You are the old soul. You are a being full of quiet wisdom, but it did not come without earning it. Experience has weathered you quickly, yet you remain strong through it all. You are a bastion to those who need the support of a calm and resolute mind. The histories of the world are etched beneath your thick skin, and you hold dearly to things that others would quickly forget. You collect things within your branches, you give home to those left without, and you bear the weight of it all. But through all you have been through, you have not yet learned how to let go. You refuse to relinquish what you cherish so dearly and weep for every precious thing that falls from your branches. You must be careful, or else the past you cling to might destroy a brighter future.
"The past is a pathway to a brighter future. Those who forget it are doomed to repeat the follies of those who come before. Why would I let it go when I can make sure such mistakes never happen again? Looking only ahead without looking behind is shortsighted."
Pilfered from @kaizoku-dan
Tagging you. And you. And you over there, yes you with the green shirt.
"Thank you. While I am sure that this was not very impressive to you, an Aburame, this is something I have been working toward for a very long time."
A moth landed gently on her fingertip and she looked fondly at it.
"I have formed a contract of sorts with these beautiful creatures. They do not live within me like your insects live within you, but they are always close at hand."
Upon closer inspection of the moth, it seems that it's not a natural species. It still has the organs to produce silk, and it still has a mouth with which to eat.
Kushina was never about violence, and in truth? She hated this war, she hated being used like a tool for bloodshed. She didn't want to be here, but she had little to no choice. This was the reality of the situation, so she had to deal with it.
"Come-!!" She insisted, wanting to jump into the trees.
She saw Sara's body on the ground and rushed over. "Sara!" She shouted. She checked their vitals for a pulse, good. She was just unconscious. Kushina put the girl on her back and proceeded on leaping from tree to tree.
Their objective was to reconvene with the others who were preparing to advance into Kusagakure. From there, they would make a push to Amegakure.
Sara wakes up on Kushina's back, grumbling and feeling her head for injuries.
"Did... did they knock me out when you were telling me to pull back?"
She doesn't seem to remember the brutal slaughter that happened when the curse mark took over. And it had retreated back to the nape of her neck after she committed the massacre of the enemy shinobi.
"I'm... sorry for being useless again... And thanks for saving me..."
"I see, Interesting." Kaato replied. "I have been jailed for trying to protect one of my children...." Kaato began. "I murdered, but it still haunts me til this very day." She told them. "Dark thoughts come with our deeds, no matter how great or small."
Melanie's pen stopped moving. Her expression was that of cold fury. Not at Kaato, but at someone else.
"Had I had the chance to protect those I lost, I would have been slain several times over for my actions. And I would have done so again in a heartbeat."
She flipped back through her book and found a page. With a quick stroke of her pen, she seemed to throw the text into the air. Not the paper, but the text. The text swirled and took the form of a man with short blonde hair, wearing a safari outfit.
"Theodore Johansen. His death was preventable. His providers would not pay for his treatment and he could not afford it." The text rushed back onto the page.
Melanie went to another page, doing the same thing to show a woman with blonde hair and green eyes. "Jane Steele. She perished because the company she worked for refused to comply with safety standards."
Again, she found another page. Again, the text resolved itself into a person. This time, a young woman with white hair. "Celeste Galileo. Murdered for being a whistleblower. They tried and failed to make her death look like a suicide."
The text rushed back to the page and she closed the book. The sequence only happened over the course of a few seconds, Melanie's voice becoming faster and colder with every sentence.
"Mikoto. We're not getting married. Not right now. Maybe if things are steady for a while. But not right now. It was stupid for me to bring it up. We'll think about it sometime down the line. Maybe."
There is a combination of assertiveness and fear in her voice. Just what does she fear?
Linkle sighed and leapt up a cliff stone by stone till she got a bit out of reach. She then lowered the woman to ay. "Don't you move, I got these ones." She grabbed a pair of bombs from her pouch. The weakness of blins under a bossblin? They move together!"
She lit and tossed the bombs among the Bokoblins. After they exploded, taking most of them out, Linkle slid down the cliff and readied to fight. "You ain't gonna be staying in my domain. I'm gonna be turning you to smoke."
Melanie laid there like a discarded doll as she put almost all of her focus into debugging her Expeditionary Virtual Intelligence.
Operator > Set Emergency Override to Prompt-Only
EVI > Acknowledged
Operator > Set CNEC to EPSILON
EVI > Threat Level EPSILON does not exist.
Operator > Mike Victor 1025. Set CNEC to EPSILON
EVI > Credentials confirmed. Setting Combat Neural Enhancement Contingency to Threat Level EPSILON.
Operator > Incidentally, EVI, why did you activate the Emergency Overclock when coolant and stimulant levels were so low?
EVI > Parameters were not set.
Operator > Set Emergency Overclock Coolant Threshold to five minutes and Emergency Overclock Stimulant Threshold to two doses.
EVI > Acknowledged. Parameters set.
Operator > Continue Troubleshooting Procedures in the background.
EVI > Acknowledged.
Her cybernetics began to move. Compartments opened and closed. Various modules activated and deactivated. Melanie suddenly sat up and looked around.
”So…you’d really take my last name, Sara?” Miko questioned as a follow up. She’s curious. A name was a name after all, though hers was more of a sentiment than anything.
"Remember this in survival. Against a group, you don't let them tire you out. Play the long game and conserve your energy." Linkle was taking out her crossbows. "Second, big attacks are finishing blows. Otherwise you are leaving yourself wide open. We are smaller and naturally weaker. We can not measure up pound for pound. Fight smart, not hard.
Linkle proceeded to fire bolts at the heads of the moblins, the hit sending them flying. She then holstered one of her weapons to pick the woman up over her shoulder and side step to the Bossblin's new blind side. She was gonna waste this thing's energy first while using the least amount of energy.
"It must be noted that certain functions were overridden. This is not how I usually do battle. I have some troubleshooting to do, so please place me somewhere outside of the fight. I may go relatively limp during the process. Place me somewhere safe, would you?"
Melanie just sits like a sack of potatoes over Linkle's shoulders, the lights fading from her pupils. She's clearly still alive but whatever the lights were doing in her eyes, they aren't doing anymore right now.
Something isn't quite right about this woman's cybernetics...
Linkle side glance and quickly hopped to the side of the downward swing it delivered at a run. The impact smashed the ground, clearly a lot of damage. Linkle responded in kind by grabbing a long dagger and rushing forward to slash it's face. She was able to get one eye, but she had to back off as it angrily swung wildly in anger and pain.
"Be careful. They aren't smart, but they are tougher than Moblins and strong too. It's a silver variant. those are the strongest of any kind of monster. It will take a lot of damage to keep it down."
Archeops was already taking a position to form a triangle formation. This way, they could more easily attack a bland spot or somewhere away from it's own attacks. Clearly it was experienced fighting monsters.
Melanie moves with a suddenness that leaves afterimages behind her. The bokoblins behind their boss suddenly freeze as a blur goes past them. A burst of electricity impacts the back of the bokoblin boss's head, causing it to drop its weapon. The weapon seems to vanish.
Melanie reappears next to Linkle, holding the weapon. But before she can continue the attack, she falls to one knee, wincing in pain and panting.
Alert! Overheat detected in following components
Left Hand
Left Arm
Right Hand
Right Arm
Left Foot
Left Leg
Right Foot
Right Leg
Deploying Emergency Coolant
Alert! Exhaustion detected in operator
Deploying stimulants
