Starring:
Date: November 19, 2011
Summary:
Keisuke, Tsiro and Yuuka hunt down a Mist Village deserter, a leader of a rebel group and the mysterious chest marked for retrieval.
WARNING: Contains foul language.
"The Train Whistles"
Ward 15 [Fuuma Alley]
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The steam pluming into the air in great tufts, the creaking moans of shifted gears and the sharp hiss of released steam and tension on the systems of the train itself: These were the characteristics of the train station within Fuuma alley. Under the narrow overhang sheltering the station hubs on either side of the lanes of tracks, the depot curves away seemingly forever. Somehow as the city grew, the train station was integrated seamlessly into it like a tree growing through a fence. In the resulting merged architecture you can only guess at the extent of the train station proper; hard iron and steel structures, columns and girders, raised trackways and underground subways alongside immaculate paved and laned walkways, houses, and ticket offices.
The strangeness of the lamp-lit village of a train-station is completely ignored by the residents and frequent travelers to and from Fuuma Alley, all of them long since used to its role as the city's smoky, cancerous veins. Being a very busy and central transportation hub, it sees undending traffic and provids undending opportunities for work, be it in the transportation industry, law enforcement… or crime.
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The mission: Intelligence forces have tracked a large militia group down. They have taken up residence in the Fuuma Alley. Within their possession is a chest. The contents of the chest are none of your concern. Do not open it. The chest itself however is your primary objective. Once the chest has been obtained, return to the village with it. Under no circumstances are you to allow it to be destroyed.
The leader of the militia is a rogue shinobi from the Land of Water. Your secondary objective is to eliminate him. Your team is allowed to use any tactics they wish to obtain the required results. Once your mission has been accomplished return to the village immediately.
There are a few scouts spread through the roof tops. Each group of them is paired. Mainly that of the train station and the depot to the right of it. Most of them seem pretty relaxed. While they are doing their jobs, they pass the time telling jokes and pointing out various things they can see from their vantage points. On the ground, two patrols of three men each walk around the depot. Like the scouts, they are obviously militia and not trained shinobi. The depot itself has a few entrances. There are a number of boarded up windows, a door with two guards outside it and a roof entrance. Anyone wanting to gain entry could also make their own entrance.
With people milling around the station, it isn't difficult to pick out those that seem to stick out from the crowd. The few men that wander around aimlessly, though with focus on their surroundings that is just a little too intense to be casual. The target, the rogue leader, would be somewhere inside of the warehouse next to the train station, along with the chest that needed to be brought back to the Land of Water in one piece. On the train, Yuuka goes over the details of the plan itself, selecting subterfuge and stealth for this mission instead of the usual 'attack and ask questions later' approach. Such could put the chest in danger of being destroyed in the process. Posing as a family on vacation, Tsiro, Keisuke and herself can move through the train station without being detected, and using the tree-walking technique, they can scale the wall of the warehouse to the rooftop where it is unguarded. If they are quick enough, they should be able to avoid detection from the train station's rooftop. After all, they should be looking downwards into the station itself. At least in theory.
So Hikan wants a chest and a head retrieved from a rogue. Not really a big deal, but Keisuke was rather bored, so he decided to accompany and watch Yuuka and Tsiro on this mission. He needs to gauge both of their abilities, so this is a good opportunity. The giant Swordsman is adorned in attire any ordinary man would wear. His enormous sword seems to be missing, or at least hidden somewhere so as not to give away his disguise. Walking hand-in-hand with the Chuunin mission leader to act as her husband like her plan noted, he moves casually, allowing her to lead. He is here mainly to observe after all. He will simply follow for now and not interfere unless he is needed to make the odds even out.
Tsiro moves behind the two. He like the others is dressed like a normal child. He does not seem extremely happy, but that was to be expected by any child of his age visiting this area of the Fuuma Valley, or any area of the Fuuma Valley for that matter. He wanted to rush in and tear the place apart, but that was not part of the plan. Though he did not agree with the plan he still trusted his sensei enough to know what she was doing. If things went wrong, there was one of the seven swordsman there. He was sure the odds of success were really in their favor.
