
As far as he was concerned, finding the missing money and weapons was case closed. The weapons and paper explosives could have been damaged by the water or were damaged to begin with by the foreigner shinobi. The sacrifice was weird. Likely unrelated to the thief. Tracking the ryo on their side revealed that some of the missing coins had shown up in several food vendor accounts at Wagarashi's bank. Suggesting to him that this was the work of a mentally unstable kiri nukenin, probably since left. Midori didn't believe that for a second.
And that left her with very few options with garrison support out. She wasn't going to let this go, considering how much this depended on her future within Ochagakure. At the sametime a Shinobi trying to face a chakra sucking demon, wasn't the best idea she's had. Nor was it a good idea to keep searching for it's nest, as a demon such as that would be prepared for shinobi coming to smoke it out. That left only one option left...
Land of Tea... Degarashi Port… Degarashi Yukaku… Near Midnight...
This was likely to end in a crapshoot. A particularly messy one, Midori figured as she stumbled feigning drunkenness between the various crowds of tourists and the painted whores of Degarashi's Yukaku. Wearing a technically stolen kiri shinobi armor and headband, with painted on tattoos breaking up her face. She hoped that she invited a particularly inviting target to the demon.
The crowds tonight were particularly heavy. Many merchants and nobles crowded the streets, with more than a few shinobi with their hands on their weapons visible. Wasabi criminal thugs were posted on every corner keeping a watch for the cutpurse that she was looking for. The low hung townhouses, inns and shop fronts were similarly guarded. Giving an impression of security to the easily frightened tourist.
The chances of the demon attacking me here are about the same chances I'm going to get married again within the next century, she thought. Instead of keeping down the central tourist corridor of Yukaku, she instead turned left at the next intersection and headed down toward Degarashi's wastes.
The wastes were the most likely place such a beast would prowl, since most of the district had been abandoned since the 2nd Great Shinobi War. The stone tiled street grids and mounds of ruins never rebuilt were all that remained. Now home to the vagrants and vagabonds of the port.
Here and there, she faux vomited. She wobbled and meandered, her path like a lava flow snaking down a mountain. Taking overly exaggerated swigs of a bottle of rice wine filled with water only helped the facade.
More than once she felt and saw eyes peeking out of ruins around her. She spotted more than one campfire, with huddled figures dancing in the light from afar. That's what she could see. The chakra signatures around her were immense. As an ocean of humanity. Thousands of tiny lights of chakra that spread around her, living in the squalor of ruins and caverns dug into the dirt. A miserable, short existence.
Just as she entered another ruined intersection, she felt a tug on her money purse and weapon bag. She froze. Something was not right. If this was a demon, it would have a chakra signature. A miasmic bubbling black ooze instead of the bluish hue normal to humans. And yet there was nothing to detect. As something tugged and then pulled off the weapons bags with exerted light groans. In that she turned in a chakra enhanced clockwise movement, her fist flying low in order to hit this short statured opponent in the head or kidneys.
But it dodged out of the way of her punch, as she merely felt her fist drag across the quickly retreating cloth. Turning to face her opponent. Midori saw that this 'demon' resembled a dirty little emaciated girl. On the outside she looked like any other urchin. Wearing a dirty and oily burlap sack dress with no footwear that made it easily forgettable. But the ratty greasy brown hair and dark black eyes glaring up at Midori showed resolve most wouldn't have. It looked at her once before it quickly started to run to the south.
Midori shifted her body into a fighting stance toward her fleeing opponent. She quickly went through an assortment of hand seals, releasing one of her clan's signature techniques.
Plant Release: Tea Sleep!
Tea leaves swirled into existence around her. A second later a raging vortex of tea leaves that surrounded her were barreling toward her fleeing opponent. Instead of assaulting her opponent with a raging green tornado, cutting with microscopic cuts laden with soporific poisons into the epidermis. The tornado dissipated unexpectedly when reaching the target. The tea leaves are unforming from reality itself.
Fuck. Midori thought, as her legs carried her forward after this demon or girl or whatever she maybe. The demon wasn't fast, as Midori easily closed the distance to her target with little more than a few seconds. She needed to distract it, she thought. As she formed the seals for another of her clan's techniques.
Plant Release: Tendril Grasp
Greenish tendrils sprouted from her wrists. Shooting forward like arrows they sought the target with unnatural guidance. They grabbed hold of the demon for a moment. Before the demon swung it's diminutive arms and legs. Ripping and tearing the tendrils into smoke. Taking the opportunity to finish the fight, Midori sprung forward in a leaping riposte. Crashing into the demon she missed her target by mere inches as the demons weaved and sprung through her legs like a mongrel animal.
