Starring:
Date: November 11, 2015
Summary:
A team has been sent out to take care of some bandits.
"The Four Musketeers vs. Cart-napping Bandits"
Land of Fire
It was time for a mission. The weather was still pretty warm since it was still summer and not quite fall. Since the mission was, at this point, something that was supposed to be fairly easy there was no problem with a bunch of Genin going as long as someone was along to supervise. And Hige was picked for that, of course. The teen along with Konsho are waiting at the front gate for the three that had been picked for the mission. The note hadn't really said /what/ they were doing but that they should be prepared to be gone the whole day.
Daichi had gotten everything ready for the mission, and moved out as soon as possible. It didn't take him long to arrive at the gates, and he offered a small wave to both Konsho and Hige upon arrival. "Hey Hige… Hey Konsho." For now until the others arrived he would move nearby, and take a seat. Might as well draw some more while he is waiting.
Shugo would yawn with a tired expression on his face as he slowly made his way to the gathering point. Scratching at his hair with one hand while his other remained tucked away in the sleeve of his brown colored haori. Dressed in his usual bagy pants, the Nara arrived with only a pair of rope draw strings wrapped about his left shoulder which lead to the sack hanging from Shugo's back. Beyond the sack though, Shugo didn't seem any more ready for a mission than his usual day-to-day activities. He didn't even seem like he was fully awake based on the fact that only one of his eyes was open. As per the insane demands of the Inuzuka however, Shugo was at least freshly bathed by the time he came into range of the canine's noses.
Shinobu got the message, so she packed accordingly. The girl needed less help from Mana after all was said and done, though the old woman still provided a few snacks for the young Inuzuka. The girl would head out to meet with Hige at the front gate, Kame rushing alongside her. The pair slow when they get near the gate, and Shinobu offers a small now to Hige and Konsho before waving to Daichi and Shugo awkwardly.
Hige gives a nod in greeting to the others as they arrive, somewhat surprised that Kame didn't try and attack him and Konsho when she got there. Huh, maybe she's growing up. Sniffle. Once everyone's there he motions for them all to gather around before slipping his hands back into his pockets. "Good morning everyone. Today we're going to be taking on some bandits that may possibly have partially trained shinobi within their ranks. A wagon is on it's way here said to be filled with a lot of supplies and is sure to be a target. The wagon is ours however and is a decoy. We're going to set ourselves up in a position to watch the road where the bandits have been attacking and provide support. Any questions?"
RP: Hige transforms into KONSHO.
COMBAT: Hige focuses 4672 stamina to turn it into 6000 usable chakra!
Daichi continued drawing well into the arrival of Shugo, and only finally looks up at Shinobu's arrival. He quickly closes his sketchbook offering a small wave to her before standing up now that everyone is here. Now that everyone was here Hige had started talking about the mission, and once done Daichi shrugs slightly. "I don't think I have anything to ask. So yeah I am ready whenever."
Shugo would nod along with Hige's words as he listened in on what the mission of the day was as well as what they were going to be doing about it. A simple little set up, hopefully the bandits fell for it quickly so that they could be back home in time for a good nap. The Daichi person was here again along with the girl from the training grounds the other day It would make for a good bit of information gathering on how well both of them did in a mission at least. "Ready to go when you are, Cap." Shugo would state now that he was a bit more awake and both eyes were finally open and attentive of.. well, the sky mostly. It seemed like it would be a nice day until the evening at least.
COMBAT: Shugo focuses 1759 stamina to turn it into 2000 usable chakra!
Kame growing up? Nah! She just got the opportunity to tackle a giant fox earlier, so she was content with staying where she was. The pup sits back and awaits instructions, offering a yip in response to Hige's question. ~Sounds simple! Ready whenever!~ Shinobu would simply tilt her head and think a moment. "Umm… What kind of training…?" she asks. Other than that, she didn't have any questions. She would just ready herself for the mission.
COMBAT: Shinobu focuses 2377 stamina to turn it into 3000 usable chakra!
RP: Shinobu transforms into KAME.
"From the reports there have been some ninjutsu used against wagons, mostly earth based," Hige replies to Shinobu. After his feral eyes looks over the others to ensure there are no other questions he gives a nod and motions for them to follow before taking to the tree tops and moving at a moderate pace. Well, for him. He doesn't want to leave anyone behind after all. Hige takes the front and Konsho takes the rear guard as he always does. And they're under way! Of course, as they travel the duo have their senses pushed out to monitor anything that may interrupt them or cause trouble as well.
RPCOMBAT: Hige defends against with a INUZUKA-SENSES-II…44
Daichi waited until the others were all ready before taking off with them. Of course like he guessed the others would do he looked around as he ran. It shouldn't be to hard for the others to find anything. Well at least Shinobu and Hige. So luckily even if he didn't find something maybe one of those two could.
