This might be the ridiculously sugar filled coffee drink I decided to try on a whim, aka Brown Sugar cinnamon flavor at dunken donuts, but that's so stupidly sweet I'm feeling the fluff so hard rn @v@
[x] Trust Naruto and Shino to hold back the reinforcements: hit Zaku as hard and fast as possible and then make your way onwards to the Tower as a group.
[x] Trust Naruto and Shino to hold back the reinforcements: hit Zaku as hard and fast as possible and then make your way onwards to the Tower as a group.
[x] Join Shino in keeping the reinforcements at bay, Naruto took down Kiba before getting training from Jiraiya, a one-armed Sound genin certainly won't defeat him. Then the three of you can make your way to the Tower as a group.
Adhoc vote count started by VNodosaurus on Nov 26, 2017 at 11:00 AM, finished with 38 posts and 21 votes.
[x] Join Shino in keeping the reinforcements at bay, Naruto took down Kiba before getting training from Jiraiya, a one-armed Sound genin certainly won't defeat him. Then the three of you can make your way to the Tower as a group.
[x] Trust Naruto and Shino to hold back the reinforcements: hit Zaku as hard and fast as possible and then make your way onwards to the Tower as a group.
[x] Run. You've got the location of the golden chakra orchid. Collect Naruto and Shino and direct jounin-level shinobi to retake the area. This fight is beyond you.
-[x] Hinata reached out to the nearest beast, a massive wolf, and grasped it's head in her beak, the infected animal struggled but she held it long enough to begin growing A boar's tusk forms he roof of her mouth and into the crater's head and brainstem. She flung it away into one of it's former pack mates, and turned towards a two-headed crocodile. Her bones thickened with he weight of the giant boar and she covered herself in overlapping clamshells to provide a sort of armor, before rushing forwards and hurling herself between the two heads and jabbing at it's eyes. Her left hand formed into a mockery of the wolf's head and gouged out a patch of scales and skin.
[x] Join Naruto in keeping the reinforcements at bay, Shino took Zaku down once, he'll be able to take him down again, you're sure of it, and then you'll make your way to the Tower as a group.
[x] Have Naruto and Shino take out Zaku, You're a motherfucking murdergoddess who gains new shapes and powers by killing the fuck out of things EAT THE REINFORCEMENTS!
-[x] stunt: Activating Hybrid Nue Transformation, Hinata keeps the best of the bird but add just enough human-girl to be effective at using the Gentle Fist. Hinata grabs a pair signal flare-tagged kunai and throw one in the direction of the Golden Orchid. With Zaku distracted by the light and sound of the flare, you savage him like a razored-up cockfighting chicken pushhing him with your frenzied onslought. With Zaku blinded by sap-blood from wounds on his face, you throw the second signal-flared kunai in the durection of the Golden Orchid. The distance between the two locations may be slight, but you're hoping the trained ANBU spotters will be able to triangulate the coordinates and send reinforcements.
[X] Join Shino in keeping the reinforcements at bay, Naruto took down Kiba before getting training from Jiraiya, a one-armed Sound genin certainly won't defeat him. Then the three of you can make your way to the Tower as a group.
-[X]STUNT: Now that just won't do.
Silver light blooms across the clearing as you explode out of the undergrowth at a flatout sprint, your body flowing in reaction to the imminent threat.
You can feel the depth of your footprints deepen as your body adds mass and size, feel your flight feathers shorten and shrink as armor pushes up underneath your skin, pushing out the splinters of wood wedged into your wingarms even as the pain of injury fades.
Shino sees you coming and hits the ground hard as you vault his figure and hit the oncoming cluster of shambling animals like a battering ram.
Oncoming shamblers drop dead in their tracks, their movements oddly slowed as you target major clusters of that unsettlingly familiar darkling essence, their red and blue flowers literally withering as your jyuuken strikes home.
In the back of your field of vision, you see clusters of Naruto clones ganging up on individual targets, even as kikai clouds swarm run interference for you and him both. For a moment you dare to hope. We can actually win this.
And then you see a king tiger angle into your field of vision, on a vector for Shino, who's still favoring his left side. Laurels of white flowers embrace it's huge head like a crown. You can see putrefaction on the surface and it's insides. And yet for all that, it's faster and deadlier than much of the group you just put down, it's essence stronger, and it's one eye displays a malevolent cunning.
