Kaori: Wanted! Haydro-Arsonist!: C Rank: Solo: Private

Waking up in the city on the eastern sea after a long rest, Kaori lazily rubbed her eyes and glanced around the room, a piece of her snowy, which hair falling out of place and greeting her by means of obstructing her eyesight. A yawn forced its' way past her lips along with a slightly exaggerated sound, all tied together with Kaori placing one of her hands over her mouth until the yawn had run its' course. She rested her hands on the bed below her and used them to keep herself up right while trying to remember how she'd gotten there. "That's right..." she said under her breath after a few seconds of sleep hazed thought. She remembered how she'd gotten in that room, it was the closest thing she had to a home and she forgot how she wound up in this situation every morning, only to remember immediately afterwards.

It was a memory she detested that came back to her and greeted Kaori every morning. She had enemies closing in on her, and taunted the female one to trick her into attacking. Afterwards, Kaori ran and jumped off the left side of the bridge connecting the city on the eastern sea and the magic clans' castle. A shadow clone was used as a distraction while Kaori appeared behind their male friend. The female enemy and their leader were both fooled pretty good. The woman leaned over the edge, fully convinced Kaori killed herself while holding an ice sword with a scowl on her face, the leader looked as well to see if there was a corpse under the cloud of snow. The third subordinate, the male however was clutching his chest as his own sword protruded from it, dripping with blood. That was Kaori's need for the distraction, to make sure she took at least the subordinates to hell with her. The man fell to his knees, alerting the other two to turn to see Kaori with her bow out, drawing an arrow behind him. His body hit the floor and the girl subordinate, knowing who the arrow was coming for began moving to avoid it, but was too late when she caught it with her skull.

Trying to draw a second arrow Kaori saw the leader vanish and instantly jumped back to his sword drawn and cutting her bow in half which was preferable to her neck being bifurcated. Saia, the leader of the two people Kaori killed spun on his heel and kicked Kaori in the stomach, sending her back before vanishing again and punching the masked woman in the back with an ice covered fist. Kaori flew forward, slamming on the snowy ground hard and sliding across it for several yards. Saia manifested an ice lance and threw it in her direction, but Kaori was used to this kind of pain by now and quickly recovered by spinning on her shoulder and angling her arm to force herself up. Mid spin she grabbed the lance and threw it back at her attacker who cut it in half with his sword. Breathing heavily, Kaori reached for her shuriken; the only weapon she had left, and saw the enemy charging her at deadly speed. She dropped low, raising a foot and kicking Saia in the gut hard but he wasn't phased much. Having gotten close enough, the large ninja male grabbed Kaori's tiny leg and swung her over his head to slam her on the ground while still holding on. He threw the young woman the other direction, towards the door of the large castle that she hit loud enough to send an echo through the castle while she ricocheted off it and tried to get to her feet.

Standing on a broken leg and gritting her teeth, her cat mask had been damaged so badly that the metal under the porcelain was showing. Saia held an orb of pure magic in his right hand and pointed it at Kaori. Kaori grabbed her shuriken and began throwing it up, the magic inside being released just as Saia fired a blast of magic at her. A brilliant light was released as the two collided, but Kaori's magic hadn't progressed far enough to resist Saia's and the barrier she'd made broke after several seconds of her focusing her hardest to maintain it. A loud cry of pain was released as Kaori was hit with the attack and send back, slamming into the castles' door where she took the rest of the attack. Her body giving off a type of magical smoke, Kaori fell to her knees before falling face-first in the snow with blood leaking from her broken leg, the bone protruding through the flesh. She tried to get up, but could barely move. After that... everything went dark. Kaori's last memory after that was waking up in a room with someone at her bedside explaining that she was lucky to be alive.

Sitting on her bed, Kaori clenched her fist and slammed it into the soft surface to release a dull thud. "I wasn't strong enough." was her response to the memory, a response she'd given every time she had it come back. A pair of birds flew in from the window she'd left open, landing on her bed. She saw them look at her curiously, tilting their heads and hopping slightly closer as though they wished to know more. Not being one who could be cruel to animals, Kaori's eyes softened and she took her fist from the bed to extend a finger to the bird. It was small, easily the size of her hand and red for the most part. Its' wings were black, and it had a crest atop its' head with brown that transitioned to black. The bird leapt back a couple times, looking at Kaori's finger with a puzzled head tilt. "This feels like a replay of what happened a couple days ago. It's alright, I don't bite little bird." she said in a soft, warm, and caring tone. As though the bird understood, it leapt forward, closer to her finger before leaping onto the digit. Kaori pulled it closer to her face, taking her other hand and using her index finger to gently rub the red bird's stomach.

The other bird took flight and landed on Kaori's head, leaping while turning and looking around the room. With her free hand, Kaori pulled the sheets from over her legs and got out of bed to walk to the open window. "I wonder if you're the same one frombefore... Either way, I have to get ready to go little bird, I'm sorry." she said, holding her finger out the window with the one bird on it. The bird on her head was the first to take off, followed shortly after by the one on her finger. A gently wind came through the window, causing Kaori's hair to flicker behind her as she watched the birds fly off into the distance. Kaori grabbed the two panels and closed the window, letting out a sigh and turning around to lean on the edge of the window sill. "I need to get stronger... I need to get even stronger than I am now if I'm to change this cruel world." she said under her breath before walking towards the bathroom.