Midori oriented herself toward her target, hands gravitating to the missing pouch that she had failed to retrieve after it was taken off of her. Midori cursed her idiocy as she sprung forward, her fist going for feint before her legs reached out for a kick. She connected with a crunch, as the girl was prepping to dodge the fist, she was unprepared for her legs crunching beneath her. Laying her out on the cobblestone below.
The demon girl tried to get up, but a well precisioned hit to the midsection silenced her. The rapid rise and fall of it's torso confirmed that she hadn't killed it. Midori considered her options. Eyeing her opponent as it laid on the ground.
Killing it would be as easy as crushing it's throat. It was but skins and bones. Yet it had dispelled her techniques. Clan techniques passed down ever since their founder Chamei Minori had been ejected from the Senju clan. Clan techniques that were rarely dispelled easily, or ever. Clan techniques that used a derivation of the coveted mokuton chakra. Still only practiced by a few practitioners within the Senju and Namikaze clans. That she did so merited… further investigation.
Midori had also noticed that her chakra levels were lower than they would normally be after this pittance of activity. Nearly down by a third. Meaning that her initial assumptions weren't off base. Just attacking her with chakra enhanced kicks had sucked her dry. It was an aberration of the physical world. A being that stood against all that chakra sciences told them to be true.
Still, there was the problem if she brought them a child's corpse. It was unlikely they would believe her wild claims of a demon able to dispel Chamei clan techniques and soak up chakra like a tick. She would need to bring her in.
She dropped a sack she was carrying for such purposes. Seals criss crossed it's burlap cloth, enhancing it's durability and strength. Likely to be naught useless as Midori fought with the child.
The child tried to leap up. It's mouth open, it's teeth barred. Midori rammed her hand into the child's throat causing it to gag on reflex. Before boxing it's ears in a powerful clap. Momentarily stunned, Midori opened the bag and dumped an unconscious demon into the bag with all the naught finality of emptying out one's nightly chamber pots.
Land of Tea… Ochagakure… Hidden Cove… Outside Cove Defense Perimeter Akh
She dropped the sack containing the girl before them. She kneeled in their presence. The Ochagakure Clan council stood posed in traditional wooden lacquered shinobi armor grown from the wood of the Senju. Around her Ochagakure ANBU body flickered in and out of existence, shadowy figures clothed in oil cloaks of camo green and pitch black armored masks. Forming a cordon around her captive and the council.
Her grand uncle stepped forward from the cordon. His hands stretch forward, his hands resting on her shoulders in a well meaning gesture of affection. The words that tumbled out filled her heart with satisfaction. "Well done Jonin Midori, I see you've brought us this rapscallion who has drained so much of our treasury."
Nosotchu-sama rankled her nose, her hands clenching her cane clacking against the smoothed volcanic rock. "Sage, did you bring us a corpse or did you soil yourself on the way?"
Midori, still prostate, answered as respectfully as she could. The elders were probably not going to take the news well. Better to cushion such revelations with respect and patience. "No, honored elder. The child demon soiled itself on the way here, I could not risk letting it out in case of it escaping."
Nosotchu-sama clacked her cane against the floor with a disgusted clack. "Demon? Nonsense. I can't see nor feel any chakra that isn't accounted for. Did you bring us a corpse? I thought we told you to dispose of such things."
She licked her lips, her eyes peering up to her grand uncle and Nosotchu-sama. "Honored elder, the child has no chakra signature."
Nosotchu-sama gave her a look that told her that she thought Midori was the biggest of idiots. Jun-sama gave her a quizzical look, before he tentatively said. "That's… impossible. All life has chakra. From the smallest of insects to the largest of mammals. Even the Silent have chakra. Merely their chakra coils are so malformed and twisted that they produce so little to become nearly undetectable to Shinobi."
Junpei-sama eyed the wiggling and thrashing of the mute bag. "I would normally agree with you Jun-kun, however whatever is in that bag doesn't even have the chakra signature of a Silent I can detect."
Jun-sama looked at the bag before locking eyes with her. "Rise Jonin and start your tale from the beginning. There is much we would like to know besides the terse reports that you've submitted since beginning this assignment."
So she told them. Her initial investigations and interviews. How her initial findings and evidence didn't make sense. How she came to her conclusions and was blown off by the garrison commander. How she put together a plan at great personal risk. How she was able to fool the demon into trying to rob her. How she fought with the demon. How it dispelled techniques, and drained her chakra. How she had to beat the child black and blue before it could be restrained. How the seals of the bag broke no more than five minutes into holding it. And her arduous journey back to the village, eating more soldier pills than were healthy to keep the demon from draining all her chakra.
