[Hayate Gekko]

Hayate always hated diplomatic missions. Of course they were almost always relatively easy. But they were stressful, annoying, and you always had the worst beds to sleep on. Hayate definitely expected to be wishing his team chose one of the other missions instead. The Takigakure mission would have been a good second mission to take. Something else would have been better and it would have allowed them to get a foot into the shitty world that they lived in.

Sure this was a relatively safe first mission and they would get to know another village. But they wouldn't get practical battle experience. They would only get diplomatic knowledge since he was the one who had to do the negotiating, unfortunately. Hayate hated being a jonin sometimes. The responsibility sucked.

Fortunately, day one was the simplest of the numerous days that they had to spend in a hot room with people you either hated or didn't want to talk too.

"Alright, Hayate-san, I'm sure you want to get this over with soon and so do I. So how about we make things simple like usual for trade deals like this and then call it a night for day one?" The leader of Takigakure, Shibuki said with a tired expression. Hayate nodded. "Great. This means we can get started with the list of things we want." Shibuki pulled out a long piece of paper.

Hayate saw flashes of regret in his genin's eyes. Little bastards deserved this.

"Alright Lord Shibuki, What would your village like to negotiate this time?" Hayate knew that Shibuki hated this as much as he did. This was the third time he was on this mission to Takigakure over the past few years and whilst the last time he was here, Shibuki wasn't the leader, he still had that expression of tiredness that he had now whenever he was in the room.

"Lets see..." Shibuki looked through the paper, "Relatively simple stuff. The elders want lower prices for the metals and woods we buy every month along with lowered grain prices as we are getting less missions and can no longer afford the rates Konoha is charging." That seemed relatively simple. "We also want to increase the price of water we send every month along with the prices of the wood we send."

Ah.

That was what was the issue.

'A shame that Tenzo can't just this kind of wood.' The wood that came from Takigakure was special. It was sturdier and more weather resistant. Not only that but it allowed for production of certain weapons that didn't use metal. Tenzo could only use the basic wood release that the Shodai used most unfortunately. And it wasn't nearly as powerful as the Shodai's either.

"I see." Hayate watched the worry in his genin's eyes bloom. They didn't need to know it brought him joy."We're going to have a long week aren't we?" Shibuki nodded. "Alright. Well Konoha is asking for more Fiji water and wood along with a request to start trading for some of the fruits you have since we need them for medicine." Takigakure had closed that trade a while ago since Konoha didn't have the need for those fruits anymore. But the virus that caused the need for said fruit was back.

Shibuki nodded. "That last one can probably be arranged Hayate-san." That made Kukui sigh a sigh of relief. "But I will need to discuss with the elders about the first two things Konoha has requested. We can specify amounts tomorrow." That would be good but Hayate knew that it'd take a lot longer.

"Alright Lord Shibuki," Hayate said, "Is there anything else on the list that you might want to bring up or are we done for today." Hayate hoped so. He just wanted to go to bed on his shitty bed already. Insomnia is truly a bad thing to have as a shinobi.

Truly.

Shibuki looked over his list once again before nodding to himself. "No I'm happy to say that the rest of it is only important for future meetings. Fortunately the requests the elders had pushed for were minimal for this meeting." Hayate noticed the man deflate a bit. "We will meet again tomorrow at the same time."

Hayate nodded, "Alright Lord Shibuki, If that is all then me and my team will be leaving for the night." Hayate looked at his visably bored team, apart for Kukui who appeared to be thinking. 'He better not be thinking about testing Fuinjutsu or Jutsu-shiki.' Hayate knew where his student's minds went when they were bored. Kukui's mind probably needed to be checked by a Yamanaka at some point to make sure he wasn't thinking about anything too dangerous.

"Have a safe trek to your hotel Hayate-san," Shibuki said, "I wouldn't like to see you in bandages like last time." Memories of being drunk and getting into a fight with a Takigakure shinobi who was also drunk flooded back into Hayate's mind as Shibuki chuckled to himself. "Have a good night."

Hayate quickly turned to his genin, "We're heading back to the hotel. Also, Kukui, don't think about anything that might blow anything up," Kukui sighed.

[Kukui Tanku]

It was a late night. I found myself sitting at a desk, with a few silencer seals I had figured out how to make on the way here set up so I wouldn't be heard. I was restless tonight. 'Hayate is so gonna kill me.' I was going to do what I always did. Which was stupid stuff. I could have died so many times whilst making seals or trying too. I quite literally danced with death seemingly daily for fun at this point. It was fun too.

