Kawari was currently seated on an empty stretch of deck aboard the ferry. She had left Hidden Stone promptly after her discovery, feeling that there had been nothing else for her to learn at that point in time. If that notion was later proven wrong, then so be it. for the moment, however, she would journey to another village, and see if she could find something new to add to her repertoire. She felt marginally confident in her combat ability, but the estimates of her effectiveness were still showing a decided gap between where she should be, and where she was. experience would do a lot to bolster those numbers. As well, finding new techniques, combinations and strategies would do a great deal toward improving her self-designated standing.
She had chosen this ferry at random, not really bothering to think through where her next destination should be. When she looked over the various departure times, she had generated a random number and ended up on this particular ferry. It seemed seaworthy enough, though it could definitely use a good drydock cleaning. But it would get the job done. She had overheard several of the other passengers talking amongst themselves. They had looked like rather dangerous sorts. Not the type that was big and imposing, like Jirobo had been. No, they were the type that seemed to fit what was needed in a true ninja. stealth, skill, and an utter lack of morals. She could easily believe any one of them capable of sliding a knife into another's back for no reason other than to get some more elbow room on the cramped ferry.
as well, she could picture any of them trying the same thing on her. They had seemed to ignore her at first, but as time passed on, it seemed their annoyance at being crowded would drive them to attacking even a seemingly ordinary girl like her. Because kit was true, she didn't really look like much of a warrior. She couldn't put on muscles without actually changing her form with a concerted effort, and her natural form was more sleek than muscular. as well, she didn't seem to be carrying any weapons, or anything else worthy of the thugs' respect or fear. All in all, from a logical standpoint, she couldn't fault them for thinking her an easy mark.
They would eventually give in and try to attack her. There was no doubt about that, she could tell it for a fact, by the look in their eyes and the level of tension in their bodies. She let herself remain at ease physically, but sent the proper signals to bring her full systems online in preparation. When they attacked, she would have to strike back savagely. Perhaps more than was strictly necessary, to make absolutely sure they learned their lesson, rather than think it a fluke or bad luck. She lowered her head slightly, feigning sleep, wondering if that small signal would be enough to spur them into action, to make them attack when she was actually ready for them.
A soft creak of loosely-fitted boards proved her hunch correct. She timed their approach, and waited to sense the minute difference in temperature from them standing over her, casting her in shade. Her eyes sprang open and she fixed the lead thug with a glare. He seemed a bit surprised at her sudden alertness, but didn't dare show weakness in front of his fellows. He muttered that it was nothing personal, and pulled out a wickedly sharp dagger. His cohorts stepped back a short distance, both to stay out of the way and to help block the scene from any of the other passengers who might deign to look in their direction.
The lead thug might have hoped the girl would be afraid of the shiny knife, but Kawari had seen more fearsome weapons many times before. She hopped to her feet, not even looking at the blade. The thug seemed at a loss for a moment, and waved the blade, trying to grab her attention and frighten her, like she was supposed to be. She was having none of that. she raised her right arm, the form-fitting black glove sparkling lightly in the sun. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't sparkling, it was sparking. Tiny bolts of electric current ran up and down her forearm, and a moment later it visibly altered. Where before her arm and hand looked perfectly normal for someone her apparent age, now it was a fearsome clawed weapon of destruction. A glowing circle on the back of her hand emitted a misting blue light, and the sharp tips of claws seemed to shine more than the thug's paltry blade. She let a faint smirk come across her face, and in that same instant, struck.
Even though she could have, she did not try for a lethal attack. It was just as well, the thug had been puzzling over her smirk and lost crucial seconds of reaction time. Her claws stabbed deeply into the flesh of his shoulder, digging into the socket joint with a sickening crunch. The thug's face paled drastically, and he sank to his knees with a whimper like a kicked dog. Kawari stared impassively down at him before ripping her hand free, blood spreading rapidly over the deep wound she had inflicted.
The thug called for his friends, and they helped him hobble away, leaving a steady trickle of blood in their wake. Now that the pecking order had been set, Kawari felt safe enough to get a little rest. Before she did, though, she leaned over the edge of the ferry, and dipped her hand into the cool water for a long moment. She swished her fingers through the water, washing the blood off before pulling her hand back up. It looked clean now, so she shifted it back to it's normal form, and settled in for a long wait. The ferry still had quite a ways to go before reaching their destination. Quite a few of the other passengers had of course noticed the altercation, and were now stealing glances at her, as if expecting her to go berserk and attack any of them. Foolishness.
