Starring:
Taiki, Usagi, Atsuro, Hinotori
Date: July 28, 2013
Summary:
Taiki, Atsuro and Hinotori come across another assassination attempt. Note: This is the next campaign after Unholy Alliances
"Revenge of the Recluse - Initial distractions"
Toshiba Forest
It was well in the afternoon today, with the skies looking mostly cloudy to overcast, and and a lot of the animals are staying home, as there's a strong breeze…a storm is rolling in. Even the rumble of thunder can be heard from afar, ominously heralding the arrival of the inclement weather. And for the time being….Usagi could care less.
She currently stands with her scythe out, held particularly defensively as four cloaked and masked intruders are squared against her. Though the reason of their hesitance to attack her can be likely ascertained by the headless body not two steps from her location, no doubt a surprise attack gone wrong against the Nara. She's certainly not unmarred, her arms both having takin moderate cuts, with a shallow one along her cheek. The shadow 'wings' she is known for are flared and spread, though from the amount of shuriken and kunai around her, she hasn't had much time to give ninjutsu a thought. She's breathing slowly, and for any who know scythe works, would see that it 'is' held defensively, but oddly. Unless they were to look at her glancing at the blade, which is particularly clean. Her look is very determined and a mild bit angry. The thunder rolls again, and the attack begins anew.
Hinotori was coming to the forest to get some training in but for some reason he felt that taking a nap first would probably be better, that is until he heard the clashing of weapons and the sound of fighing going on nearby. Quickly moving towards the area where the fighitng is occuring, HInotori moves through the forest keeping his profile narrowed and hidden by the trees he's moving through. THe red eyes of his fully activated Sharingan showing, he still focuses on keeping his chakra lowered just in case there are sensors nearby, he didn't want to be seen or found out just yet.
Who knows how this fight might go for Usagi alone, but she won't have to find that out. For not far away, Atsuro and Taizen are just getting ready to start training. Atsuro lowers himself to the ground and does a pushup. Then another. Then another — hold on, what's that? A lucky breeze brings him the smell of blood. Normally he'd just figure it's a spar, but that's a /lot/ of blood for a spar. He's a jounin, so he'd better check it out. Just to be sure. He gets to his feet and exchanges glances with Taizen. The look on the dog's face confirms that it's not simply Atsuro's imagination, so they hurry off to inspect it.
And of course, they find Usagi and her assailants. "Never a moment's rest," Atsuro sighs loudly. "Well," he admits, looking over to Usagi, "I don't know that. Is this exactly what it looks like?" Figuring it probably is, he takes a ninjato from Taizen, while the dog himself pulls out a katana, and they get into a fighting stance, ready to engage the masked men, if need be.
The four remaining figures seem to be warily watching the Nara, as if trying to devise a strategy. Obviously this girl was tougher than they expected, but it didn't mean they'd stop their objective. Suddenly one looks up, then calls out, "Company." The voice is heavily distorted, as if said through some kind of apperatus. The man furthest back doesn't waste time and throws the windmill shurriken at her, which quickly multiplies to three. Another man completes his seals, then points a palm at Usagi, "Seal Technique: Star Burst." Her voice is also changed. The other two rush in at the same time, swords in hand. It's a suicide rush.
Suddenly there's a stream of water needles that seems to come out from the forest, aimed at the man with the shuriken. At the same time a lot of shuriken rain on the the windmill shuriken, just enough to throw the big ones off to the side. Taiki and his dogs appear out, but don't yell to allow Usagi to do what she needs to.
Usagi's eyes are moving rapidly, trying to take in as much information as possible. She's no sharingan user, so she can't track 'that' much, but things changed quickly. the sounds of shuriken striking alert her that those are no longer an issue. As for the rest, her wings come forward and wrap around her to protect her, the seal slamming against them….and they hold. The problem being, the two that are attacking physically shatter the wings and strike at her, gashing her down the side, and on the shoulder. She grunts softly, kicking one back and then slashing out, aiming for the neck to strike a mortal wound, and then she clasps her hands together while still holding the scythe, moving through some hand signs as her shadow erupts into tendrils, attempting to impale the man multiple times.
Having managed to close the distance, he keeps himself moving quietly. Stoping near one of the trees, he watches the fight, hoping to help Usagi here shortly, the Uchiha notices one of the men to his left still moving in to attack. Shaking his head, Hinotori quietly creeps through the foilage, taking his time not wanting to draw any attention to himself of his surroundings. He's a Jouin, it would look really bad for him to not be able to get the drop on his opponent. Still as if a shadow being chased by the sun, Hinotori is in range and without a sound he is a blur of motion as he throws a finger jab towards the side of the neck of his oponent, then thrusting a kick high to the mans head, Hinotori leaps up and throws an axe kick down upon the nins shoulder but at an arc aiming to kick the man into one of his friends, hoping to take them both out.
