Get out of Inferno [Naoki/Ren]

[Kazumi]

This was turning out to be a very strange sequence of events. And to think, it had begun out as a simple mission to infiltrate and destroy an illegal compound. One which had quickly morphed to the return of a willing missing-nin. They had then encountered their kage, who had apparently done battle with demonic entities out in this quarantine zone, a demon that the missing-nin and kage managed to take down on their own, albeit with minor damage upon themselves. Now Ren found himself being, what appeared to be, mentally probed and taunted by some sort of demon... fraternizer? Perhaps she was a missing-nin similar to Naoki, albeit less desiring of redemption than the arena fighter appeared to be.

Mental pain was a difficult thing to Ren to handle, as it was the only 'real' pain he was capable of experiencing at this phase of his existence. As such, he kept himself quiet and still until the woman finished speaking, the uncomfortable sensation drilling into him like a dull bore. He didn't bother to answer her. Either she would attack and he would need to assist his companions, or she would not. In either case he still wanted to keep the so called prize that she made claim to, and he intended on doing so. Turning his attention away from her, he made his way over to the scroll, careful setting the severed head down onto it with no real sense of urgency or leisure. Then, with a quick few hand seals he attempted to seal the thing away into the final scroll.

Should she do nothing to interfere physically, he would begin rolling up the scrolls one by one. Pushing through the ache that the mental probing caused as he, for all intents and purposes, ignored the demon woman's hollow threats and bold words. The statistical likelihood that any single individual would be able to defeat the village's kage, even if he was mildly injured and fatigued, was low. His capabilities paled in comparison to a shinobi of his stature and capabilities, and while he did not know what Naoki was capable of, he doubted she was as new to the game as he was.

 

[Takahashi Aki]

Naoki wasn't given an answer with spoken words of the mind, or literal words from the mouth. She could hear that smile form. That smile that would at this point be growing quite old for the young sunan. There was some sort of satisfaction in this, some sort of sick dark satisfaction in causing mental distress for Naoki. What was not clear was if she could indeed read minds. Words in the mind were very different from being able to read the mind of others. Naoki was not done yet, she just continued to fire off at the demoness or the supposed demoness. She would tilt her head. Milady. I haven't been called that in quite a while. Quite a few years in fact...<i></i> She observed Naoki and how she was reigning herself in. It was the smart thing to do. She wanted to really see where this was going to go. She wanted to see what Naoki would do if she allowed her anger to dictate her actions. Anger was such a funny thing. Humans could get angry over the silliest or the more dire of things.

"That was strange. The blood may be reacting with the air to cause some sort of exothermic reaction."<i></i>The Demoness would disappear for the moment. Perhaps not to the surprise of those present one could see Ren's combined puppet being pushed over the ledge. Of the Lesser-Man<i></i> She spoke referring to Ren, It is very rude to not answer me, or address me. I wonder if your toy will break from this height?<i></i> Without a word more the puppets were kicked off, and with it the prisoner inside them. Fortunately Sousuke reacted quickly enough, as the Kazekage made a mad dive to intercept in mid air the three of them. There was a bang as the metal hit Sousuke who was carrying it on his back now and was back up on the incline but slowly skidding his way down. Sousuke was making his way back down but he was being very slow about it due to the impact. Winner take all, but I do not know what a winner is in my domain. You can win this land, but what exactly do you win?<i></i> Sousuke continued his descent as she continued to talk at them, rather than with them. How dutiful your leader is. Protecting his pawn's toys. You know if this were a game of chess, you might have realized you just left your king open to attack. I could try and collapse this all upon him with the tap of my heel.<i></i> The mental monologue seemed to not be directed at Sousuke, seemingly he was left out of the loop. She did not make the threat empty either as she did in fact tap her heel and land that she stood on visibly shook. Think about it won't you?<i></i> Naoki could hear the cracks, as hidden as they were. "I don't like being ignored. Next time you enter my domain you will show me the respect milady is owed."<i></i> She would let Rensuke leave with a prize. Next time you will owe me something least I take you by flame.<i></i> At a cost of course which had yet to be seen.

