Starring:
Date: March 30, 2014
Summary:
After all their investigation, Atsuro and Daisuke have to take down the man behind the crimes.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Colony Collapse - Finale"
Shoninshima, an island far out in the ocean
Finally, Atsuro and Daisuke are ready for the final confrontation! After a rather brief interrogation, the agent of the man behind all this has revealed his master: Itsutsu "Five Diamonds" Kongou, one of the most ruthless merchants on this island of ruthless merchants. Fortunately, Five Diamonds also keeps up the appearance of being a legitimate businessman, so he's not too hard to find, once you know you're looking for him.
All the Leaf nin had to do was follow the directions to his office, here at his trading house. Now they're simply waiting in the corridor outside his antechamber. They know that they can get an audience with him… "If we can get by his assistant," Atsuro notes, "But we don't know. They might require an appointment, or something. And I'm not sure how they'd feel about guys who look like us coming for him. I suppose we could try a less direct approach. We'll probably end up making a scene no matter how we handle it, but we also probably want to hold that off as long as possible." Atsuro looks to Daisuke, "Any ideas?"
After what had been quite the mission, adventure, mystery, a great battle, and intrigue, Daisuke finally found himself alongside Taizen and Atsuro at the 'last boss's castle. He would be lying if he said he wouldn't want to just kick down the door and start the beginning of the end, but they had played it well up until now and there was no reason to get sloppy at this point.
"Hm, guys like him would probably have a pretty full schedule, so anything short of a very important person suddenly showing up wouldn't work." he says, again going on his limitless manga knowledge. "We could try transforming into our buddy we just worked over and say we've located a big problem, etc?" he offers as a suggestion.
Atsuro nods slowly as Daisuke makes that suggestion. "Okay," he says, "The basic idea works, but there are three of us. There aren't three of him, though. So you pretend to be that guy we just captured, if you got a good look at him. And then Tai and I are…?" Not that he minds going the more subtle route — it's probably a good idea, actually. There's just that one matter that they need to deal with. If you're gonna use a disguise, you gotta use it /well/. "Or do you mean that one of us goes in as the guy, and gets the other two in somehow?"
Daisuke listens to Atsuro sum up his idea before he points out "Yeah, the last bit. Leave the door slightly ajar, locate a good access point. Something like that, though just having the rest of us transform into random lackeys of his might work as well. Hmm. It's hard to say, it depends how much attention the boss pays to hiring his goons." he muses, thinking to himself a few moments. "I mean we only really need to get inside and take care of business without tripping any alarms."
"Alright," says Atsuro, nodding, "Two of us go without any disguise at all — that's 66% of us, but I'm not worried." He rubs his chin, "Say the person who goes leaves the door slightly ajar, then uses some kind of signal to let the other two know when they should come in. That sound like a good plan?" He thinks a little more. "Other than that, I have only one more question: Who goes in first?" Taizen's out, being a dog, but either Atsuro or Daisuke would fit the disguise just fine.
"Flip a coin, it doesn't really matter who goes in. I would nominate you, since I have defending a fort against hundreds of ninja alone under my belt." Daisuke says with a wink. "Either way, we should get going before something happens like a guard patrol or unexpected guests." he says as he looks to the antechamber doors, feeling a bit antsy about being so close to going home and seeing everyone again.
"You're right," says Atsuro, "I have nothing but firm, rippling muscle under my belt." He shrugs. "It's a public enough area," he says, "But it's better not to loiter, eh?" He sniffs the air to make sure nobody else is around, then makes a seal. With a puff of smoke, he's the man they captured, the man with the shaved head and the ring. "You sure you didn't pick me to temporarily reduce my handsomeness?" Atsuro mutters. "I'll leave the door slightly ajar. When you hear me whistling, come in." He pats Taizen on the head. "Wish me luck!"
"Bald and flabby is definitely your look." Daisuke comments as Atsuro finally transforms, snickering quietly to himself. He nods at the signal Atsuro decides on and will keep a sharp ear out for a whistle. Turning to Taizen, he asks, "Keep your ears sharp for the whistle, as we never know how far into the doors Atsuro will be and we could use your sharp sense of hearing." He gives Taizen some scritches, relying on him this time. "Break a leg." he says to Atsuro, wishing him luck.
