Samurai

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Samurai
 
You must travel to the Land of Iron and Assassinate the current Samurai General. The Samurai general threatens attacking the neighboring nations with a massive army of Samurai and are also attempting Territorial expansion, he must be dealt with quickly and effectively. Being two of my top Ranked Konoha Shinobi, I leave this job to you both, I trust you wont let me down.
 
Mission Rank: S-Rank
Shinobi Assigned: 
 
Shikayama Nara
 
 
Mission Log
-The sun shone through the windows of my bedroom. The birds were singing their morning songs, and the bustle of the city could be heard very faintly beyond my walls. My eyes opened slowly, closed again, and repeated the process until the morning fogginess had been dispelled, allowing me to see straight. It took another 30 or so seconds to gather the energy to rise from the bed and throw aside the sheets, after which I immediately went over to my kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out some raw fish, consisting of both salmon and tuna, and laid 2 small fillets of each kind on a strip of smoothed wood, which had a small indentation on one end. In that indentation, I added a pre-made mixture of wasabi and ginger. After that, I prepared a small bowl of Miso soup, which consisted of various vegetables, being chopped radishes, seaweed, and mushroom. To this I also added two slices of boiled egg and crab meat. The remaining bit of the egg used for the slices was put beside the raw fillets of fish, and I finally sat down and began eating. I started with the raw fish, a dish called Sashimi, lightly applying the wasabi/ginger mixture to the top of each fillet. After that, I dropped one of the fillets into the miso soup, and quickly finished the remaining 3 fillets. At this point, the Miso had begun cooling, as it wasn’t very hot to begin with, and I began picking up a cluster of the various vegetables, mixed in with a bit of crab meat. I continued eating in a similar manner until the miso was empty, after which I cleaned up and washed the dishes that had been used. Shortly afterwards, I heard the cry of a bird, using a specific set of noises. To this, I immediately stepped outside, and a small leathery case dropped down from the bird, into my hands. The bird immediately flew off, presumably to return to the Hokage Mansion. It was clear that this was a high priority mission, as instead of a summons, it was delivered directly to me. I immediately surveyed the immediate area, went inside, closed the door behind me, and looked around again, also listening for any potential eavesdroppers. After deeming it was safe, I opened the case and spread the scroll within, and began reading. “Nara Shikayama. As you’ve surely heard, the Samurai General has threatened war with the Shinobi World. This mission was previously assigned to others, but it was left alone. As time is now running short, this urgent mission is given to you, and must be carried out at once. You are to infiltrate the Land of Iron, find the Samurai General, and assassinate him. Good Luck. – Uzumaki Kyo”. After reading the message, I quickly burned it and began to get prepared for the mission and the 2 and a half days it would take to reach it at full speed, including the return journey. After taking a quick bath and getting clothed, I checked again to make sure that I had everything. I wore a thick black shirt with the symbol of Uzushiogakure on each shoulder, casual black ninja pants, standard black shinobi sandals, a forest green Jounin Flak Vest that also had the Uzushiogakure symbol embroidered on the back, a long overcoat that was a light beige-like color with red stripes at the bottom and a zipper from the bottom to about a foot below the collar, a pair of metal plated black gloves that covered all of my hands, but let my fingers past the first join stick out, 2 tool pouches, and my Konohagakure forehead protector. I also had a small hairband keeping my hair in a messy, spiked black ponytail, and a single golden earing beads in each ear lobe. My eyes were of a dark brown color, complimenting my hair and light skin. I first checked the tool pouches on the back of my waist, starting with the left one. Inside, there were 6 Kunai and 15 Makibishi. It was more efficient this way, as the makibishi would all rest on the bottom of the pouch, making it very easy to differentiate between the two items and not prick myself trying to grab them. In the right pouch, there was 15 Shuriken alone. There were also pockets on my Shinobi Flak Vest, 4 in total. In the top right pocket, there were 5 mini-chutes and 10 explosive tags. In the bottom right pocket, there were 3 spools of 30ft metal wires. The top left contained 4 flash bombs, 2 Poison Fog bombs, and 2 smoke bombs. The final pocket, the one in the bottom left, contained 3 Blood Replenishment pills, 10 food pills to eat during the course of the mission with some emergency backups, and 3 soldier pills, also used as emergency backups. There was a third, much smaller tool box on my right thigh, made of a harder material, which contained 20 poison