Seaside Resort, Ransacked by a Monster!

Stranger Things - [ Required WC: 1000 ]

(Not counted: Image for reference of beach size, AI Creation):

Masume was walking along the borders of the Land of Fire after hearing a mysterious story of happenings on the sea border of the Land of Fire. There was talk of vacationers going missing, strange markings left trailing to the woods, holes in the sand, freshly disturbed dirt and damage to the beach huts and commercial businesses like smoothie shacks and grill-out places lining the prime vacation spots along the coast between The Land of Tea and The Land of Noodles.

Aside from the locals' stories, there had been bulletins posted around the area asking for any and all help pertaining to the matter in neighboring towns and villages. Masume just happened to happen upon one in her travels, and, being nearby, headed to the location.

The sun was shining brightly up above at just before noon, whilst a breeze came from the west, behind the houses along the beach and behind the bordering forestry. The beach stretched for quite aways, at least two football fields in distance but no more than four football fields in distance between the water at low tide and the edge of the forest.

Upon reaching the beach, all Masume could see was a few makeshift tents with injured civilians huddled under standing tents. It seemed that local authorities were utilizing these tents to shelter from the sun and falling pine cones or pine needles from the breeze.

Cicadas screamed in the sun as she placed her tanto back in its sheath. She had had the kunai out in case of an attack, given the rumors. Masume casually approached one of the tents, making herself look less threatening due to the small children cowering behind injured parents.

As she scanned over the people, all of the wounds seemed superficial, and at most would result in a scar section of lighter colored skin, but no divot. Still, it wasn't a pretty sight to see so many people nervous, anxious, and worried. There was a minor hysteria hanging in the air, however people seemed relatively calm with the most traumatic actions being the  civilians yelling at the non-ninja guards in anger and frustration about their vacation having been ruined.

The citizens gathered around were not all wounded however. Some were just witnesses of attacks. It seems as if the civilians had all been called to give statements so that when help did arrive, they would have a clearer picture with all the details.

Of the wounded, the wounds were not fresh, some having already scarred over. It seems as though the attacks had ceased for the moment.

As Masume approached the scene, an officer stopped her. She handed over the mission request, stating they needed help. Then she was filled in on the details. They think it was an animal of sorts, as people had been hearing terrifying sounds... cackling, laughter, whining, yipping, and guttural screams of nonsense... all in the nights prior. Some people had even gone missing. There were also claw marks and trails of a strange creature in the night with glowing eyes, massive teeth, and slimy drool dripping from their terrible jaws.

After her briefing on the situation, Masume joined one of the stations and got a list of details from the guards.

With clipboard in hand, she began investigating the scene unfolding before her.

Masume walk along the beach at the forest line, looking for clues as to what kind of creature would wreak havoc on the vacation spot.

As she approached some huts, she noticed deep cuts in the doors, as if someone was trying to break in through it. The scratches were around two meters up from the ground on the wall, and maybe half a meter in length. They were also about an inch deep each, the cross sections being a little deeper.

It seemed as if the houses had been ransacked upon further inside inspection in the vacant huts or the rented huts with renter's permission. Any currently occupied houses were not to be touched. It seemed as if a bear or possibly something bigger and more nasty was ransacking these homes for food. However, the part that didn't make much sense was the missing valuables and electronics.

After searching the residences, she began looking for clues leading into the forest. Although most of the damaged buildings had no other clues, the freshest one had drag marks into the woods, blood, as well as massive clawed paw prints dragged along the mud from a recent rain. The decrepit prints were much too sloppy and dragged out to clearly identify the beast, however, the paw print was slightly bigger than Masume's head before it was dragged.

Sensing imminent danger, she gently set down the clipboard after writing her notes, and activated her Quiet footsteps Jutsu before entering the woods and following the strange trail inwards.

Before long she started to hear the strange ethereal cackling and yips around the woods, as if a group of ghouls were constantly circling her. They seemed to be coming from all directions, changing constantly. What was this beast? Was this a genjutsu? It felt like one, however the genjutsu release didn't seem to work. She could feel the insanity drawing closer, glowing eyes surrounding her.

Masume braced herself for attack, drawing her tanto when...

A handful of hyenas skulked out from the forest circling her and closing in.

