Dreaming of a Better World [Event - Halloween]

Kana watched as the flames consumed the streets and the spiders that had been creeping toward the duo, the screeching of the oversized spiders were drowned beneath the crackling of the wood as the buildings began to gave way alongside the rest of the street, the smoke merging with the dusting of the dreams to reveal their surroundings had changed once more, more creatures were lying in wait, an ambush or planning on wearing them down through waves of attacks? Kana wasn't sure what the plan was but with the buildings gone and the nightmare vanished, it was just her and Gunshin against the horde of various creatures that had been composed of various nightmares, from the childish clowns to the very real shinobi, even inhuman creatures were waiting as in the distance she could see a far larger version of the serpent creature they had fought from the rifts, this one appearing far larger and instead of the smooth carapace making up it's head, it seemed to have a crest of some sort that almost looked like a shield and two smaller arms right in the middle of it's chest that didn't seem to serve any purpose.

"Yeah.... We're gonna have to fight." Kana agreed with a nod, a small smile underneath her helmet as she readied her blade once more, she wasn't entirely sure how many times she could do that little fire trick nor did she want to risk finding out the limit in battle so she'd have to save it for when she felt it was needed. "Back to back, don't let them get behind us, let them come to us. We'll grind them down bit by bit if we must." Kana declared the battle plan, turning her back on her friend in preparation of the approaching nightmare creatures, it was a simple plan to sit and fight but when the only option was fight their way out and risk being cut off or breaking through the ranks to find no real place to try and shelter and weather the horde, it would be more effective and safe to maintain a circle of control to hold them off.

"If you must, take to the skies. I got armor and my fire doesn't hurt me, if your wings are like a birds they're hollow and easily broken, meaning I'm far more durable than you like this." Kana added as she readied her weapon, letting the fire dance along the jagged edges of the blade as the orb in her right gauntlet glowed brightly, eager to burn the creatures and fight her way through this little ambush they seemed to have been caught in. "Keep your eyes open, be on alert, assume everything here is going to kill us." Kana spoke her final words to her friends before charging into the first creature that came close enough, a lone bandit she couldn't say she recognized as anyone of note, the man being the first to break the small circle that had slowly being closing in on the duo in a mad dash, his katana raised high as he let out a battle cry, trying to bring it down onto Kana but she stepped into the man's guard, allowing her gauntlet to deflect the blade away from her more exposed body to deliver her own slice, the flaming blade cut through the nightmare's body with ease and sent it into a puff of smoke.

Extending her left hand out, she imagined drawing power from the orb and firing a flame out from the palm of her left hand, feeling the energy flowing through herself before her left hand begun to ignite into flames, not quite what she had wanted but it was nice to know she could probably set herself ablaze if needed. That small moment of testing her powers came at a cost however, the next creature to attack was a three headed dog that begun to bite into her arm, two of the heads biting into the metal gauntlet but the furthest to the left had managed to get into the gap between her pauldrons and her gauntlet, sinking it's teeth into her bicep that caused her to let out a small grunt before allowing the flame on her hand to engulf her entire left arm, burning the creature off her and making it back away with a whine. She wasn't sure how Gunshin was doing but the lack of attacks behind her was reassuring, if the two could control the circle, they'd eventually wear the nightmares down enough for them to find an easier gap for them to escape from this unexpected ambush.

WC: 780
TWC: 7,090
MWC: 11,481

"Yeah.... We're gonna have to fight." As if warming up for battle, Gun shook her arm out, the mace held in it flailing around haphazardly, before doing the other arm. Then, almost more for fun than necessity, she shook her wings out, one at a time. Despite facing a horde of literal nightmares, Gun seemed to have a smile on her face. She was a harpy and she wasn’t scared, though she had no idea what would happen if she died in this form. She realized she should probably be afraid, worried at the least, but with Kana by her side, Gun wasn’t feeling either of those emotions. She was more excited than anything, a chance to really try this new form out and see what it could do.

