The Land of Fire
Maruku felt conflicted as they neared Outpost 5. He had resolved to speak with Tensei as soon as he got back , but he was secretly hoping this mission would end in failure. If the Arashi Foundation was to be exposed there would be war. The very thought made him anxious. He was no where near strong enough for a situation like that.
"We'll break here for five minutes. We're not too far from the Outpost, so once we get there we'll get settled and begin our investigation." Kurenai said, letting her team catch their breathes.
Once everyone had caught their breath, they made their way to Outpost 5. However they were stopped suddenly.
"Stop right there. Nobody moves until we confirm your identities." A squad of Leaf ninja surrounded them. Kurenai sighed with impatience but did as instructed. Among the ninja surrounding them was a Hyuuga wearing a forehead cover. He activated his Byakugan, checking them for genjutsu and disguises.
"Lady Hinata." He said, bowing his head and stepping back.
"Welcome to Outpost 5. It's actually a good thing you came, we need reinforcements. There's been a string of attacks recently and none of our messages have made it back to the village."
Kurenai's expression was very serious as she considered the man's words. "These ninjas, what can you tell me about them?"
"They're ronin, they have no identifying style, but they're very coordinated. We've been getting raided for weeks. Each time they come we lose more people. Their appearances are also random."
"Do you have any idea of their numbers?" Kurenai asked. She was met with a negative response.
"Chances are they're hiding in the forest somewhere. With two Hyuuga here we scan for a larger radius. Let's find where they're hiding first and then make a plan after that. For now, let my students rest." Kurenai suggested. The others nodded and she turned to her students.
"You have six hours. Get some rest, eat some actual food, and be ready." The genin were dismissed while Kurenai stayed to talk to the other ninja.
Ichijin tried to catch Maruku's attention, but he staunchly ignored the other boy. Their mission was now entering a critical stage and they couldn't afford to be weighed down with doubt. They only had a few hours and there was something he needed to do.
"I'm going to take a nap, I'll catch y'all later." Maruku said, separating himself from his team. He wasn't going to sleep much at all. This outpost town was mostly abandoned thanks to all the raiding, which meant there was nobody to really stop him from looking for some ink and a brush.
It was time to apply the Inverse Limit Seal.
Six Hours Later:
Maruku yawned with tiredness as he wrapped his left hand with bandages. Applying the seal had taken longer than he had thought, and he had to dedicate a permanent percentage of his chakra.
Stretching, he prepared to make his way back to his team when he was suddenly grabbed from behind. His mouth was covered, and his arms were restrained.
"If you struggle, I'll kill you. Don't move, don't try and scream, and maybe you'll have mercy." Maruku was quickly tied up with sharp wire and blindfolded before he was led away.
They walked for what felt like several miles before he was roughly thrown onto a stone floor. The sharp wires dug into his flesh, causing him to bleed. He grunted from the pain and received a sharp kick to the chest for it.
"Search him and take anything useful. You know what to do after that." Someone said.
CRACK!
The boy was slugged in the jaw and there was a nasty cracking to accompany it. The force of the blow was enough to knock him out.
Sometime later:
Maruku awoke with a serious pain in his jaw. Thankfully it wasn't broken, it just hurt. The cuts from the wires hadn't healed and were deeper than he realized. Chances were he was going to have permanent scarring all over his body.
Now that he had assessed himself, he tried to assess his surroundings. It was useless though. The room was made of pure stone with the only feature being a single door and a puddle of his own blood.
The door swung open, and a man dressed in all black with a face covering entered. "Let's go."
Maruku complied in silence, not knowing enough about the situation to do anything else. As they walked he tried his best to take in his surroundings. Judging from the stalactites and the sound of running water they were probably in a cave.
The only cave he knew of by Outpost 5 was Gyomen Cave. Which meant he wasn't too far from the town. There was probably a bunch of chakra suppression tags around the place to keep it from being seen from the Byakugan.
"We're here."
Maruku was presented to a person in a black cloak and a white tiger mask.
"So, you're the one Tensei speaks so highly of." The person was using a voice modulator, making it impossible to determine their gender. Maruku stayed silent and stoic.
"Very wise. In times like these it's best to stay silent and listen. I'll get to the point then. Since their inception, the Five Great Nations have had a monopoly on damn near everything. Food, money, medicine, even people's very lives. They fight their wars with no regard to the smaller, surrounding countries and more and more children are forced to grow up without parents. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how people who don't come from a clan are seen as less than. Treated as second class no matter where they go. Isn't that bullshit? The Hidden Villages that were formed in order to protect peace and bring people together are doing the exact opposite."
The masked person spoke with passion. They fully captivated the other people's attention. Some were nodding as the person spoke, and there was a strange energy in the air. It wasn't anything tangible, it was just pure charisma.
