Silent Night

Da Missions:

The world came into focus the way the sun would disappear behind clouds. Not too slow as to be imperceptible, but...gradually. The colors which had previously darkened to nothingness now fluctuated and began turning to a light gray. When the world finally came back into recognizable form, so did his senses.

The first thing Kaimera registered before his eyes flinched closed again was the lack of balance, and what seemed like a sudden increase in gravity. He didn’t realize he was still holding his scroll’s sliding dowel until he felt himself falling and dropped it from his grasp. Abruptly, he sprawled across a rough surface of what appeared to be a length of cement; prone and shivering. his mind felt heavy and sleepy suddenly, with his limbs feeling like air and lead at the same time.

His knees and ankles had begun aching however, and a peculiar pain stabbed sharply between his eyes that he was sure wasn't from his injured eardrum. He tried to pull himself together to stand but a great wave of nausea ran through his limbs with the slightest movement. His lungs burned, and he closed his eyes against the ache in his head, still present from his misfortune with the wireless transmitter.

For several long moments, he simply lay there, shivering and swallowing back dry heaves on whatever cold, rough spot of ground his body occupied. Until at long last, he opened his eyes once more and breathed a great gulp of air— only to immediately gag on the acrid, smoky atmosphere and lean over quickly to get control over his stomach before he threw up.

What was the last thing he ate? Why did he feel so terrible? What happened? His mind, which had been mostly clear a moment ago...well, that had been mere moments ago, hadn’t it? Now, he was just confused.

Hell, he hadn't drank that much had you? He covered his mouth with one gloved hand as he realized he wasn't in the streets of Kirigakure anymore...nor anywhere he recognized. Did he...run into some kind of trouble? He must have. That would explain the headache. No. That didn't make any sense either. How exactly would that have happened? That wasn't like him.

Now feeling a bit better upon sitting up, his mind finally registered that wherever he was...it was bright. He could see the gravelly, dirty ground beneath his legs, with the majority of his body having been resting on a cement square, for lack of better words. But other than that...

‘Where am I?’

Coughing from the dirty air, he stood up on shaky legs and squeezed his eyes closed against the burn of something unknown. Kami, why did the air feel like it was trying to hurt him? As he stood to full height, he felt something fall out of place from the back of his vest and glanced behind him— only to see the first wooden dowel of his giant scroll tip off to the side, its torn paper fluttering in the light breeze. His eyes narrowed in confusion at the sight, but when he reached to grab it—

Kaimera froze. Brows furrowed into downward position. Why did he suddenly remember the color red? Forgetting about the scroll momentarily, he dropped the parchment-like paper and instead surveyed the area around him. What was it he was trying to remember? What—

It was eyes. They were brilliant red— the only part of his face that showed itself from it’s alien-like form.

Kaimera blinked, feeling another tinge of pain in his head as all his memories of the night previous came rushing back to him at once. ‘Fuck....fuck, this wasn't good. Was that even last night? How did...it get light out so quickly?’

"Oh my god...." he uttered in abject horror, not seeing anything five meters beyond his current position. The world around him was gray...it felt like fog, but smelled like smoke. Was this...

"Oh my god." he choked again, stumbling away from the place he woke up, legs trembling. Now that he was more aware, the cement pieces around he began looking more and more like rubble. Everything, from the grayness of the air and stones, to the brown grass looked dead. "Hello?!”

A pause. Nothing but the wind replied. “Hellooooo?!!!"

He shouted, beginning to gasp for air despite himself as the knowledge that this smoky wasteland might be the only thing remaining of his village. Kami-sama, please, no—

"Is anyone there?!" he shouted desperately, feeling his voice go hoarse from such a volume. Stumbling forward, his unease and clumsiness finally came to a head as his foot caught on an outcropping of roots and he fell to the ground once more— this time in front of a stone that stood upright, like a remnant of some building.

Catching sight of the stone face, he felt a little confusion crawl up behind the fear. This stone...had writing on it. But it wasn't like any writing he was used to reading. The characters didn't make sense for a moment, and he thought maybe the person who wrote this was having a very off day with the hammer and chisel. Then it hit him: this wasn't Japanese writing at all. It wasn't weird or backwards hiragana or katakana— it was English writing.

Slowly, he pushed himself off the ground from where he'd come face-to-face with the stone. Sitting up, he touched the letters lightly with his fingertips, their meaning lost on Kaimera. He grasped the stone once more, leaning in to get a better look and looked around it as well. His blood abruptly ran cold, and with a great effort not to yelp, he backed away from the stone. Backed away, and away until the loose scroll on his back bumped into something hard.

Whipping around, he flinched at the sight of a life-sized and crumbling statue of a person. ‘No, hold on...these things were angels, weren't they? Deities of another faith, in the image of people but with wings.’

Now a little more calm, he clutched at his chest and felt his heart hammer and thud to a slower beat as he realized he was not, in fact, standing in the Mist Village. He wasn't even sure if he were still in the Land of Water. he was sure that no graveyard in the Mist or even in the surrounding villages had anything that looked like this. Was he even in shinobi country?

Dazed, he backed up once more. In a burst of clarity, he reached behind him and to his mending scroll; tearing off the page that had been ripped, grimacing all the while. There went twenty of his sharpest kunai— all of them wasted trying to stop…what?

Everything was so strange. That man must have cast some sort of jutsu for him to have been removed from the village altogether. A powerful one, at that. Maybe he had put him under some kind of genjutsu? A thought struck him. Forming the half-ram seal, he intoned, “Release”.

Nothing happened. Perking up slightly, he slid a kunai from his side-pouch (just to be damn sure) and slid the tip of it across one slender finger, being sure to slide the tip in slightly, just enough to make it hurt. Grimacing, he noted the drops of blood that trailed down his fingertip— and the pain that was completely real.

‘Not a genjutsu, then.’ Kaimera has gotten pretty good at dispelling them and the physical wound pretty much sealed the deal. Even if it were an Uchiha who’d cast a jutsu with their visual prowess, he would have been sure he’d have been aware of the illusion even if he couldn’t find any weak points in the jutsu. Was it a Yamanaka clan trait?

Breathing a little easier, he picked a direction and tried to contemplate his next move.

So…no genjutsu here, but something had definitely happened. He had no idea where he was…and he had woken up in a graveyard of all places. ‘What the hell?’ he guessed, he could’ve been knocked out and quickly taken somewhere else, which would explain the sudden change in location. But what about the daylight?

Even if he had been taken elsewhere…it was night in Kiri, and he couldn’t have been out for that long. After his good sense had come back to him, he immediately remembered when Kiri had begun to blur and fade. From the time it began to the time it ended, it had been…a minute at most. Right? That had to be right.

“Get it together, keep it together.” he muttered, trying to make sense of it all in his head. None of it made even a bit of sense. Looking up from the footpath he has absently been following, he realized he has come to stand in front of a building of some sort. The establishment was small, and incredibly old. Crumbling...burnt, in fact. At least some of it. The building itself was made of brown and red brick, its roof coming to an angled point, with a stone cross centered at the very top. “Hm,” he examined the building with interest. A place of worship, obviously— he knew that much. How intriguing…

Religion wasn’t a particular worry for shinobi. He knew that demons and spirits existed —obviously, the shinobi clans had been able to harness and manipulate their own spiritual energy almost for as long as the human race’s existence— but shinobi usually lived by rules of their own.

The great power that had been described to him from birth had always been simply, Kami-sama. God, for a modern swing on things. There were, of course, temples dedicated to different deities. Religions come and go, but the great truth of the world, the mystery of chakra and the wonder of spiritual existence would always remain the same. With nothing else to go on, he stepped onto the old cobblestone stairs and made his way to the remnants of a large desk that lay in charred pieces across the floor.

Maybe this place would have some kind of identifying trait or anything really, that would provide some lick of an idea of where he was. Spotting something that appeared to be a burned chest in the corner of the room, he selected a kunai from his pouch and began making his way to the chest.

C-crrreeeaak.

His ears perked up inattention, and as he whirled to see what might have been a person disappearing behind the gaping hole of a blown-out window. Turning around, he rushed to the window to see who that had been, but when he got there, whoever it was had disappeared.

He was sure he had just seen…well, he thought he had seen a head of dark hair duck behind this wall. A chill ran up his spine as he backed away from the window and gave the little building a wary once-over. He wasn't positive, but every instinct he had was telling him that he was being watched. It wasn’t secure in this building— better get a move on, then.

“Hello?” A faint voice called from the distance, and he froze. Had he just heard what he thought he did? Several heartbeats passed in silence.

