Get it Back [Mission/Solo]

The warm, summer air of Sunagakure no Sato sounded like it was almost alive; humming with the rattles of countless cicada singing what was presumably, to the ears of their own species a sweet symphony of seduction, or something similar. To human ears, most would consider this din to be not a song at all, but rather a nuisance. Loudly did they declare their passions in the night sky, telling stories of the stars that hung above, but for the ear that did not understand, these sonnets were a clattering din of displeasure; a droning sound of notes not suited to bring any kind of soothing, and instead an interruption to sleep and thought. However, there was at least one such human, who contrary to the masses, found this sound to be pleasing. Not in the same way as the humble cicada might; no, his source of satisfaction was brought through somewhat more sinister means, for to this person, they were a welcome means to help him achieve his ends.

Perched on the rest of a tree blessed with an ample degree of foliage, the figure who appreciated this noise waited patiently, peering at a fully open doctors office. Was this a shinobi, waiting to rectify a failed assassination? Was he paid to kill someone? A professional killer would not wear a sleeveless shirt, a white scarf and baggy pants and they would have the comportment, the pride of their job, to make a better attempt of hiding their face than wrapping a handkerchief over the top of their head, and around their nose. It was a pretty poor attempt at concealing one’s identity, and short of hiding hair colour and dragging the nose upward to look like that of a pig, most of the features of this face were visible. It was these visible facial features that perhaps put to rest any worry that this form was an assassin, for hiding in a loop of knotted cloth, shone eyes as bright as the stars above them. These were not the eyes of a killer, not the eyes of someone who had felt a piece of their soul break away as they stole the life of another, they were deep, and though dark, seemed alight at the same time; burning with dreams and ambitions. This person was no assassin; he was a ninja, a one with immense potential, one that went by the name of Ryuza Koizumi.

Noisy little buggers make for a nice cover... With a small grin, Ryuza glanced around himself and then looked up to the moon, happy at the sound that swam through the air. Not the sharpest of minds, but at the same time not entirely without something of an edge, this boy knew that the din of the cicada would make his intent much easier. With the bugs making that jangling song, the people who sought to avoid it would have to dull their senses in order to sleep; plugging their ears to keep the sound of the vocal little beasts outs. The average sized Chunin had set up targets on top of the doctor’s office in an attempt to improve his aim with items like shuriken. Ever since the child's parents had died he would always do things like this. This wicked wisdom he had obtained through experience, rather than intelligence; the delinquent child had known long ago that the blanket of darkness that followed the departure of the sun was a convenient weapon against sight, but what about sound? When things go dark, the sense of sound is the substitute used to inform one of goings on, so even if one could make their image transparent, they would never truly be able to be invisible if they could cover up every trace of their being. The boy in the branch had no time nor experience on how to render himself a true ‘ghost’, but with night hiding the sight of him, and horny bugs hiding the sound, it was good enough for him.

The targets that he had setup on the rooftop of the doctor’s office were mere popcans that he had picked up in broad daylight off the streets of Sunagakure no Sato. Altering his posture to a 'ready' posture, he knelt on his left knee and held a shuriken in his right. He positioned his facecloth to cover his entire mouth and then he was fully ready.

Ready..

Set..

Go!

Ryuza threw a kunai that hit one of the five pop cans. He then leaped to another tree, doing a backflip in the air and while in the middle of the backflip, he focused both his kinetic and potential energy to his right hand to successfully throw the kunai and make it hit its target. As he jumped from tree to tree, hitting each and every object in sight, thoughts of his dad came to his head. His dad was not the most skilled shinobi but he was very skilled at hand to hand combat. His dad used to leap tree to tree with ease and hit the items, hitting each of the targets in the dead center. Ryuza used to clap, he was a more cheerful kid back then, but after his dad's death he seemed to be torn from reality. All of his emotions had faded away and what is left of him is a mere image of the past. He imagined talking to his father in his head as he continuously set up the targets and shot them down, repeating the process for a good thirty minutes. After he had finished, he sat down and took deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. What he had just finished was quite a workout and now Ryuza was tired. Even though it was midnight and not a single person was on the streets, Ryuza decided to go get some grub. The Hooded Salamander started to debate with himself whether he would go to the nearest Ramen location or go to his friend's restaurant. It was a tough choice but in the end he decided to go to the nearest Ramen location, Asaki's Ramen.