The three blend easily with the moving crowd around them, not even getting a second glance from others, though one or two do stare at the towering giant that is Keisuke. Yuuka turns her snowy head slightly and glances at him, her expression softening with a smile before the young woman looks behind her at Tsiro trailing behind her. Obviously disgruntled. Freeing her slender hand, she reaches back for the boy to take his hand instead, gently pulling him up to walk between herself and Keisuke as they move to one end of the train station. They would appear to be a rather normal-looking family from afar (for Kaguya at least).
Yuuka lifts her aquamarine eyes to quietly glance around them with casual alertness as they turn a corner, disappearing from sight between the station itself and the warehouse. So far, they haven't caught sight of any of the guards patrolling around the warehouse, meaning they needed to be quick and scale the side of the warehouse before they rouse suspicion. The kunoichi pulls her hand from Tsiro shoulder and narrows her gaze at her teammates, lowering her chin slightly in a silent nod. She focuses the chakra along the bottom of her feet almost reflexively as Yuuka pushes off into a quick sprint, seeming to defy gravity itself as she runs smoothly up the side of the building.
As Yuuka looks to him, Keisuke smiles back at her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before she releases it and brings Tsiro up to walk between them. He pats the boy on the head before looking back ahead as they walk.
As they cut the corner, Keisuke might as well be a ghost. He follows Yuuka up the wall with the grace one would expect of an elite shinobi. His footsteps are completely silent as he moves up the wall, not making a sound.
The youngest of the Kaguya walks behind the two. He seems slightly surprised that Yuuka reaches back and grabs his hand. He raises an eyebrow as she pulls him between Keisuke and herself. It was something he had never really felt before, even if it was not a real situation. He does not make any jump or sudden movement as he is patted on the head.
Then as they move around the corner, Tsiro moves up the wall with ease. His steps are without sound as well.
As the three of them move up the wall, one of the scouts here something. He moves to look over the wall, but when he does he sees nothing. "Must have been a bird or something." the man states before turning around and resuming his conversation with the other scout.
As Tsiro pulls up the rear, Yuuka narrows her aquamarine eyes as she approaches the door leading into the building. Careful, the kunoichi lightly presses her ear against the wooden surface of the door, stretching her senses outwards to feel anything or anyone that lies beyond it. She pauses for a long, silent moment, feeling nothing and knowing that if they were on the rooftop any longer, the more likely they'll be seen. Lifting a hand, Yuuka motions towards the door before smoothly opening it, careful and slowly to keep it from squeaking. The hallway beyond is shadowed, the lighting dim within. After they locate the chest, Yuuka knows stealth wouldn't be needed.
Tsiro waits and watches as Yuuka checks the door. He follows Keisuke in once it is open. He moves into the hallway and stops there waiting for Yuuka to take the lead once more. His eyes start to adjust the darkness, but he does not move. His eyes then travel from Keisuke to Yuuka in an attempt to get further orders.
Looking further into the room, one would find there are roughly twenty men in the open room. About half of them are sleeping in bunks around the wall. They are obviously the night shift for the watch. All of the others spend there time relaxing, except two. They are positioned outside of a door of the only visible room. It seems to be if the chest is in this building, then it would be in that room.
Yuuka moves with light steps as she follows the stairs down to the first floor, pausing at the end of the hallway and pressing her back against the very edge. Shifting her weight subtly, she leans to her right side to glance around the corner, quickly counting the number of people between them and the door. Including the two guards that are alert beside the door which she assumes leads into the office where the chest is being kept. Though so far, she hasn't seen the leader. Perhaps they caught a break and he's sleeping. The corner of her lips tugs with a slight smirk as Yuuka straightens, hidden behind the wall once more while one of her hands reaches under the collar of her kimono. A fraction of a moment after, the kunoichi pulls out a tiny silver ball, holding it up long enough that Keisuke and Tsiro both get a glance of it before she activates the seal and rolls it into the large room. With a light hiss, a colorless sleeping gas begins to fill the room to gently encourage the other men into slumber.
