Starring:
Odin (emitter), Arisu
Date: July 18, 2014
Summary:
A trap is sprung on the ghost — one the attackers soon come to regret.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Fourth Promotion Exams - The Revenant"
Tenrai Shrine — Kumogakure
A wise man once said, that if you want to live a long, prosperous life as a shinobi, you should remain unseen… Or at least, Arisu had assumed him to be a wise man, as he had written a book which she had happened to read, and she had taken his wisdom to heart… and so, Arisu had spent most of her time during the survival portion of the exams… invisible. Unfortunately, this did not help her in collecting the scrolls that other genin had no doubt already found, especially since she could not carry the scrolls AND be incorporeal at the same time… a problem that Arisu had yet to find a way to solve.
However, today… she had seen fit to become solid, wandering slowly through a shrine upon the Tenrai mountain, in the form of Yoshida Ayame — The Witch of Konoha. She didn't seem particularly worried about the shrine, but rather… curious. Perhaps there was still one of those scrolls hidden here for her to find. Or maybe she'd find someone else and simply steal theirs… most of the other genin certainly didn't pose enough of a threat to stop her if she wanted to…
"You four stay out here and guard our backs."
Murakumo turned away from the genin he'd addressed, looking to the rest of the group through his black, black eyes. "The rest of us are going into the shrine and clearing it before we search the tunnels for anyone hiding in there. If we find anyone, you know what to do. We still need more scrolls to get all of us through. So let's go. Time's starting to run short."
And with that, he lead the way, striding towards the door to the shrine with maybe twelve boys, girls, men and women at his back. The shinobi hunting party filed through the entrance and dashed down the main hall with their leader at the head. As they moved forward, some branched off to check out various doorways and small hallways. The shrine was a fairly humble one, however, just the one hallway leading to the main chamber with a few areas branching off of it. It wouldn't be long before Arisu was spotted.
Arisu stopped and looked back towards one of the doorways, leading back to the entrance of the shrine. "…It seems I was not alone in my idea to search the shrine for a scroll." She seems thoughtful for a second.
Her body rapidly begins to fade away again as she hears the sounds of genin footsteps approaching… Honestly, such noisy shinobi… and as she let her chakra cloud expand throughout the shrine, she began to note their positions within it, counting out the various shinobi one at a time.
Two ideas immediately came to mind… She had already considered stealing scrolls from other genin in the exams, and that seemed to be a distinct possibility, especially in a group this size, who already apparently had several of their own. Of course… if there were other scrolls here, she could perhaps let the other genin find them, then take those… Or present herself as a challenge to scare the genin into leaving those scrolls alone.
Finally, Arisu came up with a plan, her chakra cloud rapidly condensing back in the room she had been in before… but not as Yoshida Ayame. Instead, she had taken the form of a smaller, younger girl with a Land of Lightning forehead protector, looking very dirty, very ragged, and perhaps not feeling very well… And then that girl began to cry, sobbing bitterly and curled up in the corner of the room, waiting for someone to find her.
It would be perhaps ten seconds more before someone suddenly ran and stopped at the doorway. A boy looking to be in his younger teens, not quite yet of age. He frowned at the girl, lifting a hand to run fingers through his sandy hair. "This…" he murmured, "Is odd." He looked at her with his brown eyes, something kind — almost docile lying within them.
"Mura!" he called over his shoulder.
"Come here!" he said as he took a step into the room and paused, catching sight of her headband. There was a little girl crying bitterly. But she was a shinobi, and this /was/ the chuunin exams. Still. "You're obviously not alright," he said empathetically. "What's wrong?"
The girl sniffled, looking up at the others as they came into the room and shrinking back from them quickly, apparently out of reflex. "W-wha?" She looked frightened, staring wide-eyed at the nameless boy in front of her, before starting to calm down a little, still crying, but otherwise fine.
"M…My friends… T-they took all the scrolls a-and the food, and they left me here." She sniffles again, "I've looked but… I can't find anymore, and I'm hungry, and I just want to go home…" She puts her head back down, then looks back up, suddenly hopeful, "D-did you have any extra food? Maybe an extra scroll too? I only need one!" She suddenly looks about ready to beg for both!
