Starring:
Daichi, Kenta, Kyuketsuki, Shinobu
Date: January 1, 2016
Summary:
Kenta leads a team of Genin to harvest a very rare herb that only grows on the snowy mountains between the Land of Waterfalls and the Land of Sound. In order to succeed, they must contend with bandits and avalanches.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"Just Another Snow Day"
Between the Land of Waterfalls and the Land of Sound
It's a few days into winter and the weather has turned very cold, but not quite cold enough yet for snow in Konoha proper. This isn't the case in the desolate mountainous region between the Land of Waterfalls and the Land of Sound. The rocky terrain here is already completely covered with thick layers of ice and snow, which makes footing extremely difficult. The hard, jagged rocks that make up the ground ensures that slipping would be painful, sometimes to the point of broken bones. This is especially true where the ground's steepest, but that's also where "broken bones" is more likely to mean "broken neck" or "broken spine" or "broken everything".
Thankfully, the group that Kenta's leading on this expedition doesn't need to travel too deeply into this desolate area. The mission targets a tall mountain that's only slightly beyond the border. On the slopes of this mountain grows a rare herb that only matures in early winter, when snow heavily covers everything a few feet deep, but hasn't frozen completely solid into glacial hardness yet. The plants grow under the snow, which makes them incredibly hard to find.
«Ummm… listen carefully,» Kenta informs Team Lunar (and Shinobu and Kame) via telepathy as he trudges up the mountain with them. The young man's fully covered in winter clothing, a hooded cloak, scarf, gloves and more to keep warm. Frost has already formed thickly on his scarf due to the freezing of water vapor in his breath. More vapor visibly poofs out with each word that he speaks. «This is a dangerous location, so we have to stick together closely. Be careful of your footing and always keep your hands free.» Which is why Kenta's not looping his thumbs into the straps of his pack. «Speak only through his link if possible. Loud noises might trigger avalanches. If any of you see even the sign of one, warn everyone right away, or we could all die. Any questions?»
Kyuketsuki was wearing his signature cloak, hood up, but also he wears gloves, a black scarf, and general cold-weather gear. He doesn't really seem like he's enjoying this temperature. «Hai Kenta-sensei. Noise-discipline.» Kyu stays close to his sensei, looking back at the other three to check on them, making sure they haven't disappeared or something!
Daichi didn't need any encouragement to stick closely together with at least one of the people here. He was now standing right beside Shinobu to both try and keep warm and to just chat if they were able. He had his little cloak on that he wore for cold weather, but besides that not anything over the top for it. «Okay Kenta…. no speaking unless you have to. Well and through this link.» He had his hand free and a kunai in his hand. The hand holding the kunai was on the side opposite Shinobu. He didn't want to accidentally cut her or something. His eyes would just continue scanning the area as he walked.
Shinobu is just all bundled up today. The girl has Kame in her hood and extra warm everything on to make sure she doesn't freeze to death. She nods a bit at Kenta's comments in her mind and says through the ninjutsu, 'Hai…' She was kind of excited to be hunting down this rare herb, actually. New plants are always fun to learn about, and she couldn't help herself from wanting to rush forward. She doesn't, but she's very close to doing it.
The mountain is steep, so it's hard walking up it, especially with so much powdery snow underfoot. It's very easy to slip even with thick snow boots on. It's another half an hour before Kenta stops. He looks back over his shoulder down, down and down the cliff. Then, he turns his head to look up, up and up the cliff. It's top disappears into the thick gray clouds overhead.
«Umm… I think this is the correct elevation. We're about a quarter of the way up, which is the best altitude for these plants to grow. Southeast face of the mountain. Temperature's about right. Let's do our searching here.» Kenta uses a thin pole strapped to his pack to test the depth of the snow. «Four feet deep snow. Perfect.»
