One thing that was impossible to get used to as a ninja was how quickly shit could have hit the fan. After all, had Hisako not used whatever supernatural reaction time she had and deflected that projectile Mana would’ve seen a friend die before her very own eyes just like that. One moment everything was fine, the other moment one’s friend could’ve just kept on standing with a spear in their chest and then collapsed and faded away. That was the world that they all lived in, the world where anyone could’ve died at any time. The world that Mana intended to change during her lifetime.
“Stop daydreaming, dear, let’s move” the Quack snapped Mana out of her thoughts.
Barely visible figures were flashing above in the higher level, those must’ve been the assailants. Someone flung a knife at the young man, Mana managed to form her “Friendly Gust Jutsu” just in time to deflect the projectile, also the one hidden right below the other. The man who attacked them tossed a knife and then another one right below the first one, it was a deceitful attack. Such attacks were common for ninja, could these people have been rogue ninja?
A black figure swooped in, swinging on something reminding a rope or a whip, her high heels drove into Hisako’s cheek as the woman was quite busy reflecting the projectiles from her knife tossing friend. The raven haired woman peeled her face off the dirt almost instantly and shouted out in frustration. A smooching sound reached everyone’s ears from the other side, the woman who kicked Hisako sent them an air kiss and swung away from the battlefield using her swinging tool.
“Oh no you fucking won’t!” Hisako rushed forward head forward, Mana jumped forward to stop her but the woman was faster, also Kiyomi caught Mana’s hand and shook her head. She was right, splitting them apart and picking them off one by one must’ve been the idea… Out of nowhere Hisako returned to the area, rushing in from the other side.
“Fuck… That bitch is fast…” the woman was hyperventilating quite excessively. Mana looked at the small skyline, barely visible through the trees and she noticed three shadows. One belonging to a man with spiky hair, a slim one but also he had a strange hairy and large figure by his side, almost like it was a head of a wolf growing out from his shoulder. The other one belonged to the woman from before, she wore a full black bodysuit that disguised her in the darkness making her able to just swing around with that thing and deal damage either up close or from further away. The third one belonged to a very bulky and apparently quite hairy man. He must’ve been the knife slinger as his shadow was quite edgy and had bunch of spiky ends. The figures split again…
“One of us has the heir, I wonder which one…” the woman’s sultry and playful voice echoed through the camp. It was followed by an evil laugh overkilling her idea of a taunt. Hisako grunted and prepared to lunge after where the voice came from, Mana shook her head placing her hand on Hisako’s shoulder.
“Move your fucking hand or I’ll chop it off for you!” Hisako hissed out.
“No, if they are really carrying the kidnapped boy with them the most likely person to have him would be the one with the dog by his side, I doubt the others would risk carrying him around. Please go after that guy, Hisako-san, I’ll handle the swinging woman.” Mana replied.
Kiyomi didn’t like that idea. “You’re suggesting that we send our psychopath after the man with the kidnapped boy? She won’t reason with that man, she’ll murder him and won’t care about the boy!” she shouted out, all three girls realized that they didn’t have any time to stand around and argue.
“I know, that is an advantage, the man will have no leverage over Hisako because she simply won’t care, her mind will remain cold and calculated no matter the odds. Also she is our strongest member which means she has the highest odds of rescuing the boy.” Mana explained. What Kiyomi complained about was right, Mana knew that it made little sense to send Hisako, someone who was in it only to kill people to save the boy. Either way, Hisako was able to fight off both Mana and Kiyomi before, obviously that wasn’t a clean fight as no one knew of the others’ abilities but Hisako was fast, strong and ruthless. She stood the best chance of winning that fight.
The raven haired assassin nodded with a sadistic smile and disappeared. Just a mere moment later a whisper returned from her, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring the wussy back, what remains of him at least…” Mana didn’t like Hisako’s idea of a joke, not at all but this was the only call they could’ve made at that point. Kiyomi rushed forward on, she decided to chase down the knife slinger since Mana claimed the woman previously. Mana stopped her friend.
