The Bear Country

The Akatsuki's meeting had just ended, and the members were well on there way, to doing what they were assigned to do. It seemed most of them did not know the entire plan, but they would do as they were told, as long as it seemed to help them along the way. Zutto had left later than everyone else, after picking up all his things. He was ready to take over the bear country. He was itching for a fight, and this country was a good one to fight in. He might even see some Konoha ninja there, seeing as they are allied. He was hopefully that nothing would stand in his way, and that he would get to fight to his liking. If not, he would be rather pissed, and likely go off on someone.

He looked over to his Akatsuki partner and sighed. It seemed he did not know much about him. Really all he knew was that he was from the same village as him and his name. Zutto wanted to know more, about how he fought. He looked rather weak, so it probably meant he used Ninjutsu, or something other than Taijutsu. He did not use much taijutsu either, but he looked a little stronger than his partner. He looked to him and sighed once again.

"I think it's time we just get more than a name and a face. And since we will be working together for a while, and if we want to work well, we will need at least know a little bit more about each other." He did not really wish to go first, be from the looks of it he would have to. He took a puff from his pipe and blew it out his nose. "Well, you know I am an Uchiha, so naturally I am good a Genjutsu. I think I am the best in my clan, but I'm not sure. I'm better with my ninjutsu, but not by too much." He did not really have all that more to tell about himself.

He did however, wish to know more. He had to fight with him and battle along side with him. He wanted to do anything he could to stall his death. "Well, if you need to know anything else, let me know." He said with a fake smile and then smoked his pipe once again. "Know, can you tell me about yourself? I'd enjoy knowing how you fight." Zutto looked around to see how close they were, and was getting excited for the battle. However, he did not know what he was in for. He just hoped it was to his liking.

An'barak stopped, his feet coming to a rest in the still muddy ground of the rain country, which they had yet to exit. He listened attentively to what his opponent had to say. His pronounced check bones were obvious on his all too skinny form. He could tell that his new partner seemed to be somewhat.... doubtful of An'baraks own abilities. He let a small smile ceep onto his face. "I knew you were an uchiha, and your genjutsu and ninjutsu is purpotedly quite strong... Well then, we seem to be birds of a feather... Then again maybe not. He stood a few inches over the uchiha, who still wore his mask. They were about 8 feet apart, and An'barak looked into his colleagues eyes... Well, it wouldn't hurt to at the very least be aimiable with this man. Besides, he liked the direction Senkou was taking the akatsuki. Although, it would be very unfortunate if this zutto were to get in his way. It was clear he was a man who greatly appreciated, and obviously desired power, just as An'barak was. "As to my abilities... Shall we say.... their very..... unique, to say the least. In fact, it would probably be better if I were to simply show you." He formed a single handsign, the tiger, and around him, black shadow chakra appeared and began forming, until he was momentarily lost in the vortex of purple-black energies.

Then, just as quickly as they had overtaken him, the demonic energy dispersed- leaving a very changed figure in their wake. He stood in what was pherhaps the strangest- and most horrifying- armor every created by a shinobi. His robe was a mixture of oranges, reds, crimsons, and blacks, woven together and embroideried beautifully- yet with malice still lingering subtly in the patterns. Shoulderpads- each with a small fire burning on a connecting circular brooch, were of the same shade, with small fingers of black shadow reaching down over them, almost like claws. However, what was by far the most noticeable feature of the outfit was the mask. leaving only his lower chin revealed, the mask had eyes of burning fire, and two gaping holes carved as nostrils, with bright orange fangs hanging down over his upper lip. The eyes were two balls of glowing flame, each burning with a dark malevolence. To both sides of the mask, sprouted a pair of large, curving demonic horns, that would normally look out of place, but somehow managed to maintain a fluidity with the rest of the garments. Raising a single gloved hand, An'barak released a bolt of glowing, dark purple-black shadow chakra which seemed to take the shape of a skull, at a nearby tree. It shot off rapidly, without a single handsign woven, crashing against the tree, and swirling with dark chakra, obscuring the tree from vision in a mixture of black, sickly green, and purple colors. When the tree came back into vision, what had once been a healthy, strong lifeform was dead. Literally, totally, dead, or at least as dead as a tree can become. Its branches had shrunken , and drooped. The leaves were gone. The trunk had become gnarled, and weak, appearing as if it was about ready to collapse. Then, An'baraks vastly altered voice rang out in the gloomy silence since the shadow bolt's dispersion. "We, or should I say I, of the Unthor clan, utilize the power of demonic energies. One of the most potent, and difficult to control, chakra types in existence." His voice contained a deep, dark malevolence that was nothing like it had been before- indeed it hardly sounded human. Deciding to perform one final demonstration for his partner, he then wove several handsigns, and sucked in a breath- a noise that sounded like the rasp of a dying man, before breathing out. What the Uchiha would have expected as a normal fireball jutsu, came out as something entirely different. Dark, black flames shot from An'baraks mouth into the air, incinerating a voluminous area in the blast. As he finished, he let the black flames subside, only to have them still burn on the earth below-- earth that would never grow again. That which was touched by demonic chakra was forever altered, forever destroyed.