darts, with each of them neatly nestled into little flaps, so that I did not prick myself on my own darts. There was also a vial on its own, which contained the antidote for the poison used for the poison fog bombs and the poisoned darts. Only half of the vial was needed to cure the poison, making it useful for more than one occasion. To utilize the darts, I had a small blowpipe fastened on my left thigh. It was made of a strong wood, and polished to prevent splinters and general friction within the pipe. After making sure that I did indeed have everything I needed, I exited my house, and began my walk to the village gates. On the way, I exchanged quick greetings with some shop owners that I saw, glared at a nasty bully from the Academy who used the Clone Jutsu to frighten a little girl unaffiliated with the shinobi world, and finally made it to the gates. I walked over to the booth where some guards were sitting and playing Shogi, and notified them that I was going to be leaving on a mission. One of them looked up, nodded, and waved me off, the usual laziness that was done by them. I held back a chuckle, and quickly ran along the dirt road for about a minute, then jumped up into the dense forests surrounding Konohagakure. By road, it would only take about a day and a half to the Land of Iron. However, I had to travel stealthily, meaning that I hand to run through the treetops and take detours at certain areas where the road came too close. Generally, I stayed about 300 yards away from the roads at all times, making sure that nobody could see me. I travelled in this manner for the entire day, just reaching the eastern border of the Land of Fire. I quickly jumped up into a tree and sat on the longest, thickest, and strongest branch I could find, and slept using the trunk of the tree to prop myself up. To be sure I did not fall, I retrieved the metal wire from my bottom right Flak Pocket and fastened myself to the tree, and finally fell asleep after eating one of the 10 food pills. I awoke roughly 6 hours later, removed the wire, rolled it back up, and put it back into the proper pouch, and after doing some light stretches, resumed my traversing of the forest on my way to the Land of Iron. At about 2 hours past noon, I crossed over into Amegakure territory, where I flipped up the hood on my cloak and kept moving normally, until finally coming across the end of forest and large lack of trees, having to instead travel underground through use of the “Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole Technique”. Of course, I made sure to transform the sand created from the breakdown of rock back into rock and dirt as I moved forward, keeping only about 2ft radius from my body as sand, while being 20ft or so below ground. This manner of travel lasted for only about 4 more hours, where I finally began to approach the borers of the Land of Iron. There were many Samurai stationed along the border, and it was clear that they were nearly ready to launch an attack on a neighboring land. Taking a detour, I travelled along the Land of Wind’s border until night fell, reaching around the middle of the Land of Iron’s southern border. I slept underground, after removing the sand from the hole and into the natural deserts above ground. Doing this gave me ample room to sleep underground, and after softening the earth below me, I once again fell asleep after eating a food pill. I woke up slightly later than intended, with was fairly abnormal. This only occurred because of a small lack of oxygen below ground, which was only supplied through a small hole to the surface, which was kept open for the duration of the underground travel. Like the sand behind me as I travelled, the sand behind the hole was also returned to normal. Of course, this would take a large amount of chakra to travel with, which was replenished with the taking of a food pill the night before. Since I had to now conserve chakra to take out the Samurai General, I moved back above ground and slowly made my way through a small opening in the guards bordering the Land of Iron. The speed was slow, but at just before 6 past noon, I reached the site of the old 5 Kage Summit, where the current Samurai General took up residence as a headquarters for his army. It was heavily guarded as expected, and I could find no openings to exploit. They seemed fully prepared for a ninja to come and attack, so they had someone with a degree of intelligence, at the very least. Because of that, the simplest way of entering was from the front door. Of course, that would be quite a bit of work, and the General may escape. I would have to infiltrate in a way they didn’t expect, kill the General, and most likely fight my way back out. There was only one jutsu I could use, the Hiding in Shadow Technique. Currently, the sun was making its way to the western horizon. Because of that, the best point of entry was the east, where I could access the tail ends of the shadows. This took about 30 minutes, but I finally reached the eastern side of the Samurai Headquarters.  