บท 41: 41 Fall, guys
The elevator shakes violently as explosions go off below us, me and Mantis are the only ones not holding Puma down as he thrashes and occasionally lets out a burst of dark chakra that throws someone into a wall.
Deciding to intervene, I take out a storage seal specifically designed to seal chakra, I had the idea of making batteries to recharge myself mid fight, it doesn't work for anything other than a trip to the hospital, but I still have a chakra storage seal on me, thanks to my hording ways.
Placing the seal on Puma's face, the dark chakra slowly starts to recede until he collapses on the floor.
Raven picks him up piggyback style as the door to the elevator pings open just in time for the lights to go out and the whole island to shudder.
Despite feeling like a massive earthquake, we know it's worse, we need to get of this rock.
Nodding to the others, we are all now supposed to run to the rendezvous point, at the east of the city, we attacked from the south by the way but before that I speak up.
"you guys go ahead, I'll catch up."
They clearly want to ask, but time is of the essence here, so they just nod and leave, I shake my head to Mantis, so that he leaves too.
Once I'm alone, I head for the security room I was in before and ignoring the corpse I grab the tablet and seal it away, then I rip a few of the monitors out of the wall and take them too before heading out, making sure to grab a few security cameras along the way.
I do so love storage seals and hording. I'm sure Konoha will be happy to receive this technology.
As I run to catch up with the others, I see panicking civilians running around as their home collapses around them, I see even more shinobi doing the same but faster and while trying to seem calm, they are probably looking for some of their jetpack things.
Noone notices me as I ghost over and through the wrecked and collapsing buildings. Then I see people starting to fall over, and nearly miss a step as I notice what's happening.
The city is tilting. And it just had to tilt so that the way I'm running gets steeper.
Running even faster across the city that is swiftly becoming more and more vertical, I go from running across rooftops to running up the roofs and down the walls like a line of spikes, at least, until the buildings are truly broken apart and debris starts raining down on me, making me have to dodge as I run up what is basically a rockslide.
Jumping from debris to boulder in a clime that's halfway vertical at this point, I realise that I'm nearing the edge, and I don't see any allies, but there isn't exactly time, so I take a literal leap of faith, and jump of the raised edge of the falling city.
Only to be greeted with an empty sky.
Well fuck.
Before I can lament further, I thump into a soft bed of feathers.
Oh, I guess he was hanging on the underside of the city, like in avatar.
Sighing in relief, I relax into the feathers of the giant bird I'm riding away from a city falling out of the sky.
Fucking hell, my life really is crazy.
Sitting up, I look to Mantis, who's staring down at me.
"thanks for the save mantis."
He just shakes his head to my nonchalant attitude.
"yeah, yeah, it would look bad if i let my captain die so easily."
Chuckling at his words, I focus again on our surroundings, the city hasn't even fully fallen yet but there is already a ground fight happening.
Our bird lands where a few others already were and immediately Raven rounds on me.
"butterfly, what the fuck, what was so important?"
I just give a smirk I know he can't see and wave an empty sealing scroll, just in case, in the air.
"well, stealing advanced tech of course, I'm sure Konoha will be happy."
He can't really argue the point since it's true, so he just sighs and whatever he is about to say is interrupted by a resounding 𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙝 as the city hits the earth, and a tremor as the ground shakes from the impact.
After a moment, Raven continues what he was going to say.
"as i was trying to say, we will now engage in a ground battle to root out the remaining sky-nin so gather up and we will meet with some others and start making sweeps of the rubble, any broken tech you can find you should take too, just in case butterflys work isn't enough."
Sure enough, we meet up with some others, they don't question why we are down three members, nor why Raven is carrying Puma, instead, since Vulture is among them, we simply set Puma down and let a Vulture summon carry him to a meeting point further away to wait for us.
Now there are thirty one of us who quickly get into formation, eleven of us infiltrators hanging back in stealth while the other twenty scour the rubble, looking for survivors to capture or commit war crimes upon, also keeping an eye out for any salvageable tech, not that they find anything, what with them having a literal island city dropped on them.
Not sure what kind of monitor you would have to have to survive that.
We do come across a few Sky-nin, but with the whole, fallen city thing, they are either injured or disoriented and thus are killed quickly and easily.
We will spend the next few days digging through the rubble, killing any survivors, unless they seem knowledgeable on tech, then we would just sorta grab 'em.
Really these guys were way too arrogant.
They have one big laser gun and some secret tentacle hands, and they think they can take on all of the great nations?
Bitch please, literally every major village has at least one walking nuke in the form of a Jinchuriki, and from what Tsunade said and what we've seen, their big call to strength laser canon not only has a depressingly long refractory period, but it is also only really good against stationary targets.
Time passes and not much happens of note until we are mostly all gathered once again to return to Konoha, this time with seventy less shinobi but full of loot and prisoners.
Well, only one prisoner.
Apparently, he was grabbed before the city fell, since he seemed knowledgeable but wasn't a shinobi, he also looks like a stereotypical old scientist so I'm willing to bet he's their head researcher or something, in fact.
Running slightly closer to Raven, since he like to gamble,
"hey raven, wanna make a bet?"
