Dogging Down In The Deep End

Mission Info:

He was off the deep end. Hoping to take a break from the high stakes missions that he and his ring of mission contractors had been getting themselves into, he was pleased when he saw an advertisement put up by a dog shelter. They were in need of a dog walker, and the Kumon youth figured that he was the right man for the job. For the stressed out Genin, walking dogs for a day would be a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. He had barely made it halfway up the hike to Thunderpeak Campus with the pack of five street dogs, when a raven came with an urgent mission requiring his immediate attention. He cursed at the Gods, and left his octopus Mimas - disguised as Saturn to be able to walk and hold the five leashes - in charge of walking the dogs. "Mimas!" It cried when Saturn explained to it its duties for the day. It could only say its name, and its emotions were never clear in its tone. However, there was no time to waste on honing Mimas' dog walking skills. The Genin was needed across town.

When Saturn found the corpse of a Kumon Genin in the woods, it was already too late. He was no stranger to gory sights - ever since he ran with his tail between his legs from the scene of his own mother's bloody murder, death seemed to follow him at every turn. Ever since he realized that years of undertaking menial jobs in the town to earn a comfortable living was a fruitless endeavour that brought him no happiness, he had reluctantly decided to walk the path of shinobi once more and in doing so invited back into his life the cruel reality that was the life of an ambitious ninja. His life's union with death and gore was reunited when Sir Bartholomew Rogers' guts spilled onto his deck aboard his ship on Mikadzuki Beach. Ever since then, he bore witness to gruesome sights at every corner. Less than a week had passed since he had to stomach the sight of rotting flesh once again, severed limbs at the radiant, piercing gaze of the eyes of the ambitious Shibasaki clansman Jun whom he had once placed in his payroll. The young Genin had fired beams of concentrated chakra from his eyes to decimate a group of bandits who raided a Kumon scout group, with seemingly no remorse. While his act was one of justice, Saturn was naive to let two of the bandits escape instead of sealing their fate. The consequences of his actions ran deep and they manifested in the very same woods, not too far from where he let the notorious bandit Shiburo escape with his kin.

 On the surface, the damage that was done to the deceased shinobi paled in comparison to the utter decimation laid out to Shiburo's brothers by the eyes of Jun. The blonde haired shinobi was nailed to the trunk of a large oak tree with a rusted halbred pierced through his heart. Just as Saturn did, the bandit had spared the life of the deceased's kin, leaving him to tell the tale - a cruel and humiliating act meant to strike fear in the hearts of those who came to help. It was frustrating, and the grinding of Saturn's teeth at the sight of seeing Shiburo gave the bandit a morbid satisfaction before he was beheaded from behind by the reinforcements who accompanied the Genin. The crude laughter that burst out of his bleeding mouth removed any closure that Saturn could hope to have out of the situation before he met his fate. Moreover, the group could not afford to let their guard down. There was one more nefarious bandit on the loose - Shiburo's right hand man had duped his assailant with the oldest trick in the book. When Sasuke's Naginata came swinging down at the throat of Heihachi, it was met with a thick rotten log in a puff of smoke - he had manoeuvred the terrain with the slick cunning tomfoolery in true fashion of a bandit and used Substitution Jutsu to deceive the group of five Genin and special forces with perfect execution and timing.

  Shiburo's troupe of bandits were nefarious for laying traps for unsuspecting scouts and merchants. They made their home in the woods and were largely unrivalled in their ability to design foolproof plans to loot unprotected convoys that passed through their territory. Up until now their activities had been minuscule in comparison to the large scale protests organized by larger groups who posed a much greater threat to the livelihoods of Kumon folk. The killing of a ranked shinobi was thought to be beyond their capabilities. The group theorized that something significant must have happened to cause them to make such a brash, reckless decision - little did they know about Saturn and Jun's little adventure in the woods just four days prior. Why would they know? Saturn thought to himself, and then thought that that thought was a meaningless thought to have. After all, the Genin was dead and Shiburo was also dead. Only a handful of shinobi take up the task of making the hike to Thunderpeak Campus to go through mission reports. Saturn was once one of them, grinding away at the menial jobs even in the world of shinobi. He chose to keep quiet as four of his compatriots argued over each other under the shade of the same oak tree on which the deceased shinobi remained nailed. Eventually, the group ceased their rambling. Someone remarked that the dead was watching. As a shinobi in Ronin Robes went to take the Genin down from the tree, another in a full set of Clouded Sky walked up to Saturn, talking from behind his rebreather. His words sounded grainy as he spoke, and the fortuneteller could barely make out what was being said to him, "Hey, snap out of it. We got a problem."

