Sunagakure- Shadows in the Sand IC

[Rogue 7]

"Keitaro! We're in over our heads here! It's time to book it! I'll take Kaede- she's not looking good! Kaede! Just hang on, I'll get you out of there."

The black-haired genin, clearly the leader, looked surprisingly calm for being confronted with the sword-wielding Yuji, whose blade could easily decapitate him. Pulling a smoke bomb from his pouch, he dropped it in front of him, filling Yuji's eyes with stinging, painful smoke, but it did not appear to be poisonous. Yuji couldn't see what the genin was doing inside that smoke.

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Dropping a smoke bomb in his square. It fills squares O12, O13, P12, and P13. All other actions are hidden due to the smoke bomb.

Yuji, you're up.

[Tyracus]

Staggering out of the smoke Yuji decides to follow Shigeru's advice and charges towards the Taijutsu fighter battling the puppet.

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Can't reach with a charge to attack but I can flank with my 90 ft of movement. Should be 4/5 on speed turns.

Sorry about the delay, stopped to eat and then got sidetracked by TV.

[Rogue 7]

The kunoichi doesn't say anything, merely grasping her kunai in a defensive posture as she waited for an attack, trusting in her teammate to get her out of there as she continued to look woozy.

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Combat Expertise! Not even going to bother attacking.

Map:

Anzai is go.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Anzai

"Hey! Just what the hell do you think your doing?! You have any idea on how long it'll take to repair that puppet?" The puppeteer demands angrily as a hole is ripped in the dragon puppet's torso. For the first time an emotion besides dry sarcasm was in his voice and it was far from a pleasant noise to hear as the puppet jerked into action.

It's wooden mouth drops open with a clank, as if in a silent hiss, before it swam through the air towards the injured shinobi, seeking to curl about the other genin and catch him in the hard wooden coils of the combat puppet. Maybe he couldn't take this kid out, but he could squeeze the fight out of him until he could be tied.

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Attack roll: (1d20+7)[19]
Grapple: (1d20+12)[22]

[Rogue 7]

The enemy genin lashed out with a fist at the puppet as it closed on him, but fatigue, fear, and the presence of the sword-wielder behind him clearly took its toll as the fist bounced off of Arata-Mikomi's wooden armor. He grunted as the serpentine puppet coiled around him, placing increased pressure on his ribs and causing him to hiss in pain as it pressed against his wounds. He struggled, trying to break free and run, but he couldn't do anything against the pressing coils of Arata-Mikomi.

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Attack of Opportunity-(1d20+9)[12]
Damage-(1d6+5)[6]

Grapple check- (1d20+3)[14]

Grapple check for escaping- (1d20+3)[10]

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

Shigeru and the girl apparently named Kaede stared at each other, kunai held in a defensive posture, waiting for the other to attack. This proved futile, however, as Shigeru's genjutsu perfected its hold on his adversary, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Somewhat disappointed by the lack of a final attack, Shigeru returns his kunai to his holster and picks up the fallen Stone-nin.

"Target secured."

His arms felt numb as he held the enemy fighter and started moving back towards Anzai and Yuji, and holding on to this girl strained his strength to its limit.

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Hit points: 13/40
Chakra pool: 8/19
Armour class: 18, touch 16

Fighting defensively, -4 to attacks, +2 dodge to AC
Moving to E17 as a full round action.

Ongoing effects:
Overloaded (Between 1x and 2x max load): No dex bonus to AC, movement speed down to 5 ft. (+15 from Nidan Kousoku.)
Nidan Kousoku: starting 4/5 rounds.
Tsutakazura Genzou no Jutsu: starting 4/5 rounds.
Jukusui no Jutsu: starting 1/50 rounds.

[Rogue 7]

The smoke cloud continued to expand, and the Doton-wielding genin remained nowhere to be found.

[Tyracus]

Seeing his opponent bound tightly and the other two in the expanding cloud of smoke Yuji lowers his sword slightly over the captured enemy and watches closely for any sign of escape from the two in the cloud.

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Not really sure what needs doing at this point as the situation seems mostly resolved. I'll delay until something happens and then react to it.

