Snapping Turtle [Naruto SI]
- Thread starter Chairtastic
- Start date
Svn0One
Lazy Reader
- Location
- Made a Box Fort
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No?If I found myself forcibly inserted into Naruto, somehow became a jinchuuriki, and THEN I had to deal with pirates? Yes, the answer is yes. Man, Noburu is a much better person than me. If I were in his place I would have gotten my mom out and then pull a transformation in the middle of Kiri like something out of Attack on Titan (epic ost music included). Is it a dumb idea? Yes. Am I probably going to be killed by their asshole kage? Yes. Would I be too unbelievably pissed off to care at all? YES
- Pronouns
- he/him
...Junko best girl?
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
I'm a tea man, so I can't give you an adequate com
See, I knew it wasn't weird.
She wouldn't be inspired by Alucard if she didn't get a few bloody sips every now and then.
Kumo has a great economy. It has more than twice the economy that Konoha, Iwa, Suna, and formerly Kiri have. Kumo is the richest of the great villages, but Lightning doesn't have the population to give it as much clout as Konoha, and it doesn't have the arable land to change that. Their greed has made them fabulously wealthy. But it also makes them foolish, and ever-hungry.
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
Well Arun told us what he wanted. Tenmu is unknown at this point.
Ch 34
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
Ch 34: With Great and Terrible Anger
---
Genin Aburame
Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. His legs ached, he couldn't feel his feet anymore from constant leaps and landings. Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. Sweat kept getting in his eyes, but he couldn't blink enough to get it out. Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. The others hadn't seen any sign of the kidnappers, or their friends. Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. The trees of Fire Country had started to blur together, and he could no longer hear the birds which normally sang as they failed to notice ninja.
He followed the trail left by the kikaichu bugs on Kushina, and he had to be the fastest person on the retrieval team since everyone followed him. He had to be. The alternative was unacceptable.
Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped.
That thought drove him forward even as his limbs screamed at him to stop.
"Hey!" It was the Kaguya girl, Junko. The one Kushina kept training to surpass. Dressed in a hooded long-sleeved white shirt with gill-like slits in the shoulders and baggy pants with two long pockets which when from below her knee to just above her ankles. Shibi idly noticed that she had red eyeliner on. It looked rather nice, with her pale hair. She had run up alongside him and waved when he looked at her. "You look like you're going to pass out, fall between the trees, and die on landing!"
While Shibi certainly felt that way too, it seemed mildly threatening when it came from the observations of another. "...What?" He noticed the others, past Junko, refused to meet his gaze.
"And your hearing's going too, oooh." Junko ran backward through the trees and kept pace with Shibi regardless. "Also you're kinda slow… you were okay for a while, but you just don't got the endurance for this. So, here's what everyone else has agreed. We piggy-back you until we find our friends -- and then we all teach you how to run." She grinned. "Specifically me. I teach you how to run." She grinned wider. "My clan has a game to teach people how to run -- 'escape the starving dogs'. You'll love it."
Shibi had never doubted anything more than he doubted that sentence. He could be told the moon was hollow, and he'd believe it before he believed Junko's words at that moment.
"Up first, Ishidate!" Junko jumped and spread herself in an X shape to slow herself and join her team.
Another Oto ninja -- one of the wigged Uemons with the Oto note on the attached metal plate and an Oto flak jacket under his haori -- ran up alongside shibi and leaned his torso further forward than was necessary. The invitation was clear.
If Orochimaru-sensei wouldn't forgive him if he stopped, he might forgive leaning on another to keep going. Shibi jumped forward and let momentum carry him onto Ishidate's back. For someone so slight, he handled Shibi's weight well. He hadn't realized how overexerted he was until he'd taken the weight off his legs. Shibi kicked himself for learning administrative skills instead of practicing taijutsu more often.
"Just tell me when I need to adjust course," Ishidate said, confident. Moments later his speed almost doubled, and the others in the search and retrieval team followed suit. It was clear how much Shibi had been holding them back. "To be honest, I thought you were doing fine, but you didn't know how to pace yourself well. You'll still need to escape the starving dogs, but you won't struggle as much as Junko thinks."
Shibi sighed. "Your confidence in me is appreciated," he muttered. He looked up, and had his kikaichu check the scent again. "Two degrees north-north-east from this point, we are steadily catching up to them."
"Good. Because I want to turn at least one of them half to stone as an apology to Noburu." Shibi noticed a bit of gold behind them and glanced back. One of Ishidate's hands had a golden eye, half-closed, strapped to the back of his hand. An artisanal ninja tool, the evil eye.
"...I knew I recognized you from somewhere," Shibi muttered with narrowed eyes behind his glasses when he turned back. "You're the one who shouted at Noburu in the plaza."
Ishidate flinched. "Yeah. I… regret that, now."
Shibi wanted to tell the Oto nin he should have regretted it when he said them. He wanted to tell him he had no business on a retrieval team after the things he'd said. "You seemed angry," was all he said about it. Purposefully absent emotion, no blame. Just the facts -- weapon enough for Shibi. "That anger seemed to get away from you, quickly."
"And if we don't get Noburu back… and your teammate," he added the second part as if it was an afterthought, "then I can't tell him I'm sorry, and that I shouldn't have taken my anger out on him."
They didn't catch up to them before they had to stop for a short break. Shibi had been passed between Ishidate, Sayaka, and Hizashi by the time the order to halt was called. The sun had begun to set, and cast ominous shadows through the Fire Country pines. They were still close enough to the sea that Shibi could hear the waves strike the steep cliffs.
The Oto leader, Raiga, erected a stand and filled it with water into which Haruki began to unload ingredients. "Haruki is preparing a recipe using Akamichi food made by Akami," the older man explained as he used his lightning to boil the water for the soup. "Its effects are comparable to a soldier pill, but the liquid medium allows for it to be absorbed by the body with fewer side effects."
Haruki quickly tapped a shaker into the soup when Raiga had his eyes elsewhere. "And some MSG for flavor."
Raiga gave him a look and focused on the task. "Everyone takes some, the leftovers are put into a thermos -- we keep going. Nobody uses any soldier pills until we're about to engage. If we have to, we can cross into Hot Water Country briefly."
"Didn't the talks with Hot Water come out amicably? Their representative agreed to your terms," Hizashi asked with his arms crossed. The Hyuga had adopted a somewhat more traditional look, compared to the others. He wore a grey-green kosode -- one sleeve patterned with the images of cages, and the other with flying birds, and baggy pants with his usual double-kunai pouch. Two steel war fans -- tessen -- were affixed to his wrists with special holsters that would allow Hizashi to draw them when he crossed his arms.
"They haven't had a chance to communicate that back to their daimyo and Yugakure. As far as they know -- we'd be invading." Raiga frowned, and looked at them. "The speed boost this soup gives will hopefully get us on top of them before they cross too deeply into Hot Water for us to follow."
"And if it doesn't?" It took Shibi a moment to realize he'd been the one to ask the question. He was usually more reserved with obvious questions.
"...Then we go to Kumo, and we steal them back. Perhaps we fight a war for them." Raiga's lighting intensified, and the soup boiled even more vigorously. "Be sure to cool it when you drink. It will be ready in a minute or two."
--
Legendary Sannin Tsunade
Tsunade felt that, perhaps, she should drink ever so slightly less. That way she wouldn't need people to tell her what happened while she was black-out drunk. Such as an intruder alarm in Oto. Or how two jinchuuriki had been kidnapped right from under them. Or how Orochimaru had gone from Oto to Konoha and back in two days with an excessive number of soldier pills and blind rage to fuel him.
She liked that he'd finally let his temper slip the leash a little. Being passive aggressive all the time wasn't healthy. However, she disliked the state she found him when he'd returned to Oto. Dehydrated, low blood sugar, chakra depleted. The first two she could fix with help from Suzume and Shizune. The third was tricky.
Orochimaru wouldn't forgive her if she asked him to stay in bed to recover naturally. So she had to transfer her chakra to him while Suzume and Shizune tended to the other issues. She'd taken him to the hospital, to a private and secure room. It wasn't plain like the hospital rooms in Konoha -- it was decorated in the story of a fish with jeweled scales set in some distant reef. The story unfolded from the immediate right of the door, along the wall, and concluded on the left wall near the door frame.
There was silence in the room, while the medical ninja did their best to make Orochimaru well. He was shaking, convulsions from low blood sugar Tsunade expected. Food would fix that -- which motivated her to swat Orochimaru every time he resisted Shizune feeding him. An orb filled with glowing liquid passed close enough by the room to light it up as if it were midday on the surface.
"I was going to kill him," Orochimaru admitted as if shocked with himself.
"Who? Jiraiya?" Tsunade scoffed. "I gave him a good punch in the jaw when I heard about it -- he seemed confused. Probably did it while he was drunk." She made sure her chakra was delivered in small enough bursts that Orochimaru's system wouldn't see it as an invader.
"Tsunade. He didn't do it, it was an imposter." Orochimaru pushed aside Shizune's next bit of food to look her in the eyes. She hadn't ever seen him afraid before -- it shook her. "But before I knew that, I was going to kill him."
