Aboard the Dream Weaver Train [Event - Halloween]

As they began heading back down the same streets they had been on earlier that day, Gun began to see herself as nothing more than Kana's puppet or weapon. When she was alone or acted on her own, she messed up. When working with Kana, Gun usually didn't make those mistakes. If she were to do a mission that was difficult and she'd been paired with someone else or alone, Gun was sure she'd likely screw it up. Kana was the shinobi who pointed Gun in the right direction and used her to her fullest. Was that all she wanted to be? A weapon for someone else to use as they see fit? It certainly made being a shinobi easier, in theory: she didn't have to consider her actions, just do as she was instructed. She also wouldn't have to take responsibility for any of the people she hurt along the way; if she hurt someone, Kana was the one who wielded Gun against them. While she could see the benefits of living her life like that, she wasn't sure that was what she wanted either. While she was interested in becoming one of Sakura's elite shinobi alongside Kana, Gun worried what would happen to her if anything ever happened to Kana. She wanted to be Kana's equal, not just one of her tools... but she didn't know how to do be an equal and not just be what Kana wanted. That dilema was banging around in Gun's head when Kana asked her a question.

"Is.. Is everything okay Gun? You've been pretty quiet.... I know I was a bit of a bitch but you know it's only because I want to help you, right?"

Gun looked up at her, a fake smile crossing her face. "Yep, ready to go," Gun flashed another fake smile at Kana, hoping she didn't realize that Gun had no idea what Kana had asked her. She'd heard her tone, but not really the words, so she'd tried to answer the question without knowing what it was. It was then she looked around, realizing the empty street they were on was near the Dream King's house. "Should be almost there, right?" Gun asked, hoping to change the subject. She didn't really know where they were going because she hadn't been paying much attention earlier.

As they neared the end of the street, Gun could hear the sounds of people ahead, possibly around the corner. Once there, Gun could see some sort of energy thing in the air, only 10 feet from the ground or so. There were civillains standing around it, some asking what they should do, some pointing at it with fear on their faces, and some seemed transfixed by the rippling energy. Gun looked back to Kana, finally comprehending why they were there, though still not entirely sure what the pair of genin were supposed to do with such an anomaly. As one little kid began running towards it, Gun stepped forward, grabbing the kid around the waist to restrain her from getting too close. "Whoa there, no one knows what that thing does, so let's not get too close." The girl's mom came and grabbed her, scolding her as she carried her back to their house. The scolding reminded Gun of the scolding she'd received from Kana earlier that morning. A little smirk crossed Gun's face as she looked to Kana. The reminder that Kana's scolding, like the mother's current one, came from a place of love and caring seemed to perk Gun up a bit. "Now what?" Gun asked, her tone seeming more normal compared to earlier.

WC: 606
TWC: 4336
MWC: 9176

Kana knew that Gunshin still wasn't even listening to her, still trapped inside her mind and it was pissing her off but she didn't know how the fuck she was supposed to snap her out of her little episode, Gunshin had never been like this throughout their friendship and it wasn't like Kana had any other friends besides the meek girl, so this was a new experience in the area where she lacked the most, communication had ironically been one of her weaker points despite her confidence, she could speak her mind but when her mind was usually just screaming at people for being idiots? She doubted that would somehow help Gunshin feel better about her fuck up earlier. She didn't know what to do, what to say or if she should even be trying to fix whatever this was, she had heard and seen fights between other friend groups before and then the next day at school they had seemed to somehow fixed their problems overnight.

Regardless, she didn't have the chance to wonder about it or try her hand at fixing this before they had finally arrived at the location, the strange rift she had read about a few minutes earlier appearing before them and in the sky, constantly in a state of motion yet never actually moving anywhere, even the cracked outlines seemed to pulsate yet refuse to expand outwards any further. "Huh...." Kana mumbled in surprise, watching the strange build up of energy swirl around in the air yet seemingly harmless to everyone nearby, she couldn't even see anything being effected nearby that would indicate if it was sucking in air or even expelling air. It was in Kana's surprise that a child would decide to investigate, trying to rush through the crowd and the two genin before being stopped by Gunshin, saving Kana from having to hunt the brat down herself. Gunshin was at least capable of doing work still, she handed the child off to the worried mother who began to scold the reckless little brat while carrying them off, Kana only let her focus return to the rift in the sky, unsure how to answer Gunshin's question about what they were supposed to do.

