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Description
Shikamaru walked through the street, down to his home. What the hell am I doing up this late? He thought. He stopped to lean against a post, and looked up. The sky was clear and starlit, the moon being gone at this time of the month. The shinobi would have appreciated the night sky, had he not been half-asleep as usual.
Then something tapped him on the shoulder. Blearily, he turned to see a person's head around a corner. It wasn't someone he recognised.
"Excuse me, could you please direct me to the hospital?" he said in a rasping voice, coughing at the end. The shinobi raised an eyebrow.
"Three blocks that way, and it'll be directly to the left." He said, pointing. The person smiled, although it looked more like a grimace.
"Thanks." He said, and disappeared around the corner. Shikamaru turned around the corner, curious despite himself. The person was stumbling, and the lights made it look like things were sticking out of his form… or maybe it wasn't the lights. Shikamaru thought despite himself.
The tired shinobi looked and watched the figure stumble along until he passed out of sight. Shrugging, he turned back and started to his home. Then he stopped when the stench of singed flesh and blood hit his nose. He looked down. This is right where he walked…

"Order more burner fuel, we're running low on cauterisation materials. And get a mop up to level 3, those infants have been puking again." said Haruno Sakura, eyes fixed to a clipboard. Volunteer work was a boring and tiresome thing, but it kept her from loitering while off duty. And she could catch up on her ninja training later, people here needed help.
The scumbag behind the desk wiped his nose and turned up to the pinkette, picking up a sake bottle as he did. "Look girl, you got no business coming into my hospital on my hours and telling me how to do my job." He broke off, letting loose a loud belch, to which the volunteer grimaced in revulsion.
"You can go clean it yourself, you're volunteering here." He said, taking a deep swig of sake as he did. Sakura was just about to retort when a foul stench, like burning flesh and blood hit her nose. She grimaced again, and then gagged, taking out and holding a lavender-soaked handkerchief to her face to block it out.
Then the doors swung open, and a bent-over figure stumbled inside. Sakura walked over, pressing the cloth tighter against her face as the stench became unbearable.
"…just… don't mind me…" the figure said, coughing and turning. Then the person fell down, and the electric lights revealed… Sakura screamed.

"Tsunade! Miss Hokage!" called the messenger, sprinting upwards to her quarters. The youth hammered on the door, stepping back to avoid being hit by the swinging doors . "C'mon, miss, open the damn door already!" he muttered to himself, reading over the scroll again to check the message was right. No, all seemed in order, the person had turned up in the dead of night, with… the youth hurriedly shut the scroll again in order to attempt to contain the contents of his stomach.
Then the door opened, and the Hokage herself came out of the door, with wet hair and a dressing gown hurriedly slipped on. With a murderous glare to complete the image. Normally, the youth would have goggled at the sight, but this time the young messenger just handed her the scroll and turned, running out again.
Tsunade gaped, then opened the scroll. She read the words 'Unknown Person', 'Urgent Situation', 'Class Five Medical Emergency…' Who from? Ah, Haruno. Probably another clumsy hunter with a trap accident. Tsunade went back inside her room, changed into a more presentable state and then left, kicking the scroll aside as she went.
The scroll rolled across the floor, the message inside displayed clearly in dark ink against the paper.
To: Hokage Tsunade. - From: Volunteer Medic-Nin Sakura Haruno.
Subject: Class Five Medical Emergency
Unknown Person, presumed civilian, entered Hospital at 2343, bearing major near-fatal weapon wounds, and impaled by multiple weapons. Patient also bears many burns of all degrees, as well as traces of poison and neurotoxin intake. Patient should not be alive.
At time of writing, patient is in trauma or shock, and is against all logic attempting to guide the only qualified Medic-Nin in the procedure of removing the weapons and sealing the wounds.

The Hokage arrived on the scene, and a foul stench hit her nose. It was… she looked down and saw blood. Splattered here and there, in a trail that led into the hospital. She ran inside, following the blood trail.
Then screams reached her ears. She kept running up the stairs, into the non-urgent sections of the Hospital, which was simply unreal considering a person had managed to bleed this much. She grimaced as she imagined the scale of the wounds that the person had taken.
Then the screams started up again. She vaguely recognised them as those of one of the hospital staff, and then a voice started to speak from the same room. She got to the top of the stairs, and found Sakura with her hands covered in medical gloves and also splattered with blood. Then the Hokage looked around and saw the blood-splatter-trail leading into a vaguely disused room. Sakura ran up to Tsunade and beckoned her to follow, words failing the usually chatty pinkette. Tsunade grimaced again at being in a situation of this magnitude.