As his blurred vision came back into focus, he heard loud erratic blood curdling screams that seemed to reverberate. He traced the sound to a giant earthen dome - manifested by Doton - no more than fifty meters from his position and walked his way over. A cavity in the dome opened as he approached, and he sunk his blood stained fingers into the earthen wall to peer in. There he was, the kin of the deceased, strapped to an earthen construct resembling a chair. He wailed and screamed but the construct around him kept him strapped to his seat. Ermes was crouched next to the restrained Genin, with her hands forming the Snake hand seal. She was struggling to contain the writhing victim. "He's been like this for an hour. We don't know what happened." She spoke, pressing her palms into each other as she sweated profusely from her brow. She was a tall kunoichi who often got mistaken for a man until she spoke - she had a decidedly feminine voice although it was deep and raspy. Saturn entered the earthen dome and walked around the restrained ninja. Just as he faced the entrance, Sasuke appeared in a puff of smoke at the entrance, carrying his signature weapon. He was a tall shinobi with orange hair who was renowned for his precision with his Naginata and his ability to scout battlefields without being noticed. "I sent Aka Manto to call for reinforcements. They can't detect him with heat, scent, or sight unless they have nothing short of a Byakugan. We still haven't received clearance to evacuate. They could be hiding more troupes. We might be surrounded. They likely won't attack us while we hold our position, but they're more likely to make a move while we're trying to retreat." He spoke with a sense of urgency but maintained a calm poise in his tone. He turned to Saturn, "What? He is signed to me too, you know? You jealous?"

"You got its pronouns wrong."

"These scumbags.. I'm going to kill them!" The ninja in Clouded Sky cussed from outside the dome, "Pussies! The lot of them. We should take this Genin back to safety. He won't dare make a move against us after we've killed their piss drinking bossman!"

"Calm down, Michael." Sasuke cautioned the rambling shinobi, "They've killed one of us too. Which is why they'd be even more keen on not letting any of us escape."

"You don't mean.." Ermes exclaimed,

"Get it out!"

A loud blood curdling scream interrupted her before she could finish, gathering the attention of the whole group on the restrained Genin.

"Out of all of us, only Saturn and Sasuke can teleport over long distances. It's too risky to take him back to the village while he's like this. We don't know what those fuckers are capable of. He could be planted with a trap for all we know." The dark haired Chunin in Ronin Robes shared his opinion, bringing with him a strange metal helmet to the dome. "I carry this device in my Storage Displacement. It's helped sensory ninjas diagnose shinobi in similar circumstances before. Saturn, the time is now. Find out what's wrong with him, and do it before they come for us and we all fucking die."

"Alright, give me that!" Saturn finally snatched the strange metal device from the hands of Ronin Ronin. He inspected the cavity of the large block like rectangular device, and grabbed one of the thick numerous wires on its back. The item seemed vaguely familiar, but he decided that examining the condition of the victim would be a faster process if he got right to business without trying to deduce the properties of the device first. After all, the Yamanaka descendant was already considerably fluent in the language of minds. He could read minds with considerable ease from distance and even ore potently from up close. First, he tried a non invasive approach. Upon holding the Ram seal, Saturn established a telepathic link with the victim. "Hello. Can you hear me, Genin? I am your Kumon ally. My name is Saturn. How about yours?" He sent out his greeting directly into the mind of the ensnared youth, to check if his affliction was one of mind and body, or body alone. Immediately, Saturn's own mind was flooded with ceaseless bloodcurdling screams, they were deafening although his ears were not the sensory organ he was using to perceive the telepathic reply from the young man. Saturn grunted out loudly before he released the Ram seal and covered his head, slamming his eyes shut. He could still hear the haunting screams long after he had severed the telepathic link. It gave him pains akin to a migraine. "Saturn! What is it?!" Ermes grabbed the fortuneteller's upper arm and checked on him. Immediately, the ensnared Genin on the earthen seat yelled out a primal scream and jerked his own arm up with enough force to crack her technique. "Shit!" Ermes formed the Serpent seal once again to fix the cracks, coiling her earthen serpents around his arm once more making him grunt out in pain.