[Rogue 7]

As the smoke cloud spread and dispersed, the ninja struggling feebly in the grip of the puppet's coils saw his teammate being moved away from where she had been standing, asleep. His other comrade apparently vanished, he ceased his struggling.

"A..alright...I give. Just...don't kill me."

As the genin secured their two captives, their jounin instructor clambered up out of the ravine to the north. Taking in the scene, with only one genin moderately injured and the other two virtually untouched, he gave a smile.

"Two captives, well done. What happened to the third?"

Kanji-sensei had a few cuts and bruises, signs of a fairly minor scuffle, but moved with an ease indicating that he was not particularly inconvenienced. He kept a wary shinobi's eye on the surroundings, as the last traces of the smoke bomb dropped by the missing third genin dispersed into the wind. No trace of the genin remained that anyone could see.

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

Once he'd reached the rest of his team, Shigeru dropped his prisoner unceremoniously on the ground and unwound the white scarf he wore tied around his head. Once freed from its constraints, his hair fell randomly about his face, and he began wiping the blood from his arms, then shredded some cloth to bandage the cuts.

"Hey, Kanji-sensei, welcome back. What happened to your target?" Even as he worked on his wounds, Shigeru continued talking. "We, ah, somewhat screwed up with initiating contact with the enemy, but luckily it turned out fine. Well, luck might not be the best way to put it, you know? Anyway, it seems we lost the third one, he was hiding in that smoke. A shame, too, from what I heard he was acting as leader to the group. He should have been caught in my illusion for another ten seconds or so, but he must have broken through it and escaped... Earth release ninjutsu maybe? That appears to be his specialty, so he may be digging his way to freedom right now. Or trying to spy on us."

Done with bandaging up his arms, Shigeru begins tying up his prisoner with iron wire. "Anyway, the girl is called Kaede, she's asleep right now due to a sleep-inducing genjutsu, as you can see, but she's a ranged fighter, she struck at Yuji and I with shuriken, and she's pretty nimble to boot. The vanished Stone-nin is an Earth release ninjutsu user, I didn't catch his name. He said he'd get his teammates out of here, so I suspect he's fairly loyal, and unlikely to forget that we've got his friends here. Anzai's honoured captive is named Keitaro, though Kaede-san calls him Kei-kun. I was somewhat busy, so I didn't catch his fighting style, you'll have to ask Anzai about it. i think he's a taijutsu brute, his opening strategy mirrored Yuji's fairly well. He seems to be the most aggressive of the group, from what I could tell. Kaede-san was more hesitant to face us."

As he finished tying up his captive, he retrieved the robe he'd let fall at the beginning of the combat and slipped it on, brushing some dirt off it, to little effect. "Anyway, that's it for the brief recap of our situation," he finished with a grin. "Except to say that my arms hurt like hell."

[Rogue 7]

Kanji-sensei winced sympathetically at Shigeru's injuries.

"Well done, all of you. My target ran first chance he could. This was probably just a probe that wasn't expected to do very well. They might have been hoping they could slip past our patrols. You all know how high tensions with Hidden Stone have been of late. We don't really need to waste time and effort pursuing them, but we're going to have to be careful with our two prisoners. When we get to the outpost, I'll send a message to the village for reinforcements, and we'll be able to take our prisoners in."

At this, the genin still bound in the coils of the puppet twitched nervously. Kanji-sensei smiled down at him.

"Don't look so concerned, my boy. You won't be hurt. We're not interested in torturing genin who probably know less about their village than even our most incompetent spies. Provided your village pays the ransom, you'll get sent home in short order."

This, you recognize, was fairly standard procedure as of late. Villages were discouraged from killing enemy agents in random skirmishes, instead preferring to keep enemy agents hostage for ransom. This both avoided blood feuds and tensions between villages, and provided a source of income for those villages skilled in capturing and avoiding capture.

Kanji-sensei produced a coil of wire and handed it to Yuji.

"Bind him, will you, Yuji-kun? I'll be here to make sure he doesn't try anything funny. How long do you think the girl will stay asleep, Shigeru-kun?"

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

"Five minutes, more or less. More less than more, actually. The technique lasts about five minutes, and it took effect near the end of the battle, but it's been a while since then, you know?" Shigeru's eyes turn upwards, and he appears to be counting in his head. "How long have I been talking, anyway?"

