Quelling a Rebellion: Stage Two [Mission]

I was crouched low in the brush of the forest, looking up into the canopy of branches and leaves high overhead. The sunlight was piercing through the leaves where-ever it could, although the majority of it was blocked out by the array of leaves, creating huge patches of shadow on the ground. I was using these deep shadows to my advantage. My new acquaintance, Tokugawa, was right behind me hiding in the brush as well. We were stationed at the base of a large tree, looking up into the upper parts of the huge trees for any sign of the rebel base we were here to destroy. Many similar bases have been destroyed by my ANBU operatives by now, but I wanted to come out and put down one myself. It gave me a rush, going out on missions like back when I was a measly teenager living with Kina. I was dressed in a completely black compression suit made of nylon that went up to my neck, and a half-mask that covered by face up past my nose. My hair was tied back, however, and my eyes still showed. I had a solemn expression on my face, letting the thrill of the hunt seep into my weary thoughts. I wondered where this base was, and I was getting tired of crawling around the underbrush like a lowly lizard. My eyes were beginning to strain against my eyelids, as I had been looking up into the trees for too long. Just then, I heard a snap behind me, and rolled quickly around onto my back, and threw my hands up just fast enough to catch a falling branch, and set it gently to my side. "That was a close one, eh?" I said sarcastically to my partner for this mission. I chuckled, then rolled back over onto my elbows. "How are you holding up, my friend?" I said back to Tokugawa, and awaited a response.

Katsumoto was right behind Skar, he wore his black robe symbolising the other side of life, with his hair flowing loosely while he was breathing in hushed tones kneeling in the brush. When a branch fell down. Luckily Skar caught it. What surprised Katsumoto was how calm this Ninja was. They we're in the vicinity of the ANBU base and they almost got compromised. Still Katsumoto liked it. "I'm doing good, do you see anything? I think I saw a flash of a blade somewhere up there." Kastumoto was scanning as well as he could utilising his training he learned back when the Tokugawa Dynasty was still alive and well. Katsumoto shook his head and blinked and then tapped Skars shoulder and pointed towards a large branch which housed a platform for a base well hidden by camouflage and the tree itself. "Two guards up there. How do you want to go forward with this? Loud or quietly?" Katsumoto readied to jump charging chakra within his entire body, with his skills he could get right up there and use Iaido to take them out quietly and stealthily.

I watched as the samurai pointed towards a ledge he spotted high above in the tree tops. After focusing in with my trained eyes, I spotted the ledge as a platform jutting out of a tree. I made out the two guards stationed on the platform that Tokugawa pointed out to me. "Hm.. quietly," I told him, "But I'll handle them. I'll take them out silently, and you go in after me and take out any guards stationed directly inside the door. There's bound to be one or two at least, right?"

I then proceeded to silently crawl to the base of the huge tree that the base looked to be on top of. I focused chakra into my hands and feet, and began slowly climbing the tree. One step at a time, I inched closer to the two men high above me. Almost there.. my palms barely touching the bark, using the chakra to suspend myself high above the forest floor. I was almost all the way up, and I climbed up onto the platform directly behind the guards. I held onto the ledge of the platform using both hands. I then used my hands to launch myself over the ledge and into the air. Using my prowess at the art of martial arts and Taijutsu, I dispatched of the two quickly. From the air, I landed on the shoulders of the first man, but before he could scream, I reach down and twisted his head with a torque that snapped his neck. Then, before his dead-weight fell over, I clutched his head with my thighs, flipped over the left side of the man, and launched the dead man into the other guard, toppling them both off of the platform and crashing to the forest floor. I then dove to the side of the platform, and leaped off, holding the ledge with my fingertips, suspended and waiting for Tokugawa to infiltrate and make his move.

"Yes, you're right." Katsumoto watched as Skar took out the first two guards easily and disappearing under the platform just as easily while not alerting the guards inside the base. Katsumoto then walked slowly towards the trees, crouched, and jumped 80 ft into the air, the wind going through his hair and the sprinklets of a storm forming overhead hitting his face ever so gently. Once he landed on the platform body crouched, sword ready to draw Katsumoto looked at Skar who was hanging off the ledge and whispered, "A storms coming, that's good we'll have more cover."

