Atsuma now lived alone. Living with his parents was no longer possible with their constant worrying. At that moment his apartment was empty except for a small bed. He didn't have enough time for decoration or anything for that matter. The files of his next targets were scattered across the floor. He had gone through all of them extensively that time and decided to go through the easy ones first and then the hardest. It seemd Hideki was the second easiest Red Pole to kill. The first would have been Hoji Barabiri. A 480 pound man that owned the night market up at the northern East corner. His home was a massice mansion that over looked the ocean above a moutain. Everyone could see it from below. The security would be Atsuma's problem. There were guards patrolling the premise 24/7 and from what Atsuma could tell they all did routine check ups on eachother so if he took out one of them the rest would find out. "Joy, this one is gonna be harder than I imagined."
Atsuma had been given no deadline to finish the mission, hell they even suggested that he infiltrate the Triad and kill them from the inside, but that wasn't something he felt confident in doing. His personality wasn't that of a gangster nor could he fake one. "I wish I knew ninjutsu right now..." It was true. A good, big and flashy ninjutsu would have been a perfect distraction for Atsuma, but his area of focus was taijutsu and bukjutsu. It also occured to Atsuma that he couldn't kill the guards. The higher ups had only given him permission to kill the people within the folder. There was nothing else Atsuma could do. There was just one plan. "I guess I'm going to raid the castle alone." He mumbled before laying on his bed to fall asleep. The next day would be Hoji Barabiri's final day as king.
Atsuma had no actual plan to go about. He knew nothing about the mansions layout. He was just going to run straight through everyone, kill Hoji and then dissappear. "Joy, lend me your power..." Joy giggled at Atsuma's formality. She knew he only said it to sound cool. Her pink aura began to surround the boy. His speed increasing with each second. "You ready, Joy?" He asked preparing himself to sprint. "Hehe! Of course!" The guards could see a blurry, pink figure running towards the mansion. They immediately converged to stop what ever it was. Some of them knew jutsu while others prepared their weapons. He didn't care though. The boy just blazed through all of them before bashing through the mansion wall.
"Hoho! Hoho! Ladies please! You know that I'm ticklish!!" Hoji was having fun inside of his massive room surrounded by countless beautiful women. His room had a wide window giving the fat b*****d a marvelous view of the ocean. Too bad it wouldn't be the last thing he saw. His eyes were blindfolded as women licked an caressed him. He had yet to know about Atsuma's presence. When the door finally busted open it was far too late. "Huh? What is it girls?!" He shouted amongst the many screaming women. Then his body dropped. Blood from his forehead staining his already red bed sheets. Atsuma jumped out the window, but this time his face had been seen and the Triad would know who he was.
Atsuma stumbled into his apartment covered in his own blood and sea water. He gripped the door, but ultimately fell against the wooden floor. The entrance hadn't been as flawless as it seemed. The boy was running so fast that he couldn't take note of the wounds he was receiving. His eyes opened and closed slower and slower each time. He didn't want to pass out. Who knew what would happen if he passed out. Ultimately, however he gave in. Everything went black...Again.
When the boy awoke he felt as if a ram had charged him directly in the face and then mercilessly beat him. He'd even let the door open. Getting up slowly to close it, Atsuma limped over and pulled it back. The snap noise was made and so he limped towards his small bed. There were three more targets left and if the easiest was able to almost kill Atsuma the young gennin didn't know if he had it in him anymore to take on the Triad. What he had yet to discover was that word of his actions were already spreading. Picking up a random folder Atsuma tasked himself with taking out Song Un. A 65 year old lady that owned a tea shop in the center of the village. She seemed very sweet and innocent on the outside, but was a renowned medical-nin, but in reality she owned the prostitution market. Messing with her as a civilian was an absolute death sentence. "I think I'll need time to rest before this one..." Atsuma gave himself a week to recover. After that it was time to greet his elder.
An admirer of tea himself, Atsuma would've been very dissapointed in killing a lady that shares his passion. If not for her taking advantage of young women and using their bodies for her own personal gain. It truly bugged him in a way that not many things do. Before going to meet the lady however, Atsuma decided to go and see how his parents were doing after he moved. To his surprise they were doing surprisingly well. They even made his room into a sauna within the short time he was gone. "Oh dear, can you believe that some gangsters came by our village the othet day?" She asked as she sat down to drink tea with him. "I'm not a shinobi anymore! Someone should really do something about them! It's like there are more and more of them every day!" Atsuma wasn't allowed to tell anyone about his mission, but he could say, "Don't worry mom. I have a feeling things will change for the better." Taking a sip of his tea he winked at her. That was all he needed to do.
Lady Song wasn't as well guarded as Hideki. At least, that was what it looked like. Ever since Atsuma began picking them off the remaining Red Poles had started to boost their defenses, but not like Hideki. They were smarter about it. Song for example who appeared to be sweeping the dirt outside wasn't actually Song at all, but a young girl with a jutsu cast upon herself. If Song had been his first target Atsuma would've taken the bait, but it was just too easy. "Hehe..." He smiled under his baseball cap beneath the shade of a cafe's outside sun blocker. He'd been watching the area, observing everything. He concluded that Every single person around himself was part of her gang. Everything they did seemed normal to a common passer, but to Atsuma it was quite obvious. They already knew he was there.
