Ronnel slipped into the small crowd of people, who were currently chanting a name he didn't recognize - Floyd? He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, before staggering as someone threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. The undercover shinobi had to force himself to keep from reacting, which would have blown his temporary cover. He turned to look at the person who had grabbed him.
"Hey there new man! Come to hear Floyd? He's great, isn't he?" Ronnel blinked at the person who was now hanging off of him. The man was about his height, and looked many years older than he was, with aged silvery gray hair, and deep grooves worn into his face. The teen blinked twice and nodded slowly, unsure what to say at this point. But then his eyes lit up - he was wearing contacts so that his unnatural irises didn't give him away as a ninja - and he spoke up.
"Pardon me, but, uhm, what exactly is it that Floyd preaches? I mean, everyone here seems to nearly worship him..." The man looked at the teen with a gimlet eye, but then shrugged and took a pull from the bottle that he was carrying. He hiccuped into Ronnel's face, making the white haired teen's eyes cross at the smell, then looked around. After a few moments he gestured around grandiosely with the bottle of booze, waving it around to indicate everything around them.
"This village, you know, it's one of the big three yeah? *hiccup* what that means, is that a few years ago, probably not too long after you were born sonny, some bigshot ninja decided that we didn't need to live by ourselves anymore, and gathered as many people as would listen to... to him... or her?" The man's eyes blanked out for a moment before he took another drink of his bottle and shrugged. "Ah, whatever. So this ninja pulled people together to live in Soragakure, only back then, we lived in the sky. It was pretty nice..." Towards the end of his rambling, the man's head was drooping slightly, making Ronnel concerned for him. As he finished, the man slumped over against the teen, who held him up with a squawk of surprise that drew the attention of the people around them. Upon seeing the boy holding up the snoring drunk, room was made around them as one of the nurses who was in the crowd came over to help.
This was the first big test of Ronnel's disguises. Not only was he wearing dark brown contact lenses to hide his unique pupils, he had added in streaks of various colors to his hair, enough to make it seem like the white was just one more streak of color that he had added to himself instead of his natural hair color. He was also wearing a blue hoodie and brown trousers, and carried a staff with him to make him seem more normal. The reason this was a test to see if he was recognized? The nurse who was coming over to help was one that he had worked with on occasion at the hospital, working as a medical ninja.
It seemed his efforts to disguise himself had been successful. The woman had stared at him for a moment, prompting him to ask if something was wrong, and when she blushed and looked away Ronnel was relieved to realize that she was simply reacting to his clan heritage. Thanking him for helping keep the drunk on his feet until she arrived, the nurse pulled the man away, shaking her head as the besotted man mumbled about floating fortresses and dragons coming to challenge them. Ron waited a few minutes with tensed breath, wondering if she'd take the man away and then blow his cover, but it seemed that she truly hadn't recognized him.
Now he was standing in the middle of a small group, easily talking with them about inane things while everyone waited for this Floyd person to show up. Ronnel blinked as someone else walked over and joined their group but shrugged it off when the man focused his attention on one of the young girls in the cluster of people. That is, until the man focused his gaze onto Ron, and stepped closer to him.
"So you helped keep that old man up huh? Thanks for that." Ronnel turned to look at the man who'd spoken, interrupting his conversation with one of the older women in the group. "But you know, that's exactly the kind of thing that a ninja wouldn't do." For half a moment Ronnel wondered if he had somehow blown his cover after all, but the man continued on speaking as if he wasn't really looking at Ronnel at all.
"Hear that everyone? A ninja would have ignored that old drunk, let him fall down! But my little rainbow headed friend here kept him on his feet, just like any one of us normal citizens would do!" People turned to look at the young man as he raised his voice, and Ronnel took a moment to study the person before him. He seemed charismatic enough, able to pull people to him somehow, but it grated slightly on Ronnel for some reason he couldn't discern. He stood a little shorter than Ron did, and was leaner, but he dressed sharply, in finer clothes than many of the people in this crowd did. With a start the undercover shinobi realized that this was Floyd, or it was someone high up in the protesters' group.