A long shower was required to cleanse herself of the stain left by the events of the day before. Kaori had been going through an endeavor to relax, and have a single day of peace after her near death some time ago. But as the fates would destine it, Kaori had come across a group of rabble rousers harassing a seemingly defenseless man. Making quick work of them, the man asked Kaori to accompany him, saying he wanted to repay her. He took her to a restaurant that, to the more wealthy or privileged sort, looked rather lack luster in every aspect; but, to Kaori the establishment was lovely. She'd immediately taken to partaking in an alcohol induced bar shanty with some sailors and town guardsmen, this while she herself was still very much not drunk- she hadn't even had a chance to order any beverages let alone drink one. After that, she found out that all the sailors in the pub were actually slavers. She wanted to know their tale, the reason they all had took to a life of capturing their fellow human beings and treating them as property, but the responses she had gotten were far less bravado filled than she had expected. Each man had their own dreams, their own aspirations, and their own paths that they wanted to follow. But as the fates would have it, they were all destined to fail and be put in a position where a devil would appear as a god should they come and offer food, water, and a dry place to live. That devil came in the form of a woman named Scarlet, a vicious captain who had grown up a slaver and wanted a crew. Kaori had offered to set them all free of that fate, under the pretense that they all swear themselves to their own service and follow the path that leads to where their heart lays. They all agreed, and Scarlet's first mate, Carver, the man Kaori had saved earlier, had given Kaori all the details that she needed to form a plan to counter Scarlet. The she devil, the slaver captain, Scarlet was a power based enemy who used brute force, exploding shotgun rounds, and iron will to get through a fight. This was the exact opposite of Kaori who used small, fast, decisive hits and deception along with diamond hard will to win fights. Scarlet was better suited for groups of enemies, and Kaori was best suited for just one since she lacked area based effects like Scarlet's exploding buck shot shooting shotguns. The fight didn't last long yesterday, it lasted only a minute or two because of Kaori's specialization. Her plan was very simple, very basic, but very effective. The first thing was she had to get rid of the weapon issue, Scarlet used two shotguns so Kaori disabled one of them by firing a red hot arrow at it, melting all the way through it and making the shotgun useless. The next thing was to disable Scarlet, making it so she couldn't run away from the fight. Kaori did this by using her Heavenly Shuriken and combining it with her telekinesis, controlling the weapon to make it hit Scarlet in both her legs and cripple her. The last thing was to stop her from killing herself. Carver had done an excellent job of telling Kaori about how Scarlet would rather be killed than captured, and because of that Kaori had expected that she would try to terminate her own life if given the choice. As Scarlet went to kill herself, Kaori used her Burst spell to get near her and remove her arm and just like that the fight was done.

In the shower, Kaori constantly went over Carvers' actions after the fight. She found it honorable, the path he decided to go down after that. Where most men would take the second chance she offered and immediately leave the town, avoid being put in a jail cell to rot, and lead a life elsewhere; Carver had voluntarily tied himself up and asked his comrades to make the ropes tighter to be more convincing. He voluntarily went to prison, and began serving time for the crimes he and the rest of the crew had committed. Kaori had promised him that she'd help him once he was out, and it was this promise that Kaori was focusing on right now. Under her breath, with the water from the shower running down her long, silken, snowy white hair the words 'I promise...' came out soft, solemn, sincere, and true. Kaori was the kind of person who kept her promises, and if they were impossible promises to keep she made them possible, and then kept them. Because of that, Kaori was always cautious of what promises she made. She never promised her body to someone, she never promised to kill people, she never promised to cure terminal illnesses, and never promised that she would return alive. Those were just a few of the things on her proverbial promise black list, a list that was extensive in nature, but necessary in practice.

The sound of Kaori turning the knob and shutting the shower off echoed loud and high in pitch through the shower room, and a long bubble bath had followed it. By the time she had finished with it and gotten herself dried up, Kaori had began trying to decide what to do with the day. She wanted to buy her metal horse, but she lacked most of the money for it. She wanted to take a break for the day since her previous attempted ended miserably. Sitting on her bed with a towel wrapped around her body, Kaori looked at her equipment that she laid out on a table in the middle of the room and decided that she would see if there was something to do in town. It was the magic user clan's responsibility to protect the people of the city by the eastern sea from those who would disrupt their lives, put their lives in danger, or just the same end their lives. Kaori still didn't consider herself a member of the clan of magic users, but rather just someone who was borrowing a room until she finished her mission to kill Saia. But she knew that dangerous missions also contained rewards, often times money and if the mission was especially hard for the town guard they enticed members of the magic user clan with greater sums of paper currency to make them do those things. Putting her clothes on at a leisurely pace, Kaori had decided to go to the wooden board in the castle to see what missions were available within the town in hopes she could find something easy enough that paid well. After the long descent down many stairs and corridors, she'd arrived at the board to see that there was a notice that she could definitely work with. It wasn't the most glamorous of missions, just a simple one to catch someone who was harassing the guards far too much. The guards didn't know what he looked like, they didn't know what his magic was, and they didn't know why it was that he was here. All they knew is that when they sent guards into the sewers to investigate an issue with smoking vents, their men came back burned to death without fire type burn marks, which concerned them greatly. After sending more guards down there, because the first batch was so successful, the same thing happened, and so they turned to the clan of the magic users.

