Starring:
Kefka (emitter), Juudai, Kanae, Kango, Zankuro, Hige, Kyuketsuki, Naruko
Date: March 11, 2015
Summary:
An envoy from the Land of Waterfalls comes to both Kumogakure and Iwagakure to ask for help against a group of bandits led by a Rogue Ninja from Iwagakure.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Double Trouble for Bandits"
Land of Waterfalls - Near a New Village
While any countries that normally get messages from one of the only villages that's started rebuilding near where Takigakure once was have been lacking them for a few weeks, there might have been some suspicion, but nothing affirmed trouble in the country more than the arrival of a half-dead messenger in each Iwagakure and Konohagakure. One might question why a messenger would go to each of them, but the truth would come from each man's lips that neither were sure even one of them would arrive alive to the gates, and neither were sure if the other had made it to his destination.
The message from a starved and beaten messenger in each village would match perfectly. Their remote village has been cut off by bandits led by a rogue shinobi of Iwagakure who seems to want to raise Takigakure back up in his own name, but he's starting with taking over the places around where it was. The men under his command are naught but bandits with no sympathy for anyone. Those who live in the village have been starving for the better part of a couple weeks, barely able to survive off what they had in reserve while the bandits have cut off all supply lines and hijack every caravan that even attempts to make it to the village. With the situation explained, both villages would be pleaded for help with what little the village could afford to pay them for their assistance at this point.
GAME: Save complete.
Having gotten this message, Juudai had immediately gathered up who she could to go with her which was Kango and Kanae. She explained the message to both of them and told them they would be accompanying her to this village right away. Normally she wouldn't be heading out of the village for a mission but for a rogue shinobi of Iwagakure to make such a brazen act right as Iwagakure is getting back on its feet could mean war. She wasn't going to have that and she would deal with this issue herself. Even now, she is leading the pair toward the village in trouble, looking back at them as they near, "I want you both on alert!" She declares, "We want to capture this would be leader alive if possible. Hurt him if you must. Heck, hurt him if you can. Just try to make sure he survives this encounter. He will be made an example." She nods curtly.
Kanae hears the mission briefing from her superiors, about as much as is offered, and can't help but make a face when she hears that people are basically starving to death. This is, actually, her first official mission, and she's excited to complete it. Maybe she'll be met with success, too! Kanae follows after Juudai, nodding at the orders. "Got it!" she says with a small salute, gathering chakra in preparation for the mission before hand.
Kango hears the mission straight from the Kage's mouth and immediately devotes himself to it. People starving was not a good thing, and he just wouldn't stand for it, if he could help it. "Yes, ma'am." He replies to Juudai after recieving her orders. "Capture alive…got it." He adjusts the satchel hanging over his shoulder as he follows along. On his old team, he was a support guy and medic. While this wasn't his first dance, he was a bit nervous to be working directly with the Kazekage. Okay, more than a bit nervous. A lot nervous. He flashes Kanae a smile as he walks along beside her. He goes ahead and focuses his chakra, so he wouldn't have to later.
Zankuro had little love for bandits, and to a certain extent, even less love for Iwagakure. Aside from a brief flaring of chakra when the village gets named, the Sarutobi kept his feelings in check, and thoughts to himself for the duration of the briefing. He was to be the very example of professional shinobi there on out. Those that knew him well enough and saw such an image might very well go insane from trying to reason out how it was even remotely possible that reality allowed it. Thankfully, that isn't the case, so hurrah for sanity~
"Is everyone clear on our objective? No? Yes? Doesn't matter, because I'm recapping now." Zankuro states as they made their way to where Takigakure once stood. "We're gonna take down the boss, roast those roaches that call themselves human to a nice, even crisp, and make sure the good folks get their goods back, as well as dispense what I got stored up in here." Zankuro pats the giant scroll strapped to his back. "Aside from that, play nice with miss bright and dangerous over there, seeing as how the kumoains were so nice to send us some help" A wink is tossed in Naruko's direction before he goes ont to say, "and if I say we gotta retreat, you all better darn well do it. Understood?"
