Cloudhopper.

[Zoō]

---

It is a slang word - cloudhopper - an insult when used by those not native to the Land of Thunder, yet somehow a term of endearment when used among those who call this rolling continent of misshapen mountains home. I have never understood why. I get the reference, of course. It hints back to earlier days, when shinobi was a word that could be said out loud in public, and the military force of a dead city moved along giant platforms clinging to the esker tor, a promontory ridge-land of unknown peaks. What I do not understand is how the word was changed, how its syntax sits unwavering while its meaning is bullied by context, by where it settles in the mind of the speaker. To some it is a profanity, to others, a call to brotherhood, a symbol of kinship. It is a reminder of connection long lost to the tyranny of the Land of Iron. I ponder the nature of such connection as I wander, through the Flashing Thunder Path, up a mineral hummock aglow in the ugly puissant manifolds of stone.

I take a winding northern path up, alone, past older-men not so consumed in their own travels that they completely ignore a boy my age. I hear the word like a curse, What you doing out here by yourself, cloudhopper? or Yo lil' cloudhopper, you lost? I am dressed casually, mostly in blacks and grays, my nameless katana hidden in the folds of an oversized cloaking, they cannot tell that I am -- shinobi. The other curse, the true forbidden term. It can never be endearing, not here, not now.

"Not lost. Looking for something."

I say in passing, without looking at the two stragglers and their jeering, their casual disrespect, their intruding. Adults annoy me. I can hear them even as the distance between us spreads out and becomes knotted in the cliff stacks hemming this verge; they speak of my attitude, my manner, my youth, like they are diseases only time alive can cure. I place little stock in the virtues of mere survival. I have been surviving for as long as I can remember and it has not calmed me.

Keeping track of the time is difficult. The sun hides behind one mesa jutting or another every few minutes, darkness is a sporadic claw hung over the snow-flecked piles at the whim of random obscuring. I have heard that there are villages and housings nearby, but without a map, I am following only the idiotic prodding of my own conscious. I was not lying, I am looking for something, I just don't know what. When I am forced to be honest with myself, it is the stories that drive me, that girdle in the best efforts of my searching. Stories of the first men and women to use that fragile insensitivity, the name and the slur.

Stories of a village hidden in the Clouds.

---

[Messatsu!]

The Life-style of an assassin that utilizes his clan's assassination fist had been one filled with what could've easily been described as random acts of bloodshed, however, it'd merely been a way of life, a philosophy each user lived by. Masuyo Kekkai included.

Abruptly, the surrounding area darkened just as the young lad past through the duo of passerby's almost as if a dark cloud covered the sun. Knowing that there couldn't have been any conceivable way the sun would've been blocked so swiftly, the two men looked up with a quick hand that attempted to shield their eyes. Unfortunately for them, a mysterious man clad in a black, hooded robes landed between them in a low, silent crouch. In a flash, his right leg uplifted from the ground and snapped outwardly in a lateral fashion which drove the bottom-side of his straw sandal deep into one of the men's rib-cage.

Upon contact, it shattered vehemently, enough so that internally, shards of bone rocketed into the very organs that his ribs once guarded. Happening in the blink of an eye, that same foot returned to the ground in the next second, well before the former could even fall to the ground in excruciating pain. Not even a moment later had an elbow managed to raise and drill into the side of the remaining traveler's temple which caused a concussive pocket of air to explode after the deed had been done. Leg's reduced to cooked spaghetti, his body seemingly melted as it unconsciously fell to the ground face first.

"Assassination Complete."

Once spoken, Masuyo's stance settled as his right hand reached up and pulled away at the hood that kept his face hidden and revealed glowing, apathetic eyes that lacked even a sliver of humanity.

code by lee7h @ gs

[Zoō]

---

"Wow. You're sort of ugly."

A young boy's voice was reflected out, resounding off the cinched in rock plains. It was directed at the large murderer, would reach him as he removed his hood.

"But your eyes are weak. Shouldn't be so big and ugly, and be weak like that. Wasteful."

The darkening of the sky had warned him, made him turn back, creep towards the still jeering older fellows and their friendly bickering. At the appearance of the concealed stranger, he'd been forced to survey his surroundings thoroughly, quick, took notice of his sleekly retrieved note, the dense ore outcropping shaping the mountain pathway where blood and bone was now torn asunder. He moved. A blurring.

Fukanō had observed the peculiar violence from behind the cover of broad slag boulders, shifting silently between their ten meter span surrounding the newcomer's resting position without being seen, the largest his end destination, immediately south. He'd cupped his mouth as he half-whispered insults, letting the tone drift along its abruptly tagged bedrock edges so that the origin of the sound could not be accurately pinpointed by hearing alone. A set of seals performed with a single hand₁ had massed the reef before him into effigy while his enemy focused on his own targets, and though further patterns would force Fukanō ensconced in the loam he seemed to abandon the pretense of remaining hidden altogether.