Oh. He'd been serious. That stunned Tsunade for a few seconds before Suzume nudged her and knocked her out of it. Immediately she scowled at him. "Jiraiya's your best friend. One incident like this is a reason to beat him up, not to… do that. What the hell were you thinking?"
Orochimaru averted his gaze. "I wasn't. I was just… so angry. It was like there was no room left in my head for me -- only the anger." He looked down at his hands, while they shook. Perhaps it hadn't been because of blood sugar levels, after all. "Three years ago, Noburu told me something about myself that he'd seen in the future."
Tsunade blinked, then glanced at Suzume before she commented. "Those riches you found in the valleys south of River, yeah?" Even if Oto were allies with Konoha -- they weren't Konoha. What information passed outside the village had to be closely monitored, even to their allies.
"No. He told me that… I developed rampancy. A stress disorder which causes the brain to start thinking itself to death." Orochimaru didn't let the fear show in his voice or eyes anymore. But Tsunade knew how to see underneath the underneath where her teammates were involved. "He told me some of the things I did… will do while rampant. Terrible experiments, that twist me into a monster. Lives I throw away like trash, because they're not useful anymore." His fingers twitched even more pronounced. "The people I'd once cared about, and then brag about killing. To you."
Suzume, when Tsunade glanced at her again, was the picture of professional medical ninja etiquette. Even if Tsunade wouldn't enforce her silence, it was possible Suzume would keep the secret of what she'd heard. But not guaranteed.
"By the timeline he laid out… it would happen around now." His hands had begun to shake badly, so Shizune had to start to feed him again. "I thought… that having a team, and spending more time away from Konoha would be enough to stop it, but what if…."
"Stop that," Tsunade snapped. She focused her eyes on Orochimaru's and tried to drill her words into him with a terrible glare. "Stress disorders get worse the more you think about them. Have you been thinking about this in the background, these last three years?" When Orochimaru broke her staring contest, she got her answer. "You've been making it worse for years, doing that." She rolled her eyes. "When this is over -- Jiraiya and I are going to teach you how to de-stress with a proper vacation."
But it wasn't over yet. She still had to get Orochimaru enough chakra to fight with, and that would take time. Time they didn't have.
As if the universe wanted to backhand her, Tsunade heard something which caused her back to stiffen. A rhythmic chime, which grew closer with each instance. It brought to mind the humilitating defeat she and her teammates had suffered three years prior, and the unflappable monk responsible.
Moments later, there was a knock on the door. Suzume looked at Tsunade, then made a quick adjustment to the IV bag she'd set up to drip liquids into Orochimaru. The hospital director opened the door and there he was.
While everyone around had changed -- Kousuke remained much the same. He still dressed as a Water Temple monk, but with a belt patterned after the iconography of the new Wave Temple. The monk glanced at Suzume, then over her shoulder and waved at Shizune.
The young girl, ignorant of the tension between her mistress and the monk, waved back with a smile.
"I have come to coordinate with the Sannin about when we should depart," the monk told Suzume as if she were the only one in the room able to hear him. "Saiken has relayed messages to me from Isobu and Gyuki -- I have predicted a path that the kidnappers will follow."
Tsunade narrowed her eyes and glanced at Orochimaru. Her instinct was to be wary of the monk's claims to be able to speak to the three-and-eight-tails across distances. But Orochimaru looked at the monk attentively. Tsunade swallowed her suspicion and nodded to Suzume.
"Please come in, abbot," Suzume said with her 'speak to patients' voice. "The Sannin are accepting visitors right now."
--
Tenmu Otsutsuki
Through Ninshu it was possible to see without eyes. So while they ran through the trees away from Wave and toward Hot Water Country, he looked over the jinchuuriki. They seemed well-cared for, though that was debatable according to the Kumo ninja. Tenmu focused on the young man, only slightly younger than himself.
"Arun," he spoke to his teacher in the now-dead language of the Otsutsuki main family. "Do you suppose he understands this language?"
Ryou, the short ninja who carried Noburu, looked at him with confusion. The Kumo ninja's spikey black mane of hair almost covered his forehead. He noticed how Tenmu was focused on the jinchuuriki, and jostled him a bit. The drugged teen didn't respond. "I think he's still out of it," the ninja offered and rubbed his nose. "...Hopefully we didn't give him an overdose."
"No," Arun said as he ran on the opposite side of Ryou. He took spoke in the main family's dead language. "It seems the boy is playing possum for now. But I sense no familiarity. The turtle spirit knows Ninshu, but has not shared it with the host. We are fortunate."
"But that is bad?" Tenmu replied as he ignored Ryou's comment. The lack of contractions in the language made it annoying to use for day-to-day use. "We will have to teach him Ninshu when we bring him to the moon, right?"
"To what end?" Arun shook his head and scowled. All around them, the Kumo ninja became visibly suspicious as the 'monks' spoke in a language they didn't understand. "Once his eyes are consigned to the Tenseigan, he will face execution just as all the main family was made to do. As your father ordered."
Tenmu frowned. "Father is gone. What if I do not want to have another of my kinsman be killed over his grudge?"
Arun was shocked for a moment, then shook his head. "Poor Jomei, I have failed as tutor to your son. He disrespects your will, even after you have gone." He shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand in a self-shaming gesture. "Woe, Jomei. Woe…."
"Are… the two of you angry?" Ryou asked as he looked at both of them. "I mean, he's not dead… yet. But did you have some purpose for him that… overdosing opium would mess with?" He smiled, as if he felt responsible despite Honda -- the taller, lighter-skinned, and smooth-haired ninja behind him -- having been the one to deliver the opium.
Tenmu, upset that Arun seemed more concerned with disrespect to Tenmu's dead father than Tenmu himself, switched back to the language of Earth. "Arun has strong views about what we should do with the jinchuuriki when we get him home. I disagree with him. That is all."
Arun, even more shocked than before stared at Tenmu with his mouth slightly ajar. "You let them know we are not of one mind," he hissed at Tenmu in the main family's language when he recovered. "Now they can pit us against each other."
"You're doing a fine job of that yourself," Tenmu snapped, in the Earth's language. "If you want me to do anything other than order that policy overturned when we get home -- you better think of a reason for it other than a dead man's grudge." The moment he said it, he knew he shouldn't have said it. Arun looked genuinely hurt, the ninja looked confused -- except for L. L had an awful little smile on his face which Tenmu could see with Ninshu despite the distance between them. But he wouldn't back down -- he was the clan leader, and he wouldn't let his father's orders in the past overrule his in the present.
"Wow," Noburu commented, announcing to the ninja that he was both ungagged and conscious enough to talk. Albeit with some slurring. "You guys have some issues. Let me add to them real quick." Quick as a cut could bleed, Tenmu watched Noburu project a chakra string from his toe and yank back on it as soon as it touched Guiying's leg.
As had happened earlier, Guiying missed her jump and dropped Kushina into a tree as she struck a bough with her face. "My nobe!" The transformation specialist shouted as she held onto the branch with one hand and clutched her face with the other. "Th' bastid brog by nobe!"
Ryou sighed and stopped on a tree branch while Honda landed next to him and prepared more opium. "Can't you guys use your chakra orb things to make him stop?" The short ninja asked, annoyed while L helped Guiying fix her nose.
Tenmu, more willing to speak of the two Otsutsuki clan members, shrugged as he answered. "We can only manage one chakra orb a day. So we could probably do that tomorrow -- but today both our orbs are focused on disrupting their seals."
Arun frowned deeply. Tenmu guessed he didn't want the ninja to know their limits -- which was silly, the ninja weren't going to fight the two of them.
Another opium injection, and the nine-tails jinchuuriki being retrieved from the tree, and they were off. The border to Hot Water Country was within sight.
All of a sudden, L turned toward the forests further inland, and cursed. "Ryou, Guiying, make a break for it! They've caught up!" A moment later a powerful gust of wind carried a cloud of mist ahead of them -- the mist was acidic in nature, as the trees and shoreline began to melt at its touch.
Tenmu had only moments to process that they were under attack when he realized there was someone behind him. He perceived her through Ninshu -- a beautiful young woman with a manic grin and eyes surrounded with blood red makeup. She looked very much like Tenmu's ancient ancestor Kaguya did in her silk portraits. Tenmu was so struck with her awesome beauty he almost missed the sword in her hand, and very nearly failed to dodge. He flipped away from the beautiful Oto nin's stabbing sword as it punctured the branch he had stood on.
Ryou and Guiying made a break for the Hot Water border by way of the sea and water walking while the others prepared for the fight.
---
Cast
Ishidate Uemon: The current heir of the Uemon clan, Kokoro Uemon's oldest child. A ninja artisan who aims to earn his master title with his use of the finicky evil eye totem to make a petrifying gauntlet that poses no risk to the user. Chunin rank, sixteen years old. Ishidate and Noburu were dating until recently, when Ishidate's temper got the better of him. In combat, he is primarily a taijutsu user. He's part of the Otogakure strategic response team, the macro planning sub-division.
Arun Otsutsuki: A mysterious man who claims to be a monk from Moon Country. He's never been seen with his eyes opened, and uses a strange chakra orb technique along with chakra strings to control others in lieu of genjutsu. On the behalf of his clan, he hired Kumo ninja to help him steal from Otogakure.