Kenta unhooks a ouch from his belt and carefully opens it with gloved fingers to show the group what's inside. There's a spindly dried plant consisting of a single long stem with some streamers growing out of the bottom, maybe roots, and a pure white bulb surrounded by a cluster of evergreen needles on top. «Like I said, these grow beneath the snow. The roots spread across the ground to soak up minerals from the rocky soil. It pokes about two feet upwards only, halfway through the snow, so it's never exposed to open air directly. But the bulb generates and focuses a tiny invisible beam of heat that melts a tiny hole upwards through the snow. This lets in just a few threads of light that the leaves soak up. We need to search for signs of this.» He pauses before he turns to Shinobu and Kame. «Your noses might help here, so you can sniff the plant, but I don't know if it's too cold for that.»
Kyu looks at the plant, and after hearing that they would be looking for tiny holes in the snow, he nods, before activating his Sharingan. «Hai Kenta. I'll search the area using my Sharingan. I've gotten better with using it to spot minor details and searching for things.» Kyu's red eyes with two tomoe quickly scan the area, trying to spot any tiny holes in the snow. His visual prowess certainly has improved greatly from what Kenta may remember from his… Unobservant student.
Daichi was looking around when Kenta showed the plant and explained things. He was looking for these tiny holes in the snow, but he even doubted himself that he would find any. Maybe he would though as because of words from Hige he was trying to be impressive. He didn't understand why he had to, but Hige had said Shinobu might enjoy him showing off some… or something. He just shrugged to himself as he looked.
Shinobu peeks at the plant that Kenta is holding, and she and Kame both sniff a bit at it so that they can recognize the scent. She nods a bit, then she starts walking around in the area (away from where Kyu is searching) to try and sniff out another scent just like it!
Kenta puts the dried plant sample back in its pouch, which is reattached to his belt, as soon as everyone gets a good look at it. «Remember not to move out of sight range,» he warns everyone as they spread out to search the area. «Umm… we'll search in grid formation, moving out of his block to the next one once we're sure we have everything here. Be careful when digging up the plants and make sure that you leave behind at least one streamer of root, so that it'll grow back in the future.»
Once Kenta finishes giving his instructions, he plants his feet on the snow and closes his eyes. The young man's mundane senses aren't much use in such conditions. Instead, he relies on medical jutsu to help him search. Kenta sends out small pulses of medical chakra, which bounces off living organisms back at him. The echoes are tough to interpret, but he's skilled enough to read the biological signatures they carry. Human, human, human, ninken, lichen, lichen, more lichen… «Daichi, please check over there next to the rocky outcrop?» Kenta suddenly asks and points in a direction without looking up.
It seems that the group has picked a great location, since at least three of them picks up something within the first few minutes. The outcrop that Kenta points to does shelter a layer of snow where Daichi can detect a tiny hole no wider than a pinky. Peering down into it reveals a flash of white and green. Similarly, Kyu discovers another hole about twenty feet away from that location, while Shinobu and Kame's nose detect something completely buried. The latter is under a snow heap that fell from further the mountain side, which obscured any trace of the little hole created by the plant.
Kyu finds a hole and makes his way over to it, carefully digging out the plant, he takes his kunai and carefully digs into the ground, cutting away a bit of the root before uprooting the rest of the plant. «Hai. I left some of the root and took the rest Kenta-sensei. I'll keep looking for more.» Kyu places the plant carefully in the empty ninja-tools pouch on his hip, before his Sharingan eyes once again scan the area.
Daichi would get to work grabbing his and similar to Kyu would get the plant. « YAY! I found one! I am not being useless!» He almost chuckled a bit, but stayed quiet and avoid an avalanche. Then he would start hopping about to go grab some new plants if he could find them. Or maybe just help Shinobu some since she could find them easier.
Shinobu thinks she found something and she and Kame start to dig at the snow to try and find the plant hidden below. The girl eventually manages to dig down to a plant, and she tugs it a bit to pull it out by the stem, leaving some of its roots behind. 'I found some too!' she tells the others, tugging it out of the snow and carrying it over to Kenta proudly.
Before long, the special carrier that Kenta brought with him is holding five of the precious plants. Kyu and Shinobu each found two more. Despite his aid, Daichi is unable to location another one within this section. But from the way that Kenta's beaming, it's as if the team had brought him a hundred of the plants instead. So five is probably an amazing number already.