"Don't just yank it, you idiot, you'll disrupt the flesh around it!" said the figure sitting in a chair… with… Tsunade gasped.
This person had a sword through his chest. His back was to the Hokage, and she could see a gleam of metal, which was darkened blood-red. All the while more of the life-giving liquid was dripping from where the sword was impaling him. Tsunade guessed that by some miracle, the blade had missed most of his vital organs, otherwise he would have been dead.
One of the lesser Medic-nin was fumbling around with what looked like a kunai. Also sticking out of the figure, or his right forearm to be precise. Tsunade looked again and saw that including the sword and the one kunai, he had six things impaled through his body in total. Not including those two, he had two weapon-grade darts in his left arm, one other kunai knife in his thigh and a vicious-looking large knife stuck into his gut.
The Medic-Nin managed to extract the kunai in the person's right arm. A small dribble of blood came out, and the figure slapped a hand to it. Then, a sizzling sound and a hiss of some foul-coloured smoke emanated from the figure, and more of the pungent stench of burnt flesh seeped through the room. The Medic-Nin, who Tsunade noticed had an untidy, stained and also bloody uniform gagged and stepped backwards, then he fainted and fell against a wall.
Tsunade hurried forward, avoiding a puddle of sick and slipping on some medical gloves. He was a man not much older than twenty by her guess, and his hand was on fire. Then the fire disappeared and he reached up and pulled out one needle, wincing in pain as the two-inch point exited his flesh.
"Hello." said the man, seemingly heedless of his own injuries. "Give me a hand, will you? I can't reach the other one." He said, pointing to his free right hand to the other needle in his left arm, which was beyond his reach. Tsunade gripped the weapon, and yanked it out quickly. Luckily the needle was not barbed, and slid out without trouble, although it did leave his flesh with a disgusting squelch.

Sakura pressed the lavender-soaked cloth tighter against her face as though it could do anything to mask the stench of burnt flesh and blood. Peeking inside the room, she saw the stranger with his back to her and with Tsunade working on something on him. Then the pinkette saw the stranger bite down on one of the rubber gags, and with a disgusting sound like metal sliding against flesh, the Hokage yanked something out. Then the Hokage's hand entered the light and Sakura saw a huge knife thrown away. Then the stranger spat out the gag, and Sakura heard a sizzling sound before more of the disgusting stench hit her. Choking, the volunteer ducked back out into the hall and breathed some of the relatively cleaner hospital air.

Tsunade sat down. The blade that had previously been in his chest was now lying alongside a few surgery tools. The man, who was now sitting in a chair after he had sealed his flesh with some disgusting heat-based flesh-sealing technique, had survived an ordeal which would have killed other patients. Yet there he was in that chair, wiping off the worst of the caked blood that covered himself, stained his clothes and some which had settled on the table. She put her head in her hands and lay her head down to the table in stunned silence, and also light-headed sickness due to the pungent smell of burning blood.
"Hey." Said the stranger. Tsunade looked up and saw him trying to extract the Kunai in his leg. With a rather disgusting squelch, he extracted it. She honestly couldn't care less about him at that point due to being more concerned with keeping the contents of her stomach inside her body.
"I'll clean up. Go recover." He said, and he stumbled to his feet. The Hokage got up and walked almost duck-footed out of the room. The air turned both cooler and less sickening as she entered the hallway. The last thing her brain registered was a feel of something pushing her up, and the world spinning…

The figure waved his hand around a point, focusing his chakra into his hand, but more accurately he drew both the heat and the stench from the air in the room. He could have purified the hallway's air too, but at that point he may fall unconscious. So the heat-user stuck with the room around him. Soon, the air was clean as it could get with the mess.
Then condensing the energy with his chakra, soon the figure held a small speck of molten rock in his hand. Then it cooled and returned to being rock. The person walked over to a closet, opened it after a few tries, and clumsily got out a mop and some cleaning supplies. Turning to the mess, he started to clean away the worst of the blood with bucket and mop. He figured he had lost maybe three and a half litres of it. Any more lost and he may have died.
It wasn't as if the person was unfamiliar to the sight of his own blood. Many had tried to take his life over its course. It was simply a failure that the most recent group of people which tried to kill him happened to do so when his bodyguards, who were his loyal companions and friends were with him. As a result, both his friends were killed to the last and also he ended up with one vengeful bandit which had stuck a knife and a blade in him. This trip to Konoha was not going good at all.

The sun rose, and the city was abuzz with the usual chatter of people going about their business. But amongst the usual rumours was the one involving a mysterious stranger, who entered the city wounded and proceeded to make his way to the hospital. The accounts of his state of injury varied, from only a few scrapes to something close to the truth.
All those that woke up early saw the trail of blood he had left that went from the gates to the Hospital. Any who didn't see it before the street cleaners got to the scene were told of it by those who had seen the mess. Naturally, one lazy and sleepy shinobi by the name of Shikimaru got the fright of his life when he realised that he had been within inches of the stranger.

