They were little green specks in the sandy horizon, and there was no way in hell she was going to get near those things without Kohaku. She wasn't afraid of them. No, not at all. It was that they were gross. She didn't even want to look at them. However, that was unavoidable because they pertained to the mission they were given.

Apparently, these overtly portioned insects were harassing other lower ranking shinobi while on other missions and cause a few casual injuries. So simply put, their mission was to take care of them. Permanently. The idea was funny, like some mafia gang out to get giant mantis heads. But honestly, Ria wanted to stay far away from those nasties. Creepy eyes and pincers...In addition, to their rigid movements? Ew. She didn't mind rolling in the mud with a few average sized insects on a mission, but this was not the same.

The objective was to kill these things. Well, Ria wanted to overkill them very, very much and never see the sight of those giant beady eyes. She already saw enough creepy eyes on humans. She didn't need to see them bigger than they need be.

The kunoichi stood there arms crossed, plain in sight, for Kohaku to find her. She was dressed in her casual shinobi wear (which was never more than casual anyway.) Luckily, the mantis weren't keen on detecting them like shinobi. The only issue was their tough exterior.

With the sun at his back Kohaku traveled up the dune from behind. He placed one hand on his chest when he saw the big mantids, his gloved fingertips wrapping loosely around the end-less scarf that muffled the sound of the bell. A heart ache... these beasts could give someone a heart attack. His partner was not diving in to fight yet; she probably did not approve of their job. His feet carried him deftly and quietly to her side. His expression was not extreme but the slight downward sense of his facial features suggested a subtle frown.

Mud-amber eyes watched the mantises prowling the sands for whatever it was that they preyed on, as he spoke: "If small mantids eat small insects..." His voice was timid, but there was no mistaking his determination. He did not continue his train of thought; it was easy to imply what it was he meant to say, without actually saying it.

Kohaku reached along his side to pull the sheathed weapon from his back, casually releasing the blades. He turned one against his left forearm with the blade facing behind him, and the other he held like a sword in right. He glanced curiously at Ria. "Are you prepared?"

He didn't wait long for an answer if she had one. He moved soon after, jumping from midway down to launch himself at the nearest mantis. A single slash across the top of its head sent blood splattering across the uncertain tan ground, and it was with dread that Kohaku realized that all the other present insects suddenly jerked their heads up and looked in his direction. He did not have long to ponder with his target shaking off the - inevitably and eventually - fatal blow and towering over him on its long, spindly legs. It made a swipe at him and he dodged easily enough until another mantis came charging.

The Suna-nin rolled away with an unhappy grunt of discomfort before using Shunshin no Jutsu to escape the now-confused creatures, reappearing near Ria. His face was reluctantly expressing dismay and embarrassment. "I think we will need each other's help in this case..."

"Ew..." Ria muttered at the thought of mantis, eating humans. "I'm prepared as I'll ever be." She groaned while securing her fingerless gloves. She flicked some loose hair out of her eyes before noting the way he held the blades securely. Maybe I should ask him to help me practice sparring sometime...

Instead of jumping right in, she watched Kohaku's approach. The head was vulnerable enough by the splay of blood her partner was able to make and the pained reaction of the mantis. She pulled out her own tanto from the belt on her leg, and examined it momentarily. It had been awhile since she last used it, and she wasn't too confident in wielding it. Fortunately, she stocked up on bomb tags and kunai for this mission.

When Kohaku returned, she replied curtly, "How do you think they would take explosives?" She was still eying the creatures in the distance. It was blatantly obvious that she wanted to finish this quickly without actually touching them. "Would it stun them? Or actually make some damage?"

Kohaku fell into a crouch, planting the blade of his long dagger in the sand. He stared intently at all the big insects that looked a bit small from this distance and height, but the look was deceiving. He raised his free hand, his fingers threading through his silvery hair to idly scratch his head. He was thinking about this one...

"I think they will stun..." he replied, keeping a close eye on the mantis that he had injured. It would bleed to death if it did not receive medical attention, and hopefully there were no ninja keen on helping these creatures in these parts. He wrapped his hand around the weapon again and pulled it through the sand toward himself. He pulled it loose and stood up.

"Their exoskeletons are hard. The carapace of that one was difficult to cut." He did not bother to point at the one he meant. He explained further, "One tag alone will probably not be enough to knock a single one over, but I think you could stun one if you throw an explosive at its head." Kohaku turned his blades in the same direction, attaching the handles together to form a single weapon with two adjacent edges.

"We can try it. I'm ready when you are."