«Umm… we'll head that way» Kenta tells the group telepathically as he points pass the outcrop of snowy rocks where Daichi made the first find. The medic-nin's snow shoes create wide prints on the ground as he trudges onwards. Powdery white puffs of snow is churned upwards to cover everyone behind him, which keeps happening no matter how he steps. The snow is just too fine and "dry".
Again and again, Kenta leads the small team side to side up the mountain, checking one block of land after the other. He stands still with his eyes closed each time to sense for plants growing underneath the snow. Since Kyu and Shinobu has proven to have the sharpest senses, not a surprise, his efforts are mainly combined with Daichi's.
Daichi was simply looking around as he tried to find something else. This was troubling for him because he felt useless again. Even the one he found was with help from Kenta. «Kenta. Why do we need these flowers again? It seems like a lot is being done to get them.» He peeks over at Shinobu and smiles a bit as she found more, and just continues onwards as he looked.
Shinobu continues to hunt down the plants, snuffling through the snow. Kame joined the search too, though the pup would sink into the snow faster than you can say mouse… So she just sticks to sitting on Shinobu's head while they find some of the plants with Kenta and Daichi's help. Shinobu peeks over at Daichi to see how he's doing, too.
Kenta has dug up a few plants of his own and is now making sure that everything's securely in the special carrier. The plants are hardy, but still need to be stored in a way that won't cause them to degrade before there's a chance to process them for preservation in far away Konoha. The amount of airflow between the plants become important after they're picked. He secures the flap of the container again after he finishes.
«Umm… these plants create powerful medicine. It doesn't do anything specifically itself, but it strengthens the properties of many other herbs. This is very helpful when we have limited quantities of other rare herbs that we need to stretch the usage of» Kenta explains upon hearing Daichi's question. He glances up at the sky. It's hard to tell the time of day due to the heavy cloud cover, but the amount of light still gives some clues. «It's already mid-afternoon. We already gathered almost enough to meet our needs, but I want to search for another hour before we head down the mountain again. Can't be longer than that, since it'll get dark very quickly if we linger too much.» He stops transmitting to send out another pulse of searching chakra.
A bit of snow falls on the team from further up the mountain. There's a soft creak and a jingle. Daichi and Kyu doesn't notice any of this, but it instantly pushes the rest of the team into alert. Kenta's eyes pop back open as he lets his jutsu die. «Someone's above us. Several someones. Umm… Shinobu-chan and Kame-chan, you smell them?»
Daichi just looked for a moment at Shinobu as she looked over at him as well. He stopped looking around for the moment to just offer a small smile towards Shinobu. Then Kenta spoke more and also seemed to spot someone being above them. He quickly glances up and starts looking for these people, and raises that kunai in his hand in case he need to fight them! «Kenta. What do we do? Hide maybe?»
Shinobu sniffs a bit. The scents were faint, but fairly clear this high up in the mountains. 'Umm… I think I smell… five different scents…' she tells them both, focusing some chakra just in case these new people feel like trying to attack her and her friends. 'It's cold, though… So I can't tell how far they are…' she says mentally, shifting a bit so that Kame could hop off her head and stand next to her.
Kenta glances at the rest of the team. «Five of them. That's what I sense too with my medical jutsu» the young man confirms. «We're below them, so they must have seen us. I don't know why they didn't announce themselves. Ummm… that could either be a good thing or a bad one.» Kenta looks up the mountain, but a lot of outcrops and snow covered boulders make it hard to see. «Well be careful and…»
It's at that second that the barrage of shuriken comes flying down at them. It's a steady rain aimed at the entire group, but Daichi and Shinobu takes the brunt of it, since they're slightly further ahead, while Kyu is sheltered behind everyone else. The shuriken are thrown with enough precision that it's clear whomever's attacking them have at least some training. Maybe enemy shinobi or bandits.
