The Stars and the Moon (Naruto AU Quest)
- Thread starter Death and Faxes
- Start date
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Oh I am slain!
Wynaut?
- Location
- Tatooine
[x] escort. A local merchant is delivering his wares to the Land of Earth. Bandit activity has been unusually high lately, so he understandably wants to have protection for his caravan during the trip.
[x] socialize
-[x] with Ikki
[x] physical conditioning
-[x] constitution
1. Escorting merchants is a tradition! Bonus points if it doesn't go as expected.
2. I participate in Naruto quests for the character interactions and world-building. ^_^
3. I'm not sure how much 1 xp matters. Though I guess it might just be to get us in the xp-spending habit? There'll probably be many more once the mission is underway.
[x] socialize
-[x] with Ikki
[x] physical conditioning
-[x] constitution
1. Escorting merchants is a tradition! Bonus points if it doesn't go as expected.
2. I participate in Naruto quests for the character interactions and world-building. ^_^
3. I'm not sure how much 1 xp matters. Though I guess it might just be to get us in the xp-spending habit? There'll probably be many more once the mission is underway.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
So now we're back to a draw, but just on escort vs delivery. as a pro-escort person I see this as an improvement... but someone... must break the tie!
- Location
- yes
So: for ties that aren't mutually exclusive, like the socialize/study one (which I notice is actually no longer a tie!), we'll probably just end up doing a little bit of both—generally, if there's a close vote between A and B, the end result will be "mostly A, but a little bit of B as well".
For ties that are mutually exclusive, like the mission, I'll probably just pick whichever one I think will be more fun to write / flip a coin or something.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Clearly we should still do both missions somehow, King Solomon style 
Maybe someone will come through and break the tie... in favor of escort!
Maybe someone will come through and break the tie... in favor of escort!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] escort. A local merchant is delivering his wares to the Land of Earth. Bandit activity has been unusually high lately, so he understandably wants to have protection for his caravan during the trip.
SO IT SHALL BE.
Looks promising. My #1 priority is to come up with a character concept for us to follow, like in terms of specialization, because while generalists are solid, they are super boring, and specialists are actually interesting to read about if it's something unique. That chakra cloak looks like a very promising foundation.
SO IT SHALL BE.
Looks promising. My #1 priority is to come up with a character concept for us to follow, like in terms of specialization, because while generalists are solid, they are super boring, and specialists are actually interesting to read about if it's something unique. That chakra cloak looks like a very promising foundation.
Oh I am slain!
Wynaut?
- Location
- Tatooine
Last edited:
- Location
- yes
Alright! Vote called, looks like it's going to be socializing with Ikki with a scroll kicker, the escort mission, stealth training.
Update soon! Probably this weekend.
Update soon! Probably this weekend.
1.2 - Iwa Escort Mission
- Location
- yes
Sorry about the delay on this one, some stuff happened at work and a bunch of deadlines got moved up from "next week" to "this week" and everything was kind of a shitshow for a few days. But better late than never, I guess??
Also thanks to @keios for looking at a draft of this.
It only takes an hour to get all the stuff you need and drop it off in a safe location. Ikki suggests dinner, but—
"It's four o' clock."
"Yeah! We'll be beating the crowd. Also I kind of skipped lunch."
A well-timed growl from your stomach reminds you that you also kind of skipped lunch.
"Fine. But no curry."
"Awww, what's even the point then?"
"We got curry the last, what, four times?"
You end at a new kebab restaurant you've been meaning to try, despite Ikki's complaints that it's "just meat on a stick" and that "anyone could make that themselves". The place is tiny, but lively enough, with a half-open kitchen that you can see into manned by a jovial-looking man who belts out a loud greeting as you enter. You're quickly ushered to a table by a serving-girl who seems like she can't be more than a teenager herself. You're pretty sure she's the chef's daughter or at least related: the both of them a have particular accent and sharpness to their features that suggests they came from the land of Earth.
"My father and I are from Iwa, actually," she tells you while she pours out tea. "We moved here not that long ago. I think Dad just got antsy about staying in one place for too long, but he doesn't like talking about it."
You nod sagely at this; you, too, are familiar with dads and their curious avoidance of certain topics.
Food arrives quickly, and the kebabs end up being really quite good. Even Ikki has to admit that they did a damn fine job of cooking meat on a stick.
"I don't get it," he says, briefly pausing from cramming his mouth as full of food as possible. "What do they add to this?"
You pause briefly to swallow before responding. "They're called 'spices', Ikki-kun."
"That isn't what I'm talking about and you know it."
You snort in response. "It's good though, right?" you ask through a mouthful of food, and he nods. "This is why you should try new things sometimes."