Hige had gotten the call like he had many times before, although this one was a bit more annoying. Bandits and a missing nin stealing supplies. Not cool. When Zankuro explained his extra little bits Hige only nodded before he went with him and the others on the way to the village. Of course Konsho is there as well, the growing nin pup keeping stride with Hige on the trip as they play rear guard. Best to watch out for danger from behind after all. "Do we still listen if you meet a hot girl and want to retreat to chase after her?" A valid question.
Kyu feels honored to be called along on this mission, and luckily he's healed from his injuries completely! He listens to Zankuro carefully and nods at his commands. Kyu wasn't known for breaking orders, so he has no worries about it. When told to "play nice" with Naruko, whom he's met once before, he simply nods silently. That wouldn't be a problem, Kyu learned pretty early on, via a spar, that messing with her probably isn't a good idea, he thinks about that cutting wind again, maybe hes gotten better and can avoid that… Maybe. He listens to Hige's question and says nothing. Nothing to add on that but, from the one time he's seen Zankuro around an attractive girl, he sees why this could be a very valid question.
"If we see a hot girl I think we should probably capture and question her!" Naruko calls out grinning from eat to ear at Hige's comment and even more so at Zankuro. Playing nice… She wasn't so sure about that. Rolling around in the dirt was fun every now and then. "We are going to be non lethal right? Break their legs but don't kill them? I'm hoping not to go on a murdering spree even if they do happen to be bandits!" Naruko hopes for a bit of confirmation as she chases along after them. It had been so long since she had seen Hige… him and his little pup appeared to be growing so quickly. "Aww…" Naruko voices quietly under her breath, for no particular reason known to the others.
As shinobi arrive at various places around the village, they'd find makeshift barricades setup all over. They're not really enough to keep shinobi out, but they'll at least be an inconvenience, as they're basically just setup to keep villages and caravans from moving without the knowledge of the bandits and their boss. There are teams of ten to twenty men at each post, ready to intercept anything and everything that might try to pass through. This may not be so easy, at least for those besides the Kage and anyone else above the level of the rest in the group.
Coming up from afar, Juudai spots the village and the barricades. She looks at the village as best she can and then she shifts her nose a little and gestures to the right, "We go around. I heard that Konohagakure might be coming up this way. We should try to run into them." SHe nods her head, "We can't let them get to our target before we do. Better to move with them and make sure the we catch him and capture him. Further, better to make sure that they don't hurt themselves." She smiles a little and then starts off at speed. Her jacket flaps behind her as she moves around the village, heading around and then trying to move around to see the Konohagakure shinobi, if she meets up with them, she'll greet them appropriately.
Zankuro glances over his shoulder, meaning to glare at Hige for the comment. By the time he does however, the plump shinobi had to stop in thought and reconsider for a moment or two. He doesn't get very far along the track when Naruko gives him a double take with her words. Did she… Did he dare hope?! Zankuro slips into dreamland for a good few seconds there, smiling goofily, drooling, and blushing until rule 6—er, Naruko goes on about non-lethal methods.
He is silent for at least a good couple of minutes before shaking his head. During that time he wears a mask of emptiness. "If I am incapicitated by any means, you two are to follow Naruko-san in my stead… Also, crippling them is… acceptable. But if it turns out they are more determined than that or about to warn the others, you better darn well end them. I rather not lose shinobi over a crisis of consciousness. If you have problem with how things are, bring it up after the mission." He states in a tone that brokered no argument near the end, and disturbingly not a Zankuro thing. As soon as they get close enough to catch a hint of barricades he motions for the group to stop for a moment. Knowing Iwagakure was missing one of their own, the Sarutobi didn't put it pass them to get involved themselves.
