Starring:
Date: May 17th, 2010
Summary:
The final confrontation with the Jounin named Sheex begins! Will Shemri and the team leader arrive in time to help!?
"Scars - The Final Countdown"
Land of Waves
As her head reappears in the window she had so recently taken a tumble out of, the elder Rurohashi sibling manages to catch sight of her old friend Garland once more, who was looking like a rather grisly sight, as well as Ranken, and the daughter that had been in the room. But the mother had… disappeared! It's the male shinobi's words that allow her to put two-and-two together and come up with four as she hauls herself up over the sill. Though when she speaks, it's not in a voice that's all the way her own, carrying a harsh, throaty undercurrent of promised violence.
"You talk too damned much."
Just as the wall begins to explode, Rinako, having little other choice unless she wanted to take another tumble, leaps /into/ the attack, her bijuu's chakra shields not quite managing to deflect the impact from harming her, but it at least made her able to withstand the damage a bit more. With a growl, Rinako advances.
There was an innocent woman trapped within this bastard's game, a woman who'd just gone through what was quite possibly the worst ordeal of her life. But it couldn't be helped. This had to be handled soon, or Kumo reinforcements would be drawn to the sound of fighting, and her duty to end this creep came before any pity she might feel.
Chakra sings around her hand, hardening the already powerful limb as she swipes at the male's head, intent on giving him the bitchslap from hell.
All right! Kunoichi and kitty for the win! >D Another hit or two like that and-whuh-oh! Shemri brings her kunai up to deflect that light-beam-thingy, but it veers off suddenly. Strange-and what happened to the enemy!?!? C.C; We all know ninja are known for fast fades, but it's like he switched places with that injured wom-oh. Hmmm. "Hoi, Shiikaa, go check her out," Shemri orders. Shiikaa approaches the downed woman cautiously. Sure, send the cat in to trigger the trap. ^o.o^;
Kara arrives in the alleyway outside the hotel, just as a loud noise of rushing wind and breaking glass reaches her ears. The wind currents blast out all over the place making Kara attempt to shield herself with one arm and cringe a bit. Maybe the wall wasn't destroyed but it >does< look damaged. A more immediate concern as Kara looks up at the source of the noise is falling glass shards. She yelps and makes a few quick hand seals. A moment later, the glass stabs into her skull and shoulders. Apparently she wasn't fast enough.
…Or >was she<!? Because Kara poofs out of existence, to be replaced with her clothing bag. Sure it may be a bit torn up now, but at least Kara isn't dead! She looks up at the broken window and the wall bulging outwards as she crouches on the side of the hotel with Chakra emitting from her hands and feet. "What do you think, Pharaoh-kun?" she mutters as everything seems to be quiet up there now. "Should we take a peek?" Then she leaps up the wall and looks in through the destroyed window frame, just in time to see Rinako lunging at Sheex! There's a couple other bodies on the floor, but she doesn't have time to pay attention to them. Instead, she slips in throught the busted window, unwraps Pharaoh's head swiftly and then turns her back on the battle. No time to unsling the Puppet! She has to help >now<! Because, you know, two dead people (as far as she knows) already means that some bad mojo is going down.
Pharaoh sprays a stream of red oily substance from his mouth, aimed at Sheex/Ranken's feet and legs. Hard to defend himself if he can't even stand up!
Rinako's attack smashes into Ranken's forearm as he raises it to block the blow. However, it's pretty strong, and thus sends him hurtling across the room. He lands in a crouch on the other side of the hotel room, with the bloody oil hitting the floor where he stood before Rinako attacked. "Strong… But not too smart." He smirks. "However, seeing as I'm outnumbered…" He generates two swirling masses of accelerated air this time, one in each hand, and fires one at the ceiling above Rinako and Kara's side of the room. The ceiling explodes, sending pieces of furniture from the room above, and pieces of boards and similar raining down. The other wind mass is fired at the wall BEHIND Ranken, causing an eruption of air currents that propels him across the room, and towards the hole in the wall that was once a window. He's trying to escape apparently!
