The lonely road gathers an unwelcome partner.

"This damn rain. Beautiful, yet inconvenient."

Taichi had been wandering through the mountains of Kumogakure no Sato's piece of the continent, finding himself being constantly bombarded with more rain than he thought was natural for any part of the world. In a way he felt enjoyment out of it. While he was completely soaked from head to toe due to his inexperience with such high volumes of rain, he felt the discomfort as a sort of punishment in itself for his short comings. So he felt that he deserved to be in such a state of discomfort and in such a position as towing the line with getting sick due to his being drenched.

While he didn't plan on stopping anywhere special, he decided that if he continued to soldier through the rain and lightning storms, sooner or later it was going to spell the end for him. He decided to turn his direction back down the mountain, but not before using the high altitude as a vantage point to get him a better direction as to where he was going to go. As he leaned over the edge of the cliff, he could see more and more of the continent in one panoramic view. While it wasn't as picturesque as the view from Fang Mountain, it still had a rugged beauty to it. The mountain was jagged and looked as though a deity of sorts had cracked the rocks with a mighty chisel. The rain clouds in the sky had an ominous beauty, while they were quite dangerous, they still had a striking beauty to them that Taichi wouldn't have figured before coming to this land.

He was standing over the edge, looking directly down. Thoughts of Hana, Bri, Hiroaki, even Ember flowed through his mind. The screams that he heard, the singed corpse of Hiroaki, the vanishing of Ember all played through his mind. "You've gone soft." Taichi heard a voice coming from behind him. Taichi whipped back to find whoever it was that was speaking to him. When he turned, he found no one. Taichi shook his head violently for a moment, trying to wake himself up, figuring he had to be dozing to start hearing voices. The screams continued to ring through his mind, unrelenting and growing ever louder. Taichi fell to his knees and he tried to get them out of his head, trying to stop them from playing on repeat.

"Just give up. You're better off at the bottom of this mountain, your body parts scattered along the forest. You're useless, might as well be food for the wildlife of this land." the voice spoke again."

Taichi, pressing his hands against his head, trying to drown out the voices and screams that were ringing through his mind. He could feel his brain swell within his mind, his ears feel as though they were bleeding. Heart beating out of his chest. Lungs feel as though they were full of fluid. He fell to his hands and threw up off of the cliff, seeing that there was blood in his vomit. He wiped his mouth and actively fought the urge to just throw himself off of the mountain and let gravity get the best of him. He knew that he was useless, he had experienced nothing but pain and loss since he left his home and it was his fault.

He lost his fiance, he lost the woman that he felt comfortable enough to start a life with, he lost his friends in Fang. Had his life nearly taken multiple times. This world was out to get him, and maybe the world was right to hate him for he had done nothing to earn anything different. His ignorance and inexperience cost the lives of possibly two separate individuals in Fang and what did he do in response? He ran away. He didn't try to kill the opponent in the clearing, he ran and let his clones do the fighting. He was worthless and was never going to make it out here on his own.

The thoughts continued to flood his mind as he leaned on his hands that were placed on the floor. He tried his hardest to keep his kind demeanor, he wanted to keep being the sweet guy that he strived to be. So much of his life had been full of pain and misery and he saw no light at the end of the tunnel any longer. He only saw the pitch black darkness that he had been growing accustomed to. He had no more hope for his future, it would forever be the way it was. His future was destined to be nothing more than one train wreck after another no matter how hard he trained. He tried his best to better himself, but all he brought was more destruction to those who were near him.

"Hate yourself, you have no worth. You have brought death too all those that you love and cared for. You're worthless and are nothing. You have nothing to bring this world except for more chaos and destruction."

Taichi heard the voice again, but didn't bother looking for the source any longer. He knew where it was coming from, it was coming from within himself. The voice he heard was his own, he could not recognize it before, but it was the voice that he was most familiar of, his own. He wished he could prove the voices wrong, but he couldn't. He knew that they were right. There was no hope for him. He was worthless as a ninja, a danger as a teammate, and was less than scum in the eyes of most village ninjas.

He lay on the ground, being pelted by the rain that was still falling from the sky, relentless as it was harsh when the wind began to blow. It was as if the weather was showing him a demonstration of what his mind was at the moment, full of chaos and without any shelter or source of safety. Taichi tried to bring himself to his feet, or even to his hands, but the result was the same. He would try to move, but he felt his body lose all ability to operate.

