Starring:
Date: March 13, 2014
Summary:
Yoichi and a tough squad of Genin travel to an island on a mission to eliminate a group of bandits. What they thought was a standard mission soon turns into a fight for their lives.
"Bandit Island Mission"
Island off the shore of Kirigakure
Today's mission and team are actually to Yoichi's liking. No whiny Genin who have trouble performing their orders, nor anyone trying to get around the orders and do something else and winding up sabotaging things for the whole team. At least they better not. The Swordsman has taken on the form of a giant bubble in the depths of the ocean that moves silently along toward their destination. "This is a pretty simple mission. We go in and kill everything in sight," his voice rings through the bubble as they go. "Sei, when we get in, send some of your brood to the top of the cave and have them launch an attack in the center to draw attention. While the attention is on them, use your web to block off the entrance so no one can escape. I'll create a mist and make sure there are no other exits for them to leave from. If there are, I'll notify you so you can cover them. Once that's done, everything dies. Are there any questions?"
Sarasa was pleased to go on this mission. It'd be nice to see some solid shinobi in action. But she couldn't have expected this technique. She gaped as the Hozuki turned into a giant bubble. And here she thought turning her limb into water was a large step. Even her father couldn't turn into a giant human bubble. She had to wonder if it was fragile as a bubble. She'd carefully poked the inside of the sphere to see if Yoichi-sama might pop. Maybe it wasn't the best idea, since they were submerged underwater, it might come flooding in, and she wasn't quite sure if all her teammates could swim. But he hadn't burst, much to her relief. She listens carefully to the instructions of the mission. It seems simple but effective, and she says, "No questions for me."
His brood was restless. Water, everywhere. Sure, they knew water walking, but this far under? Well.. spiders don't really swim. Part of why Sei had taught them water walking. A single nod was given in agreement with a whistle of affirmation. Both tasks wouldn't be hard to do at all, he'd head up to the roof as well, an overhead view of what's happening will allow him an easier time than attempting to filter thousands of eyes to get an idea of what's going on. He'd look tot he other two with him, as he'd kneel patiently in the bubble. Hopefully they would move with them smoothly as well.
Being stuck in another person was not one of Aishio's favorite things and a small pout was worn throughout their Yoichi-sub venture to show this. "We should see if we can mess with his guts." Aishio idly comments as she braids a few strands of her bangs. A light peer up to where Yoichi's head should be and then back to braiding her hair, knowing well that she couldn't do much to the bubble body, just the ramblings of a child stuck in place for longer than they'd like. Lucky for her, Yoichi speaks up, making it seem as if they were about to start something. "Mmmm, don't think I have any… er…" Eventually Aishio just shrugs and works on finishing up the single braid before they get in there.
Yoichi would make no comment to Aishio's rambling, pretty sure the girl knows not to try anything foolish. "Prepare yourselves," he instructs simply as the mouth of the cave begins to come into view. These bandits thought they'd picked a good hiding spot, but nowhere is really safe when one can travel this way. They won't even see it coming. As they approach the mouth of the cave, the bubble would rise to a spot at the mouth where water won't flow in as the bubble opens up just enough for Sei to enter the cave and move up unnoticed before the bubble sinks again and moves toward the docks and stops for a few moments to allow Sei to get to work.
Sarasa might be the only one who is disappointed to see the bubble trip end. It was a wonderful Hozuki technique, and she had studied in carefully. Not that she'll be able to do it tomorrow, but still. When Yoichi slows down Sarasa readies herself. She checks her gear is in place. Looks around at her teammates. And begins to gather her chakra. She looks ready, except for the fact that she's gotten into the bad habit of chewing her lip, which she's doing now. She awaits Yoichi's word, and swings her arms slightly to loosen them.
As soon as the bubble landed, Sei would leap. Webbing from spiders would spray out, latching onto the wall and the child was off, scrambling up the wall like.. well.. a spider. Spreading from him would be that black cloud, the spiders spreading out very much akin to a swarm as Sei would hide among the shadows of the ceiling. There, he'd gather himself, watching those below as he prepared for the assault. This was going to need to be big.