Ikki taps out full first, and watches you polish off the last skewers with a combination of amusement and disgust.
"I forgot that you eat so much, Kana-chan," he says innocently, and you shoot him a glare. You have to consciously fight the urge to clock him where he sits.
Ikki lives about a block from you and usually walks most of the way with you, but "the way" more often than not becomes a meandering detour through the streets of Hoshi and beyond. Today is no exception, and you soon find yourselves at a regular spot—a little rocky outcropping a little ways outside of the town, although well within the ring the rather convenient gorge that surrounds the area.
Ikki looks a little bit more pensive than normal as you watch the sun shrink behind the horizon.
"So, ever since we heard about this mission, I've been thinking—"
"We just heard about this mission two hours ago," you shoot back.
"Well, okay, I've been thinking about this for a while. I guess this is just… good timing to bring it up." It's a little unusual that he doesn't respond to your snark. Should you be worried?
"What's wrong?"
"No no, nothing's wrong. It's just… we've got pretty different styles, right? We fight and plan differently, and we don't really approach problems from the same direction. I know we do those teamwork exercises with sensei from time to time, but…"
"But you're worried we won't work well together on the field."
It's a good point—you're turning into a pretty adept but very direct close-in heavy-hitter, and if your last little match with him is any indication, Ikki is actually quite good at a certain style of… battlefield improvisation. The two of you would probably pick completely conflicting strategies in a real fight with less-than-textbook conditions.
"Yeah. It's not all bad, though. I think we actually line up pretty well, skills-wise. You're good at the things I'm bad at, and, well, I guess you're good at the things I'm good at too, but..." He trails off a little before continuing. "Well, you know what I mean. I think if we worked on it a little more we could have some pretty good teamwork going, right?"
"Yeah, that… doesn't sound bad, Ikki. Although a lot of people think the only way to really build up teamwork is to throw teams into real fights and let them sort it out themselves."
"A lot of people like… your father, right?" Ikki asks, a grin flitting momentarily across his face. "Those people grew up and trained during world wars. We don't. Won't."
"I sure hope we won't," you say. "But well, I guess we'll find out just how bad our teamwork is soon."
"Yeah, I guess so," Ikki sighs. "I'm actually a little worried about the mission."
"I thought you were excited to finally have a real one."
"I was—am, but… well, we might have to kill people. We might die." His eyes are worried, and his lips are a thin line.
"Ah, don't worry Ikki-kun, I'll protect you," you say. He snorts, and you continue. "We'll probably be fine. Ninja don't die on missions that often."
"I guess. And if we do die, I guess we can't say that nobody warned us about it," says Ikki.
It's pretty late by the time you get home. Your dad's not there, of course. He's never really been… accessible, but he's been traveling more and working even later these last few months. You've heard the rumors: hostilities are stirring between Konoha and Iwa, and presumably it falls to your father as Hoshikage to prepare for the worst should war break out again. It worries you a little bit, but this kind of thing has always been part of your life.
The scroll you got from him is still there on the table, untouched—it looks like nobody's been in the house since you left this morning. You'd been meaning to start reading through it today, so you roll it open, sit yourself down, and start doing just that. It opens with some deceptively simple chakra shaping exercises that you can't quite wrap your head around, and only gets more complex from there. By the time it actually gets to the first real jutsu, you find that you're too exhausted to follow it any longer. Eventually you just roll the thing back up in defeat, putting it back where you found it.
(advanced chakra control exercises: 50% progress)
The rest is routine: you brush your teeth, shower, look in the mirror, sigh. People often say that you look like your mother. While you don't remember much about her—you were three when the Second War ended, after all—you think they're probably right, if only because everybody in your clan looks kind of the same. You have the same dark hair, the same off-lilac eyes, the same thin features and pale skin as your father and uncles and cousins and everyone else you're even vaguely related to, including, probably, your mother.
You sigh again, turn out the lights, and lay yourself down to bed. Sleep comes quickly.
The next day is routine: boring but comfortable. You're up at the crack of dawn, wolfing down a quick breakfast, and then you're off to the training grounds. Technically you're not expected to be there until ten, but you like the quiet solace of the early morning hours, and it lets you fit a bit of warm-up and some less demanding routines in before your real session with Ikki and Hotarubi-sensei. As always, you'll do some warm-up laps, some chakra control exercises, and maybe some kata or target practice.
Well, today's a little bit different. Today's the day before your first real mission, after all, and you legitimately can't keep your mind off of it. You barely even know what your mission is supposed to be yet, but a million maybes and what-ifs race through your thoughts on your way down to the training field—what if you mess up? What if you really do have to kill someone? What if one of you really does get hurt and die? In the face of the unknown, anything is possible, and this has never been more worrying.
