Starring:
Kaido, Shizuka, Shinobu, Rorika, Tsuchiri, Kyuketsuki, Isamu
Date: July 28, 2015
Summary:
A training exercise deep in the forests of the Land of Fire pits several Genin against each other in a battle to see who can capture the other team's flag during the middle of a storm raging overhead.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Capture The Flag"
Somewhere in the forest of the Land of Fire
Lightning crashes all around the forest as thunder roars overhead, rain pelters the shinobi who are here, making them miserable. All that is, save Kaido and his nin-ken, the Academy's Head Instructor is content, even enjoying this as the group slogs in the mud to the spot where he identified where the mission/training exercise was going to take place. Another crash of thunder and flash of lightning and the group appears in a fairly large clearing in between the trees. The area is rocky and hilly though with a small creek running through the middle. On the beach on the shore of one side of the creek are two flags, one colored red and the other blue.
Kaido claps his hands and says, "Ok ladies and gentlemen, I brought you here for a little training mission. We've got 6 people here…" He nods to Shinobu, Isamu, Rorika, Tsuchiri, Shizuka and Kyuketsuki. He says, "We're going to be playing a little game called Capture The Flag. I'll be dividing you up into two teams and each team will get a flag. You'll each have 30 minutes to hide your flag in best place possible and come up with a strategy to both protect your flag and capture the other team's. The creek here is the boundary, the team that manages to steal the other's flag and cross the creek will be the winner and will earn a prize… free ramen from me when we get back to Konoha." He motions and his nin-ken move forwards, "The rules are: 1) The flag must be visible to the naked eye, you ARE allowed to fool people by using Clone technique, Replacement Technique or Genjutsu to otherwise obfuscate it, but it has to be plainly visible. 2) You can't defend your flag by posting more than one guard on it, not that you'd want to, you want to get the other team's flag after all. 3) You're free to engage each other, but one you get hit with 3 attacks, regardless of how much damage they do, you are out of the game. My nin-ken and myself will be monitoring to make sure this is followed TO THE LETTER." He looks at each in turn with a glare, impressing on them the importance of this.
Finally he says, "Ok, the two teams will be thus: …" He points out, "Shinobu, Shizuka and Rorika vs Isamu, Chiri and Kyuketsuki. Each of you pick a side and a flag and then you've got 30 minutes to plant it and come up with your strategy… When your 30 minutes are up, you'll get the signal to start, which will be a special colored flare that you'll see in the sky. Now, any questions before we begin?"
Shizuka made a bit of a face. This had to be a team building exercise for Shizuka, but she got to see Shinobu again. Of course, she wasted no time in hugging Kame tightly before she listened to the rules. "So three strikes you're out, got it." She then rubs her chin before smiling to Shinobu and winking to her. "To the letter, huh? All righty."
Shinobu … does not like this rain. Nope! Not one bit! That doesn't mean she can't withstand it. It just means she's a bit more miserable than usual. The girl snuggles Kame, which prevents Shizuka from hugging Kame. Especially because Shinobu totally steps away from the Hyuuga when Shizuka comes near. The girl nods quietly to the Hyuuga, but still looks miserable. She's also separate from her teammate… Awww.
Rorika didn't seem to let the rain bother her much, crossing her arms over one another as Kaido explains the rules. When her teammates are assigned, she looks back towards the two she hadn't met before, passing them a wave and then grinning over towards Chiri on the other team.
Tsuchiri is used to inclement weather. Which is partly why she's got her gas mask on, to prevent the rain from bothering her much more than just a passing event. Her expressions are obscured as Kaido goes over the rules and explains the game, she then looks over her teammates and blinks. She then looks to Rorika and shrugs. "We haven't sparred before, maybe it'll be good exercize." she states.
Kyu really doesn't seem to care about the rain/storm at all. And when he hears the teams he looks at them, his new teamates. He hmms audibly, and then shrugs, "Well, I suppose this should be… Interesting at very least. Hopefully I don't mess this up." Kyu looks at the others on the opposing team curiously. Shinobu is on the other team. Wonderful…
As far as Isamu was concerned, the weather seemed trivial. Sure, it made things a bit /uncomfortable/, but shinobi had to learn how to perform at their best under any circumstances. "Osu!" he declares with a salute when Kaido finishes explaining all the rules. The boy already had some ideas in mind for how their team could set up their flag. Looking to Kyu and Tsuchiri, Isamu grinned confidently and gave them a thumbs up. "Let's get wild!"