"Yes everyone, it is I, Floyd. I come here to speak to you all today about a great injustice that is being carried out on you all." He looked around, seemingly basking in the attention that the crowd, now orienting on him as word spread of his arrival, was giving him. " You all know of the atrocity of which I speak! It's the fac tthat even now, ninja rule you! Yes, they are owed a debt of gratitude for pulling together so many people, and giving security to anyone under the banner, but that doesn't mean that they should be the rulers any longer!" His back to Ronnel, the orator missed the narrowing of the hidden eyes. The mission log seemed to be a little out of date, or else he had arrived just in time to catch an escalation event. Though something about what this man was saying was bothering Ronnel - not the treason, but something about the way he was talking.
"Maybe once they should have been allowed to rule you, but now, look what they have done to your fair city! Torn down from the heavens by those jealous of its majesty!" Ronnel's eyes shot open wide as he caught on to what had been bothering him. Floyd was talking to the citizens of Sora as if they were separate from him, different. It was subtle, but he never included himself in the group whenever he referred to Sorakaguran citizenry. Ronnel belatedly caught up to what the man was saying as he turned around, and hurriedly adopted a look of interest and fascination as Floyd turned his gaze back to him.
"And why? None know, but what is known that it was a NINJA leader who attacked Soragakure! If that man had been answerable to the people, a council of every day citizens like you or I..." There was a stress to his voice when Floyd included himself there, and in the distance Ronnel could hear someone shout out.
"I'd make you our leader Floyd!" Floyd waved his hands to the crowd in a pacifying gesture.
"Now now, I appreciate that, but who leads isn't important here. It's who doesn't lead Sora that's important. And that 'who' is the NINJAS!" There was cheering in the crowd, and Ronnel found himself being pushed forward by people around him surging towards Floyd, trying to touch the insurrectionist. Inadvertently, Ronnel found himself falling, only to be caught by Floyd as the man moved in front of him.
"You didn't let one of your citizens down, I could do no less. Come, walk with me. You seem a smart, bright young man. I think you'd do well in my group." Ducking his head from Floyd's direct gaze, Ronnel stammered out an agreement, and found himself dragged along by the speaker as the crowd parted around him.
The last three weeks had passed in a blur for Ronnel. Since getting dragged away from the rally by Floyd, he'd been kept with someone constantly. It didn't seem to be like they were trying to watch him or anything, but more of, they were constantly using his services. The group that Floyd was a part of - that he was the leader of - definitely seemed to be insurrectionists, but unlike the enigmatic leader, they were Soragakure civilians. They'd found out that Ronnel was a fair bit stronger and faster, and so they'd started using him as a reliable messenger to some of the other rally leaders, as they thought he might be fast enough to evade any shinobi or kunoichi that might follow him.
That had actually happened at one point. Ronnel had made the other messenger with him run ahead while Ronnel doubled back to 'trick' the patrolling shinobi. When he pulled out his hitai-ate, and explained what he was doing, word had rapidly spread amongst the police force ninja, and he saw a rapid decline in how rigorously the police chased him. Not that the other rebels noticed, which he was grateful for. But that was of no matter, for the last day he had been used as a kind of strong-man, just as a guard for Floyd when the man went out to speak, as the crowd was getting practically ravenous to reach him.
Speaking of Floyd, Ronnel thought he had figured out what was going on with the man. He wasn't a native of Sora, that was easy enough to see, but he did seem to be from the country nearby. But it was more than that - Ronnel was now fairly certain that Floyd was one of the accursed anarchists, one who was using a different method to bring down the village. He'd get himself elected to the leadership, after deposing the Kage that is, and once that was done, he'd slowly work against the city from within, ruining it and driving it down until everyone fled. But that wasn't the only bad bit. Ronnel had figured out why it was that people seemed to instinctively like him, and hell, he should have figured it out as soon as he met Floyd.
The man was a Hanaya. Ronnel probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't trained as a ninja, working to notice what escaped normal people's attention. And if he didn't deal with it himself on a fairly regular basis. The innate pull was everywhere, and it was why people almost couldn't control themselves. To test this, Ronnel had at one point created a mild flow of wind right below his face, keeping any of the air from Floyd from reaching him. Almost immediately, the mild persistent headache that he had every time he was near Floyd vanished, only to return a few moments after he let the technique die. He'd stopped because he saw Floyd frown and begin looking around - the man apparently had some mild chakra sensory ability, to notice when it was being used.