You wave hello to the same people you pass by every morning—the elderly man who stops by the corner store every morning to pick up his medicine, a Koizumi chuunin whose name you can never remember, a pretty civilian girl who works at a clothing shop down the block—but your thoughts are elsewhere and your heart isn't really in it.
When you finally get to the training grounds, though, you center yourself and clear your mind—as much as you're able—and prepare to apply yourself completely to what you're about to do. Practice is a matter of quality as much as quantity, and quality requires your complete and total attention. You take a few deep, slow, breaths, and let all your worries ebb away. For the next few hours, all that matters is the here and now. The unknown potential of the future will still be there when you're done.
It's a pleasant surprise that you actually manage to get to everything you wanted to work on before Hotarubi-sensei arrives, as always, at ten o'clock sharp. Ikki, of course, isn't here yet; you used to be surprised that Hotarubi-sensei didn't seem to care, but now you're just surprised he even bothers coming on time. You don't mind, though, since it gets you an extra little bit of one-on-one time with him; he gives you a few helpful pointers on chakra shaping today, which you're very appreciative of.
Ikki finally gets here a half-hour later, and, after the standard team warmup and conditioning routine, Hotarubi-sensei commences the festivities. Up until now you've only worked on a couple of isolated, individual exercises like chakra suppression and various techniques to muffle sound and reduce visual profile, but—
"Today," he says, "we'll be going over some practical exercises."
As it turns out, practical exercises are exactly like theoretical ones, except you have to do them all at the same time. Suppressing your chakra requires a great deal of intense focus even on its own, and it's incredible how much more difficult it becomes when you're also trying to muffle your steps with it while on the move and minding your step. You're unbelievably tired by the time you get home for the evening.
(+1 XP to stealth)
Your father is still at his office burning the midnight oil by the time you get back, but you suppose he's had a lot to worry about lately, so you don't really hold it against him. You barely manage to get your teeth brushed before you collapse into bed and let unconsciousness take you.
===
You're actually calmer than you thought you'd be on the morning of the big day. You get all your things together and then make your way to the mission office to meet Ikki and Hotarubi-sensei. Claiming the mission and the associated briefing are more or less a formality at this point: you'll be escorting a merchant by the name of Fukui Jun, a peddler of earthenwares and glasswares who makes the trip between Iwa and Suna seasonally. The chuunin manning the mission desk informs you that Jun—or Fukui-san, you suppose—wished to head out this very morning, and you quickly rush over to where he's finishing loading up.
Fukui-san is an old man with graying hair, a potbelly, and thick arms that suggested a long life spent picking up heavy things and putting them down again. His operation consists of a single covered cart and a pair of draft horses, and he's just now fastening the tarp over his wares.
You, rather surprisingly, find him making small talk with your father, who waves the three of you over as soon as he sees you.
"Are these my companions-to-be?" asks the old merchant.
"They are. May I introduce jounin Mitsui Hotarubi—"
"Pleasure to meet you." Hotarubi-sensei nods and gives Fukui-san a firm handshake.
"—genin Azuma Ikki—"
Ikki almost preens at this.
"—and genin Mitsui Kana." Your father gives you a meaningful nod.
The old merchant gives you a once-over. "Your daughter, right? She's younger than I thought she would be."
"Ah, she is very talented, Fukui-san."
Fukui-san laughs at this, a deep full-on guffaw from the belly, like it's the most hilarious thing in the world.
"Very good! I'm honored that you're sending your own flesh and blood, Hoshikage-sama!"
===
Fukui-san, as it turns out, is just as talkative as Ikki, and his stories have a certain earnestness to them that throws off any skepticism you might have had. He's lived through two world wars, broken bread with daimyos and kages, and has traveled all across the five great nations and beyond, and he regales you with tales of things he's seen: the great black spires of Ame, the endless deserts of the land of Wind, great auroras in the sky off the land of Lightning.
It's a week-long journey to Iwa at the relatively leisurely pace that you're taking, and the first few days pass by relatively uneventfully. You stop at roadside inns and the occasional town during the night, and travel from sunrise until sunset.
By the fourth day, Fukui-san has, incredibly, not run out of stories yet, and he's engrossing enough that you almost miss the signs of a rather clumsy tail—disturbed birds set to flight, the noise of brushing leaves and snapping twigs. You look over at Hotarubi-sensei, who flashes you some signs.
Me. Reserve. Engage at will.
It seems like you're being tasked with handling the situation. You think you count a half-dozen individuals, presumably hostile, most of them either untrained or at least very bad at stealth. The three of you are obviously and recognizably ninja, though, and so you assume that either some of them have disproportionate combat skills, or that they have a ninja or two of their own in reserve.
