high_seas | [07] north country winters keep a-gettin' me down

Who: Crew of Murderess/Howling Sabers
Where: West of Empieza
When: Month of March. Top post starts beginning of month; mark dates in new threads to maintain some semblance of continuity. :Db
What: Catch-all for March posts -- will include Captain fight at least.
Warnings: Violence as ever
Style: Anything that'll move!
Status: Open to anyone actually on board or nearby

They'd spent a month docked at Empieza, and finally they were on the move. Sasuke wouldn't deny that they had perhaps needed the time -- to get the ship back into shape, for one, and to pick up a medic-nin, even if that hadn't been in the plans. But an entire month of one small island and an even smaller ship had left Sasuke about as stir-crazy as he could get, and the presence of said medic-nin and her entourage only exacerbated it.

He'd told Naruto and Sakura that he hadn't been doing nothing since arrival, but in all honesty, in terms of real progress, he'd accomplished nothing. Nothing of use, nothing of real import, for all that they had a shard on board and no one had been possessed to kill everyone else recently.

So it was that Sasuke was in the rigging in a better mood than he'd been in all month as they sailed away from the island, heading for rendezvous with the crew of the sailboat that had gone to find fairies.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Never really knew that you could fight like that.

Even after having seen her in those brief moments on the battlefield, Sasuke has to be impressed by the fluidity of Sakura's taijutsu. It speaks to a sense of combat flow that he doesn't remember Sakura having; evidence toward her claim that she is qualified to be Hokage in more ways than one.

He tosses the last of his group to the side, the man groaning before falling limply into a corner.]

They set up an ambush. There are probably more towards the captain's quarters.

[He gestures at the darkened end of the hall where he's assuming the captain is headquartered. Hopefully the supposed detectives haven't yet arrived on board to be ambushed as well.]

Have those two civilians come on board yet?

[You make a man look pathetic in combat.

Her brow furrows. If they had the means to set up an ambush, then the enemy wasn't as easily overwhelmed as they originally thought. Then that means it's possible they're walking into a trap right now.]

No. I mean, not that I know of. As soon as you dropped the journal, I summoned Katsuyu and came to back you up.

[She pauses, alarmed.]

Where's Naruto?

[Time to be wise and keep on reading the signs of the ... ambush.

They'd expected and forestalled the first set of would-be surprise attacks with L-Elf's guessing, but the determination of these lingering stragglers spoke to crew loyalty that would be a pain to deal with.

Sasuke makes a short noise of irritation at both the lack of information and her question, leaning down to pick up his journal and scan for any sign that the two he wanted to find information might be out of commission.]

Naruto will be wherever the noise is.

[True to form, there is a sudden chorus of identical yells from the deck, followed by a large number of splashes that are probably sailors falling into the ocean.]

Sounds familiar. [When she first arrived on Empieza, he said the same thing.

But a moment ago, it was down here. Her eyes do widen and she looks up through the makeshift skylight she created.

Sasuke isn't wrong.]

[He shrugs, and it's a moment of calm in the sudden storm:] Naruto's always predictable until he isn't.

[Unlike these sailors -- in the next moment there are suddenly men bursting out of trapdoors carefully hidden into the floor of this level of the ship. Sasuke is in the middle of knocking out the first set when several of them pop out of another trapdoor, throwing a weighted net at the two of them that is clearly meant to try to hamper their movements.]

[Sakura looks at Sasuke a little flabbergasted at that response until they're attacked.

As she thought, it's a trap.

If anyone's predictable, it's the people from this ship. That is, until they think a net is going to contain or hinder them. They obviously don't know who they're dealing with.

CAN'T BE TAAAAAAMED.

But she does stumble backwards into Sasuke, bumping into him so they're standing back to back. Maybe if the rope sealed their chakra, it would be a threat. Now it's just sort of stupid.]

I'll take one half and you take the other?

[He just nods, the logical course of action easy enough to determine, and slices out of the net as soon as he feels her move as well. Chakra-enhanced blades and strength clearly aren't in the repertoire of the men on board, however gamely they rise to the fight after gaping at them for a moment, and it doesn't take long to leave them groaning in a pile where their fellows are.

It's the groaning that makes him pause after turning to make sure Sakura has handled her share.]

L-Elf wants to execute everyone on board. [He gestures at the pile.] Do what you want if you don't want them dead.

[Sakura is dusting her hands off, proud, when Sasuke returns, her pile bruised and battered and unconscious.]

What?

[It's not like murder was uncommon for a ninja but Sakura wasn't okay with genocide for no reason. They couldn't hurt them now, right? It would be easy to disappear in an ocean anyway.

She guesses as long as she doesn't have to do it...

Her eyes trail to their respective piles and gives him a sidelong glance.]

You're okay with that?

I've tried more than once to explain to him why it's an unreasonable course of action, but he won't see reason. [Sasuke is unknowingly echoing exactly what L-Elf has said about him, irritation clear in his face and voice.]

It wasn't worth trying to review the same argument again. He's a strategist we need to keep, but there's no reason to follow his plans to the letter.

If he wants to round up and execute all the survivors when we're done, he can do it on his own. I have bigger goals here.

[Sakura doesn't realize she's holding her breath until Sasuke's answer makes her exhale slowly. When Naruto had... made a scene with Scurvey, L-Elf had approached her with the threat that if she didn't keep him under control then he would take matters into his own hands.

She was right in suspecting that it wasn't going to be anything she was okay with.

Her eyes move back to the piles of beaten bodies. Her inner thoughts go at war; one side (logical/realistic) raises a point from before that as long as she didn't see it, it didn't happen. She's a ninja and people die all the time. The other (more Naruto/emotional/medic influenced) is telling her that there's no point in killing them if they were hardly even a threat to the two of them. They would be even less of a threat to the whole crew.

She makes her decision.]

I'll stay here and try to gather intel on whoever is the least unconscious.

[As if on cue, there's a pained groan.]

Do you think there's more hiding?

[07] north country winters keep a-gettin' me down

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