Really, it was.

Although it wasn't fun at times. Times like now. Currently, I'm working on the project that'd make me a bitch to fight in Taijutsu. The Genjutsu seal. To do that I needed to convert the Elemental storage seal into a Yin Chakra Storage Seal. Now, I had done incredible things already. Level five seals were hard to make even with existing seals after all. But seal modification was an entirely different beast to dance with.

Yin and Yang chakra worked fundamentally differently from Elemental chakra. Elemental chakra was like an element obviously. It felt more uniform and malleable because it was whole. Yin and Yang Chakra however was like half of the whole. One of the two seperated from its other half for the most part. Yin was the embodiment of the mind and the mental part of chakra. It didn't have a feeling when molded. Yang chakra encompassed the physical part of chakra and it felt... whole? It was honestly hard to describe. It wasn't the whole that Elemental chakra was though.

Yin and Yang chakra also interacted with seals differently from elemental chakra.

The elemental seal was a seal that was meant for an element. It was meant to store chakra that wasn't just pure chakra. When coded to a certain element it... clicked. But when tried with Yin or Yang, it just felt weird and it wouldn't work. So the seal needed to be modified. How though? That was what was eluding me. I at first tried to switch out ratios of Yin chakra until it worked. But it just wasn't stable.

My current idea was to just layer a few stabilizer seals on the seal I had in front of me and hope that it worked but it wouldn't work. I knew it wouldn't. You could at most layer two stabilizer seals before it became inefficient. So a variant of the stabilizer seal would need to be created.

A more potent one.

Of course it wouldn't be easy. Creating new seals, even ones based on already existing seals was never easy. But I wasn't a quitter. Far from one in fact, I wouldn't let this challenge get the better of me. I would be overpowered with seals and my system eventually. The Genjutsu seal was a very important seal I had to make. Along with the Medical seal. For both of those to be even remotely pssible, I needed to create this seal.

Luckily I had a base to help me. I had a few ideas on how I could modify the Stabilizer seal instead of making a seal based off of it instead. Mainly doubling the kanji for stable and overlapping it with the storage seal. But that probably wouldn't work. If modifying seals were that easy than anybody with a small amount of Fuinjutsu talent could do it. No, I'd need to create the new Stabilizer seal instead.

I looked down at the prototype I had drawn up. It was centered around a storage seal. It was a lot like my current elemental seal was, but it wasn't the same. First, it was a circular storage seal in the middle. It was of course small, small enough to fit on a palm. It had three smaller circles on it, all with part of the kanji for the stabilizer seal, specifically the control part. They were like the Tomoe of a sharingan.

Then around the storage seal was a mix of a connector seal and a regular stabilizer seal. It was sorta like layering seals but it wasn't. It also wasn't entirely making my own seal since I had used parts from other seals to make it.

'Here goes nothing I suppose.' I stored a bit of Yin oriented chakra into the seal.'This should contain it.' I'd have to shape it into a genjutsu myself when using it. If it worked that is. If it didn't I'd either watch it go up in flames or nothing would happen. 'Let's see if it works... I don't want to blow up.' It would be rather unfortunate to do so... 'Three-' I activated the seal. '-two-' I shaped it into a demonic illusion genjutsu. '-one. Release!' I released all of the chakra...

And... nothing. "Damnit I really though this one would work..." What went wrong? 'I wish I had a jutsu that told me what I did wrong... Or an observe skill. That'd be great.' I looked at the seal and found that the storage element had failed. 'Fuck. Okay, so maybe a reinforced storage seal would work?' It wouldn't be that simple. Nothing was ever simple, unfortunately.

"Well, another failure in my quest to reach bullshit power levels... Maybe, one day I'll get this seal down." I mused. 'Maybe one day I can hopefully do this just as a hobby and not to survive...' I'd still need to look into a lot of seals. Like Bijuu seals... No not because I had met Fuu. But in case Obito ever managed to make the Ten Tails... I wouldn't let him be its Jinchurriki.

"Brat, I don't know why I keep finding you doing this at two AM." I heard Hayate say with a very unimpressed tone. "But please, just go to bed. I don't want to make you do it."

'Oh fuck.'

It was a nice day in Takigakure. The sun and the sky were smiling down upon the world and the nature was really vibrant today. Or at least it felt that way to me. Why? I don't know. But I was talking to Fuu again today like I promised I would. I wasn't a liar after all. Well I was, but I didn't want to lie to a friend.

