Starring:
Date: July 31, 2013
Summary:
Satomi and Katsurou stumble upon a unique threat while out on an 'easy' mission
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Hoshigakure's runaway squad!"
An excavation site at the fire/wind border
Satomi knocked on Katsurou's door on a wednesday morning. She didn't announce her sudden visit and actually couldn't. When he opened the door she smiled and nods. "Hey Kats, guess who got promoted!" She says with a bright happy tone in her voice. "That said, I just got a mission from the Hokage we need to squeeze in before we head to Kumo. Now technically I was sent alone, but I need some company so I asked permission to bring you. You mind getting ready so we can go? It's nothing serious, just checking out an excavation on the border with the land of wind." She explains. "We don't expect any trouble, but I hear the find is quite remarkable!" She grins. "I don't know anymore details either." She looks at Katsurou curiously for a moment. Hoping he would agree to join her, travelling alone is boring!
Bare foot pit-pat on the hardwood floor as Katsurou makes his way to the door. He opens it with bed head, droopy eyes, bare chest and pajama bottoms. "Huh wha?" He says at first but then wakes up enough to register her promotion. "Oh that is great. Wait, we are going to Kumo?" He asks while scratching the back of his head. He motions for the girl to come inside his apartment and would close the door behind her if she chooses to come in. "I will come, but let me get dressed first." He says making his way back into the bedroom with a long yawn. "Make yourself at home." He says from around the corner of his bedroom.
His living housed a couch and a tv, nothing else. His kitchen was full of dirty dishes and trails of spilled coffee grounds. There were no pictures on the wall or any other decor for that matter.
Satomi looks around his place awkwardly. "I see you did a real number on this place." She giggles and peers around while checking out his kitchen. YUK! "I'll give you the adress of my maid, she's great!" She grins and peeks at his bedroom door but doesn't look into it. Pocketing her hands while moving around his couch and just plopping down. Indeed, she's making herself at home!
Dresser doors clank and close along with the sounds of steel clanking against each other can be heard from his bedroom. A few minutes later Katsurou appears into the living dressed to do some field work. "A maid? What is wrong with this place now? I think I will find a wife before I pay someone to clean." He says taking a look around his apartment. "Anyways, I am ready when you are."
"A wife?" He giggles. "Who do you have your eyes on? That kid that kicked you in the stomach? I think you guys look cute together… Though honest, she's annoying as sprint. I sparred her actually, she told me you were strong, and wanted me to prove I was even stronger." She cockily wipes her arm. "She didn't even scratch me, and doctors said she only woke up the following morning!" Satomi grins, an evil…. evil grin.
"Anyways, lets get going!" She opens his door and leaves first, treating Katsurou as an equal and a friend mostly. Not expecting him to open any doors or say any special things. She jumps up onto a nearby roof and rushes at and through the gates. "The exavations are east… Last time there was trouble in that area it was a war." She explains. "So I really doubt we'll run into anything. I sort of needed a break!" Satomi zig zaggs through the trees at a speed which she adjusts to Katsurou's so he can keep up. Not that she's that much faster anyways. "So, ready for the exams?" She asks while she occasionally uses a new branch to hop.
"I do not know what you are talking about." Katsurou casually says as he pushes the rest of Satomi's comments about his love life aside. Who knew he was such a good actor.
As they exit the apartment and begin their journey east, Katsurou stays along side his team leader as he passes the gates. "I hope I am ready for the exams." Katsurou says as he zig zags right along side the Nara. "I have been working on a few new techniques and only sparring people who I know are stronger than I am." Katsurou shoves off of a tree branch to land lightly on another one just ahead. "So how does being a Jounin feel now?"
Satomi shrugs. "It's nice, feels like you're more recogniced you know?" She giggles. "But don't worry, I'm still the same Satomi you spoke to a couple of days ago!" Then she goes quiete. She used to be nozy with love-lifes but decided to leave Katsurou's alone for now. Occasionally glancing at him. Eventually branches stop coming, the trees grew a bit against their favour. But Satomi makes a set of seals, causing her shadows to rush out in front of her and lift off the trees in spikes. Satomi uses those as subs for branches. And keeps them up for Katsurou to hop on before she makes them disappears just as easily. A few seconds later they can uses the trees again. Sometimes, shadows are really handy!