The reports had said that dreams were supposed to be around yet she felt pretty confident in saying that most of the people around here were all very much real people that were still awake and she doubted anyone would decide to dream up a few pointless rifts throughout the village even if these things were a result of the dream. "Well, we should probably clear everyone awa-" Kana would begin to speak when a scream erupted, from the rift a strange elongated black arm was gripping the edge and pulling itself free from the rift, it's long, nearly oval shaped head coming through, it's lips pulled back to reveal a large row of prickly sharp white teeth, oozing a strange slime or saliva as it hissed at everyone, yet how the creature could see was beyond Kana, for the top of it's head were only a black smooth carapace that covered above the lips to the back of the creature's head.

It landed onto the ground with the grace of a cat, landing on all fours and revealing it's hands to have equally sharp claws and it's body seemed to be a mixture of some sort of tubing and exoskeleton that reminded her a bit of a human body with the way she could see it's ribs perfectly while on the back some strange tube like structures protruded from it's back, curving slightly and away from it's head and limbs to allow it full movement. Yet the most eye catching part about this nightmare creature was the fact that on it's tails were several spines that didn't seem sharp until the very last one, the very tip of the tail had a single long blade like point that could probably be used as a spear or a dagger.

"Distract it, I'll get everyone away and make sure it doesn't hurt them!" Kana's mouth moved faster than her mind, her only thoughts were to get the civilians away before it decided to go after them, she wasn't sure how the fuck either of them could fight that thing, it had seemed to be a serpent if it merged with a human and gained armor in the process somehow. Whoever the fuck dreamed of creatures like this must've been quite the creative fellow and she really hated to find out what other nightmares they might be having, she could tell this thing was gonna suck to fight. "Come on, get the fuck out of here!" Kana screamed at the crowd, pushing the adults away who had either been too frozen in shock or too stupid to realize the danger, the ones with the children had the piece of mind to drag their kids away and a few of the smarter adults had quickly realized that just it might not just be a single nightmare that would be coming through through that rift and begun to hurry away to find safety.

WC: 860
TWC: 5,700
MWC: 10,036

Gun's jaw dropped as the abnormal looking creature crawled its way out of the rift that everyone had been staring at. Gun was instantly glad that the little child hadn't been standing beneath the rift, because if this thing was as mean as it looked, Gun doubted the child would have been able to make it away safely. Her hand went out to one of the people standing next to her and began to push the woman back, trying to awaken her from her stupor.

"Distract it, I'll get everyone away and make sure it doesn't hurt them!"

Gun didn't even take time to look at Kana, using her hand to remove one of her javelins from her armor's seals. Stepping a couple steps to her right, Gun launched the weapon at the black skinned monstrosity. She fully expected the spear to lodge itself in the abomination's chest before the creature disappeared from existence, like the other dreams that Gun had interacted with. However, she had not expected what actually happened. The creature turned towards Gun, keeping her in its 'eyesight' if it had eyes or sight and then turned just slightly, slightly enough that the spear's pointed tip slipped just inches away from the monster's body before continuing by and lodging itself into the wall of a building some 15 meters past. Gun's jaw dropped for a second time in a few short seconds. She never expected the creature to be fast enough to evade her javelin, but it had just done it right in front of Gun's face. The way that it had dodged it also gave Gun the impression that it could evade any other attempts she made at impaling it from a distance.

"'Distract it' she says." Gun muttered to herself as she released 2 more javelins from her armor and rushed forward. If she couldn't kill it with ranged attacks, she'd try to take it out at melee range. She was slightly worried that the creature was actually faster than her, but she was just meant to distract it and her javelins would give her a pretty decent reach advantage. She began moving around the creature, but it was able to keep up with her and kept its head facing her. She noticed its tail and the scary looking, somewhat scorpion like, blade attached to its end. She wondered if that thing even had blood or could be poisoned.

Taking no more time, she lunged forward. Her right arm and the spear it held jutted toward the creature’s face, but it simply swayed backwards. The spear’s tip stopped short, missing the monster’s face by a few inches. Its hand reached out, seemingly trying to grab the spear, but Gun was having none of it. She stepped back and pulled the spear back before the creature’s hand could get to her spear, but in the same movement, her left hand jutted her other javelin forward, aiming at the monster’s ribs. Gun wasn’t sure how this creature saw what was going on, but a normal person may miss the secondary attack because it was out of their visual range, especially if they were focusing on the first spear while trying to grab it.

The creature’s tail swung up, seemingly moving on its own, knocking the spear off its path causing it to hit nothing but air. The tail wrapped around the spear and Gun tried to pull it away, hoping the spear’s wide sharp head could do some damage to the tail, but instead, it seemed to get caught on the tail’s many spines. The monster’s right hand also began coming at Gun’s face, almost seeming to copy Gun’s multi pronged attack pattern. Without any hesitation, Gun let go of the javelin that had been caught in the monster’s tail and jumped back.