You meet the tiger's charge with a Power-charged glare and it literally explodes, splattering the rest of the clearing with half-rotten gore and plant matter.
For a moment everything stops as everyone - and everything- stops to look at you.
In the cracked lenses of Shino's glasses, you see yourself reflected as they must see you: a befeathered figure twice your normal size, wreathed in silver fire as a liondog of argent light towers over you, it's eyes glaring at those who would threaten those who you would protect.
At least you're not the shortest here anymore.
Then your totemic lion-dog roars at the assorted enemies and the spell is broken.
The bulk of enemy zombies re-orient on you as the most obvious target on the battlefield, feathers or not. In the clarity of your Byakugan, you can see the Zaku zombie begin to raise it's arm only to get swarmed by Naruto clones.
Then there's only death, and killing.
[Hybrid Nue Transformation: Remove Glider 4, Flying 4, Swift(Flying)3, Fragile 6. Add Natural Armor 3, Painless 2, Bladeproof 1]
[Jyuuken + Fierce Blow 2 + Str 2 + Large 3(bird) + Deadly 2 ]
[Acute Sense (Sight) + 1st Perception Excellency + Gorgon Glare for the last move]
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Nov 27, 2017 at 1:24 AM, finished with 39 posts and 21 votes.
[x] Join Shino in keeping the reinforcements at bay, Naruto took down Kiba before getting training from Jiraiya, a one-armed Sound genin certainly won't defeat him. Then the three of you can make your way to the Tower as a group.
[x] Trust Naruto and Shino to hold back the reinforcements: hit Zaku as hard and fast as possible and then make your way onwards to the Tower as a group.
[x] Run. You've got the location of the golden chakra orchid. Collect Naruto and Shino and direct jounin-level shinobi to retake the area. This fight is beyond you.
-[x] Hinata reached out to the nearest beast, a massive wolf, and grasped it's head in her beak, the infected animal struggled but she held it long enough to begin growing A boar's tusk forms he roof of her mouth and into the crater's head and brainstem. She flung it away into one of it's former pack mates, and turned towards a two-headed crocodile. Her bones thickened with he weight of the giant boar and she covered herself in overlapping clamshells to provide a sort of armor, before rushing forwards and hurling herself between the two heads and jabbing at it's eyes. Her left hand formed into a mockery of the wolf's head and gouged out a patch of scales and skin.
[x] Join Naruto in keeping the reinforcements at bay, Shino took Zaku down once, he'll be able to take him down again, you're sure of it, and then you'll make your way to the Tower as a group.
[x] Have Naruto and Shino take out Zaku, You're a motherfucking murdergoddess who gains new shapes and powers by killing the fuck out of things EAT THE REINFORCEMENTS!
-[x] stunt: Activating Hybrid Nue Transformation, Hinata keeps the best of the bird but add just enough human-girl to be effective at using the Gentle Fist. Hinata grabs a pair signal flare-tagged kunai and throw one in the direction of the Golden Orchid. With Zaku distracted by the light and sound of the flare, you savage him like a razored-up cockfighting chicken pushhing him with your frenzied onslought. With Zaku blinded by sap-blood from wounds on his face, you throw the second signal-flared kunai in the durection of the Golden Orchid. The distance between the two locations may be slight, but you're hoping the trained ANBU spotters will be able to triangulate the coordinates and send reinforcements.
It was everything. For the brewer, the baker, and yes, even for the shinobi death-makers. What separated mission success and mission failure often could be counted in the fractions of seconds.
If Hinata had palms that could sweat she was sure they would be sweating now.
Her feet hit the ground, once, twice, and then - her eyes, a mix of crimson scelera and silver irises, went electric white as Hinata pushed the radius of her perceptions to its limit. Like drawing a circle in the sand with her toe, she felt her awareness expand and contract, a thin line sweeping through the forest of death, giving her a flame-licked impression of her surroundings: the giant trees, the tower, the river, the ongoing conflict - even a purple-haired shinobi, her chakra bright as whatever armor jutsu she used lit her surroundings in some sort of brightly whirring dots of light, like a canopy of starlight for one.