So a full day worth of travel, Satomi insisted on reaching the camp before going to sleep, since they would have as tent. "We'll check out the diggings in the morning." Satomi muses while they arrive at the camp. Being waved at by a land of fire worker. "Hello, you must be Konoha's nin. I'm Dogo, the quartermaster." He points at a tent. "That's your tent, there's tea and something to eat inside." Satomi nods at the man thankfully and heads into the tent large enough for four. With two bedrolls on opposite sides. In the middle a fire is brewing, with a few skewers of chicken resting close, already cooked and some tea in a pot. "Now, this is like a vacation!" Satomi says happily while sitting down, crossing her legs into a lotus position and grabbing some chicken to nom. "See, I knew this was a good mission to take!"
"Well, I will have to congrulate you with a gift." Katsurou says just as he spots the shadows ahead and just smirks to himself. Instead of using her shadows for help he would leap off a tree but just as it would become apparent in his free fall that he wasn't going to make the next branch, he forms a seal and holds out his hand under him. Using the moisture in the air, he would force it to create a frozen slope that would take him to the next branch. He would continue to do this until the trees came back to a collective group.
He did not mind pushing the journey so that they could get to the camp before they would go to sleep for the night. Katsurou would enter the tent pointed out by the quartermaster. Seeing the chicken roasting and the tea brewed, he would take the side opposite of Satomi. He decides not to endulge in the food just yet, but lays on his side quietly watching the fire.
"A gift?" Satomi shakes her head and chuckles. "No really, there's no need! Don't worry about it!" She chuckles and finally relaxes down in the tent. Soon she finds herself closing her eyes and dropping onto her bedroll. She's still awake, just a little winded from the journey. She wouldn't mind a good night's sleep. Then again she's a Nara. So she would sleep at any opperunity. "I'm going to close my eyes for a little while." She says with a yawn.
Eventually the night started passing and Satomi opened one eye. "Katsurou.." She whispers, reaching out to shake him up a bit. "Something is wrong.." It was dead silent outside. Why would she think something was off? She holds up her finger for him to be silent. Usually its noise that wakes someone up. In this case, it's the opposite with Satomi. The lack thereof! No fire crackling, no people whispering. No birds rustling. No critters doing their thing…. "I don't like this at a-.."
*BOOOOM* A shockwave hits them first (indicating the distance of the explosion to be at least substantial) after which a wave of heat hits them. Satomi sits up right away and slips out a kunai. She opens the flap of the tent to see one of the mineworkers sprinting away. Satomi blinks and looks behind him for what he's running, but she can't see anything. The pattern repeats itself, more miners running off, stumbling as if they're chased by some wild animal! "What?" Satomi looks around and smells.
"I could have sworn there was an explosion!" Satomi says… But yet, no smoke nor fire. The normally full camp was nearly abandoned. Satomi stops one of the running miners. "What's happening?" She asks. The sweating man says with trembling lips: 'Monsters, in the d.d.d.dig site! Then he begins running again. Satomi blinks and tries to wake up. "Kats come on, lets check it out!"
Katsurou's eyes slowly open when he hears a whisper. "What?" He asks sleepily. Suddenly a large explosion occurs that rattles his insides. Throwing himself out of the sleeping roll, he takes a position behind Satomi as she peeked out to see what was the cause of it. All that he could see from behind Satomi was a few workers running for their lives. "Did he say monsters?" He then would fallow Satomi outside to investigate the commtion coming from the dig site.
Satomi glares back at Katsurou, then heads out. "He said monsters alright." She begins running to the dig site. It's a big crater! "Over here.." Satomi says, guiding Katsurou to the closest entrance. When looking inside they can see smoke. That's where the blast was, it was inside this tunnle network. "Any clue who built these tunnels?" She asks Katsurou while carefully walking into the tunnel. Grabbing one of the (lit) torches off the wall and using it to help her navigate. Strange markings, looking like early seals are written on the walls. Words such as 'crazy, fear, beast, darkness…' are written in a writing barely recogniceable but close enough to Japanese for Satomi to be able to read them with a bit of effort. "Look at these seals." She tells Katsurou. Looking over them carefully, tracing her finger past the lining. "You think this place might be haunted?" Suddenly, a red glow shows up in the wall ahead of them, and Satomi ducks for her life! "Good lord, you saw that!?" She yelps while looking past Katsurou, her skin pale. Thing is, there was nothing to be seen!
