[Bijuu Research] To find the Hachibi

The harsh afternoon sun found Takeru in his personal library. For as long as he remembered the Bijuu had plagued his life. As a young child he had seen the Niibi attack his village. The terror of that night still haunted his dreams on rare moments, of course after nearly 37 years of life the memories of the attack had faded to a mere image. He remembered the Niibi standing over the massed ninja and glaring at him...at him directly. That haunting gaze still made him shudder, a being of such immense power was not something to be easily forgotten. The incident had taken his baby sister, killed her before she had even made her second birthday. For the rest of his childhood his mother had always had such a sad smile, and he could only remember a handful of times in his life that she had seemed genuinely happy. The last was at the birth of his son, and before that, his wedding day. A tear fell out of his eye and dropped to the page below him, marring a sentence and blurring a word or two so they they were unreadable. He put the book aside and rubbed his eyes, looking up at the clock he realized he had been ensconced in the library for nearly three hours already. The chair he sat on looked in danger of falling apart, but he had no inclination to ever replace it, looking around the room the other furniture was in much the same condition. His personal library had become a shrine of sorts, and for years he had been reading every scrap, every word that talked about the bijuu and where they might be, what they were like, and how to seal them. His search had begun almost a year after his wife passed during a surprise attack by the four tails while they were on holiday, the screams of her death had still tormented him day and night at the time, the look of the blood drying in her fair hair...Shaking himself Takeru tried to return to his book, the memories still hurt as though they were fresh and 10 years had done little to numb the pain. "The Yonbi, many researchers believe that this creature is" disgusted he tossed the book away, after nearly three days of reading it he had found little new on the Yonbi, and only a stray sentence here and there about any of the other bijuu. The book itself was another translation of an old history book, mostly inconsequential but he wasn't taking his chances, the locations of the bijuu could be hidden in any obscure text, else they would have been found and documented already. He stood up from his seat and stretched, here in his home he was clad only in a old white shirt and some old tracksuit pants, there was no one to impress here and his son was in the other room happily practicing his jutsu, the harmless ones at least. He turned and stood facing the wall to his left, it was devoted to a large map which he had scrawled on obsessively since he had started his search. Twice already he had to replace it, the paper wearing too thin after he punctured it countless times with pins of different colours and sizes. He had tracked the bijuu's attacks from all recorded history, observing patters and anomalies as well as confirmed times they were sealed into jinchuuriki. The map itself was impressive, and would vastly cut down any interested party's research into most bijuu's potential locations. The only two he was less than sure about were the Hachibi and the Kyuubi. The latter was almost impossible to find, it surfaced in the most random of areas throughout history, and left little in the way of records, whihc in turn were corrupted over time leaving almost no trace of the near mythical creature. He had initially planned on tracking down the kyuubi and sealing it within himself, but its obscurity and wanton destruction left him little doubt that it would be a futile venture. He had settled on the Hachibi, it's raw power was enough that he could easily achieve his goals, but it was not unmanageable, and his latest research was showing that at last he was getting closer to finding it. His search had first begun with the intent of revenge, finding the hiding place of the Yonbi and killing so that Kailie may rest in peace. It was only later that he realised he might not be able to do so alone, and later still when he realized he couldn't ask others to become involved in his personal quest for revenge. So he had resolved to find and seal a bijuu within himself, the thought made him shudder, and it was that which made him sure he would be worthy of using it. Others could not be trusted, especially since the Empire split and this fool Rebellion was insistent on fighting a pointless war, they would use these beasts as weapons, tools of destruction that would only result in the death of more people, more husbands mourning their wives and families. Takeru realised he was shaking and tears were running down his face. He had found himself remembering more and more as his search was coming to a close, a fool thing to do, dwelling in the past. But he missed Kailie so, and there was no one here to see him cry. He stood pondering the map for another hour or two, he lost track of the time, but he didn't care. When his son came to ask him when dinner was he wiped his eye again, his mustache was still damp from the tears and his empty socket ached. With a sigh he followed his son out and ruffled his hair, his search was far from over but he had done enough for today. He softly closed the door and vowed once more that he would find the Hachibi.