She simply stared at it for a moment, seemingly trying to figure something out about the creature. Maybe she was searching for its weakness, if it had one. The creature’s hand slowly moved to the weapon entangled with its tail, then moved the weapon upward to its face. It seemed to be examining the weapon. With the armory seal, Gun summoned the captured javelin back to her hand, giving the creature a little smirk. She didn’t know what the creature was going to do with the weapon, but she would hate to hear the scolding Kana gave her if she got impaled by her own javelin.

Gun realized that the creature hadn’t actually hurt anyone yet, nor even attacked them. The only thing it had done was evade Gun’s attacks and take her weapon. For a split second, she wondered if the creature even had any intention to hurt anyone but then Kana’s scolding from the Dream King’s tower came to mind. If someone got hurt because Gun allowed the monster to do what it wanted, she’d be reliable. And Sakura didn’t want shinobi that did nothing.

As she moved closer, slowly, she realized one other difference between this situation and the Dream King: this was a fictional monster, not a scared boy with a mother waiting for her little baby boy to be brought home. Gun could impale this thing a thousand times and no one would care. Freedom! She could go ham and cut loose for maybe the first time ever!

But… did she want to? She wasn’t sure, could she reign it back in if she let it out? Would she be the same Gun afterwards? If the extreme of doing nothing was bad, wouldn’t the extreme of going all out also be bad? All of this blast through her head as she moved closer to the creature. But then she remembered Kana’s words: "Distract it".

She didn’t need to think so much. She just had to do her job. And with that, she upped her pace and moved straight in, jabbing her javelin at the creature’s face again. A smile went across Gun’s face as the creature swayed back again, but as it started to move, it stopped. Gun’s attack was short, she wasn’t trying to stab it, just keep its attention away from the civilians. She moved to her left, the spear in her right hand becoming engulfed in water as she swiped it at the creature’s face. A watery crescent left the spear’s tip, slicing at the monster’s face. The creature squealed aloud, perhaps in pain. Gun was already gone though, keeping herself moving quickly around the creature. She wasn’t sure what the plan was, but as long as she could keep this thing interested in her, everyone else would be safe.

WC: 1104
TWC: 5440
MWC: 11140

Kana worked fast in pushing and screaming at the idiots who chose to stand and gawk at the nightmare fighting Gunshin, as if it was nothing more than just a stupid show to them all and not her best friend fighting for her life against someone's fucked up nightmare that could easily decide to just go on a killing spree against them all without the two kunoichi being helpless to stop it. "Go, go, go! I'll start stabbing you myself if you wanna die that badly!" She'd continue to scream, knocking some sense in the very last few stubborn idiots who had decided to stay and watch the ongoing battle, Kana had only been watching from the side of her eye, watching as the thing effortlessly dodged Gunshin's attacks and seemed more than capable of going toe to toe with the physically superior girl, causing a sinking feeling that only made Kana work faster and harder to disperse the crowd so they could both deal with this strange creature. How the fuck Kana was supposed to help her fight something that was keeping up with Gunshin was beyond her but she was certain she could at least do something, keeping it's focus split between two people would be far harder than dealing with just one person and even if it had struck her, it would find that Kana was more than capable of getting back up thanks to her will power and her healing jutsu, as long as she still had chakra to mold and the power to weave hand seals, she could theoretically keep healing any wounds that would come her and Gunshin's way.

Still didn't mean that she wanted either of them to get hurt or try and find out if they can simply wear that thing down by making it tired from hurting them so much, instead as the crowd finally ran far away enough that she felt certain Gunshin or her could stop the alien like creature from reaching them if it decided to try and kill them, she allowed her full attention to turn to the nightmare and Gunshin's fight. The creature had been in the process of dodging another attack by the meek girl, it's tail winding up for a counter attack or a defensive maneuver, she wasn't certain nor would she be able to see it in action as Gunshin's spear seemed to fire a wave of pressurized water straight into the thing's head, the creature let out a screech that sounded similar to an elephant's trumpet as it moved back and away from the meek girl.

The wound on it's carapace revealed sickly green blood oozing out and hitting the ground with a hiss as steam rose from the strange boiling blood, slowly burning it's way through the gravel road and Kana briefly reconsidered trying to stab the creature from behind with her Tanto, instead she transitioned from the hand seals to unseal her weapon into a more offensive jutsu that she didn't truly get to use in combat until now. She took a deep breath and begun to perform the hand seals to mold her chakra properly, creating a single small ball of fire inside her mouth that she promptly spit toward the creature's back, while another ball of fire quickly took it's place and she spit that one out just as quickly, allowing her to fire 6 fireballs in total in rapid succession at the creature, following it as the first fireball connected and caused it to screech in pain, the second fireball had missed but a simple tug on the chakra allowed the fireball to turn 90 degrees and into the creature's unexpecting right side as it tried to turn around to face it's new attacker, knocking it off balance so when the third one struck into it's chest, it fell back and could only let out another elephant like screech as it burned.

