Starring:
Date: October 5-November 6, 2012
Summary:
Raili confronts the ninja behind Mujina Hisenkou's continuous bloodwrath, and finds herself having to contend with both of them.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"The Golden Stripe - Beast of Battle"
Yuurin Forest [Land of Trees]
LAST TIME, ON THE ADVENTURES OF RAI'N'REI!!!
"RAILI-SAN!!! HELP!!!" X.X
*SMASH!!!*
"Well, that was close. Did you get anything good? Cause all I got is a rodent."
"Ah, there you are!"
*dramatic pause and low, tense music for appearance of villain*
"…Welcome to the Shinrin, brethren. I would have solemn words with you…alone."
DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUN!!!
So, yeah, Raili and Aburei are now confronted with the rogue ninja who stole the Mujina clan's summoning scroll, and he seems to have the Shinrin tribe dancing to his tune. The shaman looks nervously confused. "Er, alone, Hoyuusha? I thought we were going to get to the induction ceremony — " Hoyuusha cuts him off with a backhanded dismissing gesture. "Trust me, wise one. It's ninja business. Besides, we can't do the ceremony for two people at once, right? Why don't you start with the boy. Raili and I will be along shortly." The Shinrin seem ready to comply with this suggestion, although they're dejected that Hoyuusha is already getting alone time with Raili. Probably now none of them will have even a ghost of a chance with her. ;.; Aburei is ushered along by the Shinrin, casting a worried glance over his shoulder as he goes. Watch out, Raili-san. >.>;
Hoyuusha keeps his gaze fixed on Raili while the Shinrin retreat. Once they're out of earshot, he smirks just slightly. "So, you've discovered my little experiment here. Wasn't expecting them to send in ninja so soon, but I suppose the timing works well enough for me." Hoyuusha's eyes flick upward briefly. "Kumogakure no Sato. A shrewd organization, from what I've heard. I think we can work together. What have you gathered so far about this? I'll fill you in on the rest."
Well this was a bit troubling. Instantly seperated from Aburei and left with a man that could be a true danger but, her own safety did not bother her. More so worried about Aburei as he goes off with the rest of the tribesmen, she glances his way with a worried frown and sets her focus on Hoyuusha.
When his question is posed she tilts her head to the side. "Eh, discovered your experiment? I wouldn't call a gathering of nature lovers much an experiment unless." Raili gasps, the surprised expression obviously forced as her wide eyed gasp is quickly cut short and shifted to a smirk.
"Honestly not much has been gathered, beyond your badger lord terrorizing villagers. I'm just here to find a way to stop that from happening but… you offered to fill me in on the rest and, I've got time so." Raili shrugs her shoulders, "What's this you want to work together on?" Raili keeps things oddly cool, hopefully Hoyuusha doesn't know any better.
Hoyuusha chuckles. "Yes, of course. I surmised that's what you were hired for. Don't worry, I've no quarrel with Yuukoku Village. Sending the badger out there to smash a few houses was just to keep the Shinrin happy, and test his performance." Hoyuusha gestures at the gnarled roots which keep Hisenkou confined. "Summons can be such fickle weapons, you know? They have minds of their own, and they often don't perform well if you don't keep them happy. Sometimes they'll even betray you. But here…here, we have a way of mitigating that problem. If you keep a beast down there, it'll stop thinking about troublesome things like whether it feels like obeying or if it really wants to hurt those it's sent against. It'll only think about destroying."
