For the People

Arisu's walls had seemingly done the trick. She started to let more people through, although still kept an eye out for any tricks that Irui may have been trying. She was still doing perfectly fine for the time being, not dropping her guard. With Irui seemingly giving up, she had breathed a sigh of relief, glad that the violence could end. She didn't like when people were in danger, and wasn't much of a fighter.

Naitome moved to Ashitaka, placing the point of his staff onto Irui's neck, just in case the man tried anything. With the Chakra Visualization, Naitome was easily able to see if Irui was planning on using a technique or something like that, so he kept his gaze purely on the man. Making a hand seal while still holding onto the staff, he grew a second, smaller rod from his free palm, handing it back to Ashitaka.

Directing a question to Ashitaka, who hadn't been looking so well fairly recently, given his chakra levels had been dropping rather rapidly as well. "Are you doing okay? If you need more chakra, stab yourself with that. Arisu will lend you hers to keep your techniques up, or we can contain him in a different manner if you'd rather that."

--
-5 Outer Path Chains [Non Elemental affinity]
-0.5 Chakra Visualization
-0.1 Black Receiver Rod [Non Elemental affinity]
-1 Six Paths of Pain [Non Elemental affinity]
-5 Tool Creation [Non Elemental affinity]
Stamina: 340.3/450

Kitsuki continued to scan the crowd for any threats. She was constantly moving her aim from person to person as she tried to identify the mystery assailant. Her search was cut short when a burnt teen cast off his disguise and called out to her by name. Kitsuki's bow snapped to the individual and the archer examined him carefully.

How does he know my na-Oh my god....

Kitsuki opened her mouth in horror as she recognized the villain. He was burnt. Badly. When she had last seen him, he was a healthy young man but now he was something else entirely. Whatever had seared his body had done the same to his conscience. Irui's hijinks in the Chuunin Exams were nothing compared to what he was pulling now. He appeared to have contempt for her desire to help others. He referred to the affair as being "theatrical" as if this was all some play. Kitsuki was on the verge of letting her arrow fly when Ashitaka sprang into action. The lost little boy executed a fearsome Wood Release technique that sought to ensnare Irui and hold him firm. If successful, Kit would have no need to fire her arrow. If Irui took defensive action then Kit would loose her arrow at him. If the arrow struck home, it would puncture his chest cavity with enough force to send him into the dirt. Alive but barely conscious. That scenario was far more painful and so he ought count himself lucky to be the victim of Ashi's Mokuton. If the boy caught Irui, he'd indicate a desire to keep him there while they continued the evacuation. It was a rather surprising turn of events given how overwhelmed the child was just moments prior. Kit leapt from her perch and landed beside the Senju. She turned to her ally and gave him a nod before turning her attention back to the Kumo-Nin.

Kitsuki took a few steps closer and looked him up and down. He had been through hell. Whereas Kit had become further enmeshed in her ideals, he had descended further down whatever pit of ambition he had started on back in Room 113. Kit looked him in the eye, her expression was one of utter disgust. They had vowed to be rivals but she saw nothing in him worthy of the title. He was an enemy of the lowest order. Scum that attacked innocent civilians for some sick agenda. He was totally restrained but that wasn't enough. He had used her name as though they were familiars. She'd need to correct that.

Kitsuki attempted to slapped Irui's exposed face. She held back, but even still, the damage was enough to shatter his jaw and hemorrhage his right eye. She was still getting used to her awesome strength.

"Don't you dare ever use my name. I'm fortunate enough to never have gotten yours and I'd like to keep it that way. You weren't always like this...not just physically I mean....Exams are one thing but this is beyond that. These are innocents. Civilians. This isn't a theater. This isn't a game. You tried to murder defenseless people and you did it for a reason. I'm going to beat the information out of you once I'm done helping those you wanted to destroy."

Irui would likely be unable to reply given the broken jaw. Kit turned away from him and shot a glare at Naitome. She didn't like him offering whatever those rod things were. Ashitaka appeared to be a good kid and the last thing he needed was to get wrapped up in extra-terrestrial affairs.

"Don't take that" she said in a stern tone. The anger she felt was redirected towards her comrade. She looked Naitome in the eye and spoke plainly. "Please keep those rods to yourself until I complete my investigation" She was just beginning to trust them but this was the sort of behavior that would set them back to square one. They had been dutifully helping the people under her watchful eye, but if Naitome had been secretly offering people control rods then that would be a serious problem. Kit then addressed Ashitaka:

"Good work. How long can you keep him here? We can't risk him getting away. I sugge-" Kit was about to give a more specific recommendation when an  ghastly sight entered her view. Kitsuki looked up to see a massive airship falling from the heavens. The craft had been set ablaze and the trail of smoke it left was a sickening green color. It wasn't going to land on top of them but it was going to land close. There were still civilians in the area and she knew that she could not stand back and let them suffer.