In this position, the gigantic structure played against the Samurai, as most of the land opposite to the sun would be covered in shadow. With this, I simply got as far forward as I could, and performed the Shadow Transportation Technique. I casually formed the Rat seal, and my entire body dropped down into the shadow underfoot. With this technique, I could basically transform my body and “melt” into shadows, and travel between interconnected shadows at extreme speeds. With this, I slipped past the guards in the area, and once behind them, I formed the Rat hand sign and used the Shadow Strangle Technique, strangling the nearby guards. Before anyone arrived and found them, I used the Hiding in Shadow Technique once again and travelled up to a window, which I reformed my body to enter. Once inside the headquarters, re-activated the jutsu, skating along the edges of the hallway where there was less light. In this manner, I searched all over the building, and finally came across a curved hallway and a room beyond, in the same shape. I slipped through a crack in the door, only to find that there was a meeting taking place in this room, presumably where the old Kage Summits would take place.  There were colored banners above each seat, with most of the banner being burnt off, being Blue, Green, Red, Brown, and a Dark Yellowish color, from left to right respectively. There was also a lone desk where the Samurai General sat. The old Kage desks were in the shape of a horseshoe, with the General’s seat in the center of the opening and a couple feet back. The General spoke to his Commanders, setting the official date for the invasion. The target was apparently already decided upon, as it was not mentioned. However, the date was set to be in just a week from today. I feel like I was about to break out in a cold sweat from how close we were to having to fight a real war. I secretly cursed at the unknown party that did not do their assigned mission, then quickly moved on and started formulating a battle plan. There were many possible actions I could take, with killing them all in the confines of this room simultaneously being the most efficient. However, it was also the most difficult to prepare and had many unknown factors. However, I had no shadows connecting me to anybody in the room. Because of that, I would have to rematerialize sooner than If I could get right up on them to attack. No matter how I sliced it, this would leave an opening. As I was trying to come up with the most effective method, a Samurai burst into the room, making everyone present stand and put their hands onto the weapons on their hip, the common wakizashi that was used by Samurai. The man who just entered raised his hands to show he had no hostility, but immediately began speaking. -“There are a few-“-However, he was never going to finish that sentence. The moment he came it, the light from the hallway passed into the doorway, and created a long shadow from his body, which was currently blocking it. The shadow just barely made connection with that of horseshoe desk, which was also connected to the 5 commanders. I immediately rose from the shadows, sparking surprise from all those present. Before any of the 6 persons with connected shadows could do anything though, I activated the Shadow Imitation Technique with a quick forming of the Rat seal, almost instantly taking control of their shadows and their bodies. The Commander saw that his subordinates could no longer move, and decided to attack by himself, drawing his wakizashi halfway from its sheathe, before freezing in his tracks. It was not because of my jutsu, but because he saw that as I moved and grabbed at the air by my hip, all of the Samurai did the same, but instead, they grabbed the hilts of their weapons and drew them as I brought my hand away from my body and to the opposite side, drawing their weapons. As this began to happen, the Samurai began to scream wildly, fearful at the possession of their own bodies. The General did not immediately understand the reason for this, and so he stopped his charge and attempted to work out a solution. But instead of attacking as he expected them to, I switched around their grips on the wakizashi, pressed them against their stomachs through a gap in the armor, and caused them all to commit Seppuku. The resulting final screams of the Samurai were sure to attract attention, as well. The movement was slightly awkward since wakizashi are longer than the traditionally used tanto for Seppuku, but the same result was achieved. All 6 of those controlled through my shadow imitation split open their stomachs, exposing waves of blood and guts, consisting of most of the internal organs. The liver, stomach, and kidneys were all severed by the cutting of the wakizashi, so the contents of those all spilled out as well, creating a mess of dark red blood, the pink of fresh meat, and the bubbling greenish brown acids and other various liquids contained in the organs. The intestines also spilled out, creating long trails of the small and large intestines with the trail being rooted just barely in the lower body. Just moments after the various entrails had hit the ground, the Samurai themselves dropped