Maruku stayed silent as he listened to the impassioned speech of the masked stranger. Growing up in Flower's Landing, these were often thoughts and feelings he had had himself. To think that Tensei knew these people only complicated his feelings.
"You know what it's like. To be lost in the storm of the Five Nations. To be forgotten about. To be looked down upon. Join us. Help us take back this world from the clutches of the Great Nations.
"You kidnapped me, probably permanently maimed me, and killed a whole bunch of people who had nothing to do with your vision. Sorry, but you're not my type." Maruku said, keeping his stoic facade.
The masked figure tilted their head as they regarded the boy. "Is that so? No matter, I won't force you to do what you don't want to. There will come a time when you will desperately want to join us. When your village turns its back on you, you will think of this encounter and recount yourself as foolish. When you come to me next, I will accept you with open arms, foolishness and all. Get him out of here. We're done here anyway."
There was a bright flash of powder, and the masked figure was gone. The people that were left began to close in on him. Being completely surrounded by hostile people should've made him nervous, however all Maruku felt was a strange sort of excitement.
Just as the ronin began their attack, his body moved on its own, faster than his mind could keep up. It was pure instinct and before he knew it, he had chopped off one of his aggressors arms with his bare hands.
Falling Leaf Severing Slice.
Activating his Inverse Limit Seal, markings appeared all over his body and he disappeared in a burst of pure speed. Despite how fast he was moving, he was still up against trained ninjas and they were easily keeping pace.
"Earth Style: Bog Entrapment." The stone walls of the hideout became soft and viscous. There was no safe place to stand and Maruku's feet and legs began to sink into the walls.
"Night, night you little bastard."
Just as the final blow started to rain down, his chakra began to flow rapidly. His breathing sped up as if he was hyperventilating. His body exploded with power as he ripped his legs free from the soft earth walls.
Flowing Water Crushing Strike
"AHHH!"
There was screaming as Maruku's blow tore off several layers of skin from one of his attackers. He was faster, stronger, and his chakra was beginning to physically manifest outside his body keeping his attackers at bay.
Maruku was overflowing with power, and his body couldn't take it. His skin was starting to flay, and his bones began to creak, on the cusp of breaking. As he ducked and weaved from his opponents, he tried to escape. His body was acting on its own accord. He couldn't control himself and a strange, overwhelming heat had filled the area.
"Don't let him escape! He still has to go through the procedure!" One of them yelled.
"Back the hell off!" The heat that had been gathering exploded in a flash of green light, vaporizing everyone and everything in the surrounding area.
The seal marks of the Inverse Limit faded along with the strange power. His eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness.
Outpost 5:
Team 8 sat in worry at Maruku's bedside as condition slowly deteriorated. The jonin Hyuuga had seen his chakra a few miles away before a massive explosion had happened. With one of their own missing, Team 8 had rushed to the scene of the explosion to find their last member badly injured and lying in a crater. They were waiting for his vitals to stabilize before they moved him to the village.
"We need to get him to the village immediately. The longer we wait the more his life is in danger." Ichijin said tersely.
"If we move him, his injuries will worsen." Kurenai said with pursed lips.
"And if we don't, he'll die for sure! There's no time for this!" Ichijin yelled in frustration. Kurenai glared at her student, but the boy wasn't so easily cowed.
"Fine! We'll risk it, but if he doesn't make it, know that it's on your hands and that I will do my best to make sure that you never go on another mission again." Kurenai snapped.
She picked her slumbering student up and secured him on her back. "Keep up." Kurenai and the others vanished in a burst of speed as they made their way back to the village.
Even with their high movement speed it took several hours to reach the village and it was well into night time. Kurenai rushed the gate, haphazardly throwing her I.D at the guards as she continued on her way to the hospital.
Her speed and her direction had been noticed by other ninjas so when they arrived at the hospital first responders were already waiting for them.
"We'll take it from here. You need to make your report to the Hokage." One of the medical ninja said.
"But—." Ichijin started.
"There's nothing more you can do here. We'll do the best we can but you need to leave." As Ichijin opened his mouth to continue arguing, Kurenai placed a hand in his shoulder and led him away.
"Go home, the both of you. I'll make the report and keep you updated on his condition. It's like they said, there's nothing more we can do right now."
"Damn it!" Ichijin swore, frustration clouding his face. Hinata, meanwhile, was silent. Her face was painted with worry, and she was shaking badly. She opened her mouth as if to speak but no words came out.
"Go." Kurenai said gently, pushing her students away. Once they had left her sight she let out a sigh. She was worried herself but there was still a job that needed to be done. She had to report what little they had learned on this mission.
