The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Ninjas
Mar 19, 2017 18:30:55 GMT -5
Nathan Saniti and The Anarchist like this
Post by Andy D on Mar 19, 2017 18:30:55 GMT -5
Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth – Mike Tyson
When you have self-confidence and or self-esteem issues, shopping can be a bit annoying. You kind of work out what you want, where you’re going to get it from before you even leave the house. Then you just go in, get it and pay. No browsing, no window shopping, no trying that shirt on in the changing rooms. And if what you want isn’t there? You leave and don’t really bother. You could call this the ‘Guy method’ to shopping but that’s really sexist.
The best this about confidence and esteem is that it is boosted by other people, especially people that you’re attracted to that you would like to try and impress. And so, Nigel found himself wandering the high streets with Kimi on a ‘shopping day.’ While he knew his chances basically zero with the girl, he still found it difficult to say no when it would be something that would make her happy and smile.
Also having a stutter on any word beginning with ‘n’ also helped in the ‘n-n-never say n-n-no’ department.
The problem with going on a shopping trip is that when there are evil ninja assassins out to kill you, you’re not exactly difficult to find. The Jaaku sent one of their best tactical leaders from Texas known only as ‘The Strategist’ to take our Nigel and he brought his squad of his personally trained Ninja’s with him. And they planned on completing their job right now.
You may think that attacking out in broad daylight in a crowd of people is a pretty dumb idea. For a ninja, it’s a challenge. You’d also be surprised how many people notice someone fall down after being killed, but not the person who just walked away. If you pick the right opportunity and you’re quick, nobody will spot you regardless of the time of day.
The squad positioned themselves on one of the rooftops opposite where both Nigel and Kimi were looking into a window shopping, they had been tracking them up and down the streets, staying in a vantage point to not be seen but keep eyes on their target at all times. Now they felt it was time to strike, the boy had to die per their orders. The girl only had to die is she was in the way. They waited until she was in the way to strike.
Bob was up first. This was going to be easy and he was going to impress his boss. All he had to do was jump down, take out the girl, stick something sharp into a vital part of the targets body and job’s done. What nobody in the Jaaku squad had counting on was that Kimi was a ninja to, and the moment Bob’s feet touched the pavement behind her, she spun around 360 degrees slicing his jugular vein while she did. He emitted no sound while trying to grasp his neck to hold the blood in, while 2 other Ninja’s swooped down from their hiding place, picked Bob up and made it back up to the roof tops.
They placed Bob’s now lifeless body on a neighbouring rooftop to where the Jaaku had been perched in a silent statement of ‘I believe this belongs to you.’
It took less than 15 seconds for Bob to jump down off the roof and die, and while the Jaaku lost one of their number, they did learn 2 things. Kimi was a ninja bodyguard, and she had friends hiding in the wings. The Strategist was pleased, to him, the ninja who served him were not members of the Jaaku but tools for him to use. And Bob managed to provide information that would be useful. This would be more difficult than Plan A had accounted for.
Why does Plan A never actually work? Just once it would be nice for Plan A to work
For her part, this was the plan for Kimi. She knew Nigel had wanted to lure out the Jaaku pf hiding and with the intel she received from Ouroboros she knew one would be in town. Her whole idea of this shopping trip was for Nigel to be presented as the target he intended to be, while she and several of her friends from the Shinobi were around to take the Jaaku down. Now they just had to wait for Plan B to kick off.
Plan B involved Ivan. Ivan was an expert with a Yumi, basically a bow and arrow. He liked to think of himself as a pretty crack shot, a regular Robin Hood with a bow. So he moved down the street and took his aim, awaiting the perfect shot like a highly trained sniper… with a bow and arrow. There’s probably some kind of fictional character in pop culture who would match that kind sniper but you might need to search for that one yourself.
Ivan took up position, drew back his bow and waited for Nigel to walk into position. And walk he did as he and Kimi wandered down the high street. At the opportune moment Ivan released the string and let the arrow fly. It flew through the air, across the road, heading for Nigel’s head… until he suddenly turned around to talk to Kimi about some random topic. The arrow flew past Nigel, who was completely unaware of its presence, while Kimi was in awe of Nigel’s natural reactions.
Cursing, Ivan moved positions and tried again, waiting patiently for the next opportunity. Once again he let the arrow filed down to its target. Nigel accidently dropped something on the floor and bent down to pick it up at the exact moment the arrow whizzed by and landed in the wall. In one quick fluid movement Kimi grabbed the arrow, broke off the bit not stuck into the wall and threw it into a bin nearby before Nigel had even got back up to standing. Nobody else even noticed it was there.