"Keep evacuating the civilians and keep a close eye on him! Arisu and Naitome, we'll rendezvous back at the inn!" she shouted. Kit knelt down and without another word took off into the sky. The force of her upward acceleration would probably knock the Konoha jit on his arse. As Kit soared, the engines of her Quantum Meruit Armour roared. Time Release chakra flooded through the vents and propelled her into the stratosphere and towards the ship. Mere months ago she'd have been powerless to stop the debris before it crashed into the evacuation effort, but now she was strong enough to do something about it.

Many meters above the settlement, Kit made contact with the burning wreckage and gripped it with all of her might. Even at her level of strength, it was difficult to direct the weight of the construct. The girl was sweating from the heat and every muscle in her body ached as she pushed and lifted the ship. She couldn't get a good enough grip on it to simply carry it away. She'd need to divert it. From the ground, Ashitaka and Arisu could see how hard Kit was working to keep the airship from harming them. The careening ship wouldn't be the only piece of debris she'd need to handle. Kit would have to stay in the skies and re-direct more falling rubble from Kariforunia Island. With the falling debris to handle, she was leaving it up to them to finish the evacuation. Once that was done, Kit would meet up with Arisu later. Or so she thought.


(This seems like a good place to end)

Exit

Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, and Irui watched with glee as the realization dawned on Ashitaka. Even at this range, Irui knew who the winner would be; he'd seen it once before. Positive and negative charges had only connected within his Lightning Style, when Ashitaka's Wood Style burst from the ground with a savage churning of the earth. Thick, dark branches and coiling roots sprang out of the earth, snapping tightly around his calf and mid-section. A bough bristling with new leaves clenched tight around his torso, and within moments, a full grove of plantlife had pinned him once again.

Despite the weight pressing down on his chest, he squeezed out: "Marvelous."

"I'd kill you, but I think you'd like that." Ashitaka ground out, "No, I'm going to leave you here where you can't hurt anybody." But Irui scarcely paid him attention. His scalded eyes turned to the woman approaching them, and it brought a strange smile to his face. Here they were again, separated by an obstruction with Irui's skin brandishing its scars.

Her blow came fast and hard, his jaw cleaved like breaking stone before his nerves could even register the sensation. It struck him like wildfire and surged through his face as blood welled and pulsed through his cheek and eye. For a moment his vision flashed, stars danced in his eyes, senses flickering almost artificially, but something kept the adrenaline at bay. A familiar crawling of cells stirred in his jaw and he smiled as a sickening thought crept to the forefront of his mind. Heat spread through his face, swelling under his right eye.

"Don't you dare ever use my name." Kitsuki fired, " I'm fortunate enough to never have gotten yours and I'd like to keep it that way. You weren't always like this...not just physically I mean....Exams are one thing but this is beyond that. These are innocents. Civilians. This isn't a theater. This isn't a game. You tried to murder defenseless people and you did it for a reason. I'm going to beat the information out of you once I'm done helping those you wanted to destroy."

Irui cocked his head to the side, pursed his lips, and spat blood and tooth, dribbling down his chin. It was an empty threat as far as he was now concerned.

______

Irui has been captured! Da-dah-dah dahdah-dahhh!

Ashitaka would have been stunned if it wasn't for the fact that he was totally not surprised. He was fully expecting for his restraining techniques to fail him and moreso, for something utterly stupid to be the cause of said failure. The only unusual detail was that said escape was the product of the dark-skinned flying girl delivering a slap with such intensity that it felt like his eardrums were threatened by the sound from the impact to the face of his quarry. As the boy watched, the force of her blow shattered his Tree Bind Flourishing Burial to splinters and sent Irui sprawling to the dirty street. He sighed as he canceled the instant tree summon, instead wringing his hands in a mild despair at the sight.

"Seriously, why do I even bother going outs-" his complaint was interrupted by the distinct sensation of a chakra-intense object being placed into his hand. He looked at it and remembered the vastly more distinct sensation of having half a dozen such things embedded deep into his chest. Although "remembered" was putting it lightly, as his ears were instantly filled with the shuddering rasps of his own ragged breaths from his time desperately trying not to have his entire soul erased. His grip tightened around the rod in his hand until it cracked, but in his mind's eye he was watching helplessly as his partner for that disastrous mission was forced to her feet in a truly horrendous fashion. His mouth recalled the taste of his own scorched blood as he watched hers open to say

"Good work. How long can you keep him here? We can't risk letting him get away." and a blinding rage shoved the painful memories aside like a rude passenger at a bus stop. Can't even suffer my memories in peace. This woman had such gall to ask him something like that after destroying the very means by which he was restraining their prisoner with her reckless assault. And even that emotion ended up being shelved when she suddenly saw something above and behind him and took off. After a moment's searching, he found and traced her strange chakra signature until he saw what she was going after: an airship, falling out of the sky and towards the city below. Soon though, it was not one, but six blazing hulks descending violently from the heavens like tiny meteorites. Not to mention the debris falling in ugly lumps of black rain to pummel the land below. And Sage have mercy, were those people falling too?

