Starring:
Date: October 17, 2012
Summary:
A group of Konoha Chuunin are sent off to a hidden base in the Land of Fire, determined to harbor deadly poison which had been leaked into a nearby town killing some of it's population. The group is ordered to destroy the base and pick up on any leads as to who created this poison and for what purpose.
"The Apothecary's Note"
Poison Bunker - Land of Fire
A team had been organized for a mission off within the depths of the Land of Fire. The mission was rather alarming however, a village a few miles away from the border and near the great river had it's water supply tampered with poison killing a few residences and children alike. After some investigation it was determined that the creators of the poison were holed up in an underground base amongst the mountainous rocky wilderness bordering close to the Land of Stone. They were expected to run into some sort of shinobi activity either on the way or at the base itself. The idea was to destroy the source of the poison while picking up on any leads that might point them to who actually created it and kill/capture any individuals that might be at this base.
Uchiha Narusegawa was the leader spearheading the mission, leading the way up a towering mountain focusing chakra into the soles of her sandals, her long loose locks of jet black hair fluttered down along her back, her body adorned in a set of battle armor rather than her traditional attirement… " This mission should be fairly easy…We just need to sneak in and destroy their source…Come up with any leads in the process… I would like to do this without them detecting us… Sound good everyone?" She perked an eyebrow open to the opinion of others. They weren't very far away from the enemy base… It was almost within plain sight.
Amiko walked up the side of the mountain with a cool, calm gait, her long, strawberry blonde hair draping out behind her in a fashion similar to Naru's. Instead of replying verbally to the mission leader's question, the Uzumaki girl simply nods sharply once, keeping her eyes focused and scanning the mountain for any signs of enemies or resistance. After a few moments she asks, "How long ago did the incident occur? If the enemy is trying to run, how far ahead of us are they likely to be?" While she's speaking Amiko cranes her neck to peer around the area. She seems to be very cautious and keeping a close eye on the environment nearby, half expecting that they'll be attacked or spot a fleeing enemy any second.
"Without them detecting us huh? I suppose we can do that." Right now, Yukio would much rather go in and wipe them out to the man. Yukio was angry about this one. Not an unusual reaction for such a cowardly tactic, but this time above and beyond. They had killed innocent children. But he understood the logic behind it, so he'd go along with the plan. Why fight an unknown enemy, with unkown strengths and numbers, when you could just sneak in, deal with the source of the problem, and sneak out? Nice, simple, and clean. Yukio followed closely behind Naru, and off to one side, an eerie wind bearing him aloft between leaps, keeping up with Naru all the same.
Kirito followed behind everyone, he had been rather quiet the whole trip, he was excited to be going on a mission. However he was nervous that he was going to be bringing the team down which in such a serious mission had him nervous. He had received the reports on the innocent victims, that really bothered him and was ready to do what he could to help. As he infused chakra into his black boots as he made his way up, his silver hair blowing softly in the wind as his light blue eyes focused on the other Ninjas ahead of him.
"We don't know exactly who we are dealing with which is why we have to becareful, their measure of ability can be anywhere at this point," Narusegawa began to use this time to keep herself low to the ground while pulling herself, upon the rocks and keeping herself low to the ground hidden away, there were a few guards outside of what appeared to be a cave like entrance, though nothing that the group right now couldn't handle. The idea was to continue sneaking and keep themselves out of harms way until they knew what they were dealing with. " The incident occured near the begining of this week so its been a few days… They are likely to have fled the area already but there might be some remains left behind…
As she comes over the lip near the caves, Amiko follows Narusegawa's lead and ducks low to the ground, balancing herself with both hands on the rocks. She quickly scurries behind a slightly larger rock and withdraws a trio of kunai from her pouch, each with a small tag rolled around the hilt. The girl sits very still, waiting for the other ninja to get in position as she looks to Narusegawa, awaiting orders on how to deal with the guards at the cave entrance.
Yukio nodded as he slowly made his way up the side of the cliff, switching to wall walking before they reached the lip, trying to stealthily make his behind Naru, and Amiko, one of his blades at the ready. He was staying far enough back, that incase he was spotted he'd be able to lure them away without causing too much difficulty for the other ninja in their team, but still close enough that he could move with them, and be ready to aid them if need be.
Kirito nods and follows and he slowly moves past the cliff side, his eyes follow everyone else as he watches and moves very close to the ground trying to stay concealed. He bites his bottem lip softly, rather worried he was going to be the one to give them away.
