Introductory...

Gin knew that he would one day be someone of importance but as for now, his abilities were lacking and there was only one way that this could change is if he trained himself to the point of exhaustion every day and then practiced what he learnt until he perfected it.

This day, he gathered his equipment that he needed to train. He got them from his father's storage since his family was indeed wealthy and training equipment was nothing to come by. He placed what he needed in a tote bag and headed for the water falls. He liked there because the environment was cool and it made his think clearly.

Just the rush of the cool and crystal clear water was enough to relax him. He started to shadow fight visualizing an unseen opponent and attack accordingly. Sometimes with a flurry of kicks and punches and other times with well calculated blows. His body was starting to warm up with this physical exercise but still to him that was far from enough. He started to do some one handed push ups and pumped ferociously and he felt his muscles get even harder than before and it gave him the drive to go on even more. He switched arms as he wanted to put the strain on the other arm as well.

He stopped doing the push ups and decided he will take a long distance run to build up himself. He replaced the tote back on his back, took a long drink of water and started running. He ran past several places of interest in the village. He waved certain people who he knew while others called him out and he waved to them as well. He ran past where his father worked in the village's treasury and he saw the usual officials entering the building to conduct their usual transactions. He knew his father was busy so even though he thought of going to visit he thought he had better not.

He continued running until he came to an old lady being surrounded by two guys. From the looks of things he thought it best if he intervened on the old lady's behalf.

This should be quick...

They both were older than he was and bigger in body. Did not matter to him though. He will take them down all the same. Without warning, Gin jumped over the first one hand gave him a round house with his instep crashing into the side of the man's face which he pushed off of and kicked the other man in his face as well.

"Aunty, are you ok? Did they take anything from you or hurt you at all." asked Gin as he men were still on the ground squirming.

"No sonny. They did not get the chance thanks to you." smiled the old woman. "Oh I almost forgot. Even though you are a shinobi I want to give you something."

"Oh no please Aunty. I can't accept any money or anything like that. It's ok."

"So you would not even take some cookies from an old lady?" smiled granny.

"Ah ok, I guess I cant say no to that." smiled Gin as he took six of them and placed them into his bag. He then tied up the crooks and started running again.

He continued running but he wanted some resistance and so he headed towards some hills that were a couple miles away. As he started his ascent, he could feel the strain on his legs and that was what he wanted. He continued on wards pushing it to the limit, his body that is. He was half way up the hill when he could not run anymore, he had to climb. He placed his hands upwards and pulled himself up and his foot found a ledge and pushed himself up on it. His muscles again tensed, with each strained movement upwards. It had been a while since he went mountain climbing much less using it for as a training method.

He finally arrived to the top of the high hill and stood there a bit and enjoyed the view. He put down his tote bag and and started to unpack what he needed. As he unpacked, he looked around and saw that he came upon a plateau, around a thousand feet square. He knew that this should suffice for his training grounds and it would not be just for today either. When he took out his weapons, he thought that he should have brought more. Well, he had no choice but to make do with what he had. He then started to assemble the metal dummy parts he had in his bag.

One after the next he assembled them and perched them on stands. He tied some on pendulum structures to make the dummies swing at him. He worked by chopping down some of the sparse nearby trees and making poles to create a really well thought out obstacle course of sorts. He would use this to improve generally in all aspects of combat. He took of the top half of his clothing which was his vest and he kept on his white long pants. He took a fighting stance and started his obstacle course. He continued on wards as a log came swinging at him and he jumped and gave the log a round house and it smashed into two.

Suddenly, he saw four men come out of a nearby cave. They were for sure thugs of some kind since they had a woman dragging her by her hair. Gin got really pissed at this. He himself was not a man that ever liked seeing others being taken advantaged of. They did not even notice him as he stood there staring at them.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing? So you guys like to beat up on defenseless chicks eh? Come at me and see if you can take advantage of me."

The men all looked at each other and started to laugh since they were sure that this one guy could never beat them.

"Well come on then." said the man as he dropped the woman on the ground and she sat on her own legs and cried even more. "Come and save the Babe then. I am pretty sure your mother is sweeter than she is. Hahahaahaha."

And that was all it took for Gin to lose it. He rushed the man with a kunai in his hand and stabbed the man at the side of his neck and knew blood would soon be the answer. And so it was, the torrent came gushing out of the man's body as he fell from his wounds.

The others were obviously startled by the sudden attack of the red haired boy but they soon caught themselves and drew their weapons and charged at him. He again prepared himself with his lone kunai. He did not want to use his explosive chakra because he just wanted these men to suffer for what they did and for what they said about his mother as well and in his mind, kunai, the sinking of the metal into their flesh was most satisfying. With that thought, he parried their blows and went in for the kill. His heart was pounding as his body moved for the strike.