"You! Restrain that jackass!" He ordered the walking corpse in front of him as he tossed the rod back at him with one hand and pointed at Irui with the other. He had no time to concern himself with the finer details due to the unfortunate fact that no sooner had Kitsuki impacted with her airship of choice than one of its cousins proven that it was intent on making Ashitaka's day just that much worse than it had already been so far. Well, his and that of everyone in his immediate vicinity. "Miss! To me! We have an apocalypse to catch!" Racing to where he believed he could intercept the vessel before it impacted the ground and started violently erasing a swathe of the city he was in the midst of evacuating. With each of his last two steps, he snapped out a hand seal: Snake. Snake.

Once in position, he slapped the ground with both palms, spawning a grove of trees 30 meters wide and 150m long (75 to his front and back) in the path of the falling airship. Then he remembered that it was on fire and raced through a different set of hand seals as the doomed monstrosity bore down on him with all the subtlety of... well of a damned airship making a quick unplanned landing. Tiger. Ox. Tiger. Rat. Ashitaka inhaled deeply and spat out a torrent of water at the blazing former marvel of modern engineering. The jutsu was hardly enough to extinguish the flames by itself, but combined with the battering the airship was receiving from the freshly-spawned trees it was plowing through like a freight train through a school bus, the flames did die down significantly. Better still, the harbinger of everyone's doom had been slowed considerably by the assault.

But as Ashitaka watched it barrel over his head and shielded himself from the flying splinters of shattering branches, he was made painfully aware of the difference between "slowed considerably" and "stopped". He really hoped the Otsusuki could do something useful enough to justify her presence, or the Jashinist had a sudden change of heart.




_____________________

Stuff:

As Kitsuki's slap landed on Irui's face, the wood buckled beneath the strain. Naitome and Arisu had noticed the power behind the strike and Naitome had begun to move ahead of time, lowering and grabbing Irui's ankles as the tree splintered, sinking into the ground and pulling him down into it with him. Arisu wasn't about to risk letting him go free like that. Kitsuki really hadn't been thinking about how strong she was.

Naitome popped back up onto solid ground, Irui's head the only thing still above ground, which should keep him there for the time being. They'd have to release him to the proper authorities. Kiri and Konoha weren't as of yet at war with Kumo, so capturing one of their ninja likely wouldn't be the best thing, even if he had attacked citizens. They needed to be the ones to punish his actions.

Of course, other things started to happen around them. Falling ships, falling bodies, it seemed that the fighting at the Island had come to a headway.

Arisu abandoned any pretense of letting people go through at a controlled pace. "Leave here, quickly!" Her chains whipped around and destroyed the barrier of earth behind her, letting them move through the place uninhibited except by a few rocks and debris. It was better than it had been. Now was the time to summon up the Gedou Statue again. It would be able to catch the ship.

Ashitaka had made a grove of trees that stretched to batter the second ship and remove the flames, and Arisu placed her hands on the ground. A seal formed around her, and a large cloud of smoke appeared as the Gedou statue was summoned next to her. The 10 tails husk reared up from the ground and charged forward, grabbing the ship that had slowed considerably, and even with its monstrous strength, still cracked the ground it was standing on from sheer impact force on it. Between the two of them however, the ships descent had halted completely.

The Gedou statue placed the ship down carefully enough, before growing still, head trained up at the sky in case it needed to begin to catch another falling ship. For now though, the fighting had seemed to halt. Was it over? Hopefully from there, they could rest. The evacuation had more or less been completed in the nick of time, and Irui was captured, awaiting the proper authorities to take him in and deliver him back to Kumogakure where he could expect his punishment. Kitsuki knew who he was at least, so they could identify him even if he got away.

-Exit?
---
Summoning the statue is done using the mirrored ram seal and at the cost of 35 Stamina Points. It has the following stats:
Strength: S
Constitution: X
Stamina: A
Speed: B
Coordination: B
Intelligence: -
Perception: A


Name: Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique
Rank: D
Power: D
Activation Cost: 3
Upkeep Cost: -
Range: 10 m.
Speed: -
Element: Earth
Skill: Ninjutsu
Classification: N/A
Requirements: Preexisting Earth
Parent Technique: N/A
Hand Seals: -
Description: This technique conceals the user underground and drags the object of their attack down into the earth, robbing them of their freedom, leaving them completely unable to move after they're underground. The user can only move in a linear fashion and can only remain underground for one post before they lose the ability to tunnel and must resurface or reactivate.
Weaknesses: The user must have some way of sensing the target above or know where their target is before submerging.