“Helloooo? Anyone?” he startled once more at the shout, just as he was contemplating opening the chest in the corner of a room. His senses perked up at the sound of the new voice, echoing throughout the graveyard from somewhere just in the distance. He gave a little huff of relief as he thought he recognized the voice. Smiling in disbelief, he hesitated on his way to the door and glanced over his shoulder.

Turning back to the chest, he cracked it open quickly with a cloud of ash and coughed as he surveyed the inside. He needed to look now, before he had to leave. He had to hurry. Opening the dusty, leather box with a cough, he examined the inside.

Old clothes, burned black, but looking as though they might have once been a red wine color. A scarf, maybe? There were holes in it, just like the other clothes…could those have been ceremonial materials? There looked to be a few aged, ruined books that had melted together...and then a single, leather-bound journal that looked to be falling apart. The front had some kind of previously-gold lettering across it, written in the foreign horizontal manner of the English language.

“Hello?” The voice of his old teammate called again, and he sprung up to go and catch him before his voice faded into the distance.

“Yo! Jay!” Kaimera called, running as fast as his feet could take him, across footpaths and graves alike as he tried to track down Jay’s position. “I’m here! Hey!!”

A shout of his name resounded from the fog ahead and despite the situation, his face broke into a relieved smile.

“Over here!”

“I see you!” Jay appeared a few dozen paces ahead, over the roof of a graying structure that must have been a crypt. Upon seeing you, his perpetually tired eyes softened in a smile, and he hopped down from the crumbly stone soundlessly. “Man, Kaimera. Would you look at this place? It’s a mess!”

“Jay…what is this place?” Kaimera asked, rather anxiously, all of his worries easing and rushing back simultaneously at the sight of his teammate’s obvious perturbation. “I mean— where are we?”

Kaimera gazed around the ever-encasing rows of gravestones upon headstones and he winced as a pain throbbed through his head. He remembered…falling, for lack of better words, on the gravestone back near the burned building. The person at the window. The man with red eyes...there was so much to discuss, so many questions. He couldn’t keep them all straight.

Shaking his head, he rubbed his eyes. “I can’t make sense of anything. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Me neither,” his teammate responded regretfully. “—and you’re the first person I’ve come across.” Jay sighed in what might’ve been relief, or frustration. “Woke up in an old crypt a while ago, next to someone’s…cremation jar. What a way to start the day, huh?”

“W-wait, you…woke up?” he asked, surprised. “As in, you was sleeping when you…arrived?”

“You weren’t?”

“No, I—” he paused, letting the memories sink in. For the life of Kaimera, he couldn’t remember exactly how he had ended up on the old grave, but it hadn’t felt like he was sleeping. More like, falling. But that didn’t make sense; and neither did Jay’s recollection of awakening in this place. He has just seen him on the last mission they were together on, sprinting and on high-alert not fifteen minutes ago.

Kaimera frowned. Was that fifteen minutes ago? “I don’t think so. Just…fell on a broken headstone, I guess.”

“Creepy.” Jay sighed, rubbing at the back of his head. “Ugh, I feel sick.” His eyes narrowed before settling on him with a frown of concern. “We need to get a grip on where we are. Obviously not Kiri…where is the question”

“Tell me about it.” he murmured, rather sadly as he held up the torn edge of his great scroll, which had fallen open and gotten ripped earlier. “Moreover, why are we in a fucking cemetery? And my scroll got damaged somehow. Just great. That seal was one of my favorites.”

“Well, no use crying over spilled milk.” Jay smiled, moving behind him to take the canvas-like paper from his grasp. “Let me secure it for you…I’m sure he can fix the scroll later, right?”

“Not without removing the needle-tipped spears.” he sighed, helping him hold up the thick scroll as he rolled the dowel back into place. “It won’t work anymore if I just rip it off.”

“I’ll help you buy a new one when we get back.” he heard the tired smile in his brother-like figure’s voice as he took a small length of shinobi wire and tied it up.

“It doesn’t work like that.” he chuckled and faced him as he finished his ministrations. Then he remembered, “Oh! Jay, I might’ve found something that might help us!”

Raising the old book he found, Jay’s eyes blinked in interest. Reaching for it, he examined the wordless cover and then went to unbuckle the bindings. Opening the book, the older shinobi grunted quietly in discontent “It’s written in English. Doesn’t exactly help our cause.”

“I figured as much.” He frowned in dismay. Both of them were shoddy at the English language; reading it more than speaking it, which was hardly saying something. “All the headstones were written in English too.”

“I was exploring an old temple and found the journal in a burnt chest. I’m actually surprised it doesn’t seem to have one scorch mark on it.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is chapel.” Jay chuckled. “Wait, is that right? Chapel…mosque? No…”

“Church?”

“That’s the one.” He smiled and nodded his head in the direction of an old gate. “We should be trying to find a way out of here. We can start by leaving this godforsaken death yard.”

With more automaticity than he has ever admitted possessing, he turned at the jab of his gleaming hatai-ate toward a footpath a little further away. Together, he quietly walked the soft path of grassless soil. Where to, he had no idea— but one direction was as good as any when he had no idea where he was.

“So…Jay.” Kaimera asked carefully, frowning in thought. “About what was happening before…” he grunted, rubbing at his head and looking away in slight irritation. “Well, I don’t exactly remember what was happening before…”

“It’s all a little fuzzy.” Jay confessed in his soft voice, grimacing when he looked at him. “I don’t even know what happened. I remember catching sight of you, Izu, Cadwell… One moment, I was closing in on the armory to aid in weapon disbursement, and then…nothing. Just woke up here, in the fog.”

“Where is here?”

“I don’t know.” Jay seemed uncomfortable admitting it, and when he glanced down, he could see the tendons in the back of his right hand moving— a nervous tick he knew well.

He has seen it often enough when he was younger, though not so much during his teen years. His teammate’s fingers must’ve been itching to reach for his wakizashi. That meant he was nervous. That made him nervous.

“I wish I did.” He went on, eyes seeming to comb through the area beyond the fog that permeated much of the distance. The basic shapes that might make up buildings were just coming into focus— a town, maybe? “I just hope the village is okay. Not that the two of us would hold much sway against a battle with deities — no offense! — but if we’re here…why us?” He shook his head in frustration, eyes narrowing. “What if there are others?”

“It would help if we knew where here was.” he grumbled unhappily. Perking up as he had begun Leafing through the journal he had found, his gaze shot over to his messy-haired friend as a sharp reminder found its way to the forefront of his mind. “Hey, wait. I think there are other people here!”

“What d’you mean?” Jay asked, glancing over.

“I mean—”

Creeeaaaakk.

His thick hair whipped behind him at the same time Jay’s head of unruly blonde locks snapped in the direction of the town ahead. The creak, which had resounded sharply through the air, was enough to cut his conversation short.

The silence that followed was almost worse than the noise itself. Despite his best efforts, his fingers tightened on the old journal.

“Alright...” Jay frowned, a hand on his shoulder now as he has turned in terse curiosity towards the direction of the foreboding sound. “Let’s just…assume we’re not the only ones here.”

The way he said that suggested he didn’t find the idea appealing. At all. He sent a glance his way with a chill down his spine to find that he was already gazing back with meaningful eyes. He understood that expression perfectly.

“Alright.” Kaimera echoed, “let’s see what we can see.” he slipped the worn book into his vest, securing it with a quick tug of a strap. “Then find somewhere to hole up for a minute to breathe.”

“Agreed.” Jay nodded, and the two of them were off towards the town, this time with a little more caution than he has already carried.

It didn’t take long for the both of them to realize…this wasn’t the land of Water. He was certain of it. In fact, this place wasn’t even looking like anywhere he has been on Earth, at this point. Not even in the cities: and he has seen some freaky shit in the cities.

The buildings were different; he could tell that much, straight off. No hanging wooden signs or even painted canvas advertisements hung from the front of the buildings. Hardly any of the buildings were visibly wooden, and none seemed to have any natural color; most were made of bricks, or slate gray slabs looking like miniature prisons.

The signs he did see looked largely made of plastic, smooth with colored letters on white backgrounds, or colored and broken glass letters hanging from mechanical pieces off the sides of buildings.

Even the streets were different, both visibly and culturally. Of course, any given civilian village would most certainly not have shinobi vendors or weapons dealers in the streets, but even for a village as foreign as this one, the town seemed very…empty. There were no welcoming fruit and ramen stands, nor crisscrossing wires overhanging the narrow streets like he had seen of a village back home.

