An Unlikely Duo! (Group Mission)

Kenji was getting sick of how many missions he was going on and he really dreaded going on another scouting mission considering how his last scouting mission went. The cherry flavor in his mouth was the only thing he could focus on as he placed a candy stick in his mouth long ago, today wasn't the best start for him.

He had another stupid nightmare of the stupid jungle and the stupid thing left him unable to sleep for most of the stupid night but then he had to fall asleep for the final 2 hours of the nights, leaving Kenji with a grand total of 4 hours of sleep before he was forced to get ready for the mission. After that, he found out he had no eggs and no other breakfast was readily available so he was now pretty hungry but just to ensure he knew how much the universe hated him right now, he found out he had no more ink and was forced to carry Lingchi around. If the trend kept up, he was fully expecting Yami to be his partner once more on this stupid mission.

The lazy shinobi wore his usual clothing of course, his black jacket on top of his flak jacket and his headband hanging loosely around his neck. Only real difference was the white cloth wrapped around the shinobi's body and the body of Lingchi on the his back with the white cloth securing Lingchi to his back. Although within the pouches of his Flak jacket, Kenji had placed his set of kunai and a medical bag, preparing for the inevitable injuries he was going to get on this stupid mission and if it was going to be with Yami, half of his injuries was going to come from that snake.

Approaching the rendezvous point, Kenji quickly realized he was first to arrive, meaning he'd have to wait for his partner. Kenji only sighed and walked to a nearby tree at the rendezvous point, unwrapping Lingchi and placing him against said tree as he sat against the tree too. "Today sucks." Kenji would tell his puppet as it fell to lean against him. "Maybe it'd get better Kenji." Kenji spoke in the higher pitched voice reserved for his puppet as he made the puppet sit up and moved it's mouth up and down to appear his puppet was talking. "Yeah, right." Kenji said as he allowed his puppet to sit back against the tree. He couldn't even cheer himself up with his puppet anymore.

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Active Gear:

"Sojiro Sakura. Hope you ate before you came, don't want you to go hunting any more rabbits while we're on the mission." Kenji would greet his companion as he rose to his feet, a grin on his face. He had assumed that greeting meant the sun shinobi hadn't heard him talk to his puppets. That assumption was wrong.

"Oh.... You heard that, huh?" Kenji asked as he scratched his cheek, his eye looking around on the ground. Sure was a lot of neat dirt out today. "It's a jutsu I'm working on, alright? Figured it'd be neat if I can figure out a way to get my voice to go through the puppet. Help it blend in, ya know?" Kenji would give Sojiro a half explanation for his behavior with his puppet. Truthfully it was only an idea he came up with after he gotten far too accustomed to talking to Lingchi but Sojiro didn't need to know that part.

"Say, if you're a sun shinobi, why exactly are you my partner to patrol the border?" Kenji would ask, partly to change the subject but also to satisfy his curiosity. It wasn't extremely uncommon that he heard of sun and moon shinobi doing the same mission but he wasn't aware it extended to scouting the borders.

As he waited for an answer, he took this time to grab Lingchi and wrap the puppet around his own torso once more, figuring the sun shinobi wouldn't want to just sit and talk in the same spot. If Sojiro did begin walking, Kenji would simply follow along but if not, Kenji himself would take the lead, heading down the first path he saw.

Kenji wasn't entirely sure if Sojiro was saying his breakfast that was fit for the manliest of men was just this jerky or if this was just the remains of it. Regardless food was a godsend right now so Kenji took the bag of jerky and after eating his candy stick, he begun to eat some of the jerky too. "Thanks." He'd simply tell Sojiro as the two begun walking into the forest.

"Must've slipped my mind, don't recall ever hearing of any sort of program." Kenji said as he thought back to their meeting, he could only recall the whole possible cannibalism or fetish display Sojiro and Hikari were putting on. "Oh well, none of my business, just promise to not to eat me if you come across my body in any potential war." He wasn't entirely sure if a war would break out but regardless Kenji simply shrugged it off with a joke.

Once Sojiro asked who they might find, Kenji thought back to his last time being out here. Mainly being punched in the stomach, getting snakes crawling over him and of course fighting bandits. "My ryo is on bandits... And snakes. Definitely feel like we're going to be dealing with snakes." Kenji would give his answer, the last part being muttered unhappily by the one eyed swordsman. He knew if there was one more way to ruin the day, it'd be dealing with more snakes.

"Although if we do run into any baddies... How exactly do you fight? Rather not toss my puppet into a incoming fireball, ya know?" Kenji would ask a bit curious about what his animal companion would fight with. If the trend was holding up between all his animal companions, he expected summoning and maybe something to do with fighting in a pack or simply mauling people with teeth and claws using taijutsu. He doubted those nails and teeth were just for show after all.

"Nah, they're around but they don't really pose any real problem to most people. I just feel like it's going to be a snake day today." Kenji simply explained with a shrug. He just felt like today really wasn't shaping up to be his day, on a regular day he'd simply have turn around and go sleep, try his luck another day. But this had to be a day where he chose to go on a mission to scout the border again.

"Ah, so you prefer being up close huh? Can't say I'm any different... Well, attacking up close anyways, pretty easy to just sit back and allow Lingchi to apply pressure." Kenji would comment as he adjusted Lingchi to show him off a bit more to his sun companion. However at that moment, Sojiro stopped and Kenji did the same... He was noticing a trend between him and his animal companions, they always seemed to order him to stop before they found their target.

Shouldn't be too surprising, Hikari had her hearing, Sojiro probably has his smelling and Yami... Yami had something, he wasn't entirely sure what it was but he had something. Regardless Kenji simply did as he was silently ordered to by Sojiro and listened as the sun shinobi told him of what he found and asked if he'd like to take the lead. "Yeah, sure, why not?" Kenji answered with a shrug, he didn't really care who was taking point, as long as the job got done.

Kenji however took this time to unwrap his puppet from his body, instead opting to pour some chakra into Lingchi and allowed the puppet to stand at it's full height of 5'10". The cloak the puppet wore had it's hood up and it's face mask was on, leaving only it's hazel painted eyes peaking out from underneath. The cloak itself was long enough to completely cover it's hands and reached to it's mid thighs, which was covered with a pants similar to Kenji's own pants and to round out his clothing was a pair of boots similar to Kenji's own once more.

"Lingchi, Sojiro." Kenji would fake introduce his puppet to Sojiro, making the puppet bow before the sun shinobi. "Sojiro, Lingchi." Kenji would then do the same for Sojiro, a smirk on his face as he did so. Sojiro already knew he talked to his puppets so why not at least have some fun with the apparent craziness. "Now that you two are introduced, let's go meet the bandits." He ordered as he begun to walk forward, making his puppet appear to walk beside him.

"Now game plan's simple, I'm going to send Lingchi here in at the front of their camp, while Lingchi draws their attention you'll jump in from behind at my signal." Kenji outlined his plan as the duo begun to near where the bandit camp was, the sound of some faint but plentiful laughter being heard in the distance. "Good plan? Great plan." Kenji asked before answering himself quickly as he motioned for Sojiro to split up while making haste to move closer to the bandits without alerting the guards.

"Oh and don't worry about the signal, you'll know it when it happens!" Kenji tried to quietly call out to his companion, not bothering to look back to see if Sojiro had split up as requested.

It seemed Sojiro had no complaints or questions about the vague plan, which made it all the more easier for Kenji's plan to go smoothly. Setting up in a bush right by the bandits, Lingchi hovering nearby and crouched low like the puppeteer himself. "Alright Lingchi... Go do your stuff." Kenji ordered his puppet with a smirk as he sent the puppet walking into the opening right before the camp, making sure to have the puppet step on every single twig it could while doing so.

"That's close enough!" The lone bandit warned as he rose to his feet, his sword at the ready. "Apologies but I appear to be lost!" Kenji called out from the bush with the higher pitched voiced usually reserved for Lingchi while making the puppet's mouth move up and down, mimicking the words Kenji spoke while gesturing with said puppet. "Is someone there?" The bandit asked out loud to Kenji's location and for a few seconds there was nothing but silence as Kenji thought about his next course of action. "No?" Kenji answered while maintaining "Lingchi's" voice, yet his own uncertainty was evident in the voice.

"Time to end this little game." The bandit simply sighed out as he walked toward Kenji's little bush he was hiding in. It probably didn't help his strings were visible to the bandits either. Need to work on that. "Alright, time's up. Let's do this." Kenji simply told himself with a smirk as he knew it was time for plan B and most importantly, time to give the signal.

"RIROOOIII JAASSSHHINNNN" Kenji roared out as he dashed out of the bush with his puppet charging directly at the bandit in front of it, the puppet's arms opened wide as if to give the bandit a hug. The bandit of course was caught off guard by the roar from the bush and entered a defensive stance, one that persisted as the puppet charged at him. The clawed fingers of the puppet clashed against the bandit's sword and the two found themselves in a stalemate as Kenji maintained equal pressure to the bandit's sword as he was exerting against the puppet's clawed fingers.

Thankfully Sojiro could put two and two together and with one loud crash coming from behind the band camp as Kenji instructed Sojiro to be at, he knew his dog companion had joined the battle. Smirking, Kenji took this time to let his puppet's tail blade come shooting out from underneath the cloak, hitting the momentarily distracted bandit directly in the stomach. "Son of a..." The bandit attempted to say before Kenji cut his sentence off by splitting the bandit in two with a swift motion from the tail blade, sweeping through the bandit with ease.

"Come on, I'm the one with the murder machine and you guys decide a little crater is the bigger threat?" Kenji jokingly asked as he noticed only two other people came to face him while Sojiro had to deal with a grand total of four. "You're dead! Dead!" A bandit roared out as he threw a kunai at the puppeteer. Bringing Lingchi in front of him, he allowed the puppet to take the hit for him, the kunai planting itself in the puppet's upper right torso. "Only one little kunai? Lingchi, show him how we handle things." Kenji ordered with a smirk as his chakra strings begun to set the gears in motion for the interior launcher.