Narusegawa had a pretty good idea what was going to happen next once they managed to slip passed the guards, nearing the entrance of the cave to get them some sort of leeway of finding their place and the source of the poison. Things didn't go all according to plan though, while the group stuck together their silence began to fade off, the crackling of leaves and a few miss steps alerted the guards, not even the one's at the entrance though, there were a few others hung high in the trees with bow an arrows trained on them from above, only two however. "Intruders!" One of the men exclaims alerting the rest of the guards, the two bow men on top shoot a volley of arrows at the shinobi below, attempting to cut into each individual shinobi.
Narusegawa herself managed to slip out of the way with a swift dodge. "Look out! There are two above us!" Naru exclaims, more so informative…They still had a chance to stay stealthy however one of the guards at the entrance began to retreat into the cave, the other stood guard while the two above rained terror… A total of four enemies needed to be taken out.. " We need to disable them quickly before they alert anyone else, got it?" Naru asked, her eyes were already on the man standing guard attempting to capture him in blood letting genjutsu, hopefully enough to knock him off his feet and pass him out instantly.
At the same time the guards spot the group of shinobi, Amiko also spots them. By the time the first arrows hit the ground she's already formed a seal and disappeared in flash of smoke. An instant later the girl reappears several metres up in the air and hurls her three kunai at the defenders in the trees. As she lands skilfully on the ground again Amiko begins running towards the cave opening, drawing another kunai along the way and forming a short seal with the other hand. As she forms the seal one of her kunai up in the trees explodes violently, blowing a puff of smoke and leaves in every direction and bringing down several branches.
The arrow strikes Yukio firmly in the chest, slipping between his ribs, and sliding into what must be his heart and sliding out the other-*POOF* Scratch that, it was just a clone. But then where's the real Yukio? He's already moving, drawing a second blade. "Hana, Kayumi… strike true…" he whispers to his blades as he rushes the guards infront of the cave entrance, letting a pair of twin slashes, one at each of the soldiers throats.
The cool was blowing softly and slowly, causing Kirito's silver hair to sway back and forth softly. His soft blue eyes scanned the area infront of him as he tried to move quietly, in his mind he was saying 'Don't screw this up Kirito.' Then suddenly he heard a twig snaps loudly under his foot he looked up, right as he heard the gaurd yell. His eyes move across the area quickly as Naruegawa yells that their is enemies above, he takes a step back his hand moving up and activating a seal in his hands breaking a small barrier to protect him from the arrows coming towards him.However his reaction time is a bit slowly, as a arrow manage to stike him in his shoulder before the barrier activates. He leaps back quickly, jumping high into the sky and starting to fall head first towards the ground as he reaches into his pouch of ninja tools he removes three small senbon needs, and throws them towards one of the enemies, as he comes back down towards the ground he lands on his hands and pushes himself off back into the air, before landing on his feet in a tree.
The battle for the most part was in favour of Konohagakure's shinobi. Though this was no longer a steathly mission, the element of surprise was thrown off as Amiko's kunai at least on of them slammed into one of the archers above, followed by a sudden explosion which rattled the trees and caused him to fall from above smacking head first into the ground below. Yukio's attacks manage to strike through as well, easily slicing through one of the guard's throat after the genjutsu had been used upon him, though the last guard managed to parry away his blade, scuffing his side instead pulling them into a bout. The man counter attacks against Yukio with his own drawn blade attempted to double slash across his torso. Kirito's Senbon managed to strike true as well, though some of them miss their mark the last one slices right into the last archer's neck successfully disabling him and leaving the shinobi a clear entrance into the cave. " Take him out quickly Yukio-san…we've been exposed so we need to quickly scout out this place and defeat anyone else within the cave…watch out for traps," Narusegawa swiftly ordered gesturing for the others to follow suit…The cave was very expansive and it was going to take all of them to keep a close look about the area for the source of poison… Or splitting up to accomplish this mission.
Already halfway to the last guard, Amiko jumps in swiftly and stabs down at the guard with her kunai then spins and slashes at his throat. The girl then quickly checks that all the team's targets have been taken out and then starts moving into the cave quickly and with careful steps, kunai still drawn. Her head swivels from side to side as she checks the floor, walls and roof, looking for any signs of traps or hidden doors. Once she's a reasonable distance inside the cave she stops, crouching down against one wall and waiting for the rest of the team to catch up to her.
