50 50: Flying Time
Next to a remote cabin in the Land of Rain, not far from the Hidden Village of Amegakure, a strange sight could be seen.
An earthen wall had been erected in the middle of a field, and this wall was absolutely covered in various metal weapons of all shapes and sizes.
*fwip fwip fwip*
Three more shuriken joined the wall...
*Wrrrrr*
Before extricating themselves and flying right back where they came from.
A gloved hand snatched them out of the air and brought them up to their owner's face to examine them.
'Perfect! Looks like this is the right balance for a weapon of this size. It'll be nice to not have to buy any more of these. Who knew running a whole organisation and supplying over two dozen shinobi with food, weapons, and shelter would be so expensive? I think I won't ever be able to thank Konan enough for taking up the role of manager all on her own...'
Seija Hyuga, now twelve years old, was practicing her Steel Release and recently-awoken Magnet Style.
- - -
When she had begun this training exercise almost a year ago, she had been unable to call the weapons back to her using her Magnet Style chakra, let alone manipulate their trajectory from a distance. The reason, it turned out, was that at her low level of mastery, the composition of the material was much more important.
She'd needed to use weapons with the right balance of iron, carbon, and other minerals to produce a strong enough magnetic effect, without sacrificing the durability of the weapon in question.
So, she'd postponed Magnet Style training for a few months to work on her Steel Release instead. She figured it was about time she got to making weapons of her own, and if she could alter the composition of the metal herself when creating it, that would be the ideal situation.
She'd rather not have to commission a smith to repeatedly make new prototypes for her over and over again. They'd probably refuse to do business with her again after the third or fourth set.
Altering the structure of the weapons proved to be rather easy, all things considered. The Steel Release Kekkei Genkai was a fusion of Earth, which determined the overall structure of the material, and Yang, which reinforced it and allowed it to fuse with her body. So, she trained to alter the balance of the two elements to change the physical properties of the steel that she created.
The result of this training is the wall of failed weapons we see before us. Whenever Seija produced a new weapon by slowly stretching her Steel Release chakra out of her skin - kind of like a 3d-printer - she would test it on this wall of solid earth.
If the weapon bounced off due to being too blunt or too flexible, it failed the test. If it broke, it failed the test. And if it stuck in the wall but failed to be returned to her hand due to a lack of magnetism, it failed the test.
She'd had to pick up some physics and metallurgy textbooks from Amegakure, and even had some imported from the Land of Lightning and the Land of Iron. Those imports weren't cheap due to having them transported during an active war, but they at least the cost wasn't much higher than buying a new Ninjutsu scroll, so she didn't mind it too much.
Though even as wealthy as she was, looking at the Akatsuki's running costs had taught her to be more careful with her savings, so if the books had been any more expensive she probably would've just experimented on her own for a few more months instead.
She was glad she hadn't needed to do that. Quicker training would always be preferable whenever it was possible.
She formed a steel javelin with her gloveless left hand and passed it back to her dominant right hand for the next throwing test. One small issue with making weapons grow from her own body was that she had to remove any clothing from that body part or else it would tear apart.
So for this test, she kept her left hand gloveless, revealing a couple of old wounds.
Seija had picked up a total of three scars from her battle with Saboten a year prior. Two of these were visible on her left hand; a pair of jagged scars mirroring each other on the back and palm of her hand. These were caused by Saboten's reckless double-attack on her left hand as she was using it to defend.
The other scar was on her right forearm, left there by Saboten's first Lightning-style Iaijutsu that he'd successfully struck her with.
Surprisingly, no scars were left on her stomach even after the severe damage that Saboten's pommel-strike had inflicted on her. This was because she had focussed on healing that area first while she left her arms for later, since she couldn't exactly take the time to restore her damaged hands if she died from organ failure or internal bleeding.
Thus, the hand and arm were left scarred, since she'd had to leave them for later and ran out of chakra after reconnecting the bones and tendons. At least the scarring was only cosmetic, not impeding the functionality of her limbs at all. They had already faded slightly since that day, and Seija believed that by the time she would become an adult, they probably wouldn't even be visible anymore.