But for Ronnel, the nights had been his own. There was a few hours every night where his shifts to do things - either be a messenger or be a guard for Floyd - had ended, and he was left to his own devices. And he had put this time to good use. He'd slowly, carefully to avoid drawing attention, grown a small batch of Cure Flowers. He'd had to be more subtle about it, as he didn't want to use a full on technique which would likely have garnered Floyd's full attention. That had taken several days, and the next step had been even worse. But he had to do it, as he was fairly certain that Floyd was using pheromones from Hanaya flowers to charm people into trusting him more easily. And while Ronnel could have countered it directly, that would only work once, at close range.
No, for what he was doing, Ronnel turned to his medical knowledge. He took the Cure Flowers, and treated them like a base for an aerosol poison. He had to disseminate the effect of the gas quickly and effectively over a large range, and poisons did that the best. It was tricky, and in the end he had to combine it with a few herbs that would also cause nausea after half an hour in order to get the right gas dispersal rate, but in the end he had a fairly large collection of pills, that when exposed to air, would dissolve, and the contents would begin evaporating. He was just in time to test it too, as Floyd was going to return to the group's camp within the hour.
Working quickly, Ronnel scattered the pellets throughout the camp, so that the Cure Flower pheromones would saturate the air thoroughly. He waited to see if he could detect any odor, but nearly five minutes passed and he couldn't smell anything. He did see though, that several of the others in the group began looking confused, and then mildly angry.
Bingo. Who knows how long he worked on this group before beginning to push his plans further? Ronnel nodded to himself. These people had obviously been held under the Flower Charmer technique for incredible lengths of time, as their higher thought processes had apparently been ruined. Now that the cure was being administered, and their ability to think clearing up, many of them were looking disgusted at what happened. Not long after that, all of them were leaving, throwing their tools down. The only ones not affected were the people sleeping, but that would actually work for Ronnel.
Now he knew that the pellets would work. He hadn't actually been sure since the scrolls on the clan techniques had mentioned that only the user had the cure, but whatever 'Floyd' had done to draw out the affects and keep people from breaking free had weakened it to the point where his own Flower Cure could free them. Now he just had to put them to use in a better setting. Like say, the next rally that he was supposed to guard Floyd at?
Ronnel shifted slightly as he handed out another of the water bottles that he had been assigned with for this rally. The anti-ninja group that had been running things for the insurgency had decided that just having a few people guard Floyd wasn't enough, said guards had to be doing things that made them seem innocuous to the crowd.
And speaking of said anti-ninja group, Floyd's reaction upon coming back to the camp and finding that everyone who wasn't asleep had apparently dropped what they were doing and left while he was gone was nothing short of apoplectic. He had been careful not to take it out on anyone who had remained, because he didn't know why they had left, or if they would be coming back at all. So he had been careful not to ostracize those people he still had left - which unbeknownst to him, included the person responsible for the others wising up - as he still needed help to pull this off. Fastforward three days, and Ronnel was handing out water bottles to every few people as he made his way through the crowd, supposedly looking at for anyone who might be getting ready to rush the stage.
The cure to Floyd's pheromones wasn't in the water, that would have been too easy to check for, and might have made some people notice the odd taste. Instead, the pellets had been carefully affixed to the bottom of the water bottles, so that the gas would slowly disperse throughout the crowd, from multiple sources. It wouldn't be immediate, but as Floyd spoke, he would find people less and less inclined to listen to his subversive speech. That wouldn't happen for several minutes in though, giving Ronnel more than enough time to make it back to the stage and take up position near Floyd, crossing his arms and mentally running through what he'd have to do once everything started going down.
It was small at first, taking time for the effects to wear off and people to actually start thinking about what was being said. But think about it they did. And as they thought, more and more people started trickling away from the edge of the crowd, grumbling and glaring up towards the stage. Floyd didn't notice it at first, but when someone threw one of the signs that another of the guards had passed out at him, he realized that something was wrong. He snapped to attention and looked around, and was shocked to see that the crowd, which was quite large even for a rally he was supposed to be at, was less than half the size of the ones he'd first started with. And worse, instead of loving adoration, the people in the crowd were glaring at him, or outright ignoring him as they walked away.