As soon as Kenji finished his sentence, senbon begun to launch out of the puppet's mouth and through the face mask, tearing a small hole through the fabric and aimed directly at the bandit who managed to jump out of the way before all 10 senbon could find their mark. Instead, the bandit allowed his left arm to take four of the senbon that would've hit his body had he not moved to defend himself. "That all you've got?" The bandit asked with a smirk as he grabbed another kunai, presumably to throw at Kenji once more.

Before Kenji could even react however, he realized a huge error in his little plan as the other bandit that came to face him had managed to sneak up on the puppeteer. The only thing that alerted the one eyed shinobi was the snapping of a twig right behind him. Moving quickly, Kenji leaped to his right while spinning in the air to face his second bandit he had nearly forgotten about, however he found a kunai flying directly at him, the projectile finding it's mark in the puppeteer's shoulder.

Gritting his teeth and snapping his candy stick in half, Kenji managed to get two bandits in front of him once again at least as he landed on the ground just fine. Well, as fine as one could be with a kunai currently sticking out of their shoulder. "Very clever, distract me and sneak up on me. Won't happen again though." Kenji simply complimented as he held onto his wounded shoulder and bringing Lingchi in front of him once more. "You won't leave here alive!" The second bandit shouted at the puppeteer and Kenji couldn't help but grin at the comment. "We'll see about that." He simply told the bandit as he entered a defensive pose with Lingchi, waiting for the two bandits to make their moves.

The two bandits and Kenji seemed to be at a standstill, waiting for the other to make a move. "Tell you what. You start running so I can stab you in the back." One of the bandits taunted the puppeteer who only maintained his smirk. "You know, ususally I'm the only one making jokes..." Kenji told the bandits as he sent Lingchi in a false charge, intending only to scare the bandits away from him as it's mouth gears begun to load the next set of senbon.

"Gonna rip you... open!" The other bandit said as he did his own false charge, either trying to bait Kenji into making a move or a simple scare tactic. It truly seemed neither was willing to make a move just yet, the only movement so far as been Kenji either backing up or spinning around with the two bandits as they tried to get around him. However the screaming of a bandit that Sojiro was presumably dealing with gave Kenji the opening he needed as the senbon begun to launch at the same bandit he had hit before, the majority of the 10 extra senbon finding themselves embedded in the bandit's chest but 3 managed to hit the bandit's neck and prevented him from any last words as he choked on his own blood.

"Die, damn you!" The other bandit roared in anger as he tried to rush at Kenji, instead he found himself crashing against Lingchi much like his previous comrade was, the blade of the bandit meeting Lingchi's clawed fingers and both puppet and bandit were putting equal pressure against one another. Kenji however took a more active approach in this one, instead walking behind the bandit's whose whole focus was on overpowering the puppet, which to be fair was actually working as the blade begun to reach the puppet's body.

"You're already dead." Kenji spoke in a hushed tone, almost as if to whisper to the bandit who finally snapped out of his tunnel vision at Kenji's words. "W-What?!" The bandit cried as he realized Kenji had taken the time to walk behind him but before he could do anything else, a single kunai was lodged in the bandit's neck spinal cord, the tip managing to rip through to the other side. Ripping the kunai from the bandit's neck, he let the bandit fall to the ground and turned his attention to where his partner was but before he could approach his location, his voice called out from where he was.

"Yeah, all good here! Never underestimate a puppet master!" Kenji called out to his companion as he begun to walk to where Sojiro was, wondering how he had fared against his bandits, Kenji imagined he was probably fine given he was asking if Kenji was fine but then again, Hikari didn't even know she was wounded until all was said and done.

Kenji was a bit surprised to see the bandits basically beaten to death, a girl had her chest crushed in and neck twisted around, a guy was currently embedded into the ground and Kenji wasn't sure if he was breathing or if he was even capable of breathing considering the force used to send him into the ground, another was leaning against the tree with a katana sticking out of the side of his head and lastly was some guy who looked to have gotten away with the least ugliest death, just some blood pouring out of his mouth. Charming.

"Well damn, remind me not to get on your bad side..." Kenji muttered as he finished looking at all the dead bandits before looking at the kunai currently sticking out of Sojiro's back. "You know, normally I'd give you a pat on the back but uh, seems someone beat me to it and left a gift for you." Kenji joked slightly as he approached his sun shinobi with Lingchi by his side, the puppet's tail blade hanging low and still having some blood drip from the tip and sides of the blade.

"Anyways, let this be a lesson on why my jutsu is very important and why I'm working on it. Bastard didn't even look at Lingchi longer than a second." Kenji pointed out, he was certain if he could at least put his voice into the puppet, it'd buy him a few more seconds before they noticed the chakra strings. Although that did give him another idea, he could try using less chakra to make it less visible... He'll fiddle with all the ideas later, right now he was focused on making his second puppet.