Ivan repositioned again, the pressure stated to get to him as he stopped to set up once again. In fact he was so focused in trying to kill Nigel now that he forgot to pay attention to his surroundings. So the next arrow hit a 40 foot lorry as it drove by. The fact that the arrow did hit dead centre of the letter O as part of the trucks logo was lost on The Strategist. He had Ivan murdered for his failures.
Jack was up next. Jack was nimble, he was dedicated and nobody ever had to help him of a horse. He had no idea why the guys would say that kind of thing. While Ivan was failing within his arrow thing, Jack went back down to street level, ditched his ninja gear and blended in with the crowd. When he had got the signal to go, he started to approach Nigel and Kimi.
Because he was now at street level and blending into the crowd, he was hoping on Kimi and the target not spotting him. Using Ivan’s attacks as a distraction he approached the couple from behind, ready to bump into Nigel as he passed by and jab him with a poison tipped needle. Nobody would be the wiser and he would get away free, only for Nigel to die a slow death. Kimi was walking a few steps behind Nigel and as Jack approached, there were a couple of brothers who were walking up the other way. They passed by Nigel on either side of him, so Jack held back behind Kimi, ready to overtake and enact the plan as soon as the brothers passed by.
But he never got to, Kimi had been aware of him all along, and simply turned and threw a Kunai into his heart, the brothers grabbing him and turning him around, putting their arms over his shoulders and yelling out some kind of joyful song as if they were a group of friends completely drunk. The muffled his screams further with a hand over his mouth as they dragged him off down the street.
The strategist was disappointed in his people, but not annoyed by this point. He ordered another to step up and try to take their prey. But that one fell two. And the next. And the next. In fact every single one of them tried to attack either Nigel or Kimi and one way or another they ended up dead, either at the hands of Kimi herself or at the hands on the Strategist, disappointed with their failure.
Eventually only the Strategist was left. He heated that all his tools were sacrificed, but he was now satisfied that the knowledge he gained would be sufficient. He knew of Kimi’s skills. He knew how many allied ninja’s she had hiding in the shadows. And now, as they sat in a sushi restaurant for lunch, it would be the perfect time to strike. After all, Kimi had excused herself to go to powder her nose and now Nigel was there all alone…
Wait, Kimi was no longer guarding Nigel? The Strategist pondered if this was a tactical mistake or…
“Sometimes you need to stop overthinking things” came a voice from behind, across the rooftop. “It can often lead to you not reacting at all.” The strategist turned and there she was, this damn little Kunoichi that had killed most of his ninja squad. This little pain in his side.
Kimi was standing on the edge of the roof with a slight little smirk on her mouth. She knew what was to happen next. She knew this one would be more of a fight than the others, so she wanted to make sure this one never hit street level. She had planned for this. Ouroboros’ intel had said that The Strategist could be egotistical, that he thought his tactical mastery was superior to all, and to lure him into a trap and then systematically wipe out all of his subordinates, Kimi just needed one little push to make him really pissed. “Don’t tell me you’re all brain and no brawn.”
Yeah, that’ll do it.
The Strategist made an annoyed grunt as he unsheathed a katana and charged across the rooftop. He swung horizontally, aiming for Kimi’s head but Kimi realised early enough and dropped backwards off the roof, She fell under the attack, grabbed the ledge on her way down and then in one quick fluid movement was able to propel herself back upwards. She threw out a foot as she cleared the edge of the rooftop , which caught her opponent in the face. He got turned around which left an opening for Kimi once she landed to spring forward and land a fist into the back of his knee. He dropped while Kimi quickly grabbed another Kunai from her leg pocked and slammed it into the shoulder closet to her. A quick palm strike from her other hand onto the jaw of the Jaaku left him on the floor.
Kimi stood up and casually walked over to pick up her enemies Katana. The Strategist started to get back up, and stopes when he was basically in a kneeling position. He saw the Shinobi with his sword, and while she had her back mostly to him, he knew what this meant. “Well played” was all he said before Kimi turned and sliced his head off.
As soon as the body dropped to the floor, the two brothers who escorted Jack of the battlefield appeared on the roof. “We’ll clean this up.” One of them said. “You return to Neo”
Kimi arched an eyebrow in puzzlement? “Neo?”
