Starring:
Rockpath (emitter), Nobunaga, Zankuro, Isura, Hige, Mokoto
Date: July 16, 2015
Summary:
A typical ‘rescue merchants from snow’ mission goes a little strange when albino deer show up and ‘attack’.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Ghostly Beasts - Meat for a Week"
Land of Fire
Konoha's been facing some interesting things lately. One would be foolish to think they've come to an end. The snow brings with it a new kind of danger, and now there are five merchants stuck in the snow. Naturally, the solution is to call upon shinobi. They were free to deal with any bandits as they saw fit.
"All things in moderation." Nobunaga chuckles as he trails over the chilling snow. As much as he loved the snow he didn't like too much of it. The Amaro stands before the merchants and shakes his head. "You're doing it wrong." He jokes before moving through some handseals. "Hold still I'm going to melt the snow." He warns before inhaling. Breathing out controlled and precise jets of fire Nobunaga he'd try to free what the snow has entrapped. As far as bandits go well he'd leave that to the others seeing as they're a particularly more violent bunch….or at least Isura was. So long as Zankuro was with him things should be too bad. And with the other young man garbed in black…well Nobunaga was assuming he was a man.
Isura got the call and was swift to respond, the fresh snow meant change in cloths. Sporting all white shorts, and shirt with a red uchiha fan in the back. Draping over was a tan cloak with similar crest on the hood and back. key difference was the snow sandles. He met up with the team and spoke to each accordingly. He lazily scooped the area to scout as they worked. It appears the time apart from these guys good he's been more calmer now then recent years and it's displayed at times. "Need a hand?" Smiling softly Isura looked and flashed through seals "maybe a little controlled fire could aid in melting the snow so we can pop this sucker out."
There has been a lot of staring directed at Mokoto every since the team was brought together. After a number of incidents involving some misjudgement on his part, the Sarutobi had absolutely NO intentions of screwing up in that area again. He couldn't outright ask what was on mind as well. So, if ever the subject was broached, the rotund chuunin quickly denied any looking and refocused his efforts back on the path, or listening to instructions, or keeping a watch out, or, well, just other things in general!
"Don't go and say things like that, Noble-senpai. Everyone has their own way to go about things, ya know." He states while curling up into himself as much as he could standing. Even with such a thick layer of clothign on, the Sarutobi was still freezing his butt off! "And Isura, do ya need'ja eyes checked? Noble-senpai is already on it!"
Mokoto had been called in for an unexpected mission today. With a group of shinobi from the Hidden Leaf, the young Aburame trudges through the snow. Occasionally he glances between the other members of the group, not entirely sure what to think of them. He hadn't met any of these shinobi before, and they all looked like they were at least Chuunin level, maybe even higher. One of them in particular had been staring at Mokoto quite blantantly, but the boy had simply decided to ignore it. 'I'm not sure what I can add to such a skillful group,' Mokoto thinks to himself as his foot sinks into a loose drift of snow, requiring a few seconds of effort to withdraw. As they come upon the caravan he stops and lets the older shinobi do their work, using fire to melt the snow nearby. "I guess I'll keep an eye out for trouble," Mokoto says, turning his back on the rest of the group, his eyes scanning the scenery.
The men at the carts grumble a bit. They may need the ninjas' help, but that doesn't mean they want it. The man in charge steps back to let Isura and Nobunaga melt the ice off the wheels. "Careful! Our wagons are made of wood, and I don't want to lose them and our goods just because of you ninja!" The way he says ninja makes it sound like a curse.
"Zan-kun keep a look out with Mokoto-san. Worry less about Isura's eyes and more about your own…or rather what they can detect." Nobunaga reminds. "Also try not to freeze to death. Go about that in your own way." He adds being a bit snarky but it was all in good faith. Nobunaga continues to work on freeing up the wheels. The Amaro of course is careful to avoid burning the wagons down. He wanted to roll his eyes but the mission isn't too complicated so there is no need to get all flustered. Once he's finished with the task he smiles. "There all set to move out. And you're not on fire. That's a bonus." The Amaro can tell that they're not really wanted. "Anything else we can do for you gentlemen?"
Isura finishes shortly after Nobu and he chuckles "boy you guys sure say funny things…not really wanting out help but…I'll just end that here." Isura once again attempt a search as he rejoin the group he came with. "Boy it's sure nice to be toasty right now…all warm and fuzzy.