Tenmu Otsutsuki: A relative of Arun's, though much younger. Tenmu is more rash and impulsive than Arun, and is considered his apprentice. Like Arun, he has never been seen with his eyes opened. On top of Arun's abilities, Tenmu seems to have the power to use his chakra orb and chakra strings to drain the chakra out of jutsu and people.
---
Genin Aburame
Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. His legs ached, he couldn't feel his feet anymore from constant leaps and landings. Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. Sweat kept getting in his eyes, but he couldn't blink enough to get it out. Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. The others hadn't seen any sign of the kidnappers, or their friends. Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped. The trees of Fire Country had started to blur together, and he could no longer hear the birds which normally sang as they failed to notice ninja.
He followed the trail left by the kikaichu bugs on Kushina, and he had to be the fastest person on the retrieval team since everyone followed him. He had to be. The alternative was unacceptable.
Orochimaru-sensei would never forgive him if he stopped.
That thought drove him forward even as his limbs screamed at him to stop.
"Hey!" It was the Kaguya girl, Junko. The one Kushina kept training to surpass. Dressed in a hooded long-sleeved white shirt with gill-like slits in the shoulders and baggy pants with two long pockets which when from below her knee to just above her ankles. Shibi idly noticed that she had red eyeliner on. It looked rather nice, with her pale hair. She had run up alongside him and waved when he looked at her. "You look like you're going to pass out, fall between the trees, and die on landing!"
While Shibi certainly felt that way too, it seemed mildly threatening when it came from the observations of another. "...What?" He noticed the others, past Junko, refused to meet his gaze.
"And your hearing's going too, oooh." Junko ran backward through the trees and kept pace with Shibi regardless. "Also you're kinda slow… you were okay for a while, but you just don't got the endurance for this. So, here's what everyone else has agreed. We piggy-back you until we find our friends -- and then we all teach you how to run." She grinned. "Specifically me. I teach you how to run." She grinned wider. "My clan has a game to teach people how to run -- 'escape the starving dogs'. You'll love it."
Shibi had never doubted anything more than he doubted that sentence. He could be told the moon was hollow, and he'd believe it before he believed Junko's words at that moment.
"Up first, Ishidate!" Junko jumped and spread herself in an X shape to slow herself and join her team.
Another Oto ninja -- one of the wigged Uemons with the Oto note on the attached metal plate and an Oto flak jacket under his haori -- ran up alongside shibi and leaned his torso further forward than was necessary. The invitation was clear.
If Orochimaru-sensei wouldn't forgive him if he stopped, he might forgive leaning on another to keep going. Shibi jumped forward and let momentum carry him onto Ishidate's back. For someone so slight, he handled Shibi's weight well. He hadn't realized how overexerted he was until he'd taken the weight off his legs. Shibi kicked himself for learning administrative skills instead of practicing taijutsu more often.
"Just tell me when I need to adjust course," Ishidate said, confident. Moments later his speed almost doubled, and the others in the search and retrieval team followed suit. It was clear how much Shibi had been holding them back. "To be honest, I thought you were doing fine, but you didn't know how to pace yourself well. You'll still need to escape the starving dogs, but you won't struggle as much as Junko thinks."
Shibi sighed. "Your confidence in me is appreciated," he muttered. He looked up, and had his kikaichu check the scent again. "Two degrees north-north-east from this point, we are steadily catching up to them."
"Good. Because I want to turn at least one of them half to stone as an apology to Noburu." Shibi noticed a bit of gold behind them and glanced back. One of Ishidate's hands had a golden eye, half-closed, strapped to the back of his hand. An artisanal ninja tool, the evil eye.
"...I knew I recognized you from somewhere," Shibi muttered with narrowed eyes behind his glasses when he turned back. "You're the one who shouted at Noburu in the plaza."
Ishidate flinched. "Yeah. I… regret that, now."
Shibi wanted to tell the Oto nin he should have regretted it when he said them. He wanted to tell him he had no business on a retrieval team after the things he'd said. "You seemed angry," was all he said about it. Purposefully absent emotion, no blame. Just the facts -- weapon enough for Shibi. "That anger seemed to get away from you, quickly."
"And if we don't get Noburu back… and your teammate," he added the second part as if it was an afterthought, "then I can't tell him I'm sorry, and that I shouldn't have taken my anger out on him."
They didn't catch up to them before they had to stop for a short break. Shibi had been passed between Ishidate, Sayaka, and Hizashi by the time the order to halt was called. The sun had begun to set, and cast ominous shadows through the Fire Country pines. They were still close enough to the sea that Shibi could hear the waves strike the steep cliffs.
The Oto leader, Raiga, erected a stand and filled it with water into which Haruki began to unload ingredients. "Haruki is preparing a recipe using Akamichi food made by Akami," the older man explained as he used his lightning to boil the water for the soup. "Its effects are comparable to a soldier pill, but the liquid medium allows for it to be absorbed by the body with fewer side effects."
Haruki quickly tapped a shaker into the soup when Raiga had his eyes elsewhere. "And some MSG for flavor."
Raiga gave him a look and focused on the task. "Everyone takes some, the leftovers are put into a thermos -- we keep going. Nobody uses any soldier pills until we're about to engage. If we have to, we can cross into Hot Water Country briefly."
"Didn't the talks with Hot Water come out amicably? Their representative agreed to your terms," Hizashi asked with his arms crossed. The Hyuga had adopted a somewhat more traditional look, compared to the others. He wore a grey-green kosode -- one sleeve patterned with the images of cages, and the other with flying birds, and baggy pants with his usual double-kunai pouch. Two steel war fans -- tessen -- were affixed to his wrists with special holsters that would allow Hizashi to draw them when he crossed his arms.
"They haven't had a chance to communicate that back to their daimyo and Yugakure. As far as they know -- we'd be invading." Raiga frowned, and looked at them. "The speed boost this soup gives will hopefully get us on top of them before they cross too deeply into Hot Water for us to follow."
"And if it doesn't?" It took Shibi a moment to realize he'd been the one to ask the question. He was usually more reserved with obvious questions.
"...Then we go to Kumo, and we steal them back. Perhaps we fight a war for them." Raiga's lighting intensified, and the soup boiled even more vigorously. "Be sure to cool it when you drink. It will be ready in a minute or two."
--
Legendary Sannin Tsunade
Tsunade felt that, perhaps, she should drink ever so slightly less. That way she wouldn't need people to tell her what happened while she was black-out drunk. Such as an intruder alarm in Oto. Or how two jinchuuriki had been kidnapped right from under them. Or how Orochimaru had gone from Oto to Konoha and back in two days with an excessive number of soldier pills and blind rage to fuel him.
She liked that he'd finally let his temper slip the leash a little. Being passive aggressive all the time wasn't healthy. However, she disliked the state she found him when he'd returned to Oto. Dehydrated, low blood sugar, chakra depleted. The first two she could fix with help from Suzume and Shizune. The third was tricky.
Orochimaru wouldn't forgive her if she asked him to stay in bed to recover naturally. So she had to transfer her chakra to him while Suzume and Shizune tended to the other issues. She'd taken him to the hospital, to a private and secure room. It wasn't plain like the hospital rooms in Konoha -- it was decorated in the story of a fish with jeweled scales set in some distant reef. The story unfolded from the immediate right of the door, along the wall, and concluded on the left wall near the door frame.
There was silence in the room, while the medical ninja did their best to make Orochimaru well. He was shaking, convulsions from low blood sugar Tsunade expected. Food would fix that -- which motivated her to swat Orochimaru every time he resisted Shizune feeding him. An orb filled with glowing liquid passed close enough by the room to light it up as if it were midday on the surface.
"I was going to kill him," Orochimaru admitted as if shocked with himself.
"Who? Jiraiya?" Tsunade scoffed. "I gave him a good punch in the jaw when I heard about it -- he seemed confused. Probably did it while he was drunk." She made sure her chakra was delivered in small enough bursts that Orochimaru's system wouldn't see it as an invader.
"Tsunade. He didn't do it, it was an imposter." Orochimaru pushed aside Shizune's next bit of food to look her in the eyes. She hadn't ever seen him afraid before -- it shook her. "But before I knew that, I was going to kill him."
Oh. He'd been serious. That stunned Tsunade for a few seconds before Suzume nudged her and knocked her out of it. Immediately she scowled at him. "Jiraiya's your best friend. One incident like this is a reason to beat him up, not to… do that. What the hell were you thinking?"
Orochimaru averted his gaze. "I wasn't. I was just… so angry. It was like there was no room left in my head for me -- only the anger." He looked down at his hands, while they shook. Perhaps it hadn't been because of blood sugar levels, after all. "Three years ago, Noburu told me something about myself that he'd seen in the future."
Tsunade blinked, then glanced at Suzume before she commented. "Those riches you found in the valleys south of River, yeah?" Even if Oto were allies with Konoha -- they weren't Konoha. What information passed outside the village had to be closely monitored, even to their allies.