[Rogue 7]

"No more than thirty seconds."

He turned, keeping his eyes to the north for signs of the foe he had presumably fought in the canyon.

"Let's move out. I'll carry the boy. Yuji-kun, you're the strongest of us, do you think you can handle carrying the girl?"

Waiting for him to finish with the wire on the still-conscious enemy ninja, Kanji-sensei stood over him.

"We won't have any trouble now, will we my boy?"

His tone is light, and he has a smile on his face, but you could see the hardness in his eyes, that came from many years of death and killing in the service of his village. It was the hardness of a veteran jounin, expertly concealed beneath Kanji-sensei's smiling, lighthearted mask.

[Tyracus]

Taking a moment to gather his weights Yuji grabs Kaede and throws her easily over his shoulders. Looking at the others he shrugs before speaking.

I'm a little dissapointed in the fact that we couldn't get all three, and more so in the fact that I did so poorly in my swordsmanship. At least it will provide a powerful incentive to keep up with my training.

[Rogue 7]

"Shigeru-kun, Anzai-kun, keep an eye out as we're moving."


Kanji-sensei started off to the east, in the direction of your shelter. The dust rising from his footfalls and his upright stance make it clear that he is not doing anything to conceal his presence. This was your homeland, and his. Why should he have to?
----

The shelter to which you return is exceedingly simple. A small, square, flat-roofed stone house, there was an awning outside to provide shade. An outhouse and hand-operated pump gave mute evidence of the facility's lack of indoor plumbing. A small hawk roost, garnished with the corpse of a mouse to reward the messenger hawk that regularly made rounds collecting messages, completed the picture.

Kanji-sensei staggered a bit as he walked into camp, clearly a bit more tired than he was letting on. He went inside the simple, two-room shelter, dumping his prisoner in the corner of a room with a small cooking stove in the corner. He then walked out, signalling that he was going to write a message for the messenger hawk to carry back to the village.

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

Once they've reached the outpost, Shigeru heads into the shelter, wondering if anybody is stationed there, eager to learn what there is to learn even in this distant, isolated arm of civilisation.

With nobody present, the genin instead launches a search for any valuable written info he can find lying about. Or hidden about. He even goes to the cages to check for any inbound messages that have not yet been received.

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In the first case, Diplomacy: (1d20+11)[18] and Gather Information: (1d20+12)[28].
In the second case, Search: (1d20+9)[17]

[Rogue 7]

The base is empty save for your two prisoners and the various insects sharing your facilities, as it has been since you arrived.

[Tyracus]

Setting his prisoner down softly in the corner across from her companion Yuji sets his sword in his lap and takes a sitting position in the doorway to watch over them. As he does so he speaks over his shoulder.

I know sensei trusts the hawks but we could have also used my messenger jutsu. It'd be a little draining but it wouldn't take terribly long to reach the village and we'd know when it'd done so. I guess that isn't too important in this case though. So how are you holding up after the battle Shigeru? I know Anzai will have some repairs to do on his puppet but you seem fine.

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

So absorbed is he by his search of the outpost, that Shigeru ignores Yuji's question. Poking his head up from behind a table, he sighs. "Nothing." He gives another look at the tiny building, and throws up his arms in exasperation. "Absolutely nothing. Not the tiniest scrap of paper. Not a word of what has been going on in the world. What atrocious organisation. We're the border watch, you'd think they'd keep us informed of what's been happening, you know? What if the politics suddenly changed, and we're keeping our allies from crossing the border? Or they've got an army running this way and there's only the four of us here, unaware of our impending doom?"

The building was like a stove, trapping hot air inside, so Shigeru figured he might as well go back outside and sit in the awning's shade. "Do you know how much social dynamics can change in the time we've been gone? When I get back to the Village, it'll take days to figure out what's happened and how everything goes now. I should've figured a way for someone to keep me informed while I'm out!"

Shigeru stares at one of the hawks, disheartened. The hawk stares back. "What about you? Anything you can tell me?" he asks the hawk. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't get an answer.

[Rogue 7]

Kanji-sensei finished up his message and placed it into the message tube of the hawk, watching as it soared into the distance and back towards the village, becoming a speck in the darkening, cloudless sky.

He turned, a light smile on his face.