It seems Hotarubi-sensei has ascertained the threat level of these enemies and deemed them "safe" for you to face. Ikki looks like he's already wised up to the situation and is shooting you occasional furtive glances in a not-very-subtle way.
On your persons you possess standard weaponry—shurikens and kunai, primarily—as well as a small number of explosive tags.
Also thanks to @keios for looking at a draft of this.
(1.2)
The rest of the day goes by quickly. You and Ikki dutifully stop by the corner store, then the blacksmith's, then an apparel shop, to pick up the requisite parcels. You're not particularly enthused about the fact that the field rations seem to be hard and oddly square. Ikki points out that they're probably just dried to keep longer, which makes sense, but still isn't very appetizing.
It only takes an hour to get all the stuff you need and drop it off in a safe location. Ikki suggests dinner, but—
"It's four o' clock."
"Yeah! We'll be beating the crowd. Also I kind of skipped lunch."
A well-timed growl from your stomach reminds you that you also kind of skipped lunch.
"Fine. But no curry."
"Awww, what's even the point then?"
"We got curry the last, what, four times?"
You end at a new kebab restaurant you've been meaning to try, despite Ikki's complaints that it's "just meat on a stick" and that "anyone could make that themselves". The place is tiny, but lively enough, with a half-open kitchen that you can see into manned by a jovial-looking man who belts out a loud greeting as you enter. You're quickly ushered to a table by a serving-girl who seems like she can't be more than a teenager herself. You're pretty sure she's the chef's daughter or at least related: the both of them a have particular accent and sharpness to their features that suggests they came from the land of Earth.
"My father and I are from Iwa, actually," she tells you while she pours out tea. "We moved here not that long ago. I think Dad just got antsy about staying in one place for too long, but he doesn't like talking about it."
You nod sagely at this; you, too, are familiar with dads and their curious avoidance of certain topics.
Food arrives quickly, and the kebabs end up being really quite good. Even Ikki has to admit that they did a damn fine job of cooking meat on a stick.
"I don't get it," he says, briefly pausing from cramming his mouth as full of food as possible. "What do they add to this?"
You pause briefly to swallow before responding. "They're called 'spices', Ikki-kun."
"That isn't what I'm talking about and you know it."
You snort in response. "It's good though, right?" you ask through a mouthful of food, and he nods. "This is why you should try new things sometimes."
Ikki taps out full first, and watches you polish off the last skewers with a combination of amusement and disgust.
"I forgot that you eat so much, Kana-chan," he says innocently, and you shoot him a glare. You have to consciously fight the urge to clock him where he sits.
Ikki lives about a block from you and usually walks most of the way with you, but "the way" more often than not becomes a meandering detour through the streets of Hoshi and beyond. Today is no exception, and you soon find yourselves at a regular spot—a little rocky outcropping a little ways outside of the town, although well within the ring the rather convenient gorge that surrounds the area.
Ikki looks a little bit more pensive than normal as you watch the sun shrink behind the horizon.
"So, ever since we heard about this mission, I've been thinking—"
"We just heard about this mission two hours ago," you shoot back.
"Well, okay, I've been thinking about this for a while. I guess this is just… good timing to bring it up." It's a little unusual that he doesn't respond to your snark. Should you be worried?
"What's wrong?"
"No no, nothing's wrong. It's just… we've got pretty different styles, right? We fight and plan differently, and we don't really approach problems from the same direction. I know we do those teamwork exercises with sensei from time to time, but…"
"But you're worried we won't work well together on the field."
It's a good point—you're turning into a pretty adept but very direct close-in heavy-hitter, and if your last little match with him is any indication, Ikki is actually quite good at a certain style of… battlefield improvisation. The two of you would probably pick completely conflicting strategies in a real fight with less-than-textbook conditions.
"Yeah. It's not all bad, though. I think we actually line up pretty well, skills-wise. You're good at the things I'm bad at, and, well, I guess you're good at the things I'm good at too, but..." He trails off a little before continuing. "Well, you know what I mean. I think if we worked on it a little more we could have some pretty good teamwork going, right?"
"Yeah, that… doesn't sound bad, Ikki. Although a lot of people think the only way to really build up teamwork is to throw teams into real fights and let them sort it out themselves."
"A lot of people like… your father, right?" Ikki asks, a grin flitting momentarily across his face. "Those people grew up and trained during world wars. We don't. Won't."
"I sure hope we won't," you say. "But well, I guess we'll find out just how bad our teamwork is soon."
"Yeah, I guess so," Ikki sighs. "I'm actually a little worried about the mission."
"I thought you were excited to finally have a real one."
"I was—am, but… well, we might have to kill people. We might die." His eyes are worried, and his lips are a thin line.
