[Red Alert] Tsukimogami 2

[Gara]

About a week had passed since the Hokage, and two other Hidden Leaf shinobi, had help Li defeat three spirits deep within the desert. It had been an extremely fierce battle, one which Li would remember for the rest of his life. Watching the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf had renewed Li’s motivation to be the best that he could. He had watched a single man drastically change the landscape with but a few techniques, and though Li was a Jounin, he knew that he was nowhere near as powerful as the Hokage. He had been searching for a way to show his gratitude for that day, as he had severely gotten in over his head, and had finally figured out how to express it. Li was going to make a Tsukimogami for the Hokage out of the wurm spirit he had captured that day.

He racked his brain for days trying to think of a weapon, or piece of armor, he could make that would be beneficial to the supreme ninja of the Hidden Leaf village. The decision had caused Li so much stress that he completely stopped eating, until he ended up walking past a mirror. He had been in his full attire for going on missions, and had just so happened to glance at his headband while looking at the mirror. It was then that he knew exactly what he would make; a Hidden Leaf headband. His mind raced through all of the materials that he was familiar with, and the ones that he had in his workshop. The only material that came to Li’s mind was a particularly rare ore known as Inrock Flaming Iron, which Li had very little of. However, he had quickly decided that it was well worth using the heat generating, fiery red, ore in the creation of the Tsukimogami.

Creating the headband was absolutely negligible for Li, as the majority of it was plane steel, but once he had finished carving all of his designs, and the fuuin on the back, Li threw the headband back into the fire. He had spent an entire day on just the carving, and had so easily destroyed his work because he felt that it was not good enough. It was not worth gifting to the Hokage, the Leaf village’s supreme ninja. Li knew that his carving work was nearly flawless, it had to be as he was a puppeteer who created his own puppets, so the carving had not been the problem. It was the material. The steel was to bland. To ordinary. Because of this revelation of Li’s, his project had been put on hold while he searched for a suitable replacement material to make the headband out of.  The Inrock Flaming Iron would be inlaid into the carvings like a precious jewel once the headband was finished, so Li wanted to find something that would match the preciousness of such a rare ore.

Li poured over his notes on all of the different types of ore he had used in the past, but could not find anything that he had been satisfied with in the end. That is, until he stumbled across a fairly large piece of Obsidian while in the market. He had neglected the glass like substance at first, thinking it to be to frail, and useless in the making of the headband. But every time his eyes passed over it, he wanted it more, and more. Finally he had decided that he would use the Obsidian, but only after treating it to be chakra reactive, so that he could strengthen it.

After having paid for all of the Obsidian that the merchant had, which actually was not a whole lot considering it was not a naturally occurring material in the land of Wind, Li returned to his workshop. Working the Obsidian was, in Li’s personal opinion, was the hardest part, as it not only had to shape it, but had also had to treat it with chakra constantly to strengthen it. Once the Obsidian had been shaped into the standard size, and shape, of village headbands, Li began his carving. Carving the Obsidian was a workout for Li, as it tested his chakra control to the extreme. Li was having to constantly channel chakra into the Obsidian so that it would not fracture while he carved into it. He carved vines into the black glass as though the were flowing rivers, snaking all throughout the headband, with the Hidden Leaf’s symbol on full display in the center. Each vine had at least five tiny leaf symbols on them, which in Li’s mind, showed the expansive reach of the Hidden Leaf village, and its shinobi.

Everything went much better than Li had ever expected, including the carving of the Fuuinjutsu that would later allow the headband to become a Tsukimogami. Even the forging of the Inrock Flaming Iron went better than expected. Shaping it to match the carvings, and even inlaying all of it, had gone off without a hitch. However, that is not to say that working the ore had been easy for Li. It had taken Li hours to get to the right temperature for working the ore in his homemade forge, and even then it took him no short amount of time to fold the metal.

Li had wanted everything to be perfect, which was why he folded the Inrock Flaming Iron over five hundred times. It was during the process of folding the metal that Li had the most trouble though. His favorite, oldest, hammer had broken into three pieces while he was working the metal. While he did have other, extra, hammers, Li was forced to cool the metal before he was able to go and retrieve them. After he fully worked the metal, Li had used special carving knives, and chisels, to further refine the metal into the shapes he wanted.

Li had made everything as perfect as he could, down to the tiniest details, but something kept whispering in his ear for him to destroy it. He began to feel indescribable urges to destroy everything. That nothing was good enough. He was not sure where the feelings came from, or why he was having them, but he trusted them. His gut had never steered him wrong, which was why he threw everything in the furnace.