RPCOMBAT: Daichi defends against with a PERCEPTION…21
RPCOMBAT: Shugo defends against with a PERCEPTION…8
Well at least the information gathered would be helpful, and all of that speed training made a bit more sense too as the Nara began moving after the Inuzuka and the genin before himself. As much as Shugo would like to keep a slow and steady pace, he knew that Hige would start stabbing him if he slacked off too much. Putting all of the speed training to good use, the Nar worked to keep pace with the Inuzuka but didn't pay too much mind to the surrounding area. As much as he might like observing the scenery for enemies, the Inuzuka's nose would probably handle that better than his bored eyes would.
Shinobu gives a small nod and keeps that information in the back of her mind as they set out. She finds the pace just fine. A bit faster than what she would travel, maybe, but it wouldn't be uncomfortable unless they travelled for the whole day non-stop. The young Inuzuka keeps an eye out for anything suspicious, and both she and Kame would scent the air for anything suspicious at all. Shinobu would tend to take the middle or second to last spot between Hige and Konsho. Kame just keeps alongside her partner.
RPCOMBAT: Shinobu defends against with a INUZUKA-SENSES…62
The team would travel for a few hours, more or less following the road though through the treetops rather than on the road itself. There wasn't anything too exciting to find along the way besides a few animals hunting and eating and the occasional traveler on the road. When they reached the spot they were looking for Hige would signal a stop, letting his feral eyes roam the open land in front of them for a few moments before motioning the rest of the shinobi to come to the branch he's on or at least nearby. "This is the area where the attacks have been coming from. The wagon isn't scheduled yet for about another thirty minutes so find some good cover to keep watch."
RPCOMBAT: Hige defends against with a INUZUKA-SENSES-II…73
Daichi arrives at the spot behind Hige and Shinobu. When they are told to head out to find cover Daichi jumps to a nearby tree that seems like it has some good cover in one of the higher branches. Next thing you know he would start looking around. He had pulled out his sketchbook, and seemed to want to draw although he knew better to get to distracted.
RPCOMBAT: Daichi defends against with a PERCEPTION…21
RPCOMBAT: Shugo defends against with a PERCEPTION…22
Shugo would keep the pace without too much issue until they were stopping and listening to the Jounin's instructions. At the direction to go find cover he would jump a few trees away before perching himself on a branch before sitting down on the branch after forming a simple hand seal. The Nara would lean back against the trunk of the tree and listen quietly to the air around himself; the songs from the birds and any rustling of leaves down below himself. The breeze was fairly pleasant to feel on top of everything which made Shugo consider taking a shrot nap for the half-hour they should have before it was time to be on higher alert.
RPCOMBAT: Shinobu defends against with a INUZUKA-SENSES…36
COMBAT: Shinobu attacks target 1 with WOLF-SOFT-CLAW with a roll of: 29
Shinobu would slow and eventually stop as needed, trying to move with care. She would nod quietly when Hige gave his instructions, slipping off to parts unknown … Hopefully. She doesn't really want to make it to obvious where she's going off to, but Hige would still need to see her right? That being said, it's a bit harder to hide when there are two in the same spot… At least Kame is smaller than Konsho.
Hige watches to where everyone goes to hide. Of course they should still be able to see him in case he makes any motions…hopefully they knew that. As time passes Hige and Shinobu would start to catch some odd scents on the wind. Hige crouches when he catches the scents and raises a hand to let everyone else know to be ready. About five minutes later the wagon appears, trundling along down the road. Hige frowns a bit as he looks around, waiting for the bandits. But none come. And some of the strange scents seem to be coming from the wagon itself.
RPCOMBAT: Hige defends against with a INUZUKA-SENSES-II…51
Daichi watches closer now putting his sketchbook away. Can't risk getting distracted at all now. So now he looks at the approaching wagon that seems to be heading this way. No bandits though. Daichi moves closer to the edge of the branch now, and gets some chakra in his feet to make sure he doesn't slip. What is going on.
RPCOMBAT: Daichi defends against with a PERCEPTION…20
RPCOMBAT: Shugo defends against with a PERCEPTION…8
Despite his lazy look the Nara was paying attention, arms lost inside his Haori to slip inside his pouch and draw free a pair of kunai and a set of shuriken along with them so that he had something to defend himself with when the time came. With Hige signalling, Shugo would shift on his branch and lean forward but not give up on his relaxed position upon that branch. Not just yet anyway but with no bandits in sight the Nara really found no reason to be too on guard anyway. There was sure to be some kind of a give away that would do the alerting for him any way.
