Escort the Diamyo, pt1 and 2. [mission, private]

Posts : 136 Join date : 2015-10-08

The group had been wandering along the Suna trade routes for many an hour, and only now was conversation finally dying off. It'd been a pleasant trip, Akemi had done her very best to make sure of that. Small talk was something she understood, and while they traveled she had maintained a steady discourse of unimportant topics ranging from government to farm life. Weather was a fine ting to open up with, and in Suna it usually amounts to hot, dry, and sunny. Akemi used her parasol as she walked, using it as excuse enough to walk closer to the noble Diamyo and share her shade with him. She was, at the very least, a joy to be near. Perhaps it was only because of the addition of the pair of Chuunin that he had not questioned her clear lack of martial ability.

Those two had been something of a snag she hadn't expected. She preferred to work alone when it was possible, all the better to keep outside eyes from witnessing her particular techniques. They both held the more classical look of a shinobi, and stood in stark contrast to her soft and fair exterior. Both looked menacing, strong, like proper body guards. Both of them wore the typical outfits of Suna nin with flak jacket and headbands displayed proudly, but both carried different weapons. Fubatso carried a long and slender long sword across his back, letting him stand out beside Kuchiko who had only a pair of belt pouches. Fubatso had been quick to answer when she muttered the code words too them, while Kuchiko only shook his head and snickered at his counterpoints eagerness.

Akemi dismissed the lack of an answer at the time, the code had been spoken by one and so was no longer a secret regardless. They began to walk, Fubatso taking up point and Kuchiko taking up the rear, while Akemi and the great lord Daimyo stood protected in the center. Beneath the shade of her parasol she'd complimented the noble, apologizing that she'd not brought a horse for him, but assuring him he would be safe. They shared several laughs as Akemi assured him that she too was quite talented, though he seemed more than pleased to simply chuckle and comment that she was lovely enough to simple walk with. It was true, she could not deny that.

She smelled of flowers, of rare desert blossoms blooming under the pale glow of the moon, and it filled the senses with a sweet and subtle fragrance. Her skin was soft, and soon enough she was walking arm in arm with him. The few hours they needed passed with little drama, and only the sound of soft laughs and quiet conversation following them. Akemi would flirt some, it was only proper to inflate the ego's of such high ranking nobles, but it is also a treat to get to stand so close to someone with so much influence, and simply amuse them. It was only as they were finally nearing Suna that things began to get a little more serious, as they followed the trade roads towards the city itself. As they left behind the dust of the desert buildings began to become a more common sight around them.

This is when Akemi finally began to take things a touch more professionally. She'd always been scanning their surroundings but there hadn't been such great places to set up an ambush before. Perhaps sensing the growing tension of the situation even the Diamyo had gone quiet and stepped out from beneath Akemi's parasol to better survey the surroundings. “Be on your guard. Keep me safe at all costs.” the man barked in a hushed but powerful tone, the sort of voice the commands respect and obedience. She is happy to comply, of course, but she was already keeping a watch. Like the others she could feel it on the air. Something was coming. In the quiet still of morning sunshine, there was going to be trouble.

It was between the spires of abandoned building, alone amid a deserted portion of the desert city that the villains had planned their assault, and it begun sooner than she had hoped. A traitor from within sprung a trap, and blades begin to swing almost in unison. Fubatso moved with surprising speed, the blade on his back exposed in a flash. In a single motion the blade's drawn and swings towards Akemi's head. She barely had time to react, but this was something she should have seen coming. In the moments before the blade strikes her mind thinks back to earlier that day.

“Suna is Love.” she stated with a soft voice and a coy smile.

“Suna is Strength!” replied Fubatso in almost an instant, stumbling over his words with a shocking display of nervous energy.

“Ugh, we got a teacher's pet.” Kuchiko remarked in an off handed undertone, the smirk on his face showing more amusement at Fubatso's reaction than shock at Akemi's appearance. “You must be the one we were waiting for. Let's get this over with, a long walk through the desert has never been my idea of a good time.”