“I don’t like the idea of splitting…” her voice faltered.
Kiyomi smiled and gave Mana a thumb up, “Don’t worry, you’re amazingly strong, you can handle it.”
Mana shook her head energetically, “That’s not it, I want to watch over you two, I want to know you two are alright.”
Kiyomi just leaped up and forward, a message on the mental link reached Mana back, “Don’t worry, we’re both stronger than you are, you’d just get in our way. Now don’t die, my mental link will soon dissolve ‘cause we’ll be out of the fifty meter range, watch out for yourself!” the blonde let the magician know before the mental link snapped like a string with too much pressure on it from both sides.
Mana only laughed, she wasn’t the one with self-confidence trouble, more like the whining kind. She never took herself as being unworthy or anything of the sort, still, Kiyomi was most likely right. The magician just smiled and moved on, following the woman. These assailants were moving slowly, it didn’t take Mana much time to catch up to her, must’ve been the same with the others. Had they wanted to escape they’d have never alerted the trio, they wanted to split the group and kill them off one by one. Now they were playing the game of their enemy which was a very dangerous thing to do.
Back at the camp the young Quack just shrugged and sat down by the tree, he looked at the briefly visible skyline, the leaves on the higher tree line covered most of it. The young man smiled, “Yeah… I’ll just sit here and patch you three up. New crew, same shit…” the boy laughed to himself. While the girls treated him with much more respect, he was still doing the same thing he was doing with the mercenaries. That Hisako person even claimed him as “her Quack”. That woman seemed to always linger between the dark side of the line and doing the right thing, most of the time she did the right thing but with the darkest of methods.
*****
Further away, Hisako was catching up to the man with the strange dog head close by. Now that she had gotten closer it was apparent that he was having a white wolf by his side, the animal seemed to be moving at the same speed as the man was, he must’ve been a ninja-hound. This must’ve meant that the man either was a ripoff who used ninja-hounds or that he belonged to the Inuzuka clan, the famed users of ninja-hounds. Hisako was slowly getting excited, Inuzuka were amazing taijutsu specialists with unusual sync techniques utilizing their hounds. Maybe she should think about not using her swords to make it more interesting?
Inuzuka were amazing, they lived with their dogs, grew up with them. An Inuzuka member was given their dog as a partner from the early days, right before graduating from the Academy. Due to their mastery of chakra manipulation those dogs were pureblooded badasses who mastered their bodies, they possessed all the natural strengths of a dog enhanced, also there was none of the “dog years” shit. Hisako smiled, this was going to be an incredibly fun battle. Over their long years working with the dogs the Inuzuka members also started possessing dog-like features, they had those strange fangs, their eyes were almost canine in their features and they also had a much larger portion of the dog’s senses compared to common ninja. A dog was still the better sensor, had a better nose and hearing, but the Inuzuka member was incredibly close to matching that prowess which was incredible all by itself.
Suddenly the dog split off from the man, spinning in a wild vortex and heading for Hisako. The dog howled and the Inuzuka turned at her and grinned, the bastard must’ve sensed her coming from a mile away, smelled her sweat or something incredible like that… Hisako drew her blades and blocked the drilling vortex. The dog applied the pressure and suddenly the girl felt really weak, the pressure and the sheer unrestrained brutal force of the animal tackling her with that spinning manner blew her off her feet and made her plummet down to the dirt.
“Tunneling Fang!” Inuzuka’s growling voice reached her. Hisako got back on her feet, she had heard of Inuzuka techniques before, seen this technique in action during the Chuunin Exams. This idiot was using his easily predicted techniques on a Konohagakure ninja, most Inuzuka were native to Konohagakure anyways, there was only a small majority in Kumogakure and most of the other portion was living in the Snow Country. A Konoha ninja would’ve seen those idiots fight at least once in their lives, who did this fucker think he was kidding attacking Hisako like that!?
