[Souzouteki Sogo]

Sogo stands at the entrance of Iwagakure with the aviator shades over her eyes, since it's mid day and the light could make her eyes hurt. Her blonde hair is up in a ponytail again, the gathered hair falling down to the middle of her back as she waits for the other shinobi to show up. She still had on her Okada outfit, the dark brown and bright gold contrasting nicely against one another in her cropped sleeveless tank top, and the dark brown pants and combat boots completing the look, along with the title belt she often wears around her waist, and across her forehead rests the Iwagakure headband to show her allegiance proudly. Across her lower back rests a large scroll containing her two puppets, with the sign for Boar on one side and Rabbit on the other. She also had her Fuuinjutsu brushes and empty scrolls on her, ready for use, but she'd likely not need to use them on this mission.

She turns her head to look over her shoulder, popping a pink bubble between her lips and then drawing the bubblegum back between her similarly pink lips. Sogo was waiting on this Shizuka person, whom she'd met only recently, for this mission in preparation for the upcoming Summer Chuunin Exams. It was a shame, but Sogo didn't feel that she herself was ready for them this year, either; Yuki's own performance in the last Chuunin Exams had convinced her to keep training and perhaps better herself even more to be able to top how well she'd done, and hopefully ensure that she made Chuunin. It irked her that the Hyuga from Konoha had been given outright recommendation on ranking up, and she wanted to blame it on how buddy-buddy Kumogakure and Konohagakure were, but she knows that it would likely have only pissed off Taki more at the time, so she'd kept her lips sealed.

SPOILER: Click to show

Mission Title: Splunking into Danger!
Mission Rank: C-rank
NPC Required: No
Random Mission Scenario: Enabled
Participants:
Open, Repeatable and even solo capable for all ranks!
Description:
A country of many stone monuments both natural mountain formations, as well as the main made carvings of stone buildings. There's an abundance of past and present mines with in many of these mountains, as well as mapped existing and abandoned man made tunnels. An occasional crack added each year which could hold a dark and deep cavern. Due to these being great shelters and homes for beasts, criminals and other vagrants, it's been tasked by the Tsuchikage to search out each regularly to keep the security of the nation stone tight.

[Okami Shizuka]

Posting Template

Wolf of the Infinite Souzouteki Sogo

The nekoshounen wanted to doublecheck everything that he had with him to make sure he was absolutely ready for this mission. Honestly he was extremely nervous, but there was a reason for that. Actually he was anxious. It was hard for him to forget what happened on the last mission he went on. Nothing sure of a complete and utter disaster, a failure that stuck with him. It scarred him. Even now, despite being assigned to a new team he had yet to go on a mission with them. Actually this mission itself was with a genin from another team. Souzouteki Sogo, the puppet fighter from the Okada clan. That had met once recently and gotten some delicious food on one of the blisteringly hot days they've experienced this month.

It was for that reason however he was running a little behind their meeting time. It wasn't too much, as he was basically there now, just needed to come around the corner on the dirt path that came out right in front of the main gates to the village hidden in the stone.

"Nyaaa..."

A cat mewl came from his shirt as a small, white head poked out of it. It appeared Yukikaze caught a whiff of the girl they met earlier. Scrambling out of his tunic, the little ball of snow amidst the hot stone backdrop hopped down and closed the distance faster than he did to Sogo, wrapping around her leg and brushing up against her affectionately.

For a brief minute, Shizuka pulled his mask down and smiled warmly at his new friend and colleague. No words or scrolls this time. He had read the briefing of the mission and knew what to do. Maybe later on he could make something of a telepathy tag that would allow people to speak with him that way. He never considered before in his last time, but maybe..

That aside, he looked at her again, analyzing a rather hard to read expression. It liked... somewhat annoyed, deep in critical thought. Like something that happened recently enough for them to be annoyed over it. A hint of internalized frustration too? Whatever for, he wondered.

OWL

[Souzouteki Sogo]

Sogo's initial sour mood is lifted by the appearance of her favorite little shinobi, as well as a newcomer in the form of a small white cat that seems to have scrambled out of her friend's tunic in order to brush up against her legs. She moves down to a close-knee'd squat in order to pet the cat and let it grind its face into her hands, marking her with its scent in a show of affection. She then lets her hands lightly dance along its back, causing the cat to arc its back upwards in following her fingers before she stands up again to look down at the white-haired ninja. She can't help but to feel like he understands the parameters of the mission well enough that she probably doesn't need to explain, so she shrugs a little.

"Let's get to it, then! I do kinda hope we meet up with a coupla bandits. I wanna see what you can do in combat!"

Her tone is, as usual, quite informal, and it might not be something Shizuka is used to. Regardless, she turns back towards the pathway and gets to jogging, although they're only following the pathway a short while, for as long as the direction they're going is intersecting with the dirt path. Where the path deviates towards a road that might lead towards a mountain pass, Sogo herself starts going towards one of the peaks. Although they wouldn't need to go all the way up, one of the new crevasses was about halfway up the mountain, and it would take quite a bit of steep walking and even a bit of climbing to be able to get to it, although the climbing portion would be quite brief. But Sogo was getting ahead of herself and thinking ahead; she'd seen most of the path there through a spyglass atop the Tsuchikage's tower to let her jot out a course; for now, she could talk to Shizuka while she jogs.

