Mission name: Intercept Communications
Mission rank: B-rank.
Objective: Ambush village couriers carrying sensitive communications and secure them.
Location: Any.
Reward: 750 ryo + 3 EP
Mission Description: Certain rogue groups are hiring shinobi to disrupt communication flow between villages
Development References: What Lies Beneath Event.
Mission Details: On behalf of unknown benefactors, willing shinobi have been hired to intercept messages being sent between nations. Groups will hire village ninja who wish to work against a rival village, unaffiliated or rogue ninja for these tasks. Couriers have A-ranked perception and are accompanied by three B-ranked ANBU ninja at all times who have Fire and Water and all B-rank and lower Library and ANBU techniques. This is considered a criminal mission.

And once again it was time for a little bit of chaos and destruction. Eventually all of her previous preparations as a 'mercenary' had been leading to this climax. Verdandi would be tasked to directly engage and attack Kumo-nin. She was aware she already had more of those on her to do list. Considering that since her last mission her reputation as the skull masked mercenary had grown massively among the people of the mercenary HQ. Verd wouldn't bother too much with the semantics and grab the scroll from the merc captain. Leaving the camp quickly. She didn't feel comfortable there. Wearing her mask, the others knew she had something to hide. She wasn't one of them and she didn't care to become one either. She was disgusted by most of them, whom really just fought for the highest bidder. No ambitions or goals. In some ways however she accepted, that by now she had become not too much different from them. She could no longer claim to be without sin. No matter how much she wished to justify her action under the guise that Kumo was a place of crazy nuts. However, the task was primarily to intercept the message and to get rid of the courier. How she would accomplish that was completely within her own capabilities. Verdandi didn't necessarily have to get her hands too dirty just yet. There was a middle way and she'd find it. But first and for all, she had to get there.

Once Verd arrived nearby the convoy's location. She could see the various Kumo troops following like ants behind each other. They were moving down a trade passage, probably disguised as simple supply caravan. Whilst the true treasure was but a mere piece of paper within their possession. Supposedly important intel for Kumo's war effort. Verd would move. Getting down nearby was going to be easy but staying at the perfect distance without being spotted was a different task. Intel implied that the enemy convoy was heavily guarded by skilled shinobi. Dandi was however not completely unprepared. She knew they would have to pass through a very thin mountain ridge with barely any mobility. A well-placed explosive could be disguised as an earthquake. So Verd moved far ahead into the ridge. Trying to find some holes into the cave systems within. Unfortunately, it didn't reach deep below ground of the mountain but around surface level. Verd had to damage the stone pillars holding the footing of the mountain side somehow first. She had to hurry considering that, using chakra or getting too loud when the caravan was too near could blow her cover, literally. Verd would suddenly get an idea. She had that technique that allowed her to crumble the ground beneath her feet. Considering it was thin enough to be broken by water. Searching for a spot where a lot of sand was prominent Verd would push her chakra into the ground. It'd take a while to actually activate it however.

In the meantime, Verd would cast a Vacuum Wave jutsu to slice some of the stone pillars into broken shape. Verd placed her explosive tag strategically at the last pillar she let alive. She could already hear the weight of the mountain remaining on the pillar. Chuckling to herself. She had no frickin idea if this would work out at all as planned. She was neither an explosives expert nor did she have some sort of savant-like ability to mathematically perfectly calc this all out. There was a big chance that both the chakra trap and the explosive would go off and it would do absolutely nothing. But seeing and hearing the brittle formations crack around her, Verd quickly got the hell out of here. Climbing back on top of the ridge. Now all she had to do was wait and hope the mountain wouldn't collapse before her targets were here and yet they came. Dandi was nervous. But it was too late now to think of a new strategy. After the ridge came open desert for a log time. She would have no chance to accomplish her goals out there like that. She had to be sneaky about it. Somehow. Verdandi gasped, glaring into the depths of the valley. Her foot accidentally kicking a pebble down, hitting one of the guards on their head. But Verd quickly retracted as he stared up. Dandi knew she needed to move now and activated the trigger to set off her explosion.