She all this between the blink of an eye, the beats of a heart, one foot stepping in front of another.
And she saw too, the darkness, approaching, like a tide moving inland, a vast, awful thing.
She very nearly froze. Shino was seriously injured, Naruto had just been knocked unconscious and she had thorns trying to grow inside of her. And if she fell, Naruto and Shino would be stuck here.
And if she fell, if she fell, then they'd-
She could feel the panic rising, slowing her thoughts, muddying the corridors of her mind.
A memory surfaced.
The smell of wet wood, rain and pain. The last time she'd been hurt on a mission. A C-rank, their first, and one they'd nearly failed.
It had been dark, wet, and uncomfortably miserable. She could hear Kurenai telling her, telling all of Team Eight, the five of them around an illusory Team Eight campfire:
'What went wrong here?'
Hinata had twiddled her thumbs together. They'd been bandaged, like Neji's, though unlike Neji it'd been for an actual medical necessity. 'I- I failed, Kurenai-sensei. I - I didn't - I didn't expect the brigand to be able to do that.'
She had nodded. 'His incendiary device had no chakra. You weren't looking for it, so it caught you by surprise. While true, that's not what went wrong here.'
'We shoulda been able to sniff it out,' Kiba had said. Uncharacteristically, he'd been brooding.
'Also true. Also not the right answer.'
Finally, the false firelight failing to glint off his glasses, Shino had said: 'We should have continued the mission.'
'Yes. That is one right answer.'
Kiba had stood up, upsetting a nearby squirrel that ran up a tree and then chittered angrily at him. 'Sensei! Look at how badly Hinata was hurt-!'
Her sharp, red-eyed glare quelled him into silence. 'She's still a mission effective.' Her eyes softened. 'But if you had decided she was not, that would also be a right answer.'
This time, even Shino had been confused. 'Sensei?'
'You did not request my aid and did not decide to abort the mission. If one of us could heal Hinata that would be one thing, but what we are doing here right now is effectively deciding to take a short holiday. Hinata will neither be better nor worse for this short rest. Understand this: you will be in the field, and there will come a moment when there are no right answers. The only wrong answer will be to wait until there are no answers at all.'
'But surely not all answers are created equal?' Shino had replied. 'That is self-evident or else there would be no need for squad leaders. How will we know which to pick?'
Sensei had sighed. 'Experience. And yes, that means some missions are going to suck. After the mission, you will have time to go over the after-action report, to learn from what went wrong and what went right and what could have gone better.'
'But when you are in the field and a decision needs to be made you must make a decision and commit to it. If you decide this mission is a wash, then abandon it. If you decide the mission can be continued, regroup and continue. Never again do I want to see you decide on a policy of 'wait-and-see'. Choose and choose quickly.'
Hinata chose.
"Naruto!" she called, the faint aura of silver light around her sizzling as she landed next to Shino, outstretched wings casting strange shadows behind her, "P-please clear the bridge."
"But-" His brow was wrinkled in concern. Although shaking off a minor bout with unconsciousness, Naruto had good instincts. He'd seen something, or heard it maybe.
No time.
"Go!" she barked.
His feet were running before his mouth had caught up. A moment later, about twenty more Narutos filled the clearing, running full force for Zaku who was preparing another blast of wind. They met in a horrific clash of noise, the pop-pop-pop of his clones exploding overwhelmed by the magnitude of Zaku's technique.
She'd have to trust he'd manage.
Idly she caught and crushed a leaping spotted lemur, blue flower hanging from its neck, hurling the body aside with the oversized claws on her feet. Beside her, Shino grimaced. If she had hands she'd be splinting his arm, but she didn't so it just hung their limply, ignored.
"Can you fight normally like that?" Shino asked, referring to her current shape, towering above him and possessing no limbs she could call herself comfortable with.
"Never tried," Hinata said.
"Then perhaps we should retreat," Shino said tactfully - and, upon further consideration, probably tactically too.
She considered it.
Then Hinata shook her head: she'd made her decision. And now everything was down to time, time, time.
Concise, Hinata. Go.