"Ah, don't worry Ikki-kun, I'll protect you," you say. He snorts, and you continue. "We'll probably be fine. Ninja don't die on missions that often."
"I guess. And if we do die, I guess we can't say that nobody warned us about it," says Ikki.
It's pretty late by the time you get home. Your dad's not there, of course. He's never really been… accessible, but he's been traveling more and working even later these last few months. You've heard the rumors: hostilities are stirring between Konoha and Iwa, and presumably it falls to your father as Hoshikage to prepare for the worst should war break out again. It worries you a little bit, but this kind of thing has always been part of your life.
The scroll you got from him is still there on the table, untouched—it looks like nobody's been in the house since you left this morning. You'd been meaning to start reading through it today, so you roll it open, sit yourself down, and start doing just that. It opens with some deceptively simple chakra shaping exercises that you can't quite wrap your head around, and only gets more complex from there. By the time it actually gets to the first real jutsu, you find that you're too exhausted to follow it any longer. Eventually you just roll the thing back up in defeat, putting it back where you found it.
(advanced chakra control exercises: 50% progress)
The rest is routine: you brush your teeth, shower, look in the mirror, sigh. People often say that you look like your mother. While you don't remember much about her—you were three when the Second War ended, after all—you think they're probably right, if only because everybody in your clan looks kind of the same. You have the same dark hair, the same off-lilac eyes, the same thin features and pale skin as your father and uncles and cousins and everyone else you're even vaguely related to, including, probably, your mother.
You sigh again, turn out the lights, and lay yourself down to bed. Sleep comes quickly.
The next day is routine: boring but comfortable. You're up at the crack of dawn, wolfing down a quick breakfast, and then you're off to the training grounds. Technically you're not expected to be there until ten, but you like the quiet solace of the early morning hours, and it lets you fit a bit of warm-up and some less demanding routines in before your real session with Ikki and Hotarubi-sensei. As always, you'll do some warm-up laps, some chakra control exercises, and maybe some kata or target practice.
Well, today's a little bit different. Today's the day before your first real mission, after all, and you legitimately can't keep your mind off of it. You barely even know what your mission is supposed to be yet, but a million maybes and what-ifs race through your thoughts on your way down to the training field—what if you mess up? What if you really do have to kill someone? What if one of you really does get hurt and die? In the face of the unknown, anything is possible, and this has never been more worrying.
You wave hello to the same people you pass by every morning—the elderly man who stops by the corner store every morning to pick up his medicine, a Koizumi chuunin whose name you can never remember, a pretty civilian girl who works at a clothing shop down the block—but your thoughts are elsewhere and your heart isn't really in it.
When you finally get to the training grounds, though, you center yourself and clear your mind—as much as you're able—and prepare to apply yourself completely to what you're about to do. Practice is a matter of quality as much as quantity, and quality requires your complete and total attention. You take a few deep, slow, breaths, and let all your worries ebb away. For the next few hours, all that matters is the here and now. The unknown potential of the future will still be there when you're done.
It's a pleasant surprise that you actually manage to get to everything you wanted to work on before Hotarubi-sensei arrives, as always, at ten o'clock sharp. Ikki, of course, isn't here yet; you used to be surprised that Hotarubi-sensei didn't seem to care, but now you're just surprised he even bothers coming on time. You don't mind, though, since it gets you an extra little bit of one-on-one time with him; he gives you a few helpful pointers on chakra shaping today, which you're very appreciative of.
Ikki finally gets here a half-hour later, and, after the standard team warmup and conditioning routine, Hotarubi-sensei commences the festivities. Up until now you've only worked on a couple of isolated, individual exercises like chakra suppression and various techniques to muffle sound and reduce visual profile, but—
"Today," he says, "we'll be going over some practical exercises."
As it turns out, practical exercises are exactly like theoretical ones, except you have to do them all at the same time. Suppressing your chakra requires a great deal of intense focus even on its own, and it's incredible how much more difficult it becomes when you're also trying to muffle your steps with it while on the move and minding your step. You're unbelievably tired by the time you get home for the evening.
(+1 XP to stealth)
Your father is still at his office burning the midnight oil by the time you get back, but you suppose he's had a lot to worry about lately, so you don't really hold it against him. You barely manage to get your teeth brushed before you collapse into bed and let unconsciousness take you.
===
You're actually calmer than you thought you'd be on the morning of the big day. You get all your things together and then make your way to the mission office to meet Ikki and Hotarubi-sensei. Claiming the mission and the associated briefing are more or less a formality at this point: you'll be escorting a merchant by the name of Fukui Jun, a peddler of earthenwares and glasswares who makes the trip between Iwa and Suna seasonally. The chuunin manning the mission desk informs you that Jun—or Fukui-san, you suppose—wished to head out this very morning, and you quickly rush over to where he's finishing loading up.