Placing a hand on Yuuka's shoulder, Keisuke closes his eyes and senses what she senses before they move through the door. His movements are completely silent despite his enormous size, which takes some skill in and of itself. He continues to follow behind Yuuka silently, allowing her to do the work. After all, this is her mission. He's just observing until he is actually needed. When she presents the silver ball, he shows a faint smirk and simply waits for the effects of it to kick in.
Tsiro does not look into the room. He remains focused on his sensei. He looks a little puzzled at the silver ball. First he was not exactly sure what it was. Second, he had little idea what it did. Third, he was not sure why Yuuka made a habit of carrying small balls around with her. He watches as she activates the seal and rolls it into the room. Being as no one else seemed to rush in, he figured it prudent to stay where he was.
As the ball rolls into the room and the gas enters the air, the men begin to fall asleep. One of the guards witnesses another fall over and starts to move. As he turns around the gas hits him and he hits the ground. As he falls forward, his head hits the door with the thud. The other guard falls over sleeping.
The door is quick to open and a man wearing a shinobi attire appears. There is a Kirigakure forehead protector on his head. There is a line through the center of it. He sees the guards have fallen over and quickly shuts the door….
As men fall one by one into eventual sleep, Yuuka straightens as she moves to one side of the open doorway, quirking a brow as she sees what she can assume to be the leader quickly shutting the door. The smirk tugs at her lips, "Well, it looks like he knows we are here now. That will give us less time than I would like." she murmurs, quirking a pale brow while turning her snowy head to glance at her student. "How fast can you run, Tsiro-kun?"
Simply waiting as the men start to fall asleep, Keisuke shows a faint smirk. While he could end the situation rather quickly himself, this isn't his mission, so he's going to let these two work it out all own their own. For the moment, he remains silent and simply waits to follow behind them.
GAME: Save complete.
Tsiro smiles as Yuuka asks how fast he can run. "Let's find out." the boy states to his sensei. He moves his hands and bones start to protrude from them. "What are the orders?" Tsiro asks. He did not want to rush in and assume the wrong objective.
The light smirk on her lips grows as she sees Tsiro's eagerness for action, "While running, our combined weight should be enough to break through the door." she replies, "Just make sure that you hold your breath through the sleeping gas, got it?" Yuuka stretches her fingers lightly at her sides and turns her bright eyes towards the open room. When Tsiro is ready, she pushes her strength through her legs in a sudden dash, holding her breath as she runs through the center. With bones as hard as steel, the kunoichi doesn't hesitate to leap and kick her foot forward, straight at the door itself.
"Curious," Keisuke murmurs as the two dash toward the door. He chuckles a bit as he watches them go. "I wonder if they considered the fact that, once they bust the door down, the sleeping gas will leak into that room." With a smirk, he reaches to his side and retrieves a couple canteens from his belt and unscrews the caps. "I suppose I'll help them out," he says as he pours the canteens out onto the ground and then drops them, forming his hands into a seal. The giant Swordsman then closes his eyes and seems to vanish into thin air.
Tsiro moved with the order. He trusted Yuuka enough to follow her without hesitation. As Yuuka moved to kick the door, the boy would hold both arms up in front of himself and try to crash through the door with his shoulder. He was trying to use the force of his body with his bones ahead of him to help bust it down.
As the two bodies hit the door, they are stopped in their tracks. The door has been reinforced by some form of rock jutsu. Looks like they will have to find another way around and even worse… deal with the gas…
As the two fall back from their failure, a bit of mercy is extended by their Swordsman counter-part. A couple copies of him charge toward the door and a gigantic double-bicycle kick to plow through the door and the earthen shield behind it. As the door falls an the clones dissipate, his deep voice is heard saying, "Can't have you two sleeping on the job."