That stranger awoke in a sumptuous room. He groaned, and lifted his head to get up. It was then he realised that he wasn't where he remembered putting his head down. He got up and looked around.
The place was extravagant, but also Spartan. The only furnishings were a table in the centre for doing work, couches and stools for guests to sit on, a spare bottle of sake hidden away in a cabinet with its door ajar. The stranger smiled to himself. All people's personalities had to come through somehow.
Then a door to the side opened. Tsunade, wearing standard interrogator's clothing, walked through. The stranger blinked, and the scene shimmered before him. Wait, this was a Genjutsu technique!
One quick flare of chakra fixed that. Whichever technique they had used burned and crumbled under the pulse of fire. The scene buckled in on itself and the stranger saw himself in a blank room.
Hm, he thought. They wish to deceive me rather than bind me. Perhaps they can sense my power.
Tsunade staggered, and openly flinched when the stranger shifted his stance and brought flames to bear. At that moment, he was a dangerous being with flames forming claws, then curling and shuddering when they went up along his arm. A Man-made god, the weaker hay have called him.
"What's going? Why have I been brought here?" the stranger said, in a voice which oozed power. The Hokage swayed, and after quickly righting her balance tried to pull herself together. Being this close to this… person… and his power was simply mind-numbing.
"You have been brought here for questioning. I am the Godaime Hokage of Konoha. Who are you?" she managed to say, before coughing. She knew of volcanoes which radiated a lesser heat than the aura around this person.
The stranger seemed to falter, his aura pausing, then falling downwards and disappearing. Next to go were his burning claws, or flaming fists or whatever, Tsunade couldn't care less at that point. All she did care about, however, was that the air was cooling again, to a comfortable temperature.
"I apologize for my actions. They were merely in alarm." The person said. The older woman gaped, this Boy was standing there, looking and speaking like a Lord of the Elemental Countries! Then she mentally shook herself and asked again.
"Who are you?"
The stranger smiled, although it looked more like a wry grimace than an expression of joy. "You may or may not know my name, although I shall give my full title. I am Taji Idamo, last in the Idamo clan and rightful Daimyō of Fire Country. Now take a seat, this will take a while."

It had been hours since the stranger, who claimed to be from the clan Idamo, had arrived at the village. And it was common knowledge of the extent of his injuries. Sakura Haruno, being known as one of the only witnesses, was bombarded with questions. And despite him stating he only caught a glimpse, so was Shikamaru.
All the questions were the same: Did you get a look at him, How badly was he injured, What did he say? The two genin answered as best they could, but their peers had an endless tide of questions that would seemingly never be stopped.
Sasuke Uchiha sat at the window, away from the others. At least this phenomenon drew his admirers away. I suppose I should be involved too. thought the Uchiha idly, until he caught sight of the Hokage. Walking alongside an unknown person, and from what he could see, the unknown held the power in that conversation. Then he was surprised, incidentally a rare thing, when the unknown spoke something that only just eluded the shinobi's ears, and surprise grew to mild astonishment when the Hokage nodded as if she were taking orders from a superior.
Then the two came close enough for Sasuke to hear their words, which was somewhat shortened by the noise made by the other genin's discussion.
"…couldn't care less about the cost, just get someone onto those tasks. If your jounin are occupied, send your genin teams. Divulge the workload as you see fit, I could not care less about how you do it. Just get those tasks done and my treasury shall repay the cost."
Tsunade nodded again, and the figure paused, then turned to the building.

A smile cracked Taji's face. "It seems that a few of your genin are arguing about something." He said jokingly. The mood caught to Tsunade, who smiled and replied in kind.
"Knowing them and how fast rumours spread, it's probably something to do with you."
To that, the younger yet seemingly superior person merely chuckled. "Something tells me that I'll brew up a storm by the voices of the people alone just by being here any longer. I'd better go."
The Idamo turned to the Senju and nodded. "My endeavour continues. I wish you luck in yours." And with those parting words, he was gone in a flash of fire. Sasuke blinked a few times, until the shinobi realised the stranger was gone.

Taji walked with the crowd. He had tried to be inconspicuous as possible. But his stance and posture, among other things, marked him as definitively higher-class than the people around him. But then he decided to duck into an alleyway.
He saw an old woman drying some ragged clothes, large enough for him to wear his full garments on and yet conceal himself. He smiled and walked over.
She was blind. The Idamo felt a flash of guilt, then steadied himself.
"I would like to take those clothes you are drying on the line." He said, digging out his wallet. "How does 15,000 ryo sound?"
The woman gasped. Taji pushed the notes into her hands and turned, taking the large hooded coat off the line. He heard a sniffing noise, which when he turned, the Idamo learnt that a smell test must have been the basis for the means she identified money. He hoped that to the smell, singed money was still money.
The Idamo took her silence as acceptance. He threw on the hooded cloak, bent his head and blended into the crowd going out of Konoha once more.

Two bandits stood at the entrance to the cave. It was their hideout for their band of brigands, corsairs, vagabonds, call them what you like. This was once a peaceful region, until they established themselves and started attacking the halmets around them.
One figure in a hooded cloak was walking up the hill. The bandits now had a variety of options, from dropping a cart of rocks on his head, to activating a series of traps that would skewer him, then burn him, then something unspeakable that would leave him a grey smudge on the ground.
But they couldn't, when he raised his hands. Angry red rays of light shot out, and next second the bandits had collapsed on the ground with burn wounds in their bodies. The figure pulled down its hood, and Taji Idamo walked into the cave with vengeance in mind.

The truth was, none of Taji Idamo's Companions were dead. They were simply paralysed with a neurotoxin when they ambushed the Idamo's group, and it was only because the one man, which by all accounts was a defenceless noble, had unleashed his fury and that flame on them. Subsequently, the bandits who had participated in the initial ambush, and the entire dozen-strong rescue party that had arrived to at least distract the stranger from butchering the ambush group all had severe burn wounds.
Their chief, Maiko Itada, winced as his wife put more burn-treating cream on his wounds. There was just something about that man's flame that utterly destroyed the flesh it touched, and the adjacent flesh had been traumatised beyond repair. All they could do with their limited supplies was put more cream on it.
"Careful, will you!?" said the chief, shrugging off the attentions of his beloved. She pouted and then resumed with a smirk.
"Oh come on. Is the great and feared Maiko Itada wincing from a girl treating his wounds? Most men would kill to have the sexy nurse working on them."
He merely grunted. "Hey, that kid is a frickin' Pandora's Box. Whatever he did, none of our wounds are healing."
Her mood turned serious. "Got that right. Nothing I do can patch the skin over."
"Hey, want to go see the brat's friends again? I said the big one was ours this time."
"Mmm. Okay, Chief." She said, and the two got up and headed down to their makeshift prison.