"Back to back, don't let them get behind us, let them come to us. We'll grind them down bit by bit if we must." Gun heard Kana’s words as she declared the battle plan. Gun was a little saddened by it, she was a bit more accustomed to moving around and using her speed to her benefit, but she understood the need to protect themselves on all sides since they were surrounded. She took her position with her wings against Kana’s large armored back.

"If you must, take to the skies. I got armor and my fire doesn't hurt me, if your wings are like a birds they're hollow and easily broken, meaning I'm far more durable than you like this." The logic was sound, but Gun didn’t like the idea of leaving Kana open to attacks from behind. If anything, it almost felt like Kana had read her mind and was giving Gun permission to move about as she saw fit.

"Ok," Gun answered, aware that Kana couldn’t see her and wouldn’t know if she nodded or not. She planned to hold out as long as she could with her back to Kana’s, protecting her friend as best as and as long as she could. Even in this strange limbo, Gun could see the flickering that came from a fire and Gun’s grin returned, well aware that Kana was preparing herself for a battle.

"Keep your eyes open, be on alert, assume everything here is going to kill us." Gun nodded, before remembering that Kana couldn’t see her nods. It doesn’t matter, it was more of a nod for myself anyways, Gun figured. Her right hand, carrying the mace was in front of her, ready to whip in any direction that an attacker would come. Her left hand remained by her hip, prepared to remove one of her trusty javelins from her armor if needed. She contemplated pulling it out and starting with it at the ready, but she wasn’t sure how long this horde would keep attacking and the idea of pulling out a projectile while the nightmares expected her to only be able to attack with a short mace seemed like a decent strategy.

As instructed, Gun’s harpy eyes caught a clown with a knife lunge at her. She moved just enough so the knife missed, grabbed the arm with her left hand before smashing the clown’s fluffy green hair with her spiked mace. The clown disappeared in a puff of smoke and Gun quickly scanned the rest of the horde, preparing herself for what may come next. An oversized lizard human hybrid came rushing forward before stopping abruptly. Gun had been preparing for the initial rush but was surprised when it stopped and spun, sending its large tail towards Gun’s midsection. Normally, she’d have attempted to evade the incoming prehensile appendage, but she knew Kana was behind her and needed protecting, so in that moment she made a new plan. Her left hand went back to her armor and withdrew one of her javelins before sticking it into the ground with all her force. Then, as the tail hit the earth impaling spear, Gun pushed with all her might in an attempt to withstand the attack. Even her wings flapped to provide that little bit more of force. Gun heard a grunt and a whine behind her, but she was too busy dealing with the humanoid lizard creature to consider if Kana had been wounded. The javelin stopped the tail and the mace came crashing into it, practically removing the fifth appendage from the lizard and sending green blood splattering to the ground.

As the lizard attempted to escape back into the horde of nightmares, a bottle half full of liquid with a flaming rag sticking out of it came hurtling towards the two kunoichi. Withdrawing the spear from the earth, Gun spun it in front of her utilizing the Pole Arm Defense technique that she had learned. The javelin made contact with the flying bottle, knocking it away from her location. As the bottle smashed into the ground, which seemed more like ether than any earthen substance found in the real world, flames erupted like a miniature volcano had just erupted. Luckily, it was far enough away that sthe flames weren't likely to affect the kunoichis. As Gun looked forward, a large man was right in front of her. He was enormous, even larger than Kana's dream form. Gun presumed he was at least 10 feet tall and his chest was likely 8 feet across, his arms were easily the size of large tree trunks. She was in awe as he raised both arms as if he were about to smash Gun into the ground. Without hesitating, Gun lunged forward utilizing Ripple Thrust, the seventh form of her Water Breathing style. It was designed for thrusting, as the name implies, which suited Gun's spears quite well. The weapon, coated in water, easily penetrated the man's chest and slid until Gun's hand hit the nightmare right in the sternum, the javelin's tip barely protruding from the other side of the hulking dream of a man. To say she was having fun would be a slight exaggeration as she now felt the slightest bit of worry that the nightmares may be able to outlast the two kunoichi in a direction confrontation like this, but she was at least making the most of the encounter.

