A Tale of Two Cities

The Tremor Human

A midst the crawling chaos of the semi-municipality of Kirigakure no Sato was a man who would feel better off if he had some weed to smoke. A small hit would have bade the way much more manageable, but Krenos knew better. There were old memories to awaken today if the not-so-young man had a chance to reawaken certain abilities of his family bloodline that were eventually lost to him over the years of his existence. There was never really a need to awaken those abilities from long ago, but Krenos knew that he would have had to do so if it meant advancing his potential abilities to meet the standards of being a covert village defender. Then again, what would a stealthy A.N.B.U. need something like Quake Release to make his job easier?

The abandoned and un-visited Old Kirigakure section of the village was at one point the main village, but ever since times had passed and shinobi grew stronger and technology played a game of catching up with the times, the old section was abandoned in favor of the new section. The old part of the village was never deconstructed, because people were too lazy to do so and there was too much money spent into that bit of a project, which would have been in part to the major cleaning up of the aftermath of the demolition. Krenos found it convenient that such a place was still in tact, because he felt that there would be no real collateral damage of importance since the place was red-listed to be demolished at some point in the future.

There was nothing said against the acts Krenos had planned to do today, as his wife and the elders of the village gave him the green light to do so after telling them of the Advanced Nature Kekkei Genkai he was capable of performing. No one had believed him at first, but he insisted that they sent at least another A.N.B.U with a crystal orb to project the training via Telescope Technique. The Furue knew that the other shinobi was in the vicinity keeping watch and making sure that he did what he was told to do, which was trivial in all respects but if it meant that the village would give him a raise, why not? Krenos wondered if the lessons his father taught him would still be relevant in the time period now.

The Furue stood in the midst of the village center of old Kirigakure no Sato and took in the old stagnant air of the mist in his lungs before closing his eyes and sitting down in the center of the main square. The meditation process was one of the more simple, if not the most simple, of ways for a Furue to awaken their kekeki genkai. Krenos' chakra seemed rather normal, with no current indication that there would be any dramatic change to his being anytime soon. Within his mind, he was beginning to relive his childhood, and experience old wounds that he assumed were healed up. That was subject to change, especially as Krenos came upon the memory of himself learning of his clan's abilities for the very first time, in the most unsatisfactory of ways.

Saturn Furue stood before his seven year old son before a simple wall in the back of the small town they grew up in. He explained that there was a phenomena called "vibrations", in which certain objects and matter continued to move and shake after being initially moved and another important phenomena called "shock-waves", which was a spreading disturbance that carried great power to move through mediums without being hindered. Saturn then explained to his son that their bloodline allowed them to manipulate such phenomena to their whim, and they could use it for great purposes of destruction and chaos. Krenos wondered whether his father was a truly sane man, and asked of him if this was really true. The Furue elder gave a smirk as he gave a silent nod and faced the wall with nothing but the clothes on his back and the probable derangement of a senile elder.

Saturn slowly drew back his right fist and brought his body to a fixed position to directly strike the wall with his mere bare fist, which made Krenos chuckle a bit in the inside. However, the elder realized this, and decided to make a statement with his strike. Krenos watched as his father would try to hit the wall without even being in range of punching it directly, and wondered if he was drunk again or under the influence of some hallucinogenic agent. Saturn only struck the the space between his fist and the wall, and gave a sneer as the very air spider-webbed like broken glass before shattering, sending a massive burst of slightly-visible shaking energy towards the wall. The wall had no chance, and was utterly destroyed, along as everything else that was standing in the immediate ten meter vicinity. Krenos was shocked. It all had felt like an earthquake, but more concentrated. Nothing else far away shook, but that small area did.

Krenos’ current time meditation was still being monitored, but the Mizukage and her officials began to see that his chakra was beginning to change dramatically. It didn’t appear like the ordinary blue shroud of some ordinary shinobi. It appeared in the form of countless ripples of chakra that enveloped his being like an aura. Slowly, the ground around Krenos slowly began to shake and crumble, the spectators realizing that the A.N.B.U. made no bluffs when he said he had the power to shake what he wanted. The radius of the shaking began to expand outwardly, and once thought to be sturdy buildings began to shake, while the obviously small structures came down to the ground. It would seem that the shaking would continue to expand, so the A.N.B.U. directed to be there under physical supervision was told by the Mizukage to stop Krenos. The A.N.B.U. did as she was told, and Krenos opened his eyes. The shaking stopped, but the Furue rose to his feet with a blood-red discharging aura envelop his being and tears from a childhood robbed by violence streaming down his cheeks.

”There, do they believe me now?”

Word Count: 1063/1000

The Tremor Human

With the absence of the supervising A.N.B.U., Krenos was left all by his lonesome, wandering about the old village hub in search of muse to train. There were new techniques that would be in need of actual training, but which techniques were the ones to question. The Furue made his movements throughout the immediate area lightly, as when he had re-awakened his Quake Release kekkei genkai he caused disturbances in the foundations of buildings. Many creaked and some visibly leaned to the side as if they would fall down and collapse at any given moment. Krenos wasn't exactly concerned by this at the time, but he did realize that eventually they would be a problem for anyone else who would come wandering into the area or for those people who were meant to demolish the area.

Therein the corner of a street and down an alleyway was an old dojo overrun with vines and other strange plants that would have normally been seen in a jungle-like environment. The chakra in the area felt somewhat natural, and although Krenos couldn't exactly sense chakra he had a strange feeling of cleanliness and purity. The air wasn't tainted as bad as he had once assumed upon entering the old establishment, the only off scent being that of musty paper from the old training scrolls. The man ran his hands along the papers and happened to glance on information regarding improving one's control of chakra and overall ninjutsu performance. Krenos took an interest to this small sliver of information and sat down on the dojo floor reading away. There were more scrolls that would be visited as Krenos' time would go on, but this scroll in particular happened to catch his attention.