What was worse for him was that only the guards that were actually close to him - Ronnel and one other man, and a woman - were staying as well. The others, who had been out in the crowd, were leaving themselves, or looked like they were getting ready to. Floyd couldn't have this - he needed the population on his side if his plan was going to work, so he cried out.
"Wait! My friends, don't you want to take your village back from the oppressors? That did stop many of the people in the crowd - but the looks on their faces as they turned around were nigh-on murderous. Ronnel allowed himself a small smile as he started walking forward - Floyd allowed it since he thought it was his guard getting ready to protect him from the sudden change in opinion in the crowd. But as Ronnel stopped in between the foreigner and the crowd, he slowly and carefully took his hitai-ate out from the front of his hoodie, where he'd been careful to keep it out of sight for today. Keeping it in front of him and out of Floyd's sight he showed it to the nearest citizens and winked, causing many of them to take a step back in shock.
"He's right you know, we should get rid of those who are trying to dominate us and keep us down." Floyd, behind Ronnel, started nodding. "However." THe man's head whipped up to stare in shock at his guard. "That isn't the Kage, now is it ladies and gentlemen? No, it's the foreign anarchist who's trying to take over our fair village." Ronnel slowly lifted his headband up and tied it around his forehead prominently.
"My name is Ronnel Hanaya." Floyd's inhaled breath made Ronnel grin viciously. "And I am an undercover shinobi who was assigned to find out why these protests, which were previously legal and peaceful, started becoming subversive and violent. Lo and behold, I found out that I was uniquely suited to this task, for it was a member of my clan who was the cause of the change." Ronnel spun around, using his staff to knock Floyd's knife holding hand away from himself.
"Floyd Hanaya, you are sentenced with infiltration and terrorism. You utilized clan techniques to warp the minds of a large portion of the Soragakure population to your cause. I have broken that hold. You may give up and come quietly with me to the Kage for sentencing." Ronnel dragged a foot back, bringing his staff into a guarding position. "But be warned, if you choose to fight, I will have no choice but to take you down with extreme prejudice. Your decision?"
For a moment, there was silence as everyone there took in Ronnel's revelation to them. Some of the crowd looked disgusted with themselves, while others were gaping in shock at the stage. The other two guards were both staring at Ronnel in a mixture of betrayal and astonishment, which wasn't surprising. He had been with their group for some time now, working to undermine the city, or so they had thought. But it was Floyd's face that the white-haired shinobi's attention was focused on.
Floyd was staring at Ronnel in mute surprise. His mouth slowly opened and closed, as if he was trying to process what had been said and failing to do so. THen the man looked around, his eyes narrowing as he saw the faces of the people below the stage, rage and murderous intent filling his gaze as his eyes slowly settled back onto the ninja who had ruined his plans. He started tossing the knife in his hand back and forth as he pondered how to react to what Ronnel had said, before he came to a stop and pointed the weapon at Ronnel.
"There is no way I'd give in to one of the damn ninja. Your cities shouldn't exist, and you might have stopped my attempt to destroy it, there will be others. I fight, so that the day might come when all ninja villages are torn down, until the time when the world never needs them!" With that, the man charged at Ronnel, trying to slash him with the knife.
Of course, the man was an anarchist, not a ninja. So while he was faster than a normal man might have been, he was only slightly faster than Ronnel was. And since Ronnel had been expecting an attack as soon as he started talking, the Gennin was able to deflect the blow with his staff, smacking the wood against the man's arm and sending him stumbling to the side. The medic spun his weapon around with the rebound and brought the other end up into Floyd's stomach, doubling the man over as the air was knocked out of him quite forcefully.
Sadly for Ronnel, Floyd wasn't the only anarchist there. No, the other two guards were also anti-village believers, who had been with Floyd since the beginning. But he didn't know that, so when one of the two others brought their truncheon out and slammed it into his back, he was caught completely off-guard. He staggered from the blow and barely brought his staff up into the way of the follow up attack, catching it as the man brought his truncheon down in an overhanded swing at the shinobi's head. Out of the corner of his eye, the medic-nin caught sight of the woman helping Floyd to his feet, glaring at Ronnel as she did so. He cursed under his breath, he hadn't known that Floyd had true allies, and now his attempt at catching or killing Floyd was in danger.