Taizen gives something like a nod, only for dogs. "Thanks," says Atsuro, "I might break /his/ leg." With that, he turns and heads into the antechamber. Daisuke and Taizen can hear him talking with the secretary a bit, then the sound of a door opening. It creaks shut, but there's no click of the door locking firmly in place, as Daisuke expected. There's a minute or so of silence, then a few seconds of soft whistling can be heard. "He's ready," says Taizen.
Daisuke chuckles as Atsuro walks off, crouching down while in position behind the corner of the wall, waiting for a whistle. He wonders if it will work as he hears muffled talking, peeking around the corner as the sound of a door creaking reaches his ears. "Hmm, looks good so far." he says quietly as they lose sight of him. After Taizen picks up on the whistle, Daisuke looks concerned. "That didn't take very long. Well, lets go." he says, moving with Taizen down the hall, careful to only open the door as much as needed to not cause too much noise, unsure of what was on the other side. "Damn my muscular body." he says as he squeezes through and, after Taizen is through, closes it without it locking firmly in place.
For whatever reason, Atsuro is listing off random items when Daisuke and Taizen enter the room. "…a silver tea set, a music box, two silver candlesticks…" The list goes on something like that. Fortunately, Five Diamonds is far from a modest man, and his opulent office offers plenty of hiding places, whether Daisuke is interested in crouching down behind a fancy couch, diving behind an ornate marble statue, or ducking behind one of the dozen granite pillars on either side of the room.
Five Diamonds' attention is locked on Atsuro. He appears much like one would expect: old, with jet black hair, rather generous proportions, a fancy purple robe, and many, many bejeweled rings. He sits behind a desk and looks rather harmless. But beside him is a far more threatening looking body guard, tall, strong, and decked out in ninja equipment. He glances around for a moment as Daisuke and Taizen step in, perhaps sensing that something is wrong, but even this man can only detect so much, especially with Atsuro loudly reciting a list of items. "…a gold-leaf statuette, a bottle of fine sake, a grandfather clock…"
Daisuke instinctively ducks behind a nearby granite pillar as he hears Atsuro 'still in character' listing off items he could only assume for the boss. His vantage point doesn't give him eyes on the ninja, but perhaps that is for the best as it doesn't give him eyes on Daisuke. For now, he gets a lay of the land, the office as extravagant as he imagined. From now on he would have to move very quietly as he attempts to get closer to Atsuro. Flickering from sight, the young Jonin appears behind a nearby couch, which doesn't give him eyes on the boss or the ninja, but it allows him to be much closer to the conversation with Atsuro nearby. He hopes Taizen made it ok.
Despite his size, Taizen is rather agile, and hasn't had much trouble, finding himself a hiding place behind a huge standing mirror. The dog hides out there for now. "…and a keg of beer," Atsuro finishes, knowing that Daisuke and Taizen have had time to get into position. Boy, he could really go for one of those right now. "Anything else?" Five Diamonds asks. "Let me think for a moment," says Atsuro. "Regarding our friend: you should go for him while I distract his servant." Five Diamonds frowns, "What do you mean by that, exactly?" Atsuro continues to stall, "I suppose I should have explained more fully. What I meant to say was…"
Daisuke waits, crouched down behind the couch, for Atsuro to finish his list and move on. As he changed the subject, Daisuke listened carefully, assuming that ATsuro was addressing him with the 'servant and friend' comment, Given enough of a stall, Daisuke places his hands together in a seal and flickers from sight, appearing behind Five Diamonds with a kunai drawn in order to immobilize him where he sat in his chair. It was only then, as he was behind the desk chair, that Daisuke saw the ninja decked out in gear, hoping Atsuro had that one.
Not surprisingly, Five Diamonds' body guard reacts quickly and violently to this threat against his master. He pulls out a long knife and lunges for Daisuke, but his attack is parried by a sword. Where Five Diamonds' agent was standing, there now is Atsuro, holding a ninjato. He pushes against the knife, forcing the man to step back slightly. He grins at the enemy ninja as Taizen appears from behind the mirror. Atsuro pauses for a moment to tell Daisuke, "Good luck."
Then he charges towards the enemy ninja. Still staggered from the parry, the man is unprepared for Atsuro tackling him, smashing him through a door behind Five Diamonds' desk to a grand balcony. He manages to push Atsuro up off of him, but Taizen has followed them outside. It's two on one, however good this guy might be.
