Time: 11:05 AM
"Negative, Takahashi." Miho Hyuuga ordered tersely into the microphone at her neck. "I'm out of position to provide you overwatch. It's too dangerous; do NOT, repeat, NOT, pursue, over?"
"*** ...sei? *** ... *** catch..." The blonde Genin's distorted voice squealed and crackled in her ear. "*** ... to go... *** find... *** tra... *** ...it. *** ...ou he... *** nor... *** last... ***"
"Takahashi, negative! Stay where you are!" The woman in her early twenties practically shouted into the speaker, hoping that her voice would get through.
The speaker answered with nothing but static-filled silence.
"God DAMN it!" She swore, pounding the table in the Imperial Family Library where she now stood with Nakahito Haruno after the brown-haired Genin had finally convinced her that there was something critically important to the mission that he needed to show her...
And sure enough, the scroll that Kimiko had found was definitely that, since it offered an easier solution to the method they'd been employing for the better part of a week.
"Miho-sensei..?" Nakahito asked in surprise. The Jonin, like her younger cousin, Hinata, was normally the soul of a proper noblewoman. Hearing a curse - of any kind - escape her wine-colored lips was the LAST thing Haruno ever expected from the kunoichi.
Hyuuga growled as she thumbed at the radio. "I've lost contact with Takahashi and Kyouran. The radius of the city is substantially greater than these devices can reach. I've got a signal amplifier set up on the rooftop that I plug my transmitter pack into when I'm up there to stay in contact with them. I'm really not certain, but I think he said that he picked up HER scent."
The Fire jutsu specialist's eyes widened. "Really?!" He asked excitedly as hope for entering this season's Chuunin exams began to return to the realm of possibility. "Where?"
"That's the problem, I don't know! Assuming he tried telling me, that part of his message was completely garbled. First, I'll have to try and find them... I know where he was when I came down off the roof, but I don't have a CLUE as to where he's going!"
She looked pained, knowing how much the blonde young ninja meant to her oldest friend. 'Yaiba's going to try killing me if Takahashi gets himself hurt while I'm looking for him.' She resumed cursing out loud, using words and terms that Nakahito was not only shocked to hear her use, but the fact that she knew what they meant so she could use them CORRECTLY.
Nakahito put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Hey; Takahashi was consistently in the top 5 of our Taijutsu AND Ninjutsu training classes at the Academy; not to mention the Number Two in our Stalking and Target-Acquisition classes. He only lost out to Kiba Inuzaka because Kiba has a technique that makes his nose almost as sharp as his nin-hound, Akamaru. Takahashi could never get the same trick to work for him - probably because it's a type of self-augmenting Genjutsu."
Hyuuga looked at him in confusion. "What's that have to do with anything?"
"You don't know?" He asked, surprised. "Takahashi's a black hole where Genjutsu techniques are concerned. He can't use them, but he can't be controlled by them either... Hell, he can't even see the illusionary effects they can generate... Akkiko Roa, the top Genjutsu artist in our graduating class – although she and her team were sent back to the Academy for failing their Jonin's test – couldn't get so much as a 'come hither' out of him, let alone 'obey.' If Kurenai-sensei ever tried to put an illusion him the way she did Sho for the Yondaime's Gambit, I suspect she'd either have as tough time with him as she did with Sho or get nowhere at all."
"Really? For a tracker that could be both handy and a hindrance… Is that why he took second?"
Haruno nodded giving her a confident smile. "And to top it all off, Takahashi's normally as level-headed as Sho typically is. That guy knows better than to knowingly bite off more than he can chew. The two of them ought to be able to take care of themselves until you can find them."
Miho returned her student's smile. "Thanks, 'Hito; that helped." She said as she rolled the scroll on the table closed and tied it shut. "I'd better get back up on the roof and try to re-establish contact or at least get a bead on those two. I want you and Raiden to resume your duties for Princess Reiyuriko. If I find that he's run into any problems, I'll fetch the two of you and we'll go bail them out."
Nakahito Haruno bowed respectfully to his instructor. "Understood, Miho-sensei."
* * *
Time: 12:55 PM
"The Peach Dragon Flower Shoppe..." Takahashi murmured thoughtfully to himself and Kyouran as he read the sign over the door of the shop that the mystery woman had finally entered.
It had taken the duo the better part of an hour and a half to tail the pink-and-white haired woman this far. The woman had taken a path so circuitous with countless switchbacks and "three lefts to make a right" turns that neither the Genin nor the panther had a clue as to which grid section they were now in.
[Brother...] Kyouran growled in dismayed confusion and near terror. [I've lost scent!]
"The Princess's? Of course you did, she just walked into a building and closed the door."
[No!] The panther protested as he took a few horrified-sounding sniffs of the air. [ALL of the scents! It's like my nose is clogged with mud; I can't smell ANYTHING!] Kyouran's tail thrashed about as he started scratching the brick roof to try and quell his fear and rage. [What good is a panther, let alone the scion of Ryoushi the Forest Lord himself, without a working nose?! Why don't you just trim my whiskers, cut off my tail and call me a gerbil while you're at it and make my disgrace complete!?]
Takahashi sniffed the air. It was every bit as sweet as it had been a few moments before. "When did your nose stop working?"
[When I came to the corner over here, why?] The panther asked forlornly.
"Come over here and sniff the air again."
[Oh, what good will it...] The cat grumbled as he obeyed Takahashi's orders. As he did so, a rush of olfactory information returned to him. [Hey... HEY! My nose is working!]
The Genin nodded. "They must have a powerful scent neutralizer in the air to keep a search animal's keen nose from catching Reiyuriko-hime's scent coming from the area around the shop. It would probably work on a normal animal, but not an animal-nin like yourself. We're far enough back that we must be at the edge of its effects." He frowned as the question that had been puzzling him since he'd seen the disguised princess suddenly returned with the answer he'd been seeking.
[What is it, Pack Brother?]
