Full Moon, Hungry Bellies

It wasn't that she woke up in this strange place per se. More that she remembers having gone to bed, and the next thing she knew, she was running through the forrest, following her team on some sort of mission she had no recolection of. Well. That wasn't completely true either. The puppet princess could vividly remember Daiko picking up the scroll. She recalled the words written and the task taken, but it was like a hazy memory of a long forgotten time. How had she even gotten to Yukagure? Where even was yukagure? Why was she still dressed in her Ai costume? There was so much to take in that a normal person would be lost in the misunderstanding for hours, searching for anything that could ground them back in reality for even a spare moment. 

Most people were not Saya. 

"It's kind of cold out in yuka. Wish i'd gone to sleep in a jacket. Yanno its really inconvenient that we woke up literally running towards the mission details because we couldn't actually prepare, but I suppose it expedited things a bit. Plus i somehow have my puppets! " Just behind her the Ai, Coach, and freyja puppet rushed. Despite their higher speed the constructs given life decided it would be important to take up the rear. If something came up, they could count on Saya to immediately begin blasting. Otherwise the differential between their quickness would allow the team to put space and bodies between the threat and their little ninjutsu child. 

"Keep your eyes open. We could be dealing with something more than a random animal in the woods. Theres a reason why this mission was ranked so high. " Freyja frowned as they continued on the track towards something they didn't know. While saya took the situation in stride, Freyja really hated the idea that they'd been transported, magically or otherwise, to this place with a goal in mind. She wondered if injury here would transfer over. maybe this was actually completely safe, and there was nothing really to worry about? She very much doubted that. Odds are they were in for a fight they couldn't comprehend, with stakes too high for their liking. 

(TWC 367)

Huh, it really was a bitingly cold night. Dana shivered and brought her hands together, but the usual sensation of rubbing her hands together was dulled somewhat. Wait, had she lost her hands? Dana looked down without much of the alarm one would expect someone to have at the thought and saw that upon her hands were two wolf-like paw mittens. Wow, that sure was handy - excuse the pun. The night was far too cold to not be wearing gloves! She gripped one glove and tried to yank it off but it didn't budge and, in fact, actually kind of hurt. Not tremendously so, but it had felt like the gloves had been superglued on. "Ow. Well, not doing that again!" she shook her hand to try and dispel the pain, only starting to look around just now.

Wait, where even was she?

Dana looked around, and then up. Huh, the moon sure did look odd tonight, but she couldn't figure out why. Oh, of course, the moon wasn't usually the color of blood. She giggled randomly and waved up at the red herring swimming through the air. It waved back and continued on swimming through the air with a little swish of its tail. It was incredibly cute. Oh yeah, back to the topic of where she actually was.

She skipped along the muddy path, splattering mud up her grey trousers as she did so. Despite the cold, it was actually a rather pleasant night in all honesty. If you ignored the creepy trees with witch-finger-like branches overhead, it was even a pleasant place to walk along. In spite of her positive attitude, Dana couldn't help but feel like something was... Off with this whole situation. She cast her mind back to try and figure out how she had gotten here, but it was like trying to look through a dense mist: nothing. The last thing she remember was receiving a mission scroll in the post - something about a wolf-like beast? That didn't explain how she had ended up in a place that definitely wasn't in the Island Country.

Still, she pressed on whilst humming a pleasant tune. Hopefully, she'd be able to find some friends to figure out what was actually happening.

WC: 374

Daiko woke up once again, shooketh as to what the hell was actually going on. Man. He wasn't sure if he had gone to bed and had dreams the other day, or if he's been in some sort of spooky dreamscape this whole time, and was just now trying to make sense of it. Either way, here he was. Daiko stood up, and found himself to be in some sort of forest. It was a sea of trees, or something like that. Walking around, Daiko wondered who he might be able to find. He heard splashes of muddy puddles, people frocking, and wait... Daiko heard something unmistakable. It was the insane rambles of someone. Someone dangerous...

Daiko slowly crept through the brambles and bushes, looking to find where the insane rambling was coming from. Moving closer and closer to his target, he noticed something... Odd. After he figured it out, he stood straight up from the brambles and made his way over to the person that had been talking. "Ayyy, what's up Saya. How you doin." Daiko gives a small peace sign, before looking around at what was in front of them. "So, what's the deal with this? Did we get teleported, or what?" Daiko shrugs, looking around to see if there was anything else going on around them. There were still random sounds echoing throughout the forest, and Daiko kind of wondered why they were out in the cold for little to no reason. "So, is there like. Places to go around here? Some sort of civilization?" Daiko didn't really wait for an answer before he started walking around slowly, looking to see if there's any indication on where they might want or need to go.