The blond boy frowned more deeply at hearing the girl's story. He raised a hand but before he could say anything more, the dark featured Murakumo ran to the doorway, followed by a few others. "Niko, what's wrong?" he asked before looking beyond to see the ragged girl. He frowned as well at the sight of her, black eyes piercing on her.
"Looks like she was abandoned by her friends. They took the scrolls, the food and she doesn't know where they went."
"You get her name?" Murakumo asked.
"Not yet."
"Good." The dark one turned around, starting out into the hallway. "She doesn't have anything we need. Leave her. There's noone else here, so we're moving on. Her friends might be nearby."
Niko grimaced at the news but didn't look wholly surprised by his words. "We can at least leave her some food," he called out into the hallway to the others who'd already left.
"We'll leave her some bread by the entrance," came back in through the doorway.
Niko looked back towards the girl Arisu had taken the form of. "…Sorry we can't do more." He shook his head. "Wait a couple of minutes and head to the entrance. I'll make sure there's food there for you. And stay here. If I find a chuunin proctor, I'll send him here. You obviously entered too early." And with that, he slipped through the doorway, starting down the hall to the entrance to join the rest of his group.
Arisu watched the boys go and then shook her head, She knew that it was unlikely that they would help another shinobi… The boy… Murakumo… He was smart. Didn't let human emotions like pity get in the way. Unfortunately, it also meant that Arisu was going to have to change her tactics. As soon as the others were out of sight, she unmanifested again, and rapidly stretched her chakra cloud toward the entrance of the shrine, with any luck getting there well ahead of the others… and with enough time to use her poltergeist abilities to slam the door closed just as they were about to leave, trapping them inside. She'd get their scrolls one way or another.
As soon as the door would slam, she'd remanifest in front of it in the same form of the little girl… though this time not crying, and not looking as if she HAD been crying. — And staring straight at Murakumo, the supposed leader of the group. "…I can't just let you leave yet…"
"Prepare for battle," Murakumo told all those following behind him. "The girl said she'd been abandoned by a group of friends; they had scrolls. We don't know how big or how long they've been gone, but they just might be nearby. We're going to search the tunnels as planned and if we don't find them, we'll—"
He broke off and stopped as the door slammed shut, pointing the kunai that was suddenly in his hand towards it. His black eyes narrowed before they widened at the appearance of the girl from the other room. Her words caused murmurs and whispers of 'How did she get there' and 'Ghost' from the group behind their leader until Niko spoke over them, gravely, with a single word. "Shinobi." He stepped up to just behind the man.
"She dies," he said to him with a slight turn of the head, his gaze never leaving the girl. Afer a beat of silence, he called out, "GOUKAKYUU!" A moment afterwards, the doors behind Arisu exploded as a sudden great fireball technique tore through them, tearing a rent in the ground as it traveled. The group jumped backwards to avoid heat of the attack, some looking to view two of the four guards that'd been left outside on the other end of it.
The shinobi girl's body didn't waver as she suddenly lost cohesion, the flames and the shrapnel of the doors flying through her to apparently no effect at all. She just stood there, even reached out as if to warm her hand on the fireball as it continued on. When it was gone, she was standing on a charred piece of ground, looking none the worse for wear as a result, "…Cute." She smirked a little, "Care to try again? Or maybe you can just hand over your scrolls before I kill you all outright, mmn? Since… you know… you were going to kill me, after all… right?"
Any sensors in the group might pick up on the suddenly swirling cloud of chakra in the air as Arisu began to build up her energy to fight back…
When the blast cleared and the rubble settled and Arisu was simply standing there atop scorched earth… Everyone got a far more guarded than they'd been moments before, including the four on the other end of the entrance. With the sounds of the eerie moaning coming from the wind-traveled tunnels in the distance, the thoughts of the spirits this shrine was meant to appease sent a shiver down many spines.
"How the poltergeist did she do that!?" suddenly called one in the mob.
"It's real; this place is haunted!"
"It didn't even TOUCH her!"
"This is not good, Murakumo — This is NOT GOOD!"
"KEEP CALM!" suddenly shouted their lead, starting them into quiet. "She's not a ghost. A ghost from the shrine wouldn't have any need for our scrolls. It's a jutsu of some kind, and it's not perfect. If she can't be touched, then she can't touch anything else either. We're this close to becoming chuunin. To getting past pet sitting and garden work. We're not about to lose everything now. Projectiles, now. We're going to test out what she's got."