And it should be noted here that he is dressed differently than the Sheex that Kara saw at the tent. His flak jacket and hitai-ite are absent. Instead he is wearing nondescript gray shirt and pants, with gray boots. But when he was in Garland's body he was wearing pale yellow… Not that such details would have meant anything immediately under the circumstances. The fact he appears to be a bit younger and shorter, though, would probably stand out.
Meanwhile, as Shiikaa investigates the woman, she just lies there and quivers. No traps, apparently. She even has the wooden bolt through her left calf still. Either this really is Ranken, or he has somehow transferred his injuries onto some random bystander. Or something. What kind of Jutsu does he use!?
Ruri has no chance to avoid something moving at the speed of light. Thus it burns into her right eye, replacing it with a mere hole, full of searing energy. Her body begins to shift and grow, rapidly taking on the features of Ranken, including her clothing changing to match his shirt + pants + boots combo, instead of her swimsuit. The blindfold seems to rise out of her skin as her already-spikey hair thickens and lengthens further. But the change is happening much more slowly than it should be, apparently. Because Ranken says, "S-stop… Fighting… Me!" between gritted teeth. RURI'S gritted teeth. He's using her mouth to speak, with his own voice, but this isn't his body yet!
One hand clenches into a fist, while the other produces a kunai from the arm that still has Flesh Scroll tattoos on it. The hand gripping the kunai tries to stab it towards Ranken/Ruri's throat, but the other hand snaps up to seize the wrist, and struggle with it. Looking scared for the first time, Ranken's facial features switch back and forth between his own and Ruri's. Ranken's muscles are stronger than Ruri's, but with how the muscles keep changing ownership, this doesn't really impact the struggle. Eventually, the kunai tip manages to reach the throat and start to penetrate the skin, just as Ranken lets out a cry of effort that will probably draw Shemri's attention if she hasn't noticed what's happening already.
The kunai is yanked upwards, slicing the chin, the face, and cutting the blindfold in two as the scratch goes right between Ranken's eyes. The beam of light shoots out of the right eye again, this time going at an angle into the sky, arcing, and descending to earth to the north, faster than the eye can blink.
Ruri collapses to her hands and knees, kunai skittering across the ground as it falls from her grasp. She is gasping from the effort of fighting a powerful presence out of her own body. Blood streams down her face from her right eye. Or rather the hole where her right eye used to be. "Shemri-san…" she manages to get out. "…Get the… others… Warn them…"
The blue-skinned Rinako snorts. "I don't need a whole lot of brains to knock the pores off your face." But the collapsing cieling is getting in the way of her witty reparte with her opponent!
Rather than try to leap out of the way, like /that's/ ever worked for her, Rinako stands her ground, using her fists and forearms to block, turn aside, or merely crash through everything that tries to plummet down onto her head and give her a concussion. Once the major pieces of debris are clear, a small piece of floorboard thunking idly against her skull, she notices that the bastard is trying to escape again! If this were some sort of remote-body-snatching-jutsu, why would he need to /physically/ escape? The only answer that came to the elder Rurohashi twin's mind was 'SMASH'.
The dark-haired kunoichi leaps, right /into/ the path of the about-to-fly-out-the-window shinobi, or so she hopes, her intent to hang onto him and force him very roughly to the ground, whether inside the room or outside, it was all the same to her, if she could just get her hands on him and strangle the life out of the bastard.
"Kara, don't let him get away!"
