[Sky Reach] A puppeteer: Part 2

[Zao]

During his time blacked out, the boy of course had no sense of time or space as the two bandits had already rapidly fled from the scene of the crime, kidnapping a Sky Reach Student was the entire purpose of the masked organization. Though one could say that the two men who had managed to capture the chakra exhausted Ziv weren't the top tier recruit by any means. But they had assumed by the battle prowess that the white-haired kid they had managed to nab while the two other students were too busy dealing with the giant spirit bear and the other mercenaries that their own group had hired to cause a commotion. Obviously, the group had some ties back to Sky Reach academy and wanted the unique items that were carried by some of the students. But who would have guessed that duo of bandits had stolen a kid that didn't have any unique school items.

His eyelids were heavy in that moment as he attempted to open them, indistinguishable noise of people speaking and yelling tried to enter his ears, but it was mixed with an almost droning or ringing sound as he finally managed to force his eyes open enough to see that he was in a dimly lit room. The walls seemed to be almost earthen as the floor was hard like stone, the blue-eyed kid attempted to move his hands but found them still bound and as he did his legs they moved as though they were one, his eyes finally coming into focus as he saw they were tied together at the ankles. Bound tightly, the fifth-year student had been thrown inside what appeared to be some sort of storeroom with a single wooden door for entry and exit, a set of bars formed a makeshift window that allowed some of the light from the next room outside of it to filter in and slightly illuminate his surroundings.

"You two are stupid..." A loud sigh could be heard from a man that Ziv didn't recognized from the encounter earlier, his voice held a tone of annoyance with the duo from earlier, the sound of him throwing a chair across the room, the impact against the stone wall of the basement like room caused it to shatter into mere splinters. The quick display of strength caused the two bandits to immediately bow down at his feet. "Please boss, his fighting skills followed us to think he was at least a fourth year, possibly someone about to enter the third year." Even with them begging for some forgiveness for their actions the still masked man simply crossed his arms. This time it seemed he didn't let the two men off without some form of discipline, it was in that moment that the skinny man produced a pair of scrolls. "Here boss, the kid had these with him. The first one has his two puppets and the second one we couldn't activate; it has some kind of locking fuuin on it."

With his arms crossed, the right hand tapped quietly on the left bicep, contemplating something. "Something is better than nothing." Extending his hand out it glowed and what appeared to be two ghostly hands materialized and grabbed each scroll bringing them over to the older sounding man as he glanced at the first scroll, an eerie red light seemed to seep from the eye holes in the mask as he simply nodded. "These are okay puppets." Inside the storeroom Ziv was attempting to slowly circulate his chakra, attempting to sense how much of his chakra had returned to him from almost running completely out in the fight against the numerous bandits. But he halted as he heard the man's words, 'How can he tell what's inside a storage seal without unsealing it? Then!' He couldn't understand how the man could do something like that, but what suddenly worried him was the fact that perhaps he would be able to see inside the special scroll his father had gifted him. The five puppets were all that he had left from both of his parents, if he lost them here then he'd have nothing.

Just then he heard the man speak, "How odd. I can't see inside this seal, it's inscription pattern if highly complex and a unique one at that. What fuuin master made this?" The leader figure didn't sound upset but instead grew excited at the possibilities of what might lay inside this locked seal...


749 Words - 600 words = 1 Chakra control for March event = 149 words to carry over

[Trusted Grader]

Yami continued on his own, using whatever he had managed to pick up from overhearing Hozok and Desu speak, that plus the heavy footprints left behind by the burly man carrying Ziv made it easier for the shadow twin to track them. Moving in two dimensions, the shadow snake slithered between grass leaves, dodging both winds and leaving no trace behind him, for now, they were hunted by a ghost.

The not-so-subtle ones would be Hozok and Desu giving chase to the culprits, Nehan had been forced to pull Yume back and safeguard the orphanage while the other two teachers went and saved the student, Hozok had argued that since they were Second level teachers their duty was to ensure that every student got home, First level teachers only needed to focus on the mission. Thank god that worked. Hozok peered over at Desu who was forced to slow down for the older man to keep up. Knees aren't what they used to be. He was a bit rusty but with a bit of training, he'd be back where he was, if not stronger than ever before.

Yami hid by one of the trees as Hozok and Desu would stop in order to inspect some of the left behind markings, "They can't be too far up ahead, but we don't know if these motherfuckers have set up traps or not." He was no longer cool and collected, the teacher was mad and he intended to make them pay for kidnapping one of his students. Yami couldn't help but laugh, he had never seen the teacher lose his temper, let alone swear, he couldn't wait to share this memory with Yume.