A second later, as the mountain started to rumble, she activated the erosive lake technique and let the whole thing slowly take its natural way. Verd was disappointed at first. Nothing happened except for a mighty earthquake within the mountain below. She knew she fucked up now. But she had no idea. The crumbling cracks slowly bit their way up into the mountain. Maybe standing on the structure she supposedly wanted to blow up was a bad idea. It worked. But not the way she had planned this. The damage she had caused was far far faaar greater than anticipated. The whole eastern section of the ridge was breaking off. Verdandi had to run. The platform she was standing on was moving like a whole plateau being torn away. Every time the platform sank further down, a huge eruption would cause the whole surface to shake. If it wasn't for the supernatural walking technique, Verdandi would already have dropped to the abyss opening up below her. Under panic she jumped in a last effort to the still steady, remaining rock formation and linked her soles with it. Climbing all the way up before taking a long heavy breath. She crawled back to look down and see what had happened. Dandi could see that none of the Kumo-nin were hurt, but they were trapped. The dropping rock formation had locked the exit. The carts were destroyed, buried beneath the stone. But the men had reacted quickly and escaped the potential burial by stone.

Unfortunately. The ninja protecting the caravan didn't believe this to be a natural cause. One of the ANBU appeared all of a sudden before Verdandi. He didn't expect to find her and she didn't expect to see him. By the moment they reacted, Verd's palm already started to glow in massive chakra. She had to use her trump card. This whole situation was turning into a very very bad idea. The ANBU's blade was reaching out. Verd's Rasengan responded. The rotating ball tossed the blade aside and Verd's palm buried itself deep into the Kumo-nin's belly. The direct hit caused a large wound and the ANBU was tossed backwards and splat against the mountain wall behind him. It was time for Chaos. Nothing would go as planned from now on. Verdandi had fucked up and stealth would become a direct impossibility. Some soldiers were jumping up the ridge to see to the wounded ANBU. Verd didn't intend to finish him off. She wasn't here to kill those men. But she had to take care of the caravan forces. The courier was still in between them. Verd needed a quick way down. One of the lower ranked soldiers was aiming for her. Verd jumped off and created her frost statue in mid-air. Clinging to its back as the sudden weight of the statue started to pull her down. It hit the charging soldier mid-way towards Verd and tossed him back to the ground. Verdandi's ice statue would break upon ground contact and turn back into water.

They weren't aware that it had been frost just yet. She had to keep her techniques disguised as suiton if she wanted to do stuff like this. So, she quickly summoned archerfish onto the plane to wash away the nearest soldiers from her path. Tossing out her whole weapon arsenal onto them as well. At least ten kunai, shuriken, senbon were launched at her enemies. All primarily aiming for non-lethal spots to immobilize them. Flash bomb was tossed, followed by smoke bomb to disguise her movement and a stink bomb to round up the last motion. Verd would jump under the guise of her silhouette technique into the shadow of the courier. Waiting for a while until the whole situation became chaotic enough that the courier started to run off. A good 20 soldiers had been rendered unable to fight. One ANBU had been seriously wounded and was being treated. The chaos was perfect so it seemed. What remained was but the courier and two ninja that enclosed his position. One of them stared directly at Verdandi. Verd knew she fucked up again. That asshole could see her despite her disguise. His blade reached towards her leaving the courier in panic as he had no idea what the Kumo-nin was suddenly aiming for. While she parried his blade with her own. Verd turned about and kicked him in the side. But a water gun technique was aimed to her side. Dandi quickly formed the seals to answer with her own water gun, directly intercepting the bullets in mid-air.

Seeing as things started to become swamped and the courier intended to run away. Dandi spat a whole lot of starch syrup on the floor. Kicking the ANBU next to her again so he'd fall back into the sticky fluid. The Ninjutsu caster was raising a fireball this time. Verd was getting tired of being hit like that. Verd formed the seals for the dragon bullet. The dragon quickly swallowed the fire and hit the ANBU straight into his dumb face. Verd quickly turned around and kicked the guy behind her to the face again. He had to pass the fuck out. She kicked him another time just to make sure he'd stay in the starch field this time. Then slowly aiming to clash with the last of them. Verd kept an eye out for the courier. He was slowly stomping through the syrup, trying to free himself but certainly slowed by its sticky effect. Verd smirked below her mask and sheathed her blade again. The last Kumo nin didn't have a weapon and Verd wanted to enjoy this bit. She moved in to kick his chest and hit his head with her own. It hurt. Almost broke her mask. Both of them were now working with supernatural walking, not really hindered by the syrup anymore unlike the courier. Staring at each other. Verd could see a glint in his eyes.

