SHIONxxxxxMORI When the group finally came to a rest, they would find themselves in the midst of the thick forest surrounding the Ginmuzu Falls area. "Hey, you guys ever notice how whenever there's trouble in the country, it's always around here?" Sobek said to no one in particular. "What? That's not true, dude." Thoth would respond. "No, seriously, dude. Think about it. Sons of Helios: Ginmuzu. Random Bandits: Ginmuzu. Even worse, evil power rangers with a killer bug bomb that killed the previous random bandits: Ginmuzu. I'm telling you, dude; this place is cursed.""Hey, if you idiots are done with this lovely chat, we have a job to do. Thoth, you sense anything?"
With their captain's orders, the team would momentarily break from their banter to get to work... well, one of them at least. Thoth took a moment to steady himself before clapping his hands together. Maintaining this stance, the bird-masked ANBU would focus on their surroundings, taking in every little detail in the area. "I've got a read, ma'am. I'm seeing two targets. One is taking the main road half a mile west and the other is moving through the treeline to the south. He'll be at our location in five minutes." Shion would nod to her tracker, then turn her attention to the other two members of the party. "Thoth, Rookie, you two head to the target on the road and see what you can uncover. Do not engage unless you get my direct order. Sobek, we'll wait here for the other. Move out."
The pair's responses would be mixed. Sobek would let out a less than enthusiastic groan, fully aware of what was probably about to happen. Thoth would give an affirmative nod to Shion and move out. "Come on, kid. Captain Bastet and Sobek can hold their own here."
❝Persevere. No matter what comes your way, you have to overcome it.❞
❖ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ⌈Arashigakure Chunin⌉ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ❖
As the group ceased their movement, Shinji crouched down, resting one arm on his knee, the other was holding the leather strap of his black sword case, resting behind his back. He remained quiet during the trip, for the most part. Occasionally he muttered something to himself. Mostly just notes of his surroundings, small things that stood out in order for him to make a mental map of the area. He remained equally as quiet as Thoth and Sobek had their exchange. Sobek had made mention that this area seemed to be a hotbed for many of the troubles they had dealt with. Ginmuzu Falls. Shinji hadn't yet visited this place, and he wondered if Sobek's theory of it being cursed held any merit. Perhaps this mission would give him some insight.
As the captain, who Thoth referred to as Bastet, interjected to bring the focus back to the mission, his mind began to wander slightly. She seemed rather serious. It begged a query into why Sobek seemed less than thrilled about being paired with his leader. There must have been something Shinji wasn't aware of when it came to this woman. It would make sense. After all, he was keeping his fair share of secrets from them as well. Thoth revealed that there were two targets. One was further away following a more open path, and the other was travelling through the trees. At least now Shinji knew that Thoth was the groups tracker. From the sounds of things, and from what the mission had been described as, the probability of the man on the main road seemed to be around forty-five percent likely to be a decoy, while the main courier was in the trees. Perhaps this was just the paranoid thoughts of the white haired shinobi. After all, if they didn't know they were being targeted, there would be no need for a decoy.
All the same, his ears perked up when he was addressed. He was given an order to accompany Thoth in travelling towards the target on the road. They weren't supposed to do anything directly to the target unless they receive orders from Captain Bastet, but he wondered if they would be communicating through ear piece, or if there might have been another way for her to give them orders. Shinji nodded in response to the order and stood up. He turned to look at Thoth and gave another nod, prepared to follow the mans movements.
SHIONxxxxxMORI Sobek and Bastet dashed off towards to the road to track their target, leaving Thoth and the rookie behind to plan their approach. Once the two were alone, it would be several seconds of awkward silence before Thoth finally spoke up. "So... uh... what do you do... like... fight wise? I'm more of a tracker, so you're going to be doing most of the heavy lifting if things get out of control. Think you can do that for me, dude?" In the distance, the sound of hurried movement could be heard making a beeline right for the duo. "Doesn't matter. Get ready. Target is approaching!" Should Shinji look towards the direction of the sound, he'd see what appeared to be a humanoid figure rapidly approaching. I say humanoid because whoever, or whatever, this was took great care to make sure their appearance was as concealed as possible.
"Alright kid, on my mark... ready?" Thoth waited for the target to get closer, raising his hand upwards to his mask. The target moved even closer still. "Mark!" the order came with a clear signal for Shinji to spring into action. It was now or never; could he take down their target?