"Okay then," Ria replied while tying tags to her kunai. "Who do you think as better...Ah, I'll just aim them at once since they're quick to react." She counted the number of mantis. Seven. She prepped nine kunai with the tags, carrying one on each finger after putting away her tanto again.

"So, I'll aim for the heads." She muttered, managing to execute the proper seals for Soushuuha to levitate the kunai when they were positioned in the field.

"Ready."

Using Shunshin, she found an higher ground area for get a clear shot of the mantis. They seemed to not notice her for now. She levitated seven of the kunai, and aimed. The distance was ten meters plus, difficult but safe.

The kunai were released. Four of them hit the neck range, two of them a direct hit, and one a complete miss. As soon as they hit, she set the bombs off, then jumped into the fray before the smoke cleared to the one she had missed. She hoped Kohaku was prepared as well, pulling out her tanto to protect herself as she approached.

Kohaku jumped from the dune as soon as the kunai and their tags were beyond Ria's control while holding his weapon at ready along his side. As he neared the first mantis in his line of targets, he slashed in a sideways arc with one hand reinforcing the double-dagger's path, drawing a line across the insect's head from one eye to the other. He turned in a 360-degree circle, carving up the head with a pair of two parallel red trails. A second later he jumped from the head to the next creature.

This time he cut downwards, through the nose and toward the long, armoured neck. As he landed on the sand, sharp pincers smashed down around him as he rolled out of harm's way. At the same time, he split his weapons from each other and the daggers were rolled with him to cut away the arms that were trying to pierce him. His movement along the uneven ground brought him near a third mantis. He half-severed one of the large arms as he launched himself upward to bury the other dagger in its jaw and through the rest of its head, but... he couldn't pull it free.

In the next moment, Kohaku found himself scrambling out of the way of a fourth mantis, one that had not been hit by a tag, and was trying to snatch him up along with the semi-conscious body of one of its kin. He made back for higher ground to regroup, not trusting the unpredictability of his opponents. The mantis was slowly scanning for him. He slowly drew his tanto as it located him and began to charge.

Instead of reaching her target mantis, the kunoichi almost bumped into a stunned mantis. With a weighed swoop, she stabbed down at the head, pulling the blade up. The insect's blood splattered up toward her, speckling a side of her face with blood. She grunted, but had to continue on when she sensed and dodged a second mantis with Shunshin. It aimed again, raising its blade, and she used the moment to make a wide swing at its neck. It barely made a scratch, and she had no choice but to make distance before she was hit. Another one was behind her, and she scowled while moving away again. These things were more of a hassle than expected.

She spotted Kohaku on the higher ground, her gaze darted quickly to the charging mantis. She positioned herself perpendicular to the creature and Kohaku, and without hesitance threw a tagged kunai at the mantis's head. It made a direct hit, and she internally cheered as she set the bomb off to stun it. It would give Kohaku a moment to finish it off.

The Suna-nin slipped the tanto back into its sheath when Ria presented him with a better, less luck-reliant opportunity and concentrated the chakra in his body to his feet and the soles of his sandals to launch himself back into the air. He kept one of his hands free until he was almost on top of the stunned mantis, when he wrapped both hands around the handle of the long dagger and brought it down on the insect's head. He slipped down to its back, splitting the mantis' neck in half and almost losing hold of his weapon when it caught against the separately armoured wingside.

Kohaku pushed off to the empty space above his incapacitated target to dodge a swipe from another green creature that had noticed one of the causes for bloodspill. He gave it a quick smack alongside the head with the blade of his weapon, only succeeding in confusing it for a second. He took that moment to fly to the flailing but slowing mantis with his other dagger still stuck in it.

He had barely touched the ground before he was off again, jumping between a pair of claws to land soundly on the head of one of them. He was about to move again when something else caught his eye, distracting him long enough to almost have more than just a few strands of hair cut and a tear in the white cloth around his neck. Kohaku shoved the head of the mantis he was standing on toward the offender and made for Ria's direction.

"Kuroshita-san!" he called, sounding a little misplaced for his volume, but he could clearly communicate his urgency. "There is something strange --" He did not finish his sentence as he was engaged by another mantis, but he did manage to point where somewhere in the distance, something vast and green was rising out of the desert, sand rolling off an armoured skeleton.

As Kohaku seemed to be finished off the mantises, Ria was gathering her tossed kunai while moving from creature to creature with enough speed to avoiding their final attacks and finishing off accordingly.