She drew back the arm holding the javelin and launched it with all of her strength. It tore through the air at close to the speed of sound, faster than any other kinetic attack she could create.
*Crack!*
It dug deep into the earthen wall, cracks spreading across the surface and causing some old weapons to clatter to the ground.
Now, she needed to get it back. She could always create a new javelin if she needed to, but in the midst of combat she didn't want to have to expend the chakra required to make a whole new weapon. So now came the second part of the test.
Reaching out to the weapon with her Magnet Style, she felt the connection lock into place, and she pulled.
The javelin shot back out of the wall exactly the way it went in, flying towards her at a dangerous speed.
'This is the important part...'
Her Sharingan tracked the movement of the weapon in slow motion as she flexed her willpower, commanding the weapon to stop with her chakra.
A moment later, she felt the gentle tap of metal on the tips of her fingers. The javelin had stopped dead directly in front of her, ready to be picked up again.
"YES!" She shouted out in celebration.
She'd been trying to get that right for the past two weeks. It felt good to add a proper long-range attack to her collection after so much trial and error.
Then, as if specifically timed to interrupt her revelry, a System message blinked at her in the corner of her vision. She normally kept most conversations on mute, so for this one to have appeared meant that Firewall had selected it to be shown to her.
'Ugh... alright fine, let's see what it is...' She complained in her head before opening the message. It was from Reincarnator #11.
'Huh.'
Mishima was in the Land of Rain. That was big news to Seija. The notorious Reincarnator killer was in her home country. Moreover, it seemed he'd set his sights on another Reincarnator, this Number #11 person.
Additionally, there was some kind of 'Dungeon' present at the location.
After taking a minute to ponder the implications of this message, the situation screamed one word to Seija.
'Experience.'
Her System, Great Firewall, had been stuck at Level 2 ever since she'd met Kaowru all those years ago. She hadn't had any further opportunities to encounter and disable other Reincarnator's powers since then, so if she went to this place it would be the first chance to level Firewall up since that day.
Considering all the factors listed by Number #11, she was willing to bet that several Reincarnators would be showing up at Mishima's location within the three-day time limit. If they did, that would mean that Seija could potentially gain a huge amount of System Experience for Great Firewall if she found the chance to use her System Breaker on all of their different abilities.
It was an opportunity that was too good to pass up. And, of course, she wasn't against helping Number #11 simply for the sake of helping them.
'But now I have to figure out how to get there without looking too suspicious. I have a job here in the Akatsuki, I can't just go running off to the middle of nowhere without a good reason.' She pondered.
While she had told the other members of the Akatsuki about her bloodlines and most of her history, she had not told any of them that she was a Reincarnator. Hell, they likely didn't even know what a 'Reincarnator' was.
They lived in a cabin on the outskirts of the minor Hidden Village of Amegakure, not in a bustling metropolis like Konohagakure or Kumogakure where news spreads extremely fast. News like that just didn't reach out this far, and even when it did, it took the form of sparse rumors and superstitious nonsense. Nothing that any of Seija's friends would bother paying attention to.
So, later that day, Seija approached Konan at her desk in their new main building. Well, calling it a 'building' was a bit of a misnomer, since it was actually just the cave system back at the dam. The caves had been extensively renovated over the past year to house all of the Akatsuki's employees, and the complex contained several rooms and offices for each of the founders, as well as their team of administrative staff.
It would all look very professional if it weren't still technically a cave.
"Konan, have any new requests come in recently? I feel like stretching my legs a bit."
Konan looked up from her desk and smiled at her.
"Let me guess, you figured out something new about your Magnet Style and you want to test it, right?" She said with a small smirk.
Seija wasn't going to complain about Konan giving her a free excuse just like that, so she just nodded and Konan turned to sort through one of her shiny new filing cabinets.
