What happened - solo mission

Mission Details:

Once again, Akihana found herself surrounded by the familiar solitude of the mountains. The rough terrain surrounding cloud village was almost welcoming to the kunoichi at this point, its sharp looking rocky outcrops and faraway peaks igniting in her a sense of comfort and belongings instead of the awe and fear they usually inspired in those new to them. It wasn’t that long ago that the blonde herself had been wary of the mountains, but that was before she knew their secrets. Now, she felt safe sarroundd by the structures and secrets built into the rocks all around her. The medic nin didn’t need her bloodline limit to know where exactly the far off home was built and what path the local wildlife trotted on its way to hunt. Even the howl of wolves now soothed her to the point where it only brought comfort in the knowledge that someone was watching over her. As long as the wolves roamed freely in the mountainside, she was going to be okay.

The ANBU operative was of course familiar with the mountainside on a whole different level. Training wise, it served as ideal terrain and it couldn’t be denied that she simply liked the cold thin air. Somehow it felt easier to breath when so high above sea level, it felt good to imagine she could actually touch the clouds that gave Kumogakure its name. In the colder seasons, little ponds and streams froze, allowing a lone ninja to create something akin to skates using her light contract creation and pretend to zoom down the frozen path at top speed, her golden locks flying behind her. This of course was a secret the young woman shared with none save her son who enjoyed skating as much as she did if not more. Given her work, there wasn’t much time for her to have fun with Arata but what time she did have, the young mother made sure to spend with the little boy in the best way possible. And nothing seemed better than spinning him around on the ice and watching him laugh openly with such unbridled joy. Snow had always been Akihana’s weakness, never having seen it as a child in the land of fire. And when she had arrived in Kumo, there hadn’t been time. But life was kinder these days, it afforded both time and opportunity and the kunoichi was both glad of it and intent on fully taking advantage of it too.

Today however, Akihana wasn’t there to play on the snowcapped peaks or skate over a frozen body of water. No, her current reason for being in the mountains was far less pleasant. There had been a theft from the Raikage’s office and upon first inspection; it hadn’t looked anything too major. In fact, the papers that had gone missing were simply labeled as misplaced until further evidence had emerged. But by then it had been too late to actively track the thieves, the trail being long dead no matter how advanced Akihana’s tracking prowess. Even her bloodline limit couldn’t detect patterns in the air that were over three days old, light didn’t work that way and neither did space or time. And yet she had offered to go because it felt right. It hadn’t helped that her security clearance wasn’t the right shade of purple to allow her knowledge of what exactly had been missing. All the kunoichi had been told was that she was looking for some innocuous scrolls but she would know when she found them. Her job was simple enough in theory: find the scrolls, find out who stole them and bring back any intel on the group. It was ascertained that the theft was a result of coordinated teamwork and not a solo job.

Which had led the blonde to peruse files denoting all the strange people hanging around the Raikage tower in the last week. If the theft was indeed a group effort, someone would have had to act as scout in the group and another would have to be a distraction. After a few hours of searching and intelligent guess work, the medic had narrowed it down to a group of window washers who had been at their work all week only to pack up and leave yesterday afternoon and the catering staff which had recently been replaced by some new members. Not usually one to eat off the trolley as she baked her own goods, Akihana had only noticed the new people on her way to and from the chancery in her rush to get things signed by the Raikage. The window washing trio had been easy enough to track down and within half an hour, the three men stood assembled in front of her. They all seemed legit and came with good references. They were also clearly civilian and wouldn’t have known what to do with a scroll operated by chakra. Still the blonde had lead them kindly into a small spare office and ran through their mind carefully in case they had noticed something strange. The young woman had struck gold on her second witness, watching through his memory as one of the wait staff entered a room she knew he shouldn’t have though the window washer did not.

From there on, it had been relatively easy to call up the catering company and verify that they had in fact sent no one over to the administrative building, the manager offering to fax over  a copy of the letter supposedly signed by Yaju stating that the building would no longer require their services. Akihana had only given the fax a fleeting glance, the forgery obvious even to eyes not well versed in the art of imitating handwritings and official seals. Still the thieves had done their job well enough. They had infiltrated with trolleys of food and had probably stolen the scrolls and snuck out the same way, all in plain sight. What they hadn’t anticipated was that there weren’t exactly many places to run immediately outside of Kumo without being seen by many pairs of sharp eyes. A summon to Lilia later and Akihana found herself leaving a hurried message with the receptionist and rushing out the door, her long golden braid flying behind her. Usually not fond of making a spectacle of herself by scaling up walls and hopping from one rooftop to another, this time the kunoichi saw the need for haste and activated her wings, shooting straight up above the village and zooming off towards the cloudy mountains hiding the sun from view.