Aishio makes a motion of cracking her knuckles… nothing happens. The girl looks down at her hands, disappointed, she'll figure that out one day, for now it was preparation time. Her eyelids lower in focus as her chakra is gathered. A sideways glance given to Sarasa trying to get a clue as to what to do, though instantly got the idea that Sarasa might be equally inexperienced, no wonder Yoichi gave them nothing to do! For now the small Hozuki just finds comfort in knowing that they wouldn't be assigned to the mission without reason and she lowers her body, readying herself to leap out.
In the cave, there are dozens of wooden buildings built up against the stone structure of the cave, most of which have bandits coming in and out as they go about their daily business. There are several ships lined up at the docks. "I'll destroy the ships. Once Sei's begun his assault and has the webs up to block the exit, you two can start attacking. Try not to draw too much attention at first so you can kill as many of them as possible before they start attacking you."
Sarasa is able to see some of Sei's initial attack. That was quite bold, hopefully not too bold. This waiting is making her a bit nervous. She wants to get out and cut loose. She rubs her hand together in anticipation, and takes the time to see what she can of the cave. When Yoichi instructs them to bide their time, Sarasa gives a nod. Though she's not sure Yoichi can see it, since she do so she says quietly, "Sure thing." Just in case.
Wooden buildings. This made it easier. While Sei would reach his final position on that roof, the spiders, having criss-crossed the roofs of the buildings would bring all the silk together, thin strands, silvery and black would dissapear into the shadows of the roof, leading to one spot. Wrapping the silk around a stalagmite up there, sei would secure it, making it taunt. With that, the brood got directed, burrowing into the core of the rock to make it fall. As it did, the webbing that was hooked along places around the wall would go taunt, pulling, ripping the floors and legs out of the buildings, all of it rattling up the walls at first, then falling in to collapse inward, just in time for the rock to land on them. Sei moved himself, shifting location so as to not draw easy fire. The spiders directed to that entrance then. Time to seal off the cave.
"Mmmm…" Aishio gently nods to the bubble space around them. To not draw attention though, that was the opposite of what… Things would start to go into motion, seemed like things were falling apart in there. It was now that Aishio began to move, leaving their transport, she'd rise out of the water, almost unnoticeable as she herself took the form of water. Deformed down into a liquid mass, Aishio decided to move along the sides of the cave slugging about the still standing building until eventually settling underneath one, taking the form of a puddle with an eye.
As building start to be ripped up and crumble, things are going right according to plan, as bandits start to look up and around for what might be causing their home to be quite literally ripped up around them. As they search for whatever is causing this chaos above them and start to blindly throw knives and other weapons, Yoichi would eject the other two Hozuki onto the docks then leap up out of the water. As he is up in the air, he reaches back and grabs both the Kiba blades, quickly forming nine whips of lightning on each one that are swung out and begun to electricity scorch through each vessel, carving them in several places and setting them on fire as the cave entrance is sealed in. Hope of escape is now reaching sliim to none.
Sarasa is ejected and launched forward. She lands lightly on her feet, and as soon as she does she's making her way forward. Swiftly and silently. She wants to take advantage of the chaos Yoichi is making to keep her presence unnoticed for as long as possible. She uses the spaces between the wooden buildings as cover to emerge and attack the bandits who are far from consolidated after the attack. One is getting away and she swings her arm, which has turned into a long lash of water to smash him into the hard ground.
With a shuddering crash, the rock would finally impact the ground below. Sei shifted a little, refreshing his grip as the rattling shook the ceiling. A small shake of his head, he'd continue his work, finding the entrance, the spiders dug in there, wrapping webbing around and about and with a flexing of leverage, they would cave in the entrance, sealing it off completely. Sei's attention turned to the other two genin, prepared to aid if needed while his brood scattered, attacking in small clusters here and there, harassing and keeping the bandits off balance.