"I got this.. If that didn't work, then.." Saturn focused his eyes back at the restrained victim and planted his right hand on his forehead. "Tell me, Genin. What happened to you?" He asked, and closed his eyes to peer into his compatriot's memory. When his eyes 'opened', he first saw the world directly from the perspective of his subject. This was a memory, and about two hours had passed since, Saturn deduced, as it was evident from the position of the Sun in the sky which in turn was also the first thing he noticed when his eyes opened. From his peripheral vision, he could see himself, the body of Saturn, now standing among the numerous trees observing this memory. But he could not turn the eyes of the subject towards the spectator. Instead, his consciousness eventually floated in an out of body experience to observe the scene from about ten meters above his subject. He could feel his emotions as they came to him, as the youth made his way through the bushes running frantically in a straight line. His heart was pounding. It was fear.

---

The Genin eventually made it to an open patch like field among the woods. In front of him was a broad shouldered man with dark black hair. Saturn recognized the man immediately. It was Shiburo with his shoulder sliced open. His underman stood next to him, a grey haired specimen with a thick grey moustache and a gaping wound across his chest. On the ground was the Kumon victim, the one who did not survive his encounter with the bandits. He laid in a pool of blood, and turned his head towards the standing Kumon Genin. "Aki. Run." He coughed out blood as he rolled over, struggling to get back on his feet. "Oh? This one is still alive?" Shiburo grunted, and kicked the fallen shinobi in his ribs, making him spurt out more blood from his mouth before he turned to face Aki. "What should we do about that one, Heihachi?" He asked his underman for advice, stepping towards the Genin as his legs shook in fear. "We can't let him escape. He could call for reinforcements. And now he's seen our faces. This one here is not going to make it."

Aki touched his ear piece.

"H-Hey. S-Send -"

Wasting no movements, Heihachi appeared in front of Aki at considerable speed and struck him in the ear with the back of his fist with brutal force, shattering the wireless communication device that he wore and knocking him back by no less than two meters into the ground. "This brat.. He had a radio."  He spoke, stomping on the remnants of the device to crush it into oblivion. "It's a good thing we snagged that signal jammer from those merchants yesterday." He showed a wicked smirk on his face, holding a massive device that he seemingly pulled out of nowhere. Behind him, the bleeding Genin crawled back up to his feet and lunged himself at Shiburo, who swung his halbred in retaliation. It was almost over, but with an unyielding will bestowed by the likes of Raijin himself, the injured Genin clashed his waraxe with the halbred to commence another fight. Making use of the distraction, Aki screamed as he cast a massive ball of fire and launched it towards Heihachi from the side, evading the fight between their kins.

With one fell swoop of his arm, the moustached bandit slashed through the ball of fire, dissipating it into a puff of smoke. "That's all you got?" Behind them, the worn down shinobi's legs gave out from under him with the weight of Shiburo's swinging halbred. The fire element user was swiftly knocked out with chop to his throat. It was over quickly. The two were vastly outmatched.