"We got a new batch of requests just a few days ago. Three of them are already being taken care of by Yahiko's team and a few others. That means we've got three more jobs available. One from Amegakure itself, so that'll require a founder to take care of. Nagato is still available to take that one, if you don't feel like it. Plus myself, now that I think about it."
Seija nodded again. The requests from Amegakure were still assigned to their team of Yahiko, Nagato, Konan, and herself, so those requests needed at least one of those people available to take it.
"How about the other two?"
"The other two requests are from villages and towns that have heard of our services and requested the Akatsuki's assistance directly. One is to deal with a minor political dispute in a northern town whose mayor died recently. Apparently there have been some worries about security for the venue of their next election, so they've requested a team from us to act as bodyguards for the candidates.
The last request is a call to investigate reports of a... 'Bakeneko'... in an eastern village. Honestly, it sounds like total nonsense to me. Apparently there was a child living in that village who was born cursed with cat-like features, such as ears and a tail?
They say that one day it poisoned its own human mother and then ran off into the forest. The villagers are requesting that we investigate the creature's location, and if possible return it to them either alive or dead. They want it alive so that they can slay it themselves as revenge for the death of the village chief's wife, but they don't mind if you can bring them its head if it turns out to be too dangerous to capture."
Seija just looked at Konan with a baffled expression. Konan shrugged.
"I know, it sounds completely insane, but they've already paid the first half of the commission, so we have to send someone. Since this is a tracking job, you'll be perfect since I'm told by Nagato that you've had your shadow clones working on some new sensory techniques recently, is that right?"
"Yeah, that's right." Seija confirmed, "Well, that sounds like the one for me, then. Oh, and you don't mind if I bring Kyusuke with me, do you? Standard policy to bring backup, and all that."
Konan waved her off and handed her the mission scroll.
"Of course. As much as I'd love to keep him here working for my admin team, I can see he's getting bored of being stuck indoors all the time. He needs to stretch his legs just as much as you do, so feel free to take him with you."
Seija thanked Konan for the confirmation and left to go grab Kyusuke. He and the other former bandits had all grown significantly stronger over the past year. Seija had put the training tactics of her mother into practice, ensuring that all twenty four of their employees were at least Genin-level in strength.
A small handfull of them had managed to step beyond that though, including Kyusuke, Daibutsu, and Kie, who were now all solidly Chunin-ranked in strength. If you took Kyusuke's Kekkei Genkai into account as well, he could actually stand a chance against a Jonin too if he had to fight one, though his chances of victory would be less than fifty percent if he doesn't catch them off-guard.
Seija had trained Kyusuke in the use of his Kekkei Genkai personally, meaning that he could now create regular lava, as well as volcanic rubber, instead of him being stuck with just his original quicklime.
She trusted him to be capable of watching her back while on the job.
- - -
Outside the cave, she pressed her hand to the floor and summoned her mount for this journey. Kyusuke groaned when the smoke cleared.
"Legiana again, huh? Can't we take a smoother ride this time?" He complained.
Legiana chirped indignantly at him but he remained unfased as he glared at it.
"That was one time, Kysusuke. It isn't Legiana's fault that you couldn't hold on when I explicitly said to use chakra to grip onto it." Seija retorted. Without a comeback, Kyusuke could only droop his shoulders and climb onto the giant bird-like wyvern's back with Seija.
Ever since defeating Saboten, Seija had unlocked access to all of her Jonin-level summons, so of course she had summoned Legiana as her new primary flying mount, since it was both faster and stealthier than Rathalos was.
Unfortunately, she'd neglected to really emphasise Legiana's speed when she'd first taken Kyusuke for a ride during a mission, so when the summon took off flying at top speed, Kyusuke would've been blown right off its back if Seija hadn't caught him by the wrist. She tried to reassure him that Legiana would've caught him if he fell, but he definitely wasn't happy about the sudden scare.
Even since then, he'd held a bit of a grudge against the creature.
Once Kyusuke was securely in place on the wyvern's back, Legiana took flight as the pair headed eastwards to Kibori Village.
