Starring:
Tsugumi, Suzu, Nonon, Saori, Hinotori, Aru
Date: November 25, 2016
Summary:
Team 13 responds to a call for aid at the border of the Land of Fire. The Bear Arm Bandits are on a rampage!
"The Bears Out There"
Land of Fire
'Bear Arm Bandits' are a group of rogue ninja from the Land of Bears who have been causing some trouble on the borders of the Land of Fire. Hidden Leaf ninja have been hired to deal with them. After travel, investigation, and tracking, they have finally located their targets. The enemy is currently in the midst of attacking some fishermen by a river, meaning there's no time to waste watching from concealment or anything like that.
Their purpose is clear: Stop the bandits.
Tsugumi announces her presence with a barrage of fireballs that have shuriken hidden inside of them, thunking into the rather savage-looking bandits and eliciting yells of pain and surprise. They don't seem to be terribly well-equipped, mostly wearing furs and leather, but they are big, burly, and may have some jutsu in their arsenal. They ARE ninja after all.
Best not to give them the chance to counter attack!
It's always something, huh? Sometimes Suzuha wonders if there's some kind of bandit factory out there that manufactures these goobers by the dozens. With little patience for these jerks, Suzuha follows up the flaming shuriken with a Sharingan-guided series of Taijutsu strikes, not certainly yet how much force is too much for these bears in human form. She aims for vital points, however, because if she can take them down quickly before the hurt the fishermen or cause further trouble, they can finish their mission and start heading back home that much faster.
Nonon joins the fray in a differ manner. The Namikaze ninja, with a flick of the wrist, produces a fan of kunai between her fingers, and then hurls them at multiple targets simultaneously. Immediately afterwards, she forms a series of hand seals, then begins amassing Lightning Chakra around one hand as she calls out the name of a technique she has created. "Lightning Release: Dragon Thunder!" She directs her hand towards the bandits and unleashes the electricity in the form of an attack shaped like a dragon's head, about the same size as the Great Fireball Technique. It attempts to 'swallow' an enemy, and then wind through the area, 'biting' and 'swallowing' other targets, leaving any affected foes paralyzed from the electrocution they're enduring.
Saori isn't much of a fighter, so she hangs back near the treeline and keeps an eye out for anyone who might need medical attention. For the moment, that means the fishermen, since her allies have only just gotten involved in the battle. If there's anyone who got hurt before their arrival, she's going to try to stealthily make her way over to them and start working on patching them up.
She also tries to keep her senses sharp for any sign of being snuck up on or attacked while she's treating people, but hopefully the rest of the team is takng care of the enemy sufficiently the Bear Arm Bandits won't waste time on a single small kunoichi.
Hinotori had to grin a bit, these guys were as big and buff as bears. Granted in his head he wished they could turn into bears, now that would be pretty cool. Still that wasn't the case and well they had to be dealt with. As Tsugumi leads the attack with flaming shurikens and Suzu rushing in, Hinotori surveyed the battlefield for a brief moment, getting a feel for how the team fights. As Nonon lets loose her technique, Hinotori rushes in than. Like a blur, all that could caught is a cool breeze as he rushes one of the paralyzed bears. Leaping into the air, he spins throwing a kick, "KONOHA SENPUU!!" he calls out, upon landing, he dips down low and throws a powerful uppercut into the main body of the bandit he just hit attempting to launch the bandit off the ground.
Aru has focused mostly on her defenses and perception powers, so the Hyuga princess isn't very equipped for combat, but she is far from helpless and much more skilled than she was when she first joined Team 13. Skilled enough to use her Juuken at long range. She doesn't want to leave Saori unguarded, so she stays nearby in her Juuken stance, and snipes at enemies with blasts of concussive force via Chakra expulsion from her hands, mostly focusing on knocking away anyone who tries to interfere with medical treatment, but also providing support for her allies in the process.
"Eight Trigrams Air Palm!" she calls out as thrusts a palm at an enemy and launches an unseen wave of Chakra at them that may knock them into the river.