The burly man splashed some water on Ziv and laughed as he looked at the kid. "Just you wait, we'll trade your hide for one of the books." Burly looked over at the red magician who seemed rather angry that he had lost his friend to Desu's puppetry. "I don't think he's worth it, but the ones that will come after him will be. Wait until the leader gets a hold of them." The red mage pressed his thumb against Ziv's forehead, of course, this was discussed while Ziv was asleep, for this had already transpired.

Hozok pulled out his sword and pointed it at the bushes, scaring Yami as he thought he was pointing the blade at him. "Otherwise they are dumber than we think." Hozok pushed the shrubbery out of the way and revealed the massive stone building that housed the 12 Blade Gang, a notorious crew that used to roam Dwarf country until S.O.F dwindled their numbers, now they mostly robbed caravans until recently, when they dared to tackle spirits and even go so far as to kidnap one of the students of Sky-Reach.Bold motherfuckers, that's for sure.

[Kaitos10]

Desu would look very annoyed when she had to stop, it was so annoying having to stop and wait for others. That said this whole situation was annoying, she was starting to wonder if it would just be less trouble to be a mercenary or something instead of having to look after other people. But she could save that Gripe for later, on top of that she is being told that despite the fact that, even though Nehan who was a first teacher was taking the student home was a first teacher. She still had to wait, as well as being told that she has to look after other teachers students.

She barely stopped herself from groaning, but she had no better options currently, so she went along with it. Waiting for the other teacher and everything, though soon after they spot signs of a trap. Causing her to realize that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing she had to wait for him. When Hozok mentions that their planning a trap Desu would say “agreed I’m more inclined to think it’s a ambush, they are either planning on luring us there so they can have multiple people attack us, or have someone stronger then us attack. “ she then explains her reasoning behind why saying “ if they are smart enough to know they need to set a trap for us and are luring us here then they aren’t going to do something that’s easily stopped or has a lower chance of success.” Finally she waits for Hozok’s response then says “Question becomes how do we rescue the student without getting caught in the trap?”

[Zao]

Ziv struggled for a moment, unable to summon the needed strength in order to break free from the ropes that bound him currently, normally the boy's surprising strength should have been enough to at least accomplish that feat but perhaps it was due to the chakra exhaustion that he was currently suffering from that prevented him from properly circulating his chakra to all his muscles, especially those in his arms. Letting out a sharp exhale the boy shook his head in contempt for his current situation, but as he closed his bright eyes in the dim storage closet or prison cell, take your pick, he couldn't help but recall that he really had no choice in coming on this so-called mission. After all, he was just a tiny kid who belonged to the fifth-year class, how was he supposed to even raise a word against the first-year teacher and high level missing-nin, how was that woman even a teacher?

The white-haired kid couldn't help to think back to the situation just before he had been rendered unconscious by something or someone, he still couldn't clearly recall the moment as it was all a blur and his head still hurt a bit from whatever had transpired in the moment. He remembered that Nehan had told him to retreat back to the academy, just as he witnessed her taking on the massive spirit bear, perhaps she wasn't so bad? What was he even thinking about! Someone of his level of strength and experience shouldn't have even been in such a dangerous place and situation as that to begin with. At least that was what he wanted himself to believe as he tried to recall his own training back in the spirit realm with the elephant spirits. The older warriors there would always speak about combat experience, you needed to spar and fight with not only your comrades but your enemies to develop this type of experience that would allow for you to hone your own body and mind. A warrior's mindset they called it there.

The group of bandits outside the door of the room that held him captive were still conversing with their selves at the moment, but it all sounded like mumbles at this point as the sound didn't filter through the cracks around the thick wooden door or the small window. Ziv used his feet to scoot himself away from the large doorway and back against the cold stone wall on the opposing side now, shifting his body into a sitting position to allow for his back to rest against the very same wall. He could feel his chakra returning throughout his body and even with his hands tied behind his back he still had just enough freedom to slowly form a series of five hand seals, carefully doing so as he finished with the snake seal. From inside the wide sleeve of his dirty and torn kimono like upper robe, a sharp black rod seemed to appear from nowhere as it struck downwards and managed to slice through most of the robes wound tightly around his wrist to the point of almost cutting off circulation. A small tick sound could be heard, almost like a piece of metal hitting a rock gently from the extending rod striking the ground afterwards, finally he managed to summon enough strength to break through the partially cut ropes on his arms tearing himself free.

