sunshineverse | [closed; July 15th-August 16th]

Edited 2014-07-15 18:56 (UTC)

He'd expected it as soon as they'd arrived to a veritable flock of civilians and a Sand politician with an expression approaching contrite, but getting attacked on the second day of the mission was a little much. Not that Sasuke had much time to worry about whether this was going to set the tone for the mission -- not when he was setting a ring of fire around their quivering clients and hoping that Sakura was going to prove her mettle against more than sea creatures in the meantime.

"Stay put," he growled at the huddle. "We'll move you as soon as we're clear."

Edited 2014-07-21 20:21 (UTC)

She would have preferred to have had time to lay out a plan of dealing with attacks and other hostile encounters before they actually...encountered violence. They'd been on one mission together, but that wasn't enough to mean they'd work like a unit on their second, particularly when there were far more than three genin on a boat to protect. Things could go badly if they didn't adapt well to each other.

She didn't chip in on anything he said to the group of civilians, instead she quietly summoned Earth chakra, pressed a hand to the ground...and surrounded the frightened clients in a dome of earth. Within the circle of fire, of course, not around it. It was safer, in her opinion, to put a physical barrier between them and danger than rely on a barrier that would hurt anyone who panicked, and didn't obscure completely the positions of the civilians.

A ring of fire around a dome of Earth, though, seemed like a good defense. And would allow them to discuss anything necessary without having anyone cut in and demand explanations there weren't time for.

"They'll stay put." Whereas she didn't trust some of them to do that just by asking nicely, honestly.

Fire and earth would get the job done as far as making it hard enough to reach their wards without alerting them, and they should be done with the size of this group of attackers long before the heat got around to seriously baking any of the diplomats. The marks on the forehead protectors around them was unfamiliar, but obvious enough that he could tell they were likely the Sky-nin that the mission briefing claimed were largely dissipated since the hidden village had been destroyed.

Clearly not as dissipated as Konoha's intelligence believed, Sasuke grumbled internally, and ducked under an enemy blade to shove both hands forward with a burst of lightning chakra. The man crumpled, twitching, and he took advantage of the now-unconscious body to fling it toward the group to their west.

A quick scan with the Sharingan made it clear that there was clearly some kind of attempt at a pincer attack going on, which meant that he and Sakura would be fighting mostly back-to-back around the civilians. Not the most convenient position to be in, had they been accustomed to fighting together, but as it were this might have been the best formation -- it was unlikely their jutsu would interfere with one another if they were facing opposite directions.

"I have the three at my twelve," he called over his shoulder, discounting the senseless shinobi that had been shoved to the side by his comrades. "How many in your range?"

If they were fighting a band of rag-tag Sky nin long enough for an earth and fire shield to be a threat to their wards, they probably shouldn't have taken the mission in the first place. That was her belief, anyway. Above all else, ninja should be efficient when dispatching enemies and protecting allies.

Sky-nin... She was vaguely aware of Konoha's history with the Land of Sky, and the implausibility of these being actual Sky-nin attacking (the history books had implied there were none left), but she couldn't think of who else would pretend to be Sky nin or why. Particularly not to attack the people they were escorting. Unless there were people in the group that misrepresented their identity? An issue to worry about later.

Fighting back to back was, at least, one of the easiest arrangements when fighting alongside someone she hadn't practiced or planned anything with before. She shifted stance slightly to match his position, and frowned out at the nin approaching from her side. Three were relatively close, but she could see two further out in the trees, hanging back for some reason. If they thought they were out of her range...they were wrong.

"Five." None were in optimum genjutsu position, though, so for the moment...Earth jutsu was the best choice. She drew her sword in a flash, and with the same motion sent a shock of earth toward the nearest (cocky looking) shinobi approaching her. The rippling earth shifted into a grasping hand just as they made to leap out of the way, and the unfortunate shinobi vanished under the crashing tide of earth with an unpleasant shout.