"No. He told me that… I developed rampancy. A stress disorder which causes the brain to start thinking itself to death." Orochimaru didn't let the fear show in his voice or eyes anymore. But Tsunade knew how to see underneath the underneath where her teammates were involved. "He told me some of the things I did… will do while rampant. Terrible experiments, that twist me into a monster. Lives I throw away like trash, because they're not useful anymore." His fingers twitched even more pronounced. "The people I'd once cared about, and then brag about killing. To you."
Suzume, when Tsunade glanced at her again, was the picture of professional medical ninja etiquette. Even if Tsunade wouldn't enforce her silence, it was possible Suzume would keep the secret of what she'd heard. But not guaranteed.
"By the timeline he laid out… it would happen around now." His hands had begun to shake badly, so Shizune had to start to feed him again. "I thought… that having a team, and spending more time away from Konoha would be enough to stop it, but what if…."
"Stop that," Tsunade snapped. She focused her eyes on Orochimaru's and tried to drill her words into him with a terrible glare. "Stress disorders get worse the more you think about them. Have you been thinking about this in the background, these last three years?" When Orochimaru broke her staring contest, she got her answer. "You've been making it worse for years, doing that." She rolled her eyes. "When this is over -- Jiraiya and I are going to teach you how to de-stress with a proper vacation."
But it wasn't over yet. She still had to get Orochimaru enough chakra to fight with, and that would take time. Time they didn't have.
As if the universe wanted to backhand her, Tsunade heard something which caused her back to stiffen. A rhythmic chime, which grew closer with each instance. It brought to mind the humilitating defeat she and her teammates had suffered three years prior, and the unflappable monk responsible.
Moments later, there was a knock on the door. Suzume looked at Tsunade, then made a quick adjustment to the IV bag she'd set up to drip liquids into Orochimaru. The hospital director opened the door and there he was.
While everyone around had changed -- Kousuke remained much the same. He still dressed as a Water Temple monk, but with a belt patterned after the iconography of the new Wave Temple. The monk glanced at Suzume, then over her shoulder and waved at Shizune.
The young girl, ignorant of the tension between her mistress and the monk, waved back with a smile.
"I have come to coordinate with the Sannin about when we should depart," the monk told Suzume as if she were the only one in the room able to hear him. "Saiken has relayed messages to me from Isobu and Gyuki -- I have predicted a path that the kidnappers will follow."
Tsunade narrowed her eyes and glanced at Orochimaru. Her instinct was to be wary of the monk's claims to be able to speak to the three-and-eight-tails across distances. But Orochimaru looked at the monk attentively. Tsunade swallowed her suspicion and nodded to Suzume.
"Please come in, abbot," Suzume said with her 'speak to patients' voice. "The Sannin are accepting visitors right now."
--
Tenmu Otsutsuki
Through Ninshu it was possible to see without eyes. So while they ran through the trees away from Wave and toward Hot Water Country, he looked over the jinchuuriki. They seemed well-cared for, though that was debatable according to the Kumo ninja. Tenmu focused on the young man, only slightly younger than himself.
"Arun," he spoke to his teacher in the now-dead language of the Otsutsuki main family. "Do you suppose he understands this language?"
Ryou, the short ninja who carried Noburu, looked at him with confusion. The Kumo ninja's spikey black mane of hair almost covered his forehead. He noticed how Tenmu was focused on the jinchuuriki, and jostled him a bit. The drugged teen didn't respond. "I think he's still out of it," the ninja offered and rubbed his nose. "...Hopefully we didn't give him an overdose."
"No," Arun said as he ran on the opposite side of Ryou. He took spoke in the main family's dead language. "It seems the boy is playing possum for now. But I sense no familiarity. The turtle spirit knows Ninshu, but has not shared it with the host. We are fortunate."
"But that is bad?" Tenmu replied as he ignored Ryou's comment. The lack of contractions in the language made it annoying to use for day-to-day use. "We will have to teach him Ninshu when we bring him to the moon, right?"
"To what end?" Arun shook his head and scowled. All around them, the Kumo ninja became visibly suspicious as the 'monks' spoke in a language they didn't understand. "Once his eyes are consigned to the Tenseigan, he will face execution just as all the main family was made to do. As your father ordered."
Tenmu frowned. "Father is gone. What if I do not want to have another of my kinsman be killed over his grudge?"
Arun was shocked for a moment, then shook his head. "Poor Jomei, I have failed as tutor to your son. He disrespects your will, even after you have gone." He shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand in a self-shaming gesture. "Woe, Jomei. Woe…."
"Are… the two of you angry?" Ryou asked as he looked at both of them. "I mean, he's not dead… yet. But did you have some purpose for him that… overdosing opium would mess with?" He smiled, as if he felt responsible despite Honda -- the taller, lighter-skinned, and smooth-haired ninja behind him -- having been the one to deliver the opium.
Tenmu, upset that Arun seemed more concerned with disrespect to Tenmu's dead father than Tenmu himself, switched back to the language of Earth. "Arun has strong views about what we should do with the jinchuuriki when we get him home. I disagree with him. That is all."
Arun, even more shocked than before stared at Tenmu with his mouth slightly ajar. "You let them know we are not of one mind," he hissed at Tenmu in the main family's language when he recovered. "Now they can pit us against each other."
"You're doing a fine job of that yourself," Tenmu snapped, in the Earth's language. "If you want me to do anything other than order that policy overturned when we get home -- you better think of a reason for it other than a dead man's grudge." The moment he said it, he knew he shouldn't have said it. Arun looked genuinely hurt, the ninja looked confused -- except for L. L had an awful little smile on his face which Tenmu could see with Ninshu despite the distance between them. But he wouldn't back down -- he was the clan leader, and he wouldn't let his father's orders in the past overrule his in the present.
"Wow," Noburu commented, announcing to the ninja that he was both ungagged and conscious enough to talk. Albeit with some slurring. "You guys have some issues. Let me add to them real quick." Quick as a cut could bleed, Tenmu watched Noburu project a chakra string from his toe and yank back on it as soon as it touched Guiying's leg.
As had happened earlier, Guiying missed her jump and dropped Kushina into a tree as she struck a bough with her face. "My nobe!" The transformation specialist shouted as she held onto the branch with one hand and clutched her face with the other. "Th' bastid brog by nobe!"
Ryou sighed and stopped on a tree branch while Honda landed next to him and prepared more opium. "Can't you guys use your chakra orb things to make him stop?" The short ninja asked, annoyed while L helped Guiying fix her nose.
Tenmu, more willing to speak of the two Otsutsuki clan members, shrugged as he answered. "We can only manage one chakra orb a day. So we could probably do that tomorrow -- but today both our orbs are focused on disrupting their seals."
Arun frowned deeply. Tenmu guessed he didn't want the ninja to know their limits -- which was silly, the ninja weren't going to fight the two of them.
Another opium injection, and the nine-tails jinchuuriki being retrieved from the tree, and they were off. The border to Hot Water Country was within sight.
All of a sudden, L turned toward the forests further inland, and cursed. "Ryou, Guiying, make a break for it! They've caught up!" A moment later a powerful gust of wind carried a cloud of mist ahead of them -- the mist was acidic in nature, as the trees and shoreline began to melt at its touch.
Tenmu had only moments to process that they were under attack when he realized there was someone behind him. He perceived her through Ninshu -- a beautiful young woman with a manic grin and eyes surrounded with blood red makeup. She looked very much like Tenmu's ancient ancestor Kaguya did in her silk portraits. Tenmu was so struck with her awesome beauty he almost missed the sword in her hand, and very nearly failed to dodge. He flipped away from the beautiful Oto nin's stabbing sword as it punctured the branch he had stood on.
Ryou and Guiying made a break for the Hot Water border by way of the sea and water walking while the others prepared for the fight.
---
Cast
Ishidate Uemon: The current heir of the Uemon clan, Kokoro Uemon's oldest child. A ninja artisan who aims to earn his master title with his use of the finicky evil eye totem to make a petrifying gauntlet that poses no risk to the user. Chunin rank, sixteen years old. Ishidate and Noburu were dating until recently, when Ishidate's temper got the better of him. In combat, he is primarily a taijutsu user. He's part of the Otogakure strategic response team, the macro planning sub-division.
Arun Otsutsuki: A mysterious man who claims to be a monk from Moon Country. He's never been seen with his eyes opened, and uses a strange chakra orb technique along with chakra strings to control others in lieu of genjutsu. On the behalf of his clan, he hired Kumo ninja to help him steal from Otogakure.
Tenmu Otsutsuki: A relative of Arun's, though much younger. Tenmu is more rash and impulsive than Arun, and is considered his apprentice. Like Arun, he has never been seen with his eyes opened. On top of Arun's abilities, Tenmu seems to have the power to use his chakra orb and chakra strings to drain the chakra out of jutsu and people.
- Pronouns
- he/him
So noburo doesn't know ninshu then, well that's informative
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
Okay, so let me see if I got thwir plan right. They kidnapped two jinchuriki, and Noburu they plan on performing a ritual to upgrade his Special Eyes only to excecute him for having the eyes they just gave him.
This would benefit them.... how, exactly? They'd then just have one jinchuriki and two villages in open hostility towards them.