"LET US GO! You can't hold back the Companions!" shouted a stocky prisoner with scars over his face and chest.
"Ahaha, what are you going to do about it?" jeered a bandit lounging in a chair. Then he straightened up as his chief and his wife walked in.
The Chief's Wife picked up a stick and nodded to the bandit. The Jailer opened the door, and the prisoners backed off. Then the Chief and his wife pulled out a burly prisoner and threw him out of the cell. He staggered and tried to run, but a crack from the Chief's beloved's whip rendered him a gasping mess on the floor.
Itada leered. Then he brought his boot up in a kick to the prisoner's face. Then his beloved stomped on his chest with her boot. Then the cycle of violence repeated, both taking their turn trying to outdo the other in their act of violence.

The bandits around their fire turned to the cloaked figure walking to them. How had this guy gotten past their guards? Was more often than not the thought that went through their heads.
Then he dropped his hood, and they all did a double-take. This was the guy that their chief had impaled, twice if you count the huge knife he stuck into the kid's stomach, and also they had put no less than three weapons into his body. And here he was.
Taji brought up his arms and his flaming chakra. That seemed to get their alarm. Tossing a ball of it at the group, he began his assault. The cloak went off into a corner of the cave, wouldn't want my only disguise burning up. He thought wryly.
The bandits reeled from the ball of fire chakra's explosion. A few drew weapons and rushed forward, but they were thrown back by a wall of fire erupting underneath their feet. When the flames cleared, only he stood. With those burning claws of his and fire gently curling up his arms, but most importantly deadly and vengeful flame burning within his soul.

A boom sounded from upstairs. The bandits in their prison looked up, then to each other in shock. They didn't have many Fire Technique users, and none were powerful enough to make an explosion that big.
Then a wall of flame flew down the stairs, throwing back the Jailer against the stone wall. The Chief and his wife drew their weapons and levelled them at the stairs. Whatever was coming down was powerful. The prisoners looked equally scared, until a boot with patterns of flame came down into view. A ragged cheer went up among the prisoners as they recognised the chakra of their leader.
Taji walked down, and a bandit bitch charged at him. He picked her up by the throat with his burning claws, broke her neck with a twist of his thumb or more accurately the sheer amount of chakra that swirled around it, and dropped her off to one side. Then he saw his adversary.
The bandit chief. The fire-user could tell his rank by the fact that he was both the last surviving bandit, last capable of action anyway, and also from memory. This was the bastard that had stuck a sword through his chest, and another knife to his stomach.
Then he charged. With an 'oh please' look, Taji grabbed him by the arms and flipped him over onto his back. Stepping back, he let the bandit get up again. Only to be knocked down again. He thought as cheering went up from the prisoners.
Then the Idamo had enough. He formed his hand into a spike, feeling the chakra form into the resultant spike. He smiled, this was a favourite technique, or execution method to be precise of his. The bandit raised his blade overhead to try and slash down at Taji. It had no plan, no timing, it was just swung crazily. But because it was so fast, it was hard to block. The bandit would relish picking this kid's valuables off his corpse.
He wouldn't get the chance. Taji stepped nimbly forward and impaled the bandit through the heart with the chakra forming around his spiked fist. The last expression the chief felt was shock, then he passed into the void. Taki threw the corpse off his hand and turned to leave.

"Wait!" sounded from the cage. Taji stopped, then turned. Then he paused. One of their prisoners looked familiar…
Taji had the shock of his life as he recognised his friends. Then he brought his flame up and blasted the prison wall. They rushed over him, burying him in hugs and cheers.
Taji bore all this with a smile. "You lot get out of here and back to the palace. I've still got things to take care of here."
His friends made a general agreeing sound, and after a few claps on the back, a ruffling of his hair and a kiss from the prettier girls, and also after him burning their bindings to dust, they started to loot the bandits' weapons and leave. Taji smiled.

The gates of Konoha were open, letting the people in and out of the city. No problem, then, for Taji to walk through. The problem was the attention he got.
It had been six hours since he crushed the North Hill Bandits. And it had been five hours since word had reached Konoha of his actions. As a result, the crowd parted before him as the fire-wielder walked into the city.
He then saw a group of ANBU appear around him and get into combat-ready formations. And then the Idamo was surrounded. He saw one of them with slightly higher-grade armament walk towards him and turned to face the ninja.
"You. The Hokage wishes to see you. She has a lot of questions for you." Ah, the age-old situation. There again with the ANBU Captain escorting him to their Kage.
"Very well. If one seeks my audience I am not one to deny." And with those words, the group set off, with the one man in the middle surrounded by one of the best ANBU teams Konoha had to offer.

