Unlocking my Potential - Rika's Training

Training For:

Rika sat on top of a large inner dome inside Dipu. The dome was much smaller than the main domes of Dipu, but it was still large to an average person. Rika looked down through the clear dome at the hundreds of people going about their daily lives below. She watched their interactions, how they came across problems, glitches, in their routine, and how such small interruptions drove them mad. She sighed at how simple their lives and their problems were, most of them having no knowledge of the bigger problems in the world. She thought about the civilian life, the successful ones who went on to actually be able to make a difference outside of the civilian world and into the shinobi world. She couldn't help but wonder if she would have been happier as a simple civilian, leading a simple life. She daydreamed about setting up a shop and watching as people came and went, admiring her creations. Such a life seemed nice, but such a life wasn't what was set out for Rika.

Rika sighed again as she stood up and placed her white fox mask on her face, hiding her features completely, aside from her long blue hair. She lept down from the massive dome, landing gracefully several hundred feet below. Rika moved with the shadows, avoiding being seen by the civilians. She searched the streets this way tirelessly for several hours. The streets were crowded, simply finding a single mark wasn't easy. After a while she managed to find her target though, much sooner than she had expected. He was an average sized man, roughly six foot and a bit bulky, he was clearly strong, physically at least. He was also strong on a different scale, charismatically. This made his direct hate for the shogun a slight problem, as him and his beliefs were gaining followers. Yet he still thought he could walk the streets with no protection whatsoever. Rika couldn't help but sneer at his ignorance.

Rika trailed the man for a good amount of time before he turned onto a small road that had no one else on it, likely nearby his residence. This was her chance she was waiting for. She moved quickly throwing Nuibari at A-rank speeds towards him, attempting to impale him straight through the chest. She made the hit and then yanked on the wire, pulling nuibari back to herself. Something was off though, as the man stopped moving completely and seemed to flicker. Suddenly Rika felt a sharp pain in her back. "You think I don't know when I'm being trailed? You little bitch!" came a gruff voice. She gasped in pain as he drove the knife deeper into her lower back. She had slipped up somewhere... no... she hadn't slipped at all, she knew better than that. This man was obviously no civilian, he had some sort of sensory ability. She choked on her overconfidence, it had hurt her, but she needed to finish this, it wasn't over yet.

As nuibari came flying back towards Rika, she didn't catch it, no she moved slightly to make sure it impaled her in a non-lethal location. Nuibari came through and impaled her through her chest. The weapon went through and impaled her enemy as well, she knew it worked because of the sharp gasp in pain that came from behind her. "Sorry about this mister!" she said in her light, childish voice. She couldn't help but wonder if using that personality would make the man feel worse about what was about to happen. Rika took advantage of the man's moment of pain from being impaled and delivered a backwards kick while yanking on Nuibari's wire. He went flying backwards as Nuibari came back through him and through Rika's chest. Rika coughed up some blood on the floor as it came back through her. Grasping the weapon tightly she turned around and faced the man, throwing Nuibari again, impaling his chest. She then caught it and threw Nuibari around a nearby tree. Catching it again she turned her back to her enemy and began walking away, yanking on the wire as she did so. The man scrambled around trying to keep himself from moving as he was slowly dragged towards the tree. Upon reaching the tree he was dragged up the trunk, at last reaching the part where Nuibari had been wrapped around the tree. Rika heard a yell that was abruptly cut off as she yanked on the wire again, the wire wrapped around the man cleaving him in two.

Rika returned to the shadows, she needed to tend to her wound. As she ran through the shadows she stabbed nuibari through a tree and kept running, leaving a long strand of wire that remained taut as she ran through the alleyway. Rika strummed the wire occasionally, letting it reverb all the way along the wire, giving her sensory of her path. She definitely had followers, three of them it seemed like. They were about as fast as her, meaning they were likely shinobi, probably close followers of the man she had just taken out. It was time to test her trap making skills. She continued running, not stopping once as she strung a trip wire across the path and placed a tag on the ground just in front of it. Rika continued running and strumming her wire. The sound of an explosion in the distance behind her told her her trap had worked. "One..." she said quietly to herself. The traps would have to get bigger, because now the other two would be on their guard. Rika lined up a wire at about neck-height across the path, she then did another wire across this one, and then continued running the same direction as she had been. Rika began strumming the wires more frequently, and soon enough she sensed one of them very near the wire she had set up. Timing it perfectly, she yanked on the wire, pulling it taut. This caused the two wires she had set up to cross each other again tightly, catching the enemy shinobi's neck in between and decapitating him effortlessly.