Masume kept on guard looking from beast to beast and thinking to herself she wasn't sure if she could win this on her own. However it was still within the realm of possibility.

She then noticed that these hyenas weren't from the area, and seemed to possess a larger power than a regular animal. Their posture also indicated that they were on the defense, not offense. Their hackles stood upright stiffly as they snarled, drool dripping from their barred teeth, gums showing, bright pink mottled with a deep brownish black.

"Why have you come?" Growled the largest female approaching Masume and slowly circling her whilst gaining her scent. "Why are you here?"

Masume swallowed nervously, while externally keeping her cool, still in a defensive position with tanto drawn. "Investigating the attacks upon the resort." She said stiffly, eyes darting from hyena to hyena, but making sure she wasn't the first to attack should it come to it.

"As are we..." Her voice hissed, lip raising slightly more in annoyance. "Have you come to join him? or have you come to stop him?"

Masume froze, eyes shaking as she thought.  Who were they talking about, the constable? "I'm here to protect the resort and the innocents here at any cost."

"Not all are innocents" the hyena growled harshly, provoked. "However, the few that are the innocents deserve protection." Her words were cryptic. "We are hunting party, and I am leader of it." There was a pause as her nose twitched, breathing in Masume's 'stench' as the hyena would later call it.

Masume waited a moment before responding, "What are you hunting?" The air still remained hostile between the two, though they were seemingly on the same side.

"The monster that has done this. Done this to many children." The hyena spat. "Done this to little girl" she growled, stepping away from Masume, allowing the ninja's focus to drift to the edge of the circle of hyenas where a little girl, not older than five years, laid unconscious, bleeding.

"Monsters like this deserve death." Growled the hyena.

Masume's face changed from serious and focused to concerned and worried in an instant. She quickly sheathed her tanto "Let me go to her." She started calmly. "I can help." The silence between beast and man was palpable. “Please…”

After thinking for a moment, the hyena nodded. "We watching you, always watching..." She growled.

Masume ran to the girl, instantly, attempting to activate Basic Medical Ninjutsu, and started to heal the cuts of the ailing child. It seemed as if she was in her pajamas and the light pink silk dress with white lace edging was stained with mud and dirt, as was her pale ivory skin.

Masume’s hands, now glowing blue with chakra, were shaking slightly as she scanned over the girl’s body, tending to the wounds. Once the wounds had stopped bleeding and were finally scabbed over, the hyena leader began to speak again.

“You must return her.” stated the hyena, now in a seemingly les agitated state, though still stiffly on guard. “She must be safe.”

“I can’t” Masume muttered after a moment. “Not yet. She is safe with your hunting party, yes? Now that her wounds are no longer as much of an issue… She has time.”

“What are you meaning?” Asked the hyena skeptically.

“I mean we can’t let the ‘monster’ get away. We are so close on his trail. If we stop now, he can gain more distance and possibly get away. I cannot allow that, so long as the child is safe.”

The hyena yipped angrily and paced, thinking heavily about what Masume was suggesting. “If you sure, us go, others stay. We fight the monster. They protect girl.”

“I’m sure.” Masume said, accepting the hyena onto her team. “Let’s go before the day is over.”

As the newfound duo raced through the forest, hyena taking the lead and following the scent of the culprit, Masume thought about something.

“What should I call you?” She asked, keeping an eye on her surroundings.

The hyena scoffed. “Name not important.”

“Of course it is important. I need to know how to address you.” Masume argued in a non-argumentative tone.

“You call me beast, I call you human. Simple.” The hyena responded.

“Not Simple. Confusing.” Masume stated. “There are many beasts and many humans. How will you know I’m talking to you or you are talking to me?”

“I don’t talk to humans, human.” The hyena growled, remaining focused. “So if I speak, it’s you. No other human.”

Masume thought a bit on it. “My name’s Masume. I suppose you could call me human, however, I would like to use your name. It’s a sign of respect in my culture.”

The hyena snapped back “If i tell you name, will you quiet?”

Masume nodded solemnly.

“Agria. Name is Agria,'' The hyena stated with an attitude and a grumble.
Suddenly Agria stopped in her tracks. “He’s close. Hide now.” she whispered.

“You are sure it’s him?” Masume responded.

Agria nodded.