'My chakra pool is still too exhausted to put up any proper fight, I need to work on letting my body recover what it can. Hopefully that crazy lady and the other teacher will discover that I'm missing." Ziv didn't know that there was already a search party out looking for him, with one of the teacher's preoccupied fighting a large group and the other trying to deal with the threat of the massive bear spirit the boy couldn't help but worry to himself that perhaps no one even knew that he was missing yet. Hopefully that wasn't the case as it seemed that this group of men had rather unsavory plans for the small kid. Bringing his knees up to his chest now he reached down behind him and retrieved the one-foot-long black spike of his unique black metal ninjutsu, it was something he was still working to figure out and understand as not even his father really understood it, perhaps if he'd have had more time with the white-haired man then he could have helped Ziv understand what it was. The fifth-year student used this spike to help cut the ropes on his ankles, freeing them from their bindings now, as well. But he refrained from getting up, afraid to make too much noise or trip over something inside this dark room, unsure what else was in here with him as all he could smell was the musty smell of dampness and potentially mold coming from within the storage area. Now free, he took the spike and ran it down in the bandages that covered his lower leg from the knee down onto his currently shoeless feet, tucking it away in case he could use it later if the potential to escape presented itself.


149 + 868 = 1017 words = 1 Chakra Control Training

[Trusted Grader]

Yami was slithering up ahead, having heard that there probably were traps around the area made him wary of where he stepped so he returned to two dimensions. He kept closer until he managed to slip over what appeared to be a pressure bomb, OH NO! Yami stopped, but once he noticed that it didn't go off he chuckled and crept closer, now if Yami wasn't afraid of being punished he would warn Hozok and Desu but his adolescent mind could only think of one thing and that was Ziv's life, so he prowled closer to the run-down shack they called an outpost, the closer he got the more words he began to pick up.

They were talking about trading the boy's life for some book that was worth a lot of money, but the magician of the group disagreed and claimed that it would be better if they used it, or rather that their boss would probably want to get their hands on one of them. Yami shook his head as he had no idea what a Grimoire was and had no plans sitting around and listening until they spoke about it, instead he slipped in between some cracks and crept deeper into the compound until he found himself by the basement, he crawled along the ceiling above Ziv before he popped out like a snake. He tilted his head to the left as his snake tongue flickered in and out of its mouth, Yami was about to speak when Burly knocked the door open, causing Yami to go back into hiding.

Hozok stopped Desu yet again, who seemed to grow increasingly annoyed by the task at hand, hopefully, that annoyance was aimed at the enemies and not at Hozok for bringing her along on this mission, for if the files on her were correct then she worked best as an enforcer teacher but she had been placed as an Aguin teacher for some reason. Perhaps her crossed-out hobbies are the secret reasons for her position. Hozok pushed up his glasses and then pointed with his free hand at the pressure bomb on the ground ahead of them, he then pointed at the trees before his weapon hand rested by his leg.

The large Moon Cutter was in his hands, the massive sword that is said to be able to carve the moon if Hozok ever reaches his final stage, with a quick hand seal the man's afro quickly revealed itself to be a disguise he had used whenever he was within the school's borders, outside of them he appeared more menacing as he didn't want people to mess with him or his students, he revealed his true self, his shades faded and his eyes widened while the skin around them blackened, his afro grew to the point where it started to tangle in itself and produce multiple tentacles of locs that grew down to his chest and mid back level, each loc had multiple golden locks around them.

His suave suit turned into a raggedy washed-out purple and green robe that had been stitched together, he wore black pants and black combat boots to match. Unfazed, the rugged teacher turned to face Desu. "I try to appear more friendly in front of the students, that's what I used to look like before I left my village." Hozok smiled as he turned towards the run-down shack, he leaped up to one of the branches and watched as Desu moved about. "Just be careful, if we don't rush it we should be able to reach him in no time." What they didn't know was that their enemy's boss was on his way towards their camp and if he got there before them then there would be hell to pay.

---

629+ 471 = 1100 +1 Control

Hozok's real appearanceShow

[Kaitos10]

Desu was definitely annoyed at both but it couldn’t be helped and she definitely wasn’t going to take it out on anyone on her side because that would be bad for her so would just have to vent her frustrations on the criminals. She would carefully avoid the traps he pointed out and would make sure her puppets were aware of them as well.