As Amiko attempts to strike down the last guard, Yukio makes a few sudden handsigns, ending in Dragon, his wind chakra flaring around him, and assaulting the guards inner ear, before he stepped in, bringing one of his blades up into the bottom of the guards head and up into his skull, before turning towards the cave. "Amiko-chan, hold up. I can hear water in there, likely where they're adding the poison. It's hard to tell exactly where though." Beastial senses. Fantastic to have on your side.
As the last senbon ripped through the archer's throat, Kirito hoped down out of the tree landing quietly on his feet. His left hand moved up and pulled the arrow out of his shoulder, a small wince forming on his face as he does so. Tossing the arrow to the ground, his normal smile replaced with a rather annoyed looked now. After all he Knew that he was the one who gave away their position in the first place, 'Good job Kirito.' he said softly to himself as his left hand start to glow a soft blue with chakra, he pressed his left hand against the wound the arrow caused healing it to the point it was sealed.
His eyes move as he watches Amiko and Yukio take out the other gaurd, his attention then turning to Naru. He listens to Naru as she speaks following her lead, his blue eyes moving across the area slowly, he considered apoligizing but decided this was not the right time or place. In his head he was going, 'Okay, you made a mistake, just up your game Kirito.' over and over, trying to encourage himself, since the nervousness had began to increase over his combat experience compared to the other members of the team.
It was surprisingly silent within the cave, other than the very faint rushing water in the distance Naru could see traces of "something" along the walls of the cave. The guards Yukio and Amiko was up against was easily dispatched at that point. The cave seemed to become smaller however the further they ventured and it lead them off into two corridors, one of them leading down to where the water was and another further down which lead into a larger room, the scent was barely there but Naru could see that whatever the substance was remained to be in larger quanities up ahead. " Well we know that this place has access to some sort of water way, lets go on ahead and see if we can find the source of this poison… It should be right ahead of us…" At that point Narusegawa began to take charge once again, for a moment her eyes look upon Kirito only to offer him a slight not before moving along… After a few moments they would be in a large circular room filled with all sorts of vegetation, one particular plant in the corner of the room however looked a bit more dangerous than the others, it's pollen drifted throughout the air clearly visible levitating in close proximity to the plant. There were papers and scrolls scattered all throughout the room, but there didn't seem to be anyone else within the cave at this point. "Lets see if we can find anything that might be interesting…. If you have some tags we can lace this cave with it and prepare to turn this place into dust…"
Amiko begins walking methodically around the room, checking quickly through the papers and touching each wall as she looks for hidden doors or traps. As she goes along the wall she removes tag after tag from her little satchel, affixing them to the walls tightly. She gets about halfway around the room before she runs out of tags. "Well, I'm out of explosive tags, anyone else got some more?" she asks, and then turns back to a small pile of papers nearby. As she flicks through them the girl finds one that interests her and pulls it from the pile. A slight breeze in the cave causes the paper to flicker in her hand as she reads it aloud. "Mandrake, belladonna and adenium compound received from Tashijou-san, along with suggestions for improving the formula," Amiko reads, "Tashijou was here. From the date on the paper, he's probably been gone for over a week by now." She shakes her head and stuffs the paper into her pouch of ninja tools.
Yukio shakes his head. "Spread them out a bit more. We don't need a massive blast, just enough to destabalize the cave. That's all we need." he says, looking at the one plant in particular. "Or we could use a backblast…" he says, scratching his head a bit.
Kirito returns a nod to Naru, before he starts to make his way around the room applying his own explosive tags from his pouch to the wall, "I have the rest of the walls Amiko-San." he says softly, as he looks over the plant slowly from a distance, rubbing his chin softly. "All this trouble for whatend?" he says slowly look at the other ninjas, "Dead innocent women and children, why?" he says slowly shaking his head. "What is to gain from killing children? A message? A Trail run? If children are for either, what else is possible? How far will they go?" he asks shaking his head before placing the last few tags on the walls. His soft blue eyes, cold and dark now. His face straight and clearly upset.
"Something tells me those guards we were up against aren't the ones behind this…If anything they are probably just some thugs finding a new place to hide… We will need to investigate this further…"Narusegawa briefly arched an eyebrow Amiko seemed to pick on some kind of good information, Naru herself continued to move about, picking up a few loose scrolls to bring along with them, careful to analyze them later. " I'm not sure what the reason is for this but we will need to investigate further what is actually happening here and if they will strike again…" Narusegawa sighed softly and shook her head, " Let's just get out of here for now… We have a lot of things to read through in order to figure out where to go next…"