“We mustn’t kill him. He needs to be captured alive.” Masume urged the hyena

“Fine” Agria agreed, disappointed and with an attitude.

As Ayame took a position facing a small encampment, the hyena flanked the other side. Unfortunately, the two were not quite in sync yet.

As Masume waited and watched, she noticed a fat young man wearing the skin of a bear, leather clothing, and large sandals with carved bear paw prints sticking out, so that he made large bear tracks, hiding that he was a human. He had metal clawed weapons on his hands that looked as if they could cause detrimental damage. The man was also covered in blood. He was cooking a mystery-meat stew that reeked of death. There were canned food items and garbage all over the campsite, as well as electronics that had been disassembled and reassembled into strange nonsensical devices to detect a weird form of chakra that Masume had never heard of.

Masume drew the tanto once again and prepared to ambush when Agria jumped out from the direction he was facing. His back was still to Masume, so she took the opportunity to launch an attack of her own, attempting to slice through the bear hide cape, but failing as it seemed to be reinforced with some sort of chain mail. She jumped backward, narrowly avoiding a hit from a club made of a giant Elk femur and human skulls. The impact from the ground left a hole the size of a basketball if not slightly bigger. Agria grabbed onto the club with her strong, capable jaws, ripping it from the man-bear’s sausage-like, baseball mitt fingers.

Sheathing the tanto once again, she attempted a clone jutsu, though the man-bear saw through it. His sharp claws cut through the two clones Masume had produced. Unfortunately the clone jutsu hadn’t given her enough time to act out what she had really wanted to do. Agria threw the club into the fire that was roaring and cooking the stew.

The man roared in an almost rabid anger, amping himself up to charge Masume.

Agria raced to get between Masume and the man, clacking her jaws in anticipation of chomping down on his large chubby arms, just as Masume sent out a swarm of 200 kochu, all racing to the man, attempting to sting and paralyze him.

Though many hit him and many died as he attacked the cloud of bugs with his claw weapons, he still wasn’t going down, at least not as easily as a normal-sized man.

The man-bear had fallen to one knee for a moment before roaring again and charging toward the duo.

Agria lunged, hanging onto his forearm, but was thrown from his arm with a huge swing to the side, attempting to shake the hyena off.

He still was impaired from the poison of the insect and had lost a lot of coordination, easily missing Masume with his attacks pursuing her.

As Agria stood back up, shaking off her striped pelt, she lunged at the man-bear again, pulling his calf out from under him and causing him to fall to the ground and knock himself out on a nearby rock.

Masume exhaled feeling rather exhausted by that battle. It was so simple, yet so difficult as he resisted just about everything thrown at him. She tied up the man tightly and dragged him to a nearby tree. He was a hefty weight of between 158 and 160 kilograms, just barely under what Masume could carry.

She turned to Agria, still panting. “Thanks… Thanks for saving me,”

“It was not something I usually do” Agria responded, sneering at the weakness of the ninja before her.

“We better search, just to make sure this is the guy…”

“Did you not see evidence?” growled the hyena, patience wearing thin.

“I need to be sure I haven’t sentenced an innocent man to punishment.” Masume responded coolly. Agria begrudgingly agreed.

The duo commenced their search of the camp, pocketing his creations and fould trinkets and jewelry to turn over to the authorities upon return to the resort. This satisfied Masume’s need for evidence. As they were preparing to leave the camp, Masume stopped at the cauldron, peering in at the meat in a bone broth.

“Do not eat” warned Agria. “It is human.”

“Duly noted” responded Masume, unhooking the pot and pouring the soup over the fire to extinguish it.

Agria and Masume collected the man-bear and his belongings, making their way back to the little girl, who was now awake and scared out of her mind. She was talking to the hyena underlings upon the arrival of the group. “Him, that’s him! The man who hurt mommy and me!”

Agria’s pelt twitched as she whispered to Masume, “Mother didn’t make it. She was taken to camp. Likely was in the stew”

Masume let go of the still unconscious man and walked to the girl to comfort her and tell her how brave she was being, and explaining that they had to say goodbye to their friends and walk back now. She dared not mention to the girl about her mother.

Although the little girl was sad to say goodbye to the evil-looking, yet protective hyenas, she didn’t argue or fight her on it.