Katsurou would follow his team leader to the dig site and is suddenly overwhelmed by the vast crater before him. Satomi's call out to him snaps him out of his daze and he races to catch up to her. Once inside the tunnels, he allows his hand to trace the writings on the wall. "I am unfamilar with these markings, but I do not think a dig site can be haunted. The Shirayuki then whirls around to see what Satomi was crying out about. "See what? I do not see anything other than darkness, Satomi."
"Other than darkness?" Satomi glares around and sees the red glow again. She takes a deep breath. "KAI!" She says while making a seal. Suddenly the horrific monster disappears. Much better, she looks at Katsurou. "It's genjutsu!" She says, hoping he isn't struck by it the way she was. She knew his genjutsu defenses were wobbly at best. She looks around and spots the source of the red glow. A stone in the wall, she carefully walks up to it, pulling at it with her fingers. Then she lifts up her right hand. "I think this thing is brewing with chakra. Someone, or something activated some genjutsu defense system in these caverns!" Then, another explosion follows, but this wasn't genjutsu! It comes from deeper inside the hallways! (Which are spaciously built, fyi) … Satomi nearly loses her footing. "Woah!" She glares at Katsurou. "You okay?" She pulls out her kunai to force him out of the genjutsu if she has to!
As Katsurou stares into the darkness he finally sees it, that red glow. He is scared stiff, too afraid to move. Then suddenly he falls into a crouching position while holding his head. "Look out! It is too big to defend against!" He would call out to Satomi as he was under the affects of the genjutsu. Along with the next explosion, the Shirayuki grunts. "Here it comes! Get out of here, I will hold it off while you get away!" For now he stays crouched with his head in his lap.
"Wake up it's genjutsu!" Satomi grunts. "Sorry Katsurou!" She lifts up his right hand and presses the sharp side of the kunai into his palm so it leaves a deep cut. When it's hurting enough for him to snap out. "Listen, sorry but it was genjutsu and this is the only way for me to get you out." She closes her eyes. "Focus… focus…" She knew there was no real close danger. "Now, sit still." She quickly reaches into her pouch and slips out a roll of bandages. Pressing it onto his palm and rolling it around it tightly. Then she uses her teeth cut rip off the bandage from the roll, placing the roll inside her pouch again. "Freeze it over if the bleeding continues." She instructs. giving him nothing against the pain for a reason.
"Come on, I'm sure those explosions will tell us more about what's going on.." She presses deeper into the hallways, which split and split again like a maze. Luckily, the explosions leave an easy enough to follow smoke trail. Since it gets sucked outside. Satomi ducks a bit lower so the smoke doesn't hinder her. Meanwhile mor red stones show up, though she manages to keep the genjutsu from manifesting. "Come on…"
RPCOMBAT Katsurou took 100 damage.
Katsurou is brought of his genjutsu daze via Satomi's satanic ways of treating her team members. He looks down at the wound being wrapped by bandages. "You could have just slapped me." He says with a wince. Once the Nara was finished playing doctor on Katsurou, he would get to his feet and follow his leader down hallways upon hallways upon hallways. It was a hall-ception in this maze. When she would duck down to dodge the smoke, as would the Shirayuki.
"I needed the pain to persist." Satomi explains. "If I'd slap you that thing would take you right back in." She drags him along with her deeper and deeper, after about five minutes of jogging they find an opening. A huge 'inner sanctum' … a room shaped like a giant square, the walls around them are covered in seals. The ground however is dirt and there's even plants growing there, and a small underground pond. Three cloaked Shinobi are standing there, looking away at a stone pedestal. "We finally found it!" One of them says, while the other begins attaching more paperbombs to a stone blocking the way to what seems another passage. A big chunk was already blasted off! So that's where they were headed.
