[Event] Mixed Signals

Age : 30 Posts : 644

Ochiba’s opponent rushed Bloodhound in a series of attacks that built up her speed, causing the potential for more and more damage. However, she wasn’t at the point that he couldn’t counter attack yet. As she spun horizontally, the gas version of burning vengeance came out of Bloodhound’s mouth. The cloud would surround his enemy. The cloud of poison was intended to be inhaled to be effective. At this point, his opponent was breathing hard and her onslaught wasn’t helping her cause. If the gas wasn’t effective and his coming counter strike didn’t work, at the very least, the gas would help blind her already watery view, which was really his intent. However, if the gas was effective, yet his counter attack wasn’t, the gas’s burning effect would be at its’ climax as the liquid was wearing off. It was good timing by Ochiba, although he didn’t realize or even intend for that to occur. Really, the intention was to distract from the coming blows.

Bloodhound’s hands shot to the left after the gas entered the air so that the opponent would be less likely to spot it. His left arm was out forty-five degrees from his shoulder, leveling with his enemy’s neck. The right arm shot down and left at a forty-five degree angle, level with the knees. As this arm movement happened, Bloodhound shot to the right. This was timed during the opponent’s downward spin. The right sword would, if successful, would cut deep into the back of her knees so that they wouldn’t function. The left sword, if successful, would cut through the back of the neck and to the vertebrae. This would mean death.

After shooting right, Bloodhound would spin out of the range of his enemy, bringing both swords together at the midsection, so that if she had somehow gotten her guard up to protect both her neck and her knees, the swords may cut into her torso, causing a crippling blow in and of itself. With this spin, Bloodhound would retreat backwards, which was now in the direction that his opponent had just come from. Ochiba would try to retreat the puppet back as far as he could before moving him again if the opponent was able to block the attack. If the opponent dropped to the ground, he would set Bloodhound on the attack as quickly as he could, coming downward at the fallen body with a flurry thrusts toward the chest. Of course, that was only if his attack was successful.

Put in the same situation, Ochiba knew that he couldn’t win against his attack. With watery eyes, a view blocked by a cloud of poison, as well as the simple distraction of having gas sprayed in the face during an attack, along with breathing hard (which he knew made it harder for the body to react due to a lack of oxygen to the brain), AND two separate swords coming towards two different areas would be a lot to battle through. As skilled as Ochiba was as a shinobi, if he were in her shoes, he would lose his life. If she were able to stop mid-attack with a blinded vision to dodge or block two swords, twice, he would have a newfound respect for not only her, but for Konoha shinobi in general. He would consider her a truly worthy opponent and he would only hope to complete the mission before she would be able to end his life.

The effect from the chakra pill was still increasing. He could feel the chakra run through his system, increasing despite the constant drain from Bloodhound and Birdcage. This was good. While his opponent was becoming more and more fatigued from her physical toll, he was able to hold off fatigue with the knowledge and pre-planning he had from before the mission. That was in his favor. What wasn’t in his favor was her ability. She was faster than he was and had proven her skill. Those blades, although they didn’t have the range that Bloodhound had, had lethal potential. He hoped that this was it. He really hoped that this was the maneuver that struck her down. He would take those blades for himself, as well as that headband as a trophy. Of course, he would have to survive this scuffle, complete the mission, and survive the wildfire for any trophy taking to be celebrated.

Jutsu:

CP:

Poison:

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

Hisako wasn’t the kunoichi that excelled in intelligence, superior than average observation or tactical skills, she never predicted more than one step forward because that was simply stupid, yet one fact proved odd to the girl, the youth that was fighting her hadn’t had whole day to fight, if the wildfire catches up with the area, while it wouldn’t cause much damage to the construction site it would cut off his retreat option, Hisako knew that an average saboteur always wants to have that option open, surely the ’t cause much damage to the construction site it would cut off his retreat option, Hisako knew that an average saboteur always wants to have that option open, surely the shinobi understood the mechanics behind Hisako’s technique, he seemed to have enough guts to tell him to avoid the hell of Hisako’s swords and not block even a single blow not to fall for the lockdown of block-or-die. Why was he just wasting time, at this point Hisako’s speed was very easily visible increase over the one she started so he surely understood that her jutsu gains speed as well as momentum. Why would he want to prolong Hisako’s flurry of attacks? What possible good would it give her? Sure the attacks tired Hisako a little but if that was his main strategy it would be foolish to rely on it, she could have thrashed the puppet and killed the boy before she got exhausted. That left one option for Hisako to consider, seeing how she was occupied with slashing and the puppet did nothing more than keep moving out of the way, the girl had nothing better to think about anyways…