Description
Shikamaru walked through the street, down to his home. What the hell am I doing up this late? He thought. He stopped to lean against a post, and looked up. The sky was clear and starlit, the moon being gone at this time of the month. The shinobi would have appreciated the night sky, had he not been half-asleep as usual.
Then something tapped him on the shoulder. Blearily, he turned to see a person's head around a corner. It wasn't someone he recognised.
"Excuse me, could you please direct me to the hospital?" he said in a rasping voice, coughing at the end. The shinobi raised an eyebrow.
"Three blocks that way, and it'll be directly to the left." He said, pointing. The person smiled, although it looked more like a grimace.
"Thanks." He said, and disappeared around the corner. Shikamaru turned around the corner, curious despite himself. The person was stumbling, and the lights made it look like things were sticking out of his form… or maybe it wasn't the lights. Shikamaru thought despite himself.
The tired shinobi looked and watched the figure stumble along until he passed out of sight. Shrugging, he turned back and started to his home. Then he stopped when the stench of singed flesh and blood hit his nose. He looked down. This is right where he walked…

"Order more burner fuel, we're running low on cauterisation materials. And get a mop up to level 3, those infants have been puking again." said Haruno Sakura, eyes fixed to a clipboard. Volunteer work was a boring and tiresome thing, but it kept her from loitering while off duty. And she could catch up on her ninja training later, people here needed help.
The scumbag behind the desk wiped his nose and turned up to the pinkette, picking up a sake bottle as he did. "Look girl, you got no business coming into my hospital on my hours and telling me how to do my job." He broke off, letting loose a loud belch, to which the volunteer grimaced in revulsion.
"You can go clean it yourself, you're volunteering here." He said, taking a deep swig of sake as he did. Sakura was just about to retort when a foul stench, like burning flesh and blood hit her nose. She grimaced again, and then gagged, taking out and holding a lavender-soaked handkerchief to her face to block it out.
Then the doors swung open, and a bent-over figure stumbled inside. Sakura walked over, pressing the cloth tighter against her face as the stench became unbearable.
"…just… don't mind me…" the figure said, coughing and turning. Then the person fell down, and the electric lights revealed… Sakura screamed.

"Tsunade! Miss Hokage!" called the messenger, sprinting upwards to her quarters. The youth hammered on the door, stepping back to avoid being hit by the swinging doors . "C'mon, miss, open the damn door already!" he muttered to himself, reading over the scroll again to check the message was right. No, all seemed in order, the person had turned up in the dead of night, with… the youth hurriedly shut the scroll again in order to attempt to contain the contents of his stomach.
Then the door opened, and the Hokage herself came out of the door, with wet hair and a dressing gown hurriedly slipped on. With a murderous glare to complete the image. Normally, the youth would have goggled at the sight, but this time the young messenger just handed her the scroll and turned, running out again.
Tsunade gaped, then opened the scroll. She read the words 'Unknown Person', 'Urgent Situation', 'Class Five Medical Emergency…' Who from? Ah, Haruno. Probably another clumsy hunter with a trap accident. Tsunade went back inside her room, changed into a more presentable state and then left, kicking the scroll aside as she went.
The scroll rolled across the floor, the message inside displayed clearly in dark ink against the paper.
To: Hokage Tsunade. - From: Volunteer Medic-Nin Sakura Haruno.
Subject: Class Five Medical Emergency
Unknown Person, presumed civilian, entered Hospital at 2343, bearing major near-fatal weapon wounds, and impaled by multiple weapons. Patient also bears many burns of all degrees, as well as traces of poison and neurotoxin intake. Patient should not be alive.
At time of writing, patient is in trauma or shock, and is against all logic attempting to guide the only qualified Medic-Nin in the procedure of removing the weapons and sealing the wounds.

The Hokage arrived on the scene, and a foul stench hit her nose. It was… she looked down and saw blood. Splattered here and there, in a trail that led into the hospital. She ran inside, following the blood trail.
Then screams reached her ears. She kept running up the stairs, into the non-urgent sections of the Hospital, which was simply unreal considering a person had managed to bleed this much. She grimaced as she imagined the scale of the wounds that the person had taken.
Then the screams started up again. She vaguely recognised them as those of one of the hospital staff, and then a voice started to speak from the same room. She got to the top of the stairs, and found Sakura with her hands covered in medical gloves and also splattered with blood. Then the Hokage looked around and saw the blood-splatter-trail leading into a vaguely disused room. Sakura ran up to Tsunade and beckoned her to follow, words failing the usually chatty pinkette. Tsunade grimaced again at being in a situation of this magnitude.