Now /this/ is creepy. o.O; Shemri can do little but stare at the bizarre struggle over control of a single body. It doesn't take a genius at this point to figure out that this guy is using some sort of possession technique. So where's the real body? He can't be too far off, can he? Oops-maybe he can, if that departing light beam was his mind escaping back to it. Or what if he doesn't /have/ a body of his own anymore? @.@; Shemri shakes her head vehemently. /Couldn't/ be. c.c;
Anyway, injured comrade! Much more important matter at the moment. Shemri steps forward, but Ruri's orders stop her. Shemri bites her lip. Well, suppose she wouldn't be too much use as a medic anyway. :/ "Shiikaa, remain here!" Shemri says, then bounds off toward the hotel to find Rinako. Shiikaa lopes over and looks up at Ruri. Um…yeah, I'd pack that in ice if I had any. …Want me to lick it clean? ^c.c^
Kara has no defense against falling crap. She just yells and leaps backwards and right out the window. "Wh-waitnobadgraviTYYYYYYYY!!!" she yells as she flails in mid-air and then starts falling down the side of the building. But then a pair of hands catch on the windowsill. Withered, weak-looking hands, but hands nonetheless. As bandage shreds tumble and float down the alleyway, to the ground several stories below, Kara hangs onto Pharoah's legs. He's not completely unwrapped, but she managed to get his arms free at least. Using Pharaoh as a rope, she gets back up to the window, and sees that Rinako has tackled and pinned Sheex - or is he Sheex? He looks different somehow - to the floor. Kara hauls Pharaoh up and rapidly unwraps him. "I don't know what's going on here, but dead people and injured team mates is a good indicator that you're a total creepazoid. Sheex or Ranken or whatever your name is, I'm taking you in!" Then she calls, "Rinako-chan! Shield yourself with your Chakra for a sec, okay? <3" A moment later, Pharaoh's mouth cranks open and a barrage of poisoned needles shoots out, hopefully riddling the enemy! …And hopefully not hurting Rinako in the process!
Ranken is tackled out of the air and slammed into the floor. A female grunt can be barely heard, over the noise of settling debris and people yelling and stuff. So much noise is bound to draw attention. …Infact, why haven't any Kumogakure ninja shown up yet? Regardless, Ranken just frowns and attempts to break free of Rinako, even as she holds him with her greater physical strength. When Kara approaches with a dessicated corpse, the man looks annoyed. "Hah. You still don't get it, do you?"
He's interrupted by a hail of poisoned senbon that turn him into a pincushion. He shields his face by turning his head and tilting it towards the floor. Afterwards, as the poison starts to flow through his stolen body, he raises his head to look at Kara with his uncovered left eye. "I like your body," he offers conversationally to the woman in the string bikini. "I think I'll TAKE IT!" He yells as he uses one of his restrained arms to make one-handed seals quickly, and then point two fingers. A slash of wind grinds across his face, shredding the blindfold in the process. Then his right eye is revealed. And the light within streaks out of the socket, aimed at Kara!
But the light beam shoots right by her. It goes out the window, and then goes skywards. Did he miss somehow? Was Kara's Chakra control too great for him to lock onto it? Or was it a bluff in the first place? Either way, there's a barely-conscious woman in Rinako's blue-fleshed arms, with a bunch of needles sticking out of her. She's poisoned too. "Nnggghh… Aaah…! AAAHHH!" she yells as she wakes up completely. She struggles and writhes on the floor, probably not quite fully conscious yet, but at least part of the waking world again. She's nowhere near strong enough to resist Rinako, of course. No more ninja-augmentation.
Shemri arrives at the hotel at around this time. Whether she spotted the streak of light flitting out the window or not depends on if the side of the hotel was in line-of-sight, and whether she was looking up while she ran. If she DID see it, then it seems logical that Ranken had just been there. The broken glass on the ground, and the pool of blood on the ground (but no sign of a body!) would further appear to be evidence of a fight.
Ruri just breathes back by the mass grave-site, as Shiikaa comes over. She winces suddenly, gritting her teeth and reaching up one hand to her missing eye. "…Bastard. Nee-chan is going to freak out." She closes the eyelids, as she imagines what she looks like. A gaping bloody hole in her face. Ugh. "Bastard," she repeats, quieter. Then, suddenly Kumogakure ninja appear all around her. Great.
"Don't move!" one of them yells out, as they all draw weapons, ranging from kunai to katana. Ruri doesn't exactly look like a ninja, what with still being in her swimsuit, and she doesn't look like she's in any condition to fight, either, but there's a bleeding woman lying a short distance away, and various other weapons and things scattered around, on top of some of the flames from Ranken's fiery area attack still smoldering in places.
"Oh, fuck you all." Ruri cries out and then hangs her head.
