Starring:
Kurome (emitter), Zankuro, Kajiru, Zori, Tsuchiri
Date: August 5, 2015
Summary:
A team of Konoha shinobi make their way to the Land of Wind to intercept a traveling troupe so they can rescue a bear.
"Bear Hunt - The Rock to Freedom"
Land of Wind
After jumping through a few hoops, Kajiru finally is able to travel to the Land of Wind! Well, Zankuro is allowed to lead a team, but the fact that Kajiru seems pretty close to their 'client' means she gets to go too, right? The team is already long gone from Konoha, having traveled for a week up until this point. It is only now that they are reaching the border with the Land of Wind. Trees and grass had long since given way to sparse grass and the heat of the desert. While it is winter, the desert is quite hot…
Having someone as unpredictable as Kajiru on the team wasn't Zankuro idea of a good time for this kind of mission, but the Chuunin did not argue against her presence. Granted, the rotund young man didn't have much of a case against her, so… what the heck, right?
By the end of the week, Zankuro was questioning the sanity of his past self. Quietly, of course, what with their being no reason to worry his folks. Or not. By the time the reach the borders the Sarutobi /is/ looking a little on edge. So much so in fact that he forgot to assign positions for the team for the day. As far as his worn out mind was concerned, so long as at least Zori and Kajiru were within eye sight, all was relatively well. And if fate decree that Tsuchiri should be ahead of him as well, well…. he wouldn't mind that in the slightest as well!
"Look lively troops, and behold! The largest darn sandbox in the world." He calls out to the others.
Looking at the sand that is becoming far more common, Kajiru sniffs at the air and blinks as she looks around. She looks at the sky and frowns before she hmms and looks to Zankuro, "This is…different. The air smells dry and almost, well, it's almost like it smells, well…dead." She seems unsure of how else to understand the air. She glances left and right. Of course, she was on the mission! IT was her gosh darn idea and her bear! She was gonna save the bear, be friends with it, wrassle it, and then ride it into battles sometimes! She then looks over at Zankuro at his words and then looks around, "Doesn't look like a fun sandbox."
Zori was bored being locked up in his jail cell. Its been about 4 months ICly the young boy has been locked up. Finaly one of the guards approached Zori in front of his jail cell and mentioned something about a bear hunt mission. Zori excitedly stares at the Guard "Please let me in on it". The Guard hmms for a moment placing his hand on his chin. "Alright then, Zori you can go" Zori snickers "Good…now for my wir-" The Guard interrupts "You will not be given those back, until further noticed. I will have Zankuro be in charge of watching you while your on this mission, you will report back here after the mission Understand me?" Zori snickers "Very well" The cell doors open and Zori walks out it and out the Police headquarters. Zori then takes for the trees traveling from tree to tree till he arrived at the mission meet up point. Zori jumps down from the tree landing near Zankuro and Kajiru. A soft snicker could be heard.
Chiri was… given a curious message from an undisclosed source that wanted her to assist in a mysterious 'bear hunt', to show them what the Land of Bears could do… and thus, she found herself joining the motley crew on their quest to the land of wind to sla- save a bear. Saving bears is not something she has experience with, really! But, her current attire is better than her usual uniform for the heat- but not for sun exposure. 'Sandbox' has her feeling excited.
"We don't have this much sand back at home!" she cheers. "I hope everybody packed their hunting supplies, and water." she brought an accessory with her, a large satchel that hangs onto her left hip.. probably filled to capacity.
Man, that desert is pretty vast. It's also no place for bears. But the big ol' bears here because his younger brother is supposed to be! And that's why he suddenly shows up behind Kajiru and flops down, making the ground quake a little. "Oh good, you made it!" he says, sounding a bit more cheerful now that they're making some headway. "That kid said that they traveled this way, but I think they might be leaving by now. I did a bit of searching, and apparently the performing theatre got burned down!"
Zankuro starts, and whips about to regard the source. Seeing a bear barely a few feet away from one of the smaller members of his group puts him even more on edge. Fortunately, it talked, giving the Sarutobi pause long enough not to flip out… More. "You didn't have anything to do with-…" Zankuro catches himself and cringes. "Uhm… ne-nevermind. Just tell us where you've last seen them head, and will get a move on. Ain't that right everybody?" He looks about the group, guaging their reaction. Regardless of their answer, the Sarutobi still gives the bear a nod to lead them on after all is said and done.