"I heard a call from - from the main plant, I think. Maybe because being a sage…?" Another small animal died beneath her claws, this one an almost unbearably cute snake, wearing its flower like a little hat. She killed three more in the time it took to notice them. "The infected are converging. The um, the Tower's changed: windows are boarded, the insides dark, I can't see inside. Local geography's changed, the Tower's surrounded by water now like a - like a moat. Zaku's covering the bridge here. I think the main plant might be inside but-"
She paused to let a fox die on her talons while a herd of miscellaneous blue and red-flowered wildlife charged them. Shino's swarm settled over them before they could get more than a few feet, feeding voraciously. Hinata hit the few whose momentum carried them past the line that Shino set up, her long limbs spearing them through or kicking them aside.
She gave it a try, but as she was, jyuken might have been a bit… difficult.
"But the Tower's too obvious a target," Shino said, continuing where she left off. "Why? It is one of the first places we'd check. Is one of the first places we are checking, in fact."
Yeah. That was a problem. This mission felt too simple and straightforward. More like a training exercise than an actual random infestation. It had been harder to find Tora.
And yet, nevertheless…
She was sure the voice had belonged to the Golden Chakra Orchid.
"W-we should get visual con-confirmation first, at least. And with Zaku present, I can't fly us-"
Something huge, bright and hairy bowled Hinata over.
Hinata had a brief impression of darkness crossing her field of view and then a thundering impact: she was on the ground, wings spreadeagled, claws digging into flesh, something worrying away at her armored head, teeth trying but failing to achieve penetration. It stopped, roared in her face, spittle dripping all over her.
White flowers spilled out of both its eyes and its mouth.
Hinata's scream was a long trilled cry, like that of a dying bird. Her eyes flashed.
Before her, the tiger king ossified. A grey-white color crept up its matted fur and where it touched hardened. The flowers in its mouth and eyes fell out, pressed flowers, months old, leaving behind strange, organic pits, like the insides of a pomegranate where its eyes should have been.
Hinata breathed deep, gulping breaths. A thought occurred to her.
She'd… oh gods, she'd nearly done that to Neji.
"Get up Hinata!" shouted Shino whose swarm hovered protectively over her.
Time.
Always time. She'd think about the ramifications later.
The statue tipped over and shattered, raising a cloud of sweet-smelling dust. She stood. Another tiger was bounding towards her, its chakra network obscured in darkness.
Relying on instincts she didn't know she had, she shot forward - her clawed digits digging into the ground before pushing off, armored beak aiming for its head. Like an arrow shot from a bow, the world narrowed to that one point and then a jarring impact hammered her skull and made her long neck ache. When she reared backwards, blood dripping off her beak, a quarter of the tiger's head was missing, the shattered eye socket and ruined cheek exposing a grim network of bloodily writhing vines.
Its yowling reply nearly clawed through her neck.
She skipped backwards, spooked.
Before the tiger could press its momentum, Shino's swarm crashed down upon it, focusing on the site of the injury.
"Its chakra is… strange," said Shino.
"Right," Hinata replied. The darkness was still approaching.
"I still have Ironwood sap," Shino noted.
Ironwood sap was one of the edges Team Eight had had over the foreign teams as well as the local teams - like Naruto's - that didn't train extensively in the Forest of Death. Once exposed to air, it would summon a truly staggering number of insects as they fought to get ahold of the rare treat. Given where they were, Hinata would have expected giant centipedes and possibly flying leeches.
They horde would be ravenously uncontrollable though, an indiscriminate danger.
"Save it for now," she told him.
She focused inwards and then dark, bony ridges exploded across Hinata's shape, a nightmarish amalgam of shell and flesh, somewhere between barnacle and bone. Black feathers fell, scattering across the ground as other shapes beneath Hianta's skin expressed supremacy. Her wings wings did not retract or grow stunted, but they were too heavy now to fly. Somehow it made things easier.
It was also not what she had wanted to do. Hrm.
Behind her, came another explosive gust of wind and above that, the sound of Naruto yelling something about guts.
The next creature that came within range of her divinations was smashed to the ground, two trios of bloody holes drilled inexpertly through its back. Despite its wounds the armadillo still struggled to rise, fur rippling unnaturally, more like grass than hair, but collapsed as a slash of light severed its spine.