With the transformation she'd undergone rapidly depleting her energy reserves, Rinako no longer has the necessary ability to mold chakra to her skin and avoid the incoming needles. "Dunno if you can hear me, but sorry about this!" Even as she speaks to the woman-inside-the-Ranken, Rinako grabs him and immediately rolls over, putting him on top of her and between the poisoned needles!
Thus, momma gets a few more needles than she would have. Ouch.
As the ninja jumps ship again, this time getting away in a much different sense, out the window, the dark-haired kunoichi shoves the mostly-limp body in her arms off to the side, getting to her feet to glare in that direction. The mother/daughter combo were the least of her concerns at the present.
"Kara, can you track his location with pharoah, then somehow let off a signal that will let us know where you are? We need to get the others and find his location before he can leave it. …Do we even have time to get Ru and Shem?" The Suna-born teen's brow furrows as she tries to calculate in her head escape velocity times travel distance and many other variables… and fails miserably. As she ponders, her skin pigment returns to normal, fighting her bijuu back into it's aquatic cage.
Shemri doesn't happen to catch the departure of the other Ranken-beam. She's too busy weaving through the back alleys in the hopes of remaining unseen. At this point, even if she doesn't /act/ ninja-y, people are going to wonder what beach she was lying on to get /that/ fried. c.c Arriving at the hotel, though, it's soon apparent things haven't gone as quietly as hoped on this end either. Copious blood and shattered glass in the alley, obvious structural damage up above…this just really isn't turning out to be a fun vacation. :(
Shemri scales the wall and cautiously looks in on the battle zone. Well, at least there are familiar faces not immediately embattled. "Hoi, what happened here?" Shemri shakes her head. "Nevermind, tell me later. We must regroup! Ruri-san and I encountered the target, and he is a most dangerous foe. Apparently he can take control of the bodies of others. Ruri-san was able to fight him off, but she is injured. Come!"
Meanwhile, back at the grave site, Shiikaa sits and tilts his head disarmingly at the Kumogakure ninja. Hello officers, I am just a passing alley cat in no way affiliated with anybody here, but for what it's worth my animal instincts tell me this poor beat-up lady is very nice and doesn't need to be arrested. O:3
Kara tries to duck out of the way of the light beam, despite her surprise at Ranken's shout. However, by the time she has reacted he's long gone, and… Apparently has left a few bodies behind. Great. One of them is even that Garland creep! But the fact that there's some lady where Ranken just was is more bothersome. Especially when she realizes she just filled her full of needles and poisoned her. "Geez. Yeah, I can find him. That's how I knew to come here in the first place. But there's a second Chakra signature that matches his over to the-" Then Shemri peeks in and Kara turns around quickly. "…Oh, it's you.-What? Ruri-chan is hurt!? Well, you don't look so great yourself, Shemri-san. But let's get over there! There'll be Kumo-nin here soon. I'd say we should get some kind of medical assistance up here, but then we'd be stuck answering questions!"
She then pauses to sling Pharaoh onto her back before heading for the window. It sure is seeing a lot of traffic today! Don't these kunoichi ever use doors!? Once she has leapt outside and landed on a building top - and ow, that hurts with no bra-support - she starts leaping quickly from rooftop to rooftop. How does she know where she's going? Well, she's heading to where that second Sheex signature was previously, since that's apparently where Ruri and Shemri were fighting him. That and there's smoke rising into the sky that wasn't there before.
It's easy to find Ruri. As Kara noticed, there's smoke. Ruri, on the other hand, is surrounded at the site of that smoke. There's going to be questions to answer, but eventually, someone figures out that Ruri is probably not responsible for all the chaos, and someone comes over to attend to both her injuries and those of the other woman. And that would be how the rest of the team would find her - assuming Shemri and Rinako are also on their way.
"Rurohashi Ruri," she answers for like the third time. "I'm on vacation," she says for the fifth time. "Some guy came out of nowhere. He yelled, 'Suna-scum' and tried to stab me. Then he blasted my friend and me with fire. He also tried to shoot my friend's cat!" she points dramatically at Shiikaa, to make sure everyone understands what a fiend they are dealing with. "We tried to defend ourselves, but he's a ninja with a lot of crazy powers and we were no match for him. He tried to do something to me, and it destroyed my right eye. When I could see again, she was lying there…" she points at the injured woman who is now conscious and breathing with the assistance of a pump-like device. "…And our attacker was nowhere to be seen. I told my friend to go get help. Then you all showed up."