His Armor appeared to revert to shadow energy, and disperse back into the air, as An'barak turned, reclad in his akatsuki robe, towards Zutto. "That was a small taste of the basics of my capacities. The techniques we employ rapidly become far more complex, but I'm sure you'll have time to get acquainted with my unique repitoire of abilties over the course of our time together." He let a wry grin trace it's way onto his face, before resuming his walk "Now then, we have a bit of a journey head of us, so we'd best get moving. If you wish to know more, we can talk along the way."

Zutto watched as his partner used his charka to show him his abilities. He was quite impressed with them, although he did not show that he was. He had never seen anything like the power, and would love to learn more about it. However, this was not the time nor the place for that. He would have to wait for this when they arrived at the bear country. Zutto did not wish to waste a minute of his time. He still had the itch to fight, and it was even better when he found out what his partner could do. It seemed they would be a good team, if they planned things out right. An'barak, was probably rather smart, and Zutto thought of himself as rather smart. He looked to An'barak, and sighed.

"Well, we will need to come up with some way, of taking over this land. I suggest we draw little to no attention from the get go, and try to keep it that way." He paused to take a smoke from his pipe, he wanted everything to go perfect, but at the same time go nuts while fighting. "I will refrain myself from going crazy, during this mission. I think this country will be one that is hard to take over, seeing as it is allied with Konoha. We certainly, do not want Konoha involved in this. That would make things at least ten times as hard on us. And even though we are strong, it is only two of us."

He paused and saw the country from a distance, as they were nearing close. He had a smile behind his mask, as soon as this happened. He seemed very ready to fight. He began to take hold of his sword as he got excited. He then took a smoke from his pipe to calm himself down, because he did not want to endanger this plan. "Sorry about that, it's been so long since I've fought anyone." He shook his head and looked at An'barak.

"I want to know how you want to take this place over." He did not know what they were going to do, so he wanted to ask if An'barak had any ideas of his own. All Zutto knew is that they could not go in there, and attack like they had back-up. They had none whatsoever, and they could likely be killed if they would do so.

Zutto's question set An'barak back on his heels: after all, it was true that An'barak hadn't thought much about this crucial question. He paused in his step for a brief moment, a look of concern flashing over his face, one that he of course quickly stifled. He didn't respond immeadiatley, as he thought about how they would go about doing this. There were of course, many possible routes to go about tihs, however, most of the ones he could think of would end in bloodshed, and that was something senkou had told them to avoid at all costs... In reality, how they would go about this mission was dependant entirely on 1 variable: the mindset of the hoshikage. If he was a self-righteous, foolish, loyal individual, than it would be far harder to find a solution, than if he was self-serving and greedy, and, most importantly of all, if he didn't care much for his supposed alliance with konoha. An'barak personally doubted that it was the case. Despite what kuro said, he had been well connected to the village nerve center as a jounin only a few years ago, and from the way their relations with then, they weren't exactly allies, moreover than neutral with one another. However, he wasn't going to be so quick to dismiss Kuro's words, and knew that things could have changed. He realized, that if the hoshikage felt strongly about the star villages ties with konoha, then he would have to be replaced. An'baraks eyes widened momentarily, realizing that if negotiations went sour, he just might have a way to suitably, and unbeknown to the community ofthe star village, he may just have a way to 'replace' the current hoshikage, as he pulled out a dark, blood-red scroll from his cloak, and began reading as he walked. He then called over to Zutto. "Well, it's dependent on how much the hoshikage cares about konoha and their supposed alliance. If he doesn't, the bear country isn't a major land, and it should be easy to coerce him to join our cause... If he does, however then its a very different situation." He then grinned widely, and said "fortunately, i may just have a way to deal with such a scenario" as he intently browsed the contents of the scroll of gul'dan.

Zutto awaited an answer to the question he had asked An'barak. He did not know how they would get into the country, without people noticing. He had little time to think, because the two were drawing near the country. The country was small and it had a tiny ninja village in it. The village was the start village. Zutto sighed at the thought of having to fight a ninja. They were rather weak, and would not cause much worry to him, but they had something he had never seen before, and this could cause problems. Zutto looked over to An'barak, and shook his head, waiting for him to answer. It seemed he was thinking things over, which in some cases could be a good thing, but they had little time.