Hinata stepped past it, leaving blood on the grass.
Around her clawed feet and off the sharp, bony edges of her wings, lightning chakra sparked and hissed fitfully. It would dig into her reserves, but she knew she could do it. If she didn't have the manual dexterity to use the gentle fist, she'd supplement it with lightning chakra. It was not a proper technique, and would not have nearly the same level of efficiency or control, but it would be no less deadly for it.
Against actual ninja, their own chakra would provide enough of a buffer that her lack of expertise would probably give them more of a tingle than a cut. Against, these creatures, who lacked even proper chakra networks…
The next few moments were accompanied by a thrum in the air, the crack and pop of little tongues of lightning, and the cries of parasitized animals as they died. Though they were not the only creatures present, the tigers stood out, beautiful as roaring flames. Seeing them reduced to the state of some sort of meat puppet was shockingly horrible.
And yet… even so, Hinata had to acknowledge that some part of her found these new hybrid lifeforms beautiful too.
"They are… going to… break through," Shino said, between gasping puffs. With the sheer number of targets present, he'd been forced to rely on his human body and his kunai as much as his swarm and given his injuries, the effort was clearly taking its toll.
Ah. Right.
With the sheer breadth and lethality of her wings, Hinata had been keeping them back, but the greater her presence the more it seemed like the animals were bent on bypassing her altogether. More than once she had been forced to twist her silver chakra in such that her target didn't notice the danger until they ran straight into her wings, cutting themselves to pieces in the impact.
They were running out of time.
Fortunately, at that point, Naruto roared in victory.
Hinata temporarily lost track of what was happening as she zeroed in on the bridge. The structural integrity of the bridge was hugely compromised, half the wooden spans smashed to kindling, but Zaku was down, and Naruto was holding up a fist in victory. His orange jumpsuit might have looked like it'd been put through a blender, but his chakra network was still pulsing brightly - he didn't even look winded.
Bones and scales retracted and feathers regrew as she raced backwards: without losing a beat, Shino leaped onto her back. He tossed something after her: it hit the ground and covered the area they'd been fighting in a syrupy fragrance that had an edge of acridity to it. The Bloodwood Sap.
The ground where it'd landed was already quaking, boiling with vermin, and then a giant centipede emerged, one at least ten feet long soon joined by its siblings. Even as she watched, one picked up the remains of a tiger and bit a chunk off before trumpeting victory.
Hopefully it'd delay the horde of infected though for how long she had no idea.
"Naruto!"
On her back, Shino was holding out a hand.
He jumped, though not as high as Kiba could and nearly missed, but a shadow clone poofed into existence behind him, giving him a boost. She felt Shino's legs squeeze around her middle tightly and sweat burst on his forehead as he caught him, but then Naruto was grabbing fistfuls of her feathers and clambering on.
"Did you see that?" Naruto said excitedly. "Creepy zombie guy was all baaaraaaap! with his wind, like a super fart, but I-"
Hinata banked sharply, nearly throwing her passengers off. Another twinge sent her shooting off into a different direction.
The thorns inside her seemed to be getting… stronger…
"Hinata? What's wrong?"
"I'm f-fine," she gasped.
Naruto who had clearly been hit by thorns seemed to evidencing no similar affliction. They'd done the same test and should be similarly immune, right?
She landed on the roof of the Tower. The two on her back made their way off quickly.
From where they'd last been there was a thunderous creaking sound. Something began pushing its way through the forest, scattering the giant insects like they were, well, insects.
"Woah," said Naruto. "That's a big flower."
Hinata agreed.
Roots thicker than Hinata was tall twined together to form a boiling mess of tentacles that allowed it to move forward. Dirt fell off it in cascading lumps, like it'd been buried and had unearthed itself. At the center of trio orchids whose flowery heads resembled a giant bouquet, one where each flower was the size of a tree. Orange tentacles emerged from the top two, while the bottom orchid opened into some slavering maw.
BOSS FIGHT
WHITE ORCHID WARRIOR
To Hinata's byakugan it was made of pure darkness.
"That was not on Old Man Bandage's list, right?" asked Naruto.
