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[Susen]

Time: June the 19th, 2:28 PM
Location: Shimo no Kuni

---

”Just another hour or two, Meido-san.”, Susen said, his tone revealing nothing but boredom at his mission. Alongside Kaze no Kuni, Shimo no Kuni was probably the country with the least hospitable climate. The landscape itself was one white blur of frozen hills and glaciers, its monotonous shades of white, grey and light-blue making it hard to discover any point of recognition, any peculiar landmark that could be used to estimate one’s location. It lacked paths as well, any fool who would’ve attempted at creating any would’ve found that the many blizzards and heavy snowfall of the country made it a pointless effort. Since the shinobi of Hyougagakure were some of the only people who knew the country well enough to not get hopelessly lost, serving as guides for anyone who wished to enter was a common task for any of them.

Susen didn’t expect Ochiba Meido to react. He was not trying to start any kind of conversation as Meido never showed any kind of interest in conversing with him. He was merely informing the Kusa-nin of their progress through the frozen country. After that, he would return to his own thought as he pulled forth the carts Meido had brought along. The elder shinobi had come to Hyouga for diplomatic bullshit that was none of Susen’s business anyway. The only reason he was involved was because he alongside with his bitchy niece Yukiko was appointed as Meido’s guide and bodyguard through the village. Not that the chuunin assumed Meido would have needed one, but these were policies of any village.

When the negotiations were done, Susen had been appointed to take him back to the border. By Meido himself, strangely enough, a command given with only a short sentence. Apparently the jounin didn’t want time to be wasted by appointing a different guide, and knowing the landscape of Shimo no Kuni was something every genin did so Susen was as qualified as anyone to walk Meido to the border. Part of Susen’s assignment was to fulfill every reasonable request the old man made for as long as he was inside Hyougagakure, so he wasn’t in a position to say no.

[Ochiba Meido]

Meido's travels to Hyougagakure had been a rewarding excursion with all of his necessary objectives accomplished. Prior to his assignment he had taken little interest in the village outside of its more localized family disputes; the Miyamoto were not the only family looking for total influence in the land of snow but they were the most powerful. It might have seemed folly to pay attention to internal foreign affairs, but it would be a novice mistake not too. Whether or not the resulting hierarchy would appoint political leaders of favorable inclinations to Kusagakure was something to be very aware of.

A village's international goals inevitability affected the corresponding views that other nations afforded them. Whether these ambitions were noted publicly or subtly were of minor concern to those like Meido; they'd find out either way. However, the true question was: Will this village be an enemy or a potential partner? Each individual village had their own personal criteria which determined the answer based on the actions of the respective village. For Kusagakure, the rise to power of the Miyamoto and recent events during the Chuunin exam fulfilled the minimum requirements for political communications between the two nations.

Directly a result of this determinant Meido entered into diplomatic negotiations with Hyouga. While it might have appeared as though the village of snow were better off from the proposition because of quantity, Kusagakure were the true victors due to quality. What they'd stood to gain, despite the immense value of what they offered, was more important. While it might not have been readily observable or understood, time and subsequent designs would detail the benefits.

With his official business complete Meido was already exiting the country. While most might have opted to remain for the hospitality offered by the locals, Meido desired none. He was a busy man and had a profusion of related and vastly contrasting matters to attend to.

One of which he'd complete now.

Though the Miyamoto's airborne patrol had followed Meido part way through the country as he made his departure, they couldn't continue for the entirety; though the Miyamoto were using altitude to their advantage to prevent immediate detection such trivialities wouldn't work on the elder. Shifting his barely open eyes he detected the sign that denoted the significance of this location.

Coming to a halt Meido turned to face Susen whom had been walking with him. It should have taken no more than two hours to reach the border of the country from Hyouga. Meido walked as slow as death, however. This expanded the journey time to an estimated twelve hours, the pair having already walked ten; Susen had spent that time straining his supposedly developed shinobi muscles lugging Meido's carriages. Given the fact that they'd also left early in the morning--a windy morning which made the ever present cold of the country all the more exhausting--it was likely that if not partially tired, Susen would have at least been sleepy; political communications had droned on into the wee hours of the day.

Mere coincidence? No, it was well contrived circumstances.

"So you are their expendable baggage?" Meido would say abruptly, alluding to a possible backdoor deal that could have happened back in Hyouga; it hadn't, but Susen's lack of involvement and diminutive status made such believable.