Rika breathed a sight of relief as she felt his body drop through the echolocation of the wires. "Two..." she counted. The last one was closing in on her, she had to move quickly. She stopped running and began setting up wires, circling a particular location. This took several seconds of precious time to do, so it had to work. Upon finishing, Rika crouched snugly between two large shipping crates. Rika strummed the wire rapidly in anticipation, tracking his movement the whole time. He was close. She waited a few more seconds and then lept into the alley, throwing nuibari before she even saw her target. The weapon flew straight through him, passing through his chest. Rika pulled on the wire as Nuibari swung back around towards her. Rika then caught nuibari and yanked on the wire as hard as she could. The circle of wires she had set up pulled towards her target, and in the blink of an eye he was trapped by the wires, unable to move.

Rika carefully stepped over to her target, her mask still on her face, hiding her identity. "Give up." she said to him as he looked straight at her. She used her true personality for once, her deeper, mature voice coming out. "That was a good man you killed, he had a loving family. His ideals may have gone against yours, but he wasn't doing any harm!" the shinobi yelled. "All problems start small, they must be cut off prematurely before they grow into an adult weed and become much harder to remove." she sighed. "You and me aren't too different, we seek to maintain order, and peace. I simply carry out the darker side of a shinobi's duties. You will learn in due time." she said to him coldly. She cut off the wire attached to Nuibari that led to all the wires she had used during the fight, and then she began walking away. "Y-your letting me live?" he asked sheepishly. "Of course, You aren't a problem anymore! Nipaa!" she replied in her childish voice, before disappearing from his sight.

Rika made her way to her apartment, she lived alone ever since she left to work under the shogun, her family didn't even know she was still in Dipu. All they knew was she was carrying out her duties as the Ryuude heir, soon to be the head upon reaching the age of 15. Then she would return to claim her leadership of the clan and would elect her representatives before leaving again and only returning on occasion to maintain order within the clan. Such was the duties of the Ryuude head. She bit her lip thinking about the responsibilities she would take on, she would need to find someone to take over the clan in the case that she died in the field, she had no intention of an arranged marriage for the sake of making an heir, so that meant she had to find an apprentice of some sort. She didn't need to worry about such a thing as of yet though, there was still plenty of time. After reaching her apartment Rika tended to her wound, she wasn't skilled in medical ninjutsu, but she was well aware of non-jutsu forms of medicine, she had to be as she always tended to her own wounds, she had to, it was bad for her to show up at a hospital in a hidden village. After wrapping it up she lay down to get some sleep, if all went well, her wound would be good enough in the morning for her to continue being active.

Word Count: 1634
Required: 1600

Approved

Spoiler:

The loud sound of the alarm came abruptly like it did every morning. Rika groaned and rolled over slapping it with her hand. She missed the button though and it went crashing to the floor, continuing to make the loud sound that drove her mad. She was too groggy to get up in order to pick it up though, and just laid there staring at the ceiling for several moments. At last she gathered her energy and swung her legs over the side of the bed, reaching down to pick up the alarm and turn it off. The silence that filled the room afterwards was much more welcome than the sound of the alarm.  Rika let out a yawn as she closed her eyes and rubbed them. She sat there staring at the wall until she was awake enough to get up.

In the kitchen, Rika continued her routine and started the coffee, making her way to the cabinet while she waited for it to brew. The cabinet was pretty bare, she sighed as she realized she would have to go to the market before lunchtime. She pulled out her last piece of bread and an egg and threw them in the frying pan. Rika hated mornings, she would rather just sleep through them entirely. The toast and egg was done quickly and she grabbed a plate to put the food on. By this time the coffee was done and she got a cup. Most people in the area preferred tea over coffee, but Rika enjoyed it because it was much stronger and helped her cope with her mornings that she despised so much.

Rika sat all alone at her table. Her house, or rather... apartment, was pretty small. It had her bedroom and a very small kitchen, with a small living room where the entrance was and a bathroom branching off of her bedroom. The house was very contradictory to her personality, it was filled with ornaments and art, mostly cute knick knacks like kittens and snow globes, random things that served no real purpose. She wasn't sure why she kept them around, maybe because it helped her cope with her lonely life, she wasn't too sure. Her breakfast was pretty plain, she completely forgot to salt the egg and it didn't turn out so well, she smeared some jelly on the toast to make it taste less burnt. She had never been a good cook, even after living alone since she became a shogunate, the practice hadn't helped. She managed to get by on what she had though.