These streets were quite wide and made of either slate gray cement material — like some of the buildings— or of smooth red and gray brick in some places. Hardly an inch of natural earth could be found within screaming distance by the time he reached what he thought might have been the middle of town.

By then, he was considering just throwing out the journal he had looted from the old church; severely disappointed in himself for not learning to better read the English language. He could speak and understand a bit of English while spoken, but he had gained absolutely nothing from the town’s street signs nor the old papers fluttering in the wind.

Marginally better at reading the language, Jay had at one point stooped to pick up a grayed newspaper trapped under an overturned flowerpot. He has heard but one softly spoken phrase from him as he studied the old ink letters.

“Sairentohirupuresu.” 

Did that mean anything to Kaimera? He was sure it didn’t…and if it was an English-based paper, who knows what kind of meanings it could hold unknown to him, a shinobi of hidden mist. While Jay puzzled over the news print, trying to put his big brain to use, he wandered a few feet off the center of the road and gazed up at a rather disenchanting establishment.

It looked like a sandwich shop, if he had ever seen one— and he hadn’t! Sandwich shops were exceedingly rarer to find than any other fast food establishment, especially in his area of the homeland, which tended to cling to tradition. The sign out front of this shop held the broken image of a once brightly-colored cylindrical sandwich, and read,

“Hh-aahb-ee…” he tried to sound out the first word written in English upon the big plastic sign above the glass door of a building. “Ha-hap…”

“Hapee…Berger.” Jay rubbed at his forehead as he tried translating the sign above the same building. He mouthed the words after hearing it as a tick appeared over Jay’s frowning brows. “Okay…so what now?”

“Let’s go take a look at the happy sandwiches.” he shrugged and heard his teammate let out a breath. The store was still down the street a bit, but it was one of the only ones that he could somewhat see inside of, through a couple of cloudy windows. It certainly appeared to be an ordinary restaurant, albeit a bit unattractive.

Just as he and Jay were about to turn and head toward the “Happy Burger” building, the both of them froze at a familiar and rather unwelcome sound of feet against the pavement, some length up the road. He turned, expecting to see a person stumbling upon his line of vision. But whoever it was— their visage was lost in the fog.

“Hello?” he asked curiously, seizing up as he realized his mistake a second before Jay shot him an unimpressed look through his brunet fringe.

“Sorry.” he hissed meekly, shoulders lowering as his older teammate rolled his eyes at him once, before abruptly turning from the rather ugly dining establishment to the direction the footsteps were still staggering in.

“Well, let’s go.” Jay shrugged, but he didn’t miss the quick movement of his thumb popping his beloved sword from its sheath. Just enough so that it wasn’t lodged firmly, but ready to be pulled from its steel protector without resistance. “Could be one of ours…who knows? Stay sharp.”

“Right.”

But the further the both of them advanced down the street, the bigger a problem the fog seemed to become. It never lapsed and never thinned; worse, he had a nagging feeling that the place had begun to get darker over the last forty minutes or so since he has found Jay. he were no closer to figuring out where he were than to the footsteps that seemed to evade hiss and Jay’s watchful eyes whichever way he turned.

It was actually starting to creep him out a bit. The streets echoed noise like a damp cave. It reminded you, unhelpfully and unwarranted, of the local Kiri stories of a certain legendary ninja slithering off into the night some time ago; never to be seen again. The sound was as eerie as it was compelling, and he had almost made a complete circle around the city block trying to locate the source of the noise before spotting something just at the edge of his vision through the fog.

“Ah! There!” he pointed with a hushed voice as he caught a glimpse of some figure or another disappearing around another corner. With a disbelieving huff, he realized he and Jay had come an almost complete full-circle— he could only turn right so many times.

“Hey!” he winced as Jay shouted suddenly, hurrying ahead. Shooting the back of his head a dirty look, he followed after.

“Heeeeyy!” he echoed enthusiastically and promptly ignored the side-eye he received in turn. Evidently, the both of them were so fed up with this game of cat-and-mouse that he were throwing all caution to the wind— really, all he knew was that if Jay was shouting, so were you.

“Hey!” He called again, jogging ahead. Jay seemed to be jogging right behind him in turn, so he assumed it was okay to proceed. The figure, always at just the end of the fog’s visibility, seemed to keep walking. What was that all about? Couldn’t they see that someone needed help?

“Excuse me? Please, sir! Can he tell me where I am?”

“Kami-sama, please don’t sound so vulnerable!” Jay hissed as he narrowly avoided running smack into him from behind.

Kaimera paused briefly to frown at the empty fog, though he could still hear the staggering footsteps ahead. It wasn’t so much that the person was fast— it was just…the fog was getting thicker and thicker. He couldn’t see five meters in front of him. A moment more, he realized what he must sound like to the stranger; “Oi! Sumimasen! Kon’nichiwa?! Onegaishimasu, Kyaku-sama, watashi wa dokoni iruno?”

Ugh, of all the times to be utterly useless—!

“How’s his English?”

“Come again?” Jay asked distractedly, as he too hurried along trying to catch sight of the stranger.

“They don’t respond to Japanese.” He shared his thoughts regretfully. “Perhaps another language—”

“Maybe they’re just scared.” Jay responded in kind and then hummed. “Or deaf.”

As the both of them came to a stop in front of the Happy Burger, something amazing happened—the fog began to clear. Just so, with a light breeze stinking of dust and ash. When it passed by, he caught his first glimpse of the mystery person other than a hazy silhouette.

“Or weird.” Jay muttered cautiously before speaking up, as the sound of footsteps ceased.

“Excusez moi? Monsieur?” Jay enunciated loudly with a classic Japanese take on the French words; that was to say, completely butchering the language. “Ma-Madam-moiselle?”

“Qing?” he asked, also in a slightly better intonation of the foreign language Mandarin. “Ni keyi bang wo ma?” ’Please, can he help me? ‘

Slowly, with a quite unsteady turn, the person appeared to come lumbering back toward the two of you. A surge of victory struck him just before it registered that neither of them could probably carry a conversation with them for more than two sentences.

“Hey! They’re coming back!” he exclaimed, and grinned at the sight of Jay’s frowning mouth twitching. “Am I good or what? It sure wasn’t your gibberish that convinced them to turn around.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jay replied easily, humoring him with a small smile. “Maybe we can finally get some answers. Let’s shoot for English. Face it, we’re both shit at…” Jay’s small smile died down for a moment as he appraised the slowly approaching figure. He saw him stiffen, and that sent a stab of fear down his spine a moment before he turned to face the stranger.

“What is it?” he asked, eyeing the gray silhouette shambling closer. The fog must’ve been thicker than he thought; color wasn’t returning to the person’s skin or clothing. Deciding he wasn't messing around anymore, he stepped ahead of Jay, knowing he’d have his back, and stepped into the fog.

“Hello?” he waved with a smile as he encroached on the stranger’s space. He noted with a bit of trepidation that they seemed to be writhing in pain, feet at odd angles, holding their abdomen. his smile dropped like a stone through the air. “Oh my god. Are you okay?! What’s—”

“Stop right there!” Jay yelled— a loud, deep intonation of a masculine shout, and he realized with a stab of horror that this person in front of him wasn't holding their stomach with their arms.

They didn’t even have arms. Oh god…they didn’t…even have a face.

Frozen with what he could only describe as absolute shock and disgust, he gaped at the gray thing that was slimy, too skinny and now quickly staggering toward him nearly exactly like that puppet-master jutsu that had horrified him as a child. Only this wasn’t a corpse being controlled— it didn’t even look human.

“Shit!” he heard, and felt himself being grabbed around the chest, bodily being held back as something black and thick came squirting towards his face.

Kaimera screamed shortly in surprise and fright. He couldn’t help it. The thick globs of what he could only guess what some kind of acid slid over his shinobi vest and down to the apron-like skirt covering the topmost part of his thighs.

A sound of deep disgust emitted from his scowling mouth as Jay let him go in favor of shaking his arm rapidly. More specifically, his sleeve— and a moment later, he knew why. He realized just in time to narrowly dodge a second burst of black acid as a hole in the thing’s stomach opened up between its grossly shifting ribcage.

The black goo was burning. It was eating straight through his vest and to his skin. The area it’d touched his flak vest was nearly gone already!

“Ah—!” he gaped, feeling a stinging heat near his leg where the fabric of his skirt was burning through. He flinched in pain as he tore down the disintegrating zipper of his vest, eventually just tearing apart the teeth of the zipper as the little handle burned away.

“Oh my god! What the fuck?!” He demanded, now a little more angry than scared as he eyed the still writhing and spitting figure some paces down the street. His skirt’s side and middle were still burning, and he yelped as he felt the first licks of heat beginning to eat at his skin.