Daiko wondered a bit where Pinocchio was. Did he get lost? Did some kind of monstrous creature turn them into wolf-kin that use very few words to fight? Daiko had no idea. Either way, his mimicry aside Daiko was actually interested in finding out what the heck was going on around these parts. There were likely monsters, judging by how his dreams had been lately, though he didn't know *what* they would be doing. Would they be shambling? Would they be running? Only the truly most advanced minds could figure that out, and Daiko would leave that to the experts.

Stretching out, Daiko double-checks to make sure that Saya and company were alright. Hopefully, they would be following, if not, he would make his way back over to where she was and start beginning some kind of hunt for something.

[428]

Ugh. She felt uncomfortable. Itchy. Like there was something odd, strange, trying to burst out of her. Her teeth felt too sharp in her mouth- had she developed a sore? It was possible she had bitten herself in her sleep, and she didn’t look forward to that slow recovery over the next few days.

And the ground underneath her, how rocky it was. Hard, cold, sharp beneath her feet. Where were her shoes? Where her feet normally ended, instead she found her legs covered by strange leggings ending in paws- and yet she she attempted to tug as the fur on it, she let out a hiss of pain. Ah, but that hurt!

Perhaps it would be best for her if she had a snack, to catch her thoughts. Walking as she would pull out a juicy pomegranate from her basket, she would barely give it a thought before gnashing into it, seeds and all- red, ripe juice gushing outwards and staining her skin with bloody red juices. It tasted good. More, more, more. She wanted more. Another pomegranate, another, until she stank of the juices and was covered near head to toes in the sticky substance.

She needed more, she realized. But at the same time, she needed for find her friends, her teammates. The full moon was bright, and the wind was cold, but that meant that her way was well lit. She could feel that her companions were somewhere here, somewhere close. It was something deep in her heart, and her- her nose? Huh. Perhaps it was the wooden scent of Saya’s puppets that she could scent. But since when were her senses so powerful? Bounding from tree branch to tree branch, she would leap and laugh and launch herself forward until-

Through the bare, spindly branches, Kikuko would launch herself towards the combined circle of Daiko and Saya- cloak billowing behind her like a ghost in the night before landing just in front of them, with about two meters to spare. Ah, but that landing kinda hurt a little- and it seemed that what remained of her fruit was beginning to leak out of the holes in the wicker. Had they spoiled? Admittedly, she was quite put off by that. A strange place, a strange mission, and now her food was beginning to rot. How would they ever get this job done on time? That being said.

“Hey you two!” If interrupted, Kikuko would wipe her mouth with an unnervingly wolfish hand, a grin splitting across her face. “I was looking for you two. It’s really easy to get lost here, so let’s try and stick together, kay?”

[804]

[Awoo! 750/750]
[Oh shit, Zombies [54/1000]

"Huh." She'd heard from pinochio something about waking up in another place and finding out that one of their teammates had turned into a werewolf. He'd had to kill a ninja whose name he didn't know. Then Kiku showed up pretty obviously very wolfed out. Yea. That checked out. 

"Hey daiko! Hey dana! Hey Kiku. yanno. you uh. you got a bit of something on your hand. Full moon is looking pretty tonight huh?" She just grinned. While whatever ninja had been teamed with pinochio in his dreamland mission had gone wild and tried killing them all, this was Kiku. They would have a much more pleasant experience. 

"I feel like we should be more worried about the face that our summoner shinobi has grown an entire pelt overnight. Does anyone else see that as a problem? Maybe its just a thing with this world.... So pinochio said he'd been waking up every night in some strange village and he couldn't leave until he finished some sort of task or was killed. That must mean that we have something we have to do here. Probably best that we figure out what that was. " She wracked her brain for what could possibly be needed to go back to her nice warm bed. It was extremely cold in yugakure. Rationally she knew that it would be their best bet to avoid anything that looked especially dangerous or creepy. If only Saya was rational. 

"Ahem. I would like for it to be known by the group that Sayatria intents to find the darkest creepiest place in this village and poke her nose in everything it doesn't belong in. It seems an important note to make given the dangers of us being transported here by means we aren't aware of..." Good ole Freyja. While pinochio would have just yelled at her, Freyja recognized that wasn't her job. It was her teammates job, and so she casually pointed out her students tendency to head directly into the worst possible situation so that they could be ready for whatever they found there. They couldn't actually STOP it. That wasn't really how Saya opperated, but with enough heads up she was confident that they could be at least semi ready for whatever was about to happen. Generally that is good enough. 

