“The coordinates should be located somewhere around… here.” Ayame stopped walking as she looked at the map in her left hand and the piece of paper that was given to her prior to their mission in order to give her at least some sort of clue as to where these Jounín just might be. As she stepped on the exact same coordinates that both the map and paper combined was giving her, Ayame looked away from the map and looked at her feet covered in the snow that had seemed to catch up with both her and Mitsuhide sometime within the past one or two hours.

Taking her right foot out of the snow and checking the sole of her boot for any type of clues or anything important she stepped on, Ayame grew some form of disappointment to see that there was absolutely nothing there to even hint that this was the right place. “This can’t be right.” Dropping the paper with the coordinates on it, Ayame raised her right hand to her face and quickly slapped her forehead, figuring that it just might be possible that the mission distributers had given them the wrong location to work by, making this mission a whole lot more difficult.

Running the same hand that she slapped her forehead with through her hair, Ayame tried to calm herself down a bit while she tried to figure out exactly what was going on. They were given a set of coordinates to follow in order to find them and they were standing right there, nothing but trees in sight, but there must be a reason for this; the mission distributors wouldn’t just give out wrong directions for nothing short of a prank and sending them all the way over to the Rice Country for nothing but a joke was a little bit too much, even for Ayame herself.

Closing her eyes, Ayame took a deep breath as she tried to figure out what was going on by contemplating on what she could have actually missed. At some point during this semi meditation, a memory of the mission’s details came to her head. Striking an idea in her head, Ayame dug through her pocket and pulled out the overview, noting a special keyword or two in there that caused the idea in the first place. Taking the initiative to test this theory out, Ayame hopped from snowy tree branch to snowy tree branch, Ayame kept going until she was at the top of one of the highest trees and looked around until she saw a mountain nearby.

Hopping back down to the ground, Ayame would drop down to her knee from the gravity of her fall for a second and then stand up and brush her clothes off. “Ok, I see a mountain somewhere around a mile or so northwest so I’m guessing that the coordinates they gave us was just a proximity or something. In any case, let’s head over there and check things out.” With that, Ayame bent her knees before taking a leap once more on a different tree branch and started jumping her way northwest using the branches.

Mitsu followed Ayame as they started off to their destination. The travel there was silent, most likely because of their incident they had earlier. Mitsu was able to keep it off of his mind, but he couldn't help sneaking a few peeks at Ayame when she wasn't looking. Other than that his mind just wandered in his thoughts. The scenery soon changed around them, from a smooth forest to a colder winter one with evergreens that slowly got taller and taller around them. Snow started to appear as well, slowly getting thicker. Earlier it had snowed but it was light. After about an hour, Ayame had stopped and checked a paper she had. Mitsu stopped a bit behind her and waited, looking around. She mentioned this should be the spot, but there wan't anything to be seen, just a big evergreen forest. She mumbled something to herself that Mitsu couldn't quite make out and face palmed. After a bit of silence, She appeared to have an idea or recollection of some sort. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a paper and looked closely at it, then disappeared into a nearby tree.

Soon she came back down and mentioned a mountain about a mile from them and that this location that they had been provided was just an estimation. So they would check that area out instead. It would make more since to check there too, considering its hard to have an avalanche when the area around you is flat. Mitsu nodded was about to jump after she did into the trees when he turned to look at something he thought he heard. But all he saw was the movement of a shadow in the corner of his eye. What was troublesome though, was that it was a rather large shadow. It was moving away from the direction they would be going, so Mitsu thought best that they should just keep going, so he jumped up and took off. But little did he know that shadow would be carefully following them both secretly and silently.

After a bit of travel they soon arrived near the mountain's feet and so Mitsu looked around for any possibly signs or clues. It was all like a giant blanket of white across the area, save for the exit of the forest behind them. Mitsu peered out onto the land and looked carefully. After a bit he spotted something just barely sticking out of the snow in the distance. Mitsu ran to it and dug it out of the snow. At first, it looked like a cloth, but then as he pulled the rest of it out, it turned out to be a ninja headband, bearing Konoha's signature leaf symbol. "Ayame! I found something!" Mitsu held it in the air and waited for her to approach before handing the headband to her. "Looks like your hunch was right. This has to belong to one of the missing jounin, which means they cant be too far from here, we just need to know where to look."

Once they had actually made it to the bottom of the mountain, Ayame let out a sigh as she peered out over her head to see how high the mountain went, at least as much as her perception would allow her. To Ayame, the mountain seemed to be a lot less tall than her vision was making it at this very moment, causing the level of disappointment one could see right now. Given that she had little to no tracking skills due to her natural impatience and that Mitsuhide had earlier told her that he wasn’t very good at even surveillance, which most trackers were generally good at, they were going to have a hard time finding these Jounín without some bit of luck on both hers and Mitsuhide’s hands.