Daisuke emerges from Five Diamonds' office, holding them man himself at knifepoint. Evidently the commotion he and Atsuro caused in the office was fairly loud, since the antechamber is now deserted. Back from the direction of the office, the sounds of a battle still rage on, with Atsuro and Taizen going toe-to-toe with Five Diamonds' bodyguard. From other parts of the building, Daisuke can hear the usual bustle of business being conducted. But it can't be long before that changes, with at least a few people already alerted to an attack on one of the trading house's most important members.
Daisuke is careful not to give Five any opportunity to get away as he slowly leads him out of the office and down the route that he had taken to get there. A mobile hostage situation was somewhat new to him, with the distance they had to travel considerable. "Maybe I should just knock you out. How much you weigh?" he says to the man as they walk, eyeing him quickly to make his own estimates. It would certainly be easier to move around, providing Daisuke could carry the man. The sound of battle between Atsuro and the man don't go unnoticed as he moves towards the exit, confident Atsuro could handle it.
"Th-three hundred pounds," Five Diamonds answers after a second of thought. It seems like a high estimate — he's far from underweight, but he doesn't weigh that much. He definitely doesn't want to get knocked out!
Daisuke still has a minor maze of hallways to get through before he'll be able to find any good exit to the building. It's not anything hard to remember, but it's something to navigate, and under these circumstances. And now he can hear loud footsteps coming from one of the hallways nearby. There are multiple sets of feet, and they're moving quickly. There's no guarantee that it's guards, or some other kind of security, but they seem pretty determined, wherever they might be going.
Daisuke smirks as Five gives him his estimate. "Doesn't do anything for you to lie, I can carry well over four." he says as he pushes the man along the route, recalling the route they had taken to get here. Unfortunately, the sound of footsteps seems to be coming from the route they had taken. Daisuke slips the kunai from Five's throat and thrusts it against his back, whispering "I'm your bodyguard and we are heading to see what all the fuss is downstairs, or you and whomever we run into is dead," in a sinister tone of voice to get his point across.
Five just goes a little pale as Daisuke informs him of that and remains silent. Then he nods silently as Daisuke gives him that set of instructions, obviously not feeling defiant. They walk awkwardly along through the hallways, and eventually the footsteps come to them. Three men, not exactly dressed like ninja, but one of them has a kunai holster, and the other is hold a sheathed katana. "Sir!" says one of them, "What's going on?" He eyes Daisuke, "Who's this?"
Five Diamonds stays frozen for a moment, then manages, "One of my bodyguards. I was attacked in my office. This man is escorting me to the exit, and my other bodyguard is… dealing with the ruffian who attacked me."
As the men approach Five does what he is told and Daisuke doesn't have to kill yet today. "We should get moving, sir. We don't know if we are safe or if there are more out there attacking." he says, urging Five to dismiss the men and carry on by pressing the kunai against his back again. He remains professional sounding, not even bothering to talk to the men, only focused on his 'mission' to get Five to safety.
"Right!" says the apparent leader of the ninja group, "Come on, men. We'll cover their retreat." They run off in the direction Daisuke and Five came from. Five growls bitterly under his breath, "You rotten kid… if I wasn't… strangle you…" They continue through the halls without much incident — however rich this trading house might be, it can only have so many ninja employed on a permanent basis, after all.
But now Daisuke comes to a decision. Two staircases, one leading off into some unknown area of the building, the other into the crowded trading floor. There's an obvious exit from the trading floor, and Daisuke might be able to hide out in the crowd temporarily, but someone might notice that knife he's holding to Five's back.
Daisuke smirks as they pass by, continuing on. "Well done, you may live after all." he says quietly to Five as they walk down the hallway that approaches the two stairways. One was the route they took previous, but it was crowded and more eyes would be on them. On the other hand Daisuke had no idea where the other staircase would lead them, it could very well lead into a dungeon, a large group off off duty guards and ninja, or a trap. Whether it was steering clear of the unknown or not, Daisuke would take his chances with the stairway to the trading floor, moving closely with Five as to hide as much of his hand with the kunai as possible and planning to stick near the walls away from crowds as he heads to the exit. "Not that I have to tell you again, but act naturally, like you are in a hurry to get somewhere." he says before they go.
