Several months before the Akatsuki's attack on Suna...

Sitting at the counter of a small bar, Motonari Mori eyed the tense standoff taking place just outside of the door with a growing amount of interest. He had found himself transported to this village several days before, and had faced an unpleasant situation from the beginning. Not only was the Mori separated from his legions of faithful pawns, but he had no sense of where his beloved Chūgoku was located. To complicate matters even further, no-one that he had talked to had even heard of the region, much less where it was situated. Rather than falling into despair, or simply abandoning his ambitions, Motonari immediately set to work gleaning any information that he could about this strange new world, and forming the base of a new scheme.

It was this information that allowed him to recognize the detailing on the cloak of the woman who had entered the bar a few minutes before. The red clouds over a black background were the symbol of the mercenary organization "Akatsuki," or so he had heard. The blue haired woman had immediately gone to speak with one of the only other patrons of the bar, a massive shinobi clad in red armor overlaid with a sleeveless black gi. While he had not heard what she had said to him, a few seconds later the man downed the rest of his drink in one gulp, gave the woman a terse response, and followed her outside. From there, they began to stare each other down. Motonari watched them through the still open door, beginning to analyze the situation as he did so.

"The woman from Akatsuki, her stance is still relaxed, while the other is shifting into what's clearly a combative stance… I suppose that this may be a chance to introduce myself to the group, and begin to negotiate terms of a contract, but they may have motivations that I am unaware of. There's no use in pawns that may make an unexpected move against me, after all. On the other hand, the symbol on her opponent's headband indicates that he is from the land of… Iwa, if I remember correctly."

"I believe that they're just coming out of a defeat in the most recent war. If so, then many of their soldiers will still harbor resentment for their current leaders… Besides, these shinobi tend to travel in groups on their missions, meaning that this one may be taking leave at the moment. At this point, even a single pawn will advance the status of my plan, especially if it's one that may be able to provide me with more detailed information on the surrounding area… I suppose it's decided then. In any case, the best way to recruit someone is to make them indebted to you. I suppose that I'll just have to find a way to do so."

As Motonari was pondering his plan of attack, the two combatants outside of the bar began their fight, the armored man charging forwards at the woman with a surprising amount of speed, slamming his shoulder into her torso. In response, the woman dissolved into paper as he made contact with her, reappearing across the street in a flurry of leaflets. The Iwa shinobi turned to continue his assault, but then thought better as he caught notice of the exploding tags that had stuck fast to his armor. Stamping his foot, steam exploded out of every available gap in the armor, soaking the volatile tags and causing the ink to smudge, defusing them.

The Akatsuki member was quick to press the advantage, holding out an arm which began to disperse into a multitude of sheets of paper. The cloud of papers hovered for a moment before folding in on themselves and shooting out towards the steam user. He managed to quickly bring his arms up in front of his face, allowing the majority of sheets that had been aimed at his uncovered areas to deflect harmlessly to the ground. However, even with that, several of the darts managed to score long cuts across his face.

Before he could lower his arms, the woman was already on top of him again, preparing to run him through with a long spear of paper. Deflecting the implement to the side with a quick sweep of the arm, he caught hold of her collar, and using that leverage, threw her back over towards the bar. Using a burst of steam out of his back, he overtook her at the peak of her flight, his shadow developing her. With a blast of steam shooting out of each upwards facing gap in the armor, he propelled himself into the ground feet first, crushing her with the force of the impact. Or, he would have if the woman didn't bust into a cloud of paper upon impact.

As the cloud of loose papers expanded outwards, several exploding tags that had been mixed in detonated, kicking up a screen of dust and debris around the man which effectively blocked his line of sight. While he was momentarily stunned, his opponent took the opportunity to reappear some ways away. Holding out an arm, she willed several sheets of the loose paper to coalesce into a humanoid figure. Several seconds later, an exact duplicate stood beside her.

"Hn. I suppose that I should intervene before this develops much further." Turning to the bartender, who had backed away from the door in fear, Motonari spoke up. "I need four bottles of your strongest drink. Now." Not in any mood to protest, the bartender quickly handed him several bottles of a locally made whiskey before turning and fleeing into his back room. While he was doing that, Motonari stood, picking his ringblade up as he did so. In one quick motion, he brought it down, slashing through the bar's three remaining patrons. Surprisingly, the blade passed through them without leaving a mark. What it did leave was a faintly glowing halo of green light hovering around each of the men. Having brought them under his control, he directed them to pick up the bottles, the largest of them taking two. His pawns following behind him, he walked through the door, moving towards the conflict.

