Re: CinderSkull and The RedHot Rebels ~ [Open]
The marsh grew dense as the duo moved forward, a few awkward pauses and sighs interrupted briefly by shared memories of lost places and warm thoughts of old comforts. There was a moment where the blonde haired boy seemed to falter, debating on which path to take next, but Takayama feigned ignorance. He was home after all, even if the looming threats of home stood just over the rocky cliff side leading into crater city to the northeast.
"It's just through this thorn briar, we keep a little extra protection around to keep out wanderers..."
Takayama's gaze shifted beneath his sunglasses, unseen calculations running through his mind as certain useful qualities in the foliage around him started to make themselves apparent. It was a simple clearing outlined with heavy trees and shadowed underbrush. The clearing itself had little in the way of cover and no serious obstacles save for the various pools of chakra draining water that had sapped the reeds growing closest to it of any apparent life. The blue haired refugee stopped abruptly as they made it about half way through, his toeless boots brushing up against a patch of cleanly cut thorn roots as his hidden hand quietly made it's way to something under his shroud. Sloppy work.. His guide stopped a few steps later, keeping his back to the wanderer and taking on a serious tone.
"You know a lot about leaf, I'll give you that... You even had me fooled for a while..."
Takayama had counted three of them so far, with six other potential hiding spots, though higher caliber shinobi seemed to pop out of thin air in his experience. They were no doubt shinobi, the samurai could barely contend with shinobi when it came to hide and seek and trying to beat them at their own game when they could simply overrun an area with sheer brute force and numbers seemed counterintuitive. All the same, the situation was no less dangerous. Takayama had only sparred with an actual shinobi once, his outcome in passing her test being a confidence boost, but a shallow comparison to his actual combat ability.
"... But Zenzo's kid died during the invasion... Burned alive in an old Yakuza brothel after his dad made a bad deal with some unsavory characters. We've been using that line for months to catch the hired goons the Daimyo has been sending in to try to catch us, turns out it takes a shinobi to catch a shinobi..." Takayama swiveled his jaw, cold gray optics swiveling across their frames as the landscape sunk into the back of his mind and the world began to shrink. The boy finally turned to view him, a world of experience between the two of them guaranteeing that even someone as young as him had had seen considerably more bloodshed than Taka could relate to.
"Why don't you take off those sunglasses and tell me who you really are?"
"Because it's bright out here."
An explosion of smoke erupted from underneath the blue haired shinobi's tan shroud, his body shifting first forward and then back as his blonde haired opponent adjusted his stance and drew an assortment of lethal looking projectiles. As expected though, the first bout of shuriken emerged from one of the hiding spots Takayama had picked out earlier, his peripheral vision already heavily invested in keeping them in view. He threw himself down as they made contact with his body, a few second delay giving the ominous smoke cover a moment to waft before the explosive notes on the volley detonated. The blonde haired boy-turned-weapon vaulted as the crescendo of fire finished, his ill fitting sales attire pulling at him awkwardly as he flipped backwards through the air and landed on a gray and nearly fossilized tree stump. He had very nearly chosen to rest when a voice sprang up desperately from the tree line.
"BEHIND YOU!"
"SAI!"
Takayama grit his teeth as his sweeping kick missed the boy's legs, the shouted warning giving the child time to somersault forward with surprising speed as Takayama steadied himself on a clump of dry soil. In his surprise at the boy's escape he almost didn't have enough time to stumble out of the way of his next assailant who had flitted gracefully out from the under brush to flank him. She had very nearly caught his ear with a few swipes from a pair of daggers that could have easily passed for short swords, but had held her ground after Takayama leapt backwards towards the edge of the tree line. She was lanky, a bit malnourished, but so was the blonde haired boy. Her hair was a rusty maroon affair and while her chest plate and toeless boots screamed shinobi the rest of her outfit seemed to have been hobbled together from various caravan conquests ranging from expensive silk to common cotton. The markings under her eyes were something he had seen before, but he didn't have time to place them. He had spent nearly a second analyzing this newcomer when the shrill voice of whoever had given the first warning split the air a second time.
"I got him!!"
A girl. She couldn't have been older than twelve, the youngest of all of them by far. Her bright pink hair made her an even more of a target, which was probably why she had been left in the trees until the last minute. She was forming hand seals.
He needed a way out.
He needed to focus.
Taka set his jaw indignantly and inhaled, closing his eyes as the wind rushing through his hair and the sounds of the world around him were drowned down to whispers and stillness. Then there was nothing. Well, almost nothing. There were shapes in the darkness. A strange sort of lucid half dream that he had experienced so many times before in the prison chamber beneath stone's holy temple of the elements. The whisps shifted, but somehow they always managed to echo the events around him. He concentrated, the shapes slowly gaining familiarity as he poured all of his being into making sense of the situation. Three figures, well trained when compared to him. Considerably more experienced. The three of them were positioned in a triangle cleverly covering most of his escape routes. They had funneled him towards the girl's hidden position with the intent of probably finishing him off or trapping him, but there was something wrong with that.