The elders listened. Eyes darting between her and the wiggling mute bag. Thoughtful looks and pointed questions interrupted her now and again, to clarify or probe. She answered them to the best to ability. Her tale ended as she reached the conclusion, her mouth dry from the detailed report.
Nosotchu-sama leaned heavily on her cane. Her dark eyes staring at the bag, "Execute it"
Jun-sama blew air through his mouth, his head tilted in thought. "A sensible option, but a wrong one I figure"
Nosotchu-sama growled in anger, spitting out fire and accusations. "Wrong? From what Jonin Midori described, it dispelled techniques that were undispellable. It is a void. A literal hole in space. I can sense it now. It sucks up chakra like a sponge sucks up water. I can only see the absence it leaves. It is a threat. An abomination of everything the Sage stood for."
Junpei-sama fiddled with a pipe, trying and failing to light it before giving up. "And that's exactly why we need it. "
Nosotchu-sama rolled her eyes, her hands clenched so tight that the wooden handle of her cane was cracking under the pressure. "Need it? It is a provocation. I don't believe Kono or Kiri are going to rest on their laurels if they even hear about rumors of such a being. They'll destroy the village like Uzushiogakure or Otogakure. It is a threat to our continued existence."
Jun-sama raised his voice, "And what defense do we have when the 4th Mizukage finally exterminates the remaining resistance to his rule? With the claims on the Land of Tea by the Water daimyo, and Kono annulling their guarantee, we are open to invasion. We are but 200 Shinobi against thousands of Kiri nin. Sage, TIDE outnumbers us 2 to 1! We need every weapon in our arsenal."
Junpei-sama nodded his head, and there was a strange gleam in his ancient eye. "Quite. We are the smallest, oldest and weakest of the hidden villages. Ignored and forgotten except for the theater of our special chakra tea ceremonies. Our main combat forces are used for policing and entertaining."
Nosotchu-sama flares her nostrils, steam rising from her body like a raging geyser. "Exactly. Against invasion policemen and entertainers are useless. We might as well slit our own throats and burn our works than fight. Any provocation is merely giving them ammunition to bring that concept toward reality. "
Jun-sama shook his head, his fingers pointed forward accusatory. "More reason to sharpen a blade against the threat. Be as a stalwart against invasion or a bargaining chip to sacrifice for the survival of the village."
Junpei-sama nodded, his voice taking on a more serious but humorous quality. "I can't imagine Mizukage believes us to be a threat much worse than a difficult bowel movement. All the more reason to hide a shiv that could be ideally placed to neuter kirinin bloodline ninjutsu or if worse comes to worse, a counter to mizukage himself."
Jun-sama elaborated further, his hands closing behind his back. "And think of the possibilities if we can weaponize it. Think of the money the village could make if we could mold this lump of clay into a Shinobi killer."
Nototchu-sama harrumphed, her face contorting into a surly frown. "And think for a second if we lose control of it. It would do as much damage as an invasion, not to mention drain the chakra from the village defenses. That is something I can not abide by."
"That's a simple enough problem easily solved." Junpei-sama flashes a vial from his armor, before tossing it toward Midori. "Inside that vial contains a polymorphic poison that our clan has long held. It has no known cure, only antidotes that contain the poison for days at a time. If it were to escape, then the problem would take care of itself in short order."
"Leaving it in the village would be idiocy of course, we would not wish for it to sabotage our sensors, seals and barriers now would we? Jun-sama said, his voice trying to persuade the ever stubborn Nosotchu-sama. "Better if we were to leave it outside the village. Like the long abandoned Nakayama estate. Far enough away from the village from chakra interference, but close enough to assist in it's defense."
"Perhaps. And who would you imagine would be training this…" Nosotchu struggled for the words, as her temper abated for a moment. "Thing? I can't imagine many of our Shinobi would be interested in such an assignment."
Junpei-sama shrugged, "A fair point. But that's simple enough as well." His eyes rested on Midori who had been silently listening to the elders bicker and politik in her presence. "Jonin Midori, you have the most experience with it so far. Thus, I'm charging you with it's safety, wellbeing and training. Additional teachers and assistance will be forthcoming as we develop the necessary safeguards."
Midori internally sighed, having had expected this to be one of the outcomes that would have occurred. Still it was more optimal than being consigned to the mission desk, and getting badgered by the clan to take up another clan marriage so she could birth more Shinobi to train and die. She had done enough for the clan.
She nodded, her face blank and serene of emotion. "Your will is my will, honored elder. When do I start?"
Junpei-sama smiled, his eyes alight with greed. "Immediately."