Kaido looks at his watch, "I suggest you guys start moving your banners and get your flags planted and your strategies set. You have exactly 25 minutes left before the match starts." He motions and his nin-ken all take off for 3 corners of the the clearing to be able to roam and make sure people are following the rules."
Looking to Shinobu, Shizuka smiles, grabs the flag and races off, to make sure Shinobu is with her. Once she's out of earshot, Shizuka smiles to her. "Use your Genjutsu for this, Shinobu. I think the rest of us can handle getting the flag." She then winks to her. "Sound good to you?"
Shinobu glances to Shizuka and nods slowly, trailing after the Hyuuga. She hugs her ninken close to her chest for the time being and can't help but wonder if she can even use genjutsu like that… After all… She could just make things look like puppies. A neat distraction, but not anything that can hide a flag. Kame yips a bit to Kaido to ask, ~If me and Shinobu are guarding the flag, is that against the rules?~ Just to make sure. Because the pup doesn't wanna separate from Shinobu, but if she has to…
Rorika shrugs towards Shinobu and the pup. "I'm pretty sure you two count as one, just because it'd be a little unfair if it didn't. But if you can handle it, stick the flag somewhere good and me and our friend here will handle taking on the other guys."
She turns around to face the other team and takes a few steps back from the line divider before getting into a runner's starting pose, making her intentions clear.
The other team's taken their flag off somewhere, Tsuchiri turns to her two and glances them over with a nod to Isamu. "We have to decide which of us is guarding the flag." her voice muffled some by her mask. "Kyu-san, I think you would be best, given your specialties and what zeal I've seen from our teammate. I am unsure how well I would be suited to guarding our flag. Unless either of you have objections."
Kyu looks to Tsuchiri, and nods, and begins, speaking slightly softly "Hai. I think it would be best if I defended the flag. I can mislead those who come after it… Assuming I can spot them of course. Kyu shrugs and goes and gets their flag. Once acquired he begins to head off quickly, but not too quickly, to find a place to plant the flag.
Isamu had an idea! Quickly, when Kyu had retrieved the flag, the boy trotted off after him. "Hey! Kyu!" he hissed, tagging along at the older boy's side. "I have an idea! I can make traps - simple, but effective and well concealed. We can put the flag on the ground by a tree. In plain sight! And I can plant the rope traps all around it. That way, if anyone is approaching it, they'll get lifted sky high!" Isamu grinned at his own briliance. If the opponents were trapped dangling up in a tree, it would both keep the other team from taking their flag AND keep them from reinforcing the defense of their own flag! "What do you think, Kyu-senpai? Should I start making the traps? I promise, I'm really good at camouflague!"
Kaido uses chakra to project his voice throughout the clearing, "15 minutes until we start!"
"This is going to be hell." Shizuka says as she starts to focus her chakra. "all righty. Let's get ready." She's apparently got a lot of faith in Shinobu.
Apparently Kaido replied that Shinobu and Kame are separate units, which means the pup goes with Shizuka and Rori. Byebye… Kame dashes around the pair, and both Inuzuka focus their chakra. A little, not a lot. She yips. ~I'm ready! Let's be sure that there's nothing going on! I can smell things a mile away!~ Not really, but her senses are pretty good for a genin-nnken.
Rorika realizing that they weren't gonna go immediately, stands back up and, barring anything else to do, does a few preliminary stretches to get ready for all the rapid movement. "Do you think you can cover me with jutsu's while I rush forward? I prefer the head-on approach."
She reaches down a hand to pet the nin-ken, if it would allow it.
Tsuchiri quietly turns about towards where she saw the other team head off, her chakra feathers fan out from her back in her trademark display of readiness. She hears the fifteen minute mark and readies herself for that time to turn negative while the other two of her team prepare.
Kyu nods to Isamu, "Sounds like a good plan. Just make sure I know where the traps are. Both so I don't fall into one, and so I can lure others into them." Kyu smiles at him, and focuses some chakra in preparation… Well, a bit more than just /some/. He then finds a good place, by any decent number of trees, and plants their team flag out in the open, right next to a tree.
Grinning, Isamu nods and sets to work, gathering a few natural materials to help him make his traps. In his backpack (which he learned to always carry when he did things with Kaido), he had a good length of rope which he cut sections from and configured a set of four traps, one for each compass direction surrounding the tree where Kyu planted the flag. Once the ropes were set up, the young student carefully covered them with leaves and mud, paying careful attention to make the sections of ground look exactly like those around them. Camoflague was his best friend, right now. When he was all finished, he nodded to Kyu. "Okay, everything is set up. I think it might be better if you camped out up in the tree. That way you can see who's coming, and also try to lure them into the right spots. They won't be able to see you as easily either, which helps." Isamu was getting pretty smart! It must be all those lessons with Kaido.