"I can understand their desire for your expedient removal though I can't say I perceive your threat" Meido said, his words cryptic but somehow clear enough for extrapolated conclusions to be drawn. "It matters not, agreements are agreements" Meido would say as he started to approach Susen.

Of course this was all a mind game to get Susen to dramatically overreact. The elder only emitted a minute amount of malicious intent, but it would help to add to the psychological assault. Susen wasn't well liked by his own village; perhaps only his father felt any endearment to him. The Miyamoto detested him and had recently attained full political control. Diplomatic deals had been made the previous nights. Susen had been specifically asked to escort Meido and--if he looked around--they were the only two present; wouldn't Yukiko have been the better choice?

The logical conclusion was simple; the Susen problem was about to be solved, permanently. This was what Meido wanted him to assume.

[Susen]

Susen had spent most of the time of their trip staring at the ground, silently pulling forth Meido’s wagon at the Kusa-nin’s leisurely tempo. It was strange; the man was too busy to stay for a few more days and enjoy Hyougagakure’s hospitality only to waste half of the time gained from leaving earlier by traveling at the pace of a slug?! For all Susen knew the man was doing this to mock him, unless he enjoyed the landscape of Shimo no Kuni that much, though the chuunin could hardly imagine it. If you’ve seen one tundra, snowy group of hills or white mountain top, you’ve seen them all. If they had been traveling through the Frozen Forest, that’d be a different case.

Susen looked up when he noticed Meido had suddenly stopped dead in his path before turning around to face him, their eyes meeting. This was unusual as the Kusa-nin mostly ignored the youngsters of the Tategami siblings, letting him perform the tasks he was assigned to in peace as he performed his. Whenever he did directly address Susen it was only to relay a new request with as little words as possible. This sudden direct contact was unexpected, and so were the words that soon followed.

"So you are their expendable baggage?", the elder suddenly spoke.

”Wh…what?”, Susen replied, not sure what to make of this at first. The “their” he was referring to was obviously his village, that detail was something he figured out quickly. As for the expendable baggage part, the idea of some shady agreement Meido had made with Hyouga concerning his life had not yet occurred to him. If anything, he believed the Kusa-nin was merely mocking him for his lack of accomplishment over the past few years, a fact that the Miyamoto would gladly inform the old man of if they saw the opportunity to do so without seeming unprofessional.

The chuunin in question let out a sigh of annoyance, his breath leaving his mouth in a cloud of white due to the frosty temperature, and gather his patience to respond to this assumed mockery with as much politeness and humbleness as he could muster when Meido spoke again. As the soft cracking of footsteps in the snow caused by the Kusa-nin approaching Susen filled the air, the next few sentences came down like the blow of a hammer on the chuunin’s psyche.

Was Meido going to kill him?

This idea first of all filled Susen with a certain kind of paranoia. What was he supposed to do? The Kusa-nin seemed to be an experienced veteran. While Susen had the advantage of a younger body, for now it seemed that Meido’s years of experience and training severely outweighed whatever value that advantage may have had. He wasn’t a jounin for nothing. And he was approaching Susen. In his same leisurely pace, but with the minimal distance in between the two shinobi it would still take him only a few seconds to reach the chuunin. Topping that, if he was truly out to kill him, his slow stroll could accelerate into the almost untraceable speed of a body flicker in less than a second.

The worst part was that the idea that part of the agreement between Hyouga and Kusa was Susen’s removal by Meido’s hands wasn’t all that unthinkable. Ever since the Miyamoto had been in charge, the village had experienced an increase in strictness that everyone had noticed. Failures were less tolerated and shinobi were treated more harshly. It was no secret that the new village leader, Daichi, had the ambition of properly establishing Hyougagakure as a shinobi force to be reckoned with. He wanted them to be feared and respected. Allowing a blundering, alcoholic chuunin to carry out their missions would only bring them ridicule.

They wanted to get rid of him.

They were relatively close to the border, and the terrain here was flatter and less extreme than the deeper areas of the region. The weather was softer as well, courtesy to the season of summer. A shinobi of Meido´s expertise would be able to reach the border by his own just fine. And with border patrols more than a few miles away still, the elder could easily get away with killing Susen. Getting past said patrols without an escort would be the hardest part. No, wait. If Meido had indeed made this kind of agreement with the Miyamoto, chances were that the border patrols were also in on it. More likely than not when Meido reached the border he would find a pair of Miyamoto´s thanking him for ridding them of a little eyesore, and a little while later news about a missing-nin or the like ambushing Susen on his way back from the escort would reach the village.