The other brother chimed in as he collected the Katana and returned it to it to its saya (a type of sheath) which he took from the Jaaku’s body moments before. “Because he’s the one” he said, sighing as he did. “You’ll have to forgive my brother, he can be an idiot sometimes.” The first brother shot a playful insult back at this point.
“Thank you again for helping out with this,” Kimi bowed in respect to the brothers. “And tell Ouroboros that I thank him for calling in his favour with you to assist me.”
“That just means now you owe him a favour” One of them said. Kimi just smiled and lightly chuckled. This was true, but her main choice of reply to this would only be to wind the information guru himself, and the Anchor Brothers had no need to hear that. She once again bowed and then headed back of to return to Nigel. After all, she can only powder her nose for so long.
Sneaking back into the Sushi place’s restroom (a trick she had done many times before), she checked herself in the mirror to make sure she hadn’t got any blood on her, which she didn’t. She still had that little skill down at least. She existed the ladies and went back to join Nigel, wondering just how proud of her he was after luring the Jaaku into a trap, taking out about 10 Ninjas and nobody was any the wiser anything had happened at all. Unbeknownst to her, Nigel also had absolutely no idea what had happened today either.
In fact to Nigel nothing untoward had happened today. The two friends had went shopping, he was a bit bored, they went for sushi, Kimi was in there a little long but who was he to question what women get up to in those things. To him, there was no Ninja’s, no war going on, no deaths whatsoever. And Kimi was a girl who he’d known since High School who he always (and still did) have this little bit of a crush on. She was an angel, beautiful, smart and would probably never hurt a fly.
Actually that parts true, she can catch a fly with chopsticks without killing it at all. Nice little party trick when you can do it.
Kimi though knew there would be others who would try to kill Nigel. He was the last decedent of the Shogun, the leader of the Ninja (and traditionally the samurai and a region of japan. These days, the Ninja have their own Shogun leader). Were the Shogun to be killed with no heir declared, the clans of the shinobi could end up in an internal war and fracture themselves trying to decide on a new one. It had happened to the Jaaku themselves in the 60’s, and there are still 3 clans who are now neither under the alignment of the Shinobi or the Jaaku.
So he was her mission. One she had been doing since High School (although not completely at that time). She would protect him against all that would try to eliminate him, while he paraded about in Ninja garb, ‘wrestling’, so that his enemies would know where to come and strike. It may not be an easy road, but for Nigel, and for the Shinobi, it was one she was happy to walk.
Besides, she thought he was kind of cute.
When you have self-confidence and or self-esteem issues, shopping can be a bit annoying. You kind of work out what you want, where you’re going to get it from before you even leave the house. Then you just go in, get it and pay. No browsing, no window shopping, no trying that shirt on in the changing rooms. And if what you want isn’t there? You leave and don’t really bother. You could call this the ‘Guy method’ to shopping but that’s really sexist.
The best this about confidence and esteem is that it is boosted by other people, especially people that you’re attracted to that you would like to try and impress. And so, Nigel found himself wandering the high streets with Kimi on a ‘shopping day.’ While he knew his chances basically zero with the girl, he still found it difficult to say no when it would be something that would make her happy and smile.
Also having a stutter on any word beginning with ‘n’ also helped in the ‘n-n-never say n-n-no’ department.
The problem with going on a shopping trip is that when there are evil ninja assassins out to kill you, you’re not exactly difficult to find. The Jaaku sent one of their best tactical leaders from Texas known only as ‘The Strategist’ to take our Nigel and he brought his squad of his personally trained Ninja’s with him. And they planned on completing their job right now.
You may think that attacking out in broad daylight in a crowd of people is a pretty dumb idea. For a ninja, it’s a challenge. You’d also be surprised how many people notice someone fall down after being killed, but not the person who just walked away. If you pick the right opportunity and you’re quick, nobody will spot you regardless of the time of day.
The squad positioned themselves on one of the rooftops opposite where both Nigel and Kimi were looking into a window shopping, they had been tracking them up and down the streets, staying in a vantage point to not be seen but keep eyes on their target at all times. Now they felt it was time to strike, the boy had to die per their orders. The girl only had to die is she was in the way. They waited until she was in the way to strike.
Bob was up first. This was going to be easy and he was going to impress his boss. All he had to do was jump down, take out the girl, stick something sharp into a vital part of the targets body and job’s done. What nobody in the Jaaku squad had counting on was that Kimi was a ninja to, and the moment Bob’s feet touched the pavement behind her, she spun around 360 degrees slicing his jugular vein while she did. He emitted no sound while trying to grasp his neck to hold the blood in, while 2 other Ninja’s swooped down from their hiding place, picked Bob up and made it back up to the roof tops.
