Take a walk on the Blind Side (Open)

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

As the group was surrounded by enemies, Kurokawa had elected to only focus on defence until someone lead the way. She didn't have to wait long as the youngling showed, not only initiative but also an aptitude for the same element Kurokawa herself mastered first. As the Mystic pond formed Kurokawa would step back and form some seals. The pond quickly turned into a whirlpool which was the perfect time to chime in.

As the water started spinning, Kurokawa would release her jutsu, a Water Dragon Bullet, and use it as a current in the Vortex to carry her down into the depths of the water. Without forming any seals the blood that had previously protected her skin now formed into draining blood claws with she would use to tear into the flesh of the people swept too low to see.

Show time!

Using the Water Dragon she would propel herself from body to body, to dig in her claws and such out their blood. Releasing the claws in a violent manor would result in a rough dismemberment further moved along by the ripping, swirling torrents of water coming form both the vortex and her dragon. Everyone who was dragged under got a turn, and regardless of their ability to fight back under these harsh conditions, at least some were bound to fall.

With the blood sucked out of them, whoever didn't escape this watery grave would be left dismembered but not bleeding. The flesh would slightly paler than one would normally associate with freshly severed limbs and the amount of blood would have gone from oozing to dripping.

As the water stopped swirling, Kurokawa made her way back to the surface, where her dragon would bit the ground and deposit Kurokawa, and leave her sitting on the sand with her palmed pressed against the wet grainy carpet of eroded rocks. The claws had flaked of in the water before she surfaced. She would appear slightly out of breath which would be understandable, after moving around under such a large amount of water.

As the offer to take out the two with power enough to have a snowballs chance in hell to fight back, Kurokawa would politely decline.

"I think the senior member of this little adventure can handle those two. Besides it might not be a bad idea to get some information out of them instead drowning them."

The strong currents would have ripped her cloths and blindfold slightly, so to not drop it, Kurokawa would remove her head garment and place in a still not totally destroyed ninja pouch she had strapped to her right leg. As she turned her head her radiant violet eyes would look in the general directing of the other two while not fixating on either of them.

[MFT]
[WC: 464]

 

[Miroku Riyota]

Riyota simply stood unmoving, like a sentinel as his younger companions did their work. Evidently they both had a streak for violence within their nature as they wasted no time obliterating their opponents in various bloody ways. There was nothing wrong with this by itself, but it was evident that if they lacked necessary self control it could degenerate into a problem, however, Riyota let them finish their work in silence, not doing anything until the last two remained. As they lay on the floor, gasping for air and looking panicked her slowly stepped over to them and knelt down. Not making any aggressive moves quite yet. The combined attacks of his two teammates had left them without weapons so they were prime to just be questioned.

"Alright, I'd rather get this done quickly so I'd like some short, sharp answers from you two. After that, you're free to go." He explained with a slight smile on his face, a soft expression to try and put them at ease. "Are there any more traps?" "A-a-a few...I-I don't know where...specifically, b-but keep an eye out..." The stammered response came. "I don't suppose either of you have a map of the facility?" He asked, with very little hope in his voice. Both guards shook their heads, sending droplets of water out of their hair onto the ground around them."Yeah...I thought that would be too easy..." He pondered for a moment, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Oh well, we'd best get cracking, off you go!" He gestured a shooing motion with his hand and would allow the guards to stand and scramble off into the distance. Unless Nazo or Kuro had anything to say about it.

Speaking of those two, he turned slowly to face them both, he closed his eyes for a moment and sighed deeply. "I realise thus far I haven't given either of you a reason to trust me, but if you want to continue forward...it'll be very dangerous. I can only guarantee your safety if you're willing to listen to me, and if we're all willing to trust each other. If you don't think you can do that, I won't think any less of you for heading home." With that final disclaimer concluded he turned and leapt his way down into the crater, further into the hornets nest, where all the hornets knew they were coming, and weren't happy about having their nest kicked.

MFT

 

[Nazomeku]

The moment ceased and others had taken action. To Nazo’s surprise it was Kurosawa who had acted after him, following up his technique with one of her own. Effortlessly they had formed a combination jutsu on their first attack sequence together. That was something that Nazo had definitely taken notice of since he understood the value of a team. Thinking of the team aspect for a second he remembered back to Riyota’s ability to track a target. That was particularly useful. Not to mention Kuro’s healing ability.

