It was raining this day, not a normal rain either; the weather was rather inclement and the feeling it was giving the people of Tsukigakure was dark. It overshadowed their life today in the village, like a large wall of darkness, doubt and despair: few people roamed the streets and some shops had even closed their business day because customers were so few. Mostly everyone was inside and out of the wetness of the heavy rain and wind, they warmed by covers inside their dry houses and socialized with their precious families.

There was one person this day who was outside in the rain, one person who had no remaining family to socialize and bond with. The darkness of the day washed over her and weighed down her clothes with its irresistible wetness. It could not dampen her soul though, her heart was shining like the sun on a warm clear pleasant day- only looking directly into such brightness could you see any shadows, but of course... those could be illusions from damaging your eyes. Her thoughts were elsewhere in more pleasant memories as she smiled despite the rain: there was a goal she was reaching for and not even the dark and dreary day like this would stop her from her desire.

Today was no different for her, just more rain than she as used to: it could be advantageous to her, but also a disadvantage depending on how the mission turned out. That lead her to the first section of her day and intended goal- she had to visit her old friend and get the intel she had requested of him. That was always her first step, collect as much information as possible on her target through her spy friend Nempo.

They always met at the donut shop and today was no different; their game of "sneak up on the other when they don't notice" was a constant thing. She expected Nempo would arrive there before her, being that few people were on the streets- he had little reason to conceal his identity. Especially now that the elders had shown reason to bestow importance upon him and his detailed information on their errors. His only real enemies were the rogues, the thieves and evil-doers in the city who knew of his presence. He was a paranoid man, that is how he survived.

She arrived  at the shop just as the rain began to grow harder, she opened the door and walked inside. She paused for a moment to wipe the rain from her face before looking around to find Nempo: he wasn't there yet. This was odd, she had gotten the upper-hand on him the last time- so she had expected him to turn the tables on her this time. Only two other people were in the donut shop and neither of them were her intelligence friend. She shook the rain from her hair and then found a seat secluded from the others and waited for Nempo to arrive.

The baker leaned over the counter, Anything I can get for you today Miss Rankujo? This was there customary interaction when she visited the shop, she was well known for making large orders and paying with extra ryo for appreciated services. Today seemed to be different though, some vibes in the air hinted that this information venture wouldn't be that informative. As if on que, Nempo stepped into the door without even bothering to try to sneak up on Semasu.

Semasu noticed and responded to the baker, Two apple fritters please. The baker nearly gawked at the meager amount of donuts she requested. He was expecting at least three dozen from her, perhaps she had already eaten somewhere else today? Or perhaps she was short on change? The baker offered to give her a discount, but it was unnecessary- she respectfully declined and thanked him regardless. He nodded and went to work on baking her two wonderful fritters.

I see you lack a bit of your normal bluster today, Nempo. Was it that difficult to garnish information about the intended target? She was genuinely curious, Nempo's face was much revealing instead of its normal masked appearance: she could guess easily enough that he had little to no information for her. What kind of person could hide information from Nempo?

She wanted to play on his inadequate information and the fact that he looked like a defeated puppy, but she thought better of it. Last thing she wanted to do was ruin his pride more than it had been already. Well, Miss Rankujo... this particular target hasn't been in tsukigakure that long; any past knowledge in this village about them has been wiped clean.

Impressive! So if this ninja had been in the village before, no one was aware of it: that meant they must have either been really sneaky or a special way of circumventing knowledge. Nempo reached into a pocket and pulled out a warn picture, it was at least a couple years old but it held a good likeness of the target. This is your target, the picture is a little old; but I bet you could easily enough guess who the person is. It wasn't much to work with, but it was enough for Semasu to at least kill the right target: last thing she wanted was to kill an innocent person... especially with explosions.

She took the picture from him with a nod of gratefulness and studied the picture: the target was a man... fairly young in age, which was surprising. His age was probably close to her own and he looked pretty innocent- she could see how people would easily overlook him and not take a second glance at him.Don't feel too bad about this Nempo, sometimes there are people who can be slippery by nature- even for someone as skilled as you. You have helped me out many times and have done a great service.