WC: 1036
TWC: 5427
MWC: 12517

Kana kept her focus on the battle, she hadn't heard anything from her friend just yet and no news was good news, Gunshin wouldn't go down silently or easily, they'd both be able to hold the horde off until they could break through and fall back to a more stable position to defend, being caught out in the open like this was severely limiting them in what they could do, Kana couldn't risk igniting everything without the risk of Gunshin being caught in the flames while Gunshin couldn't use her natural speed and the new wings provided to her for better variations of her usual jutsu, she could already imagine the harpy form of her friend flying through the nightmare creatures and chopping them apart with ease using her water spear thing. As if fate was reinforcing her point, a shinobi fired a fireball at her, it would be easy to jump away and let the fire strike behind her but her friend was there, instead Kana was forced to bring up her right arm and imagined the gauntlet to begin to draw in fire in like a vacuum, almost immediately she could see the effects as the fireball harmlessly joined the glowing orb and if anything seemed to make it glow brighter and as such, allowed her flames to grow stronger due to the absorption of the fireball, something Kana might have to look into later to replicate in the real world.

Swinging her sword down once more, she allowed the new flames to feed into the sword, firing yet another line of fire into the crowd and burning a few of the nightmare creatures who were forced to back away, letting Kana see through the group for just a moment and in the distance she could see a set of eyes merely watching the fighting from afar, it's eyes glowing silver and seemingly getting brighter as Kana stared at it. "Something's watching!" Kana called out to her friend, she wasn't entirely sure what that was or why it had decided to watch the duo instead of attacking like the other nightmare creatures but something about it rubbed her the wrong way, it made her uncertain and worried about what it could be. The other nightmares, even those meant to represent humans appeared to be more animal like, mindlessly charging in an attempt to attack and nothing more, something that Kana had initially chalked up as just a result of them being nothing more than nightmares, it wasn't like people dreamed of their killers being these great strategists, instead the dream environment favored the nightmare greatly as the mind would create ways for the dreamer to be too weak to actually do something.

"Be careful, it might be smarter or even the thing causing this mess!" Kana warned her friend as another nightmare creature tried to attack her, a strange rotting corpse eagerly chomping down onto her metal gauntlet before it was set on fire and knocked off, the creature only groaning as it tried to force itself back up, only to be met with Kana's metal boot stomping it's head in. Those eyes were the biggest concern, the nightmare creatures were strong and dangerous in their own right but the duo were holding up well enough mostly because these things weren't fully sentient and incapable of using any real battle plan beyond overwhelming them with strength and numbers, which considering the two were fully trained kunoichis meant it was going to be next to impossible to actually catch them off guard unless they really fucked up somewhere at some point of time.

Even the large serpent creature with the crest wasn't a big threat now that Kana and Gunshin had equally ridiculous dream powers on hand, her real body wouldn't have been able to move as fast as she was now and she easily dodged the creature's swipe of it's tail, it was large and powerful but not as fast as the one in the real world, not that Kana thought the regular smaller sized creature would be much of a threat now either, Kana's armor and ability to set herself ablaze would mean the creature would kill itself trying to kill her. The larger, almost more regal version had instead found itself easily outpaced as Kana sliced away at it's limbs, it's massive clawed hand being the first to go before the opposite leg found itself separated, even the counter strike by the tail was meant by Kana grabbing the tail with one hand and slicing the tip clean off. Kana really was going to miss being this powerful knight when this was all said and done, especially the flaming sword and gauntlet, these two pieces of her equipment seemed like they'd make for amazing gear in the real world, the orb could mimic what some high end fuinjutsu could do in the real world while the flaming sword would just be super cool to have on hand, especially if the whole pillar of flame thing was a function of the blade instead of a jutsu.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw the glowing eyes once more, glowing far more brightly than before in the distance, causing Kana to take a step back before readying her blade for another wall of fire to be shot out at the thing, she wasn't entirely sure if she could damage it if it was just a pair of eyes but with all the other dream creatures in the way of the path, she figured it wouldn't hurt to try. Slamming the blade down toward the shining silver eyes, Kana watched as the eyes only seemed to glow even brighter as the flames traveled toward them and killed more of the dream creatures, finally causing Kana to realize that whatever that thing was, it seemed to be growing in power as a direct response to the dreams that were being killed, as if it was merely leeching away whatever made the dream creatures in the first place and now that Kana and Gunshin were here, fighting the things, it was probably getting a nice good portion of the dream energy.