Hoyuusha shrugs. "Of course, that also means they're not smart or discriminating about their targets, but hey, that's what ninja are for, right? Summons are what you pull out when you want to cause some wide-scale destruction. It's a simple system, really. One shinobi summons the beast onto the battlefield, then a while later when the job is done, another shinobi summons it back into its cage. Up until now I've had to handle both ends, which was a shame because I couldn't afford to watch the badger at work for long. I was planning to find out if any of the Shinrin could handle summoning a beast this powerful, but if your village could assign some competent ninja to turn this into a proper operation, we could skip that. All we'd need the Shinrin for now is to find out how they made this wonderfully useful tree. After all, it would be better to have several of them available, preferably in your homeland, eh?" ;)
"Well this was a bit more interesting than I initially thought, said the Raili." The woman says aloud to, apparently just the air around her. Her focus drops back onto Hoyuusha as if forgetting he was actually there despite all the talking he just did. "Eh, I'm gonna be honest summons aren't something I know much of. Though, labeling them as weapons definitely isn't the right idea. They're beings that are usually a lot more impressive than us from what I've seen." Raili shrugs, "So, it's kinda like them loaning you power dude. Except you're being a jerk about it and wanting full time labor for free."
Raili begins to walk about Hoyuusha, eyeing him as she does a brisk 'thinking' pace around. "Though this is interesting… what you've got going here. The first man to open up a summoning business. At least, I could only imagine you're getting money or some form of compensation for this." She pauses and looks back in the direction of the tree. "Well, you're their leader aren't you?" A sly smirk appears. "Did you try just asking?"
Hoyuusha shifts his jaw. "Not as shrewd as I'd been hoping, but hopefully this isn't representative. Look, I'm not stupid, I know something like this is both too small to compete with established ninja villages and too big for them to ignore indefinitely. If I tried to hire out my services as a freelancer, sooner or later one of the big players would stomp in and take over. That's why I want just one of them to come in from the start. I don't want money, directly, so much as…position. I want to be the head of a new division of shinobi warfare. And of course, amnesty from any little charges that I might've accrued in the past." e.e
Hoyuusha keeps a wary on on Raili as she walks around him. "I'm working on getting the Shinrin to tell me about the tree. Their shaman claims I'm 'not ready' to participate in their sacred rituals for the God of the Forest yet. But I'll have it soon, believe me. That's my leverage on this opportunity. If your village agrees to make me a jounin of their ranks and put me in charge of this for them, I'll find the secret to making trees like this one. Otherwise, you can try to take this place by force, but I'll make sure none of the Shinrin are alive to be interrogated, and you can just spend years trying to figure it out while defending the site from other interested parties." Hoyuusha fingers the kunai holster on his leg. "So, can I depend on you to initiate negotiations with your village for me?"
Raili smirks slightly, "Oh so we've got a big picture sort of guy here. Good!" Raili clasps her hands together, "There are many things telling me that this is not really a good idea. Heck, this is blatant slavery but, you know. I'm sorta, reeeeeeally interested. So." Rubbibg her hands together so rapidly, it looks as if she were about to start a fire. "I guess I can help you out." Raili gives the man a thumbs up and a grin. "I'll do my best, though I can't say the higher ups would be all too eager about this." Raili thinks this through, she's never really dealt with the new Kage and well, the Head Ninja is just plain terrifying looking.
"Though, there's one thing I'd like to know first. How exactly did you come across the Shinrin and this tree and, what are these 'little' charges. Can't go trying to free up a man that ate a bunch of Kumo's babies or something. Not that baby eating is really a problem in Kumogakure… I think."
Hoyuusha's eye twitches. "I can see you don't have the proper mindset for this endeavor. And if you really don't believe your superiors would either, perhaps I'd be better off negotiating with another village. Unfortunately that means…" Hoyuusha grabs a smoke pellet from his holster and whips it to the ground. "I can't let you tell anyone about this!" >/ A couple of shuriken whiz through the smoke in Raili's general direction. Hiding with smoke, then giving away his position immediately for a haphazard shuriken throw? Maybe this guy's not so smart after all…although if Raili happens to charge in after him, she'll find herself suddenly in close quarters with a summoned berserk badger lord. >)
"Hey, just being honest. Since you know, I could just beat the information I need out of you. Not that… you seem to know much." Raili sticks her tongue out just as things decide to get a bit… dramatic. "Well melee." She slightly shifts to avoid the shuriken. "Not as good as I'd hope you'd be!" Raili steps forward into the smoke, "Booyah!" She calls out as she thrusts her fist through the smoke, aiming at what she thought was Hoyuusha.
