Flipping off of the rooftops and towards the south wall, Cruxis steadied himself, his steel blue eyes melding to the golden hue of the Ryuugan, enhancing his vision to allow him to see beyond the twilight's glare. Three of them, the man from the market was the one he had not wished to face, a man Cruxis had a scar on his right shoulder from. The man had been of the underground, what some might call a guild of thieves - who would pull street urchins such as Cruxis and take them into a life of luxury compared to what they had earlier known. The shinigami academy had found Cruxis first, but there was always that lingering warnings that should he attempt to do more than pickpocket on their 'turf', things would get sour.
The man, known by the code name Urban Eddie, looked down to Cruxis with an all too familiar glare; "Where've you been rookie? Out playing Shinobi on us?"
"I'm not here to pickpocket anyone, if that's what you're implying.""Always on edge, you'll live longer that way. Of course showing your face around here was stupid, especially around Ray's. Now sources say you were about to interfere with our line of work.... And that, my friend, falls into the category of diminishing our profit."
"The shop that's been vandalized?""They don't pay protections, they deal with the consequences. Ray gave you a warning from us. Any funny business and you lose an ear; the second part of course, is an older warning. We catch you pickpocketing, even indirectly from us, and we'll have to do things the hard way."
"Fine by me..." Cruxis held one advantage - jutsu techniques - and he made eye contact with the thug to the right, the man's eyes widening in horror as the illusory flaming rock struck him down in an imagine blaze of smoldering fury.
Eddie and his remaining man were already on the ball, a chain and lead pipe fit to be held in two hands. Bukujutsu was up, and Cruxis weaved through the air and launched a series of glass shards towards the second thug, forcing him to drop the chain as the shards shot into his hands. A smirk caught itself on Cruxis's mouth - he'd grown stronger in the last few years after all. Wait - where was Eddie? A fierce blow of lead pipe smashed into his head from behind and knocked him out of the air... In a daze, Cruxis forced himself to stand and reached for his ninjato blade, only to find it knocked over the wall from the sneak attack.
Eddie's black dragon-scale duster flowed around him as he readied the lead pipe for a second round, reflecting the twilight like a living shadow. Cruxis saw the twitch within the man's arms and reacted on instinct, ducking under the swing of the lead pipe, his off-hand taking hold of a nearby trashcan lid, which he raised over his head as a shield, flourishing a dagger with his main hand and stabbing towards Eddie's leg. The crime boss did not even flinch as he sidestepped the attack and brought an open fist down to grapple Cruxis’s makeshift shield, using an impressive burst of strength to knock the gennin off balance and flip him over, quickly releasing it in order to place both hands on the 'hilt' of his weapon. With his shield betraying him, Cruxis gave no hesitation, countering by letting go of the trashcan lid entirely, with a quick fling, lobbing it towards the man's head. Urban Eddie ducked under the thrown shield and into a well-placed kick from Cruxis, who had backflipped instead of standing straight up to regain his position, sending the man barreling backwards, his lead pipe skidding across the cobblestone road with a harsh scraping sound.
"Now leave me the hell alone!!! Cruxis shouted, as his hands grasped the flowing rivers of energy within himself, the charging jutsu cackling within an enclosed fist, when a blade to his throat caught him by surprise and broke his focus, forcing him to release the energy, which strained through his fingers crumbling to dust, its power wasted.
"Gotcha..." the thug who had been first struck with illusion recovered too quickly, and the blade gave no mercy, slashing across the gennin's throat - a crimson pool seeping into the cracked of the cobbled road....
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