Wood groaned, crackled and burst, cleaving like broken bones under Kitsuki's strength. Immediately across his forearms and biceps, he felt freedom. Hands linked knuckles together, index fingers steepled with thumbs bent--

Fast like a viper, he caught the movement, fast and low, tunneling through the earth. Hands burst from the ground, slender and pale to grasp him about the ankles. The enemy, Naitome, snared him with Earth Release and pulled hard. In the moment he thought of stomping down hard, crushing fingers and face underfoot, before Naitome's grip pulled him under. Cold, densely packed, rocky earthly swallowed him up to his neck, pressing against him on all sides tightly, his hands and arms before him, held together. Moved from prison to prison, the white haired man couldn't help but crack a smile as he saw the panic unfolding through the air.

Oh right.... He mused, craning his head. A rain of metal, red hot poured from the clouds. The very air was filled with the rush and hiss of falling masses of machinery. He'd almost forgotten in the madness of this moment, and and he felt himself chuckling at the audacity of it all. Ninjas fighting in the sky! If he looked hard enough, between the burning wreckage and birds, he could scarcely make out the sight of flailing bodies trailing from the dying airship.

Irui spat blood to the side, and could only watch through shaggy, sooted hair as the Forest Child and pale girl produced their best defenses.

_________
Fast Hands UA: -5CP, -1 Tier to Speed, +1 Tier to Coordination (B > A-Rank)
Dark Release Inhaling Maw prepped.

After seeing the gigantic wooden monstrosity summoned by the Otsusuki woman completely trump his efforts at stopping the falling airship, once again rendering his participation in this event utterly insignificant for anyone other than himself (not to mention question the potential relationship his bloodline had with hers, which itself spawned an existential crisis he immediately had to shelve for later); Ashitaka was officially done with this entire ordeal. Heaving a huge sigh, partially of despair and partially of relief, he covered his ears and try to school away the scowl on his face as the smoldering, smoking, and steaming hulk of wrecked steel and other things that once comprised a wonder of human invention settled into place with all of the dignity and grace of a steam locomotive engine doing jumping jacks. It was nearly as bad as the other young woman catching one of the damned things with her bare hands. Even when he'd nearly had his soul erased in a single joint strike by the burned man some distance away and the Otsusuki that he desperately wished for the power to exact his vengeance upon, he didn't feel as pitiful and extraneous as he did now.

Looking around at the damage that had been caused by the battle above them, which seemed to be mercifully drawing to a close, the boy realized that he had more work to do. Work that was uniquely possible by himself alone, unless that pale woman had other Wood Release powers that he didn't know about and could simply and easily outperform him in that field, too. But that work was going to have to wait until later. He hadn't come to this place expecting a fight, let alone one against a foe as powerful as the Burned Man (whose name apparently even the dark-skinned girl didn't know) had become, and consequently had burned through most of his chakra in his panicked desperation. Now, if he meant to assist in the Reconstruction, he was going to have to rest and recover so that he might once again become something resembling useful to anybody.

"All right then. Well done." he said tiredly to Arisu as he sat down. As her corpse puppet had managed to surmise earlier, he was starting to reach into the lower end of his chakra reserves. And that, coupled with the grief he experienced today, had really taken a lot out of him. "I'm sorry... but I'm reaching the end of my usefulness here. I doubt you'll have as much trouble containing the madman as I did, so I'm going to leave him in your vastly more capable hands. I just... want to find someplace I can be alone and lay down for a little bit. Thanks for everything. You seem like a nice lady."

Ashitaka bowed to Arisu and walked away, heading for the abandoned buildings on the other side of the town from the Commonwealth's new park.


[Exit]

Slowly the roaring din quieted. The rumble of an imploding airship slowly died, boiling down into a gritty cloud of dust. After the stampede of bodies, the block had grown still and quiet. Flexing his fingers, Irui worked the soil, forcing his hand open into the small pocket. He felt his diamond-mark vibrating.

Dark release.... He willed, Inhaling Maw!

The ground flexed and twisted around him, while currents of cold flowed through the mark and into his arm. With a keening sound, the earth reversed course under his command, and within moments, Irui rose from the pit, and stepped out onto solid ground. With a flick of the wrist, he dusted himself off and picked his way through the detritus over to the burgundy cloak and slipped his arms through the sleeves.

No longer could he sense the others, especially the boy with the Wood Release. All three of them had long since faded into the background. Irui strode carefully down the street, listening to the distant sounds of panic, small bangs, and plumes of smoking rose on the horizon. He wouldn't give them the pleasure of capturing him.

[exit]