Spinning around, Kajiru sticks her arms up and lets out a, "Yay!" She then rushes over and attempts to hug the bear, "My bear friend! And if the theater burned down then they are definitely leaving!" She nods her head, "We gotta get them and stop them and beat them up and then wrestle!" She nods her head and points at the bear, "Oh! And I'll be wrestling the Raikage soon, did you know that? He challenged me to a wrestling competition that I'm totally going to win after I become friends with all the bears!" She then looks over at Zori and then leans over to the bear, "And that's Zori, he's a big butt head so watch out cause he likes to be a jerk face for no reason." She then points at Tsuchiri, "And that's Tsuchiri. She sneaks into places where people are naked."
Well, it seems that both Zori and Tsuchiri … must abandon the case. Zori because the Guard with him discovered that Zori had totally tried to start making wires out of other materials (that crazy Zori…), and Tsuchiri just got sun-stroke or something and had to stay back. Guess it's just Zankuro and Kajiru and the huge bear! The bear says, "From what I heard, they were making their way back to the Land of Fire. If we go this way," he points his snout south and a bit west, "We should run into them easily."
By the time Kajiru finish speaking, Zankuro has his face buried deeply into his palm. Within the span of a few minutes, the team not only got wittle down to just a pair, but the wittling down was the resultof nothing but a string of unfortunate events! What were the odds!?
"Ugh…. Right… Right… Alright, that sounds good." He pulls his hand away, and forces a grin. "We'll head them off. WIth any luck, we'll even be able to set up an ambush, so let's double time things alright?" Zankuro doesn't wait for much of a response before marching on ahead of his even more ragtag band of adventurers.
"See, what'd I tell ya?! He's a bad kid!" Kajiru nods to the bear as they are on their way in the direction Zankuro is now leading them, "But Zankuro here is supposed to be a real big deal and I don't mean just cause of his belly." HSe nods and giggles as she walks with the bear, "We'll get your little bear brother out and runnin' in no time!" She nods her head and then marches off all pleased with herself, "And then we can have food!"
Band of adventurers… Being a bear, a girl, and a rotund Sarutobi. Interesting combination! The bear follows along behind Kajiru, its beady eyes hidden in its fur. "I don't like it here," he complains in a low growl. "It's too hot," he puffs out.
The poor group is going to have to bear complaints like that for about an hour before a bit of dust can be seen on the horizon. It doesn't take much longer, though, to see that it is definitely the traveling troupe. They're going at a steady pace, and their colors are so colorful that it's blinding. A blind person would be grateful for their lack of sight, the mix was so horrifying.
"Oh! There!" he says, pointing with a blunt claw. "That's what the carriage was described as. My bother must be in there!" He … then charges forward excitedly. What a thoughtful bear! He did acknowledge Kajiru with a nod whenever she spoke, though, until this cart showed up. So he's a pretty nice bear once you get to know him?
Yep, Zankuro is just gonna tune out most of the nonsense along the way. His sanity was already hanging on a razor's edge after a week long trek with the original colorful band of characters.
Unfortunately, he /does/ almost ignoring a helpful hint as a result. Almost, but not quite. Its kind of hard to ignore a big of paw that can easily crush one's head in a single swipe. "Good. Now we can… totally ignore any and all forms of planning." Zankuro deadpans as the bear goes charging off. Following a heavy sigh, Zankuro just motions for Kajiru to run off after the bear; assuming she hasn't already taken off as well.
Zankuro in the meantime intended to move along at his own pace, and play damage control.
Grinning as the bear rushes off, Kajiru glances over to Zankuro and then runs off, too. He is motioning forward just as she is going by him and her claws extend. As her teeth sharpens, she lets loose a little roar of her own as she races in and then declares, "Your time is up!" She gestures at the colorful crew and then nods, "Give me back my bear friend!" Who she has not met, not talked with, nor had any real interaction with at all as far as she knows and is frankly making friends with someone who hasn't even had a chance to know her name. Hooray!
And then chaos begins. The bear charging at the group of travels suffers through a barrage of arrows that get fired at him and Kajiru, with the big bear taking most of them while a few make their way past I'm and at Kajiru. Zankuro has enough laz- forethought that he isn't in range quite yet. The huge bear lets out a loud roar and comes down upon the carriage, smashing down on the seat that holds the driver while men shoot arrows out of the cart 'windows' and from the top.
There was more than just forethought guiding this Sarutobi's actions. He absolutely needed to know how the troupe would respond to such an odd pair. Unfortunately…
"Not quite enough, but—" Zankuro says no more before sucking in a deep gulp of air while forming one hand sign after the other. Multiple fireballs are spewed out in rapid succession. While a rare few might glass the sand, the rest would hopefully damage any wheels badly enough to stop the troupe in its tracks.