Time passed, and as it did, land grew visible ahead of the ferry. It would be far too convenient for the village itself to be right there at the docks. Far too convenient, and far too vulnerable. Most of the hidden villages were actually hidden, after all. The lived in secrecy, to keep their secrets to themselves and lessen the risk of enemy ninja discovering them. So they kept their villages hidden away, to only be found by those determined enough, or those who had been shown the way. It seemed the safest way to protect the village, along with the more standard types of protections that were large walls and armed patrols.
During this moment of reverie, the ferry had closed the distance to the docks, and one of the crewmen had lashed a rope to the mooring. With that completed, the passengers were free to disembark. Kawari was one of the first to leave, and everyone else gave her a wide berth, the memory of what she had done still fresh in their minds. Their opinions didn't make the slightest difference to her,it was very liekly she would never see any of them again. So she just left the ferry and went right on walking. She didn't know precisely where the hidden village was, but she had an approximate location. That would have to be enough to go on, if she wanted to find the location under her own power. She had no real problem with asking people for directions or anything, the only real problems were that it become harder to keep her objective a secret the more people she had to ask. As well, as previous incidents had already proven, she wasn't exactly very sociable. Perhaps it was her programming, perhaps it was just bad luck. But people didn't really seem to feel at ease with her, and that made finding out things like directions difficult.
So that meant she would try to find out what she needed to know under her own power. If she went too long with no results, then she would have to try to find someone who would be willing to talk to her, tell her what she wanted to know. But for now, she would search. She called up a rough map of the area and began inspecting it. There seemed a fair number of general areas that could be eliminated immediately, due to one reason or another. Whether it was too exposed, or any of a number of different reasons. Even so, there was a huge amount of land left to be checked. She wouldn't search through it's entirety by foot, such a practice would be unwieldy at best, and downright dangerous at worst. She needed to eliminate more areas from the list of candidates, narrow the choices down as much as possible.
She began marking off areas of the map, increasing the general range of modifiers she was using to try to find the right place to begin her search. Time continued on it's merry way while she did this, morning giving way to afternoon. Only then did she finally have the list narrowed down to a half dozen different locations. Hopefully at least one of them would prove fruitful, would prove to be the location of the hidden village. With that decided, she prepared to set out once more. The nearest location wasn't very far away, it would be only a few minutes' run if she put her all into it.
She set off at a rapid pace, leaping over boulders, jumping onto a tree branch to spring forward over a fast-moving river. Her progress was almost silent, which was surprising considering just how much metal she was composed of. A few minutes later, she slowed to a stealthy creep, and hid behind a large tree for a long moment before peering around it. She was currently near the edge of a swampy forest. The ground was muddy, though still solid enough to walk on in most places. It seemed possible that a village could have been put in place here, where people would generally not wander into without good reason. Moving slowly forward, she kept her attention focused on her surroundings. So far, she didn't see anything that seemed to indicate the presence of a village of any size, but that did not mean that it wasn't there. Just that she wasn't looking hard enough. She spotted a nearby rise and approached it slowly. She would scale it's height, and see if the raised vantage point would reveal anything else in the area.
It took only a moment to get to the top of the small hillock, where she slowly spun in a full circle, looking in all directions to see if anything seemed out of place or unnatural. The first rotation revealed nothing but stunted and sickly looking trees, or patches of bubbling, stinking muck. Something seemed a bit off, however, so she began doing several more rotations. Slower, and constantly comparing what she saw to the previous rotations. There would have to be some changes that would reveal themselves, if her hunch was correct. And sure enough, there was. One particular area had changed it's general hue between the different times she had glanced over it. Those spots of discoloration seemed to create a near perfect circle. Perhaps that was a sign she was looking in the right direction? There seemed only one way to readily find out.
She walked forward, in the same direction as the spot of discoloration. If her rangefinder was correct, the spot was actually fairly large, a solid eight feet diameter and at least ten yards away from where she currently stood. As she got closer, the spot seemed to writhe and churn faintly, like steam rising from a hot cup of coffee. When she was only a few feet from it, she stopped her approach for a moment, and simply looked at it. Her own senses extended into ranges at least somewhat beyond a normal human's. Not enough to make her sure she was detecting absolutely everything from this phenomenon, but enough that she at least felt confident that she was noticing all of the important stuff. Whether the phenomenon gave off light in the beyond infrared range or not, that didn't matter to her.
After inspecting the phenomenon for a long moment, she took another step forward. Raising one arm, she moved her hand closer to what she believed to be the surface of the oddity. Waiting just a moment from hesitation, she slowly sank her hand into the mist-like substance. Nothing seemed to happen, she couldn't feel anything on her hand. Neither did there seem to be a temperature change or anything. Feeling bolstered by this finding, she stepped fully through the mist. Upon opening her eyes, she was surprised to find a whole, completely different scene laying in front of her. Rather than a dismal swampland, there was a bustling village, only a few dozen yards ahead of her.