He accepted his position on the ground, where he felt he belonged.

"Dirt belongs on the ground, that's all you are."

The voice would continue to berate him, attacking every imperfection that Taichi knew about himself.

After an hour of being unable to move, he finally felt the strength to push himself up off of the ground. He slowly got to his feet and he shivered, the rain had not let up and he was face down in the dirt and mud. His body would not survive these conditions any longer due to his being soaked to the bone, completely covered and drenched with water. Hypothermia would certainly be setting in quickly, if it hadn't already. He could not stop himself from shivering, his whole body felt as though he was going to pass out from the exhaustion of shaking as hard as he was.

He tried to keep walking, but his body was far too weak. He activated his inner flame, allowing his body to warm itself back up, and his shivering began to decrease. He drop down to one knee and he tried to slow his breathing as he felt the heat from his chakra begin to fill his body and provide it with heat. He got himself back to hi feet and he began walking towards a small building that he saw fairly close when he looked over the cliff closer to the top of the mountain. He had no idea what that mountain was or what would be in store for him when he got there, but he did know that he was going to knock on their door and pray that there was good people within.

Taichi walked, albeit slowly, but he walked as long as he could before having to drop back down to one knee. His body was weak, but he couldn't tell why. Was it the exhaustion from the walking? Not likely. He spent days out in the deserts that surrounded Sunagakure and had little to no issue walking for a day or two at a time. Was it the cold? Maybe, but he didn't think so. His inner flame would keep his body warm through most cold climates that he would come across, especially one that isn't cold enough to bring snow or ice from the sky.

He continued to think about what it was that was keeping his body from regaining its strength and why he still felt so weak, even after he had warmed his body up with his chakra. This brought his mind to the only other option that he could think of. The option that this overwhelming feeling of dread and guilt that brought him to his knees, then to his face for more than an hour at a time must be the culprit to why his body felt as weak as it did.

He had never really looked into problems of the sort, but he did know that he had never had such a sensation that he felt on that cliff before, so he knew that it was a problem worth looking at. While it was not nearly as easy as looking at his physical issues, for those were easily documented. He didn't know how he was going to work on his issues that came from and only showed issues from within, but maybe he would be able to find someone like him and they could talk about ways to deal or cope with the issues that he had.

He finally reached the building and to Taichi's unlikely luck, it turned out to be an Inn. He walked up towards the sign that was hung in front of the building, "Sleeping Giant's Inn". Taichi's heart brightened up, if for only a second. He walked slightly faster to the door, hoping that they would have some room for him inside. He also prayed that they had a roaring fire already ready for him to sit next to.

By the time he took his first step onto the porch of the inn, a woman came out wearing what looked like a innkeepers outfit, plenty of pockets with a large apron on. "Oh good Lord, you could kill yourself out in this weather." The woman grabbed Taichi and drug him into the building and set him next to the fire that was already going in the foyer.

Taichi didn't know what happened after that point because he was slipping in and out of consciousness for the next hour. He would only wake up for a few moments to check his surroundings. He wouldn't be able to see much, only a hazy view of the fire and what looked like a woman taking care of him.

He tried his best to open his eyes, but he laid in the bed that he was placed in with his eyes only partially open when he heard a woman's voice speak to him. "Sleep, Taichi. You may rest now. The end for you should be painless, just rest." The voice was vaguely familiar, but he could not quite identify who the voice belonged to. But he could no longer keep himself awake and his head dropped and his body went limp.

His final fleeting thoughts that he had prior to going unconscious was trying to link the voice to a face that he had seen in his life. Faces of all the women he knew flashed through his mind, but would stop with the image of Bri. He tried his hardest to keep his mind going, he wanted to look at her face for a few more minutes, being the only thing on this planet that could provide him comfort. He tried his best, actively shaking his body to stay awake, but the picture began to blur, and faded away as he finally fell out of consciousness.

WC:2016
+1875 towards Great Exploding Colliding Wave (Overwriting Earth Release: Earth Dragon) (Completed) (25% max stat discount applied)
+141 towards signing a contract with Hares of Puzzlewood