These were somethings that Nazo was still working on himself to become a better shinobi all the way around, though he knew he still had time to grow. The two guards that were left intact and unequipped didn’t have much information and seemed rather useless. Nazo had an urge to finish them off as well yet he didn’t only in trusting that they would run into stronger opponents upon entering the facility below them. That’s when Riyota began describing the dangerousness of the task that lay before them and if they were going to do this that they were going to have to do this together.

“I’m in. I just wonder, with things like this. We aren’t just combining techniques together out of sheer luck. Like you have to admit that what Kuro did after my mystical pond and torrential vortex technique was sweet and that we could create even more deadly combination techniques if we knew more about each other's abilities. This is my first time working with you guys after all and I’m under the assumption that regular teams have trained together a countless number of hours so they have several different attack formations and strategies, supplemented by jutsu combinations, defensive blocks or counter maneuvers…” he ran out of air talking. It was obvious the excitement had swelled in his face as his cheeks flushed red, his lungs gasping for air as his chest seemed to lower back to its regular resting position.

Nazo sat silently for a moment waiting for their response or movement down below. They still obviously needed the input and spoken trust of Kuro before moving forward unless of course moving forward without her became the outcome. In that time of silence he realized that he was only trusting these two off the merit of being Sunagakure no Sato shinobi’s and that their loyalty to the village meant that Nazo felt safe entrusting them with his own sense of loyalty.

He was prepared for what lay before him. Even though he still wasn’t officially a Gennin yet and bore no physical signs or emblements of having rank in the village as a shinobi, Nazo surely fought and acted like one and had the skill of a mid-ranked shinobi who had been practicing for a minimum of a couple years. There was truly something amazing about his growth and he was chomping at the bit at the opportunity to show it without restrictions.

[MFT]
[WC: 494]

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

While the interrogation was commencing Kurokawa would catch her breath. She didn't have much time to do so however as Riyota seemed to only want a few details and took the guys word for it, banking on him being scared enough to not lie. Back in stone, most people would have used some form of memory dive to get to the truth while prodding and enemy for intel, but that always seemed a tad invasive.

Usually Kurokawa's eyes would be covered by cloth but now that they weren't, the unfamiliar feeling of sand in the air would make her close her eyes. Had they been in the city or underground there would not have been a problem, but the combination of unchallenged winds and heat from the sun presented a significant irritant to eyes not used to such conditions. On the plus side, her cloth would dry right back up faster than she would recover her stamina. As she made it back on her legs the young one went into a rather long monologue. As he finished Kurokawa would respond.

"Well, it was a water jutsu so I was just going with the flow so to speak. Other than Water and Fire I mostly focus on stuff that attack the senses, mainly sight but also hearing. If you have anything that goes well with that I'm sure we will discover a way to combine it later on. Usually one has to either know the jutsu or at least have seen it in action before to come up with something that works well with it so time will tell."

She had delayed the response to Riyota as she wanted to make sure he knew that although she would agree to carry on, holding out on potentially dangerous information was not in good taste.

"Since we came all this way, we might as well see it through. But no more keeping us in the dark. Just a moment I need to change before we go on though."

She would pick out 2 scrolls. One was a standard summoning scrolls for various items hidden elsewhere and the other was the reverse. She figured she would just get another outfit like the one she was already wearing. No reason to change to a new look just yet. As she activated both scrolls she would get covered in the classic smoke cloud accompanied by summonings and desummonings. Old blind fold and slightly torn dress was replaced with a fresh set of clothes but when the smoke settled that was not all. She would now also be Pouch around one leg filled with Shurikens. Down her back a sword was sheeted and wrapped around her several times, was a long silvery chain with weighted and spiky handles in either end.

"Okay ready."

[MFT]
[WC: 466]

 

[Miroku Riyota]

Riyota waited patiently as Nazo rattled on about different moves and combinations the three could put together as a team, he waited until the younger one had almost run out of air, and he waited again when Kuro gave her opinion on his monologue. When both had concluded on the issue he spoke up. "Maybe just hold your horses on that one until we're done here. We don't have time to experiment on their own. Just let things happen, see what works well. Trust your instincts and interesting things will result." In essence Riyota was saying that they could wind up with combinations and manoeuvres that spring up as they are actually battling.

