endgames | 020 -- [Various Filters || Action]

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020 -- [Various Filters || Action]

[ooc: dated to... idk. When the moon is not noticeably freaky. ALSO. The cut below is there because there are over 30 filters beneath it that take up a ridiculous amount of space, wow. I think I got all of the characters who were dropped, but just PM me if I didn't. After the event is done, there will be an ooc post regarding this, but I needed to get this part out of the way while my character would think to do so.

A note on the filters below - italic text represents breaks in the filter.]

[Early in the morning, long before the sun has risen and while most people are likely to be asleep, several filters start going up one-by-one. The journal window is covered with cloth; the handwriting not recognizable. Almost immediately after each one has been made, they're either deconstructed or disappear behind a private filter, viewable only to himself. He has no interest in talking to any of these people - he's just checking for breaks in the filters, which are visible for a minute until they're quickly taken care of.]

[Private to Shikamaru || Fake Cut to spare your f-lists and eyes]

[Two hours after this ends, a certain entry disappears behind a private filter as well. Then Shikamaru rolls over and goes back to bed. Damn, that was troublesome. He'll deal with the rest later. With the stuff that new Malnosso guy was talking about, he had a lot of other things to think about....

The next afternoon, he writes a couple of quick messages before heading out of the apartment.]

[Filtered to Raine Sage || 100% Unhackable]

What we talked about - it's done. Figured you'd want a heads-up.

[Filtered to Konoha Shinobi, Gaara, and Temari || 100% Unhackable]

Looks like we don't have to worry about Sasuke. At least for now.

[Filtered to Tony Stark || 100% Unhackable]

I have something to give you. Where you want me to drop it off?

[After he's taken care of that business, Shikamaru decides to take the rest of the afternoon to train. Not his shadow jutsus, however. Those close enough to the southern edge of the village at the time may hear something a few times throughout the evening. Maybe like thunder, but definitely a-

BOOM.

...but don't worry, everything is under control. And for once, he isn't even joking. It's taken months for him to get this jutsu down - a lungful of ash just is not pleasant - but he's finally managed it.

If for some reason you're close to the Southern Lake at this time, or choose to investigate, you're bound to find one (1) Shikamaru Nara taking a break by the water and unable to wipe the smirk off of his face. The air still might smell faintly of ash, but he cleans up well. And nothing has been destroyed but the targets he brought out here himself.

It makes up for all the weirdness going on. Just a little.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Why is she even doing this?

But her body is functioning beyond her mind, and it's instinctive to whirl as it is instinctive to jump back.

Quickly, while he's in the air, she streams up water from the lake behind him to intercept the trench knives.

But it is not a small wave. Oh no. While she's at it she might as well try to hit him mid-air too.

And though she is tired, and has been practicing for two hours... it is a full moon. Her movements are sharp, precise, and strong.]

Edited 2011-10-29 06:04 (UTC)

[Ohh... this is gonna be bad. Can't think about his trench knives now, other than to promise to find them later. Moving, in mid-air no less, is much more pressing.

When he sees the shift in the lake, Shikamaru pulls a kunai out from his weapon's holster, attached to some ninja wire. He throws the kunai hard at the nearest tree, than tugs on the wire to abruptly change direction and swing towards the trunk.

Water will hit that too, though. Thinking fast, he makes a quick serious of hand seals - snake, rat, snake, tiger - and breathes in deep. When he exhales, it's to release a thick cloud of ash. It's not directed towards her, but the wave.]

[Well, since the wave will stop if she stops bending - and really, she just wants to hurry that wave along - Katara's only physical response to this is maintaining her movement and making a note of which tree anchors that ninja wire.

That won't stop her gaping at it, though.

Seriously? That's just - scary. And unnatural.

What the heck is she doing?

What the heck is HE doing?]

[Let's just say that this time you'll hear the boom, Katara.

Once the ash is properly dispersed, and that wave nice and close, Shikamaru's teeth click against the flint in his mouth, making a spark and setting off all of that ash in one large explosion.

...and now would be a good time to move, as soon as that explosion moves outwards. Three seconds and he'll make the jump.]

[Oh. My.

Katara starts coughing.

That was amazing. And horrifying. And now she can't see him and THAT can't be good.

But fortunately Katara doesn't have to see in order to do this next part. She's already marked the tree where he was going to land. She hates to do this to the land, but she immediately bends out all the water from the tree on which he was standing, causing it to explode, and a sizable amount of water to come into her control. She has it fan out, resisting the urge to immediately turn it to ice, instead making a wide radius of what is essentially rain in hopes of getting him drenched.]

[...well. It's a damn good thing he moved then, isn't it?

Shikamaru had suspected she could bend water from trees - she'd done so with snow and plants and grass before, so why not? It's one thing to rationalize it though, and another to witness it firsthand. Imagine what she could do to something else...

But focus. Soon as he hears the rain, he understands what she's doing. To keep that up, she needs to do certain movements. Her technique fails if she can't.

So the simple solution would be to interrupt them, as quickly as possible.]

