Making Heads Roll

Julia had traveled for an hour or so, through the Desert Wilderness of the Vale continent. She had her orders from Kage Hinata and would see them through, down to the detail. Julia wore her Nightingale Cloak and had the hood on, which would conceal her chakra signature and pretty much every other signature that she could give off. She knew the bandits wouldn't be able to track her, not while she wore it of course.

Julia also set up her Spyware eyebots. What they did for her, was travel through much of the desert a few hundred feet beyond her. They scanned the area for any sign of the bandit camp or tracks that could lead Julia to them. The entire time, she remained hidden, silent, and traveled quickly in the desert heat.

Vale Canyon was one of the most obvious landmarks within Vale. Usually used by caravans to get out of the open in fear or bandits, it was ironically like a breeding ground for stupid. That was no exception to the group Julia had decided to track.

She wouldn't even need to track very hard. The idiots that had come to the village left a clear as day trail with their vehicle leading straight from Terran to the outskirts of the Vale Canyon. To top off this parade of stupidity, they had set up their ENORMOUS camp directly to one of the entrances of the Vale Canyon. The point of going to Vale Canyon was to get OUT of the open, but I digress.

Julia would see seven large tents that seemed far too expensive for run of the mill bandits. They were like war tents that could accommodate over a dozen people per tent. They had about three sand rovers and two larger bandit technicals, both equipped with explosive barrel launchers. There were four bandits walking around, two of them holding assault rifles. All of them were wearing crimson mask with white marks on them.

Julia found that her tracking of the bandits had came to an abrupt resolution. The bandits were hiding out in plain sight. Julia softly sighed to herself and found that this was going to be a mission all too easy for her. However, she didn't count her chickens before they hatched, simply due to the fact that there were several large tents set up, and a few vehicles that could make this a very tricky situation.

With Julia's cloaking still up, she decided to find a high route in the canyon. She searched for a few minutes before finding an outcropping that she propped herself onto. She crouched into a low position and saw that she was able to see roughly 80% of the entire camp from where she was. She furthered her percentage by setting up two Spyware eyebots in the blind-spots she couldn't monitor. From her view, she focused on the two bandits walking around with assault rifles. Julia planned to take them out first and would do so quietly.

Julia formed two more Spyware eyebots out of her shadow and formed them into small throwing daggers. The riflemen were far apart from each other and the two without any armaments were conversing on the bandit technicals. Once more, Julia brought out several more eyebots, this time four, which marked that she had 8 eyebots out on the field at once. The four she had just summoned, floated their way to the explosive barrel launchers. The eyebots would all go into the catapults and find the contraptions that made them work. Julia would have the eyebots turn into a sticky, hampering substance, that would cake the inner-machinations of the catapults.

While she was sabotaging their heavy artillery, Julia took aim at the two guards with rifles by their side. She focused herself and took a deep breath, holding it. On two separate beats, she threw a dagger into the backs of the riflemen. The daggers aimed to accurately stab into their backs and sever their spinal chords, to kill them instantly. Julia waited to see the success of her sneak attack, before focusing her attention on the two by the bandit technicals.

Random number (1,20) :

15

Apparantly the bandits would not notice the spybots and continued on with their conversations. However, as soon as the two thunks that indicated their comrades being taken out were heard, they jumped to their feet.

"Oi! We're under attack!" One of them yelled. And began to run about screaming. The other was looking around panicked, trying to see where the attack was coming from. Julia had stirred up chaos nicely, however, getting information would probably be much harder now.

Julia found that her sneak attack had worked, though it might have been fudged by how spooked the other two had become. Julia shrugged to herself and dropped down from her outcropping. She continued to remain cloaked and sprinted off towards the guard who had separated from his friend and started to scream to alert the others. She attempted to close the distance between he and her within a reasonable amount of time.

Should she be successful in doing so, Julia unsheath one of her Langurwine Blades, run up behind the man, place a tight grip over his nose and mouth, then drive the blade on home, by piercing through the man's abdomen.

