Whistles the Wind

[Punslinger]

A Call to Arms

Yobu [Call Out]
D-Rank Fuuinjutsu
A simple yet extremely effective form of communication over long distances, the user will place the seal for this technique anywhere (usually a slip of paper or engraved on a piece of wood) and send a one-time message through it. The user on the receiving end may channel chakra through the seal to have the message repeated, but no live communication can be made.

Ishiro sat on his front porch, sipping a bowl of sake. He'd spent the day recalibrating the summoning seals on Yasha's chassis, and the horse was powered down beneath her tarp for the night. All that was left was to watch the sun set on the rolling dunes to the west.

As he sat, the old man's mind wandered over the plans he'd made with the young Kage from Konoha. His his home was hear, but his heart went out to his former village. The impending turmoil he saw rising in the country was simply too much to ignore. If he wanted to put his plans for a better world into place, he'd need to work fast, and most of all, efficiently. He could get around on Yasha faster than most ninja could on foot, which was a plus, but he'd need a way to call in all his recruits when the time came. Simply re-tracking them down would take far too much time.

Mumbling possible kanji configurations to himself, the old man went inside to get a piece of coal and a parchment board. As the sun set, he lit the lantern on the porch, scribbling an impenetrable haze of symbols and shapes by the firelight.

Two bottles of sake later, he formed a short series of handseals before placing a palm on one of the seals. A second went by before the sound of feedback came from the parchment. Chuckling, the old man kept scribbling.

An hour later, he looked up from his work, bleary eyed, and walked to his water tank. There he let the water, still warm from the day’s sun, pour over his head. He muttered a few choice curses before turning around and stumbling back to his bottle of sake on the porch. Hangover or not, he did things better while drunk. Fighting and thinking were no different.

Hours passed by and eventually the sky began to glow purple to the east. The old man looked up from his work to go inside and come out with a knife, which he used to begin scratching a seal onto one of the posts from his porch. Satisfied with his work there, he went back into his bedroom, carving a similar seal into the wall just beside his bedroll. Applying chakra and mumbling something to the wall, he then stepped outside and waited for a second. Suddenly, his voice came out of the post.

My name is Ruisan Ishihiro, and this is my home. If you can hear this, get the hell out.

“Hot dang old man, you are a genius.”

And with that, the genius went inside to sleep off a splitting headache.

[Punslinger]

Shadowboxing
“I’m still waiting for you. I’ll always wait for you.”

“Guh!” the old man woke with a start, staring about wildly as his hand went instinctively for the gun under his pillow, whipping it out only to point it at the empty room around him. Still breathing heavily, he stood up slowly, straightening the joints in his back little by little as he made his way to the back doorway, which was completely devoid of a door.

Outside, the full moon lit the Wind Country dunes, creating a world of brilliant white and black contrast. Ishiro put his head under the water pump, pouring a stream of cold water that caused him to shiver in the night air. Overhead, an owl floated noiselessly across the sand and the aging nukenin wandered aimlessly around the house to his crudely made wicker chair on the front porch of his workshop and sank into it wearily.

Another night, same dream. Damnit, she’s not even real.

From under the chair, Ishiro pulled a jug of sake, lifting it to his lips with practiced ease and taking a long draught. In the night, a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“Must be getting old. Some terror you turned out to be; weak, weepy old man.” He muttered to himself. He leaned back in the chair, and his mind drifted back thirty years.

---

A path was being torn through the tall grass in the plains of Grass Country as a much younger Ishiro sped through, leaning forward at an almost impossible angle to stay out of sight and grinning from ear to ear. Behind him, a group on horseback was quickly falling behind, hopelessly outsped and outmatched.

For the last three weeks, Ishiro had been working as a mercenary for a village near the Fire Country border that was engaged in a bitter territory dispute over an artesian spring and watering hole that lay in between the two. Ishiro had just stolen a relic belonging to the leader of the village to be used as a bartering tool and prevent an all out war. Wars weren’t his style.