"Four. How many are there out of sight?" She realized the sharingan wasn't strictly a sensory dojutsu, but from what she understood he could probably see further in his direction than she could with it. If she assumed they sent about the same on both sides, doubling what he saw would get a rough estimate. Allowing for the possibility that one or two might try from a different direction, anyway.

Five that Sakura could see could only mean more coming his way, and after a moment the Sharingan resolved more blurs of chakra -- too far to make out with regular vision, but definitely leaping through the tree canopy to attempt an attack from above.

"Two more from the trees on my side," he answered without taking his eyes off the three on the ground. The stance of the Sky-nin didn't look unpracticed, which meant these weren't just some half-baked remnants of a shinobi village's former glory; these were trained nin. That made them more of a pain to deal with, but it also meant that there would be a certain predictability to how they moved.

Such as when they all leapt apart to avoid the exploding tag he sent flying at their feet, which meant two were perfectly in line for two sprays of senbon he sent to either side, lacing them with lightning chakra to paralyze on contact. The ones trying to attack from above were closing in, which left him with the middle shinobi, whose chakra was wavering between retreating to regroup with her approaching comrades or moving forward to strike him.

It left him with enough time to scan the woods around them a second time, just to double check: no other smears of chakra, even in the distance. Chances were good that this was meant to be a small ambush, comprised of teams or individuals hoping for a quick win and clean escape without having to worry about too many casualties.

His must have been more careful if he'd needed dojutsu to make them out when hers were close enough to be visible by the naked eye. If she knew of that, she'd wonder if they were purposefully taking measures to compensate for his Sharingan. That would be somewhat worrying.

Still...about ten. It didn't sound large enough to be part of a larger group, so stragglers on other sides weren't likely. If they didn't show up, then it was their own fault for underestimating them anyway. Still, ten shinobi? Who, exactly, was paying a group of remnant nin for so many of their forces just to deal with one diplomatic party? It was only the Land of Sand...

Now wasn't the time to examine the motivations of their attackers or who might have sent them, though, not when they were heavily outnumbered and surrendered. Even if these didn't seem like much of a challenge. She wove quick signs around her blade while the other two shinobi charged her. Earth raced along the blade of the sword as she pointed it out at them, and then split into two prongs with explosive force once it passed the tip of the blade.

One of the two dodged it. The other one did not. The sharpened tip of the earth blade stabbed into his gut as he attempted to leap out of the way, and then exploded in a rather spectacular fashion. Which was interesting, because she'd never tried it that way before. It was a bit too messy for practical use though.

Earth crumbled from the blade as she quickly brought it up to knock away the survivor's kunai. He was too close for another effective Earth jutsu, so she had two choices: wait until he was in range and defeat him with the blade, or use genjutsu.

He made it almost into range of his short blade before he screamed and collapsed on the ground. Which was to be expected with the Infinite Drop illusion. The people caught by it generally lost their sense of balance as a consequence of believing the ground had just opened up under them.

She glanced over her shoulder at Sasuke then, having a short reprieve between the first and second waves. "They don't seem particularly skilled."

Indeed, the remaining three on Sasuke's side were proving to be more cautious, the lone kunoichi opting to leap up into the canopy to wait to regroup with her companions. Too far for Sasuke to use anything but long-range fire jutsu, and he didn't want their opponents roasted: shinobi that were burned to death were generally extremely untalkative.

He took the moment to glance behind him instead, working out the source of all the noise. Earth jutsu was clearly effective against multiple attackers, but it was definitely not subtle when used this way -- and was that blood and guts actually raining down over the ground? It seemed like overkill, but he hadn't seen Sakura's fight in its entirety; maybe she'd assessed them as a kill-worthy threat.

In the end, he just nodded a short acknowledgement and turned back to his remaining three. They'd convened in the branches of one tree by now and appeared to be consulting very seriously. He hoped they were regretting the decision to attack, but he didn't plan on giving them much time to: Sharingan spinning, he blurred into forward motion. Projectiles flew down from the group, but this was the whole point of training with Kakashi -- he slipped through them, swung an arm back, and slammed his fist into the tree trunk.