He stopped as he reached the edge of the street, and then began to quickly swing his ringblade around himself. As light passed through the mirrored weapon, it was repeatedly reflected as it began to harden. When Motonari leapt backwards seconds later, the light remained in position, forming an exact replica of the Mori. Satisfied with his decoy, he directed his unwitting subordinates to charge forwards at the Akatsuki member.

Two went towards the newly formed clone, while the one with two bottles of liquor charged what Motonari believed to be the original. The two terrorists were quick to react, however. The clone directed a storm of sharpened paper at the pair coming after her, killing one of the men outright. The second was able to move so that the flurry of blades only tore into his leg, and threw his bottle at the woman. The clone was faster than the projectile, however, and quickly moved forwards directly in front of the man, ducking under the clumsily thrown bottle. As she drew her hand back, preparing to drive a paper kunai through his head, the green ring floating around him turned a bright red.

Seconds later, the man and the clone were engulfed in a powerful explosion, destroying them both. The Akatsuki member was quick to react; sending a wave of sharpened paper at what she believed was the newcomer to the fight and the man coming towards her, tearing the both apart. The scant moments that she spent dispersing the decoy were all the opportunity that the Iwa shinobi needed, however. Steam pouring from the five prominent vents on his back, the armor clad man burst from the cloud of smoke, shoulder held in front of him to protect from incoming attacks. As he was about halfway to his opponent, steam burst from the joints on his right arm and knee. As the steam began to give him thrust, he also crouched, lowering his center of gravity, and throwing him into a rapid horizontal spin.

The rotation intensified, until he was within striking distance of his target. He quickly straightened out, fist drawn back, the momentum from the spin channeled into his strike. The rapidity of this chain of events was enough to catch the woman off guard, and she turned back from destroying the decoy just in time to catch the massive man's fist to her sternum.

The force of the impact lifted her off of her feet, throwing her backwards across the street, where she landed heavily against the wall of a nearby shop. The moment that she hit the wall, she dispersed into a storm of paper fragments again. The cloud of paper then began to pick up speed, spinning into a maelstrom of razor sharp blades as it quickly expanded over the street. The armored man reacted quickly, crossing his arms over his face. Moments later, a loud scraping notice filled the air as the sharpened leaflets dragged across his armor, cutting shallow gouges through the red paint as they tore apart the black gi overtop.

In response, he brought his foot down again, channeling a large amount of steam into a cloud around him. The thick mist was enough to slow down the majority of the projectiles, causing them to lose the momentum needed to do damage. As the sharpened paper begins to fall from the air, a number of leaflets directly above the Iwa shinobi coalesced into the shape of the woman. As soon as she was whole again, the Akatsuki member quickly formed a long spear of paper above her hand, and prepared to fire it through the unaware man's back.

Before she could release the crippling projectile, however, the area around her was suddenly engulfed in a bright, searing light. Unable to bite back the instinctual hiss of pain before it left her lips, she abandoned the spear as she drew her arm up to shade her eyes from the harsh glare. As she did so, she quickly noticed that both her robe and the exposed edges of her papers were beginning to blacken and smoke under the blazing heat. Having heard her cry of pain, her other opponent was again quick to capitalize on the opening. Bringing both of his hands together while using a burst of steam to speed up his rotation, he brought his conjoined fists directly into the woman's side, sending her flying towards the source of the beam of light that had pinned her down.

On the other side of the street, Motonari was standing behind a translucent green disc of light, his arms stretched upwards towards his ringblade- which was currently floating in the air, producing the ray of intense light. For a brief moment before the flying woman completely blocked his view of the newcomer, the Iwa shinobi thought that he saw a distinct scowl on his face. The prone woman gracefully floated back to her feet, closing the gap towards Motonari, coming to a stop as she reached the glowing circle.

Ending his Teru, Motonari caught his falling ringblade just as the woman came to a stop. He spun it forwards as he caught it, hitting the back of the light disc and sending it gliding forwards. Still sliding to a stop, she was unable to avoid the wall of light. With a loud crackle of energy, she was painfully reflected into the ground, bursting into her signature cloud of paper as she did so. The papers quickly scattered, leaving the street mostly clear. The larger of the two men carefully closed the distance towards his unexpected ally, not wanting to take this break in the combat for granted.