WC: 1,030
TWC: 8,120
MWC: 13,547

As Gun battled the horde of nightmares, she realized there was something else going on. There were eyes that just seemed to be watching them. At first, Gun had seen the eyes but assumed it was someone’s fear of being watched. There were those that didn’t like the idea of a voyeur looking in on them and it had given birth to this nightmare of eyes staring at them. Gun presumed that with no body, the eyes couldn’t really attack them, but, as more nightmares attacked and were vanquished by the duo, the eyes began to glow. The longer they survived the waves of this horde, the brighter and brighter the eyes glowed and became more ominous which worried Gun. She then realized that the eyes were gold… like her own. That reminded her of the nightmare she’d had earlier: the father with gold eyes like her own.

As more and more nightmares were obliterated, the eyes got brighter until they flashed like a bolt of lightning. The flash blinded Gun and when her vision returned, she found the horde of monsters gone, as well as Kana. She looked around, confused about where she was. She was no longer in the middle of an opening, now finding herself at one of the training grounds that she’d used in Sakura. Looking at her hands and feet, she also realized that she had been transformed from her dream form into her normal visage.

A bolt of pain shot through her whole body causing Gun to look down at her chest where she saw the tip of one of her javelins sticking out. Her poisonous blood seeped out of the wound, ruining her clothes and falling to the ground beneath her. ”Nah, that’s no fun,” came a familiar voice from behind her. Gun whirled around to see herself and those glowing gold eyes looking at her, an evil grin spread across her face. She lifted a hand and snapped; as if this dream reality was the glowing eyed Gun’s to control, the javelin in Gun’s body disappeared as did the wound and the blood.

Gun looked back up at her glowing eyed doppelgänger, a questioning look on her face. ”You want an explanation? Sorry, but you know us, we’re not really the chatty type.” The twin then formed a javelin out of some odd energy in her hand and hurled it at Gun, who was more prepared this time and evaded the incoming projectile. ”Yes, this is more fun!” Glowing Gun exclaimed, before conjuring up some more javelins and launching them as well.

”Stop!” Gun screamed as she evaded the attacks.

”You want me to stop? You are me and I am you, you stop me or I stop you.” Gun was not pleased and withdrew her own javelin from her uniform and used it to defend herself. She partied a couple before rushing in at the other her. Water rushed out of her hand, covering and extending from the spear’s tip as she swung the weapon in an attempt to thwart this nightmare version of herself.

The same watery covering was used on the doppelgänger’s javelin as it swung. The two water techniques hit each other, halting both attacks. In an attempt to surprise her twin, Gun thrust a second javelin with her other hand only for it to be parried by the clone’s second javelin.

”Are you trying to ruin my fun, missy?” the doppelgänger asked as she shoved Gun away. Gun was beginning to get frustrated. She tried to think, but wasn’t coming with any sure fire way to beat herself.

”You know what’s more fun? Racing!” Gun finally claimed, causing the clone to tilt her head as if trying to figure out what Gun was on about.

”Ok. We can race, I guess…”

”Good,” Gun said, putting her own weapons away. ”Come over here, we’ll start here” she said, dragging her foot in the sand to make a starting line. ”When this hits the ground, we start.” She waved her ninja head band in front of the clone.

Once the two were lined up, Gun threw the piece of cloth into the air. As it landed, both Guns took off, but the real one slowed after a couple steps. She took out her javelin and hurled it at the doppelgänger’s defenseless back, impaling it with relative ease. The glowing eyed Gun fell to the ground, the glow from its eyes dimming.

”You tricked me!”

