"Mah, what can we do?" asked Kakashi. "It's an escort mission. Tazuna is a civilian on foot. We travel at his pace."
There was a long moment of silence before Naruto spoke. "So, if he was faster, we could move faster?"
"Well, yes," admitted Kakashi.
Naruto flicked open a scroll, bit his thumb, and used the small amount of blood to slash across the paper. Smoke began pouring out. "Spike! Here boy!"
THOOM!
Kakashi actually looked up from his book, then slowly uncovered his Sharingan eye to stare, then covered it again.
Roughly eight and a half meters long, three meters high, thick mottled tan skin, parrot-like beak, three long horns, and Naruto was spreading a blanket out on its back while the creature reached out beside the road and deftly stripped all the leaves off of a branch as a snack.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" asked Sakura, who apparently hadn't been ready for a large creature to just suddenly appear like that.
"Her name is Spike," said Naruto, gesturing to the large shield-like portion of back skull. Which had dull-looking spikes all around the fringe.
"Urf?" asked Akamaru, clearly wary but curious.
"Gronk," replied Spike.
"Uhm, it's not going to eat me, is it?" asked Tazuna, trying to hide behind Sakura.
"Naw, we been training her to take riders," said Naruto.
"The chicken-lizard!" declared Kiba. "Huh. How fast?"
"Not very fast," admitted Naruto, cinching the blanket into place. "Your sister had some ideas on training. Let her know they worked, will ya?"
"Sure thing," said Kiba, walking around the beast. "I take it those horns aren't just for show? Man, if something like this needs those to protect itself from something - I don't wanna meet it."
Tazuna nearly wet himself when he was placed atop the beast, only the fact that every muscle he had was clenched to capacity kept that from happening.
"Okay," said Naruto, clapping twice. "Hup! Hup!"
Her home was simple and straightforward. She kept no trophies, well nothing that she actually considered a trophy, darn little in the way of decorations or any of the little things that people tended to accumulate through a long life.
She had a grandson who was not a shinobi, and who had apparently made a fair amount of money as a furniture-maker. His specialty was something called a "rocking chair" which Orchid herself thought looked ridiculous. Every week a pair of maids hired by that grandson would come by and sweep and take care of dust.
Not that she needed any such things. She had ninja techniques to do that through precise control and wind. It was, however, one of the ways that her grandson showed that he cared for his old grandmother.
The maids themselves were young, pretty, and at least the one named Yuri had an appreciation for fine tea. Neither of them had any ninja training at all, nor anything approaching a mindset that would allow them to be shinobi.
She was Death Orchid. The faint trace of an alien chakra in the air could have been overlooked by a number of jonin in the village. A number of jonin would have missed the very subtle signs of an intruder. A large number of ninja would have missed spotting the pebbles in the carefully raked yard disturbed.
Black eyes flicked around once, the details then analyzed.
Yuri and Miki arrived, not knowing they were being followed. They stopped at the gate and called out to let me know they were here as per usual. Someone attacked when they stepped within, rising from the ground there where the grass died. Doton technique of some kind most likely. Miki died instantly and Yuri started to run - towards the house. Most likely knew I wasn't here but was hoping to get into the Safe Room. Made it almost to the door. Some sort of ranged attack took her down. Wouldn't have been much. Neither of them could have posed a challenge to an Academy student. Trace of blood on the wood, spatter pattern. Little bit of disturbance there.
Orchid reached out to adjust what looked like a little lawn ornament.
Underground things have been churned up a bit more. Wards one through three are intact. Four through seven were disturbed. Ward eight was disturbed but there was an attempt to put it back into place. Wards nine through twelve intact.
As she moved into her home, showing no outward sign of noticing anything amiss, she put the information together into a cohesive picture.
Intruder entered from the courtyard side, probably determining that was where Yuri was heading. Intruder searched the downstairs, not finding whatever they were looking for went upstairs. Intruder still didn't find whatever it was and so returned to the ground level. Hmph. Some of those young pups they call ninja nowadays think I'm paranoid putting wards and sigils and cathair flags in place. Just shows how soft they've gotten in peaceful times.
The faint trace of foreign chakra strengthened.
Still here. Hiding. Shadows of the stairs, almost as if they were using an underground-hiding technique. Chakra's off - not human whatever it is. Strong chakra, muted very well but this close I-
Orchid couldn't help it as a scent teased her nostrils, she sniffed to get a better whiff. Even if it might indicate that she wasn't completely unaware.
What the hell? I'd need an Inuzuka to sort that out but bowels and blood and some plant smell. I know something similar but it was long ago.
"Oh dear," said Orchid, rummaging around in a pocket. "Where did I put that?"
The shadowy presence drifted a little closer, probably trying to get a clear look.
"Ah, there it is," said Orchid, pulling out a small bottle.
The shadow paused.
"And there you are," said Orchid, throwing the bottle at the shadow.
It shattered and purple mist spread out from the point of impact.
Kakashi:
Kakashi was easily able to keep up with "Spike" as was Kiba.
Naruto was almost running rings around the dinosaur.
If Kiba was able to keep up, Sasuke would never allow himself to fall behind even a little.
Kakashi watched and judged this was roughly a jogging pace for the big creature, so about 17kph (11mph), and it would dip its head to the side and grab foliage so this was apparently a sustainable speed for it.
They'd also gone for about an hour at this pace and Sakura was looking about ready to drop.
Naruto apparently noticed, dropping back, then speaking to her before grabbing her and leaping to the back of the running animal and depositing her next to the client.