“Back up!” Jay ordered, throwing aside a smoking section of his sleeve and he hastened to obey, even as he tugged desperately at his skirt front, trying to bend and keep it away from his body. A fifth splurge of acid flew past his face and he watched in horror as a lock of hair got caught in the spray.

Forgetting his skirt, he grabbed a kunai from his pouch and cut clean through the lock of hair before it could do any more damage. Staring heatedly back at the monstrosity staggering through the ugly streets, he threw the kunai and hit the abomination square between where it’s eyes should’ve been. he started for a moment to see another explosive kunai already embedded inside it’s chest-hole and his eyes widened.

Staggering back to take cover, he grabbed at Jay's arm and dragged him away from the fallen body, fully expecting an explosion to take place.

It never came. What did happen was that Jay seemed to snap out of it, and came to his senses quick enough to snatch at the remaining fabric of his skirt and tear it clean off of you. he were breathing heavy at this point from the shock of it all, and he barely reacted to the strong pull; just letting him tear at it until he were left in nothing but his black shorts underneath.

“Oh god...oh god…” he gasped, shakily taking another kunai from his pouch and cutting a piece of Jay’s vest pocket off that had the smallest of black acid on it. Dropping it with trembling fingers, he noted how it dissolved and fell to the ground in black drips and smoke.

“It’s okay.” Jay forced, trying to be reassuring, though he could tell by the tense tone of his voice that this was not okay. Over on the pavement, the figure lying prone began sitting up and wrestling its way to its toeless feet in a horrifying distorting of limbs.

Somehow, all he could think to say was: “his kunai didn’t ignite.”

“It’s alright. I don’t need explosive tags.” Jay panted, and he noted with a small gasp that part of his hair too had been singed and hastily cutaway. His right ear was clearly visible now, as were a couple of reddish gray spots on his neck where he could only assume some acid had landed. “I don’t even need jutsu to take this freak out.”

Without another word, Jay slid his wakizashi from its sheath and lunged.

Logically, he knew that this disgusting aberration of a living creature was no match for either of you.

Lots of different jutsu involved flames, boiling water, raining kunai, and other projectiles. In a few cases, shinobi of the Kiri had even faced dark style, diamond style and poison based jutsu. It was just…this thing had caught the two of them off-guard.

Kaimera watched with worried eyes as Jay easily dodged the spurts of acid and sliced cleanly through the creature’s neck. Sword coming back with a stretch of smudged black, the faceless gray head of the creature fell, and its neck sprayed ‘blood’ much in the same way its chest had been spraying acid.

Teeth bared in disgust, Jay wiped some blood from his cheek and flicked the stray droplets of crimson off his blade.

“…Jay.” he forced, trying and failing not to gag at the sight of the creature’s still-twitching and gushing body. “A…are….is…” he shook his head, trying to shake off the jittery ball of dread that had worked its way into his stomach. “Everything okay?”

“No, Yama. Everything is absolutely not okay.” Jay stated dully and smoothly avoided another gush from the slowly settling creature’s chest. It appeared that he too, had come back to his senses a bit. “Let’s just…” his teammate shook his head with an expression torn between disgust and disbelief. “Fuck this town. We’re leaving. Now.”

“C…c…” he tried forcing the words out but couldn’t quite get them past his throat. He avoided a look from Jay’s worried eyes and tried clearing his throat. The words came out weak. “Can’t argue with that.”

Wordlessly, Jay walked briskly in his direction and returned his sword to his back all the while. When he reached his side, he only slowed momentarily to take his hand in his and continue down the road.

His throat felt even tighter as he followed, but he took comfort in the calming presence of his big brother-like figure as the two of he walked through the fog. he passed wavering sheets of old newspaper, old soda cans and big rusted hunks of metal and glass he could only describe as foreign mechanical vehicles without knowledge of model or make. he has seen them so rarely in life that they were nearly as much a mystery to he as this town.

“Where do you think the others are?” he asked eventually.

“Don’t know.” Jay answered immediately. “But if there’s anything in this town like that freak back on Saint Michel’s street, then—”

“Agh!” he reared back at the first hint of a now-familiar gurgling. his sensitive ears and even more perceptive sensory points were now picking up a presence off to the right. He pulled Jay aside just as a large shower of acid fell to the streets where the two of them had been standing. Baring his teeth, he turned and sent a volley of kunai toward the epicenter of the terrible energy.

“Freaks like these ones?” A voice hissed, and the two of them jumped back, a bit disoriented from the fog, just in time for a third creature to come flying spine-first onto the pavement with a disturbing crack. Following the flying body was a black-clothed figure with dark hair and stunning crimson eyes.

Her face was pinkish with injury in some places, and several holes were smoking in her black dress that looked like they needed immediate attending to; but she walked up with a smile nonetheless. Even downtrodden and filthy— she was as much of a knock-out as ever.

“Remika!” he gasped, happier than all heavens to see that she was alive and well— and even if she was put in moderate danger by being here, he was glad beyond belief that he and Jay were not the only ones in this evil, gray pit of a town.

“I’m so glad I found you.” Remika expressed, as she took a rather large hunk of sharp metal and stabbed the lying figure straight through its faceless skull. The kunoichi’s eyes shone with relief and barely-concealed desperation as she came nearer through the fog. “Glad to find anyone really…anyone who isn’t one of these monsters.”

“Have you seen this place?” Jay asked in means of greeting. Remika only nodded once and looked down at the metal slab still in her hands, letting gravity take it to the pavement. The head of the creature turned with it.

“I’ve seen about a dozen of these.” Remika replied softly. “Something else…I didn’t stop long to see what it was, but...it was huge.” his friend swallowed, but it was clear she was just holding back tears: either from relief at no longer being alone, or from the horror of the experience.

“Twice my size and dragging something along the ground.” Remika shook her head as though trying to shake the memory away. She dropped her head slightly, but before she did, he was sure he had seen a look akin to terror on her ashy face. “I think it was its arms. It looked...like it had clubs for hands…or something. I couldn’t see too well, but…I hid under a metal vehicle when it passed by.”

Clearing her throat, she swallowed thickly. “Everything was fine before that…I ran into a bunch of small gray things near an old park and escaped pretty quickly but then it was like I experienced chakra depletion or...or something!” She covered her eyes with one hand. “None of my jutsu has been working since then! I don’t know what’s wrong with me…”

“Try and calm down.” Jay hushed, not without empathy. He moved forward to take Remika’s hand as she sniffled quietly. “You’re with us now. We’re not letting you go.”

“I know…I’m sorry.” Remika brought a hand up and wiped the few tears she had shed away. They’d left little marks on her ash-dusted cheeks.

“We’re getting out.” he stated, a little more confident now than before. He noted Jay’s hand still in his other one, and squeezed slightly. Nodding once, Jay let him do most of the talking; as he often did in front of his peers he wasn’t familiar with. “Okay? Don’t worry, Remika! Let’s just find our way out of town first…see what the hell all this fog is about.” he shook his head, mind whirling, wondering exactly which problem to tackle first. “Then we can think about finding the others…”

“Best plan I’ve heard all day.” Jay agreed and sent him the barest of smiles. Keeping hold of his hand, he took point and the three of them set off together into the fog, in the direction of the cemetery he had come from.

“There’s a cemetery this way.” he whispered to Remika as the three of them followed one another. “That’s where the two of us came from…all was quiet in those parts, but we still need to be careful. It seems to be the easiest path, if we’re going by the amount of creatures prowling there.”

Yeah, all had been quiet but he was suddenly, morbidly reminded of the dark-headed figure he had seen darting around the church earlier.

The three of them didn't make it far. Soon, the flesh beneath his skin, his Goka-trained chakra paths, began tingling with an impression that he was quickly becoming surrounded. He crowded into Jay’s side and reached behind to pull Remika closer. His eyes widened and his teeth set on edge as he felt the putrid chakra of whatever those things were, encroaching from all sides.

“How many?” His teammate’s voice was a breath below a whisper, and he shook his head slowly against his shoulder blade as he let go of his hand to reach for his scabbard.

“Too many. Two dozen, maybe…everywhere.” he whispered back, and Remika’s arm tensed in his grip. “I don’t think we should move.” he closed his eyes, trying to think. “They don’t have eyes, or visible ears. Still, it’s likely they attack based on sound, or movement.”

“Astute observation.” Jay muttered and he glared into the fog, still frozen in place; that insight still wasn’t enough. The tingle over his nerves got worse, and he tried to shake it off; usually, his control over his sensory matrix was pretty good. But not right now.