After breakfast Rika thought about her day, she didn't have any duties lined up for her so she would probably go shopping and have a walk around town before lunch and then after that she wasn't sure what she would be up to. She got dressed in her usual clothes, a simple white kimono with silk red trim. It was actually a more noble outfit than she realized, but it was how her parents dressed her since she was younger so she just dressed that way out of habit, she actually preferred people not knowing about her heritage, or that she was a shogunate. In fact, she just preferred it if people didn't know about her at all, she didn't trust most people, and she also didn't want to be judged by them. Being a shogunate in those times was tough, most people hated the shogunate, especially village shinobi. They had obvious reasons that Rika couldn't deny, but it still hurt to deal with the blatant discrimination.

After getting herself completely ready Rika at last left her home and locked the door behind her. She carried little protection with her, she didn't need it, few people knew of her identity. She kept Kitsune no Shidare on her just in case though, in its mask form in one of her pockets, she rarely parted with the weapon, as it had been with her for as long as she could remember. The streets were pretty average, there was a decent amount of people walking them, but it wasn't too crowded. The main street where the markets were was several blocks away from her house, but she didn't mind walking, she enjoyed seeing what went on her Dipugakure. She wasn't a village kunoichi but she still considered Dipu her home, the other apartments kept ready for her by the shogunate in the other villages were much more bare of personal belongings, so it was clearly noticeable which was her favorite.

Rika passed through the streets normally, no one thought anything of her, she was just a young girl born from a high class family at first glance. It didn't take long to reach the markets, and the streets became much more filled when she did. She made her way to her favorite vendor which saw her coming and recognized her. The old woman smiled and greeted her. "Good morning Rika-chan!" she said happily, clearly much more of a morning person than Rika was. "Good morning!" she replied, putting on her childish, happy smile. She thought about what she wanted, something simple to make that didn't require too much cooking, as well as some basic things. After some time Rika left the vendor with bread, eggs, milk, cup ramen, and some white rice. She figured it'd keep her filled until her next mission. She usually ate out at restaurants when she was on missions, it took less time and preparation and was also a lot tastier than anything she could make.

Rika set her course for home, she bought quite a bit for her to carry around with her so she figured she'd drop the groceries off at home before she took a walk. As she passed along the streets she swung the bags around out of boredom. Eventually the bottom of one of the bags gave out and some of her groceries came spilling out across the ground. Nothing broke, but now she had to sit their and pick them up and try to fit them in the bags that weren't broken. As she knelt down to pick up what fell out, she was surprised to see another hand picking up the food products. She looked up to see a bright smile on a young mans face. He had short dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He looked to be hardly older than Rika and the smile on his face was warm and friendly to the point to where she instantly trusted him. This was unlike her and she wasn't sure why she could trust a stranger all of a sudden, but something about him was magnetic.

He handed her what he had picked up and continued to smile. "Hey there, I'm Daren, sorry that you dropped your stuff." he said to her. Rika's heart pumped and her cheeks reddened into a blush, but she didn't even notice. "Th-thank you." she said shyly, her natural voice coming out without her meaning for it to. Daren kept his gaze on her eyes, not like she had much of a body for him to look up and down at anyways, but his respect was nice either way. "So umm... whats your name?" he asked after a long awkward silence. It was then she realized that she totally forgot to introduce herself. "Umm.. It's Rika, Ryuude Rika." she replied, her cheeks getting darker red. Daren laughed slightly and began walking off. "Well I'll see you around then, Rika." he said to her as a goodbye. She was left there waving awkwardly and wondering what had happened, she rarely acted that way around guys, so the fact that it happened was odd to her. She shook her head and walked off, her house was nearby.

Inside Rika put away her groceries, a few of the eggs have cracked, but most of them had survived being dropped, so that was a plus. Rika couldn't get her mind off of Daren, something about him was so familiar and friendly, she couldn't understand it. She wondered if she would see him again, he likely lived in the area. She decided to stop thinking about it and took out some cup ramen. It wasn't lunch time yet but she was hungry already, she had had a small breakfast so that was probably why. Rika prepared the ramen and sat down at her table like before and ate it, trying to keep her mind off the boy she had just met. It wasn't the best meal, but it was a lot better than her own cooking, so she enjoyed it thoroughly. After eating she decided she would go take the walk around town she had been planning on doing.