And he threw the first stone, a single handseal sending a spire of earth jutting out of te ground towards the ghostly false immortal, pushing his followers into actions. A testing stream of shuriken and kunai flew her way from the front and back in addition to a bolt of lightning from the group.
Even Niko grimaced and tossed his own weapon.
Arisu giggled again, her voice starting to echo from the walls, as the attacks continue to seem to pass through her without even touching her. The earth spire appears to shove through her stomach, but she steps through it, her body flickering a little as the lightning in turn passes through her, along with a few of the kunai and shuriken… Many of them however, stopped in mid-air, suddenly taking on a ghastly blue glow as they quickly reversed direction, flying at the shinobi who had thrown them as Arisu's giggle became an outright cackle of delight.
"I have to admit, Murakumo…" She turns her attention back to the lead shinobi, "You're VERY good for a genin. I wouldn't be surprised if you become a chuunin, really…" her face cracks into a smile, "You're right about one thing. I'm not a ghost… from THIS shrine."
Sudden spheres of blue flame start to erupt around the main room of the shrine, slowly spinning around the room for a moment before suddenly launching at various groups of shinobi, exploding into fires that while not burning physically, would still cause a distinct sensation of searing PAIN inside the bodies of those they touched. Spirit fire…
As some of the groups projectiles simply stop in the air before returning back at the group with a ghastly glow, Murakumo stomps his foot on the ground with a grunt, earth rising up to slam into his body and encase it, allowing him to deflect the weapons streaking towards him and Niko. Some of the other behind him, though, took some wounds — one of them a direct stab into the thigh. From the blood gushing out, it might've nicked an artery. Feverishly, they immediately tore open their shirt to start binding the wound, heedless of all else in a panic.
The leader of the group snarled at the girl as she spoke to him, stone falling away from his body with clattering sounds. "No matter what you play at, you're /not/ a ghost," he growled at her. But there was no more time for words as flames blossomed from nothing, lurching around the room before rushing into the group of genin. They scattered, dodging the blasts as they could. The person with the leg wound took one to the chest, the unburning flame causing them to scream with intense pain, though that noise didn't last long. One down. Another was knocked aside by the concussion of a blast, head hitting the wall. She slumped against it, dazed.
Murakumo and Niko leapt to avoid one, rolling and ending in crouches. "Niko. Ceiling." And that was all the dark one needed to say before he started flying through handseals. Niko nodded and performed his own, finishing first. After the final seal, hands slapping together, the ceiling burst in, debris flying towards Arisu as a severe wind pressed in on her, unrelenting.
Afterwards Murakumo finished his seals and slammed a hand on the ground. The earth rose in a rectangular column large enough to hold /all/ of his group of genin, himself and Niko included, sending them up through the huge hole in the ceiling and getting them away from the hopefully subdued Arisu. "Out in the open, we stand a better chance," he said, wiping the sweat from his brow and standing to leap to the ground below. "Everyone hit the ground and spread out; We're not done just yet!"
Taken from immediate harm, the others followed orders for now, Niko still sending the suppressive winds in.
The wind doesn't seem to bother Arisu, nor does the sudden shower of rubble from the hole made above… "Feel free to think as much… It makes it SO much easier for me if you don't believe me."… and then the Genin are all launched upwards, through the roof of the shrine — and Arisu is quick to follow, disappearing from inside the shrine, and reappearing on the roof with a loud, piercing wail that shook the roof of the shrine beneath her. Sometime between disappearing and reappearing, Arisu had taken on a different appearance, her eyes were now sunken, and jagged black lines ran from the now black sclera of her eyes, which had grown a much brighter blue, and had developed a shocking white pupil.
"Running away? Come on now, there are 12 of you, and only one of me… This is the chuunin exams, if all of you together can't beat just ONE genin, then what makes you think you're worth the rank of Chuunin?" She laughs loudly, the sound coming from her throat as a deep, wicked noise… like something belonging to a demon rather than a young woman. Finally, she spread her chakra cloud outwards from her, seeking out whichever genin had the scrolls she was after.