Riyota again stood patiently as Kurokawa agreed to continue on, once again slightly chastising him for withholding information, it seemed neither of the two were huge fans of his at this time and although his intention was to teach a message about carrying out a mission with a lack of information it seemed he had not made the intention clear enough. Going forward however, that would be the lesson whether he wanted to teach it or not. He took the brief moment before Kurokawa changed to examine her eyes, getting quick glimpses of details of the orbs beneath the blindfold and essentially seeing if she was truly blind beneath the blindfold.

Once she had finished changing (Riyota had respectfully turned away just in case the process wasn't quick.) He would address the two again. "Unfortunately I'm going to have to keep you in the dark as we go along, because I'm in the dark with you. I don't know what we're facing from here on out, but won't it be a fun adventure?" He grinned, looking to the two before jumping backwards into the crater that lead to the entrance.

He would land with a thud and slide for a few moments down a sandy tunnel before finding himself in a dimly lit steel entranceway. "Nice..." He would say quietly to himself as he sat about examining the craftsmanship.

 

[Nazomeku]

Nazo had caught on to what Riyota was referring to when he answered his question. Turning and looking at Kuro as she spoke up, Nazo too confirmed the blindness in her eyes as he saw for the first time that she lacked pupils and iris.

Moments later she would be surrounded in a shroud of summoning smoke and as it cleared away so too did the older, softer image of Kurokawa. She was now prepared to kick some ass it had seemed. Nazo, young and unaware of proper etiquette never turned away from Kurokawa when she summoned her additional clothes and equipment. He didn’t know what she was summoning or what was going on, he just knew that she was no fitted in the rest of her shinobi gear and she looked a bit more badass.

“Nice getup,” stated Nazomeku as he began to think about his own attire. She seemed so fashionable, and all Nazo ever usually wore was his loose fitting jogger pants, his bare chest and his leather forearm guards and shoulder pads. It allowed himself to show his physique and gave him maximum mobility. He was also spending a lot of time recently practicing on mastering the katon element, and all the burned clothes just became a nuisance after a while.

Nazo jumped in secondly down into the hole before them. He landed on both feet solidly, bending at the knee before standing alongside Riyota. Nazo let out some coughs as the air seemed to be thicker down below the surface. His coughing would continue uncontrollably for a while until he had hacked up some mucus. “Damn… it’s horrible conditions down here. If they are running an operation down here, how in the hell do the people even breathe with this air?” he questioned openly. When the question was presented, Kurokawa should’ve been alongside them as well and have the opportunity to answer the question with whatever intuitive insight she had. She seemed to be full of insight throughout the entirety of the meeting.

The thought of utilizing a freshly learned wind ninjutsu to clear the air ran through his mind yet he decided against it. Not knowing what lay ahead of them, as Riyota mentioned previously, Nazo preferred to play the cautious card.

WC: 378

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

For those who closely studied Kurokawa, the would find no cataracts or other signs that the pupils where blocked, but they would noticed them being as good as non-responsive to light. She sported violet irises matching parts of her dress. Someone clearly helped her pick out the clothes based on her eye colour. Most likely her blindness would be due to a damaged optic nerve though whether that was with her at birth or done with a jutsu attacking the sight later one would not be visible. Her surname would suggest that it was from birth though.

Coming out of the smoke she would be in pretty much the same outfit, although the old dress was a bit longer, whilst this outfit had stretchy shorts underneath to avoid revealing too much as she moved around. Instead of pants, long socks would still cover most of her pale skin but pose no restriction when it came to kicks, which meant that the shorts were necessary until the Kunoichi was of seduction was required for the mission which she had determined was not the case this time. With the weapons ready she jumped after the other two. As she landed, the sound would reveal that her shoes had also changed into a steel tipped version. She could immediately feel the heavier air.

"A compound this size would need proper venting. The explosion could have damaged it so all the air going outwards from further in gets deposited here."

Kurokawa would go silent for a bit, turning her head from side to side slowly, listening to the sounds of the exit.

"Sounds like the intake escaped the blast, which would make sense because a trap like that would slowly kill the people underground if it was not designed to withstand the blast. This damage serves as another defence so just be careful not to dose off through the first part and it should clear off."