Fukui-san is an old man with graying hair, a potbelly, and thick arms that suggested a long life spent picking up heavy things and putting them down again. His operation consists of a single covered cart and a pair of draft horses, and he's just now fastening the tarp over his wares.
You, rather surprisingly, find him making small talk with your father, who waves the three of you over as soon as he sees you.
"Are these my companions-to-be?" asks the old merchant.
"They are. May I introduce jounin Mitsui Hotarubi—"
"Pleasure to meet you." Hotarubi-sensei nods and gives Fukui-san a firm handshake.
"—genin Azuma Ikki—"
Ikki almost preens at this.
"—and genin Mitsui Kana." Your father gives you a meaningful nod.
The old merchant gives you a once-over. "Your daughter, right? She's younger than I thought she would be."
"Ah, she is very talented, Fukui-san."
Fukui-san laughs at this, a deep full-on guffaw from the belly, like it's the most hilarious thing in the world.
"Very good! I'm honored that you're sending your own flesh and blood, Hoshikage-sama!"
===
Fukui-san, as it turns out, is just as talkative as Ikki, and his stories have a certain earnestness to them that throws off any skepticism you might have had. He's lived through two world wars, broken bread with daimyos and kages, and has traveled all across the five great nations and beyond, and he regales you with tales of things he's seen: the great black spires of Ame, the endless deserts of the land of Wind, great auroras in the sky off the land of Lightning.
It's a week-long journey to Iwa at the relatively leisurely pace that you're taking, and the first few days pass by relatively uneventfully. You stop at roadside inns and the occasional town during the night, and travel from sunrise until sunset.
By the fourth day, Fukui-san has, incredibly, not run out of stories yet, and he's engrossing enough that you almost miss the signs of a rather clumsy tail—disturbed birds set to flight, the noise of brushing leaves and snapping twigs. You look over at Hotarubi-sensei, who flashes you some signs.
Me. Reserve. Engage at will.
It seems like you're being tasked with handling the situation. You think you count a half-dozen individuals, presumably hostile, most of them either untrained or at least very bad at stealth. The three of you are obviously and recognizably ninja, though, and so you assume that either some of them have disproportionate combat skills, or that they have a ninja or two of their own in reserve.
It seems Hotarubi-sensei has ascertained the threat level of these enemies and deemed them "safe" for you to face. Ikki looks like he's already wised up to the situation and is shooting you occasional furtive glances in a not-very-subtle way.
On your persons you possess standard weaponry—shurikens and kunai, primarily—as well as a small number of explosive tags.
Article: Your plan? (feel free to write in details as sub-votes)
[] engage immediately. If you counter-attack now, you might be able to catch them off-balance before they're fully prepared for a fight.
[] ambush them. They're following at a fair distance, and you think you can probably set something up without them being any the wiser, although it depends a little on your ability to do so stealthily.
[] wait and scout for information. You should see what their plan and abilities are before committing to anything.
[] other (write-in)
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eh, I dislike giving up the initiative by waiting, so I'm leaning towards ambush. Not super sold on it though.
- Location
- nz
[X] ambush them. They're following at a fair distance, and you think you can probably set something up without them being any the wiser, although it depends a little on your ability to do so stealthily.
- Location
- scrabbling
[X] ambush them. They're following at a fair distance, and you think you can probably set something up without them being any the wiser, although it depends a little on your ability to do so stealthily.
Ikki is probably better at this than a straight engagement.
Ikki is probably better at this than a straight engagement.
- Location
- USA
[X] ambush them. They're following at a fair distance, and you think you can probably set something up without them being any the wiser, although it depends a little on your ability to do so stealthily.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
[X] engage immediately. If you counter-attack now, you might be able to catch them off-balance before they're fully prepared for a fight.
Oh I am slain!
Wynaut?
- Location
- Tatooine
[x] ambush them. They're following at a fair distance, and you think you can probably set something up without them being any the wiser, although it depends a little on your ability to do so stealthily.
Hmm. I guess the plus for this is that the sensei is guaranteed to stay behind and protect the client.
I wonder what makes their sensei think that the two genin can handle this on their own. After all, this group is willing to attack a ninja team.
Should we suggest specific stunts? e.g. Ikki prepares the battlefield and lets Kana know the important details beforehand. Kana heads over to scout, begins ambushing at a pre-arranged time, then draws them into the prepared battlefield.
Hmm. I guess the plus for this is that the sensei is guaranteed to stay behind and protect the client.
I wonder what makes their sensei think that the two genin can handle this on their own. After all, this group is willing to attack a ninja team.