Her words to him were heartening and even more so when the baker brought out two dark golden apple fritters. She paid the baker and tipped him before proceeding to share the fritters with Nempo: it was a small reward, but very reward by its nature. Semasu had heard that the baker had gotten fresh apples the night before and had made all the ingredients that very morning, very few things could beat a fresh donut fritter made from scratch.

They shared the small snack together and had some light conversation before Semasu excused herself to do the mission: he nodded understandingly, his new friend... was going to kill again. She killed often and only accepted assassination missions; she was known around the village for becoming a top assassin for the village, even though she used such a wild and loud explosion style of ninjutsu. She only killed those worthy of death though, normally only people her village had deemed as dangerous or worthy through their actions to deserve death. To his knowledge, she had yet to kill anyone undeserving of death. He hoped it would stay that way: such an honest and cheerful girl, he would hate to see her heart get clouded by darkness and her mind tricked by nice words or rewards.

He offered up the last bit of his fritter donut with a prayer to whatever gods might be there to keep Semasu Rankujo's soul pure and free of corruption. The village of Tsukigakure would need a fine powerful shinobi such as her in its future... however near that might be.
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Semasu was now outside the shop and back into the heavy dreary rain, she glanced about and noted the few travelers along the village street; most of which were rushing to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. Semasu walked casually through the rain in the general direction of her target, she had listened herself to the village's information specialists and could guess close to where her target was residing. The good thing about the rainy day, was that even her target was likely to be stationary and wouldn't flee so easily when confronted. The down side, was that he would be even more difficult to track in the rain I he did flee.

Personally he did seem like the fleeing type, a young slippery man who could circumvent information to avoid suspicion and public eye. She would have to strike hard and fast, leave no room for rationale: cause mayhem, confusion and panic in her target and anyone who might be with him.

She continued to walk into the rain until she was fully soaked and her clothes were drenched, fortunately she had chosen to wear a different set of clothes than her usual white. That could have been disastrous.... but surely given her several advantages over her opponent. Though more than likely, with her temperament, she would have gone overboard destroying things in embarrassment and hurting people who looked too closely at her.

Well... that's an interesting site! I didn't expect that! She had paused suddenly and watched a peculiar scene and had exclaimed to herself as she watched with interest. The very man she had been looking for was standing on a corner of the street and talking to a small group of men, the rain didn't seem to bother them so much- apparently their conversation was heavier than the rain. She remained close by for a bit and studied the man and his colleagues, they were in a heated debate about something unknown to Semasu.

She waited until they were finished and began to go their separate ways, she counted twelve men in total: some of which were shinobi and some of which appeared to be civilians. Five of the men, including her target broke off from the group and headed to a building not too far away and entered it. Semasu looked at the sign on the building, it was an in, a motel of sorts- so... this is where her target had been occupying himself during his stay in Tsukigakure. That would end today.

She smirked to herself, this was a public place; she didn't even need to sneak in to accomplish her mission- easy enough. All she had to do was walk inside and wait for him to show himself, then she could just punch him point blank in the face with a meteor punch. She walked up to the door of the inn and opened it, a puff of stale air and alcohol wafted out and invaded her nostrils. She nearly coughed at the repulsive smell: rather than in in, it smelled like a den.

That's when the thought occurred to Semasu... was the inn just a façade for what was really inside? She raised her guard suddenly, keenly aware of the presences around her; though she kept her face in an attractive and disarming smile as she continued to push the door open and step inside. Sure enough, inside looked as bad as it smelled! The four men with her target were lazy about the area but the target himself was nowhere to be seen. Interesting.

Upon her shutting the door behind her as she entered, the four men became aware of her presence. Slow. That was the first thing she noticed about the men, they seemed only half trained and quite complacent in this den of theirs; they didn't even take up defensive stances as they noticed her presence. Excuse me lady, but the inn isn't open today; we're closed.