This would benefit them.... how, exactly? They'd then just have one jinchuriki and two villages in open hostility towards them.
- Location
- Somewhere
The eyeball guys are Moon Hyuuga. Yes, really. They live on the moon. They also have more issues than National Geographic and need his super eyes for their magic WMD.
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
They plan on physically removing his eyes and placing them in the Tenseigan reactor. The word 'Tenseigan' refers to the dojutsu and the reactor, but the context is what tells you which they're referring to. They're executing him because of other reasons.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
These guys are from the Moon. They're basically the main main family that both the Kaguya and Hyuga branched off from. Noburu (and probably Orochimaru) seem to be descended from survivors of some intra-clan war on the Moon (yes the actual moon) who fled these guys, who have come to finish the job and also use Noburu's eyes to juice up their magic nuke.
Ch 35
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
Ch 35: Oh No
---
Sotaicho Kurosuki
Raiga went after the Kumo leader right away -- the shot caller who had sensed them coming. A perfectly good ambush, wasted because of that weasely man. Raiga wanted to see him bleed, and he imagined Kiba longed to taste blood again. Lightning crackled between the two blades as Raiga jumped from branch to branch and intercepted the commander when he moved to guard his subordinate's escape.
With the twilight, the lightning on Kiba gave Raiga a demonic visage -- he was sure. It would only get worse as night progressed. If it gave the enemy pause, it would be worth it.
Kumo was wealthy enough to equip anyone chunin and above with a full-length katana or some other sword. The weasely jounin raised his sword to block the overhead swing of Raiga. He only gave the man a second to realize he had made himself part of the current, and channeled lightning between the two halves of Kiba.
He used substitution to escape and left Raiga with a charred log hooked on Kiba's forks. While he cleared his swords of the log, he let momentum carry him to the ground. Haruki's acidic mist flowed between the trees and over the cliff to coat the water. Raiga had enough time to free Kiba, and lept upward just before the boiling mist encircled him. When he lept up to the boughs of another tree, it listed with his additional weight. The acidic mist has begun to eat at the trunk, and the soil around them.
Raiga scanned the battlefield to see where his intended opponent had gone. Junko was locked in combat with one of the two unknowns, while Sayaka and Hizashi had engaged the other. It seemed the other Kumo nin had gotten into an artillery battle with Haruki -- Raiga saw the kid bend lightning like water, a neat trick. When he couldn't easily determine where the leader had gone -- he jumped backward. As he'd guessed, the leader had been trying to use silent killing -- seconds after Raiga had moved, the Kumo nin's katana lodged in the branch where he had stood. The impact caused the tree to list dangerously to one side, too much for the poor pine -- it snapped and fell which meant Raiga had to fall back.
He saw his target in the air as he lept from the tree. While the tree he landed on groaned and listed with his weight, he propelled himself after the leader and left the tree to snap in half as the other had. Kiba crackled as Raiga approached. The jounin's weasely face twisted as he realized Raiga would hit him before he got close enough to the ground to use the substitution technique.
He was inches away from dealing a killing blow, when his forward momentum stopped. Suddenly he was pulled away and thrown -- as he went he was struck with a sense of deja vu. As he regained the use of his limbs, he flipped and saw filiments of chakra fade away. Chakra strings, he realized. Raiga followed where they had come from and saw the older of the two unknowns. When the man's hands moved, Raiga fanned Kiba's blades in front of him. A wall of lightning sprung up and batted away the chakra strings before they could land.
The unknown frowned. "I suspected you might know how to fight my strings, given how your student fought." He swept his hands and launched faint chakra strings around them. Raiga didn't see what he'd targetted, but he figured it out when the trees around them moved, creaked, and tore free of their bases. "But your acidic mist has provided me with alternative weapons."
Raiga didn't linger long on the sight of ten Fire Country pines, each larger than a house, high in the air before he moved. He hadn't believed Noburu when he'd been told what the 'skilled users' of the puppetmaster technique could do, and he'd been wrong. Pines swung and stabbed at him, they moved to block his path when he moved to close the distance. His usual lightning would not work well against the pines -- they would simply catch fire.
"Lightning Cutter!" Raiga shouted as he slashed Kiba in opposite directions. The cutting wave of lightning split a pine which had been moved into his path -- the green crown fell away from the trunk and Raiga pressed forward. "Lightning Cutter! Lightning Cutter!"
Two more trees were bisected in the same way, all while the unknown combatant seemed unfazed. Wasn't Sayaka and Hizashi fighting him a moment ago, Raiga thought to himself. He noticed one of the unknown's fingers suddenly move, and immediately used the substitution technique. A log was struck by a chopped pine and driven into the mist. In a nearby tree, outside the range of the mist, Raiga narrowed his eyes.
Kiba crackled with lightning as he linked the two blades together at the hilt. Electricity filled the air as Raiga centered himself and focused on a jutsu. A pine tree spun and arced to slam down on his position. Fortunately, Raiga's jutsu didn't take long. "Yang-Lightning release: Ball Lightning!" From each of Kiba's point, an orb of electrical chakra formed and began to orbit Raiga. When the pine came down on him, minute arcs connected the two orbs and the tree. The orbs shrunk a little and the tree rapidly caught flame, blackend, and burned to ash in the seconds before it would hit.
Raiga lept back into the fray, intent on the unknown. The jounin was either new, or tired from running; an easy kill. Pine trees burned to ash as the two orbs of Ball Lightning incinerated them once they got too close.
The man's eyes didn't open as Raiga suddenly drew near -- and the Ball Lightning jutsu activated on him. The unknown's clothes and skin blackened, burned, and fell away as ash in a moment. But what didn't activate the jutsu was a wooden skeleton underneath, with glass eyes and painted teeth.
In equal measure, Raiga was horrified that the enemy somehow had puppets which could control puppets of their own -- and he was impressed at the quality. It didn't stop him from cutting it in half with Kiba, regardless.
A green sphere in its chest lit up as it was cut, and burst as Kiba completed its swing. Raiga wished he could take it back for analysis -- but with the puppet master still alive, it was too risky. With Kiba to guide them, Raiga had the Ball Lightning jutsu fire on the puppet again, and leave it as ash.
He still had to find that jounin and kill him.
--
Tokubetsu-Jounin Kanzaki
Sayaka and Hizashi had a good dynamic going. She would rain explosive tags on the environment, force the monk-looking-guy to move, and Hizashi would whip up a sudden gust to propel shrapnel in the direction he'd gone along with some acidic mist. It would keep the enemy on the move long enough for Shibi's kikaichu to eat at his chakra, and leave him incapacitated.
Sayaka used the motions of thrown kunai and explosive tags to set motion trigger tags down on the nearby trees. That way, when the enemy moved according to their herding, they would have even less time to react. However, the monk comparison might have been more appropriate than Sayaka initially assumed.
Without his eyes opened, he avoided the shrapnel launched at him and seemed to avoid the explosive tags Sayaka left. But there was no way he could do such a thing, he'd need reflexes on par with Kousuke to make it happen. The fight dragged on, and the same song and dance repeated.
"Sayaka, watch out!" Hizashi shouted, as he suddenly slashed the air with a tessen -- a scythe of chakra-enriched air cut vertically and hit nothing that she could see. "He's trying to use chakra strings on us -- like Noburu does, but even harder to see!"
Sayaka cursed to herself and decided that the cat and mouse game was over and done with. Shibi's kikaichu weren't working fast enough! "Tell Shibi to up his game with his next generation of beetles," she growled and popped her knuckles. Her sword would become a liability if she drew it before she got close. Too many times, Noburu had yanked it out of her hands with his threads -- she learned her lesson.
She closed in and tried to engage the monk in taijutsu, but he kept evading. She could see the kikaichu beetles on the man's skin -- they were feeding, but not quickly enough. As she threw her first punch, she mentally asked herself: why isn't he trying to remove the bugs? He swept his hand upward and deflected the punch then stopped Sayaka dead in her tracks with a blow to the solar plexus. Sayaka had the wind knocked out of her and fell to her knees to hastily draw air back into her lungs.
"Fool," the enemy muttered and lept away as Hizashi rushed in to give Sayaka time to recover. "Your delaying tactics only hasten your defeat." He and Hizashi engaged in a brief taijutsu battle that lasted seconds longer than Sayaka's. Hizashi had tried to slash the enemy who in turn responded with a palm strike that negated his wind attack and sent Hizashi flying.
"That… that's the vacuum palm!" Hizashi exclaimed as he recovered in the air. Sayaka had no idea what that was, so Hizashi helpfully explained once he'd landed. "That's a Hyuga technique!"
"The Hyuga do not own the concept of 'gather chakra in the hand and launch it', boy," the enemy snapped. His eyes were still closed, so his frown looked slightly off. He totally disregarded Sayaka and focused on Hizashi. "Why must we fight, Hyuga? I am of the branch family of a Byakugan clan myself -- I could tell you how to murder your main family as we have ours."
She took the opening as a chance to lunge at him and draw her sword. At last, she had a bit of success, and managed to damage the man's overlarge mustache when he dodged. Superficial damage was better than nothing. She realized how the man had his insane perceptive powers -- he was a Byakugan user outside the Hyuga! Like Noburu!