She quickly caught sight of the green speck in the distance, and choose to use Shunshin to the highest ground. She stood still and uttered, "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Her expression was of clear disgust, and a little exasperation. "There's nothing strange about this..." She muttered sarcastically, crouching down and covering her mouth with her palm in thought. This thing wouldn't be stunned with a measly bomb tag. It would take five at least, if she could get close enough. A genjutsu might be beneficial; hopefully, it would be responsive to illusions.

((I wasn't sure if they killed all seven little ones. Lost count.))

Kohaku cut down the last small mantis. He paused mid-step to turn one of the bodies over to pull his other dagger loose. After wiping the blades off on the exoskeletons and the sand, though it was not a thorough job, he stood up to face the monstrous beast that was quickly rising above the horizon and beginning to tower above them. Massive spherical eyes glowered menacingly at everything below. The fanged jaws worked and the arms folded and unfolded restlessly.

It bent down and the Suna-nin backed off quickly by hopping swiftly away from the pile of blood and insectile debris... at the same time, the big mantis' head thrust forward, as if to attack, but it hunched over its smaller kin for examination. For a moment Kohaku stared at it uncertainly as he slowly attached his weapons to each other and tucked one of the sides between his teeth. His next move was to begin gathering chakra for his jutsu as he formed the handseals.

He would have to create most of the rock from his own energy, but still he drew as much as possible from the earth deep beneath the sand to avoid expending too much of his chakra. The problems started again when he tried to move a little farther away, because the motion attracted the mantis' attention. It reared up, its red eyes shining in the desert sun. One corner of Kohaku's lips snarled up just slightly in an expression of dismay and disgust, but he held his ground, though he was still ready to run at a moment's notice.

Kohaku seemed to be planning something, and Ria had no desire to interfere with his plans. However, testing out a genjutsu on this creature shouldn't affect Kohaku's jutsu...Hopefully. She formed her own line of hand seals, and allow the genjutsu to take place.

It was an substance less illusion of another large mantis. All it would do is dodge any attack and make the motions of attacking, while maneuvering the opponent into circles; a combination of the basic Henge no jutsu on a Bunshin and placing it in a Korishinchuu no jutsu. It would stall and possibly tire the mantis, if it worked.

The mantis stopped suddenly, it's antennae moving. It couldn't detect a smell. However, it did block the illusion's attack and attempt to capture it in its claws. As planned, the illusion dodged the attack and brought the large mantis closer to a distance that was more advantageous for their attack. The mantis screeched, driving its claw into the ground as it missed.

Luckily, the genjutsu were simple enough to maintain for awhile although the size was on a grand scale. She waited for Kohaku to do something before she would try to see how her own Ninjutsu would fare against the mantis.

Kohaku continued his focus, sparing Ria a fleeting glance as she created an illusion. His attention was concentrated on their opponent as he calculated the precise amount of chakra he would require to finish his jutsu. The movement along the sand by both insects was slightly distracting at best but the fact only pressured him into doing better. His jaw tightened before he formed the last seal.

Doton!

The sand beneath the real mantis started to shift away from it as if someone was blowing at the centre to send the tan grains in every direction. Kohaku shifted his feet to adjust his balance, turning his head away and squeezing one eye shut as the mantis kicked up a dustcloud in his direction in its haste to sidestep an attack. He braced himself as his chakra swept out of him into the ground.

Doryou Jouheki!

The sand moved faster to make room for a wide platform of dry stone that probably would not normally be in the desert in one piece. It was the mantis' size, and at least another half of its length more on all four sides. It was not perfectly flat, though most of the ridges became steeper toward the edges. Kohaku stood to the right side of the mantis, praying that it would stay where it was until he had completed the next jutsu to a beneficial state.

As the new plateaued hill shuddered to a halt, the mantis paused and Kohaku immediately began Retsudou Tenshou. All the ridges along the sides started to twist and grow upward around the mantis, crackling as their forms shifted and stretched and scraped. It was a slow process due to the magnitude of the movement, so Kohaku focused this cocooning around the mantis' legs to immobilize it.

With the mantis gradually being immobilized, Ria dispelled her own jutsu. The mantis seemed even more confused with the sudden lack of a large mantis and the ground that was preventing it from moving it's lower limbs. Ria glanced over at Kohaku wondering what she could do without interfering with Kohaku nor upsetting the mantis any further. The only other that came to her was finish it off if Kohaku wasn't able to. Thus, she waited.

((Dx Stall post?))