"So what do you think of Takigakure so far?" Fuu asked as she gestured to the village. We were on top of a tree branch. "It looks nice on the outside but it sure is a shithole on the inside huh?" She seemed somber now. I had a somber smile as well. Humanity was cruel. Especially to themselves. "Plenty of wackjobs here too."

I hummed. "What you said. It's a shithole on the inside and nice on the outside. Dunno about the wackjobs though. Haven't met any yet fortunately. I kinda want to know what they're like though. Are they just crazy or are they cultists or something?" Cultists were unlikely in smaller villages. Although they weren't impossible. Jashinism survived until Hidan at least in Yugakure so there had to be some other cult somewhere.

"Ever heard of Jashinism?" Fuu asked and If I had a drink then I'd have spat it out. Of course Jashinism existed in Takigakure. "I take it that you do since your gaping like a fish. But a lot of people here support it for some reason. Not a lot of people practice it though since they're all executed for doing so." Fuu remarked. "So how do you know about Jashinism?"

'Okay, make up a lie.' I am a massive hypocrite. 'I'm technically not lying but I am... its a little white lie I'm going to tell.' I took a deep breath. "My teammate is into the supernatural, so I kinda wanted to research it to have something to talk about with them." I did for all of five minutes before giving up. "I found Jashinism and decided that the supernatural was not for me. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that knows about it in my team besides Hayate-sensei to be honest..."

"Huh. Yeah thats probablby a good idea... The less people that know about those wackjobs the better. " Fuu hummed before looking at me. "You talk about your team a lot, Kukui." Fuu commented. "This is the third time today. Whats so special about them?" This reminded me of something... Fuu wasn't a shinobi. Or at least one with teammates. Or friends.

I looked to Takigakure as a whole. '...I should probably introduce them to her. She needs more friends.' Fuu and Mika would probably be best friends. "They aren't just teammates. We've been friends for a bit." I grinned. "I used to be one pathetic bastard back a year ago."

"What does that have to do with your teammates?" Fuu asked.

"Everything," I responded, "Back when I was pathetic I sorta decided that I wanted to stop being pathetic." I wasn't going to lie to myself. I was pathetic. "So one day I met one of my Teammates and she offered to teach me how to use a sword." I grabbed my Katana and looked at it. "Then I sorta stopped being pathetic and I was just weak. Still am. But then I met my other teammate a few weeks after befriending my jinchrriki friend. She's strong. Fighting her made me stronger quicker. I'm not pathetic anymore thanks to them. They've been nice to talk too and they like me. I like them... Sorta not much else to it."

Fuu nodded. "I think that makes sense..." The Mint haired girl stood up. "I wanna meet your teammates then. If you say they're nice then I wanna be friends with them." I stood up as well. This was going to make things easier. "Where are they?"

I shrugged. "Could be at our hotel. Could be out and about. Dunno." Although I did wanna go back to the hotel. Hayate-sensei was still there so I left some of my research there. Of course it was coded so some curious spying dickhead wouldn't see shit but I wanted to go get it. "But I wanna go get something from our hotel first." I began walking in the direction of my team's hotel.

"Okay," Fuu hummed and began to follow me. "What do you need to get?"

"My notes. Gotta make sure they're still there." I hoped that they'd be there but Taki wouldn't do anything likely. I was paranoid. Although I wasn't that paranoid... Oh well. "Also wanna get some stuff done. Fuinjutsu's hard..." I whined.

"Sounds like it. Good luck with that!" Fuu chuckled. "Poor bastard."

[Ryuuji]

'That salesman thing was a bust...' Ryuuji looked at his last and latest victim. 'A real shame too. But nothing's ever easy.' Of course it shouldn't have been like this. But Ryuuji knew that not everyone had information on someone's wherabouts.

So he had to do this the hard way.

'At least the torture was fun.' Ryuuji hummed as he threw a body in the river. 'Gotta love poisoning drinking water.' Fuck Takigakure anyways.

Now he had to go out and find a shinobi to kill and henge into. Should be easy enough. 'I wonder if anyone can last longer than a minute.' If they had a sword than probably. Slicing attacks were always a pain to deal with. There was a reason why Ryuuji always skipped fighting those with wind release. If they even damaged him once, he'd probably go down in a few minutes unless he got away.