Nothing happened for a second, and then the trunk cracked apart at the point of impact, the chakra he'd gathered in his fist releasing with precision. Raw wood appeared, and then lightning chakra speared up through its body, the solid structure of the wood holding the water that was its conduit making it much easier to target the three startled ninja lingering in its branches, paralyzing them even as the tree topppled onto its side.

And it would have been a moment to be pleased with the combination of his two teachers' techniques, except as soon as Sasuke stepped away from the falling tree, first a rain of twigs and then an entire, enormous nest collapsed down and directly into his startled arms.

'Kill-worthy' was...a loose term. They had threatened the lives of their escorts and themselves, and from everything Sakura had observed and calculated up until the point she attacked them there was no indication that killing them would cause a diplomatic backlash. They were, therefore, acceptable targets for her jutsu. Most of her jutsu wasn't exactly the sort of thing to 'stun' the enemy.

But that was good, because if they killed the ones who came at them, no one would be able to report anything back, and other enemies would give more thought to their actions before they sent further waves. Although that could have a bad effect...an enemy who was no threat wouldn't always possess any method to become a threat even with prior planning. And on an escort mission, sometimes it was buying time that made their enemies hesitate instead of throwing all of their resources at them that meant the success of a mission.

After Sasuke moved, she waited only a moment to ensure nothing was sneaking toward their shielded wards and that the earth and fire shield remained intact. After that she dashed forward herself, at the treeline where the other ninja were hanging back at the treeline trying to decide what to do.

A quick series of signs sent a mud net shooting from one hand to a fleeing nin. The man crashed to the ground heavily and struggled in vain as the mud hardened to rock and melded into the earth beneath him, and then she landed on the branch with the remaining ninja, blade catching the other's sword as her feet touched bark.

Considering her position, and still being engaged with the final ninja, she didn't even notice that Sasuke's trick landed him with a handful of nest instead of nin. Not just yet, anyway.

It was definitely a nest, because Sasuke's arms and face were definitely scratched up from twigs and he was definitely smelling the warm, faintly poop-tinged scent that he associated with chicken coops, but what was in the nest -- he wasn't sure they were even chicks, because they were huge. Each had to be at least half again the size of a normal bird. He was aware that Sakura was finishing off the last of the attackers, chakra signals shifting from threat to struggle, but --

It looked like one of the (huge!) chicks had been injured in the fall, the other two behaving not at all like the raptors he was assuming they were (even though they were way too big) and hovering protectively over it.

Distantly, there were three thumps as the shinobi that had also been in the tree finally finished crashing through the branches and landed on the ground, still paralyzed. They would recover muscle movement eventually, though, and it was ultimately this thought that stirred Sasuke into speaking, though there was a strong undercurrent of what the fuck is happening in his tone:

"I have a -- nest," he said, because there was no other way to describe it. "Can you bind those three?"

He moved to set the whole thing on the ground as he spoke, carefully keeping his eyes out of pecking range just in case protective chicks number one and two decided to move toward becoming aggressive.

Considering her partner's distraction, it was fortunate she didn't actually need any help with the final ninja. They weren't really that impressive, these ninja. Maybe that's why they felt the need to attack them in a group? Whatever the reason, she quickly disarmed the last one, and backed the nin off of the branch.

Although it wasn't directly her intent, she wouldn't say it wasn't useful to her that he managed to fall in such a way that he managed to injure his leg (broken, she thought, but from where she was she couldn't really say). Either way, he collapsed immediately, and a moment afterward earth curled tightly around him, imprisoning him. They weren't likely to need two prisoners to question, but they could deal with them later.

She'd already jumped down from the tree herself and started to approach her distracted teammate by the time he finally spoke. Which was also good, because she probably wouldn't have heard him where she was before, and it would be a problem if those three recovered while his hands were full.

She clasped her hands together as she walked, throwing him a curious look, and mud-nets sprang up around the unmoving nin, quickly hardening into rock. "...A nest?"

