Ryuu knew what needed to be done now. Images of his friends being gutted like the animals he had been forced to subsist on in the forest, flashed through his mind and his eyes glinted, his gaze hardening with determination. He frantically weaved hand seals, a semi solid clone appearing again, dispersing when he punched it really fast, or at least, as fast as he could. Better, but it was still too weak, the clone should have lasted through more than the one punch. He frowned in concentration, his foot steps taking him past his den, so to speak. He quickly checked in case he had a stash of cash lying around but alas twas not to be. No cash then. Well, he was not going to go and rob the other denizens of the village, at least, not directly. There was supposed to be a vault some where that contained a lot of money, or more specifically the village funds. He hated to say, or rather, think it, but that would probably be the only place from which he could get enough funds, the banks generally had their money spread out into various investments. If he happened to see the Hokage there then he would not have to worry about all this after all.
He took a deep breath. This was it. He wandered the village one last time, checking around at all the various guard stations, looking for signs that the village was back to its former strength, perhaps the Hokage would be examining the defenses, or the Anbu would be back to their normal numbers, in other words, more than the apparent zero that seemed to be remaining.
His journey seemed to be not helpful and unfruitful so he began walking over to that building, the important one. He weaved hand seals again and tried to form another clone, but the clone dispersed into nothingness again. He frowned. He tried again, this time concentrating on holding the clone together until it was fully formed. The clone appeared, with a snarky grin, and took the original, yours truly, by surprise when its fist swung out suddenly. It seemed he was in need of some training any way. The two of them, the clone and the original sparred all the way along the street, knocking over the occasional cart over, in their haste. The first ninja in a long time that Ryuu had seen, popped up, looked rather annoyed, so a fight began. The clone, to make things more fair, dispersed. The other, apparently a chuunin from the armor he wore, charged, and was promptly kicked between the legs. Not looking any where near as tough now, the chuunin crumpled to the ground, apologizing for his rudeness. The Hyena groaned. If the upper rank ninjas, like this dumb fellow, and Hisano Koutashi were not noticeably stronger than himself, then the village was in really big trouble.
He weaved hand seals again forming another attempt at the Shadow Clone jutsu. This time he tried to make two of them at once, using the single hand seal, for making clones, that was supposed to be all that was needed to perform the jutsu. Two hazy outlines appeared, slowly, but he gritted his teeth, and tried to pour more chakra into the two of them, the two potential attempts at clone making each being about two meters away from him in either direction. Eventually he gave up. He just did not have the energy any more right now to train like this. He stopped, and walked over to a fast food restaurant. The customer who entered just after him tried to cut in front of the slightly bedraggled Hyena. The Hyena found he, though tired, had plenty of energy to deal with this interloper. A few exchanges later, and the other customer was defenestrated, fortunately through an open window. The other customer came charging back in to run face first into the Hyena’s boot. Either from the smell or the physical impact, the other customer collapsed to the ground, the Hyena realizing only then that he had a strange resemblance to the chuunin who had challenged him earlier, who bore a striking resemblance to one of the idiots who used to pick fights with the Hyena when he was younger, most specifically, the one who had tried to start a fight with the Hyena while he was sleeping in a tree. Yes, fond memories of that fellow indeed. The Hyena was not sarcastic about this, he had been entirely serious about this thought, it was fun to watch the other boy twist and scream as the Hyena beat the living daylights out of the other boy for nearly killing or at least critically injuring him.
The Hyena stopped reminiscing and turned to the fellow ready to take his order. A few minutes later, he walked out of the restaurant, the customer still slumped on the ground though not bleeding, making a rather excellent door mat. His back was not too squishy and there were not snapping sounds, probably because the Hyena only walked on his limbs, to avoid fatal injuries. The burger tasted pretty good, though he had actually ordered chicken. That was another thing he would try to fix – the bad restaurants. Only Ichiraku’s Ramen had any kind of decent reputation any more, that was not purchased instead of being earned. Even that place was in danger of becoming run down though. The economy was stagnating, the ninjas, heart of the village’s economy and the reason for its existence, were not getting enough jobs to go around. The Hyena remembered hearing of a similar event happening a long time ago, when the Hidden Sand Village, Sunagakure, attacked Konoha simply because they themselves needed jobs and hoped that the Wind Daimyo would give them more jobs if they won the battle. Hopefully nobody did anything foolish of a similar nature here.
The next attempt to form the Shadow Clone jutsu was more successful, after a decent length of nap and some time spent digesting. The Hyena waited outside the important building he was to make his entrance into later, and made the one hand sign he needed to use now to try to make the jutsu happen. A puff of smoke poofed into existence and two rather perfect clones faced the Hyena. The Hyena cursed and kicked them both into dissipation, they had looked like models and not like him, spoiling the illusion they were supposed to help create rather alarmingly in a shocking way. He could see though how Naruto Uzumaki had gotten away with so much before, the clones, for the short time they had existed, had attracted attention from others passing by, from the same and opposite genders both. It would have been funny if it were not a serious attempt on his own part to perform the jutsu correctly.
Emblazoning his own appearance in his mind, he tried again, performing the hand seal and forming two more clones. This time the appearances were much like his own, but with rather twisted expressions, causing many who had been watching with interest, to instead recoil in horror, the physical alternate manifestations of him self appearing rather frightening. Well. He was not aiming for a Kabuki show or such, but if he wanted to frighten someone he would be able to do that by himself just fine frankly. He did not need any clones to help him with this.
He tried one last time, believing that three times would be the charm. He relaxed, his shoulders lifting from where he had unintentionally raised them up before. He tried the same process as before, channeling his chakra into the air around him, condensing it slowly into forms that he molded to have appearance the same as his own, their faces in frowning expressions of concentration mirroring that of his own. Whew. He let out a sigh of relief, the clones looking at each other and then back at him. It seemed the jutsu had worked this time. Glancing at the ground revealed the clones had formed precisely where he had wanted them too, their legs had not moved yet, making this a relatively accurate measurement. The clones each punched the Hyena, confirming their solidity and strength. Their toughness was also confirmed when he punched back. Their ability to perform jutsu as well as himself was confirmed when one used the art of substitution to appear behind him and the other formed clones. Good. He smiled, something had gone according to plan for once.
He dissipated the clones. He would wait for night fall to arrive before he would begin his next move. He still wished there was a better way but sometimes you had no choice. If he were to die, at least it would be for a good cause.
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