Kaido checks his watch and then waves a green hankerchief to Doborou who is closest to Kaido and who yanks out his bazooka and puts in a small black ball with the word "GREEN COLORED FLARE!" in kanji on it and fires it in the air, aiming towards the creek. It explodes loudly enough and the green flare lights up the storm darkened clearing, letting all know that the game has begun. Kaido then wind steps and moves to the trees to observe the battle in progress.
Seeing, and hearing the flare, Shizuka smirks a little bit and starts for the creek that shows the boundary, letting Rorika take the lead, assuming she wants to take the lead. Meanwhile, Shizuka does her normal routine, and uses the Byakugan to make sure that she knows Rorika's chakra network first hand.
As soon as Kame sees the flare, she's off like a bolt! The pup springs across the creek and immediately seeks out Chiri and Isamu, who are probably trying to charge in right about now. The rain is obscuring her sense of smell a bit, but it's hopefully enough to actually run into her two targets. One strike? Two strike? Nah, just one for now. Yip! ~Does this work, Rori?~ she asks, genjutsu tinging her voice so that only her teammates can understand. In the meantime, Shinobu just stays back near the flag and watches the others go at it.
Rorika looks over towards Shizuka and nods once, moving over towards the starting line creek. When the green colored flare is tossed out, she instantly starts to dash, crossing the line towards the enemy team's territory. She makes a beeline the opposide end of the field, keeping her eyes open for any sign of the flag. The pup gets a moment of contemplation before Rori barks back towards it.
Tsuchiri doesn't quite… charge, she instead makes a wide circling around to attempt flanking the others, but even that's not quite enough to spare her being found out quickly by the ninken. The instinctive response to bring her feathers around to intercept the tackle is not swift enough, and the kunoichi is knocked onto the mud and her progress halted. She then recalls that these Konoha ninja are far more organized than her village's shinobi and groans to herself beneath her mask.
Kyu hops up into the tree, standing on a branch and watching out at the creek. He also activates his Sharingan, watching for the opposing team. They weren't very hard to find, due to their chakra signatures and due to the fact not one of them were actively trying to be stealthy. Kyu receeds a bit farther into the tree as he begins to do handseals. The group, assuming the Genjutsu set in properly, would find that they can't… Quite find the flag. They keep walking around and very quickly they come to the realization that they may be going in circles somehow… After all they did pass by the same tree three times! But it really feels like a straight line…
When the flare goes off, Isamu nods to Kyu before taking off toward enemy territory. Kame was on the loose! He didn't get far before he got barrelled over by the charging dog, and grumps at her slightly. She had likely just been sent as a distraction, or a deterrent to keep them from getting close. Well… He couldn't let /that/ stop him. Shaking off the momentary stun of the tackle, Isamu stands up slowly and starts to move through the trees, searching for the other team's flag while trying to stay quiet and conceal his movements. No point in being obvious if he could help it.
Kaido calls out using chakra enhanced voice, "One hit each for Isamu and Chiri… Two more and you are eliminated."
Shinobu continues to keep watch, frowning softly when she sees that Shizuka was unable to keep up with the stealth-attacks. The girl keeps an eye out, though, waiting for any that might be coming over. Kame gives a doggy grin to Isamu, then blinks a bit as something confuses her senses. Her sense of direction was working, so why was she going in circles? Eventually she realizes that she's in a genjutsu and it fades away. The pup glances around. Using a combination of darkness and her own stealthiness, the pup makes her way over to the flag…
Rorika kept running for a good minute before she realizes that there's no way that the trees repeat that many times, not to mention the rules stating that the flag must be visible. She comes to a complete stop and growls, knowing full well that the enemy team has genjutsu user, which automatically made this much harder. Great.
Knowing full well that genjutsus are not something she's great at and a much easier method for her to try was self inflicted damage. She reaaches down for her knife and cuts across the back of her hand, and looks around to see if the trees had changed. Noticing that they hadn't, she grumbles and crosses her arms.
Given that Chiri's unable to really gather any semblance of movement to avoid this next coming attack, she accepts it with the closest semblance of dignity she can mustre- at great consequence to her shirt! Ripped again the kunoichi decides to let her teammate go for the flag.. But, while she's got her bearings back, she takes aim at both Rorika and Kame where she can see them. Two of her feathers aim for both the other team members before suddenly shattering their tips and sending the sharp chakra shards flying towards the still-standing one, and the vicious flash of fur and skill that is Kame. Without skipping a beat, another two line up on paralell for second shots at both targets, letting two volleys of chakra shards out towards both the other team members!