After leaving her house, she went the opposite direction from the market, deciding to walk around the other side of the village that she hadn't been to yet today. The streets were a little clearer now, most people were at their respective jobs, whereas when she first went to the market everyone was on their way to work. Now the streets were pretty quiet, except for the occasion small families that had noisy kids running and playing in the streets. It was funny, many of them were hardly younger than Rika, but to her they seemed much younger than her, simply because of the mental maturity that the life of a kunoichi had brought upon her. Or at least she assumed that was why she was the way she was, she doubted she was that different from the other kids, if they went through what she did, they would be like her... right? She hoped so. Rika didn't want to feel odd or unlike the others, she never wanted to be a kunoichi in the first place, it was expected of her so she did it. Still she couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she fought it, if she showed that she didn't want to be a kunoichi, would she have gotten to lead a normal life?

Rika sighed as she walked along the street, she had changed her mood and gotten rather depressed over nothing. It was too late for her to do anything about that, so what was the point in thinking about it. She looked up at the blue ceiling of Dipu, well it wasn't blue itself, the sea around it was blue. Most people preferred the blue skies of the surface, but the darker blue sky that she had grown up under in Dipu was one that brought peace to her mind. She remembered back on the first time she saw a large sea creature passed by the walls of the village, it gave her nightmares for weeks, but looking back on it, it was fascinating. She wondered how difficult it was to construct Dipu long ago, she wasn't big on history. Was it constructed on the surface and then somehow transported underwater? If so, where did they get the force to transport something so large. Or did they build it underwater, if so, how did they manage to create something so huge while being underwater a place that was dangerous for humans to be for a prolonged period of time. Of course shinobi likely had something to do with the building of the village, but it was still magnificent. She often made her way to several of the parks that were situated at the edge of the city and looked through the walls out into the huge ocean.

Her thoughts made her want to go to one of the parks, she had nothing better to do and she always enjoyed visiting them. The nearest one wasn't too terribly far away. It sat at one of the edges of the main dome, it was one of her favorites. The water on this side was very clear and you could see for quite a while, it was the most likely place to see the rarer sea creatures. It didn't take her long to get there, seeing it from a distance. It was a nice park, a small playground for children, and several picnic areas for people to gather and socialize. One of the benches was positioned farthest from everything else in the park, and it was also one of the closest benches to the edge, so it had one of the best views. That was where Rika usually went, other people we generally in the center of the park with everyone else, but she enjoyed the solitude that was common on that side of the park. She made her way to the bench, but seeing it from a distance there was a person at it, looking out into the sea, much like she wanted to. She sat down at the other side of the bench opposite to the person and looked over to see if she recognized them. Her cheeks went red as she realized it was the boy from before, Daren.

"Oh h-hello again. How odd to see you here." she said awkwardly. Daren looked over and recognized her from before, a smile lighting up his face. "Oh It's you, Rika right? What a coincidence seeing you here. What brings you here?" he said to her. Rika couldn't look him in the face anymore, so she looked out and pretended to be looking out at the sea. "I'm here... because its one of my favorite spots to sit in the village. You?" she asked, trying to make conversation. She knew she wasn't very good at it, but she had to try, otherwise she would just embarrass herself even more. "Really? It's mine as well. I find it rather beautiful." he said, shifting his gaze from her back to the ocean. So they had something in common, interesting, she wondered if he was truthful, she didn't see any reason for him to lie, but it seemed unlikely he felt the same way she did about it. "Yeah... it is." she replied. moving closer to him slightly. They sat there for several moments in silence, she was too awkward to make conversation further, and he wasn't really trying to hard, he didn't need to...

"What an idiot, is this really a shogunate kunoichi? It seemed that attraction genjutsu is even stronger than I expected, it's worked like a charm so far. Now I just need to lead her away from here." Daren thought. He was a young genjutsu specialist working for an anti-shogunate community. He couldn't help but admit, she was cute, but she was an enemy. She was a B-rank shogunate, and a special one, from his sources it seemed she had alot of potential and gained special treatment from the shogun himself, she was likely well monitored and protected, which is why he had to get to her so discretely. It was only a matter of time now, he would lead her to his allies and they would take her down. He was taught a special genjutsu for this mission alone, it was a high ranking mission, for him at least, it was his most important yet. Taking her out would be a huge blow to the shogunate's control of Dipu, she was the main shogunate kunoichi in the area. He grinned slightly at the thought of the attention he would receive from the higher ups if he was successful.

To be continued...

Word count: 2565
Needed: 2500

Approved