As the door comes crashing down a small army of senbon needles shoot directly outwards into the far wall of the room, barely missing Yuuka and Tsiro who were still on the ground. With the room now open, the rogue shinobi now wears a white mask with blue lines painted diagonally across it. He is attempting to get out of a window with the chest in his hand.
Falling back, Yuuka bounces on the floor a few times, the gas thinning and fading around the team of shinobi as Keisuke summons water clones. The door almost seems to explode from the attack, and a spray of senbon needles flies through the open doorway, missing the two on the floor still. Wincing to herself, the kunoichi shakes her snowy head quickly before she pushes herself to her feet, ready to throw herself into the heat of the battle if need be. Yuuka lifts her eyes to see their target, the chest under his arm as he tries to escape through the window. Her jaw firms, gaze narrowing as she growls irritably, "Not quite yet…" she mutters under her breath. Lifting a hand, the kunoichi fires a finger bone at the rogue leader, the small piece of ivory shooting out into a net of vine-like netting to instantly ensnare the target. Yuuka smirks faintly to herself, closing her fingers into a fist and twisting it towards her in one smooth motion to suddenly yank the rogue leader back into the building, chest and all to hover in midair in front of them.
As the leader is yanked back into the room, Keisuke suddenly reappears sitting on the edge of the desk, feet touching the floor still since he is so tall. "Oh, look, he's wrapped up like a gift," the Swordsman's deep voice rings out calmly as he looks down at the downed leader. "If one of you would kindly remove his face so I can see which fool thought it was a good idea to betray Kirigakure. I may have a good lesson to teach Tsiro today."
Tsiro stood up after the senbon passed. He saw the leader tangled up. He blinked his eyes a few times. Then looks at Keisuke. He looks back towards the man and moves to unmask him. He uses one of his bones to pull the mask back from the man. His face is covered by a cloth wrapping. The boy glances back at the other two. He was not sure if he was suppose to remove that portion as well or if Keisuke knew who this guy was from the way he wrapped his face.
Yuuka has her focus more on the chest that is wedged under the man's arm. The ivory tentacles shimmer slightly, the grip readjusting around the captured prey as she approaches. She holds up her arms as the small chest is pushed against the man's grip, her hands delicately cradling it as the box comes free. The kunoichi exhales a slow breath of a sigh and quickly inspect the chest, seeing no damage done to the wooden surface. Yuuka glances as Tsiro as he begins to unmask the rogue leader, unsure herself just why Keisuke would want his face revealed.
"I see," Keisuke says, quirking an eyebrow down at the captured rogue shinobi. "Tsiro-san, cut the bandages off so I can give this stray cur a proper burial… I will let you two have your fun first, of course," the Swordsman says, a menacing grin crossing his face. "What happened, baka-Takazu? Mommy wouldn't let you play with the bigs kids, so you decided to run away from home?"
Tsiro uses the bone to cut the bandages off the man's face. He cuts a little deep leaving a scar on his face. He shrugs his shoulders and looks around… He ponders the concept of what could be in the chest. What exactly would cause a man to leave the village and hang out in some dump surrounded by low life bandits? His eyes look upwards at the man waiting for him to respond.
The man struggles as the chest is taken from him. He does not even scream or move when his face is cut causing the bandages to fall off of him. His eyes dart towards Keisuke. "Son of a bitch. I knew they would hunt me, but they sent you of all people? Mr high and fuckin mighty. Just get it over with." the voice is cold and without any kind of remorse.
Holding the chest against herself, Yuuka sighs lightly as she leans back against the closest wall, quirking a pale brow at the pieces of rock and debre scattered everywhere. "Just get it over with, Keisuke-sama. I rather leave before the guards outside decide to check up on the others, or the ones in there wake up." Turning her snowy head, the kunoichi glances through the ruined doorway out into the large room filled with cots and sleeping men. "I doubt the sleeping gas will last much longer."