Should we suggest specific stunts? e.g. Ikki prepares the battlefield and lets Kana know the important details beforehand. Kana heads over to scout, begins ambushing at a pre-arranged time, then draws them into the prepared battlefield.
- Location
- yes
Feel free to! I'm totally fine working with something relatively high-level (i.e. just the option as written), but more detailed plans are great.
(edited the vote prompt to reflect this)
- Location
- yes
Woops, I totally forgot to post, but: voting is closed, looks like we're going ambush. Update soon-ish.
1.3 - Iwa Escort Mission (cont'd)
- Location
- yes
(1.3)
It's not very long before the entire group comes tromping through the underbrush with the complete lack of grace usually reserved for beached sea creatures.True to your estimation, there are half a dozen of them, and you're interested and a little apprehensive to note that they wear an unfamiliar-looking forehead protector—Kumo? Definitely not a nearby village—with the distinctive scratch mark that announces their status as missing-nin. That those who abandon their villages still readily display that village's symbol has always seemed a strange tradition to you—to desert one's village, after all is to be a hunted fugitive, and advertising such a thing seems a terrible idea at best.
With the competence they've displayed so far in their tailing, though, you can't imagine they are anything more than fresh genin. It's… a little bit worse than you were hoping for, but a whole lot better than what you're prepared to handle, and you watch their passing with an unexpected calm, counting down the paces until the last of them enters your little ambush zone.
In the distance, a bird of prey shrills out its hunting call.
Your targets trudge through the forest single file at a matching pace, snapping twigs underfoot. Impressive as their lack of skill at woodcraft is, though, this is unsurprising if they really are from Kumo. A single ninja has taken to the trees as a scout. You follow his movement out of the corner of your eye as he flits from branch to branch, but he is so focused on his quarry that he never gives your hiding spot so much as a passing glance. A stroke of luck for you. You'll to take him out first—his vantage point makes him dangerous should you get bogged down in a melee.
The air is heavy with anticipation, clear and cloying, so thick you can feel it like a cool mist against your skin. It tingles.
It's a textbook plan: a trap to disorient. A crushing assault with extreme prejudice. No plan truly survives contact with the enemy, but this one will come close enough.
Around you, the trees rustle in the stiff afternoon breeze.
The first ninja crosses the line; the second follows.
They're older than you, but not by much—none of them are more than teenagers. Their lives were probably not so different from yours, not too long ago. What brought them here? What made them choose this life? Alas, these are idle thoughts, and you banish them from your mind.
You're ready, more ready than you've ever been: tense, coiled, ready to pounce, but timing is everything—
The third ninja crosses the line, then the fourth. The fifth and last pauses; glancing around nervously—as if he were suddenly aware of some danger. For a moment your heart catches in your throat—will he see you? But then his companion calls out to him and he turns back once more—
You breathe in, breathe out, and your awareness washes out over the forest around you. You can sense every little thing—every stray branch, every swirling leaf, every blade of grass, every loose pebble. For a moment, all the world is frozen in crystal perfection: perfect clarity, perfect silence, the calm before the storm—
The last ninja crosses the line.
You can feel the subtle twist of chakra in the air as Ikki's genjutsu activates, and suddenly all half dozen of the ninja before you are goggling about in a blank stupor.
The genjutsu is a weak one, easily dispelled, but you know from your long training that the difference between life and death, between victory and defeat, can sometimes come down to mere fractions of a second. There are six of them, two of you; you need as much of an advantage as you can muster.
You flare out your chakra into the basic cloak, and launch yourself at the enemy ninja in the branches. Your first strike connects with his stomach, sending him flying a short distance with a visible burst of chakra. He lands a short distance away in a heap of limbs and doesn't get back up.
The rest of the group has yet to notice, trapped in an illusion as they are. You drop down behind them just as a barrage of wind blasts from Ikki knocks one to the ground. Time is of the essence, and efficiency is paramount: a kick to the head, a punch to the gut, each laced with more blasts of chakra, and two more collapse to the floor. Only two left.
You catch a flicker of movement behind you and duck just barely in time to avoid a thrown kunai from one of the remaining ninja—looks like he's broken the illusion. He's wild-eyed, his expression caught between surprise and anger, and he makes a frenzied lunge at you with surprising speed. Despite his terrible stealth skills, he's fast and his kunai work isn't bad at all. You barely manage to avoid the first strike, but the second you answer with your own blade in a ringing clash of sparks.
"You're actually ninja? What the hell!" he grunts out as he turns aside your counterattack.
"We're wearing forehead protectors, idiot," you reply, laying in with another quick swipe of your weapon. "They literally have our village symbol on them!"