By the time of the 5th fireball hitting the creature, Kana was more than certain it had died but she still fired the 6th one to ensure it was truly dead, she didn't want to give that thing the slightest chance for any further attacks against either of them, if it kept up with Gunshin, Kana was certain that thing would've found plenty of openings against her and she didn't think any of her usual dirty tactics would work against something so alien, can't exactly throw dirt in one's eyes if it had no eyes after all. "Alright... We handled that pretty well, now we just gotta figure out what to do with the weird summoning rift...." Kana spoke out loud as she looked up at the strange vortex that had brought forth the nightmare creature, her eyes weary and her muscles tense in case another one would come spilling forth yet that's when another shinobi arrived, a much older man who landed before the two kunoichi, looking between them almost lazily. "Good work kids, I'll handle the rest from here." The man drawled, walking between the two and placing his hands onto the ground and strange markings expanded outward to form a square around the vortex before a purple wall of chakra shot up and into the air, creating a large rectangular box around the rift and blocking it off the outside world.

"The fuck was that? It's still there, and what if it some kid decides to fuck with it?" Kana would quickly demand, already imagining all the ways this could easily backfire on the village, especially if whatever nightmare could manage to break the thing and allow all the other trapped dream creatures to come flooding out into the village. "Relax kid, we'll just station some more genin around it to keep it up. That seems to be the only viable solution so far." The man explained with a lazy shrug before promptly walking off, ignoring Kana's attempts to demand more answers and explanations from the lazy bastard. "Who the fuck even was that guy? Bet he thought he was so fucking cool! "Good work kids, I'll handle the rest from here!" Like we didn't just fight some monster from a nightmare while all he did was place his hands on the ground. Big fucking whoop! A toddler could've done that!" Kana ranted to her friend, completely unaware of the strange new rift opening up behind her in the sky, something that Gunshin surely would notice as it ripped across the sky with it's strange ethereal glow.


WC: 1,085
TWC: 6,785
MWC: 12,225

Gun was relieved when the creature was finally dealt with. She didn't even mind when the shinobi placed a barrier around the rift and left. She even laughed a little as Kana mocked the man and suggested that his contributions were miniscule. In between giggles, Gun noticed a small rift in the sky behind Kana. She pointed it out to her friend, trying to tell how far away it was but the strange glow was hard to place. The two kunoichis headed back to the mission center, wondering if there was anything else they could do about the new rift. There, they learned that these dreams and nightmares were not isolated to Sakuragakure no Sato... they seemed to be happening everywhere. In a way, that was a relief to Gun: it meant they hadn't caused this and perhaps one of the bigger villages could put a stop to all of this craziness. She had never been to any of the other ninja villages, but she had learned about them in the Academy and she knew that their resources were far greater than Sakura's as was their military power. If someone could take care of this, it was likely to be one of them.

Bringing up the new rift that they had seen in the sky, Gun and Kana learned that as far as anyone could tell, the rift was quite far away despite everyone being able to see it from any distance. They theorized that it was above the Land of Hotsprings, though they couldn’t be certain. As it was nearing midday, the number of dreams appearing was significantly lower than the earlier part of the morning, so they were asking genin to interview those whose dreams had come into reality in hopes of gaining insight into the nature of this incident. Though it wasn’t explicitly said, they also wanted the young shinobi to discover what the newest rift’s creation could mean, hopefully by piecing information from the various people they were to interview.

Gun and Kana decided to split up as it seemed like there was unlikely to be any combat in the interviewing process. Gun went east, letting Kana go west. She arrived at the first address and conducted the interview to the best of her ability. It was good that they’d given her some questions to ask. She took notes and headed to the second address. There were only three places to go but Gun was excited to get them done. They had been awake and busy for quite a few hours already, so she was hoping that by finishing early, she may be allowed to get a nap in before they were needed again. The second address had three different people to talk to and Gun made sure to take clear notes for the higher ups and smarter folk to be able to go over and make sense of. The third address was just one old lady and she had a lot of hemming, hawing, and “I don’t knows”.

Despite the variety of answers she’d received, it was very clear that no one really had any useful information about the Hotspring Rift, as Gun had decided to name it. Whether it was connected to the things going on in Sakura or not, Gun didn’t think she had any evidence one way or the other. Regardless of her own beliefs, Gun was doing her job so she took her notes back to the mission center to turn them in.