Akemi gives a soft and subtle bow of her head towards Fubatso, though replies to the other first. “Planning ahead is the job of every Shinobi.” she says with a cool smile and soft gesture with her parasol. It served more uses than to simply accent her appearance. “But you are right. We still have a bit of a walk before we arrive at the rendezvous point with his lord the Daimyo.”

Fubatso shot Kuchiko a look, one that had something of resentment and a threat in it, but Kuchiko let it roll off his back. He was a professional nin, he knew what he was doing. Fubatso struck Ameki as still brash, and too eager to prove himself. He was wreckless, but at least he had passion in his heart.

Akemi made peace between them. “Enough of that, you two, we have a job to do and that will be our primary focus until his lord the Diamyo is safe and secure in the city. Let's move out.”

Both gave her a strange look. It was a mix of confusion and irritation that she could issue an order. She didn't look fit to lead an operation, though she did out rank both of them. She gives a subtle gesture with her hand and begins walking. Both of them fell into place behind her, and they were on their way. The two had clearly had time to meet each other before Akemi arrived to pick the chuunins up, and Kuchiko continued to discuss strategy and weapon techniques with Fubatso. He addressed Akemi once, asking her how she was able to work in the field when she didn't seem to be dressed or armed for the task. Akemi only laughed the questions off, and gave a mysterious shrug of her shoulders.

When they arrived at the Daimyo's post, all three of them bowed low with reverence to the local royalty. Akemi offered her greetings to the man, and then they had traveled. That lead them to where they were now, situated between the crumbling stone towers of previous residence now half claimed by the constantly encroaching sands of the great desert. There had been no sound but the wind and distant birds before the attack came, but Akemi was well ahead of the curve. What she had to do was obvious, and she did it without hesitation.

Fubatso's black blade came screaming in with speed and power, but Akemi only ducked. She fell to the side and threw herself on the Diamyo, knocking him aside and pinning him down on the sand. She covers him for the moment with her body, while her right hand draws a kunai out of the pouch hidden beneath her bow at her back. Steel clashed on steel above her as Fubatso's blade met with Kuchiko's elongated kunai, and his passion now seemed to find it's rightful place.

(1347 words)

Posts : 136 Join date : 2015-10-08

(pt 2)

From stumbling to rage, Fubatso roared, even as Kuchiko was turning to once more attempt drive his kunai through Akemi and into the Diamyo below her. He didn't have time to even begin the attack as the black longsword once more cut a graceful arc above Akemi and drove Kuchiko into a series of back flips to evade and put himself out of range. The traitor had been revealed, but there was more to the trap then that.

“Stay down my lord.” She whispers to the Daimyo as she rises above him, coming up in unison with a long, loud whistle from Kuchiko. This was going to get worse before it got better, she thought, and she wasn't far off. Two more figures appeared in the distance, situated in an advantageous position atop one of the surrounding ruins. Akemi still takes a proper stance, one hand holding her parasol aloft while the other grips a kunai and holds it out ahead of her. She turns her back to Kuchiko, placing her faith in Fubatso for the moment, and watches as a pair of arrows launch from the two figures and fly with smooth, fluid motion towards the ground below. Both land near Akemi's feet, and she couldn't have been more thankful for the warning.

Before Akemi can speak, Kuchiko claims control of the conversation. “Surrender. You're both hopeless, you couldn't even being to dream of defeating me. Abandon your mission and leave the Diamyo here. Run away now, and we will at least spare your life. Stay and fight, and you're only going to die. Now what say you?” he asked with a cruel smile on his face. He had deadly intent in his voice.

"You'll die here, you dog!" Fubatso shout's back, eager to get into the fight.

Akemi spins around after his statement and swings her arm, throwing the kunai with force towards Kuchiko, but her shot is wide and the Kunai sails past him harmlessly. That gets a laugh out of Kuchiko, though Akemi, somehow, manages a small smile at the action. The blade landed some ten meters behind him, and was in almost the perfect position for her. While he was laughing, while he was momentarily distracted by Akemi's apparent lack of skill, Fubatso once more dashed forward and raked a pair of vertical slashes at the man. The first he simply dodged, the second he blocked, then drove Fubatso back once more with a pair of swings from his Kunai.