It was a likely scenario indeed.

That being said, Susen was still a chuunin. He was still skilled in the shinobi ways, at least to some degree. Keeping his head cool in situations like this were things he had been trained for. It was probably this fact that managed to prevent him from becoming a complete victim to this attack on his mind, and soon the more favorable idea of Meido just being an asshole prankster or perhaps trying to test his shinobi mentality formed a legitimate enough alternative for Susen to at least not lose his composure.

”I doubt my village would turn against me so easily, Meido-san.”, was his only reaction. He left it at that, deciding not to try and offend Meido by suggesting he was an immature prankster nor showing that he was affected by it. Doing this, he hoped the reason for the Kusa-nin’s less than friendly words would soon unfold themselves. He managed to present the sentence in a calm and professional enough manner, but the widening of his eyes a second ago when the scenario the Kusa-nin suggested first took shape in his mind would’ve been a clear indication that he was definitely more affected by it than he was trying to show right now.

[Ochiba Meido]

The elder's progression towards Susen's position was as leisurely as it had been throughout the entire trek to this location. He could have been considered the truest example of the term passive-aggressive. There was no discernible physical change, only a mild sinister aura permeating for his being. Even then, detection of such a threat could have been brushed aside as one's own paranoid nerves. All that Meido had really done was utter words in the order of peculiar statements. These sentences alluded to potentially fatal if not unbelievable metaphors that were only further extrapolated by Susen's personal analysis. Such was Meido's variation of traditional brutish engagements.

There was an obvious difference in the degrees of experience and skill between the two shinobi, but Meido was very possibly introducing the Chuunin to an entirely fresh interpretation of combat: Psychological warfare. It was an avenue that was frequented in the shinobi world though in a alternate form; Genjutsu were illusions of the mind. While these methods had their similarities, Meido's perception didn't require hand seals or varied jutsu applications. This was an intelligible literary assault on the mind and Susen's obvious insecurities; reciprocally, Susen was his own worst enemy.

Stuttering utterances were the first words to leave Susen's mouth. This greatly informed the elder of the mental-emotional state that the Chuunin had begun to drift into. Clearly his mind was starting to drown within its own interpretations and relevant contexts. It wasn't difficult for Meido to determine Susen's status within the village. Gestures spoke volumes more than words. The elder hadn't been gazing around the environment and village at a snail's pace aimlessly. He careful observed the reactions the villagers and shinobi had to his presence and the two shinobi guides that followed him. One reoccurring deduction was the apparent disgust pertaining to Susen; the inclinations varied, but was sharpest with the Miyamoto.

Well aged and well traveled, Meido was easily able to recognize and categorize Susen's situation; his prior arrival rank with the stench of alcohol and mostly unkempt attire were prominent indicators. It took Susen a short while of mental deliberation before he was finally able to speak again. By this time Meido was directly in front of him. The towering height of the elder would be more apparent--not in the sense that Susen never noticed it, but in the relevant appearance of its intimidation.

Meido would raise his cane in an attempt to gently tap Susen on the chest as he spoke.

"Self delusions, even when made verbal, don't erode the facts of your situation." Meido started of, the malicious intent seeming to have evaporated. "Denial of your own actions and the interpretations of your peers are the common signs of insecurity and inadequacy." His words were said bluntly, very little being held back.

"I can understand your surprise at the type of response, but surely you expected this to happen?" Meido questioned almost rhetorically before continuing. "Whether by accident or intently; by desertion or death; by me or another, your removal is a certainty. Commonly one of your standing would conceivably be discharged but apparently they don't even want to officially write you off the books because of the pending embarrassment" the elder's speech alluded to the political procedures that would be involved.

"Of course it's simply easier to toss garbage and deny its existence" the impetuous reference here should have been obvious to Susen.

Setting his cane back down onto the snow Meido waited a moment before speaking again. "Yet I prefer to utilize assets of potential value rather than waste them." He paused again, his pale purple eyes staring direct at Susen's own blue eyes. "You can attempt to return to your village or you can return with me to Kusagakure, abandoning all ties to Hyouga of course" Meido said, a seemingly cruel proposition offered to the Chuunin.

"Naturally you can refuse, but appearances are of importance in politics" Meido would say, a sharp murderous intent being cast upon the snowy environment. "And your return would raise questions about my integrity" Really what Meido was saying, subtly, was that if Susen denied his offer and tried to return to Hyouga, he'd be killed. Clearly the elder had made a deal, most likely with the Miyamoto, and it would mar potential future business ventures of Susen didn't disappear as promised.