The giant insect was not taking this lightly. It turned its angular head from one side to the other. It was scanning for movement and did not seem to realize that it was trapped to the ground until it tried to move. Its massive jaws clenched and opened, tilting its big, red eyes all over. It slashed at the sand and Kohaku squeezed his eyes shut from the resulting storm. Instead of making himself inconspicuous, the opposite happened by accident. A claw fell at him, but it slipped away from his side in an explosin of tan grains. The green head jerked in his direction. If it could narrow its eyes, it probably would have.

Kohaku slowly opened one eye, meeting the tiny pupils of the creature looming near. He did not have a moment to spare before it lunged, breaking its rock bonds and leaving trails of blood, caring nothing for its own safety. The Suna-nin rolled away a bit frantically, getting to his feet quickly and dropping his jutsu. He released his teeth of holding his weapons as he tore them upward into an arc to parry another claw attack. He was no match for the big mantis: it only flicked its arm and he only held onto the ground for a moment before he was thrown into the air. He regained his bearings somewhat, beginning to form the seals that might help him if the mantis reached where he would land first.

While the giant insect was distracted by Kohaku, Ria decided that Kohaku could use some help instead of her lazying around on the sidelines. She took a hold of the moment when the arm arced Kohaku away.

Kaze no Yaiba

The mildly-controlled blades of wind whipped across the mantis' form, slicing cuts from the torso upwards. She held the jutsu, and pressed it on the joint of the arms. It cut deeply enough on one arm that it fell from poised to limp. In its confusion, the mantis spotted the other shinobi and raised its functional claw. Ria was close to her straining point of holding the jutsu. She put her last effort of the jutsu in blinding the mantis. The wind ran across the skull before damaging the intended target, splaying blood in its path. The mantis stroke down at her, unbalanced. She was slow recovering from executing her jutsu, and it knocked her aside heavily into the trunk of a tree.

It was focused on her now, but it was blind in one eye. It had a blind side: the side Kohaku stood. Luckily for her, Ria had disabled the arm closest to her now and the other should be strained from injury. She was up, ready to replace herself with a nearby object and stall.

"Doryuu Heki," Kohaku said, dashing forward to spread an earth wall across the front of the mantis. The rock rose up to momentarily stun it by knocking it in the skull. Kohaku attached the ends of his long daggers to each other and held it tightly by his side. He used his other hand to pull two kunai and explosive tags from his stash and launched each knife and its respective tag in quick succession. He focused his chakra into his feet and then jumped.

The mantis was too confused by the exposions and should not notice when a young man hopped onto its back and soon onto its head.

The Suna-nin whipped the double-bladed weapon into an arc and hacked at one of the antennae only twice to sever it. The other one he could only make lie limp against the mantis' body as the mantis began to thrash when it realized whatever was causing damage was on its head. Kohaku rode its swiping claw toward its eye, stabbing and jumping off. He looked down into the beady black of his opponent's eye, which was massive up close, but it was already blind.

A jerk of the beast's body and an insectile scream cast Kohaku back into the air, but he landed on the edge of his earth wall before slipping down to place it between him and the mantis.

Concluding that direct damage to the upper body would be difficult, Ria decided to aim for the scrawny legs that it precariously balanced on. She crouched from a distance, analyzing the difficulty of her plan. It was blind, but it was also panicked so its movements were jerky and too unpredictable.

Withdrawing her tanto and focusing her chakra to her legs and arms, she ran toward the monstrosity. It was just then when Kohaku was cast into the air, she took a swing at a leg. The mantis screeched, trampling the ground around her and raising dust. She kept moving hacking at the next leg in front of her. Her momentum and chakra-infused swing took a lucky hit at a joint on the thinnest leg. The mantis stumbled back into its injured, right back leg, and she scrambled to escape from the narrowing underbelly space. She stopped in front of the leg on the same side; the front, right-hand side leg. Determinedly aiming at the leg, she sent her chakra to her arms instead of her legs and focused on disabling the weighted foot in a limited number of swings. The first swing was deep but the mantis was still moving. She struggled to keep up with its blind movements. The sides of the front legs pushed her around, and it used all of her attention to keep from getting impaled and to simply dodge herself from any major injury.

There was a brief moment when it paused to search for her. She formed the sealed again, whispering, "Kaze no Yaiba." The jutsu flared out on its leg for an immeasurable moment to dismember the leg. It was short enough to leave Ria enough chakra to jump away before the mantis toppled over on to its right side. The mantis flailed its remaining limbs, but it wouldn't be long before it would bleed to death.

A little out of breath, she sat a top of a branch in a tree to catch her breath.