"Guess that's a yes." Atsuro and Taizen waste no time in attacking the attackers, now that their fears have been confirmed. Whoever these guys are, they sure aren't friendly. They need no trickery for the moment, really. It's just a matter of getting some of these guys off of Usagi and giving her some breather room. They can /really/ lay on the pain once they're in a better situation. So for now, Atsuro just raises his ninjato and charges for the one of the men nearby, swiping at him skillfully with the sword while Taizen picks a target for himself and does the same
While the fight between Usagi and one of the sword-weilding attackers seems to be stalemated for the moment, the other attacker is not so lucky. Usagi's shadow swewing goes off without a hitch, effectively sewing the other sword-wielding guy in place, where he comes under massive attacks by Taizen and Atsuro. He's hurt, bad, but he's still immobile for the moment. The first sword guy tries for another slash, this one actually a series of three, in hopes of getting to the target. Unfortunately he'll have to do that without back-up as the ninjutsu guy tries to get out of the way from Hinotori's initial attack, but is caught flat-footed and is hit in the throat, which seems armored enough to at least prevent his throat from being crushed, though he is still hurt. Hinotori's next attack is flung against a blue haze that forms around the ninjutsu wielder as several seals burst into life. He just smirks and points his hand at Hinotori now, calling out: "Seal Art: Star burst." A white beam launches out toward Hinotori at point blank range… The distance fighter would help sword 1 guy, but he has problems of his own. He turns and throws a literal storm of shuriken toward Taiki and his ninken, who manage to get well out of the way.
Nozomi then fires off another stream of water needles while Taiki and Shinobu become swirling tornadoes of electricity as the plow toward the ranged fighter, obviously intent upon ending this quickly.
Usagi's focused mostly on the first swordsman now, her hands flipping through seals again. Her shadow, still keeping the second poor idiot in place, now reaches to lock the first in place, hoping to open her up to literally cut his head off. Success or fail on the seal, her hands take back the scythe in a proper hold, and SWING! Hopefully followed by a body and head falling separately from each other. Hopefully. "Do not physically block the seal!" The only words she's spoken so far, narrowing her eyes.
It didnt' matter if the attack is locked, Hinotori smiles as the blue haze erupts around the nnijutsuist and he calls out hsi attack. Shaking his head, Hinotori frowns a little bit reading the pattern of the attack and retreats out of range only to close bck in again upon the attack igniting. Hinotori not wanting to use ninjutsu in this close confinment, he quickly dashes in towards the ninjutusuist, jumping up he does a spinning split kick which as he is at the apex of his attack, fire ignites around his legs. Hit or miss HInotori follows up with a flaming spinning jumping uppercut, hoping that the enemy is off balance enough to be struck.
Seeing that his guy is in no condition to fight back for the moment, Atsuro realizes that if someone is going to run off and get reinforcements — probably a good idea — it's going to have to be him and Taizen. "We're going to try and find help," he calls out to his allies here, "We'll be back as soon as we can. Nobody die." With that, he and Taizen dash out of the area before any of the enemies can change targets or recover and attack them. Hopefully, they'll be back soon with at least a few other Leaf nin to help.
Sword 1 just barely manages to avoid being hit by the shadows, though Usagi's follow up movements are pretty much easy to counter. He retaliates with another triple slash, showing his intent loud and clear. The shadows release the sword 2 guy, just to have him fall to the ground, confulse, then fall still. Usagi, for the moment, is free to act as she wishes.
The Ninjutsu guy has had better days, though this is his last. Hinotori's attacks shatter the man's bluish armor, and the combination of fire and bludgeoning reduces the man to nothing relatively quickly. The only person still standing and able to do anything is the ranged fighter, though the water needles do manage to hit him. He retaliates by throwing two scrolls up in the air, jumping up, then unsealing a multitude of weapons to throw at Taiki and his partners. Taiki and his partners scatter and barely avoid being hit, but this guy has just made a serious mistake. The lightning claws on Taiki and Shinobu extend further as they leap forward to slash at the guy.
This time, Usagi does cry out from the cuts, one hand going to try and hold them for the time being. She kneels and flips her hands through the signs again, her shadows flaring considerably this time. She was determined to take this idiot with her, though it'd certainly shown a lack of her taijutsu skills these past few minutes. But, try try again, eh?
Watching as his opponent is dropped, Hinotori looks around the area quickly. Hearing Usagi cry out, Hinotori rushes through the forest seeing her attacker, Hinotori narrows his eyes. Bringing up one hand, Hinotori forms seals fast, and once he completes the seal. He leaps up into the air, taking a deep inhale, holding the air in his throat and allowing his chakra mix with teh air and he blows out sending a massive fireball down towards Usagi's opponent, though arcing it to keep from near his team mate. Landing and rushing the swordsman, quickly reaching back and throwing a knife hand strike towards the mans neck, fire igniting around his hand in attempt to break the mans neck and engulf his head in flames.
Usagi finally manages to catch sword 1 in her shadows, and her follow-up taijutsu strike, followed by Hinotori's strikes, manages to reduce him to a corpse. Range 1 manages, just barely manages to escape Taiki's and Shinobu's strikes, but seems to understand just what he's facing now. He then goes through a bunch of hand signs before throwing down a smoke bomb, which covers him and his immediate area in smoke. When the smoke clears, there's nothing remaining there but air. Taiki and shinobu look around, blinking and sneezing. Apparently whatever was in that smoke bomb is interfering with his senses.
Hinotori was about to persue, but stops. He looks back to his team and immediately moves to Usagi's side. As he looks at her, he notices that her chakra pathways are messed up, "Genjutsu." he says as he moves down and crouches in front of Usagi, "Look at me please Usagi-chan." he says softly. As he looks at her, the tomoes in his eyes spin as he focuses his chakra to invade Usagi and he breaks the genjutsu. "You ok?" he asks. He then looks to Taiki as well, nodding his head and moving over towards where Taiki is, still managing to balance his chakra. He looks to Taiki, "YOu doing ok?" he asks as he looks into his team leaders eyes and his tomoe's spin until again the genjutsu is broken. "you doing alright?"