By the time Julia would have reached the person, six more bandits would have emerged from two of the tents. All of them wore the same masks as the first four with what appeared to be leather vest armor. One of them had a black scarf flowing around his neck and covering the bottom half of his mask. One would have to admit; He looked damned cool.

"Mercury, Venus, to your positions. Everyone else, attack." The man called. Two of the bandits jumped up and landed on their tents. The last three caught site of Julia and rushed in to attack. Two of them began to perform hand signs while the last one pulled out a dagger.

"Katon: Flare jutsu!" The two on the outsides called in unison. They launched two small fireballs towards Julia. With the position of the fireballs, she would lose site of the middle bandit.

The two bandits atop the tents began to mumble and wave their hands about.

Julia would be in the midst of killing the third bandit, while the bandit that had been startled would finally get his bearings. He would climb into one of the technicals turret seats and attempt to aim one of the barrel catapults at Julia. All the while the 'Leader' stood by and watched.

Julia watched as several more bandits made their appearances. The change in numbers didn't phase her one bit. She assessed how many of them were, took note of the person who she assumed was their leader, while she also noted the bandits jumping to the top of the tents. Julia quickly swqung the dead man around and off her blade and threw his limp body towards the fireballs to block them. While she did so, she'd manipulate her shadow to form a protective barrier around her for the time being.

Julia remembered the bandits at the top of the tents and used her Spyware eyebots to get a read on them. Once they were in sight, Julia would form them into daggers as well and even while she was inside her bubble, she used their vision, to fling them towards the already occupied and unaware bandits on the tents. She aimed to have the knives cut through their necks while they mumbled and waved their hands around.

As for the bandit who hopped into the technical, he'd be greeted by a bit of bad luck. The moment he tried fire one of the barrels at Julia, the gunked up catapult would choke and caused the explosive barrel to loosen and fall onto the technical itself. No doubt this would have caused an explosion that would have destroyed the technical, along with its operator.

Julia was handling herself quite well. Throwing the body into the fireballs would prove useful. Since the fireballs were ki based instead of chi based, they would explode on contact, destroying the body and the jutsu. The bandit that was left would emerge from the explosion relatively unharmed and attempt to cut through the barrier.

The bandit was quick with a dagger, but obviously not a fully trained warrior. The bandit would slow down in their movements as they thought of what to do next. They still held a defensive stance, but the one moment of hesitation should give Julia time to counter attack.

Unfortunately for Julia, however, with the bandits frontal hit of the barrier, she would need to focus on maintaining her barrier or manipulating the spybots to attack the other two bandits.

The bandit in the technical would definitely meet his end from the malfunctioning turret. The leader would suck his teeth as his men were being dispatched.

"How sad." He mumbled. He grew silent then after and continued to watch.

Branch 1

If Julia decided to maintain her barrier, the two spell casters atop the tents would finish their spells. One would cast somewhere off to the side. With the cast, a groan would be heard. The farthest bandit that Julia had attacked when she first entered the camp would begin to stand back up.

The second spell caster would cast a charm spell over himself, his spellcasting comrade, and their leader, giving them all a slightly reflective glow.

Branch 2

If Julia decided to forsake her barrier to kill off the two spell casters, the bandit before her would use the opportunity to attempt to get a clean hit on her while she was preoccupied. The attack would almost surely hit as they were directly in front of each other and the bandit was indeed quick with a knife. He would push his body in directly on top of Julia, attempting to drive the blade as deep as possible as well as knock Julia off balance.

Though these bandits weren't exactly genin, when working in unison, they could easily overwhelm one, and maybe even a chunin.

Julia decided to go with Branch 2. She forsook her barrier to kill off the spellcasters, but that came at a cost. Julia's focus had shifted to the daggers and after they hit their marks, killing the spellcasters, the bandit came at her with his knife. Though he was quick with a knife, his skill was still less of a genin. Julia managed to catch how quick the bandit was moving with the knife and he aimed to stab her right in the stomach. Julia had only managed to sidestep just in time, and barely got away with a slash that had cut from her stomach, to her side.