Kyu sees his Genjutsu at work, and watches them, getting briefly distracted by his teammates, before looking back, and when he looks back he narrows his eyes a bit. "Where'd Kame go?" Kyu says quietly. He looks around, but even with his ability to see chakra signatures and sped-up visual processing speed thanks to the Sharingan, he just doesn't find anything that stands out. Kyu sighs. Lost Kame, so now it's only a matter of time before the flag gets snagged away. He knows his partners are in a bad situation, so why not make it a bit better? Kyu narrows his red eyes at the distant Rorika. He makes seals, and Rorika would feel the ground rumble, before suddenly chains burst from the ground, if she didn't dispel this Genjutsu the chains would lash out at her limbs, wrapping around them and locking her in place. From his distant position, Kyu makes the tiger seal, and fires two senbon-sized darts of pure flame, sniper shots. But in doing so he gives away his location, which he knows has already been compromised. After that he just drops down out of the tree and presses himself against it as he looks around, keeping the flag in his line-of-sight.
Isamu managed to stay out of awareness of most of the other team - but it was Shinobu who would be the hardest to sneak past. And she was the one guarding the flag. Best to take a head-on approach with this one! "Hey, Shinobu!" Isamu calls out to her, waving and smiling. "So, how about a little spar? Winner gets to keep the flag." Yes, he was wagering. But what else was there to do? His job was to acquire that flag, and this was his one real strength.
Poor Shizuka didn't even get a chance to really get going as she's hit 3 times by Genjutsu attacks and looks more than a bit disappointed in herself.
Kaido calls out once again, "Shizuka has been eliminated… Tsuchiri and Isamu are both at 2 hits, Kyuketsuki has one hit, Rorika as well. If everyone on one team gets eliminated, the opposing team wins by default."
Kame blinks a bit when she sees… Well, a multitude of attacks going right at her teammate! The pup springs to action and tackles Rorika out of the way, keeping her out of harm's way. The pup yips quietly, Genjutsu allowing for Rorika to understand. ~I saw the flag that way! You go and get it, and I can cover you~ the pup instructs quickly before turning to face the two on the enemy team. Then she charges right at Chiri.
Shinobu blinks and looks at Isamu nervously. She had to guard the flag, after all. But she didn't want to face off against her teammate…Essentially: She was stuck. The girl glances at Isamu, then nods slowly, accepting the challenge.
Rori, in truth, is fairly lucky. What should have happened is a binding followed by a skewering of attacks. What ends up happening is a very polite shove out of the way of most of it, most of which wasn't even visible until a few seconds before impact. She hits the ground flat on her stomach and notices the pull of the chain around her feet. She spends a little bit of time untangling herself and attempts to break the jutsu again, slicing another part of her hand. It still didn't help though.
Chiri's not liking that her attacks up until now have been… ineffective. She growls, the only way she can see to get this done is by further attacking. But she knows that the inuzuka will likely stop this from happening, as well as her attempts of stealth. Still, she had to provide backup for her team- Kame dashes in towards Chiri and she fully expects to be hit by her charge…. But first, her feathers reform themselves and take aim yet again for another pair of volleys..
The pup that decided to make a dash at Tsuchiri would be surprised when suddenly a warm, soothing, and comforting light snaps on, causing her muscles to relax. She would find it kinda hard to run with that, but on top of that her head seems to get a mind of it's own, and turns by itself to look at it. At that point she'd likely lose her balance, and tumble down, perhaps even into mud. Kyu had gotten a bit impatient, and ran out to see what was going on, and just happened to get there in time. Kyu wants to end this, he does two seals, twice. Both Kame and Rorika would feel a tingly sleepiness flood their bodies.
Sure, Shinobu had accepted his challenge. But suddenly, the weather was getting really bad… The thunder roared overhead, and the wind had really picked up. Isamu could hardly hear himself talk over the noise. "It's getting bad out here!" he mouths to Shinobu, a little worried that a tree might fall down on them. And look! Shinobu's flag just got swept away, and carried high on the strong gusts until it got snagged on a tree branch. Isamu could only smirk. It didn't look like this exercise was getting finished today.
Kaido glances at the storm that's getting worse and Kaido pulls out a red flare and shoots it into the sky and calls out, "Everyone! Assemble by the creek, the exercise is called off due to the storm. We are going to find shelter on higher ground, it's too dangerous to be training outside now." With that, he'd gather everyone and get them to safety where they would wait out the storm and then head back to Konoha.