Sayaka reached into a pocket as she pressed the assault and closed her eyes. Even if he had his eyes closed -- a flash explosive tag would blind a Byakugan user at close range. She'd won more than one sparing match with Noburu that way. Blindly she produced the tag and held it up as it flared to life.
In defiance of her expectations, she found herself struck again and launched like an arrow through the air to strike a tree.
"Well, that's the first time that's happened." The enemy seemed surprised. When Sayaka recovered enough to look at him, he hadn't reacted to the flash at all. "Someone's tried to blind a blind man. Huh." He sucked in air between his teeth and sighed it back out. "Young people these days."
"What?" Sayaka responded, utterly confused. She used her chakra to remain affixed to the tree. "But -- you have the Byakugan! That should have worked!"
"Had," Hizashi said with dawning horror. Sayaka glanced at him and noted a disgusted and fearful expression on the Konoha nin's face. "He had the Byakugan. His eyes are empty."
"A time-honored tradition of our founder," the enemy muttered. A warbling shriek filled the air, which prompted him to look over his shoulder. "Hmm. Honda has lost to your friend. L will lose when your lord finds him, with the marionette destroyed. So I think it's time for us to depart." He turned and regarded the ninja with a sneer. "As a courtesy, we will return your jinchuuriki's bodies to their villages when we are done with them."
Sayaka saw red and threw a kunai with a capsule of pressurized salt acid attached at the man. The weapon passed through him like he wasn't there, and afterward he began to fade. Like he was a genjutsu, or something. Sayaka suddenly wondered -- had he placed a genjutsu on them, and they'd only imagined what they saw? She sheathed her sword and formed a hand sign. "Release!"
The fading image of the man remained as it was, translucent and becoming more so.
"Hizashi, what's happening?" Sayaka shouted at the Hyuga and saw that he was transfixed. "Hizashi!" She jumped to him and shook him by the shoulder. "What's going on with you?"
"I didn't know chakra could move like that…," the genin muttered, dumbstruck. He shook his head. "He's using some form of shunshin -- so fast it left an image behind."
"Well come on then -- let's go after him!" It didn't matter how effective she'd been against the monk -- they needed to slow them down however possible. Sayaka clapped Hizashi on the shoulder, sheathed her sword, and lept from their tree toward the slanted and sloping trees eaten by Haruki's boiling mist. Northward, toward the border. She kept her pace slower than normal until Hizashi joined her. His special eyes would keep them from being ambushed.
Hopefully.
--
Genin Aburame
Shibi and Ishidate's ability to lock down the enemy made them ideal to go after the runners. Shibi rode on Ishidate's back while he sent clusters of airborne kikaichu beetles after the escaping Kumo ninja. From what he could see -- Kushina had started to thrash and gave her captor a hard time. Noburu on the other hand seemed lethargic by comparison -- that was a bad sign.
He promptly chose to tell Ishidate to motivate the chunin to run faster. It worked.
Once they'd gotten close enough, Shibi felt a tug on his hand -- and saw that he had a chakra thread stuck to him, which lead toward Noburu. Shibi allowed himself a momentary smile under his collar. He directed his beetles to travel along the chakra thread, while the flying swarms returned to him.
The first wave got about halfway across when the thread began to thin out, and created a bottleneck. The kikaichu piled onto each other, and took to the air to close the distance. Much closer, it was easier for the kikaichu to approach.
Noburu's captor was landed upon, and Shibi turned his attention to the further-ahead runner with Kushina on her shoulder. The kikaichu would do their job well, but Shibi didn't think he could have them reach Kushina's runner before she got across the border. They passed a fishing boat as they ran on the water, and ignored ther fisherman's confusion.
"I am going to sprint," Shibi told Ishidate, "and try to either cast a genjutsu on her, or make her slow down enough for you to catch her."
"Here's hoping for the latter," Ishidate muttered and began to speed up.
Shibi jumped off Ishidate's back, and put his all into a dead sprint. As he got closer he could more easily make out Kushina thrashing on the Kumo kunoichi's shoulder. Kushina had locked her hands together and repeatedly slammed her fists into the Kumo kunoichi's flank. It was respectable of her to be able to take such repeated and enthusiastic abuse.
Shibi promptly threw a senbon at her, right at where Kushina had struck repeatedly. Kushina's next slam in that spot pierced the ropes her hands were tied with and drove the needle weapon even deeper. Kushina's hands were freed, the kunoichi spasmed from being stabbed deeply into a tender spot, and Ishidate surged forward with his hand extended.
Ishidate caught the kunoichi's foot as she ran, and the evil eye totem flared to life. Ishidate shifted himself from pursuer to anchor, and forced the kunoichi to suddenly stop. Kushina flew off her shoulder from momentum, so Shibi kept running to catch her.
Sadly, just because he could reach her did not mean he could catch her, or land gracefully with her. She struck him in the back and landed on him, which made him skid along the surface of the water for a couple feet. He twitched on the water's surface while Kushina orientated herself on his back like he was a bench. Kikaichu bugs emerged to help eat at the ropes which bound her legs, while Kushina removed the unwanted bag and gag her kidnappers had given her.
"That's the second time you jerks have tried and failed to kidnap me!" She shouted, and pointed behind her, toward the kunoichi. "Get a better hobby!"
Shibi tried to sit up, but Kushina was not accommodating.
"Shibi, I'm sorry but I can't actually water-walk right now. Could you stop trying to tip me over into the sea at night? Thanks!" Kushina clapped Shibi on the shoulder, and looked around. "Where's the guy who was holding Noburu?"
Shibi's kikaichu checked the air and detected a trail of pheremones. "He's that way," Shibi pointed. "I got enough of my beetles on him that he should be unconscious in moments."
"And let me guess -- they did something to Noburu where he can't water-walk either?" Ishidate asked. Shibi couldn't see him clearly, but he imagined Ishidate had a pensive expression on his face. "Don't go anywhere -- your leg looks to be in bad shape." His coy words were probably directed at the Kumo kunoichi -- who stifled a pained shout at around the same time Shibi heard a splash. Seconds later Shibi caught sight of Ishidate's red wig in the distance.
"...I kind of need to stand up, Kushina," Shibi said. "Could you grab onto my back?"
"And get my kimono all wet? Ugh, fine." She feigned affront and wrapped her arms around Shibi's neck before he stood up.
It was embarrassing how much he struggled with the additional weight, considering how many people carried him. But he refused to let it stop him. He turned and looked at the Kumo ninja, with one of her legs turned to stone till half-way up her thigh. That had to hurt. The senbon wound Shibi had inflicted bled steadily, and Shibi wondered if it had hit something important, given the kunoichi didn't seem intent to fight despite both her hands being freed.
"If it's any consolation -- I don't think you'll be a guest of Oto for very long," Shibi said, his tone dark. "Konoha has a special prison for ninja. I think you'll like it. It's so much better than other prisons I'm told -- we allow you to have direct sunlight."
The kunoichi scowled at him, then smirked all of a sudden. One of her hands twitched, and Shibi suddenly remembered how his hand had moved when Noburu landed a chakra string on it.
Instinctively, Shibi unleashed a swarm of kikaichu on her as an unseen force yanked her through the air. As she was swung up to the air, she could feel pheromone messages from his beetles about how much they struggled to consume the chakra which had attached itself to her.
"She's going in the direction Ishidate went," Kushina shouted, and pointed. "Go on, Shibi!"
But he didn't. Instead, he turned and ran back toward the ambush site.
"Shibi! You're going the wrong way!"
"You can't water walk -- which means your chakra must be drained." Shibi hated himself with every word, he hated what he was doing, but he didn't stop. "I have to get you to safety before I engage any hostiles."
It was quite possible that Orochimaru-sensei would not forgive him for his actions, even if he was correct -- which he didn't know. Shibi focused on the sound of his feet on the water's surface to drown out Kushina shouting at him to go back. The half-melted trees of their ambush site drew ever nearer, and Shibi could make out shapes in the distance and moved towards them.
With sweet relief, he recognized the silhouettes of the Oto ninja and Hizashi on the approach.
"Which heading," Raiga shouted as he focused on the shore Shibi had run from.
"West-north-west! Ishidate has engaged them!" Shibi shouted back. Kushina continued to shout at him to go back, but Shibi didn't listen. He had to get her to safety first.
The Oto nin ran past him in the direction he indicated, while Hizashi stopped to check over Kushina. He wished them luck in their hunt -- all while he hoped that Hizashi could somehow fix Kushina so that they could rejoin the effort to rescue Noburu.
From how confused and alarmed Hizashi was when he used his Byakugan to examine Kushina's seal, that would not be the case.
---
I hope this fight captures the same feel Jiraiya vs Pein had where you can tell the reason the fight is going so poorly is that the combatants you're rooting for don't understand what their opponents are doing and how to counter it.
Match results:
Haruki vs Honda long-range ninjutsu battle: Haruki wins.
Sayaka and Hizashi vs Arun in a mid-to-short range taijutsu battle: Arun wins.
Raiga vs Arun marionette and L: Raiga wins.