Hearing Mitsu called out his discovery, Ayame immediately went over to his location and took a look at the Konoha headband that was left there, no doubt by the potentially trapped Jounin. Placing the fact that they were reported to be within some cave, in danger of an avalanche happening soon and the headband being just two feet away from the bottom floor of this mountain, Ayame was almost positive that they were something up that mountain, meaning that they were going to have to scale this giant landscape.

Letting out a deep breath before resolving to take the lead, Ayame mentally prepared herself for this journey. “They have got to be somewhere on this mountain, the problem is where…” Rubbing her chin, Ayame ran through a good few possible solutions as well as trying to weed out the places that probably wouldn’t hold caves in them. “Mitsu, follow me as we scale this thing. I’ll be at the front lines so I can check any locations for where they might be. You watch my back just in case I miss something or there’s any of those animals dangerous animals close by.”

With that, Ayame nodded her head as she bent her knees and took a giant leap up the mountain for a starter before both her and Mitsu would start combining their leaps with climbing for the more angler parts of the snow mountain. While she kept an eye out for any creatures nearby, Ayame searched every crack and small space that could pass off as a cave as they continued to climb this mountain through a huge scale. Proving to be quite taxing indeed, Ayame was actually feeling quite relieved that the duo had taken the morning to rest and eat before heading off to the mountain range.

Somewhere around an hour or so, Mitsu and Ayame would have nearly reached the middle part of the mountain, seemingly closing in on the location they were looking for. Once they had reached yet another area to climb, Ayame noticed that this one would be a bit much for one of them to go it alone so Ayame turned over to Mitsu’s direction. “Gimmie a boost.” She would then wait a while for him to get into the basic position of cupping your hands together and squatting. Assuming that there was no objections, Ayame would then place her left foot in his hands and grab a hold of both his shoulders, nodding to him in order to initiate that she was prepared for the boost.

Once he would push up enough for her to get that extra hop, Ayame would place her hands on the edge of the platform right above her, climbing up enough to be able to hop right past the ledge, but what Ayame saw next would put her in for a mean surprise, evident from her wide eyes. She would then cross her arms to block as a heavy force would ram into her, forcing the kunoichi back so far that she fell off the ledge and was starting to fall past the ledge of the floor below it.

He started jumping up the mountain with her after she had gotten an idea as to where to look. He then gave her a boost after she asked and he tossed her up with ease. He remembered he didn't have his weights on, like he was used to having. Suddenly though he saw Ayame fall down off of the cliff and almost flew past him, but his arm shot out like a cannon ball from a cannon and grabbed her arm and held on tight. It would be easy to pull her back up. Mitsu was trying to think as to what could have pushed her off. There weren't any rocks that fell before she did, so it wasn't a loose ledge. I couldn't have been the winds, she would have been torn apart, and those wouldn't be here for another day or two.

But his questioning was answered when he looked up and saw a giant mountain goat. Mitsu had to act fast and got a better idea other than pulling Ayame up. "I'm going to throw you up, then jump myself, but you need to hang on and throw me higher. I can get behind and help you take out the goat unless you think you can handle it yourself. Ready?" Whether she was ready or not, Mitsu pulled her up as hard as he could to toss her in the air. It felt much easier than he thought. He needed to get the weights off more. Right when she was back up to his level, Mitsu jumped to keep up with her momentum so she wasn't slowed down. "Throw me now!" Mitsu waited until she was about to hit the peak of her ascent for her to throw him now. If she could take on the goat by herself, Mitsu would look for a cave while he was in the air. But Mitsu had no idea how high he would go, but he knew how to land properly so he wasn't too worried. If she decided she needed help, then he would still look for the cave, just not as long.

After Ayame was pounded off of the ledge and sent falling down the snow mountain, she suddenly felt a hand tighten around her wrist in order to keep her suspended in the air. First looking down to see the miles of air staring up at here followed by the ground all the way at the bottom, making her potential fall mean a lot more than a simple bruise on her arm. She then looked up to see Mitsu connected to the hand that had just saved her from the enormous fall that was waiting for her not but just a few minutes ago.