The drunk cat could either leave his village or die.

The choice was his.

[Susen]

Susen could not detect a single hint of any kind of murderous aura perpetrating from Meido. The man raised his cane not to strike him but merely to tap his chest as some old fatherly figure would do when trying to make a point to a self-deluded child. Thoroughly unmoved by Susen’s rejection of the treason he had just suggested, the Kusa-nin blamed the Chuunin’s own insecurity for his belief that the village actually still gave a fuck about him. His mastery of the psychological part of warfare was impressive; if Susen’s mind was a fortress than Meido had managed to find its weak spot without much effort and pressure it with great efficiency, his purpose being to cripple the Chuunin’s logic and influence his thoughts, causing him to break and make fatal mistakes.

His body feeling numb, his eyes were set firmly to the ground as he endured Meido’s words that were being uttered with such nonchalance that could only be attained if someone wholesomely did not care. Susen’s struggle meant nothing to this man, he was an experienced and ruthless shinobi who’s only purpose and ambition was to see to it that his master’s plans were furthered, and the conflicted Chuunin was merely another pawn in his path. What Susen had been able to figure out despite the mental stress that Meido’s psychological attack was placing on him was that the Kusa-nin apparently still had plans or some sort in mind for Susen. If anything the Jounin had proven not to be the type to enjoy small talk; if his intention was to simply kill Susen he could’ve easily done so already.

This was indeed proven true as Meido continued on about utilizing “assets of potential value” before revealing something Susen even now did not expect; Kusagakure was open for him. This in itself also revealed a lot about Meido’s goals, perhaps his true reason for coming to Hyouga. Any shinobi, even one as incompetent and disliked by his own kin as Susen, possessed a great amount of knowledge on the village and, more importantly, its defenses. Hyouga was a relatively weak village, the only thing keeping stronger militaries like Kusa from invading being the country surrounding it. If the village leader would send even a batch of their finest shinobi to find Hyougagakure no Sato in the white, frozen wasteland that was Shimo no Kuni, most, if not all of them would fall to the countries vicious weather before even finding the village. This was in no small amount due to the fact that the village itself was nearly impossible to find without a reference of sorts. The only ones who knew how to safely reach the village were its shinobi.

Adding to this was a subtle yet sharp threat, coupled with a fierce killing intent that made Susen suppress a shiver. If Meido was indeed asked to deal with the lush, then allowing him to return to Hyouga would obviously cause a great loss of face for the envoy and, to a lesser extent, Kusagakure as a whole. This was something he would not risk, and if the Chuunin would not cooperate and come to Kusa silently, then Meido would attack. And both of them knew very well what the outcome of a confrontation between the two of them would be.

Was it best to just come along?

Provided that Meido was speaking the truth, switching villages from Hyouga to Kusa was indeed a sane man’s choice as the shinobi village of Shimo no Kuni obviously had no place for Susen. And from a more selfish perspective; why would he even want to stay in a village that had plotted to kill him? Providing Kusa with the information to invade Hyouga would form a solid payback to the people that were trying to cast him aside like a piece of trash as well.

Then why did the idea fill him with disgust?

Susen was a man of layers. His first layer was that of the alcoholic, a man who treated everything with equal apathy and bungled his duties only to get the authorities off his back. The second layer was hidden by the first, a conscious action Susen took, but was still obvious enough to those who were both sharp and spent enough effort on Susen's behavior. The layer that influenced most of his actions was the layer of the broken man. A Chuunin imprisoned by his own guilt and the fear for events repeating themselves.

But there was a third layer. Somewhere deep within the man’s wounded psyche, he was still a shinobi. A person devoted to protecting his village with every effort it took, even at the risk of his own life. Perhaps it was the fact that, deep down inside, Susen realized that this hostile treatment from Hyougagakure no Sato was his own fault for his weakness. Perhaps it was his hatred for missing-nin and deserters, people without any form of loyalty and the same breed of ninja that killed his friends. Regardless of the reason, it was that layer of him that surfaced right now, that part of his persona that formulated his reply to Meido, and it was this part that allowed him to keep his head clear. Even at moments like this, there was still an oath he had sworn. An oath of loyalty.

