Starring:
Date: September 5, 2014
Summary:
Tsukino and Daisuke help Atsuro with a mission involving bears, bushes, and a little more than they bargained for.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Build a Bearry"
Kumayuuku, a village in the Land of Fire
Bearbush. Appearing as a simple waist-high shrub with round green leaves and tiny white flowers, this plant is quiet inconspicuous, and although it can be found throughout the Land of Fire, only a woodsman or someone interested in botany would take much notice of it. It flowers in April, and by May it produces big, juicy, pink berries, unpalatable to a human, but irresistable to a bear. Normally this wouldn't be much of a problem, but the weather around the village of Kumayuuku this year has made perfect growing conditions for the bush. The bushes are huge and overflowing with berries all around the village (and inside the village too, in some cases!), and now the area has been swarmed with bears to the point that Kumayuuku's villagers are forced to stay inside.
A team of Leaf ninja have been requested to deal with the problem. While massacring the bears would violate hunting regulations, the village has no special requests for how to get rid of them. The group is free to deal with the bears as they see fit. The group is a kilometer or so out from the village, and up ahead the road is blocked by a small horde of bears, greedily gulping down berries from bearbush on the side of the road. Atsuro holds up a hand gesturing for the group to stop. "That's what we're dealing with," says Atsuro. He turns to look at the team. "Any bright ideas?"
Tsukino had not actually been brought on this mission as the others had. She was out wandering and had been dangerously close to the village in question, close enough that it was decided that it would be smarter for her to simply join the group. She halted as Atsuro raised his hand, listening to his words and biting her lip as she thought. Running through the seals in her 'collection' mentally. "I could form seal walls to try and herd them one direction or another.. I have other more destructive seals too but… Aside from destroying the bushes and chasing off the bears…" She shrugged, unsure how else to offer aid.
"I think we should try to see how the bushes are distributed," says Taizen, "Destroying them like Tsukino suggests might work, but we need to see how many there are and where they are." Atsuro nods and takes a second to think about this. "Okay. What kinds of seals do you have that would get rid of the bushes themselves? We need to check how much we need to do, but if we don't get rid of the bushes too, the bears'll just keep coming back." He stops for a moment, then adds, "It would be better if these seals didn't endanger the village or destroy the forest or anything." Then he looks around for a tall tree, walks over, and starts climbing it.
Tsukino looked at Taizen and nodded, at least she wsan't falling over this time when he spoke to her. She frowned, though as she considered her seals. "I have a seal that makes the tag into a blade, but that would take many tags per bush. Otherwise I have a seal that would destroy the bush with chakra… But I woul dhave to be very careful, it would take a lot of energy to destroy this many bushes." She was willing, she simply wanted them to know the energy cost. "Otherwise I have senbon in a scroll. Really if I can keep the bears away perhaps the others can destroy the bushes themselves." She indicated the other shinobi, originally in Atsuro's group.
"Do you have enough tags for… this many?" Atsuro gestures dramatically to the scene visible from the tree. "Hey, wait!" He looks down at Tsukino from up in the tree. "How come you're still down there?" He gestures for Tsukino to come up. If she doesn't know how to tree-walk yet, she might be able to hitch a ride on Taizen, who's just started to walk up the trunk of the tree, heading for where Atsuro's standing on a branch.
Anyway, if she does come up, she can see the village below, surrounded by clusters of bears — no doubt clumped in the areas where groups of bearbush are to be found. "We don't need to get rid of /all/ of them," says Atsuro, "Just enough that they're not such a problem for the village. How many chakra-destroying bush ones do you have?"
Tsukino blinked and walked up the tree to join them and she laughed. "Well no but luckily I have the one seal stored in my palm." She flashed through several handseals and showed a glowing seal on her palm, then allowed it to fade. Just an example. "But other wise I'm probably most useful with my walls.. Do you have a way to deal with the bushes in the town? Perhaps a small perimeter around the town as well? It will be a slow job and we will be exhausted after but perhaps worth it." She smiled, well /she/ would be exhausted. Atsuro wasn't a fresh Chuunin.
