Starring:
Date: September 28, 2014
Summary:
With Ikari on her way to graduation Nobunaga is assigned to take her on a mission to evaluate her abilities in a real mission scenario. But the mission turns out to be more than they expected.
"Spider Control"
Rocky Area, Toshiba Forest Konoha.
That time of the year where students graduate from the academy and make that fabled transition is near. There are a bunch of up and promising rookies this year. Promise alone however isn't enough to cut it in the shinobi world. Chuunin all over the leaf were tasked with giving a few students a little extra evaluation to see if they really have what it takes. Nobunaga, being one of those chuunin, was assigned to no other than Akimichi Ikari. This young girl, could be one of the youngest students to make genin in the leaf. Naturally she was famous but she also had a fair share of skepticism about her as well. Nobunaga is confident in Ikari however which is why he has her lined up to accompany him on a mission that will demonstrate her ability.
At the Rocky Area in the Toshiba forest certain areas were closed off due to an infestation of a particularly overgrown arachnid. Ticks! No just kidding, spiders. There have already been multiple reports of attacks though thankfully no fatalities. The village doesn't intend for it to go on that long. Nobunaga and Ikari are tasked with suppressing and eliminating this particular area of an aggressive brood. Before an unnatural and dark cave Nobunaga and Ikari stand. The Amaro peers into the everlasting darkness and whistles shooting an echo into the abyss. "The thing runs deep." Nobunaga notes. He looks to Ikari "You'll be regarded as a full-fledged shinobi during this mission Ikari-chan. I hope you understand what that means." he says with a heavy tone. A smile from the chuunin lightens the mood however "You ready to go huntin'?" he asks as he gathers and stablizes his chakra.
Ikari trots happily around Nobunaga, weaving in front of his path before circling around behind him again. She wasn't told much about the true intentions of this mission assignment, all she cared about was being able to serve alongside Nobunaga again. She wasn't prepared for the train mission, and even though she acted well as a decoy for the toy maker, she was eager to surpass her own expectations again. When they approach the cave, Ikari peeks out from behind Nobunaga's legs to see where they were finally going. She scrunches her nose a little at the sight, "Eww. I bet there's all kindsa spider webs in there…I'm not getting any've them on me." She bobs her head and looks up at Nobunaga, taking a more serious tone and expression, "Understood Nobunaga-sama! There won't be a spider left when we're done with the place." She takes a deep breath and brings her hands together as she copies Nobunaga to prepare her chakra. It is definitely a much more refined process than the steps she had been taking in the past. She opens her eyes again and steps forward, "So is it just straight down or are there gonna be different paths? I…I kinda don't wanna split up…not that I'm scared've the dark or anything! We just might miss stuff if we don't work together…"
Nobunaga is pleased to see that Ikari understands what this mission is. He question almost gets a chuckle out of him. "You're a brave girl. I don't like the dark one bit. Especially when spiders are lurking somewhere in it." He shakes his head at Ikari "Against a threat like this its wise to stick together. They have the number advantage and we're not entirely sure how danger they are." Nobunaga explains before walking forward. The aura around him changes immediately once he enters the cave. "Let's go squash some bugs." He says with a smile.
The cave is wide enough for a crowd of 4, maybe 5, to stand shoulder to shoulder. However it isn't all that high. Nobunaga has to crouch, Ikari on the other hand would be fine so long as she didn't get web in her hair on the way down. They were surrounded in pitch darkness by complete silence. Reliance on one's sense of touch and hearing is all that'll get them through in these conditions. After about ten minutes the cave would get larger, large enough for Nobunaga to stand straight up. Then a chittering sound would be heard. Something scrambles there in the dark. The ground is moist beneath its feet and that of the Leaf Shinobi. Nobunaga extends his hand back to make sure Ikari is close. "On your guard."
"I haven't needed the lights on at night since I started to make my dollies. Then I could just snuggle them to feel better…I don't got them with me right now, but I know they's gonna e there when I get back. If you want I can let you have one too!" As they're heading in, Ikari definitely doesn't want to get webbing in her hair, so she's down on all fours while they descend. Her hands and legs low to the ground, in constant contact with the cave around them, definitely helped her to become more aware of her surroundings. It would still be a while before her eyes would adjust to the darkness entirely. Since Nobunaga isn't talking, she stays pretty quiet as well, trying to pick up on the drips and scuttering around her. The moment she notices him rising to his feet, Ikari scrambles to her feet too to ready herself. Her eyes dart around and in their search find eight gleaming orbs of red quickly encroaching from the back, "We found some!" Ikari quickly makes a hand seal to swell her hand up to the combined size of each of those fist-sized eyes before launching it dead center in an attempt to blind the creature. The size of such a large spider does have her startled, so she immediately brings it down on it repeatedly in a frantic attempt to squash it.
