"Uhm, yeah, it does look a bit weird," said Kiba. "And the way it's kinda humming and sitting in midair without anything holding it up is also kinda... weird."
Shino merely looked the thing over, and you had to be able to read his body language to also get the impression of curiosity and puzzlement.
"This is today's mission," said Kurenai Yuhi. "We're testing these. They want the opinions of unskilled genin."
"ExCUSE me?" asked Kiba.
"Well, no skills or experience related to such things," said Kurenai Yuhi. "These are called 'Mark III Speeder Bikes' - and your mission is to evaluate them."
"It sounds like something Na-Naruto developed?" asked Hinata.
"Good guess," said Kurenai. She held up four rods. "Each of us has a key. The final version will have a code that only lets someone with that particular key to operate the linked 'bike' with the exception of someone with a 'Master Key' - which is something that will only be available to the Hokage's office."
"So what do they do?" asked Kiba.
Kurenai answered by doing. She settled herself into the seat of the vehicle. Examining her own rod briefly, she set one end into a section between the grips. The rod retracted about halfway into the section with a humming noise.
Tossing each member of her team one of the rods, Kurenai Yuhi then settled forward, placing her hands on the grips.
ZOOOM!
The members of Team 8 all looked in the direction that their sensei had gone in. A moment or two later, she returned from the same direction.
"Okay, just twist the right grip a little bit," said Kurenai. "Also - don't hit any trees."
"I still want to know what happened to the 'Mark I' and 'Mark II'," said Kiba.
"I asked that myself," admitted Kurenai. "The Mark I was scrapped due to parts of it that were too easy for a chunin ninja to attack and destabilize. The Mark II apparently had control issues at high speeds. Hence the Mark III."
Kiba had put Akamaru in his shirt and then tried to replicate what he'd seen his sensei do. "How fast is high speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?!"
"Try not to do that," said Kurenai Yuhi as Kiba went shooting off into the woods.
"I shall endeavor not to do so," said Shino quietly.
"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" said Kiba as he shot past them all at a very high rate of speed.
"Six hundred kilometers per hour, or so I'm told," said Kurenai. "I'm going to put down a slower acceleration would be good."
"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed?!" said Kiba as he blurred through the area again.
Hinata carefully moved the indicated controls on her bike and was rewarded with a very slow movement forward.
Shino made a startled noise as he slowly went upwards.
"The second lever on the right allows you to adjust height," said Kurenai.
"Interesting," said Shino in a neutral tone as he carefully brought himself down to ground level again.
"The briefing I attended said that we can reach an altitude roughly three times the Hokage Monument," said Kurenai, testing various controls.
Kiba returned at a more sedate pace. "What a rush! I want one."
"Hokage-sama!"
"Anko? What brings you here today?"
"I wanna 'speeder bike'," stated Anko.
"I take it the testing went well?" asked the Hokage, sounding mildly amused.
"That. Was. Cool," stated Anko.
"Ah, yes, they do seem a little fast," said the Hokage.
"If I can put one in a sealing scroll... do you know how mind-bogglingly useful it would be when a mission has gone south and you need to escape?" Anko began pacing before the Hokage's desk. "Fast, able to attain good height, no chakra use? You could be heavily wounded or exhausted and still manage to outrun pursuit."
"Yes, it does have those advantages," admitted the Hokage.
"Where did we get such neat toys?" asked Anko.
"One of the new genin has a means of making things such as that, and such as this," said the Hokage, putting a small rod that had a grip and little red button under a protective cap.
Anko picked up the device and studied it. "Weapon?"
"Not quite," said the Hokage. "You point it at a wound and it sprays machines the size of a grain of sand over the area. Who then repair the injured tissue before they die off. Each speeder is to contain one of these in a lockable compartment."
"How is it against poisons?" asked Anko.
"Ineffective, though a second device shows promise there but is still in development." The Hokage shrugged.
"Well, put me in for one when it's working," said Anko, thinking of how it could ruin someone's day.
"Was there anything else?" asked the Hokage, returning to his paperwork.
"Oh yeah," said Anko. "The reason I actually came here. See-"
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(Posted Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:10)
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