“I’m starting to think we should just take them.” Jay muttered. “But…near zero visibility, and they can spit acid…neither of our jutsu is equipped to deal with so many of them without attracting more attention to ourselves,” Jay grit his teeth audibly, “-and we still don’t know what else is out there, or what they’re capable of.”

Still glaring and deep in thought, he nodded. “We need to go to Happy Sandwich.”

“Where?!” Remika asked in a small breath, like he had just gone insane.

“Burger.” Jay corrected immediately.

“I’ll lead.” he demanded rather than suggested and stepped in front quietly. Falling behind, yet hanging onto his hand once more, Jay in turn hung onto Remika and followed his lead.

“Easy does it.” He murmured, and together, the three of them barely produced a sound, even on the textured pavement. Such was the result of a shinobi lifestyle.

It was a block or so to the establishment, but somehow, he was able to slip just around the radius of each monstrosity’s awareness; honestly, he was mostly playing a guessing game there…and he was immensely relieved it had paid off. Two of them, he was sure he could now handle on his own. Three, maybe five? Sure.

But it felt like there were now more than a dozen of these fuckers hanging around the streets. It was no good…the low visibility would do him no favors if he needed to fight, and acid was spraying everywhere. He imagined he had been a pile of melted flesh and a silver forehead protector in mere seconds.

“Here we are…” he breathed, as the three of them reached the front doors of the Happy Burger. Opening it a crack, his breath caught as the sudden, deafening chime of a bell filled the streets with its tone. “Shit…”

Kaimera didn’t have time to think— one of the creatures had just wandered around the corner a few feet away from the doors. Hearing the bell, the creature made a noise like it was ready to eject acid, and he muscled the stiff door open before taking each an arm and violently pulling and shoving his two companions indoors.

“Shit.” Jay snarled in a stiff echo of his own voice. “Get inside!”

“Stay quiet!” he hissed as the door slid slowly shut with another chime that made him jump; he was still outside…you had to make sure these things didn’t start attacking the building, or all three of him would be cornered. Narrowly, he dodged a cloud of black sludge and crouched low to the door, leaning against the hardwood.

’No, no, no!’ he thought in a whirl, his entire life suddenly put into perspective as he heard hurried shuffling footsteps and spraying of acid all around the block. ’A distraction…we need a distraction!’

Frantically trying to come up with a plan (and quietly thinking of just running and leading them away) he reached into his side pouch and gasped in surprise as the door behind him pushed open and several hands grabbed his person to drag him inside silently. A streak of steely metal whizzed past his head followed by the fluttering of paper as a kunai was thrown high into the streets.

“Hopefully, they’ll take the bait...” Jay was whispering, clutching him close as he backed away, Remika still at the door, attempting to close it as silently as possible. “Come on, he freaks…”

Outside, the explosive tag combusted somewhere beyond the line of buildings just across the street. Crouching low across the room, Remika let out a relieved breath as the nearest of the creatures stumbled past the door, into the thick of the fog and out of sight.

“Jeez,” Remika sighed heavily, looking sick as she leaned back against the doorframe. “How close was that…?”

It was then he noticed her hands, smeared with what looked like oil in addition to the ash and dirt. A tiny squeeze bottle of something laid abandoned next to the door. He smiled softly in spite of the situation as he realized that’s how they’d opened the door so quietly.

Right, Remika would be the one to carry stuff like that with her. A small dropper of oil for squeaky hinges. Relaxing as Jay moved him to the side to rest against what he thought might’ve been a dusty counter. Wistfully, he noted that even with his family’s reputation for beauty and the more manipulative of ninja arts, nearly all of his female comrades were far more skilled in those areas than he has likely ever been.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on things like that.

“Why was there a bell?” he settled for groaning, resting his weary head against the wooden wall behind you.

“This is an English-speaking town.” Jay said in a way of explanation. He, too, sighed in aggravation. “Which still brings us no closer to figuring out where the hell we are…if we had a map, that’d be something.”

Looking at the little restaurant, he felt himself relaxed a bit. The place was small, and homey as far as foreign establishments went. Most of the furnishings were wooden, and everything was fairly simple in design. There were two large windows facing the street; both cloudy with age and neglect, and both with old dusty blinds pulled most of the way up. The plastic plating of one of them was lopsided, and looking broken as well, its string hanging down and pooling on a small table.

“Unfortunately, my English-speaking is even worse than Kaimera’s.” he blanched in half indignation and half amusement at the sudden jab and Remika chimed a small laugh in response. “You know it’s true. I devote myself too much to genjutsu.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” he shrugged, smiling to himself. “We all have our talents. It’s always important to have specialists in every field.”

“Agreed.” Jay smiled wryly, and gestured to a small table as a means of asking for help. “By the way, I’d like to check out the roof of this building— see what we can see of the landscape. Maybe the fog will be thinner up there.”

“I’ll do that, if he doesn't mind.” Remika stood up and nodded with a solemn look. “I can’t let myself get too comfortable…I mean, none of us should.” She glanced up at something and he noticed for the first time; a sinkhole that dipped into the building from the rooftop. Through its ragged edges, he could see cloudy skies.

“We should talk about things when he gets back.” Jay smiled, but there was something off about it that he was sure only he noticed, from spending so much time with him. He was his teammate, after all, and he looked…tense. “About what to do once the freakshow outside clears up. We need a plan.”

“Yeah, so don’t be long.” he offered a smile at his crimson-eyed friend as he stood and dusted himself off. Most of everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and what looked like debris from the peeling ceiling.

“I won’t. Don’t worry.” Remika smiled back before jumping up and through the small hole in the roof, without a sound.

“You dropped his book when he pushed us inside,” Jay commented as the two of them settled the table flat against the shop’s door, its legs propped up with several menu’s and metal napkin-dispensers to make sure it didn’t tip over. The sight was a dubious barricade and he knew it— but it was better than nothing, especially against the acids of the demonic hoard on the other side.

“Oh yeah?” he answered absent-mindedly, still wondering if there was any possible way for things around here to get less safe. “That’s alright. It was probably nothing…and even if it was, we can’t read much English anyway.”

You blew away a few locks of hair that had fallen into his eyes. With a grimace, he noted that it was the hair that he had been forced to cut after it had been sprayed by sludge.

“That’s just it.” Jay muttered, and he blinked in mild surprise as he took him again by the elbow and steered him toward a cloudy window on the far side of the restaurant. Glancing up, he was startled to see him staring at the hole in the ceiling as though waiting for Remika to drop back down.

“Jay?” he asked, rather nervously. What was that look about? “What is it?”

“That book— journal, whatever it is.” He went on, pulling said book from inside his vest. In his confusion, the book had no meaning to him when he set it in his hand. “When he dropped it, it fell open and it’s not nothing. At least, I don’t think so…maybe if we were still in the Kiri, it would’ve been nothing, but seeing as we’re in this hell-town…”

“I don’t understand.” he shook his head, confused as he flipped idly through the pages. This wasn’t the first time he was seeing inside of it, but nothing was less confusing the second time. English writing, more English…just a bunch of writing he would have to try very hard to get the gist of. A few things were repetitive at first glance, and there were strange symbols too, like pagan markings, but mostly just—

His fingers stopped flipping the pages. With growing confusion, his eyes narrowed and he brought the journal closer to his face as he tried to process what he was seeing.

There, on one of the pages, and being stark black against the beige of the paper, was a large symbol. Confounded, he ran his gray fingertips over the ink, familiar as home…the exact same symbol as the one carved into his forehead protector.

“I didn’t see that one.” Jay muttered, frowning as he appeared to tower over the book he held, as though trying to shield it from anyone’s sight but hiss and his.

“What-what do you mean? What is this?” he asked, flipping through more pages to reveal yet another symbol; this one making him shake his head at the drawing of a three pronged shuriken. Why in the world would that have been written in this journal he has found in the middle of an old church? he flipped through it quickly and there were no more familiar symbols.

“It’s his clan’s symbol.” Jay stated quietly, his voice grimmer than he had expected. When he looked up, he was still staring at the page with eyes that were narrowed with thought, and dark with something else.

“Yama. Listen very carefully.” The book snapped shut with a soft whoosh and he blinked at the dust, startled. “You can’t tell anyone about this. Not until we know what it mean

“What’s that?” Remika asked as she dropped down from the ceiling. If she’d heard any of that (which was quite unlikely), her crimson eyes betrayed nothing as she stepped forward. “Do I miss anything?”