There were instructions on how to channel one's chakra through the body so well that even the usage of certain techniques at certain ranks wouldn't even utilize chakra at all. There was a great mass-appeal in wanting a shinobi that could dish out techniques at a rapid pace to demolish enemies and win fights, because there was always a race to see who would be the strongest of the strong and who will be the conqueror of the weak and humble. Krenos saw those same values in his clan's bad history and wondered if the shinobi world had anything to do with the way his clan had sadly turned out. There was a slight loosening of Krenos' emotions, and the building shook a bit before he calmed and gathered himself and stopped before any more damage would be subsequently caused.

When he had completed his reading Krenos rolled the scroll over to the side and took a meditative position on the floor, which his legs crossed, back erect, eyes closed and mind open to absorption of knowledge. There were memories to ponder about in the dojo, memories that would most likely assist in training the chakra in Krenos' body. There was the memory of Krenos and his mother sitting under a calm waterfall, taking the same meditative stance he took at that moment in the dojo, letting the natural processes of the universe to sort out their needs in appropriate ways. The mother and son duo had chakra that appeared to be several thousand ripples, to the eyes of the son's father, who watched and paid close attention to see how the two gathered and strengthened their chakra reserves. Soon, the two would reflect the water around them, and began to dry after several minutes. They were shaping the vibrations to intricate and detailed shapes for practical purposes, which was in itself a daunting and difficult task.

Chakra was being used at a lesser pace as Krenos would discover, feeling the chakra within his body expand in a rippling pool that was being controlled and confined with more shaping potential. There were small rocks around Krenos, small rocks that began to shake on their own, and only those rocks in the small room of the dojo. The Quake Release energy was being shaped into a discriminant substance, where Krenos could choose intended victims. However that was never really a cool aspect of discriminant Quake Release, when one could easily cause mass destruction at a cheaper cost.

"That's just the way the cookie crumbles."

Word Count: 0714/0700

The Tremor Human

The dojo was indeed a place of worth-while mentioning to the Mizukage once Krenos would return back to the current Kirigakure no Sato. There were other scrolls to go through, no doubt, and considering how large and extensive the dojo was there was no objection to going through the place and seeing what other stoic benefits it could bring for Krenos in the near future. There were scrolls on just more than training the reserves of one's spiritual and physical energy; scrolls that contained information regarding dodging and placing the best hits on the body to cause maximum damage without much physical effort were readily available, although Krenos was sure to suspect that there would be scrolls on the history of the village. However, such information would only be limited to the last two hundred years or so, seeing as that was the last time that portion of the village was in active usage.

On the highest floor of the dojo Krenos had limited his movements to very specific leg and foot movement, as to not invite the building's infrastructure to collapse on him while he was still searching for more vital information on the past state of Kirigakure no Sato. Krenos was sure that anything of major importance would have been transferred a long time ago, but continued to search just in case any sort of scroll containing more training regiments would be found on site. There happened to be a gigantic scroll sitting on a high shelf, which was not exactly high for Krenos to simply stretch his arms up to grab. Unknowingly, his lust for knowledge had set the building's support off balance, and the heavy creaking of metal and concrete became the only audible noise in the room aside from Krenos' beating heart. With swift thinking coupled with irrationality the Furue grabbed the scroll and proceeded to leap from the nearest window and land on an adjacent rooftop.

With the large scroll of learning achieved and in his grasp, Krenos decided that it would have been best if he read the scroll on even ground, but even that prospect seemed rather daunting in some respects. With little to no time to mentally state those respects, Krenos laid the scroll out on the cold damp ground and read it quietly amidst the ruin and havoc of the falling dojo building.

Word Count: 0393/0800

The Tremor Human

The scroll's contents happened to be something of more value and one of the least expected troves on information that Krenos was expecting to find all the way in Kirigakure no Sato: scrolls containing Quake Release techniques that involves the usage of Taijutsu as a medium for the shock waves and powerful vibrations. Various techniques littered the scroll that possessed ways in which the Furue could simply exert shock waves from their own bodies and manipulate them to hit single target persons. However, those techniques were written in a fashion that determined that they were for more experienced and skilled ninjutsu and/or taijutsu users. After reading through the diagram over and over of a certain technique, Krenos was ready to attempt to use the technique labeled "Pulverizer".

"Alright Krenos, just as the scroll said to," said the A.N.B.U., who would raise up to his feet as the dojo would finally come down on itself and cause debris to rise into the air. Krenos wouldn't mind it, because the debris would settle rather quickly, leaving him to strike... his daughter? He wasn't disappointed that he didn't get to utilize the ability, nor was he disappointed that his daughter had went looking for him when she should have stayed and trained in the village to harness her abilities. He lowered his arm down to his sides and gave a slight cough before reaching into his jacket to pull out... a rolled blunt and a lighter. With one end of the blunt resting between his lips and his right hand grasping the lighter he waved to his firstborn and pride, wondering as to why she would come sch a long ways out to find her father.

"Kasumi, my princess, what are you doing here in the abandoned prefecture?" was his simple response to his daughter's loud introduction to the area, lighting his blunt and taking a drag before putting the lighter back into his coat. There were things that Krenos had a desire to say to his daughter about her kekkei genkai, her volatile attitude, and her grandparents. He watched her approach him and fully realized how the two of them looked so much like one another, aside that Kasumi was gaining her mother's body. She didn't wear much, and that was just part of her tom-boyish nature that Krenos had always supported. He would walk towards her to meet her at a midway point and wrap his arms around her tight. Krenos didn't love many people, but of all of the people alive, Kasumi was at the top of his list of affections.

Word Count: 0828/0800