Takeru held the door open for the old man as he left the house, another meaningless meeting. He had sent out messages to his contacts throughout the Empire asking for anyone with knowledge on the bijuu to come and meet with him, he had been discreet, and tried to filter out the good from the bad but several people still got through of a less than...savory quality. The latest gentleman was a fisherman who claimed to have seen a bijuu deep beneath the ocean. It had been an interesting tale, the man was fishing on a boat deep in the ocean when a sudden storm had struck him and his crew, thay had fought valiantly but the boat had capsized, trapping them in an air pocket beneath it. He claimed they had sunk for a long time, down and down until there was almost no light. Several members of the crew had died in the time, and only a retired shinobi had saved them from being crushed by the pressure, their boat held together by his chakra. He claimed that when they reached the bottom he had seen an eight tailed creature hunt down a gargantuan fish and drag it down into the depths. Takeru was less than pleased with what seemed to be the ranting of a man who had survived a horrific near death experience. Takeru had heard of species of giant squid that were sometimes found by sailors, and he thought that this fisherman had simply seen one of those in it's natural habitat. He watched the man go for a moment before stalking back to his library, it was still early morning and he had no errands to run that day. He had received another set of scrolls from the First Era from one of his contacts and he intended to scour them for any mention of the hachibi's hiding place. He entered the library and opened the window slightly, the room had a tendency to get stuffy very quickly and his son often joked it was because he was in it. Takeru chuckled to himself as he took a seat and opened up the first of the scrolls. It was tedious work, but fascinating, and he genuinely relished treasures such as these for the in depth insight into the history of the world. He had learned the art of skimming though, and his eyes scanned the pages so quickly for any mention of the beasts that many would say he was hardly reading at all. Occasionally he would stop on a word, a phrase that hinted at something out of the ordinary, and then he would analyze it until he was sure there was no reference to the Hachibi or the other bijuu. Much of the day passed like this, reading, taking notes occasionally, once or twice he had to get out of his seat and map past encounters with the bijuu on his map. It sure was getting cluttered again. Hours passed, and with each scroll he added a clue, a hint, a whisper of the hachibi to his notes, only once more did he rise to add a pin to the board. It was hard to know where some of the locations were, much of the names were changed and that required researching each individual location until he was sure of where it had been. After hours of study he found himself standing in front of the map once more, he was beginning to see a pattern. The Hachibi seemed to like large bodies of water, the pins he was placing had begun to condense like water drops in certain places, areas the beats had been sighted many times. Three of the groups were near the coast, and several were actually placed on the ocean itself. Takeru knew that much of the land had changed over time and could accept a few of those, and he wondered if the fisherman had seen caught a glimpse of his map as they had talked, maybe that was what had sparked his ridiculous story of the Hachibi living deep in the ocean. As far as Takeru had discovered the beast was mammalian in shape, and that certainly had to indicate it needed air to survive, at least for the majority of it's time. The coastal nature of its attack did indicate a fondness for water, and with the exception of one cluster of pins in a desert, the beast favored cooler climates near large bodies of water. Takeru even had a theory that the desert had been an ocean once in the great recesses of history, the dots placed there were dated from before the First Era, and were mostly mythological references to monsters associated with destruction and the number 8. His frown deepened and he itched at his eye patch, often the fabric caught on the skin and irritated it a bit, but it had to be covered. He was getting closer to the beast, he could feel it. In a couple of days we was visiting the village library, he had had a large volume of texts from other villages aquired and would be able to sift through them in the library for a short time. They would need to be put back in their original locations before they were noticed missing. He looked up at the time and gave a start, the day had passed in a blur and his son was expecting him to come visit the academy, he was scheduled to give a lecture to one of the classes after that as well. Tidying up his things Takeru left the small room, he left the window open just a crack, it didn't look like it would rain at all and his son was right, the room did get stuffier when he was in it. As he changed and set off for the academy he thought of the treasure trove of documents which would be delivered soon, and of the crazy old man who swore the Hachibi was living deep in the ocean.