“Nothing important.” Jay answered, and he shook his head at the subtle que. Turning to gaze out the window again, he sighed, discontented.

“I found an old temple earlier…church, I mean,” he said. In acting normal in tense situations, at least, he was fairly skilled. “I thought I saw someone watching me…”

You closed his eyes, seeing the head of dark hair in his mind’s eye. Had he felt anything at that moment? Any chakra signatures?

“No. I did see someone. They had brown hair…kind of shaggy, I would guess. On the shorter side. I can’t say I recognized the hair, or what I saw of the face…pale, if I had to guess.”

“The first I’m hearing of it.” Jay’s mildly irate voice cut through the atmosphere and Remika offered a calming smile.

“So. I guess it’s time to move on, right?” She asked, and he felt a rush of affection as he looked over at her. No matter what, he was happy to have found Remika in this hell hole. Or, for her to have found the two of you.

“We’re probably better off on the rooftops.” he commented, slumping lazily. The three of them glanced up at the hole in the roof with a bit of trepidation. “The fog looks to be clearing slightly.”

“See anything while he was up there?” Jay asked the other kunoichi.

“Oh, not much.” Remika’s voice was light, but the look in her eyes was deadpan and haunted as her smile turned into something less genuine, more of a grimace. “It’s pretty foggy up there too, but one side of town seems to have cleared up a bit…” Remika’s voice suggested that little detail didn’t exactly work in his favor. “I know I should’ve waited, but I took a quick look over there, by myself. There’s a pretty big splatter of blood on a sidewalk some distance that way. It was still pretty far away, beyond some buildings.”

She pointed with a black-painted thumbnail, towards the back of the building. Not the way he came from, and not the way to the cemetery either. It was a direction he and Jay hadn’t explored yet.

You still hadn’t the chance to locate the exact position of the sun, seeing as the sky was so damn thick with fog and probably pollution, too. Any which way could’ve been north or south. It was like this frickin’ town was layered with everything imaginable: fog, ash, weirdness, secrets…

“Was it red blood?” Jay asked flatly, and Remika nodded quietly. Fair question. All those things in the streets had bled more black fluid.

“We should…” he grimaced as well, consciously reaching out with his sensory points to locate the dark chakra systems of whatever those monsters were— and finding them still alive and clumsily stumbling the streets. “We should check it out.”

“…Yeah.” Remika agreed, quiet still and she nodded.

The three of he hopped up onto the roof of the establishment. It, like many of the others around, was made up of an indiscernible platform, littered with many, many pebbles and a few stray leaves. It, like everything else, was coated in a fine layer of ash.

It was then he noticed that the whole town was rather…gray, and it wasn’t just from the fog, which was notably less thick at rooftop-level. It was because of the strange dusting of white and black ash that covered simply everything.

Now that he was up here, he supposed some of the buildings did look like they’d been burned and then had the flames put out, perhaps by a fire-response service. But nothing should have warranted a coat of gray like this…it was like ash had simply fallen from the sky.

“There.”

Standing at attention, he turned towards where Remika was pointing and instinctively knew the spot of red in the distance was blood.

“Let’s go.” he spoke, and the three of them set off, hoping for all his sakes that the rooftops of this burned town would hold his weight as his shinobi-trained muscles propelled him across the buildings and streets.

Thank goodness the few feet he had climbed made a difference in the thickness of the fog; up here, at least, he could vaguely see what to expect some fifty feet ahead. A stark contrast to what it had been like, trying to move through it earlier.

Darting over the open spaces of alleyways, and sometimes even using the tops of vehicles and streetlights, the three of them closed in on the body, which was looking more and more human in nature as it became clearer. Other, bigger shadows beneath the fog, which resembled the things Remika described when he first met her, lumbered in the streets.

There was something above it too, he noted as he drew closer with his comrades. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as he noted a vaguely human-shaped figure strapped to a standard cross-wire fence. Kaimera had the fleeting thought to maybe go down and check if the person was okay…but the pool of blood underneath them spoke volumes.

“They’re gone. Whoever they are.” Jay intoned, coming to a halt on the building directly above the bloody figure. “Fortunately, it’s not one of ours.”

“Fuck.” he swore, letting a hand settle over his forehead at the horrific sight of something red and glistening spilling out of the midsection of the poor human. “Yeah, we’re fortunate all right…more than what could be said for this guy.”

You heard Remika gag, holding a hand to her mouth as more blood dripped from the body; its midsection torn open and looking like it was one strong breeze away from falling off. “The body is still fresh.” Remika is forced out, voice thick. “Something just did this.”

“And it wasn’t those gray things either.” Jay frowned, eyes steely. “Whatever did this, had eyes and hands…and a sadistic streak.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” he answered. “Whoever did this was probably human.”

“I didn’t think this place could get more horrific.” Jay sighed, as though it were an inconvenience. “Right. Off we go now. Remika?”

“I’m okay.”

“Good.” Jay jabbed his chin in the direction of the cemetery. “Let’s go.”

You prepared to make haste once more, back the way he came, but stopped abruptly at a thundering boom coming from somewhere behind you. The three of them whipped around immediately— kunai, wakizashi and a giant scroll at the ready.

“What was that?” Jay hissed.

“Kami.” he answered, eyes narrowed as he tried to mentally pinpoint the source of the noise. “I think that was…”

“Explosions like cannon fire.” Remika finished, as confused as any of you. She straightened when no more noise came from the other end of town. “Why would…that means there are other people here! No monster would be shooting firearms.”

“Let’s not make assumptions.” he shrugged, nervously eyeing Jay grit his teeth. “Guys…we have to see what that was.”

“It has to be someone from somewhere else.” Remika commented eventually. “I mean, not from our village. I don’t think there’s a single cannon in the Kiri.”

Just as he was wondering how to find the source of the cannon, a third explosion met his ears, this one sounding further away. All he could see in that direction was fog, and strangely, something that looked vaguely pinkish high in the sky. It looked like it might’ve been glowing, even.

“Good God…at this rate.” Jay shook his head and heaved a breath. He was right, though. The more he hesitated and swayed from the path he needed to go, the longer it would take him to find a way out. “Right…”

“Get ready.” Remika whispered, looking pale.

The journey in that direction was short, and not for reasons any of he thought— but because on the way to the source of the noise, he passed what looked like a graveyard for automobiles in the distance, a direction adjacent to his destination. Faintly, he sensed many more presences of life, like little spiders tingling across his nerves; little sparks in his awareness.

Old, faded bodies of motorized vehicles built a great mountain of metal behind more tall fencing; this time, lined with barbed and razor-wire around the tops. What was strange about the sight were the fleeting glints of silvery lights. It almost looked like…

“Hey!” he exclaimed, grinning all of a sudden as the little lights continued to dart back and forth over the tops of foggy vehicles and other junk material littering the area beyond the fence. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but…”

A loud crash like metal on metal and a short cry of “AHHHH!” came from the fog where glinting headbands still danced among the rubble. Abruptly, a body of gray, writhing flesh came barreling into the fence practically splattering on the thin barrier, with some of its revolting flesh and bones getting caught between the wires.

More bodies followed it, and he could see that atop the pile of vehicles some distance away where the fog was as thin as he had ever seen it, more of his comrades were making short work of a group of gray creatures.

“Those are Kiri ninja!” he said, overjoyed despite everything to see Anji’s bare arms and orange leg warmers swirling through the air.

They had the upper ground, at that dumpsite, he noted with relief. They— who might’ve been a silent Cadwell and who looked like Shizu, recognizable by his unruly hair and dark glasses— looked as well-adjusted to his new situation as could be expected. Then again, that was Kiri shinobi, for you…

There were more of them in this town…and they were okay! They were holding their own!

“Looks like they need the assist.” Remika was smiling too, looking misty-eyed as she too watched Angi make short, splattering work of more monsters.

“We can’t afford to lose them.” Jay agreed, smiling as well, though he looked less visibly excited, there was no shortage of happiness and relief in his gaze. He frowned a bit as he looked regrettably toward the direction he had been sprinting. “Whoever they are…they’re on their own for now. Anyway, we might not need the cemetery as a base if we’ve got them with us.”

“Right.” he answered, still smiling as the three of them converged on the cemetery for automobiles. As he drew closer, the imagery through the fog was becoming more and more clear.

It was Cadwell! The gray-haired ninja was dodging black acid like it was nothing at all; like he knew exactly where to move and where the next inky spray was coming from.