Atsuma got up from his seat and walked towards the tea shop. The fake Song gestured for him to enter. "Took you long enough." She said with a young voice. Atsuma chuckled at his stupidity. Inside the store was completely normal. There was nothing standing out except for a door leading to the back. He assumed that was where he was intended to go. "Why hello there dear. Please, take a seat with this old lady." Atsuma didn't move and her serenity vanished. "SIT DOWN, NOW." If her plan was to cast fear into Atsuma it failed. "You underestimate me ma'm." She raised a brow just as Atsuma's index finger swirled through her skull. What ever plan she had for him had failed.
There was no commotion so Atsuma left his third targets tea shop without having to fight his way out. However when he got his his apartment the boy found out that it had been left opened by someone else. There was nothing to ransack so they destroyed his bed. The files were safely hidden in a secret compartment. Opening them up he had a safe idea on who had done such a thing. Big Smile Lee. The man had no region. His business was drugs and alcohol. His power was immense not only by human standards, but by shinobi as well. The man was an ex-jounin meaning Atsuma wouldn't be able to fight him head on in a battle of skill and since he rarely was alone shooting him was out of the picture. Atsuma needed help and so he asked one of his genin friends for help. The boys name was Ace. At least thats what he said it was. The kid was a prodigy when it came to katon techniques and explosives. The perfect guy to help him out.
Big Smile Lee's base was located in a shipyard warehouse. It was a massive beast filled with many of his men and women. Getting inside without permission was impossible. The only way in would be to ask and that was another death sentence. By that point Atsuma was used to it. He had a feeling Big Smile Lee wanted to kill him personally from what the files said. He'd fight the jounin head on while Ace set up explosives from the outside. "Do you undersand Ace?" Atsuma asked looking at the boy dead in the eyes. If anything went wrong they would both die. He didn't tell Ace that fact. No point in sparking fear which leads to disaster. "Yes. Go get 'em friend." Atsuma told Ace a lie about why he was attacking the warehouse, but it had to be done.
Atsuma walked toward the warehouse with his hands up. He had two swords inside of his body, bullets in his fingers and the speed of a kage. Yet he used nothing nor though about using anything as he made his way towards the place. The people in the front all grinned at the boy who had successfully killed the other Red Poles. He looked at them with confusion. Then Big Smile Lee greeted him bombastically and told Atsuma, "put your arms down you crazy b*****d! Come, come we've got alot to talk about haha!!" The Triad consisted of 5 Red Poles. The leader of the Triad was Uncle Poe. Big Smile Lee never agreed to Uncle Poe's managment and was planning a coup. This was very bad since the Red Poles were supposed to work together not against each other. It meant that there was a reason for Song not attacking him. She was going to request his assistance to kill Big Smile Lee in return for her retirement.
Atsuma and Big Smile Lee both sat down on a rad couch at the far end of the warehouse where the boss had arranged an array of luxuries including alcohol, drugs, prostitutes and dancers. The massive man pointed his finger at Atsuma's chest and said, "you my friend have saved me a butt load of trouble! Gaha! I mean here I am trying to kill of those stupid Red Poles and rule Tsuchi myself and then you come along and do the job for me in less than a month! And all by yourself! Tell me, what do you want? Drugs? Money? Womeeeeen? I can get you anything you want! Me and you we're brothers now and brothers look out for eachother." Atsuma didn't know what to say honestly. In the files Lee was described as a strict, militaristic, no nonsense sort of man. Who also had a very serious drug addiction. Atsuma's suspicion of clone bait had vanished. "Tell me. Did you send men to my apartment?" Atsuma asked. The answer he was given meant there was someone else that wanted him dead. Uncle Poe was the one that invaded his privacy. Not Big Smile Lee. Atsuma thanked the man for his hospitality, but said he had to leave. Lee objected at first, but when he said it was to kill Uncle Poe he couldn't hold his excitement. The explosion behind Atsuma didn't phase him at all as he walked away with Ace who apparently had killed before. His superiors would get mad, but it had to be done. The people inside that warehouse were dead anyways.
Atsuma was always mentally calm, but not physically. Sleep was becoming harder and harder. He didn't trust a single person he saw on the street not even Ace. This paranoia led him to seclude himself in his apartment. Finally someone trustworthy came to his door. His superior came to check up on Atsuma's mental state. He didn't have to ask for mission details. He knew that Atsuma executed four of the Red Poles and that Uncle Poe was next. "Atsuma, to be truly honest, I'm very surprised at how well you've been doing. I was sure you'd get Hideki, but you killed Big Smile Lee! The elders were not upset about the extra casualties don't worry. And your friend Ace will be getting a letter of recommendation. Now-" Atsuma got up from his ruined bed to stand face to face with his superior. "How do you know about Ace, sir?" Atsuma asked with an indifferent expression, but irritated tone. Joy's trance wasn't working and Atsuma's normal petsonality was on break time. "Have you been watching me this entire time?" Atsuma asked thinking back to every mission he had completed. He had been made a fool of in his mind. They could have helped him. He was just a gennin for goodness sakes. "Atsuma. Do not forget who your superior is." Atsuma was just about done with the situation he put himself in.