He only hoped they got the right guys…
Rushing inward, Kajiru races past the attacks without ever being hit. She then rushes right at her attackers. Even as fire hits enemies around her, she claws one of the original attackers and then races past for another. The third guy she reaches is the least lucky as she attempts to jump up and bite right into his shoulder and rip a chunk free before landing and growling, "GIve it up!" She declares and looks around, "I want my bear friend…NOW!" SHe roars out.
OMG So much pain! Fire is not the troupe's best friend, especially after that last incident. They squeak, scream, and scramble to get away, with only two lucky enough to escape harm. Only to find themselves running into an angry beast-girl that enjoys tearing out shoulders. The men are so panicked at this point that they … largely flee. It's not worth keeping the animals at the risk of their lives! But they don't want to go out without a fight
Those that are escaping now, they start setting bombs and explosive tags and flash bangs to the cart. The big bear that has been seeking out his brother smashes into the cart, knocking one over to its side. This makes a very loud bear-roar come out, meaning that they probably have the right folk. "BROTHER! I GOT YOU!" yells the big bear, slamming his large paws onto the metal cage that holds the younger bear. This might be a bad idea, though, as his paw happens to hit a flash bang that makes the big bear go all woozy.
"Stupid wind." Zankuro murmurs underbreath. Midway through a silent promise to adjust his course, the Sarutobi comes under attack! Sadly, he can't quite think ahead to dodge all of the explosive tags, but throwing up a literal small wall of shields certainly helps in the end. He risks a glance past his shield. Through the haze of smoke Zankuro can just barely make out the sight of woozy bear, and curses underbreath. "Kajiru! Focus! Cover Mr. Bear till he recovers!" He calls out.
Dumb idea? Maybe. But with any luck the thieves will make the mistake of focusing on the other two and and miss noticing another barrage of fire balls being launched at them from a more focused chuunin!
Dodging around the explosives, one sends her flying back and she ends up frowning as she uncovers her hands from her face. She races over to the bear and the cage and looks inside the cage before looking to the escaping guys before she states, "We got the bear!" She calls out to Zankuro and then looks again at the cage and then at the big bear friend, "You ok?" She pokes at the big bear and pushes at him to see if he is ok.
The troupe is sent away with their tails between their legs, and they don't look too happy to have lost their main form of entertainment. But they'll be back! And likely will be suing Konoha for unjust assault or something… But that's beside the point. Kajiru would find that the bear within is just fine. A little malnourished and scrawny compared to his older brother, though. "Uhhhhh-huhhhhh" the big bear says with a dazed expression, pawing idly at those little yellow duckies floating around his head. The good news: the bear was got back and the troupe has fled! The bad news: there is now a cartful of animals that Zankuro needs to take care of….
Zankuro had taken cover behind the shield wall again after firing his last barrage. Now that things are begining to quiet again, it was time for another peek. "Heh, Look at'm run… Not that I blame them. But still…" Zankuro just shakes his head, then after a brief moment of hesitation, he proceeds closer to the carts. He… didn't even want to think about how much more trouble was now stacked on his head thanks to this probono mission. But of course, that stupid conscious of his had to worry about every little detail.
"What a mess…. Kaijuu-chan. See about getting that brother of his out of there. Once he's out and you guys are well on your way back to the border, I'll.. see about contacting Suna. With any luck, they'll be willing to deal with the rest." The none-too convinced Sarutobi says as he rubbed at the back of his neck.
Nodding her head as she looks at the bear, she looks ove rat Zankuro and then nods again before she attempts to…well, first try to chew open the lock before she'll get frustrated and look over for a rock and start smashing it into the rock. SHe is doing what she can but she's only so strong so she might be having to wait for someone stronger if she can't smash open the lock. She's tough for her size but only so much in the way of her size. Here's hoping the explosions burst the door well enough, "Don't worry bear friend!" She nods her head, "I'llg et you out then we'll get back and then we'll become the best friends ever!"
It takes a bit, but the bear is finally free! … umm… And those other animals, too, technically. They all look a bit scared and not afraid of human contact. Hopefully the nice Leaf-nin have the heart to find them a nice place to stay, otherwise they might die! The two bears get reunited, bear-hugging each other (literally) and then going *POOF* without even a good bye! Oh no! Such rude bears.
