by Marcus Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:29 pm
Sero didn't really say anything in response to the plan Marcus had come up with. But for this man specifically, Marcus took that as a sign of affirmation. At least, it wasn't an outright denial of the plan. Marcus took off as planned, Sero staying back where the two had initially stopped. It took Marcus a good minute to reach the are he figured the second sentry would be patrolling, all the while refraining from making any unnecessary noises within the trees. The man hadn't spotted Marcus approaching and from his position stood with his back facing Marcus. He had been in the middle of inspecting the area and was getting ready to head a different direction.
Marcus carefully began to approach the man, his right hand moving up to chest height and hovering over his heart. He ceased hiding his signature and began to channel chakra into that hand, taking aim at the man as he slowly walked back towards the camp. He still hadn't detected Marcus, so he definitely wasn't a sensory type shinobi. That was good, as it made this much easier. If the man hadn't been armed with a sword Marcus would have gone in with taijutsu to try for a silent kill but it didn't seem to be the most prudent course of action. Marcus inhaled deeply, finalizing his preparations for the attack.
That's when the scream came.
The man he was targeting shifted his attention back towards where the scream had been, hand moving to his sword. Marcus swore softly to himself at Sero's incompetence and slid his hand across his chest, multiple blades of wind releasing from the movement and converging on his target. They coalesced into a single blade of air a couple meters before hitting the man who had seen Marcus just before the attack and had drawn his sword.
It didn't really help him much, the blade of wind breaking the lower quality weapon in half before slicing into the man's body. His left arm was severed and a large gash crossed him from left shoulder to right hip from the impact of the jutsu. Marcus's sensory abilities were up and ready to go after releasing the jutsu, his body moving out to approach his downed target. A few large branches had been sliced through from the smaller blades of air, though no large trees had fallen from the cuts thankfully. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the broken half of the blade off the ground as he approached the man who was still in shock. A quick thrust down through the man's throat along with a quick jerk to free it ensured he wouldn't alert his comrades. Blood squirted out of his neck, spraying onto Marcus's right pant leg. The same hand dropped the piece of the broken blade, blood coating that hand from the initial thrust and pull.
Marcus moved a few meters from the corpse and touched the ground to monitor the situation at the camp from afar. All three were on alert and the fourth man was approaching from the far side of the camp from his patrol. Sero was making his way towards the main camp with the patrolman he was supposed to have killed right next to him. Was he dragging him along for some reason? The bandit's chakra signature was in constant flux which indicated a great amount of distress. Another soft curse escaped his lips as Marcus took off for the main camp. A mist had begun to descend on the area, so Marcus would release a burst of chakra all around him and throughout the forest in order to dispel the mist. He figured that was from Sero, but after butchering his part of the plan Marcus had no intention of letting the Kiri shinobi have such an effect on the battlefield. That, and he still wanted to see what his opponents were doing. Sensing them and accurately predicting what they would do were two different things entirely for one as mediocre as he.
Getting to the main camp took a bit of time and Sero reached it before Marcus did. He made sure to go around before making his own move on the group so as to not catch Sero with his attack. The Kiri shinobi had already engaged the group on his own and... what the hell was that?
Marcus stopped when he was fifteen meters from Sero's one o' clock, sensing what the man's body was doing as well as what he was planning on doing to the bandits. The patrolman was clearly in great amounts of pain, but the other three had all attacked Sero. He hadn't even tried to dodge anything, but instead his body had... well, the only way Marcus could describe it was that Sero's body morphed to prevent any kind of physical damage from hitting him. That was definitely good information to know about the man. If weapons and physical attacks didn't work on him, then that meant any confrontation with him would need to be solved with chakra.
The disturbing quality of his chakra and the grotesque way in which he handled killing the bandits made Marcus nauseous. His father had been abusive, but this Sero seemed to take pleasure out of torturing people for the sake of it. His chakra fluctuated with his body shape, but it seemed he was... happy? If not happy, then less negative than he had felt like when Marcus first encountered him. A few hand seals woven with both hands on Marcus's part preceded his approach on the main camp. When he was ten meters away, Marcus would line himself up with the two remaining bow using bandits as well as the one approaching directly behind them from where Marcus was standing. A large inhalation of breath followed by a large burst of wind would fire straight in front of him at quite the rate of speed. The only warning anybody would have would be the ripping apart of trees as the strong jutsu blew away everything in its path on the way to the bandits.
One of the bow wielding bandits had quicker than average reaction times, barely managing to dodge out of the way of the attack. The other, however, took the full brunt of the assault and would be slammed by a massive burst of wind mixed with tree branches. There was little chance he survived, and Marcus kept the attack up in order to nail the bandit approaching the camp. The added debris from the forest aided in this endeavor. This bandit managed to avoid the majority of the attack, being on the edge of Marcus's sensory range. However, his signature spiked in alarm and wavered slightly. The man was in pain, meaning he wasn't dead from the attack but was certainly injured. Marcus had purposefully kept Sero and his two victims out of the width of the attack, meaning only to attack the bandits.
Marcus emerged from what remained of the forest into a new clearing created by his jutsu, eyes on Sero's first victim. His mouth curved down in disgust, not impressed with the way in which Sero had handled the patrolman. Eyes missing and, from the looks of it, the tongue was gone as well. The archer that had avoided the wind jutsu had landed on his bow and snapped it. He now wielded his belt knife, a length of steel about a foot long, brandishing it at Sero.
"M-monster! What are you?!"
Marcus made no move to attack the man further, keeping track of the wounded bandit out of their sight that was apparently staggering around to try and take them from behind. He wouldn't get the drop on them though. Truthfully, Marcus was curious as to what Sero was too. Being able to do that with your body was unnatural, at best.
Trained/used:
Wind Release: Slash C rank
Wind Release: Passing Typhoon D rank (Dispersed Hiding in Mist)
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough C rank
Sensing .5 upkeep
15.5/110 stamina used