1100/4000 - to be continued

“Akihana, they were last spotted by the northern caves,” Lilia’s voice rang clear through the air as the fox lifted her nose delicately ahead of her and sniffed. It was rare for the sandy fox to be seen without her twin cubs but this time the occasion had called for the little canine to be alone just as her summoner was. Truth be told it wasn’t simply Lilia’s work. Talented as the female fox was, she had had help from her brethren and all the kitsune foxes had helped scout out the area in search of the group assumed to be hiding out in the vast caverns the mountains accommodated. Unfortunately for the thieves, they hadn’t realized that despite their vastness, the mountains were practically home to most of the Raiikage’s summons and Akihana’s by extension. It had taken exactly twenty minutes of combing through the area for Inari’s children to locate the small cave where the group of four hunched over a tiny fire in the cold, too afraid to stoke the flames in case the smoke became too visible. How proficient these campers were at ninjutsu Akihana had yet to know but if they were shivering then at least non among them was a medic. The deduction both saddened and relieved the blonde as she trekked her way silently to their hideout, chakra suppression activated in case they could read her energy as she approached.

Arata had wanted to come on missions with her, the ANBU Operative reflected as she inched closer to the cave, her golden eyes activated fully and seeing through the rocks to the company within in. Ever since the boy had passed his genin exams, he had been taking on missions like nobody’s business, giving his mother several panic attacks a day. When her little baby had grown up enough to be a legitimate genin and ninja, Akihana still wasn’t sure but grown up he had. Having turned six recently, Arata’s newest addition to his attire was a kumogakure headband which the boy wore cinched tight over his upper arm. The metallic thing looked too big on his tiny, still slightly pudgy frame but that didn’t stop the little dark haired boy from showing it off. He was the youngest genin in his class and rightfully proud of it. And Akihana was proud of him too really, she was just more worried because with his promotion, her son now had a license to act irrationally and get in trouble, something every mother secretly dreaded.

The group huddled within the cave however didn’t appear to be nearly as active as her six year old. Her extended vision showed the quartet indeed bundled up under furs and blankets around a sorry excuse for a fire, one of the females holding her hands close to the dull flames for warmth. Where they had managed to get blankets and furs, Akihana didn’t know but it looked like they had set up camp for a while. It made sense upon further reflection really. The group had taken their time, forging a letter to the catering company, working the buffet trolley for days to get the lay of the land, assimilating themselves with the people who worked at the main administrative building and their eating habits. The blonde wondered if stealing the scroll had been more than luck and a slight of hand. Had anyone been given a drugged donut allowing the thieves to enter a secure area to steal the scroll? Of course there were many ways to go about it but in the end, the team had done their work subtly, had gone unnoticed and even now was in no hurry to leave Lightning Country, no doubt assuming that any law enforcers sent after them would be combing the country borders and not look in their own back yard. But that was where they were mistaken Whereas the theft of important documents would indeed have usually warranted a country wide manhunt, that wasn’t the way Akihana did this and through her own personal relationship with the Raikage, he trusted her judgment. He had been ANBU captain before and knew the benefit of silent tracking better than most people on the Black Ops team.

She only hoped she hadn’t let him down through her own actions.

Besides, a lone kunoichi going in wouldn’t arouse as much suspicion as a platoon barging into the mountains to comb for the thieves. Instead Akihana had tracked the pseudo caterers using foxes and her own keen guesswork and as a result, the blonde now waited outside the cave they were curled up in, contemplating her next move. The most direct approach would be to simply enter, metaphorical guns blazing and take them all out. Her dojutsu detected clearly that at least two of the party were civilian while the other two didn’t appear to be that proficient at ninjutsu either. And yet they had managed to sneak into the Raikage building and stolen what had turned out to be very important documents. Either these people themselves didn’t know what they had stolen and were simply hoping for a good price in the black market for the scroll by virtue of simply having belonged to a kage or they were working for someone else remained to be seen. And the medic now was sure she needed to ascertain their motives before she took them down. For their sake, she hoped they were unaware of what was in their possession now. That way she could simply steal it back and no one would be the wiser.