"So, what's up with the cat, anyways?"

[Okami Shizuka]

Wolf of the Infinite Souzouteki Sogo

Shizuka nodded purposefully. It appeared she was onboard with getting straight to it. That would be helpful for him. It wasn't that writing was exhausting. It was... more embarrassing if anything. He couldn't speak like others and being reminded of that with new people always drove down his ego.

Yukikaze on the other hand was instantly friendly with the female shinobi, or maybe it was intentional after all. Marking her with the feline's scent could be useful in a pinch if there was any danger. Yuki's nose was pretty effective, as well as her sense of hearing. Eventually, when Shizuka decided enough was enough, he made a small, sharp sound with his teeth and lips. It caused his familiar cat to turn around immediately, looking up at him. He made the sound once again and knelt down. Affirming that she hadn't just heard something, the cat bounded back over to him and hopped onto his shoulders and anchored herself around the back of his neck.

With their greetings done, it was time to move on. Sogo decided to take the lead which was perfectly fine with him. He really kinda hated leading. It was hard for him to give commands so taking point was difficult and unnecessary. So, just matching pace with her speed was nice for him.

To respond to her question about his familiar, he pulled out a tag and quickly wrote something it with his mundane technique before flinging it at her with the precision of a heavy practitioner of shurikenjutsu.

This is Shizuka's familiar, Yukikaze. They are a cat. As an Okami, we of the Nekomata clan have familiars that aid us in missions. She is a good kitty.

OWL

[Souzouteki Sogo]

Sogo is primarily focused on getting on with the travel, but she knows that normally conversation fills in the time that is spent walking. Of course, she remembers too late that Shizuka can't actually speak, but at least the feline comes up with a compromise, by tossing ahead a tag that she can read quickly on its flight past her. The cat is introduced, and she's even given a bit of information about the clan that Shizuka is a member of. She instantly feels a little jealous of the fact that they get a cat that they can even take on missions with them; she wouldn't mind being allowed to pet a cute kitty during a serious mission like this one! But she decides that perhaps it's better that she not be distracted with that during a mission.

"Hmmm, I never considered that. I figure that means the Nekomata clan fights with their cats, then, if they can aid you in missions."

It doesn't take nearly so long as Sogo had worried before they reach the mountain, though they'd had to deviate from the more commonly used path in order to reach the mountainside, a cliff face covered in cave openings, though it was still tilted far enough that one could climb up the side without falling straight down. For now, Sogo doesn't pull out her puppets, and instead focuses on the climbing, aiming for one of the nearby caves, though she'd only use it as a stopping place in order to check once again for the exact location of the cave they were meant to be scoping out. For now, she climbs on her hands and feet, half crawling up the side of the mountain towards the cave that she can see directly above her. The blonde has to work her way around some loose rocks, but she calls down to Shizuka to watch out each time she finds a weaker portion of the mountainside so they can avoid the debris.

[Okami Shizuka]

Wolf of the Infinite Souzouteki Sogo

That was the right of it, mostly anyway. Admittedly he hadn't yet learned any combination jutsu that can be used by his neko companion, but they can do a few things. Eventually, he intends to use the cloning jutsu made popular by the Inuzuka of Konoha, where the familiar can take on the form of their master. Useful for misdirection.

Within a shorter span of time than he thought, they reached their quarry: The mountainside littered with caves. Looking at it, it felt remote enough for it to make sense that this would be were bandits and other unsavory bands of people could hang out and not be noticed. The caves were almost impossible to see from the surface until you started to scale them a little bit.

The verticality was pretty steep, but it wasn't a straight up 90 degree. That was helpful at least. It was then that he was shocked that the puppetmaster was starting to climb traditionally. It hadn't yet occurred to him that the girl may not have mastered the tree climbing technique. It took a few moments to click, but eventually he got it. Of course that was it! Smiling a bit to himself, he realized something that could be very useful to the both of them.

With that, another scroll was flicked her way.

Souzoteki Oneesan. Do you have puppet wires? Do you know if they work on Shizuka? I could help you to scale this cliff.

They asked them at the first cave they made it to. He had let Sogo go first, but scaled the distance utilizing the technique to quickly scale the vertical distance, sure to evade loose rocks the puppeteer warned him about.

OWL

[Souzouteki Sogo]

Sogo sighs and relaxes a little once she reaches the first cave on her way up, then notices the scroll sailing up towards her, which she manages to catch with a bit of deftness of fingers. She frowns a bit at the odd questions inlaid upon the scroll, suggesting that she might use Shizuka to help her scale the cliff. She's about to tell the other ninja not to bother, since she thinks she'll be able to climb faster than the cat-like shinobi, only to find her friend walking up the cliffside as easily as one might walk across the ground. Sogo is quite confused at the sight and wonders what kind of technique lets the shinobi do that, and she thinks to herself that she'd better ask Shizuka about it, though perhaps it can wait until after the mission is over.