Eroding metal smoked from the heap of trashed vehicles which served as a battleground, and the smell of melting flesh became more prominent the closer he drew to the dumpsite. The black stuff, which had burned through his hair and clothing like fire through cardboard, seemed to have a bit more trouble eating through the tougher metal of the vehicles; steel, if he had to guess. A slower process, perhaps.

But no acid touched even the soles of Cadwell’s feet as he planted kunai after black-stained kunai into the spines and brains of the creatures (if brains existed in these things).

Cadwell…

An embarrassing combination of worry and pride filled his vest-less chest as he watched the black-tainted blades of his kunai sing through the murky air, nearly the same color as his hair and the ANBU-esque armor protecting his chest and arms.

Though he knew these three were fighting under much better conditions than he had been, he still marveled at the sight of just how many bodies had been decimated…how many of these things were there, exactly? And Cadwell…didn’t have a scratch on him. It was almost humiliating, how relieving that was.

Angi, on the other hand, seemed to be suffering a bit from splatters of acid that had dropped on his forest-green clothing from all the taijutsu. Shizu had sustained a bit of the same damage, with visible holes now being seen through his standard black long sleeve, allowing fair skin to be seen through the fabric, even from this distance. That must’ve meant, the holes were pretty big, then.

The thick, goggle-like glasses that had adorned Shizu’s face since he was children now turned to him in a quick jerk. A terse smile pulled at the corners of his lips as they opened in greeting,

“Hey guys.” Shizu’s voice was a welcome tenor cutting briskly and warmly across the grounds. “Came to get in on the action?”

“Sweet Mizukage! If it isn’t our treasured comrades!” Angi's booming voice and bright grin seemed to flash in a nonexistent sun as the shinobi turned to greet the three of you. From the corner of his eye, he could see Remika grin back. “Look sharp, my friends! Here comes another!”

Indeed, another writhing mass of gray flesh went flying into the air and high over the fence, landing near enough for the three to narrowly avoid getting splashed in the resulting gore.

“We should be ready to assist.” Jay’s calming voice cut through the short distance between the three of you, and it was almost like this could’ve been a regular mission. “Be prepared for anything.”

Kaimera and Remika nodded without question, preparing to leap, and if necessary, climb over the tall fence that separated him from his fellow shinobi. Eyeing the slime and flesh-coated fence with a bit of disgust, he noted that the metal had worn away in some places from the acid— but those holes were jagged and sharp and unsuitable to slip through. It would have to be up and over.

“Stay close to me.” It was Remika who murmured this, and he eyed her in surprise for a moment before nodding with a softening look.

All this, the sudden change in scenery and company was comforting him in a way that almost brought tears to his eyes. He hadn’t realized exactly how frightened he had been, deep down, prior to seeing their faces.

Angi, Shizu, Cadwell…the three of them weren't alone here. You, Jay and Remika had found them. That was three more people to lean on, more voices to calm him and give him strength, more precious comrades to protect. That, if nothing else, would give him the incentive to remain steady, to keep a clear head, for them. With that little piece of knowledge, his chest felt just a fraction lighter; he breathed a little easier.

Finally, jumping and skirting past rusted old vehicles and the occasional trash bin or bicycle, the three of them made it to the wire fence. Just beyond it was Angi's beaming smile, Shizu’s wry grin and Cadwell’s single onyx eye, which seemed to have softened to a relieved stare as

You placed his fingers on the thin, twisted metal of the fence but immediately jumped back with a stab of alarm as a deep, deafening noise permeated the air. Immediately, three sets of eyes snapped to the three of them from the other side of the fence.

“Huh?” he startled, looking at the stained wire and then at Remika’s hand still gripping it, now in fright as the huge noise droned on and fluctuated in pitch. “D-Did we do that?! What is it?!”

With one last kunai, Cadwell quickly killed the last gray things in the vicinity while he and the others gazed about the empty sky. Angi stumbled a bit as he made his way down the metal heap of vehicles to the foot of the fence, directly across from you.

“Ah, hell...” Jay swore, looking around with visible distaste as he too was taken aback by the noise. “What is it now?!”

“What is that?” he echoed faintly, stumbling back and into Remika, who gripped his arms like a vice as he huddled subconsciously against her gentle warmth.

Something was coming— rapidly, seeming to emit from the source of the air horn but making haste across town. It engulfed everything it touched in blackness, even covering the sun like a great plume of black smoke had gone up out of nowhere. The thought made him shudder.

“Get to higher ground.” Jay was grabbing him abruptly and pulling him with such force that he was literally dragging him for a moment, and you, Remika. “Now!”

“The tower!” Shizu shouted, and a glance told him that the three on the other side of the fence were already barreling toward the rusted guard tower.

“Okay…” he answered blankly, believing himself to be in a mild form of shock over the sudden transition of environment. It was kind of like his journey here…wherever here was. Only in reverse.

And the closer he got to the tower, the more he realized the wrongness of the situation. The fog, thick as unfiltered nigori, had cleared with the coming of a slight drizzle, but the buildings— the buildings, which had been ashy and old but generally clean moments before, had now turned grayish, dirty, almost mold-ridden. The bricks were acid-streaked and crumbled; the empty streets now soiled with a filthy blackish-red substance, almost like the gore from the many gray-things on the fence. But it was everywhere. The smell of it made him gag.

Jay’s eyes, dark and concerned, were the last thing he saw clearly before the sky darkened to the point of zero visibility.

“Serpent Flame Jutsu!” Cadwell shouted in immediate response to the blackening world, lighting it up like the streets of a festival.

“Holy shit!” Escaped his mouth as the area was once again visible, this time with a great line of fire running along the fence separating the six of you. The onslaught of child-like screams was enough to startle him out of girlishly admiring the concentration it took to cast such a fire based jutsu at the drop of a hat.

The fire spread and flared in a small maze of orange light, burning even the murky, wet ground with its strength— and, unfortunately, revealing another series of nasty surprises as the airhorn came to a stop.

“Fucking hell, we’ve got company!” That was Shizu’s voice, and he glanced back as the three of him on the street came to a stop; more gray things were converging on his comrades in the junkyard.

“Over here too! Shit!” Remika gasped, stumbling back as she began a jutsu with bared teeth and a trembling serpent seal. “Shit! Kami-sama!”

You didn’t have time to ask what was wrong, because his eyes had been drawn to something atop the tower— the direction he had been headed in. During one of the fire’s flare-ups, he has seen what he thought to be a type of person atop one of the many stairways.

Key word: type. He only said this because, according to his field of vision, he (or she) appeared to be freaking huge. And also…wearing a dress?

“Up ahead too…” he murmured, eyes suddenly assaulted with heavy rain as he held his hand up in response to the beast of a person hefting what looked like…

Remika’s cold hands were now dragging him closer to the fence, and he yelped with pain as the fence, which had turned to barbed wire at some point during the town’s transformation, dug into his shoulder. On the other side of the street, barely lit by Cadwell’s jutsu, were several upon several pairs of glowing orange eyes. Surrounding them were hellish faces— almost the same tone as the gray things, but warped, wrinkled and...screaming.

“Oh, lovely. Demon children and a bastard with a sword.” Jay muttered rather sarcastically, backing up to stand between you, Remika, and the little gray demons.

“Well…divide and conquer, right Jay?” he swallowed with a bit of effort, and a little excitement as he stepped away from the fence and toward the tower. “I’ll get the one up there.”

“You sure?” Jay asked, still eyeing the approaching threat from down the adjacent street. In a flash of lighting coming from behind you, his eyes caught the reflective, wet gleam of his wickedly sharp wakizashi. “I don’t think I’ll be able to cover you…maybe—”

“I can handle one bastard with a sword!” he admonished, pulling Remika away from the filthy fence as the poor girl appeared to be lost in a fit of fright. “Keep Remika in his sights! Here!” he handed her a lesser scroll that had been strapped to his thigh holster. “Use the yari bōkō seal! Mika-chan, you’ve seen me do it before!”

Turning to his teammate, he abruptly shook off his giant, torn scroll and tossed it at his feet. “Hold onto this! I’ll be right back!”

“I-I can’t use this!” Remika turned to you, her crimson eyes lost and scared in the fading light. Further from the fence, Jay hit the oncoming hoard with his signature Moonlight sword technique. “Kaimera, my—”

“I’ll be right back!” he shouted, over the sudden sound of thunder as the rain became torrential. he bared his teeth as the threat surrounding he became ever more apparent. As much as he felt for Remika, he couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

For as menacing an aura as the man on the tower gave off…he was just standing there. Strange. “Jay! I’m coming back with help!”