On the way home from the Capitol, Daisuke had decided to take the long way home, swinging around near Kumayuuku village's main road as the road itself followed one of the bigger rivers in the Land of Fire. And, just by happenstance, Daisuke saw a bunch of red hair climbing a tree, which Atsuro was ontop of and Taizen was climbing as well! What a strange coincidence. Regardless, Daisuke thought it best to check out the situation, arriving with an "Ahoy" and a wave. "What's all this?"
"I thought you said it would take a lot of energy," says Atsuro, "I appreciate the enthusiasm, but the debriefing will be really embarrassing if I have to drag an unconscious chuunin back to the village when she was never officially a part of the mission." He folds his arms. "Walls. Chakra walls, or what? Anyway, they could be useful for herding the bears away from the village. But all the herding in the world won't help if we don't do something about the bushes." He looks up at the sky pensively. "If you can use that seal on some of the bushes, Tai I can uproot some others. We don't want to totally eradicate bearbush from the area, so that saves us some effort too… We'll just need…"
He trails off, then looks up and sniffs the air. "Something to distract the bears or scare them off while we do the removal." Well, maybe something just came. "Ahoy yourself," he calls back to Daisuke, "You know what bearbush is? If you don't, look down and you'll get an idea. We're here to do something about that… which I thought you would know about, since you're the Hokage and alllllllllllllllllllllll…" He waves a hand. "Anyway, I can't trouble you with such trivial matters. Please continue on your way, Hokage-sama." Should be fun to see how Daisuke reacts to that request!
Tsukino looked toward the 'ahoy' and flushed a bit as she spotted Daisuke. Great. This was a mission she wasn't going to perform well on and Daisuke of all people had to show up to watch her fail. Well, Atsuro would have told him later anyway she supposed. So a smile and a little wave and a hope that they would chalk it up to just Daisuke's presence. She tilted her head a bit. "Well It would take a lot of energy but I'm willing to do it…." She glanced down at Daisuke to see what he had to offer. She knew he had fire abilities. And she had no qualms asking him to do manual labor. "Daisuke …sssama…" A glance at Atsuro. "Has fire. If the root is destroyed it won't come back in that area."
"No clue, but I haven't fought bears in awhile." Daisuke says as he jumps up to the branch they were on. He smiles to Tsukino, obviously happy to see her and, perhaps the only reason he was drawn over to the group to bug them. He turns to Tsukino and smirks as she tacks on the honorific. "Best friend, no need." he points out, giving Atsuro a playful punch to the shoulder.
"Hm? You guys want me to set the surrounding forest on fire? I can do that." he says as he gets prepared, not looking like it but he was joking as he waits for Atsuro to chime in.
Not commenting, Atsuro gives Tsukino a slight smirk, just to show that he noticed that. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. "If he has some way of making sure only the plant is destroyed," says Atsuro, "If we end up burning down the village or causing a forest fire, we can consider this a failure whether we get rid of the bears or not." Hint hint, Daisuke. "Or you can fight bears," he says, "Just no killing them. You could beat them off while Tsukino and I deal with the plants. Or Tai and I can fight them off while you two deal with the plants. Split off into two… couples."
Tsukino ginned as Daisuke punched Atsuro in the shoulder and assured her there was no reason for the honorific around Atsuro even if they were on a mission. The smile softened a bit and she settled in as she turned to look at Atsuro, then did a double take as it struck herr that Daisuke was serious about causing a forest fire. At which point she wondered about his place aqs Hokage.. A forest fire started by a lava user would certainly move on to devastate Konoha too! She reached forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I meant something more concentrated…" She looked at Daisuke then and looked a little sheepish. "I can destroy bushes or wall off the bears. WHich would you prefer?"
"I will fight the bears, show them who is king of this Forest." Daisuke says as he looks down at a few concentrated packs of them. "Should we move in like a group, I go for one pack and you swoop in to destroy, moving clockwise around the village or something?" he suggests. "I mean, not all the bears around the village are going to be suddenly running towards me, I will need to go group by group…. that could take a bit. What if Tsukino is in charge of destroying the plants as we go, and Atsuro plus Taizen and I go take on a pack each."
"Looks like you'll be destroying bushes," Atsuro tells Tsukino, "Someone already volunteered for bear duty." He gives Daisuke a nod, "That comment about being king makes me worry that your position as Hokage has gone to your head. But that sounds like a plan to me. The three of us drive the bears away from the clump and keep them away from Tsukino while she goes in and kills every other plant. Sound good, everybody?" He hops down from the tree and Taizen follows suit.