Zankuro turns about, rolling his eyes. Just as he opened his mouth for what may have been a snarky remark, Nobunaga dares to beat him to the punch. Several times did the rotund chuunin try to cobble together a proper comeback, pantomiming a fish all the while. He fails, miserably. So, its back to staring off down where the road is mostly buried with the occasional glance thrown in the direction the trees or at some interesting noise heard.
Similarly Mokoto lets his eyes roam across the landscape, looking for any sign of anything that doesn't belong. The last thing the young Genin wants is to be ambushed on a mission in front of so many more senior shinobi. He glances back toward the caravan occasionally to check how the rest of the team are going with clearing it from the snow, but always averts his eyes back overwatch quickly.
The merchant grunt a bit and shrug, glad that their carts are free of snow. Now they just have to move the carts. The man gets into his cart and starts nudging his horses forward when suddenly they rear up! A high pitched whinny escapes them, and they would probably bolt if they weren't hooked up to the wagons. The Shinobi would be able to notice that something large was ahead, and it was spooking the cart-drawers.
Nobunaga shrugs and prepares to leave the merchants to it themselves since they're wanted to be unresponsive. "Well then. Good work guys lets get ready to head back to the village." He starts until something spooks the horse. The large shadow ahead didn't go unnoticed by anyone. "Hmm thought things were progressing a little to smoothly. What a relief. I was beginning to worry." Nobunaga steps a head "Zan-kun with me up front. Mokoto-san protect the merchants and tell them to hold steady until we say so. Isura see if you can get a better look at what we're dealing with." Nobunaga dishes out a simple command. "I'll leave it's threat level at your digression Isura-kun."
Isura slowly eyes the situation and so far nothing too intense. "Perhaps I can take point and you can shoot orders from behind me thus also give you a superior vantage point. Isura moved slightly in front as he got ready for conflict "hopefully I'll get a good workout from this."
Zankuro starts at the noise, but like a real profesional…. he turned to see what was up. "Now what crawled up their bu—huh? Aww…" He snaps his fingers. Quickly realzing his second unprofesional mistake, the Sarutobi grins sheepishly and quickly moved into place as ordered. "Oi, don't go hoping for fights, Happy-san. I'm still sore after that /last/ one." Just thinking back to the recluse mission and all the close calls (some of which he totally called), Zankuro shudders.
Mokoto hears he loud noise and jumps visibly. In an instant he has a kunai in hand and is ready for action. "How did I miss seeing that thing?" he asks out loud, sounding quite bewildered. The Aburame boy stops and looks to the other shinobi, then nods to Nobunaga's order. "Yes sir, I'm on it," he says, then runs over to the merchants and places himself physically between the creature and the semi-helpless men. "Okay, stay behind me, and keep your eyes open. If it breaks through the line use me as cover, and if you see anything else out of the ordinary, tell me immediately," he instructs them, instinctively taking charge. He raises the kunai in front of him as if the small weapon might scare off an attacker.
So, no one here would remember… But not too long ago, a team of shinobi ran into an interesting couple of albino crocodiles with super powers! … Well, they could use chakra. Anyway, it's pretty hard to pick out this particular critter because… it's albino. The only good news is that the Leaf-nin are surrounded by trees, and the brown trunks sort of give it away. Barely. This critter isn't a crocodile, though. It's a … deer? Why are the horse afraid of a deer?
Nobunaga blinks at the image before them. "It's….a deer." He looks to Zankuro as if he didn't trust his own eyes. "Right?" Nobunaga looks to Isura who seems to have his head wrapped around the idea of a fight. "Oi focus. That thing has the horse spooked for some reason. If possible we should try to avoid unnecessary confrontation…" Nobunaga sighs remembering who he's talking to. "No wonder we missed the thing at first. It's as white as the snow." Nobunaga moves forward a bit more "Stay on guard. I'm gonna see if it's hostile." Nobunaga passes up Isura on the way "Wanna come with me since you're so eager for a fight?" he asks not really waiting for an answer. "Mokoto-san ask the merchants to move out of its path." he calls back to the genin. "What shenanigans is this?"
Isura chuckled "not looking for a fight just training exercise is all, but since your still stuck on the idea that I never changed since my leave I suppose I can assist you. Besides I have a feeling that's no deer…I mean just look at it." Isura yawned as they moved closer to the origin of the spook. "The pressure isn't that of a deer but a predator…and I assume we're the prey." Isura sighed as he came to a brief stop to gander around once more.