As Ayame was dangling off the cliff, she heard Mitsu yell out to her his idea. When he mentioned that she was going to have to throw him higher, Ayame’s eyes widened a bit as she grew a little fear inside of her. It wasn’t that she was afraid that she would be able to throw him far enough, she had more than enough physical strength for that. But that was the thing though; Ayame had actually been placed in this type of situation before when she had the responsibility to toss another person towards the right place and let’s just say that it wasn’t exactly a pretty sight. Not knowing how to control her monstrous strength at the time, Ayame had ended up tossing the man about thirty meters farther than she was supposed to and caused him to have several injuries that day.

Even though Ayame was prepared to protest that idea and made it evident by shaking her head, Mitsuhide had decided to toss her up anyways, following close behind. When he ordered her to toss him up, Ayame grew rather reluctant at first, but, given the fact that she had no choice in the matter at this point, she grabbed onto his own wrist and prepared to throw him up. ‘If I don’t put enough power into it, then the effort would just be useless, but if I put too much, then he might end up embedded into a wall or something.’ Ayame just took a deep breath as she concentrated on her power, attempting to at least meet down the middle.

Focusing hard on her level of control on her power, Ayame tightened her grip on Mitsu only slightly as she twisted a little bit in the air to add some momentum while utilizing only a portion of her strength to throw him higher in the air. Hoping that she had put in just enough power for him to get to the right place, Ayame would soon land about a meter from the ledge that she was just pushed off of, being greeted by the same giant mountain goat that had rammed her off not but a minute ago as it prepared for yet another run in by digging its hooves into the snow to throw in some potential energy to convert into the charge it was about to produce towards the female.

Now that she was a bit more expecting of her animalistic adversary, Ayame lightly dug her feet into the ground as she prepared for the charge. The enormous goat was now ready to go so it started dashing over to Ayame’s direction, all while preparing its horns to ram into her yet again. The blonde kunoichi would now just thrust her palms forward as the goat was within about four feet from her. She would then push it by its shoulders as the goal contacted with her, slowly moving towards the ledge once again as it continued to thrust forward.

Once they had gotten to about half a foot from the edge, Ayame would then suddenly grab a hold of the goat’s fur as she fell back, thrusting her right foot forward into the animal’s stomach as she used its own momentum against it to toss it over her entire body and past the ledge. Seeing that everything from her shoulders up was behind the ledge due to her extremely close proximity when she fell back, all Ayame had to do was turn her body around to see where the goat would land. Looking down a bit past the floor below them, Ayame caught a glimpse of the mountain goat, seeing that it was left unconscious from the fall but still breathing. Standing up from the snowy ground, Ayame then brushed herself off. "Well, that was rather fun." She would then turn around so she could start looking for where Mitsu had gone, hoping that he had found the cave by now.

Jutsu Used:

Mitsu flew into the air higher than he expected, but then again he didn't know her strength. She landed onto the ground just fine, all he had to do was look around for a cave. Mitsu did a small flip at the peak of his jump and looked around also while he was ascending to said peak. Up more of the side of the mountain, Mitsu saw a small cave. He looked down more to see about how far away it was, and noticed Ayame holding her own against the goat, and flipped it over the edge. Mitsu's eyes widened at the amount of strength she had to have in order to flip the goat over, despite the fact most of the energy needed came from the goat's own momentum.

Mitsu descended to the ground and started a flip to get momentum going, landed on his feet, and the momentum from the flip carried on and he rolled on the ground to a stop, landing safely. He hard a soft boom from the goat hitting the ground and saw Ayame looking over the edge, most likely to check if the animal was alright or not. And judging by her facial expression, Mitsu assumed that it was okay. Mitsu decided to have some fun with a response to what she just said. "Well if we hurry with this mission, there may be some more 'fun' afterwards. That is, if you are willing to." Mitsu smirked and said it in a suggestive tone, hoping she would catch on. "Now as to my little aerial adventure, I managed to spot a small cave about twenty meters or so up, probably more. It was the only one I could see, so they should be there. Let's get going, shall we?" Mitsu then hopped up the cliff side and started climbing a bit, jumping up to other hand and foot holds when he could.

Once Ayame had heard Mitsu’s little suggestive comment, Ayame couldn’t help but gain an awkward smile as sweat started to pour down the back of her head. Considering the fact that they were in such a cold climate, one would probably guess that the awkwardness of the situation at this moment had to be on a whole new level for her to gain sweat in this environment. “Well… mayb-” Before Ayame was able to properly respond though, she suddenly felt the earth move in such a fashion that nearly made her fall over. It didn’t fell like an earthquake, but more like some sort of aftershock.

It would seem as if it was about time for the extreme weather that they were told about during the mission briefing to finally make its debut pretty soon so they really did have to wrap this mission up quick if they wanted to make this one a success. Hearing of Mitsuhide’s discovery of a cave going about at around twenty meters, Ayame nodded at him before bending her knees a bit and leaping up so she make it over, assuming that Mitsu would follow her initiative and move up the figurative and somewhat literal ladder.