Ruri is sitting on a charred stump, holding a gauze pad to her right eye. She has burns on her, a scratch from her chin to ther forehead, and a missing eye. They're questioning the other lady too, asking yes/no questions and having her nod or shake her head. So far, the woman is corroborating Ruri's story in so much as Ruri didn't hurt her in any way (as far as she knows at least).
"The Kumogakure shinobi will attend to these two or not as they will."
'Ruri is hurt' seemed to be the magic words about ending the debate on whether to regroup or chase down their fleeing foe, as Rinako doesn't even spare the unfortunate victims a second glance as she turns her back on them, leaping out of the open wall immediately after Kara. If she was still fighting, she'd need more of that damned creature's chakra flooding through her veins, doing her best to call it up as she runs. Of course, it wasn't an easy thing to do as one runs along worrying after their closest family member, but she manages to at least extract some of the beast's power.
At least Rinako isn't wearing any sort of Sunagakure forehead protector at the moment, or her arrival on the scene would probably raise a lot more questions! But as it was, she sprints through the crowd, shoving and elbowing where necessary, and screaming at anyone who gets in her way that 'THAT'S MY SISTER!' When she actually catches a good look at her younger twin, though, she stops cold in her tracks, teetering just a bit on her feet from the swift, dramatic change in momentum, looking at her mirror image's state from head to toe for a moment with an ever-darkening expression. By the time she tears her eyes away to glare at Kara, there's lightning in them.
"/Find/ him. Now."
Back! But-yup, should've expected this. Kumo ninja, on the scene. Fortunately, they don't seem to be treating Ruri as a prisoner…so the question is, should the rest of the group come in openly, or-oh, well, Rinako just decided that matter, didn't she? c.c Shemri comes in on Rinako's heels, and glances down at Shiikaa. "No other trouble since we left?" Shiikaa mrowls a negative.
Kara pauses on a rooftop nearby the scene, channeling Chakra for a moment, and then using Puppet Henge to turn Pharaoh into a sloth. Yes, a sloth. He hangs on her back with his sloth arms and gives a lazy smile at everyone with his slothy lips. Easier to explain a pet sloth than a dead man! Then she moves to join Shemri and Rinako near Ruri. No sooner does she arrive - though the Kumogakure ninja are likely to try to restrain the three woman as they try to get closer — and catch a glimpse of Ruri's condition, then she is told to find the one responsible.
She hmmmms. And nods. "Alright," she answers quietly. Then she says loudly, "I'm going to go back to the hotel! I forgot my bag!" Unless stopped, she'll turn and run off (at non-ninja speeds), on the ground (not rooftops), and then get out of sight. Then she gets Sloth-Pharaoh setup and starts to search the town for Sheex. Hopefully his Chakra hasn't split up again, and he's only in one place this time. And hopefully he's nowhere near any other Kumogakure ninja. Because she has the feeling they'd take his word over the word of four foreign kunoichi.
Ruri glances up at Rinako when she arrives. She glumly offers, "Hi, Nee-chan." She also nods to Shemri and Kara, before Kara runs off on the pretenses of getting her bag. One of the ninja yells, "No one is going anywhere!" But another puts his hand on the first's upper arm, to get his attention, and then shakes his head. The first just sighs and turns back to those still present.
A ninja investigator of Kumogakure guides Shemri away to question her seperately from the others. "I understand that you were present when certain events took place here," he asks in a low tone, so that his voice doesn't carry. "Can you tell me what happened?" Yes, the age-old 'seperate the witnesses to get their stories seperately and thus make sure the details match' method. Maybe Saito Jon taught them.
A female investigator walks up to Rinako and says, "I understand you are upset, but I have some questions that I trust you can answer." She doesn't wait for confirmation of this, and isntead asks, "You said that she is your sister? Then what would your full name be? And what is your purpose in visiting the Land of Waves at this time?" She has a notepad ready to write down the answers.