"That's it!" Takahashi snapped his fingers as he looked at his partner. "If that's really Reiyuriko AND she's allowed to roam the city freely, that means she WASN'T kidnapped; she left Mizumiyo Palace willingly! That must have been what the Code 3 was about... Someone found something that could change this from a 'Locate and Rescue' to a 'Locate and Capture' mission!"
Kyouran growled. [Well, that does make sense. What do we do now?]
"Let's see if Hyuuga-sensei's back in place and get a status update." He pulled out his transmitter and flipped it on without putting it back in place. "Hyuuga-sensei?" He was answered by a squeal of white noise. "Damn... Still not working." He muttered, turning the device back off and putting it away again.
He turned in the direction of the hill bearing the Imperial Palace majestically atop it. While Miho Hyuuga's uniform of choice was primarily a deep purple and black, her coat had white sections that normally allowed him to spot her on the rooftop. He focused on the roof of the sixth story, but saw no signs of her. Thanks to the Palace's symmetrical exterior design and location in the near exact middle of the hill - not to mention the fact that the sun was almost directly overhead, so there were no shadows - he couldn't even tell from here which SIDE of Kawa City he was on.
Takahashi sighed, shaking his head. "It looks like an up close inspection is our only real option, Kyouran… There's no way to say for certain how often they might change safe houses and it's far too early for our random search pattern to have generated sufficient paranoia to leave them too scared to move. We'll just have to make ourselves as innocent-looking as possible so they don't get suspicious." He answered as he reached to the back of his head.
[What are you doing, Brother?]
The Genin unfastened the knot holding his Konoha Leaf forehead protector in place, revealing the full extent of the scar over his left eye that he'd borne for as long as he could recall. He folded up the headwear as much as he could and tucked it into his left side pocket along with his radio. "We're going to try passing ourselves off as a boy and his pet kitty out to fetch some flowers for his poor, sick mother."
[Kitty?] Kyouran mewed piteously, as he did whenever he wanted the girls of the village to pay attention to him. [Widdle ol' me?]
Takahashi snorted in amusement that was half real, half faked. "Play it up you big ham. I want anyone who sees you to think you're nothing more than a full-grown housecat."
He said as he removed his sash that hung from his right shoulder to left hip, folded it up, and tucked it into his right hand pocket. The young man then mussed up his carefully groomed hair to make himself look slightly overwhelmed by everything going on around him. With those simple changes he was no longer Takahashi, Genin of the Hidden Leaf Village, but was now Takahashi, Kawa City youth. "We'll back up a bit and come in from that main street over there." He said, pointing to the left and Kyouran mewed in agreement.
The duo took their time to backtrack to the street and re-enter the scent neutralized area around the Peach Dragon Flower Shoppe. The young man looked around, giving the appearance of someone clearly out of his element, but none of the people on the street stood out as being out of place.
If there was anyone acting as external lookout for the Princess's hideout, they were doing an impressive job of disguising themselves. There were four people within 50 meters of the flower shop that were more or less stationary and there wasn't enough in the way of a crowd for a lookout to blend in with if they were walking a patrol around the store.
One of the two was an older gentleman with steel gray hair selling assorted fruits native to the Land of Rivers, but he looked rather frail to be a guard. Number two was a bored-looking woman in a black kimono with a pink floral pattern that had been sitting on the stairs leading to the store, but was now idly looking through the bins of flowers in front of the florist shop. If she was a guard, she wasn't a very good one. Numbers three and four were a Mutt and Jeff pair that was almost as nondescript as he was in his light gray vest and navy pants.
They could be ninjas posing as civilians…
"We need to go very slowly, but not obviously so..." The Genin whispered to his partner.
As they came within 10 meters of the Peach Dragon, however, Kyouran suddenly bolted forward like a hunter on the verge of landing the killing blow to begin rubbing his head against the smooth, shapely legs of the woman in the kimono. The lady made a surprised-sounding "Eek!" at her unexpected visitor, who was purring loudly enough that Takahashi could hear his "motor" revving from where he was.
Takahashi felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach... 'That wasn't part of the plan, Kyouran!' He thought to himself as he began to mentally adapt to cover for his partner's aberrant behavior.
He ran over towards the panther and the woman. "Kyouran-chan! Stop bothering the nice lady!" He chided the feline predator, adding a waiver of embarrassment to the tone of his voice.
The cat mewed apologetically, but didn't stop. [I'm sorry, Brother, but she just smells so GOOD! I can't help it!]
The young man frowned to himself as he looked at the disobedient panther cub. 'But we're in the scent neutralized zone by now. How can he know that she smells good?' The Genin wondered as he shyly lifted his eyes to take a closer look at the woman as he did so.
She was definitely older than he was, but while her face was youthful-looking, her body was easily a match for Miho Hyuuga, so he couldn't guess how old she was. 'Damn... She's hotter than Ino and Reiyuriko COMBINED. It's almost a shame she's so much older than I am...'
Takahashi blushed slightly as he coughed and rubbed the back of his head, conveying a part of the embarrassment that he felt at being unable to keep Kyouran in line. "I'm really sorry that my kitty startled you, ma'am..."
Amaya Satou, who'd twisted her impressive hourglass shaped figure at her tight waist to look at the other undercover Genin in surprise when she'd heard him scold the cat who was starting to lick at her legs tenderly, smiled at him. "Oh, it's okay... I'm rather fond of cats normally; he just surprised me is all."
'Not to mention the fact that I didn't sense either his or your approach, kid...' Amaya Satou thought to herself, but freezing the warm smile on her face to not give her thoughts away. 'Well, I am generating a Grade 3 olfactory-blocking pheromone in addition to creating an illusionary screen to hide myself, so my mind has been wandering a bit. And a cat's mind IS easily missed, so once he startled me I could easily have missed his owner too...'
'Well, at least now I know my mood affecting pheromones, like that Grade 3 Friendship that I can't turn off, work in a no-scent zone.' The Distraction specialist contemplated glumly.