Fubatso and Kuchiko were equally matched, but judging by the speed of attacks coming from the ruin his help was not. “Fubatso. Leave this man to me. Guard the Diamyo, and take him now. Defend him past those archers. We are almost to the gate, and I have faith that you can get him there without me.[/b]"

Two more arrows were already soaring through the sky, but it didn't seem to phase her. She lifts a hand easily, and perhaps through coincidence both arrows land short once more, falling just beside the pair previously loosed from their bows. It was a subtle use of her abilities, but it went mostly unnoticed. She turns once more while she has time to face the others, and Fubatso was already giving her a puzzled look. “Go now!” She states again, though with more force than before.

“Y, yes ma'am.” he replies carefully, not wanting to disobey orders. The Daimyo was the mission, after all, not this enemy chuunin spy. While he is backing away from Kuchiko Akemi reaches into her pouch once more. She draws out a small scroll and peels it open, releasing one end to let gravity unroll it for her. She turns her attention to Kuchiko as Fubatso begins to fall back, leveling a calm, even delighted gaze upon her opponent. The further away Fubatso gets, the more at ease she feels.

“I would extend a similar pleasantry that you offered before, but I am afraid it is not in my nature to be so merciful to my enemies. An attempt on my lord the Diamyo is every bit as unforgivable as an attack on my lord the Kazekage. I do not believe I will be seeing you escape from this place.” she states with a voice like honey. There was no force behind it, just words as soft as the scent of flowers around her. With a careless motion she tosses her parasol to the side and lets it glide slowly to the ground.

Kuchiko laughs at first, reaching into his own pouch and drawing forth a second kunai, a replica of the first. His knives were strange, still balanced but longer, and holding a hook shape to their points. They were not for throwing, Akemi could gauge that much, but for tearing through flesh at very close ranges. With a smooth motion of her left hand she drags a thumb across the seal and it pops with a puff of smoke. A windmill shuriken appears in her hands, but she had something else to worry about first. In a single motion all four blades are rotated into postion, and akemi spins in place. She dashes forward, away from the man, as a pair of white feathered arrows glide in almost silently. She moves to block, lifting a hand and swinging the windmill shuriken at the arrows, but there is much more to the simple motion than most people would catch at first glance.

Indeed, a pair of fingers extend past her grip on the shuriken, invisible chakra strings connecting between herself and the arrows. Kuchiko was already moving in for the kill, but both arrows altered course just slightly. Akemi rolls on the ground once, toppling past her shoulder into a fluid motion through the sand, evading the arrows but also lifting their noses slightly, letting their motion carry into the oncoming chuunin.

He evades deftly, ending his attack and redirecting his momentum to bring him aside. From the spot on her knees she throws the broad bladed shuriken, once more showing off a distinct lack of skill. It lands off to the side again, and Kuchiko can not help but laugh. What could this woman be thinking, and how on earth did she ever get promoted through the Suna ranks? If this was the sort of defense Suna had to muster, they surely must be the weakest of the villages.

Posts : 136 Join date : 2015-10-08

"You have to be kidding me, YOU are going to stay back and fight me. You couldn't hit the broad side of a mountain if you were standing on it. Even if you have ninjutsu, I doubt you could even hit me with the largest of fireballs. I'm going to kill you here, and then I'm going to chase down that brat chuunin and kill him as well. Then I'm going to take the Daimyo, and I am really going to take my time with him...” he continued, glaring at Akemi with a cross between hatred and excitement.

All the while Akemi simply pushed herself back up to her feet. She adjusted the scroll she was still holding, and gave a small glance off towards the ruins the genin were firing from. A pair of arrows were already flying, but now they were targeting Fubatso and the Diamyo. Both were moving fast, and out of the corner of her eyes Akemi watched as Fubatso cut both arrows harmlessly out of the sky and rushed onwards. With a familiar motion she drags her hand across the scroll once more, but this time 3 more windmill shuriken appear in small clouds of smoke in her hands. One of them she simply tosses forward, not even making an effort to connect with it. The other two rotate into their open and locked position.