Sadly her hopes were dashed a few moments later when one of the men withdrew from his furs the scrolls she had been send to retrieve. While she hadn’t been given enough description, they were impossible to miss. The dark ribbons that kept the scrolls rolled up tight were special ones sewn with chakra thread. No way would this ragtag group possess another valuable scroll so heavily protected. She watched the man try to pry the paper open once more, seemingly unaware of how chakra threaded ribbons worked. It was both amusing and a little absurd watching his attempts before be finally stowed the scroll away. The mousy, nondescript looking girl beside him shook her head, her stringy hair swinging from her forehead as she gestured for him to not try again. Through lip reading, Akihana could make out that the worry was of hurting the scroll in the attempts to open it. Now she knew for sure that they knew the value of the item they held, which meant Akihana’s own options were shrinking fast.

2207/4000 - to be continued

A lot of the time, ninja training was a matter of black and white. Either the mission succeeded or it did not. And the success of the mission had direct ramifications on the shinobi carrying it out. Personal feelings and interpretations didn’t always count. For example, Akihana had once been sent on a mission to neutralize someone and steal a valuable gem stone that the target had stolen in the first place. The mission scrolls has been clear, she had two objectives. Neutralize the target, retrieve the gem. The blonde had only retrieved the gem, figuring that the first part was only a precursor to the second part which was the important thing. As it turned out, the mission had been labeled incomplete upon her return and she had been sent back with a metaphorical slap on the wrist. The people who had hired her from the kage had wanted the assassination as much as their precious jewels back. A similar dilemma now plagued the kunoichi as she waited outside the cave. To engage or not to engage? Of course by the way this group looked and acted, she could very well wait for them to fall asleep and then sneak in to retrieve the scrolls and sneak out just as quietly. But would that end their attempts to steal it back?

Probably not, she reasoned as she sat cross legged outside the cave, her body warm and toasty despite the falling snowflakes on the mountain top. Given their planning and lack of skill, their determination was their best quality and it would determine whether they came back for the scroll, and managed to steal it with more success next time. No, they would have to die. The conclusion in itself made Akihana curl into herself. The only thing the ANBU Operative liked worse than killing was torture and being in her line of work, she had had the opportunity to see plenty of both. Sometimes, she had wondered how she would explain to Arata what she did for a living, for their village. That was the good thing about being his mom. No matter what rank or branch of the Kumo force she worked for, she was just mom. And moms didn’t carry out group assassinations, not in the world of six year old little boys. As fate would have it, her son was now on his own shinobi path and soon would elarn the necessary evils o the job. There was nothing she could do to shield him from the evils of this world but futile as it was, it was still her job to try.

Killing them in their sleep sounded like the most merciful option at this point. No need to engage, that way even if their remains were ever found by opposing sides, no memories will be extracted containing her. Until then, Akihana simply sat, contemplating the small group and secretly wishing that their last few hours on this planet were peaceful ones. Closing her golden eyes against the elements whirling around her, Akihana embraced the snow, sinking into a form of semi deep meditation that she had been practicing to unlock her genjutsu release of late. She wondered where Alice was, if the girl was okay. Despite them not having gotten off to the best of starts, the medic still found herself deeply concerned for her fellow ANBU. Using her chakra directionally, the blonde focused on sending small doses of peace towards the cave, hoping that the invisible waves would enter through some small cracks and crevices into the rocky structure and calm the occupants. She was by no means trying to make them go to sleep, she would never steal away from the limited time they had left. But she would try to make their stay as pleasant as possible. The kunoichi didn’t open her eyes, not needing to see what they were doing. She just kept generating the genjutsu laced chakra, practicing just as much for their sake as she did for her own.

The blonde sat in the cold for what seemed like hours, sending waves upon waves of peace onto the group she wasn’t even sure was receiving any of it. If they knew they were being observed by an angel of death outside their little hideout, the group didn’t let out a single sign of the knowledge. When she finally did open her eyes though, it appeared they had gone to sleep. From what her vision could detect through the walls, she could make out one of the couples snuggled together to the far left while two other sleeping bags denoted the remaining two members of the group. The snuggling pair she could have put down to sharing body heat due to the weather but the way the mousy girl’s short stubby fingers stroked though the man’s hair hinted at something else entirely. Something Akihana was not even beginning to be ready to think about. Death couldn’t be so bad if it came to you in sleep, could it? If it took you without pain and while in the arms of the one you loved? Her older, more chronic patients at the hospital often wished for such an end and even though that was no excuse for what she was doing, it did provide the kunoichi with a slight bit of comfort. There were definitely worse ways to die than at the hands of Akihna Akari.