Tensing his body to prepare for the attack that was likeable to come from this reply, Susen spoke. ”That won’t do, Meido-san. I do not know if what you said is true, although I do not deny the credibility of the story.” What Susen was trying to say was that he had accepted the fact that what Meido was saying had a very high of possibility of being true; he was aware that he had fucked up. It also meant, however, that he did consider it to be a mere trick from Meido to make him despair and make him more willing to come along to Kusa, and that, if given the chance, he would return to the village to find out. ”The mistakes that have put me in such disfavor with the Miyamoto are mine alone, and it is only fitting that it is I who pays the price. If that means my death, then so be it. I have no desire to become a traitor, and let my foolishness damage the village even further. For I am still a Chuunin of Hyougagakure, and if the least I can do to serve it is sacrificing my own life to preserve its image, then my life I shall give!”

With that being said, Susen took a deep breath and awaited the man’s reply. His heart was beating in his throat. The threat of an attack had just become very real, and his chances of making it out of a battle with a shinobi so far beyond him in terms of skill and experience alive were slim, but coupled with that fear was a fierce pride in his own decisions. For the first time since years, Susen felt like a real Hyougagakure shinobi again.

[Ochiba Meido]

Meido's eyes didn't avert from their transfixed gaze on the quivering Chuunin. Susen's person in its entirety was being carefully analyzed by the elder. It was fact that a large majority of an individual's reactions to a situation were concentrated on their facial expressions. Communication between primates, of which most shinobi found themselves categorized, involved a great deal of facial contortion that acted in conjunction with words and emotions to further elaborate on our true feelings. Meido knew of the more subtle hints, however. The body in totality articulated just as much if not more than a mere frown or wink. Perspiration, shivering, a heightened pulse and erect strands of hair were all visual cues of Susen's mental instability.

Despite these expressive indicators Meido was mainly concerned with one signal that wasn't present: A discoloration. True crippling fear and depression were always visible in the forms of incredibly pale skin as a result of an seemingly insurmountable situation. Whether they were degraded into a fetal sniveling shell or fell back onto their asses in fear, the only sure indicator of true terror was still indiscernible from the Hyouga shinobi.

Even with subtle pressure Meido understood that Susen hadn't abandoned all hope. Reactions form the Chuunin demonstrated his full understanding of the truth in the elder's words. It was an ironic sign of maturity to be acutely aware of one's own actions and not to deny them. This showed a basic yet necessary level of integrity than even the most allegedly loyal shinobi didn't possess; there were thousands of missing-nin across the shinobi world and it wasn't because they desired to elope with their most cherished lover.

Innumerable shinobi that swore complete and undying allegiance to their nations cracked under the weight of selfish desire; they wanted more money; they wanted more power; they had ambitions of greatness beyond their constraints; or they simply just didn't want to die. For all of the epitome of a soldier that a shinobi was supposed to be, behind every single shinobi was a predictable human. Humans were fickle like twigs.

A shinobi shouldn't show emotion and yet every confrontation saw countless ninja wearing their feelings on their shoulders. A shinobi shouldn't fear death, and yet when resting against death's door all eventually cowered. Principles and rules were nothing more than political ideologies imagined by the self-indulged who deluded themselves into think that they were more than human; they believed that they had absolutely no faults.

His longevity had taught him these truths, but it also enlightened him to the rarities that stood head, shoulders and mountains above the rest; those that didn't deny their weakness or fears but held them firmly and stared down their inevitable fates. These, along with those incapable of actually feeling fear, were always the ones with the potential to become true monsters.

Susen--an insecure and detested drunk--showed Meido this rare characteristic that not even the presumptuous Miyamoto had hinted at. Somewhere inside of Susen was a shinobi fully capable of standing among the likes of Itachi and Orochimaru.

The Hyouga shinobi might have been surprised to hear a sadistic and almost alien chuckle come from Meido.

"Kukukuku" slowly Meido's voice began to surely change as he pulled down the scarf from before his face. Disbelief might have begun to overcome the Chuunin, but it was no fallacy that Meido's body was beginning to somehow transform; layers began to peel off of and replace his skin.

An odd buzzing sound would have started to become audible. At first it would just be a whisper, but soon it would seemingly explode in Susen's ears almost unbearably as if something was right next to his eardrums.

"You've excited my interests boy" Meido would say as his lower eyelids tilted upwards, a clear indication of acute sadistic pleasure.

The murderous intent around Susen would become thick like viscous syrup seeking to drown him. Perhaps it would have been hard for him to determine from where or how, but each possible movement would convey to him an image of his body rotting on the frozen earth beneath him.

Meido's face was becoming distorted and his appearance harder to discern.

