Starring:
Date: February 13, 2015
Summary:
Nin from two different villages are sent to retrieve an artifact from a nameless country in between two great ones. What they find is not what they expected…
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"A Plushie Adventure"
A Plushie Adventure
An item of 'interest' has been taken note of in the apparently unnamed nation that lies between the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth. This nation houses Kusagakure, the Village Hidden in the Grass, and they have notified both of the closest nations that this 'item', whatever it is, is available if they wish to come retrieve it. They have no apparent interest in it themselves. As it so happens both Konohagakure and Iwagakura get word near the same time and send out teams near enough to each other that the chance of them arriving near the same time is pretty damn remarkable.
From Konoha, Hige, Nagai, Konsho, and Nami were sent out with Nameless Lazy Chuunin 1. They are now in the nameless country and are near the items reported location.
From Iwa, Kanae, Honosuke, and Nameless Lazy Chuunin 2. They are pretty well on the mark with coming to the item as well. In fact if I had a guess it would take just about one pose round. Luckily for us, the two Nameless Lazy Chuunin have decided to take a break and wait a few miles back to snack while the rest of their respective groups move on.
Nameless country is also all grass, obviously. No mountains, very few trees. Just…FYI.
Hige and Konsho run along the nameless country grasslands at top speed, not happy to be on an item retrieval mission, especially one that isn't going to require any kind of excitement. But he does what he needs to do for now, trying to stay on the good side of folks and all. He glances back at Nagai to make sure the other Genin is keeping up okay before returning his attention ahead. "We're almost there, supposedly."
Nagai runs along with Hige and Konsho. Nami is taking a break from running by sleeping in Nagai's travel pack. It's bumpy, but she's curled up on top of a blanket, so it's rather soft for the trip. Nagai huffs and puffs, having no training for running so long. Something he regrets not doing during his academy days now. "Good…huff…can't wait…puff…" he heaves out, but still keeps up somehow.
This is Kanae's first mission, and she's a bit nervous. She's not sure what to expect, but it is supposed to be a D rank, yes? The girl glances back to Honosuke, wondering why Amegakure was assisting Iwa and why he was assigned with her. She can understand why Iwa might want more people on the missions, but… "I think we're almost there…" she says with a look around, trying to remember some checkpoints…
The chuunin from Amegakure was dressed in his usual mission outfit, an armored cloak, his chuunin outfit, and a pair of dark goggles. He held a rebreather in his mouth, puffs of recycled air escaping from the vents as cooled vapor. He wasn't exactly sure why he was assigned to this mission himself, but easy respect and funds scored for Ame were more than a good enough reason to follow along with the Iwa-nin. "It would seem so. I recommend that we approach with relative caution, as we do not know who else would be here for the item." A small lump shuffles a bit along the shoulder of the Nara and he reaches up a hand to pet it a bit, and a quiet croak escapes the cloak. "We're almost there, Gamatetsu, patience."
And so it is with the younger Konoha Genin just blazing ahead that they arrive first while the cautious Iwa/Awe pair will be there only a handful of seconds later. What they find when they arrive is a half buried sealed crate that looks to have been there for a while. Nothing overly exciting, though for a team to be dispatched it has to be something exciting inside, right?
Hige and Konsho slow as they near, walking the last few steps towards the crate curiously before crouching down to look at it, then look up to Nagai curiously. Maybe the cat boy has some idea of what the teddy this thing is and why they came all this way for it. "Must be something important." He muses with a little shrug.
Nami peeks her head out of the pack as Nagai stops running. "Well, this must be it, huh? Seems like such a small thing." He bumps the crate with a boot as Nami mews. She scampers out of the pack and lands lightly on the ground to sniff at it. Nagai sniffs the air and says, "Yeah, it must be if they sent someone to get it."
Kanae has yet to see the frog, so she's thinking Honosuke is crazy for talking to himself. When they finally arrive, the Konoha nin are already there. She narrows her eyes a bit, saying, "You two are here for the package, huh? You're it gonna get it!" She draws a kunai. "You guys better stay away from that crate!"