❝Persevere. No matter what comes your way, you have to overcome it.❞
❖ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ⌈Arashigakure Chunin⌉ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ❖
As Bastet and Sobek rushed away, Shinji looked to Thoth for guidance. The air was laced with a silent, awkward tension before the masked man spoke up. Fight wise? Shinji looked around a bit at the trees, planning what he might end up doing here. The trees were too packed together to use the "Field of War," but that shouldn't be a problem. Before he was able to answer, leaves began to shift fairly close to the pair. As Thoth told him to get ready, Shinji set his sword case down on the branch he was standing and cracked his knuckles. This was going to be interesting. He drew one of the physical blades from the case and glanced in the direction the noise was coming from.
He saw a concealed, human-shaped figure darting straight for them. He began to wonder if the figure hadn't noticed them, or if they were already targets. His white hair shifted as he readied his blade, holding it diagonally to his side, the tip pointed at the ground. With Thoth being a tracker, he might have noticed something strange about the way Shinji was holding the blade. Rather than the sharp edge directed towards the target, Shinji was aiming with the back end of the blade. Any attacks that may hit the target from a stance like this wouldn't be able to cleave through them. Rather, it would have more of a blunt-focus for the damage. "Ready when you are."
With crimson pools trained on the approaching creature, Thoth's signal for action was met with a few hurried steps from Shinji, and a slash of the blade, before he blurred out of sight. Reappearing on the other side of the target, Shinji glanced behind him to see if he had connected. He had used the "Burst Raid" technique with the flat side of his blade, attempting to simply knock the target over rather than clean slice through them. After all, they were after information, right?
SHIONxxxxxMORI Thoth was no fighter; he had built a career off of perfect spycraft and tracking abilities. He might have given the signal to begin the attack, but he sure was not about to join in on it. As Shinji engaged his target, Thoth would send a message to Bastet informing her of the contact. His response would be both not what he wanted to hear and completely expected. Immediately following the local call to arms, a thunderous roar would erupt from the location of the second group. "Oh, son of a b***h." Thoth would mutter. Despite the man's barely audible mumblings, he would find himself echoed by none other than Sobek, would take a less subtle approach to his response. "SON OF A b***h!""Haha! Yeah! Take that, you dork!" At least one of them seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Meanwhile, Shinji's attack seemed to have worked on the enemy. The cloaked figure lashed out at the location where Shinji approached from, but would find his fist would pass clean through him. Then, the flat of the blade would make contact... but not with the figure. A cloud of smoke would engulf the two as the man replaced himself with a branch. Almost instantly, the man would appear behind Shinji, delivering a wheelhouse kick to the boy's core.
❝Persevere. No matter what comes your way, you have to overcome it.❞
❖ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ⌈Arashigakure Chunin⌉ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ❖
Shinji watched as the body of the target evaporated into an explosion of smoke, clearing to leave behind a stray branch. A substitution technique. He should have seen it coming. It was a simple, academy-level move. Everyone knew it. Rather than spending this time beating himself up, he took it as an opportunity to ready his next move. A predictive action that began with flooding his bloodstream with chakra, and concentrating until the crimson liquid was sitting just within his pores. Just as he thought, this person was going in for an attack instead of running away.
As the kick made contact with Shinjis abdomen, it knocked a slight smirk from his lips. A clench of the fist produced a series of red needles from the boys body. The Aka Harinezumi no Sujou, one of the Ketsueki clan techniques. The name was fairly apt, as it truly did make him look like some weird cross-breed of a porcupine. Rather than choosing to defend, Shinji was using the opponents action against them. He had surely had ample time to shunshin away, or similarly substitute his body as the cloaked figure had done. However, this way would make it much harder for the opponent to avoid the onslaught of spikes.
Regardless of whether the spikes had worked or not, Shinji fell from the tree, flipping in the air and landing below them on a lower branch. Once he was steady, Shinji pulled a kunai knife from his waistband, beneath his jacket. Taking aim and throwing it upwards, his aim was precise. It looked as if the knife was aimed at the cloaked figure, but in reality it was aimed higher. A thin wire traced from the knife back to Shinji. He had intended the knife to sink into a branch higher up. What exactly was he up to? He never got the chance to show it off, as a magnificent roar erupted further away. He glanced at Thoth, hoping for an explanation, but quickly turned his attention back to the present enemy. They took precedence over anything else at the moment.