”Yeah, sorry, I’ve been told I’m too naive and trusting…”

As the glow from its eyes completely disappeared, Gun found herself back in the opening she and Kana had been in earlier. She was also back in harpy form and she just hoped Kana would be able to rejoin her soon.

WC: 796
TWC: 6223
MWC: 14343

Kana wasn't sure what had happened, those eyes just kept becoming brighter and brighter as the duo fought and it was becoming increasingly distracting until finally Kana was forced to shield her eyes lest she become blind yet when she found opened her eyes she saw a familiar yet older set of silver eyes waiting and watching her from afar, the woman was older than she was yet wore a similar outfit, had a similar hair style, even the same scar, it was if Kana was looking at a future copy of herself and the other seemed to be judging her in a similar manner, the two Kanas eyeing each other and untrusting of the other. "Swear to fucking god if that brat dreamed you up...." Kana muttered to herself, almost immediately noticing her voice was back to normal and looking down at herself revealed that she was back to her normal self, something that was going to make the older copy a much more challenging fight. "Ha! This is novel, fighting myself when I was just a brat...." The older copy barked out her laugh, almost offended at the thought of fighting the younger version of herself yet seemed amused enough by the idea that she didn't see it fit to go on the offense just yet.

Kana knew she was outmatched, if this older copy was composed of her ideal self than it likely meant that she had already learnt all the Jutsu Kana was planning on learning, making her a far more dangerous enemy than any other, she could at least rely on Gunshin to back her up in a normal fight but her plans for a fight against a single person relied on surprise attacks, surprises that wouldn't be work considering this version likely knew the exact same plans Kana had in mind as well. "Alright hag, you wanna fight, let's fight." Kana prepared herself for a fight that was going to be more about outsmarting herself rather than actually outslugging herself, the older copy would naturally have more experience, jutsu and stamina to outlast her younger self, trying to bash her head against that wall would result in nothing but a lost fight. "I'm barely even in my mid 20s you little brat!" The older Kana retorted as she readied herself for battle as well, her muscles were tensing and it was subtle but Kana could see the red glow of her latest jutsu taking effect on herself before Kana saw a familiar set of flowers spread out and around herself, Kana instantly allowing her chakra to flood her body to release herself from the genjutsu and molding the chakra into a small veil around herself to trap the older copy into the same genjutsu while jumping back from the arm she knew would be coming right at her, yet instead of the glowing chakra surrounding just her fingers, the older copy had instead opted to use the mystical palm to try and paralyze her younger copy.

"Still didn't think of anything new in the decade?" Kana taunted her older copy as she ran through the hand seals quickly, knowing that her older copy would already be breaking free from the genjutsu, sure enough the older copy broke free and immediately begun to run through her own set of hand seals, being faster and having a shorter set of seals to go through, the older copy finished first and quickly begun to spit fireballs at her younger version, Kana knew this was going to suck but she needed the distraction, allowing the first fireball to strike her, Kana gritted her teeth and clapped her hands together, trapping the older copy into another genjutsu before jumping out of the way of the other 2 fire balls that were shot at her, without the older copy able to manipulate them, they'd be useless but Kana worked fast as she summoned two shadow clones, the older Kana breaking herself free in time to watch as two of them disappeared from sight but unaware which one was a clone and which was the real one while the only visible Kana quickly began to run through more hand seals. "Clever little brat..." The older copy muttered to herself as she suddenly and quickly jumped to the right, narrowly avoiding the poison mist that was fired from behind her by one of the clones.