The man landed right in front of her with the dog following him not too much later, landing right by his master’s, no - his partner’s side. Hisako pulled out her swords and brandished them just to taunt the man. The Inuzuka’s face twisted with a smile, his creepy long dog-like fangs were visible in that weird mouth of his, before that day was over Hisako will have pounded those teeth out. Maybe she’ll make a necklace out of them? Wearing heads around one’s necks was strangely uncomfortable and creepy anyways, teeth made much better trophies for accessories.
“I see you took some damage there” Inuzuka rubbed his nose with his finger pointing at Hisako’s torn up top, he must’ve got some pretty dirty look at something through that hole and thought that’d dishonor Hisako or make her feel shameful at the slightest. Yes. Hisako was a sexy beast and she knew it, she won’t cover up what that dog tore out while she augmented her body not to get injured too hard. If some naked skin excited this man that much, he may have wanted to get a good look, Hisako will use that to her advantage and make it the last sight the man would see before his head parts from his shoulders.
“It’s fine, your dog will make a fine coat anyways, they say this winter will be pretty chilly…” Hisako retorted, it was quite apparent that the dog understood human speech as he slightly flinched and looked intimidated by that retort. The Inuzuka comically started flailing his hands above his head.
“What!? Who does that to dogs? Are you some sort of sick bitch? Jeez! I mean… You don’t hurt dogs! That’s like… Too evil even for this sick world!” he started yelling out. This Inuzuka must’ve been a funny-man, Hisako liked funny men, namely how their fun tended to leave their eyes shortly before they died. There was simply nothing quite like that sight to be entirely honest.
“I see you don’t have the kid, who has him? Don’t tell me that the bitch with the whip has him!” Hisako grunted taking an offensive stance preparing for her attack. The Inuzuka finally snapped out from his shock that this world had people who’d hurt his wolf, he then started snickering like a dirty teen. “Heh, we fucked with you good, you’d think we’d wanna move that fucker an inch further? We left him at home, we just wanted you bitches to think that we moved him so that you didn’t ignore us and just stormed at the bunker.”
“I see…” Hisako thought for a moment before her body just disappearing and reappearing right in front of the Inuzuka, a giant gash opened up on the man’s chest, the woman cut faster than even a ninja’s eye could see. It took great skill and perception to track her incredibly fast movements. “Not that it matters since I’ll kill you and proceed to that bunker anyways…” Hisako mumbled out making an elegant swipe with her blades, opening another cut on the man, not quite as deep but still prominent and painful. She then dug her feet into the ground and kicked off, spinning like a dancer with her blades and opening a very deep cut on the man’s face, he tried to lean back out from her finishing attack but he got cut regardless and was sent tumbling back.
The Inuzuka managed to get himself back together. “Wow, I seem to have had some streak of bad luck…” he complained.
Hisako smiled. “Tell me about it, an Inuzuka user who uses the “Chakra Absorption Technique” to enhance his clan techniques, don’t think I didn’t notice it when your dog used that “Tunneling Fang” technique on me… You’re a perfect counter to any little fartface who uses ninjutsu techniques as you quickly drain them and make them feel too weak to fight you back. However when you face a physically strong opponent who fights at close quarters and doesn’t rely on chakra that much… That’s bad for you, right?”
The Inuzuka’s dog leaped forward biting at Hisako’s neck, the woman just stuffed her blade sideways into the dog’s mouth blocking his bite and then swiped her blade to the side leaving a big cut on the dog’s jaw. A powerful impact from behind “ this Inuzuka was really fast as he used the opportunity granted by his dog to get behind Hisako and ram her back with his shoulder. His arms lit up with blue flames as he started pummeling Hisako with a powerful combination of taijutsu blows at the same time as his dog occupied her by biting at random vital points. It took Hisako great trouble not to die from that dog’s fangs, every time the man hit her she felt her very own life-force seeping out from her body “ he was slowly draining her chakra with each hit!
Hisako flipped back, shooting her arm onto the ground to keep her balance as she stood on that arm upside down and flung her blade, the blade etched slightly into the Inuzuka’s body. Hisako finished her flip and then lunged forward, sadistically and rudely pulling the blade out and making a whole fountain of blood shoot out. Those swords weren’t exactly piercing swords, they were more like slashing swords, built to cut their opponent and leave deep cuts or chop their limbs off, stabbing left wide holes but it was near impossible to hit any vitals because of its curve and it was very hard to drive the sword very deep. The Inuzuka coughed up some blood, to add up to the shower of it that dyed the grass.