Amaya's privately held bone of contention with her power was the fact that, unlike her other Satou clan sisters, her Kekkei Genkai continuously emitted a pheromone that caused people - men and women - to take an immediate liking to her, regardless of what she did. Oddly, it even affected other Satou clanswomen, who were normally as immune to another Satou's pheromones as Suzuki was.
In the end, it meant she couldn't tell if the friends she had were genuine or they were compelled by her ability.
'Well, at least I can have some fun with him before I send him packing...' Amaya thought playfully as she knelt slightly to expose a bit more of her good-looking legs and rub the top of the enthralled cat's head. 'He's a bit young for my tastes, but that scar probably has an interesting story behind it...'
As she changed her posture, her kimono opened slightly at the neck line - exactly as the clothing was tailor-designed to do - to give Takahashi a glimpse of the upper half of her right C+ cup breast and a tasteful hint of cleavage as she took a measure of comfort from the cathartic act of petting Kyouran.
Takahashi squirmed slightly. Like any early teenage boy, he was always more than willing to accept an offered glimpse of a woman's body - especially one that was drop dead gorgeous like this one. In addition to the self-induced lustful tingle below his waist, the scarred Genin felt a twinge of guilt for taking advantage since she didn't seem to realize that she was giving him a show. "So, um... Do you happen to work here by any chance, ma'am?"
The kunoichi craned her neck upwards to look at the blonde young man, who was innocent enough that she could see a hint of a flush on his cheeks. She knew from her training and first-hand experience at vamping men that doing so would widen the robe's neckline further to expose more of the stripling's attention to her perfect - by her personal definition - breasts and cleavage. Add a few quick breaths at the right instant to make them dance within her bra and any real man's attention would be riveted into place.
"Mmmhmm!" Amaya agreed to his question as she took the rapid, shallow and inaudible breaths to cause her bust to perform a stationary belly dance that caused the undercover Konoha ninja's flush turn a few shades deeper. As usual, she'd nailed the timing for the breaths perfectly. "So... Do you see anything that catches your eye?" She asked with a playful lilt to her voice as she unleashed a dose of Grade 2 Desire.
Desire level two was usually enough to turn the head of someone who had no interest in her body. 'For someone like him, though, he should become putty in my perfectly manicured fingers.' Indeed, as soon as the microscopic particles were exposed to the open air, the boy's cat became even more docile; rolling onto his back in hopes of a belly rub.
Takahashi's suddenly dry throat bobbed as the tingle progressed a few stages at the kunoichi's impressive show. "Uhmm..." He fumbled for words as he turned away from Satou - missing the wide-eyed look of thunderstruck shock that flashed across the Sand Genin's face like a lightning bolt in a desert sandstorm - to look at the bins for flowers Amaya had been looking at when Kyouran jumped the gun. "I'm not really sure... I'm just trying to find something nice to give my mom in the Hospital."
The Earth jutsu specialist took a step closer to the bins. Takahashi was a frequent enough patron of the Flowers Yamanaka shop - mainly as an excuse to see Ino-chan - to realize that the Peach Dragon's products were of a quality on par with the flowers Ino's family painstakingly cultivated.
'If they're such a high grade establishment, anyone good enough to get a job here should be familiar with floral symbology to know the best choice.' Ino constantly talked about such things to the customers that the Genin had picked up enough to pass the kunoichi exams on the subject if he'd wanted. 'I initially thought she was a bad guard - if she is a guard - but if she's Hyuuga-sensei's age, that could be an act to create openings after they dismiss her as a threat...'
"Do you any suggestions?" He asked turned back to Amaya Satou.
While the kunoichi had recovered her composure after the initial surprise that he wasn't reacting to her Desire, his question caused her heart to freeze momentarily. She'd never bothered to study flowers; her pheromones typically got the point across in ways that left no openings for questions as to her feelings regarding the one she was targeting.
'What the hell is going ON here?' Satou demanded silently to herself. 'I know I'm putting out here - Kyo-something here is practically begging me to have my way with him, but not his owner. This guy should be on the cusp of drooling all over my boobs, not asking about my opinions on floral arrangements...'
Amaya pumped the Desire pheromones up a notch to level 3, keeping a tight rein on the range of effectiveness; the last thing she wanted was to turn the other men on the street into drooling fan boys clamoring for her attention. As she did so, Kyouran's feline face acquired a dreamy look of blissful contentment, providing further proof that she was indeed "putting out."
Because of their ability to control others, Satou women on the whole were oversexed to the point that they were all extremely fond of using sexual innuendo whenever they could. In this case, "putting out" didn't mean performing sexual acts - although very few Satou ladies made it to their seventeenth birthdays without doing so - it was slang for using their pheromone Kekkei Genkai.
At 15, Satou wasn't shy about propositioning a man, in fact, she willing to go - and had gone on a few occasions - as far as third base with just about any really good-looking guy, but to let one make the slider into home would require them to meet every one of Amaya's exacting standards first.
The seduction kunoichi stood up, disregarding the feline entirely, but didn't bother to fix the level of exposure her bosom was enjoying. She had an illusionary screen around the front of the shop to keep anyone on the street from noticing her, after all, so the boy would be the only one enjoying the show. "Well, I'm a fan of anthurium and hibiscus myself... Do you think she'd like those?" She asked as she walked towards him with an authoritative strut that maximized the enticement of every wobble and shift her attractive body made.
This time, Takahashi felt his pants grow uncomfortably tight as Amaya's physical charms had their desired effects on him. He was unable to hide the fiery blush that warmed his entire face as he realized that the woman's 'accidental' display was, in fact, a carefully orchestrated attempt to seduce him.
'Damn... I've either found the lookout's guard and she uses her appearance to disarm intruders or this lady's a total pervert who likes her men on the young side.' The ninja thought, stone-faced. 'Either way, she's lying about working here... Any florist worthy of the title would know that anthurium flowers indicate lustful feelings towards the recipient - even Ino-chan blushes furiously when she sells one to a customer - and hibiscus means to "seize the opportunities before you." The combination, however, is an unmistakable signal that roughly translates to "I WANT you; come get yourself some." It's the LAST thing a son should say to his mother!'