The men in question appears a few seconds later, seeming to materialize from out of the rocks. That's not really what happened. They just moved away from cover as soon as it's clear they were spotted. There are five big men heavily bundled in winter clothing just like the Leaf shinobi are. All of them have swords out and four are standing behind the man that must be the leader. "You there! You shinobi kids! Drop that pack of herbs and scram! You do that and we won't hurt you worse than we already did!" the leader yells down to them. His challenge echoes loudly up and down the mountain side.
Daichi was surprised by the sudden attack from these guys causing the first shuriken to hit him. Though the next wave didn't get close(Or it did, and he will tell the story like it didn't.) as he moved to the side. He then listens to those words and glances back at Kenta and Shinobu. «Avalanche might be caused by the idiots!» So to finish this quickly Daichi was all of a sudden flickering from view only to appear right under their leader, and then kicked upwards. A foot was aimed right at his jaw sending him into the air where Daichi could shadow him for a moment. If that worked he would then spin his leg downwards and onto this man with a leaf great whirlwind. He hoped it wouldn't cause any troubles with the massive amounts of snow above them.
Shinobu winces a bit when a shuriken hits her arm, though Kame is able to avoid the shuriken easily. Shinobu pauses for a moment, trying to think of ways to fight without accidentally causing an avalanche. Also, she's wearing snow shoes, so trying to do her ataijutsu is just difficult. The girl opts to use her genjutsu, making a few handseals and casting an illusion on the attackers. They would get to see wolves tearing their throats out!
Kenta ducks and weave to escape the rain of shuriken. "No, this is ours! We worked for it and we're not handing it over to bandits!" the young man replies indignantly, while trying not to make his voice too loud. He's about to toss the container of herbs to Daichi to guard when Daichi, Shinobu and Kame goes directly for the bandits.
«Wait! We have to be careful!» Kenta calls out through the link. It's too late though, so he tosses the container to Kyu instead. «Kyu, keep hold of that and don't let anyone near it!» Then, Kenta's jumping into the fray. He does this partially to shield the three attacking Genin from enemies of unknown strength and partially to try to end things quickly before the mountain side can get destabilized. Thankfully, everyone from the Leaf know tactics that's relatively non-destructive to the environment.
The bandits holler with laughter when they see kids coming at them. Two of the minions step in front of the leader to block Daichi's rain of blows, tossing the boy back with small grunts of effort. But the laughter stops when Shinobu's genjutsu suddenly grabs hold of their minds. The two men that blocked Daichi are froze where they stand, but the others, including the leader, manage to shake it off. These three charge at Shinobu and Kame with growls of anger and the intent to do her bodily harm. Kenta steps in the way of the leader, but doesn't manage to keep the other two from jumping at her with swords raised. The bandits' battle cries shatter the air.
Daichi frowned for a moment, but when he noticed the signs showing these two were under genjutsu he smirked a bit. "What you laughing at now." He says not too silently. Though still quieter than the bandits had been. With this he charges both of those two and spin kick them hopefully away/off the mountain! Then he moved back again to stand by Shinobu's side. "Kenta. Should we just leave now?"
Shinobu frowns a bit when her genjutsu doesn't seem to work, and two of the bandits are charging at her! Eep! The young Inuzuka and her partner dodge out of the way quickly, ducking a punch and shifting to one away from some oft he nastier attacks. Then she makes a few handseals and they would be surrounded by CUTE PUPPIES that are playing the snow. They just want to snuggle the puppies and pet them.
Kenta's slightly too slow to avoid the slash of the bandit leader's blade, but he manages to move enough that the skintight seal barrier around his form absorbs the entire force of the blow. "Umm… you guys really need to keep quie— eep!" the medic-nin starts to warn before he's interrupted by a thrust of the much bigger man's sword. It's like watching a giant trying to smash a squirrel as Kenta weaves in and out to avoid getting struck. The medic-nin watches for an opening and grabs it immediately once one arrives. His palms glow with medical chakra as he tries to strike the leader in the side with chakra scalpels.
The bandit leader roars when he sees two of his men go bouncing down the mountain side. "You'll pay for that! Kill them all, men!" he yells to his two remaining minions. He redoubles his efforts, turning into a blur of furious sword strikes. The chakra scalpel that Kenta aims at him is knocked away harmlessly in a flash of steel.