Within ten minutes of travel he was there and looked at the menu, Asaki's Ramen was in the higher classed place of Sunagakure, it was surrounded by the Medicinal Greenhouse and the Kage's Office. Most of the rich people resided here, Ryuza was nowhere near rich but he had enough money for a small meal. As he chose his small and simple meal, for some reason, he had an odd taste for spicy shrimp flavored ramen with sweet dumplings, something he'd never ate before, but then again, he wasn't truly himself at the moment. After devouring the bowl of ramen and dumplings, he wiped the froth and the crumbs off of his chin and paid the expense that came with the meal. Normally, he would go back to his residence and go night-night at this time of day but today was different. There was an odd aura in the air that made Ryuza shiver and he didn’t really feel tired at all. Shortly after he felt the strange aura he remembered that he had a mission to complete that was assigned to him around two days ago. Ryuza had not ventured out of Sunagakure yet to attempt the mission but he decided that this was the best time to attempt it. The Sand Hawks were probably sleeping at this time of night. Quickly ordering a glass of water, he drank it, paid and then ran for the gates of Sunagakure.

After exiting the gates he was stuck in the cold desert of Sunagakure and began to shiver. At this time of night it was always cold and was below zero celcius. Every single day it seemed like it was going to snow in the desert but it never happened. Ryuza had never seen snow in his lifetime due to the scorching hot climate of Sunagakure but he wished to see it one day. As he pondered aimlessly through the desert, he saw many things he did not want to encounter at the very moment. Giant scorpions, lizards and the like, since he was so tired he just wanted to complete the mission and head back home. He knew he had made the wrong choice by trying to complete the assigned mission at this time of night. A few more minutes had passed and Ryuza was out in the middle of nowhere. He took out the old map he had been handed to by the Kazekage and studied it. It seemed to him like he was going the right way but Ryuza was not very good when it came to sense of direction. The wind started to pickup and it seemed a sandstorm was approaching which made it very hard to see, especially at night-time. The Salamander tied his white scarf around his face which made him seem like a terrorist of some sort since his eye’s were only visible. As he headed in the direction of his destination he heard a movement of the sand and it really didn’t sound like how the sand would move if the wind moved it. Someone or something was around him. He looked all around him, nothing was there and so he continued walking carelessly, it must have just been that odd aura that surrounded him within Sunagakure. Five minutes and silence, Ryuza confirmed that nothing was there but when he least expected anything bad to happen a giant sand spider jumped out of the sand and tackled him.

Its fangs were gigantic; the two front teeth were at least twenty centimetres each. It opened its mouth and fear was instantly instilled in Ryuza’s heart. Acting on instinct, he struggled to get up but eventually was able to, the spider had monster reflexes and right after he was thrown off of Ryuza started charging head on for him. Ryuza did a kickflip and stood up. He quickly utilized the skills of the Shuriken he had been trying to master lately and threw one straight at the spider, it clipped the spider’s skin but that didn’t bother the spider much, he was still going strong. Thinking fast, he performed a quick handseal and utilized the Shunshin no Jutsu which every successful shinobi had to possess at one point in their life. The technique was quite simple and it was a high-speed movement technique, allowing a ninja to move short to long distances at an almost untraceable speed. To an observer, it appears as if Ryuza has teleported. The fast movement was accompanied by a cloud of poof. It may seem like teleportation but it really isn’t. Due to the fact Ryuza was moving a mere five meters to the west, it didn’t use much chakra up. Due to the fact the spider having hardly any IQ at all and not knowing how chakra and techniques worked. He seemed to be confused by the technique and was wondering how Ryuza got from one point at such fast speeds. Taking advantage of the moment, he drew another shuriken from his pocket and threw it at the spider. This time it hit the spider straight in one of its legs, the spider let out a disgusting spider roar and displayed more of his fangs to Ryuza. It didn’t really intimidate Ryuza one bit since he was used to dumb displays and showboating. Now, death was inevitable always but Ryuza wasn’t going to die to a stupid spider. He would fall down on a real battlefield when his country needed him. The spider ran towards Ryuza with a weird bounce on the one leg that was now crippled which slowed him down significantly. Since the spider was charging him head on he was just going to finish the fight now.