WC: 582
TWC: 6022
MWC: 12807

As Kana ranted and rambled about that lazy bastard, she was surprised when Gunshin told her to turn around and whatever other words Kana had to say about that shinobi died on her tongue as she looked up at the strange tear in space hovering far above everyone. "Oh." Was the only words Kana was capable of speaking as she marveled at the strangely beautiful rift that had torn apart the sky itself, it was far larger than the rift the shinobi had opened and could mean so many things, if it was going to be spitting out dreams like the current rift had? Then it could very much overwhelm the shinobi forces given enough time, this could be a massive issue even if everyone decided to put aside their differences to ward off whatever the rift would spit out, there would just be too many dream creatures to deal with, not to mention any additional rifts that may form throughout the world and there was no promises that this single large rift would be alone, another rift may open up if given enough time,

"We need to go." She knew that they'd have to return back to the mission center, other, smarter people would be working on a solution, even just sealing that thing inside a barrier would make things easier despite it only being a treatment for the symptom rather than the root cause. The duo had moved quickly, Kana was far too worried to speak much and Gunshin was likely caught up in her own thoughts or trapped in her self doubt to speak either, something Kana knew she should be a bit worried about but she could worry about that when they could figure out whatever the fuck the rift in the sky could mean. When the two kunoichi arrived at the mission center, others was asking questions and being sent out on various tasks, Kana and Gunshin was just one of many being sent out to interview various people who might have any idea on what was happening, from old veterans to researchers, it was clear nobody knew what was happening and their mission was merely to collect data so someone smarter could parse through the information for anything that might help them.

"We'll split up, you handle east and I'll handle west. Meet back here when we're done." Kana had decided early on that splitting up was far easier and Gunshin didn't seem too opposed to the idea, the kunoichi taking off to conduct her own interviews which Kana was only a bit worried about, the higher ups had seen it fit to provide them a list of questions to ask so it shouldn't be too hard for the meek and shy girl to just read the sheet of paper. Kana set off for her side of the village, the people's names didn't really matter to her, she couldn't say she had heard of them nor could she say what they might be but any bit of information could help someone eventually figure out what the fuck that rift in the sky was supposed to be.

The list of questions were simple, any interactions with dreams crossing into realty, any sightings of rifts or other dream related anomalies, any leading theories about the cause of either the dreams or the formation of rifts, these were all very simple and straight forward questions yet the first person she had been sent to interview had decided that Kana was the perfect person to unleash every single theory he had onto her, something that she would've been pissed off at but ironically she was probably the perfect person at the moment since her job was literally just meant to gather information. The green haired doctor with round white glasses and a yellow tie hanging loosely around his neck spoke and move fast, moving from point to point and pushing random papers filled with various notes that she dutifully wrote down and collected to the best of her ability.

By the time of her second interview, Kana was exhausted yet this old veteran had decided that exhaustion was supposed to lead into a bed time story as he rambled on about his very real and very exciting encounter with a fantasy creature that apparently nearly wiped out the entire village in the dead of night, the man's large white moustache twinkled in amusement as he regaled her with the story she was forced to write about on the off chance this man had actually encountered something and it was causing him to sprout such obvious nonsense. Eventually she managed to bring the interview to a close, the large fat veteran had given her a trophy, a stuffed head of a very much fake nightmare creature since those things tended to disappear when they died and she doubted he alone had managed to capture one alive to form it into this trophy.

The last interview was with a blonde instructor at the academy, the stern looking woman had been in the middle of combat classes, watching as two brats tried and failed to fight each other, a small blonde boy flailing and stumbling all over in vague attempts to fight and dodge while the larger ginger boy threw far too much weight into his strikes, over extending and leaving himself wide open for a counter attack. The teacher seemed in control of the class at least she ended the fight with only a word and provided a small warning before stepping aside to answer Kana's questions. Stiff, formal and straight forward. it was a welcome response compared to the other two people she had been sent to interview, no messy scribblings of a mad man, no fake stories and trophies to hand in, just nice, simple answers for the questions she had asked.

Between the three people she had questioned however, none of them seem particularly hard hitting, the doctor's ramblings were obviously the best information with plenty of evidence to back it up but he made it a point to write out each flaw with each theory, effectively shooting himself in the foot and making Kana doubt his answers as well. The veteran barely had anything she could make sense of, his story was long and convoluted with so many holes that she was certain the man was drunk or had other issues in the brain compartment. The teacher, for all her reasonable answers, provided no real answers either with most of it coming down to I don't know or I can't say with certainty, she was just as lost as Kana was and arguably Kana had more insight to offer since she had at least interacted with a rift already.