Naruto's posture abruptly changed, shifting to look ahead.
Ah. A puddle where there should not have been one, in the middle of a dry path. Go figure that the student of Death Orchid would be on the alert for ambushes.
Naruto glanced at him, Kakashi smirked as he gave a 'wait' signal, then dropped behind the procession.
SPLASH!
Roughly eleven tons of Spike at roughly 17kph went through the puddle, stamping the water to spray everything to the side. Rather like what happened when you brought your palms together in the water at a hot springs.
Kakashi went through the damp spot/remains of the puddle himself, waiting for the inevitable.
"That's one," said a ninja, leaping from the tree he'd splashed against towards him.
Kakashi casually backhanded the clearly chunin-level opponent to the side. Guy had a tree branch sticking through one shoulder. Anything more would be overkill.
The other enemy nin came out of his own puddle, ready for a fight but just as clearly dazed.
"I only need one of you to give me answers," noted Kakashi aloud as he secured the still-conscious one. "Which one will it be?"
The vial of material was poisonous - very much so in fact. As a ninja could hold their breath quite long, unless engaged in active combat, it was one where a single droplet of the mist coming into contact with skin would suffice.
That the creature swore and appeared otherwise unharmed was noted by the shadow clone before it dissipated.
Senbon, shuriken, and kunai were typical ninja weapons. They could kill but were originally designed more as distractions. They were pretty good as deliverers of poison, except that shuriken coated in poison were something as dangerous to the wielder as to the target.
Three senbon struck the creature before the last puff of smoke from the shadow clone had faded. Despite two bracketing the spine near the skull juncture and one going in through the vertebrae into the throat, the creature didn't really seem all that hurt.
"Seals - activate!" said Orchid, swallowing a soldier pill. She WAS a bit old and certainly no longer at the peak of her physical conditioning.
"You bitch! What did you do?!"
"She put up a sealing jutsu. We won't be able to use Mayfly to retreat until she's dead or we can get past her."
Orchid didn't bother wasting breath, racing through a set of handseals. Nor did she need to announce her technique. She knew these jutsu well enough that it wasn't needed to announce any of that.
A mist rose from the ground and began thickening.
"That's a Kiri technique, isn't it?" asked Zetsu.
"Speak the obvious, why don't you?" replied Zetsu in a slightly different voice.
The sealing jutsu is old, I kept meaning to renew it. Probably won't hold for much longer. Poison doesn't work, and if Shinigami's Breath didn't do anything - nothing else I've got handy will work. Nonhuman. At least two personalities. Uses an underground travel technique and doesn't seem discomfited by the fog. Possibly tracks by vibrations in the ground. A summoned creature? No. It's heading for the gate. Well, how about this?
Fingers snapped an ampule and introduced it into a flask and was then thrown. The creature had halted in the courtyard at the brief sound, the head ranging around to locate the source.
The alchemical formula that they had dubbed "Hellfire" (rather than use the original name of "Dunwick's Clinging Fire Solution" - for one thing they had no idea who "Dunwick" was) was briefly wet upon the creature as its yellow eye finally focussed on her. At which point the powder in the ampule mixed enough with the fluid part and she was able to observe how well the delivery system worked.
Field testing was important after all.
Both voices shrieked in what had to be extreme pain before the figure raced out of the compound, shattering the fuuinjutsu barrier which had merely been intended to restrict jutsu use anyway. The trail of fire was fairly easy to track until the creature dove into the ground and vanished.
Before it got away, a blade managed to clip it and nearly took its head off.
As it was, Orchid held up the ear she'd managed to get. She knew a few people. She'd have something that'd kill it the next time it came around.
And she'd have to give that "Hellfire" a potentially useful rating.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"
"It burnsssss! Mother helpsss ussss, it burnsssss!"
Lord Pein looked down at Zetsu. "What happened to you?"
Tobi looked up, his usual whimsical guise tossed aside. "They apparently did a spying mission without authorization. They went up against Death Orchid of Konoha."
"There. That got it," said Konan, completing a fuuinjutsu fire sealing and drawing the odd flames away.
Zetsu whimpered in both voices.
"Heal him as soon as you can," said Pein. "He needs to be scouting out the jinchuriki as soon as possible."
"So, this has gone up to an A-Rank and we should be cautious from now on," said Kakashi.
"Shouldn't we just go back?" Sakura knew better than to expect common sense from Kiba and so looked to Kakashi and then Sasuke. When she noticed how eager Sasuke looked she switched back to Kakashi.
"Do YOU want to explain to Death Orchid that we cut her student's practical evaluation short?" asked Kakashi. "We've only got one or two A-Rank or S-Rank ninja to worry about this way."
"She can't be THAT scary," protested Sakura.
"Scary? No. Not at all." Kakashi considered for a moment. "Does anyone really want to go back to Konoha?"
Sakura raised her hand.
"Okay, and does anyone think we should go forward?" asked Kakashi.
"Gronk!"
"Arf!"
"Why are you up there, Akamaru?" asked Kiba, noticing his dog was sitting on top of the big chicken-lizard thing.
"Arf!"
"Oh. Tactical advantage from height. I see," said Kiba, raising his hand.
Sasuke raised his hand.
Naruto shrugged and raised his hand.
"Sorry Sakura," said Kakashi.
"I'll have to return Spike when we get to the water, she's not good with deep water," said Naruto.
"Oh? Got anything that is?" asked Sakura, half-dreading the answer.
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(Posted Tue, 16 Dec 2014 16:23)
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