[From his hiding spot several trees over, Shikamaru saw her long enough to mark her position. She's not likely to remain stationary, but he'll be able to risk the look after the first volley.

Four shuriken. Twelve kunai. He has plans for the latter, so for now it's just the shruiken. All four will come flying from the trees at once, thrown from different directions by his shadow - none from the exact point of his own hiding spot.

They're a distraction. Instinct is to locate where they came from, which is the moment he'll sneak his look to locate her.]

[...so he'd didn't get caught in the tree explosion, then. This is Katara's immediate conclusion as those shuriken head towards her from four different directions. Katara immediately lifts the water still lining her arms to form a watershield in front of her to block the shuriken as the ash blocked them until they were quite close.

Added bonus: the water will clear the air a bit, and she'll finally stop coughing. Ash and smoke are old enemies. She knows how to deal with them.]

[Once upon a different full moon, Katara had fought Shikamaru, fought the pull of the power going through their veins, and refused to use bloodbending to locate him.

Things are different now.

Not because she's come to any sort of peace with her own skills - she hasn't. But from what she knows about Shikamaru, he wouldn't find using them to locate him an intense violation, just troublesome. And while she's far from wanting to visit on him what she views as something nearly worse than death, there is a stubborn streak in her that is still a touch resentful about this whole thing, and about all the things he's made her question recently. So she doesn't question, doesn't halt the impulse to use her skills to find him. She wouldn't hesitate to use them to find someone in a real battle. And this is as close to real as it gets.

In an unfamiliar movement, Katara draws one hand up in front of her face to focus on that very particular push-pull of blood.]

[Unaware of exactly what it is that she's doing, he'll continue on with his plan. She's already stopped the rain, it looks like, so it's a question of what she's doing now, and stopping that.

He moves onto the kunai now, which will be more focused and come one at a time, again from a direction separate from his location. The plan was to throw a short series of regular kunai before throwing one with an explosive tag tied to it. He'd use the explosion to cover his return to the ground to capture her with his shadow.

But she'll have surely found him before it gets to that. Warm body about fifteen feet up in a tree at two o'clock.]

[Katara's eyes snap to his. Gotcha

And she does. She has him in her hand. All she'd need to do now is bring her fingers down and out, and his blood is hers to control.

She lets it go.

Instead, Katara blocks the incoming kunai with one hand in another water shield, at the same time extending a leg behind her and crouching back, pulling the water in the tree he's sitting in with the movement. This time, instead of destroying the entire tree, she just pulls the water from the branches above and beside him, focusing it hard on going down his back, between his vest and his shirt.]

[Water on his neck.

It's his flak jacket that saves him, it's padded high collar reaching up nearly to the back of his head. It's not something with a collar you can just ease back to get to the clothes - and more typically the flesh - in between it.

The skin on the back of the neck is sensitive. He hears the crack of the branches, and the second he feels that wetness at the base of his spine, he's using Shunshin to move away fast, and in short bursts. He doesn't bother staying out of her sight now - she already saw him, and he's not going to hold still long enough for her to be able to do anything (so he thinks).

His pattern zags, and he throws a kunai every time he stops. One, two, three.

The fourth one, if he gets that far, will have an exploding tag.]

[Katara can't run at superspeed. But she can trace the pattern of his kunai. And so she runs, not away from it, but alongside the lake towards him, dodging the kunai as she goes. And as she runs, she gathers water from the lake. At least, until he throws that forth kunai.

She's familiar with those tags by now - and has no way of knowing how strong the explosion will be. Katara is not in the mood to run away.

With the whole of the wave she's been gathering, she stops and funnels it towards the kunai in a twisting motion creating, in effect, a small and highly mobile whirlpool. It should catch the kunai in its track - midair - and the spin should divert the kunai and cause it go wide as it drops down. But the whirling funnel doesn't stop there. It follows the kunai's trajectory back to where Shikamaru should have been where he threw it.]

[Have another exploding tag then, thrown right for the heart of that funnel. It'll explode faster than his tags usually do, and during that time he moves again.]

[Naturally, that causes the funnel to explode. The water is still in her control, however, and instead of trying to keep it tight, Katara adapts, uses the explosion, and causes the water to fling out far and wide in whatever direction the explosion would take it.

The shallow cut on her arm is staring to throb, blood beginning to trickle down her arm. Katara ignores it, instead bringing her hand up to find him again. Locating him should take even less time, now. Now she knows exactly how his blood flows in his body. It's a frightening thrill, and the rush of power it gives her twists her stomach, sickening her.

For one heartbeat of a moment, she understands what had driven Hama to taking her revenge on villagers. It wasn't only anger, it wasn't only hatred, it was years of feeling helpless to stop the Fire Nation from hurting those she loved, from hurting herself, and suddenly coming into so much power.

No one should have this much power.

"The power exists!"

And all those answers on her journal - it's how you use it... she pushes through to find him, even as some part of her whispers: Never again. I don't care. It's too much. Never again.

In that moment, Katara sees how she too, can fall.]

Edited 2011-10-29 20:26 (UTC)

[She's tracking him.