 

[Samejima]

"King... Somehow I doubt that's something he'd want to be called."

The girl stepped forward. "Listen here! If we'd known he was gonna make that kind of a mad dive, none of this crap woulda happened!" Which mad dive? She didn't know, but probably both. "It's exactly because our king is crazy that we're all able to stand around here... And since he cares so little about his own health, so will we!" Dashing forward, she made a series of handseals that would unleash one jutsu after the other, the first of which was a couple streams of water.

Though "geyser" was probably a more accurate word.

The geysers rose at a bit of an angle, and the now-skidding Sousuke would likely not have seen it coming, much less been able to stop it from hitting him straight back up the chasm. The blow should've knocked the wind out of his chest, but far-too-heroic-for-his-own-good Kazekage would not have felt much more than a stiff punch to the gut. The second jutsu was a barrier, distorting the sound waves created by the loud-ass geysers to form a shield for Sousuke.

By this time, Naoki would already have reached the Kazekage's position, running up the chasm wall to yank him out of the way of most of the danger above, back to Ren's position. They weren't too far off the ground, so the puppets shouldn't have sustained much damage and regrettably neither would the prisoner inside. If he asked for any reasoning, she would seem confused, thinking the lady demon had telepathically threatened them all with his death, going, "Didn't you hear her? She was going to kill you and stuff!" with some exaggerated movement (ie. flailing about and pointing upwards).

After all this, she would straighten up. Facing both Ren and Sousuke, she whispered,"Let's just go home already, okay? We'll figure that one out some other time. Tactical retreat time, whaddya say?"

 

[Kazumi]

As the puppet craft suddenly dropped from the cliff edge, the unconscious prisoner was tossed back into the shell wall, protected only by chance from tumbling out from the sudden fall and abrupt stop by the heroic kage. She was, perhaps, lucky that the kage had jumped to her rescue, as the puppeteer didn't appear interested in interrupting the sealing technique just to save her or his puppet. Was he perhaps keenly attempting to infuriate the woman even more, as it appeared to be doing, or did he simply not care if the prisoner or puppets were damaged in the fall? As the scene folded out, he continued to appear unconcerned, rolling up the sealed scrolls one by one. He tied the string around them and knelt down to stow the scrolls away into some obscured location.

He stood and turned back towards the cliff face, just in time to see Naoki blast off to protect the kage from the woman's thinly veiled threat. Her words were hurting his head, and it was getting to the point that he would do nearly anything to get the pain to subside. "I agree with the missing nin. Should she have wished conflict, one would have ensued by now, there were a number of opportunities to gain the advantage." He looked up towards the cliff face, passive looking up towards her with the same interest as a man has to a shrew scampering across the horizon. he began his slow walk over towards the edge of the cliff. "You have my thanks for salvaging the puppets. Their reconstruction would have been trivial, but it would have been an expenditure that I can scarcely afford at present."

Stopping a few paces away from where Sousuke and Naoki would land their feet, he once again looked up towards the woman. Part of him wished to call her out on her tall words, or to taunt the woman on her inaction or threats. Then the pain echoed back and suddenly neither were worth a moment longer of the uncomfortable sensation. There must be a way to better shield himself from this, he couldn't have his focus broken so easily by a little mental torture. He had never faces a shinobi who had exceled in mental arts, not to the degree of using them as a weapon, but if this woman's mental words were enough to elicit such a response, then that was a dire hole in his defences he would need to shore up, immediately. Especially should his dissection of the collected parts prove fruitful... he might be back here in the future, calling her bluff in an attempt to obtain more samples.