When Aki woke up, he was bound by ropes. A bucket of water had been used to drench him, causing him to gasp as he opened his eyes. His teammate was already nailed to the oak tree, his blood running down the trunk like a flowing river. "No one's coming to save you,  you know? Look at him." Shiburo spoke in a gruff, coarse voice, pulling Aki's hair to make him look up. Heihachi stood with his arms crossed, letting his boss do the talking. "He's bleeding out. But what we did to him is nothing compared to what your friends from the village did to my brothers." He rambled on, "I want the ones responsible to feel what my brothers felt when their bodies were decimated, chopped like pork and beef." Aki snorted at this comment, laughing out manically in pure desperation. Shiburo grinned just as wide. They had each lost a mind. "It's funny, isn't it? I know you did not do it personally, but you're part of the problem." He went on without missing a beat, "I can't let you go back to the village to report what happened here. You've seen our faces. You understand, don't you?" Taking the nailed Genin's own waraxe, Shiburo swung it at the bleeding shinobi, cutting another gaping hole into his abdomen. "This one's a Chinoike." He said, "He has the ability to draw his blood back into his body to stop the bleeding, but the damage to his internal organs are fatal. He won't make it. But it sure is fun to stab him. Don't you wanna try it?" He mocked, taking the waraxe out of his guts and slashing it a second time. Heihachi just scoffed, he was visibly indifferent of the situation, "Don't get the wrong idea. We never had the intention of letting either of you live. I've been feeding you impervious villagers to my snake summon. She hits harder than Heihachi, spits bigger fireballs than you, and could probably heal your friend over here if she wanted to. Unfortunately, she is occupied in a battle right now." He explained, "So until she's available, I'm going to have the time of my life making you feel what I felt." No words came out of the mouths of either of the captured rookies. One was in a hopeless state of despair and the other was visibly petrified. But all hope was not lost yet, as Saturn sensed chakra brewing in the system of the bound Aki.

A pitch black orb of destruction manifested next to a tree in the distance, far from where his teammate was nailed. It was intended as an act of mercy, to take the suffering chinoike out of his misery. It expanded outwards to swallow the surrounding terrain, but fell short of hitting the mark. "You bastard! Did you think we hadn't accounted for that?" Heihachi scowled at the bound shinobi.  "He's over there, you fool." He pointed to a different tree to show that Aki had been duped with False Surrounding technique. "And you won't be trying that again." He handed a kunai to Shiburo who then wedged it into Aki's femur, causing him excruciating pain. He tried to form another orb but he failed miserably,  screaming out in pain after failing to create anything more than a spark, a trace amount of energy compared to the orb that he had previously manifested.

From atop a cliff, a third bandit appeared, signalling to Heihachi, waving frantically.

[color=#cc6666"Shiburo, they're here. Prepare yourself."[/color] Heihachi rose from his crouched position, in full alert. He heard Shiburo let out a nasty laugh, and when he turned his face to check on his boss, his head was already on the grass. He had been decapitated.

---

To Saturn, emerging out from Aki's mind felt like rearing his head out from underneath the surface of the sea to take in a breath of air after holding in his breath. He was short of breath, but he shook off the feeling and looked around at the squad. They each stared at him intently, waiting for his diagnosis. There was an air of suspense, and Saturn dragged it out by taking the time to look Ermes, Sasuke, Michael, and Ronin each in their eyes. Saturn reflected on what he had learned, and realized that after simplifying the situation, he wasn't going to impress anyone with his next line.

"Well?"

They all asked in unison.

"He's under the influence of Genjutsu." Saturn spoke blandly, making a statement with no emotional investment,

"Oh, come on!" They groaned, "Did you think we haven't already thought of that?"

"He wasn't responding to Genjutsu Release." Ermes added,

"What else did you learn, Saturn? Where is the enemy?" Sasuke placed his hand on Saturn's shoulder and asked him calmly, but Saturn could sense that his heart was racing.

"There were more bandits, but we know this already. I didn't see where they went, one appeared briefly to warn Heihachi, from the cliff at 11 O' clock from here." He spoke quickly, trying to get to the point, "Shiburo's summon has three specialties. That means Shiburo uses Bukijutsu, Space/Time and Genjutsu. Heihachi uses Taijutsu and Ninjutsu. Neither of them have the medical specialty, or they would have healed their injuries while they waited here. When Aki used Devouring Sphere  his sense of depth and spacial awareness were already hindered with False Surrounding. Then Heihachi handed a kunai to Shiburo who used it to stab him in the thigh.  Then Heihachi said something interesting while he was talking to him. His words were 'You bastard! Did you think we hadn't accounted for that?' He said it like that." Saturn imitated his voice, doing an impression from his memory, "After that, Aki couldn't manifest another sphere. His hands were bound so he had mastered the technique to a good degree to be able to summon it without hand seals."

