🏞️ || Broken Stone

[BIG GUCCI EDO]

Claimed by: N/A

 

[gucci-shinigami]

Where is she? Ito looked around in a panic, much like every other member of the TORNA. The pink haired girl ran around among the confusion and chaos. All the girl could hear was the sound of her own breathing, her own heartbeat throbbing in her ears and she ran through the camp. Other members were barking orders or questions, but none of that mattered to her. Ito barreled right through a small collection of her family in her own haste to find the one person that mattered. Where is she? What did she do? Even though Ito didn’t know where her friend was, her body moved on instinct alone, turning through to a small path between cabins, each one sustaining damage from the duel that had taken place.

While it didn’t actually take long, finding the building that served as the gang’s prison felt like it took an eternity. But this was it, this had to be where she was! Then Ito could ask her what she was doing. Why she was doing it! The questions flooded the girl’s mind as one jumbled mess. Without a moment to even stop, Ito flung the door open. The wooden door crashing against the wall was enough to clear the girl’s mind of sound, snapping her back to reality. The room was dark, but the pink haired girl could see everything she needed to. Signs of a fight, broken chains and objects flung about. A girl, on her knees and crying. A body, a single corpse of the leader of TORNA pinned by wooden stakes. And then… her.

A blonde girl just a couple of years older than Ito stood in the center of the room, just inches away from the kneeling prisoner. Ito felt relief seeing her friend was safe, but that only gave way to the massive amount of questions she had to ask her. “What are you doing?!” She yelled, her voice breaking from the wave of adrenaline. The blonde girl turned her attention to Ito and the look on her face made the girl stop dead in her tracks. The scowl on the girl’s face was filled with nothing but fire. And if looks could kill it was hard enough to bludgeon someone to death. It was something that Ito had never seen on the girl’s face ever before, in all of their years of being best friends. Ito’s heart began to race as all of the questions she had got stuck in her throat. “Why..?” She managed to choke out.

It was quiet, then. The sounds of the panic outside seemed to be growing louder but Ito didn’t take heed of it. All of her attention was taken to the girl before her. The longer the two made eye contact, the more the blonde’s face seemed to soften. As if her mind was slowly coming down from the fight she’d been in, and realizing now who was standing before her. Ito took a single step forward, and then another. There was only so much distance to cross, but it felt like she wasn’t getting any closer. So she ran forward… she had to reach her friend before the rest of TORNA got here.

It was too late for that. “There she is!” The mob yelled from outside, shadowing the room further with the mass of bodies. But Ito didn’t care: all that she could see was her friend. Her friend, reaching out to the girl on her knees. Her friend, saying something inaudible through the cries from outside. And just as Ito was about to reach her, she watched her friend disappear and take that other girl with her. Ito couldn’t stop in time, and fell through the spot her friend had just been, her body falling into the shadows of the room.

She was gone. She was gone and left Ito here, alone. As the mob clamored into the room, the amount of light dwindled through the prison. All Ito could do was stare, on her hands and knees, at the spot her friend had been. Her heart wrenched through her chest and panged as if it had been stabbed over and over. It felt like she was going to throw up. Tears welled up in her eyes as she silently mouthed the name of her friend, too in shock to notice she was crying. Ito clutched at the spot and let out a wail of pure pain and sadness as her emotions overwhelmed her…

“Ito!” A call to the woman snapped her awake from her nap. The woman had falled asleep in her chair, the warmth of the fire behind her curating her exhaustion. That dream again, reliving that moment. The woman slowly opened her eyes half way to glare at the subordinate that thought to wake her from her nap. The TORNA leader was sitting loosely in her chair with her legs hanging off the side with her head propped up on her hand.

“What d’you want, Jin?” She snapped, her tone of voice belaying an anger that was multitudes more intense than the look on her face.

Jin gulped and the fear that was radiating off of him put a lazy smirk on Ito’s face. “W-we have a job, ma’am…” He managed to bumble out. Which was the bar for someone like Jin, the woman thought. As he spoke, the man gestured to a woman Ito had never seen before. Curiosity piqued her interest, but all the pink haired woman did was raise an eyebrow, unmoving from her leisurely sitting.