Tsukino should have expected that Daisuke would decide to fight bears rather than clear plants. She chuckled at the king comment and laughed when Atsuro said he was concerned Hokage had gone to his head. Blue eye slit around below and she nodded her readiness, gathering her chakra and preparing to use her seals. If either were sensors they might note she chose a goodly amount of chakra to gether, but then ther was a large task ahead of her. She waited for them to take the leads though, as that would be where she would start. She was already plotting which plants to leave and which to kill…
"That works." Daisuke says, hopping down from the tree, hoping Tsukino wasn't mad about being put on bush duty. "If the villagers would keep their bushes trimmed this would never have happened. Be sure to scold them after this is done." he says with a shake of his head as he heads off towards the first pack of bears, making as much noise as he can, all the more effective with Earth jutsu able to shake the ground beneath them. "ROAR." he starts out with as he approaches the bears, chakra surging brightly.
"It's actually just the growing season. And they aren't a very big village so they don't have many foresters — eh, you can't even hear me, can you." He shrugs and watches as Daisuke goes charging into the crowd of bears. "Hope you're ready," he tells Tsukino drily. He grabs a shinai from Taizen, then the two of them do the same, charging another crowd of bears away, barking and yelling and nipping and whacking all the while to scare them away from the bushes so that Tsukino can get in there.
Between the three's efforts, the bears are all cleared away from this first clump of bushes, leaving them wide open for someone to come in and KILL. There's about a dozen bushes in this cluster, all told.
Tsukino watched Daisuke choose the first group of bears and turned her blue eyes on the bushes nearby that would be her targets. She nodded her readiness as Atsuro spoke to her and then leapt as well, but she leapt through the trees, crimson hair trailing behind her like a cloak, until she reached a tree to one side of the dozen bushes. She focused her chakra, flew through the handsigns and her palm glowed, she aimed at the center of a clump of about three bushes and let the first seal fly, the burst clearing out all three. Then she leapt into another tree and repeated the gesture with another 3 bushes, effectively killing half the clump. "Clear!"
Daisuke sees Tsukino move towards the bushes, her hair flowing in the wind like a cloak. She moved well, but this was the first time he had seen her in actions, so he couldn't tell if she was getting better than when she first arrived. He makes sure there were no rogue bears as she gets time to complete the culling before he moves on to the next bunch of bears in a clockwise direction, again roaring and stomping and using earth jutsu to upset, disorient, and ultimately scare the bears away.
With the three other ninja scaring the bears away, Tsukino carries out her plant-killing with minimal interruption. Atsuro and Taizen follow Daisuke's trouble-making over to the next patch of bushes, where they start to bully away the bears once more. But then something curious happens. One of the bears yells, "Ow!" Then it runs away on two legs! Fortunately, the rest of the group runs away with it, but that was certainly strange! Atsuro attempts to get Daisuke's attention to see if he noticed that too.
Tsukino watched Daisuke basicly pull his punches in order to avoid hurting the bears and smiled a bit. A thought crossing her mind that belonged no where near a mission setting. She cleared her throat and leapt to the next tree as the two friends started to chase away the bears again. She nearly slipped when she heard the bear yell OW and .. run away on two legs? Well she'd heard bears could walk on two legs but she didn't think they yelled OW like that… She narrowed her eyes a bit but turned to her job, destroying two more clumps of bushes with her chakra. ASince she wasn't hurting anyone she seemed to be having fun, a smile on her face as she used a seal that could do a lot of damage to a human opponent, but on plants it just obliterated them. Getting to use it so much and for a good cause actually was fun for her….
Daisuke was busy roaring and waving his hands around but once one of the bears literally spoke, he put his arms down and stared at the bear, with a 'wtf' kind of look as it runs off on two legs. He looks over at Atsuro to see if he noticed that too, only to catch him looking at Daisuke with the same quizzical look. "What was that?" he says as he looks in the direction the bear went. "Should we check it out…should we keep going…?" he asks, looking back to Tsukino to see if she was done. "Did you see that too?" he asks his red-headed princess.