"High and mighty? Me?" Keisuke asks, chuckling to himself a bit. "Don't you remember? I'm just the Executioner." He reaches into a pouch on his side and retrieves a scroll, rolling it out and biting his thumb to spread blood on it. With a puff of smoke, the scroll turns into his enormous blade, the Kubikiribocho. He glances to Yuuka as she speaks, smirking a bit. "Yes, love," he says with an almost sweet, quite menacing tone as he reaches to his side and retrieves a cloth sack and then a kunai knife. "Hey, Takazu-san, remember this?" he asks as he looks back to the formerly-masked rogue, his blood red eyes suddenly growing intense as a sadistic smirk touches his lips.
Tsiro watches the conversation transpire though he kinda ponders if it was necessary. Then Yuuka tells him to get it over with. The boy ponders stabbing him himself. "Well, the window looks like a good place for an exit." Tsiro states as he points to the open window. He moves towards it and rests his back against the wall. He was not sure just how long they would be there.
Takazu looks over the blade and the kunai but he does not speak. He glances towards the window as well. His mouth then opens and there is a loud yell. It seemed like Yuuka had been right. While Takazu figured he would not survive the event, he did figure it may save him some pain and torture.
Glancing back at the captured Takazu, Yuuka scowls with mild irritation once more as he yells for help. "Well great." she murmurs, "We better not miss our train ride back because of him." The kunoichi lightly shakes her snowy head, shifting her gaze back to Tsiro, "We can use the window," she agrees. Shifting the weight of the chest in her arms, Yuuka slowly lowers the object into a cloth knapsack as she nears the window, waiting for her student to leave through the open window before she slips out as well.
"Ah, so you do remember it," Keisuke says with a smirk as he stands up off the desk and walks toward the rogue shinobi. He leans down and slices the Achilles tendons on the back of both of his legs before retrieving another kunai and pinning both of the man's hands down by stabbing the kunai through the center of them. "Let's see how long you last." The Swordsman unties the cloth of the sack and turns it over, pouring what appears to be bone dust all over the man's body. As it falls, a portion of the dust seems to purposely fly into Takazu's mouth of its own accord. A moment later, he will be silenced by the slicing of the tendon that allows him to use his tongue. "You see, these tiny particles of bone are very sharp, and I have the ability to control them at will, which is why you feel them tearing through the flip in your throat and moving into both your gastric system and your lungs."
Tsiro watches as Keisuke only proves he is slightly more sadistic than the rest of them on a normal basis. He then looks towards Yuuka and back to the window. "Well, I guess that it's time to go. Gotta catch a train." He moves to the window and climbs over it before walking down the wall. He figured severely disabled was almost the same as dead. Then again a few more moments and it would be dead. Even if he did not witness it himself. Plus the primary objective was the chest.
Kneeling on the side of the wall, the wind sweeps through her kimono as Yuuka glances back through the window, narrowing her gaze on the swordsman. "If you do not make the train, we will meet you back at the village." she says quickly enough, though she isn't bothered by the fact that Keisuke is torturing the man. It was more like a cat playing with a mouse. The Kaguya kunoichi shakes her head once at him before standing to her feet and taking off southwards, jumping off of the wall several yards to land in a slight crouch between the buildings. Yuuka swiftly glances over her shoulder to check on Tsiro, wordlessly slinging the strap of the knapsack over her head and across her shoulder.
"I'll see you in a few moments," Keisuke says as he glances over to Yuuka, a faint smile touching his lips. He then turns his head to look back at the rogue shinobi once again. "It's about time the real Swordsmen restored Kirigakure to its former glory. The current track record is a disgrace. There are some changes to be made. One of the first things to happen is, we're going to track down every twerp like you and kill you all." With that, he closes his eyes and chuckle a bit. As he does so, the particles of bone begin to spin and grind into the man's skin and organs, starting to rip him to shreds inside and out. "Did you know that each of these particles is more like a spiked ball one uses sees on the end of a war mace than an actual piece of dust?" he asks as he opens his eyes to look upon the man that is being killed in one of the most brutal ways possible. "It's like having millions of those spinning and grinding into you. Your chance of survival isn't slim… It's none. When I'm done, I'll have to separate the dust of my own bones from yours and put it back in this bag."
