The First of Many (Private Flashback)

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The forest. The place where mystery is held. The silence of trees as winds blows through, trying to make its way to the end. Few live in the forest and few live to tell the tale of what happens. This is a story about how something that was forgotten brought back. This is a story about 7 ninjas chosen by their higher ups to investigate a series of missing people. From different villages none knew how this would turn out. But in the end, it turned out in a way no one expected. This is their story.

Near the walls of Dokugakure, a forest laid dormant. Small villages lived in that area and nothing really occurred until one day, people began to go missing. The number of missing began to grow slowly and so the Ninja Countries never took concerns to it. But then the number began to rise rapidly. Dokugakure sent an investigating party to the area of the missing but the villages that used to be there, were gone. Was the party look around, they found a small girl. Terrified, they girl tried to hide from them, but eventually she knew that they could be trusted. When the party filed a report, they stated the villages were a ghost town, there were no traces of people there. The girl tells of a creature known as a Wraith and it was behind the disappearances of people. Wraiths were regarded as legends (those who wore the flesh of humans and ate them) and nothing more and so they believed that she did not know what she saw. Couple of days later, another village disappeared with the same MO as the first villages that disappeared. The disappearance were beginning to spread and would eventually reach the areas of the Ninja Countires. The kage of Dokugakure sends a message to the other ninja villages to state what was happening and wished for aid for a further investigation. In response kages sent one or two ninjas to the area where the first disappearance occurred to meet up with three ninjas of Dougakure. Yuki sent one ninja Hidio, Amegakure sent two ninjas Kain and Hakkyou, and Dokugakure sent three ninjas; Vincent, Shikaru, and Hetoru. But in all of unlikeliness Dokugakure asked for aid from a missing nin that hung around the area. Interested, the missingg nin agreed. That missing nin was Jiro.
Waiting at the spot of the disappearance, Vincent await for his fellow ninjas to arrive and start a new investigation. Vincent held a folder with information on the status of what was going on, but nobody knew the truth. Chills run down his spine. The silence of the village was way to quiet. It felt like a graveyard would have been more cheerful than this. Looking around he noticed a word engraved into a tree "Croaton". Vincent strokes his hand on the craving to see if it was real. It was.

Hidio growled and turned back to the body. "jiro I don't know if your rich or not,but Your acting like a little brat that didn't get what they wanted." He notcied the tatto of the jagged thorn on the part of the mans neck that was left. "This tatto is of the jagged thorn gang. I think that we need to find out if they have a rival.

Jiro's hand stopped twitching for bloodlust and his anxious appearance shifted to something more calm. He turned away and shrugged, keeping his hand still firmly on his blade. "Fine. Let's just go." Jiro snarled angrily and waited for the others to give word on where they should head to next.

Ejiki grimaced and stood up, crossing her arms. She turned her attention from the body to the others.
"This is fairly recent. We should be able to track down the target from here."
Though, a blood trail would be nice to follow instead...And Ejiki didn't really want to use her Byakugan unless truly needed.
Ugh, decisions decisions.

As their conversation was going on, the sky began to become covered by clouds and it wasn't soon after the light in the sky turn black. A thunderstorm was about to start. *BOOM* Thunder roared in the black sky. Vincent looked up in the raining sky. "Hm it looks like we are gonna have to make camp here. This rain is gonna slow us down, and the blood is gonna be washed soon."

Hidio used his days of assassination tracking to remember the blood path that had been left toward the west of the body. "You all set up camp i'll go see about the jagged thorn rivals in Dokugakure. I'll be back soon." Hidio jumped on the trees toward the village of Doku.

[exit]

Jiro sees the man tracking the blood wander off and feels the rain hitting his skin like bullets. They didn't hurt, however, and the rain always seemed to calm Jiro's desire for combat when he does get to the point where he'd get anxious to swing his blade around. Due to this, he had now released his grip from his blade and kneeled against a tree in a more calm demeanor. "Pretty lively guy, isn't he..." Jiro muttered to himself and closed his eyes to feel the rain and the sound of it hitting the ground around him.