The bandits are definitely frazzled by the sudden ferocious attack, getting fire-shurikened, as well as taken down with blows to their solar plexus, throats, and other vital spots, and also suffering both kunai wounds and electrocution. Hinotori finds his target to be easy prey to his skills thanks to the paralysis, spin-kicking him and then uppercutting the huge man into the air.
Aru, meanwhile, keeps the ninja off-balance even as they try to retaliate, all while keeping plenty of room for Saori to work as she treats the injured. It seems the Bear Arm Bandits are equipped with some pretty savage claw weapons, hooked like actual bear claws. Combined with their muscle, the blades tear through human flesh readily.
Such weapons are brought to bear, though one of the bandits also forms hand seals and slams his palms into the ground, causing a moving wall of earth to tear through the area, forcing the Konoha ninja to scatter if they don't want to get run over by it.
The ninja that Aru blasted into the river attempt to climb back out, only to be grabbed by Water Clones that Tsugumi has created. She leaps up and over the earthen wall, focusing her jutsu on keeping the two bandits from attacking her allies from behind with her clones, while keeping an eye out for anyone who looks like a leader.
Suzuha wasn't getting the vibe that these enemies were too dangerous, at least to her. Her Sharingan lets her perceive their lumbering movements easily, even though she still has to actually move out of the way of those lethal claws of theirs. But the use of Earth Style suddenly to force their team apart is unexpected. She leaps up into the air and backwards, waiting for the wall to reach her feet and match momentum with it. Then she uses Chakra to stick to the wall, run up to its top, and then form the tiger hand seal as she breathes out a large fireball at the Earth user. No way can she leave THAT threat unattended to.
On top of that, just incase he tries to defend against it, she casts a second jutsu overlaying her fireball, making a pair of Fire Clones emerge from the sphere and move to punch the man in the face from two directions at once.
Whoooah! A wall of earth, huh? Everyone seems to have their own jutsu and contributions to this mission, but dodging a wall is… Not something she ever thought she'd have to deal with, honestly! She flows Swift Chakra through her body, speeding up to the point she can Body Flicker to the other side of the wall, as though she'd teleported instead of moving around it at high speed.
However, as Bear Arm Bandits charge at her with their claws ready, it might become clear she did more than just dodge the wall in that blink of an eye. She also attempted to punch, kick, elbow, and knee the enemies in sensitive locations like Suzu was doing, since Suzu is now focus-firing the Ninjutsu-user of the enemy's team. Her high-speed attacks against multiple foes, faster than normal eyes can see, hopefully had an effect, because they're out numbered and need to take these goons down before they start pulling out other abilities.
Better not to wait and find out what else they can do, and instead just remove them from the fight entirely. Normally rushing in is ill-advised, but… These enemies aren't comparable to them in skill or power, it appears.
There are some nasty claw gouges in ther patients, but Saori is trying to mend the wounds as quickly as she can while comforting the victims in the process. "Don't worry," she says calmly. "You'll be fine. Team 13 is experienced in these matters, and I'll make sure everyone is taken care of." She tries not to even react to the fact that Aru is behind her, blasting enemies with Chakra. It helps that Saori isn't very expressive in general, but having a calm demeanor will hopefully help those in pain feel safe despite the ongoing battle.
And not having panicked patients interfering with Aru protecting them can only benefit the Hyuga as well.
Hinotori sees the bandits trying to retaliate, he grins a bit to himself, might as well get this over with. Focusing his charka through his body, he grins and takes off. There is no chakra enhancing his speed at all, but instead of dodging the wall he leaps at it, following behind Suzu. Letting her take the lead and as he leaps to the top, he leaps high into the air, and as Suzu's fireball comes crashing in to the bandits, Hinotori dives towards one of the other bandits, using the fireball to cover his approach.
A viscious double spin kick slam into the bandit, and with a flurry of motion, Hinotori kicks and punches around his bandit before throwing him towards another bandit. Granted at teh same time he is a bit open on his right side allowing for someone to come in to hit him, though it could be just a ploy to allow a bandit to get in close to him.
