Ino's voice was rough sounding, like it had not been used for some time. It appeared as though she had walked all the way though the harsh desert, but showed no signs of severe dehydration. Gaara was about to ask her if she had anything to do with the strange beasts, but was interrupted by Kankurō's shouts.
Kankurō came barreling over the sand dune waving his arms and shouting. "Beast! There's a beast!" Right on cue, a massive creature appeared on the sand dune. The thing resembled a scaly pig with antlers, and it gave off an awful stench. The monster began to scrape its webbed feet in the sand and make several grunting noises. Swishing its ugly head, two small beady eyes came to rest on Ino, as if it were initiating a challenge. A challenge of life or death. Gaara tensed, preparing for the battle with the creature. He glanced over at Kankurō, who apparently was prepping himself for battle as well. Gaara then looked over at Ino. The young woman didn't appear to be frightened by the monster at all; in fact, she almost seemed bored by it. The monstrous swine gave a distorted cry and began charging toward the group. Gaara raised a wall of sand, and the creature smashed into it with another outburst of random noise. Before he could initiate another attack, Ino had already launched herself above the monster.
She unhooked a strange pointed handle rod from the left side of her belt. It had a dangerous looking pointed pattern at the bottom end and a wide slit at the top. With a flick of her wrist a long ribbon of different colored metal chinks shot out. The metal began to glow with chakra as she snaked the metal whip through the air. Its razor sharp sides sliced through the beast's antlers with a satisfying hiss. The creature responded to the attack by rearing its back legs in the air in an attempt to knock her down. Ino simply used her whip to sever off its rear legs. The now squealing beast fell to the ground with a thud that sent clouds of sand into the air. Before landing, Ino cut off its remaining legs. The beast's squeals sounded more gargled as blood poured out of several areas where body parts used to be. It bucked and withered on the ground pathetically, until Ino sent a solid punch into its chest. It stopped at once and fell silent, dead.
Kankurō stared at the woman in disbelief. How had she defeated that thing so easily? Especially after it had reportedly taken down a fully trained jonin. A loud sucking noise could be heard as she pulled her fist out of the beast's body. Her entire arm was soaked in the monster's blood. When she opened her hand, a single dark chink of metal rested in her palm. Using her blood soaked hand; she attached the metal chink onto the end of her whip. Once the chink was in place she flicked her wrist and the metal ribbon coiled back into the handle.
"Wha.."Stuttered Kankurō. "What was that?" He began to approach the woman but stopped himself. The look on her face told him that what she had just done was nothing special. However she seemed to give off an aura of wild beauty when she killed the beast. Kankurō looked over at the bloody corpse. Several of its body parts already lay in the blood soaked sand. He reached out to touch one of the antlers. "Don't" Kankurō looked over at the woman. Why can't he touch the antlers? Looking back over to the antlers, he noticed they were covered in small fine needles, much like a cactus. Letting heis hand drop to his side, he responded "Can you tell me your name?" "Her name is Ino," it was Gaara. Kankurō turned around in surprise and raised a brow. How did he know her name? "I interrogated her before the beast arrived," said Gaara answering Kankurō's unspoken question. "Where is she from?" questioned Kankurō. Gaara responded with a small shake of his head, he didn't know. Kankurō turned back around to face Ino. "Where are you from, what village?" Ino scrunched her brow and thought for a while. "…..I don't remember," she finally replied. Kankurō looked at her again, she was some interesting chick. "Well do you at least know where the monster came from?" Ino was silent for a bit before replying. "Yes…and no. I know the place well, but I don't know where it is." Well this was a lode of help. The young man sighed; it was like talking to a brick wall. He glanced over at her again…a very hot brick wall. "Are there more of those monsters?" This time she gave no delay in her reply. "Yes, many, many more."
Gaara had taken note of everything this girl said and did. He could feel that she was dangerous. Her wild aurora was an obvious sign to that fact. She evidently knew about the monsters, and how to deal with them. If she knew how to fight the beasts, and sort of knew where they came from, maybe she could be of use. However it was obvious that she lacked socially. He could tell by the way that she looked at them, like they were the strange creatures and the beast was normal. Gaara didn't know if he should bring her back to Suna for interrogation or leave her here in the desert. However Kankurō decided to decide for him. "Why don't you come back to our village with us and you can tell us what you know about theses monsters," said Kankurō. This suggestion obviously took Ino by surprise. An expression of surprise and shock spread across her face, but quickly vanished. "Don't worry, this is the Kazakage," said Kankurō motioning towards Gaara, "and we won't hurt you. We just need your help."
Ino's body language told Gaara that she knew that she had nothing to lose. So Ino gave a slight nod of her head and began walking towards Kankurō. He held out his hand but she ignored it and continued past him. Gaara took this as a signal that she would go with them and began to turn around to leave. Then he was off, accelerating through the desert. Ino could keep a good pace beside him as well. Kankurō shouted at them to wait up as he raced to catch up.
The three zoomed across the hot sand, leaving behind the carcass of the pig-beast to bake in the blazing sun.
I really had fun writing this chapter. Kankuro is an awsome character to write about. I hope you like it so far, so please reveiw!