The Story of a Ninja

[Gangstercake]

Disclaimer: May contain a story with proper grammar. Those offended may cry and then proceed to leave the page.

The darkness felt alive. The ninja knew this and therefore befriended the darkness. They had a mutual agreement: the darkness would hide the ninja and the ninja would not shine light into the darkness. Like a bird, the shinobi perched upon a branch as he exited the forest. His target lies in the deepest part of the fortress. The ninja began to meditate and empty his head of useless thoughts. With his mind purged, the ninja leaped onto the fortress wall and began to climb. In a swift movement, he knocked out the guard and hid them both behind a pillar. He did not believe in useless death because he had already seen too much of it. He ascended each floor of the fortress from the outside, careful to avoid the guards and torches. Once the ninja reached the top, he quietly slipped inside. The man he was sent to kill was sleeping, occasionally breaking the silence with loud snores. The ninja knew the man deserved to die, he had stolen food from the neighboring villages, kidnapped their young women, raped ALL of them repeatedly, disguised his forces as a different army and attacked the villages, promised protection with heavy taxes, and conscripted almost all the young men in order to fuel his ever growing army. The ninja not only knew the man had to die, but honestly wanted to kill him. To make it even better, the ninja woke him with a kick to the face and silenced him with his hand. He whispered to the evil man, "Enjoy roaming hell." The ninja whipped out his blade to stabbed it through the man's boar-like face. Before the ninja left though he had one more task...

The guard was walking along the parapets when the moon shone through the sky. The guard looked perplexedly at the top of the fortress where there appeared to be a figure on one of the sharp spikes at the top. The man gasped in horror as he saw it was the ruler impaled and dripping blood. The man panicked and ran to alert the guards...

As the ninja watched from a distance, he prayed to Buddha to forgive him for his sins, and then faded into the shadows...

I hope you enjoyed my story.

[StickmanJohny]

OMG ninjas I love that. But you should have put PIRATES in your story OMG I love pirates uh yeah oh oh

[Gangstercake]

At 12/26/10 01:23 PM, StickmanJohny wrote: OMG ninjas I love that. But you should have put PIRATES in your story OMG I love pirates uh yeah oh o

Pirates Vs. Ninjas would be a fun story, but I just had inspiration for a ninja story. Maybe my next one will be about pirates. Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

[Brandonhazswag]

Npt really a story, but it was very awesome!

[ZeeAk]

It's not bad, but it's not amazing.
The story opens really well, with the shadows, but gradually becomes a bit clichéd. There's also a spot where it should read 'guards' instead of 'guard.'
To me, it just to lose its potential, and just become a basic retelling of an event, as opposed to an infiltration and assassination that the reader is involved in.
For example, the actual assassination part is bland and flat. There's no action, no feeling of revenge or motivation. Another question that struck is that if the guards are also masquerading as an enemy army, why does he not kill them? Knocking them out doesn't teach them any lesson about the massacre of innocents.
To create that tension and atmosphere that was present at the beginning in the later stages of the story, I'd change the actual kill to something like,
There lay the target, eyes closed. His chest, covered in white clothes that were an incalculable contrast to the horrors the man had orchestrated. The invasion of villages under a brutal facade, the pillaging of homes and the raping of innocent women all became terrifying images in the ninja's mind. Images, he knew, that were in actuality just visual recounts of horrific occurrences.
Cold, ruthless blood circulating through the to-be assassin's veins, he inched ever closer. He studied the man, desperately trying to find the humanity in his target. Steel can kill a human, but never an idea.
He stood, now, over the man. Slipping his blade out of the hand-made sheath, the ninja applied the cold steel to his target's throat. In their state of sleep, the target swallowed, Adam's apple rubbing against the fine metal. Instantly waking, aware of a threat, the target opened their mouth to scream. The ninja's hand clamped over the other man's mouth, silencing him. The man's last words would not be a desperate plea for his life.
He'd abandoned that chance when he befouled the dignity of the first woman he'd violated.
"Enjoy roaming in hell," the ninja whispered in his target's ear. The victim's eyes widened as he saw, in the pale light of a bedside candle, the blade slid down toward his chest. The metal plunged through weak flesh, crimson ooze spilling over the bed.