Truthfully, he expected to see explosions go off around the place from one of their rumored corps causing havoc just to make sure they got their target. "… Hige-san, Naruko-chan. Think you guys can create a distraction, or at least Lure as many away from those barricades? If you can, me and Kyu will try and sneak in and disable those left behind along with any traps that might have set… not that they are probably bright enough to do it." He states, gradually topping of his chakra reserves in preparation.
Hige just smirks as he sees the look on Zan's face as he goes into that little dream land where he's probably doing very naughty things. But then he comes out of it and speaks. Forcefully. That's new. Hige just nods in understanding to following Naruko and all that other junk he said. At the mention of killing he just shrugs lightly. No problem there. It's not until they stop that Hige glances at Naruko and grins. "Good to see you Naruko." Even Konsho nudges her leg and wags his tail. Don't want to yip. Might be too loud. "I'm sure we can come up with something." Hige responds to causing a distraction. Semi-feral eyes flick to Kyu. "You be careful. And shout if you run into trouble you can't handle." It's not a request. Who's in charge again?
Kyu listens to Zankuro's orders carefully. Kyu knows he'd probably be better off doing the distraction part, as he's not very sneaky but the fact Zankuro seems to have worded it as an order, combined with Hige threatening him, it may not be about whether or not he goes, but the fact hes being threatened at all by Hige, is enough to make him not argue… He has a flashback to that lightning claw that he totally couldve dodged… "Hai. I'll do my best Zankuro, and okay Hige, if I encounter trouble Ill be sure to yell nice and loud for ya." Kyu gives a half joking half smile to Hige.
" I can blow the whole thing up in a mass of smoke is that's what's necessary. Making noise is my specialty…Really really loud noises," Naruko explains with a wide grin. Briefly her fingers reach down to give Konsho a little nudge with her finger tips. A quick little pet until it was time to get ready and blow some rockets up. "Kage bunshin no jutsu…" Naruko shouted in a hushed raspy whisper, poofing in a second copy of herself which leaned closely to the ground. " Just say the word and we will make it happen," Both Narukos state in unison, ready to bring on the pain… or whatever the heck needed to br brought on. Briefly Naruko exchanges a clan at Kyuketsuki, to whom she offers a reassuring thumbs up of awesome. "You can do anything, Kyu-kun!"
And then at that moment, the Tsuchikage spots what she is looking for and approaches. Coming up to the others, Juudai nods as she arrives and then looks at the group before saying, "I thought that messenger said that they had sent someone to Konohagakure." She gives a bow, very slight, and states, "I am Toujitakumi Juudai, Tsuchikage of Iwagakure and I have come to retrieve my rogue shinobi." SHe gestures, "This is Kanae and Kango." She nods, "They are working with me." She then looks over toward an area nearby, off in the distance is a barricade, "I am going to go and destroy that barricade." She gestures to it, "Move past it, bring down the shinobi. I want the leader alive. Do what you must with the others but lets us keep this non-lethal, there are civilians present." With that, she doesn't broker any questioning or response to her plan. She simply rushes off ahead, making hand gestures and almost immediately a pair of kunai fly from her hand. Each will hit the barricade at either end…then explode brilliantly!
Kanae skids to a halt when they meet up with the Konoha-nin, eyeing them a bit warily. Of course, she actually recognizes one of them! Well, technically two. The girl nods in greeting to Hige before following her Kage's lead and offering a small bow. "Let's work together," she tells the other team before glancing over in the direction of the explosions… Well, that's not obvious! the girl makes a handseal and attempts to blind those who are trying to react to the explosions by exploding the ground near them and creating multiple blind spots while earth starts to come down in spikes at them. Then she darts off after Juudai.
While the Kage and Kanae attack directly. Kango's attack is a little more subtle. He nods at the Konoha shinobi once they meet up. "Hi. I'm Kango." He says by way of introduction before he sets himself to business. He forms handseals, focusing on one of the bandits. If he's successful, the man would believe that one of his own comrades was trying to kill him. To make that more real, Kango follows up the genjutsu with stone columns that rise out of the earth and attempt to smack the guy in the torso.