He stuck with great accuracy as his kunai made quick work of these three men. The first, the kunai entered under his arm pits, the second the kunai entered at the side of his stomach and Gin pulled horizontally disemboweling him and the third Gin gave an uppercut with the kunai in his hand and it stabbed the man through the jaw bone straight through his jaw and he pulled forward and the jaw bone itself was pulled out and the body slumped to the ground like the others. Gin stood there to catch his breath and regain his usual composure.

He went to the woman even though he was still covered in blood. She could not help but look at him, confused if she should run or if she should run up to him and hug him for saving her life.

"Are you ok?" asked Gin finally.

"Yea I am ok. Thank...thank you for helping me. You saved my life, how am I to repay you?"

"Repay me? Well you can start by helping me get off the mountain. You came through that cave. Surely you must remember where you came from."

"Well yea I do. Follow me, I will wash those dirty clothes for you too."

He and the woman started to make their decent down the mountain through the caverns where she came from with the men from before. Gin knew he would not be using the obstacle course that he had made, not until those bodies were properly decayed or some wild animal came and consumed them would he ever go back up there. He could still hear the crunch of their bones as he made his attacks, the way the blood flowed from his kunai stabbings. How the blood pooled on the gravel ground and seeped everywhere staining the ground until rains came to wash it away perhaps.

Finally he and the woman had finished their journey through the caves. It was not long after he went back into the village and dropped the woman did he decide to take his training away from the village a bit. A change of scenery, a new challenge perhaps might keep the blood going until he could return to his official training grounds. He went home to his parents and talked to them about it.

“Dad, mom, I am leaving the village for some training. I know I am not supposed to go officially but I think I need to prepare myself for the temperate regions.”

“Do you think you will be safe my son?”

“Yes dad. You and my mentor has taught me a lot of valuable things. How else would I know if I am improving if I dont test myself?”

“You have a point. And you have been trustworthy these days Gin. I think we should allow the boy to go.”  said Gin's mother.

“Alright. I knew one day it will come to this. Remember this is not a mission. But be careful.”

The very next day.....



Gin looked up at the mountain above him, he knew full well of the dangers of such a large and snowy mountain. Yet he wanted to conquer it, for some reason he had always had the desire to reach the summit. Even though he knew freezing to death was a possibility wearing his just his kimono, he wanted to see how far he could get before needing to pull back into the warmer regions of the world.

Gin threw down everything that would slow him down, his travelling pack being the main thing. It was rare that people would come by this mountain anyhow, and he was pretty much assured no one would touch his stuff. Gin began to walk up the mountain path, and immediatly felt the harsh bite of the cold, he began to regret his decision, but he wasn't going to back out at such an early point. He moved on to find a suitable area to begin his ascent up the mountain.

After about ten minutes of searching, Gin had found a suitable spot to climb, it had many rocks sticking out, and it didn't seem to have alot of snow. During his walk he had gained a very small resistant to the cold, but it still nibble at his skin and his red hairs were now sticking out, his skin turning very pale. He suddenly realised he should try a small climb, and then continue his travels before he got frostbite and have to cut off a toe.

Gin took a deep breath, and gripped the nearest rock that was sticking out, and pulled himself up.

Gin continued his ascent, the heavy strain from pulling himself up was taking a toll on him. He himself had no idea why he was trying to climb this mountain, any memory of travelling through here was very brief, and was usually just walking. Generally him and his old master tended to avoid mountainus reigons as they were tougher to traverse.

Gin hauled himself up, foot by foot, the cold was starting to effect him now. Even with his immense strength and above average stamina, he could barely move. Realising it was was the perfect endurance training. Looking down, he could see the drop was only about twenty feet.

-Flashback-


A younger version of Gin walks alongside his mentor. A tall man, he wore just a grey cloak with a hood, that pretty much hid the old man's entire body. Gin wore a cloak very similar, but overpowered the man at the time. The old man was only about 150cm. They both in unison, their footsteps silmetaneous. Gin's master came to a halt, as well as his student.
"Climb the mountain here." The old man said, confusing his student.
"What? Are you kidding?" Gin replied, a look of confusion slowly spreading across his face.
"When I started training you, you said you'd do anything I said without question. Do it."
Gin sighed, "Anything within the bounds of not killing myself. If we go any higher in just what we're wearing we'll freeze!"
The old man started chuckling suddenly, Gin looked at him in an odd way. "Who said anything about me going up, young one? However if you do need inspiration..." Gin's master smiled, "This mountain is the border towards the village hidden in blizzard and is one of the hardest places in the world to climb, it is purely Man vs The Elements. Not many have successfully climbed the mountain and many have died trying." The Old Man cleared his throat. "I'm one of the people able to climb this thing. Even in my current state, I could probably do it and get back down alive. You could say...the strongest people in the world are the only people able to do it."