A slight frown crossed his lips. 'There's definitely something fishy going on around here... If that woman he'd followed here really WAS Princess Reiyuriko, why would they put a scent blocker in the air - a smart move - but then put such an inept guard at the front door?'
'Sure, this place is completely innocent-looking, but if they see the Princess go in the front door, like I did, the game should have been over a LONG time ago... I'm missing something here… Something really important!'
With an effort to suppress his raging hormones, Takahashi turned back to look at the bins, causing Amaya's jaw to drop in absolute disbelief, as he made the decision that he would just have to press the issue and hope that it would turn out for the best…
The Genin gave the flowers a last inspection and finally shook his head. "No... None of these are mom's favorite. I guess I'll have to go inside and look at the full selection." He said as he turned to climb the stairs to the entrance to the shop.
'Nonononono! What the hell is going on?!' Amaya practically screamed to herself as she amplified the Desire pheromone from 3 to its maximum of 5.
With the Satou clan pheromones - of any type - at Grade 4 and above, the disbursement of the pheromones shifted from a general aura emanating from the kunoichi's entire body to a spray-type effect that was still invisible to the naked eye, but could be directed by exhaling in the right direction for speed and then using chakra to control who in that direction it affected. Level 5 pheromones raised the parts per million of the molecules to air ratio to the point that the normally odorless biological compound COULD be smelled; although they defied description.
Grade 5 Desire carried the nickname of "You want me NOW!" It was typically used to compel an unwilling partner - like a monk with a vow of celibacy or a married man that was absolutely faithful - into a raging knot of hormones, lust, and mentally overwhelming NEED for sex that they were only all too willing to allow an intoxicating beauty, like a Satou clanswoman, to sate the desire she had forced upon the partner.
Amaya took a deep breath and exhaled as forcefully as she could at the disguised Leaf ninja. 'I might have to forego my plans for my first time for the sake of the mission… I'm not happy about that thought, but I have to keep the Client safe!'
While Takahashi's nose was not as sensitive as Kiba Inuzaka's, he did catch a whiff of something in the air – surprising him yet again that his nose was working when Kyouran's wasn't – and, while it didn't affect him the way it did in Satou's experience, it was enough that he realized that the something he missed was afoot and he stopped dead in his tracks with his hand on the doorknob.
'That got him; Thank God...' Amaya thought to herself. 'He must simply be tall for his age and hasn't entered puberty yet... It's the only reason I can think of that Desire of a lower level wouldn't work on him. I never expected that I'd ever have to break out a 5 for a stripling like him, but given that he hasn't tried forcing himself on me yet, I shouldn't have to offer to go much further than first base to give him something to get his mind off the flowers.'
She looked at the reflection of her little fish in the mirrored glass of the shop. 'Annoying as this kid is, he's definitely going to be a catch someday… That scar of his will give him a dashingly rugged appearance. If he were a bit older, I might have even been willing to consider second or third base and rock his...' She looked him up and down like one would judge a cut of meat at the market. '1.65 meter world.'
The Genjutsu specialist threw an illusion of an artificial memory at the young man. In the memory, the boy entered the store, looked around for a few minutes, but didn't see anything that interested him, so decided to give up.
As she waited for that to take hold, she made the illusionary barrier around the shop's front shift so that it appeared that there was no one in front of it and that the store had closed early for the day. A subsequent thought sent the fruit vendor and anyone else currently on the street to vacate the area. Lastly, Satou also erected an audio barrier illusion to neutralize any sounds from her and the boy's impending gratification from carrying beyond the zone.
'I'll convince him to take me home, give him something really GOOD to remember, use my soporific lipstick to knock him out and make him think that we met somewhere far away from here.' She decided as she pulled her kimono top completely open to reveal both of her breasts - in all their perfect glory - resting comfortably in the hot-pink demi bra she wore. Amaya then climbed the stairs and grabbed Takahashi by his shoulder, spinning him one hundred eighty degrees with the ease she expected from someone caught in her seductive snare.
It took every fiber in the blonde Genin's body to not go wide-eyed when he saw the adjustments Satou had made to her wardrobe. And it took even more when the kunoichi leaned forward to use her firm, yet pliant, rack to pin Takahashi to the wooden door of the Peach Dragon and then playfully reach behind him to grab a hank of his loose ponytail and use it to seductively 'paint' her seemingly larger than life breasts.
"It's such a shame you couldn't find anything you wanted for your dear, sick Kaasan, boya... Perhaps there's something in my PERSONAL line of offerings that you mind find a bit more APPEALING?" Amaya Satou asked in her most winsome voice, picking up where the false memories she gave him would have left off.
"Guh... Guh..." Takahashi stuttered as the quickening of his groin made his pants tighter than he ever imagined they could get. It pressed against the woman with embarrassing urgency that made the Genin flush in embarrassment.
"Oh, my... Someone's excited..." Amaya giggled, genuinely amused at his reaction. Her laughter filled his ears and, thanks to the direct contact of her breasts against his own chest, echoed in his lungs. "Take your time, boya..." She said, giving him a lustful wink. "No one's going to interrupt us."
'I don't get it...' The Leaf Genin thought to himself in the back of his mind, pushing as much of his awareness of the physical intimacy she was offering out of the way as he was capable of. He WAS a guy, after all, and what was happening was what teenage boys' hormonally-charged dreams were made of... 'She's acting like I've done something that I haven't, but believes that I THINK I have... And the "no one will get in our way" bit...'
He felt a flash of inspiration as the pieces suddenly fell into place. 'Oh God damn it! Genjutsu! That's what I was missing! I saw her from a distance when anyone who CAN have their senses tampered with by those techniques would have probably seen an empty front entrance. That's why I thought she was such a lousy guard! Because I've got that odd immunity to Genjutsu effects that no one in the Village could ever explain to me, I could see the reality that no one else should have.'