She was well aware of the role of momentum in her techniques, if she was facing an overwhelmingly skilled swordsman she would avoid using anything momentum-related. While the unstoppable force behind increase of speed and force given by it was nice it also made it a lot harder if not impossible to be acrobatic and dodgy. An assassin always wants to be dodgy, maybe Hisako was afraid of the option of gaining too much speed and didn’t go full out. The boy was possibly waiting for Hisako to gain momentum for a possible counter, had he been engaged in blocking, such counter would be impossible because a hand attacking is a hand not blocking and that means losing a damage-puppet which was essential to the boy. Hisako started to be aware of such option just as the boy spent first few seconds of her combo without a proper answer, so far he always played the counter-boy, waiting for Hisako to give him an opening to strike and his strikes were precise but very much avoidable for someone with advanced dodging skills and speed, if Hisako loses her head too much, she may open up for the dodge so she seen no point in continuing the dance after the final spin. At that point there was very little time that Hisako spent turned around while spinning. She was well aware of the spin’s weakness and it’s status with swordsmen but with her speed the weakness was almost non-existant.

That was why she noticed the boy’s puppet open it’s mouth straight away, he probably intended to let the gas loose while she was turned away but it didn’t work out that way entirely. Still given Hisako’s momentum she wasn’t able to hold her breath and probably took few breaths of it, she couldn’t tell due to the gas being rather mist-like. Gas took couple of seconds to spread properly and Hisako’s eyes were already watery, being a weapon expert Hisako knew what that meant. The boy will most likely counter but this time Hisako couldn’t exactly block it by instinct, so far the puppeteer has shown two desired targets: arms and legs so she didn’t want to go entirely va bank on this one. She was expected to either take the hits and die by the youth, which wasn’t an option for Hisako, or block the blows and open up for potential follow ups. Such strategy was fine but it would’ve only worked if Hisako was slower than the opponent, of course her visibility was somewhat impaired but she would tell if a hand with the blade is coming or not and from which side, high or low. Still blocking was a risk Hisako wasn’t willing to take, she had only few advantages over the boy and she had to use them if she wanted to live another day. It would be just like her Dad taught her “If unsure strike”. At the point that the the gas started to spread and Hisako thought of her own course of action the slashes weren’t in motion, whatever pre-strike signs there may have been, Hisako didn’t notice them due to being little impaired by the first poison. At the initial moments, the gas was barely a factor at all.

Just as the blows started moving, Hisako charged forward, grabbing the puppet’s shoulders and flipped over it, causing her small cut open again and few drips of blood dropping on her cheek. Such unusual and most likely unexpected mean of dodging was hard to predict so what followed would’ve been hard to respond by a slightly lagging puppeteer but a response was possible. Still, Hisako’s landing aimed at what was behind the puppet – it’s strings, they were glowing with chakra, it took a skilled puppeteer to suppress the glow and Hisako also got behind the puppet, it’s cloud or the intended combination. Hisako was almost sure that she had no chance of survival just trying to dodge or block even given her advanced dodging or weaponry skills and speed. Had her landing been successful, the control of the puppet would be impaired for possibly up to few seconds, the strings may have tied one with another and would still need to be moved from under Hisako’s feet, her successful landing on the strings could mean few moments of complete paralysis of the assault puppet. Hisako thought of trying to cut the strings before but she remembered how her Father once told a story of how he tried it in his youth, turns out no average weapon could cut chakra, which the strings were flowing with. She rejected it immediately but messing with the strings could still be counted as a weakness of most puppets.

However her landing would go, couple of options open for Hisako by being between the puppet and the user, attacking the user himself was possible but Hisako ditched that even while in mid air, the best she would do is damage the defense puppet, she had to take the damage out, it was too dangerous to be left working. Just before Hisako finished her landing, she slashed at the carcass of the puppet, near the spot she hit before, had the hit connected it would cut the puppet in half, possible disabling it until re-attached. Hisako lacked the explosive power to completely destroy a puppet so if the boy’s puppet is destroyed, maybe he would try to retreat to put his puppet together, trying to continue the battle could prove fatal to both Hisako and the puppeteer. The move that she did now was made for decapitation but Hisako thought that decapitating the puppet served no use, so she aimed more at it’s core, leaving an arm open. It would take some skill to predict Hisako’s course of action and block the strike while performing a counter-attack. The girl wondered just how does the poison work, will it kill her eventually? It probably should’ve done this by now already so she thought that this was unlikely.