- - -
Now, Seija wasn't clueless. The whole reason why she picked this mission was actually not just because she was the best suited for the role, as Konan had incorrectly predicted.
'Firewall, what do you think the odds are that this supposed Bakeneko is actually a Reincarnator? Specifically, Reincarnator #11.'
"[High. The mission scroll Konan gave you stated that the Bakeneko took the form of a young girl with cat-like features. Due to a lack of other examples in the original timeline, it is likely that this 'catgirl' is a Reincarnator. Kibori Village is only a single stop away from Ishigaki Town, the settlement that Number #11 had pointed out as being nearby to their location.
Such close proximity suggests that either two different Reincarnators - Number #11 and the catgirl Reincarnator - somehow were born within only two settlements of each other out in the middle of nowhere in a minor nation, or they arranged a meet-up together. Or they are, in fact, the same person... Or the villagers are lying about the existence of the Bakeneko. Which do you believe is most likely?]"
Seija pondered the question for a moment before responding.
'Well, I think we can write-off the villagers lying about the catgirl's existence. The fact that this incident happened so close to Number #11's location is too big of a coincidence.'
"[Indeed.]"
'Then, there's the odds that there are two different Reincarnators, besides Mishima, who arranged a meeting together. If that's the case, why isn't this catgirl helping Number #11 with her Dungeon issue? Sure, they could just have decided that it was too dangerous, but surely Number #11 would've said something in the Chat if there was someone nearby who could possibly help.'
Seija checked the Group Chat and confirmed that while several Reincarnators had responded to Number #11's message, some saying that they wanted to help, and others saying that it was too risky, or too far away, they confirmed that none of them had arrived on-site yet.
It made no sense for this catgirl to be a different person and for her to somehow go unmentioned in the ongoing conversation.
Thus, there was only one remaining possibility. Well, within the realms of probability anyways...
'Reincarnator Number #11 must be the catgirl. And, given what we know of Mishima's behavior, we know he seemed to be especially perverted around his sister, Pakura. It stands to reason that he may seek out other attractive young women too if he's the harem-seeking type. I wouldn't put it past him to have tracked down a cute catgirl and tried to 'recruit' her by force.' She concluded.
These were all just theories, of course. And mostly contingent on Mishima being a total scumbag. But Seija felt like that was a pretty safe bet to make.
Closing her System Screen, Seija checked her map and looked down past Legiana's neck. She could see their destination as a tiny speck in the distance.
"Kyusuke," She called out over the howl of the wind, "It looks like we're close to our first stop. Brace yourself for landing."
She felt Kyusuke tap her shoulder in response. His voice wouldn't reach her ears from where he was sitting, so this was a simple code they had come up with for him to confirm that he had heard her.
Legiana dropped into a dive and landed behind a large hill, outside the village's line of sight, before vanishing in a cloud of smoke. Seija had learned over this past year that constantly landing right in front of the gates was a good way to make people scared of her, which was pretty bad when she was trying to spread the good name of the Akatsuki around.
So she built up a habit of landing out of sight and just walking the rest of the way to their clients' homes. A little wasted time was well worth not accidentally terrifying people.
- - -
The duo was met by the village chief in his home and he fed them a sob story about how his only daughter had her soul taken over by a malevolent yokai before she was born. As she aged, the girl seemed to become unusually intelligent, as if the yokai had lived a whole other life before this one and was merely possessing the body of the child.
He told Seija and Kyusuke all about how one day the girl's mother, his wife, suddenly fell ill with a deadly disease, and when the girl gave the woman some 'medicine', the woman had died only a week later.
"Clearly, the beast must have poisoned my beloved wife! That monster stole my child from me, and then used her body to murder the only person I had left! It must be destroyed before it causes even more suffering!" The chief animatedly declared, dramatically waving his arms around as he spoke.
"Right... and you said that she ran east?" Kyusuke asked.