He blinked as the epiphany continued further. 'The scent neutralizer must be Genjutsu based rather than organic - that's why Kyouran's nose stopped working, but mine didn't! My senses can't be fooled with like others can be...'
Takahashi looked deep into the woman's frosty blue eyes. 'I should have realized it sooner, but since I can't USE Genjutsu myself I always tend to forget that it even exists! From the way she's behaving, she must be a Genjutsu specialist. That explains the feebleness of the defenses here… A woman like this, one so good-looking her mere presence can muddle men's minds, backed with a mastery of the arts of Illusion magic would... No, HAS allowed her to stop an entire company of the Imperial Guard dead in their tracks where the search for Reiyuriko is concerned. I just happened to be that one-in-a-million chance that no amount of planning would have been able to account for when preparing this defensive line. She must never have expected Genjutsu immunity to be possible…'
Amaya Satou leaned closer to kiss Takahashi just slightly off-center so her lips and his didn't connect completely. The sensual sensation snapped the blonde Genin's focus back to the matters at hand. "I see that you've been rendered speechless at the sight of the perfection before you, boya..."
One of her hands reached down to cup his excited manhood and she smiled widely at him. The kid had a decent package on him! 'Perhaps this won't be so bad, after all...'
"But just so you know, seeing is only the beginning; it gets FAR more enjoyable as we go on. We just need to find somewhere a bit more private... Your place maybe..?"
The young man was torn by his responsibility to the mission, trying to keep her from realizing the jig was up, the possibility of being able to EXPERIENCE the emphatically REAL woman before him, and embarrassed rage that she was freely willing and able to violate his personal space and body so blithely.
'Do I let her lead me away and have her way with me to protect the possibility that they'll stay here with the Princess long enough for me to get backup? Or do I try to complete the hunt here and now with no idea as to what the next line of defenses would be?' The torn blonde ninja thought. 'From the way she's acting, I have a feeling she's got some kind of Genjutsu-based power that would prevent someone who can be affected by it from demurring from her offer; trying to reject her advances - even unsuccessfully - would give her some warning that I'm not the common resident I've clearly given her the impression that I am...'
As he thought about it, he realized that letting her maintain the upper hand could become problematic... She would either do EXACTLY what she was offering to do - something that Takahashi was biologically inclined to accept, but was morally opposed to do with someone other than Ino-chan. At the same time, there remained the possibility she could just try to leave him dead in a ditch somewhere after he exhausted his strength by accepting the offer.
He'd simply have to risk what might be behind the door to his back: be it just the Princess or another dragon to keep others from taking her home...
"Actually..." Takahashi whispered huskily, faking the excitement that she was clearly expecting in response to her lurid actions. "While I am most definitely enticed by just the view..." He continued, bringing his own hands up and sliding them between his chest and hers. He took a moment to enjoy the self-gratifying excitement he felt in his loins as her soft, plump breasts filled his hands with an evocative feeling that he'd only experienced in his male fantasies.
Amaya Satou gave a coo of pleasure as she felt his strong hands on her body. She smiled at him, licking her lips as she decided that she'd give him a very THOROUGH tour of third base; maybe even take him halfway down the final stretch. "My, my, boya... You have such a masterful grip. I rather like a man who KNOWS what he wants and isn't afraid to simply take it..."
The kunoichi's lusty smile suddenly faltered as Takahashi's eyes suddenly turned into flinty shards of brown ice while he shoved her away with all of his might, hurling her backwards off the stairs. Satou's sexily firm ass and tailbone struck the marble street with bruising force. A gasping cry of pain escaped Amaya upon impact and she was briefly dazed by the fish's unexpected act of not only snapping the line, but attacking the fishing boat!
"And I find such vulgar attempts by an auntie like you to seduce a thirteen year old boy to be utterly contemptuous, kunoichi!" Takahashi declared as coldly as his stare as Amaya continued to cry in pain, grabbing the small of her back and rolling right and left in the hopes of ceasing the unexpected agony shooting through her body.
He leapt down, pinning her to the ground as he drew a kunai from a hidden pouch. "Which Village are you? Grass? Rain?" Takahashi demanded, taking advantage in the shifting of power, his knife pointing at her still-exposed bosom.
Satou, as she continued to grip her lower back, wasn't sure which part of this abrupt turn of events horrified her more: the absolute failure of her techniques to ensnare a mere child...
'No! Ninja!' She suddenly realized, increasing her mortification, as she saw the cold steel glint of the knife tip just above her sternum. 'He has to be a ninja!'
So which WAS worse: the inability to ensnare a younger ninja with her training, the fact that her perfect body failed to entice him enough on a biological level - the handful she'd had moments before told her that he HAD been at least interested - to allow him to reject an offer any man in her home village would have sacrificed EVERYTHING just to be in contention for, the throbbing agony coursing through her butt and up her spine, or, worst of all for her pride, the bastard's words.
Her eyes blazed like burning icebergs as the pain ebbed enough for her to try and recover her aplomb as she decided his words were the most devastating to her massive ego. "AUNTIE?!" Amaya screeched at him, banshee-like, as she pulled her kimono top closed, refusing to give him any more of a show after such a grave insult. "AUNTIE!? I'm only fifteen, you stupid, ignorant son of a bitch!"
Takahashi blinked in surprise; he'd been more than ten years off on his guess as to her age. "Fifteen? Huh… I figured you for at LEAST thirty." Satou's eyes widened as her mouth fell open in disbelief at his words. Finally the Leaf Genin shrugged. "Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter… Which Village are you from?"
The offhanded way that he dismissed his own insult as irrelevant completely unglued the kunoichi. "Thuh..." The woman choked on the word. "Th-THIRTY?!!" Satou howled, her voice jumping two full octaves in rage as the other Genin's words seared themselves in her mind, insulting her far beyond the point that she was willing to accept. "You... BASTARD!"