to their knees and to the ground like ragdolls, as I’d release my jutsu the moment after slicing their stomachs open. The Samurai General stood there horrified for a moment, then the horror quickly turned into anger, and he ran towards me in a mad charge, almost like a bull. When I formed the seal I used before, the Rat, he instantly came to his senses and jumped back, having just narrowly dodged a spike of materialized shadows. It tore through the metal plating on his armor, sending the shoulder piece falling to the ground with a clang. A small jet of blood followed, suggesting that his body too had been pierced, no matter how small. While in this room, my shadow could reach him anywhere. However, if he managed to get into the hallway as I suspected he would be able to, he could probably outrun the shadow. With that thought in mind, I began a small series of hand signs. It seems that the Samurai General expected another shadow attack, but that was not the case. I was instead using the Earth Style: Earth Wall. Followed by the four seals of Tiger, Hare, Boar, and Dog, I slammed my hands on the ground, and after a short moment, a very small wall of earth was raised behind the General. As he looked behind upon hearing the noise of earth moving, I stopped the jutsu, and instead ran directly at him. This was because the “Earth Wall” that I created was only about 2 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Upon looking back, the General had exposed his front while being unable to immediately notice the short mass of earth at his feet, giving me a very big opening. He was unable to dodge this attack, but could still block it. However, with the 2ft wall of earth behind his feet, I could just push on him a little bit, disrupting his footing and causing him to fall backwards.  This came true, as during my quick charge, I removed one of the 6 kunai from my left pouch, and swiped at the wakizashi that he drew and raised just in time. Due to the awkward hold of the hastily drawn blade though, it was a simple matter to push with the kunai and send him falling to the ground as the Earth Wall blocked him from properly retreating. As he fell though, he got off a quick swipe of the wakizashi, aiming at my legs; the only place he could currently reach in his position. I quickly jumped over it, after which his head collided with the ground. I dropped down over his torso and knelt down on his arms, keeping him from getting an attack off again. With the kunai still in hand, I quickly aimed a swipe at his throat, but I heard the loud banging of metal and footsteps. I immediately rolled forward, dodging the horizontal slash of one of the Samurai that had come after hearing the screams of the Samurai commanders from before. There were only 3 of them, but it was safe to assume that they had sent at least 1 other Samurai to gather more reinforcements. With much larger numbers most likely on their way, I had to finish this quick. The Samurai helped the General back on his feet since he was still slightly disorientated from the rattling of his head as it hit the ground. I used this chance to initiate another Shadow Imitation, but the General screamed and jump back. “Get back!” The other Samurai jumped back as well, though then one who helped the General was now behind him, so he fell to the ground as he didn’t move quickly enough. The General nearly fell as well, but his loss of footing caused him to fall back a few steps while the fallen Samurai was taken by my Imitation as he hurried to stand up. I quickly drew the Samurai’s wakizashi, and charged forward, using him to attack. I was roughly 20ft behind the Samurai, not in any danger from the Samurai. If they tried to use a chakra crescent attack, I would have already expected it, and use the Samurai controlled by my Imitation as a shield. I quickly waved the Samurai’s wakizashi from right to left, cutting deep into the throat of the frontmost Samurai, who was still surprised to see his friend charging at him. While did this though, the General made a quick explanation of my jutsu to the remaining Samurai, making them quickly put up their guard.- “His shadow can take over your body, be careful!” –The Samurai who was killed first was cut deep into the neck, leaving the head just barely attached. Blood are various other bodily fluids shot from the body like a fountain, spraying blood all over the Samurai under my control and the surroundings, as well as a small amount on the Samurai behind him. As they were wearing helmets that had some kind of face mask, the blood was no real hindrance to them, but it did drop their morale slightly. After the body of the first Samurai fell to the ground, I continued running to the others, where the three of them charged forth at an opening that I intentionally created, which was caused by raising the sword high into the air for a large attack. The Samurai was impaled by three blades, causing him to cough up blood, though it was stuck in the mask of his helmet. Before the others could escape though, I extended my shadow to them, and once again forced them to commit Seppuku, sending the familiar