He loved listening to rain and feeling it on his skin. "Well then, I guess we should set up camp now." Jiro opened his eyes and stated. "And hopefully that guy doesn't get himself killed with that jump-first-think-later attitude..." Jiro thought to himself and looked at the man dash into the distance, eventually fading from view, and then turned his gaze to the ground.

Ejiki rolled her eyes as the man left. Men must have a biological need to jump headfirst into danger.

Ejiki looked up and closed her eye as a raindrop fell in it, then shook her head and turned to Jiro when she heard him talking about setting the camp up now. She walked over and began setting it up, seeing as she was the only one not doing anything that wasn't related to staring, being stupid, or attempting to figure out the body at the moment.
"This is going to be a long night. Anything you need, Jiro?"

Hidio leaves, trying to see if there was something of a rivalry going on near by that could give some information leaving Vincent with the spoiled brat and his shy ally. Upon coming to this investigation information was given to him by his kage on the ninjas that he is working with. Jiro was a uchiha, ejiki a hyuga, and hidio a plasma user. Each had a special kekkei genkai, and it was about time to put them to good use. "Ejiki i was given information by my superiors that you are a hyuuga. Do you have Byukugan or learned it? I think in our situation it will be quite useful." Vincent takes out his katana and cuts from branches and uses them to make a shelter for his group. While cutting he tries to find dry branches so that he can later on use them as fire wood.

Hidio walked toward the camp the ninja had made. "Yeah I got the infromation they do have a rival except that the cleaner nin they hired have gone on a bloodlust frenzy and are headed to the jagged thorn headquaters in the forest. Guys let's get ready."

"Heh, that was fast." Jiro muttered lowly to himself and looked at the man who had shockingly only left a few minutes previously. "At any rate, I agree. Screw setting up camp. Let's get going." he continued talking, and finally it seemed as if life had been pumped back into him after he had previously dazed off.

Ejiki sighed and dropped the tent she had been setting up. After packing it back up, she walked in front of the group as the veins in her eyes became exaggerated from activating her Byakugan. A visible black X appeared in both eyes as she looked around.
"Alright, I can see a path to it. Are we all ready?"
She stood next to the path and crossed her arms...Expecting Hidio to go running right past her. Time to hurry.

Hidio had finally returned with information, giving us a lead in this investigation. The rain starts to pour harder wiping the blood trail that used to be. Luckily Ejiki had the ability of her Byakugan to help them go on the right path. Jiro finally looked like he has become interested in what was about to happen. A fight was bound to happen. Vincent walks next to Ejiki, "Lead the way."

Jiro simply looked at Ejiki and waited for her to make her move.

Ejiki, seeing as all were ready, took off, jumping from tree to tree. She ducked down and headed deeper into the forest, where more and more dead trees lay. She eventually landed on top of a branch, not so much as a small thud, and looked down. As the others caught up, she motioned a little ways further in.
"There. We're literally a few leaps from it."
She frowned as she could make out a clear figure.
"Aaand there's our target."

OOC: Why did you skip Zodiac?

(it's cool let's continue)

Hidio stared at the figure he saw it clearly. "If thats our target procede with caution. Even though it's a blood craze cleaner nin it's still a ninja." Hidio blended into the shadows and moved through out he tried to poisiton himself behind the cleaner nin. The ninja laughed it hollow and filled with an evil ad insane spirit. Hidio started sweating. Hidio pulled out his scythe and prepared for the fight.

OOC: So who is next?

[You...XD]

The laughter echoed, bouncing off each tree making it seem like the enemy was everywhere. Since it was night time, his kekei genkai was useless at this point. There was only one thing he could do at the moment. After performing the hand seals necessary two water clones were created. The two clones moved in separate directions trying to find the enemy whom hid in the forest. The original Vincent stood still but put one hand on the handle of the katana and another on the sheath. He scoped the surrounding area hoping to be able to pinpoint a location.