Ayame would take about a minute or two afterwards to make it over around the direction Mitsuhide had told her. She would then find a small opening that looked to just barely fit an average standing human at about five and a half feet. Ayame checked to see if Mitsu was close by before walking over to the cave’s opening, bending down a little so she would be able to fit through said opening and raised her head once the area got larger from the inside. Not too far away, she could see a couple of figures lying around.

Slowly making her way over to them, Ayame was able to make out that they were both male of middle age with your average shinobi attire and flak jacket lying face down. Ayame made her way over next to one of them and bent down, turning his body over to see that he was still breathing but barely. “This one’s still alive, but he's only hardly breathing, not enough to make it in time. I suggest you check the other one.” After giving Mitsuhide this information, Ayame placed the shinobi on his back before pinching his nose. She would then take in a deep breath place her mouth just over his, exhaling enough to give him a good amount of air. After continuing this process, combined with a few chest pumps for a bit, the man had finally let out some coughs to let her know that he was alright.

He would then slowly open his mouth to see the Jounín right above him but didn’t speak for he was still too weak for that. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you guys out of here.” Just after reassuring the man, Ayame would suddenly be met with that same shaking of the ground once again, but this time, much stronger. “Looks like the wind is finally picking up.” Assuming that Mitsuhide had successfully ensured the preservation of the other shinobi’s life, Ayame turned over to him. “Mitsu, I want you to head down before me. I know this weather is going to be a literally natural disaster for us if we don’t see it through from all sides so while you’re heading down, make sure that any and all the obstacles are out of the way. My affinity is wind, it’s something that I have a thing for, meaning that I should be able to handle anything coming at us from the air so I’ll watch our backs from that direction while I follow closely behind you.” Ayame would then quickly take a hold of the man she had just given CPR to and lean him on her back, carrying the man as she waited for Mitsu to take a hold of his shinobi and initiate their descending.

The ground shook under them both before Ayame could reply with a rebuttal to his suggestive statement. Looks like the winds were coming in. They both got serious and Ayame jumped up the mountainside to get to the cave. Mitsu bent his knees as well and jumped up to follow her close behind. Upon reaching the top of the clearing, Mitsu felt the wind start to gradually pick up. This was not a good sign, nor was this something that they needed at the moment. He nodded to her as she looked back to him to show he was okay. Mitsu bent over as he entered the cave and stood up as Ayame did once he reached the elevated ceiling. Ayame had gone to one of the jounin and checked if he was ok, so Mitsu nodded and did the same once she told him to. While she performed CPR he turned over the jounin and started checking for vitals. He had a steady breath and his heartbeat showed that he was going to make it out alive. Mitsu heard the other man start coughing and he had a sigh of relief inside of him as he did. They had gotten to them on time, just barely too. "This one looks good. He's knocked out, but his breath is steady and his pulse is good too. I think we are going to get them out of here okay."

The ground shook more violently after Ayame reassured the conscious one. Things were getting very serious, very fast. The winds were coming sooner than expected which meant then needed to get these men out of the cave and everyone down the mountain as fast as possible. Ayame said she could handle off the winds a bit while he made a safe path to the bottom, which he knew he could do once he thought about it a bit. Your's is in worse shape than mine, and he could use this." Mitsu took off his cloak and handed it to her. Mitsu could hold off until they got away from the mountain without his cloak, and he could maneuver better without it."Don't worry about me. I can shrug off the cold until we get out of here and by that time it should be a bit warmer. And it won't get in my way on the way down if I don't have it. I trust you being able to handle yourself. You wouldn't be famous if you weren't. And you can count on me too, I plan on getting famous myself." Mitsu picked up his jounin and carried him piggy back style, his legs around Mitsu's waist and crossed at the ankles, an arm over his shoulder with Mitsu holding onto it so he wouldn't fall backward. "Just keep focused on your job, I'll make a good way down, it shouldn't be hard to see." Mitsu smirked at his last sentence and then left the cave and put his hand down on the edge of the cliff.