It was then, as he watched the headband turn into mush, that he decided, once and for all, what to make. He was going to make a weaponized chain that could be used for offence, as well as defense. Rather than rushing put to buy everything that he would need for the creation of his new weapon, Li had decided to sit down, and draw out his design first. As his hand snaked across the page, a chain began to take form. Each link held numerous spikes, with some sticking out straight like thorns, while others were curved hooks. At least two spikes on each chain link was serrated.

Once Li had finished the chain’s design, he felt a deep sense of enlightenment. As though the chain that he had drawn was the most perfect creation of his lifetime. It was his affirmation as a weaponsmith. Li had not realized, until after he had finished the design, that he had not eaten in several hours, and had decided that he would go out to dinner, after taking a shower to clean up.

After Li took a long, hot shower, he called upon his cousin, the woman who had raised him,  and taught him to create puppets, and asked her to accompany him out to dinner. After they had found a nice restaurant, Li  had showed his cousin the chain design that he had made. They had gone over various metals that would be great for its construction, as well as many techniques for creating it. Li had also discussed various lengths, asking which the woman though would work best with his height. After a few hours, the two had perfected the design of the chain, and had even finished a few bottles of wine. Li had been completely ecstatic, and had set out immediately from the restaurant to buy the materials.

He had decided that he was going to make the materials that he would use to make the links. Not only would it make the chain look even more unique, it allowed Li to further hone his crafting abilities. Shopping for the materials alone took Xiao Li three days, and even then he had to wait another four for it all to be delivered. Li knew he had been overly excessive when he bought the materials, but he wanted enough material so that he correct any mistake that he made, and to cover the possibility of creating a second chain.

Each link of the thirty foot chain took Xiao Li nearly half a day to forge, and he started over on them more than a few times. Even though the chain links were small, Xiao Li made sure that each of them were perfect. The crafting of the chain took Xiao Li over two months to finish, after which, he began to carve his Fuuinjutsu into the chain. Although the creation of the weaponized chain took Xiao Li over two months to finish, the carving of his Fuuinjutsu took even longer. Xiao Li knew that if he were to carve it all into a single link, only that single link would hold the power of the Tsukimogami. He wanted the entire chain to hold the entire power of the sand wurm spirit that he was planning to seal within it. Xiao Li did, for a split second, consider making the blade at the end of the chain the Tsukimogami, but had decided to go with his original plan, and carve the fuuinjutsu into the entire chain.

Xiao Li was meticulous with his carving, as he was in all things that he created, however, it did not take long for him to realize the biggest flaw in his plan. Every time the chain links moved, the Fuuinjutsu was broken. This was a massive headache for Xiao Li, because it had completely ruined his grand idea, and forced him into a corner. He spent days trying to decide on how he had wanted to proceed with it’s creation, but he just could not make a decision. Finally, after admitting defeat, and settling on something that he had been completely against from the beginning, Xiao Li decided to make the blade at the end of the chain the actual Tsukimogami. The blade was a fairly standard one, and was actually nothing more than a serrated kunai that was twice the usual size of a normal one.

Even though Xiao Li was as meticulous as he ever was, the carving on the two Fuuinjutsu on the blade only took him about two days. After Xiao Li had finished the carving, he took the time to polish everything up to perfection, and made sure that there were no stray burrs on anything. Once Xiao Li was absolutely certain that everything was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, perfect, he began to make preparations for the sealing. He knew that the sand wurm would have an advantage over him in any sandy area, which was why Xiao Li had decided that he would perform the sealing ceremony somewhere that he had the advantage. Xiao Li’s request to leave the village took around two weeks to get approved, and he was given permission to travel out of the country to perform his spirit sealing ceremony. Xiao Li had decided that he would travel to the north, where the extremely low temperatures would hinder the spirit, should something go wrong during his sealing ceremony.

It had taken Xiao Li only two weeks to reach his destination, and he had immediately set out to perform the sealing. However, during the sealing process something had gone wrong, which had resulted in the spirit being released. He was not sure why, but Xiao Li had known that something was going to go wrong, which was why he had decided to leave the country to perform the sealing. The sand wurm was massive, even though it had still been in a weakened state from having been trapped previously.