As they watched the centipedes redoubled their assault, tearing at the roots, even ripping off a petal: it was a heroic, if doomed effort. The flower was simply too big, body thicker than even the trees.
"N-no," said Hinata. "It was not."
Danger! Protect the Mother/Father/Ancestor!
"I'm going to punch it," Naruto said decisively.
"What."
Then he bit into his thumb and jumped off the roof.
Fortunately the Tower was built into tiers so it wasn't a simple fifteen storey drop straight down, but rather a hop, hop, hop downwards. His voice dopplered slightly as he got further and further away:
"Hurry up and find the goold-"
Why would he-
Oh. Naruto was not used to working with Shino. Or even a Hyuuga.
"Is it in the building?" she asked Shino, watching him as he bounced onto the ground and then summoned the largest toad she'd seen from him yet, this four or five times as tall as he was. While still dwarfed by the flower the giant sword on its back made it seem like a much fairer fight.
"Not the top three floors," he replied. "Sweeping lower."
"It's a plant. So it's p-probably at the bottom."
"Take me down. Why? We'll be able to better support Naruto and sweep starting from the bottom at the same time."
Right. Should have done that to start, maybe.
As she swept lower another pulse of activity from the thorns tore through her. The voice, too, was louder.
Danger! Danger! Protect the Mother/Father/Ancestor!
She hit the ground in a stumble, but managed to keep herself from throwing her Aburame teammate off her back.
What was… happening?
PROTECT THE MOTHER/FATHER/ANCESTOR!
She staggered again.
"There is something in there," said Shino.
In the background, Naruto exploded some dozen or so odd times while forty more of him tossed kunai at the overgrown orchid.
Hinata shook her head, trying to clear it of the echo. "Is - is it the main plant?"
He turned towards her. She saw herself reflected in the cracked lens of his sunglasses, a dark bird, outlined in silver.
"I do not know. My kikai bugs are not returning."
-----
During the C-ranked mission that had gone so disastrously wrong, Kurenai-sensei had made one thing very clear. She would not be help them until they met a situation that she judged they could not handle on their own. It was supposed to instill within them proper judgment of the situation and their own abilities.
Less of Naruto's 'I'm going to punch it' and more of Shino's 'Then perhaps we should retreat.'
The problem was, proper judgment required sufficient knowledge. Knowledge that Team Eight's abilities were uniquely suited to collecting.
Knowledge they currently lacked and had no means of obtaining.
PROTECT THE MOTHER/FATHER/ANCESTOR!
She didn't have Naruto's boundless self-confidence. She'd tried, a few times, to freeze the plant he was fighting like she'd… like she'd whatever she'd done to the infected tiger, but it hadn't even seemed to feel it.
Finally her silver chakra curled around the thorns, silencing them.
She breathed out in relief.
"Send up a flare," she told Shino "I will fly us - Naruto!"
Naruto - the real Naruto - slammed into the 'moat', sending up a colossal spray of water before the momentum of the blow spun him past the relatively thin strip of river and onto dry ground. A vine shot forward to catch him - and was intercepted by the toad, who jumped protectively in front of his summoner, slicing it apart with a slash of his oversized chopper.
Before the orchid monster could try it again, about three dozen more Narutos popped into existence and charged at it. Naruto himself fell back to Shino and Hinata's position, soaking wet, his usually exuberant hair sitting flat on his head.
"Guys," he said, "there's something weird with the water."
He didn't immediately elaborate. One day, Hinata was going to write a really scathing letter to the teachers at the Academy.
"What is?" asked Shino.
"The water's talking. It said, uh, it said monkeys have fat butts?"
If Hinata had had eyebrows they would have gone up. Maybe in this particular situation, his reluctance to speak wasn't on the Academy.
"Well, that's what I heard," mumbled Naruto.
Hinata made a hand sign (claw sign?)to Shino as she kept an eye on the on-going fight. The Orchid, curiously, seemed to be unwilling to cross the 'moat' of water, trying to force its way past the bridge instead. The loose circle of infected animals that were approaching seemed equally unwilling to pass directly through the water.
A kikai bug landed on Shino's finger. After a whispered conference with it, he said: "Its exact words are: 'Allies detected. Message: The heart of the Forest has been taken. Authentication Passcode: 'Tell the monkey to get off his cushy ass.'"