The investigator gets a glare, but only after Rinako takes her eyes off of the one trying to lure Shemri away. They didn't have time for this! Her eyes flick impatiently to the notepad, then back up to the woman's face with barely-concealed distaste for the proceedings.
"Rurohashi Rinako. We were on vacation. …Aren't these the kinds of questions that could wait to be asked until /after/ my sister is brought to a hospital?"
The elder twin cuts another glance at her younger sibling's countenance, and worry flashes bright across her eyes, followed closely by a new, fresh wave of hate and malevolence. "Excuse me, ma'am, I need to find my friend before we become separated again. Try not to let another psychopath near my sister."
Hopefully her snide rudeness would put off the questions just long enough for her to abruptly turn and rapidly begin walking in pursuit of Kara. If not, she might have to resort to more drastic measures of distraction, such as 'Hey, look over there!', or even 'Your shoe's untied.' Those were methods she hoped to not have to employ.
Hoo boy. Shemri's starting to wish they'd gone to get the Kumo ninja's cooperation beforehand, at least for the nasty one. 'Course, that was the one that would've been more likely to sign up with them, but, too late for risk analysis now. Well, under the circumstances, Shemri supposes, the best path is to tell the truth (though maybe no more of it than they ask for). Shemri historically isn't very good at lieing anyway. e.e
"We came to this place because the scent of blood from the grave made my cat curious," Shemri tells the investigator. "Just after we figured out what it was, we were attacked by a man with a blindfold over his eyes, but there was a hole for the left eye." Oops, said that because she heard it earlier…left or right is the sort of detail that would be hard to take in when you're being attacked. Oh well. "We fought with him for some time, then a strange beam of light came from his right eye and tried to enter Ruri-san there. It seemed to be changing her into him, but she was able to resist it. It left her and fled into the sky, that way."
Kara pops up, if Rinako is allowed to depart, and silently directs her to the north. That's where the guy's Chakra is located. Once they are further away from the battle site, Kara picks up the pace, running at her normal ninja speed. "When I was at the tent I saw the guy there. He was dressed differently than the one you fought. He also looked a bit older and taller. They called him 'Sheex'. I think he's a Jounin. They seemed to know him already, so he might not be a new recruit at all.-Speaking of which, Kumogakure is apparently conscripting all the males they can get ahold of. They're not recruiting the Waves' natives. They're drafting them into service. Probably you don't care about that right now, but just figured I'd mention it. Anyway!"
She leaps up onto a rooftop, expecting Rinako to follow after her, and calls out, "His Chakra is a lot stronger than the one of the guy we fought. If I had to guess… I'd say the one we fought was about 1/5th as powerful as the one we're headed to right now. I'm not happy about what happened to Ruri-chan either… But if we're going to fight Sheex, then we can't just charge in and start punching. Worst-case scenario, we die really, really fast, without accomplishing anything. Not to mention he'd be able to claim self-defense, with no one to contradict him, and probably get Ruri-chan and Shemri-san convicted on some trumped up charges too. Then they'd either be imprisoned or executed too. Might even lead to war between Sungakure and Kumogakure, if worse comes to worst."
She sighs and then stops running as she drops down to a lower building and crouches there on the roof, looking across the street. "He's there." She points. They've travelled all the way to a beach to the north of town. This is where she detected his Chakra. "Do you want me to come up with a plan, or do you think you can handle it?"
The investigator answers, "The hospital would be inadequate for your sister's needs. We already have Medical-Ninja headed here." Rinako is indeed allowed to depart, though the investigator frowns. She would really rather that those involved don't go wandering off, but people on vacation aren't really a priority. Finding the one responsible, however, IS.
When Rinako (presumably) and Kara make their way to the beach, to the north, they would find the rocky coast with waves crashing against the shore. And standing on a piece of rock that is jutting out into the ocean about 50 yards off the main beach, there's someone standing and waiting.
Back with Ruri and Shemri, the investigator dealing with Shemri asks, "I see. So you fought a ninja for some time. And what is your name? And are you also a ninja then? And your friend resisted a Jutsu from this ninja somehow? Is she also a ninja?" He has a notepad out, but hasn't written down anything Shemri has said yet.