RPCOMBAT: Shinobu defends against with a INUZUKA-SENSES…50
COMBAT: Shinobu attacks target 1 with WOLF-SOFT-CLAW with a roll of: 34
Shinobu manages to see where Hige is signalling, though she didn't need it. She could smell their approach. But when the attack never came, she was getting a bit worried. And what was the strange scent? Shinobu would try to get a bit closer to the wagon to see if she can tell anything else about it.
Hige frowns faintly as the wagon continues moving along the road and the bandits don't make an appearance. Something was off about this whole thing. Shinobu wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary with the driver and those walking around it. They looked like villagers which is what the dummy cart was supposed to look like. But they smelled…unwashed. And perhaps a tick nervous. Was there anything really wrong with that though, considering?
Hige waits until the wagon has passed through the open area and back into the forest, traveling underneath the shinobi and continuing on. Once they're out of the area Hige motions for the others to follow him as he moves ahead of the wagon and drops down, causing them to stop. Hige says nothing as he watches the nervous looking group with a faint frown.
Daichi watches the wagon continue passing, and he frowns as no bandits attack. Then after they pass underneath he looks to Hige. Seems that they are to move on further now. For this reason Daichi pulls out a kunai real quick and trots along through the trees. Once he spots Hige dropping down there is a pause. Daichi doesn't know whether to drop down or not yet. So unless Hige does an extra motion to call Daichi dwon he will stay in his tree where Hige should hopefully know where he is.
Shugo would follow quietly from where he'd been without allowing himself to come out and into view for the moment. Once Hige dropped down and forced the cart to stop, Shugo would crouch on the branch and lean down against it to keep a close eye on what was going on with that cart. The lack of conversation from Hige was more troubling than the manner of the guards and driver. Squinting a bit, Shugo would agan form a single hand seal however this time it was to allow his shadow to blacken in preparation of what was going on.
Shinobu follows Hige, feeling like something was wrong. The cart and travelers didn't smell all that nice… Worse than she'd expect. Shinobu's chakra would start to flow a bit faster as she tensed, nails turning to claws just in case. She then made a few handseals. 'Are they supposed to smell really bad?' she would ask the group through Genjutsu, though the question was directed mostly at Hige.
Feral eyes flick between the men and the rest of the cart as he remains silent as watching. The people in the cart seem rather fidgety and nervous and getting more so by the second. Shinobu's question doesn't earn a response but then it would be hard to give one at the moment. Finally after what seems like hours though was only seconds the driver of the carts whips the horses into a gallop in an obvious attempt to trample Hige. The Inuzuka sidesteps, then with Konsho coming from the other side of the road lightning flashes and they cut the horses free of the cart, letting them gallop off as the cart stops. The people in the cart finally attack and Hige pushes away before calling out. "These are the bandits. Kill them. Shugo, check inside the cart." Since it's covered, well, can't see from the outside. With that Hige would lash out at the man in the drivers seat.
Daichi watches closely as the whole event takes place. Hige didn't have to ask because as soon as the cart stopped Daichi was attacking. He threw a kunai at the first target he could find before jumping down to hopefully land his foot upon his head. Using that as a boost he would push off into another kick against someone else.
The girl knew how to put someone even more on edge than he already was. A voice popping into someone's head wasn't pleasant in the slightest when they weren't expecting it and it surprised Shugo enough that the genin visibly tensed before the events with the cart transpired and Hige ordered him to take a look inside the cart. Nodding, the genin would jump down from the tree and land before the cart to check what was beneath the covering. At the same time the Nara would send out his shadow toward the gathered bandits to see how well he could catch them. It wasn't as though being lazy made the genin useless after all. His own desire to be useless did that for him.
Shinobu would hear Hige's orders (after he nearly got trampled) and would spring quickly into action. She and Kame would push off from their position to attack in a whirling tornado of claws and fangs, the motion similar to Hige's except that she doesn't have lightning-natured chakra in the whole movement.
Two of the bandits get kicked around by Daichi, one getting kicked on the way down from the tree and the other just getting hit in his jaw. Shugo would see part of what was causing the bad smell underneath the covered wagon. The bodies of the people who had been a part of the decoy. Men and women all dead, their neck split from ear to ear. His shadows would also catch two of the bandits, making them prime fodder for Shinobu and Kame's joint attack. That said, there were still a number of bandits remaining, and they each lash out towards the shinobi.
Hige seems to pick up on something else as he and Konsho's eyes raise and he growls softly. "You three stick together and back each other up." With that said he and Konsho vanish in a burst of speed.
Daichi was quick, but speed doesn't help when your being attacked from multiple angles. So he gets hit slightly, but it isn't anything he hasn't dealt with before. Sparring with Shinobu causes worse then that. So the least he could do was show them how to actually hit some people. First person he sees he will run to, and kick them off their feet hopefully sending them to the ground. Next he jumps over that one spinning around to hit two more with Leaf Whirlwind.