She would then later see Hozok’s true form saying “I personally like this appearance better though about the issue of the potential trap i figure I should ask you just in case but they may be aware that blue wizard is a puppet. But I think they aren’t aware of the second puppet so could I have him try to gain access to the house? And use blue wizard as a distraction?”


If he agreed she would use one of the puppets she got from saving that carriage to head towards the cabin looking carefully for any traps on the way and when he got close blue wizard puppet would start to fly towards the cabin.

The first puppet would knock on the door and if he got an answer would point out that blue wizard was flying around. Trying to trick them into letting him in or at least get them both out of the cabin.

[Zao]

As the boy finished hiding away his solo weapon for the moment, he could feel his chakra pool slowly replenishing itself, though the emphasis was on the slowly part. Though he'd managed to form a single weapon that alone was not enough to do anything against either of the two he'd fought against earlier. Perhaps at full power with his puppets he might be able to hold out for a bit against one or maybe even both of the bandits but his chances of winning really fell down into that slim or none range. Ziv was just too young and really lacked the true combat experience that both the bandits had through their own life or death battles to get to this point in their life. Understanding that he really couldn't do anything at this point he slowly retied the ropes but left them loose enough that he could slip out of them on his feet and then proceeded to wrap them back around his arms as he tucked them behind them, giving the outward illusion that the student was still completely restrained if one was to take a glance at him.

While he did this, the fifth-year student tried to listen in on the conversation going on the other side of the door, they kept mentioning the magic book, the grimoire, yet he was still too green to even know what it was. But with how bad these men wanted one, whether for their boss who was coming or if to sell for a high price, even Ziv was growing interested to know what this mythical book was and just what it could do to make someone kidnap, steal, and potentially kill for. For the moment he had no idea that Yami had managed to infiltrate the underground area but the door being almost knocked off its hinges made the boy jump as he snapped his head up and the light from outside the small closet like area flooded in making it hard to see for a second. As his vision quickly focused all he could see was the large, burly outline of the man he fought with before. Thankfully he had just finished with his hands a few seconds before of the figure would have caught him red handed.

Ziv wanted to speak, to shout, to say anything but even as his mouth opened in preparation, nothing came out as he found himself unable to speak...this feeling, the feeling of fear mixed with uncertainty, it made his mind go blank as it began to tell him that not speaking was probably the safest thing for him to do in that moment. All he could wonder was what the man wanted with him now...

[Trusted Grader]

Hozok watched Desu for a moment, looked at her puppets as he rubbed his chin, he turned towards the house and nodded. "I say, try it, I'll go around the back and try to see if there is another way in." The Avian teacher leaped from one branch to the other as the puppets moved accordingly, he watched how Desu handled the situation and would lead the call.

Yami continued to crawl along the roof as Burly grabbed Ziv's arm and pulled him up, he wouldn't hurt him but instead, move him up the stairs as he tossed him over the shoulders. The puppeteer didn't know this but he was about to be introduced to the crew, he carried the boy to a dinky table underneath a single light that revealed the dank living room that the magicians had been using, it was an abandoned building they had taken over, perhaps because it was situated close to the orphanage.

Yami moved up the stairs and hid in Ziv's shadow as he too listened in on their conversation. "Do you think this kid knows anything about them?" Burly spoke to the Red magician who was curiously looking out the window. "No, but, what the hell is Ohan doing out there?" Yami watched how his legs turned around, Ziv would get a clearer view of it all, and he would also be able to spot a few clues that something was happening outside, as of now he wouldn't be able to deduce if they were on his side or not.

Yami, feeling his friend's stress, would reach out of the shadow and tickle Ziv's leg to indicate that he wasn't alone, if he looked down the shadow would wave and then gesture that he just needed to wait a little. If Ziv looked down but focused for too long the Burly man would take notice of him staring down. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue? Speak lad!" If Ziv didn't answer him then he would grow suspicious of whatever it was he was looking at the ground, prompting Yami to revert back to a regular shadow.

Hozok spotted a single back window, from the looks of it it appeared rather clear but one shouldn't act recklessly once they spot the goal. There could still be more traps, the layout seems oddly relaxed for such a strange operation. Hozok wondered why they were after the magicians, what could they possibly be after? From the looks of it one of them, if not more were old students of Sky-Reach. I guess we are about to find out huh? Hozok awaited further instructions, it was all up to Desu now, she would lead the charge.