Ruri, meanwhile, is wondering what's taking the Medic-Nin so long to arrive. "What's taking so long for medical help to arrive?" she asks as a sneaking suspicion starts to worm its way through her mind. The ninja who provided her with the gauze pad says, "Oh, I'm sure they'll be here any moment." He doesn't even look up. He just keeps on rearranging things in an emergency field kit. He has moved that same bottle like five times. Warning bells go off in the back of Ruri's head. She glances over to Shemri with her left eye, wondering how to tell the older woman what she suspects. She suspects that there are no Medic-Nin on the way. They're just stalling for some reason. They probably already know that Ruri and Shemri are Sunagakure ninja. So why this charade?
Ruri slowly lowers the bloody gauze pad from her right eye, keeping the eyelids closed. Then she puts her hands in her lap calmly. A moment later, she Body Flickers out of sight. 'Sorry, Shemri-san.' she thinks to herself as she hears the cries of outrage from the Kumogakure ninja. 'I'll just have to hope you figure it out on your own and make your own escape.' Then she starts heading after Kara and Rinako. She might not know exactly where they are, but she has a good guess of where they're headed. That light went to the north, according to Shemri, when she spoke to the investigator. Meaning wherever the light was returning to, that's where she'll find the enemy.
Shemri, on the other hand, would be witness to a number of the Kumogakure ninja moving to chase after Ruri. Once they are no longer in line of sight, the others take up positions around the eldest kunoichi present, apparently ready to guard her and make sure she doesn't go anywhere.
"A Jounin. Great. We'll have to assume he's going to be expecting us."
As their pace across the roofs begins to slow when they start leaving the buildings behind, traveling towards the beach, the younger of the two kunoichi hardens her expression, staring stoicly ahead as they finally come to a pause. "…This is our mission, Kar. It doesn't matter how personal this has become, our assignment is to stop this dog. Alive if we can, dead if not. It he's really that strong…"
Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Rinako sucks in, and then lets out, a deep, healing breath.
"Unless you have a better idea, I'll draw him out. I can take the punishment, for a short while, at least." Making a seal with her hands, directly over the seal on her navel, Rinako begins to gather chakra… a /lot/ of it. "Try to get behind him, try to come in flanking him, and don't hold back, no matter who's in the way. And…" A moment's hesitation. "Don't get close to me. I don't know what I'll do to you."
As she continues gathering her chakra for something that was likely large, Rinako waits a few heartbeats, a few moments for Kara to either set out upon the plan she'd suggested, or to interject with one of her own.
Shemri nods. "This is a fact. We are ninja, but we are here on vacation. I did not even bring any weapons. I had to find these in that grave." :P Shemri drops the weapons she'd been carrying. "My name is Maneshi Shemri, also of the Satonezu on my mother's side, and Tekketsu by marriage." Just then Ruri makes her sudden exit. Shemri blinks, then sighs. "And she is usually the patient one. Hoi, if you are no longer busy, could you treat my burns? Now that I have time to stop and think, I am feeling their sting most horribly." >.<;
Kara nods. "Sounds like a plan. I'm not a close-range fighter anyway." She then hesitates for a moment, before saying, "Just incase one of us doesn't survive… It was nice having friends like the ones on our team." Then she takes a deep breath, and gathers some more Chakra of her own. Not as much as Rinako, because she just doesn't have as much Stamina available to her, but still a large quantity. Then she leaps off the roof, lands in a crouch, and runs towards the beach while ducking low. Yes. Ducking. That's totally a stealth maneuver, shut up!
It helps that she is not heading right for the bad guy and is instead heading over to hide behind some large beach rocks, as she un-henges Pharaoh. She's going to follow the Plan alright. But that doesn't mean she can't improvise too! When Rinako faces Sheex, she won't be alone, even if it looks like she is.
No sign of the guy out on the protruding section of beach noticing Kara. He might be too far away, or maybe he's not paying attention, or maybe he's just pretending not to notice. Whatever the case, he's facing the ocean, with his back to potential attackers. If someone were to charge in suddenly — across all 150 feet of distance, mind - then he might be caught unawares!
