Mission:

Spoiler:

Nozomi, the formerly and still occasionally shy girl had grown into a fine enough kunoichi. She'd been on plenty of missions, most of which had her paired off with some other Kirigakuran shinobi, or her Sensei Gin. Sometimes, there were team missions, but not very often, so lately she'd been off on her own. The experiences she'd gone through had been great enough that she was now able to be sent off on missions to finish on her own. So here it was that she'd been sent to take care of a bridge. Now, that may not seem like a very dangerous job to do, but when it was being guarded by a band of mercenaries, it certainly got a little bit harder. Of course, at the moment, she couldn't really do anything to the bridge itself. She wasn't quite that powerful. But if she took care of the mercenaries, the builders would leave without much protest, as they weren't fighting oriented. Which would allow a demolition crew to come and finish the destruction for the young girl.

Armed with her arsenal and her jutsu, Nozomi figured she was as prepared as she needed to be. She had a twin set of nice tanto's, which were her main weapons, and the flak jacket that had been given to her by her Sensei Gin. A large array of kunai, senbon, and shuriken to waste at her discretion, as well as some pepper bombs and caltrop-like things. As far as basic equipment went, Nozomi was pretty much a walking weapons factory. Of course, the windmill shuriken that she owned was also quite an impressive if not intimidating sight to behold. And that was just her equipment. She herself was quite adept at taijutsu, more so than the average mercenary. And even if all those things weren't enough to win the day for her, she had an even more impressive and deadly array of jutsu to choose from that could easily even the field for her. Truth be told, Nozomi had no worries about this mission. None of the ones she had been on had any hiccups, and as far as her skills went, her ninjutsu was leagues above her impressive taijutsu. She hadn't really found it a necessity to use her ninjutsu in the first place beyond ease of completion.

As usual, Nozomi was pretty lax with her approach. This wasn't some high ranking shinobi that needed tracked down, there weren't any innocent civilians around that could get hurt, so this mission didn't really require any thought or secrecy at all. Her usual setup for the mission had commenced. The windmill shuriken had the replacement jutsu cast on it, and she had her two petal clones next to her, although they were transformed to look like two other kirigakuran shinobi, faces hidden behind masks, wearing the standard flak jacket sets. It was her tactic of diversion. Nobody knew that they were her deadly clones, nor the secrets that they held in them. Very few people knew anything about the Himitsu clan's secret jutsu. The Himitsu clan had developed that clone to deal with the Hyuuga clan's taijutsu users. Drawing them in to a hand to hand combat, and should the clone fail, it would take down the Taijutsu specialists in a powerful explosion, disabling if not killing them.

WC: 556/1500
Chakra--
-5 Substitution prep
-20 Petal Clones (175/3)
Nozomi: 59/200
-5 Transformation Jutsu
Clone 1: 53/58
Clone 2: 53/58

As Nozomi approached the bridge with her 'obvious' team of 'Kirigakuran shinobi', the mercenaries were instantly on guard, to their credit. After all, most mercenaries were pretty lackadaisical unless provoked to be otherwise. It paid to be constantly vigilant, and that showed Nozomi that these were no amateur mercenaries. Even so, she wasn't exactly afraid of them. She'd been entrusted this job, so she had to trust that her abilities were good enough to complete it. If she allowed doubt to seep into her mind, then she wasn't doing her best to complete the mission, distracted by self doubt. Her two clones flanked her, still in disguise as their missions were set. However, they rushed forward, each moving past Nozomi rather quickly. The 8 mercenaries who were on guard then knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this 'squad' wasn't simply passing through the area. 6 of the mercenaries disengaged the main party of the band and went to engage the two clones. 3 for each of them, they figured, would be more than enough to take out an shinobi that tried to mess with them. The remaining two both went for Nozomi, who had hung back a little bit. 3 of them on each of the larger 'shinobi' and 2 of them should be enough to take out the young girl.