"A -- yeah," he responded, because really there was nothing else to say. A giant nest had clearly fallen on him and a baby animal was injured through his fault, however unintentional ... there was bad karma down the line from this, he could only assume. The other two chicks were making aggressive noises that suggested that it was unlikely he'd be able to get past them without hurting them even more, so he turned his attention to Sakura for the moment.

It looked like all the enemy-nin were secured, at least. A glance over at the dome of earth around their charges reminded him to check his own chakra: the fire inside was still burning, which meant:

"We should let the diplomats out," he said, gesturing at the remaining earth jutsu around them. "How many of the enemy left alive?"

Technically, they only needed one alive for information, but given their level ... it was embarrassing to have to kill them.

If their survival caused problems later in the mission, Sasuke only had himself to blame. It wasn't particularly efficient, leaving behind ninja of unknown origin, motivation, and supplies just because they could. Even if they got information out of them, she still didn't think it was the smartest thing. But he was the leader, and so she would defer to his choice on the matter.

Speaking of following his leadership, she glanced quickly across the battlefield. "...Eight." Three from her were left, and...all...of his. An odd choice. As all of them seemed to be incapacitated by genjutsu, paralytic senbon, or earth, there was no danger in turning then to lower the earth barrier.

The civilians inside looked a bit red from overheating and a bit jumpy, but otherwise seemed no worse for wear. Other than the worried looks they gave ring of fire still around them, anyway. "What do we do with them?"

The enemy, not the clients.

Eight, and all unable to move at the moment. Sasuke took his attention off the nest of birds long enough to judge the looks the diplomats were throwing at their attackers -- and decide that they could stay in the ring of fire for now, because the last thing he wanted was disruptions from civilians when they were trying to conduct an interrogation. With this many survivors of the attack, they could hopefully construct at least some semblance of a full story.

Or at least that was his thought, up until the enemy-nin closest to them suddenly started to froth at the mouth and twitch violently despite paralysis.

"Poison -- they've got poison capsules in their mouths!" He shouted the words at Sakura, already heading toward the next prone body. With a last, hurried: "I'll heal your brother if you stay put" at the huddled chicks (as if they'd understand), he took off for the remaining nin, prying open the first man's mouth to hunt for another suicide pill.

Damn it, they needed at least one for the information, not to mention what a damn waste these stupid pills were: and he didn't like what the willingness to actually bite down on one implied about the dedication behind this attack. He'd been hoping it was a case of mercenaries-for-hire with little to gain from putting up any additional fight, but the excuse that he'd left the fire for continued protection of the diplomats was starting to look legitimate.

Civilians involved in any form with interrogation was a very unpleasant and unwise choice, as a general rule. It was best not to let the civilians get too far from where they were now until they were ready to move on anyway. Still, letting the dome down was a necessity: eventually the fire and the enclosed area would start to do more harm to their charges than the immobilized shinobi could.

When she heard his shout (and saw the results of the nin closest to them) she immediately cast her glance over at the two she'd subdued on the other side of the clearing: in all likelihood, if they weren't already dead, they'd be gone before she could stop them. Two of the men she'd just subdued here had already poisoned themselves, and the third Sasuke already attended to. Ultimately she chose to sprint across to the last remaining ninja that Sasuke had paralyzed, summoning a small tendril of earth (wedged at the end) to force the nin's mouth open even before she reached there.

Admittedly, saving them wasn't crucial, as she and Sasuke had one nin under genjutsu each. As long as they maintained control of the men, their dream selves could bite down all they wanted, their body would do nothing. (Unless they managed to discover it was a genjutsu and then managed to break themselves out of it, of course--but hers at least should be too consumed with terror to form any such thoughts). That said...if this was a tactic they'd use...they couldn't just rely on the two they had, if it was avoidable.

If, in fact, it wasn't too late for the one she approached or Sasuke's, anyway. She wouldn't know for sure until she got there. She dropped to her knees as she reached the man, and quickly scanned him for any sign of poison. --She assumed that it would show by now if he'd gotten it in before she'd stopped him, anyway.