"Message Repeats."
Hinata nodded slowly. The nonsense passcode suggested the message was for much higher-ranking ears.
Or an attempt to sow confusion.
Yeah, they needed help.
"Naruto," Hinata said, "P-please order your toad to break the bridge. I - I don't think the plants can pass through the water. Shino, do you have a- thanks."
Seconds later, a kunai went up, the explosive tag and smoke bomb flapping behind it on thin cuts of ninja wire.
It exploded with textbook intensity.
Then they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And then Hinata said: "S-something's wrong."
-----
"My - my family can feel when other members of our family are, um, looking at them," said Hinata, standing by the Tower-side of the river. On the other side, a truly alarming number of infected animals had arrived, surrounding the moat in a dense, eerily silent crowd of bark, fur and flowers. The enormous branches of the famed trees were thick with anything that could crawl or climb while the ground was so packed more eyes were visible than blades of grass.
No other giant orchid monsters had appeared though, thankfully.
Hinata pushed her thumbs together. Or would have if she had had thumbs. Instead, the ends of her clawed feet stepped over each other in a nervous parade.
"They're not - they're not looking now."
Naruto scratched his head. "So… we're not getting help?"
Shino covered her small sigh of relief with: "The Forest of Death is too dense for flares to be seen or heard reliably. With Hyuugas, however, it is possible. They would have dispatched a hawk or some other messenger."
"Huh. So what's the plan?"
Choose and choose quickly.
Hinata set Kurenai-sensei aside for a moment.
They had some time to discuss this. A good leader also needed to know when to take a step back and assess the situation and see if she'd missed anything.
"I could f-fly us out," Hinata said, eyeing the silent horde. "We can try to find, um, reinforcements on our own, or we can enter the Tower."
"We should comb the area for-" said Shino.
"Let's hit the Tower!" said Naruto.
"Um," said Hinata who wanted to fly out of the Forest. "W-w-why?"
[x] Enter the Tower
Naruto punched one fist into his palm.
"The mission's to kill the main plant, right? Well, it's totally here, we just need to bust down the doors and Bam! Bang! Boom! Mission's over!"
[x] Seek Reinforcements
Shino shook his head. "Even if it were that easy I cannot agree. Why? The message in the water suggests information critical to the safety of the Village is at stake. We are required to pass it on. Searching for the closest jounin would be the best first step."
"Sure," said Naruto, tapping the side of his head, "but we can do that after we kill the golden chakra okra."
[x] Leave the Forest of Death
"Chakra Orchid," Hinata corrected absently.
"Right," said Naruto.
If she were being honest, she was only half-paying attention to either their argument. Something was wrong. Her Clan should have been watching for flares. They should have, in fact, been watching for her. That they hadn't… Hinata didn't want to let Clan get in the way of a Village emergency, but something was wrong.
If she left now left the Tower now she could check up on both her clan and debrief the relevant ninjas as to what they had learned about the location of the Golden Chakra Orchid and the message in the water…
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QM Note: Try not kill me, but this was mostly ready a week and a day ago. Edit: Grah, much as I don't want to put this on anyone, I do need a sounding board - not even a beta, just someone who's willing to say 'you're going too fast' or 'this sounds dumb.' Also, someone who's good enough at Exalted to point out the Charm-related reading comprehension mistake I made in the second post and prevent me from doing more of them.
... *Drums fingers* How many bombs/explosive tags do we have on us and do they copy if Naruto makes a Shadow Clone. We can't let this thing sit, though we did thin the herd a rather nice bit I think, but this is worrying. So maybe we should just get a ton of clones rushing the thing with explosives. That'll make a nasty dent into whatever is the first and probably second and third layer of defense inside there. The sooner we sweep this the better.
And Naruto can do overwhelming force very well when he gets a mind to try.
Edit: Grah, much as I don't want to put this on anyone, I do need a sounding board - not even a beta, just someone who's willing to say 'you're going too fast' or 'this sounds dumb.' Also, someone who's good enough at Exalted to point out the Charm-related reading comprehension mistake I made in the second post and prevent me from doing more of them.