"No true village would take your offer seriously. If they would they… wouldn't… be… worthy of…" Raili squints up at the badger lord, fist still stuck against his gut, "Beingcalledavillage?" A trickle of sweat rolls, "Ah hah, hey there big guy you know you should be attacking that other dude. He's kinda, enslaving you and all that, you know… heh, right?"
Mostly terrified of being in such close range of something so deadly, she sort of freezes up again or, maybe there was some plan. She did call herself a genius frequently!
Fortunately for Raili, Hisenkou is rather disoriented by the sudden summoning into a cloud of smoke. He doesn't even register Raili's punch as something separate from the event. As the smoke clears, though, he senses something in contact with him…and being in the spore-induced rage he's in, his immediate response is to swipe at the presence! >.< "I told you, he'll only think about destruction," Hoyuusha sneers from behind the hulking form. "And don't think I'm such a fool as to bring a double-edged blade into a fight, I have ways of keeping him from attacking me." Hoyuusha leaps into the foliage and draws a pair of kunai. One of them he charges with lightning chakra, while the other he hurls at Raili, using much more precision than before.
Raili's focus comes to, once again at the last second, her skates eject and she zooms backwards, narrowly escaping the swipe. "Two obvious solutions." She taps her goggles down over her eyes and activates them. "One." Subdue the beast in some way, most reasonable options appear to lead to the mauling of the badger which, isn't something ideal as it wasn't naturally evil, she'd assume. "Two…" Her eyes shift to Hoyuusha's way behind the lens. He admitted to having a way to keeping him from attacking him. So she'd have to find out his secret. "Heh."
Raili drops into the ground, popping up as close as she could get to Hoyuusha. "Luckily for you I'd rather keep the badger and this forest in one piece. Unluckily for you, I'm much better at doing things discretely than I let on." A rapid ticking comes from Raili.
If the Genjutsu were to come into effect, everything would appear to be happening much too quickly for Hoyuusha to keep up.
Time was warping and soon he'd find Raili zooming up and attempting to grab him by the throat from behind.
Hoyuusha stiffens at the unfamiliar noise. He briefly touches his lightning-imbued kunai to his own forearm, providing a brief shock of pain which snaps him out of the genjutsu. Then he flickers away to avoid Raili's attempt to grasp him. "I haven't survived as a lone ninja all these years for nothing! I wasn't just flattering myself when I said I wanted jounin rank, I'm more than qualified for it!" Hisenkou, having lost track of his target due to Raili's underground tricks, stops and snuffles at the air. Hoyuusha raises his kunai and intensifies the lightning chakra buzzing in it. Hisenkou wrinkles his snout and turns away from the stinging scent of ozone, following the much more meaty smell of girl-inventor. He's not a ninja, but he sure moves fast for such a huge beast. Locking onto Raili's position, he thunders forward and swings his mighty club. "YOOOOLAAAAAYLIIIIIAAAAA!!!" D<
"Well brawl, there goes that plan. You're just too good!" Sarcasm? Raili smirks, her scan didn't really show why the man was immune, this would be a situation where study would be in play. Her head turns back to glance at the badger as it begins to sniff the air again. "Skirmiiiiish." Just as she says this the badger locked onto her, Raili new that this would happen but, why? "I have future sight!" Wait no. "Huh, how'd I… man that smells awful." She mumbles, the ozone burning smell wafting in strong as she rubs her chin, casually skating in the opposite direction of the badger, the wheels appearing to work on their own.
"Smell… smell?" Raili's brain clicks back to all the sniffing this thing did. "I wonder." The ticking from the girl ends and she waits for the badger to get close. Just then, she'd disappear once more but, she doesn't return. Not the real Raili at least. Staying underground, she summons a clone out of the ground, made of earth, completely identical right in the field of Hisenkou's vision. Albeit, a decent distance away.