Without direct orders to follow anymore, Zankuro is more than happy to remain behind with relative safety. Maybe he'll happy out with moving the carriages? Whatever the case may be, it is all up to Isura and Nobunaga now to handle the potential threat. "I just hope it ain't something serious." He says offhandidly, as he placed his hands behind the back of his head.
Mokoto nods again, and glances over his shoulder at the men behind him. "Alright, you heard the man. Let's try to get out of its path. No sense fighting something weird like that if we don't have to, right?" he says to them, motioning with a hand to one side of the road. He doesn't allow himself to become sidetracked though. No, stays keeps his senses finely tuned, watching the deer carefully and listening for any sign of other dangerous creatures around.
Missions never cease in Konohagakure. Summer, Spring, Winter or Fall, there is always more than enough missions to go around and usually more missions than there are available shinobi to take care of them. As such sometimes Chuunin and Jounin are sent out to cover multiple missions in one area at the same time. That's exactly what Hige and Konsho had been doing the last few days. It may have only been two days, but they covered nearly a dozen missions in that time and the teen with his large 'pup' are tired as they head back towards the Village.
It just so happens that the path the Inuzuka duo are taking leads along the path where the others are with the carts. Though they are moving through the treetops at a good clip in order to get back as soon as possible, the scents of those coming ahead of them reaches the pair before they pass and they immediately drop to the ground. The two land with only a soft crunch of snow next to Zankuro, Hige with a small backpack on his back with their travel rations. Semi-feral eyes scan over the scene quickly before finally settling on the albino creature. There was some vague recollection of a report just as he was leaving, but he can't recall any details…he seemed to remember it wasn't good though. The duo wave to Zan before they jog forward towards Nobu and Isura. "Hey, everything alright here?" He asks as he nears Nobu who he generally assumes is leading this team.
Well, whether or not it's a good thing Hige is here, the deer doesn't seem to like that there are so many people (and a dog) around. Suddenly, there's a piercing cry, which would affect everyone within a quarter-mile radius. It's enough to make eardrums shatter if folks aren't careful (either by blocking their ears or moving fast enough to get out of range). The normal folk that are around can't seem to handle it, and they end up collapsing with the worst case being a bit of blood trickling from their ears. Most of them, though, just clutch their head and duck down for cover.
"Well then enlighten me to this 'change' you speak of." Nobunaga smirks teasingly at Isura. Nobunaga keeps his eyes on this strange deer though. "Last I checked deer are herbivores. Unless one of us is made out of leaves, no pun intended, I don't think we have much to fear about being eaten." But what Isura said did make Nobunaga start to think. "Hey…based on our kind of luck what are the chances that it's actually after whatever the merchants have in their wagon? I didn't bother to ask them what the contents were." Nobunaga calls back to Zankuro "Oi Zan-kun, go to Motoko-san. Inquire about the contents of the wagon while you're at it." Nobunaga hopes his suspicion is just paranoia.
Hige's arrival is a relief. Given the situation the more the merrier. Nobunaga gives the young man a quick look before smiling. "Well nice to meet you. So far we have a deer…pretty big one. Isura and I were just about to see if it's hostile. Mokoto-san and Zan-kun are with our merchant 'friends' trying to keep them in one piece. I'm trying to figure out what this thing might be after." And right on cue the deer answers one question for Nobunaga. The cry goes out and the Amaro instantly covers his ears and coats his body with a layer of chakra. He winces as the sharp sound rings within his head. "Hostile. Definitely hostile." He shouts from being deafened. "Get those guys to a safe spot you two." he shouts to Zankuro and Motoko.
Isura felt like the deer was gonna do something and thus his sharingan flared as got a closer look and sure enough the swelling up of chakra followed. Alerted him to move out he shouted to every to prepare for the worst as he vanished from view. The distanced allowed him to closer monitor the chakra infused scream as he bounded back. Once the distanced was acquired he launched a counter strike of wire to bound the beast then a fireball to burn the beast as he waltz back up to expect his handy work "so what have we learned? Not to attack Isura and his friends yes?"
"Huh, so they roped you two in this as well." Zankuro chuckles to himself as the duo pass, then folds his arms across his chest. A bad move on his part, as it turns out, because despite feeling that twitch in the back of his neck warning him of future danger, the dark-haired young man finds himself on the recieving end of screeching. Zankuro staggers from place to place, clutching his head and murmuring curses under breath every now and then.