The woman before her was about as plain as plain could get. Black hair, average build, boring clothes. It was enough to make her yawn. “Ugh, no thank you.” She sighed, closing her eyes and shifting in her seat to be further away. Ito loosely waved a hand dismissively and added “Sorry, but we don’t take offers from small fry. Now bounce before we make you.”

“I can pay!” Ito cracked an eye open at the sudden outburst. The woman, who seemed rather timid, was shaking. But what was in her hand intrigued the gang leader… a silver briefcase was hanging from her outstretched hand. The woman slammed the case down and it opened with a click, revealing more Ryo than Ito had ever seen in one place. As it swung open, the woman herself fell to the ground to her hands and knees, pleading.

“Well well well, wellwellwellllll~” Ito cooed in a sing-song voice. The woman rolled from her chair and in the same motion came to a crouching stop in front of her new client, her grinning face inches away from the woman’s. “How can we help you~?”

The client looked up to meet Ito’s smile, with every trace of fear and nerves gone. Her face was hard and determined, full of resolve about her answer. “Revenge.” She growled.

Ito let the word ring out for a few seconds as her own smile grew wider. “Now you’re speaking my language.” She said, her eyes glowing blood red for a second, the only source of light visible on her shadow covered face.


Finding the mark didn’t take too long after that. Just a few hours of travel and Ito plus a few of her men were hanging around the Broken Stone: supposedly the place the target was seen heading towards. According to the client, Muda the Merciless lived up to his name, having massacred her town except her.

It all seemed… rather cliche and boring to Ito. But the money was as real as it could get, and backstory didn’t matter as long as the gang got paid. Ito sat lazily on a lone rock with one leg out, her scythe hanging loosely in the crook of her arm. The woman looked bored at the sky, surrounded by her entourage of men, as her thoughts started to drift. “Where d’y’all think that girl got that money from?” Ito found herself thinking aloud. “She didn’t seem like she was nobility, and Rivers ain’t exactly known for its riches.” There were some shrugs and non-committal answers from her rag-tag group of guys, but nothing solid. “Ohh~!” Ito’s eyes lit up like stars at the thought. “What if she stole it?” She leaned back, almost sliding off of the rock. “Or what if she massacred a town on her own just for the money? Now wouldn’t that be something?” She let out a laugh, wild and carefree, elated at the story she was concocting. So she didn’t notice when her target finally rounded the bend.

“Uh, boss?” One of her henchmen leaned down and whispered to her, snapping her from her daydream. Ito immediately stopped laughing, her smile instantly replaced by irritation. The man pointed and she turned her attention to the man on the road. He was rather large, standing at over six feet tall. He had lightly tanned skin, and piercing blue eyes that seemed to stare into the very being of each TORNA member. He was lean, but not without muscle definition, and had blond hair that ran to his shoulders. The most notable thing about him, to Ito, was the set of triple scars that ran down half of his face.

“Oh!” Ito’s expression lifted and she hopped to her feet, standing up tall on the rock. “Yup, tall, three scars, and ugly as fuuuuck! You must be Muda the Merciless!” She called out, her tongue rolling from her mouth.

“And if I am?” His voice growled, quiet and low, but still able to reach the woman from where she stood. If she listened closely, Ito could actually hear his body rumbling like an engine. Was he getting ready to fight?

“Then you picked the wrong time to be alone!” Ito cackled and lunged forward with a smirk on her face! With an effort of chakra, her eyes shifted to the red and black Sharingan, allowing her to fully predict and analyze movements. As she flew the woman twirled her scythe behind her and whipped it around! She swung the weapon wide, forcing the man to take a step back and just barely dodge the blade. Ito hit the ground low and spun, sweeping her scythe down at her target’s ankles. He jumped over the weapon, but Ito’s coiled body let her spring back up and slam the pole of her weapon into his stomach! He gagged from the blow and fell over as the two hit the ground. Ito caught him by placing a hand gingerly on his chest. “You think you can kill a whole town and run around scott free?” She asked him by leaning close and whispering in his ear. “I like your guts, and I’d love to keep you for myself. Unfortunately, someone else paid me top dollar to string those guts where everyone can see them.” Muda flinched at that as the realization of why Ito was here finally hit him. He jumped away from the smaller woman, his hands clasping together to form seals. Ito seemed unbothered by this, her Sharingan tracing the movements of his fingers. With a roar Muda slammed his hands to the ground, causing rocks to erupt from the road between them.