"I am NOT. However. There seems to be a graveyard over there in the distance and I feel like we should check it out. " 

(TWC 776 750/750 first mission 26 towards second)

Damn, Dana was starting to get a bit lonely. This spooky forest really played on feelings of loneliness, in a way that nowhere Dana had experienced had done before. The white-haired girl was someone who enjoyed being by herself, feeling lonely wasn't in character for her at all. She stopped skipping and looked around, a light pout appearing on her face when she failed to find anyone. Gee, why was she suddenly getting a major case of FOMO? It was like she was missing out on some totally important character interactions or something. Totally not cool!

Anyway, Dana had finally found something that wasn't a muddy path or spindly trees. She'd managed to stumble upon a clearing in the middle of the forest and, in the middle of the clearing, there appeared to be a graveyard. "Wow, what a totally non-suspicious and cool thing to have in the middle of the not-creepy forest! I'm sure going inside won't come back to bite me later on!" Dana said cheerfully with a large smile on her face. Her usual musical way of talking sounded like it was being deadened by the oppressive atmosphere around her. Huh, weird. Anyway, back to the really cool graveyard!

Dana cheerfully skipped across the sodden ground and entered through the graveyard gates. Every step it felt like a hand was reaching through the earth to try and grab her ankles, but luckily Dana's skipping pattern made it difficult for the weird ground hands to get a propper grip. Ha! Suck it silly earth demons. Nonetheless, Dana was now in the graveyard and she felt pretty secure. She could see all angles pretty easily, and she had that friendly-looking guy over there to watch her back! She gave him a wave and he made a raspy groaning noise in response. She giggled, naming him Bob in her mind. Bob was a real funny guy.

Then, suddenly something clicked in Dana's mind; who was Bob? Why was he here? Why was his mouth getting progressively wider and wider as he shambled towards Dana? "Bob? Are ye alright there?" She asked tentatively. Maybe he'd just had a bit too much to drink?

"Greeeunnnnnngggggggg" Bob replied, hacking up chunks of meat as he spoke. Was that... Brain matter? Dana shook her head discouragingly, Bob really needed to sort out his diet. Eating brains couldn't be good for you. "Grreaaggghhh...." He rasped out in his signature guttural tone and took a swipe at Dana with his arm as he got within range. To which Dana just ducked under with all the grace of a ballerina.

"Bob! Don't attack yer friends ye fecking clow- Eep!" She tried to step away from one of his lunges, but the back of her foot caught on an exposed root and she fell to the ground. With a new angle of seeing the world, Dana could see various corpses starting to pull themselves out of the ground.

Maybe... Maybe... Bob wasn't her friend after all?

WC: 501
TWC: 875

Scratching his chin, Daiko notices that his good friend Kikuo had suddenly made an appearance. And she was carrying neither a tisket nor a tasket, but... What caught Daiko's attention was the fact that she had a pile of organs inside of her little bag. Oh hell yeah! That was really cool. Nothing really wrong with that, Daiko carried bloody organs around with him all the time. It was just part of being a shinobi. Taking a minute, Daiko squints for a second and notices that she has... Fur. There was some sort of creature out in these woods, and Daiko wondered what it might have done for Kiku for her to end up like this. huh. This reminded him of those little animals that ran around and would catch sticks and whatnot. Reaching up, Daiko pokes Kikuko's snout, inquiring as to what had led to her taking this shape. 

Unless something happened, Daiko would just consider that this was a part of the whole experience, and move on. If she had begun to snap or bite at him as a wolf would, he would quickly step back, and rip off his own left arm by any means necessary:tm: and wave it around like it was a stick. If this was the case, he would continue to play as if it was a dog. "What is it? What do you see? What is it?" If he got to the point where this fuzzy creature had gotten interested in the arm, he would muster up unrealistic dream strength to toss his arm up over the trees, which just so happened to be right where the outskirts of the graveyard were. 

No matter what had happened, Daiko knew that they would at some point be able to find themselves at the graveyard that Dana was also at. There was many'a zombie, and Daiko wondered what the hell they were supposed to be. They were creeping, crawling. Shambling and mambling, and Daiko wasn't concerned so much for his life as he was for... The smell. Man, that shit was awful. Thank goodness none of them had some sort of crazy transformation that would heighten their sense of smell. That would suck. 

[368]
{796}

[750/750] Awooo

Mid-Thread Claim
25% Max-Stat Discount 
[250/3750] Gokana

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