It was here that Kaori found a few jobs that were advertised alas being low difficulty. Well... low difficulty if you were a highly powerful magic user. For people like Kaori who used relatively weak magic the mission was pretty hard and would require a vastly different approach. This mission, Kaori would be required to take on one such person who was so powerful that the guards of the city by the eastern sea was overwhelmed instantly twice in a row. Kaori began questioning how it was that the guards were killed by fire, but weren't charred by it. She knew that magic could accomplish a great deal of things, even trampling all over the laws of physics sometimes, but she didn't know of magic that defeated logic itself like this. She also needed to know what kind of enemies were in the sewers, she highly doubted a single person would be down there. Humans were much like wolves, they were social predators who required the presence of others or they went insane. Sociopaths, people who could cut a person's head off and register no emotional reaction from the action at all required other people. People who were left completely alone didn't take long to become succumbing to their nature. Within a week most people began hearing voices, and seeing things that weren't there. They began speaking to the walls, having full length conversations with their shadow, and singing with the dirt in a glorious choir for which there was no equal. Within a month of it, people began literally eating at themselves thinking there was food there, and registering no pain from it. The rules of society began vanishing before their very eyes and they began losing their minds in the worst way. After a month and a week, their brains had began decaying as they had no need for it. There was nothing to engage these people, no reason to be calculative, no reason to think at all and so their bodies began digesting their brain to use its' cells elsewhere. Being without interaction was how you ended up on an island talking to a ball with sticks jutting out the top, fully feeling emotional distress when it floated away. In order for this killer to not wind up like that, they'd have to have someone or something to keep them company. Someone or something for them to talk to, to interact with and feel like it was interacting with them back. She had figured if she could get in touch with the guards, she could convince them to let them see the corpses of the men who died. Kaori had the ability to see into the past so long as she had an object that existed near the event that happened. It's something she didn't normally find a whole lot of use for, but in cases like this she was glad that it was part of her skill set. The ability itself was normally used for entertainment, when she'd heard that someone did something outlandishly amazing and their constant dribble about how awesome they were had finally made her want to know if they were telling the truth or not. At those times, she used it and normally found that they were more full of shit than a constipated sea cucumber.

Kaori had left the guild hall and began making her way to the barracks for the guards, walking past the door guards without caring for their protests or orders. She approached someone who looked like they were important, and not some worthless little spit fuck who was too incompetent to pass boot camp with parents too rich to kick them out of the guard for failing at life. She addressed the person with a stern voice, stating she was gonna go into the sewers to kick some magical ass and she wanted to see the corpses before going to hell. The man liked her way with words and showed her to the corpses they hadn't already cremated. After touching the three corpses Kaori had learned of how they died, and knew how to beat this person. The trick to it was that you needed to be fast, quiet, and cleaver. Upon arriving at the sewers, Kaori had used her Burst spell to move aside and hide around a corner. She watched some creature rise from the water and launch steaming water where she would have dropped down had she been one of the guards. It turned side to side, looking for the target that it knew didn't get hit before returning to being in the water. Kaori began moving quietly along the sidewalk in the sewers and watched as several creatures made of fire were patrolling. Kaori had pulled out a pair of one inch thick squares that were five inches wide and set them on the wall of the sewer. She knew that above was a street made of cobblestone, and when the explosives went off, it would collapse the street on anything that was below it. She pulled out a set of small balls that she'd taken from the Armoury in the castle. They were smoke balls, something she found out while she was playing around with them earlier and accidentally dropped them. Kaori slammed the orbs on the ground and let their smoke pull the attention of the three fire creatures, and the one water one to getting closer to the source of the sound. She waited for their glowing bodies to get nice and close to the charges before drawing an arrow and filling it with fire magic. When she fired it, the arrow hit one of the charges and made it explode to collapse the street above on the elementals to instantly end them. This was planned with the guards to be an alternative entrance for them to use to get in the sewers in mass, as well as lure their prize out... the killer. A woman ran out from behind a corner with a large flamethrower in her hand, looking extremely angry. Kaori vanished, using her Burst spell again to get in close with six small crystals that she knew were explosives- again, learning the hard way when she used them for target practice and the explosion sent a piece of wood straight into her stomach. All of them were rigged to blow, and Kaori knew that if the woman had survived the explosion she'd be in no condition to fight. If she didn't survive it, Kaori would only get half the reward. Kaori dropped the bombs at her feet and used her Burst spell to get clear of the blast radius.