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Asa was unsure where to begin, other then moving himself towards the poor districts. There were many alleyways there, and one dead body would unfortunately go unnoticed. He would need to just hoof it it seemed though. He leapt to the roof tops, forsaking his duty to this area now that it had such commotion and would launch off towards the poor district. It wouldn’t take him long to reach the outskirts of the area, and he knew immediately when he did. The sounds of sorrow permeated the air.

It smelled like moisture and sweat. Dirt seemed to cover everything, including the sullen faces of the residents. What a sad sight. He hated this district. When he was elsewhere he could have it out of sight and mind, but here it forced its way to the forefront.

Asa landed in the streets and began his search. There was very little guard presence here, most keeping safe refuge in their quarters. The people on the streets shied away from Asa as he walked, most people to tired to stand. He left foot prints in the muddy walkway as he made his way to the alley nearby. The light was beginning to fade outside as he walked through the space between buildings. There were electrical lights here at one time, but it seemed the power was out in this district. It made it difficult to see.

Strolling down the walkway, Asa had to put effort into removing his feet from the mud. It was getting difficult to keep his balance. Every so often he would find that his shoe almost came loose. Hopefully nothing had pushed the body he was searching for deeper into the mud. Otherwise he doubted he’d be able to find it.

Releasing his grasp on the pole, Asa began securing the merchant. He found some rope in the stand and tied him up, only just realizing the commotion he’d caused. A large crowd of onlookers were staring at the scene. He smiled at them and continued with his work of tying the merchant in knots. He heard the whistles of guards heading towards the area, and Asa knew they would have questions he was more then capable of answering. He outranked any guard and though he didn’t have any proof of wrong doing, this shopkeeper was suspicious, and he had struck out with the first blow. Surely someone in the crowd would be willing to vouch for that.

The man was beginning to stir when the guards arrived, but Asa’s identification was in order, and the man wasn’t really in a state to defend himself. Under his order, the guards cleared the area and helped him carry the shopkeeper to their barracks where he could interrogate him. Before they could move the man though, he began bursting out with information. It was so much so fast that Asa had difficulty understanding it all. A quick slap with a heavy hand silenced the man for the time it took for Asa to give him a specific question. “Where did you get the mask?”

The merchant looked like he was going to wet himself, but Asa kept a focused gaze on him, prepared with another heavy strike to jog the mans memory. It was almost as if the man was more afraid of what would happen if he told what he knew. Eventually he would though.

Asa, still disguised as a fat, rich man, walked up to the counter to speak with the clerk. His ninja pouch jingled with what the peddler had to assume was loose coin, but in reality it was deadly sharp blades. The peddler, a balding man whose thin frame made him look a bit like a snake, greeted Asa. Asa’s had trouble trusting any shop keeper or manager that was skinny. In his experience the skinny ones would cheat you. Fat owners were usually to well fed and rich as it was to really consider the need for greed.

“Why hello good sir. How may I assist you this day?”

The man’s tone was a smooth, but carried a sickening feeling with it. It felt similar to grease. It would flow like liquid, but it seeped in to whatever it touched, making it feel corrupted. Asa gave a smile through the plump lips he now sported, and schooled his voice to a more boisterous and presentable one. A tone that would further his charade.

“My good merchant. I’d like to see that mask there. It’s just so intriguing.”

Asa clasped his hands together over the large, fake belly he had created in this form. The shop keep smiled at the potential sale he was apparently facing. Picking a hook from the ground, the shop keeper lifted it up to the mask and unhooked it from the wall peg, bringing it down for Asa to inspect. Asa’s hands ran over the mask. He tried to make it seem like he was merely inspecting it for size and quality, but he was unsure whether or not the shop keeper was becoming curious of his probing.

Asa strolled through the crowded streets of Kumogakura, with a light heart. He had been assigned a fairly simple mission. Go through each of the districts and basically be a presence on the streets. It was a good detail for the most part. Sure some areas were more trouble then others, but getting the village patrol detail was actually a pretty coveted thing. It didn’t require as much effort as most of the individualized patrols, where you specialized in one particular district. You merely skimmed through each as a sort of warning. A way to say “We’re here” to all the would be scum.