Katsumoto then proceeded to inch slowly to the door entrance and feeling the knob saw that it was not locked. He turned the knob slowly, making his way to where the lock wouldn't even catch and slammed against the door just as it thundered muffling any sound as one man flew back into the floor, holding his nose in pain, while the other was holding his throat due to a huge gash in it, causing the victim to choke on his own blood. Katsumoto then turned towards the man on the ground and brought his sword downward stabbing the man right through the heart. Looking back at the door Katsumoto nodded signalling that the coast was clear proceeded down the hallway.

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After hearing the muffled screams of pain that I assumed Tokugawa had caused, I vaulted myself over the ledge and onto my feet. I walked into the door behind him and looked to the floor that was now covered in the blood of two more victims. I grinned slightly as I walked by them, uncovering the small lust fr bloodshed that has always been a small part of my being since the day I murdered my father. Either way, I moved on through the hallway. The conversations, if any, were limited between the samurai and I. We knew we had a job to be done, and we knew how to do it. That being said, it didn't require a lot of communication. I reached a fork in the hallway, branching into two paths. I signaled for Tokugawa to take the left hallway, and I proceeded down the right. The inside of this base was very poorly lit. There was usually one lantern flickering dimly in each hallway, giving a sense of foreboding to its inhabitants as well as intruders. I shrugged off the glum feeling, and reached the end of the hallway. There was a narrow door trimmed with gold. No doubt, this room was significant. I crouched into the shadow, and slowly turned the doorknob. Then, I swung the door open as far as I could. There were three more guards in this room, and all of them swung their heads around to see what had caused the door to fly open. But by the time they had turned their heads in that direction, I had moved as fast as possible to the shadows in the right corner of the room. To a normal eye, it looked as if I teleported. This means that the enemies didn't see me. I crouched in the corner as the guards all shrugged and turned back to the desk that they sat at to continue their game of cards. This was a card room? Then why the fancy door? Oh well, decided to end their little gambling habit very quickly.

I rolled behind the chair of the man in the middle silently so that they wouldn't notice me. I had to do this quickly so that guards stationed elsewhere wouldn't be alerted to his position. I reached my hands slowly up to the man in the chair in front of me. I then grabbed his mouth, so he couldn't scream, and the the crown of his head with my other hand. As I quickly twisted my hands, I felt a snap of his neck. Then his lifeless body fell from the chair to the floor. Both the man to me right and my left turned quickly to see what had occurred. I grabbed a card off of the table, rolled it up as tightly as possible, and thrust it into the man on the right's jugular, causing blood to gush out of the tiny hole made by the rolled up playing card. Then the man on the left pulled out a kunai. He thrust it at my stomach. I stood there, and didn't react. The kunai bounced off of my dragon skin without affecting me at all, so I grabbed the kunai from him, and threw it directly into his forehead. He immediately buckled to the ground to meet his fallen comrades. I grinned with satisfaction, then sprinted back down the hallway to find Tokugawa and check on his progress.

Katsumoto headed down the left hallway listening to the storms thunderous claps, and the pounding of the rain hitting the roof. The hallway though dimly lit lighted up one lightning struck in the area. Looking down he saw a set of three doors. Each one with a sign above them. This seemed to be the hallway where the ANBU rebels got things done. The sign that caught his eye was the map room. Here Katsumoto would be able to see what the ANBU were up to next and if possible where their other bases of operations were throughout the forest. Stopping Katsumoto put his ear right to the door. Inside he heard three voices, one of which said "And this is wear we will strike next, the signal will be struck within a month and all of our bases will attack around the country." Hearing this Katsumoto slammed the door in and catching all three men unawares who were around a rectangular table with a map and a lot of figurines placed on it. Heading to the left Katsumoto cut the head clean off of one of the guards and backed up and thrust his sword behind him under armed to kill the other guard. Now holding the sword up to the leader of that groups neck Katsumoto put the blade down slowly and challenged him. "You know back there in all of the excitement I kind of lost track of how many men I killed, did I kill three or did I kill four? Well now you got to ask yourself. Do I feel lucky? Well do you...PUNK?" (ooc: I just had to lol) Katsumoto watched as the man drew his sword and let him charge towards him, the mans swings were wild due to the mans fear and he wasn't focused on keeping good footwork. This man just wanted to stay alive and he was fighting for it. Because of the man's chaotic style Katsumoto was able to parry and side step all of the mans attacks. Laughing while this was happening Katsumoto started backing up into the hallway and towards the fork all the mean while yelling obscenities and taunts at the man who was stabbing at him. Finally the man made the fatal mistake of lunging towards Katsumoto with all of his weight and he lost his balance. Katsumoto side stepped and stabbed the man in the gut. Not killing him right away, but leaving him open for questioning.