“Duly noted!” Jay yelled back, understanding his meaning as he ran for the tower at top speed, simply hoping beyond hope that nothing else popped out of the darkened streets. Cadwell’s Serpent Flame Jutsu had faded, drowned in the rain. His only source of light now was the lightning sporadically lighting up the cloudy skies.

“Okay…okay…” he panted, more from adrenaline than exertion. Despite Remika’s concerns, he could feel almost nothing but battle lust. Beyond the barbed and bloody fence, he could hear Anji’s full-chested battle cries as well as the quiet but unmistakable sound of chirping and cawing from Cadwell and Shizu respectively.

Jay could hold his own. So could you. It was just—

“It’s not working!” Remika yelled, more in frustration than fear now as he heard frigid rain battering his weapon scroll. “I’m— I’m coming with you!”

“All the same! Just keep up!” he yelled, ascending the tower now in great leaps. Up ahead, he saw the great beast of a man lift his sword and drive it through the metal flooring, almost catching his arm as he climbed. In a whirl of movement, he dove over the edge of the rail, grasping for the next level of the stairway from the outside.

“Woah!” he muttered, heart stuttering in his chest as the heavy blade missed him by barely a foot— still too close.

“Yama!” Jay barked in that scolding voice of his that had always annoyed and comforted you.

“I got it!” he yelled back, with a victorious grin even now that he was in closer quarters. Praying that lightning wouldn’t strike the tower was just about his only concern now that he has gotten ever closer to the beast in the striking metal headgear.

So that’s what it was, he noted grimly, using the blood from his lip to brush the seal on his scroll. It hadn’t been a weapon at all— that big, hulking mass of metal was a freaking helmet. With his blood came a small shower of needle-tipped spears, many of which now pinned the giant beast of a man to the door behind him as he leaped onto the highest metal platform.

Though painful, there should be no trouble at all to get out when he is ready.

Coming to a standstill, now a mere meter and a half from the hulking beast, he finally had a moment to take him in: and what he saw both repulsed and intrigued him in the most terrible of ways.

Standing what had to have been nearly two hundred and forty-four centimeters tall, and at least twice as wide as you, was a great, pale monster of a human being. Well, he must’ve been human. From his metal-wrapped head, from his gory and already wounded chest down to his smock-covered legs, he certainly looked humanoid. A demon, maybe? That would explain the strength, and the wounded yet bloodless abdomen.

How could he see out of that thing? He asked himself in grim fascination and crouched against the rusted railings as he formed one of his family’s oldest seals. Oh well…no time now. Only one thing mattered— this abomination was huge and would make a fine weapon against its own kind. Whatever kind that was.

However, many things happened all at once. The first of which was his body slumping towards the wet metal floor like a bag of sand. The second was feeling the cold, dirty unpleasantness of entering the strange body opposite you. Then—

His body rose up from its position on the floor, screaming.

Kaimera screamed too, as much as he could while trapped in the body of this creature. Mid-way through the transition, it was as though his soul had fucking split down the middle. Fuck. Pain! It was fucking agony! It was like his mind was on fire! He tried to open his eyes, but the only thing he could see was darkness, combined with a double vision-like phantom image of the monster he possessed, writhing in agony.

“Get…out!” he had no idea what he was screaming to, and no recognition that his words had come out as mindless, wordless howls. It was he that needed to get out! This body felt like hell! What was happening?

“Get…out!” his body screamed, slurring its words as he tried desperately to separate himself. How was this even possible!?

A girl, inky-haired and clad in filthy black clothing appeared to grin at him from somewhere along the edge of his vision. A barrage of terror and pain assaulted him then, as he was assaulted by horrifying visions: Remika’s tortured face and Cadwell lying dead in a pool of blood. The man with the red helmet, ripping the flesh off someone’s naked body. Senjuro, staring terrified at something he couldn’t see. A monster with limbs like needles, scuttling towards him in the darkness. his friends were dying, and he was dying with them. Pain…formless agony. Anguish!

“No!! Get…oouutt!!” he screamed, realizing that he was in his own body now but still trapped in the void of a sleepless nightmare. His eyes were open, but all he could see was that fucking black and red grin. His entire body felt on fire, like it was being torn apart. “Get away!”

He was burning! He was dying!

Trembling and jerking with the pain of his mind still being trapped in some kind of limbo between alive and formless, he stood and fell against the metal rail. Somewhere, he could hear his name being called, but the feeling of coming back to himself was all he could focus on as the sensations finally subsided. He only wished he could’ve been more perceptive as the helmet-clan fiend also came to, and grabbed his weapon.

“No!” A single word was shouted from a distance, and he felt something like a battering ram strike him dead in the chest.

‘It…must’ve cut through my vest,’ he thought numbly, lost in a whirl of motion as the metal rail gave way behind him. He saw the monster pull back with its great, bloodied sword and stumble against the door it had come out of. His breath caught in his lungs and pain exploded in his shoulder as he went over the edge. It was happening to him, but he felt like he was watching it from somewhere else. Funnily enough, like an out-of-body experience.

From the very top of the tower, he fell towards earth. By some stroke of fate, he felt his body catch and get tangled in some of the new barbed wire that had twisted itself around one of the metal platforms. It hurt, but was still not enough to quite register apart from the pain in his chest. Hearing his name called once more, he steadied his dazed eyes for just a moment to see a terrified Remika and a desperate Jay, locked in battle with something pale and slender. What he was fighting…kami, it looked like it had knives for hands. At his feet, he could still see orange eyes, blinking in the street like little dying embers.

He has landed upside down, caught up in the painful, stabbing grip of unforgiving wire. The smell of iron was overwhelming. Its taste was on his tongue.

‘Shit,’ he thought, the last fading image of his big brother-like figure bouncing around in his head like one final prayer to the Shinigami. Hoping it would spare him as he felt hot, crimson life spill from the wound on his chest and run into his eyes. The pain was fading now…no, more like he was fading. A lightness was rapidly entering his head, not at all what he had experienced at any point in the past.

Though far away, he imagined that somewhere, he had seen a flash of silver and the narrowed gleam of an anguished gray eye. Some distance below his position, hanging from the tower, he continued to hear Remika’s screams, ever more frantic. The clang of metal on metal echoed throughout the battleground.

He didn’t mean to mess up. That jutsu had never failed…what was wrong with you? How could he have fucked up this badly? Now Jay had he to worry about. Kaimera, or more accurately, his body in a few moments. He has always wondered if he has anyone who would care if he died…he felt stupid now.

This was his fault. Jay…Jay…please, he has to make it. I’m so sorry… he felt his eyes closing, in spite of his wish to just move and run to his side. This black world was tinted red and only getting darker. As though in answer to his thoughts, Jay's anguished cries were the last thing he heard before falling into the abyss. No words. Only his voice.

WC: 5,040
TWC: 14,037

[EXIT]

TWC: 14,037
Claiming: (Everything 25% Off Due to Max Stat)
1500/1500 to Learn Ninjutsu Specialty
1687 to A-Rank Scorch Style: Super Steaming Murder to S-Rank
 - 1687 + 2063 = 3750/3750 (25% Off due to max Stat) (Here is where I learned it: HERE)
2137/2137 to Flaming Arrow (A-Rank)
2062/2062 to Armament: Hellish Breath (A-Rank)
250/250 to Hand Seal Mastery of Genjutsu Release (E-Rank)
750/750 to Fall Distortion (C-Rank)
1875/1875 to Chakra Scalpel (A-Rank)
1875/1875 to Chakra Scalpel: Senbon (A-Rank)
1125/1125 to Poison Mist (B-Rank)
750/750 to Bodily Restoration (C-Rank)


14,037 - 14,011 = 26 to be thrown into the void

Kaimera Yakedo wrote:
WC: 5,040
TWC: 14,037

[EXIT]

TWC: 14,037
Claiming: (Everything 25% Off Due to Max Stat)
1500/1500 to Learn Ninjutsu Specialty
1687 to A-Rank Scorch Style: Super Steaming Murder to S-Rank
 - 1687 + 2063 = 3750/3750 (25% Off due to max Stat) (Here is where I learned it: HERE)
2137/2137 to Flaming Arrow (A-Rank)
2062/2062 to Armament: Hellish Breath (A-Rank)
250/250 to Hand Seal Mastery of Genjutsu Release (E-Rank)
750/750 to Fall Distortion (C-Rank)
1875/1875 to Chakra Scalpel (A-Rank)
1875/1875 to Chakra Scalpel: Senbon (A-Rank)
1125/1125 to Poison Mist (B-Rank)
750/750 to Bodily Restoration (C-Rank)


14,037 - 14,011 = 26 to be thrown into the void

Approved