"Right this way sir, the requested documents are stored over in sub section B, really a rather dusty area, no one has been there in years. Though i guess it has never been fully cataloged either, and i can see why that might be an advantage, though i don't know what could be hidden down there of use to anyone. It's mostly just an amalgamation of old tomes regarding myths, and the papers trying to link said myths to actual historical events. Fringe science mostly if you ask me but-" The portly librarian had caught a glimpse of the look on Takeru's face and cut off abruptly, there was a dangerous gleam in that eye and his face was hardened into a stone mask. It was not that he was unhappy with the man, though he had an urge to natter on about anything and everything. One topic would lead to the next in sudden leaps and the poor man never seemed to pause for breath, or give room for Takeru to make any sort of counter-point to his discussion. He hadn't been told the items he had sourced had arrived early, and it had made him a little mad to know that had been kept from him. Furthermore he had learned just minutes ago that there was a whole book dedicated to the hunt and location of the bijuu, written only thirty years ago by a professor of Morikagure. He had been attempting to find a copy for several years, but had been told all version had been found and destroyed before the knowledge they contained became wide-spread knowledge. If somebody had gone to that much effort to supress that information he wanted it badly, it would surely give him some major clues as to where the Hachibi was hiding from him. "Lead on sir, the sooner i am with those items the better" This time the portly librarian only nodded his head, Takeru supposed that his face was still rather grim and made a mental note to apologise to the man on the way out, it wasn't his fault. They reached the dusty room and the librarian lit a lamp for him before making his excuses and leaving the room. Takeru looked over the collection of scrolls and books he had had delivered, in total there were only six of them, a measly number by most people's reasoning but a gold mine to him. The worth of those six texts could not be overstated. He sat down and pulled 'Essays on the Bijuu: Where are they now?' towards him, opening the cover he sat down and began to read. He had taken the rest of the day off for this, sending his son over to a friend's house for the evening and arranging for meals to be brought to him as he studied. He couldn't afford to be disturbed, not now he had finally made some progress. He reasoned that the Hachibi could be near only two of the clusters on his pinboard now, the others two had less than reliable sources for many of the 'sightings' and the dates were much older. The most recent sightings were near the Summit Ocean. He read on and on for hours, by the time he realised his lunch had been delivered it had gone cold, and he ate it while comparing two similar segments from a scroll and 'Essays'. Suddenly he jolted upright, he had remembered why the Summit Ocean had seemed familiar. The old man he had spoken to recently had said that when he saw the Hachibi he had been fishing out on the Summit Ocean. An electric fervor raced through Takeru, the man said he had sighted the beast only two months ago before coming here. Rising Takeru slipped the scrolls and books into a bag he brought with him and hurried out of the library. As he passed the portly librarian he instructed him not to bring the evening meal to him, and apologised for his rude behavior earlier. The man had looked poleaxed, and Takeru realised why as he ran to catch the train from the nearby station. He was covered in dust, it must have settled on him as he sat in the room and he had hardly noticed, only patches around his mouth where he had put his hands and eaten were clear of it, and he must look a fright. One child on the train seemed to think so, she glared at him as if he was the bogeyman from her dreams. He hardly cared, he had found another passage regarding the Summit Ocean in 'Essays' and he read feverishly as the train hurried on. Arriving back at the station nearest his house he ran to his front door. Racing up the stairs he flew into his study and began adding the new points on the map the new scrolls had provided. He worked as if posessed, scouring books and placing dots, he could see why these texts were forbidden and hunted down. They gave detailed descriptions on the Bijuu themselves, rudimentary outlines of their abilities as well as most astoundingly, rough portrayals of their individual personalities. There were interviews with Jinchuuriki, village leaders, and several passages seemed to imply much of the information was sourced through interrogation. Takeru shuddered at the thought of someone abusing this information, with it they could easily find many of the bijuu, as their information was much more detailed. The Hachibi itself still scarely had more than hints and speculations, but he was sure now that the beast resided in the Summit Ocean. It seemed to migrate between several locations over the course of history, and he was sure he had worked out the patter to margin of three years. By his estimate the Hachibi would remain in its current hiding place for another four years, and that gave him plenty of time. Feeling the rush of excitement Takeru sat down in his chair and began adding to his notes on the bijuu's abilities. One could never be too careful, it might come in handy one day. Suddenly he was struck by a chilling thought, someone had tried to erase this information, perhaps even going to the extent of killing the authors. Takeru resolved to find the librarian and swear him to secrecy, he would keep the items here and erase all trace of him trying to find them. His own research should be safe enough for now, none knew of it save the Kage, and he only in part. He would have to be very careful.