"Your village symbol is stupid!" he shouts back, and then he's on the offensive again, forcing you back with another flurry of attacks.
His style is unfamiliar, hard and linear, filled with sharp cuts, piercing thrusts, and quick efficient parries. You slip around his attacks when you can, looking for an opening in his defense, but he has almost a head of height on you and presses that reach advantage mercilessly. You're on the back foot before too long, even as you note the last ninja—still caught in the genjutsu—go down to another carefully placed wind bullet.
You're surprised, then, to hear Ikki announce yet another jutsu:
"Fuuton: Great Breakthrough!"
But you know this one. In fact, you stared this one down just the other day. You know how this works, you just have to make sure it counts.
You parry the next strike particularly hard, almost knocking your opponent's weapon to the ground, and take advantage of the resulting opening. It's not enough to get him, but it's enough for you to disengage, jump back out of knife range, and—
"Doton: Trembling Earth!"
The torrent of your chakra floods the earth around you, and the dirt comes alive like an ocean in storm. To your dismay, the missing-nin manages to keep his footing, just barely. But that was never the point. His eyes widen a bit in surprise as he's blindsided by a wall of compressed air that knocks him off his feet with a whumpf, and he goes down as a pair of kunai embed themselves in his chest and thigh.
And just like that, it's over.
===
A few minutes later you're a little relieved to learn that none of the half-dozen ninja you ambushed are dead, although a few of them are in pretty bad shape and probably won't be fighting again anytime soon and almost all of them are currently unconscious. Just to be sure, though, you secure them with some lengths of rope.
"They let us past them," muses Hotarubi-sensei, "and followed—closely—for quite a while. Why do you think they did that, Kana-chan?"
You feel a little blush of embarrassment at this—you were the last person to notice them, not until they'd been on your tail for probably minutes. Whatever happened after, this was a failure on your part, and not a small one, either—it's one that might have cost you your lives against a more prepared enemy.
Nonetheless, you search for an answer. You were traveling on a well-known road with few branches, so tailing you was pointless in and of itself—this path only, realistically, went to one place. If they were simply going to ambush you, they would have done so at the moment you passed them, rather than choosing to wait and follow. No, wait. Think outside the box, Kana—
"A two-pronged ambush," you finally reply. "They wanted to surround us, trap us."
"Which means?"
"There's more ahead," you say. Something isn't quite right, though. A surround is a strange tactic to deploy against a merchant wagon—generally it's used to head off the escape of a lesser opponent of equal or greater speed. Fukui-san's horses and wagons can hardly match the pace of a ninja, though, and those would be the targets of any robber, not the hired help that protected it. Unless—
"That guy said he didn't think we were ninja, didn't he?" interjects Ikki, who's just finished another circuit of the area.
"...that means they probably didn't think we'd be able to put up a fight—" you begin.
"—so they probably thought they could just scare us with their numbers and headbands—"
"—so surrounding us was just part of their scare tactic," you finish. "Would have been. Whatever."
Hotarubi-sensei nods in approval. "So, what do you think we should do?" he asks, a little twinkle in his eye.
As you see it, there are two things you need to deal with. The first is the half-dozen missing-nin in varying states of unconsciousness that you have tied up here. On one hand, you could just leave them here; as ninja, they should be able to free themselves eventually without too much trouble. There's always the chance that they'll try to set up their ambush all the same, but considering their method is more robbery through intimidation than force and you've just soundly beaten them, it seems unlikely that they'll try. On the other hand, missing-nin, even genin, tend to have bounties on their heads, and it may be worth trying to ransom these ones at an upcoming bounty station. If you're truly paranoid, though, you could incapacitate or even kill them, which would certainly lay the matter to rest in a… final… way.
The other issue is the ambush that you know is coming. The options here are a bit simpler—you can fight your way through, or you can talk your way through. You think that the personnel assigned to the ambush would probably be better combatants than the ones assigned to flank, as they'd be the ones in the open and most liable to actual fighting. On the other hand, the flankers were clearly not the cream of the crop, so you think it could really go either way. Alternatively, you could attempt to bluff or cajole your way through. This could go a lot more smoothly if you had some bargaining chips of your own—perhaps captives to ransom?
Article: Note: not all combinations of these votes are applicable, so in the case that two incompatible votes win, we'll take the most popular compatible combination of votes instead.
How to handle the ninja? (write-in details if applicable)
[] leave them.
[] take them for bounties.
[] take them to bargain with the ambushers.
[] kill them.
[] other (write-in)
The waiting ambush? (write-in details if applicable)
[] fight your way through, via
-[] frontal assault.
-[] something sneaky.
[] talk your way through, via
-[] ransoming your captives.
-[] intimidation.
[] other (write-in)
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