When Honosuke arrives with the Iwa-nin, he blinks at the Konoha-nin present, and then turns to peer at his partner for this mission and her brandishing of the kunai. "Thats a bit aggressive, don't you think? Perhaps we should try negotiation before we move to open hostilities, hm? After all, we know nothing of their capabilities…and to attack without knowing your enemy is folly."
"Yeah. Well," Hige says with a heavy sigh, "Let's get this and…" his voice trails off as the other two arrive and the Inuzuka boy stands and turns to face them. "What the…" Iwa and…Ame? How odd. "Calm down," Hige says, raising his hands defensively at the threat from Kanae before he uses one hand to run through his hair. "I really don't want to start some war between any of our villages over some stupid item retrieval." He says loud enough to make sure the others can hear. "I'm sure we can think of something…" he trails off again as he glances back at Nagai for an idea. And one he gets. He hmms softly to himself as he looks from the Maneshi to the Iwa Genin, then back and forth again. "How 'bout this. You two spar and whoever wins gets the…whatever this is." He kicks the crate at that. Whatever makes him think they're similar enough to sparwho knows. Good guess? Good nose? Wants to see Nagai get beat up? Could be any combination!
Nagai looks surprised at the idea. "Are you…sure, Hige-sama?" he says softly, Nami rubs up against Nagai's leg and purring as if encouraging him. "Really? You too?" he asks Nami, picking her up. He plants her on his shoulder as she mrows at the Iwa genin. Nagai hurms and eyes the genin, "Wait a second…" he gestures towards Kanae with both hands, "…she's a girl!"
"Does that matter?" Kanae questions, clearly offended. The teen eyes Hige, giving a small nod. "I'll accept those conditions… What about you?" she directs to Honosuke. Once he gives the okay, she focuses her attention on Nagai. "So? Ready?" She focuses a bit of her chakra in preparation.
The Nara gives a bit of a shrug, crossing his arms over his chest. "Sounds fine for now, I suppose. Whats the worst that could happen?" He looks at the other genin curiously and smirks beneath his rebreather. Well, could be worse, he guesses. If anything, he can always even the odds if necessary.
With a potential war at least temporarily put to rest Hige sighs softly. He's not usually one to go the peaceful route himself but this just seems a lot easier then an open battle in a foreign country. Seriously. Plus he just ran all that way he can use a break. Hige steps back and gives Nagai a pat on the back. "Don't take her lightly. And don't die." With those parting words of wisdom the Inuzuka pushes Nagai away and goes to sit on part of the crate to watch. Konsho sits nearby seeming quite entrigued. The Inuzuka motions for the chuunin to join him as well.
Nagai looks worried as Nami scrunches down on his shoulder. "Hey now wait a second…you…" and Nami rises up her back and fur. She gives a his as chakra flows out from Nami and into Nagai, mixing with his own and giving his chakra a boost. Nagai flicks his wrists as twin wires shoot out from the sleeves and he cracks both along the ground. They lift up from the ground and dance in the air as chakra flows through them. Nagai points an open palm towards Kanae and the wire shoots out like a coiled snake striking and hoping to ensnare her. With the other hand, he pulls out a kunai and launches himself at her as wire bends and begins to sing around Nagai.
Kanae tries to block the attack on her, an earthen wall appearing between her and one wire. Sadly, she isn't able to avoid the kunai and ends up with a nice slash across her cheek. "Ow!" She glares at the Maneshi and makes a handseal, allowing for the barrier of earth to manipulate itself into three bullets that go spiraling at the cat-boy.
Honosuke watches the goings on as he approaches the crate, leaning against it quietly. "Well, she is obviously fresh from the academy…this is going to be an interesting battle perhaps. Though, the cat might complicate things. Lets hope that it isn't too one sided."
Hige watches as things get underway. This may not have been one of his best ideas but it beat out any alternatives. He really /didn't/ want to have to fight. He'd hardly had a break the last few weeks between training and missions. Hige nods his agreement to Honosuke when the chuunin approaches and the boy leans forward to rest his arms on his legs as he watches. "Yeah." He muses to himself. He hadn't seen Nagai fight with Nami yet. Interesting. "So Iwa and Amegakure? Which village are you both sent from to get this thing?"