Agria asked the four other hyenas to wait for her, and then allowed the little girl to hop on her back as they returned to the settlement, holding onto the bag of items that the duo had cleaned the man-bear’s camp of.

As they walked, the sun set, and all too soon it was dark out, however things were still very visible given the full moon. In fact, it made it fairly simple to find their way back to the resort as they happened upon a path that led to the beach.

Upon return, a younger gentleman ran to the group, exclaiming that they had found his little girl. He snatched the girl off the hyena’s back and swung her in circles, bringing her in close for a hug and wiping the tears and dirt from her innocent little face.

The constable and his guards came rushing back too, taking the man into custody and listening to the information that Masume had gathered while she handed over the sack of keepsakes and strange technology that didn't seem to work. It was also discreetly explained to them about the young girl’s mother’s fate.

The constable stated that the fugitive was from the land of the Moon, someone who had been put on the most-wanted list for the area once he came off the medicines he was taking for the voices he heard. Apparently he longed to have a part of his culture with him again and forgoed the medicines he was put on in place of the herbal treatment he used to receive from his homeland.

The constable mentioned that it would be up to the justice system what happens to the man, however there was a good possibility that he would be exiled back to his homeland to be dealt with. Even if he wasn’t, his incessant ramblings to the guards as he woke up piqued Masume’s interest. Perhaps a visit to the Land of the Moon might be worth her while. As the men left with the criminal and items, Masume turned to Agria who was nowhere within her sight.

Where had that darned canine run off to now?

She slowly walked back to the forest’s edge peeking around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the hyena, when suddenly she heard Agria’s voice, noticing a pair of glowing eyes in the distance.

“Tell No one” She growled.

“Will I see you again?” Masume asked, confused.

“You seem worthy. Should you want partnership, it is possible. You must sign a scroll and pay us a sum. Then you may. Until then, we must separate.” Agria stated blankly. “No one higher must know I’ve helped a filthy human with such an unpleasant stench.” she growled, “Especially without compensation.”

“I see,” said Masume, feeling just a grain of remorse. “You will stay safe, correct?” She asked.

But there came no answer. The hyena was gone.

[ WC: 3032 ]

[ -200 Bugs ]

[ Claiming +10 to Speed ( 30 + 10 = 40 ) ]
[ Claiming +10 to Vigor ( 40 + 10 = 50 ) ]
[ Claiming + 10 to Chakra ( 50 + 10 = 60 ) ]
[ Claiming 350 / 350 for E-Rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu ]
[ Claiming 150 / 150 for D-Rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu ( 500 Total ) ]
[ Claiming 500 / 500 for C-Rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu ( 1000 total ) ]
[ Claiming 2000 / 2000 for Beloved Presence
[ Claiming 32 toward Apothecary trained here and here ( 1333 + 32 = 1365 / 2000 ) ]
[ Claiming 2000 ryo (4500 + 2000 = 6500 ryo ]
[ Claiming 10 Bonus AP ( 20 + 10 = 30 Bonus AP ) ]

( I RPed this out in a way to give my character an IC reason to pursue Hyena Summons and an IC reason to travel to the Land of the Moon. Let me know if I must change things to fit lore. )

[ Exit ]

Masume Aburame wrote:Stranger Things - [ Required WC: 1000 ]


[ WC: 3032 ]

[ -200 Bugs ]

[ Claiming +10 to Speed ( 30 + 10 = 40 ) ]
[ Claiming +10 to Vigor ( 40 + 10 = 50 ) ]
[ Claiming + 10 to Chakra ( 50 + 10 = 60 ) ]
[ Claiming 350 / 350 for E-Rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu ]
[ Claiming 150 / 150 for D-Rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu ( 500 Total ) ]
[ Claiming 500 / 500 for C-Rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu ( 1000 total ) ]
[ Claiming 2000 / 2000 for Beloved Presence
[ Claiming 32 toward Apothecary trained here and here ( 1333 + 32 = 1365 / 2000 ) ]
[ Claiming 2000 ryo (4500 + 2000 = 6500 ryo ]
[ Claiming 10 Bonus AP ( 20 + 10 = 30 Bonus AP ) ]

( I RPed this out in a way to give my character an IC reason to pursue Hyena Summons and an IC reason to travel to the Land of the Moon. Let me know if I must change things to fit lore. )

[ Exit ]

Approved