Starring:
Date: February 12, 2013
Summary:
After escaped pigs cause chaos in the Sunagakure village center and run throughout the town, council member Kuroki Kuoroke dispatches genin Hayato Satoru to deal with the menace. Satoru manages to make progress, but finds the task difficult before the intervention of a mysterious masked figure.
"Greased Pigs on the Loose"
Sunagakure, starting in the village center
With a crash, the jugs and vases of oil of varying quality come falling down and shatter apart, covering the panicking herd of small, pink animals in grease. Around them, the market has quieted down for the afternoon as people seek shelter from the heat, meaning they have a clear path across the central square and down the varying alleyways, shooting into nooks and crannies as quickly as they can. At first, their owner and that of the oil stand chase after them, but since the animals run at considerable speed, their pursuit is futile. In the middle of the market, breathing heavily, the two men look at each other, then at the Dome, then at each other again, and both get the same idea, turning towards the building.
Slightly later, Kuoroke discusses the price of the service -bordering on larcenous for a mere D-rank mission, considering the haste with which is must be done and the pressure on the clients to negotiate quickly- and draws up instructions. His care to keep accurate records allows him to locate a free Genin to help them, and he immediately sends out a message to Satoru that he is being called upon to perform a mission, the briefing enclosed in a letter. A Hayato hawk is dispatched, and drops the scroll into his hands, wherever he is.
Satoru is enjoying some shade and a cool drink of water along the side of a building. When the messenger falcon drops the scroll in front of him, Satoru snatches it up. He briefly scans the contents, then smiles slightly. Heis being personally requested by a member of the council. Surely he is about to be given a mission worthy of his considerable potential. "Fly with me, Baizo," he says to the strange-eyed falcon on his shoulder, who immediately takes off. Satoru, meanwhile, sets off at full sprint toward the council dome.
Soon enough he is front of Kuoroke, panting heavily, the bird returned to his shoulder. "Hayato Satoru, reporting for duty!"
Kuoroke looks startled by Satoru's appearance. In Kuoroke's case, that emotion is hardly discernible form annoyance, as are, for that matter, quite a few emotions. "Hayato Satoru, yes. Is something unclear about your instructions?" he asks. "I had expected you to be out, hunting for the escaped animals by now." In the meantime, the animals continue spreading, one heading more or less East, in the direction of the gate. They are not difficult to track, as they leave mayhem, destruction and annoyance in their wake, running through the streets in panic. A smaller group has split off and headed north, similarly causing mayhem. However, since they navigate narrower, less populous streets, their progress is less obvious.
Satoru blinks. He unrolls the scroll again… Then unrolls it further than he had earlier. He reads eyes widening The entire mission assignment was there all along, and he had missed it! And it was- pigs. Pigs. All his excitement, and his mission was the very essence of degrading. "My apologies, Kuroki-sama," Satoru replies through gritted teeth. "Baizo, find-" But the bird has already taken off. Satoru shakes his head and growls softly to himself. His bird is quicker than he is today, it seems.
The genin rushes back outside, relying on the cries of Baizo to help him locate the pigs. He settles on dealing with the pigs to the east first, sprinting to catch up with them. He waves his bird to fly lower so he can speak to it, calling out, "Find me a closed off alley I can corral them into!
Soaring high, the bird looks for a dead end. These are annoyingly difficult to find among Sunagakure's relatively sparse, rounded buildings, but as it flies in greater and greater circles, Baizo eventually spots one, where fenced-off plots of land seem to create a possible alley. It is, however, relatively far off. While faster than the civilians that had no hope of keeping up with his quarry, Satoru experiences that this hunt will not be an easy one - he can keep up with the pigs, but to outspeed them, he will need to push himself quite a bit.
Satoru clenches his jaw as he finally hears the cry of an alley found from his bird. Not only was this mission demeaning, it was actually difficult! He could barely keep up with the pigs, and the one plan he had come up with so far would take an awful lot of time to execute. It was exhausting enough keeping up with these pigs, to have to do it for longer than necessary seemed like something to avoid if at all possible. If only he could do something to slow them down…
Saturo waves again up to Baizo. As the bird gets close, he calls out, "Go. Try diving at them from in front. See if you can get them to turn around, towards me. But don't hurt them, the owner is a client-" Baizo squawks. "Yes, yes, alright. You know that. Go on, then!"
That figure was on his normal patrol of the city. Rather it was sanctioned or not, was beside the point. He simply did it, to keep the area secure. That said, he actually used two shadow clones to work with him, covering a wider area than normal. Thus, it didn't take very long for him to find out about the destruction and chaos being created by the pigs. With Kuoroke being whom it seems was setting up the containment at the square, a clone would approach him.