Mokoto tilts his head to one side as the crazy deer begins to scream, and then the piercing sound hits him like a migraine. The world seems to spin and the boy falls to the ground in pain. "Steak," he mutters, shaking his head to try and dispel the ringing noise now plaguing him, "That thing can really scream. Really wish I had some earmuffs right now." He slowly comes back up to his feet, panting with the effort of recovery.
If the others thing it's bad imagine just how Hige and Konsho feel. As soon as they can tell what's going to happen the two push off at a slight angle. The move puts them 'behind' the deer slightly so they're not in the direction the 'scream' is going. But it also puts them high, /high/ up in the sky well above the treetops. And they can still hear it! It's just not extremely horrible. The two start coming back down and on the way they take up a familiar spin. They shred branches as they re-enter the trees until they come down right where the dear was. Or had been. Or if it's still close then there. IF it ran off…well, then they hit the ground.
Well, the deer isn't too happy, and it tries to leap away from the group, only to get caught up in some wires. Venison, anyone? It looks like it's pre-cut, too, thanks to Hige and Konsho's Gatsuga! The deer is dead as a doorknob, but it seems as though that scream wasn't just for self defense. It was also to call up some friends. Three more deer leap into the clearing, and their red eyes flicker to their companion before resting on the shinobi. …. *GLARE* Interestingly enough, a weird 'laser' shoots out from their eyes. To compare to a jutsu, it's similar to some of the rarer Hizumu that can shoot lasers with their storm manipulation ability.
Nobunaga can't hear a thing as his head rings. His eyes shut as he tries to calm the violent pain in his head. Nobunaga is then blasted by something before he knows what's going on. But the shock did snap him out of his daze. As he flies back he regains awareness and recovers remarkably fast. He his chakra is fed to his scarf and he energizes his body using it as a catalyst. He's quick enough to intercept the laser coming for Motoko and deflects the beam with a chakra coated hand. "Motoko-san get the merchants to safety. We don't know how many more are going to show up." he instructs before leaping into action. His scarf slings out to his hand he then brings it about in a fanning motion attempting to cleave all three deer or at least force their retreat and attract their focus so that Motoko can get the merchants to safety.
Mokoto is still trying to recover from that horrendous sound burst when he is nearly struck by a laser from one of the deers. At the last possible instant Nobunaga deflects the attack, which zips past the boy's ear. The Aburame is shocked for a second, but the launches into action. Calling out to the merchants he says, "Everyone get down. Low to the ground! And pull back behind the caravan! You've got to get out of the way of those things, they're too dangerous for civilians to deal with." He spins and throws a pair of shuriken at the nearest deer while at the same time retreating with the merchants.
When more deers come out shooting lazerbeams out of their freakin' eyes the Inuzuka duo jump away, letting the things destroy a tree instead. While they go they just happen to notice something a little further into the forest. More evil deer! Leaving these three to the people here the pair go off to take care of the others. All that can be seen of them is jumping into the air before they start spinning and head down into the forest a good quarter mile away. Despite that there's a thunderous boom from where they land and the sound of trees falling. Oops! Well, to kill the deer, you just have to accept some foresty losses…
Isura lept into the air as one of his clones took the strike from the high ground he released a powerful flurry of tiny fireballs before landing softly and waving through more seals and signs. "I'll give y'all a chance with this next one." Isura released a wave of pure heat to creep on the deer and blind it temporarily so one can strike a sufficient blow on the beast.
"Ugh… what… what hit me?" Zankuro asks as he slowly picks himself up off the ground. Sometime after the first deer got shredded, things sort of lost focus for the Sarutobi. One look at the smoking hole in his vest at the singed flesh explains some of it. Upon seeing the slightly bloody rock behind him, the rest gets explained as well.
He doesn't get that much time to reach that conclusion before the roar of flames, tearing of wood (and flesh), and a whole bunch of other things going all at once pulling his attention. After a moment or two, Zankuro enters almost a Zen like state that leaves him all half-asleep and yet alert. Half-lidded eyes look from the bunkered up merchants then drift to the efforts of Nobunaga and Isura. After another moment, the rotund chuunin makes his way back into position in front of the caravan, ignoring some disturbing questions that lingered about the dears to simply handle the problem before him. The answer: More Cover Fire. Literally.
Fortunately for the team, Hige is a whirling devil of nightmares as he and Konsho just shred the deer. No more albino deer to deal with now! And thanks to Isura and Zankuro, they get nicely cooked for everyone to enjoy! … If you want to eat the albino deer. But they seemed a bit modified, and not in a good way. It may be better to take them back to Konoha. Either way, it seems that this little adventure is done!