Shibi and Ishidate vs Ryou and Guiying: Shibi and Ishidate win.
Shibi vs Gravity: Gravity wins.
---
Sotaicho Kurosuki
Raiga went after the Kumo leader right away -- the shot caller who had sensed them coming. A perfectly good ambush, wasted because of that weasely man. Raiga wanted to see him bleed, and he imagined Kiba longed to taste blood again. Lightning crackled between the two blades as Raiga jumped from branch to branch and intercepted the commander when he moved to guard his subordinate's escape.
With the twilight, the lightning on Kiba gave Raiga a demonic visage -- he was sure. It would only get worse as night progressed. If it gave the enemy pause, it would be worth it.
Kumo was wealthy enough to equip anyone chunin and above with a full-length katana or some other sword. The weasely jounin raised his sword to block the overhead swing of Raiga. He only gave the man a second to realize he had made himself part of the current, and channeled lightning between the two halves of Kiba.
He used substitution to escape and left Raiga with a charred log hooked on Kiba's forks. While he cleared his swords of the log, he let momentum carry him to the ground. Haruki's acidic mist flowed between the trees and over the cliff to coat the water. Raiga had enough time to free Kiba, and lept upward just before the boiling mist encircled him. When he lept up to the boughs of another tree, it listed with his additional weight. The acidic mist has begun to eat at the trunk, and the soil around them.
Raiga scanned the battlefield to see where his intended opponent had gone. Junko was locked in combat with one of the two unknowns, while Sayaka and Hizashi had engaged the other. It seemed the other Kumo nin had gotten into an artillery battle with Haruki -- Raiga saw the kid bend lightning like water, a neat trick. When he couldn't easily determine where the leader had gone -- he jumped backward. As he'd guessed, the leader had been trying to use silent killing -- seconds after Raiga had moved, the Kumo nin's katana lodged in the branch where he had stood. The impact caused the tree to list dangerously to one side, too much for the poor pine -- it snapped and fell which meant Raiga had to fall back.
He saw his target in the air as he lept from the tree. While the tree he landed on groaned and listed with his weight, he propelled himself after the leader and left the tree to snap in half as the other had. Kiba crackled as Raiga approached. The jounin's weasely face twisted as he realized Raiga would hit him before he got close enough to the ground to use the substitution technique.
He was inches away from dealing a killing blow, when his forward momentum stopped. Suddenly he was pulled away and thrown -- as he went he was struck with a sense of deja vu. As he regained the use of his limbs, he flipped and saw filiments of chakra fade away. Chakra strings, he realized. Raiga followed where they had come from and saw the older of the two unknowns. When the man's hands moved, Raiga fanned Kiba's blades in front of him. A wall of lightning sprung up and batted away the chakra strings before they could land.
The unknown frowned. "I suspected you might know how to fight my strings, given how your student fought." He swept his hands and launched faint chakra strings around them. Raiga didn't see what he'd targetted, but he figured it out when the trees around them moved, creaked, and tore free of their bases. "But your acidic mist has provided me with alternative weapons."
Raiga didn't linger long on the sight of ten Fire Country pines, each larger than a house, high in the air before he moved. He hadn't believed Noburu when he'd been told what the 'skilled users' of the puppetmaster technique could do, and he'd been wrong. Pines swung and stabbed at him, they moved to block his path when he moved to close the distance. His usual lightning would not work well against the pines -- they would simply catch fire.
"Lightning Cutter!" Raiga shouted as he slashed Kiba in opposite directions. The cutting wave of lightning split a pine which had been moved into his path -- the green crown fell away from the trunk and Raiga pressed forward. "Lightning Cutter! Lightning Cutter!"
Two more trees were bisected in the same way, all while the unknown combatant seemed unfazed. Wasn't Sayaka and Hizashi fighting him a moment ago, Raiga thought to himself. He noticed one of the unknown's fingers suddenly move, and immediately used the substitution technique. A log was struck by a chopped pine and driven into the mist. In a nearby tree, outside the range of the mist, Raiga narrowed his eyes.
Kiba crackled with lightning as he linked the two blades together at the hilt. Electricity filled the air as Raiga centered himself and focused on a jutsu. A pine tree spun and arced to slam down on his position. Fortunately, Raiga's jutsu didn't take long. "Yang-Lightning release: Ball Lightning!" From each of Kiba's point, an orb of electrical chakra formed and began to orbit Raiga. When the pine came down on him, minute arcs connected the two orbs and the tree. The orbs shrunk a little and the tree rapidly caught flame, blackend, and burned to ash in the seconds before it would hit.
Raiga lept back into the fray, intent on the unknown. The jounin was either new, or tired from running; an easy kill. Pine trees burned to ash as the two orbs of Ball Lightning incinerated them once they got too close.
The man's eyes didn't open as Raiga suddenly drew near -- and the Ball Lightning jutsu activated on him. The unknown's clothes and skin blackened, burned, and fell away as ash in a moment. But what didn't activate the jutsu was a wooden skeleton underneath, with glass eyes and painted teeth.
In equal measure, Raiga was horrified that the enemy somehow had puppets which could control puppets of their own -- and he was impressed at the quality. It didn't stop him from cutting it in half with Kiba, regardless.
A green sphere in its chest lit up as it was cut, and burst as Kiba completed its swing. Raiga wished he could take it back for analysis -- but with the puppet master still alive, it was too risky. With Kiba to guide them, Raiga had the Ball Lightning jutsu fire on the puppet again, and leave it as ash.
He still had to find that jounin and kill him.
--
Tokubetsu-Jounin Kanzaki
Sayaka and Hizashi had a good dynamic going. She would rain explosive tags on the environment, force the monk-looking-guy to move, and Hizashi would whip up a sudden gust to propel shrapnel in the direction he'd gone along with some acidic mist. It would keep the enemy on the move long enough for Shibi's kikaichu to eat at his chakra, and leave him incapacitated.
Sayaka used the motions of thrown kunai and explosive tags to set motion trigger tags down on the nearby trees. That way, when the enemy moved according to their herding, they would have even less time to react. However, the monk comparison might have been more appropriate than Sayaka initially assumed.
Without his eyes opened, he avoided the shrapnel launched at him and seemed to avoid the explosive tags Sayaka left. But there was no way he could do such a thing, he'd need reflexes on par with Kousuke to make it happen. The fight dragged on, and the same song and dance repeated.
"Sayaka, watch out!" Hizashi shouted, as he suddenly slashed the air with a tessen -- a scythe of chakra-enriched air cut vertically and hit nothing that she could see. "He's trying to use chakra strings on us -- like Noburu does, but even harder to see!"
Sayaka cursed to herself and decided that the cat and mouse game was over and done with. Shibi's kikaichu weren't working fast enough! "Tell Shibi to up his game with his next generation of beetles," she growled and popped her knuckles. Her sword would become a liability if she drew it before she got close. Too many times, Noburu had yanked it out of her hands with his threads -- she learned her lesson.
She closed in and tried to engage the monk in taijutsu, but he kept evading. She could see the kikaichu beetles on the man's skin -- they were feeding, but not quickly enough. As she threw her first punch, she mentally asked herself: why isn't he trying to remove the bugs? He swept his hand upward and deflected the punch then stopped Sayaka dead in her tracks with a blow to the solar plexus. Sayaka had the wind knocked out of her and fell to her knees to hastily draw air back into her lungs.
"Fool," the enemy muttered and lept away as Hizashi rushed in to give Sayaka time to recover. "Your delaying tactics only hasten your defeat." He and Hizashi engaged in a brief taijutsu battle that lasted seconds longer than Sayaka's. Hizashi had tried to slash the enemy who in turn responded with a palm strike that negated his wind attack and sent Hizashi flying.
"That… that's the vacuum palm!" Hizashi exclaimed as he recovered in the air. Sayaka had no idea what that was, so Hizashi helpfully explained once he'd landed. "That's a Hyuga technique!"
"The Hyuga do not own the concept of 'gather chakra in the hand and launch it', boy," the enemy snapped. His eyes were still closed, so his frown looked slightly off. He totally disregarded Sayaka and focused on Hizashi. "Why must we fight, Hyuga? I am of the branch family of a Byakugan clan myself -- I could tell you how to murder your main family as we have ours."
She took the opening as a chance to lunge at him and draw her sword. At last, she had a bit of success, and managed to damage the man's overlarge mustache when he dodged. Superficial damage was better than nothing. She realized how the man had his insane perceptive powers -- he was a Byakugan user outside the Hyuga! Like Noburu!
Sayaka reached into a pocket as she pressed the assault and closed her eyes. Even if he had his eyes closed -- a flash explosive tag would blind a Byakugan user at close range. She'd won more than one sparing match with Noburu that way. Blindly she produced the tag and held it up as it flared to life.
In defiance of her expectations, she found herself struck again and launched like an arrow through the air to strike a tree.
"Well, that's the first time that's happened." The enemy seemed surprised. When Sayaka recovered enough to look at him, he hadn't reacted to the flash at all. "Someone's tried to blind a blind man. Huh." He sucked in air between his teeth and sighed it back out. "Young people these days."