Aishio continues to sit quietly for some time, mostly due to her being distracted by how easily those boats were taken out. It'd tkae her a moment, though now that everyone made their move, she figured she shouldn't duck out much longer. The plan was now to coax everyone towards the flaming boats. Quickly shifting along, the puddled Hozuki ends up at the closed end of the cave, rising up behind someone who had taken to hiding in the background. A swift punch is sent to his head before she settles into a handsign, forming a distractive mist on her side of the cave. A soft giggling begins to bounce within the mists but is most likely drowned out by the sound of action elsewhere.
With the Genin doing their jobs and a rather frightening display given off from the burning ships as the exit of the cave is barricaded, the bandits are being completely thrown off balance as their numbers dwindle before their eyes. The scene that is a like a controlled petri dish to the Kiri shinobi would seem to be utter chaos to the bandits as their home crumbles and burns around them while filling with mist that hides shinobi striking them and spiders swarming over them one after another. To make it even more disturbing, an extra layer of mist extends out from Yoichi, allowing him to search all through the buildings and the rest of the caves. "Sei, there's a tunnel inside one of the buildings on the other side. Once I strke it, send your brood to take care of anyone trying to escape through it then barricade it off." With that, anotther lightning whip is swing back, scorching anyone and anything it touches as it is sent to strike at the building to identify it for the Okumo.
Sarasa takes in the situation. Her comrades seem to be doing a very good job. Usually a plan fell apart at the first attack, but so far they haven't had to deviate from the formation that was first planned out. It helps that the bandits don't seem to have an emergency plan for danger. The lack of discipline among their enemy makes her shake her head. She makes her way forward, keeping pace with her teammates. Cautiously but boldly, to drive the bandits into a corner, literally.
Sei got told to wreck something and kill everything in it. A whistle, most likely unheard in the clamor and Sei would direct his attention. A black wave broke from the shadows of the rocks on the walls, clamering for that building that got struck. They broke in holes in the walls, shattered glass, swarming it to seek out anything inside. Those inside would get consumed, the destruction hidden from view by the building but it was relentless all the same. As soon as it was cleared, much like the first opening, this one too would have the silk slung across, back and forth to pull, caving it in and destroying the building in the process as the spiders scattered again.
Aishio would note these bandits really aren't having a good time, so figures she might as well cheer one up with a little conversation. Creeping through the mist, she happens upon a bandit, armed with a harpoon who is trying to get his bearings after accidentally attacking one of his friends. "That's a nice thing. You got there.I should really get a weapon, don't you think?" He stares at the girl for a moment, a bit lost on the appearance of the kid and belatedly catching the Kiri symbol on her. By the time he reacted, the weapon was forcefully snatched from his hand. "Eh… nope, boring." It's then he notices how Aishio managed to take that weapon so easily.
The freak had one jacked arm and in a split second it grew even more buff. Nearly matching the rest of her body in size, her right arm flexes as she grins and crushes the harpoon within her hand. "Nah you'll be more fun!" Without really asking for his approval, Aishi grabs him by the legs and begins charging through the mist, using him against his own comrades. Wasn't any good for him but… she seemed to be having fun.
Yoichi would nod at Sei in approval as he quite nicely destroys the building and handles the men inside. Their escape route now closed off, they are left with little choice but to try to fight the shinobi that have them outmatched by quite a bit due to their training. Just as things seem to be going just a little TOO smoothly for the team, Yoichi's eyes narrow as he feels and spots something he hadn't expected… An S-Rank Missing Ninja from Kirigakure, Kaguya Nobuo. "Take care of the bandits and stay away from this guy!" he orders out as he quickly joins his swords together and begins to spin them around. Just as lightning strikes down literally piercing through the cave to strike Yoichi and cover his body in an aura, giant spikes of bone begin to rise up all around the cave, a dark laughter ringing out through the cave as the stakes of this mission have just gotten a lot higher than anticipated. With a puff of smoke near each Genin, giant wolves are suddenly charging Aishio and Sarasa. One might just wonder if these things know Tree Walking… until an even huger one is seen darting up around the cave wall at Sei and his brood. This has suddenly changed from maybe a B-rank mission into a high A or maybe and S, and Yoichi suddenly regrets agreeing to bring lower level Genin along. Things are now getting quite serious.