For now she holds her breath underground, watching the events above through the floor itself thanks to the EGT Goggles. Now to see what happened next.
Good thought, Hisenkou does seem to be relying more on his keen sense of smell than his bloodshot vision at the moment. Not so much that an earth clone fails to hold his attention in lack of having Raili's scent to follow, though. He charges off after the clone with the same destructive intent. >.< Hoyuusha, of course, isn't so easily fooled. It doesn't make sense for Raili to hide underground and immediately pop back out just to flee, that's obviously a decoy. :P "Think you're safe down there, huh?" Hoyuusha drops from the foliage with electricity blazing from his arm. "THINK AGAIN!" Hoyuusha's palm slams into the ground, sending a widespread burst of lightning chakra into the earth.
Meanwhile, who should take that moment to reappear on the scene but Aburei! "Raili-san! I've got an antidote! It was — " Aburei's explanation is cut short when he sees Raili (or what looks like Raili) being chased by the berserk badger lord! o.O; Adding one more to the list of reckless actions he's been engaging in lately, Aburei dives at Hisenkou's leg in an attempt to latch on and jab the syringe he's carrying into the badger's thigh. Not being that adept at such matters, Aburei fails miserably at this attempt. X.X He's knocked aside and his antidote flies off into the loam. Hisenkou pauses and growls at the obstacle that just collided with his leg…and suddenly finds himself with a target bearing a scent. >E Hooboy.
"Well poop." Raili makes note of Hoyuusha's sudden movement, it obviously wasn't going to be something good and what do you know… she was right! Lightning, her elements natural weakness, she /could/ attempt to focus chakra into the earth and hold it together but, that would be too risky. She simply had to move as far away as possible or, do a little combination of both. Reinforcing and moving, Raili pops up a bit of a distance away, not being able to focus much on the clone, it is easily caught and destroyed by the raging badger just as a singed and smoking Raili pops out of the ground.
"That sucked. SO BAD!" Raili didn't take well to being electrocuted it would seem. The drill gauntlet now equipped to her hand, she points it at Hoyuusha, the drill tip popping up and revealing a port that fired off a mulititude of small discs at the man all exploding with loud bangs about him. If it didn't get him enough to hurt him, hopefully the disorienting portion would be enough to let Raili focus on more important matters like.
"Aburei?" She looks over his way and then spots that the badger locked on. "Maaaan." Wheels blazing, Raili speads towards Aburei, rapid handseals formed as she slides to a stop in front of the medic. Her hands slap together and then onto the ground to create a thick earth wall. "I don't think I can normally stop it but, if I'm this close to the wall. The initial collision with the wall causes it to instantly shatter, leaving the two open for attack. "What sort of power is that?!" She didn't have enough chakra stored up to slip the two underground again, she may just have to take this blow while charging up.
So Raili brings her arms up in a sloppy last ditch defense, bracing for an earth shattering impact that… never comes. "Chi! CHI! CHI!" The beast halted and on his shoulder he had a mouse jabbing him with the antidote that was… already well injected but, the little mouse insisted on impaling the beast on the shoudler multiple times in a panicked frenzy maybe hoping to speed up the process?
Aburei watches in dazed horror as Raili is POUNDED INTO A SHOWER OF — dirt? c.c Oh, phew, that wasn't the real Raili-san. u.u; But where'd the antidote go? And — uh-oh. O.O; Aburei scrambles back as Hisenkou turns on him, muscles numbed from the collision with Hisenkou's leg. Luckily, it's Raili-san to the rescue! With a stout earthen wall that — PROVES BARELY ANY EFFECT! X.X; Aburei feels his sense of panic sharpen suddenly as he realizes that not only is he in danger, but Raili-san is probably about to get killed for trying to protect him! DX "Kami-sama, NO!!!"
