Retrieval, in progress

[Hei]

Name: Kaguya Hei
Level/Rank/Job: Level 40 Jounin Anbu
Mission Rank: A
Mission Description: Following the case of Ran's retrieval, the device that had been used to seal Ran's tenketsu has been traced down to a weapons research lab somewhere in Earth Country, near Iwagakure. The exact coordinates have been provided to Hei and his only task is to get hold of some of the same tenketsu-sealing devices for research. The danger of encountering Iwa-nins is extremely high as there is bound to be shinobi protecting the weapons lab.

[Rei]

Approved.

[Hei]

The ride was bumpy, with the occasional bump or pothole in the mountain path. There was nothing but greenery on both sides of the winding path as Hei looked out from the back of the truck. He had been assigned to Iwagakure on a follow-up mission pertaining to Ran’s return. A somewhat new technology had been utilized to keep Yukina Ran under control, preventing him from using chakra altogether. Having deactivated it and removing it from Ran forcefully, Hei had brought it back to Kirigakure for the research team to analyze.

There were hints that the chakra-suppression device had originated from Iwa, and thus Hei had been sent there. He was to break into the factory without letting known his identity, as to keep the balance of the shinobi world intact. A Kiri-nin sneaking into Iwa to steal their secrets wasn’t going to sit well with the Tsuchikage. Under the disguise of a civilian, Hei had managed to get a ride near the location of the research facility with a group of rock diggers.

Iwa, as it name implied, was truly the land of rocks. The terrain was terrible, their map laden with hills and mountains. Naturally, trees populated the uneven geography, and with it brought a diverse variety of wildlife that was even more exotic that those found in Konoha’s forests.

The truck continued rumbling on while the others in the back of the truck whispered among each other with the occasional pointing at Hei. It was expected after all. He had appeared out of nowhere and had got on the truck, and as long as the trip had been, he had not spoken a single word. The Kaguya merely ignored them and continued his observation of the land.

The truck came to a sudden halt following a series of shouts. The nearest to the back of the truck, Hei peeked out slowly to find the tip of a katana aimed at the bridge of his nose. Hei had suspected that the Iwa-nins had gotten wind of his little expedition into their country and they were being intercepted, but when he looked at the clothes of the katana’s wielder, all suspicion evaporated. He was a mountain bandit.

“Out! All of you, get out from the truck!!” the man shouted at the top of his voice as he took a few steps back for Hei and the rest to drop from the truck and stood to one side.
Looking at the front of the truck, the Kaguya could see the driver being assaulted by two of the bandits, while a group of about five others watched and guffawed. There were a total of eight of them, including the leader who was standing on the top of the truck, barking orders to his men.

“Soshi-sama! The truck is empty!” the man with the katana behind Hei yelled.

“Empty?! Kill them!!” the leader retorted in rage when he found out that his organized assault was futile. Of all the targets, they had targeted a truck of poor quarrymen. And a shinobi. The man behind Hei slashed down with his sword, only for it to be knocked out of his grip. Hei had pushed his left palm upwards as the man swung his sword down, meeting the end of the hilt with his gloved hand.

With a little force, the Kaguya had disarmed his opponent and broken his lower jaw with a solid drive of his right palm to the said location. The entire cast of mountain bandits were shocked by the sudden display of violence by the ‘civilian’, but by the time the katana stabbed in to the ground, they had all erupted into flurry of rages and were shouting curses all around as they swarmed Hei.

Pulling the katana from the ground, the Kaguya sidestepped to the right before turning to the left, stabbing the blade straight through the neck of the nearest mountain bandit. Two down, six to go. A blue glow began to illuminate Hei’s legs, and before they could even utter their dismay, the two bandits in the Kaguya’s way were grabbed by the face and stabbed through with the Yanagi no Mai. The Kaguya lived up this reputation as the Black Reaper as he released the now-dead bandits, blood gushing from the hole in their faces.

Scarlet were the bones that extended from his wrist, as Hei turned around to face the remaining four bandits. Still standing on the top of the truck, his expression stern and controlled, the leader ordered his remaining three to take Hei at once. The first bandit used a spear and proceeded to continuously stab at Hei with his spearhead, till the Kaguya finally parried the blow with his left hand and ran along the length of the spear to deliver a series of kicks to the bandit’s head.

A final kick sent the bandit flying backwards into the truck, his neck broken and twisted from the last kick to his head, effectively killing him before the impact of the crash with the truck could. Hei allowed the two extended bones from his Yanagi no Mai to disintegrate before ripping out a bone sword from his left shoulder just in time to counter the two simultaneous sword strikes from the bandits.