Shikamaru has worked with too many tracker-nins in the past to miss this - people like Kiba, and Shino, and the Hyuuga. She's shifting her stance, following his movements, which is something she shouldn't be able to do when he's using Shunshin. Not when she's not a trained ninja. It's like he's being sniffed out...

Like blood in the water.]

[Spying something glinting back the low sun, Shikamaru drops suddenly to the ground in front of Katara, raising a hand to toss something in the air. For half a second, she'll be able to see the sheets of paper, twenty or so, lazily caught on the breeze.

And then he's kneeling and his shadow is separating into pointed needles that stab at the explosives notes, rushing them all towards her position.

Possibly unnoticed in the attack is a lone tendril snaking back through the trees and far away from them, to his right.]

[The advantage of surprise is lost because Katara knows he's coming closer. When he suddenly appears her eyes still widen, but he's well out of range for any immediate attack coming from the water she has along her arms. Whipping up a mist around him would have about the same effect as before, but maybe there's enough in the air from previous attacks to--

And there are those papers in the air and-

Gotcha.

She jumps away from the incoming notes while at the same time he should be noticing a very, very cold sensation in a very, very sensitive place. His wings, to be precise. She's pulled the water on his back through his clothes, to his wings. It's a thin layer of ice, but enough for her to coat one wing all the way down to the base of his back.

This isn't what waterbending was meant for.

She shoves that feeling down as well, shouting:]

Don't move!

[The last thing she wants to do is seriously hurt him while she's holding the water in place on a wing. If he moves... not good.]

I won't.

[He can feel that ice along his wing, yes, and he goes rigid, but he doesn't blink. It's not a kill shot, not yet, not when he has so many cards in play.]

I don't need to.

[It's not a kill shot if it's just one wing. And. He still has his shadows.

The tendrils with the explosive tags will follow her - one probably swooped in as she was dodging and pierced the ground instead, resulted in a small explosion.

And the final tendril has found its target, curling around the finger holes of one of his trench knives. Her shadow is very close to where it's fallen and it's about to get a lot closer.]

[She didn't miss that final tendril - she knew that it was headed towards where the trench knives fell. And she may not know the special significance of the trench knives, but she'd be an idiot to not understand the additional dangers of an explosive tag - the expansion of shadows.

No need to hold the ice on his wing - it's ice, it'll stay there if he doesn't move or actively take it off. More importantly, it's time to finish what she started. As he kneels on the ground, the grass he is kneeling on and around gives up its life in a burst of water. No point in trying to do anything less but completely soaking him, anything else will take too long.

With that done, it's a simple matter to work through the fabric - a simple matter, but it takes time. 3 seconds before he'll feel the water on the other wing. Those same 3 seconds before Katara can continue this work with one hand, and before the other drops to where she keeps the flashbombs on her belt.]

[He ignores the water. It's dangerous, but nothing less than stopping her will help him now.

Luckily, three seconds is more than enough time for him. The trench knife flies and finds its target - her shadow. Still charged with his chakra, the effect is similar to the Kage Mane in that she'll find herself suddenly paralyzed, though he won't be able to manipulate her movements this way.

He could, if he connected his shadow to hers while it's frozen like this. It would be unnecessary, however, with the (albeit fake) explosive tags closing in on her.

Less than ten feet to go. They'll close that gap momentarily.]

[The trench knife nails her shadow just as she grabs a flashbomb from her belt, freezing her.

Freezing her with her other hand still outstretched. Which means she can still bend.

And so she does, working the rest of the water up to his other wing and freezing it the instant the water touches it.

She's breathing hard - bending with just a single outstretched hand is more difficult than it looks, she's bleeding from her other arm, and she hates this feeling.]

Edited 2011-10-29 22:02 (UTC)

[You should've seen him when the tree first exploded - part of that pause wasn't just for inner dialogue, but because he needed to catch his breath.

He's still breathing a little heavier than normal now, though that turns into a wince when he feels his other wing freeze.

And that's it, then. Game over. He hesitates only to assess the wing, then closes his eyes and breathes out slow.] Heh.

[Working the shadow tendril forwards for the trench knife again, this time to yank it up from the ground and free her shadow.]

That was nice.

[Slumping in relief and - not quite realizing that she won - Katara lowers her hand, converting the ice to water and draining all the water right out of his clothes and on to the ground.

She will just. Plop on the ground now.]

Yeah.

[Starting to catch her breath now, the adrenaline buzz pleasantly humming through her as she enjoys the control of her own limbs again.]

[He'll sit down himself, tossing the trench knife to his side with his shadow before undoing the jutsu. The fake tags stop abruptly without anything to guide them, drifting slowly to the ground. It should be obvious they're fakes now.

Popping his neck, he carefully takes off his flak jacket. The ice, and the water, are gone now, but the wings are still a little stiff from where they were slightly frozen under there, and he wants to stretch them out.]

Aa. Better. [It's a comment to himself, made with the satisfied tone of someone one gets after a good stretch. Even if it's still weird to think of these as a part of his own body...

He shifts his attention off of the wings to pick up his trench knife, eyes scanning the area off to his right for the other one.]

Good job.

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