'Time to find some poor bastard.' Ryuuji thought. First he needed to find a lone shinobi which shouldn't be hard. Then he'd need to memorize their appearance. Then he'd need to go to Shibuki's office and looks for files on the Jinchurriki.

Simple enough.

'Lets see.' Ryuuji began scouting for a lone shinobi. Preferably in a secluded area. No witnesses were needed.'Bingo...' Ryuuji spotted a nondescript-looking Chuunin with blue hair. 'Take it in. This is the last time anyone will ever see them.'

Ryuuji memorized every detail as they got he got closer to the chuunin. They seemed tense for some reason. Perhaps they knew of his presence?

"Hey pal," Ryuuji grinned. The shinobi turned around and pulled out a kunai right away. "I see you've already deduced I'm an enemy. What gave it away?" Was it the blood on his jacket? Was it his chakra levels? Or did his tone give it away? Who knew?

"I'm a sensor." The chuunin said. "You have too much chakra for a simple civilian. You're a shinobi. And I see a slashed Kumo Head-band on you. You're a missing-nin." The man explained. "So it is my duty to kill you." Chakra came out of the kunai the man held and it shaped into a curved blade.'

'Oh this will be exciting!' Ryuuji chuckled. "Oh you think you can kill me? You're going to lose like the pathetic little worm you are." Ryuuji cycled through three hand signs. 'Earth Style: Earth Armor Jutsu!' Earth chakra formed around Ryuji's arms. "Now dance for me!"

Ryuuji jumped toward the man, extending his fist which shot toward the man's heart like a kunai. The chunin raised his Kunai before slashing at the hand which barely chipped the earth chakra covering the hand.

Ryuuji pulled himself toward his hand. and rocketed his leg toward the Chuunin's neck. The chuunin slashed a wave of chakra at Ryuuji who pulled back and toward his arm before jumping back. 'He know's what he's doing here.' Good. That would make this all the more exciting. 'Lets see if he'll go on the attack.' Ryuuji watched as the man's stance shifted.

The Chuunin began running at Ryuuji whilst throwing three Kunai. Ryuuji blocked the Kunai and threw one of his own back at the Chuunin who deflected it with his blade. The chuunin smirked and smoke replaced him. 'Clever bastard.' Ryuuji looked down at his chest as it jutted out. "Piercing attacks don't work," Cutting did unfortunately. Ryuuji sighed. "Should have slashed." Ryuiji turned his neck and watched the look of horror on the Chuunin's face spread.

The Chuunin Jumped back. "The Rubber Man..."

"That's me!" Ryuuji pointed to himself proudly. "Now lets continue." Extending his arms, Ryuuji pulled himself toward the man again. The Chunin dodged and Ryuuji bounced off the wall and aimed himself toward the man. Ryuuji shot toward the man like a bullet.

The Chunin quickly raised his Kunai up into a block. It wasn't enough to stop Ryuuji from sending them both crashing into a wall after shattering the Kunai. Ryuuji then grabbed the man "W-Why are you here?" The Chuunin asked. "You shouldn't be here..." Ryuuji used one of his arms to tie the man up so he wouldn't resist.

Ryuuji laughed. "Money." Ryuuji took the man's shattered Kunai and drove it deep into the man's throat. A deep dark red began pouring out from the man's throat as he tried to claw at Ryuji. Gurgling noises erupted from the man as the light faded from his eyes. "Music to my ears." Ryuuji grabbed the still alive man, took his ID, and stuffed him into the wall before going through a set amount of seals. "Earth clone jutsu."

The clone went to work on repairing the wall they destroyed with the chunin stuffed inside. Meanwhile, "Henge." Ryuju transformed into the Chunin. "Now time to begin."

He'd get to kill every last one of these scumbags hopefully, and he'd get the Jinchurriki along the way.

Man, this chapter took a while to begin. Orignally I was going to finish it in two days but I lost motivation. And then today I almost didn't write anything since I just didn't have motivation. But I did it. I finished it. Ryuji's bit took a bit out of me.

Writing his short fight with the Chunin was fun. His powerset is pretty cool. But my favorite part of the chapter had to be the Fuinjutsu theory stuff. Its been a long while since I've written any so it kinda sucked to think about but It was fun in the end.

Also, Fuu meeting Mika and 1010 is gonna be fun. I had something different planned than what next chapter used to be but I decided to rewrite the plans and as it turns out this arc is going to last until chapter thirty... Oh joy.

Anyways, Tobi out.

- Tobi.