"Don't just yank it, you idiot, you'll disrupt the flesh around it!" said the figure sitting in a chair… with… Tsunade gasped.
This person had a sword through his chest. His back was to the Hokage, and she could see a gleam of metal, which was darkened blood-red. All the while more of the life-giving liquid was dripping from where the sword was impaling him. Tsunade guessed that by some miracle, the blade had missed most of his vital organs, otherwise he would have been dead.
One of the lesser Medic-nin was fumbling around with what looked like a kunai. Also sticking out of the figure, or his right forearm to be precise. Tsunade looked again and saw that including the sword and the one kunai, he had six things impaled through his body in total. Not including those two, he had two weapon-grade darts in his left arm, one other kunai knife in his thigh and a vicious-looking large knife stuck into his gut.
The Medic-Nin managed to extract the kunai in the person's right arm. A small dribble of blood came out, and the figure slapped a hand to it. Then, a sizzling sound and a hiss of some foul-coloured smoke emanated from the figure, and more of the pungent stench of burnt flesh seeped through the room. The Medic-Nin, who Tsunade noticed had an untidy, stained and also bloody uniform gagged and stepped backwards, then he fainted and fell against a wall.
Tsunade hurried forward, avoiding a puddle of sick and slipping on some medical gloves. He was a man not much older than twenty by her guess, and his hand was on fire. Then the fire disappeared and he reached up and pulled out one needle, wincing in pain as the two-inch point exited his flesh.
"Hello." said the man, seemingly heedless of his own injuries. "Give me a hand, will you? I can't reach the other one." He said, pointing to his free right hand to the other needle in his left arm, which was beyond his reach. Tsunade gripped the weapon, and yanked it out quickly. Luckily the needle was not barbed, and slid out without trouble, although it did leave his flesh with a disgusting squelch.

Sakura pressed the lavender-soaked cloth tighter against her face as though it could do anything to mask the stench of burnt flesh and blood. Peeking inside the room, she saw the stranger with his back to her and with Tsunade working on something on him. Then the pinkette saw the stranger bite down on one of the rubber gags, and with a disgusting sound like metal sliding against flesh, the Hokage yanked something out. Then the Hokage's hand entered the light and Sakura saw a huge knife thrown away. Then the stranger spat out the gag, and Sakura heard a sizzling sound before more of the disgusting stench hit her. Choking, the volunteer ducked back out into the hall and breathed some of the relatively cleaner hospital air.

Tsunade sat down. The blade that had previously been in his chest was now lying alongside a few surgery tools. The man, who was now sitting in a chair after he had sealed his flesh with some disgusting heat-based flesh-sealing technique, had survived an ordeal which would have killed other patients. Yet there he was in that chair, wiping off the worst of the caked blood that covered himself, stained his clothes and some which had settled on the table. She put her head in her hands and lay her head down to the table in stunned silence, and also light-headed sickness due to the pungent smell of burning blood.
"Hey." Said the stranger. Tsunade looked up and saw him trying to extract the Kunai in his leg. With a rather disgusting squelch, he extracted it. She honestly couldn't care less about him at that point due to being more concerned with keeping the contents of her stomach inside her body.
"I'll clean up. Go recover." He said, and he stumbled to his feet. The Hokage got up and walked almost duck-footed out of the room. The air turned both cooler and less sickening as she entered the hallway. The last thing her brain registered was a feel of something pushing her up, and the world spinning…

The figure waved his hand around a point, focusing his chakra into his hand, but more accurately he drew both the heat and the stench from the air in the room. He could have purified the hallway's air too, but at that point he may fall unconscious. So the heat-user stuck with the room around him. Soon, the air was clean as it could get with the mess.
Then condensing the energy with his chakra, soon the figure held a small speck of molten rock in his hand. Then it cooled and returned to being rock. The person walked over to a closet, opened it after a few tries, and clumsily got out a mop and some cleaning supplies. Turning to the mess, he started to clean away the worst of the blood with bucket and mop. He figured he had lost maybe three and a half litres of it. Any more lost and he may have died.
It wasn't as if the person was unfamiliar to the sight of his own blood. Many had tried to take his life over its course. It was simply a failure that the most recent group of people which tried to kill him happened to do so when his bodyguards, who were his loyal companions and friends were with him. As a result, both his friends were killed to the last and also he ended up with one vengeful bandit which had stuck a knife and a blade in him. This trip to Konoha was not going good at all.

The sun rose, and the city was abuzz with the usual chatter of people going about their business. But amongst the usual rumours was the one involving a mysterious stranger, who entered the city wounded and proceeded to make his way to the hospital. The accounts of his state of injury varied, from only a few scrapes to something close to the truth.
All those that woke up early saw the trail of blood he had left that went from the gates to the Hospital. Any who didn't see it before the street cleaners got to the scene were told of it by those who had seen the mess. Naturally, one lazy and sleepy shinobi by the name of Shikimaru got the fright of his life when he realised that he had been within inches of the stranger.