Taka imagined swiveling his jaw, finding the rest of his body still caught mid free fall.
The girl couldn't have been any higher than genin and it would take more than just that to finish him off. Either all three of them were going to strike at once or they were counting on something else. Either way, they had apparently counted on him avoiding the next attack or dying, otherwise they wouldn't have risked exposing their spotter. Luckily he still had a few tricks up his sleeve, but he was going to have to use them in a different way than he intended.
The blink ended, wind rushing back past the blue haired refugee's senses as he opened his eyes. Somewhere beneath his sunglasses a pair of sharp and determined eyes burned with a preternatural intensity as the young shinobi cub finished her hand seals and brought her fingers to her lips, a deep breath entering her chest as Takayama quickly drew a kawarimi target and set it beneath his feet. The other two had started to make their move, but the moment would be decided before they could take action. A pillar of flame poured from the girl's mouth, quickly rising up to meet him as he pressed against the kawarimi target and launched himself directly into the flame. By the time the young shinobi had time to scream her neck had been caught under Takayama's bicep, leaving the two witnesses behind him shouting frantically. Without hesitation he bolted again, the terrified genin under his arm gagging with the new sharp change in momentum. Now it was his turn to lead them.
"I swear to god if you hurt a hair on her head-"
He didn't have enough patience to pay much attention to anything else she had to say. She was quick on his tail, clearly the taijutsu specialist of their group. She was faster than him too, clipping the distance between them a hair sooner than he had expected her to. It took more than a little effort to come to a dead halt next to the tree he had been aiming for and switch the now dwindling spool of ninja wire on his belt into the locked position. From there he paused for a moment and shot off again before bouncing off a tree as his persuer trailed not far behind. As Takayama shot back toward the yellow haired chuunin he couldn't help but feel like he was forgetting something, a thought which made a bit more sense when the blue faced genin started trying awkwardly to bat at his ribs. Wait for it... The blonde haired shinobi had been all too eager to put himself in the stranger's way, only to panic afterward when the man launched his twelve year old shield and sent them both tumbling backwards before he stepped over them and made a bee line for the tree stump he had started at. The dagger wielding mad woman had wasted no time in catching up and hadn't seen phased by most of the process until she caught a small glimpse of something she hadn't noticed before. A thin glimmer of something between the shade of the trees, barely noticeable in the gray twilight of the eternal storm overhead. It seemed to be trailing behind her target ominously. In fact, there were two of them.
Then she exploded.
As far as her shocked comrades could tell anyways. They hadn't had a chance to notice the wad of explosive notes whipping toward her. Likewise, she hadn't been expecting to be hit by anything because her target had never made any motion beyond running around in circles.
Takayama paused to take a breath, the burns on his arm and chest finally starting to sting after the adrenaline rush. His fingers were still in the detonation seal when he turned heel and took a second to assess the damage. The red haired kunoichi with the odd markings on her cheeks had collapsed with a few burns, but she would no doubt be up in a moment. The yellow haired one was already on his feet again, approaching at a brisk pace but not being nearly as careless as his teammate had. The pink haired child was sitting away a safe distance, still trying to catch her breath. Otherwise functional. This was his opportunity. As organized as these three had been, they had only been functional up until the point their plan had been derailed. He had to move quickly.
Takayama let his arm slip back beneath the mystery of his shroud and darted for the boy, his anxious expression giving away that the tides had turned. Takayama only saw it for a moment though.
"SAI WAIT-"
The blond haired chuunin had stepped back at first, only to pounce forward and launch the blades that had clearly been pilfered from some earlier rebel victory. His first throw missed what might have been an easy strike if his nerves weren't shot, only to have his opponent turn into a puff of smoke anyway as a pair of kunai bound by a few sparse chords of ninja wire wound themselves tightly around his ankles. The boy fell mid step, his back planting itself firmly on the patch of dry clay that made up most of the clearing.
Takayama stood victorious at the edge of the tree line, a little burned and a little tired, but his jaw was firmly set and the glimmer of pride in his eyes was all the reward he needed. He loosened his stance, straightening himself as he put a finger up to adjust his sunglasses. He had done enough damage, now hopefully they would be willing to listen to him without immediately being able to inflict death on him at their whim. It was funny, he had never thought much of his own combat prowess, but maybe Haruka had been right when she- Takayma grunted as the pink haired genin threw all of her weight into him, the sudden burst of speed coming from the girl catching him completely off guard and sending a shutter through his body as he lost balance. His eyes widened as he crashed through a few thorny branches and was given a brief glimpse of where she had driven him.
Into the marsh.
Into the chakra draining pools.
There was a wet crash of flesh on undisturbed water, followed by violent thrashing and gasps of desperate breath. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the trio collecting themselves and congradulating each other. He even managed to get his head above the water a few times just long enough to see the child beaming as her counterparts stood in admiration. Takayama tried at first to support himself with chakra only to find that the more he tried the colder he began to feel. After only two more tries he was frigid and exhausted, holding his breath as long as he could before the icy pain began to make its way up his nose and darkness began to set in.
[...?]