After placing his tanned hand on the ground, Ryuza ran straight on towards the spider and before the spider knew it his foot was met with the face of the spider producing a 'splurt' sound. Ryuza was going to hurl but kept it in and cleared his mind, he then avoided the corpse and marched onto his destination.

It was almost an hour after when the nest of the birds was in sight; Ryuza tucked the map into his back pocket and carefully planned out his next moves. From what he was told there was around five birds and they were all fully grown. Now, sand hawks were not your average hawk, even though hawks were pretty big these hawks were almost double the size of a regular one you’d see everyday inside of Sunagakure. Two of them soared through the skies and guarded the nest very carefully while the other three stood perched inside the nest. Ryuza decided he was going to take the stealth way, he was going to sneak up the dried up tree and snatch the scroll which really wasn’t a smart idea but it was an ingenious idea to Ryuza. He walked around the side of the location, carefully picking his every step and movement. He did not want to be spotted at all. When he had reached the base of the tree he was almost certain that victory was within his reach but when he started to climb the tree, he performed a mistake on one of his steps and fell down, breaking a branch with the power of his fall and instantly all the hawks turned their gazes to him and two of them charged straight for him.

Now, Ryuza was no coward but he had never seen sand hawks in person and they were huge. Ryuza started running around spitting various curses from his mouth while he ran. The hawks started to catch up to Ryuza due to the fact their speed in the air was very much faster than Ryuza’s speed on the sandy plains of the desert and within seconds they had caught up the hooded teenager. Ryuza he no other option but to face his fears and overcome then but right when he turned around to face the hawks he was knocked down by the body of the flying hawk. “Bitch ass hawk!” He yelled at the hawk, but he hawk didn’t care, for all he knew Ryuza could have been asking to befriend him. The other hawk barely missed Ryuza on the ground but Ryuza was able to dodge its beak. Getting back up his feet, the two hawks had already launched their second attack and it seems like they were attempting the same thing but this time Ryuza was ready. This time was different though, the two hawks were coming in quickly and intertwining with one another, it was quite a sight. But Ryuza had no time to admire and just had time to react accordingly to the situation placed in front of him. He quickly took yet another shuriken from his pocket and threw it at the spot where the two hawks intertwined with one another. Thankfully, it clipped the wing of one of them and he went crashing down into the sand, he would probably die from one of those giant sand spiders finishing him off. The other hawk however was accelerating at top speeds and before Ryuza knew it he was bumped back down with a pain surging throughout his face and a slightly bloody nose.

Holding his nose in-tact, he would try a different approach this time. When the hawk came back for him he simply stuck his foot out in the direction of his face and the hawk ran right into it which made a disturbing ‘splat’ sound followed by a ‘clank’ sound which probably meant some muscles in the hawk tore complemented with some broken bones. Now it was time to tackle the other three hawks, they seemed to be watching from the nest but it seemed like one of the hawks had disappeared, Ryuza, being quite stupid thought he had run away in fear but in fact he was flanking Ryuza at the very moment. Before Ryuza knew it was hit in the back of the head by the bird. He heard a crack which wasn’t his skull but probably the hawk’s beak if anything. He had sacrificed his beak in an attempt to save his family which was quite admiring but too cliché for Ryuza’s liking. To tell the truth, the hooded salamander was bopped pretty bad by the bird and he stayed dazed and dizzy for a few moments but after around twenty seconds he was alright. After that he headed for the other two birds, he had an idea running around throughout his mind but it involved luring the birds to him. He quickly picked up a large, tough stone and threw it in the direction of the nest. It missed pretty bad but it was enough to scare the hawk’s away from their nest and make them chase Ryuza. Performing some quick hand movements, he closed his eye's and focused on the opposition. He then drew two kunai's from each pocket and when he sensed the were within firing range he opened his eye's and threw the kunai. He hoped they would hit his targets and they did. His face instantly lit up in joy and he let out a battle cry symbolizing victory, one of a young salamander, one of a dragon being born.

After his short stint of happiness he headed for the tree and climbed up, he spotted the nest and snatched the scroll from it. He jumped back down and laid in the sand for a while. Panting from all the stress and exhaustion caused by the technique, he decided he was going to take a short nap before heading back to Sunagakure and eventually finishing the mission.

What a fucking day.