When the comforts of civilization begin to dull our senses, we must never forget that in the beginning, there was war. And war. And more war. Long before there were empires, there were humans consumed with greed and the hunger for power. Resources, territories, information—these were the forms of sustenance upon which we preyed. Today, we call such habits vices. Oh, how arrogant we have become! Are we not still impelled by those primordial emotions? Is the advent of war so far-fetched? But alas, for you to truly understand, we must dive deeper into this land’s half-forgotten past.
There was a time when might was the only law that humankind knew. Fearsome clans roamed throughout the land, seeking amenable grounds within which they could take root and opposing forces against whom they could test their mettle. Given the irregularity of nature’s bounty, certain regions appealed more than others, and dominion over such coveted territories became the spark that ignited the earliest inter-clan wars. These fierce, internecine affairs tended to conclude only when one side had decimated their competition into oblivion, and many clans of story were rendered extinct during this period.
The victors of war, having claimed their territories, often made truces with surrounding locals, offering protection in exchange for access to the yields of agriculture. Over time, certain communities emerged as more dominant than others, either due to numbers or sheer talent, and their rapid expansion would force smaller, neighboring communities to either collapse into their fold or be devastated. When the dust settled, humankind found itself divided into the five major territories that we are familiar with today. And was the bloodshed over? With our lands obtained and our bellies filled, were we finally content?
06/01/2023 June is for Juggin
We made it y’all, another month of OTA, and fresh off the press we have another promotion ready. Leaving behind the opening bonus sadly, we welcome the jugggggg! June is for juggin AKA working hard, so we are making it a double rewards month for every mission completed! Yes we said it's double rewards, now you all can really get into the thick of those builds if you work hard enough. And who knows what you might uncover in the process. AND all jobs are free to enroll no quest EXCEPT ANBU(Black Ops) roles.
Hyouka had seen a lot of gullible people in her time. She even once told a bandit that he was holding his double-edged sword backwards and killed him in his confusion. While it was rare to see such people, they definitely existed out there.
Hyouka was rather amazed that he took the bait so easily. However, she wasn't going to complain. The two were lead through the mountains until they reached a tent. As soon as she entered, Hyouka shifted her gaze around as she tried to search for the birds as well as any other possible traps with her eyes. Upon finding nothing, she shifted her attention to the leader.
The leader proved to be smarter than the grunt at least. He seemed to have foreseen this outcome, and Hyouka would prove him right.
“To be fair, that which you call a 'cult' is literally protected by the Lightning Daimyo as part of our... so-called 'cultural heritage'. It may not have any value to us, but it also means they can use government money to hire us to drop by when people like you want your goals accomplished a little more forcefully.
Now, I..." Hyouka remembered Hitora's earlier words. “We don't care if you want to stop bird sacrifices. But if you're not going to do it through the proper channels, we end up getting paid to shut you down."
Hyouka slowly reached a hand towards the sword on her back. “You choose now. You want to hand them over or are we going to make you?"
Post by Uchiha, Hitora on Jul 17, 2023 17:43:17 GMT -6
Ignore The Man Behind The Curtain!
Hitora kept his left hand resting on the hilt of his Katana, Marusai looked from Hitora to Hyoka. Contemplating his options as he did so, wondering if it was worth fighting. Part of Hitora wanted the man to try to attack the two Shinobi, after all that would at least give the two of them something to do instead of just talking to the man. He decided for now to neither fight back nor give in, but instead to try and talk to the two of them about the situation that they all seemed to have found themselves in on this day.
“Just because a Government recognizes it as a religion don’t make it not a cult. They are killing innocent creatures for no reason! They…” Without warning Hitora awoke his Sharingan and stared at the man with his three tomoe eyes for a moment. The man recognized the eyes instantly and found himself suddenly terrified by simply seeing the red eyes of the Uchiha, silence falling upon him without warning or even finishing his statement about the efficacy of cult ideology or whatever rant that he was about to go off on.
“You have a choice, Marusai, you can hand the birds over to us OR you can make us force the issue.” As he spoke the Uchiha slowly reached for the Katana with his dominant right hand and slowly drew it from its scabbard. “Now, I’m not opposed to the latter, but I know you’ll prefer the former option. So you have one chance: take it or leave it, I highly doubt that you’ll be capable of fighting off even an academy student let alone two fully trained Shinobi. So, what will your choice be today?” As he spoke, as if to punctuate his words Hitora slowly moved his blade.
He slowly moved the blade until it was pointing right at the face of the man, the tip only a few inches from his face. The beads of sweat were running visibly down his face as he stared at the two Ninja. He looked from Hitora’s eyes, to Hyoka, and then back. He knew he had no chance of winning this fight, it was clear that he could not convince the two of them to even give him the smallest chance to talk himself out of this predicament. He slowly placed his hands up in the air, trying not to make the sword wielding man think he was reaching to attack.
“Alright, alright, take the goddamn birds. They annoyed me with their constant sounds anyways…” He said as he gestured to a small cage that was covered by a cloth. Both of which bared the emblem of the Temple, showing that he only stole them as they were. Hitora kept his blade levied at the man’s face, obviously not wanting to break his attention, he hoped that Hyoka herself would take this as the opportunity to walk up to the birds and take the whole cage so that they could leave without any sort of issue.
Hyouka got a little suspicious when he gave up the fight immediately, but she still chose to say nothing. Taking the cage, she lifted the cloth to check if the birds were there.
Her action was met with a lot of noise from the birds. Even if she was blind, she could tell they were there. The species seemed to be the right one, too. She inspected the cage, quickly looking underneath to see if there was an explosive tag or something that might blow up in their face.
Nothing.
“Thank you for your co-operation." Hyouka was finally satisfied and accepted the cage. She addressed Hitora: “Keep your guard up on the way out."
Thankfully, there were no scruples on the way out. Making their way back to the church, Hyouka carefully opened the doors and left a suitably sized gap open, warning Hitora not to touch the doors if he tried to close them. Once the preparations were done, she delivered the caged birds, earning the abbott's praise. As soon as he opened his mouth to begin talking about having Hyouka attend church service again, she grabbed Hitora and dashed out at the highest speed she could manage.
Once she had leaped down the stairs, she would let go of Hitora and apologized for the sudden escape.
“Sorry, couldn't stand listening to him preach on the spot and I believed you felt the same way. If you ever deal with a real preachy type like him again, the best way to escape is to just hightail it mid conversation. Can't count the number of times I've escaped a lecture from the teachers in the academy that way."
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she continued.
“Waiting until the ceremony is what I'd like to do, but I don't think I can stand one whole week of being in a church. Anyway, the birds are back, so let's just mark this as done and pray this doesn't happen again."
Hyouka opened the mission scroll and double-checked. “Yep, it only asks for the birds back and not to see the ceremony through. Let's go back."