"What's in there boss?" One of the nin ask. Really, they look like 3 miniature count dracula's with those capes! "The source of these automated genjutsu! A big red stone, it's like a chakra battery. All we need is find out how the mechanism works, and take the stone. Then, the world will bow before our genjutsu!" Satomi went silent during their little speech and hops down as quietly as she can. They are facing away, so she begins slowly stalking towards them.
"Boss, you're not worried about the defense system activating?" The tallest of the three shakes his head. "No, I expected this, it's why I taught you two to use kai!" He smirks. "But when - I - get my hands on that stone, my genjutsu will be unstopable!
Satomi looks at Katsurou. If this were a movie she would go 'not so fast' or something, instead she pulls out a kunai. Looking at Katsurou, before throwing it at the tallest of the three as hard as she can!
Katsurou would continue ducking behind Satomi and once he comes out into the larger cavern he would take a moment to scan the area. Acknowledging the pond, dirt, and even the various plants that were growing here. He listens intently on the three goons up ahead but does not strike until he sees Satomi make the first move. Seeing the kunai fly through the air, he allows his body to take hold of the Shirayuki transformation as he weaves together a series of hand seals. Once completed the water from the nearby pond would flow in between the palm of his hands to form a medium size globe of water. Then suddenly he would release an onslaught of water droplets that streak across at a very rapid pace.
Satomi focusses her chakra and soon follows suit. Her kunai buries into the big guy's shoulder but doesn't seem to take him out! So he turns around and growls, his shoulder bleeding red. The two guys around him are merely kids! Maybe twelve or thirteen! "DAD!" One of them says while reaching for the man's shoulder. Satomi was weaving through her handseals, her shadows expanding, while they glide along the ground, sprouting out to shadow sew and nail the main to the wall!
Though when the two kids call him 'dad' Satomi's hands straing and stop the Jutsu, causing the spikes to stop short of the man's chest where they would have impailed him. The water droplets sheered through all 3 of them before they could call for their father, ripping their clothing and causing bleeding. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Satomi says at Katsurou, her eyes scanning the goons. "Surrender now, and you'll be arrested without further wounding." Satomi says calmly to the man. She offered him… quarters.
Then, Satomi's eyes sharpen.
"Katsurou, don't believe them, it's genjutsu!" She says loudly. The three shifting in front of her eyes to about the same age! But it was too late, her jutsu missed, striking the walls behind them while the three initiate their attacks, two of them rush at Katsurou, they did take his attack in an attempt to fool both of them. And if Katsurou didn't see through the genjutsu, they would still look like young children! They both launch a taijutsu combination at him, while Satomi gets blasted with a fire blast!
"I recognice this one, he's a missing nin from Hoshigakure!" Satomi yells! Getting burned to a crisp by the first fireball. Luckily it was a clone, Satomi was standing on the roof, upside down, the next fireball caused her to crumble and replace next to the guy, who continues a stream of fire around him, again she crumbles, standing in the pond now. Taking a breath, okay.. that tired her a little!
Katsurou cancels his aqua bullet technique and allows the water splash on to the floor. However, once Satomi calls out that it was merely genjutsu he reckonized the tug on his mind and pushed past their visage. He had just enough time to weave together a series of hand seals in which brings the water nearby to life and race to the Shirayuki's aid in the form of a stream. It manages to bat away two the strikes, but one of the two manage to slip past and land a solid punch on Katsurou's chest.
The Shirayuki stumbles back after being hit and decides it was time to even up the playing field. After a series of hand seals, two ice clones step out from Katsurou's body on opposites and immediatly leap at the two grunts with knees and kicks. One of the clones even going for a headbutt on one of them.
RPCOMBAT Katsurou took 200 damage.
Satomi catches her breath and watches Katsurou. Good thing he can take a punch! She follows the movement of his clones, and sees one of them knockout one of the two brothers. The second however proofs to me much better at taijutsu (evidently the one that hit Katsurou). Satomi then jerks her head back at the fire breather. This guy was good. "Hidenjutsu, shadow body bind!" She says while her shadows crawl out to capture him!
Meanwhile Katsurou has to dodge a flurry of shuriken being thrown at him, not one… not ten, no a good fifty! This guy was armed and knew how to shower his shuriken, which hit the walls behind Katsurou as well, causing spars enough to light up the room a bit! His arms blur at the speed her throws the things. "DIE!" He yells.