Before Nobunaga can issue a command Ikari is already at work with squashing the spider. Her enlarge palms crush the thing in a matter of moments. Nobunaga is a bit alarmed at how frantically she was attacking. The spider was as good as dead after her second impact but a third never hurt. Its guts though would be all over her hands. Nobunaga winces "G-good job. That's…one down." he says nervously as if he's a bit worried about something. Scuttling and chittering sounds begin to liven the area. Against the moist surface of the caves many legs trot surrounding the shinobi duo. Nobunaga nods "That got their attention. It was dark though. All that could be seen were the sets of eyes, crimson , that set upon the leaf shinobi. Nobunaga flashes through handseals before instructing Ikari "Shut your eyes." Fire shoots from his mouth illuminating the caves and revealing their numerous foes. There were at least 50 oversized spiders all closing in on them. But that's not that was revealed in the light. Running all along the ceiling were sacks of what could only be offspring. "Oh goody…we found their nest. Now all we have to do is…" the shrieking of fifty spiders was defining. "Clear a path for escape. There're too many to take on at once." he decides. But where could an exit or escape be made? The answer may never be reached by the two leaf shinobi. Strings of webbing shoot towards the both of them.
Ikari pants and then squeals, shaking the spider's innards off of her hand. "EWwww! I didn't know they had juice in them!" She instinctively closes her eyes when the order was given, and when she notices the light fade she looks around. "Do we burn it down then esc…" She yelps as the webbing catches her before she can hop out of its path and it nearly has her strung down to the floor. The web is no match for the Akimichi's growth and they snap under the strain as she grows into a large ball. Once she's shrunk she grumbles to herself and has both of her hands grow large enough to scoop two giant fistful of spiders up to squeeze them tightly before trying to flick them against the wall. "Whatever you decide to do Nobunaga-sama, and I'll follow your orders t'the letter."
"They have innards just like we do Ikari-chan. Hopefully we wont be showing ours off." Nobunaga replies a bit amused by the Akimichi. The antics however do not dismiss the fact that they are in a thick situation. Nobunaga evades the webbing trusting Ikari to handle herself until they can think of something. Burning the place down seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately the pyromaniacs of Team 8 aren't present. Nobunaga isn't as well versed in Fire Ninjutsu as they are either. But this nest has to be destroyed or at least sealed. While in thought Nobunaga counter attacks to by time. The brood is closing in. They'd be overwhelmed soon. "I do have that jutsu. But I'll need time." Nobunaga slings his scarf around like a whip. Hardening it and granting it the edge of a fine blade he attempts to slice or fend off some of the spiders. They're huge. Four times the size of any normal human. Ikari's efforts made them a bit more weary of her but didn't keep them from advancing. "It looks like the only exit is the entrance. Let's work our way back." He directs her "Think you can clear a path?"
"Groosss…" Ikari whines a little, but keeps her focus set on the spiders. She looks with Nobunaga, coming to the conclusion that there aren't any other exits besides the one they entered through. "Yeah I think so…I wish I could barrel through like Noab-sensei…" She takes a deep breath and brings her hands up to form a seal. Her hands swell even larger than they have in the past, and she uses it to try and part the sea of spiders that are trying to guard the entrance. "You go on through first! I'll keep 'em back and catch up after!" Her expression is strained as she waits on Nobunaga to run through the path she's created, and when she's decided that he's safely passed, she immediately tries to spread her hands further to stun the spiders with a smack against the cavern's walls. She then scrambles in an attempt to run past them to catch up with the superior Chuunin.
The majority of the spider hoard stay out of range of Nobunaga's scything scarf. "I must admit my luck can be uncanny at times." he says with a smile joking of course. He lets Ikari make a way. She's able to keep the spider separated making a path for Nobunaga. They can't seem to scurry around fast enough which grants Nobunaga exactly what he needs. Time. "Excellent. Keep them off me for a sec." He says moving down the path. "When I say so do everything you can to get out of here." Nobunaga sternly instructs Ikari. His scarf then starts to wind around his arm like a serpent. It grows tighter and tighter. But the spiderling weren't just going to let Ikari and Nobunaga have their way. In unison they try and push against Ikari's arms. The few Nobunaga failed to slay swarm her from behind attempting to bite her with venomous fangs. Unfortunately Nobunaga can't do anything about it now. Hopefully Ikari could hold on.
When Nobunaga tells her to stay in place and wait for the signal, Ikari pauses before she tries to retreat and nods quickly in understanding, "I'll wait on your word Nobu-sama. Nothin's gonna get through to ya." She notices the spiders trying to crawl over her skin and growls a little. She focuses and tries to expand her arms in such a brief and sudden way that she'd send them spiralling away from her. Unfortunately, those sticky spider feet are hard to just shake off, but she did have a back up plan. Just in case she couldn't flick them away, she also focused on toughening her skin's texture to literally make it too strong for the spiders' fangs to break through. In the meantime, she tries to hurl away any spiders that were getting too close to Nobunaga while he worked. "Ewww they're hairy!!"
