Kurai had been given permission to travel to Niwa. After all he'd done for Hinowa in such a short amount of time, not to mention his quick rise to Special Jounin, he didn't think leaving for a while would be much of an issue. After waking up early, eating a big breakfast, packing a bag full of necessities, being seen off by his mother and father, and leaving a note for his twin explaining where he was going and why, Kurai hit the road. After traversing the new landscape forged from the destruction of Korigakure and crossing a large body of water, Kurai made his way between a set of volcanoes and off into the arctic regions beyond.

It was pretty cold going, until he began to near Kumogakure, the land Hidden in the Clouds. His parents always told him that enemies of the Yanagi lived in that village, and always to steer clear. Raiton techniques were the weakness of the Yanagi, so Kurai understood why. Kurai was looking forward to some sort of situation out on the road, but he didn't plan on getting into it with anyone here. While keeping the primitive mask over his face to shield him from the biting arctic winds from the plains outside of Hinowa's volcanic ring, he quickly moved through the country, blending in with the massive crowds of foot traffic on the mainstream roads.

It was afternoon heading into the evening when Kurai crossed the border that lead into the desert. The ground quickly became sandy, and the temperature began to rise, making Kurai shed the protection he wore from the cold and chill. The desert ahead of him looked like a vast and endless brown ocean. He didn't mind the heat so much, but had to resort to putting his mask apparatus back upon his head to block out the burning hot laser beam that was the sun overhead. Everything seemed to be fine and dandy at first; an ordinary everyday trip through the desert, until the group he happened to be traveling within was ambushed by desert bandits.

They sprang out of sand dunes hidden on either side of the road, 5 in number, dressed in strange hats and cloaks the same color as the sand. All of them had swords and crossbows. The people who fought back were gutted and stabbed, then left still alive and tied to stakes in the sand for scavengers such as jackals and birds the likes of vultures to eat. The people who ran were shot with arrows. After looting the dying and the dead, the bandits began to usher those who didn't choose to resist, such as Kurai, back to a hidden bandit camp. Kurai could have easily fought them off, but willingly let himself be captured in order to get a look at their camp. Perhaps there were others who had been captured the same as these people. He would free them all, then destroy the camp. The bandits that tried to stop him would be shown no mercy...

The bandit HQ was situated within a small section of ruins, just like he thought they would be. All bandits seemed to favor some sort of ruins of something that used to be there long ago. The Bandit camp was large enough so that Shinsai could tell him where everyone was inside of the camp, and around it patrolling. The sun had begun to fall, turning the sky a mixture of orange and dark blue as Kurai and the group he was traveling with on the road was lead inside at arrow point. The women and elderly were terrified, crying and complaining as the bandits forced them all inside of a building that looked like a jail house for whatever village used to be here long ago. Most of the men, such as Kurai, were pushed into cells and locked inside, while the women were taken a floor below.

Kurai could have easily broken out of the cell, but doing so could have jeopardized things for the women. The floors in this jail house were wooden so he couldn't sink through the floor with earth meld. Using one of his senbon, Kurai began to pick at the old rusted lock to his cell, once the bandit assigned to guard them fell asleep in his chair. The lock gave way eventually, and Kurai opened the door. The males in the surrounding cells began to beg to be let out too, but Kurai quickly put a finger to his lips, signaling for them to stay silent.

Kurai made his way over to the sleeping bandit and put him in a choke hold. A hand went over his mouth as he tried to yell. With a vicious twist of his head and a loud pop from his neck, the bandit stopped moving. Kurai took the keys and opened the cell to the nearest of the males that were on the road with him, then handed him the keys so that he could do the same for all of his comrades. When asked what he was going to do, he pointed down, signaling that he was going after the females. First he took the sword, hat and sand colored cloak from the dead guard and put them on, then made his way down 2 flights of creaky, rusted old stairs.

The elderly women were locked in cells. The younger women, bandits were currently preparing to have their way with. In a shower area, all of the younger females had been stripped nude, with some of the bandits performing water Jutsu at them in the fashion that resembled fire hoses. There were a total of 5 bandits down here, with 2 of them having the honors of spraying water at glistening and ample nude young bodies. No one really paid attention to Kurai as he walked into the area besides giving him a glance. That was their first and only mistake.

Kurai drove the sword he picked up from the dead guard upstairs through the throat of one of the bandits spraying water at the young women. Water along with blood began to spill from his mouth and throat, and he went down making a choking/gurgling noise. The remaining bandits looked at Kurai in surprise, and Kurai used this surprise to jump and execute The Violent Heel upon the other bandit using water jutsu. This heel smashed into his nose, creating an explosion of blood and sending the bandit down screaming, rolling through the dirt in pain. 2 other bandits drew swords and rushed at Kurai, who slipped into the ground using Earth Meld, since the ground down here wasn't covered in wood. These 2 bandits were dragged beneath the earth up to their eyes. They couldn't move and couldn't breathe. The females watched them struggle a while while Kurai hopped back up from the ground. The last bandit shot a crossbow toward Kurai. His fast reflexes enabled him to grab the crossbow bolt out of mid-air, spin and throw it back at him. The bolt buried itself into the bandit's mouth. The 2 bandits in the ground suffocated and stopped moving around the time that the bow bandit went down, choking, attempting to pull the bolt out of his mouth.