"Kuroki-san." That soft tenor would croon. "Shall I assist with the detainment of the pigs? I'm guessing.. without damage or killing of the animals?" His attention went to the clients nearby. Mean while, the real figure and the other clone were spread a bit further out, the clone trying to get ahead of the pigs, while that figure stayed in the middle, balancing distances so both clones could exist at range while he waited for a response.
The bird sweeps down, and, squeaking loudly, the pigs turns around, scattering. However, the intelligent bird continues its flight in a circle around them, low to the ground, herding them together again and carefully herding them back towards its owner. In the meantime, Suterusu's clone is sent into Kuoroke's office, where he can offer his help. Kuoroke frowns. "If you insist on volunteering, maybe… though, I'm surprised you have enough time on your hands to come in here for this." He considers the question for a few seconds.
During these seconds, Satoru sees a wave of pink, shiny flesh storm towards him, chased by a wildly maneuvering bird. "Fine." Kuoroke says, back in his office. "Go, find Hayato Satoru, he's running the mission. If he lets you, command of the operation moves to you, but he decides how you split the payment, if at all. Go." He waves towards the door, letting Suterusu go.
Oh, excellent. That plan worked. Except that now he has a bunch of out of control pigs charging at him. Which means the second part of his plan had better work. He rushes over to a nearby food cart and unties the rope holding the covering that blocks the sun's harsh rays in place, ignoring any protests that might come from the cart's owner as he does. He then tries to dash across the street in time, attempting to jerk the rope taut just as the pigs reach it.
The clone would give a nod in response to Kuroki. "I did not come here. I sent a clone. It retrieves information while I can continue my patrol." That clone then bowed and POOF, gone. The actual figure would pause a moment, information assimilated and he'd move forward. Recalling the other clone, he gathered more information, turning to hone in on where Satoru was at. Stopping to stand on the wall of the building over where Satoru was creating his trap, he'd watch with interest on if Satoru can pull it off on slowing them down. His own soft tenor voice, nothing really more than a whisper, and yet easily heard over that horde of pigs, would reach out for the genin. "May I be of assistance? Kuroki-san stated that if I am to join, I would be in charge, however you decide the split of funding."
Kuoroke doesn't spare Suterusu a second glance, turning back to his work with confidence that the job will be done. In the meantime, Satoru's rope goes taut with a thud, the animals running into it. Although not very large, they're also rather numerous, and the combined weight of the animals sweeps Satoru off his feet even as the front animals fall, the ones behind them stopping abruptly by colliding with them. The end result is Satoru lying on the ground, with all of the pigs slipping and sliding over one another, desperately trying to get up and failing to.
Shaking his head slightly, the figure would pull that wrap of metal wire from about his person to throw it out wide. One part kept a hold of, he'd focus chakra, charging it so that as the wire fell down into the mess of pigs, it'd come alive, the string reeling technique a perfect usage here in attempting to tie those pigs up via that wire. Yeah, he wasn't going to try to wrestle pigs, especially greased pigs! He would of course, wait for Satoru's response. If he said no? Well.. he could probably just let the wire go and let the genin deal with it, right?
Satoru spares Suterusu a glare before returning his attention to the pigs. "What? No. Why would I need your help to catch a bunch of-" Whoops. He is pulled off his feet mid sentence He has the wind knocked off him as he face plants into the ground, his wide-brimmed hat knocked away to reveal a mass of frazzled hair. Satoru blushes in humiliation as the wire lands in the mass of pigs. "Oh, fine! You can have ten percent!" He seems to be trying to sound huffy, but notes of desperation line his voice. He doesn't really have a good plan for how to round them all up without the other Shinobi's wire.
Inside the sudden net, the pigs continues squealing and snorting, trying to find their way out over one another. The greasy bodies of their brethren afford them no purchase, however, and they just turn into a roiling, shrieking pink mass, desperately trying to free themselves from Suterusu's grasp. The second group of pigs continue spreading through the village, lone animals splitting off from the group.
The figure would tie off the wires holding that group, hooking it into the wall with a kunai, so they would be stuck there. The kunai would be hammered in with a quick kick as well, to make sure it didn't get pulled out by the pigs. Looking to Satoru then, he'd stare at the genin for a long moment. "I'm feeling generous.." The soft tenor would croon, "Half, or you are on your own. Considering I got the most of them here for you, that seems reasonable, hmm?" Forming a hand seal, another clone would be made, this one immediately taking off to start hunting more pigs. The same way of control could be done there, afterall. It's part of what he does and he has plenty of wire on him.