Aru and Saori are thankfully out of the path of the wall of earth for the most part, but she steps forth while performing a circular, almost dance-like, movement to wind up right in the periphery of the attack. She also wants to get some distance from Saori and her patients before she does this. Then, she spins while emitting Chakra from her whole body, calling out, "Heavenly Spin!" A dome of unseen Chakra radiates from her, hopefully tearing apart the wall and hurling the fragments where she is directing them… Turning that huge mass of earth and stone into shrapnel directed at the bandits they haven't gotten to yet.
That might help reduce their numbers. She is quick to leap back over to Saori though, and resume protecting her. She isn't going to leave their medic undefended while the Hatake kunoichi works.
The numbers of the bandits are being reduced rapidly, by flame and fist and foot and… Flood water… And… Focused Chakra! Yes, an 'F' for all of them. Even 'field medic' for Saori's treatment! Alliteration is the ultimate weapon. Except, wait, no, maybe it is actually the ninja who are kicking the rears of the bandits that are the ultimate weapon. Either way, it seems that whether it's fire balls or high-speed movement or Hinotori's taijutsu skill, or the Genjutsu that Tsugumi is using upon the two enemies she attacked with her Water Clones to make them pass out on the shore, the Bear Arm Bandits are wholly unprepared for opponents like these.
It's not that they're weak. They look like they could knock down trees with muscles like those. It's just that Team 13 has grown far stronger than this lot. And then Aru's dome of Chakra that pelts the remainder with shards of stone and earth drives those who aren't taken out with bloody holes or head injuries into full retreat. There aren't many who manage that. Most of the bad guys are lying around unconscious, or restrained, or too injured to move, or totally out of it from Sharingan hypnosis.
The one that might have attacked Hinotori got a back full of stone shards and is no longer in any position to keep fighting. Even with all those muscles, you can't really train your skeleton. And broken bones tend to put a damper on heavy physical activity.
Tsugumi takes one last look around to make sure there's no more threats then lets out a slow breath. "It looks like we're done here except for the injured. Let's start tying up the bandits. Aru-san, can you come with me to track down the ones that got away? There were only a few, but I'd rather not risk losing them in the woods."
On top of all that, even the most gruesome of injuries, thanks to Saori's quick and excellent treatment, are already on their way to being fully healed. The fishermen are very grateful, and glad to provide ropes and netting to restrain the bandits. With a Jounin of Hinotori's caliber, combined with Suzuha and Nonon, they shouldn't have any trouble keeping the surviving bandits under control.
Another successful mission for Team 13… Now with added vitamin-Hinotori.
Uchiha Suzu knew she is stronger than she was back when she was still struggling to become qualified to do things other than chase cats, but she hadn't realized what kind of gap in power there was now between her and the kinds of enemies they keep running into. There's still far more powerful enemies out there, of course. She learned that lesson well enough during the reanimation shinobi battle… It's hard to imagine that she'll ever be able to match foes like that.
But these men, despite physically being superior to her, and probably having an array of jutsu they could have used if they'd been given the chance, were taken down pretty quickly. Sure, a large part of the credit goes to the team leader and Hinotori, because they are amazing ninja at the high end of the Jounin scale.
But still, Suzu can't help but feel that… This should have been harder. She puts her hands on her hips and scans the battlefield, before moving to start restraining their wounded and defeated enemies. Is it really that they are really strong? Or are these ninja weaker than they should be for some reason?
"Hinotori-sensei," Suzu says as her mother begins making preparations to go chase down the escapees. "Why do you think ninja like these, clearly skilled and powerful, would be attacking a bunch of fishermen? It's not like they're carrying a lot of money when they go fishing, right? What could they have been after?" Suzu has a suspicion. She looks towards Saori to see if the Medic shares it. Saori is generally a very astute observer and incredibly smart. She may have already discerned what is only just now coming to Suzu.
That certainly was over quickly. Part of it was their skill and power relative to their enemies, though the adrenaline rush actually made what was probably only a couple minutes of combat seem much longer. And with Swift Chakra accelerating her reaction time, it seemed longer even than that to Nonon as she saw those around her moving as though in slow motion. And now she sets about quickly restraining and tying up their targets so they can't cause any more trouble. Some of the more injured ones will probably need to be treated by Saori to make sure they don't die.