"Don't break too easily now child. I want to enjoy this" Meido would say as he gently lifted one leg up to move forward.

As a shinobi, nay, as an animal of instinct Susen should have known that if he didn't move within that moment then his life would take an agonizing turn for the worse.

[Susen]

The elder Kusa-nin just kept surprising Susen, so much that the only not-surprising aspect of it being that it happened at all. Every fiber in the Chuunin’s body was ready to move out of the way, since judging upon what Meido had said a confrontation was now a certainty. Even then, the chuckle that the Jounin uttered sent shivers down his spine. The barely human laugh was only made creepier because of just how much it went against everything the Hyouga-nin had previously assumed about Meido’s personality. He pulled down his scarf revealing a.. change in his skin. It seemed to be peeling off like that of a reptile, paired with the sudden sound of a swarm of insects surrounding the area rapidly increasing to the point where it felt as if his eardrums were about to burst.

Then came the murderous intent, paired with some sort of twisted form of acknowledgement that came from Meido. It was probably meant to be a compliment of sorts, but Susen was too freaked out to pay any sort of attention to it. Had he been younger, the raw fear that a killing intent of this caliber evoked would’ve probably got the best of him, but one particular experience - the purging of Izumi no Kuni to be more precise - had steeled his nerve. And while every movement he made brought forth horrible visions of his own demise, he found himself able to bring his hands together and perform a string of seals, finishing them and simultaneously jumping away as Meido raised his leg.

He would go down fighting.

This particular jutsu was another fine example of how Hyouga shinobi fought in their natural terrain; chakra had been stored into the snow beneath Susen as the seals were formed, and upon finishing the string the chakra had been released causing a great deal of snow to suddenly rise from the ground, forming a white, thick cloud around the veteran shinobi. The cloud in itself was good enough to buy him a few seconds of time as that was the average time it took for the majority of the snow to settle or blow away, decreasing the clouds density and increasing visibility. Shinobi far less than Meido, however, wouldn’t give an enemy shinobi that kind of time and would move themselves out of the cloud swiftly or perhaps use the reduced visibility to prepare a little trap of themselves. Vision-reducing techniques were often two-sided blades.

Susen himself, landing a good five meters away from Meido and the cloud, used his time to perform another series of seals resulting in the snow around him melting into water, and rising into two shapes to the Chuunin’s sides. These shapes quickly took the shape of their creator; Mizu Bunshins. He purposely placed himself in the middle of the two clones as , though it would be the most obvious target for most opponents to assume the true shinobi to be, it allowed for him to easily reach into his pouches and attach the explosive tags he dug up from them onto the backs of the heads of both the clones.

And then, he waited. If given the time, he would retrieve one of the three harpoon-like spears he usually carried on his back and hold it diagonally before his chest with only one hand, as would his clones.

[Ochiba Meido]

There was a subtle delicacy to true terror and brutality. It was an elegance that only those with the acquired taste would be able to fully delight. Shinobi were familiar with tearing flesh, dripping blood and breaking bones. Few other than the sociopaths garnered entertainment at the sight and initiation of pain: Fearful expressions and heart wrenching shrieks. Meido was comfortably among those few, though his contained an eccentric twist. Key transitionary periods that influenced the dichotomy of life and death: His desire to cause suffering to individuals which he discovered in these transitional periods was akin to unhealthy substance addictions.

Susen was unfortunate as to have displayed this to Meido. Though the elder had no concrete facts it was clear from his observations that at some point, perhaps as an academy student or Genin, Susen had honest aspirations and determinations to become a respectable shinobi. Conceivably something altered Susen for the worse and turned him into a detestable alcoholic. The Hyouga-Nin hadn't lost himself completely, however. His old desires still lingered and he wanted to change, but was still insecure.

Meido would twist Susen around his finger and make his decision a real matter of life and death.

Immediately the Chuunin started to mold hand seals. He was noticeably sluggish, however. Even if the Chuunin had been in prime physical and mental condition, Meido didn't burden himself with the frailties of mercy. The Hyouga-Nin didn't even need to blink to miss what would transpire next if his reflexes and senses couldn't react.

Meido was already directly in front of Susen when the snow cloud detonated. As the seals for his bunshin finished Susen would--if he didn't recognize the elder's advanced position--be slammed face first into the snow, and then the rock hard ice below hard enough to break his nose. Meido's prior snails pace would have seemed like an intoxicating illusion.