Kurai threw off the bandit costume, which smelled badly of body odor. The bandit on the ground choking had the keys to the cells. The younger women who were being sprayed began to gather their clothes while Kurai took the keys and unlocked the cells where the elderly were being held. The males came down after hearing the commotion and were reunited with their loved ones. Kurai began to look around for another way out. In the back of the jail area, there was a section that was blocked off with garbage and debris. It lead to an old, unused tunnel that went outside, a fair distance away from the bandit camp. Perhaps long ago someone escaped the prison that used to be here through it. Kurai moved all of the trash and whatnot out of the way. The people were trying to thank him, including many of the females, but Kurai kept putting a finger to his lips, waving them inside of the tunnel. Once they were all in, Kurai covered the tunnel entrance back up.

Bandits outside began to hear loud commotion from the jail house. Something within began to destroy the building. Many began to see what looked like a living rock bashing down walls and pulverizing whoever attempted to attack it. The thing stood about 9 feet tall and had large splotches of blood upon it's chest and hands from smashing the life out of the unfortunate soul who'd decided to stand against it. None of the bandits seemed to stand a chance against the thing, except for the leader. He was skilled in many different kinds of Ninjutsu, one of them being lightning techniques. He managed to hold his own against the golem that Kurai created, and eventually took the thing down. Kurai watched everything from the top of one of the nearby structures. He would see this camp ended, and everyone within dead, even if the leader wielded techniques that would do severe harm to him.
A Rasengan formed within the palm of his right hand. Kurai, leaping from the structure, poured an abnormal amount of chakra into the sphere, and suddenly it grew to a colossal size. The large Rasengan was several times Kurai's size, and brightly illuminated the entire camp. It was so powerful that waves of sand were created from the sheer force of chakra compressed into the large space. Speechless, the leader and what remained of his men could only look upon the thing with wide eyes. Kurai swung the huge orb forward and drove it into the leader, creating a chain reaction that caused the complete and utter destruction of the bandit camp, and the deaths of the leader and what remained of his camp of bandits...

Kurai landed a distance away, thrown out of range of detonation. He watched a huge plume of smoke rise into the skies from the ruins of the Bandit camp, realizing that he'd created another variant of his new trademark move. None of the innocent managed to get caught up in the blast, and with a job well done and checking himself over to make sure he himself wasn't injured, Kurai began to move on. Eventually he made his way back to the main road. By now, it was dark out. The sky above was a dark blue and filled with stars. Jackals could be heard howling on the horizon somewhere, along with the chirp of crickets and other nocturnal desert sounds. As Kurai passed the village of Yokuchigakure, where all of the escaped made their way to, he could see the last of them making their way into the front gates. Kurai thought of joining them, but he was too amped up from that last confrontation and decided to keep legging it toward Niwa. They were all safe, that was all that really mattered in the end.

So Kurai continued on... Those people would probably tell a story of some skinny kid who freed them from the clutches of evil bandits, and Kurai was fine with that. Kurai continued on out of the desert, until the landscape before him became even darker than the night behind him. There was something... wrong with the landscape ahead of him. There were nasty sounds in the dark, and the surroundings resembled something out of a bad dream. The realization hit Kurai that he'd crossed the border into The Land of Shadows. His mother and father made him promise to get through this area as quickly as possible, because it was home to those that destroyed Korigakure. His mother especially made him promise not to get into it with that criminal organization. Kurai had grown strong in a quick amount of time, but he'd be no match for those who could wipe out an entire village... not yet anyway, according to him. Kurai would have loved to catch a glimpse of what these individuals looked like, but he would honor his mother's promise, even if she wasn't around to make sure he did.

When things began to look a little brighter, mostly from running all night, stopping every so often to rest and eat foods he'd packed, and the horizon became full of trees, Kurai knew he'd crossed the border into The Land in the shelter of the Mountains. The smell of the forest was heavy within Kurai's nostrils. He managed to make it through The Land of Shadows with no confrontations, although he couldn't shake the feeling the entire time there that he was being watched. Kurai could make out the Village of Niwaurushigakure in the distance. He'd never been here before. Perhaps it would be a good idea to spend a few hours touring the village before he began with his mission; his reason for making the journey here.

Big Ball Rasengan Training: 2,179/2,000 wc