The two other bandits look uneasily at each other, as if they'd not sure this is a good idea, before they resume they attacks. Unfortunately, one of them immediately falls prey to Shinobu's cutest Genjutsu and just freezes with his sword half raised while a silly smile plays on his lips. The other only makes a sloppy hand seal and fights off the Genjutsu with a gasp. "Drift," he growls before he launches himself at her. Since Daichi's in the way, he tries to throw the boy to the side with a solid kick to reach Shinobu.
Daichi moved away from the kick and upon hearing the man speak out against Shinobu he grows angry. He doesn't hesitate to rips the weights off of himself before he moved between Shinobu and the bandit. Sadly taking off the weights meant he didn't get there on time to stop the attacks, but he would be able to attack himself. He moved in a way to get underneath him like he had done before, and kicked upwards at his jaw. This time though he would as he shadowed him just light a kunai and stab to make sure not to cause an avalanche.
Shinobu avoids the incoming attack, though she can't help but be unsure what to do. The girl eventually decides to try one more Genjutsu on the remaining person, and the stranger bandit would just be attacked by large dogs that all want a lot of pets.
Kenta's still engaged in an energetic dance with the bandit leader. The bigger man swipes his sword downwards and Kenta moves sideways. The sword sweeps sideways and Kenta jumps backwards, so that the swordtip's momentum is bleed away when it scrapes against his barrier technique. Stab, stab, stab. Kenta keeps backing away until he gets a chance to retaliate again. Then, his glowing hands lash out at arms and legs and sides, trying to touch and sever the muscles of any location that he can manage to land his fingers on.
Everything's suddenly over very quickly. Daichi's kick snaps the bandit charging Shinobu into the air, where he's suddenly on fire from being stabbed by a flaming kunai. The man spits out a few teeth and tries to land in a crouch, but Shinobu's genjutsu takes hold just before he hits the ground again. As a result, his hands and feet slip on the powdered slow. He goes tumbling down the mountainside without even a scream.
At the same time, Kenta manage to slice the leader's ankle tendons by dropping down into a roll and swiping chakra enshrouded hands across the leader's legs. Kenta shoves immediately afterwards. With his tendons rendered useless, the bull of a man roars and throws his arms out to save himself, but topples forward. He slams into the remaining genjutsu-frozen minion and brings -that- man tumbling too. They nearly roll over Kame on their way to their death.
Silence.
Daichi frowns, and moved quickly to Shinobu's side when the fight was won. "Shinobu. You okay?" He knew she was, but he moved to get out his own medical supplies to patch up her cut before his own. Probably no reason to do so as she could help herself, but he felt angry at that one man still. He deserved to get beat up for that.
Shinobu nods quietly and makes a few handseals so that Daichi's injuries could be healed. The girl then gets up to make sure Kame is alright. The pup actually did get rolled on, but the snow was deep enough that she just made a puppy-sized indent and is a-ok. Yip! ~I'm okay!~
«Everyone ok?» Kenta breaths out a sigh of relief. That's over. It would have been better if the entire debacle didn't occur in the first place. He retrieves the container of herbs from Kyu and straps it to his back. His eldest student gets a smile of thanks for diligently guarding the fruits of their hard labor. «Ummm… let's head back right now. If there's one group of bandits, there could be a second. I don't want to risk getting into another fight. What we already harvest will have to be enough.»
Daichi is too busy healing up Shinobu, and then moving on to Kame with her. He glanced over at Kenta and nodded slowly. «Alright Kenta. Lets move quickly then. Well…quickly and safely.» He moved down to pick Kame up into his arms, and began to pet the puppy as he walked. He made sure to get those weights on too firstly though.
Shinobu sniffs around to make sure the coast is clear and everything. The girl gets up and follows Daichi while Kame gets picked up. Daichi is gonna get a lot of puppy-snuggles… Shinobu umms a both and says, 'I don't think I smell anything…' She wanders over to Kenta and Kyu so that they can get a move on.