He took a smoke from his pipe, thinking things over and waiting for An’barak answer. He wanted to see how the country would react to their robes and if they needed to they could remove them. He turned the An’barak, as we spoke up. He wanted to know how his partner planned on handling things. He assumed it would have something to do with his bloodline. He sighed and looked to him and opened his mouth. Zutto had a few suggestions.

“I say, we should try to get into the kage’s building, without any problems. Keep a low profile, until we can get inside. Than we can chat with the man, and see how things go.” He smiled as he still had hoped the hosikage would happen to attack him. They drew to the country and Zutto looked around. “It looks as if we are here.” He took a puff from his pipe again and laughed, very quickly. He looked towards were the Star village would be. He then headed towards that direction.

“Shall we see the Hosikage?” He smiled as he did not wait for An’barak to say a word, because he knew he would follow, or more that he had too.

An'barak shrugged, and followed his comrade, not paying much attention to his words and willingly just being dragged along: he was too engrossed in the scroll of Gul'dan. He was looking for a summoning technique for a demon whom he had only heard rumors of. A small, paristic monstrosity, that could possess anothers body. However, while he had be incapable of finding such a technique, he had still come across something quite interesting. Within the scroll there had been two genjutsu, that had been of great interest to An'barak, and that he had been throughly studying for the past mile and a half. The first one was known as Chakra drain, a genjutsu which was very complicated in its casting, but incredibely potent in its usage. The jutsu, which he was sure he had mastered at this point, would force his enemies to consume more chakra every time they used a technique- Chakra that would be funneled back to An'barak for his own usage. The implications for a such a technique were endless: In long lasting battles, it would undoubtedly give him an edge, and allow him to outlast his opponents. Supposedly, it was incredibely difficult to sense, only experience genjutsu users would realize that they were even being effected. The other technique which had been thoroughly studying was known as unstable affliction: a genjutsu technique even more complex than the first, but when used in unison with Zutto's own genjutsu, it would enable them to trump even the most talented of enemies with ease: the genjutsu would only take effect after the chakra channels had attempted to be cleared, and then it would hit the enemies with a migraine headache, and prevent them from channeling enough chakra in order to effectively fight back... Such sophisticated genjutsu... An'barak had never imagined that such techniques had existed, let alone that he would wield them. Indeed, he was so absorbed in his reading, that he almost missed the distinctive scent that had begun permeating the air. He looked up from the scroll, sniffing the air intently, before calling out to his partner "Stop. Up ahead of us is one of the poison gas fissures this land is famous for... We have to be careful. I can cross the gorge, but unless you have a similar special breathing technique, it would be suicide for you to get too much closer." An'barak had already completed the handsigns, and had at this point quite easily been holding his breath for well over a minute without any discomfort, and he could continue to do so indefinitley. "Find a way across. I'll meet you on the other side." After saying this, An'barak ran forward and leapt into the ravine, dissapearing from sight. Land gracefully at the bottom of the ravine which was shrouded in green gas, he immeadiatley channeled chakra to his feet, and started ascending the opposite wall. After about a minute of his feet tapping against the hard, lifeless rock of the stone wall, he took a final jump, and landed atop the ridge in a crouch, robe making a slight swishing sound as he landed. He ran forward about 40 feet, and then turned around, releasing his breath-holding technique, and looking back for Zutto, however, he couldn't see his partner through the fumes emnating from the ravine. Shrugging, he continued walking forward, in the direction of the village hidden in the stars. He was sure Zutto would be able to catch up.

((leave topic))

OOC: Topic Ended, now both of you, to this link

Jaces Induction

((Too lazy to create his own travel topic))

Travis was zooming across an open plain exiting the cold terrain and entering a warmer enviroment. The sun was dipping low as Travis cast long shadows over the ground. The air was a nice warm temperature as it warmed his cold skin, but one good thing from being in the cold. He could run longer than before and catch his breath faster from his time in the snow country. With that he was making record time traveling across the lands. Drawing in slowly from the horizon was a forest, the entrance to Bear Country. Moving swiftly, he put a little chakra into his feet and bounded across the landscape like he folded the landscape in half. 'Maybe I should train in cold more.' Grinning, Travis reached the forest and launched upwards and Shunshin'd through the trees, swinging around branches and dancing around them. Landing in a clearing he looked behind him as the area suddenly burst out is many slices and cuts. Grinning, he Shunshin'd again and was heading towards his teammates current location. "Ah, Mr. I Think I'm better than you, I'm coming to help your sorry ass." Grinning, Travis pulled out his stone and readied himself to contact Senkou and gather his mission for whatever he was doing here. But at least it was cozier than the cold, that was a plus.