"My guess is Shiburo used a Genjutsu on Aki that was triggered when he got stabbed by the kunai, and it took away his ability to use techniques without using hand seals, by causing excruciating pain. I'd be willing to wager that Heihachi used a Fuuinjutsu technique on the kunai to make the Genjutsu more potent."

"Check the kunai." Ronin instructed Michael, who was closest to the weapon that was taken out from Aki's femur.

He turned it around, looking at it but did not seem to notice anything suspicious.

"If it was a seal, it could have disappeared when it came into effect." Sasuke noted,

"But if it's just a Genjutsu, we should be able to teleport him to the institute to have him treated there." Michael remarked, visibly growing impatient.

"We don't know if the Genjutsu has other effects. Besides, it's impossible to transport him while he's like this." Ronin cautioned, as Aki struggled against his restraints, like a man who was possessed. And he was about to be possessed. Saturn had one more trick up his sleeve.

"I'm going in."

As if to prepare himself, Saturn finally wore the device that was brought to him. Monkey, Snake, Horse, Bird - if he did not perform the Mind Clone Switch Technique first, his body would lose consciousness when performing the next technique. This would keep him executing the final part of his plan to save what was left of Aki's mind. Tiger, Snake, Horse, Ram, "Heart".  Saturn captured the image of Aki between his touching fingers, and sent his mind into the suffering Genin's psyche once again, this time sending a more physical manifestation. Saturn's eyes rolled back into his skull, and so did Aki's, before the restrained genin's head dropped down . Saturn remained focused, almost frozen in place. After a few seconds, Aki lifted his head back up. Looking down, he could see the sharp end of a large metal rod piercing out from within hit guts. Both his wrists were impaled with screws. But Saturn could not see these instruments from his own eyes in front of Aki. "Fuck. It hurts. I'm so.. screwed." Aki's mouth chuckled, ""Yo. Ermes. Would you loosen these restraints? I'm finding it awfully difficult to move my arms." It was Aki's voice, but spoken with Saturn's accent. No one in the room had seen the Fortuneteller's ability before, and they looked at each other in bafflement. "Do it, Ermes. It's safe. That's me." Saturn spoke from his own body, further confusing the squad. The group was cautious, and among them not one shinobi nodded his head to give the okay. Ermes, who couldn't take the suspense, decided to take a leap of faith, trusting the voice of Saturn. When Aki's arms were released, he took a deep breath and formed the seal of confrontation. His use of Mind's Eye of the Kagura not only allowed him to weaken the Genjutsu on Aki, but he could now sense Aka Manto making his way towards the dome. Furthermore, the corpses of no less than 50 bandits were also detected by his mind's eye. Their blood had splattered on rocks and barks of trees and painted them red. Saturn then placed his hand on Aki's forehead and used Genjutsu release, causing his head to drop back down again. He had fainted.

"He's going to be fine. Maybe he'll need a therapist." Saturn reassured the squad, taking off his helmet. "This thing is pretty sick, huh?" He smirked, convincing the others that his feat was made possible because of the device rather than from his own volition. It was a convincing pitch. He returned the device to Ronin and stepped outside of the dome. Overhead, the fifteen meter long dragonfly Aka Manto descended from the sky. His pelt, which was usually iridescent, was bright red true to his alias -The Red Cloak. In his fangs, he carried the beheaded skull of a familiar enemy. A grey haired man with a moustache, and wrinkled skin with his face permanently knotted into an unsightly frown. It was Heihachi, and he was very much dead.

"Looks like the backup we needed was with us all along." Sasuke commented, walking up to Aka Manto and snatching Heihachi's skull from its fangs. "Michael, think quick!" He tossed the head at the masked shinobi who flinched, dropping the head to the ground below. Ronin kicked it around with his boot, trying to juggle it with his feet before kicking it to Ermes, who cringed, letting him fall again.

"It's him, there's no doubt. Look at that billion ryo smile."

---

WC: 4250

Claims:

[/justify]

Approved