“Useless,” the Kaguya mumbled as his sharp gaze locked onto his opponents. Pulling his sword out from under the two katanas, Hei leapt backwards as the two bandits stumbled forwards from the strength they placed on their swords, and then leapt forward above them to pierce his sword through the head of bandit on the left and slashed the other one across the back of his neck with a second bone sword that he had pulled out from his left shoulder.

The Black Reaper landed on the ground and turned around almost immediately to face the leader of the mountain bandits, while his bone swords disintegrated into the air.

“You don’t show any fear,” Hei remarked as he looked directly into the eyes of the leader. Smirking, the leader of the mountain bandits, poked his right hand into an inner pocket in his shirt, and withdrew something before throwing it at Hei. The Kaguya caught it in mid-air and merely nodded when he saw the piece of metal in his hand. It was the standard metal piece attached to a headband that bore the insignias of the shinobi villages, and in this case, the symbol was that of Iwa’s, with a scratch across it.

It was a mystery who had started it, but all missing-nins he had encountered so far had depended on that slash across the village insignia to show their status as a missing-nin. Merely throwing the forehead protector away would have been simpler.

“Now, you know,” the leader said before disappearing in a puff of smoke and appearing behind Hei in the same manner he had disappeared. “Now, die.”

A warm hand gripped the back of his neck and before Hei could reply, a jolt of electricity surged through his entire body. The Kaguya’s entire body jerked as he dropped down to his knees, supporting himself with his hands planted firmly in the ground. The leader of the bandits had a look of dismay on his face as he watched his opponent still alive. Unknown to Hei, it was one of his killing techniques and the Kaguya had managed to survive it.

“Lightning won’t kill me,” Hei remarked as he pushed himself off the ground and turned around to face his opponent. Rushing forward with the Ikou Tosshin activated, the Kaguya was a blur to his opponent. Hei easily clamped down the leader with his right palm and dragged him along the ground before slamming him into the tree. Hei switched his grip from the face to the neck and with the bandit leader held in place a feet from the ground, the Kaguya mumbled the words, “Karamatsu no Mai.”

Blood splattered on Hei’s clothing and face as bones from his ribcage shot forward from his torso to impale the leader of the bandits, stabbing in several vital organs which included his lungs and heart. The Kaguya watched with a stone face as his opponent died a slow and painful death, blood pouring out of his mouth as he tried to speak. When he finally died, Hei retracted the bones and released his grip on his now dead opponent.

Hei looked around him as he stood in the litter of bodies. He was the only one standing. The Kaguya walked to the back of the truck and began rummaging through the items as he looked for clean clothes. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with bloodstained clothes.

[Hei]

Garbed in a clean set of clothes which he had found from the back of the truck, it didn’t take him long to arrive at the location of the hidden research lab. The entrance to the research lab was a cave, and despite the absence of sentinels standing guard at the mouth of the cave, Hei could still feel other presences besides his. Just not clear enough for him to accurately pinpoint them. There was nothing special about the cave for any normal civilian to notice, but for a trained shinobi, the Kaguya could easily dense amount of chakra in the air.

Standing on a ledge that looked down directly at the cave, Hei was hidden from view by the thick foliage that had grown on the edge of the cliff. Forming a series of hand seals he was all too familiar with, the Kiri-nin released a surge of chakra into the air, and within minutes, the entire area was slowly getting wet by the rain. A flood of information burst into his mind at the same moment, which his brain efficiently filtered through.

With the mental map provided by the rain of the Chakra Kenpa no Ame technique, every human and non-human presence was picked up. There were two to the north of his position, one to his left about fifty yards away and one last shinobi behind and above him. Eager to stop the rain before he ran out of chakra, Hei stealthily left his green hiding place and approached the the one that had been to his left. The distance was slowly growing smaller when all of a sudden, a spear dropped from the sky above and stabbed into the ground right where Hei’s next step would have been.

Maintaining his calm demeanor, the Kaguya easily leapt out of the way of the spear only to be sent crashing into the cliff wall behind him. The owner of the spear had sailed out of the skies and planted both feet into Hei’s chest before somersaulting. Hei was puzzled by how he had failed to notice the man coming straight at him with his Chakra Kenpa no Ame, but his question was quickly answered. There was a screech from above and when the Kiri-nin looked up, he could see a large hawk circling above them.

“Kiri-nin!!” the spear-toting shinobi hissed as he looked at the forehead protector on the Kaguya’s forehead. Grabbing his spear from the ground, the Iwa-nin sped across the terrain towards Hei. The latter barely got away with his head intact as the Iwa-nin jammed his spearhead into the wall of rocks. He was obviously a master of the spear, as demonstrated when he pulled out the spear. There was nothing but a nice, clean hole in the cliff wall without a single crack. The Kaguya was not going to find out what it could do to his skull.

