Mission Details:

Chiaki secured the letter that she had been given to her belt with a ribbon from her bag, tying it securely enough that the paper groaned and buckled under the ribbon. She looked out and sighed, wondering if there was ever an off hour for shinobi. She had received the mission at the early hours of the morning, when the light hadn’t even crept over the horizon yet, and the kage’s faces were still shrouded by the night’s void. She heard the voices of the night in the middle of the city, where konoha never slept. The stores there kept weird hours, staying awake the entire time that they were in business. 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Closed on the konoha major holidays, as was everything, but still stayed open.

She breathed in the air, the cool air after a day of rain. It was a good day to have a mission, or rather, night. She corrected herself as best as she could, making sure that everything was secure, and then looked out over the village once more from her balcony. Curtains fluttered, and she was gone, across the next two rooftops already. She didn’t have time to be taking anything besides a quick route to the site of the attack. It was an abandoned compound that had been a holdover from the last ninja world war. She didn’t know whether or not the people that were there would find anything of use, but it was best to not let them get too comfortable, as she needed to make sure that she was able to get the upper hand in at least one of the fights to come. It sounded like a small army had stormed in, and that a Genin was the one that found out about it, scouting and bringing the news back.

It was actually quite funny, since she was a Genin herself, but she wanted to make sure that she got that Chuunin title soon. That was why she had signed up, after weeks of no missions, for any B ranked mission that came along. She had memorized the map, and a good thing too, as it lead to a certain abandoned cabin, or at least that was what it looked like when she had played next to it when she was a little girl, and that cabin had held such secrets?

She sighed, the time for konoha to have such secrets was over, and she wished that she didn’t have to take on a mission like this now, but securing the secrets of the village hidden in the leaves was one of the things that would be expected from a chuunin. Chiaki, after all, wanted to be a chuunin right? Right?

That question rang through her as she jumped over the walls and into the trees below, catapulting forward and rolling on the branch to right herself, the hem of her chinese dress billowing out the short foot of fabric that it had behind her as she took off again.

She let the branches and the early morning air carry her forward, keeping her eyes out for that small and abandoned cabin while she thought about what it meant to be a chuunin in the hidden leaf. As a genin, she wouldn’t be called upon in times of war, and she wasn’t assigned her own squad, but now… but now she might be, if she finished this mission. What did that mean? Did it mean that she would see things like she had when Takao had gone on the warpath?

Chiaki shook her head, this was no time to be thinking about that time. But the flashes of images, sights, smells, sounds came rushing back to her as she reached the cabin, and saw that the people that had infiltrated it had blown apart the defensive seals, and indeed, half of the floor along with it. No bodies, so it was a controlled blast. She spied water around the impact area, so it was done by suiton eh? She would have to be careful of this individual. She had her own Suiton that she wanted them to watch out for, but she couldn’t use it in such a small space, or at least what looked to be a small space, as well as the person who had done this. She picked up a piece of wood that was a very fine splinter. Whatever had done this would be able to break her bones easily. She sighed and tossed it away, or tried to. Shaking her hand furiously, Chiaki tried to get it off before flicking once, twice, three times. Glaring at the thing she took it in her front teeth and spat it on the ground. Damned splinter of wood.

She looked down at the wreckage, the wood, old and dried as it was, had already soaked up a lot of the moisture, but it was still dripping from the force and volume of the water that had blasted it open. So it was going to be like that huh? She sighed and molded her chakra into an Ox seal and touched her throat to do the latest and greatest of her jutsu. It was the guanyin otter breathing technique, and she didn’t know if she would need it, but it was best to use it against a user of suiton, as it would allow her to breathe in almost any circumstance that had no air and water. She didn’t want to drown so close to being a chuunin.

Clearing her throat, she took a deep breath and started to walk down the stairs, the first floor was tidy, and used as a storage unit. She didn’t really get the whole point of this being the storage unit until she saw the false wall that had been pulled aside, with another set of stairs in the back. Oh, so this is what was meant to deter the first set of people in. It was almost like it was lulling them into a false sense of security.