Shugo would mutter at the sight of the bodies and tug the covering of the cart back slightly for the others to see what they were dealing with. When he caught sight of the spiralling duo, Shugo withdrew his shadows so he wouldn't have to imitate the agony those two bandits would be going through. He wasn't expecting a pair of them to still be going on the attack once they were found out however so the quick punch staggered the genin while the kunai that followed pierced into the Nara's side. Yanking the covering further from the cart and into the air at the bandits, the Nara would kick back from those bandits and form a hand seal to send his shadow into the shade of the covering. Narrowing his eyes and shifting through more hand seals, the Nara would take ownership of that falling cover's shadow to increase the odds of catching the bandits for another of their group to attack them.
Shinobu is quick to leap away from some of the incoming bandit attacks, one of them being a huge earthen hammer while the other is a simple strike to try and keep her as a good target. As she moves, she makes a few handseals, hoping to send a wave of Genjutsu through the field. Everything, to those who were trapped, would look like a very cute puppy, and they just would have to stop and start petting everything in existence.
These poor bandits really hadn't expected to run into this kind of trouble so far from the village. And yet here it was. Daichi manages to trip one of them and leaps over the fallen bandit to kick down two more. One guy flails a bit at the thrown covering the wind blows at him while another falls victim to the shadows once again. And then there are a lot of puppies suddenly around the area, causing the remaining bandits to freeze in place as they play around with the puppies in their own minds.
Off in the distance can be heard of bit of an exploding sound.
Daichi was happy to have knocked these ones around, and after all the others were seemingly being dealt with at the same time he looks around. The explosion sounds off nearby, but Hige had told them to stay hear, so unless the others head off he will knock out the rest who are dealing with genjutsu. He walks over punching a few different ones in their faces.
There was nothing stranger than men in genjutsu trying to pet something so the Nara would release them so they could do all the petting they wished to do. The third cervical vertibrae was the Nara's target. No need to really make them wait to die so as his shadows released, the Nara would turn about to drive his kunai into the backs of those bandits necks calmly. Wiping off his kunai and stepping away from the cart, the Nara would wipe his kunai off before glancing at the other two now that Hige was gone. "Should we tie up the ones that are alive and then follow after Hige or do you two want to wait here for him to come back with a bloody grin?"
'Hige-kun… Said we should wait here…" Shinobu says through her Genjutsu, the girl simply holding the one that was cast on the bandits until they were all disposed of. The young Inuzuka would wait where she was, though Kame was helping thin the numbers a bit with a few tackles. It should knock the wind from them, at least, preventing them from moving while Shinobu tied them up after releasing the Genjutsu.
As the bandits play in their puppy land some seem to have a rather rude awakening from the world of puppies by getting punched in the face or knocked in the chest by a dog. Others don't wake up at all as their spine is severed and blood no longer makes it to their brain. A few are captured at least to face the judgement of the Land of Fire.
Hige returns then, not grinning but certainly bloody. He's covered in much blood that isn't his own and he wipes at his mouth and chin with a sleeve which really only serves to smear the blood. Feral eyes flick over the remains of the bandits with the card and nods. "Good job team. Tie up and knock out the ones that are still alive. We'll report to the authorities in the town that's a few miles away to have them clean it up. While you do that I'm going to clean off." Konsho's already gone to wash himself, so Hige takes his leave to do the same.
Daichi was busy knocking the stunned ones out, and noticed Shugo just stabbing them in the necks. He had no real issue if people were killed during combat, but killing someone who was unable to defend themselves made him feel bad. He didn't enjoy seeing that personally. He didn't speak up about it though, and just tied out the ones passed out around here after Hige arrived and told them to. Once that was done he moved into a tree for now, and waited for their time to move.
Shugo would reach into his haori's sleeves and draw free lengths of rope before moving toward those that hadn't been killed in the conflict. One of the three he'd stabbed seeming to still be breathing interested the Nara but rather than stabbing him again the genin just made short rope work of those in range of himself. With only the lengths of rope he had on him and more than expected left alive the Nara had to simply tie others while rigging the others with a fail-safe. With their arms bound crossed behind their backs and strung around their necks to ensure they couldn't struggle free before strangling themselves to the point of passing out, the Nara would adjust the pack on his shoulder and start off toward where Hige had been going so that the Inuzuka wouldn't have to hunt them down before they could head home.
Shinobu would finish binding some of the last of the bandits when Hige came into view. She would nod to his instructions and pause for a second. Where was her pack..? She was kind of hungry… The girl had set it down earlier, she thought, so she went to hunt it down before she would take off after Hige. Fortunately she had just left it in her hiding spot earlier and it didn't get trampled, so she just unzipped the cover and got to munch on some rice balls while they traveled home. If anyone else wanted any, she would share!