He needed to come up with a way of defeating all three of them before Floyd managed to escape, or at least, he needed to definitively deal with Floyd before then. If he could take the leader out, then he could deal with the other two more leisurely. Ron took a deep breath and threw back the man who had been trying to overwhelm him,, then turned and hurled his staff at the other two.
By luck of the throw - and his aim - the staff got caught in between their legs, tangling them up and sending the two toppling to the ground in an ungainly heap. This left Ronnel unarmed against the man who was trying to bash his head in, but the Genin didn't have a problem with that. He was beyond pissed now, insurrectionists had been attacking the place that was his home, and these three were the closest things to leaders he would find any time soon. He turned his hidden eyes to the man, and glared.
"Do you know why you don't ever want to fight a healer?" The other man froze. "It's because we know how to hurt you the worst. Moonlight Splicer! Twin crescents of silver chakra flowed outwards from his wrists up to his elbows, forming blades that gleamed eerily. He rushed at the disconcerted guard, the chakra blades flashing twice as he struck at the man's arms, hastily brought up to defend himself. The man stared in shock as his arms suddenly went limp, then cried out in agony as the pain reached him. Ronnel brought his left arm up and sliced through the man's neck, once again leaving no outward mark... but the damage was evident as blood started welling out of the man's mouth, his cries becoming gurgles as he slumped backwards.
By this time, Floyd and his other guard were getting back to their feet. They had seen the other guard's demise, and were now trying to flee. Unfortunately for them, Ronnel wasn't going to let that happen. He dismissed the Moonlight Splicers and grabbed a seed from his pouch, grimacing. "Floyd, you should have given up. These deaths are on your head!" The foolish anarchists, instead of running, stopped to see what he was talking about. Floyd's skin drastically paled when he realized what Ronnel was about to do with the his clenched hand, which was already sprouting a vine.
"Thown Whip!" The vine in his hand suddenly sprouted to nearly ten feet in length, and only the half foot in his hand was bare of barbed thorns. The shinobi crouched and sprang at the two fleeing from him, easily covering enough space to allow his whip to catch them. His right hand snaked out, sending the whip tearing through the air, once more aimed at their legs. Floyd was able to dodge it, but the woman, who was helping him walk since both had been hurt by the thrown staff earlier, wasn't, and she took Floyd tumbling to the ground along with her as the barbs tore into her legs. She screamed in pain, which was only made worse when Floyd started kicking her, trying to push her away so that he could get to his feet and run away. He finally succeeded in getting up to his hands and knees, only to find himself staring at Ronnel's clenched hand.
"One last chance. Yield." The foreign Hanaya spat at the Soragakure Hanaya, and sealed his fate. Ronnel ignored the spit dripping down his chin as he flared his chakra through his hand. "Thorn Lance." The calm voice belied the action, as the outstretched arm was rapidly surrounded by a green, growing vine which hardened into a dark green solid mass. The 'lance' extended a foot past the end of Ronnel's hand - which was only a few inches away from Floyd's face. The plant nearly grew threw Floyd's face, slicing it apart as it went.
But Ronnel had once again forgotten the female guard, who took his moment of execution as her opportunity to attack. She couldn't do much, but the dagger that she stabbed into his leg managed to tear into him quite well. He looked down in shock at her bruised face as he started to fall, and brought the thorn lance around, ripping it out of Floyd's head, and plunged it into her back, pinning her to the ground, missing her spine but puncturing a lung. Then he fell, the lance dissolving, and he cried out in pain as the dagger was twisted in his leg by his fall.
He had won, but damn, it hurt to win. He'd have to figure out how to fight better in physical combat, so that this didn't happen next time. Blacking in and out, Ronnel was vaguely aware of the fact that all of the fighters had forgotten something else - the crowd. The citizens picked up the shinobi, and the bodies of the anarchists, and off they went. The bodies to the hospital to go to the attached morgue, and Ronnel, for healing at the same hospital. His last conscious thought was that it was weird to be carried by someone at his age.