The second floor was more of the same, though it was littered with Ryo bills and whatnot. Probably for storing ryo during the war if it ever ended. Or to deter those looking for ryo. The ryo glittered and gleamed, all sorts of it just scattered about in the room. Some of it was piled nicely, and some of the ryo bills were crumpled and stuffed into bags. It almost looked like a secret stash of some old person, waiting to be discovered. Chiaki sighed and looked around, wondering whether she wanted to actually take some for herself. But she didn’t have pockets. Perhaps if she… if she could just put some in her bra? She passed by one set of them and reached out, before her hand retreated. No, this wasn’t for her. The mission still stood. She nodded to herself and started towards the back wall.

It was only when she got closer that she started to smell the smells of death. Urine, feces, and blood intermingled and wafted out of the stairwell and up to her nose. She covered it and coughed, not expecting to smell that here. What had happened? She took out her kunai and proceeded with more caution than she had walking through the storage unit. The next floor was going to be tough, she could tell. She had never had any experience with traps, neither setting nor looking for them, and so she really had no idea how to combat them, nor how to deal with them at all. Chiaki hoped, hoped beyond hope, that she would be able to deal with the traps one way or another.

Beyond the door was a trapped hallway, which ran underneath the room above and was small enough that three people couldn’t go shoulder to shoulder in it. It looked like someone had tripped the trigger in the floor and had been smashed by a ceiling tile that fell on them, crushing their entire body to a pulped mess that radiated out and splashed - Chiaki looked at the side of the room where the blood would have gone and counted the outlines of at least nine other individuals. She sighed and hopped up on top of the block, the body underneath making an uncomfortable squelching and grinding noise as she did.

She moved forward, the grip on her kunai and her teeth clenched tighter as she wandered to the back of the room, looking at where the footsteps fell in the dust. If she just managed to stay with them, she knew she would be alright. Her placement was perfect, even though it was slow, agonizingly slow. She didn’t want to admit it, but the others were probably making up time on her, and she didn’t want to be left in the dust.

The fourth floor was paved with three dead bodies, all with bolts, or what looked to be crossbow bolts, in their bodies. Some had died trying to yank out the bolts, but all were fresh enough to warrant her to be careful. She stepped over their bodies as the others had before her, making sure to place her feet in the holes of the dust left to her by the gracious intruders.

Chiaki then looked at the fifth room, where spikes had come out of the wall and impaled a poor soul to the neighboring wall. The spikes jutted at two foot intervals, and unluckily for the victim, or she should probably say luckily, they were killed instantly by the spike it seemed. The entrance wound was in the temple, and the disgorged eyeballs that were still wobbling across the cheekbones of the hapless victim, along with the brain matter that was oozing out of the ears and nose, told her that it had been a painless death. Good thing too, because their left arm had been shattered and ripped through, discarded next to the body like some sort of prop and the spike had impaled them just above the stomach. The next spike had missed all except the barest amount of flesh in the leg, which meant that the corpse looked like it had been moving towards the other side at a relatively quick pace.

Chiaki nodded and placed her footing where the others had stepped again, waiting for something to happen and the tenseness of the situation grew ever nearer to the waking part of her mind. That was just something that happened, she tried to reassure herself, as she walked on, she didn’t know whether or not that was true, but she certainly hoped that it was. Chiaki was never one to psyche herself out of something, or she didn’t believe that she was. Self doubt started to trickle its way into her mind like a sickness. Her breathing became heavier, and her reflexes became duller. She felt like she was somehow heavier than she had been and by the time she had made it down the next set of stairs, she couldn’t tell whether there was no dust on the floor or not. Taking a deep breath, she decided that she would just scan the area and try to make the best of the situation.

The next floor had no bodies, and the dust wasn’t there to tell her where to tread either. She looked back and noticed that the dust had gotten lighter and lighter as she descended the stairs. “Well, this is where it gets interesting huh?” She tied her hair back into a bun and blinked rapidly, looking around the room, wondering where the next trap would be, what would happen if she wasn’t quick enough. She gulped and moved slowly across the floor. She felt a loosening of a tile and jumped back four paces as a blade swung from the ceiling downwards and crashed into the floor, making a dull ‘THUMP’ as it did so. It stood there, wavering back and forth and she looked at where she had stepped, a trip wire gleamed in the light of the torches and she rolled her eyes, Damnit, they had seen it and she hadn’t. A useful trap indeed, but a trap that was worthless if it was seen. She jumped over the blade and sighed in relief, the sixth floor was a success, she had gotten through it.

