A Pirate's Life For Me [Mission: Hunt for Hawkeye]

After I docked my ship, I immediately began searching for the first member of the crew mentioned on the paper Dom had written. It was Hawkeye, the deckhand. I would track him down through the many caves on this gods-forsaken island, and then I would kill him and search his body for clues of the others. I was confident in my ability to defeat him, but make no mistake in comparing confidence with arrogance, I give everyone a fair chance unless it's unreasonable.

He wasn't very hard to find. After searching for a few hours in each cave, I spent night out in a smaller cave towards the back of the building. I was pretty sure he was in a few caves over after searching for signs of life nearby. I saw footprints in the dirt in front of those caves throughout the day while the sunlight still shined over head, so I would begin looking again in the morning. I wanted to be fully rested when I fought him, and today was not that day after ending a long sea voyage from the hurricane village of Harikengakure.

Earlier that day, I had scoured almost twenty caves, both big and small, spending more time in the larger ones so as to cover them thoroughly before moving on to the next ones. There were hundreds of caves scattered across this island, and it was extremely difficult to traverse. But nonetheless, I had almost found him.

The day ended, and I rested for the night after putting out the fire in my cave. I slept lightly that night, so as to avoid and surprise attacks, although he was sure he covered his tracks so as to avoid spooking the lowly pirate.

The next morning, I found him after searching through the few caves to the west of my camp. He was sitting in a cave, reading a magazine on a rock, unaware of my presence. I wondered why their captain had stationed him on this particular island. Nonetheless, it was time to attack. I activated my Compass, but kept my katana sheathed. If I did my reading correctly, I knew his blade could easily pierce through mine. It would be better to utilize my speed and taijutsu in this fight, avoiding the blade altogether.

I was reading my magazine with my massive blade on the center of my back. Yeah I had a sword worthy of the gods but it wasn't enough to make me happy. I was a deckhand sent by my captain to the ass end of no where to guard some pebbles, it wasn't worth it. I had to do something to get Don Kriegs blessing, something to get me moved higher up in the crew, something momentous. It was then that I heard something shuffling around me and I stood up, closed my magazine, and looked over to see a young man dressed like a pirate. I didn't know who he was nor did I care, he was in the area Don Krieg told me to defend so I would have to kill him, or at least attempt to. I used both my hands and gripped the sword on my back and pulled it off and plopped it in front of me, the weight a little heavier than I'd like. I stood, giving the ninja an opportunity to run, but I knew that wouldn't happen that would be too easy for me.

As the pirate turned to look at me, bearing his massive blade, a bead of sweat rolled down my forehead. That thing was massive! I immediately charged at the man, and began charging chakra into my right palm. My speed nearly blinding to that of an average ninja, which this man was. I could move around with ease, prance circles around him if I wanted. That was, in fact, the only way to beat him with his sword. Because it was so huge and powerful, it was luggish and slow to move around, and I needed to take advantage of this as best I could, pushing my speed to its limits. I closed the gap between the man and I in a flash, expecting an attack as I charged in.

Holy shit this person was fast, I was screwed, boned, porked, anyway you sliced it there was no way I could beat this man, but it was against the rules of the crew to simply give up. He was charging straight at me...with my blade out in front of me...It seemed like too simply of a strategy to be happening but I decided to bite and dropped my blade down in the area in front of me, this would more than likely cause anything that happened to be there now or in the close future to be completely sliced in half.

He did exactly what I thought he would do, and dropped his blade to spear me or cut me as I reached him. As soon as he began moving his blade, I felt the wind it cut through to know what he was doing before he finished doing it, and reacted on it. As he dropped his blade down, I sprung into the air, aimed to land with his face in my groin and both thighs on either shoulders. I would then spin around to have his face looking away from my groin, and my thighs on his shoulders from the back. Using a move I learned in training, I would stretch myself backward into a backflip, gripping his head with my thighs. It would send him tumbling down over my head, and me standing crouched, facing away from him. I then turned to look him in the eye, smirking. "I'm almost too fast," I said to myself. I continued to charge chakra into my hand.

I was completely caught off guard as some black magic or something was used on me and I found myself careening backwards towards the wall. I managed to grip my sword enough to keep it with me as I flew towards the wall of the cave. I had an idea of something to attempt to make it harder on my aggressor and right before I hit the wall I took my blade and slashed it against the rock wall, easily cutting through it. My blade was large enough and because I used the momentum of the throw plus my swinging power I caused that section of the cave to start collapsing. I pushed off the wall as the rocks began falling and landed behind a group of stalactites, waiting for my opponents move.

