[A/N: This is a completed work but I'm doing a final edit and posting weekly]
A man known as Kiyotane marched down the streets of Enyama like he owned the whole city. The city of Enyama, a black mark in the Land of Birds, was revered for its grit and grime, filled to the brim with the outcasts from the shining beacon of their capital city, Gokayama, as far as the city officials could banish them. Even farther were the shinobi villages, used to fight the wars and fulfill the needs of the government officials. The people of the Land of Fire stood in the shadows of those warriors, even if some lingered in the shadows of the pillared buildings. Kiyotane spent most of his life in the shinobi village and felt the freedom course through his veins to have rid himself of their shackles.
The bright neon lights, lit after dark, shone strange shadows on the people that milled through the shops, gambling halls, and restaurants, a perfect haven for simple minded visitors with no instincts of danger but enticed by the cheap fares and pretty facades. They turn their gazes away from the homeless who simply lay in their own filth on the streets, pushing stolen shopping carts that contained all their worldly belongings. Most of these poor souls would die of exposure, or from the copious amounts of drugs dealt away from the shining lights of the tourist traps. Because of the nature of such transient cities, Kiyotane believed with conceited arrogance that Enyama was the perfect place for the fresh start he wanted.
H ere, in the streets a man could be whoever, or whatever they desired. There was a fortune to be had in Enyama if you knew its industry. And the newcomer reveled in it with delight. Kiyotane took a short cut through an alley to get to his destination a little faster, a seething izakaya devoid of the waterfront charm but an old card table in the back with his newfound friends fond of gambling. The faintest blip of a shadow made him look to the roofs, his gaze trained on the spot, searching. Seeing nothing, he dismissed it with a mental shrug before turning back only to be face to face with a porcelain mask of a cat. Attached to the mask, a person clad in a grey flak vest as the only color in an otherwise black ensemble, stood with arms crossed. Kiyotane had only a few inches over the person and spotting the exposed brown hair tied back, he supposed it was probably a female. He gave the stranger an easy smile.
"Hello Kiyotane." Came a velvety voice behind the mask.
"What do I owe the honor of the ANBU tracking me down all the way here in this cesspool?" He gestured to the blackened brick walls, as he raised his foot and squelched a rat beneath his sandals.
"You know what you've done."
"And who can prove I did it? Huh?" He laughed with an arrogant smugness. "The only witnesses are all dead. You know, because I supposedly killed them all."
When the feline stranger didn't answer, he waved a hand. "You guys need a sense of humor, they don't teach that do they?!"
He laughed again, before shoving the operative and sprinting down another alley way.
"He's running. Koju, he's heading your way."
"Roger that." Replied the voice that crackled over her radio headset.
The woman followed the fleeing man, leaping easily from roof to roof, as he darted erratically trying to shake her. She turned to see another person, clad in the same clothes, coming up by her flank.
"Where's the target?"
"There!" she pointed but where she pointed was empty of any presence. They landed on a roof and scanned the area around them. From their vantage point, the target was nowhere in sight.
"Son of a bitch! We had him!" her voice bled into the night air. The man who stood beside her pointed another way.
"Hold on, Utsu. Look, there he is."
A block over, they saw their target. The man was wrestling a thick soiled shawl off a homeless woman, who cried out angrily at the would-be thief. The target planted the bottom of his sandal into his opponent's stomach, winding them and winning the dirty garment from them. Kiyotane wrapped the shawl around his shoulders and darted away continuing his escape.
The assassins followed from above, ready to take any opportunity to take him down should it present itself. It wasn't much longer before Kiyotane faced a dead end in the stone courtyard of an apartment complex. The windows like black eyes, the glass long shattered, and doorways barricaded by boards. The outer shell of the complex appeared to be disintegrating, like a squatting ghoul left to rot.
To Kiyotane's dismay, three ANBU members hopped into the courtyard with him, standing on the opposite side of a fountain, the spout long stopped spewing water, the stagnant fluid in the base that hadn't slipped through the giant crack was contaminated with an alarming amount of mossy coloured algae.
"Please, don't kill me. I'll give you information."
"You're too dangerous to be alive, Kiyotane. You knew that when you left."
"It was Orochimaru, I swear! He made me do it."
"Nice try. Time to say good night, Kiyotane."
Her opponent just laughed the face of Utsu's bravado.
"I didn't make it this far without getting my hands dirty along the way. If I die tonight, I'm going to make you work for it."
Utsu stepped forward with a kunai reflected the thready light of the night, ready to deliver the killing blow. But her advance was interrupted by unintelligible screaming of a banshee. And its owner was a black blur that bowled right into Kiyotane. The clawed hands snatched at the cloak, ripping it away from him and his body flew like a rag doll across the courtyard.
"Isn't that…?"
"The beggar?"
"What beggar?"
The three would be assassins watched as the dirt crusted human leapt after the thief and clawed at him, drawing blood and eliciting garbled screams from its prey. It stopped for a moment as though realizing they were being watched, turning its head to meet their gaze, tilting it curiously. Shining glittering black lights came from their eyes as it took in their presence. Sensing it was not a threat to them, it went back to its prey.
"We should stop this." Utsu stepped forward, but an armoured hand thrust in front of her, barring her way.
"Hold on, we don't know what we're dealing with yet."
The sounds of frantic slurping made Utsu's stomach turn as the creature dug at Kiyotane's stomach, snarling greedily. The gulping sound of smacking lips and wet flesh soon overwhelmed the petrified cries of their target and it wasn't long before the spectators knew there wouldn't be much left of the man. The creature stopped, it's back hunched, the offending shawl discarded at its feet. It looked at the three shinobi with their weapons drawn before putting out a hand, and in its fist a whirlwind began to circle it.
"Is that chakra?"
But as soon as the power began to gain momentum, a shift in the atmosphere released, tension dissipating harmlessly into the air and the hunched threatening presence stumbled. As the black from its eyes dissipated, a young woman stood there, caked in dried flaking filth except her face covered in the fresh blood of the fallen rogue shinobi. The girl looked curiously at her hand as though expecting it to act without her permission. The woman's eyes widened, and she threw herself to the muddy ground and retched violently on her hands and knees. A geyser of blood poured forth, a ruby red splattering, a bright contrast compared to the blackened cobblestones she knelt on. When the spewing stopped, its stomach emptied, the pitiful creature continued to dry heave, a sickening sound, until exhausted then collapsing to the ground.
Utsu stepped forward, but the arm remained firm in front of her.
"Wait."
She did and when the creature didn't stir, only then did they approach cautiously. The one named Koju stepped forward and rolled the light bundle to see her eyes, still shut and chest rising in steady breaths. His hands felt the shape of each rib bone, saw the yellowed teeth that peeked through her mouth, slightly parted as she drew in breath. He looked up at the other two.
"Captain, now what?"
"We write back home, find out what our new orders are."
"We're not leaving? Our mission is over." Koju looked from his commander to Utsu who sneered disapprovingly.
"Yes, but we need to figure out what to do with this child."
"We should kill her." A typically blunt statement from Utsu, the captain couldn't blame her, their jobs consisted of tracking and killing rogue shinobi.
"What else would we do with such a thing?"
"That's for the elders to decide."