Sarasa hears a strange scream. As if the voice is both terrified and being twirled around. She ventures forward to see Aishio using a huge human sling. She snorts with laughter. That must be so embarrassing for the bandit. If he wasn't going to die in a few moments, he'd probably die from embarrassment afterwards. Sei is raining destruction on the buildings. And of course Yoichi is doing just fine. Everything seems to be going smoothly until a formidable enemy shows up. Sarasa can sense it. And she turns just in time to see a huge shape bearing down on her. A wolf?! She turns her seal making into fending the wolf off with her bare hands, and nearly falls over. But then she digs in her feet and aims to bring her leg around flexibly to wallop the beast and smash it into one of those buildings.
Sei saw it coming. Of course he did, he was on the roof. At Yoichi's yell, Sei tried to move. Although he wasn't fast enough as the wolf would tear at him. hissing in pain, those purple spiders came out of him, leaping to the wolf to attack in retaliation. From everywhere there was a spider, a loud harsh hissing would raise above the din. The okumo got hurt and the brood felt it. Of course, that meant that the brood was closer to frenzying and removing the source of that pain. Those purple spiders clung and bit, injecting that highly toxic poison into the beast as Sei scrambled for a new position on the roof.
"Doo dee doo." Aishio lazily stomped on through, luckily only coming up against low tier bandits. At least her weapon of choice stopped making noise, she wasn't entirely sure when, she did her best not to look at it. Disappearing in and out of the mist she creeps on her next target, getting ready to slam bandit into bandit until, suddenly wolves, giant wolves, giant "ninja?" wolves. It wasn't good that's all she could register in the split second she had to defend putting the body between herself and the wolf.
Beast wastes no time tearing it out of Aishio's hand, quickly shifting and going for the throat.
And so ends Aishio's career as a ninja and possibly, her life as it bites through with ease. "Gross, such bad breath…" Aishio's neck droops around the wolf's mouth, slowly at first. Then the entirety of Aishio appears to droop a bit before her chest warps around the head of the wolf. "Sarasara~ You good?!" Sarasa's name said incorrectly, maybe on purpose! Though Aishio seemed really confident in being able to drown this wolf out and hopefully help out her clanmate.
The wolf takes the hit, but only skids a bit before launching itself at Sarasa again in an attempt to clamp its jaws down on her shoulder and push her to the ground so it can devour her. In Sei's case, the wolf snarls in pain as it is swarmed by spiders, yet it is still persistent through the poison burning at its veins. The beast's fur suddenly grows extremely dense and hard, spiking up to stab through the spiders on it and send them back at their owner along with numerous other barbs of fur firing off at the fleeing Okumo. Aisho's foe is currently trapped, struggling for air as its faces and orifices are filled with water.
On Yoichi's end, he's dealing with something much more vicious. Completely surrounded by bones, he and Nobuo seem to be playing tit for tat. Appearing from a stalk of bone behind Yoichi, the Kaguya strikes at his back, somewhat impacting and somewhat going through for reformation, Yoichi striking back with an elbow to knocks him back into the bone structure, where he vanishes, only to pop up and stike Yoichi in the gut, which his bone-studded fist goes straight through and is clamped down upon for Yoichi to deliver a vicious headbutt and try to hold him in place.
Sarasa scrambles back, but the wolf manages to clamp down on her shoulder then—poof! Sarasa disappears in a puff of steam. Honestly, why always wolves? No one dies from normal wolf attacks, regardless of their bad portrayals in stories. Yet here is one trying to eat her. She seems to have disappeared before she reappears as a descending shadow to land on the wolf with condensed, heavy water. And then she swings to try her best to pummel the wolf into a whimpering heat. No wolf is going to beat her. Regardless of the fact that it may not be as formidable as the opponent Yoichi is facing, she's still going at it with deadly earnest. In fact, she's either foolishly oblivious, or trusting her comrades enough, to disregard all but this singular threat.