"…."
It is about the only reaction the Tsuchikage gets out of the surprised chuunin before taking off to somewhat dismantle his plan. Eventually he manages to slap his own cheeks, putting both color in them and focus in mind. "Whoever that rogue is must've blasted off in your morning coffee…" He says aloud, sweatdropping from his own comment. "Alright everyone new plan. Everything the lady said, but primary focus will be to escort any civilians out of the danger zone. Naruk-chan. Hige-san. Clear the way." And with that said, Zankuro takes off, knowing those assigned to take point would easily outstrip his paltry speed. Literal covering fire is provided along the way before Zankuro opts to try and use the confusion to advance ahead in relative secret.
Hige is fairly surprised when he catches the scent of the Iwa group coming, and then they're there - and one of them is even slightly familiar. He grins at Kanae and nods. "Hey," he replies, and Konsho yips to her excitedly. No need to keep silent now with all the explosions going on.
When Zankuro wisely edits his plans with the Tsuchikage's…input?…Hige just nods. "It's their nin. They should be handling it anyways." He tells Zankuro. "You got the right idea." Then he drops to all fours, glances to Konsho, and the pair streak off at top speed, launching into the air as they come upon the closest bandits to them and coming down in a gatsuga to try and destroy a number of them at once.
Kyu looks confused when the Iwagakure nin show up, they seem.. Relatively friendly, but then the explosions start and chaos erupts! Kyu looks a bit taken aback by this and blinks a few times in confusion. Then Zankuro announces his new plan, Kyu wasn't mentioned in this plan so he assumes his orders remained the same, but to help the others he decided to leave a parting gift, he activates his Sharingan, his eyes becoming red and the tomoe spinning out and staying right above his pupil, he gestures to two of the closest bandits that both he and Naruko can see "Aim for them, if this works they wont be able to move." With that he flicks through a few familiar hand seals for Binding Illusion, attempting to make them both imagine bindings (of their choosing! Yay!) stopping them from moving their arms and legs, with that he turns and follows behind Zankuro, attempting to be as stealthy as he can manage.
Clearing the way wouldn't at all be difficult, especially with Hige tearing away with his massive drill like…teeth? She squints hard, wondering if her power would at all be necessary in decimating what laid before her. A sweat drop trickled down her cheek at Zankuro's orders. Rather than really driving her attacks home she decides to simply feed the flames which, whirlwinds of whipping air forming about her body before lashing out at the bandits to cause deep lacerations…combined with any flames that may have been licking about the area. "Easy peasy!" Naruko announces, though honestly is a bit concerned about the Iwagakure group. She had yet to have any experience with them or not… she would differ to Zankuro if they were friend or foe.
KABOOM! CRASH! POW! While not all of the men at the gate are hit, the barricade itself is utterly annihilated. A good number of them are taken down by combination of all the jutsu used. Of course, the sounds of all their jutsu are going to attract attention. Stirring and shouting is heard from all around as bandits begin to head their way from all directions. Whether they intended to get caught upon arriving or not does't make much difference, as the throwing knives and arrows coming their way indicate an unforgiving attitude about these men.
The attacks that come back at Juudai have her putting up some defenses, a clone takes an intial rush and then an earth barrier deflects some of the attacks. She doesn't even wince as an arrow slides across her thigh and leaves a gash. She just looks at the attackers and then idly pulls out a cigar, "Bring them down hard!" She points and then looks back at a few of the others, "Be wary of the civilians! They have suffered enough." She nods as she zaps her cigar to light it and then unleashes a pair of tags at a group and the flashbangs go off in big, bright blasts that hurt but mainly are built to stun.