The older copy struck quickly with a chakra scalpel into the clone, the poor thing having no time to react as she realized the mist failed to capture the more experienced copy yet future Kana wasn't quite done just yet as she extended the arm outward quickly and the only visible Kana's eyes widened for a moment as she finished her jutsu, a barrage of black birds striking at the older copy who nearly avoided all of them except for the last one, that was just enough for the jutsu to take effect and weaken her. "I sensed the first one, you're not going to be able to catch me off guard even if you weakened me like this!" The older Kana declared as she backed up with narrowed silver eyes, her hands running through hand seals before suddenly finding herself roughly pulled back, unable to bring her hands together to finish the hand seals. "No... I... I should've detected you!" The future Kana cried out in rage as she struggled and failed to free herself from the blackhole

"Not if I was in a seal. You don't know any fuinjutsu, do you?" Kana spoke from behind, allowing her hiding with camouflage jutsu to end and reveal herself to the older copy, who could only grit her teeth as she felt the blackhole tear and rip into her bit by bit. "You little bitch! You weren't supposed to learn that! I never learnt that! What kind of bullshit is this?!" The future Kana screamed in rage as she kept her pointless struggling, both of them knew that she wasn't going to escape from this jutsu and was the perfect counter for people like herself, the more physically weaker shinobi. "It's the kind of bullshit that I picked up with a mission on Gunshin. You never met her, I never dreamed of having Gunshin with me even after all of these years, part of me still doesn't think she'll stay by my side for long.... So that means you missed the things she taught me." Kana admitted with a bitter chuckle to herself, she felt bad admitting it even to herself but it was the one thing she picked up on instantly, if she had been the one to lay the first trap, she'd have followed it up with the Five Elements Seal to dampen her body to control the pace of the fight far easier, the fact that this Kana only relied on the outdated mystical palm opening meant she never picked up fuinjutsu to replace it.

"Now excuse me, I got a friend to see, loser." Kana mocked her older copy as she quickly performed the hand seals for her chakra scalpel and allowed the familiar chakra to coat her arm before letting her hand move in to slice the older Kana's head off in a single clean slice, watching as the enraged future Kana tried to scream out some final insult, the words never coming out and the rage in her glowing silver eyes began to die with the glow fading until suddenly Kana found herself back in the now empty field, the familiar weight of the armor and the strange dream height welcoming her back and alerting her that she returned to her dream form. Looking toward behind her, she wasn't too surprised to see Gunshin was back here already, her friend was so much stronger than she believed herself to be and if it truly was a future copy of herself that she had to fight, it probably already was surpassed be the real deal. "That was interesting...." Kana spoke to her friend, letting out a quiet sigh, she still had plenty of chakra to draw on but it was straining to go from no chakra usage into actually having to use so many of her jutsu in a combat setting for once.


WC:1,380
TWC: 9,500
MWC: 15,723

"That was interesting...." Kana spoke as the two shared smiles. Naturally, Gun wanted to go full on storyteller and reveal that she had “thought like Kana” to defeat herself but the situation at hand was becoming something the pair couldn’t ignore. The horde that once had been attacking the duo was now being met by waves of dream like creatures. Some were actually pretty identical to the nightmares that they were fighting against, but others were rainbow colored unicorns and cute little animals. The two sides fought a war of epic proportions and Gun could just hear the smashing of weapons on shields and battle cries.

Gun wasn’t sure what they should do, but she presumed the evil creatures they were fighting before were still the enemy. Without waiting for Kana’s direction, Gun withdrew a javelin from her uniform and hurled it at some gnarly looking, oversized bear that was about to hug a cute, white bunny from behind. The javelin hit the bear right between the eyes, pulling it backward and away from the rabbit that was busy stomping on some sort of evil cockroach. The bear eventually became smoke as it succumbed to its injuries.

"That was ok, right?” Gun asked Kana. It was clear to her that it was no longer just the real world versus the dream world; it was actually the real world and the dream world versus the nightmare world. Despite that, she wasn’t sure if they should pick sides or return home in hopes that everything worked out for the best. They had traveled all the way here and put their lives on the line, so it only felt right to keep going and ensure the nightmares didn’t win this war. If that happened, they might begin invading the real world again.

She readied herself for battle once more, having grown accustomed to the wings on her back and the form that granted them to her. When Kana gave the word, Gun would enter the fray.