"Allies generally don't attempt to cross the border of friendly countries in the middle of nowhere. They tend to take the official route, in order to avoid unpleasant incedents with jumpy border guards like us. We'll have reinforcements within the next two days, at which point we'll be able to take our captives home. Anzai-kun, if you could please watch the captives? I'll prepare dinner, and you two keep an eye. I'll bring you two food and then Yuji, you'll be on first watch, I'll take second, and Shigeru takes the morning watch. Anzai-kun, you get the lucky draw and a full night's sleep."

He walks into the cabin, and you are quick to hear the young male captive begin to insult and yell at Kanji-sensei. You can't hear his response, but the smell of grilling meat and smoke issuing from the chimney gives evidence of dinner being prepared.

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

"That was just an example, you know? You understand what I'm trying to say, sensei." Shigeru throws his head back, and gazes up at the cloudless sky. "So... two days, huh. Hey, Yuji, you didn't happen to bring anything to read, did you? Nah, didn't think so." Shrugging, Yuji gets back up and finds an open area to start training. "Guess there's nothing else to do around here but to work," he says despondently as he begins moulding chakra.

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Training for the next two days, or until reinforcements arrive, or we're interrupted, or whatever.

Developing Genjutsu Kai, DC 16, two successes required.
Taking 10, will require four days (Half done).

If Kanji-sensei is willing to help, learning Genjutsu Kai, DC 14, 1 success required, at +1/level Kanji has beyond lv5.
Taking 10, time probably halved, for one day, if not, two days.

[Tyracus]

Yuji

Looking back over at Shigeru, Yuji merely shrugs and turns back to keeping watch outside the small outpost.

If you're really that bored you could try taking up calligraphy and write something yourself. It's also useful for some of the more eccentric shinobi tools and techniques.

[Rogue 7]

The two days spent waiting for reinforcements passed uneventfully. Anzai remained at the shelter to guard the two prisoners while the three remaining members continued their regular patrols. No sign of any enemies, either the Iwagakure ninjas you had defeated or any new ones making pushes on your part of the border. As you arrived at dusk on the second day, the relief team was already there. It was a team of three older chuunin, who looked around 18 years old on average- two girls and a boy. One of the girls appeared to be the leader.

Reciting the necessary passwords with Kanji-sensei meant that the transfer of authority went smoothly, and in the morning you were able to depart for the 3 day trip back to the village, which was similarly uneventful. Arriving at the gates of the village, your prisoners in tow, the weather began to pick up. Sand started blowing. You were lucky- a few hours' delay and you would have been caught in the thick of it.

"We need to hurry and get these prisoners to the facility, and then report to the Kazekage's office! Let's move before this storm gets any worse!"

[Fanatic-Templar]

Shigeru

Rather than paying attention to the incoming sandstorm, Shigeru had recognised one of the sentry-nin at the village gate. With a cheery smile and a wave, Shigeru hurried on to chat with the guy.

"Hey, Keitaro! How did an unreliable guy like you end up on guard duty?" he joked. "Hey , guess what? One of our captives has the same name you do! How creepy is that? Him, over there, the guy Kanji-sensei's carrying around like a sack of potatoes. The other's a girl, obviously, so that would have been even weirder. Though I guess they could have different names over in the Earth Country, who know, they've got strange customs and all."

"Anyway, I bet you're dying to know what happened. Or really anything to relieve the boredom of standing around here all day watching the desert, right? See, we were up north near the border, where the desert turns rocky and its more of an arid wasteland than a sea of dunes. We were patrolling along this huge chasm, the area completely bare except for those scraggly little bushes that grow around there, and the sun was quickly setting, marking the end of another day's work. Our shadows stretched out before us, like scouts leading the way, when in the distance, obscured by the shimmering of hot air, we saw three figures..."

"We need to hurry and get these prisoners to the facility, and then report to the Kazekage's office! Let's move before this storm gets any worse!"

Shigeru looked over his shoulder to see the rest of his team making their way into the Village. "Right, right." He gave Keitaro an apologetic shrug. "You know how it is. Work, work, working all the time, you know? I'll tell you the rest when I've got a minute. Or ten. It's a real good story." With that he hurried off to catch those members of his group that had pushed forward without him.