Julia showed no reaction to the pain, though it did hurt. She immediately went for her counter attack, which came in the form of her widening her shadow to a radius of 100 feet. The bandit was well within her shadow at this point and now his movement speed was decreased by a maximum of 20%. With this debilitation, the bandit wouldn't have been able to escape from Julia forming a mouth made out of her shadow matter, that began to swallow the bandit whole. He wouldn't be killed while within the shadow, but he'd be exposed to a total darkness, cold, and loneliness that'd whittle away at his being (figuratively, of course).

Julia had now focused her gaze upon the "leader" of these groups of bandits. She removed her cloak to reveal her body fully. She was wearing full-body, black-tinted leather armor, with black boots, and a pair of black gloves. Her blades were by her side and she tossed aside the cloak into her shadow for safe keeping.

"You have information that I require." She said in a monotone and matter-of-factly voice.

"And what would that be?" The bandit spoke in a deep tone as he held his ground and shown no fear.

He knew Julia had already gone through quite a bit of chakra, especially while utilizing sealless jutsu. She was probably an assassin who focused on getting a job done as quick as possible, so maintaining chakra probably didn't mean too much to her since all of her opponents would end up dead before they knew what hit them. He wondered why she had gotten so sloppy this time around.

Random number (1,3) :

2

"Why are your men abducting women from the Night Terran village and how many more of your men and women are still here?" She asked in her monotone voice. Julia didn't care much for the bravado of the man before her. She remained where she was and stood up straight. Her crimson-red eyes stared directly at man and she retracted her shadow by 50 feet.

Julia had to play all of this carefully now. She flopped by killing the two armed guards earlier, but had she not done so, that would have made this brawl a little bit more difficult to handle. However, she would be able to capitalize off of this misstep, by seeing just how many more people were left, and if there was a true leader, or a true motive to all of this. She kicked the hornets nest and now all she had to see if this man, was the queen she sought.

The man scoffed, still never moving from his spot. "And why would I tell you that? As far as I see it, you're moments from losing, and I'm not the type of guy who monologues our plans right before the big climax. You have no leverage."

Finally, the man would draw a long blade from a sheath on his back. It seemed to be slotted and slightly thicker than natural. The blade edge was a dark blackish while the rest of the blade was silver. "I won't underestimate you since you've taken out so many already either."

The sound of approaching vehicles would begin to fill the air. It sounded like at least three sand rovers were approaching.

"Have it your way." She said and that was that. She offered him the quick way out, but he decided to take arms against her instead. In the distance, she heard the sound of sand rovers approaching. The entire time, he had been standing by to call in his reinforcements. Clever and Julia found that her situation had indeed gotten worse. Nonetheless she kept her calm and charged towards the man.

What seemed like a reckless charge, was merely a front for what she was really trying to accomplish. Julia held her blade in front of her, making it seem as though she was going in for a frontal assault. However, she had held her sword with just one hand, while her free hand's fingers twitched. What Julia had done, was pull out one of the knives from the dead spellcaster's body. With a flick of her hand, she'd have the dagger fly forward to the main, and had it aimed to the wrist that held up the hand, which held up the large blade. While that one flew, Julia would flick her fingers again, and had the second dagger loosed from the body, but kept aside on the roof of the tent.

The man's face was completely hidden by his mask, so Julia would not be able to tell what he was looking at or any emotion he was feeling.

The leader simply twisted his wrist and let the knife that was coming towards him strike the darkened edge of the blade. The knife would completely dissipate as if it were never there. The man would then slide his left foot forward while drawing his blade back. In the next moment, he would slash forward, releasing a circular pulse of electricity out around him. It was like a ring around his body while static formed a dome around him. Regardless of if Julia jumped, ducked, or blocked, some part of the attack would hit her if she continued to move straight forward.

By then the first two sand rovers would skid into the camp. The rovers were small so only one bandit could fit in any given one. The last one would arrive shortly after. The two bandits that already arrived got out of their vehicles and drew regular swords. They were about to move towards their comrade until he performed his attack and instead decided to keep a short distance while eyeing Julia intently.