“This village owes you a great debt, young man.” The elder of the village was speaking with his back turned as his attendants strapped on his family armor. There had been a meeting scheduled for that evening between the two villages to begin negotiations. The relic, a silver bell, sat on a table off to the left.

“You’re paying me well enough for my services, I consider your hospitality only to be an unnecessary bonus.” Ishiro had taken a knee, tipping his hat to his employer, who chuckled at the young shinobi’s frankness.

“We’d gladly pay more for them if we could afford it. I supposed this means you’ll be setting out in the morning then?”

“After this meeting, most likely. I’d hate to impose myself any more than I already have.”

“I see why Yamaguchi-sama recommended you so highly. You are a true professional, even as young as you are.” Ishiro’s hat brim lowered to hide his reaction to the compliment.

“And I would be remiss as a professional if I didn’t scout the meeting spot beforehand. Excuse me.”

---

That night, Ishiro bedded down above the artesian springs, watching a heard of horses cross the plains toward the watering hole below, lit up by the moon. As he watched though, his sharp eyes picked up a figure riding atop a roan stallion. By the time the heard had stepped out of the grass at the watering hole, he could see the rider, a girl with long blond hair, wind tossed and radiant in the moonlight.

Compelled by curiosity, Ishiro slipped his boots and hat on, moving on silent feet through the grass until he was directly across from the herd, watching the girl with bright eyes. She was lying lazily atop her mount’s back, which made muffled breathing noises every moment or so as it snuffed the water.

For a moment, the young man just stared, until one of the horses raised its head and looked in Ishiro’s direction, followed by every horse in the heard. By the time Ishiro realized this, coupled with the fact that the girl was suddenly gone, he felt a presence behind him. He whirled, only to find that she was standing directly behind him, looking directly into his eyes with a curious expression and her head cocked to the side.

In a similar situation most people, including many shinobi, would have simply been too shocked to move. Ishiro has never been most people. With the speed of a reflex (because that’s all it was) his gun was out of its holster, but his target was no longer there. A breeze on the back of his neck caused him to whirl, and the girl could be seen less than a few feet away, perched atop the surface of the water.

This time the young nukenin paused, cocking his head at the strange girl. On an instinct, or perhaps a whim, he holstered his weapons but kept his hands up in a ready position, parallel to the ground. It wasn’t his usual fighting stance, but this wasn’t going to be his usual fight. Meanwhile, the girl simply looked on smiling mischievously. It was at this point it suddenly occurred to Ishiro that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. And she was pretty. Beautiful, even.

“Miss, I don’t know who you are or where your clothes went, but you shouldn’t sneak up on me. I’m a dangerous ma-!” he didn’t finish his sentence before she was gone again, the only sign that she’d been there reflected in the water’s ripples.

Damnit, I can’t even track her movements. She’s faster than me. But the last two times she’s done this, she’s popped up right behind me. Ishiro’s stance lowered and he whipped his leg around for a sweep, only to turn right into a kiss on the cheek. The girl had actually jumped over the kick and leaned in parallel to the ground to do it, which shocked the recipient to no end.

The process repeated itself for hours, with Ishiro never once being able to lay a hand on his opponent. Each time his reactions got a little faster, and each time her movements became a little more complex. As the night waned and dawn approached, the pair were whipping across the landscape at breakneck speeds, imperceptible to the potential watcher.

Great swordsmen speak of a moment that occurs when two equally matched opponents experience a stretching of time, where movements seem to slow down and each side sees the other’s in complete clarity. For Ishiro, this moment came just as the sun broached the horizon, and his infallible sparring partner slipped, just for a second. That second lasted an eternity as his hand stretched out, and just for one brief moment, touched hers. In the next, the sun seemed to flare brilliantly, and she was gone.

---

“Just…gone.” The old man’s eyes were hooded with liquor and sadness, and his chin touched his chest as he murmured the words. The moon shone brilliantly over the frail figure as he slipped back into a fitful sleep.