When Kana arrived at the mission center, Gunshin was already waiting for her, her side of the process must've went faster and smoother, either by sheer luck or the people interviewing her saw her struggling to speak right and took pity to provide short simple answers. Whatever the reason, Kana simply handed in all the info she had managed to get her hands on, before promptly being given a new mission and a set of pamphlets to hand out to people and hang in public places, warning the civilians to rest when possible and trust in the shinobi force to handle any dream issues themselves due to the increasing number of paranoid people forcing themselves to stay awake until randomly passing out in the middle of the day where most shinobi couldn't react in time.

With a sigh, Kana made her way back to Gunshin with enough pamphlets for the two of them. "We're splitting up again. Hand these out and hang them in public places. Kill any dream creatures, wake up anybody sleeping. Remember, knock them out if you have to. The brain can't dream if they're knocked out and they can recover from a bump on the head." Kana explained the new mission as she let out a small yawn, unhappy with how busy things were becoming. She gave Gunshin her half of the pamphlets before heading out toward the west side. "Same plan. Meet here when done." Kana added as she begun walking down the streets of the village.


WC: 1,375
TWC: 8,160
MWC: 14,182

Gun took the pamphlets and nodded to Kana, affirming her understanding of the mission. With the people beginning to try to stay awake all the time, people were beginning to fall asleep at random times. While that, normally, wouldn't be a problem, this meant shinobi needed to be at the ready 24 hours a day, rather than the 10 to 12 hours when most people usually slept. As if the extra time that shinobi were needed wasn't enough, the dreams seemed to be more monstrous than before, though no one knew if that was a result of the ongoing situation or the people's attempts at staying awake. Gun took her pamphlets and began putting them up, even stopping some people who appeared really sleepy. She handed a couple who were standing against a wall, their eyes closed as if they were beginning to drift off, a pamphlet, telling them to remain awake until the normal sleeping hours. It felt a little silly, trying to police people in this way, but there wasn't a whole lot the shinobi forces could do at this point, they still didn't even really know what was going on.

She made her way around town, putting groups of pamphlets in places that lots of people may come. She also handed them out as best she could; she was surprised at how willing people were. Some, naturally, didn't want to be ordered around by the shinobi, but most people were glad to know that the shinobi were doing everything they could to ensure the inhabitants of the village were safe AND were willing to do what they could to help the shinobi keep everyone safe.

As she was exiting one restaurant where the hostess had agreed to hand out the pamphlets to their patrons, a 2 foot tall carrot with arms and legs came up to Gun. She didn't even hesitate,  rushing the vegetable and slicing it in half with her tanto. She laughed a bit, cause it had been pretty easy to deal with, but its claws had been kind of scary looking... for a carrot. Once her pack of pamphlets were nearly gone, she began heading back to the mission center. She was glad to see other shinobi handing out the information, as it likely meant everyone would be as informed as they could be. She made it back and headed inside, hoping to see Kana.

WC: 401
TWC: 6423
MWC: 14583

As Kana made her way down the streets, she handed out the pamphlets to everyone she seen, some of the people would complain or try and weasel their way out of receiving one by claiming they already had one but she wasn't about to believe anyone who didn't present their supposed copy for her to see first hand, if they truly forgot it at home as they claimed then they can live with the fact that they had two pamphlets, she wasn't going to accept some idiot thinking they knew better than the entire shinobi force by refusing a simple notice to sleep normally instead of trying to help or fearing that the shinobi of the village wouldn't make it in time. They would only be putting themselves and others at further danger by falling asleep unexpectedly during the day, it was pain enough dealing with the rifts but at least they could seal those away and watch over it, there could be nothing to do about a nightmare randomly appearing out of thin air in broad daylight except hoping that a shinobi nearby could react in time, something that was bound to cause problems if more and more people kept themselves awake until they passed out during the day.

While Kana handed out her pamphlets, she had seen a few other shinobi doing the same alongside her but they quickly went out to another area to hand out their portion of pamphlets, there was no real need to overlap as people would eventually get one either through a shinobi directly or through seeing a few posted around town. It would be next to impossible to be ignorant unless one was going out of their way to ignore and forget about the warnings from the shinobi force and Kana didn't doubt for a second that there would be one or two stubborn idiots who would take that route but for every stubborn idiot, there was at least a few dozen frighten or misguided people who were only trying to help by refusing to sleep as much as they can or they were worried about their own wellbeing but the with the reassurances that the village as a whole was taking this matter seriously and refusing to sleep was only making it more dangerous had put their fears to rest and by extension, the people themselves.