Whatever that bear was, nothing interrupts Tsukino as she kills off more plants. "I can think of only one reason a bear would talk," says Atsuro, lowering his shinai for now. "Well, two. But I don't think there's any reason for someone to be spying on Kumayuuka. Most of these bears are definitely just ordinary bears. But at least one of them is a nin-bear. I guess they'd have as much a reason to like it as any other bear. But if we're driving off nin-bears too… that means we risk plushing off nin-bears." He looks to Daisuke, with a 'what now, boss?' expression on his face.
Tsukino paused in her tree when Daisuke looked confused and asked Atsuro what they should do. It was something she found funny and would finally have something to harangue him with later. The Hokage being indecicive on a mission and asking Atsuro for direction. She smirked a bt but when he asked if she noticed it too she nodded. Atsuro's suggestion that there were nin bears mixed into the pack. She frowned. "Well, if they're nin-bears they're intelligent." She dropped down and moved to stand beside Daisuke. "Perhaps they can be spoken to and reasoned with. They might be able to get the bears to back off some." Ever the diplomat.
"Well, that was one bear out of however many we have scared off. And it's not like we are severely injuring them or totally destroying their bushes. Lets move on and see if the next batch of bears have any more ones that can talk." Daisuke says, looking back to Tsukino with a nod to confirm that she was ready to move on. "Wonder where it learned to talk. Taizen and you trained a lot to be able to do that." he says as they head for the next pack.
As they arrive, Daisuke starts up with his roaring and swinging and noise making, but also adds some speech in there. "Alright guys, clear out, these bushes need to be trimmed down and then you can graze all you want." His intention was to at least start up a conversation like Tsukino suggested.
"I wonder just how reasonable they'll be when we tell them we're killing their favourite bush." Atsuro's arms are folded, and he taps one finger against his bicep thoughtfully. "Anyway, do they need a human's help to learn to talk, necessarily? All your panda buddies seem to have learned it just fine. Maybe it's kinda like that. Pandas are even related to bears." When Daisuke makes his announcement to the bears, nothing much happens. One bear looks at him for a moment before returning to chowing down on bearbush berries. "None in this clump," Atsuro concludes. "Let's scare 'em off."
Tsukino nodded to Daisuke and took to the tres again as he went to the next group of grazing bears. He spoke to them and made loud noises. She waited to see if there was a response to his explaination of their mission. If there was a speaking bear.. but alas there was not. She continued to destroy approximately half the bushes in that area with her seals. She was about to yell Clear when she saw a bear stand up on it's back paws behind Daisuke's back. She moved without thinking, leaping into a tree closer and combining a Hardened seal in order to give her paper more 'weight' and then brought up an Uzumaki brand chakra barrier between hm and the bear. "Daisuke! Behind you!"
"See, we would've missed this clump if we didn't continue on for fear of sentience." Daisuke says to Atsuro as he begins to scare the bears away. As Atsuro pitched in, most of the bears scatter but one decides to get tough. Daisuke turns around as the bear runs into the seal wall, the Hokage examining the sealing wall carefully for a moment. "Pretty advanced stuff. Nice catch, Tsukino." he says as he reaches into his vest pocket and throws a flashbang tag out towards the bear's feet to make a loud BANG and scare him off.
The bear is not impressed. It backs away from the seal wall and frowns at the flashbang tag, then closes its eyes and plugs its ears before it goes off. Having successfully resisted the attack, it takes in a huge breath of air. "ExCUSE me, but we are /trying/ to eat here. I was going to ask if you knew who hurt my poor son, but I think I know already!" It seems they've teddied off a mother bear. "You troublemakers— GAAAAASP!" She looks over at the bushes to see that half of them are now dead. "WHAT DID YOU DO!? I don't come into your forest and ruin all /your/ food!" Atsuro raises a finger and says cheerfully, "Actually the villagers here have been complaining about bears wrecking their crops and eating all their fish when they're not eating the berries, soooooo…"
Tsukino flushed but grinned proudly at the praise. She'd just learned that wall spell from Azuna and had used it to rotect… oooor not…. She stared as the bear she'd assumed had been about to attack spoke instead. Landing on the ground she approached the bear dropping the barrier and moving in close. She glanced to a second bear that pointed out that the villagers were complaining about bears eating and destroying crops recently and then simply turned back to the mother bear. She bowed formally. "Forgive me, I thought you were attacking my friend and only meant to shield him. We did not know there were bears of your calibre in the groups or we would have started by approaching you instead. I hope your son is alright. We were trying to use methods to scare them away not harm them. I am Uzumaki Tsukino, from the Land of Whirlpools." She indicated her hitai-ate on her forehead with the spiral. "Forgive me I have never seen a bear before today. The problem is that so many regular bears are drawn to these bushes that it's endangering the village of Kumayuuku. Perhaps we can reach an accord. I am only a diplomat from a foreign land but I am sure that Nidaime Hokage Senju Daisuke," She indicated Daisuke with a proper and formal motion. "Would be pleased to organize a project where we transplant the bushes rather than destroy them, a place that will allow you bears to graze without endangering the village perhaps?" She glanced at Daisuke with a diplomatic smile then turned back to the bear and spoke seriously. "But we would need some time and your cooperation to protect the village while it was done."