Motonari's eyebrow quirked up slightly as the man approached him. "Interesting. I didn't take him as one to mince words while there was work to be done… Perhaps he regards me as threat as well?" As the large man got steadily closer, Motonari gripped his ringblade tighter, rotating it back so that he stood in its put his plans for defending himself on hold as the other man began to speak, however.

"Hey, you there! I appreciate the help, but who the hell are you?" His voice was deep and rich, only a faint tremor indicating that he had just been in combat.

Mori's reply was as cool and level as his initial order in the bar. "I am the child of the Sun, Mōri Motonari, Daimyō of the Chūgoku region. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

His companion's eyes narrowed at that as he seemed to mull the new information over. "You say that you're a Daimyō?" He looked Motonari up and down quickly, before snorting, faint wisps of steam curling up from inside his mask. "Funny, you don't look like any of those pompous bastards that I've seen. And I've certainly never heard of a Daimyō trained in ninjutsu!"

Motonari frowned slightly. "Of course you haven't. I am a samurai, the heir of the Mori clan."

"Samurai? Last I checked, the only samurai left are from Tetsu no Kuni, and they don't care for underhanded tricks like those techniques that you were using. And they certainly don't use specialized weapons like that one there." He finished with a forceful point at Motonari's ringblade.

"I never said that I was an ordinary samurai, now did I?" Motonari replied dismissively.

"Hm…" The tall man let out a low chuckle at that. "I suppose that you didn't. We still have company though, so I'll get back to this later. Oh, and one more thing."

"Yes?" Motonari asked.

"The name's Han. Nice to meet you." With that, the two men turned away from each other and towards the rooftop of the building across the street, where a mass of paper was now coming back together.

The cloud of white soon settled, revealing the Akatsuki member, now with a pair of large white wings trailing out behind her back. "I'm impressed, Gobi. We hadn't expected that you would put up such an impressive fight, or that you would have found such an unusual partner. But still, your efforts are futile. I will bring you to Kami-sama so that his will may be done. Whether your friend will survive or not is entirely up to him." With that, the blue haired woman flapped her wings launching a storm of paper shuriken at the pair.

In response, Han quickly drew back his fist. "I'm afraid that you'll find that I won't give up that easily! Yama Kowasu Kitte!" With that, the Iwa jinchūriki directed a massive amount of steam out of the ports on his legs and feet, shooting him up into the air. The cloud of vapor that was driving him upwards also deflected the storm of paper projectiles, allowing him to reach the apex of his leap untouched. As he reached that point, Han directed an even greater amount of steam out of the vents on his back, driving him towards the ground at a tremendous speed. With a crack that echoed through the entirety of the sleepy village, Han barreled down through the roof of the wooden house, splintered beams collapsing in his wake.

The Akatsuki member leapt off of the roof barely in time, hovering in front of the now ruined home as she directed a quickly formed paper chakram towards the now exposed Motonari. He rotated out of the way of the razor sharp disc almost casually. As he moved out of the way, he also turned away from the woman, forming a bright barrier made of light. Moments later, the chakram deflected off the barrier and into the ground with a loud screech, as the paper user had already directed it to move towards what she assumed would be his unprotected back.

Now that the Mori was showing his back to her, she quickly directed her paper to form into a pair of long spears, both aimed directly towards his back. Her aim was thrown off, however, as a broken support beam shot out of the wreckage of what had once been a comfortable home. Noticing the improvised projectile just in time, she rose higher with a flap of her wings, letting the hunk of wood sail harmlessly underneath her. Unfortunately for her, she didn't notice the fact that Han had launched himself upwards in the wake of the beam, holding the other half like an improvised club. Catching a trace of his steam trail in the corner of her eye, the blue haired woman was able to erect a paper barrier at the last minute, but it only served to slightly dampen the force of the blow.

The two opponents met in the air with a loud snap, as Han struck the shield with such force that the beam broke into two pieces upon impact. The Akatsuki member was sent sailing downwards towards Motonari, who spun backwards out of the way, allowing her to crash face first into the barrier that he had erected a few seconds ago. The woman was once again deflected downwards into the ground with burnt clothing, but she elected to not disperse into leaves of paper this time. Instead, grabbing a paper kunai, she lunged towards Motonari, hoping to dispatch him in close combat. As the woman bore down on him with the kunai, Motonari quickly brought the edge of his ringblade up to parry the blow. The woman then went to gut him with the second kunai that she had concealed in her other hand, reaching under his weapon, only for Motonari to spin backwards.