Ruri looks down at the gauze pad in her hand as she leaps quickly over the rooftops. The blood has quite thoroughly drenched the pad. She wonders if there's any way to get a new eye. Maybe they have spares back in Sunagakure, for organ transplants. She doesn't really want to live the rest of her life with one eye. She's worried, for one thing, that her sister might treat her differently. And then there's the worry of decreased combat effectiveness. Is she going to be retired? Will her research end because she's no longer considered a ninja?
Ruri looks behind her suddenly, on impulse, and sees that there's about a half dozen Kumogakure ninja leaping after her. She didn't even hear them. That doesn't surprise her. What surprises her is that she can even still see these 'ninja'. 'Must have a pretty large effect radius. Meaning the one who started it is… Pretty darn powerful.' she thinks. She looks down at the gauze pad in her hand, again, and leaps forward faster. The beach is coming into view and still no signs of her team mates or a battle.
Then Ruri's right hand is empty of gauze pads. She looks down, seeing the blood on the palm of her hand, and the piece of old moss in her grip. She considers looking behind her, but decides against it. There's nothing to see. The pursuing ninja have vanished.
Back with Shemri, the ninja surrounding and guarding her are still all-too visible. They seem to be making noise normally, and look normal, and feel normal in the instances where they are treating the woman who Ranken left behind. But oddly… The woman, while ostensibly breathing through a tube and a pump, to make sure she stays alive, is breathing shallowly, in sporadic gasps. She breathes. Breathes… …breathes… …….stops breathing completely. This may or may not go unnoticed by Shemri. The ninja don't seem concerned about the woman as she apparently dies. Instead the investigator near Shemri says, "The Medic-Nin are on their way here. I'm sure they'll be here shortly." Very odd behavior.
Rinako doesn't hide, she doesn't even /look/ like she's trying to hide. If this guy was a Jounin, he'd already know that she had friends and that she likely wasn't going to come here alone. There are no stupid Jounin, right? And if he /was/ dumb as a post… that made things easier!
After Kara sets off, going for her flanking maneuver, the elder of the Rurohashi siblings makes herself just as visible as the male standing on a rock, waiting patiently for their arrival. Either the male was supremely confident in his abilities, or… it was a trap designed to lure her in. Her money was on the latter, but they had no choice, he had to be confronted. The gathered chakra begins to swell within her, swirling and drowning out her own stores of chakra, the bijuu's power is unleashed…
But it's not just released, Rinako reaches to the creature within her, and /yanks/ it out fully, into dominance, giving in to the promise of power.
"GWAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
It's an inhuman howl, a roar that shakes the sand beneath her feet as the Other takes control, for the first time in complete dominance of the body it inhabited. Sand is blasted away, as is nearby water as opaque chakra pours out, covering the kunoichi's body. Her skin doesn't just turn blue…
It turns a black so pitch it isn't even a color, more the absolute absence of light.
It swells and grows around her, surrounding her as three tails form behind her body, protruding, growing larger, looking not unlike those that would belong to a shrimp. A shell forms, four legs, and a head, all much larger than Rinako herself, bowing forward, a massive, tailed turtle of midnight color, nearly ten-feet at the shoulder, blasting out another roar of outrage and anguish as both it, and Rinako's, rage focuses on the lone object before it.
The large beast begins to crash forward. It's not as slow as appearances might suggest, but on land it's certainly not ninja-quick.
Shemri taps her foot impatiently. "But you have a med-kit right there, do you not? Surely you do not need to be a trained medic to apply a burn salve? Here, I shall do it myself!" Shemri bustles over and takes a bottle that looks like lotion from the med-kit. "Do none of these people have children?" she mutters to herself, rubbing the lotion onto her arms…but it doesn't seem to be helping. In fact, it's as if there isn't any lotion there, for all the lubrication it's giving in the rub-"OW!" Shemri looks around at Shiikaa, who just bit her ankle. "Hoi, what was that fo-" Shemri blinks and looks around. No more Kumo ninja. o.O "…Thank you." >.<; Shemri picks herself up and grabs the weaponry she'd dropped, then dashes off with Shiikaa to follow the team.