Nagai quickly dodges and rolls, avoiding the first two bullets and makes a hand sign and gets hit by the earth bullets. He poofs in a bunch of smoke, showing splintered logs that fall the ground. From his hiding spot in a tree, he watches Kanae and leaps down at her, cocking a fist ready to let his speed dictate how the attack goes. He spins around to recover, hit or not and snaps out a wire line, yanking hard and hoping it works. Finally, he gives a quick spin kick where she was a moment ago.
The dodging works out well for Kanae, but that string stuff… She gets tangled up in it for a bit, then is kicked, the girl letting out a puff of wind that was in her lungs. "Ow…" she mutters again, tearing off the strings so she can get more earth fired at her opponent.
"I was contracted to assist Iwagakure. Not much more to it than that, really." A puff of cooled air escapes his rebreather and he casually peers at the box with an idle glance, almost like he is trying to see through the thing and to the contents. "Awfully strange to just find a crate out here, though. Especially if Kusagakure didn't want it."
"I just go where I'm told." Hige mutters in response to coming out to get the weird crate. He watches as things progress still before blinking a few times and sighing softly. "Great. Visitors." He mutters as his Inuzuka ears catch the sound of people coming. Hige spins on the great to look out in the direction their coming from. "No headbands. Bandits." He looks up at Honosuke. "Well, we're going to have to fend them off first. Then we'll share whatever the sock monkey is in this thing. Deal?" He asks before standing and looking towards Nagai. "Stop playing around Nagai, Nami. We have trouble."
Nagai starts running, keeping the bullets zinging past him, but one pelts him in the shoulder, stinging a bit. "Wait, what? Bandits?" he says, sniffing a bit too as his wire lines retract into his sleeves. "Oh yeah, there they are…" he says, picking up the scent, and seeing them, and hearing them. Yeah, he didn't have to sniff. "Ok, I say deal, no more fightning?" he asks, Kanae.
Kanae straightens and nods. "Deal," she says, glancing over in the bandits' direction. She shifts a bit so that she's facing towards them more, eyeing the Konoha-nin. They were a bit stronger, and definitely more experiecned than her despite her age. She would watch them and Honosuke. "So… Should we just wait?" she asks, frowning a bit.
"It would probably be in our best interests to at least pause the fighting until we deal with the bandits…who might be a better target for your skills than the genin there, at least for now. A bit more practical experience might be useful for you." Turning in the direction of the bandits, Honosuke loosens his cloak a bit and a small toad appears from his shoulder hopping up to rest on top of his head, croaking out with, "Lets get em!"
Hige doesn't wait around. As the bandits near he goes down on all fours and Konsho jumps on his back. From one moment to the next there are two boys and no ninken. The pair jump off of the crate up into the air and start spinning, coming down on a pack of three bandits who look rather stupified as they realize that what they took for villagers are actually shinobi. One of them even has that 'oh shit' look on his face just before the three are swallowed up and spit out in tangled messes.
Nagai says, "Right…" then points an open palm towards the bandits. He shoots out a wire line out, wrapping a shiney wire around a leg. Nagai pulls hard, pulling the bandit off his feet as he pulls out a pair of kunai. He casually tosses them up into the air and each thunk into the bandit.
Kanae follows the others' leads, making a single handseal for her jutsu so that the earth twists below the men's feet. When they look down, they might notice small 'pebbles' moving, though that's when they end up getting pelted by a number of bullet-like earth missiles! They don't hit very hard, but they are aimed directly at the bandits' faces, which is sure to hurt if they were properly turned.
As the bandits approach, Honosuke makes the Rat handsign and takes a stance, allowing his chakra to flow out through his shadow and it rushes out, splitting into a pair of tendrils, which catch two of the bandits as they try to run, locking them in place. The toad on his head croaks out something and then the Ame-nin nods as a slight narrowing of his eyes send his shadow crawling up their bodies where a hand made of shadow locks around their neck, squeezing until the hand clenches tightly and wrenches and the sound of cracking bone can be heard as the enemies expire painfully, simply slumping to the ground with a look of horror on their faces.