WC: 333
TWC: 6556
MWC: 16056

As Kana looked over at her best friend, she noticed something, figures were quickly approaching from behind and Kana readied herself for battle once more, part of her had assumed the weird copies of themselves were the ones causing the entire mess and without those glowing eyes pulling the strings anymore things would begin to revert back to normal but that didn't seem to be the case as Kana looked upon the approaching dream creatures, her flaming blade at the ready but amidst the collection of creatures, there were quite a few odd stand outs for what were supposedly nightmares. Kana somehow didn't think people were having nightmares about a rainbow unicorn being ridden by a pink teddy bear, nor did any of the creatures seem to be trying to converge on their location, if anything it seemed liked they'd charge straight past them, something that caused Kana to look behind her.

"Seems we got backup now." Kana commented as she turned toward the more familiar nightmare creatures that seemed to be pulling one more final mad dash toward the duo, the idea of having to trust a dream to provided back up wasn't quite ideal considering that this entire mess had been nothing but dreams turned nightmares to attack people but her chakra had taken a beating from the ambush and duel, she wasn't entirely certain she could attack the two sides and hope to win. She instead stood and waited, allowing the two sides to clash as she tried to figure out the best method of attacking, jumping in and blindly attacking would be the obvious solution but if they could target some of the bigger threats, that would be ideal. Kana's eyes slid over to her friend as she attacked one of the nightmares that had tried to attack one of the dreams, before asking if that was fine, something that made Kana pause and look over the battle field, numerous larger creatures were dotting the battlefield, it was probably because people tended to think big things were inherently more dangerous and thus scary while the dream creatures lacked as many taller and stronger creatures to work with.

"Target the big ones, fly in and strike them down. Take out any particularly dangerous ones you spot as well. I shall begin carving a way forward with the rest of the dreams." Kana declared the new battle plan, without the duo having to watch each other's back anymore, Gunshin was free to use her wings and speed to her advantage while Kana only had to worry about burning those behind her, something she already had a solution for as she allowed the orb to come to life with an intense glow while she pushed her chakra into her feet and launched herself into the sky, leaping past the front lines and into the nightmare creatures, her body igniting into a ball of flame as she brought her sword down in a wide swing, crashing it into the ground and through an unfortunate clown that had been caught in the way. A wall of fire sprouted forward from Kana's blade, burning a clean line nearly 10 meters in front of her that she sprinted through, her part of the plan was simple, paint herself as an equally big threat and force the nightmares to split their focus between the agile harpy, the inferno of a tank or the dreams that were on the counter offensive after being invaded.

Kana sliced and burnt whatever was near, she was working her way deeper into the heart of the enemy forces and as such there was no risk of friendly fire, even if Gunshin had decided to follow her, she'd be stupid to run into the flames that were consuming Kana as she hacked and chopped apart the nightmares that had haunted so many, shinobi, bandits, she even saw a familiar faces within the group, the face of the instructor with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face tried to sprout some nonsense about what a disappointing student Kana had turned out to be, as if she'd even consider the words of a nightmare to be anything worth thinking about. It wasn't all an easy battle however, she was still but one person in a crowd of creatures trying to kill her, ranged attacks struck her from various sides and angles, her armor didn't cover her entirely and she could feel arrows and kunai strike her dream form, even some of the creatures gotten blunt strikes in, the armor denting as she was knocked off balance for a moment but she made sure to retaliate and keep moving forward.

By the time Kana felt her muscles aching and her chakra dampening, she had considered retreating or attempting to do so but by then she noticed something, the nightmares were no longer trying to attack her and instead they began to retreat on mass, she watched as even the larger creatures that hadn't been struck down by Gunshin turned tail and began to fall back toward whatever area of the world that the nightmares controlled. Turning around, Kana saw the dreams charging forward and crushing the last few nightmares that had tried to stay and fight, Gunshin still in the skies and wiping out small pockets of nightmares that had been separated from the horde of nightmares that were being routed. The invasion of the nightmares was all but over, Kana had briefly considered the idea of following after the nightmares and continue fighting but as Kana looked over the battlefield, she noticed a familiar swirl of energy near the edge of the battlefield and a nightmare jumping into the portal, a portal that Kana knew would lead into the real world.