array of innards all over the ground and the fallen Samurai. The General could easily tell he was at a disadvantage in this small room, and ran to the entrance that I had come though originally, and into the hallway. I quickly followed after him, and chased him through the hallway. However, as he was running through the hall, a window was coming up. And through this window, the red sunlight of sunset was shining into the hallway. This light extended his shadow for a short interval, which I took advantage of without hesitation. I formed the Rat sign a final time, shooting my shadow forth at the General. Just in time, the shadow connected with his, and I skidded to a stop before we passed the window, which would disconnect the shadows. As the General began screaming for help, I quickly formed the rat sign again, using Shadow Stitching Technique. Using this, I could give shadows more physical energy, thus giving them form. The tendrils created from this technique would rise up in a circle around the General, causing a very non-samurai like screech to come from the Generals mouth. Slowly, the tendrils began spinning around the Samurai, and would also pick up speed very quickly. And as the speed increased, the tendrils straightened and became a mass of spinning spikes, which slowly angled downward, until the spun only centimeters from piercing his neck. This was a custom Technique of my own creation, the Shadow Vortex Dome Technique. I actually used this as a more spherical dome usually, and for my own defense. However, it was also effective as an attack, and would sever the head very neatly, as they moved faster and could be made thinner than a blade, but also physically strong. The spikes quickly extended as a few Samurai rounded a corner up ahead, causing the head of the Samurai General to pop off all at once, and be shot into the air by a massive surge of blood, bone, and spinal fluid. The head rolled to feet in the silent hallway, with only the thud of the body and the blood still shooting from the fallen corpse. The blood continued to spurt from both the body and the disembodied head, and after about 30 seconds, the hallway in the immediate area was practically flooded with blood. There were bits of white chunks of bone from the spine, and also some oddly colored spots of blood, which had mixed with the scattered spinal fluid. I crouched and removed the helmet from the Samurai General, then dropped it into the blood-flooded hallway, making a wet splash and a dulled clunk on the ground. I held the Generals head by its hair, and the Samurai Reinforcements all began to retreat from the hallway at the brutal sight. I sighed slightly, as I really did not want to be forced to kill of the Samurai here. Not only was it not part of the mission, but it could forever ruin the relationship between Shinobi and Samurai if they had been annihilated. I formed the Snake hand sign, not bothering to drop the head, and thus mixing the hair into the hand seal, and then touched my free hand to the wall beside the window, causing it to immediately crumble and shoot forth, spreading various chunks of rock all over the place. Some blood from the hallway also began dripping down from the gaping hole I created, but it really wasn’t that much, and probably wouldn’t continue for long. I quickly wrapped up the head in some black cloth that I cut off from the Generals clothes, and I jumped down from the hole. After checking my surroundings, I began to run straight for Konoha at top speed, and after a few minutes to make sure I wasn’t being followed, I ate a food pill and a soldier pill, replenishing my chakra and giving me the nutrients I would normally get from food, and enhancing my physical strength, speed, and stamina so that I could head to Konoha without any sleep or stops. I stayed away from any towns or villages on my way back, but nit not bother to travel underground like I had on the way there. Stealth was no longer necessary, obviously. I’d only needed it before to make sure they did not know I was coming. And so, after about 18 hours of constant movement through the stormy region surrounding Amegakure and the familiar trees of the Land of Fire, I arrived at the gates of Konohagakure. I nodded to the entry booth on my way in, where they jotted down my time of return, and then I immediately took to the rooftops. I couldn’t go walking through public streets with a smelly head, after all. I arrived at the Hokage Mansion not long after, but the Hokage seemed to be out at the moment. She often walked around the village or did her duties as a member of the ANBU, so it wasn’t unusual for this to happen. As she was absent, I simply hung the covered head from the ceiling of the Hokage office using some metal wire, and left a note attached to it, which simply said “The head of the Samurai General. –Shikayama Nara”. After seeing that it was handing fine and no blood was left wet to drip anywhere, I left the office and returned to my home, where I prepared some real, good food, and laid down for a well-deserved rest, after shutting the window curtains to block out the afternoon sun, of course.-