They were making their way over Ikari at first. Her tough hide kept the spiders at her rear at bay. THeir fangs couldn't penetrate her skin. The relentless hoard was flicked away though after making it over Ikari's arms. While not dead they were out of Nobunaga's way, for now. But the Amaro needed no more time. "I here women like a guy with some hair on his chest. I'm a little envious." he jokes as his scarf finishes winding around his arm. "And we're golden. Ikari-chan make a break for it. Go!" Nobunaga commands before leaping high up. His scarf hardened as he thrusts his arm forward into the cave wall. Stone starts to split and the structure integrity of the cave seems to weaken but not enough. Nobunaga continues to keep at it but it's clear that without help he wont be able to bring the place crashing down on itself yet. A few spiderlings trying once again to entangle Ikari and Nobunaga in their web. THey're becoming more frantic as the cave rumbles. "Come on…fall!"
Ikari tries to hop out of the spider's reach when Nobunaga gives the signal, but they manage to keep her weighed down to the point that entangling her with the web become possible. She wriggles and squirms in the webbing as she tries to inch her way towards the cave exit. "Nobu-sama! Heelp! They's got me stuck!" She looks around her frantically as the cave structure seems to be weakening and tries to desperately shake any spiders trying to climb on her off. "I can't move!"
Nobunaga is able to resist the entanglement of the spider's web and continue drilling. He forces his arm deeper and tries to bring it all down. He stops though once he hears Kari call out. The spiders are scampering towards her ready to harvest her in their web. "Hold tight." no pun intended. The formerly frantic spiders are now hysteric. They start lunging at Nobunaga as he makes his way to Kari. In case he didn't make it to Kari he'd fling a shuriken at her to weaken the webbing. Unfortunately it would have to cut her a bit since the webbing wasn't all that thick just yet. "Expand and get out of here!" He commands "I'll bring it down." Chunks of rock do fall from the ceiling and even a few sacks do. But the cave wouldn't collapse just yet.
Ikari squirms more strongly as the spiders start to close in, and even though she hisses in pain when the shuriken digs into her skin, she expands to get what remains of the webbing off of her. She scrambles to get back on her feet and makes a break for the exit. If any spiders try to get in her way, she expands just enough to try and hop up and over onto their heads like she would jumping over stones to get across a stream. When the cave starts to incline to the entrance, she breaks onto all fours to claw her way up to the light of the surface. Finally once she's beyond the cave's walls, she comes to a rolling stop a ways away from the entrance, panting to try and catch her breath. All of this spider exterminating took a lot more out of her than she thought it would. "Why were those spiders so big…"
It seems as though the spiders can't penetrate Nobunaga's defenses which is a good thing too seeing as the chuunin still had to find a way to collapse the nest upon itself. One more good strike would do it but he didn't have Ikari here to buy him time for his drill again. Well the spiders weren't giving him time so he made a run for the entrance. To slow his pursuers down he fired back some fireballs indiscriminately. He scrambles to the top. There are only a few spiders in pursuit but they don't seem to be close behind. Once out Nobunaga looks for Ikari. After spotting her he waves. "Those things are relentless. We're gonna need back up. For now though…help me seal this entrance off. It's their only way out." he asks Ikari.
Ikari nods at Nobunaga and looks around, finding a rather large boulder. "Maybe we can use this?" She then heads over and grabs one side of it, waiting for Nobunaga to grab a space on it before she tries to push and roll it over to barricade the cave entrance. "I dunno much about the seals Kenta-sama works with…but I don't think they'll be able to push this…maybe if we had somethin' like your scarf to tie around it too. That way even if they push at the rock, they won't be able to move it so well…" She kneels down and starts to pant again. "Why were they so big?…Did I do ok for the first mission after my test?"
Nobunaga nods to Ikari "Fine idea. Let's get to work." As they seal the entrance/exit to the nest Nobunaga asks himself the same questions Ikari is asking him. "I don't know. Although we did expect them to be large…that was much larger than expected." Nobunaga chuckles as he tugs at the boulder. He looks to Ikari and nods "All things considered…you performed phenomenally. You followed orders, didn't hesitate, and…you didn't die. Still we'll have to report this and come back with more man power. And soon. You saw those sacks. We gotta exterminate them before they hatch." Nobunaga rubs his head "Might need Kenta's help actually." Nobunaga chuckles. "Well I say this is seal pretty tight for now how about you?" He smiles "Let's head back."