The Leaf shinobi are soon ready to get a move on. Kenta leads the group down the mountain as quickly as they can to avoid being stuck on it after nightfall, but he doesn't move so recklessly that they risk slipping. Remembering how the bandits fell to their deaths is enough to curb any recklessness. Nevertheless, all four of them are making good time.
The group's finally within distance of the bottom after nearly an hour of trudging through the snow. By this point, they can see the tangle of broken limbs where the bandits have fallen. One of the men even burst apart in a splatter of red upon landing. His blood has frozen to ice on the ground. Daichi would recognize subtle differences in clothing that tells him it's one of the first two bandits he kicked off the mountain.
A few minutes later, the Leaf shinobi are only about a hundred yards to the base of the mountain. It's at this point that Shinobu and Kame begin noticing a slight tremor under their feet. It's been building and building since the fight, but they only begin to notice it now as they near firmer ground. There's as a soft rumbling from above… If the Inuzuka peers upwards, they'll see in the dying light that a wall of ice, rock and snow is hurtling down the mountain.
AVALANCHE!
Daichi was just petting the pup, but eventually set her down because mission work. He moved on towards the others, and would silently follow thier lead unless addressed. If he happened to be told about the avalanche when it was happening then he would quickly look back up at the snow. "Can we run now?" His hand moved quickly to re pick up Kame if Shinobu hadn't already. And then he would look at Shinobu, and then to Kenta. "I could get out of here pretty quickly. Could take Shinobu with me, and you could get Kyu maybe? With body flicker?" He glanced at Kenta once more, but was already moving a bit more to keep pace with them if they had started. Though even with body flicker he knew Shinobu was pretty quick, and maybe quicker. If his weights were off he could maybe out speed her.
Shinobu feels something rumble a bit… Is she hearing things? The girl peeks up cautiously … AVALANCHE!!!!! The girl grabs Daichi's hand, and Kame hops into the other arm that's cupped for insta-pup. 'Let's get out of here >.<' she tells them through telepathy provided Kenta is still using that for them all.
«No point getting weighted down! Everyone, just run!» Kenta exclaims through the link. The noise of the avalanche is getting steadily louder, so it's going to be hard to talk without screaming anyway. «Go! Go! Go!» the medic-nin exclaims. He waits just a few seconds for the Genin to get in front of him before he starts following. This puts him at greatest risk of being overtaken by the surging wall of snow, but it's his responsibility to make sure that his charges make it safely. The young man does take those precious few seconds to scatter some tags on the ground. Then, it's 'Go go go!' just like he ordered everyone else to do.
Daichi would frown and nods a bit, but the puppy not weighing much would stay in his arms if she didn't fight against it. He moved pretty quickly to try and get away from the avalanche as quick as he could Of course even he kept an eye out. He didn't want others to get trapped, and injured so he needed to help with this if they got in trouble.
Shinobu flees, dragging Daichi with her and Kame keeps safe in their grip. Hopefully they can outrun the Avalanche… And hopefully Kenta is able to catch up. She would go back to him if they left him behind, of course, but first she would like to stay alive.
Kenta's legs churn through the snow as he sprints after the rest of the team as fast as he can. The delay of setting the tags actually slowed him much more than he expected. It comes as a horrifying surprise when he glances briefly over his shoulder to see that the wall of snow has reached the tag line, which means it'll be on his heels in a second.
«Faster!!!» Kenta screams through the telepathic link. He makes a hand seal and every tag he placed activates. Multiple walls of force spring up to block the avalanche. The walls are crushed almost instantly, chakra dissipating as they fail to stop millions of tons of snow, ice and rock. Thankfully, this still slows the avalanche -just- enough that Kenta's able to pull ahead a little more. But things are looking very dicey for the group.
Daichi makes haste to get away, and actually speeds up. Shinobu helping him along at first helped well enough at least. "Shinobu what do we do if Kenta needs help? We can't just leave him behind there." He kept moving for now though despite what might happen if this goes bad for one of them.