“You’re a lucky fucker, lucky that you sipped up so much of my chakra, now it sustains your life, you’re using it to sustain you post-injury right? It’s common for little fuckers like you to use chakra stolen from others just to prolong your own pathetic lives, right? Face it, you’ve lost, had you faced off against idol-bitch you’d have slaughtered her because she relies on chakra, the cheerleader-bitch would’ve struggled but she packs a mean right hook so she’d have also come out on top eventually. You’re basically fucked, give up and stop torturing yourself by using your chakra to keep yourself alive.” Hisako taunted dashing right at her opponent slashing at him and knocking him off his feet.
“Fuck… Sunomaru, we’re retreating!” the man shouted out at his dog, who responded with a whiny bark. A loud snap - a small smoke bomb was seen in his fingers and slammed at the ground making dark purple smoke shoot out, Hisako covered her face and coughed, she felt a powerful palm slap at her chest and suddenly weakness took her over again “ the man took a large chunk of chakra from that.
“Thank you, ma’am, I’ll take that wrapped to go!” the man taunted her and after the smoke bomb cloud cleared he was gone, almost like he was never there.
“Fucknuts wrapped in a pussy sandwich!” Hisako cursed, she almost had a pretty neat kill but her bloodlust was kept waiting again. For how long could she have kept herself in control? If she as much as smelled some blood she’d leap into the fray blades swinging. This was fucking ridiculous!
“Whatever” Hisako thought to herself as she turned and started moving back, she needed to assist those two bitches if they got in trouble after all. Maybe they got lucky like she did and ended up against the opponent whose skills they countered perfectly, maybe that wasn’t it.
“Dad… I won… He got away but not THAT man, I killed HIM…” Hisako thought to herself closing her eyes, her mind started drifting, Hisako’s speed dropped drastically to the point where she was barely even moving forward. Her mind moved back to her early days, that fateful day…
*****
Hisako lunged at her father, she swung the bamboo sword as hard as she could, attacking from the side and from above, trying to swipe from below, to break his sideways placed guard too, nothing worked. Father always blocked every strike, he found his way to block literally everything. Not to mention that he then punished the girl by driving his actual sword into her, he slammed the blunt side into her face, her gut and her knees, he hit wherever it hurt. Such was the Yoruma training: die or become strong, survive by wishing for the pain to stop, every time one failed they were stabbed, cut up, had their kneecaps broken by cold steel being bashed into them. Steel against bone was hardly a fair match…
But then once the kid started to wish for the pain to stop there were just two options, strike better, faster and stronger, be more precise and technically superior, improve your technique and get good. Either that or just give up and die. Either way worked, whenever Hisako landed a blow on her father she got to eat her dinner and when she didn’t her father beat her up. That was the Yoruma way, father was not a monster, quite the contrary, he did it because he loved Hisako and wanted her to be strong. He beat her and stabbed her and broke her bones because he wanted his daughter to be strong, to win, to have what it took to survive in this world. If she chose death, the coward’s way out, then she wouldn’t have been her father’s daughter and she’d have deserved what was coming.
“Enough” father shouted, Hisako tried to strike him while he was off of his defensive stance but father’s blunt side of his katana hit her right in the head sending her down. Hisako bit her tongue and cracked a tooth after that last slam. She felt like the whole world was spinning, she felt nauseous, must’ve been another concussion.