[elcriz000]

brought a teat to my eye. my rating 8/10

[Gangstercake]

I was kinda in a rush when I wrote this. Sorry if its crappy, but I wanted to see if I could quickly write a story and get SOME positive reviews. It worked :). I wanted to add more to the assassination and make the list of things the evil lord did wrong shorter, but I needed to type it out before I left or I would forget. Thanks for the reviews guys.

[ZeeAk]

Being in a rush is a shocking excuse. All it does is show that you don't really care about the actual quality of your work, instead just wallowing in the praise that people will give you simply because you write about dragons and ninjas.
Yes, they are cool concepts, but the stories themselves are not that good.

[tinytim12]

At 12/25/10 09:57 PM, Gangstercake wrote: The man gasped in horror as he saw it was the ruler impaled and dripping blood. The man panicked and ran to alert the guards...

No. Join the two sentences, at least.

[kakalxlax]

At 12/26/10 01:23 PM, StickmanJohny wrote: OMG ninjas I love that. But you should have put PIRATES in your story OMG I love pirates uh yeah oh oh

mmm ninjas and pirates where did i see that before... ohh yes... One Piece

[Desentil]

Not my main point, because it's easily corrected, but your 'proper grammar' falls a little short of perfect.

I'm going to have to agree with Dr34m3r though. It's an interesting start to a story, but then turns into a report. I liked seeing the ninja's deep thinking nature when it came to the shadows and his work. However, when you're giving us the motivation for the killing it's just a massive info dump. You might be telling me that this person did all these terrible things but I can't really emotionally connect with it. There's no sense of the pain and suffering, just an absurdly brief account of the events.

Also, why does the ninja care so much that he would be happy to kill rather than just doing it for money? How did any of the events effect him? A bit of backstory would be nice, as would another narrative from the times when the atrocities were commited.

One more thing, don't swap between different names of your characters. You call him a ninja one minuter and then a shinobi the next. This sort of basic thing can easily confuse readers as to who is who. Concrete identities and names are much better because they don't distract the reader from the flow of the narrative by making them stop and figure out who's doing what.

[Gangstercake]

Author's Note: I took everyone's advice and I hope I did I better job on this version.

Drip...drip...dripdripdrip...whoosh The rain rushed upon the earth, for the sky was crying. For the figure enveloped in the shadows, it was just another obstacle. After all, it was already suicidal trying to assassinate someone in broad daylight. The sun was the enemy of darkness, therefore, it is an enemy to those who dwell in the shadows. The mysterious entity emerged from gloom to transform into a man dressed in the robes of a monk. The monk descended from the sea of leaves to the earth. He had arrived at his destination. In front of the holy man loomed monstrous walls of stone, protecting and enclosing the city's blood and vitals. The monk entered the maw of the earthen beast to arrive in its body. All around him the lifeblood of the city was moving, trading, and working. It had been some time since the man had been out in public, like a normal human being. He walked along the trampled path, worn by the feet of many. In a mere moment, the monk disappeared into the shade again with a military companion. He then shifted his way through the maze-like alleyways and became a soldier upon freedom. The military man strode calmly into the castle, as though he had done it countless times. The soldier realized he would have to change again in order to enter the center of the castle. Fortunately, a master of martial arts from across the sea was visiting the shogun today. The warrior discovered his target, a tall, muscled man. "Just my size", thought the soldier. He shadowed the man, going in for the kill... when the man spun around to attack with his boulder-sized fists. The soldier, saved by his training, shortened himself, feeling the rush of air above his head. Half a second later, the large man felt his neck being poked before entering the world of dreams. The master and soldier exchanged lives, and the master left the sleeping warrior behind. The master had no trouble entering the inner castle, dressed in his foreign clothes. He consulted the map within his skull as he explored the castle's endless halls. As the martial artist arrived at the general's room, he thought, "It is almost over. He will die today." Before he slid the door open, the master sensed a trap. Flattening against the wall, he slid the door along with himself. Numerous objects with sharp edges flew out of the doorway, impaling themselves deep within the wooden interior. The master broke the door down to reveal dark clothed assailants inside. "So," thought the master, "they send ninjas to fight a ninja." He proceeded to take out his own weapons as the ninjas attacked with theirs. Ten heartbeats later, the room was painted crimson. A sole ninja left the room in order to find the general. He ascended the castle to reach the top, where he found the commander of the shogun's armies. "Well? Is he dead?", inquired the general. "Not quite", replied the ninja as he removed his scarves. "You!" shouted the shocked man, "You should be dead!" "As should you", the revealed ninja retorted. The furious general grabbed a sword and swung a metallic flash at the ninja. The shinobi quickly obtained his own sharpened metal before parrying with his own flash. The commander continued his onslaught, anger fueling his offense. However, the ninja had waited too long for this to be consumed by anger, far too long. He disarmed the general of his weapon before fusing his sword with his enemy's gut. As the blade began to turn scarlet, the ninja pushed the man to the edge of the tower. The avenger snarled, "That was for my father." He then shoved the man into the air, growling, "And this is for my mother." The general screamed as he fell from the tower before joining the earth again. As the ninja prayed to the Buddha for his parents, he wondered how he was going to escape...