The kunoichi shifted internal gears, switching her pheromone ammunition from Desire 5 to Terror 5. As she exhaled the concentrated fear extract in his direction, she also hurled an illusion of him suddenly aging a thousand years in a protracted, agonizing instant.
'People who are subjected to Terror 4 react with a measure equal to the fear people in my village experience when they catch a glimpse of that psycho Gaara's real form... Terror 5 will give his unborn children screaming nightmares every night they live...' She smiled at him with a grim smugness as she shifted her legs in preparation to stand back up. 'Not that I'm going to let this little shit live that long… I don't know how you managed to beat Desire 5, boya, but NO ONE is immune to the fear that that illusion AND Terror 5 will instill in you. He ought to be incapacitated long enough for me to tie him up and put him somewhere out of the way until Kari-sensei can come back from her recon.' She began to adjust her hands in preparation to push the incapacitated insolent whelp off of her.
Before she could stand up though, Takahashi's nose crinkled as he caught the odor from the pheromones. He leaned in, pressing his kunai dangerously close to her skin as he put his body weight on one of her breasts; squishing it uncomfortably between his knee and her ribs. A squeak of surprised horror escaped Satou; even the most skilled counter-illusionist should have at least PAUSED from that assault.
"Sulfur..? No…" He asked the flabbergasted kunoichi as he tried to figure out what it was he smelled. "Hey, did you just try using some kind of Genjutsu effect?" The scarred young man smiled toothily at her. "You're going to need something stronger than that to stop me, you horny bitch... Now, I'll ask you again: Which village are you from and why are you hiding Princess Reiyuriko wa Mizuzaki here?"
It was impossible for Amaya Satou to be any more dumbfounded or for her eyes to widen any further...
Yet, somehow, she managed to do both.
'THIS CANNOT REALLY BE HAPPENING!' The kunoichi screamed internally in abject horror. 'This has GOT to be some kind of fucking NIGHTMARE... How could my Kekkei Genkai fail so miserably?! How can he POSSIBLY know that the crown princess is HERE?! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!' She looked up at the smug bastard, cursing mentally. 'Damn it to hell! If I'd had my soporific lipstick on when I'd kissed him before, he'd be out cold by now!'
Amaya looked over her foe's shoulder. "Kane! Emergency, Echo-One-Foxtrot!" She shouted, pissed to hell and back that she had to call on her cousin's assistance. 'Maybe it takes a sociopathic bastard to beat a smug one...'
Before the Leaf Genin could react, the wooden door behind Takahashi was kicked open by Kane Suzuki with all the physical and chakra-enhanced might that his muscular legs could put out; a metric ton of thrusting force focused through his size 11 foot.
The door burst off its hinges, striking the back of the Konoha Genin's head with concussive force and sent him flying over Amaya Satou's head. He came in for a landing face first four meters from where he'd been standing. As his face hit the marble road there was a resounding CRUNCH that echoed in Takahashi's ringing ears as the cartilage in his nose broke in several places. The Leaf Genin lost his grip on the kunai, which went flying into a nearby canal.
The noise was enough to wake Kyouran from his pheromone-induced nap and he looked around, dazed by his abrupt return to consciousness.
Kane Suzuki stepped out of the Peach Dragon Flower Shoppe and down to the street square that he'd just forcibly ejected the blonde Genin from. He sniffed the air, smelling the residue of Class 5 Satou Kekkei Genkai pheromones which had been kicked up by the windstorm of the breaking door.
The black-haired narcissistic Earth specialist whistled in amazement as he caught the scent of her maximum pheromone byproducts in the air. "Damn, 'Maya... Maxed out Desire AND Terror... And you STILL needed me? So much for the all-powerful lust magic of Amaya Satou!" He chortled; tickled pink that she was going to be hoist by her own petard over this.
"Fuck you, Suzuki!" She retorted as Kyouran struggled to stand up as he tried to figure out what was going on.
"If that's an offer, I'll respectfully decline. First cousins and all..." Suzuki bantered back, thrilled at seeing his stuck up cousin taken down so many notches to the point that her cool superiority had evaporated completely, idly wondering if he could take whoever caused it to happen back to Sunagakure with him to repeat the process on his entire extended clan.
"Did I get them? How many..?" He looked around, spotting the prone Takahashi behind Amaya. "ONE?!" He chortled. "You had to go through ALL this to deal with just ONE opponent? Sensei's going to make you do a WEEK of inverted calisthenics for this."
"Shut up, you pea-brained prick!" Amaya Satou shouted as she got to her feet. "This guy's like you, but more so... You're just immune to my Kekkei Genkai; he's immune to both it AND Genjutsu! It was like I was firing blanks..." She smiled insultingly at him. "Something you know a LOT about from the stories I hear from the other girls in the Village."
Suzuki's eyes narrowed in anger. "That's a low blow, even for you, cousin. Has anyone ever told you that you're even bitchier when you get called out on the carpet? Or is it merely that time of the month again?"
[Pack Brother!] Kyouran snarled, startling the bickering cousins before Amaya could retort, as he became clear-headed enough to suddenly realize the gravity of the situation as he ran to Takahashi's side and butted his head against the young man's scarred left cheek. [Are you okay?]
The blonde ninja from Konoha sat up, dusting himself off. "Dabm..." He grunted in a stuffy-sounding voice as blood ran copiously from his shattered nose. "Dhat fubkim hurdz..." Takahashi pushed himself unsteadily to his feet.
As he did so, his forehead protector and radio transmitter fell out of his pocket, hitting the ground with a clatter.
"Oh ho!" Kane Suzuki chortled as he saw the mark on the fallen headband. "A Leaf ninja, huh?" A grin crossed his face. "I haven't taken one of those for my collection yet!"
"Kollebsion?" The outnumbered and dazed Takahashi asked as he weighed his options; all of them bad.