"Shut up," Five snarls. He snickers to himself slightly as Daisuke leads him down the staircase, "You idiot, we'll be seen." Of course, thanks to Daisuke's move that takes them along the walls, they actually go unnoticed. Until finally, someone does notice them. "Mr. Diamonds!" someone calls, "Mr. Diamonds." A young woman approaches holding a clipboard. "Sir," she says, "We need your approval for the sale of Lot 45a." He holds the clipboard out to him and offers him a pen.
Daisuke was pretty confident in his ability to move unnoticed, but the flashy man was another story. Luckily it was just a signature that was needed, though Daisuke gives the woman a friendly look. "Please be quick sir, or we will be late." he says as he stands there, his height enough to be able to see any funny business with the signature, like writing help or a message instead. Any kind of deviation from a signature would be immediately met with a hard press of his kunai in the man's back, but only if there was an attempt made.
Five Diamonds just signs the paper, like requested. Obviously, he's not dumb enough to write down a request for help or something of the sort. But the delay has cost Daisuke time, and it seems like he needs that more than ever. Two men are pushing and shoving their way through the crowd, and it seems like they're headed for Daisuke. It's hard to get a good look at them, but they're obviously determined to get over there.
Daisuke notices the movement in the crowd, even though he can't get a good look at the men to determine how many and if they were ninja. He smiles at the girl and urges Five onward toward the exit, once clear of the girl he tells Five to pick up the pace. "Seems we have some curious men who are willing to sign your death certificate heading our way, pick up the pace and lets see you live a little longer." he says in his 'professional' emotionless voice as he urges him on, the exit in sight across the stretch of the hall they were in.
Silently, Five Diamonds speeds up. They get out of the building, and into the street. But Daisuke isn't home-free yet. The two men appear in the doorway behind them shortly after they exit the building. "Hey you!" yells one of the men, clearly speaking to Daisuke, "Stop right there!" They both draw weapons and hurry after Daisuke and Five Diamonds.
'Ah curtains.' Daisuke thinks to himself, poking the kunai in the back of Five and getting him to turn around as he faces the men with him. "Can I help you? We are kind of in a hurry. Unless you want your boss to be in danger?" he asks the men curiously, making sure that his hand remains hidden behind Five. He wasn't sure what the men wanted, but if he had to, he would have to knock out Five like he originally thought he might to deal with these two. For now he remains in his roleplay as the bodyguard.
"Your boss, eh?" one man asks as the two of them walk up. "I think I'd recognize you if your were his boss — you were his boss, whatever." He brandishes a kunai at Daisuke. "H-hold on," Five Diamonds speaks up, realizing Daisuke might get a mind to use his own kunai if this escalates too quickly, "He was a recent hire. I became aware of a group of ninja who were trying to assassinate me, so I… er, started hiring more bodyguards." The second man holds an arm out in front of his partner. "Okay," he says, nodding to Daisuke, "Let's try this. Most people know the boss as Five Diamonds. But if you were really working for him, you'd know his real name."
"I think you may be a little deaf, you goon." Daisuke says as he looks at the two men with a piercing gaze. "The boss just said I was a new hire, sadly, we don't go by a first name basis, nor do I care to. As a professional body guard, he is the client, the boss. Any other name would be completely unprofessional and unnecessary." he says with anger in his voice, "Now, you two idiots are wasting both my time, and the boss, as well as putting him in potential danger." he adds, giving an expression as if he expected them to stop being idiots and let them move along.
"This guy's ending with us," the first man declares, "Kid, I'm going make you— " The second man stops him again. "Okay," he says, "We'll give you one more chance. But crescendo this one up and you're history, bud. Now, even if you're all professional or whatever, you'd have to know this one. What sort of goods does Five Diamonds typically deal in?"
Daisuke knew this one, or at least he hopes he did, after all the researh they had done and time spent tracking him down. "Climax, you really are wasting time." Daisuke says as he looks at the men, "He deals in…" he says, taking a quick look around before quieting down, "stolen goods. You satisfied yet? Can I please do my job?" he asks, sounding very impatient and annoyed.