As I quickly turned and began charging at my opponent again, I closed my eyes. I felt what he had done to counter-attack. "Very resourceful. But not good enough!" I shouted angrily as I sprinted at an incredible speed and ferocity. As a crack emerged from the ceiling, and flew back behind me to the entrance of the cave, I half-smiled out of the corner of my lip. I snapped my eyes back open to see my opponent closing in quickly, as was expected from my speed. Stalactites began falling, as I used my air-sensory to pick up each one as they began to fall, easily avoiding them and other parts of the ceiling as they fell. As a huge one fell before me, I somersaulted to it, and rose with an uppercut, shattering the rock. I stared my opponent dead in the eye, flashing the Compass. My glare so piercing as the cracks grew on the ceiling above me, I knew he knew my purpose. I was going to kill him. I began sprinting again, closing the gap within under a second, meeting my opponent behind a few stalactites. I lept into the air, and would meet his face in the blink of an eye, slamming my hand into where his chest was, shouting a blood-curdling scream, "AHHHHH!!!" I unleashed a hell-packed, double-charged Lightning Kii from point-blank. It was 16 inches in diameter, so he could choose to counter me with his huge metal sword, which I'm sure my free hand could deflect or help me evade, but he would risk getting his arm/sword caught in the foot-and-a-half diameter of electric power, which would cause high shock pain, as wella s electrical burning to the 3rd degree and numbing, which would also hit his chest and send him careening backwards into a wall.

As soon as the Lightning Kii was unleashed, I began performing handseals and charging chakra into my entire body, readying myself for a counter, while also using the air-currents around me to be able to dodge falling rocks from the cave-in.

Spoiler:

250/280

As I saw the lightning ball coming at me in his hand I stabbed my sword into the ground, and it took the hit for me. Me stabbing my sword into the ground caused the lightning in it to transfer down into the ground, cancelling the attack. Because he attempted the stuff me with the ball he was still severely close to me and while gripping the hilt I pulled my blade towards me, causing it to crack out of the ground and come up underneath the legs of the attacking male.

As soon as he deflected the Kii, I was ready for my next move. As he pulled his sword backwards, expecting it to come up and hit me, I stepped back a half-step to avoid getting nicked, and completed my handseals. I dropped a feather to either side of me, creating two clones of myself. The one on the right kicked the blunt of the blade to knock it away with the brunt of his foot, and the one on the left pounced jumped onto the wall to his left, ran along it, and hopped behind my opponent. With him surrounded, I rolled behind the clone on the right to avoid being caught by the sword, and rose with an uppercut aimed to the left side of the opponent's stomach. My blazing speed would surely confuse him and my attack was very hard to dodge. The clone in the back aimed for a bicycle kick at his back, which would knock him onto his face, and the clone next to me would kneel one knee on his back, which would pin him down.

Spoiler:

190/280

I was surprised when two copies of the man appeared to either side of me. One of them kicked my blade and caused me to stumble followed by a strong uppercut into my face that caused me to stumble backwards and then another hit came from behind me causing me to fall to the ground and then I was pinned to the ground by another clone of the man, things were not looking up for me at all.

The cave was coming down. I was running out of time, and needed to act fast. I made both clones recede, their knowledge flooding back into my brain. What I noticed disturbed me. The clone I had sent behind my enemy had seen was what had been taking place behind me during the recent moves I made on him. I had to move now. As soon as the clone's pin on the man disappeared, I sat down on his back before he could stand up. I grabbed him by his hair, and repeatedly slammed his face into the stone floor beneath him until his skull would crack and he would die. Then I hopped back up onto my feet, brandished my blade, and sent it to stab through his heart through his back, just make sure he would be dead. I turned around to confirm what my clone had seen. The cave was collapsing completely from the entrance of the cave. There was no way out now! In a panic, I quickly looked around, finding anything I could use to get out of here. Ah ha! The huge crack that he had sent across the ceiling! Grabbing the man's massive sword as a prize as well has sheathing my own blade, I focused chakra into my feet, ran up the wall, and hopped through the crack in the ceiling to stand on the top of the crumbling cave. The ground unsteady, I sprinted for the edge of the cave, and leaped off right as the last huge rock fell in, and the rest of the cave fell with it. I landed on the grass into a roll, and stood up. I looked at my new weapon. "Impressive. Now, onto the next one."

[Exit]

I felt the pain as my head was beaten continually into the ground until eventually I blacked out. As my consciousness faded I felt a burning pain go through my back but then there was nothing, nothing at all, only darkness.

[Exit]