She stared in amazement at the secret village, and wondered how in the world it had been hidden so well, so completely. That swirl of odd mist, that had to have been a clue. But how was it done? Was it something that could be replicated,w as it something that she could learn to do to hide herself should a reason arise? Impossible to say. Overall, it seemed unlikely. Since she was forever relegated to Taijutsu, not Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, such a complete manipulation of illusion and reality seemed decidedly impossible for her. That didn't mean she wouldn't try, far from it. All that it meant was that she couldn't actually do it. She could still try to find out how it was done. That way, if someone used it against her, or if someone wanted the knowledge badly enough to pay for it, then she would be well prepared.
After silently inspecting what she could see from where she was, Kawari moved forward, actually entering the village itself. It looked quite a bit different from all of the other locations she had already been to. There were a few people scattered here and there within, but something about them seemed different, unwell. Many of them had bandages wrapped around their arms or legs, their bodies or even their heads. had they just finished fending off an outside attack, and were still healing? Or had there been a traitor?
Despite the assumption that they would respond no better than anyone else, she approached one such bandaged individual, and asked what had happened. He seemed about as friendly as a strange ninja could get, and cheerfully explained that he had just finished an especially grueling training regimen. Kawari asked if the bandages were from working out too hard, or a weapon mishap. He actually laughed at that, shaking his head vigorously. It had been nothing like that, the bandages were proof of how he had been training. he narrowed his eyes slightly as he guessed she wasn't from the area.
Since he seemed to have already guessed it, Kawari saw no reason to lie, and nodded her head. Yes, she was a wanderer, traveling the land in search of useful techniques to add to her roster. The friendly stranger nodded at that, more or less what he had expected. He asked what her specialty was, and she admitted it was Taijutsu. He seemed to ponder that for a moment, before making a decision. He offered to teach her a few techniques from the village, if she would do him a little favor. She knew better than to immediately agree, and asked what the favor was first. He grinned, having expected that small act of precaution. He needed something delivered to his sister in another village, but didn't have the money to mail it. As well, he was in the middle of his lessons, and couldn't leave the village. So if it meant getting the package delivered, he was more than willing to reveal a few of the village's techniques to an outsider.
Kawari pondered the decision for a long moment. On one hand, it could be something nefarious. She could wind up getting in trouble for delivering something dangerous. Then again, it could be perfectly innocent. Lots of people living in different villages from their siblings, didn't they? Even if it was something underhanded, she was confident in her own skills, at least confident enough to believe herself able to get out of any problematic situation that might arise, should she end up getting in trouble.
Finally, she made her decision. Even though she had some misgivings, she decided to go along with the request. the man grinned, before dashing off. he returned a few moments later, clutching a small parcel wrapped tightly in plain brown paper. He carefully handed it to her, and then immediately went into his side of the bargain. He enumerated a few of the village's techniques, and then went into full explanations on how each technique was used, how it was performed. Since Kawari was a Taijutsu specialist, there weren't a huge amount of techniques she could make full use of, but there were a few. She listened carefully, making notes as needed. Once the stranger finished his lecture, he performed each technique, showing how they were done. After that, it was Kawari's turn to attempt the techniques she had just learned. Once again, she had caught on remarkably quickly, successfully performing each technique on the first try. the young man congratulated her, and thanked her for agreeing to deliver the package. He was about to go off and return to his own duties when Kawari stopped him. he seemed a bit worried at what she might have to say, but when she just asked what his sister's address was, he relaxed. He rattled off the address quickly, like he'd known it all his life. He probably had. He ran off before she had another chance to stop him. Kawari just shrugged and went on her way, leaving the village. She had a package to deliver, no matter how suspicious the job seemed to be. She'd get rid of it as soon as she possibly could, and then continue on with her own task.
(3100 )
A female with beautiful dark pink hair that flows a little down her back stands and stares around her with vivid red eyes. Her body is covered by a thick black cloak with the symbol for Utter Calamity on the back; the hood slung off. Beneath her cloak, unseen to many she wears very little. Only a white tank top and stretchy navy caprice. Her outfit isn't all too interesting. The most interesting thing is the Charm Bracelets on either of her arms; each showing off various weapon charms. The only thing that identifies where she is from is on the metal plate on the front of her ninja shoes. It shows the symbol of Hidden Craftsman though it doesn't exactly reveal her to be the Takumikage, Shaneko Warabe.