This asshat was trying to use a sensory technique. Nonono. Not good. Verd quickly kicked his palms breaking the hand signs. Punching her palm into his shoulder. She tried to hit him with the temporary paralysis technique but he quickly broke from the shackles it applied on one's body. In return he was breathing in deeply. Frick frick frick. Ash was exhaled and a fire bullet followed. Igniting the whole area of the gunpowder smoke screen. If Verd hadn't raised a water encampment wall right before her face he would have been fried. Pushing the wall back to swallow the whole fire damage until that asshat was pushed back properly. Verd jumped in behind him and smashed her palm once more into his gut. He was sent flying to the floor and impacted on his back. Ouch. That hurt. Verdandi hit the fucker twice as he tried to use his last reserves in endurance to form a dragon bullet. The fire exhaled from his mouth but Verdandi was getting tired of this. Spewing a shark bullet in response and both, destroying his dragon and hitting the guy in the chest with the shark's remaining damage properties. He was done for. Verd was breathing heavily. She had taken out a whole squad of assholes. Another bunch of them was already coming. Soldiers whom had picked up the already wounded ANBU behind Verd. Dandi quickly jumped past the syrup to grab the courier. Hit him casually in the groin and search his backpack. It took a while to find what she was looking for in there.

Eventually she kept the whole backpack. Looking at the guy she'd leave a somewhat force-faked voice kinda style "Nothing personal kiddo, just being hired to do this you know… uhm.. I hope your friends will be alright." She barked before she ran away at last. Fading off into the distance. The kumo nin arrived and picked up their wounded. Bringing all men together back to the entrance of the mountain ridge. The guy that was hit by the Rasengan certainly needed medical care. The soldiers tending for him could temporarily stop the bleeding but that was about it. Out of what seemed, somehow pure luck however. One of the ANBU could spot a regiment of Kiri-nin not far from here. They quickly moved. While Verdandi made her way to the Merc HQ, the Kumo-nin would, somehow, out of pure luck, find medical care within the Kiri-nin's squad that day. Verdandi had messed up a bit. She wasn't supposed to do that much damage. Now the whole situation could raise some suspicions. But no one had any proof of what really happened and while certain thoughts could be raised, none of the Kumo's dared to question the surprisingly quick help of the Kiri's. A little political squabble over an info scroll. Wasn't worth it to get medical attention denied here. After all, Verd had used her Rasengan for the first time on a human being. The effects were a bit more devastating than planned. But he survived… at least.

The actual scrolls of course were delivered to the Kiri-nin HQ by one of Verdandi's shadow clones. Her real self would drop a fake one on the table for the Merc's HQ. She grinned to herself as she got paid for it and received congratulations over the news of the Kumo troops that had been ambushed. Verd went back home to her hideout in the mountains. She needed a break after this. That was one super exhausting battle. With many many mistakes in it. Something she'd eventually have to learn from. Messy missions like that could easily lead to her ruin or to the reveal of her identity. She'd have to be careful there. Especially around ANBU she had to be careful. She needed to do her missions more stealthy and cloaky again. Lower chances of getting caught like that. Kiri HQ sent their regards and thanks towards the intel retrieval. The missing intel had caused chaos on the communication between Kumo stations and one of their frontline outposts apparently suffered from this. A political blow to their chest. But probably a tiny one on the big chess game it was playing. Verd was but a tiny little B-Rank ninja after all. Nothing she could impact THAT much… or could she? Verd wondered for a while as she made herself a cool nice bath in her mountain retreat. Drinking cold water and enjoying the mix of warm stone and icy bathtub.

[EXIT]

2550

WC Usage:

Chakra 90 / 350: