[Graded]Lightning strikes twice.

[Kanade]

Chiaki moved to the top of the hill, carrying her pack and panting all the way. Why was she on another mission for battle in the first place? Hadn't the old man learned his lesson from when they had sparred in the training grounds? She tossed her bag on the ground unceremoniously and sat back against a rather large juniper tree and opened her water-skin. She had no clue why she was on this mission with the two of these, but she hoped that the Raikage had his head on straight. Both of them were more battle-hardened than she was, and both of them were ready to do battle with anything that came their way.

Chiaki on the other hand was a wet noodle against a tempered steel sword. She drained half of the bottle and opened and closed her gi a couple of times, fanning herself. Why the hells was the Raikage the emperor of this hot temperature buggy, swampy little dingy town anyhow. He had said something about a mine for steel, and it being under attack from his sources by a rogue ninja band, but from what she could see, the mining operation was all of twenty dirty workers in the valley below, and the mining camp looked as peaceful as her temple back home was.

Rearranging her gi so as not to show anything unpleasant to the other two she pointed ahead, "I think that's our destination-cha." She pointed ahead and looked at the note again.

'100 miles southeast of Kumogakure no Sato there is a village called "Ironton." go there, and defend the village from the attack of the rogue ninja who have been stealing shipments of iron and tin ore from the mines. Do not engage in the town. Known bandits to include:

Jin: Raiton user with the respect of the others, special Jounin rank before defecting, possibly A ranked now in power.
Rai: A doton user with some skill, not as much as Jin, genin before defecting, possibly C ranked in power, specializes in defensive techniques to offer Jin one on one combat, do not split the party for any reason. Also buries people alive. Especially dangerous for asphixiation.
Aki: A rather skittish Fuuton user, she usually stays back and heals her allies with Iijutsu, target first, possibly B ranked now.
Known to have anywhere from 5-10 other followers of either Genin or Academy rank who have a smattering of basic jutsu and perhaps one or two other jutsu. Will probably scatter if the "power three" are incapacitated.
Bring back Jin alive, others are optional.

Assigned to: Mariya - Chuunin, Leader of mission.
Arashiyama Ning - Close range specialist and wielder of the legendary trident
Kyoukan Chiaki - Support.

Hayate - Emperor of Lightning Country'

Below the letter she saw the seal of the Raikage. She offered it to the other two as they approached, "Unless I am mistaken, I think that our mission starts here-cha." She felt a bit begrudged that she was considered only 'support' for the mission, but she had yet to prove herself. Whatever - she huffed- she had trained since then, and couldn't wait to show the others what she was capable of.

[Zao]

Ning followed a short distance behind the young woman with her pack, the young chuunin with his own pack and his trident somehow sheathed across his back in a specially designed holster as he walked with almost easy up the small hill reaching the top about the same time as the other two Kumo-nin would have. He hadn't been out on a real mission in a couple months and was excited to be out of the village and serving the Raikage. Though he couldn't help but be a bit surprised to find that he'd been teamed up with the same female shinobi that he had sparred with just the other day it felt like.

But he was glad, for he had experienced her strength in the ninjutsu firsthand with both her defensive and healing techniques, with something like her to rely upon in the team's corner who wouldn't feel more confident than normal. Though he could see that her physical fitness could still use a bit of work as she had already found a place against at the base of an averaged sized evergreen tree that grew only at this altitude. 'This must be the place we were briefed about.' Just as he was thinking it to himself the fellow teammate spoke it aloud causing him to glance briefly in her direction and not slightly. "I do believe so."

Replying to her mention of this being where their mission was to truly start for the new team. Ning glanced over at Mariya, it was a shinobi he didn't know personally but someone who had been assigned as the team lead for this mission which meant the fellow chuunin must have some good leadership traits to be trusted to lead her peers on a team. Hopefully that was the case. Glancing to the side he heard the huff from Chiaki as she passed the note towards their comrade, 'Wonder what that's about.'

[Taiga]

Mariya was quiet most of the journey. She was beyond dissatisfied with the mission given to her by her father. It was not that she didn’t believe in her groups strength, but to send three Chuunin against what was practically an army with several like-ranked individuals seemed to be a great tactical failing- one that she could have never expected from the Raikage. A commander, first and foremost, would make decisions that ensured victory. A father would make decisions that ensured his own daughter didn’t wind up dead. This was absurd. It seemed though that her time to mull over things had reached it’s end.

”Yes, as per the parameters of our mission I do believe this to be the spot.” Mariya said in a cold tone. Ning, who hadn’t been acquainted might not of understood, but surely Chiaki did- it wasn’t personal, Mariya was just a cold girl. She was all business- though Aki and others were starting to help bring out more of the “child” part of her. Mariya scratched her head as she stepped forward. Mariya picked up keenly on Ning’s wonder at what the note was. Mariya looked up.

”It’s just the mission parameters, as you already know, and it’s absolutely absurd. Somehow it’s my job to make this happen and get us out of here alive… but it’s a tall order.” she said looking to the group. ”We’re walking into a small army, so we’re going to need to find away to be smart about this… the best way would be if we can split the numbers and get them out of the town…” she paused.

”Any ideas?” Mariya said as she handed the note to Ning and stepped forward, shortly before her sharingan activated and she peered off to the town. Perhaps she could find traces of chakra or something to tell her about their whereabouts.

[Kanade]

"It'd be a good thing if we were able to get the gang secluded without the members of the town-cha." Chiaki chewed on her lip, a bad habit, but she couldn't help it when she was thinking. She didn't know whether or not she would make it out alive, but she wouldn't be relegated to just a support role if there were lives on the line. She looked to the other two and shrugged, lifting herself back up off the ground, wiping the dirt from the seat of her gi and flattened her dress against herself. She sighed once more and then she just shook her head. She had no idea how to get them on their own.

"If they have a source of metal, I could create a barrier of sorts, but other than that, I have little to no ideas. Perhaps we should share our jutsu with one another and bounce ideas off of eachother on how we're going to even go about attacking the gang-cha?" She looked out over the landscape and wondered whether the people would be holed up in a building, whether they would be in a man-made cave, whether they would fight out in the open. There were too many variables, and Chiaki was mostly a medic. The jutsu that she knew were 90% just healing her comrades, just making sure that they didn't get hurt, just a support role. She didn't have the slightest idea whether or not she would be of use in hand to hand. That might be why Ning was the pivotal person on the mission. He would be like the Ote brat.

"Ning, you could use that spear cloney thingy-cha." She grinned and raised her eyebrows at him knowingly, "And Mariya has her uh, red eyed, see chakra jutsu thing-cha." She shrugged and pointed at her own eyes blinking rapidly and then gave a smile full of a surprising amount of levity. Let tomorrow worry about itself, let the next hour or two worry about itself. Chiaki would protect her comrades, her... friends?

[Zao]

It was indeed one of the first times working together with these new set of teammates, having been assigned to a new team after reaching the rank of chuunin. He'd of course met Chiaki before during their sparring session and another time after that, but this was his first time truly interacting with Mirya. Though Ning's usual calm, almost aloof mannerisms didn't change as he had experienced people like the other woman before who were all about the task at hand and nothing else. Shrugging it off he looked back out to the town while he listened to the team leader, Mariya, who began to expunge upon the matter at hand which truly did feel like some sort of tall task to say the least.

"Indeed, many weak hands can overwhelm a single set of strong ones. Numbers are just as much a variable in strength as anything else." Ning couldn't help but to agree with their leader at the moment. No one in their right mind would just dive down into fighting against a small army of targets. "It would be best to bring them outside the town, using our terrain advantage to break them up and force them to fight up hill." Though it sounded good he wasn't exactly sure how they were supposed to do that without drawing out all the bandits and three missing-nin at once. It seemed like they need to first go about identifying each of the targets of their mission who had been interfering with the ore production from this town to the village.

He looked first at Mariya, noting her strange eye that he could see and then turned to Chiaki, considering her words before shaking his head. "I'd need to get close to make my spears useful and it might bring more attention than we wanted..." But what really was the best course of action as he turned to glance back at the team leader to see if they had deciphered anything with their unique gaze...

[Taiga]

Mariya briefly looked at the horizon, looking at the residual traces of chakra and signs the missing ninja had left behind before closing her eyes once and letting out a short sigh, only to reopen them and reveal her normal, black irises. With her Sharingan deactivated she'd turn back to her squad and crouched low, drawing a kunai to draw in the dirt. "They're holed up for the most part in the mine, but the largest traces of chakra seem to be near the entrance to the mine." she said as her eyes narrowed. "I agree with Ning's tactical analysis and think fighting them to fight up the hill using the terrain and a gorge to our advantage would be best. Likewise the mines could be a great place to fight if we have any maps or anything, since the narrow halls mean we an effectively make sure we're not fighting too many opponents at any given time...." she said as she turned to Chiaki.

All the while she was drawing out the scenes and a rough map.

"Another option would be if we could be sure the mines don't have any town folk in them we could cave in the entrance temporarily and draw those 3 signatures out of the town and into the hills. We'd cut off all their reinforcements and others and buy some time to deal with them later and allow us to take out the main issues first." Mariya said in a calm voice before standing back up and straightening off her vest. She shook the dirt free of her kunai and spun it tastefully in her hand as she slid it back into it's holster.

"We mainly need to control the amount of opponents we fight at anyone time and unlike our last mission, make sure our damage control to the town itself is on point." she said as she nodded to Chiaki.

Mariya was still feeling a heavy burden of guilt from the state of the last town her and her band of merry Kumogakure ninja walked into.

[Kanade]

Chiaki nodded along with both of their tactics assessments, this was the real reason that she was only support. She had become lax in her time away from being a chuunin, and it showed. She had forgotten most of what she had been taught about tactics and espionage. That or she hadn't really been paying attention in the first place.

She thought about it for a bit and then sighed, "I would be more for the plan of leading them off here into the hills than trapping them in the mines and using the town as a battlefield-cha." She scratched the back of her head with her staff and shrugged, "But I am up for whatever you two decide, I just... like to see the sky." She shrugged once more and looked up, "Always been rather afraid of being buried alive and don't take well to mines, caves, wells, or anywhere that I can't see the sun and the clouds and the trees-cha."

She wondered whether or not her preference would ultimately mean anything as she looked out over the town, "The only other thing that I suppose we need to decide is: who is going to be bait, and how are they going to be bait-cha." She leveled a look at both of them and waited for their answer. She wasn't averse to being bait, but she also wasn't, she believed, the fastest nor the strongest. "In order for the plan to work we're going to need someone or something to get their attention and draw them away from the town and the potential hostage situation that we had last time-cha."

She motioned to the tailings of the mines and the natural delta with steep sides to either side that it made, "That might be a good place to bring them to-cha, and a good place to hide and wait until we can engage them in close-quarters combat too-cha." She was becoming more nervous, and with the nervousness came the verbal tick, more and more frequently.

[Zao]

"Then I guess, we really need to locate those three." Ning continued to stare down from the high perch that looked down upon the mining village below, he'd worked with Chiaki before and understood how she could truly reinforce and strength the team as a whole but this was the first time for him working as a team with Mariya so he wasn't completely familiar with her capabilities too. "Mariya, do you have any means for locating the three targets without us having to full commit to entering the village?" Shifting his bright blue gaze from the dingy town below over onto the other woman of the team and the mission leader he asked attempting to probe a bit for himself at what this fellow chuunin brought to the table besides just strong leadership skills.

Both of the man's teammates had put together good points on the best strategy to deal with reducing the numbers, collapsing the mine being a truly unique idea. It would take some time for those under the command of the three key leaders to dig their selves out and it would limit them being able to use the civilian workers who were doing the mining from being pulled into the conflict as innocent causalities or them being used as human shields against the three Kumo shinobi. If their team leader had some method to identify the targets, it would allow for them to more thoroughly plan out which proposed solution was more viable.

[Taiga]

Still crouched down in a squatting position, Mariya nodded along to Chiaki's assessment of her proposed plans. She too wasn't to keen to fight in the town which was why she was interested in potentially using the tavern to trap whoever they could and lead the battle elsewhere with limited opponents- but it was a lot of variables to manage with room for error. Not exactly sure she supported her plans herself, the kunoichi turned to her squad, confirming each of their facial expressions once more before speaking.

"I am a sensor- but not the kind who can know who is where." she said as she looked back towards the cave and the town. "My ocular ability shows me the traces of chakra or energies in the air- of movement, etc... but it's up to my mind to figure out anything else. I can't be certain, but for sure the largest concentrations and traces of Chakra is at the mouth of the cave, thus I'd assume that's where the big three are... I can have my bird companion try to keep reconsiance from the sky too" zhe said waving her hands to emphasize assume.

She would slowly stand up, stretching as she did so.

"Either way they are holed up in that town so we're going to need to draw them out and away from the town to dispose of them."

[Kanade]

"Well, I suppose here goes nothing then." Chiaki nodded to the town and shrugged, placing her staff across her shoulders, her wrists hanging off of it idly as she walked toward the village. She didn't know what they would do when they got there, but at least they knew that the large chakra signatures were in the middle of the town. Perhaps they would be able to take one hostage, or perhaps they might be able to cause a cave-in. Chiaki took a mental note of her ninja tools, and her jutsu repertoire. Perhaps she could cause a cave-in at the very least.

Chewing the inside of her bottom lip she looked at her companions who were walking behind her for a little, before catching up to her, "Maybe we could start with a cave-in and then get the people out afterwards? I might be able to get some of them out. I've been trying to learn Doton for a while?" She shrugged, "I haven't learned any jutsu yet, but I do have some scrolls that may help, I don't know though. I would hate to cause casualties, but the cave-in is a big way to get a lot of people's attention. We shouldn't split up as much as possible so that we can communicate, and help each other out at least." She gulped and thought of the other reasons that she didn't want to split up.

In a one-on-one fight, she was practically useless, she was weak, her jutsu were mostly defensive and meant to help out her allies, and she didn't have a dog in this fight if it came down to her doing anything other than surviving. She wanted to be of use to her companions, her teammates, but she had no idea whether or not that would be a viable option. Time would tell, as would the town.

[Zao]

"I guess there really is no other option for us at the moment but to move in first..." The white-haired youth couldn't help but sigh as he spoke, both of the two women in the squad made perfect sense as he attempted to mentally assess the team's strength and it made him frown slightly. It appeared that he was the only one that specialized specifically in close range combat, but he also understood the powerful support that came with Chiaki behind him due to the pair's other interactions and missions. Though he wasn't totally up to speed on Mariya, but it seemed she had scouting and support capabilities, perhaps even some tai focused stuff as well.

But all that was just more or less speculation and from what he'd gathered through chit-chat with the team on the journey over. "If Mariya-san can recon with her bird spirit that would be helpful for sure. As for what we do after that..." He glanced from Chiaki, then to Mariya as he spoke aloud with the trident heaped up over his left shoulder and took steps to followed behind the woman who had already started to walk. 'Guess we won't get anything done from here anyways.' With a sharp gaze filling his bright eyes he glanced down towards the town and more importantly towards the large mine opening that could be seen in the foot of the mountain the small outskirt town was bumped up against.

[Taiga]

If things were going to move along, one of them would need to be calling the shots. Mariya was uncomfortable in doing so- her latest mission having been a success but at grave costs. The part of her that was trained by Banri saw it as nothing but a success- the parameters of her mission had been met. Yet, the part of her that had been raised in the past year by her genetic father taught her otherwise. Even if the parameters of a mission were met, if grave loss and harm came with it it was no victory for anyone. Mariya bit her tongue as the other two conversed. She needed to act like her post. With renewed vigor, she would make the call. Stepping forward she whistled as Fuu, her owl companion, floated down and landed on her shoulder.

She looked back out to the battlefield as her eyes turned red and the small black tomoe danced before setting upon a specific location, her sharingan activated.

"Fuu will take us to the cave and drop Ning at the mouth- he'll continue forward to drop me atop the cave with Chiaki. Fuu can collapse the cave once we've drawn them out." Mariya said as Fuu lept off her arm and landed on the ground. The idea of the small horned owl carrying them all at once was probably preposterous. "Once the cave is collapsed, we'll need you to lead them to the ravine Ning. From above we can attack, and you can hold the line. I suspect there must be other exits or entrances to the cave and mines, but it seems this entrance is the only one in the village. This will buy us time and at least force the opponents away from the village, save the big ones at the entrance we try to lead off." she paused.

"I'm not positive we can damage control perfectly, but this will minimize our chance of loss and also control the damage such that it falls in the caves and rocks, not the homes and village squares." she said as Fuu clicked its beak, before suddenly expanding, becoming a massive golden owl that shined- a truly majestic creature. She hopped on Fuu's back, and patted motioning to the others.

[Kanade]

/thread end for me.