'So it was a second dragon hiding behind the door... And a far fiercer one from the looks of it. Okay; what CAN I do? Running is out: my equilibrium is completely shot to hell… Can't call for help either: even if Hyuuga-sensei has moved into radio range, he'll be on top of me before I could hope to grab my transmitter off the ground; it looks like I'm going to have to fight my way out of this one...'
"Yeah, my collection." Suzuki beamed at him with a sadistically twisted smile. "See I save the forehead protectors of every ninja I've killed in one-on-one combat... Provided they gave me enough sport to make the fight worth remembering, at least. Given that you've managed to withstand some of the worst my sluttish cousin here could put out, I'd say that - even if I take you out with a single hit - your headband is going to have a special place in my collection." He licked his lips in anticipation as he punched one fist into the palm of the other with the crack of a thunderbolt.
"Kane, Kari-sensei hasn't authorized us to use lethal force!" Amaya shouted warningly at the bruiser. "Beat him senseless and make him suffer, but keep him ALIVE. You can go trophy hunting later. I'll keep the civvies at bay, but try not to rearrange the entire landscape the way you did last time."
Kane Suzuki gave the kunoichi an annoyed-sounding snort. "Yes, mother..." The fighter said sarcastically as the flipped through a rapid fire series of hand signs while he descended the stairs to street level. He grinned when she broke into stuttering rage at the second age-related insult in so many minutes. "Earth Style: Stone Fists jutsu." The heavily muscled teen's hands grew by an order of magnitude as a centimeter-thick layer of granite armor enveloped them and his arms all the way up to his shoulders.
The new arrival assumed a fighting stance far removed from any style that Takahashi was familiar with, suggesting a rare skill for combat. Suzuki curled one index finger in a contemptuous "come on" gesture. "Let's party, Leaf boy!"
The bleeding Genin flipped a few signs of his own. "Erbd Styble: Rock Staff jubsu." Takahashi intoned as he stomped one foot on the ground. As he did so, two of the marble brick paving stones popped up from their resting places as a thin but extremely dense stalagmite about two centimeters in diameter burst from the ground at the ninja's command.
'I really would have preferred my Sansetsukon rather than a fixed shape staff like this, but, even IF I had been permitted to carry my weapon openly in Kawa City, I would have had to abandon it when I tried feeling out the defenses...' He glanced at the irate kunoichi. 'Didn't realize I was going to do so LITERALLY with that woman, though...'
Takahashi took hold of his temporary weapon and, as he pulled it free of the ground, he let off a guttural roar of what would sound like a Kiai yell, but was actually the Genin's poor ability to speak Feline. [Kyouran. Dangerous foes. Escape when safe to. Get help.] He ordered his partner as he raised his staff and charged unsteadily to attack his goading foe.
"So, you're an Earth type, too!" Kane bantered as the two of them began a fast-paced exchange of blows, parries, strikes and blocks with each other in an effort to feel out each other's levels of skill and find openings to take advantage of and get the upper hand.
Suzuki grinned excitedly after a few moments. "You're pretty good, Leaf, I'll give you that much… It's a shame that you're already wounded and we can't really cut loose..!" He grunted as he landed a chop with such ferocious force that Takahashi was only able to deflect a fraction of it with his staff.
The stone staff the Leaf ninja had used his ninja arts to create had its top quarter sheared off like a blade of grass before a scythe. Suzuki's chop continued its unimpeded descent, ending with a resounding CRACK as Takahashi's left arm was forcibly dislocated from its shoulder joint. The Genin fell back as his arm fell uselessly to his side with a distorted howl of agony. Kane Suzuki laughed in sadistic amusement of Takahashi's pain. "If you hadn't been injured, you might have actually had a chance against me!"
Breathing heavily due to his nose being choked shut by drying blood with a single functioning arm, nearly incapacitated by the pain from injuries he'd already sustained, the scarred, bloody and increasingly frustrated Konoha ninja took a deep breath as he summoned his willpower to push his mind past his handicaps.
'If this keeps up, I might lose rational control over myself and go berserk... And with Ino-chan more than a thousand kilometers from here, I have to be very careful...'
Takahashi gripped what was left of his staff in the arm he could still use and, with a quick sidestep that his bragging opponent wasn't expecting, he spun in place with a sweeping strike that caught Kane Suzuki at the level of his kneecaps. There were several major nerve junctions that were located behind the knees, so the blonde ninja's strike had paralyzing force as a compression wave shot both up and down the black-haired ninja's legs.
The bruiser from Sunagakure was pitched forwards as waves of pain overloaded his motor control over his lower legs. He landed on the marble ground heavily and there was a sickening POP as his kneecaps struck the stone. Now it was Kane's turn to howl in agony as his knees were either shattered or severely cracked by the abrupt landing.
Takahashi leaned heavily on his staff as he tried to keep from throwing up while Amaya Satou, in an unusual display of concern for her cousin ran over to check on him.
'Spinning like that, with my inner ear already compromised by the blow I took to the back of my head when this guy - the kunoichi called him Kane, didn't she? - when Kane made his grand entrance, was probably not the smartest thing I could have chosen to do...' He grimaced to himself as his opponent shoved his cousin to one side and looked at Takahashi with a burning hate in his eyes.
"I dob'd know..." The Leaf ninja looked at his foe with a clinical detachment that Suzuki had clearly lost. "I mabbe hurd, bud I seeb du be kibing your habby abb preddy good adyway." Takahashi said, throwing the bigger man's attempt to intimidate him back in his face. "You can gibb up ady time you wand."
He used his staff to point at Amaya Satou, who was picking herself up. "And dibn'd your Fader teach you to treat woben bedder dan dat? Zure, she's a hyber-sexed Hendai who uzes her body, pride, and morals condempduously, bud she was worried about you."
Kane turned his head slightly, spitting on the ground in contempt. "Pfah! Worried about me?! You don't know this cold-hearted bitch like I do… All the women in our clan have loose morals and are just as manipulative as she is. She's more worried about what will happen to HER if I lose. She's a genius when it comes to Genjutsu and utilizing her Kekkei Genkai to fiddle with the minds, feelings, and bodies of others, but she's absolutely fucking useless otherwise."