It's one thing to wound or kill in the midst of battle and quite another to execute prisoners, after all. But when she hears what Suzu says, she looks at the foes they just fought. "Something does feel off. Men this huge, with this much strength… Only one of them was even able to pull off a jutsu. That could be chalked up to us taking them down so fast, but why were we able to take them down so fast without even resorting to our high-level jutsu?" She looks at Suzu, and then Hinotori, and then Saori. She has drawn the same conclusion, it seems.
Why would bandits be attacking fishermen? For fish.
Saori finishes treating the injured fishermen, and then moves to begin examining the injured enemies as Nonon surmised she would. She follows the line of reasoning well enough, and goes a few steps further as she examines the restrained bandits and begins treating their wounds. "They're suffering from starvation. Hunger. They needed food and didn't have any, so they've been stealing it by force." Saori narrows her eyes a bit as her medical ninjutsu reveals the state of the enemies. They are far weaker than they would normally be, it seems. Certainly, Team 13 still has an advantage in the two high-level Jounin on the team alone. But without Tsugumi and Hinotori, the fight would have been much closer if the Bear Arm Bandits were fully fed and in top condition.
"I must wonder why not only why they are so desperate for food, but also why rogue ninja from the Land of Bears came to the Land of Fire in the first place, and why they were already in such poor condition when they reached our borders." Saori continues her treatment, but it looks like she'll have to dig into her nutrient pills to keep some of these prisoners from suffering from further malnutrition before they can face justice. Maybe Tsugumi and Aru can get more information from the ones who fled. These ones left behind don't seem too talkative.
Hinotori stretches and yawns, though it looks as if he's a bit aloof at the moment, but there is something else going on with him. This was too easy and slowl the mind of what his other job is starts ticking. Crouching beside one of the now healed bandits, he looks over the body for a moment, than he looks to the lake. He lets out a breath as he scans teh rest of the area. He really didn't work up a sweat nor did he really tap much into his abilities which is a good thing, but for these guys something felt off and he didn't like that feeling at all.
Hinotori looks around at the members of Team 13, he smiles at the women as they go about thier various duties, he helps with tieing up some of the bandits with Suzuha. The team works well, and he is very impressed with them all, this was fun for him. Hopefully he gets to help them out more in the future. Though as Tsugumi and Aru are about to go off into the woods. Turning and looking at Suzu when she calls to him, "Whats up?" he asks. As Suzu asks her question, he pauses for a moment, though when he is about to speak Nonon and Saori voice their findings and thoughts. Quirking a brow as he looks between the two, he smiles a bit. "I was thinking the same thing." They weren't moving as fast or using that bulk of theirs to thier advantage which would've made things a lot harder." he says to them. He scans the area again, "We need to get more information, find out where they are coming from whcih I think teh others are doing." he says. Not giving names just in case.
Aru noticed that the Chakra levels of the enemies wasn't very pronounced, that it was moving sluggishly, but she just assumed that they were Taijutsu specialists like Hinotori and hadn't focused on developing large Chakra pools. But in that case they should have had a lot more stamina. Thanks to those big bodies of theirs, they had to have trained really hard to get that fit… So then why did they go down so easily? The others answer it. They were so underfed that they couldn't use their strength effectively.
Aru nods to Tsugumi's request to come with her and help track down the escapees. But she turns her gaze towards the Land of Bears, or where she believes she has heard of it being located. It hasn't come up often in her life. The country of origin for these ninja… Why were they on the run in the first place beyond banditry? Is the Land of Bears even a shinobi country? She hasn't heard of it being one. Men like these should have easily held sway over whatever territory they claimed as theirs without any competition. Has something changed there recently?
"Something is wrong in the Land of Bears…" Aru mutters as she reactivates her Byakugan and moves to follow Tsugumi into the woods. "I hope we find out what before it leads to more danger to our country's people."