Gin immediatly started to climb. His master had spurred him on saying only the strongest could conquer the mountain. He had a dream, and he wanted to make it a reality. He was truly naive at the time, thinking that if he climbed the mountain to the top, he'd immediatly be labelled one of the strongest people in the world.

The cloak barely kept the cold off of the young Gin, he had fallen many times, but was easily caught by his master. Gin was out of breath, and was sprawled across the floor from exaustion several hours later. The wiser of the two sat on a rock, watching the attempts. Watching as his student nearly fell to his death nearly two hundred times, and it made him feel sick to the stomach, however it was neccessary that he teach the boy this lesson.
"Gonna give up like that, Gin?" The old man enquired, as the boy tried to push himself up.
"I-I was just resting a little you decrepit old man! I don't give up...I'm getting to the top by nightfall! Just you watch!" Gin had somehow renewed his strength with his own words, stumbling to the rocky wall again, attempting to climb it. The old man examined the side of the mountain, many pieces of metal were embedded into the rocks, they increased about a foot each time. It was apparent this endurance training surely improved the boy's strength. The old man didn't tell the boy to do this, he wasn't sure whether his student realised he was burning off more energy using his magic, albeit it was quite weak at this stage.

Gin had fallen down again, his master easily catching him. A piece of broken metal was sticking out of his forearm, and his veins were visible too. It was obvious the reason he fell from the mountain was from exhaustion, not a lack of physical strength. He'd passively taught the boy a lesson. However he wasn't sure if he had gotten through the stubborn boy. He had already forced physical pain onto the boy, but would the message of teaching him to give up at some point sink in? He had already forced the boy to rip his muscles straining. The old man sighed, even if the boy didn't learn anything from the scaling, he would at least be physically stronger.

Gin knew that  this sort of training was perfect for his Rankujo body. Building resistance like that would come in handy maybe during battle or when it was his time to venture to the actual ice village that he had heard so many things about.


-End-


Gin smiled, memories returning. The whole flashback lasted about two seconds, Gin dropped down, stretched and moved back down to ground level. Looking around, he pack was missing. Gin froze literally, although he had just moved out of the cold in time. He cursed, and looked around. He saw a figure running off into the mountains. "Just my luck." He muttered under his breath, and decided to follow his only lead.

After a few minutes of careful shadowing, he found the figure, who he now managed to discover was a cloaked man, did in fact have all of his things. Gin considered the repercussions of a murder out in the open, but quickly realized this was land no one came to. It was the ideal place Gin could live, but it was just far too cold for his liking. Sure, the peace was great for him, and the climbing was something he certainly enjoyed, however travelling alone without his former tutor did seem to rip open a void for him. He felt empty inside. His father and mother were back in the village of the moon doing their daily work for the kage and look where he was. He had considered going to towns more often, but whenever he tried, people were just a daily hassle, massive crowds, annoying conversations. He just wasn't the type of man to handle those things.
Gin shook off his daydream of interacting with people, and picked up the pace. The man didn't seem to notice him just yet, which was fine. He made a rough estimate of the distance between them. Around twenty five meters. His bag was quite heavy, so the thief would be quite incumbent. Gin wasn't fast himself however, and the cold was biting into him again, he considered the option of trying to out speed the man and retrieve his stuff, but had little confidence in his speed. Having no idea what this person was capable of, it was a dangerous situation. If this was just a petty thief it would usually be no problem. A petty thief however would have much rather ed retreating to a town, usually. Since the man was wearing a cloak it was blatant this man was prepared to go out into the cold like this.

Gin had followed pretty closely, they were into a clearing now. The thief simply dropped the bag, and ran away. Gin was left stunned at this, what luck! He immidiatly ran over, opened his bag and checked his belongings. Everything was there, Gin ripped out the extra kimono he kept in there and threw it on, the rush of warmth forcing him to give a sigh of relief. Rummaging through, he had found something, a small note.

'Would you please enter the cabin to the left, I have a fun game for everyone!' The handwriting was messy, and hard to read. Was there even a cabin to the left. Apparently there was. It wasn't just a small cabin, it was quite large. He plainly strolled inside.