I think I wrote this much better than last time, but I'm still not confident. I guess I'll find out in the reviews.

[ZeeAk]

That new story is much, much better. Good work.
The only thing that I have an issue with now is how you keep changing the ninja's name. He goes from being a ninja to a monk to a soldier to a master. It wasn't all that jarring for me, but that's possibly because I read the earlier version and know how it's supposed to end, and what's actually occurring. I don't know how it's going to affect other people, so just be careful.

Another niggling issue that I have is where you said, 'the master felt his neck get poked.' A blade digging into your neck isn't exactly what I'd call a poke, but that's not such a big detail. Still, it doesn't quite capture the visceral nature of a ninja's execution methods.

Be careful with your speech - whether a monologue or dialogue, just for future reference. By putting speech in the middle of a line, you're breaking up the flow of the story, because it seems out of place. Speech is formatted as such:
down to reveal dark clothed assailants inside.
"So," though the master, "they send ninjas to fight a ninja."

and

"You!" Shouted the shocked man. "You should be dead!"
"As should you," the revealed ninja retorted.

As for those two particular pieces of text, I don't think having that line of monologue from the ninja in the first example is necessary. Say something like, 'an ironic smirk crawled over his facial features', because what you have seems a bit cliche. In a story like this, you want to avoid cliche and create a story that is distinctively your own. For the second instance, I don't think, 'the revealed ninja retorted' is necessary. The words that he speaks carry enough weight that we don't need to know how he said them, and he's the only other character in the confrontation, so we don't need to know who spoke, either.

Other than that, you've done a commendable job improving on your story. Good work.

[Gangstercake]

Thanks for the review, but allow me to clarify a few things. The ninja did not kill the master but merely knocked him out by utilizing pressure points, he doesn't kill unless he has to. Second, I'm sorry for the confusion but I was trying to achieve something I can't really describe when I changed the main character's name. Just wanted to clear that up.

[ZeeAk]

At 1/6/11 10:28 PM, Gangstercake wrote: Thanks for the review, but allow me to clarify a few things. The ninja did not kill the master but merely knocked him out by utilizing pressure points, he doesn't kill unless he has to.

Ah, okay. That makes sense, but you might wanna clarify that in the piece a little more. My first thought that was he stabbed the master in the throat.

Second, I'm sorry for the confusion but I was trying to achieve something I can't really describe when I changed the main character's name. Just wanted to clear that up.

You were trying to maintain that air of mystery, I understand. I just wrote a piece that had a similar issue. However, you can refer to the ninja as the ninja, but just use adjectives to describe his current state of disguise. i.e. the monk-hooded assassin, the apparent soldier.

[Gangstercake]

Gotcha, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the review!

[ZeeAk]

At 1/7/11 06:48 PM, Gangstercake wrote: Gotcha, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the review!

No problem, mate.