I met up with the samurai just as he had stabbed a man in the stomach and left him bleeding on the floor. The dying man let out a cough of blood, to which he didn't care enough to wipe off. I think he cared more about the sheer, unrelenting pain of being stabbed through the gut. He lie there, a pathetic site to anyone more fortunate than he. But, even though his situation was undoubtedly grim, he began to laugh. His laugh was shrill, crude even. It became louder and louder until it was a maniacal rasp of laughter echoing through the base. Anyone left alive would surely hear him. In fact, I could hear footsteps behind me, coming from the hallway I had just run down to find Katsumoto. "It appears the stealth of our mission has been compromised. Protect this man, and attempt to extend his inevitably failing life, I'll handle the rest of them," I ordered my partner before walking out of the entrance to the room we were in. I stood in the hallway, ready to meet my adversaries. Into the end of the hallway, poured 4 more rebels. This was strange. There were only supposed to be 10 in each base, just like all the others. Oh well though, that just means there's more work to be done. Not difficult work, however. I sprinted towards the four men, preparing to send waves of pain throughout the hallway.

I exited my sprint with a somersaulted leap into the air, before bringing my flying feet down on one of the rebels' chest. He flew back into the other three rebels, knocking down the whole group. I jumped onto the chest of the man he had kicked, and began relentlessly punching him in the face. Each punch trained with the strength to shatter bones. By the time I was done with that man, his face was reduced to a pile of crushed bone, eye guts, blood, and skin. He no longer resembled a human being. I stood up off of him, satisfied. After standing, I realized that the other three had been hacking at my back with katana. I hadn't felt it because of my dragon skin, but it was annoying to say the least. I stole one of the katana as it crashed down onto my back. I whipped it out of the man's hand, and threw it back into his chest, sending him doubled over onto the ground. A look of terror crossed the two remaining men. I smiled in a way that revealed my lack of sanity in the presence of battle, and grabbed at the throat of one of the men. I pulled as hard as I could, pulling the throat out of the man. He fell over, clutching his neck, dead. The remaining man, filled with dread and bewitched by some haunted motive, sprinted for the platform at the entrance, and leaped off of the ledge to his death at the forest floor below.

Upon finishing that little nuisance, I walked back into the room with Tokugawa to interrogate the remaining man. His last minutes of life grew thin. "I want to know everything. Now," I said to him sternly. He proceeded to fill the room with his ghastly laughter again. "I'm going to die anyway. Why would I even consider telling you? I have no family or friends to threaten, and now not even my own life to bargain with. I'm a dead man with nothing. Kill me! Haha!" he replied to me. "He will not tell us anything, even with further interrogation. I can see it in his eyes. He truly has nothing to live for. I'm going to search for clues for other locations of bases throughout the forest. Dispose of this failure as you see fit," I coldly told Tokugawa before exiting the room. Bloodshed clouded my vision.

Katsumoto nodded then kneeled towards the man who's life he had just ended. But it wasn't an old man, it was a young man of the age of 18. This boy could of had a bright future if he wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time or hadn't joined ANBU. "I know you say you have nothing to bargain for, but that isn't true. Look kid, if anything you have your soul. Do not bargain that. When you go wherever you believe you will go...only settle for the best. When I die we will meet again and we will finish this." The kid then coughed up some more blood and clutched his stomach wheezing in terrible pain. Katsumoto then got up and shook his head and closed his eyes. A wound like that will leave one alive for a few hours. It would be a terribly painful death for one so young to bear. Katsumoto then felt a terrible sense of sadness because he had decided to stab the man in the stomach instead of just killing him. "Kill me...please." Katsumoto obliged the young man, taking out his sword and chopping the young man's head off. Katsumoto then walked solemnly to the platform edge and leapt off. Another memory to be burned into his mind. Another young rebellious youth felled by his sword.

I went back into the room with the dead gamblers to search for clues. There wasn't much in the base left to scavenge, but I did find a piece of paper in the pocket of one of the dead goons. It had coordinates on a map, marking certain places throughout the Morigakure forests. Were they bases? Were they leaders? I would soon find out. I followed Tokugawa out of the base, and back out into the forest. I would research this paper further in my office, but for now, I need rest.

[Exit]