Spoiler:

Age : 30 Posts : 644

The gas worked. His opponent spun right into it. It was highly probable that she inhaled it, based simply on how heavy she was breathing. This was good. The liquid poison he had hit her with would be wearing off soon and the poison gas would continue the distraction and difficult visibility. Before Bloodhound could capitalize on the successful gas attack, however, the woman began to flip over him. Ochiba had to react fast.

As the hands of his opponent reached down to use Bloodhound’s shoulders for support, Bloodhounds swords shot in front of him. Ochiba knew just sticking the swords out in front wouldn't do anything to help his cause. The lag time he had would cause him to be too late. In order to make up for the lag time, Ochiba had Bloodhound back up as well. He backed Bloodhound up so that she would land around the area his swords were placed. Of course, he had never had to deal with an opponent that could flip before. Without being able to place her hands on Bloodhound's shoulders to be able to perform the flip, anything could happen.

Her attempt to flip over Bloodhound was quite threatening. He was already damaged and the area she was trying to flip to would put her into a good position to attack that weak point. This battle made him realize that the torso was Bloodound's weakness, and if he made it out of this fight, he would need a better puppet for offense. He saw how useful having range on his opponent was, so maybe his next puppet would have a weapon that could reach farther. He would have to brainstorm more on that. He would also need a puppet with more thickness to it. By making a thicker puppet, it would be more likely to take a slicing blow like the one she had delivered without having too much damage being done to it. Trial by fire was quite the learning experience.

The chakra pill was starting to wear off. He felt highly rejuvenated now. Taking the chakra pill was a smart decision, he felt. This fight had started taking its’ toll, but he could continue this fight for that much longer now that he had more chakra in his system. However, the boosting effects were wearing off and there was no way he’d be able to stomach his second one. Even the best of shinobi couldn’t take two. If his maneuver was successful, however, he wouldn’t have to worry about having to take a second one.

The fires were getting close now. The wildfire from the east side was about twenty meters from the trenches now. He could practically feel the heat from where he was standing. The smell was a smell he had never experienced before. He would have to describe it after he made it out of the place, but for now, it reminded him of fire in a fireplace. His mind almost couldn’t comprehend that he was the cause of this fire. He had killed all of those people in the village with it. Some of the villagers that were building the tower would most likely die from it. Countless animals were surely killed and in the way of the destructive power of the fire. He had caused more death in his third mission than most genin would cause before chuunin. In a way, it was inspiring. The fire and his mission persona worked well together. A thought popped into his head. It’s like I really am a demon. His eyes widened. I am the Demon of Kiri. A smile came to his face under his mask. If he made it out of here alive, he would start spreading the legend of the Demon of Kiri. His life path was going to be to destroy any enemy of Kiri, showing the world that it would take the help of a deity to fight Kiri’s hellhounds. But back to the mission at hand.

Jutsu:

CP:

Age : 32 Posts : 1495

The poisonous gas added on to Hisako’s watery eyes. Her vision was kind of murky already as she wasn’t the girl who was very used to crying. This may have been something a lot of people were used to but Hisako only knew the theoretical and combat useful information about crying, when your eyes are sinky, you relax them and let the fluids flow, that way you will retain the highest possible visibility level. Gas added the highest didn’t really mean much at all. That was the reason Hisako chose to avoid any kind of exchange of blows. That may have been a big mistake or a really great decision, it’s a matter of opinion. On one side, she knew what could happen, she seen it all the way just after coming up with this plan, Hisako knew how to shut this move down and get a kill. Still Hisako knew she had no choice, it’s either risk or die. Hisako wondered just how skilled the boy is in knowing potential and natural counters to moves, what looked like a no-win situation to Hisako may not have been seen for the youth she was facing. Then again, he has been rather annoyingly good so far.

With similar thoughts in mind Hisako dove for the support on the puppet’s shoulders, actually the situation was more risky than she thought and not only for her: if she succeeded she would’ve probably blown the puppet away, when the main puppet is dead, the puppeteer has no options, if she fails – she dies, that was her disadvantage in this battle – Hisako put herself against a puppet, this meant that if she lost the draw she died but if she won it, that didn’t necessarily mean that she won. She knew all along that this wasn’t a way to face a puppeteer, not the optimal one at least but still the girl enjoyed the battle far too much, she never cared too much for her life anyways, life was such an easy thing to lose… Had Hisako’s vision not been impaired, she would’ve noticed the puppeteer’s hands pulling the puppet away or putting the swords in the position to end the fight, just like Hisako would’ve done, this was the textbook counter of her move. The puppet moved back and the swords were put in position for Hisako to fall on… Sharp pain resonated all over the girl’s body, she didn’t close her eyes for a second.