Sarasa scrambles back, but the wolf manages to clamp down on her shoulder then—poof! Sarasa disappears in a puff of steam. Honestly, why always wolves? No one dies from normal wolf attacks, regardless of their bad portrayals in stories. Yet here is one trying to eat her. She seems to have disappeared before she reappears as a descending shadow to land on the wolf with condensed, heavy water. And then she swings to try her best to pummel the wolf into a whimpering heat. No wolf is going to beat her. Regardless of the fact that it may not be as formidable as the opponent Yoichi is facing, she's still going at it with deadly earnest. In fact, she's either foolishly oblivious, or trusting her comrades enough, to disregard all but this singular threat.
While she had this thing trapped, she might as well make it quick. With suffocation not the best route in the heat of battle, both of her arms enlarge and her hands come together above her head. Her body warps and shifts so now her lower body was the part trapped about the wolf's head. Now technically sitting on the wolf in… a weird way, she continued to buff her arms up, a few bandits taking the time to sneak up on her. Aishio may just be as oblivious as Sarasa as she seems to pay them no mind, of course she was tracking all the movements through the mist but… giants wolves man!
"AISHIO SMASH!" On this command, the hammer drops, so hard, way too hard. For the wolves sake it better have the ability to harden its fur too because it is driven into the ground, so deep that a crater is formed. Causing a wee bit of hesitation from the sneaking bandits. Aishio herself disperses from the wolf, quietly eyeing it to see if it slugs back a bit from it.
Sarasa does valiant battle with the wolf as it strikes back for every strike given to it, gnawing and slashing at the young Hozuki. They seem evenly matched enough to go at this for a while. As for Sei and Aishio, though their canine foes attempt to fight back, it's not long before each of them decides to take the other way out and vanishes with a puff of smoke. Screw this Kaguya. He's not good enough to them to die for him.
Meanwhile, the higher ranged fight is still going. Scattering bone shots seem to get a bit wilder, incidentally killing some of the bandits along with trying to hit Yoichi. "Sei, Aishio, assist Sarasa," Yoichi's voice rings out through the mist amongst sounds of splashing, electrocution, and flesh being sliced. "Once that's done, get her out of here." While it's possible that Sei or Aishio could be at least some help at their levels, what Yoichi is most concerned with at this point is survival. Particularly, he knows Sarasa would not last as long against this guy, and it's only for sheer building of tension that he's not attacked the Genin yet. Ideally, the team will take this guy down and turn him in for his bounty, but fighting an S-Rank Missing Ninja who can regenerate from anything but decapitation so long as his body has enough energy is difficult even for Yoichi.
"Maybe I should call some of the bigger ones. I'm sure they'll want revenge after the way your Genin treated their children," Nobou's dark voice rings out through the mist as he moves from post to post. Yoichi's Lightning Scourge strikes all around the cave, attempting to strike the Kaguya and stop him from moving long enough to get a powerful shot off.
"Ugh… Just run!" Yoichi orders out to all the Genin. "Report back to the Mizukage that we've located Kaguya Nobuo! I'll hold him off!"
Most of the opposition or all of it is taken out. Sarasa sees no enemy in sight, except for the edges of an S-rank battle. When Yoichi orders a retreat, Sarasa stiffens. She can't leave! That's one of her clan members right there, perhaps the most important one. What would her clan think if she let a valuable member of Kirigakure die, and ran away. She's chewing her lip again, this time so much that it's bleeding. Well, she can't help. Maybe she should go and the others should stay.
Yet when Sei and Aishio come to beat a retreat, she follows them with a scowl. She needs to get stronger. And she will. Despite the enemy's threat, they make a safe retreat and are far gone as Yoichi continues to battle.