"Yes! We used the radio that was issued to our village by Lord Hanzo, and we informed all the surrounding settlements of the creature's prowl. A day later, we received word from Ishigaki Town that the beast had appeared there! It fled when its identity was discovered, and it leapt right over the town wall to get away! No mortal human should be capable of such a feat if they were not a shinobi, so the creature must be gaining strength from its atrocities! You must hunt it down and slay it, before its too late!"
Kyusuke continued, "Alright... And you are certain that it definitely poisoned your wife?"
"Absolutely positive!"
"Even though it purchased the medicine from your local apothecary? I somewhat doubt that they sell poison there." Seija questioned the raving madman.
"Bah! We know it must have thrown away that medicine after it bought it and swapped it out for the poison!" He stated with utmost confidence.
Seija and Kyusuke shared a glance before thanking the chief and seeing themselves out. It was late in the evening when they'd set out from the HQ to the village, so they planned to stay in the village for the night and take the opportunity to split up and ask around about what the other villagers thought about this catgirl.
The results were predictable.
"It was a cruel, wicked thing. It tried to KIDNAP my sweet, darling son once! It tried to lure him away with promises of 'tag' and 'hide and seek', but I knew better and made sure my child never went near the monstrosity!"
"That feline atrocity tried to stamp out my crops once! The poor lady who believed it was her daughter insisted that the creature had simply tripped and accidentally fell on my garden, but I know for a fact it was a targeted attempt to ruin my garden!"
"I saw it carving small wooden statues with a knife once! I bet it used them in a demonic ritual when it murdered the chief's wife!"
And those were just some of the ones that Seija spoke to. Kyusuke had heard similar tales from everyone he spoke to as well.
- - -
The pair reconvened at the local inn they were staying at.
"Well they certainly have... personality..." Kyusuke began.
"They're insane." Seija cut to the chase.
"...I'd put it a little more politely than that, personally. But yes, they do seem to be a little superstitious." He admitted. "Now... What are we actually going to do when we find her, captain? I have a few opinions that I want to get off my chest."
Their conversation continued for a few more minutes. Kyusuke had apparently taken a different approach from Seija when it came to talking to the villagers.
While Seija had just asked what people thought of the catgirl in general, Kyusuke had asked them what exactly had happened on the day that she purchased medicine for her mother. He'd received many differing answers, most of them riddled with biased lies and conflicting information, but from what he'd gathered, the girl had never thrown away the medicine after she purchased it.
So, without telling anyone, he snuck back into the village chief's home to examine the bedroom where the mother had died. Sure enough, he found plenty of traces of the medicine. Even a few scraps of herbs left on the bedside table. And he found absolutely zero traces of poison whatsoever.
"...So, captain, I'd like to see if we can't fake the girl's death somehow. It sounds to me like she'd been wrongfully accused of murder when her mother actually just passed away from a tragically lethal illness." Kyusuke suggested.
"You'll get no complaints from me, Kyusuke." Seija agreed, "I entirely agree that the girl should be let free. I'm not sure if we need to go as far as faking her death though. We could just try asking the village chief to let her go."
"Captain, be honest with me, Do you REALLY think that these people are going to accept that? After they've already built a whole mental profile of this poor girl? People hate being proven wrong, especially stubborn ones like this lot."
Seija smiled at him.
'See, this is why we usually keep you in the admin department with Konan. You're a lot better at this than I am, Kyusuke.' She mentally applauded his effort.
"Good point. Very well, tomorrow we'll set out for Ishigaki Town. When we get there, we'll split up again. You ask around town about the girl, see if you can find out anything about what they thought of her. I'll scout the area outside the town and try to see if I can find her." Seija decided.
"Alright then. Have a nice night, captain." He said as he stood up to return to his own room.
- - -
Now on her own, Seija got ready for bed and attended to her final task of the day in private.
She opened the Group Chat and created a new one of her own.
One with only a single other person whitelisted to join it.
[-Private Chat-]
[-Reincarnator #1: "Good evening, Mimi. Would you mind answering some questions for me?"-]