Rather than risk him finding some other way though (how, she didn't know, since she assumed the senbon would keep him paralyzed a while longer), she quickly wove another genjutsu, putting the man to sleep before he could choke himself on something. She frowned down at him (he...seemed to be fine...) and then turned her attention back to where Sasuke was. "Is he alive?"

His captive, not hers, obviously.

"No," was the short response from Sasuke, fighting down the urge to kick the final twitches out of the body in front of him. He'd stopped the lungs in a last-ditch effort to keep the contents of the crushed ampoule from travelling into the body, a seal still burning red on the man's throat, but it hadn't taken effect quickly enough to catch the inhalation that had killed him.

The rapidity of the poison could only mean one thing. He stalked over to the closest genjutsu victim, prying open the ninja's mouth and retrieving the capsule tucked against the side of the cheek.

"Potassium cyanide," he muttered. The counter-drug wasn't issued even to licensed medic-nin on a standard escort mission like this. "It's not cheap stuff to get in quantity."

"Get the capsule out of the one you've got," he added, a frowning afterthought as he headed for the remaining enemy-nin still slumbering under genjutsu. "If it's been damaged in any way, inhalation will still kill him."

If sufficient damage caused it, then the one who fell from the tree was already dead. But then, she'd already assumed that by the time that had passed. For now, it seemed they had three. She could still sense the chakra network of the first she'd genjutsu, so the impact of them collapsing had clearly not broken the capsule.

Withdrawing the earth from the one before her, she carefully fished out the capsule (once she found it) and pocketed it, calmly making her way back to her own and doing the same again. If it wasn't cheap, whoever sent them had to be well supplied. Just what did they want with the civilians under their guard? The mission details hadn't indicated any force thus dedicated after the civilians...

She straightened and frowned over at Sasuke. "It looks like we have three survivors. Do you possess any interrogation jutsu?"

"Not formally," Sasuke answered, disgust still in his voice as he looked over the corpses. "There are the usual Sharingan techniques, and a few other things we could try, but if they're willing to kill themselves to protect their mission ..."

Simply hitting them with a killing-intent genjutsu was unlikely to convince them to talk, and for all that he knew the usual pain points of anatomy, standard-issue torture would take too long. Though there was ... he glanced back at Sakura with a frown and nothing else in his expression because he was a professional, damn it, and whatever had happened in the course of training he'd agreed to was nothing that could affect his professionalism. Definitely.

"What about you?"

Why was he looking to her? She was even less trained in genjutsu than he was. If either of them would have been taught that kind of jutsu it would be him, not her.

Still, if he didn't know of anything...they were a long distance from other shinobi who would know. There was little choice but to make do with what skills they did have. She crossed her arms and frowned down at the one closest to her. "Then we'll have to improvise. Even people who are willing to die have weaknesses. Sharingan can take advantage of those weaknesses...right?"

Perhaps he should have been more surprised that she knew that the Sharingan could take advantage of specific weaknesses, but given her genjutsu techniques ... Sasuke eyed her askance for a long moment, a frown creasing his brow. There was enough about the Uchiha that was public knowledge that it wasn't weird for someone to make the assumption, he supposed.

"Sharingan or not, this sort of thing is about psychology," he said after a pause, toeing one of the unconscious shinobi over onto his back. It was an old line for Uchiha who developed the Sharingan, that the eyes weren't to be treated as a cure-all and needed to be backed up with skill. The problem was that Sasuke had all of Academy-level interrogation classes to work with.

Crouching, he rifled through the man's pockets, looking for any identifying personal information -- dog tags, located quickly in a scroll pocket. No further self-destruction options turned up, which was at least a sign that they weren't desperate enough to have alternative methods, but the jackpot appeared when after a moment he found a locket carefully sewn into the back of a weapons pouch.

"They expected to die on this mission," he muttered, half to himself, all irritated; personal effects only partially concealed like this were hardly a good sign. Holding the trinket to the light, he gestured to the other ninja. "Look for this sort of thing."