He side eyes me, or, diagonal-eyes me, since he's so tall, gotta be at least 180cm (or 5'11) which makes him a giant here where average height is like 170cm (or 5'8) for a guy.
"what's the bet, don't think i'm going to gamble against you in liar's dice again."
Heh.
Instead of responding right away, I nod to where the old guy is being carried by- wait is that Bear?
It is! Neat, well, I nod to where the old guy is being carried over Bear's shoulder, and once Raven looks where I'm indicating I continue.
"50k ryo says he was head researcher."
"50k? what makes you so confident?"
"look at how old he is, he looks, like two years older than you."
"oi, i'm not that old."
"so you taking the bet, old man?"
"you know what, i will take that bet, and when i win, i'm going to spend all of the money bribing every old lady i can find into treating you like their grandson for the whole week."
This motherfucker, that's fine though since I'll win anyway. I always bet on cliche's.
It's not stupid I swear.
No really, listen.
Cliches become cliches because they happened so much, right?
But they aren't cliche in this world, which means no one will hesitate, thinking how they're being cliche, instead they will just do it.
Like, flirting is going to be so easy, since I can just say some stupid cliche line like 'did it hurt? when you fell from heaven?' and instead of getting a groan at the overused line, it would be something she's never heard before.
So yeah, I will always bet on cliche for it has never failed me.
Except for that one time. But that was an exception!
And that other time a few days ago with the fight, but that didn't count! He was probably holding back or something.. for sure.
*Cough*
Anyway, our return is celebrated with silence, as we are ANBU, not celebrities. Not to mention it's the middle of the night now, so I doubt anyone is in the mood for it.
The injured go to the hospital and most of the rest go to write their reports and turn in whatever they found, while me and a few other surviving captains return to a large meeting room where Takeshi and Lion are waiting for us.
Have I ever described Takeshi to you, my schizophrenia?
Well, I've got the time as everyone else gives their reports first, me and Raven were the only captains among the stealth unit, so we're being saved for last.
Takeshi is a relatively tall guy, about 175cm (5'10ish probably) with dirty blond hair cut short and messy with a lean built that is common with us shinobi and he generally has a polite smile of his face with blue eyes that just ooze understanding. He's a pretty chill guy with a relaxed slouch about him.
Lion is diametrically opposite, being one of the rare bulky shinobi, along with his stiff posture, he really makes me think of Mr Incredible trying to be an office worker, even if he is more relaxed than he looks. Or perhaps defeated is a better way of putting it?
Either way, I focus back in on the conversation I've been ignoring as Raven is finishing up his report.
"...when he didn't show in time we took off, though mantis stayed behind to catch his captain."
Takeshi nods once.
"Thank you for your report, now Butterfly, your perspective please."
"right, well, after we touched down on the island, me and the others infiltrated the central building whilst everyone else caused a ruckus, after which we split up to better clear ground, mantis and i found an unmarked door and entered, inside of the room was a guard asleep on a chair facing a number of screens-
At this point I unseal the monitors that I ripped out of the security room,
"-these screens seemed to monitor various sections of the building, through the use of these-
Now I unseal the cameras.
"-devices to capture images. there was also this tablet-
Lastly, I unseal the guard's tablet.
"-which was ringing and figuring it was some kind of communication device, I placed the guard in a Genjutsu so he wouldn't see my friendlies in these screens and then woke him up. He proceeded to give the all clear, after which I killed him and searched the room, finding a blueprint of the building which included an unmarked section. I assumed that this would be the entrance to the power source and used what was labelled as an 'announcement system' to project my voice to the locale of my teammates, telling them of this location.
"We then met up and entered the room, which sealed itself and descended into the island where we found a large room covered in seals, and after what happened to Puma I heard a voice in my head. Well, I heard 𝘮𝘺 voice in my head, but I was thinking things that just don't make sense, and I would never be that stupid, so it was rather easy to tell that something is in my head, then from the cocoon suddenly growing violent hands, I figured it was fair to assume that this combined means that the power source is sentient and malevolent and controlling puma.
"After this we left, as you've heard, nothing to add there except that I set off the explosive tags before the doors closed and used a seal to dispel foreign chakra on puma, then while the others set off, I stayed behind to gather what is in front of you right now, figuring our guy's ad R&D would like to pick them apart."
My report done, I step back and listen as Takeshi gives out some platitudes before we are all dismissed.
It sucks that despite giving a verbal report, I still have to write a whole ass report with even more detail.
Sighing I approach my home and since it's so late I just make myself a little snack and head straight for my room. I take my uniform off and hang it up on my door like usual.
Sitting on my bed, I face my closed door and just talk about the week I've had, about how it was actually pretty cool to run across a falling city, about the spirit monster hand thing, about the fact that despite the casualties, Mantis and Fox are fine. I don't talk about Elk, I never talk about Elk here.
Eventually I finish my tale and sit in silence for a moment before turning over and falling asleep after a bit of tossing and turning.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
yeah, he was talking to Hounds mask on the back of his uniform if that wasn't clear, he just doesn't want to spell it out so to speak.
Also im moving house today so you get both of todays chappies early as i will be busy all today!
https://ko-fi.com/bored_works
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