The end was simple really. When she was sure the quartet was asleep, the kunoichi simply walked into the cave, her steps lighter than a cat’s and her breath virtually nonexistent until she let it out in one great swoop, the poison mist escaping from her lips a distinct form of cyanide she had created and perfected herself. With Alice’s help, the kunoichi had come to see an entire new way of using poisons and while they still remained her last resort, there was no doubting their usefulness now. As the mist descended upon the sleeping four, Akihana simply waited, waited…

Waited for their peaceful breathing to stop, for their heart to give the one last final before being silenced forever.

3235/4000 - to be continued

Once the quartet lay dead, Akihana ventured further into the cave, going first to each corpse and moving a hand to close their eyes, all the while using the slight physical content to check for residual chakra picks. Few people understood that chakra in itself was a living thing, moving, accumulating and waxing and waning along with the life it supported. It left its own print on other chakra signatures which  - depending upon how quickly it was discovered – could tell a tale of its own. Not finding anything of note on their person save a few weapons, the blond moved to their belongings, more specifically, the furs from which she had seen the now dead man retrieve the scroll. Working carefully just in case there were any traps or failsafes in place, the ANBU Operative managed to get it open with ease only to gasp softly at what she found inside.

The dozen or so scrolls littering the inside of the furry bag of sorts were stamped with seals from all over the shinobi world. Most of them tied with chakra string to make them accessible to only a certain number of people, many far more dangerous looking than the one stolen from the Raikage and all of them looked to be the work of professionals, or at least a group of very determined, partially civilian professionals. How this group had managed to infiltrate so many places and obtained so many secrets, and whether it was simply to sell them or pass them on to a higher authority, Akihana didn’t know but that didn’t take from the fact that these were practiced conmen. Kumo had been last heist though, and now as they lay in death, the kunoichi hoped they had found the peace they had ben searching for on their way through all the points from which they had stolen so many things.

Going through the rest of the cave was a mere formality, though one she performed with utmost care as she did with everything thrown her way. The cold preserved the bodies for now and the pile of scrolls was shouldered safely by the blonde to bring back to Yaju and then the relevant units for decryption and possible return to original owners. Akihana harbored no illusions that all of them would be honorably returned, there was little honor in this lien fo work. She did however have faith that people had it in them to do what was right. Once her search had ended and the area swept clean, the blonde touched her ANBU tattoo lightly in the universal summon of a squad, waiting the few minutes it took for the four man cell to appear outside the cave, giving her the all clear.

“All hostiles neutralized,” the kunoichi explained and felt them visibly relax as they moved in to further take stock of the bodies and what could be salvaged from them. “I’m heading back to the Raikage to return the stolen documents. And then making spaghetti for dinner if any of you want to join Arata and myself.”

“Spaghetti?” one of the female ANBU currently with her fingers in one of the corpses mouths looked up with interest. Akihana knew the kid, she was good at her job identifying and separating unique bloodlines. She also had a unique love for Italian food. It was a bonus that Arata had a slight crush on the teen so whenever she dropped by, the boy was on his best behavior. “I’m in.”

“We’ll keep a plate warm for you if this lot takes too long,” Akihana managed a grin before waving to the rest of her comrades and heading out. Deciding not to waste time with a hike and to relieve herself of the burden of thinking over what she had done, the kunoichi body flickered her way back to the main village, stopping every two hundred meters to replenish the jutsu of course. Once back at the building, she made straight from Yaju’s office, barely acknowledging the looks of surprise she received.

“Here,” she finally managed pushing the door shut behind her and unshouldering the bag on to his desk where it fell open, the dozens of scrolls littering his huge desk and adding to his already considerable amount of paperwork. “Turns out they were professionals, been all over the place. I… had to kill them.” The explanation that followed was badly strung together but a mission report clarifying it would come later. For now Akihana simply needed to sit down and try to digest the fact that four people were dead because of her.

One thousand Ryo seemed to be the cost of a single human life, very cheap in retrospect but then again, people in this world were aplenty and cash spoke louder. Akihana collected her own reward with a slightly heavy heart, heading home to cook and lose herself in the mundane business of being a mother now that she was done with the intense one of being a ninja of Cloud.

4075/4000

Claiming 4000 wc for Genjutsu spec
Claiming 15 AP
Claiming 4, 000 Ryo as mission reward
Claiming additional 1, 000 Ryo converted from 10 stats

approved