At that moment her body dictated so many ways she could’ve avoided this outcome, a simple swing of blades would’ve pushed the swords, she would’ve fallen down but that wasn’t a problem for someone as fast and slippy as she was. So many ways she could’ve acted and lived. Some blood dripped on the ground, coloring the construction ground crimson red. “Why didn’t I do something?” a thought went around Hisako’s head as she tried desperately to deal with the pain that made her body to tense still, a simple movement would’ve caused catastrophic pain all over again. Hisako could feel blood pounding in her forehead, her mind raced for ideas she could use here and now instead of scolding herself for sloppiness. Nothing came, not a single thought, not a single smallest part of a thought came around, everything was starting to get so sloppy… She knew that feeling, she’s been close to death so many times, she didn’t know how dangerously the blades pierced her either way it doesn’t make much of a difference. Little by little her mind was getting lazy and the thoughts she was getting were illogical and stupid. What now?

Should Hisako just give up? Just let go and wait for death, she could feel it close, probably the blades did go through something major, even if they weren’t removed and the pools of blood didn’t start splashing around, she still felt slow and cold death’s hand wriggling around her throat. Just like that one time… Hisako felt torrents of blood coming from her body, just around the place she’s been wounded. It felt like she’s been ascending, rising and rising, her mind kept going upwards until she could barely pick up anything that was happening around her, her vision was closing in, dark circles formed around her already clouded field of view. Hisako’s started feeling as if she could no longer control her body. No she won’t go out easy, just one more move. Hisako pushed her body closer through the blade, closer to the puppet. She couldn’t even think of striking, Hisako pulled out one of few explosive tags she had left and attempted to slap it onto the puppet. While holding the blade with one hand, the thrusting motion made her shout from the pain, probably enough to alert anyone near the river. If the tag is slapped and detonated successfully or the puppet manages to survive, either way it was over:

Hisako could see her body on the ground from above, so her but at the same time someone else… Her mind started slipping away, a last thought came to the girl’s mind “Could’ve been worse, could’ve been given a team…”

Spoiler:

Character death so EXIT

BTW I give permission for any intentional or non-intentional god modding that may occur regarding my character or any characters I've established in previous posts.

Age : 30 Posts : 644

The blades entered the woman. Shock filled Ochiba. He knew what this meant. This was the beginning of the end. This was both good and bad. When the ending of a life is quick, that’s it. A quick death. When the ending of a life is slow, three things can happen. The first thing that can happen is submission. The victim can submit their life, allowing it to end with either honorable defeat or a cry for mercy. The second thing that can happen is denial. Shock can take over and “this isn’t happening” replays over and over in their mind. He was nearly in this state, but not in so much denial that he couldn’t snap out of it. The third thing, and what he was worried about, was desperation. A last ditch kamikaze effort can occur in which the dying person goes all out, not caring for their safety any longer for there is no need. Based on her efforts in this fight, Ochiba assumed she would be the third option.

Quickly, he observed where the wound was. The swords had pierced the area around her lungs. The lungs would be filling up with blood now. The sheer pain must have been intolerable. It must have been the most excruciating physical pain she had ever felt. The tips of each sword could be seen coming out of her back. It would take a medic more skilled than he to repair that wound. It seemed as if his master plan of using her close tactics and speed against her to capture her in Birdcage was unnecessary. Ochiba had successfully used his combination of poisons, range, and her speed against her. Now, this fight was nearly done.

He came out of his shocked state. Ochiba watched her left hand grab Bloodhound’s right hand and pull the swords deeper into her. He knew instantly that something bad was about to happen. As her hand went into her pocket to pull out an explosive tag, the left sword of Bloodhound retracted into his arm. His left arm, now free from the body and the arm not being grabbed, traveled towards the area under her chin in a palm strike movement. The sword ejected out of the arm again. Before she could put the explosive tag onto the puppet and activate it, the left sword of Bloodhound entered through the mouth, into the brain, and out of the top of the skull. Instantly, her body went limp. She fell to the ground like a sack of rocks, dragging Bloodhound on top of her. The explosive tag fell to the ground unused.