“I said enough!” father yelled kicking Hisako in the gut when she was down, the kick was strong, lifted the girl’s body off the ground by a significant margin. The girl grunted and spat out some blood, she’ll probably pee it too for a while too. She should’ve been better, stronger and faster, her sword loops just didn’t work, father worked his way through them with a single displacing block. She was sloppy, she was weak… Like mom…
“Your attack is impressive, Hisako, however you have no defensive skill whatsoever, you just rush attacking combinations with no attempt to block my attacks. That is a silly idea, a katana is a perfect blade for combining both “ attack and defense” father said, his voice was judgmental but also a bit soft, he was showing kindness by not killing her when she was making so many mistakes! Father was so merciful and kind! The girl tried to get up but the nausea and the coughing up blood sent her back down, writhing in the puddles of blood she herself spat out.
“Defense is for weaklings… Mother was all defense, she was beautiful so she used that to deceive, she was tricky so she used that to slip poison and escape but it all caught up to her… If I’m exactly the opposite of Mother… I’ll survive. Only attack, no defense!” little Hisako chanted.
Father lost it, he started rampaging through the yard, he knew that his daughter was dying so he didn’t push it, he didn’t hit her but he hit everything that wasn’t her. “Don’t ever speak that way of your mother…” father spoke in a different tone. “Your mother was discovered because of bad intel, she did everything right, it’s those pencil pushers that fucked up, YOUR MOTHER WAS PERFECT!” Father shouted out.
“Perfect people keep their heads on their shoulders” Hisako replied. She whited out, something hard hit her and the girl couldn’t remember anything. Everything was white, father must’ve kicked her pretty hard for those last words.
Hisako woke up later, she felt like her chakra and most of her endurance was restored, she felt up her body and saw that while most of her scars remained, her wounds have already closed and made some new ones. Father fed her a medical food pill, he never showed that much mercy, he always just tossed her bandages and water and a needle to sew her injuries. Father must’ve lost control… He kicked Hisako when she was too injured and he didn’t want to kill her like that. Even father wasn’t perfect, father lost control.
Hisako looked at her bamboo sword, she took the thing and drove it at her knee. The wood broke, Hisako shouted out as she heard a powerful crack at her knee. She must’ve busted up a bone again. Not that it mattered, it’ll all heal up in a day or two, that was just how ninja were. If they weren’t dead they could’ve come back from it in just days time. Hisako had her knee busted many times, both of them even. This was nothing for a big girl like her to cry over…
Hisako crawled up to her bed and laid down. She looked at the ceiling. The bamboo sword represented the katana, it was the perfect weapon for offense and defense as father put it but… If Hisako’s style was all out offense why would she use such an unfitting weapon for her style? Katana was meant for striking and then returning to defense, Hisako needed something like… Like those swords from the east that she read about in the Academy, those twisted swords that were perfect for only attacking, if she needed ever to defend those would’ve helped but Hisako didn’t want to defend, she’d survive anything, she’d kill the enemy before they managed to beat her loop…
The girl stood and crawled up to the two pieces of her bamboo sword. She whined in pain as her knee didn’t let her stand but she picked the pieces up, Hisako swung those for hours, adapting her style to these new weapons. Only when she passed out from the pain of her bleeding and broken knee rubbing against the incredibly tough wood did she finally get some rest. The next day Hisako woke up to a deafening shout of pain. The girl fell out from her bed and got onto her feet, limping downstairs she ran into the yard.
Father was there, he was kneeling by a group of men with strange green kimono and he… Had a sword driven through his throat.
“Fucking Yoruma, you fuckers should all just die with your sick and twisted ways! Sending your wife to seduce and poison me… You should know that I plowed that bitch good before giving her the satisfaction of getting to die!” the man shouted at Hisako’s dying father before pulling his blade out of him.
“He didn’t send shit, the Konoha council plays those sick fucks like puppets. What husband just lets his wife go to some guy’s house and fuck with that guy because some old fucktard says so?” the man’s companion shrugged.
The third one pointed at Hisako, “Look, that’s a little fucking Yoruma bitch, looks just like her mother this kid!” he laughed out.
“Look at how beaten and bruised she is, she’s pale like she has no blood in her…” the man kicked the corpse of Hisako’s father. “Those sick fucking Yoruma, they should all fucking choke on dicks and die, they make their kids as sick as they are since their baby days! Having the guts to come and kill me… ME!” the man walked up to Hisako and punched her, the girl fell down on her back. Tears started accumulating in her eyes.
