[closed; July 15th-August 16th]

[not_thedragon]

Who: Sasuke, Sakura, a passel of diplomats, and some birds
What: Escort mission through the Land of Sky and ending in the Land of Swamps
Where: Various towns in the Land of Sky, Land of Swamps
When: July 15th-August 16th (subject to change)

[Subthreads below.]

Comments

[notveryspecial]

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?"

[not_thedragon]

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."

[notveryspecial]

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?"

[not_thedragon]

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.

[notveryspecial]

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.

[not_thedragon]

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?"