"Gunshin! The rift, make sure nothing gets through!" Kana called out to her friend, alerting her to the small group of nightmares attempt to race their way toward the portal and away from the battlefield to continue invading the real world. Even in defeat, the creatures sought to claim victory elsewhere and there was no telling how much more of these rifts were littered throughout the land, they'd likely have to find a way to close these things somehow on this side of the world since the last time Kana and Gunshin dealt with it, some lazy bastard slapped a seal down and erected a barrier over it, something she doubted would even work in this world.


WC: 1,075
TWC: 10,575
MWC: 17,131

"Gunshin! The rift, make sure nothing gets through!" Kana yelled. Gun moved, her wings flapped hard, giving her a big push, in an attempt to intercept the nightmares before they got to the rift. She had a mace in one hand and a javelin in the other, as she slid to a stop in front of the rift, effectively blocking the nightmares' path. Most of them turned and took off, a couple moved towards her, thinking maybe they could get past her, but her water covered spear slid through the air with impressive speed, slicing all three nightmares in half. She surveyed the area, glad that none of the nightmares had made it into the rift, though she worried that there were more rifts than just this one.

WC: 128
TWC: 6684
MWC: 17259

Kana hurried toward the rift, not because she thought Gunshin would need any aid with defending the rift but they both needed to find a way to destroy the stupid thing, then they'd probably have to scout the rest of the land to find a way to destroy as many as they could find, Kana didn't really have any doubt in her mind that this was the only rift left, there was far too many nightmare creatures that had been invading the real world through these things for this to be the single tear in reality from here to the real world. The rest of the dreams had seemed to be wiping the rest of the resistance and the bigger and stronger dreams seemed content to leave things as well and slowly began to depart from the battle, Kana was surprised to see a gentle giant with only one large eye slowly make his way out of the battle field, followed by a dragon that slithered it's way up and into the clouds, such interesting creatures that Kana wished she could've saw in action but alas she had to do her own part and she seemed to have missed out on most of the battle due to be right in the middle of things.

She didn't even make it to the rift without missing out on the action there as well, Gunshin stood ready with her mace and javelin on hand as the bodies of the nightmare creatures who tried to escape into reality began to fade back into whatever energy composed them. "Good work, now we just gonna deal with this." Kana praised her friend with a simple nod, turning her attention to the rift that the nightmares had somehow created, part of Kana had wondered what would happen if she went through that thing herself, would she come through as her real self or would she come out as her dream self? "I got an idea." Kana said as she began to perform hand seals, running through Ram, Rat, Tiger, Snake before finishing it with Bird and summoning a blackhole right in the middle of the tear in space, the two spaces ripping and tearing each other apart before being sucked into nothing, leaving not a single trace behind of either the jutsu or the rift in space.

"Well, looks like we got a solution to the rifts now." Kana was a bit surprised that had worked out so well, she probably should've actually tried that with the first rift in the real world, although she thought she could be forgiven since that lazy bastard had came in and sealed it off before the duo could even consider how to actually remove the rift from the real world.



WC: 460
TWC: 11,035
MWC: 17,719

[Exit]

Claiming:

Mission Rewards: 42,750 ryo, 212 AP, 125 dream tokens, Dream Waiver
11,035 TWC from thread

As Kana hit max stats, I'll be using the 11,000 words for 220 bonus AP
For a total of 432 AP

Using 376/600 of the AP toward Strength of a Hundred [Skill]
Previously was 224/600 but is now 600/600

Using the remaining 56 AP for conversion of 50 ryo per 1 AP
Converted Ryo: 2,800

As Kana reached Chuunin rank, I earn 2,000 ryo per mission completed
7 missions completed: 14,000

Total Ryo Earned: 59,550

Used 5,000/5,000 to learn S Rank Slotless Chain Medical Jutsu Creation Rebirth: Strength of One Hundred [v7.2]
Used 4,000/4,000 to learn S Rank Special Jutsu Sage Mode [v7.2]
Used 2,000/2,000 to learn Slotted Skill Whistle Trigger
Using 35/250 to master E Sensory Skill Cat Eyes
Previously was 165/250 but is now 190/250