As soon as the sand wurm had been released it began to attack Xiao Li. However, Xiao Li was able to effortlessly dodge, and counter the beast. This had led Xiao Li to grow over confident, which in turn made him lax in judgement. He had, originally, believed that he would be able to subdue the massive sand wurm with only his Tenkujutsu techniques. It was not until the giant beast began laughing that Xiao Li realized his grave mistake. ”Foolish human! You thought that just by taking me out of the desert, that I would easy to vanquish?! Face the consequences of your foolhardiness!” Within moments of the beast speaking, a massively powerful sandstorm began to rush around them.

Xiao Li knew immediately how badly he had messed up. He could feel the sand ripping off his exposed skin as he ripped the scroll from his back, and summoned Spike. As soon as Xiao Li had summoned Spike, his chakra strings had attached, and he had charged an A-rank amount of chakra into Spike’s Tsukimogami seal. This caused a large emp blast to fly through the air towards where the sand wurm had been previously.  

Xiao Li had gotten extremely lucky, because the massive wurm had not yet moved, which had allowed Spike’s emp blast to hit it’s target. As soon as the emp blast hit the sand wurm the sand storm dissipated, which made Xiao Li extremely happy. With a twitch of his fingers, Xiao Li made Spike’s mouth open, and the gatling gun began to whirl.  Senbon began to fre out of the gatling gun at a high rate, and Spike’s head began to follow the sand wurm as it tried to dodge.

As the senbon fired at the giant sand wurm, Xiao Li jumped into the compartment within Spike's back, just in case the sand wurm decided to create another sandstorm. Just as soon as Xiao Li had enclosed himself inside of Spike's back, the massive sand wurm began firing spikes made out of sand at him. At first Xiao Li had been scared that the projectiles would break through Spike's defensive shell, which was why he had activated the chakra barrier, but had sighed with relief when he saw that the projectiles had not caused any damage. When then giant sand wurm noticed that his attacks were not causing any harm to Xiao Li, it roared in rage.

In it's rage, the massive sand wurm used it's huge tail to slam down on Spike. As the tail came down, Xiao Li jumped into the air, out of Spike’s back, grabbed Spike's tail, and threw him out of the way. Xiao Li could not allow Spike to be destroyed. Otherwise, if he did, he would have to fight two spirits instead of one. After performing a few quick hand seals, Xiao Li connected his chakra strings to his four barrier kunai, and began to run around the massive sand wurm. Xiao Li fired off one of the special barrier kunai at a time, sending them straight into the ground, and did his best not to get hurt any worse than he already had. He knew that if he did not end this fight soon, he could very well die of blood loss, because a lot of his skin had been ripped off during the sandstorm generated by the massive sand wurm.

After he had taken more than a few additional hits, Xiao Li had managed to setup his barrier around the giant sand wurm, and had finally been able to relax. With the sand wurm in it’s weakened state, it was unable to break through his barrier, which made it vehemently angry. Xiao Li used the chance that he was given to staunch the bleeding, and to treat his wounds, though it caused the loss of his shirt. He knew that he looked haggard, but as long as he was able to not only restart, but finish the creation of his Tsukimogami. However, Xiao Li knew that he would first have to re-seal the massive sand wurm into the stasis pod, which would then give him more time to recover.

Xiao Li took a few minutes to slow his heart rate, and then began to form a long string hand seals, and fiercely circulated his chakra. ”You, as those before you, have severely underestimated my power spirit! Now you shall, once again, be enslaved to me, and this time you will not get free!” In order to draw out the suspense for the massive sand wurm, and to make sure that he did not make any mistakes, Xiao Li went slower than he normally would while performing the hand seals. As soon as he had completed the long string of hand seals, Xiao Li captured the massive sand wurm, and sealed him back into the stasis pod. However, as soon as he had completed the sealing, Xiao Li retreated into the inside of Spike’s body where he had a bed hidden away for himself.

Using his chakra strings, after having formed the familiar string of hand seals, Xiao Li had Spike walk over, and cover the stasis pod with it’s body. He then proceeded to rest, doing his best not to pass out from over exertion. Xiao Li had stores of preserved food hidden away inside of Spike, mainly cheese and bread, and had eaten his fill so that he would begin to regain his strength. He stayed hidden away within the body of his puppet Spike for two weeks, nursing his wounds, and regaining his strength, before he attempted the creation process again. The second time that Xiao Li attempted the Tsukimogami creation he succeeded after having made sure that everything was absolutely perfect. With his new weapon complete, Xiao Li made his way back to the village, where he would decide to train, and improve himself so that he woud not make the same mistake again.