㊙️ Rubber Ninja
Uncatchable and unbreakable, Kagemaru walked the whole path from a homeless urchin to a high class teenage ninja.
After his parents were assaulted, he ended up in the street and survived under a bridge until one very fat boy talked to him and invited him to join his family.
"I'm starving and that boy is so fat, I must join that family immediately, they definitely have a lot of food," he thought. "Besides, he is incredibly kind, the first person who even noticed me!"
And so he was brought to the family that happened to be a family of martial artists who owned a whole camp.
The fat boy, whose name was Yoko, became his best friend. Kagemaru learned that his mass was required by his style of martial arts, sumo, and in fact Yoko was really strong.
Soon Kagemaru shared with his new friend the story of his parents and Yoko immediately retold it to his superiors, who quickly arranged a mission to avenge Kagemaru's parents.
By description they found those bandits who killed his parents and dealed with them accordingly. Now young Kagemaru was in great debt! Not only they gave him food and shelter but they even brought back the justice for him.
Despite the young age, he found the right words to state that his life now belonged entirely to the clan and he would serve the clan to the rest of his days in every way possible.
The superiors checked him out and found that he's small and skinny and might make a perfect spy. But because he was so young, it would take at least a decade before his first real mission.
A whole decade was a lot of time and it was decided that he could use that much training time to become something special. He was a supple child and could easily be trained to become extremely flexible and be able to do what others can't.
After some first lessons, Kagemaru was excited! His feet touched his head with ease and he even almost managed to get his head to touch his own butt!
He never tried stretching before but now it was like discovering his most favorite thing to do! He fell in love with stretching and started training all day, both on his own and with the help of his friend Yoko.
Of course there was pain but it was pain of pushing yourself real hard, not the pain of getting hurt. His body resisted, it was like a battle to tame it to become perfect.
After only a few weeks young Kagemaru learned to bend backwards so far that his head came through his own thighs, but he never wanted to stop. He kept pushing and pushing, and lucky Yoko wasn't exactly gentle, he enjoyed pushing Kage to the limit.
After a few years his body became so stretchy that it could bend like rubber. It was still some years before his supposed first mission but he was already allowed to wear a ninja outfit.
So far the only use for his inhuman flexibility was to entertain the superiors. He was loved but not spoiled, he treated his performances with all seriousness and every evening showed off his best.
Although he was always sure he was steadily growing into a fearsome ninja, he once overheard them calling him a "cutie" and that put a heavy blush on his cheeks.
Since then he doubled his efforts to make sure they take him seriously. Streams of sweat ran down his burning backbone at the end of each training session. His legs were ready to fall of from the extreme oversplits but he was only craving for more.
As a teenager he taught himself to pack inside a suitcase that didn't look big enough to contain even a small child. He was sure he would be called a real monster after such a fearsome act! But instead he heard someone whispering really quietly that it was "adorable".
Kagemaru decided to earn the title of a fearsome monster the hard way and learn to bend his knees backwards like a flamingo. There's no way anyone would find that "cute"!
Unfortunately that move seemed to contradict the very human anatomy and his kneecaps refused to cooperate. He did manage to somewhat curve his legs in a pretty impossible way... only to be called "elegant"!!
Kagemaru simply lost his mind trying to think of ways to gain the reputation as a fearsome warrior.
"Your body may be soft like rubber but your personality is really stiff," Yoko told him once. "If you want to be a good spy, you need to be more flexible."
"But Yoko, I am already..."
"Not just your body! Your mind! You need to liberate your spirit, explore your feminine side, use it to your advantage!"
Yoko was right. Kage tried for so many years to be manly and, now to think of it... it makes no sense for a spy to be manly in the first place! For years he trained to be strong when he was supposed to be deceptive! That's what the clan really wanted from him. The true flexibility!
Day by day, Kage started training his very spirit, trying to soften himself on the inside. He learned to walk on tiptoes and swing his butt until people couldn't take their eyes off him as he walked.
He learned some manners and softened his voice, only to discover it sounded a lot more natural than him trying to talk like a tough samurai kid.
He polished himself to such perfection that even his body responded by becoming even more flexible. He no longer needed to look manly as he stretched, he finally learned to go beyond that limitation.
Kagemaru smiled, he finally stepped on the right path in this life. The path of the rubber ninja.