“Hey, calm down, man, we’re in Konoha, this ain’t Kirigakure, we can’t just murder a family in the middle of the street!” the man’s companion started encouraging his leader to leave the village as fast as possible.
“The fuck are you so pissy about?! This is the fucking Yoruma clan district, do you think anyone even steps their fucking foot into this pisshole? Do you think anyone fucking cares if these dogs live or die? They have no morals, they have no pride in them, this little bitch would suck my cock if asked her to. That’s the kind of people Yoruma are, she’d bite it off after I’m done with her though… Fucking and killing is all those sick bastards do!” the man slashed at Hisako trying to behead her with a single swipe but the girl dove to the side. She screamed like she was getting killed, the girl covered her eye up, there was a deep gash on it going deep into her eye. She was blind with it, blood was bursting from it but even if it wasn’t she’d still be blind with it!
This was her eye… Her eye… The one that mother and father made her with! This was… Her eye!
Hisako lunged at one of the men beating him senselessly with the two pieces of her broken bamboo sword that she still held in her hands. Initially the other men just laughed looking at the wild girl they were about to torture and kill but when Hisako started madly laughing and stabbing the man with the sharp parts where the sword was broken they suddenly froze in place… This kid just killed their friend…
“You fucking bitch!” one of the men yelled out leaping at Hisako. What followed was hours if not days of beating, torture of the most inhuman kind. It all happened on the backyard of one’s family’s household but no one passing by dared to intervene. This was a Yoruma household after all, Yoruma were all assassins and killers and this must’ve been just common practice, this must’ve been just how they made their kids behave. No one cared about the two brutally murdered men on the lawn, this was Yoruma district after all.
Who even cared about them fucking Yoruma?
“Who even cares if you live or die? You Yoruma fuck a thousand times every day and breed like fucking rabbits, what’s one little cunt less in this world?” the man held Hisako’s beaten body lifted up, holding his sword and readying to strike. He let for the girl’s body to slip out from his hands and fall on her knees onto the bloody grass. Hisako didn’t even feel like herself anymore, it was like her soul moved on, she looked at her body from further away, who was that horribly beaten and mangled person? Was it her? No, it couldn’t have been?
The man turned away, Hisako knew that move, it was the typical fake-out slash at the back of the neck, he was going in for the kill. This man who killed her mother after torturing her for hours, this man who just murdered her father will kill her too now… No! No he won’t, Hisako suddenly opened her single working eye, before the man could turn around and slash at her, Hisako’s knife was already in his throat. The man gurgled with blood and fell. She could’ve just let him drown in his own blood for minutes before he died, just like he tortured her mother!
“You’re right… My life doesn’t matter, no one’s life matters, our all existences are meaningless. So don’t be offended if I do this to you because none of it matters… It’s because you think like that that you die, if you treasured your life, you’d have never turned your back on a Yoruma!” Hisako sat on the man’s chest and stabbed at his eye, she’d pay all of it back, giving the man time before moving on to the other debt. She had several minutes, half an hour if the man was adamant to steadily prolong his pathetic life using chakra.
When the Konohagakure ninja arrived after receiving a report about an unusual, even for Yoruma district, breakout of violence in one of the family’s household they saw the most horrible sight to behold: a single girl just barely breathing, kneeling over a pile of corpses. Just barely alive but still pushing it strong. Hisako was quickly carried to the Konohagakure Hospital.
*****
Finally Hisako landed by the camp, she looked at the Quack who was just sitting by the tree admiring the stars through the small gap in the tree line.
“Where are the other bitches, are they OK?”
“Seeing how quickly you’ve dealt with it… They’ll be just fine…” the Quack replied with a creepy smile, “Even if they don’t, little ninja die every day, what does it matter?”
“Everyone’s life matters, that’s why they beg you so much not to take it away…” Hisako replied. Quack smiled, he liked Hisako, she was more like the people outside the village walls, she knew what this world was like but she was still a bit unique. A very unique kind of monster…
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