However, she's not quite sure if her puppet strings will work if she tries to attach them to a person, and she's not entirely sure they can carry her weight up such a steep incline as well; Shizuka would very nearly be working against gravity entirely in trying to carry her up, and she'd have to be dangling from her puppet strings and likely weakened from the use of chakra and having her arms lifted for the entire ride up might leave her too sore to actually fight, if she needs to. At least this way, she's sure she can climb up and still have enough energy to reach the cave that had been pointed out to her for this mission.

"No worries, lil buddy! I'll be climbin' my way, and you'll just hafta keep up!~"

She smirks down at Shizuka and continues her climb once more after a short rest, this time showing off a little by practically throwing herself up the cliff face by grappling both hands onto an outcropping of rock, and using her upper body strength to launch herself upwards to the next handhold, while using her feet to stabilize herself after each leap. It did provide her with more than enough speed to rapidly reach the next cliff cave, where she can stop and investigate a little. This cave is fairly shallow, though, without much to interest her beyond some apparent discarded camping supplies, long since abandoned by anybody that might have once been out here. So at least this might be a good sign that they probably won't be running into anyone.

[Okami Shizuka]

Wolf of the Infinite tagged

Admittedly, The neko was still pretty unsteady with this technique. Considered generally pretty advanced for genin, -you’d usually have it as a chuunin- it wasn’t entirely that surprising that Sogo looked a bit shocked. On a mental note, he needed to inquire about rope, or wires, for missions like this. Given his mild proficiency with fuinjutsu, it should be no problem at all to carry a length of it with him.

Staring at her intently, it seemed like she was definitely pouring over some information regarding his question that he was likely not privy to. Honestly, he was pretty amazed by puppetry in general. He had no idea until very recently that shinobi even used such a technique! The shinobi would was vast, with secret arts you might never see hidden away.

Definitely no sleight on his climbing skills though. She scaled the vertical probably better than some even using the Tree Climbing Technique could simply run. She was able to find footings in places he had to squint to even notice the foothold, very impressive.

Giving his neko companion a small scritch beneath her ear, the catboy began to follow her lead, mindful to look out for anything unusual or out of the ordinary. It was in moments like these that he was happy to have a tail. The extra balance given by it’s length definitely helped him keep steady in his upward pursuit do the next cave.

OWL

[Souzouteki Sogo]

Sogo is still climbing for a moment when she hears the sounds of voices, and she immediately stops her climbing where she is, letting go with her right hand in order to let her left hand keep her up on the cliff side so she can turn to look down at Shizuka, bringing the free hand to her lips with her index finger up, letting her partner know to stay quiet for a moment. Not like Shizuka ever spoke, but they could make noise by climbing and hitting a particularly soft patch of gravel or dirt instead of hard stone. She closes her eyes so she can focus on trying to find the location that the voices are coming from, even turning her head slowly one way and then the other until she opens her eyes again and points at a cave a few meters above and to the right of herself, so Shizuka knows where their new target is.

Her eyes are focused intently on that cave opening now, and she clambers as stealthily as she can to the next handle she can find, working her way up and towards the entrance she had spied earlier. For now, she wasn't going to be able to speak to her temporary teammate; if she could hear them from this distance, they would undoubtedly be able to hear her if she spoke as well. It was somewhat lucky that Shizuka themselves seemed mute, or at least greatly preferred to write over speaking aloud. Once she's perched herself underneath the cave, she moves one hand down to free up the scroll on her lower back, preparing herself for a sudden and immediate movement, since she can't see where anyone in the cave actually is.

With a breath, she uses all the strength in her arm and her legs to launch herself up into the cave, unrolling the huge scroll and summoning out both of her puppets, the rabbit and the boar connected to each of her hands, with five strings to each of them to maintain control over them. Luckily, there are only two lookouts, and she uses the rabbit to distract one while the boar rushes into and then crushes the other against the cave wall, all while the rabbit puppet leaps across and around the other bandit, confusing and tripping him up with his own legs, as well as Sogo's own puppeteer strings.

SPOILER: Click to show

NAME: Kugutsu no Jutsu - [Puppet Technique]
RANK: C
CHAKRA USAGE: Very Low [Continuous]
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu [Puppetry]
ELEMENT: N/a
DESCRIPTION:
The fundamental and most used technique of the style, Kugutsu no Jutsu allows a puppeteer the ability to use puppets in battle. While the degree in skill determines the number of puppets that can be controlled, for starters the user can control only one. By making near invisible strings of chakra from each of their ten fingertips and attaching them to their puppets they are able to control the puppet from various distances. However there is a delay between the puppeteers orders and the puppets movements, meaning puppet movement will not be instantaneous, and the response time increases based on distance.

NAME: Kugutsu Kuchiyose no Jutsu - [Puppet Summoning Technique ]
RANK: C
CHAKRA USAGE: Low
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu [Puppetry]
ELEMENT: N/a
DESCRIPTION:
A useful technique for puppeteers, it allows one to seal a puppet within a scroll and summon it at will on the battlefield. Depending on the scroll they seal it in, they can seal a number of puppets away at a time.