Chapter 21

The fragility of human life. That is what people are trying to overcome. But is that possible? Can we really escape human mortality?

—————————————————————

"So when you go for-" Akira looked at Homura. "Hey! Are you even listening?"

"No" Homura said. "Wait, yes. I am listening."

"Sigh. We still have a couple days left. Keep you head up."

"Yeah." Homura said with a dejected look.

Step by step, they slowly made their way into the Rice Country. Rice fields where scattered everywhere. In them, you could see multiple workers tending to them.

"That kind of work is honest, but it's terrible for their health." Akira pointed out, as she was looking at a worker laboring, picking up a basket full of rice.

"I mean what else are they supposed to do? That's their only source of income." Homura rebutted.

"That's true. They are stuck there from their birth until their death. It sucks." Akira responded, while shaking her head like a disappointed mother would.

"The wealthy stay wealthy, while the rest suffer." Homura said, while thinking about how lucky he was to be born in a good situation.

The sun kept getting lower and lower, and in no time, it was dusk.

"I think we should set up camp. I'll do the scouting from now to about midnight."

"But you always do the scouting after midnight. Is there something wrong?" Homura said, worriedly.

"No. But I have a very good feeling that someone will pay us a visit, and I want you to get even more combat experience.

'Did she set this up the whole time?' Homura quickly thought.

"Your so ruthless!" Homura said, teasingly.

Akira chuckled. "You should be more than enough. I'll be watching just in case."

"Ok. Goodnight." Homura went inside his room. (He used the house jutsu)

Homura closed his eyes. He relaxed his body. He waited for a couple minutes.

'Why can't I sleep?' Homura thought.

Ding: Because you about to have a fight. It's a symptom synonymous before any competitive event, be it basketball, soccer, etc. Your too nervous to sleep.

'Yeah. That makes sense. What do I do to pass the time then?'

Ding: I'm not your dad. Figure it out your self.

'Bastard system.' Homura thought, annoyed.

'I guess I'm going to fuck around with the transformation jutsu.'

6 hours later...

"Alright honey it's your tur- what the heck are you doing?"

"Experimenting." Homura said, while a shadow clone was giving him a massage.

"Sure." Akira was speechless. To use ninjutsu in this manner, she thought, was ridiculous.

Homura made his way outside of the wood house. He smelt the air and took in his surroundings. It smelt fresh, the air was crisp.

"Perfect conditions for a battle." He mused to himself.

A voice came out of nowhere responded, "I agree."

"Y'all always do that. Why can't y'all do a sneak attack or something like that?" Homura was annoyed. Not even 1 minute into his patrol, did someone bother him.

Ninjas where used to battling in the dark, so Homura could see the dude's face with some clarity. One long, giant scar went down his left eye. He was tall, at least 6'7, and had huge muscles. His headband showed Iwa but with a slash going through it.

'Intimidating.' Homura thought.

"Let me introduce my self. My name is 4. As you probably already know by now, I am part of the Mitsui Syndicate. We dapple in various fields, such as drugs and other various illegal things that are of little significance to you."

He continued. "Let me give you some background information about Mitsui. There are three departments. I'm part of the tiger department, whereas the other departments, I won't go into detail. Anyways, we have a ranking system that determines our code names. But I don't really care about the rankings very much. I'm basically the de facto number one."

"Wow. You sure ramble a lot." Homura said.

"You're 5 year old kid. You're in no position to critique me."

"We'll see after we're done battling." Homura said. I'll start off in times 5, for a warm up.

The kokugan activation sound could be heard. Homura jumped forward with a kunai in his hand. He got over there almost instantly and slashed forward.

Number 4 smirked. He easily dodged, and responded with a right hook to the face. Homura barely avoided that punch.

The two looked at each other after that exchange.

"Your not bad kid." 4 said. "I know you have a lot left in your tank. Why don't we bring it up a notch, huh?"

"I agree." Homura quickly responded.

"Times 10!" Homura burst forward, attacking 4 with his kunai.

The man smirked. He dodged the barrage of kunai strikes with a little difficulty. "Your still to slow. You got a long way, kid."

"I'm not done yet!" Homura was getting nervous.

"Times 20!" A feint blue tint was radiating off of Homura.

"Interesting. I wonder how long you'll last in that form." 4 said.

Immediately after he said that there was a kunai going at his eyes. He quickly dodged out of the way.

"Now we're talking! Let's bring up the heat!" 4 said excitedly.

AN: Sorry for the slow update. It was spring break for me and there is no way I was going to write during that. But now it's over and it's business time again. Also, If you have any ideas/suggestions please let me know. I always appreciate when people give ideas. It makes writing a whole lot easier.