Was...that...not common knowledge? While she tried endlessly to conceal any knowledge that would condemn Shisui, it was sometimes difficult to discern which of her knowledge was safe information to have and which wasn't. She had known...abnormally less about the Uchiha and their sharingan before Shisui had started teaching her. Some of the things that she learned early on became indistinguishable from what she'd known before. Besides that she could only feign so much ignorance before she became responsible for whatever went wrong without access to that knowledge.

While Sasuke searched the nin, she studied another, thoughtful. She had none of the jutsu that the Yamanaka possessed to forcibly extract information from people, or to dig around in their brain or memories for it. But...maybe it was possible to get it another way. If she could fool them into believing they were in a situation where it was safe to give their information...no, that seemed unlikely, given what they needed, and how most nin were trained. If she managed such a thing it would only be with showing a level of skill with genjutsu and certain techniques learned from Shisui that she couldn't risk revealing to the Uchiha heir for anything less than saving his life.

But...there was that genjutsu she'd been developing that she wanted to practice. Tormenting them enough to break their spirit or minds would undoubtedly allow them to get the information they wanted. Unless they broke too far...

She blinked when Sasuke spoke, and knelt down to begin searching the other ninja. "Personal effects? Those will be useful to you?"

The question very nearly made him stare at her openly -- had she forgotten that he'd seen the kind of genjutsu techniques she was working on? Granted, they seemed to rely far more on the mind conjuring its own images as much as the intent of the jutsu-user, but they still needed some basis in order for a resisting mind not to reject it as immediately unreal.

"What they choose to carry will help determine what they consider important," he said, turning the locket over in his hands until he found the catch. It sprung open to reveal a photo of a young woman, carefully cut to fit into the small frame.

"We'll have a better chance given proper leverage," he added after a pause, moving on to the next body. Simply throwing fear at people who were, by all evidence, willing to go on a suicide mission would likely lead to unwanted results, if any at all. He'd seen at least that much when he'd done rounds with certain types of ninja.

Well, there were more pleasant methods of extracting information, but her specialties weren't really meant for that. She had no idea what would happen if she tried the same thing she used with Sasuke but with the parts of their mind that evoked good feelings. It would be worthless for information gathering, most likely.

How much personal effects on their own would help with genjutsu based interrogation was questionable...but he was the expert in such things, so she busied herself with searching for something of use.

...If only they knew whether one of the survivors might be fooled into helping them with the apparition of someone who appeared to be a superior.

She hesitated a moment in her search, and frowned down at the man below her. "I wonder how much information they know about each other." It would surely be easier to convince one of them they were among allies and the others were their captives than to convince that person to spill their own secrets.

Sasuke stopped to consider the thought, midway through rifling the contents of a thin pouch sewn into the lining of a vest. If they could pull off the genjutsu, it would be perhaps the easiest way to handle the situation. The only difficulty was managing the mannerisms of those who had died in a convincing way for long enough to get the information they needed, and even with the Sharingan active, Sasuke had only captured combat mannerisms.

A glance at Sakura made him doubt the extent of her ability to act like someone else, which meant ...

"It'll work best if one of us handles the genjutsu and the other one uses henge, pretending to be one of the civilians," he said, glancing briefly in the direction of their charges. "We can try to convince them to tell the civilians their demands.

"Which is your strength?"

Edited 2014-07-15 18:58 (UTC)

Edited 2014-07-15 18:59 (UTC)

[closed; July 15th-August 16th]

[July 15/6] Arrival/Boyaku/Departure | Sky-nin attack | chirpity tweet

[July 15/6] Arrival/Boyaku/Departure | Sky-nin attack | chirpity tweet

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

[July 16-23] Travel/Mima City | Sky-nin attack

[July 24-29] Travel/Boyaku | Anti-trade mercenaries

[July 30-Aug 6] Travel/Oharaimaru | Anti-trade mercenaries

[Aug 7-16] Travel/Onno/Return to Konoha