SHIONxxxxxMORI Another bout of explosions sounded off followed by the joyful cackling of the squad captain. "C'mon nerd, is that all you've got?""Oh my god, Captain!" she shrill, yet unmistakable voice of Sobek would follow. The rapid succession of blasts distracted the cloaked figure for the briefest of seconds, giving enough of a window for the spikes Shinji had created to hit their mark. A choking cough groaned from the cloaked figure as pools of red began to soak the rags that covered the figure. As shinji landed, so too did the figure, eyes locked on the boy. "You think you've won? You'll never stop us all." the figure said, half cackling and half choking on blood.
❝Persevere. No matter what comes your way, you have to overcome it.❞
❖ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ⌈Arashigakure Chunin⌉ ▬▬ ❖ ▬▬ ❖
As the man fell beside Shinji, he took note of the red stains that had developed on his garments. 'That was too easy,' he thought, but didn't give voice to the idea. Instead, he listened, and as the figure was choking on his own blood, the kunai he had thrown sunk into a limb high above them. He grabbed the man by his collar, building chakra up in his feet, and scaled the side of the tree, using the wire from the kunai to counterbalance the additional weight of the nearly-dead target. Once they were back to where they were, Shinji motioned for Thoth to come over to them, taking careful notice of the explosions in the distance.
"According to this one," Shinji began, with a thumb jerked in the direction of the figure, coughing and cackling away, "There's more. What now?" As far as the new recruit was concerned, if this man died without any further information, this mission was a failure. He hadn't intended for his reactive bloodline use to injure the figure to this point. He was only hoping to pierce the mans leg to limit his movement, then use that as an opportunity to interrogate them. However, perhaps this was a good thing. If there were to be more, then that would just mean more chances to get the information they needed.
He thought about asking Thoth what the yelling and explosions were about, but felt that now wasn't the best time to ask. However, the ambient noise that Sobek and Bastet were creating helped give credence to Sobek's disdain at being paired with his captain. The explosions weren't very stealthy, and clearly weren't being used to get information. Shinji shook his head, but in preparation for whatever may come next, flicked a bloody needle from his finger, and implanted it into his palm to draw a small trickle of blood. After a single hand sign, a puff of smoke brought his trusty scythe, Yuugure, to his hand. Perhaps this would intrigue his partner, perhaps not. Either way, he didn't feel like explaining at the moment.
SHIONxxxxxMORI "Captain, you always do this!" The unmistakable voice of Sobek echoed, gaining speed as the pair drew closer. "If we dont strike first, we lose the advantage, Sobek; you should know this," Bestet would reply in a psuedo-sagely tone. "He was a merchant!" Bastet would shake her head in response. "Could have been a disguise. And hey, no smoke without fire.""What? That's not true; what about smoke machines?" Bastet would pause her approach for a moment. "Well technically that's not really smoke; it's a fog made by dry ice... wait, Thoth?"
"Is it over?" Thoth would ask, emerging from cover. "What the hell, dude, you left the rookie on his own?" Thoth would simply shrug. "What do you want from me? I'm a tracker. I was keeping watch." Bastet would rub her temples for a moment, letting out a beleaguered sigh. "What if something would have happened to him?""I'm sure I would have seen it."
"okay, you two set up a perimeter or something. I'm gonna see how the new kid handles interrogations." It wasn't uncommon for field interrogations to take place on the job, but she certainly didn't need to send the two out to secure a perimeter. Thoth could easily have stood still and kept an eye on their surroundings. In reality, it was a ploy to get her subordinates out of her hair for a brief moment so she could have an easier time collecting data. "You did good, kid. Seems like you can handle your own in a fight. Sure did a number on this one..." she said, looking at the bloody rags that covered the man. Damn. Did he really do that much damage? "Shion, this is genjutsu. This man is faking it," a familiar voice would purr through Bastet's head. "Is that so? Well, time to see if the kid can spot a trap too."
Meanwhile, the man now appeared tied up, strung up, and coughing up blood. "You thought the Suns extinguished, but a red dawn will rise! You will all taste oblivion!" The man glanced to the scythe produced by Shinji, then back to Bastet. "You'll get nothing more from me!" Huh... was that so? Bastet would motion towards the man with her head indicating to Shinji that it was his turn to see if he could get the man to talk.