"Half!" Satoru exclaims. He looks over to Baizo, then waves him up into the air. "Go find the other-" as is often the case, Baizo is taking off before Satoru can finish his instruction. He then looks over to the strange figure, grunting in displeasure. "I got them rounded up. That was real work. You barely broke a sweat." He then looks over to the netted pigs, considering the possibility of trying to get them all tied up by hand. Never mind the other pigs. "Thirty," he finally spits out, while listening for the cry of his falcon. He soon hears it and frowns. "The pigs are splitting up. My bird already got one group to to stay together. Take the thirty. It'll be easy, you just do that wire thingy once Baizo has them rounded up."
The bird moves quickly, and, obviously, as the crow flies; however, the clone is simple faster, so even as it navigates the streets and hops roof, its movement controlled by the terrain beneath and around it, it can keep up with the falcon. Nevertheless, the falcon is the first to spot the pigs, and, going higher and higher, it gets an accurate idea of how the pigs are spreading, now split into three small groups, each with but a handful of animals, with two or three running off on their own. The caught mass continues to try to escape, and continues to fail.
Getting a general scope, the clone would start for the bigger groups, much as the first group had been caught, it would use that string reeling technique with the mass of wire it'd have on hand for such things to capture them and bind them up. The net would be tied off into the side of the building as well. Nothing a simple earth manipulation couldn't fix, after all. This would put him ahead in so far as the Falcon could report back, but couldn't actually gather pigs. Then again, the individual ones were probably going to be the annoying ones.
"Forty. You capture the single pigs that have ran off on their own, I'll get the rest of the groups." The figure would turn and start to walk up the side of that building. The discussion was making it so the pigs could get further away. It had to be ended quickly. Glancing back, those red eyes stared at Satoru for a moment. "You better hurry up. They are spreading out even further." He'd make another two clones, so 3 in total, which would scatter as well. Between the 4 of him, he shouldn't have that much issue with the big groups.
Well, sixty percent of the entire mission purse was not so bad. Still, Satoru's clenched fist indicates he harbors some frustration at asking for help from the mysterious ninja at all. He rushes forward, signalling Baizo to dive close. Fortunately, diving is one thing falcons do quickly, and soon the bird is in earshot. "Get any strays," he indicates. "Drive and herd them to the nearest ground."
Baizo squawks assent, then rises again and sets off on his mission, diving toward the first stray pig he sees as soon as he has enough altitude.
The four clones run for after the pig groups, trying to group them together, but these ones aren't being chased, and therefore are watching more carefully what's ahead of them, making abrupt turns. Even so, through cooperation and careful planning, Suterusu's doubles -and triples, and so on- can keep up with the animals and, sometimes literally, run circles around them, forcing them in a desired direction. By the time they're all in position for whatever plan Suterusu has, Satoru's airborne friend has already started its part, already. Again, it simply chases the animals, and they answer with panicked fear, running away from it and towards Satoru.
Gathering them up into tight bunches, so it was more efficent, the three of him worked together to get them all close. Once all the smaller groups was a bigger group in one area, that trap would be sprung. Once again the wire used was laid out to catch the pigs at that point, it'd come up, tripping up and bunching together those pigs, locking them down so they couldn't flee potentially. This was more common work for a genin, but hey, easy money was easy money, right? Plus he didn't have to deal with trying to hunt down any loners. That's probably taking the longest part of all. Then again, the ability to have eyes overhead does help a lot. Either way, once the figure had the pigs bound up, they'd be carried within the chakra enforced wire mesh back to the start of this mission, delivering the pigs to the men who asked for it to start with. If they asked, he'd of course explain that the rest of them would be brought in shortly, but the least they could get started in keeping those that were tied up locked down for good.
"Now herd them back to the main group," Satoru says, taking off in what he hopes is the right direction, though he is being guided by the sound of the pigs… The moving sound of the pigs… Finally, a cry from Baizo clears up the mystery. The other pigs are already being taken to their owners. He nods. "We'll meet up with what's his name over there," Satoru agrees. And now, with a clear direction to take the pigs in, he tries to direct them back from whence they came.
The owner of the pigs is happy to see his animals. Happy enough, even to forget he was arguing with the owner of one of the stalls they destroyed, much to the ire of the latter. After the pleasant surprise of seeing his pigs again, the pig keeper tries to pipe up about the state in which they're delivered -you can't carry pigs in a large mesh and leave them unbruised, after all- but the people whose belongings were damaged by the animals are quick to take his attention again, leaving nothing to Suterusu and Satoru to go take their reward.
Returned, relatively unharmed, the figure would just stare at the man for a long moment. After all he didn't have to catch them, right? Shaking his head, arms would fold over his chest as red eyes continued to stare at him for a long moment. Once Satoru showed up, a nod was given the genin's way and they'd report inside for the reward. Split the 60/40 after it's handed out of course. He wouldn't take a bit more, but he did extract his part completely. The simple matter of clean up for what damage he did to the buildings and that figure would be on it's way once again. The clones spreading out to continue his patrol as if it never was interrupted.