Ito’s eyes followed the path of the rocks as they flew in slow motion, and she brought her scythe up. The woman spun the weapon around, using her blade to slice each rock as it fell around her. Her own body spun and twirled as she moved her way forward easily. “Why struggle so hard?” She asked, her voice a chime against the clashing of steel on rock. She imbued her voice with chakra as it traveled to Muda, casting her own jutsu on him. “Do you really just wanna die tired~?” The man froze at the statement, which was enough of an instant for Ito’s jutsu to take effect. Chains of magenta metal erupted from the road and latched onto the man’s ankles. More of the same chains erupted from the cliff face and bound the man tightly by the wrists, holding him spread out in the road. Muda hung there, struggling to no avail against the chains of chakra.

Ito took a blurring step forward, wind rushing behind her as she appeared behind her target. Her scythe was stretched out behind her, the curve of the blade inches from the front of the man’s neck “Such a shame~ I really hoped we’d be friends, too~” She pulled the pole of her weapon forward, the blade slicing easily through the man’s neck like it was wheat meant for the harvest. The chains faded as her Genjutsu wore off and Muda’s head was sent into the air for a few seconds. Long enough for Ito to nudge his body with the blunt end of her scythe to knock him over, and allow the head to fall onto the flat of her blade. The woman pulled it close to her and she looked over it like one would a new toy. “I owe you one; I’ll make sure to send some Ryo to your grave~”

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Mission Complete: Murder Muda the Merciless Rank A

 

[gucci-shinigami]

What…? What happened…? Everything around Ito was moving at lightning fast speeds. So quickly that every movement was a blur. The girl sat there on her knees, not moving from the spot she’d fallen for an eternity. The pink haired girl had so many questions racing around her mind. But as they came to her they felt like they were from somewhere distant. As if someone else was speaking them to her, but with her own voice. In fact, Ito felt disconnected from the reality around her. She was unaware of the true hustle and bustle that was TORNA trying to remedy the situation her friend had caused.

Her friend.

She was gone, and she took that other girl with her. She took her… but not Ito. And there wasn’t a thing the pink haired girl could’ve done to stop it. She wasn’t strong enough… She wasn’t important enough… What had she done wrong to push away someone she loved so dearly? Everything between them had been fine. Until… that girl showed up. The metaphorical knife in Ito’s heart metaphorically twisted. And again, and again, each time the girl reminded herself that her best friend left with someone else. And each twist filled her with more and more sadness. More and more pain.

And each twist brought on a secondary wave of anger. Power started to flare up within Ito, the human being’s natural link to chakra swelling amplified by her state of withdrawal and rage. It was like her heart, as it had been whole, had been keeping her sense of natural energy away from her. But now, as it lay shattered into a million pieces before Ito, she could see that it had been a shackle to the true power laying within her. Nothing more. And that her love for someone else had only been holding her back.

It was then that something inside of Ito snapped. Fueled by her new mix of pain, and rage, and sadness a new energy rose out from her; one drawn from the very depths of humanity itself. She could hear herself laughing as Ito rose to her feet, stumbling as she tried to regain her balance. The busy room around her had suddenly gone still, as each person had frozen to look at her. Chakra exploded from Ito’s body, magenta and black, as her body shook with peals of broken laughter. Ito rolled her head up to finally look around the room, a wild smile on her face and her eyes scarlet red with three teardrop shapes inside of them. The power she was feeling was incredible and drove her to do one thing: return to the world the level of pain she was put through.

Another wave of chakra exploded out from her again. This time violently, and with enough force to blast most of the people in the room against the walls. Ito stopped to admire the results of a small fraction of her new power, watching the bodies fall to the ground. Ito was about to continue with her rampage, before shining silver chains erupted from the floor! In an instant they wrapped around the girl and imprisoned her to the ground. “That’s enough!” A voice snapped. Even though Ito struggled, she couldn’t seem to budge against the chains. A person stepped into view after the voice called out, a voice Ito recognized. She looked up to see Maeve standing before her. The wife of TORNA’s late leader. She was holding a seal and looked to be concentrating intensely.

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Human Sage "Meditation": 5/5 [/spoiler[