Fubatso was distracted now, and increasingly out of sight. All that was left now was herself and this Kuchiko man. Her smile comes easier now, a brightness in her eyes. Getting to use the Ghost Motion was a rare treat, but this was certainly her chance.

“Now then..” she begins, while Kuchiko gives her a suspicious look. Why she had not even tried to hit him with the last Windmill left him a little confused. “Let me show you your fate. If you stand still, I will at least do you the kindness of making your end as quick and as painless as is possible.”

As she speaks she lifts both hands, letting the large shuriken hang limply there. A moment later they begin to move, lifting out of her hands and gliding a few feet forward. Kuchiko looked aghast at this unsettling levitation of the items, and gripped his sword tighter. Both of the windmills begin to turn, to rotate in place until they're little more than hovering blurs of whirring blades cutting with their razor edges through the air. Akemi takes a half step forward, prepared to take the offensive, but it was her time for a surprise.

A sharp searing pain suddenly lights in her left shin as a kunai blade sinks into her skin. No sooner than the pain strikes than she is moving, leaping swiftly to the side and swinging her left arm forward. A shuriken follows the motion of her hand, cutting a quick and deadly path between herself and Kuchiko as he rushes forward. Once more he's driven back as a blade threatens him, though he evades it with expert grace. Akemi lands on one knee as her blood begins to stain the desert sands, a third man finally making his appearance. He had been hidden the whole time, burried under the sands and waiting for the perfect chance to strike. He had found it, but the damage was only superficial. She would live, even if the walk home would be done with a limp.

Even on one knee akemi was deadly enough. A follow up flick of her left wrist and a single pointed finger sends the blades of a windmill shuriken cutting deep gashes across the genin's shoulders and chest until both momentum and the young shinobi die. The steel lodges itself deep in a flowing stream of blood and splintered bone. Cries of pain and surprise both became choked gurgles as blood poured into the man's open lungs, and before long he issilent.

Akemi does not smile at that, taking lives was not something she enjoyed, but she had to much to focus on mourn for now. Once blade was still hovering between them, and it did enough to keep Kuchiko on the defensive after seeing the results of her jutsu. Pained though she was, Akemi steels her resolve and focuses on the chuunin. “Don't think you will escape here, even if I am wounded. I don't need use of my feet to be done with you.” she spits at him, not spiteful but spoken through hissed tones of pain and tightly pursed lips.

“You are done. I know what you can do now, and don't think I'll be stupid enough to stand in the way of one of those things. I'm fast. I'm going to get around your little toys, and I'm going to drive these kunai through your spine.” he retorts, apparently unimpressed. He gives both of his kunai a twirl, the ring on their end looped around his pinky. When they return to proper position in his hands, both suddenly come to life with a thick aura of blue energy and the soft crackling of lightning chakra coursing through electricity.

Two arrows land near her, both sinking half way into the sand before their white feathered tips hum beside her. She hadn't dodged them, she had only gotten lucky and both genin missed. It was a long range, but Akemi couldn't rely on luck. As she jumped with surprise for their landing, Kuchiko once more rushed forward.

Akemi didn't panic; instead she acted. The blades came in swift, but she was not known for being slow. She scrambles along the ground, ducking forward at first, then falling onto her back to avoid a second blow. Both lightning charged kunai come down hard to breach her chest, but she manages to roll aside. A thin cut appears on her right arm as she is scrambling to her knees once more, but she ignores the wound for the moment. It wasn't causing nearly enough pain as it should.

A quick sweep of her left arm once more brings the spinning shuriken through the fray, attempting, but failing, to rake across her opponent's chest. Again he was fast and evaded backwards at the last second. Kuchiko laughed derisively, sneering at Akemi. “It won't be long now..” he said and pressed one foot deeper into the sand, getting a solid footing to spring forward from.