“There’s no escape for you, Kiri-nin,” the Iwa-nin remarked before inserting both his thumb and index finger into his mouth. A loud whistle echoed throughout the entire valley, so loud that Hei had to cover his ears or risk going deaf. When the sound finally ceased and he lowered his hands from his ears, the Kaguya was surrounded by the four that he had tracked down around him with the Chakra Kenpa no Ame.

“And yet another mouse crawls in,” a red-haired Iwa-nin sneered. His partner, a blue-haired and fair-skinned shinobi, scoffed as he looked down at Hei from his high position. The other two newcomers merely kept quiet as they stood to Hei’s left and back. As soon as that smirk appeared on the redhead’s face, Hei was behind him with a swing of his right arm so fast that none of them could react in time. By the time they had managed to fix their gaze on Hei, the red-haired Iwa-nin had collapsed to the ground, blood spraying from his back.

As he dropped to the ground with a thud and a splash of water from the Chakra Kenpa no Ame, the extended forearm bone appearing from Hei’s right wrist, blood slowly being washed off by the rain. The Kaguya had easily slashed a long diagonal gash across the dead Iwa-nin’s back, as well as severing a part of his spinal cord, killing him in one attack. The others could only look on in shock before springing into action.

Kunai and shuriken flew from all directions towards Hei in the center. His face kept expressionless, the Kaguya flipped around in the air as his hands flew out to catch the projectiles aimed at him and threw them back towards their users with double the speed. The others managed to either evade or fend off the projectiles, but the blue-haired Iwa-nin was killed on the spot as a shuriken struck deep into his forehead while a total of four kunai stabbed into his body. Two of the kunai were lodged firmly in his throat while two more had found their resting place in his right lung. There was a fifth kunai that had been thrown at him, and ironically, it was the only one he managed to catch.

As soon as he had thrown the projectiles which had served as a diversion, Hei flew straight for the two other Iwa-nin who had remained silent throughout the entire period he had been surrounded. Ripping a bone sword from each shoulder, Hei wasted no time in piercing them through each Iwa-nin. They had not completely evaded all of the kunai and shuriken, resulting in hampered movement. The two of them jerked violently as a bone sword went through their chest, accurately piercing through their trachea. Leave it to the Anbu to know where to place a fatal strike.

As he was occupied with the two Iwa-nins who were at that moment slowly dying as they struggled for air, Hei’s reaction wasn’t as quick when he tried to evade the shinobi’s spear. The Kaguya bared his teeth as the spear head left a nasty scratch across his right bicep. Grabbing the spear that had stabbed into the ground beside him, Hei was about to hurl it back at his opponent when the spear disappeared from his grip and reappeared in the Iwa-nin’s hands. There was nothing but a satisfied smirk on the Iwa-nin’s face as Hei looked at his opponent. And it was that smirk that triggered the Kaguya’s memory.

“The Earth Fang, Nadara Jiai,” Hei spoke out as his gaze at his opponent hardened into a murderous glare. He had seen that smirk before in a bingo book and it had been imprinted into his mind ever since.

“Not bad, Kuro no Shinigami,” the Earth Fang replied as he flashed another smirk at Hei. “It all fits. One of Kiri’s finest killing machines, and a Kaguya.”

Pulling one of his bone swords out from one of the dead Iwa-nin, blood spraying from the wound as the wound opened up, Hei shot towards his opponent with the speed of a bullet. His downward vertical slash was parried by Jiai’s spear. Jumping back, Hei rotated his sword around in his right hand before dashing at Jiai again. Faking a thrusting attack, Hei baited Jiai into defending again. As soon as the Iwa-nin held his spear out to block Hei’s thrust, the Kaguya’s left hand shot out and grabbed the shaft of the spear and held it in place with a firm grip as he slashed across Jiai’s vulnerable abdomen.

The Earth Fang spat blood in Hei’s face as the latter stabbed his bone sword through the former’s left thigh, hampering his movement. The Kaguya leapt away from the Iwa-nin as he pulled out another bone sword from his right shoulder with his left hand. With Jiai’s movement tied down by his injured leg, the next attack would have been the final blow. Or so Hei thought, before Jiai formed a string of seals and slammed his palm into the ground.

The earth around Hei began to explode and dirt was sprayed upwards all around Hei, obscuring his vision. When it had finally settled, there was not a sign of Jiai. All that there was left was the four dead Iwa-nins and nothing more. It seemed Jiai had either concealed his location so perfectly that even the Chakra Kenpa no Ame couldn’t sense him or had gotten out of the jutsu’s range. Feeling that there was no longer a need to continue with the Chakra Kenpa no Ame technique, Hei released the jutsu, waiting as the last of the rain fell to the ground before jumping off the cliff and heading boldly into the cave.