[Susen]

Baffled at the speed the Jounin possessed, all Susen could do was rush his seals to finish them before Meido slammed him into the ground. The pointlessness of this fight had become all the more clear right now; he was simply no match for a shinobi of this caliber. Meido was of a higher rank than him for an obvious reason; even at his advanced age his speed and physical prowess were superior to that of the Hyouga-nin. Susen had been severely slacking his training, his skills barely advancing from when he was still a reasonably fresh Chuunin due to lack of practice, and his heavy drinking taking a heavy toll on the fitness of his body. The result was that Meido, a skilled Jounin, was now easily having his way with him.

Not having the time to attach the paper bombs to his clones like he had planned, a hand grabbed the back of Susen’s head and with great force threw him to the ground. A wet crack was audible as his face collided with the ice beneath the layer of snow, and the warm sensation of blood on his face along with a sharp pain alerted the Chuunin to the fate of his nose. At that moment, though, the clones would attack. Meido had appeared before Susen, and diagonally in front of the two clones, and for whatever good it would do their spears would’ve sought Meido out.

Both of them would quickly turn towards Meido and attempt to drive their spears into the old man’s chest, both of them twisting their bodies slightly to the side, both to increase the power behind the stabbing motion enabling them to penetrate deep into Meido’s flesh. As for Susen himself, for whatever good it did him he was quick to resume action, rolling a few feet away from Meido and getting up again all within the margin of a second despite the dazed state the blow had put him in. He purposely allowed some of the blood on his face to tickle down onto his hands as he slammed the ground. A large seal would appear underneath Susen, black kanji stretching across the white, snowy ground.

”Kuchiyose no Jutsu!”

Announced by a sudden blast of smoke, tinted white by the snow it whipped up, a mammoth with dark brown, almost black fur would tower over Meido, Susen on its back. Two large barrels of Liquid Frost, the Tategami family’s chemically devised secret weapon that they controlled with Suiton, hung from its sides. Susen watched down from the mammoth, seeing his own blood drip down onto the dark fur of its back. The pain of his broken nose was slightly dulled by the fuzzy state the knock to his head had left him in. For all the futility of his actions, it would occur to Meido that Susen was trying his hardest.

[Ochiba Meido]

Meido's sudden burst of speed was due to a combination of factors. The first and foremost was a minimal expectation that the elder had subtly instilled into the Chuunin without his realization; his pace, that is his normal walking speed, was spitefully laborious. While a snail, realistically, wouldn't have been faster than Meido it was not hyperbole that a race between the two would have resulted in a dead heat. The elder had developed this pacing over the years for two primary reasons: Observation and astoundment. Experience had taught him that even walking at what might be considered a respectable speed, caused him to overlook important fine details. In a minimal stress environment where he wasn't being rushed--or rather no one could rush him--he adapted to slowdown and carefully analyze his surroundings. The secondary reason was just as important. Expectations of shinobi and individuals in general where based on impressions. Throughout the entirety of the sojourn Meido had presented the facade that he, perhaps due to his age, moved leisurely.

The purpose was simple: Disengaging preparation. Even if one's subconscious alerted the possibility of Meido being faster than his initial introductions alluded, the conscious mind would linger on Meido's movement being an enormous disadvantage. Belief in this deceit, even for a fraction of a second, would hinder the reactions of even the most exceptional Taijutsu specialists. Such always enabled Meido's preemptive strike to be critical or, as it often occurred, fatal to his opponent.

A secondary factor of rare knowledge to those but the more experienced with Kusa shinobi was the Naminori. This technique, when mastered, empowered the grass ninja with the capability of smooth and hastened movements on any surface of any texture. A simple but effective metaphor would be chakra skating. Chakra control and Naminori permitted Kusa-Nin to slide across various coverings with ease: Snow, gravel, water, bark etc. nothing slowed them.

Therefore the progress of Meido was explained. A simple Shunshin proceeding a chakra charged Naminori threw the Jounin in front of Susen whilst his deceived senses still anticipated a loitering response from the elder. Completely capable of killing Susen in his first motion, Meido opted to crush the nose of the Chuunin instead; this would prevent his detection of certain...minute circumstances.

He was amusing himself.

In the moment that the pair of clones turned to confront Meido, the elder witnessed Susen form a summoning circle. Again his seals were slow to the detail oriented visual cognition of the Kusa elder, but he was bemused by the inquiry of summon species; what kind of animal did this Hyouga-Nin partner?