"What?" Sayaka responded, utterly confused. She used her chakra to remain affixed to the tree. "But -- you have the Byakugan! That should have worked!"
"Had," Hizashi said with dawning horror. Sayaka glanced at him and noted a disgusted and fearful expression on the Konoha nin's face. "He had the Byakugan. His eyes are empty."
"A time-honored tradition of our founder," the enemy muttered. A warbling shriek filled the air, which prompted him to look over his shoulder. "Hmm. Honda has lost to your friend. L will lose when your lord finds him, with the marionette destroyed. So I think it's time for us to depart." He turned and regarded the ninja with a sneer. "As a courtesy, we will return your jinchuuriki's bodies to their villages when we are done with them."
Sayaka saw red and threw a kunai with a capsule of pressurized salt acid attached at the man. The weapon passed through him like he wasn't there, and afterward he began to fade. Like he was a genjutsu, or something. Sayaka suddenly wondered -- had he placed a genjutsu on them, and they'd only imagined what they saw? She sheathed her sword and formed a hand sign. "Release!"
The fading image of the man remained as it was, translucent and becoming more so.
"Hizashi, what's happening?" Sayaka shouted at the Hyuga and saw that he was transfixed. "Hizashi!" She jumped to him and shook him by the shoulder. "What's going on with you?"
"I didn't know chakra could move like that…," the genin muttered, dumbstruck. He shook his head. "He's using some form of shunshin -- so fast it left an image behind."
"Well come on then -- let's go after him!" It didn't matter how effective she'd been against the monk -- they needed to slow them down however possible. Sayaka clapped Hizashi on the shoulder, sheathed her sword, and lept from their tree toward the slanted and sloping trees eaten by Haruki's boiling mist. Northward, toward the border. She kept her pace slower than normal until Hizashi joined her. His special eyes would keep them from being ambushed.
Hopefully.
--
Genin Aburame
Shibi and Ishidate's ability to lock down the enemy made them ideal to go after the runners. Shibi rode on Ishidate's back while he sent clusters of airborne kikaichu beetles after the escaping Kumo ninja. From what he could see -- Kushina had started to thrash and gave her captor a hard time. Noburu on the other hand seemed lethargic by comparison -- that was a bad sign.
He promptly chose to tell Ishidate to motivate the chunin to run faster. It worked.
Once they'd gotten close enough, Shibi felt a tug on his hand -- and saw that he had a chakra thread stuck to him, which lead toward Noburu. Shibi allowed himself a momentary smile under his collar. He directed his beetles to travel along the chakra thread, while the flying swarms returned to him.
The first wave got about halfway across when the thread began to thin out, and created a bottleneck. The kikaichu piled onto each other, and took to the air to close the distance. Much closer, it was easier for the kikaichu to approach.
Noburu's captor was landed upon, and Shibi turned his attention to the further-ahead runner with Kushina on her shoulder. The kikaichu would do their job well, but Shibi didn't think he could have them reach Kushina's runner before she got across the border. They passed a fishing boat as they ran on the water, and ignored ther fisherman's confusion.
"I am going to sprint," Shibi told Ishidate, "and try to either cast a genjutsu on her, or make her slow down enough for you to catch her."
"Here's hoping for the latter," Ishidate muttered and began to speed up.
Shibi jumped off Ishidate's back, and put his all into a dead sprint. As he got closer he could more easily make out Kushina thrashing on the Kumo kunoichi's shoulder. Kushina had locked her hands together and repeatedly slammed her fists into the Kumo kunoichi's flank. It was respectable of her to be able to take such repeated and enthusiastic abuse.
Shibi promptly threw a senbon at her, right at where Kushina had struck repeatedly. Kushina's next slam in that spot pierced the ropes her hands were tied with and drove the needle weapon even deeper. Kushina's hands were freed, the kunoichi spasmed from being stabbed deeply into a tender spot, and Ishidate surged forward with his hand extended.
Ishidate caught the kunoichi's foot as she ran, and the evil eye totem flared to life. Ishidate shifted himself from pursuer to anchor, and forced the kunoichi to suddenly stop. Kushina flew off her shoulder from momentum, so Shibi kept running to catch her.
Sadly, just because he could reach her did not mean he could catch her, or land gracefully with her. She struck him in the back and landed on him, which made him skid along the surface of the water for a couple feet. He twitched on the water's surface while Kushina orientated herself on his back like he was a bench. Kikaichu bugs emerged to help eat at the ropes which bound her legs, while Kushina removed the unwanted bag and gag her kidnappers had given her.
"That's the second time you jerks have tried and failed to kidnap me!" She shouted, and pointed behind her, toward the kunoichi. "Get a better hobby!"
Shibi tried to sit up, but Kushina was not accommodating.
"Shibi, I'm sorry but I can't actually water-walk right now. Could you stop trying to tip me over into the sea at night? Thanks!" Kushina clapped Shibi on the shoulder, and looked around. "Where's the guy who was holding Noburu?"
Shibi's kikaichu checked the air and detected a trail of pheremones. "He's that way," Shibi pointed. "I got enough of my beetles on him that he should be unconscious in moments."
"And let me guess -- they did something to Noburu where he can't water-walk either?" Ishidate asked. Shibi couldn't see him clearly, but he imagined Ishidate had a pensive expression on his face. "Don't go anywhere -- your leg looks to be in bad shape." His coy words were probably directed at the Kumo kunoichi -- who stifled a pained shout at around the same time Shibi heard a splash. Seconds later Shibi caught sight of Ishidate's red wig in the distance.
"...I kind of need to stand up, Kushina," Shibi said. "Could you grab onto my back?"
"And get my kimono all wet? Ugh, fine." She feigned affront and wrapped her arms around Shibi's neck before he stood up.
It was embarrassing how much he struggled with the additional weight, considering how many people carried him. But he refused to let it stop him. He turned and looked at the Kumo ninja, with one of her legs turned to stone till half-way up her thigh. That had to hurt. The senbon wound Shibi had inflicted bled steadily, and Shibi wondered if it had hit something important, given the kunoichi didn't seem intent to fight despite both her hands being freed.
"If it's any consolation -- I don't think you'll be a guest of Oto for very long," Shibi said, his tone dark. "Konoha has a special prison for ninja. I think you'll like it. It's so much better than other prisons I'm told -- we allow you to have direct sunlight."
The kunoichi scowled at him, then smirked all of a sudden. One of her hands twitched, and Shibi suddenly remembered how his hand had moved when Noburu landed a chakra string on it.
Instinctively, Shibi unleashed a swarm of kikaichu on her as an unseen force yanked her through the air. As she was swung up to the air, she could feel pheromone messages from his beetles about how much they struggled to consume the chakra which had attached itself to her.
"She's going in the direction Ishidate went," Kushina shouted, and pointed. "Go on, Shibi!"
But he didn't. Instead, he turned and ran back toward the ambush site.
"Shibi! You're going the wrong way!"
"You can't water walk -- which means your chakra must be drained." Shibi hated himself with every word, he hated what he was doing, but he didn't stop. "I have to get you to safety before I engage any hostiles."
It was quite possible that Orochimaru-sensei would not forgive him for his actions, even if he was correct -- which he didn't know. Shibi focused on the sound of his feet on the water's surface to drown out Kushina shouting at him to go back. The half-melted trees of their ambush site drew ever nearer, and Shibi could make out shapes in the distance and moved towards them.
With sweet relief, he recognized the silhouettes of the Oto ninja and Hizashi on the approach.
"Which heading," Raiga shouted as he focused on the shore Shibi had run from.
"West-north-west! Ishidate has engaged them!" Shibi shouted back. Kushina continued to shout at him to go back, but Shibi didn't listen. He had to get her to safety first.
The Oto nin ran past him in the direction he indicated, while Hizashi stopped to check over Kushina. He wished them luck in their hunt -- all while he hoped that Hizashi could somehow fix Kushina so that they could rejoin the effort to rescue Noburu.
From how confused and alarmed Hizashi was when he used his Byakugan to examine Kushina's seal, that would not be the case.
---
I hope this fight captures the same feel Jiraiya vs Pein had where you can tell the reason the fight is going so poorly is that the combatants you're rooting for don't understand what their opponents are doing and how to counter it.
Match results:
Haruki vs Honda long-range ninjutsu battle: Haruki wins.
Sayaka and Hizashi vs Arun in a mid-to-short range taijutsu battle: Arun wins.
Raiga vs Arun marionette and L: Raiga wins.
Shibi and Ishidate vs Ryou and Guiying: Shibi and Ishidate win.
Shibi vs Gravity: Gravity wins.
That hits in the feels.
It kinda suprising with the amount of reality-breaking Chakra can do, that no
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My brother had a whole poem on how no one can escape gravity.
Seems like Shibi needs to read that
- Pronouns
- he/him
which is ironically the last place you'd expect them to be
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
So they broke the seal and the kyubi got out, or they extracted him? Because the second doesn't spell anything good for anyone. Also I hope they don't pull out Noburu's eyes, it woukd suck hard to see him become crippled for drama.
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Shhh...
Don't want Noburu to be an Eye farm...
Also it's probably a bit tricky to regrow a functioning eye...would need to get everything connected right