It was like an afro and an attitude were standing suddenly before the rough killer just as the boy's final words would be heard. No speech followed, merely the shaking of Fukanō's head, as if in disappointment. A short boy, five meters away from the brute and his gazing, arms folded; and arms held tight, breath steady aided by internal energies in his loess nestling. They seemed to both be waiting.₂

His senses were quite attuned to the situation, the strangeness above and below, as well as surrounding them. Fukanō could tell that the only language this creature understood, was combat.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

1. Unknown Tech
2. Unknown Tech

[Messatsu!]

Finally noticing the boy, Masuyo turned and faced him properly and used the aforementioned eyes to gaze upon and observe the presented appearance of the young boy that stood before him. So close to the two target's, he could've easily assumed he'd been with the former duo, however, his contract only included those two men specifically. However, looking into the young lad's eyes, it seemed as though he wanted to fight. The two seemed to have been waiting, undoubtedly; however, Masuyo would have taken it upon himself to alleviate the awkward silence that existed between the two with a series of daunting steps that would've carried him forward towards the young lad's immediate front.

Senses alert, right arm resting at his side while the left unbuttoned the snap that kept his hooded robe held together, it flew behind him with the passing of harmless wind, revealing a chiseled body beneath a pair of armored arm & shin guards as well as his trademark gi. By the time he would've come within arms reach of the boy, there wouldn't have been anything that stopped him from fulfilling his true intentions.

code by lee7h @ gs

[Zoō]

---

As the unsightly stranger turned, bringing his attention to Fukanō's simulacrum, it continued its silent stare, looking bored, tapping its feet loudly in apparent impatience while the brute removed his hooded cloak. This tapping was signal and subterfuge; entombed beneath all present, the autogenous and actual Fukanō would swim through the very earth unhindered, sprouting up 10 meters behind his foes daunting but methodically slow saunter, nearly fifteen from his faux's immediate front at the time of his emergence, the parting of the stone as he rose making no sound save those quieter even than his replica's thumping feet, depositing him to the rear of a softened mound created in his upsurge, out of view. They had both been waiting, Fukanō and his bunshin, for just such a moment, both performing their own handseal sets with swiftness. Fukanō's ersatz creation, in plain view of their enemy, would make three obvious seals₁ with his right hand - arms still folded - a mere instant before the approaching man had reached arms length distance. It did not matter if it completed its sealing or not, but if it had, a copy of its own copied mass would pull from the rock ground less than a meter to its right, primed to deliver a simple bullrush. It would be made to attempt to intercept the ugly man physically, as its maker, false and obstinate, stood with a smirk of silly defiance. Simultaneously, Fukanō, consistently ensuring he remained hidden from the man's notice with careful observation and silence, would perform his own set carefully₂, judging his opponents reaction from the safety of the large rock covering. The effect of his sealing would be delayed only until the most opportune moment.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Previous-
1. Unknown Tech Rock Clone Technique
2. Unknown Tech Underground Fish Projection

Current-
1. Fukanō Bunshin -- Performs Rock Clone Technique (Attempt)
2. Fukanō -- Unknown Tech Prep

[Messatsu!]

Although the creation of the child's hand-seals may have registered as 'fast' amongst shinobi, it paled in comparison to Masuyo's greater, physical speed^(A). It'd been that difference that would've allowed him to have stepped forward with his right leg and pushed against the ground with his back, left leg to deliver what could've easily been described as nothing more than a simple 'jab' that extended and retracted in a single motion. Furthermore, it wouldn't have been the fact that the last seal had been fast enough to be created to birth the the third clone, no, it was more so that Masuyo allowed it to be formed.

Committed to the formation of the final seal only secured the immediacy of Masuyo's advancing jab which would've been aimed for the center mass of the clones body. Struck, it went without saying that the mount of earth disguised as the young boy's appearance would've been reduced to a pile of crumbling rocks. "A Clone?" The thought raced through his mind as his annoyance grew significantly.

Barely a moment later, chakra swelled and pulled from the earth next to the previously crumbled clone. The timing had been so tight and coincendental that Masuyo failed to determine whether or not the same clone he destroy attempted to reform or another was summoned in its place. Presuming everything played out correctly, his form re-adjusted and would have delivered a snapping leg kick against the mound of gather earth. After all, the formation of clones hadn't been instantaneous.

Relatively unaware of the remaining presence, his senses still remained sharpened, aware of his surroundings to the best of his abilities as he dealt with the immediate threats before him.

code by lee7h @ gs

[Zoō]

---

Once the stranger's pace quickened, exceedingly quick, towards the clone's location, Fukanō himself would take terse and patient steps out from behind the covering of rock. In timing with the launch of the man's first attack, Fukanō would have unknowingly reduced the distance between himself, and the gargantuan assassin down to a mere 10 meters without notice or sound. His seals had been uninterrupted.