RPCOMBAT Katsurou took 1100 damage.
Katsurou might be out matched with this other brother. His body is riddled with shurikens after his clones prove to not be quick enough to save him. The Shirayuki lets out a cry of agony as the shuriken stick into his body, ranging from the top of his legs to his upper chest and shoulders. He is currently hunched down trying to gather himself. Blood can be seen dripping to the ground at a steady rate. His attire was just about completely covered in blood and the skin that is visible is patterened in crimson. He looks up to study his opponent as the Ice clones fall into piles of ice shards. For his next trick, Katsurou was going to need all the chakra he can muster. It was something that he had been working on in secrecy and he now feels he is ready to unleash it for the first time. He straightens back up defiantly. A moment later he begins a series of hand seals.
The air around the Shirayuki condenses and freezes in the wake of his ice chakra. Chilling winds begin to pick up inside of the cavern as a deep fog develops around him. Snow begins to form within the fog and is suddenly lunged at the brother. If the technique is successful, the snow will stab into his flesh and collect on top of each other, forming shards of ice over the exposed cuts on the body, giving a painful cold burning frostbite which then shatters, tearing away flesh, armor, cloth and anything the shards may have dug into.
Katsurou looks on proudly at the chaos he had created. "I was merely making sure he came out looking the same as I do." He says wincing in pain still from the shuriken that were imbedded in his body. He looks at the one brother that was KO'd then looks to other that was FUBAR'd from his newly learned B rank attack then looks over at Satomi. "Restrain? OK." He rolls the heavily injured brother onto his back and freezes his hands together in a block of ice. He then does the same to the KO'd brother with even more ease.
Satomi was a little more cruel in her adaptation of restraints, her shadows move around to the boss's hands, followed by a loud scream! "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" Is what comes out, closer inspection shows she broke or disloged all of his fingers, preventing him from doing any jutsu! Satomi then walks up to Katsurou, taking a breath while her shadows subside. The Hoshigakure shinobi falls on his knees and looks at his broken hands. "What have you done!" He says with teary eyes. Satomi seemed unimpressed. "Consider your two friends lucky." She calmly says. Looking at Katsurou. "Can you walk?" She asks while putting a hand on his shoulder. Footsteps approach in the distance down the hallways of the entrance. "We got company." Satomi whispers to Katsurou now she's holding his shoulder.
Katsurou stands up from the two Hoshigakure nin just in time to see the boss's fingers get snapped. This made the Shirayuki wince. While the boss was weeping over his friends, Katsurou was too busy trying to dislodge the more easier shuriken that riddled his body. He would let out a groan with each yank. "I will live." He says still covered in his own blood. It was then he heard the foot steps as well coming from the hallway. He would sigh and turn to face it. He was unsure of himself if he was ready for another round.
Satomi cleared her throat, she was good to go, but luckily she didn't have to. "Halt!" Yell two voices, their ANBU clearly. With purple colors. "We're konoha nin, stop there." Satomi says loudly. And the two ANBU stop. "My name is Nara Satomi, jounin of the leaf. This is my team mate. Ehr… Lee-san." Satomi then glances at the Hoshigakure people on the ground. "I'm sure you're looking for these three?" Satomi asks. Which is followed by a nod.
Satomi however crosses her arms. "What's their bounty?" The woman ANBU agent reaches into her belt, and throws Satomi a pouch full of cash, Satomi doesn't count it. "Go ahead." She says. The Hoshigakure ninja use their star jutsu to simply lift up the bodies, starting to float them out of the caverns. Then, Satomi plops onto her race. "How the dash would they kn-.." Satomi looks up, in front of her is one of Konoha's ANBU.
"Because of me." He says calmly, while holding his hands over Katsurou's chest, which begins healing just a tad, enough to stop a majority of the severest bleeding wounds. "I was sent here as your backup, but I made a detour knowing you could handle it." He explains. "Turns out I was half right." The ANBU agent chuckles. Satomi shakes her head. "Thanks… I guess?" She looks at Katsurou. "Come on, lets go home and get you to a hospital. I need to report this.." She groans. So much for her little vacation mission!