Kurokawa could sense something off up ahead. Non-human so possibly a trap or some other form of defence but she didn't have time to analyse it, as high levels of CO2 could result in becoming woozy rather fast, and there could be all kinds of other gasses masked in there. For now she would ready her chains and move forwards away from the breached pipes

[MFT]
[WC: 387]

 

[Miroku Riyota]

'What am I doing? Have I really gotten to the point of wanting to finish this task so much that I'm putting these two at risk? I have no idea what we could find down here, I'll struggle to look after them...' He cast his eye back towards the pair, taking a moment to look them both over and think. 'I don't know what they're capable of, if I doubt them now I'm just looking down on them. I need to have some faith, I can always pull back if it gets bad.' He assured himself, closed his eyes and addressed the two. "I think our spectacular entrance ruptured the airflow system like Kuro said..." He confirmed with a slight chuckle, if the lessened oxygen was bothering him he wasn't showing it. "We should be fine if we move further in, its probably a secondary defence to choke out intruders. Come on. He gestured for them both to follow him, if either of them looked at the two large gashes in the back of his jacket they would notice his shoulder blades wriggle unnaturally under his skin for a moment, his outwards demeanour seemed to communicate that he was expecting an attack of some kind.

After a brief walk all three would come to a secondary, ordinary sized, yet still steel reinforced door. It seemed to have an intricate system of locks on it that made it quite formidable. Riyota decided it was time to put the skills of the two to the test again, since he knew they could do things he could not. He turned to look at the pair and calmly said "I'm pretty sure I can get us through this door, either loudly or quietly, but I'd feel a lot safer if you two scanned it for any traps. Tripwires, switches, pressure plates, the works. Either of you any good at that?" He put the question to the room, knowing time was starting to be of the essence as they would soon run out of air, yet he would rather not meet his end at the hands of a random axe trap or perhaps a spring-activated falling anvil.

So, he stood and waited for either of them to answer or get to work on the door.

MFT

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

A steel door was something Kurokawa planned to conquer. Planned to. As in haven't done yet. This presented a challenge, but she had an idea. In the element of water there were various techniques used for cutting through different materials like water slicers. She would form a few seals and shoot a thin stream of water from her mouth. The Impaling Hydro Jet is normally used to sever limbs but in this case she used around the lock on the door attempting to cut it out of the door entirely so that it could be opened even though still technically locked. Only problem here was that a 4 inch steel door takes a lot longer to cut through than an appendix like a finger so by the time she had made a hole through the door and was ready to start cutting downwards she would have to stop.

The thick air had already made her woozy and she didn't have much left to go on, maybe not even enough to retreat. Being hellbend on making it through had foolishly left an opening for trouble. She would back away and lean against the wall.

If either of the other two had a way to get through the door she would follow for as long as possible. Otherwise she would attempt to go back down the tunnel to get to fresher air. Either choice would eventually lead to a dizzy disoriented walk around and eventually a collapse, at which point as a last defence she would wrap herselv up in a cocoon of harded blood shielding her from outside atttacks but ultimately not moving her away from the problem. As it mostly consists of condenced chakra and her own blood it would not add to the total weight making her easy to carry, if not a bit clunky from the added volume. Now would have been a good time to have mastered the rest of the Wind techniques she was working on instead of switching focus to Earth, although having been more well versed in Earth probably would still have been more effective than trying to use water on steel with a limited timeframe. She did have fire as well but that would just burn out the rest of the oxygen so better keep that far away from this situation.

[MFT]
[WC: 388]
[Swapping thread to: In over our heads]

 

[Miroku Riyota]

As she tried to work her way through the door Riyota would focus on how to get more airflow into the room. He had learned many skills of survivability in his time outside the village so he could make it without air longer than most people, but certainly not forever. He estimated he had maybe two minutes left, roughly. However as the water splashed against the door he focused his hearing. He would faintly hear clicking in sequence, one after the other. Click, Click, Click... He tried to narrow down the source but it was difficult with the high pressure water beating down on the door. Eventually when tracing the wall, he found the source. A small indent inside the wall, his eyes widened as he felt it and he knew it was too late. Hundreds of tiny pellets would fire out like machine guns from both sides of the wall, bursting on impact and swiftly being inhaled by the pair. The pellets contained a powerful tranquilliser that would manage to fell even a raging beast. Riyota managed to turn to see one of his companions, the other mysteriously absent. His vision started to blur and he saw her cover herself in a strange blood-like coating before collapsing, himself swiftly following suit. Before he lost consciousness, he took a page out of her book in defending himself. He used the last of his energy to harden his skeletal structure and move his bones closer to the surface of the skin, making the flesh difficult to pierce.

Unbeknownst to the two, the infiltration would soon become an escape...

[Continued Here]