Konoha:
Maruku slowly opened his eyes and winced at the bright light. He was wrapped head to toe in bandages and he couldn't move.
"Welcome back. You had us all scared there for a moment."
He couldn't turn his head, but he recognized the voice. "Kurenai-sensei? Where am I? How long have I been asleep."
"You're back at the village, you've been unconscious for almost a week now. Your body was put through a lot of internal abuse and you're still recovering. I know you have a lot of questions, but I need you to answer some of mine first." She said calmly.
"First off, what did these ronin want with you and have you learned anything about the Arashi Foundation?"
"I don't know the names of the people who took me, or if they are connected to the Arashi Foundation. From what I heard, it sounds like they're trying to expand their numbers. They wanted me to join them."
There was enough of the truth in what he said to help disguise the lie. Those people were the Arashi Foundation but if they had Tensei he needed to be careful. There was no way he could tell someone that Tensei was involved. The old man was only a civilian, but he was part of a group that was stealing and killing ninja indiscriminately. They'd execute him for sure, civilian or not.
"Well, obviously you resisted. Can you tell me how you got so hurt?" Kurenai asked. Her voice sounded just a bit too keen but Maruku figured it was probably important information that he couldn't withhold.
"It was really weird. It's like I got stronger and faster out of nowhere. And I had more chakra than I normally did, and my body wouldn't respond to me at all. It was like it was doing its own thing, without my input."
"Thank you." Kurenai, she sounded smug for some reason.
"One last thing and then I'll let you get some rest. There was a massive explosion that you were at the epicenter of but none of your injuries match that sort of damage. Do you know what happened?"
"One of them used an earth jutsu and it caught me. I thought I was going to die but then it was like my chakra got superheated or something. I'm not too sure what happened." The more he thought about it the more strange it seemed. That explosion should have killed him, but it didn't.
What was that? It wasn't something the enemy did, it came from him, of that, he was sure.
"Get some rest. The others will come visit soon." Kurenai said, silently leaving the room. Closing the door behind her she came face to face with the Hokage. If it weren't for the developments that had led to this, she would told him that she said so.
However, now was neither the time nor the place. "Well?" She said tonelessly, not displaying any emotion.
"His symptoms and his description match those that have experienced Sparking. I was wrong to doubt you, but you must understand that this changes things. To go through Sparking and survive means his growth rate will increase exponentially. It might be best for me to remove him from your team altogether." Horizon said.
"That won't be necessary. I'll continue to observe him carefully." Kurenai responded. It was all could she say. If the Hokage wanted to disband her team, then there wasn't really anything she could do about it.
"I'll allow it for the time being. However, you are to report his progress to me. If I deem it necessary, I will reassign him."
A Few Days Later:
Maruku stared at the ceiling in boredom. He was still in a full body cast. Whatever had happened to him had caused serious damage to his joints and ligaments.
As he slowly began to fall back asleep the door opened. "Hey. First, I'm glad to see you're ok. The doctor said you should be fine in about a week. Second, we reallyneed to talk." He recognized the voice as Ichijin and for whatever reason a lot settled in his stomach.
"Tensei is missing. And Masuri is getting worse." Ichijin said getting straight to the point.
"Dude shut up! Not here." Maruku said quickly. During one of Hinata's visits she had told him how the Arashi Foundation was now considered to be an enemy of the village. Their theft and destruction of Outpost 5 was intolerable. The last thing either of the two boys needed right now was for someone to discover their ties with them.
"But—."
"No." Maruku cut the other boy off before he could continue. Ichijin sighed in frustration. "Flower's Landing is going to fall apart without him. You know that right. What are you going to do?"
"I'll figure it out. Now let me get some sleep, I'm tired." As Ichijin left, Maruku couldn't help but reflect on his words. Tensei had been the pillar that had held Flower's Landing up. The goods he supplied from the Arashi Foundation helped keep crime down and had formulated a community. Things were going to get much worse now that he was gone and as long as it didn't interfere with ninja business the Hokage was going to look the other way.
"What a mess."
Later:
After he was able to move on his own, he was discharged with strict instructions to take it easy for a while. Team 8 had agreed to go out for dinner to celebrate his recovery but until then Maruku made his way to Flower's Landing.
He made sure to be discreet. He didn't feel like being bothered right now. Making his way into Tensei's speakeasy, he found it completely abandoned. He had been left the deed to the property, but other than that Tensei hadn't left anything behind.
Maruku frowned in frustration as he thought of what to do with the place. He couldn't run it full time and he couldn't let it shut down either. This place used to be the glue that held Flower's Landing together. It would take time and money to get this place back to its previous state but he was determined.
A few more missions and he could probably afford to buy inventory and hire staff. He would make a plan from there.