That stranger awoke in a sumptuous room. He groaned, and lifted his head to get up. It was then he realised that he wasn't where he remembered putting his head down. He got up and looked around.
The place was extravagant, but also Spartan. The only furnishings were a table in the centre for doing work, couches and stools for guests to sit on, a spare bottle of sake hidden away in a cabinet with its door ajar. The stranger smiled to himself. All people's personalities had to come through somehow.
Then a door to the side opened. Tsunade, wearing standard interrogator's clothing, walked through. The stranger blinked, and the scene shimmered before him. Wait, this was a Genjutsu technique!
One quick flare of chakra fixed that. Whichever technique they had used burned and crumbled under the pulse of fire. The scene buckled in on itself and the stranger saw himself in a blank room.
Hm, he thought. They wish to deceive me rather than bind me. Perhaps they can sense my power.
Tsunade staggered, and openly flinched when the stranger shifted his stance and brought flames to bear. At that moment, he was a dangerous being with flames forming claws, then curling and shuddering when they went up along his arm. A Man-made god, the weaker hay have called him.
"What's going? Why have I been brought here?" the stranger said, in a voice which oozed power. The Hokage swayed, and after quickly righting her balance tried to pull herself together. Being this close to this… person… and his power was simply mind-numbing.
"You have been brought here for questioning. I am the Godaime Hokage of Konoha. Who are you?" she managed to say, before coughing. She knew of volcanoes which radiated a lesser heat than the aura around this person.
The stranger seemed to falter, his aura pausing, then falling downwards and disappearing. Next to go were his burning claws, or flaming fists or whatever, Tsunade couldn't care less at that point. All she did care about, however, was that the air was cooling again, to a comfortable temperature.
"I apologize for my actions. They were merely in alarm." The person said. The older woman gaped, this Boy was standing there, looking and speaking like a Lord of the Elemental Countries! Then she mentally shook herself and asked again.
"Who are you?"
The stranger smiled, although it looked more like a wry grimace than an expression of joy. "You may or may not know my name, although I shall give my full title. I am Taji Idamo, last in the Idamo clan and rightful Daimyō of Fire Country. Now take a seat, this will take a while."

It had been hours since the stranger, who claimed to be from the clan Idamo, had arrived at the village. And it was common knowledge of the extent of his injuries. Sakura Haruno, being known as one of the only witnesses, was bombarded with questions. And despite him stating he only caught a glimpse, so was Shikamaru.
All the questions were the same: Did you get a look at him, How badly was he injured, What did he say? The two genin answered as best they could, but their peers had an endless tide of questions that would seemingly never be stopped.
Sasuke Uchiha sat at the window, away from the others. At least this phenomenon drew his admirers away. I suppose I should be involved too. thought the Uchiha idly, until he caught sight of the Hokage. Walking alongside an unknown person, and from what he could see, the unknown held the power in that conversation. Then he was surprised, incidentally a rare thing, when the unknown spoke something that only just eluded the shinobi's ears, and surprise grew to mild astonishment when the Hokage nodded as if she were taking orders from a superior.
Then the two came close enough for Sasuke to hear their words, which was somewhat shortened by the noise made by the other genin's discussion.
"…couldn't care less about the cost, just get someone onto those tasks. If your jounin are occupied, send your genin teams. Divulge the workload as you see fit, I could not care less about how you do it. Just get those tasks done and my treasury shall repay the cost."
Tsunade nodded again, and the figure paused, then turned to the building.

A smile cracked Taji's face. "It seems that a few of your genin are arguing about something." He said jokingly. The mood caught to Tsunade, who smiled and replied in kind.
"Knowing them and how fast rumours spread, it's probably something to do with you."
To that, the younger yet seemingly superior person merely chuckled. "Something tells me that I'll brew up a storm by the voices of the people alone just by being here any longer. I'd better go."
The Idamo turned to the Senju and nodded. "My endeavour continues. I wish you luck in yours." And with those parting words, he was gone in a flash of fire. Sasuke blinked a few times, until the shinobi realised the stranger was gone.

Taji walked with the crowd. He had tried to be inconspicuous as possible. But his stance and posture, among other things, marked him as definitively higher-class than the people around him. But then he decided to duck into an alleyway.
He saw an old woman drying some ragged clothes, large enough for him to wear his full garments on and yet conceal himself. He smiled and walked over.
She was blind. The Idamo felt a flash of guilt, then steadied himself.
"I would like to take those clothes you are drying on the line." He said, digging out his wallet. "How does 15,000 ryo sound?"
The woman gasped. Taji pushed the notes into her hands and turned, taking the large hooded coat off the line. He heard a sniffing noise, which when he turned, the Idamo learnt that a smell test must have been the basis for the means she identified money. He hoped that to the smell, singed money was still money.
The Idamo took her silence as acceptance. He threw on the hooded cloak, bent his head and blended into the crowd going out of Konoha once more.

Two bandits stood at the entrance to the cave. It was their hideout for their band of brigands, corsairs, vagabonds, call them what you like. This was once a peaceful region, until they established themselves and started attacking the halmets around them.
One figure in a hooded cloak was walking up the hill. The bandits now had a variety of options, from dropping a cart of rocks on his head, to activating a series of traps that would skewer him, then burn him, then something unspeakable that would leave him a grey smudge on the ground.
But they couldn't, when he raised his hands. Angry red rays of light shot out, and next second the bandits had collapsed on the ground with burn wounds in their bodies. The figure pulled down its hood, and Taji Idamo walked into the cave with vengeance in mind.

The truth was, none of Taji Idamo's Companions were dead. They were simply paralysed with a neurotoxin when they ambushed the Idamo's group, and it was only because the one man, which by all accounts was a defenceless noble, had unleashed his fury and that flame on them. Subsequently, the bandits who had participated in the initial ambush, and the entire dozen-strong rescue party that had arrived to at least distract the stranger from butchering the ambush group all had severe burn wounds.
Their chief, Maiko Itada, winced as his wife put more burn-treating cream on his wounds. There was just something about that man's flame that utterly destroyed the flesh it touched, and the adjacent flesh had been traumatised beyond repair. All they could do with their limited supplies was put more cream on it.
"Careful, will you!?" said the chief, shrugging off the attentions of his beloved. She pouted and then resumed with a smirk.
"Oh come on. Is the great and feared Maiko Itada wincing from a girl treating his wounds? Most men would kill to have the sexy nurse working on them."
He merely grunted. "Hey, that kid is a frickin' Pandora's Box. Whatever he did, none of our wounds are healing."
Her mood turned serious. "Got that right. Nothing I do can patch the skin over."
"Hey, want to go see the brat's friends again? I said the big one was ours this time."
"Mmm. Okay, Chief." She said, and the two got up and headed down to their makeshift prison.