As the two awaited their chance to help, no one would notice one of the tents on the far side of the camp open. A figure with deep blue hair would dart behind a barrel of unknown content. This figure would continue to move about the camp silently, alerting no one of their presence as they drew closer to what was happening.

Julia watched as her dagger was blocked with relative ease and that she was counterattacked almost immediately. Julia watched as the pulse was coming to her and that there was a dome surrounding the man as well. She remembered the fact that her shadow still had some distance between she and the bandit "leader." Given this situation, Julia followed her first instinct, and sunk into her shadow. She had completely disappeared from view and the only thing that was left, was the large 50 feet in radius, shadow arena that she had left behind.

The attack would have no doubt been cleared by her intuition and she would push herself further, into coming up behind the man almost instantly, and went to deliver a powerful elbow to the base of his skull. This blow would be strong enough to most definitely paralyze the man from the neck down, but also knock him out.

Julia, however, was tired. She had consumed almost all of her chakra in that fight, but worse yet, there were three more people she had to deal with. She took long, deep breaths, and faced all three of them, as their leader fell before their eyes. Her own crimson-red eyes flashed and she gripped the handle of her blade. This was her method of further intimidation and she had hoped that those bandits would learn that it would have been a bad idea to confront her.

As Julia suddenly seemed to sink into nothingness the bandit would show his first sign of emotion with an audible, "What?!"

He was shocked and had lost sight of her. In the next moment his world would be fading black.

"Damn..." He cursed as his body hit the ground.

The three bandits that had been preparing to help out the leader held shocked expressions behind their mask. Of course they had never ever seen him be beaten before. It did for a small amount of time frighten them. However, fright turned to anger, and even glee as they noticed Julia was tired. She would suffering from chakra exhaustion soon.

"Let's get that bitch! A powerful ninja like her will sell for millions!" One of the bandits called as he began to rush towards her. His comrades followed swiftly behind.

"You men shouldn't be so cold!" A new voice called as a person jumped on the last remaining bandit technical and held a bow. The arrow that was already drawn was emitting what appeared to be wispy frost from the arrowhead. The person let loose the arrow towards where the bandits were running. The arrow struck the ground and let loose an icy blast that spread over the ground in a 3 meter radius. The bandits bottom halves were completely encased in ice.

The person would front flip into the air and land between the frozen bandits and Julia. "Then again, you're waist deep in ice, so I suppose we can excuse you this once." The person chuckled once and then faced Julia with a confident smile. "Yo!"

Your Savior Has Arrived!:

Julia sighed as the leader finally fell. She cursed under her breathe, however, when the bandits angrily ran after her. Julia suffered from chakra exhaustion and barely had any fight left in her. She took her stance and prepared for the inevitable defeat, however, an arrow was loosed into the fray. This arrow exploded into an icy blast and froze the men in place.

The source of the arrow was revealed to be a half-naked man, with blue hair, who had flipped between Julia and the frozen bandits. He cracked a joke and turned towards Julia with a confident smile. Her return to it, was an empty stair, and slight quiver in the lips.

"Thanks." Was all she said, as she sheathed her blade, reached over to pick up the bandit leader by his arms, and started to drag him over to the man who had saved Julia. She plopped the obviously unconscious man down and eyed the three who had just been frozen. "I need information out of them and I have to make sure everyone else here is dead." She explained. She figured that even if it was a small and cold way of showing gratitude to the man, it was better than nothing. Julia wasn't a people person to begin with and didn't know how to express just how much trouble he had actually saved her.

"It's no problem. And I guess with this, that makes us even, ne? You saved me without even knowing it. Distracted the dullards long enough for me to escape my bonds and grab my trusty bow!" The person held up the bow with admiration. The persons smile turned to a pondering grin when Julia stated what need to be done so coldly. However, it didn't seem to really effect the person anyway. "Sure, sure! Those three shant be going anywhere no time soon I reckon. Just your run of the mill bandits too. None of ya can cast spells or use ninjutsu can ya?"

"Let us out of here you stupid bitch!" One of them yelled.