Wait, what? Civilians, too? Now she has to - OW, sharp. Kanae ends up getting hit in the leg, making her hop backwards and try to raise a barrier of earth in her defense. Of course, it's too much to hope that she won't get hit somewhere that isn't behind the barrier, and she ends up getting a nice bruise from a rock on her head. "Ow…" she mumbles, getting dizzy despite only two hits.
Kango sees the attacks coming for him and concentrates, projecting the illusion of him standing where he was, when in actuality he moved from his current location. Once the image is struck, it disappears like a clone. The Gansao takes a moment to take in the situation, his Kage gave the order to take them down, but he would have to belay that order for the moment. Instead he moves backwards towards Kanae, withdrawing some bandages from his satchel. He quickly binds some of her minor wounds. "Kanae-san. I suggest you help with the civilian evacuation. Let the Kage and I handle the bandits, okay?" He offers her a warm smile while he works. The Iwata doctor pats her on the thigh once and then stands up.
Zankuro hardly had time to figure out that he'd been spotted before being form seals to try and defend himself. He doesn't move in time; thus, he takes an arrow… to the thigh! Good thing he had plenty of fat there! "Not goin' down that easy." He muttered as he flited through another set of hand seals. A gout of flames spilling from his mouth sends him soaring above danger, though it was only a matter of time before gravity took over. He used what little time he had to signal for Kyu to focus on civilians and pick off bandits closest to them.
Then, he's back on the ground, tumbling roughly at first before rushing ahead, hands held together as he focused his chakra. In his soon to be half-asleep state, Zankuro shifts seemless from one thought to the next, sealing the movements of some bandits, while the others are forced to play dodge the cloud of burning smoke.
It was okay to kill, right? Hope so, because there's a mass of shredded bodies left behind. When other objects come towards the Inuzuka pair they jump out of the way quickly, bouncing back to look around with feral eyes. The pair moves back in quickly, flashing through on all fours as they shred a handful of bandits with some lightning claws. He brings only death and more death. No capturing here, not for people that are so blatantly /bad/.
Kyu sees Zankuro fire into the air in a strange manner but sees him gesture, Kyu responds almost immediately, headed deeper in, its then that he suddenly has the realization. He would have no option but to fight, he has a rather short inner battle with himself, before returning to action. He decided that to help as many people as possible, while not dying, hitting and running with his fire technique would be best, he'd pop out at the first person he sees, blast them with fire, bind them with illusions, then return to the shadows!
Naruko the untouchable. That was her current nick name as she merely zipped and slipped away from the incoming attacks with relative ease. All it took was a series of movements combined with a dash of wind to launch herself into the air and poof a shadow clone for a counter attack. "Drive it home!" Naruko shouts out as she takes her clone by the hand, whirlwind swings her upon descent and then launching her off like a sling shot into a pair of bandits down below. She wasn't interested in killing off everyone… It wasn't really needed considering the strength of these bandits. Upon landing on the ground she just dusts off her hands and then cups her hands over her lips. "Hey! Just give up! We are SUPER AWESOME POWERFUL NINJA. You guys are just MEOWTH BANDITS that's going to die!"
The barrage of attacks from the shinobi leaves the bandits a mangled mess. Through explosions, blasts of fire, lightning strikes, and the other flurry of jutsu, man after man falls. It seems the day will yet be saved, though it's then that a man with a scar over his right eye appears out of nowhere in a tree over them, moving through handseals before breathing out a jet of flame directly at Juudai as more men fall in from the paths around to aim weapon after weapon at the shinobi. "Welcome, Tsuckikage! I hadn't expected to get to kill you so soon!"