It wasn't until she was nearly done handing out her pamphlets that she finally spotted someone who had managed to fall asleep, a large stone golem stood above him and seemed defensive over the man as the golem immediately turned toward Kana as she approached and moved itself to break line of sight between her and the sleeping man. It seemed natural that the scared man who passed out would dream up a way to keep himself safe, yet it could've just as easily been a nightmare about something hunting him down to play on his fears, this wouldn't always work out for the dreamer. Weaving through her hand seals, she allowed herself to go invisible, using the more basic Transparent Escape Technique to conceal herself since she doubted the golem would be able to pinpoint her using the shadows that would've been concealed with her more advanced Hiding with Camouflage and as she quietly approached from another angle, her suspicions were correct as the golem simply went back to standing on guard, watching and waiting for another threat to approach the dreaming man.

A swift chop to the back of the man's head had caused the golem to fade from reality as she knocked the man unconsciousness before allowing her hands to weave the seals for her medical jutsu and she healed the small bruise on the back of his head while ensuring she didn't cause too much damage to sleeping man, she may not like him for doing something as stupid as forcing himself to remain awake until the point of passing out but that didn't mean she wanted to actually hurt him. "Idiot..." She muttered to herself as she slipped a pamphlet into his pocket before walking off as the man groaned and begun to slowly wake up once again.

She returned to the mission center empty handed, her side of the mission done and was surprised to find that Gunshin wasn't waiting for her, so while she waited she went ahead and checked in with the mission desk, confirming that the mission had been complete before asking about any other new tasks that would be set for the pair. A part of her had wanted to call it quits here and dust her hands from the entire mess for the time being but the faster they could deal with the whole dreams into reality thing, the faster she could get a full night's rest without any more wacky things to deal with. She hoped that fucking sheep wasn't messing up her apartment.

To her dismay, there was in fact another mission for the duo, standing watch over a few brave or stupid shinobi who would be trying to enter the dream world to get to the source of the problem, not something she thought was the smartest move in the world but frankly speaking, reacting was getting them nowhere so it made sense for someone to try and take a more proactive approach to things. She read over the details of the missions, apparently it'd be done in various groups with different methods to enter the dream world and Gunshin's and Kana's group was one of the more tame methods, a simple process of trying to dream up a portal directly into the dream world. They'd simply have to stand guard for the night and ensure they don't dream up any nightmares or that the portal, if it does open, doesn't spit out a wave of monsters that would kill the defenseless dreamers.

It was while Kana was reading over the details that Gunshin would arrive, Kana looking up and over toward the meek girl and waving her over toward her. "Alright, seems like we'll be meeting out in the training fields tonight to watch people sleep. They're going to try and dream open a portal for the village to use, other groups will be trying other things but no idea where they'd be taking place." Kana would explain the mission to her friend, already in the middle of signing them up for it and thanks to the fact it was going to be at night, they could get some much needed sleep in before arriving at the fields to watch the people sleep for the night. "We'll meet there around 9. It's probably not going to be too exciting so feel free to bring whatever. Weapons are a must in case something goes wrongs but I expect it will just be a very boring night. Or at least I fucking hope so since we're still just genin..." Kana explained the plan for how they'd be tackling the mission this time around, it was a bit worrying but they had handled the nightmare creatures easily thus far and the real danger from the S Rank was probably for the dreamers who had to risk going into the unknown and trying to open a pathway from reality to the dream world. Not something she was envious of, she wasn't sure what she'd find if she tried to go through her dreams to form a connection to the dream world and quite frankly she didn't want to know.


WC: 1,255
TWC: 9,415
MWC: 15,838

Gun had gotten some rest during the day and, as far as she knew, none of her dreams had caused any problems around her house. She was sure that she wasn't immune to dreams becoming reality because she had brought the baseball sized jawbreakers into the world only a week ago. And while she had dreamed up some other things since then, none of them had been troublesome to her, her house, or her mother. She didn't know if she had just been lucky or if she were a meek dreamer, with no scary things in her head. Either way, she was well rested by the time the sun began going down and she was, once again, getting dressed for a mission. She put her kisatsutai uniform on, straightening the sleeves. She made sure the seals still held all four of her javelins and then put her tanto on her hip. She even grabbed the few senbon that she had, just in case she needed them.

She arrived at 8:45, seeing quite a few shinobi already there and moving around. Some looked frantic, others looked bored. She knew some were planning to attempt to enter the rift, presumably through some sort of lucid dreaming and others were here to ensure the 'dreamers' were not attacked by any nightmares that may come out of the rift. Her job was the latter, protect the dreamers. It was potentially going to be a boring evening. They weren't even sure the higher ranked shinobi could enter the rift, but they had to try. The situation in the village was getting troublesome with shinobi being needed near constantly to protect the civilians: it didn't feel like something the shinobi could keep up for a long period of time and Gun was sure there were other things that shinobi were needed for that weren't getting done because they were dealing with dreams.