Sometimes Kami-sama responds to those desperate cries with help in the most unexpected forms. Hisenkou's club jerks shorts of its targets as he feels a sharp twinge stabbing into his shoulder. >.<; He grunts and tenses, then blinks, the redness gradually fading from his eyes. "Hnngh…what…ow, my head…" He reaches up and grabs the jabbing syringe, but with enough control to avoid hurting the mouse. "Stop that, would you…what's going on here?" Hisenkou's eyes narrow. "Wait, I'm remembering now…I was summoned into that rotten hole, and that man said I would be fighting for him from then on…I got mad, and then…"
Hoyuusha scowls at the development. "Hmph. Looks like I can't rely on you to attack them right now." He flickers over to the roots of the massive tree and performs handseals before sticking his arm down into the enclosed space. "I think you need a time-out!" Hisenkou poofs from his place, presumably once again trapped in the root prison. "Now then, let's see how well you fight while protecting your little — "
Suddenly Hoyuusha is jerked down against the roots. x.x "NOT THIS TIME!" roars Hisenkou's voice. D< There is a moment of awful screaming from Hoyuusha, then a sickening crack as his body snaps and is drawn through the opening. Then, silence.
Raili was telling herself over and over again that she could take the hit, as much as the logical side of her didn't believe it. She started to set up for one arm to take the brunt of it, possibly breaking but, that's what one handed seals were for! Going over the situation multiple times, she wasn't sure how to fix it properly and then, in comes the mouse. "Eh?" Raili peeks out from behind her arms.
"Hah, right on cue." Raili gives the mouse a thumbs up, acting as if this was her idea the whole time. "Don't think too hard on it big guy, right now we gotta deal with…" Hoyuusha starts to speak and Raili gives him her attention, a new confidence now that the secondary hinderance. Well, apparently she forgot about the third… Aburei had jumped in, now she'd have to protect hi-… nope… not at all. "Ah…"
Raili would be wide eyed behind the goggles as the sounds of sweet revenge cracks out of Hoyuusha. "Right. Well, that works too. Y'good Aburei? Good. How bout you little guy?" Raili looks down to the little mouse, who holds a little gun shaped object to the sky, firing off a tiny but, bright flare. "Chi." It says in response with that, Raili would begin to pick up a few more tiny life forms around them moving in but, not coming into view just yet.
"So, I guess this is the easy part from here on out. Assuming these mice aren't going to try and kill us too. The regular clansmen didn't seem to be anything special."
Aburei has been to many war-torn places and seen all manner of horrible injuries, even touched them to bring healing. He has heard the cries of anguish of those who are suffering, often enough exacerbated by the treatments he has had to administer. But the actual act of inflicting wounds and death is something he's been fortunate enough not to have witnessed very much of, which is why it's a good thing he doesn't have a very good view from his sprawled position of Hoyuusha's end. The sounds are grisly enough. x.x
After a moment to recover his nerves, Aburei slowly picks himself up. "I'm…okay," he murmurs, a bit unneccessarily as Raili has already responded to her own query as to Aburei's condition. "Oh, you got burned…here, let me patch you up a bit…" Aburei runs his hands over Raili's form, seeking out spots where the electrical burns were particularly strong and revitalizing them. "It turns out part of the Shinrin initiation is demonstrating what you can do to benefit the tribe," Aburei explains while he works. "I told them I would make them a potion to make them stronger. Of course, what I actually brewed up was an anesthetic to knock 'em out for a while. ;) Once they were out of the way, I used the mushrooms to create an antidote and hurried back." Aburei sighs. "I'm sorry I put you at risk, Raili-chan. If I'd trusted you to take care of yourself, I wouldn't have wound up like that, and you wouldn't have had to jump in the way. It's just…I couldn't stand by and watch when I thought you were in danger, I guess, and…"
"I hate to interrupt," Hisenkou calls out, "but could you possibly help me out of here somehow? I'd hate to end up on a pointless rampage again." Aburei chuckles. "The antidote should keep you steady for a good while even if you breath in more spores, but yeah…" Aburei looks to Raili. "Think you can get him out with that underground thing you do?" Aburei glances around at the gathering mice. "Or maybe these guys have an idea?" c.c
"Hmm, oh that's pretty lame I was hoping face painting with blood, dancing around a fire maybe some wild chants but, hey guess it made things easier for us." She smirks, watching Aburei's hands as best she could as he does his best to help with her injuries. "Eh, I've had worse." Not really. "But, thanks, I'd rather not be marred for life so this works. Awesome job man." Raili grins at him, trying to brush off his apologies as she really didn't mind what he did at all for some reason.