"We shoulda sold ya off as soon as we caught ya!" Another screamed and struggled within the icy prison. The last one groaned and tried to beat on the ice, yet it wouldn't so much as chip.

The person then turned to Julia once more with the same confident smirk and slung the bow over their shoulder. "Oh, and in case your wonderin', I'm a gal!" She called while patting between her legs twice. "Names Alex. Short for Alexandria. While ye' take your time with the frosty trio, I reckon I should go release the other prisoners. Take your time."

Julia listened to the now revealed girl, explain how she was captured in the bandit camp, and how Julia's scuffle with the bandits created the perfect distraction, for the girl to escape, and grab her weapon. Her attention shifted when the bandits started to wail and curse at Julia's savior.

"Are you from the Night Terran Village, along with the other prisoners?" Julia asked Alex. For some odd reason, Julia remained suspicious of the bow toting girl, but didn't show it in her eyes, face, and voice. She simply remained calm, even though the sting of her wound and the exhaustion from using too much chakra was hitting her a bit harder than she had first anticipated.

She did, however, still have a mission to complete. Julia walked over to the group of frozen bandits and eyed each of them closely. Her first interrogation victim would be the bandit trying to beat on the ice. She walked close to him and stared into his eyes. First things first, she grabbed the mask he wore, took it off his face, then crushed it in her hands. She continued to gaze into his own orbs and coldly spoke.

"Tell me what you know about your mission. Why have you been going around the Night Terran Village and abducting the women?" She asked in the same, expressionless voice.

Alex shook her head. "I've only recently heard of the Night Terran from the bastards ye' already killed, mate. Overheard talking about a job there or somethin'. I myself hail from Grande, the great and segregated!" She bowed mockingly to the city. "The others are from all over Vale, though no one mentioned being from this Night Terran place. Anyway, I've kept the girls waiting long enough. Thanks a bunch love!" She waved and began to walk towards the tent she had escaped from.

After the confrontation, when Julia attempted to crush the mask, it wouldn't even bend. The mask was made of some type of steel. The bandit she tried to intimidate would just sneer back in her face. "We haven't abducted shit yet! That was the whole point of going their you brain deaded nitwit bitch!" He spat.

The other two gave up their struggling and grunted their agreement. "Heard there was a whole smorgasbord of woman their just waiting to be taken. Would fetch a fortune with some of the shinobi and magician! Think! A whole village of supple woman! Lotsa rich folk are droolin' about plundering those tought bodies!"

"Calm your libido!" The last bandit called. "Or better yet, use that boner of yours to drill through this ice ya moron!"

"Don't yell at me ya fool! Sides, it feels like I'm gettin' blue balls in here!" He laughed.

It was obvious these bandits weren't taking Julia seriously, especially since it seemed like she had her information completely wrong.

"ALL OF YOU FOOLS SHUT UP!" A familiar voice would shout over them. The bandit leader, still on the ground, had already regained consciousness. "You idiots are already saying more than you need to. I'll kill you all."

The three sobered up and sweated at the leaders words.

"Interesting. I'll have to talk to you about something later, for now, you tend to your business." Julia said to Alex and turned her attention from the bow-wielding girl, to the three frozen in ice. They seemed to not take her seriously and even started to divulge a bit of the information to her. She might have had her facts confused, definitely, but that didn't stop their stupidity from giving away pieces of info. However, their leaded chimed in, finally awake from his spine crippling incident.

Julia rolled her eyes and tossed the mask into her shadow. She then grabbed the man by his head, forcefully thrust his body back, then quickly reeled it forward. That would have snapped his back completely, twice over. Now that he was dead, Julia moved herself over to the bandit leader, who was obviously done with the rest of his career. She kicked his mask off, then pressed her foot against his neck.

"You're in no position to order anyone or anything around. You might as well continue telling me what you all already know and I'll make this quickly for the rest of you." She said coldly and continued to press her foot against his wind-pipe. "Now hurry up."