They placed Bob’s now lifeless body on a neighbouring rooftop to where the Jaaku had been perched in a silent statement of ‘I believe this belongs to you.’
It took less than 15 seconds for Bob to jump down off the roof and die, and while the Jaaku lost one of their number, they did learn 2 things. Kimi was a ninja bodyguard, and she had friends hiding in the wings. The Strategist was pleased, to him, the ninja who served him were not members of the Jaaku but tools for him to use. And Bob managed to provide information that would be useful. This would be more difficult than Plan A had accounted for.
Why does Plan A never actually work? Just once it would be nice for Plan A to work
For her part, this was the plan for Kimi. She knew Nigel had wanted to lure out the Jaaku pf hiding and with the intel she received from Ouroboros she knew one would be in town. Her whole idea of this shopping trip was for Nigel to be presented as the target he intended to be, while she and several of her friends from the Shinobi were around to take the Jaaku down. Now they just had to wait for Plan B to kick off.
Plan B involved Ivan. Ivan was an expert with a Yumi, basically a bow and arrow. He liked to think of himself as a pretty crack shot, a regular Robin Hood with a bow. So he moved down the street and took his aim, awaiting the perfect shot like a highly trained sniper… with a bow and arrow. There’s probably some kind of fictional character in pop culture who would match that kind sniper but you might need to search for that one yourself.
Ivan took up position, drew back his bow and waited for Nigel to walk into position. And walk he did as he and Kimi wandered down the high street. At the opportune moment Ivan released the string and let the arrow fly. It flew through the air, across the road, heading for Nigel’s head… until he suddenly turned around to talk to Kimi about some random topic. The arrow flew past Nigel, who was completely unaware of its presence, while Kimi was in awe of Nigel’s natural reactions.
Cursing, Ivan moved positions and tried again, waiting patiently for the next opportunity. Once again he let the arrow filed down to its target. Nigel accidently dropped something on the floor and bent down to pick it up at the exact moment the arrow whizzed by and landed in the wall. In one quick fluid movement Kimi grabbed the arrow, broke off the bit not stuck into the wall and threw it into a bin nearby before Nigel had even got back up to standing. Nobody else even noticed it was there.
Ivan repositioned again, the pressure stated to get to him as he stopped to set up once again. In fact he was so focused in trying to kill Nigel now that he forgot to pay attention to his surroundings. So the next arrow hit a 40 foot lorry as it drove by. The fact that the arrow did hit dead centre of the letter O as part of the trucks logo was lost on The Strategist. He had Ivan murdered for his failures.
Jack was up next. Jack was nimble, he was dedicated and nobody ever had to help him of a horse. He had no idea why the guys would say that kind of thing. While Ivan was failing within his arrow thing, Jack went back down to street level, ditched his ninja gear and blended in with the crowd. When he had got the signal to go, he started to approach Nigel and Kimi.
Because he was now at street level and blending into the crowd, he was hoping on Kimi and the target not spotting him. Using Ivan’s attacks as a distraction he approached the couple from behind, ready to bump into Nigel as he passed by and jab him with a poison tipped needle. Nobody would be the wiser and he would get away free, only for Nigel to die a slow death. Kimi was walking a few steps behind Nigel and as Jack approached, there were a couple of brothers who were walking up the other way. They passed by Nigel on either side of him, so Jack held back behind Kimi, ready to overtake and enact the plan as soon as the brothers passed by.
But he never got to, Kimi had been aware of him all along, and simply turned and threw a Kunai into his heart, the brothers grabbing him and turning him around, putting their arms over his shoulders and yelling out some kind of joyful song as if they were a group of friends completely drunk. The muffled his screams further with a hand over his mouth as they dragged him off down the street.
The strategist was disappointed in his people, but not annoyed by this point. He ordered another to step up and try to take their prey. But that one fell two. And the next. And the next. In fact every single one of them tried to attack either Nigel or Kimi and one way or another they ended up dead, either at the hands of Kimi herself or at the hands on the Strategist, disappointed with their failure.
Eventually only the Strategist was left. He heated that all his tools were sacrificed, but he was now satisfied that the knowledge he gained would be sufficient. He knew of Kimi’s skills. He knew how many allied ninja’s she had hiding in the shadows. And now, as they sat in a sushi restaurant for lunch, it would be the perfect time to strike. After all, Kimi had excused herself to go to powder her nose and now Nigel was there all alone…
Wait, Kimi was no longer guarding Nigel? The Strategist pondered if this was a tactical mistake or…
“Sometimes you need to stop overthinking things” came a voice from behind, across the rooftop. “It can often lead to you not reacting at all.” The strategist turned and there she was, this damn little Kunoichi that had killed most of his ninja squad. This little pain in his side.