If only the men had realized what Daisuke was here for in the first place, they might have realized their mistake. "Reappropriated goods," Five Diamonds insists. "Right," says the other ninja, "Well, close enough, though, right? You wouldn't have told him that if you didn't trust him. Sorry to trouble you, sir. We'd just gotten a report that you were in danger. We'll go check out the building." And then they head back into the building, as easy as that.
"Well, at least your guards are thorough, be sure to tip them well." Daisuke says after the men leave, pushing Five in the direction they were heading before they were interrupted. They were leaving the building behind when Daisuke began to wonder when Atsuro was going to join up with them, hoping he wasn't going to take as long as he did at the Fort finding the information.
While Daisuke is getting Five Diamonds out of the building, Atsuro and Taizen are on Five Diamonds' balcony, and going toe-to-toe with his bodyguard. Daisuke has just left the office and Atsuro and the enemy ninja find themselves in a standoff. Atsuro takes a pair of ninjato from Taizen's vest, and brandishes them, getting into a kenjutsu stance, while Taizen crouches down, ready to leap at the enemy ninja.
This ninja is armed to the teeth with various ninja weaponry, suggesting that he may be a heavy weapons expert and a taijutsuist, though those who make that call may be severely wrong. As the man stands there looking between the dog and the boy, he decides what to open with. With a quick flick of his wrist, three shuriken fly into the air towards the duo, seeming like some kind of rookie move. But with a quick hand seal, the shuriken suddenly begin to multiply quickly as they head towards the duo, three, six, twelve, twenty four…
Three shuriken, seriously? Atsuro chuckles a little as he winds up to simply bat them out of the way. He realizes his mistake when suddenly there's six. Lowering his blade, Atsuro falls on all fours, then jumps up, landing on the side of the wall, adhering himself with chakra. He's received minor cuts from a couple shuriken thanks to that short delay. Taizen, having not had to worry about moving with a weapon out, was a little quicker and managed to avoid any injury from the shuriken at all.
They quickly prepare for a counterattack, Atsuro leaping down and landing right in front of the other man. He takes two quick slashes, one with each ninjato, while Taizen continues down the wall, landing behind the enemy and snapping at him with his sharp teeth.
The man seems confident in his ability as Atsuro underestimates him, causing him to take a few minor cuts. The duo's choice to attack from both sides is a good one, if not for the fact that the man has not just a ton of weaponry on him, but some hunter-nin type armor from what looks like Kirigakure. Atsuro's slashes would reveal the armor under his clothing as the blades slice at it, causing a good sized cut but the armor holds up. In close proximity the man pulls out two large nodachi blades from a scroll and turns around in a 720 degree spin with them to attempt to make the most of the close proximity.
Elsewhere the sounds of chatter from the hall seems to be unaffected by the events of the two Konoha nin, suggesting to Atsuro that maybe Daisuke had made it out. Coming into the room adjacent to the balcony, though, are two men that met up with Daisuke earlier.
The nodachi spin isn't quite as good a trick as the multiplying shuriken — Atsuro and Taizen are more then used to getting away from an enemy quickly, and both leap back, each landing perched on the opposite railings of the balcony. Catching new scents, Atsuro glances over to the men in the other room. He and Taizen exchange glances, and apparently decide on some course of action with one another. Both leap into the air simultaneously, aiming for the first man they were fighting. They start to spin like a couple of huge drills, aiming to beat the man up with some gatsuga action. After a quick couple of attempts at nailing him, though, they arc up into the air before looping down again. Both drills smash into the balcony itself — not much threat to the ninja, but hopefully moving the field of battle will at least delay these other guys.
The Gatsuga's are effective, the man not quite expecting such skillful technique and accuracy of the spinning steel and claws. Cracks appear in his armor and he is pushed back, only to have the balcony begin to crumble and fall to the floor below, causing him to have to leap to safety and then to the ground below to follow the duo. With a Nodachi still in each hand, the man lifts them into the air and, slicing them downwards, creating a wind cutter ninjutsu with the two powerful slashes, heading towards Atsuro and Taizen.
The trick with the balcony alerts the duo in the room to a fight going on outside, though the sorry state of the balcony deters them from leaping into the fray, one telling the other to hurry and head towards the stairs with him.