The inside looked much larger than the inside, and was decorated primarily by wooden furniture. None of the new fancy makes and models. A small cooking pot was suspended over a fireplace and in the top left corner from entrance was a single bed. The heads of many animals decorated the walls. A note was stamped to the front of a deer head near the door.

'Extreme Training! Test your skills of strength against others! No prize! Just an ego boost! Perfect training technique reccomended by the elite!' A small table, had many flyers on it, explaining what it was. 'Climb as far as you can without equipment, only the strongest will make it to the top! Oh, and the first person here please post the sign outside!' Gin sighed, he planted the sign outside it read 'Extreme Training! PUSH YOURSELF TO YOUR LIMITS AND MORE! WITH EXTREME TRAINING.'

It sounded very corny, but perhaps it would attract some people, the challenge intrigued Gin however, he wanted something to compare himself to, he had rarely met with men who were not shinobi during his travels. Only petty thugs which couldn't handle themselves. Gin made the decision of sitting down inside and waiting.

He did not have to wait long before another person came into the cabin. Judging by his cloak, it was the man that had followed him here. The man in the cloak was also tired just as he was. Gin could see his breath from under his cloak.

“I see you came to take this challenge with me. It is an interesting fate.” said the man as he looked at Gin.

“Yes. And come what may, I will make it through this.”

“Well if you say so. I know for sure that I am going to make it even harder for you. You've been warned."

Gin knew how he was going to do this. He did not have that much equipment to begin with so continuing on this journey the same way would not be making things worse. This man, hampering him would. So he just decided to leave the pack that he had and just continue on with nothing but the clothes on his back and his abilities. He ran from the cabin and started to make his journey. He harnessed his chakra on the soles of his feet and started walking up the side of the mountain. He did not want to use this earlier because he of himself did not want to feel as if he was being dishonest because he would only be fooling himself if he did so. The man stared at the bottom of the cliff where he cabin was and knew he could not compete with a real life shinobi. Gin of course won. And made his way on wards to home.

It really took two full weeks for him to recover from the bitter cold of his last journey. He almost did not make it back home in one piece. It was a hunting party that found him laying in the snow, his body spent from exhaustion. They recognized that he was a shinobi of the hidden moon village and brought him to the guards that were stationed outside. Their superior a jounin rewarded the men for their kind deed and the Jounin wanted to know where he was found. When they were told, they knew Gin would be in trouble since he was not supposed to leave the village by himself.

Gin nearly did not survive the arduous journey on the way back home and from the frigid environment he found himself in. Some hunters that were looking for game found him close to the foot of the mountain and took his limp body with them. They had recognized the forehead protector that he had around his arm and carried him to the city where shinobi of his village could take him. When the ninja brought him back to village, he was still recovering as he was now; laying in bed he was now looking outside at the sky and generally was just lost in his own thoughts when he heard the door to his hospital room open and in the doorway stood his sensei from the academy and his parents. Their faces told of a time when they were once pleased to see him but not this day; no certainly not today. They looked as if they had a sword in their hands, all four of them would have attacked him right then and there, he being sick an all. Already knowing what this was about all Gin could have done was close his eyes because his body was in too much pain to sit upright. His mother, a woman of ripe middle age was tall for a woman, pale skin and red hair with grey eyes and she just stood there glaring at him. His father's face was even more stern. He was even taller than his mother with brown eyes and hair with his thick mustache hiding how his mouth curled trying to hold back his tongue. As for his sensei he walked straight up to Gin and grabbed his hospital robes and pulled him upwards and started to shake him which Gin started to howl in pain.

“What is the meaning of this Gin?! EH?! AFTER EVERYTHING I TAUGHT YOU ABOUT FOLLOWING THE RULES?” he bellowed as he shook him and then let him go as Gin slumped helplessly in his bed and closed his eyes as his pain flared up again and his sensei turned his his parents who could do nothing but shake their heads. “Look at them, they have been worried sick and so was I you bastard! No offence Mister and Mrs Rankujo.” they signaled that none was taken and he continued on. “In these times of the world, a missing gennin is a very serious thing. We all thought that you became an outlaw and abandoned your village and became a missing nin, or even worse, we thought that you were dead!”

“What is wrong with you Gin? We gave you the best life has to offer. You know anything you ask for we will give it to you. It is you yourself said that you would rather earn your own money and so we gave you the chance to be your own man. You are the heir of our family Gin. You are too important to us to just let you go on your own without some supervision."

"Mom, dad.....sensei, im sorry. I really am. At least if i do have to leave the village i will at least let you all know."