Trying to power forward seems a little foolhardy. It may or may not be a matter of critical importance to immediately pass on the information we've received, but Shino is also injured.
Shino shook his head. "Even if it were that easy I cannot agree. Why? The message in the water suggests information critical to the safety of the Village is at stake. We are required to pass it on. Searching for the closest jounin would be the best first step."
"Sure," said Naruto, tapping the side of his head, "but we can do that after we kill the golden chakra okra."
If she were being honest, she was only half-paying attention to either their argument. Something was wrong. Her Clan should have been watching for flares. They should have, in fact, been watching for her. That they hadn't… Hinata didn't want to let Clan get in the way of a Village emergency, but something was wrong.
If something has happened to the clan, seeking reinforcements could be the option that takes the longest time before dealing with that issue. We need to determine how concerned we are about the lack of Hyuga response before deciding our course.
Also, is anyone else worried about the thought of a chakra orchid hopped up on Lunar Essence? Seeing as how these orchids seem to happily devour it.
I wonder, what do they tach in the academy if noone makes the association betwen monkeys and the Hokage's summons...
"Fighting" is the dumb choice that gets you to an early grave or a demotion were they not already the lowest rank. How can anyone trust them if they are going to take the lowest success chance option while carrying unique and relevant information ?
"Reinforcements": assuming they are in the forest of death, is 1) the most time consuming option, 2) a good way to have a train of infected monsters follow and overrun whoever they find, 3) still not passing the important information
"Leave" means passing the information, getting Shino to the hospital (and maybe Hinata too), and overall follow proper protocol.
More on the update itself. Am i the only one worried about the infected ability to ... well, "infect" ?
The Iron/Blood wood Sap gathering a mini-army of insects is nice, but aren't the meters long centipedes and other insects abominations vulnerable to flower infection?
What about (toad) summons ? Anything making them immune too ? And if they are, why weren't they used as recoon in the first place ?
... *Drums fingers* How many bombs/explosive tags do we have on us and do they copy if Naruto makes a Shadow Clone. We can't let this thing sit, though we did thin the herd a rather nice bit I think, but this is worrying. So maybe we should just get a ton of clones rushing the thing with explosives. That'll make a nasty dent into whatever is the first and probably second and third layer of defense inside there. The sooner we sweep this the better.
They copy, but it's chakra intensive. I'm not sure if this is canon or fanon, but in this continuity the shadow clone jutsu that Naruto is using returns some chakra to him every time one of them disperses. It's not a perfect return, but the majority goes back (say 90%). An explosive tag (as opposed to a kunai) uses up as much chakra as would have originally been put into an explosive tag and although Naruto has considerable reserves, a few waves of chakra tag Narutos would exhaust him quickly because more chakra would be used up with each clone.
He doesn't know this, having never tried to detonate himself before, but that's my reasoning for why he never tried a 'shadow clone explosive tag ocean' type thing.
Mechanics aren't nothing. Believe it or not, I just realized while re-reading Crushing Gorgon Stare for this update that the Gorgon Stare 'cannot be reversed' line is probably due to the fact that CGS cannot be turned on the user in the same way that a clinch can normally be reversed.
I however read it as 'once the process starts it cannot be stopped.'
So yeah, that's why Neji was willpower exhausted in the second update and not just held in place. I assumed if he didn't get willpower exhausted he'd have straight up died.
Yes to the first, but it'd have to be written-in, this wouldn't normally occur to any genin because summoning isn't a topic that would come up in the Academy or with either of their senseis and up until Hanabi tried to playfully kill him, Naruto was having about as much success with toad summoning as Hinata was having with expressing her feelings to Naruto.
As for the second, yes, but she can't access them yet.
The Iron/Blood wood Sap gathering a mini-army of insects is nice, but aren't the meters long centipedes and other insects abominations vulnerable to flower infection?
What about (toad) summons ? Anything making them immune too ? And if they are, why weren't they used as recoon in the first place ?
Birds and water creatures are immune, canonically. It's stretching the definition to include amphibians like toads, but I'm stretching it. I don't think insects were mentioned, but given how vastly different they are physiologically from the usual hosts of the chakra orchid I'm considering them immune too.
They'd be used as recon if Naruto could reliably summon recon toads.