Kimi was standing on the edge of the roof with a slight little smirk on her mouth. She knew what was to happen next. She knew this one would be more of a fight than the others, so she wanted to make sure this one never hit street level. She had planned for this. Ouroboros’ intel had said that The Strategist could be egotistical, that he thought his tactical mastery was superior to all, and to lure him into a trap and then systematically wipe out all of his subordinates, Kimi just needed one little push to make him really pissed. “Don’t tell me you’re all brain and no brawn.”
Yeah, that’ll do it.
The Strategist made an annoyed grunt as he unsheathed a katana and charged across the rooftop. He swung horizontally, aiming for Kimi’s head but Kimi realised early enough and dropped backwards off the roof, She fell under the attack, grabbed the ledge on her way down and then in one quick fluid movement was able to propel herself back upwards. She threw out a foot as she cleared the edge of the rooftop , which caught her opponent in the face. He got turned around which left an opening for Kimi once she landed to spring forward and land a fist into the back of his knee. He dropped while Kimi quickly grabbed another Kunai from her leg pocked and slammed it into the shoulder closet to her. A quick palm strike from her other hand onto the jaw of the Jaaku left him on the floor.
Kimi stood up and casually walked over to pick up her enemies Katana. The Strategist started to get back up, and stopes when he was basically in a kneeling position. He saw the Shinobi with his sword, and while she had her back mostly to him, he knew what this meant. “Well played” was all he said before Kimi turned and sliced his head off.
As soon as the body dropped to the floor, the two brothers who escorted Jack of the battlefield appeared on the roof. “We’ll clean this up.” One of them said. “You return to Neo”
Kimi arched an eyebrow in puzzlement? “Neo?”
The other brother chimed in as he collected the Katana and returned it to it to its saya (a type of sheath) which he took from the Jaaku’s body moments before. “Because he’s the one” he said, sighing as he did. “You’ll have to forgive my brother, he can be an idiot sometimes.” The first brother shot a playful insult back at this point.
“Thank you again for helping out with this,” Kimi bowed in respect to the brothers. “And tell Ouroboros that I thank him for calling in his favour with you to assist me.”
“That just means now you owe him a favour” One of them said. Kimi just smiled and lightly chuckled. This was true, but her main choice of reply to this would only be to wind the information guru himself, and the Anchor Brothers had no need to hear that. She once again bowed and then headed back of to return to Nigel. After all, she can only powder her nose for so long.
Sneaking back into the Sushi place’s restroom (a trick she had done many times before), she checked herself in the mirror to make sure she hadn’t got any blood on her, which she didn’t. She still had that little skill down at least. She existed the ladies and went back to join Nigel, wondering just how proud of her he was after luring the Jaaku into a trap, taking out about 10 Ninjas and nobody was any the wiser anything had happened at all. Unbeknownst to her, Nigel also had absolutely no idea what had happened today either.
In fact to Nigel nothing untoward had happened today. The two friends had went shopping, he was a bit bored, they went for sushi, Kimi was in there a little long but who was he to question what women get up to in those things. To him, there was no Ninja’s, no war going on, no deaths whatsoever. And Kimi was a girl who he’d known since High School who he always (and still did) have this little bit of a crush on. She was an angel, beautiful, smart and would probably never hurt a fly.
Actually that parts true, she can catch a fly with chopsticks without killing it at all. Nice little party trick when you can do it.
Kimi though knew there would be others who would try to kill Nigel. He was the last decedent of the Shogun, the leader of the Ninja (and traditionally the samurai and a region of japan. These days, the Ninja have their own Shogun leader). Were the Shogun to be killed with no heir declared, the clans of the shinobi could end up in an internal war and fracture themselves trying to decide on a new one. It had happened to the Jaaku themselves in the 60’s, and there are still 3 clans who are now neither under the alignment of the Shinobi or the Jaaku.
So he was her mission. One she had been doing since High School (although not completely at that time). She would protect him against all that would try to eliminate him, while he paraded about in Ninja garb, ‘wrestling’, so that his enemies would know where to come and strike. It may not be an easy road, but for Nigel, and for the Shinobi, it was one she was happy to walk.
Besides, she thought he was kind of cute.