A look at the man and she whips up a dome of Earth around herself before frowning as the earth cracks and then explodes inward at her. She slowly stands back up and then nods her head, "Ok." She looks at the cigar that is now on the ground. She nods her head, "Alright." She steps her foot on to the ground and then she takes a breath and lets it out slowly. Within a moment lightly starts to crackle across her body. Unlike some who might have seen this type of transformation in others though, the lightning crackles out and then simply explodes in small bursts. She shakes her head, "It's time to come home, boy." She looks at the shinobi with the scar over his eye, "I think its time you learned a lesson in respect." She then makes two quickly handseals followed by another pair. Almost immediately two kunai are thrown back to back. One flickers iwth a paper behind it and then flashes in a bright and loud explosion, the second one is far more brutal and straight forward, "It is time you come home and face judgement."
When he's attacked again, Kango projected a false image of himself which got struck instead of him. By the time the attack is over, he's standing behind his Kage with his hands on her back. His hands are enveloped in green chakra as he pours healing jutsu into her to better prepare for her battle against the disprespectful man who has the audacity to call himself a shinobi. "I've got your back, Juudai-sama. Just concentrate on doing what you need to."
In his half asleep state, Zankuro does not fully recognize the dangers that come flooding. He simply acts on seemingly a whim, assessing his opponents as they came. The first to strike finds a kunai buried deep into his shoulder barely seconds after the the Sarutobi managed to slip in beneath his strike. Mercilessly, the blade is ripped out and flung at the nest men's foot. Hit or miss, Zankuro just keeps on pressing forward and closer to Juudai's target, spraying embers and crippling foes with illusions of ropes.
While he moves through with his lightning imbued death claws, Hige takes a brief pause to look around at everyone else's status. Seems okay. One of the Iwa nin had to back out but would be okay. Kyu and Zan were taking care of themselves. The Tsuchikage seemed to be doing okay…and she found her missing nin even. Lovely. Nothing to do then but work on cleaning up the rest of the bandits.
As others come in to attack him Hige simply moves away from their weapons. It looks effortless, as does how the boy and his pup flow from the evading attacks to performing their own. They launch themselves again, spinning through anyone that gets in their way with claws and fangs that annihalate.
Kyu early dodges out of the way of a kunai, letting the person who threw it see him as still standing there via genjutsu, then smiles a bit at the the person who threw it. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you!" He says in a friendly tone, he says this more as a taunt than anything, and flicks through two signs he is very familiar with, monkey ram, "Doesn't a nap sound good to you right now?" He asks as the man would most likely start to feel sleepy from Kyu's genjutsu.
The bandits didn't take her warning… It was coming quite apparent that unless the leader was taken out there wasn't going to be much chance of getting the enemies out of this alive. "Baka baka baka…" Naruko groans as she side steps one of the attacks, countering back with a fierce open palm strike to the abdomen. It doesn't hit it's mark… if anything it just backfires causing her to stagger back a few steps. "Better…not waste time on the small fry…" Her speed suddenly then increases drastically, body overflowing with energy making her incredibly quick on her feet. "Onwards to the big boss!" Naruko shouts out summoning yet again another clone who happened to be helping with forging a mass of chakra that continued to grow and grow in size. Hints of her 'evil' chakra began to seep through but not enough to garner any sort of transformation. As Clone naruko and Naruko held and focused fire chakra into the growing sphere until it was about the size of 5 beach balls merged together and held over her head. As heavy as it was… she reels it forward and leaps into the mass of smoke and dust that the Tsuchikage created with her own explosions, buckling down the weight of her massive fire bomb which would definitely increase the magnitude of the explosion into the great beyond. Massive earth shattering epicness churned downwards into the bowels of terra from hence worth was also the location of a rather unlucky and roguish shinobi. Above that beautiful mass of beaming energy was the soft spoken words of her most holy Uzumaki Naruko. "Special Delivery!"
While the scarred guy probably thought he was gonna have some great battle against the Kage, the combination of her and Naruko's attacks leave him reeling from explosion after explosion before the giant orb finally crashes into him and, in conjunction with the attacks by the others, sends the entire squadron with their leader up in flames. What's left is a pile of bodies and a barely alive rogue ninja for Iwagakure to take home. Mission accomplished.