The first man had been quite gruff with his voice, hoping to turn her away before she became suspicious of their inn's "disguise" Oh my, I am terribly sorry, I wasn't aware that you weren't open today. You see, the thing is... I have nowhere else to go until tomorrow. Could you please let me stay one night? Please?

She seemed earnest in her words and her puppy eyes were quite the charmer, but the most notable "persuasion" was her blessed body. She was using every physical lure possible to make the men drop what little guard they had and maybe even gleam some important information off them. The original man who had been gruff with her, moved to push her outside, but another man; older and less serious held out a arm and stopped the first man. He looked her body over for a long minute before standing from his chair, he twirled a toothpick in his mouth as he walked near her. Well~ Maybe we can work something out, I have a spare bed in my room if you're that desperate for a place to sleep. Otherwise, I hear it's pretty cold to sleep out in the rain.

His facial expression was that of someone who knew they had won, his eyes studied every part of her as he waited for her response. She kept up the innocent smile and pretended to not catch on to his lewd meaning, Oh, a spare bed in your room? That's really sweet of you~ I would hate to sleep out in the rain... I might catch a cold or fall prey to a man with impure thoughts.

He didn't notice her sarcasm, none of the men did- they just laughed and hooted for the man who had hit on her: they were sure he was getting lucky tonight. He walked up beside her, put an arm around her and started to lead her in the direction of the stairs to the second floor. Semasu restrained her urge to break his arm... for now at least. You see, my boss is up in the room at the end of the hall, so we can't be too loud tonight.

Oh is that so? Well, I guess we could invite him to the party huh? The man stopped in his steps at the top of the stairs and blinked at her, unsure of what she meant. Did she want to invite his boss into the room with them for the evening? Just as he was about to ask, she reached up and put her arms around his neck and moved closer to him. He liked where this was going, but suddenly found himself looking at the wall behind him: his face contorted with confusion and then pain as he registered a sharp pain in his neck.

Semasu wrapped her arms around the limp body after she had twisted the man's neck completely around: not a sound was made. She supported his weight and carried him into the room he had motioned and was leading her towards- it was no longer necessary to break his arm. She shut and locked the door behind her as she left the room where she had placed the corpse on the bed. The three men downstairs weren't heard from, nor did they move: they waited to hear that pleasing noise of wood rhythm against the floor and walls.

The only rhythm that was heard, was the boss as someone knocked on his door at the end of the hall. Semasu knocked lightly but forcefully, enough to catch his attention, but not loud enough to catch the attention of the men downstairs. A moment of silence passed between her and the occupants inside the room separated by the door; then there was movement, a shuffling of feet as the boss got off his bed and staggered to the door. He opened the door, rubbing his eyes and upset at the interruption: though his frustration became confusion at seeing a woman... then pleasure as his mind went to the gutter at the idea of a random beautifully gifted woman at his door all alone.

At first he wanted to protest having a stranger in his hideout, but her physique made him reconsider: in that instance, Semasu punched forwards with her right fist- open palmed and straight into his sternum. A sickening crunch could be heard and his face paled as he tried to cry out alarm. She had knocked the wind out of him though and completely crushed his sternum in one clean strike; his heart shook and then dropped into his lower torso. He clutched his chest and fell backwards gasping for air.

She grabbed his shirt as he fell backwards and slowly lowered him to the wooden floor to reduce the sound of the fall. To ensure his death, she pulled out a kunai and slit his throat carefully, making sure to cut both sides evenly and deeply. His eyes widened in fear and protest and he gargled to beg for his life, but it was too late, it was pointless. She cleaned the kunai off by wiping his blood on his pants and walked away from the corpse casually; she opened a window at the top floor in the room and jumped out back into the street.

Any blood that had been on her, was washed away in the rain. She was long gone before the remaining three men found the two corpses, likely they could remember her face if they saw her again... she had no problem dealing with them at a later date though.
{End}

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