He thumbed his impressive chest. "Y'see, I can't be affected by her pheromones thanks to the same genetic lottery that made me a second-class citizen in my own fucking family, a gift that you apparently share. Add to that your apparent immunity to Genjutsu means that she can't make you her puppet. Her petty little mind can't cope with the concept of someone she can't manipulate."
Stone wrapped around his knees like braces as he pushed himself back to his feet. "And as for my father, he's little more than a meat popsicle for my mother's pleasure; all I learned from him was to never trust a woman further than I can throw her."
Takahashi felt a chill run up his spine and into his skull at the other ninja's words, biting his tongue unconsciously. 'This ungrateful prick... I would give anything to even KNOW who my parents were or any family I had, let alone still have them around. He's got his and he despises them...'
The scarred Genin from Konoha clenched his teeth hard enough to draw blood as the early stages of his berserker rage began to take hold. Takahashi's eyes began to have the red pigmentation that made them brown leeched out, shifting his irises from brown to a deep jade green and the white sclera started to yellow. That physiological change would take the better part of three minutes to complete, but once it did, the ninja from Konoha would no longer be in control of himself.
The blonde young man charged forward as his rage began to build. He raised his staff in a mirror image of Motoko Hata using her ninjato for an overhead strike. If the blow landed, Kane's skull would pop open like a bubble hitting a needle, but such was his state that Takahashi didn't care that he was about to murder his opponent. The staff began to whistle as it began its lethal descent. "Shinai!!!" Takahashi howled, a glob of bloody saliva flying from his lips as he anticipated the landing of the deathblow.
At the last instant, Kane Suzuki suddenly went prone, dropping to his belly, and reached out; his granite covered hands grasping both of the Leaf ninja's ankles. The Sand Genin clenched his fists with bone-crushing force before returning Takahashi's earlier favor by pulling the blonde young man's legs out from under him.
Takahashi's skull struck the marble street for the second time in so many minutes… This time, it was the back of his head; exacerbating the initial hit he'd suffered and sending the nearly berserk young man into the black depths of unconsciousness.
[Pack Brother!] Kyouran snarled, revealing his yellowish fangs and destroying the illusion that he was a mere housecat once and for all. He dashed forward towards his fallen partner like a fuzzy black bolt of lightning.
Amaya Satou, who'd approached the unconscious Takahashi to rub in her victory by kicking him right where it hurts, turned to face Kyouran in surprise. Before the kunoichi could attempt to use any of her tricks to subdue the raging panther, the child of Ryoushi the Great made a prodigious high-speed leap that carried him over her shoulder.
As he flew past, Kyouran lashed out with his razor-sharp claws, raking them across the left side of the kunoichi's face and ripping a quadruple bloody furrow on Amaya's graceful cheek from her chin to her ear - missing the woman's eye by mere millimeters. The wounds weren't deep enough to hit her delicate facial nerves and they'd hurt like hell for several days, but with competent medical attention - even by a non-ninja medic - they'd heal with minimal scarring that would likely be invisible unless she tried to get a tan.
Amaya's hand shot to her stinging cheek as Kyouran landed on the back of the prone ninja on ground behind her. The panther's rear claws bit into Suzuki's back, eliciting a minor grunt from him and an attempt to grab the feline as the cub unintentionally grabbed a blood sample that coated each of his eight toes. Kyouran easily dodged the Sand ninja and hopped off Suzuki.
Satou looked at her hand in shock at the crimson stain that appeared on it and began to drip down her jawbone, off her chin, to land with a warm, inaudible SPLAT on her left breast before continuing its trip into her cleavage.
"AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" She shrieked in horror. "BLOOD?! My FACE! That bastard's furball scratched by beautiful face!" The vain kunoichi spun and kicked at Kyouran. The panther dodged her kick with ease and rewarded her with a matching set of scratches on her supporting leg, eliciting another scream from the young woman as she fell backwards onto Kane Suzuki's chest.
The fighter hadn't yet been able to push himself up into a kneeling position, but had managed to roll over. While Amaya wasn't all that heavy, landing on his chest caused him to lose his breath with a loud OOOF! "'Maya, get the hell off me! I'm going to have a hard enough time getting back up without your useless ass in my way!"
Amaya, madder than a hornet suddenly released from a shaken jar, responded with a chop to Kane's groin for his impertinence… Suzuki's pupils shrank to pinpoints as he suffered an agony that only a man can experience, defensively curling into a fetal position and dumping Satou onto the street. "Oh, you bitch..." He moaned in falsetto.
While the cousins effectively disabled each other, Kyouran ran to Takahashi's head. The Genin's face and chest were covered with blood from his broken nose, but, with his sense of smell still disabled by Amaya's pheromone scent blocker, the panther was unable to determine how serious his friend's wounds were. Recalling Takahashi's order to run for help as soon as it was safe, Kyouran had a flash of inspiration. The blonde Genin wore a pendant necklace bearing a silver wire bent in the shape of the Konoha Leaf mark on a thin black cord that he typically used to amuse Kyouran during slow times.
Kyouran nuzzled up against Takahashi's neck and slipped one of his dagger-like fangs under the cord before closing his jaw. His teeth were designed to rend the tough sinews of a prey animal with ease; the thin cord, made of mere plant fibers, severed instantly.
Keeping his jaw closed so as to not lose his prize, Kyouran whimpered to his unconscious friend. [I'll be back with help as soon as I can, Brother.] The black feline turned and darted away in the general direction of Mizumiyo Palace, dragging the necklace like a second tail behind him.
As soon as he passed out of the effective range of the scent neutralizing compound Amaya Satou had generated, the odor of the blood from the kunoichi on his fore claws and Takahashi's on the necklace filled Kyouran's sensitive nostrils, egging him onwards in search of the help his friend would be in desperate need of.
* * *
To be continued