Current word count: 3120

The 'Essays had produced a remarkable discovery, there was a temple hidden in a mountain with a cache of information on the bijuu. He had set out early in the morning, not wanting to waste any time. Feet hitting the sand was his only companion now, not wanting to waste the energy to find another to accompany him left him alone. Fingertips clenching and unclenching, he pushed himself hard across the familiar granules beneath his feet.His backpack shifted, full of not only travelling gear but supplies for the journey and whetever troubles he came up against. Extra spools of wire, enough kunai to outfit a platoon, shuriken aplenty in the side pockets, even a handful of smoke bombs and a stack of paper bombs so thick that they seemed more a brick. Takeru had dipped heavily into his stash's to make sure he had enough materials to finish the trip without incident. The harsh sun beat down on him for several days as he travelled, stopping every couple hours for a rest and to realign himself on the map so as to not waste time getting lost. At long last he saw what he had set out to find. The mountains. In the distance, past scarely forested set of foothills, covered in clouds lay the ruins of an ancient village. The book had not provided a name, yet the buildings still stood, now a ruin overtaken by snowdrifts and blizzards, far in the distance. A distance lessened by every step and every inch and centimeter that his body travelled towards it. His feet crunching on grass felt peculiar after the sands of hom, especially after walking on them for days. Dirt kicked up from the ground as he jumped, feet pushing off of the ground and launching him onto a thick branch of a tree before his legs powered off of that branch and onto another. With no care for the limitations of normal humans, Takeru leapt from branch to branch like some lemur from the forests of Morikagure. He had no more time to waste. He wanted to be there and he wanted to be there now, despite the burning in his legs and lungs. After a while he could feel his breath coming raggedly, chest heaving with each breath. A branch snapped, his eyes searching in the direction the snap happened and finding a handful of leaves and branches falling towards the undergrowth. Birds were rising from the spot the branches had snapped, apparently their weight just too much for the wood to handle as Takeru pushed himself harder. The sun was setting, it would be night before he arrived and he couldn’t stand climbing rocks in the dark. Despite his pained strides, muscles now fully fatigued and lungs begging for rest, he pushed onwards until he hit the base of the mountain. It was almost instantaneous, the transition from forest to stone as his feet found a boulder and then a gathering of loose stones and rocks. Hissing through the pain as the muscles in his legs threatened collapse and absolute failure he began to climb. His body hunched, hands clawing the earth and pulling him skywards as he used the boulders as handholds and propelling him just a little faster with the tiniest bit of relief to his thighs and ankles. The backpack was starting to grow heavy and every moment with it on left Takeru ready to simply slide it off of his back and let it tumble back down the mountain. But it was too full of supplies and far too valuable to simply be left to ruin and degrade over time. The air was beginning to turn the sweat on his skin cold, the winds picked up and a snow began to fall. It was strange, the rumbling of the sky as the soft flakes of frozen water began trickling down from the sky. The skies lit up, lightning ripping from the sky and collapsing a chunk of ground nearby with heat and power that left the air tinged with the smell of burnt that was common in lightning storms. As his feet crunched through snow that hadfallen long before the current flakes that caressed his body, his eyes began searching for the ruins that would signal his arrival at the ancient temple. Body shivering, muscles giving out, he collapsed into the entrance of a ruined temple, one that would shelter him from the coming storm as his body literally gave out from exhaustion. Gasping the chilled air, he couldn’t go on any further. Huddling inside the temple, he curled up coughing and gasping as he lurched and threw up last meal on the floor of the temple. Wherever he was, he was in no shape to travel any further tonight as the black clouds swirled around and hurled ice at the mountainside. He looked around and smiled, books lined the walls and ancient tattered paintings were spread across blank walls, he had arrived.