As she went towards the back of that room, she started to hear voices, voices of people here in the same building. She shook her head, laughing internally at their carelessness, but they also seemed to be talking in low tones. Perhaps they had heard that she had set off the trap, perhaps they were coming to check it out now. Weaving the hand seal that she needed, she performed the jutsu guanyin otter dispersal and faded from their five senses. She neared the door and two of the ninja were peering around the corner. Another four were pointing crossbows at the entrance. A dead comrade was smashed against the ceiling by another trap, a trap that no one would have seen coming by a hydraulic pump that ascended with enough force that it would have rocked the upstairs. Well, they hadn’t been there long, the giblets of this were still swinging from the impact. She noticed another shinobi walking downstairs, cast a glance over his shoulder, and then descended.

Well, that would have to be rectified.

Chiaki bent low and stooped under the hydraulics and then had an idea, she turned back, walked casually up the stairs, trailing her fingers along the shinobi she was next to, wondering if they felt it, but they didn’t, and shrugged. Alright, so that would be how she got this party going. She reached the top of the stairs, and weaved the hand seal: Snake, held it, and inhaled, her lungs filling with water before she expelled it all downwards, it crashed down the stairs in a torrent of water and she held it for as long as she could before she turned and swam towards the other end of the room, the water rushing past her, trying desperately to fight against the sudden torrent of water that had emerged from her. She couldn’t see, but behind her she could almost feel the water rushing down another passage, swallowing up the entirety of the bottom layer, she hoped. As the water’s current died down, she righted herself, completely sopping from that last jutsu and looked around.

Seeing that no one had floated upriver, she went down the staircase to see what she had done.

Two of the shinobi were dead from the impact of her wave of water, their necks broken, along with a lot of other fractures that she had inflicted. There were two shinobi that were at least on the brink of dying, and she didn’t see the other two that were guarding further back. She did, however, see that the water had drained completely from this room. Not a good sign.

She walked down the path, taking out her senbon and wading through the barely trickling water.

“What do you mean they’re all dead?” A voice came up from below, “And where did all this water come from?” She blinked, the voice came from a place down deep below her. Shite, she would have to deal with him and.. He wasn’t talking to himself.

She grit her teeth and descended the stairs, her jutsu running out at exactly the wrong time as she heard her footsteps hit the bottom stair, she looked as bewildered as the rest of them.

“Get her!” the leader pointed at her as the two guards that were left rushed her with kunai. She wove hand seals and roared at them, an otter exploding from her and circled her twice before running up and leaping in the air, catapulting down in the middle of the two shinobi who grinned and continued to run before it exploded in a dull and ominous red light, lacerating them badly enough to take them out of the fight. She walked on, then the leader pulled out their own kunai, throwing it at her. She parried it and started to weave one hand seal, the tiger seal, then planted her feet and drew a deep breath. An otter draped itself across her shoulders as it glared menacingly at the person. It would take a direct hit to stop them for good.

The man laughed, turning his head up to the sky, his wild brown hair backlit by the torches that were still lit as he wove his own hand seals, Tiger - Ox - Dragon - Hare - Dog - Bird - Rat - Clone seal - Dragon - Ram, she didn’t recognize it until a shark formed out of the water she had placed there and hit her in the side, sending her against the wall, and disrupting her own jutsu. He ran at her with his kunai, intending to send her to the next world with a final blow. Well, if that’s the way he would have it, then she wove her own hand seals as she blocked his attack with her kunai, feeling her arm break from the strain. “Guanyin technique, forceful otter nuzzle!” An otter erupted from her and hit him point blank, breaking his bones on the spot. She took the senbon out of her pocket and drove it into his temple, as he crumpled to the ground, and lay there lifeless. Looking about the room, she tensed and looked at her own shattered and broken arm. WEaving the necessary hand seals, she conjured up a guanyin needle and placed it in her knee, which healed the rest of her to full capacity, almost as if it didn’t happen. Then she looked around the room for a way to gather the materials that she had been charged to do so.

Finding a bag, she wrung it out twice before placing all of the items she could hold in it, and cinched it up. The bandits were no longer moving, either having lost consciousness or been killed.

She strode out of the building, feeling taller than she was for accomplishing the mission, and she could taste chuunin on her tongue. What a day to be alive. She did, however, forget one thing. Who were these bandits, and why were they attacking?

Oh well.


WC: 3112

Using 3000 to get to B-2 Speed.

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