The bandits are in disarray as the variety of shinobi attack them. Shouts go out as they try to regain some semblance of a formation but each time they start a new attack arrives and they're once again thrown out of whack. Already a good number of them are down and some are retreating…but some are stupid enough to stay around and fight for the treasure.
Hige and Konsho-Hige land from their gatsuga and both are surrounded by lightning energy. They tear the the ranks of the closest bandits, running through on all fours and slashing with claws imbued with lightning that rend through flesh like a hot knife through butter. They don't seem to mind any blood splatter as they work in tandem, cleaning up a nice litter area of bandits in no time. The poor bandits don't even know what hit them and there's certainly no chance of a retaliatory attack.
Kanae switches to non-chakra hits and kicks for the ones stupid enough to stick around. She wasn't too strong, but a few well-placed kicks later, those she attacked would be on the ground either unconscioius from pain or they have a majorly bloody face. 'The stone doesn't bend…' she murmurs to herself as she attacks, apparently trying to follow that mantra.
A final few bandits are cleared up by Honosuke as he performs a series of handsigns and then with a long exhalation, he blasts out a series of lances of water which strike the enemy with a great deal of concussive force, shattering bones and leaving huge bruises, taking them out of the fight effectively. Turning to the others, he nods, a long exhalation of cooled mist escaping his rebreather. "Shall we return to the issue of the crate, then?"
The rest of the bandits are fleeing, but a good three-quarters of them lay dead or dying in the grass before the shinobi. Apparently they weren't all suicidal and stupid, just most of them.
As the bandits retreat Konsho turns back into his normal self and Hige straightens up, running a hand through his hair before returning to the crate. He waits for the others to return as well before he channels the lightning into his claws and rips off a small portion of the create. And what lies inside?
.
..
…
All of this excitement and effort for PLUSHIES! That's right, it's a crate full of fluffy little plushies! Hige blinks a few times before he reaches in and pulls one out that kind of looks like Konsho. "Hey, look Konsho. A twin!" The nin-pup doesn't look amused though. Still…Hige is grinning. He reaches in again and pulls out a little cat plushie, "Hey, this one looks like Nami!" Too bag Nagai is off licking his wounds somewhere. When he squeezes the plushie it meows even!
Kanae blinks as every one of the bandits is defeated that easily. That means either these konoha genin were strong, or these bandits were pathetic. She'd like to think the former… "Ha! Don't come back!" she yells at the fleeing ones before turning to look at the box's contents. PLUSHIES! She jumps up and grabs one that looks like a monkey. "They're soooooo cute!" she exclaims.
The chakra of the Ame-nin relaxes and he turns to peer at the opening box for a moment and then, as it is opened…he just blinks, once, twice. A long sigh and he shakes his head. "Well, at least it wasn't a bomb." He looks down and rifles through a few times before he croaks up to the toad, who shuffles a bit and croaks in return. Reaching down in, Honosuke produces a toad plushie a bit bigger than Gamatetsu, as well as a tadpole, which he gives to his summoned friend, who squeezes it a bit. "I think it might be better to distribute these things amongst the children of the respective villages."
"So." Hige runs a hand through his hair as he looks from the crate to the other two nin. "I guess it's all yours. Except these two. I think they'd kill me back home if I brought all these back so, you can do what you will with them." Hige keeps the one's that looks like Konsho and Nami. Just cause. Any further inspection will reveal nothing beyond the obvious. "Inuzuka Hige, by the way. This is Konsho. That was Maneshi Nagai." He thumbs back to the cat boy, "And Nami his companion." He will wait around long enough to get the names of the other two before giving a half hearted salute. "Hope we meet again soon." A wasted mission, an entirely wasted day, and some wasted resources. Together, the four nin, two nin ken, and the frog all conspired over who would win a large crate of useless plushies.