To their credit, the two that went after Nozomi were slightly more cautious than they had any reasoning to be. However, they operated under the thought that if she wasn't a capable fighter, the young blonde wouldn't have been sent on the mission with the two others. However, they were wrong about one thing. She wasn't sent on a mission with two others. She was sent on the mission alone. She was more dangerous than they were cautioning for, and that would be their ultimate downfall. It would go rather well in her favor.
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The two transformed clones each pulled out two kunai knives from their pockets, one for blocking and deflecting other blades, and the other for slicing or stabbing. If the clones could make it through their fights without revealing the secret behind them, it would be rather good. Nozomi wasn't eager to let anyone potentially know the Himitsu secrets, as sometimes word gets out about techniques. None of the bridge builders were around, and had all disappeared from the looks of things, which meant that Nozomi only had to worry about the 8 mercenaries, but if even one of them got away and had knowledge of her techniques, it wouldn't be good. Now, she'd like to end this without killing anyone, but it wouldn't be possible to do that, and she already knew that.

The clone that had up to that point been on Nozomi's left had engaged the three mercenaries that were on 'him'. It was pretty decent. This gave Nozomi some sort of clue as to the skills and where their fighting abilities lay. From what she gathered from the fight, these guys were enough of a match physically as she could provide, but her own ninjutsu and such provided her a larger edge than their almost dead even skills. Her clone brought up his first kunai into the shoulder of one of the three, blocking a slash from one of their weapons on his other kunai, and kicking out at that person, to knock him backwards. The third attempted to stab at the clone, but it juked out of the way, and the blade went into the already stabbed mercenary's own protective gear. The clone elicited one more punch, this time straight into the face of the last assailant, before he was cut down from behind...

The second clone, the one that had branched away from Nozomi to deal with the three on the right, had a very similar task and fighting method as the first clone had. Juking through the attacks of the other three, he found himself getting surrounded. However, he also showed his proficiency in taijutsu, as even though he was surrounded, he continued to hold the assailants at bay for a decent bit of time. Like the first clone though, he eventually became over powered by the opponents that he had on him. The three of them had all attacked a different place on his body, slicing clean into the clone, at about the same time that the other clone had been cut down..

And as they were cut down, Nozomi smiled. The two mercenaries who hadn't yet converged on Nozomi stopped and watched as this girl smiled for seemingly losing her friends. What sane person would smile when it went from three fights of 3 on 1, 3 one 1, and 2 on 1, to one fight of 8 on 1? That's when they realized it had been a trap. The clones both exploded in a violent and beautiful display of deadly petals, slicing into the grouped up mercenaries, cutting down the 6 that had been fighting them. Even if they were to survive the lacerations themselves, it took them out of the fight, cuts torn through their body and armor like nothing.

The remaining two were far more cautious at that point. Having just seen that this girl had a quick tactical mind to send in and take out large numbers of their forces before initiating, it set them on edge. However, she made rather quick work of these two as well. Quickly, Nozomi drew her tanto blades, and started to fight the bukijutsu user in front of her, who only had one sword. After exchanging a few blows and dodging his slashes, Nozomi leapt forward, piercing her blades into him, knocking him to the ground. Even as he fell, Nozomi had already activate the Himitsu clan's "Dance of the Misty Petals", coating her hand in a vibrant liquid like coat of chakra. And the two of them got into a taijutsu contest. With the Himitsu clan's extensive taijutsu training, the man was no match for her. The Himitsu clan was meant to be able to go toe to toe with the Hyuuga clan. Catching the man in the throat, Nozomi's petals lodged clean in his esophagus. Walking around, the young girl coup'ed the remaining living mercenaries. The knowledge of her abilities couldn't get out. Now all she had to do was call in the demolition crew. The bodies still remained there, but the petals had all but disappeared by the time they'd arrived.

WC: 1079.
Mission: 1500/1500 complete.