Once everyone was back onto the ground, Ren stepped over to the craft and brushed his hand across the surface of the slightly damaged craft. Nearly invisible threads adhered to its surface, and with deft movements crawled their way to their respective control points. With a shudder, the craft lifted up and righted itself, the woman still inside, albeit looking disheveled and likely bruised from the jostling. "If you wish, I can navigate us back towards the village. I believe the latching mechanism is broken, so the canopy will be unable to be closed securely." he twitched his finger and the lid attempted to close, but only made it half way before a snapping sound impeded its movement. "Perhaps the mission reward will cover the expenses for the repairs." If he were still obliged to do so, he might have sighed in discontent, but instead he simply stepped up atop the craft, standing near its head as he looked over towards his companions. Well, his Kage and the missing nin, who was still a fugitive until the administration of the village said otherwise.

 

[Takahashi Aki]

Sousuke would make his way back down with some help from the geyser. He wasn't expected it, and he was dripping wet from it. He wasn't expecting it, and more so he was not expecting to be told off either by Naoki. Sousuke would look to Ren for verification about what he was saying. "I did not hear anything for her. Some of the things she was saying to me turned into a strange buzzing of sorts."<i></i> He explained. Some of it he got, and other parts of it he did not. He was not very often on the receiving end of being told off, especially by one of his own sand nin. Sousuke patted the back of his helmet as he was trying to figure out something to answer Naoki with, "There has been quite a long list of being trying to kill me. I think I've surpassed sixteen at this point."<i></i> He spoke as he was trying to keep count. Yes... yes... sixteen was a good number. "I would very much like to go home."<i></i>

Rensuke gave his analysis of the situation. Sousuke shook his head. "That is true."<i></i> He looked to the cliff once more. "There are some powers out here beyond even me. Some enemies prefer to simply toy with their prey. Some call it theatrics, but I do not think that will be the last time we've heard of her."<i></i> Sousuke paused for a moment. He seemed to be lost in thought. There was something not right. Yes the woman was clearly a demon, but what or who she was escaped him. There seemed to be something familiar about her. "She might be an Arch-Demon. If she was, even I would be quite challenged to take her in the state I am in."<i></i> He spoke lowly. There was doubt present, and if the Kazekage was doubtful then there had to be a reason for it.

Sousuke watched Rensuke prepared the way for them to get home. He shook his head. "I'll fix it when I get a chance to. Shouldn't be that hard."<i></i> He offered. Resnuke was something of an enigma and something that put Sousuke on edge. Was it mistrust in the boy? No it was more of the concept that he was a human puppet, and to his clan that was the ultimate taboo. Sousuke had Rensuke kept on a watch for mental tampering. It was a two way door, and Sousuke was not looking forward to the day when that two way door opened up one way or the other. "Alright, let's go. First to the tower, we have to get through some administrational procedure about Naoki's status."<i></i>

[Topic concluded and left]

 

[Samejima]

The not-so-little blind (missing) genin scrunched up her eyebrows in a familiar way when she heard that Sousuke hadn't heard her, but she didn't give it much thought as the other two seemed to agree on getting their tired behinds back home. She sighed in response to their agreement. She sharpened her senses for a few short seconds, picking up all the little scuttles of life around them and making sure that the woman had made no move. "Well, let's try and keep that 16 to a 16 then... I'm sure Suna itself has its hands full trying to keep you alive so long..." she grumbled.

Not having much to say by way of Archdemons and repairs, she decided to stay quiet around this time, worrying about the amends she'd have to make back in Suna.

At Ren's mention of the puppetcraft's condition, she clambered back into the puppetcraft through the broken canopy, settling in. "Hey, fine by me! Haven't seen the sun in ages... I mean, I'm not about to exert myself even more by trying to see, but... well, you get my point." The thought of having to handle any form of paperwork caused her to cringe. She's a missing-nin of all things... Naoki hoped her parents hadn't done anything they'd regret in their desperation to find her, and that their relationship with her aunt hadn't soured due to her disappearance...

[Topic left]