The last two bandits sobered up when Julia killed their friend. They grew silent, but one would see the angry aura within their eyes. The leader sighed. Then Julia approached removed his mask, showing his above average looking face. He had piercing blue eyes with an edge. A cut went from his lip down to his chin. He looked up into Julia's face with little emotion, the predominant being hate.

"I'll see you in hell, you little bitch." He spat in response to Julia's threats, a smirk finding it's way on his face.

'A soldier to the very end...' A female voice echoed in his mind. His eyes clouded over and he closed them. 'You're a good for nothing. A monster. A soldier in every aspect of the word.'

'I tried...I became a monster for his sake.'

'He didn't need a monster. He needed a father.'

The bandit leader chuckled in the darkness of his mind. '...That's the one thing I couldn't give him.'

'I will see you in Yomi...'

'...Keep the bed warm for me...'

Alex entered the tent she had exited and saw how the girls fidgeted. "Yo, coast is clear loves! Told ya I'd get us free!"

many gasps went out through the crowd and murmurs broke out. Alex smirked but a tick mark formed on her head. They had no faith in her.

"Look, I'll prove it to ya!" She fired arrows at all of the wrist shackles on the bound women.

They all wore simple rag like clothing, while those who were only recently abducted at least had on some form of an outfit. In the tent she was in, there were about 12 women, ranging from their late twenties to as young as 7 years old.

"No time to dawdle. Get a move on yeah?" She exited the tent and went into the next one over, doing the same thing. As she did, the women would exit the tent slowly and in fear. They would see the destruction Julia had caused and become just a bit more frightened.

Alex would emerge from the 2nd tent, having released another dozen or so women.

"This way loves! Your co-savior wants a word with me!" She marched the girls over towards Julia, her smiling visage a complete contrast to the confused and scared looks on everyone else's faces. There were at least 30 women.

"Got a huge haul for ya, mate! Finest women in Vale I tell ya what!" She placed her hands on her hips as she looked over the interrogation process Julia was doing.

'A little batmanish if you ask me...' She thought to herself.

"Doubt you'll make it as far as I would in Hell." She'd say with the same matter-of-fact tone she had before, and she then finished their hostile banter, with a crush of his neck. Julia stepped down hard and the sound of broken bone popped, showing that Julia had ended his life.

After that, she turned her attention back to the other bandits. The hate in their eyes had no affect on her and she tired of waiting for the answers she sought. She walked up to one of them, too his hand, and bent back two of his fingers to break them, before she ripped them off.

"You WILL tell me what I want to know, or else I'll continue breaking you." She spoke harshly, yet her tone was monotone. Her message, however, carried with the words. Her eyes showed the bandits the killing intent and the patience to wait it out, before killing them off for good.

However, for their sake, Alex arrived with the captured women. Julia turned and counted them all, while she listened to Alex speak. Julia would be lying to herself, if she didn't agree with Alex's statement. Some of those women were gorgeous indeed.

"Excellent. I thank you for helpfulness, Alex. However, I need to ask one final favor of you." Julia straightened herself out and pointed to the south. "Night Terran Village is that way. Our group will not have everyone survive, if we have to talk the wilderness all those 20 miles. There is still one technical left and there is a transport crate left that can get these women back to the village, safely. I don't want them aimlessly wandering around and the Kage at the village, can help with finding these women their homes. If it possible, can you help with the transportation of these women?" She asked and a bit of Julia's genuine concern slipped out. She paid no mind to it, and only waited for the archer's response to the question.

When their leader was killed, the last two bandits seemed to lose all hope. They both seemed to resign themselves to their fates. One of them even debated whether to tell Julia what she wanted to know just to end the suffering. However, Julia didn't wait in hurting them even further by ripping off one of the bandits fingers. This sent the last bandit into even more despair as he heard his friends screams. Now he wasn't going to tell her shit. He glared angrily at her with tears in his eyes.

"You demonic bitch! You'll rot in the darkest part of hell for eternity!" He spat.

"For the love of Acheron, just tell her!" The bandit with his fingers ripped off screamed. He was starting to pass out from the pain and blood lose.

The last bandit just spit, to indicate what he thought of that.