Seemingly not focused on the clones, Meido stared with genuine interest at the wooly mammoth that appeared before him. It was a comical irony for him; he'd seen this summon once before in another totally different snow nation.

Taking two gentle steps forward, the clones would miss their strikes.

"Such a flamboyant creature. A hindrance indeed." Perhaps his words would have angered Susen, but it wouldn't matter. Meido was referencing its size as an unwanted indicator of their location. While he fully intended hedonistic self-indulgence, the Chuunin had ruined the possibility of sustained enjoyment.

Raising his right hand might have confused Susen, but the sudden onslaught of a semi-paralyzing and anesthetic inducing sweet sent would being to wash over his being. Where did it come from? The tap on Susen's chest earlier was deceitfully deadly; there were fungal spores on the bottom of the cane which Meido had been manipulating around Susen's orifices and then, through his own chakra, now activating.

Unless Susen had a method of detecting and cleansing the spores, then the gaseous compounds release would, quite simply, put him to sleep.

[Susen]

Susen looked down upon Meido from on top of his feral beast. His current plan was using Yazou –such was the name he had given his trusty beast – to protect himself while he barraged the Jounin with the Liquid Frost that was inside his barrel; the water was painful to the touch, and even dipping one’s arm into it for just a few seconds would result in intense pain and frostbite, much longer would just cause the blood inside the arm to freeze.

The sheer nonchalance with which Meido regarded the creature and evaded the clone’s attacks only confirmed that he did not view Susen as any kind of threat, though that was no surprise to the Chuunin. He was doing this to show Meido, and perhaps himself, that there was still something within him, a great shinobi worthy of respect. That there was still a part of him worthy of respect.

There was something that changed about the pace of battle when he summoned his mammoth, though. For up until now Meido had been clearly toying with the Chuunin; if he wanted to finish this quickly a kunai to the throat would’ve sufficed when he had the chance just a few seconds ago. However he intended to take his time with Susen like a cat playing with a mouse. Something about the creature he just summoned changed that.

The dizziness and blurry vision came unexpected. He could feel his hold on reality fading as his legs seemingly gave away beneath him. Within seconds of the activation of the spores the Chuunin found himself face-down on ithin seconds of the activation of the spores the Chuunin found himself face-down on Yazou’s furry back. The spores had successfully done their work, Susen not even having noticed them and in his last conscious moments considering this attack to be some very powerful genjutsu. Regardless, due to their creator losing his grip on consciousness, the two clones behind him lost their shape. With a dull splash the water they reverted to a pool of water on the ground, soon to be made into ice by Shimo no Kuni’s climate. The lumbering mammoth befell a likewise fate, vanishing in a blast of smoke only mere seconds after it had been summoned. Its master landed in the snow, producing a dull thud as he did. The red stain his face would have left on the snow would’ve been the only indication of a fight that had taken place here, but the chance of someone discovering it before it was covered by another, fresh layer of snow was very slim.

In the end, the Chuunin never knew what hit him.

[Susen Exit]

[Ochiba Meido]

Prominent to a successful victory was a well organized plan and applied knowledge of information--or in the case of Susen the lack thereof. Preliminary searches throughout the country enlightened the elder as to particular expanses that were rarely traveled due to their relative isolation and infrequency of relevant patrols. Due to the snowed out environment such areas weren't difficult to locate, but it took careful preparation and maneuvering to avoid certain attentions while jaunting to these destinations.

Proper caution and manipulation limited intelligence on the whereabouts and even the existence of the Kinrui clan; of course there were a minute few proficient enough to acquire minimum knowledge in regards to them, but such individuals were well investigated by Meido and most were silenced, fatally or otherwise. Thus it was implausible that the Chuunin could have anticipated Meido's subtle attack.

Birthed from his own chakra and Kekkei Genkai, the fungal spores produced could carry and release modifications molded into them by the elder. A simple but effective method of immobilizing his target. Consequence of their delicacy, the elder often contrived certain avenues for their safe deployment; a direct result of their near weightlessness meant that wind currents and the chaos of battle would lead to their premature destruction. Physical contact was a reliable implementation which served well for this engagement.

Though within range Meido opted to constrain himself from interfering with gravity. Instead he turned and started to walk once more; his skin was back to normal, his cane in hand and his scarf back over his face.

"Bring him along" Meido would say to...apparently no-one as he exited the immediate area. Even his tone had reverted to its prior state.

A gust of wind hinted at an incoming blizzard. To those that traversed this location after they'd find nothing of interest, not even a drop of sweat.

[Exit Meido]