Faster than he looks, to be so big.


The thought was a glimmering, a nod, and its own sealing of fate in Fukanō's mind, watching patiently as the large man would move to tear through the first of his clones with an advancing jab. The boy inhaled deep. Fortunately, this was precisely the opening he'd been waiting for, and with the seals already prepared, the birth of flame pouring forth in a ball of barely contained fury would proceed uninterrupted. At the exact moment that the jab connected, as the first clone absorbed the blow to become little more than rock mess, the true Fukanō would unleash his hell₁. For in that instant, at least from his opponents most probable view point, everything was playing out correctly, and during the motion of his foes readjustment to attack the second, hastily formed clone - when the probability of efficient reaction was at its lowest - the speedy fireball would already have covered the ten meter linear distance between itself and its target. With the final seal held, Fukanō would be able to control the path of the flames as they spun-rocketed forwards.

In clear view of his opponent, there was little to stop the engulfing sphere of heat from crashing into his opponents back full force, detonating upon impact. Fukanō was more than prepared for a counter, expected one, and even as the man's snapping-leg-kick would move towards the newly formed clone, the simulacrum had been made with its own instructions.

Since the enemy had allowed it to be formed before attempting to reduce it to just another mound of gathered earth, it would perhaps have time to perform a single handseal of its own₂, that is, if its destruction was held off by the approaching flame. Though the orignal Fukanō had performed every one of his movements in impeccable silence, the roar, the heat, the light of the approaching fireball would no doubt alert their opponent to its presence. The brute's time to react would be severely narrowed - he could attempt to turn or evade the fireball instead of carrying through with his attack on the second clone and possibly escape it...but if he did so, the clone's own technique would come to pass. If he carried through with his assault on the clone, he'd lose the only window of opportunity that could afford him an escape. As the man had no idea that Fukanō was actually a safe distance behind him, it seemed the first phase of his victory was practically guaranteed, but he did not leave such things to chance.

If the second clone would not be destroyed, the single seal it performed would allow it to do far more than merely withstand the beasts assaulting, and it would position itself to make a sudden explosive force of power possible, wild melee strikes of the hands and feet aimed specifically for its targets eyes. Fukanō had not stopped his careful observation of the scene, and from his vantage point, was in perfect position to deal with any follow-up; though his aim was not to kill the man, nor did he believe that the force of his fireball was enough to make this a murder scene.


He needed the strange man's help.


But first things first..

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Previous-
1. Fukanō Bunshin -- Performs Rock Clone Technique (Success)
2. Fukanō Bunshin -- Destroyed


Current-
1. Fukanō Bunshin 2 -- Earth Spear (If Intact)
4. Fukanō -- Greater Fireball Technique

[Messatsu!]

Fire. The Hues it cast. The sound of crackling power it always made. The Shadow that it casts when it converges onto it's targets. The feeling of heat. Masuyo knew that feeling all too well, enough so that without that knowledge & instinctual sense, he would've quite possibly been a victim of the attack itself. Nevertheless, once his jab landed squarely against the initial clone, the overly apparent threat of the young boy's fireball alerted the entirety of Masuyo's senses. Granted, he would have continued forth with intended leg kick, however, the development of the situation he'd been presented with hadn't blessed him with such simplicity and rightfully warranted a change in his plans.

Without warn, Masuyo's arms simply moved, instinctively. Enough so that he would've vehemently reached out and cupped the cloned materials that dressed the clone's torso well before it sprung into any following action(s) it might've been commanded to carry out. Thereafter, a quick-second pivot (in tandem with the grab) allowed him to spin 180 degrees upon the balls of his feet, causing the ensnared clone to spin along with him to the point where the two essentially swapped positions so that the full brunt of the fireball would've collided with a physical substance that mirrored the very earth from which the clone had been made.

As it should've, the fireball slammed into the back of the mangled clone, absorbing most of the damage and mitigated anything that Masuyo would've felt had his adrenalin te not been pumping furiously through his deepest vein. Despite that, the concussive force sent him reeling backwards, barely knowing what it was that hit him and the clone considering there hadn't been any time to look back and process the already incoming ball of fire.

Coming to a backwards, sliding halt -with his knee's bent- as the impact caused a spreading mixture of napalm and smoke, Masuyo's right hand grabbed a handful of his Gi above chest and pulled away at it's material to the point where it had been forcefully ripped from his upper body, leaving it bare and free from any potential burns that could've spread through clothing.

"Shinobi huh. No regular man could produce that much power which i'm guessing was fire given how hot and smokey the area has gotten in a short time."

code by lee7h @ gs