Finding Uncle Poe would've been impossible unless Big Smile Lee had given him all he needed to know before he died. His location moved every 2 days. In the winter he stayed out of the country. There were five places where he could be. One of them Atsuma knew for sure he wasn't in thanks to Big Smile Lee. Now there were four locations remaining. Kill Uncle Poe and end this Atsuma. His superiors voice echoed in his head. "Joy. Sing me...A song." Joy had been silent ever since he met Song. Then it began. And Atsuma cried for the first time in his life.
Atsuma reached the casino where he chose to go to first. Its name was Bam Bam a very popular plade in the center. Atsuma walked inside with his usual diguise and found out that the place had barely any security at all. The leader of the Triad would never be that unguarded. He didn't have any reason to stay before three beautiful hostess' convinced him otherwise. Atsuma hadn't had a good time in a while and the mission really had no deadline. Joy also insisted on him staying. "Oh why not." He grinned as the girls dragged him away.
When Atsuma awoke there were three naked women around his body. The bed he was in was like a cloud. His eyes slowly opened from their blur to reveal an old man staring at him. He had terrifying scowl. Atsuma knew who he he was and he knew who Atsuma was. "Atsuma of the Shihoin clan." Atsuma grinned. "Uncle Poe, leader of the Red Poles." Uncle Poe was a man of great power that could've had Atsuma killed right there, but he knew that by doing so he was giving the shinobi a reason to send stronger men after him. "I am going away Atsuma. Far away from this God forsaken place. Everything that I have worked for was destroyed by you and I shall curse you until the day I die." Atsuma sprung up from the bed to shoot Uncle Poe, but the bone stopped mid air in front of his forehead. "You maggot. I could kill you right now, but I won't." Atsuma finally realized the amazing gap in their powers. "I will dissapear and you will become a hero." With that said the man vanished into thin air leaving behind a corpse that looked exactly like him. "It's...It's finally over..." Atsuma mumbled as the women on the bed strapped their arms around him to pull the boy down.
The young man looked into her eyes as she spoke of her ideology; that it didn't matter, that her mission was finished. He always questioned people who said things like that, because often times they were lying. If she didn't care, then why didn't she allow him to sacrifice the other two tribes? Curious answer. No matter what, she couldn't stop but admit that she cared to an extent. But this topic was over in his mind, so he let it fade away.
Then, she spoke of her mother. "The great" Jade Uchiha. She spoke of Caelum's father, Aedan Nagamo. He had heard these names, and knew these people to an extent, but not personally. As far as he was aware, Jade was a villain who wished to destroy Sora and Tsuki, wasn't she? A dead villain now, too, he'd heard. But you could hear a lot of things, a lot of things that were truth and a lot of things that were lies. He wasn't ready to make the distinction between the two in this case, so he simply saw Jade as a powerful and influential woman, and left it at that. She also, apparently, happened to be Keira's mother. "Well aren't you the little mary sue," he mocked. "Legendary mother. Destined for either greatness, or an eternity of living in her shadow. I'm almost giddy." He certainly sounded rude, but that was just Simon dialect at work. Frankly he didn't care about her parents, as they did not make the person. Simon's father was a great shinobi with a talent for the dust element; he was a Jounin, and he was loved and feared by many.
But he was a good man, and Simon is not. Jade was probably a passionate individual, whereas Keira is not. She seemed more casual about how she did things, little things, big things. Whatever. "I'm guessing your father's dead," he said. "Mine is as well. Declaring independence for me was incinerating that madman's skull. And that's the climax of my story. I killed him so that I could be free of him." Maybe one day, Keira could have a climactic battle with her mother and free herself of that shadow. Simon would hand out tickets and microwave popcorn for that kind of event.
Anyway, he decided he'd give Keira the full ending of his story. It was actually pretty interesting, though he wasn't a fan of telling people. It essentially implied that he believed he was some chosen child and that a God had taken a mortal form to shepherd him. Not so modest a tale. "Anyway, to finish off my story... I found Jashin on a train. Kind of an awkward experience, too. He was a man in a black suit, with pale skin and bright blue eyes. He had a fedora too, not so fashionable a God. Anyway, he looked at me in the eyes and smiled. Didn't even speak. I immediately realized that I was different than a few seconds ago. It was like he lit up some fire inside of my body, like he gave me an infinite source of energy to work off of, similar to the sun." He shrugged. It was hard to explain unless you were one of his ilk. Even then, it only ever really made sense to the individual. He doubted Luka had the same experience. Aldreza didn't. It was a strange form by which he picked his followers.