Then, Hisenkou interrupts causing Raili to mumble, "Jeez can't break yourself out?" She teases, not seeming to be in a rush to pull the big guy out just yet, "But I g-" Interrupted again.
"Oi! Chi-san. Nice work, huh?" A high pitched voice calls out from the trees above, a young looking mouse wearing nothing but some heavy duty gloves, boots and a utility belt(Which I guess isn't all too bad given mice are usually completely naked). "Sorry we couldn't be much help buttaaaah, y'know. We build things not make antidotes an all that. Gotta friend that's a friend of his friend." The mouse points a thumb over to the badger. "Figured ay? Why not, y'know? See what's goin' on, who's t'say this ain't gonna happen to the resta us. Any way gals…" Apparently the hero mouse Chi was a female also as the unknown "Leader" Mouse glances Chi's then Raili's way. He then looks to Aburei. "And dude. Looks like y'got things under control without us havin' to step in, savin' the big guy a worlda necessary hurt."
More mice start to pop out as the leader mouse speaks. "The name's Boss by the way. Cause y'know, I'm the boss the big cheese if y'will. Now we can honestly get him out but, I don't think he'd like that. Maybe the lady should do it, hahn?"
Raili was oddly silent through all of this, not everyday you get mice talking to you and it is definitely rare for something so tiny to act so bold and for her to actually be compelled to listen. She'd eventually respond, clearing her throat and looking to Aburei. "Be right back." Raili sinks and pops up next to Hisenkou putting her hand on his back and popping back out outside of the tree.
Hisenkou comes up out of the ground with Raili, carrying the summon scroll which he retrieved from Hoyuusha. He looks very tired, probably from spending days in a berserk state with little sleep or nourishment, but he still carries himself with stolid dignity. "My deepest thanks to you…all of you. I don't know you, but it appears I owe you a great debt." Aburei smiles. "Sobo-san sent us. I'm Ongakuno Aburei from the Neutral Medical Center, and that's Kushrenada Raili-ch — er, san, from Kumogakure. We'll tell you what's been going on on the way back to town." Hisenkou nods. "Very well. Thank you again." Aburei looks to the mice. "Not to be rude, but the sooner we get Mujina-sama to a place where he can rest, the better. I'm sure you'd be welcome to come along if you like." n.n Yeah, a crowd of mice coming into town, that'll be received well. X) Oblivious to the potential trouble that could be caused by his invitation, Aburei turns to Raili with a smile. "Shall we head back?" :)
"Chan." Raili corrects Aburei, slugging him on the shoulder… maybe a bit too rough as she grins. "Only thing you owe me is a really awesome bed to sleep on or something, man I'm beat. But, yeah let's head back and mice dudes."
Boss looks over and laughs, "Ah nah. Got morta see an' do y'know? I like what you're wearin' though little missy, so don't be a stranger." With a snap of his fingers the mice would all form up behind him, each forming the same handseal and planting their hands on the ground. A cloud of smoke comes up and the sound of earth churning within is heard, a funky looking cart like device with a large drill in front is left in the smokes wake, glass of the "cockpit" popping open and Boss pops a hand up and waves. "Catcha ya on the flip!" It shuts and the weird device tilts forward and burrows into the ground, disappearing.
"Odd bunch… what the heck was that thing they were riding in?" Raili was a bit more interested in them now but, they already went on their way, she wasn't going to go dragging them out of the ground. Shrugging she clasps her hands behind her head and leads the way back, "Wonder if they'll give us free food?"