Shinobu keeps running, partly because … Well… She doesn't feel like getting suffocated by snow. The girl just keeps running and dragging Daichi. 'Just … keep going…' she thinks at him. 'We'll know if he's dead because we won't hear him, anyway.' Kame yips, ~Just MOVE!~
«Don't worry! I'm not dead yet!» Kenta pipes up reassuringly when he hears the worried thoughts from Daichi. Then, he nearly trips on an exposed rock. The medic-nin turns it into a tumbling jump instead of a fall, mitigating most of the lost in speed that it causes. The rumbling of the avalanche is so loud that it hurts his eardrums now and he can -feel- the spray of snow hitting him from behind. The forefront of the wall is a cloud of snow mist that's beginning to envelop him.
Kenta begins to sweat as he feels the chance of suffocation by burial increase exponentially with every passing second. His breath comes in loud gasps that sends condensed water vapor streaming out from his scarf. He nearly stumbles again when his feet finally hit relatively flat ground. They've reached the bottom. «Quickly, to the left into the trees!» he orders, knowing that the avalanche will still catch them if they keep running straight. The surging wall isn't going to stop -right- at the bottom. It's going to smash a lot of the land beyond that too.
Daichi was running along, and was surprised by this avalanche. Mostly how it was just seemingly coming from nowhere at first. When reaching the bottom he does in fact trip and slip to the ground. This does make Kame land onto the ground, but she was fine to run. Daichi had to get up again before dashing towards the trees on the left.
Kame squeaks and has to take the time to scramble away from Daichi. Shinobu just keeps running, though she's starting to get tired…. The girl skids to a stop and scrambles up a tree quickly, trying to reach the branches so that she may not get buried by snow.
BOOM! The avalanche hits the wall of trees created by the evergreen forest at the base of the mountain. Many of the spindly specimens are torn down do to their weak purchase on the rocky soil, but it's still enough to blunt an enormous portion of the avalanche's force. The surging wall of snow instantly starts to slow down, which gives the Leaf shinobi a greater chance of getting away. They're -right- at the left edge of the wall, so it's just a little further. The edge of the wall still clips them, sending falling trees and some boulders their way along with the snow.
«Watch out!» Kenta warns as he glances back to see the trees toppling towards them. Kyu is the closest to him, so he grabs the boy and uses the trunk of a nearby tree to launch them forward. They hit the ground in a roll that allows them to narrowly escape getting their heads smashed in at the cost of a few bruises.
Daichi was not going out to a rogue tree, and when he heard Kenta he ran to and up one in front of him. Then he spun around it before kicking off, and boosting ahead. He figured if it got really bad then he could just use body flicker for that extra boost of speed. His hands moved to his weights again as well to make sure they are off.
Shinobu leaps into the higher branches of the tree and jumps towards the next few ones that are further along her path to avoid getting squashed by the snow even further. The girl glances back to make sure that Daichi, Kenta, and Kyu are all present. And Kame. Kame looked pretty snuggly in Daichi's arms, though… So everything looks good!
Kenta also pauses to look everyone over. No one looks badly injured, so he heaves a sigh of relief. The ground continues to quake with the force of the dying avalanche, but they're all safely out of the way for now. The medic-nin brushes off all the snow from his clothing and checks to make sure that the container of herbs is undamaged. «I'm proud of all of you for keeping your heads. Ummm… there's nothing more than we can do here, so we'll travel south towards Konoha for an hour or until we find a suitable place to hole up for the night. We shouldn't linger here any longer than needed.»
Daichi would look at everyone here, but mainly over at Shinobu. "You all okay then?" He hopped over to the others to get in a cirlce or something. "So… I guess it is time for us to head on back? We shouldn't have to rush now at least, so…" He leans down and puts his weights back on officially now. "Lets go!" He looked up and smiled some.
Shinobu nods and Kame hops into Shinobu's arms. They both nod to Kenta and get ready to travel a bit more… Though Shinobu's kinda tired from the mad dash >< The girl sets down her pack and rifles through it to find a dried fruit bar to snack on for a bit of energy, then slings it back on and offers a thumbs-up.