"LET US GO! You can't hold back the Companions!" shouted a stocky prisoner with scars over his face and chest.
"Ahaha, what are you going to do about it?" jeered a bandit lounging in a chair. Then he straightened up as his chief and his wife walked in.
The Chief's Wife picked up a stick and nodded to the bandit. The Jailer opened the door, and the prisoners backed off. Then the Chief and his wife pulled out a burly prisoner and threw him out of the cell. He staggered and tried to run, but a crack from the Chief's beloved's whip rendered him a gasping mess on the floor.
Itada leered. Then he brought his boot up in a kick to the prisoner's face. Then his beloved stomped on his chest with her boot. Then the cycle of violence repeated, both taking their turn trying to outdo the other in their act of violence.

The bandits around their fire turned to the cloaked figure walking to them. How had this guy gotten past their guards? Was more often than not the thought that went through their heads.
Then he dropped his hood, and they all did a double-take. This was the guy that their chief had impaled, twice if you count the huge knife he stuck into the kid's stomach, and also they had put no less than three weapons into his body. And here he was.
Taji brought up his arms and his flaming chakra. That seemed to get their alarm. Tossing a ball of it at the group, he began his assault. The cloak went off into a corner of the cave, wouldn't want my only disguise burning up. He thought wryly.
The bandits reeled from the ball of fire chakra's explosion. A few drew weapons and rushed forward, but they were thrown back by a wall of fire erupting underneath their feet. When the flames cleared, only he stood. With those burning claws of his and fire gently curling up his arms, but most importantly deadly and vengeful flame burning within his soul.

A boom sounded from upstairs. The bandits in their prison looked up, then to each other in shock. They didn't have many Fire Technique users, and none were powerful enough to make an explosion that big.
Then a wall of flame flew down the stairs, throwing back the Jailer against the stone wall. The Chief and his wife drew their weapons and levelled them at the stairs. Whatever was coming down was powerful. The prisoners looked equally scared, until a boot with patterns of flame came down into view. A ragged cheer went up among the prisoners as they recognised the chakra of their leader.
Taji walked down, and a bandit bitch charged at him. He picked her up by the throat with his burning claws, broke her neck with a twist of his thumb or more accurately the sheer amount of chakra that swirled around it, and dropped her off to one side. Then he saw his adversary.
The bandit chief. The fire-user could tell his rank by the fact that he was both the last surviving bandit, last capable of action anyway, and also from memory. This was the bastard that had stuck a sword through his chest, and another knife to his stomach.
Then he charged. With an 'oh please' look, Taji grabbed him by the arms and flipped him over onto his back. Stepping back, he let the bandit get up again. Only to be knocked down again. He thought as cheering went up from the prisoners.
Then the Idamo had enough. He formed his hand into a spike, feeling the chakra form into the resultant spike. He smiled, this was a favourite technique, or execution method to be precise of his. The bandit raised his blade overhead to try and slash down at Taji. It had no plan, no timing, it was just swung crazily. But because it was so fast, it was hard to block. The bandit would relish picking this kid's valuables off his corpse.
He wouldn't get the chance. Taji stepped nimbly forward and impaled the bandit through the heart with the chakra forming around his spiked fist. The last expression the chief felt was shock, then he passed into the void. Taki threw the corpse off his hand and turned to leave.

"Wait!" sounded from the cage. Taji stopped, then turned. Then he paused. One of their prisoners looked familiar…
Taji had the shock of his life as he recognised his friends. Then he brought his flame up and blasted the prison wall. They rushed over him, burying him in hugs and cheers.
Taji bore all this with a smile. "You lot get out of here and back to the palace. I've still got things to take care of here."
His friends made a general agreeing sound, and after a few claps on the back, a ruffling of his hair and a kiss from the prettier girls, and also after him burning their bindings to dust, they started to loot the bandits' weapons and leave. Taji smiled.

The gates of Konoha were open, letting the people in and out of the city. No problem, then, for Taji to walk through. The problem was the attention he got.
It had been six hours since he crushed the North Hill Bandits. And it had been five hours since word had reached Konoha of his actions. As a result, the crowd parted before him as the fire-wielder walked into the city.
He then saw a group of ANBU appear around him and get into combat-ready formations. And then the Idamo was surrounded. He saw one of them with slightly higher-grade armament walk towards him and turned to face the ninja.
"You. The Hokage wishes to see you. She has a lot of questions for you." Ah, the age-old situation. There again with the ANBU Captain escorting him to their Kage.
"Very well. If one seeks my audience I am not one to deny." And with those words, the group set off, with the one man in the middle surrounded by one of the best ANBU teams Konoha had to offer.