Mitsu released his chakra onto the side of the mountain and suddenly five spikes shot out of the mountain down to the other platform where Ayame had tossed off the goat. Mitsu hopped down each spike and made it to the cliff side, doing it again, only making two spikes instead, further apart. After falling down to the bottom-most one, he did it again, making three more. He continued this process until there was enough of them to keep a steady path down the mountain to where they could walk down. Mitsu hopped off of his last spike, feeling a bit drained. He didn't normally use that much chakra AND jump down a mountain often. He felt a bit slow for a bit, but he gathered himself quickly and ran down the rest of the mountain and waited at the edge of the forest. The cold would have started to get to him, had he not had the jounin on his back. Not only did Mitsu's body heat keep the man warm, the man's body heat did the same for him. So Mitsu was able to shake off the cold. He looked back as he was going down the mountain to make sure Ayame was okay, but after not seeing her for a bit, he remembered what he told her and tried putting her out of his mind. But now that he was safe, he started to watch and worry again. He sat down and layed the jounin next to him though and waited for Ayame.

Once she had finally caught up he would still sit there, being a bit more tired than he thought. "Did you two make it alright? I'm a bit tired myself but I can keep going at least until we are out of the rice country, so don't worry about me. I'll leave when you are ready to get going." Mitsu would stand up and pick his jounin up again like he did last time and would follow her along mostly in silence until they reached Konoha.

When Mitsu had offered Ayame his cloak, she simply stared at him for a while with a rather unsure expression. “You sure you gonna be alright without it though? The winds don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon and I know for a fact that it’s not gonna make this place any warmer.” Once he had reassured her in his own way that he will be just fine, Ayame resolved that he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Realizing this, Ayame simply smiled as she nodded at this, taking a second to hold only her passenger’s right leg with her right arm as she took hold of his cloak, throwing it over both her and the Jounín taking a ride on her back before shifting both their weights in order to get a good positioning.

Nodding at Mitsu one last time, Ayame watched as he went through the exit of the cave. Wanting to make sure that her passenger was properly secured around her during this time, Ayame let go of his left leg once again and released the pink sash from her waist and tied it around the cloak that Mitsu gave her, sub sequentially tying it around both of their waist in order for the weakened Jounín to be even more properly fastened around Ayame and would possibly allow her to move her arms more.

Given that Mitsu had enough time now to set things up around the bottom from the outside, Ayame was now fully prepared to take her own leave so she dashed over to the exit, though careful enough to slow down and bend over in order to keep her passenger from getting hit in the head. Now that she was out of the cave and closer to the ledge, Ayame stared down a bit to see white spikes coming from the mountain sides that looked like bones. ‘A Kaguya huh… just like Hana.' Ayame would only let this comparison run in her mind for a few seconds before she would shake it out of her head and initiate a plan that she worked out herself. Now that she was more fastened to her passenger, Ayame would be able to let go of him long enough to form a few handsigns. Knowing that, Ayame let go of him and went through a few of them before slamming her palm down to the ground before taking Mitsu’s initiative and hopping off of the ledge and down on one of his bone spikes.

Right when she did this, the wind started to pick up even more and a sort of explosion became apparent, which evidently caused a lot of rocks; some small, most big; to start raining down from the top. Taking this to heart, Ayame started forming a few handsigns as she hopped off of another spike. “Shadow Clone Jutsu!” Two shadow clones appeared on either side of Ayame as she descended in order to provide assistance for her as she continued to the bottom while helping to keep Ayame’s passenger safe.

Just as the first set of rocks hit the ledge that Ayame initially hopped off of, she clapped her hands together and the ground under the rocks began to explode and expand wind with enough force that it sent them back in pieces. This would give the clones an easier time to hold the rocks back as they literally battled against nature. They would both suddenly draw their swords and charged at the rocks, utilizing their immense strength for the bigger rocks and Wind Fists to hold back the smaller ones in order to bide time until they would eventually get hit themselves and disperse.

By this time, Ayame would have just enough time to make it to the last three floors, using Mitsu’s bone spikes to gain extra leverage and speed. Once she had finally made it to the bottom, Ayame started to wince in pain for some odd reason as she stepped not too far from her partner. Once he asked if they were both alright, Ayame would nod to him before wincing once again as her left sleeve showed itself to be ripped while her shoulder bled. “Don’t worry, it’s jjust a little scratch, I’m fine.” Ayame would then remove the sash from her and her passenger’s waists and wrap it around her arm to help with the bleeding before shifting their weights once more. “Alright, I’m ready to head on home.” She would then take her passenger and walk alongside Mitsuhide and his as they started tracing their steps. “Oh and by the way, about that ‘fun’ you were talking about…” Ayame just looked over in his direction with a smile and then winked at him. “Maybe next time, ok?” She would then tighten her grip on her passenger and pick up just a bit of speed so they could get briefed for their mission and have she could have a nice, hot shower. At this point, she really needed that.

Jutsu used by Ayame:

Jutsu used by Shadow Clones:

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