As he moved away, his ringblade split into two halves, which he then extended outwards as he spun back. The force of the ring suddenly extending, paired with a coating of light on the blade that was forcing the surrounding air away in a hot gust of wind, pushed the Akatsuki member backwards. Reeling from the sudden motion, she moved her wings forwards to prepare another wave of shuriken, only to be struck in the back by a steam driven kick from Han. The force of the blow paired with the fact that she was already off balance sent the woman flying forwards past Motonari. As she went sprawling across the ground, Motonari had already begun another trap.

Spinning his ringblade around his raised forearm, he launched a quickly expanding halo of light into the air, which grew and solidified into a ring of brightly shining green light that hovered around the woman. She had just managed to regain her footing when the ring suddenly exerted a tremendous pressure on the area, driving everything inside into the center. She quickly dispersed into a mass of papers, only to find that they were all drawn into the heart of the ring as well. She quickly reached out with her chakra, connecting with a paper clone that she had prepared earlier in the fight. With a quick flash of smoke, she completed the Kawarimi. This was just in time, as mere moments later; Motonari completed another use of his "Teru." With the chakra coating on the paper strained to the limit by Motonari's "Baku," the beam of concentrated sunlight was able to reduce the sphere of paper to ash in less than a minute.

Hidden on the roof of a neighboring building, the Akatsuki member mentally evaluated her chances. "This is troubling… My sources told me that Han primarily worked alone. I may have to retreat for now, and send a more prepared team after them when we have more information. In any case, I should probably pull back before we gather too much attention."

Upon reaching this decision, she looked down to notice that the pair had located her again. Before they could take any action against her, she brought her arms forwards, releasing a wave of lit explosive tags. Though the both of them were able to leap away from the blast radius in time, the cloud of dust and grit kicked up from the explosion totally blocked their view of the Akatsuki member. Moments later, thousands of self-propelled paper airplanes burst from the cloud, spreading out and traveling away from the village in all directions. Upon seeing this, Motonari turned back towards the damaged village, dismissing his traps with a simple gesture.

At that, Han turned slightly towards him, still crouched in a fighting stance. "Hey, Mori, what the hell are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious? She's gone. I assume that those last shapes were to allow her to cover distance quicker, and the large number of them was to prevent us from trying to follow after her." Motonari absently responded, brushing dust from his armor.

Han scowled, not liking the other man's tone, but still agreeing with what he was trying to say. "You have a point. But still, it could just be another diversion."

"If it were, she would have gone for my back as soon as I dropped my guard." Motonari answered.

Han hummed. "Pretty risky, using yourself as bait like that."

"Not at all. You've shown yourself to be reliable in protecting my back before, so I had no reason to doubt that you'd fail me in this instance."Motonari replied, casually waving off the other man's comment.

Somewhat satisfied, Han straightened up. "Hm. Still pretty ballsy if you ask me. Anyway, now that this is all over, what are your plans?"

"I was planning on heading south, towards Kaze no Kuni. With their recent economic troubles, there should be plenty of out of work men who would pick up a sword for the money." Motonari answered.

Slipping one hand into the remnant of his gi, Han leaned back. "I see. Long way to travel on your own, especially with the bandit populations on the rise again."

Motonari nodded. "I'm quite certain that I can handle myself, but I had been hoping that I could convince you to accompany me on the trip. I could use a competent partner, as well as someone who is more familiar with these areas than I. I can promise payment when we arrive at our destination as well, if that is a concern of yours."

Han looked downwards for a moment, thinking over the offer. Reaching a decision quickly, he looked back at Motonari, meeting his gaze. "What the hell. Getting on a new mercenary group's good side would be good for Iwa. If the old bastard gets on my case, I'll just tell him that I decided to lay low after the Akatsuki attacked. Besides, it should be nice to travel with someone else for a change."

Motonari gave another short nod. "Good. I assume that you'll be ready to travel immediately?"

Han chuckled. "Considering that the inn where I was staying was just wrecked, I would say that's a damn good guess."

"Well then, let's be off." With that, Motonari turned and began his journey out of the village, his new partner walking at his side.

After they had gone about a block, Han spoke up again. "Now, about you being a samurai…"

Techique Names:

Yama Kowasu Kitte-Mountain Breaking Stomp

Teru- Shine

Baku- Bind