Asa had the inclination to begin his day in the more upscale areas. He knew they were the area’s with the most guard presence, so it be more prudent to be there during the day when the criminals were less likely to strike, and save the poorer, more dangerous districts for when night fell since they were more susceptible to crime.

As he strolled through an open gateway, Asa found himself in the market district of Kumo. Shops dotted the landscape and people in all sorts of finery walked about with their money freely being displayed. This district was all about money. Besides the treasury itself, this was probably the one place in Kumo with the most money and the most worth while environment for a thief. In his short entrance Asa had already seen four guard patrols, and two ninja patrols. It was quite well protected, and those numbers would sky rocket later in the evening.

That sounds reasonable. I'll edit it accordingly soon

Asa’s sharingan pierced into the genins energy as he flowed it into the ground. His two tomoes while effective at visualizing pure chakra weren’t trained highly enough yet to few individualized releases yet. It all seemed like one big blur of pure energy to Asa, but already judging by the flow he had found some problems with the genins technique. Asa assumed that the boy was generating the earth release. He had been told that the genin had an affinity for the earth release even though he didn’t have any knowledge of its use. Hopefully he knew at least that much.

“All right kid. Calm yourself. You’ll get it. You seem to have the basic idea of it, the problem is you don’t understand the earth release. Earth isn’t something that you can force to flow where you want. Think of it this way, what does a rock do when you force it out of your way, say by kicking it? It’ll move sure, but it doesn’t change what it was doing. It’ll still sit where it lands. You’ve merely given it a new bit of scenery to be surrounded by. It hasn’t changed for you though, it’s remained the same in spite of you. To get the release to flow properly out from you, you need to be more stubborn then it. Make the rock move, don’t let it make you move.”

Asa realized that he was beginning to sound a bit like a hippy, but it was the only way he could think of to describe it. Earth wasn’t something that was forced, it did the forcing. You merely need to set it on a path and let it go to work. You’re energy merely lets you harmonize with the rock and soil, and create a mutually beneficial outcome.

“Here, do what I do. When I have difficulty with an earth release technique, I picture what I want to happen, and I describe to myself why the earth moving in this matter will end up being beneficial for the ground itself. What are the consequences of my moving the ground? Then when I can think of something beneficial for the earth itself I kind of meditate on that. It’s my focus. You may be able to get the energy to flow a significant amount away from your body on pure power, but you’ll never have skill in the release if you can’t come to terms with these concepts.” Asa’s hands brushed through his hair. He was having difficulty explaining something so obscure. Few other releases required someone to understand psychology, but the earth release and its techniques were special in that way.

Asa watched with his crimson pupils as the genin began forming the seals for the clone technique. He picked up on one or two things that the genin could do to improve the technique, but he was able to produce the clone for the most part. The clone was slow, and clumsy looking compared to Asa’s more refined ones, but it would do. It was a good effort, especially for a first try. This kid had some affinity for fire jutsu apparently.

“Good going kiddo. It worked on the first try.” Asa sounded rather pleased.

Standing, Asa would move over next to the ninja, allowing his two clones to fizzle from existence. Then he would continue, erasing the pleased tone for a more serious one. “Ok, now it was good, but you need to adjust your handseals a bit before it’s perfect. When you get to the third seal in the series, you just performed the half rat seal, instead of a full one. It seemed like you were almost running through the seals lazily. They are important, especially there. The reason the clone formed around your body instead of where you wanted it, was because you didn’t put the full seal there. If it wasn’t for whatever affinity you have with fire you probably would have burned your skin pretty bad. Don’t get sloppy.”

It was a small mistake, but an important one that Asa wanted to stress. He continued on from there though with a little addition to the seals. “Secondly, I don’t think you picked up on it when I did it cause it was small, but for the clone that looks like something else, you need to finish with a dragon seal. It lets you craft the appearance. It’s tough at first, but gets real easy after a bit.”

Smiling, Asa moved away from the genin to allow him some space. He smiled his trademark toothy grin. The boy wasn’t as dense as Asa thought at first. Perhaps this wouldn’t be to big a hastle. He’d show him some jutsu, then explain the needed adjustments. A piece of cake.