The intesity was rising, and akemi could no longer to afford holding back. She had assumed Fubatso would buy her more time, but they must have abandoned shooting at the sword wielder and turned their attention back to her when they realized the futility of their shots. If she were not distracted, she could have ended this already. Both arms reach out, the two previously thrown shurikens joining the other in the air, and beginning to spin with force and danger. The shuriken still lodged in the fallen genin's chest begins to wiggle, twist, and pull, and finally pops free with another spray of blood.

All four were a much more serious threat, and Kuchiko recognizes it. For a moment it seemed he might flee on the spot, but apparently something kept him fighting. Perhaps the loss of his partner was weighing more heavily on his mind than he let on, or perhaps he truly still thought he could win against her. Regardless, Akemi was in the final motions of her technique.

“We end this now.” she states flatly, down on one knee but still with full use of her left arm. Her right was tingling, not responding as quickly, but even one hand was enough for just 4 shuriken. They were light, but they were fast and they were sharp.

“Agreed.” Stated Kuchoki in reply, and burst forth with more speed than previously displayed. Lightning charged kunai raised above his head as he prepared for a killing blow, but his death came from an unexpected angle. The windmill shurikens buzz menacingly to the sides and slightly above, but in his haste to slay he had forgotten some finer details of the battlefield. He leapt above an arrow that'd been planted in the sand, and that arrow had seen a string attached to it only moments after it landed. The sand preserved the sharp tip, and when it drove upwards with almost as much force as it'd been shot from the bow with, soft flesh gave way to the blade.

Blood poured from below Kuchiko's chin, the arrow missing his throat but driving upwards from beneath and sriking up and through the soft flesh under his jaw. It peirced through the roof of his mouth and drove deeper, rendering the chuunin lifeless in almost an instant. It was at least as she offered, as swift and as painless as she could manage, but she still had genin to worry about. Both archers, oddly enough, had stopped shooting.

Her right arm had gone completely numb by now, and her left shin was still slowly bleeding, but she would live. One hand stretches and spreads all five fingers, and chakra strings begin to collect her things. A kunai and four windmill shurikens begin to follow her as she approaches the ruin off in the distance. Another pair of arrows flies towards her, but the motion of a few fingers attaches strings to them and sends them off harmlessly to the side. She draws all her possessions nearer to herself and sets them down in the sand.

This had to end, Fubatso was no doubt at the city gates by now, and she simply couldn't allow herself to be late. She reaches into her belt pouch and slips fingers around two of her kunai. Before she acts, she lifts her voice and gives a good shout. Even when loud her voice came across as pleasant, and lacked any sense of anger.

“This is your last chance! Run and hide. Live and learn. Flee this battle, and let it be your guide, should you ever think to be criminals once more!” Two kunai, both with explosive tags, are tossed out ahead of her. Strings catch them mid air, and suddenly both are moving as swift and straight as arrows towards the ruin. Five seconds of flight pass, five short seconds for the souls in that ruin, and then both tags detonate.

At the village gate Fubatso is as shocked to see Akemi as he is to see her wounded. Guards were already gathering to go support the girl, but she did not need it. She's limping, but she is smiling. Her red parasol is held aloft above her, once more casting her pale exterior in a small circle of shadow. The bleeding had slowed, but it hadn't quite stopped, and even the Daimyo seemed both confused and delighted when she approached.

“My lord the Diamyo.” she states in a honeyed tone, not letting the pain sound through in her words. She bows once more, low, respectful, and with the proper grace of a lady. “I apologize for the delay, but we deliver you safely into the hands of Sunagakure. The village guards will handle your security from here. I was a pleasure to have had the honor to act as your guide into town.” Akemi can not help but grin a little sheepishly. Waiting as they were within the city gates, this information was already well known.

“Dear Akemi, you needn't be so formal. Thank you for a job well done. I was afraid you might have been lost, but it does my heart good to see your smile once more. I commend you both for a job well done.”

“Thank you my lord.” states Fubatso plainly, paired with a low bow.

Akemi once more smiles to all present. She waves away the guards, and sets off towards the hospital with her parasol aloft above her.

(2991words)

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