As a precaution, Ochiba drug Birdcage in front of him. He braced for an impact that wouldn’t come. After a moment or so, he peeked out from around his protector. Noticing that the explosive tag wasn’t on fire, he moved himself and Birdcage over to the fallen opponent. The walk to the fallen opponent was almost surreal. It was a hard fight and he had definitely earned his stripes. As he reached her, he used the strings attached to Bloodhound to stand him back up. He could pull the sword out of the head out, but the sword in the body was stuck. He looked at her left hand. It held Bloodhound’s right hand in a death grip. Ochiba gave the scene a sad smile. She had fought hard until the end, and for that, he was grateful. He had killed a true warrior in combat. Bloodhound’s left sword entered her left forearm, completely destroying the muscles that held the puppet in place. The death grip released and Bloodhound was free. Before the blood that was pooling around the dead body could ruin anything he needed, he searched her body. He found the remainder of her explosive tags and balls of gunpowder. There was enough left to finish his mission. He found two kunai, which he put into his pouch. Those would come in handy later on. Ochiba opened up Birdcage’s trap. He stripped his opponent of her two formidable weapons. These two blades that were similar to sword would come in handy as well. He might gift them. He might attach them to a puppet. He may mount them on his fireplace. But these trophies would be meaningful to him. He also placed her bloodstained forehead protector into the trap as well. Another trophy that he might start a collection of forehead protectors with.

Ochiba removed Bloodhound’s ruined robe. It had one use left. Using Bloodhound’s swords, he decapitated the woman. He then wrapped her head in the robe that she had ruined. The blood seeped through the robe, but it would cause less work for him later when he was cleaning and repairing the battle scarred veterans. He closed the trap, set the puppets down gently, and canceled the jutsu that had drained his chakra supply throughout the duration of the fight.

He took a moment to look at the headless body. She was an amazing opponent. If she had thought to attack me as opposed to my puppet, she may have came out on top. But she didn’t. Today, I live to tell the story. Today, I have won. Today, the Demon of Kiri is born in blood. He pondered for a little longer. Great warriors deserve proper burials. I can’t give her that today, but I can do better than to leave her for the vultures.

Ochiba Hayaku walked around to where the head would be. He stood in her blood, but it was worth it to him. He grabbed the armpits of the corpse and dragged her. She was light in comparison to other people, but it was still a chore to drag her the long distance to the forest. He left her body in the bushes on the east side. Soon, the fire would engulf her body. Ochiba liked to think that she would be consumed and burned to ashes. He wasn’t entirely sure why he did this, but he intended respect through this act.

Now it was time to complete the mission.

Ochiba charged to where he left the harness that held his puppets to his back. He then dashed back to where he had left the puppets. As quickly as he could, he put the now heavier load onto his back. He then ran as quickly as he could to the supply crates. There were many crates here. He gave one a push. It was noticeably heavy. He kicked the wood crate until there was a hole big enough to see through. It was full of metal. He groaned. Surely not all of the supply crates were full of metal, but there were some of these that he wouldn’t be able to move. He had limited explosives. He didn’t have enough explosive material to destroy the supplies as well as knock down the infrastructure. The bonus of destroying the supplies was not going to be possible and still have an escape route, seeing that time was running out. It would have been a nice touch. Noticing a pile of two by fours, he picked one up. He looked it up and down. It would be perfect for his plan.

Sweating hard, he ran over to the tower. He placed all of the explosives by a major metal pillar that was supporting what was there. Taking out one of the few powers SHOULD topple the tower at this stage of construction. On top of the explosives, he placed the two by four. He reached into his pouch and took out his lighter that he had used earlier to burn the village down. He set the middle of the two by four on fire. The flame started off slow, so he kept the flame on the wood. Soon, it became stronger and stronger. It began spreading down the wood. Alarm arose in Ochiba and he bolted from the complex towards the north side of the forest. Blindly, he ran for his life. He would bear the forest tearing at his clothes and flesh in order to get away from the area he had just been in.

It was several minutes before a blast went off. It was barely audible from where he was in the forest. The creek of the metal bending echoed far and wide. The sound of it crashing to the ground echoed even farther. Ochiba halted in his tracks. He was breathing hard. Sprinting for several minutes after that hard fight had taken it out of him. He looked back from where he came, but he couldn’t see through the canopy. He couldn’t help but to think about how that canopy wouldn’t be there for much longer. The fire he had started was ravishing the island. There were surely parts that would be saved. There were other villages that would work to combat the fire, but the fear it put into them would prevent the tower from being constructed again. Either that, or a small military would arise from this situation. Either way, Ochiba had completed his mission and he would deal with whatever problem came out of this situation personally. For that he was sure of. With his breathing more under control, he began to jog towards the beach so he could make it back home, get a nice meal in his stomach and meet with the Mizukage. Surely he would want to know about this right away.

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Topic End