On either side of the man, Atsuro and Taizen dash in towards him. Atsuro quickly twists his body to avoid the air slice, while Taizen simply angles to take it in a bulky shoulder. He's cut, but it only slows him momentarily, and the two continue their charge for the man. Taizen attempts to simply ram him, throwing his weight and strength in, while Atsuro attempts to cut him with the ninjato again. These aren't the same quick slashes as last time, though — they're vicious and powerful, and hopefully strong enough to slice through that armor.
Taizen's ram is enough to distract the man as he holds his ground and pushes against Taizen's attempt, able to stay on his feet with minimum pushback. Unfortunately with him using his attention up on Taizen, Atsuro's attaccks hit and indeed break through the armor, drawing blood on the last attack. This causes the man to slide back away from the duo, getting serious with his armor in shambles. He pulls out a kunai and tosses it high into the air, his hands making seals that, again, duplicate the kunai on its way down towards the duo, though at a much faster rate. "My weapons will blot out the sun! Rain of Steel!" he calls out as the kunai are already somewhere in the 50s and duplicating fast with a technique similar to shadow clone.
A tough technique to avoid, but perhaps not so hard to survive. Atsuro and Taizen give up on their assault for now, returning to each other's side. Now, how to deal with a situation like this. Exchanging one of those glances once again, they decide to simply smash through the rain of kunai. Using another Gatsuga, they rocket up into the sky, any kunai they hit simply smashed away. Once they're above the kunai, they turn around, heading back to the ground, aiming right for the man again.
The man watches the duo use that technique again to deflect the kunai away, heading back down towards him. This time he wasn't going to get hit by the technique if he could help it. He raises a nodachi into the air, the air in front of him beginning to stir before a sudden dust vortex of debris and air is summoned to block the man from the gatsuga, and the duo are heading right towards it with the powerful currents trying to pull all towards it!
Hm, nope! Atsuro and Taizen may not want to be hurt, but they also know they're fighting on a time limit. And really, who's better at making vortices, this chump or the Inuzuka? The two spinning blurs begin to rotate around one another, faster and faster, until they become a single, larger, faster blur. This, one of the less common Inuzuka techniques, appears to be incredibly deadly. Now it's a game of chicken. Will the enemy ninja run away or try his technique against Atsuro and Taizen's, and risk being smashed several meters underground?
The man had a job to do, and he was paid to do it. Unfortunately for him, that meant his life was on the line and there was no turning back. With a show of bravery, or stupidity to some, he increases his vortex to try to match Atsuro and Taizens, the winds howling furiously and relentlessly picking up and tossing large chunks of the rubble of the balcony around within it as it heads for the duo to end the game of chicken and see who emerges victorious and who is defeated.
«TOY» Daisuke creates a DBZ powerstruggle.
As impressive as this man's ninjutsu is, he's just not going to beat an S-rank attack performed by two ninja. The chunks of rubble are simply pulverized as Atsuro and Taizen plough into the man, tearing up the earth beneath him digging deep into the ground below as he's pounded and ground deep into the street, then the raw earth. Clearly, the man is exceptional, so he might survive, but it's certainly not an easy technique to survive.
If he does survive, it's hard to tell, as he is deep in the crater Atsuro made outside the home, and it was such a nice place too. Either way, Atsuro has taken care of his job and the size of the hole left by his technique would easily deter any of the lesser goons and ninja from approaching. But time is ticking, and the duo needs to get a move on to meet up with Daisuke and Five.
Atsuro and Taizen emerge from the crater, looking not too much worse for the wear. As for Daisuke, his scent is familiar, and it's easy enough to just circle the building until they find his scent. Then they follow it to wherever he's hiding. "Hello there," says Atsuro cheerfully, once they've run into Daisuke again, "Looks like you got our guy."
Daisuke looks up as Atsuro approaches, giving him a smirk. "About time, you probably alerted the entire island by now." he says as he pushes Five along, looking over at Atsuro's minor cuts and grubbiness. "Taizen must've saved the day." he concludes with a wink to Taizen before the trio of nin's would head down through the town towards the dock lest they aroused anymore suspicion. "It will be nice to go home."
"Hilarious," says Atsuro drily. Still, despite Daisuke's teasing, it's hard not to feel good about this. After so many days of investigation and so many days of wandering all about all these different islands, they've finally found the man they're looking for. All they have to do now is take Five Diamonds back to Minatoriko, where justice can be administered. Then they just go home and get paid for a job well done.