Daisuke stands in front of 'Mama' bear, his hands crossed over his chest, Hokage haori flapping in the wind. As Tsukino dips into diplomacy with the kuma-nin, he watches the bear carefully. Rather than negotiate a restoration effort, Daisuke takes a step forward after Tsukino is done. Bears respected strength and pride, and Daisuke wasn't about to show weakness here.
"Kuma-san. Your kind are causing a ruckus for the village, and it is not just these berries. Surely you can find some other spots to graze without causing conflicts with the neighbouring village. I am sorry about your son, but we did not severely injure any of the bears, just encouraged them to scatter and find new places. Now there is a perfectly good river that runs for miles down the road away from the village, and berry season is upon us." he says to the bear, not looking impressed, but remaining reasonable. "Now, Kuma-san. Surely you can take your fill and leave the area and the people's food alone, these aren't the only berry bushes."
"Um, excuse me," says Mama Bear, "But have you ever considered that maybe we have to get ready to have more kids and then /sleep all winter/ and that maybe just moving bushes around and 'eating our fill' will do diddly for us? Oooooh, just wait 'til I tell the king about this!" If nobody does anything to stop her, she stomps off into the forest, muttering darkly about human kids these days.
"That went well," Atsuro says drily, "Maybe we should do something before word gets to this 'king.' Like either do something to prove that we wanna solve things peacefully, or… the exact opposite of that."
Tsukino blinked as the bear showed an attitude despite her attempt at diplomacy. And mention of a King made her nervous. She glanced at Daisuke and Atsuro with a lost expression. Neither her dimplomacy or offer of a labor intensive project to make both parties happy nor Daisuke's appeal to the 'tough' prideful side of the bears had made any leeway and the bear stormed off mmuttering about the king. Tsukino immediately started after her intenton talking sme sense into the creature who was being completely unreasonable!
Daisuke stops Tsukino from going any further, if that was indeed the direction of the King. "I'll handle this, you go about finishing the bushes, guys." The mother bear could lead her right into a giant cave with tons of bears all over, that's where Daisuke would live if he were King Bear, and that was too dangerous. "Listen up you bratty bear." Daisuke says as flickers from view next to Tsukino and Atsuro before appearing in front of the bear mother, his arms crossed again but he did not have a happy look on his face. Shielded from view by the large bear, Daisuke could work his intimidation magic as his eyes begin to glow a golden yellow surrounded by the deepest black with a simple blink, the chakra feeling around the area giving most creatures and humans alike a sinking feeling. "You will move or we will purge you. Is your family and your King worth more alive than a few berry bushes?" he says in a quiet but deep, dual-tone of voice, letting the bear know who she was dealing with in the pecking order of the Animal Kingdom.
"Wow," says Mama Bear, "I guess if you feel that strongly about it, fine. We'll pack up our entire lives and go somewhere else just to suit you humans. Hopefully nobody starves to death! GEEZ." She ambles off in another direction, muttering to herself, "You'd think I hurt /his/ son… little twerp, should've… mrrmrrrrmr…"
Atsuro gives Tsukino a little smirk. "Well, that hardly seemed necessary. But I guess we've got a job to do." He points to another pack of bears. "Ready? Hey, bears! Get outta here!" He raises the shinai threateningly and he and Taizen charge over at the bears, yelling and barking at them, making way for Tsukino and her bush-killing techniques.