She looked for Kana and checked in, letting them know she was there if they needed her. She wasn't too sure what to expect, but seeing so many shinobi in one spot made Gun wonder who was out there protecting her mom (and the other civilians). She trusted that the higher up wouldn't have forgone the safety of everyone else just to invade through the rift. She wandered through, seeing everyone preparing themselves for whatever may be on the other side. Gun finally saw Kana and gave her a wave. She felt better about whatever it was the rest of this mission would bring...


WC: 421
TWC: 6844
MWC: 16259

That sheep had indeed fucked up her apartment while she was out running missions with Gunshin, so instead of getting a nice long rest like she had planned to upon arriving home, she had spent a few additional hours cleaning up her apartment and feeding the wild animal that had seemed oddly relaxed and chill, probably because she had envisioned the animal as something she can just relax and cuddle with when it came time for night and while it may not have turned out to be a plushie animal, it did at least appear as an animal so that was something. When it was all said and done, she probably only got half the amount of sleep she should've gotten but it wasn't like it was going to be any big intense mission, it was just going to be standing around and waiting for the shinobi to wake up or dream open a portal, whichever happened first and if she was at risk of passing out, Gunshin could keep her up and provide her company so it wasn't just quietly waiting in the night for the next 8 hours or so.

Arriving at 8:50, Kana wasn't too surprised to see that Gunshin had arrived earlier than herself, Kana hadn't even dreamed anything during her time of rest and instead only found herself waking up to the sheep resting beside her and it's fluff had made for the most relaxing comforter in the world. Maybe she would actually keep the sheep, she could learn about taking care of it and she heard people had entire clans about taking care of animals, like Konoha's Inuzuka clan so maybe the sheep could be even more useful than just being a mere comfort companion. Although what exactly the sheep could do in combat was beyond her, she didn't exactly think the creature would be very combat heavy considering it was a white ball of fluff that seemed to lazy and relaxed to even attack anyone effectively.

Regardless, she gave a small wave to the girl and the duo waited as the small group of volunteers laid themselves to rest on small bed rolls and drifted off to sleep, the two kunoichi merely stood around and spoke in whispers about random things to pass the time, from what Gunshin's mom thought about and their own encounter with the dreams, Kana even mentioned her idea of training her sheep into the shinobi arts and if that was even possible considering their limited knowledge on animal based clans, all the while nothing of real note had happened. The mission was simple and either it was pure dumb luck or perhaps the volunteer shinobi were too focused on their goals, they didn't dream any nightmare creatures, no sudden terrible thing interrupted them, not a single one had even woken up during the night.

Yet it wasn't all good luck either, the attempt to open a gateway through dreams itself had turned out to be a bust as the sunlight began to raise and the shinobi woke up one by one, well rested but disappointed about the lack of results, they couldn't even get a rift to appear before them and while it probably would've pissed off Kana to have her time wasted normally, she was far too fucking tired to really care and instead only mumbled out a half hearted good work and good bye to Gunshin before parting toward her home, the shinobi who had woken up saw it fit to hand in the mission on their behalf. This experiment may have been a bust but the other groups who were trying other methods probably had more success, Kana wasn't entirely certain but she thought she had seen something like a rift open somewhere behind the trees before the morning had come but it wasn't interrupting their work and if she left to investigate it, she was certain whoever was behind the creation of that rift would scold her for abandoning her post and risking the shinobi who were trying to enter the dream world.


WC: 680
TWC: 10,095
MWC:16,939

Claiming:

Mission Rewards: 38,750 ryo, 192 AP, 90 dream tokens, Dream Waiver
10,095 TWC from thread
Applying Wholesome Banana to this thread for the bonus 4,000/4,000 WC.

Used 4,000/4,00 to learn A Rank Sensory Jutsu Ninshu - Blackbird
Used 2,500/2,500 to learn the unique mastery of A Rank Medical Jutsu Mystical Palm [v7.2]
Used 1,500/1,500 to learn B Rank Ninjutsu Shadow Clone [v7]
Used 1,500/1,500 to learn B Rank Genjutsu Demonic Illusion: Flower Garden [V7.2]
Used 1,750/1,750 to learn B Rank Space Time Jutsu Imitation Black Hole [V7.2]
Using 2,250/2,750 to learn A Rank Sensory jutsu Mind’s Eye of the Kagura [v7.2]
Previously was 500/2,750 but is now 2,750/2,750
Using 595/1,500 to learning B Rank Fuinjutsu Unity Seal

As Kana hit max stats, I'll be using the 14,000 words for 280 bonus AP