Word Count: 3954

Takeru placed the spoon back into his mouth, the tasteless gruel he had made himself for dinner made his nose crinkle and his stomach heave, but it was the only food he had been able to prepare in these ancient ruins, and he had no intentions of leaving to forage for supplies until he needed to. His first days within the ruins had been spent mostly in recovery from his journey, he hadn't prepared nearly half as well as he should have and as a result had received mild frostbite and several large gashes in his flesh from the jagged rocks on the climb up. Early on the first day he had used the myriad of supplies he brought to make himself an elevator to safely descend down the mountain when he was done. Using the explosive tags, wire and kunai he brought he had made a rough chute down the side of the mountain face where he could abseil down with the assistance of wire pulleys and counterweights. The third day he had begun his search through the multitude of books that lined the walls. Many of the books began crumbling at his touch, those he left where they were instead of trying to study them, he would leave those to experts to try and restore. Time passed at an incredibly slow pace as he scoured the walls that first day, many of the texts he could read were about trivial things, or subjects he was not interested in, he only found two references to the bijuu and even then they were merely as mythological creatures supposed to hail the end of the world. The ancient men who had written those books hadn't been the smartest, they seemed to think that the bijuu were the start of the apocalypse. Takeru knew better, he had survived two encounters with the bijuu already and the world still hadn't ended yet. He forced another spoonful of gruel into his mouth and swallowed it down almost as soon as it touched his tongue. Turning another page of the book he now held he skimmed down for any information that could help him, another worthless book. He placed it on the large pile behind him and reached for another, four days had passed already and still he had nothing to show for it. He had been so confident this was the library that the 'Essays' said held all the knowledge of the world, yet as far as he had seen the bookcases only filled three complete rooms. He opened the new book without more than glancing at its title, he had already selected those who might have information on the beasts, and many of them were misleading at best, turning another page he began reading again, his bowl of empty gruel sitting beside him.

The sound of a book hitting a stone wall broke the silence of the still mountain, snow had piled up outside during the storm and the windows were white with it. Another book flew through the air and many of its pages collapsed into dust. Takeru stood with his arm raised, another book ready to throw, two weeks of endless searching through book after book had yielded little more than fairy tails. The only solid reference to the Hachibi was a tale of an 8 tailed bear as big as a mountain, who slept all day and ate all night. One day a young man seeking power and honour poked the bear, and it rolled over on top of him, squashing him alive. Hardly the information he needed to track it down and hardly anything to help him confront it. Swallowing the bitter gall of defeat Takeru began gathering the books to put back onto the walls. The pile that he had been putting the books into had grown enormous, with nearly two hundred books stacked up behind him. Some of them had been interesting enough, detailing the ancient civilisation that had lived in these ruins a millennium ago. During his stay much of the dust in the temple had been cleared away, and the place had a very lived in feel now that he had been there for half a month. he grimaced as he realised he had been nearly four days longer than he said he would be, his son would be upset when he finally made it home. He gathered up the rest of his supplies that remained and placed them back into his pack, the carcass of the deer he had caught for food he threw outside, nature would reclaim it soon enough. He walked out of the temple for the last time, bitterly frustrated at the pointless endeavor coming here had been. He would make his money back of course, especially since the place was a historical treasure, but the time wasted could never be reclaimed. He made his way to the makeshift elevator and began lowering himself down it, his hands burned from the cold but soon enough he was at the base of the mountain and in the foothills filled with trees once again. He ran through the forest frantically, his steps hard and heavy with the anger that filled him. He was no closer to finding the Hachibi after all this effort.

When he finally arrived home, wearied from travel he had to endure nearly an hour of his son berating him for staying away so long, when he finally escaped to wash off the travels of the road he was exhausted. After bathing he made his way to the study where he began replacing his notebooks and texts he had taken with him, when he saw a note sitting on his desk. Sitting, he opened it and began to chuckle. The note was from Shitai, saying that he and the Kage were making a journey to an ancient library buried beneath the sands of the Ressa desert, and asking if he wanted to come along. He rose from his chair and made his way to his son's room. The boy was going to be upset that his father was leaving again so soon, but he secretly enjoyed the time his dad was away. The time before last he had arrived home to find his son curled up on the couch with a young girl his own age, chuckling again Takeru opened his son's door and prepared for the coming storm. He was leaving in the morning.

Total Word Count: 5028