Recent Posts

Smiling at the notion of him holding her hand, Hirihi would stand up and begin to walk beside him, leaning close and keeping her eyes forward. The walk towards the morgue that was setup for them was one she was very familiar with. She had been in that morgue many times before with Ashlin when she had been first learning to use some of her medical techniques. It was a building she hated to go to, but she had come accustomed to the chill that the building gave off when one drew near to it.

Hearing his words, Hirihi merely squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. "It is a cold place, but for good reason. One should never wish to be in such a place as a morgue. If I had my way, I would never set foot in one." Hirihi said, showing concern for him and holding onto him for more his own comfort. She was used to all of it, feeling nothing different as they approached. With the surprising bit of affection from the kiss, Hirihi blushed and was seen blushing as the mortician, a man she knew well, came to the door. "Ah, yes, Ms. Rinji. I've been expecting you." The man was an elderly man, gray hair showing both his wisdom and his expertise. He had been in that morgue for years, only really seen outside of it when gathering bodies.

He had hated the War most of all, for it had caused so many casualties. To say he was immune to death was a lie. He merely knew how to approach it without losing his head. Wearing a white coat, normally seen on doctors and scientists, he would escort the two into the main chamber of the morgue. The upper floor was just a lobby, filled with only small amenities that would comfort those that entered. Every time she came into this place, she imagined how her father would feel if he was to enter such a place, coming to claim the body of his dead daughter. That thought truly frightened her back then. She had, thankfully, not had to see her father's body there. She had been given that small charity by the cruel Fates.

As they approached an elevator, Hirihi would step in with the older man, Atlas at her side as the elevator doors closed and slowly they would descend to the chilling depths of the morgue. The mortician had been given strict orders to speak nothing of Atlas's identity to Hirihi. The old man knew that the Raikage relished his privacy, but it made him wonder what his intentions were if he was having her learn such a dreadful technique, something that several believed could cost their very soul to learn.

The ceiling would gradually begin to collapse in a rolling fashion, the compact earth and rock above breaking through the ceiling and collapsing in on the room in large chunks. With the rock and dirt above falling, the room would quickly be buried, with it the knowledge of thousands of years. That is what could be assumed, at least, with how old some of the parchment appeared to be. The massive vault would also hide with it the body of the man who had presumed to be Bit's father. He'd never know the truth of the man's dark secret, never to know that his father truly was not the one in which he had seen that day.

There were far more pressing matters to deal with, though. The cave-in was not isolated to the vault. No, the entire ruins were beginning to crumble beneath the weight of tons of earth above. Had the stone roof not been so violently shaken by the explosions from the katon user and his clones, he might have been spared the collapsing of earth above. The recently installed lights would shake as the boy ran up the stairs, dust still flying in the air as the roof threatened to come down on his very head. His movements were swift enough to keep him out of the falling range, but the room he would enter would prove far more difficult to traverse.

The rooms he was traversing were being done in reverse order. coming across a puzzle room that had locked away the treasure beneath. Whoever had fashioned this place years ago had not intended a person to go the way that he was. This worked in his favor, though, as he had a woman leaving behind open doors as she attempted her own escape from the collapsing ruins. From the shadow that was cast from the stairwell told him that she was near. The puzzle room that he had come across was no bigger than ten meters by ten meters. It was lined with various pressure plates along the ground, some noticeably raised, others not as obvious.

To say that there could be traps there was an understatement, as there were holes littering the walls and any one wrong step could leave him dead in those very ruins. He had little time to think, though, as the collapsing ruins were catching up to him, within meters of the doorway behind him.

Her own motivations for going on this date came with the thought that she would not focus on any of her mission work that night. She normally would spend an hour at the least reviewing any missions or details that she needed to know for the next day. This one, though, she was willing to pas son for at least one night. To spend the evening with Atlas, the man who had managed to change her life for the better, was far more interesting to her than the simple bits of data she could gather from the mission briefings she would gather. For this mission, she assumed, there was to be no paper trail.

She assumed it because the nature of the mission seemed very fishy. If anyone within the Daimyo found out that the village was being tied to such a controversial thing, they would likely be chastised, the Raikage taught a lesson by the bureaucrats that had little to do with the inner workings of the village. She knew about the politics more than she should, though. Jounins, in her opinion, should have been more focused on the tasks of the village, rather than the inner workings of the governments. Regardless, she saw this as a favor to the Raikage. It was urgent, necessary, and the lack of paperwork would work in her favor.

As she felt the familiar embrace of yet another kiss, Hirihi did not falter in returning the affection. Sighing happily, Hirihi felt the world seem to slow to a stand-still once again. How she wished that this moment did not have to ever end. She knew, though, that the world would not stop spinning for two people who felt as they did for each other. It would continue to spin and twirl until the end of time. Unwilling to let the moment be spoiled by the mission, Hirihi pressed her cheek to his chest and closed her eyes, listening to his heart as it beat beneath her ear.

"When should we be on our way?" She would eventually ask, sighing in frustration. They would have the evening to enjoy each others embraces. For now, sadly, she would have to shift gears and go back to being a devoted member of Kumogakure no Sato, a village of strong willed ninja.

Good boy. Do my work for me. The man thought to himself. As the fire would be shot about, melting the snow into puddles of water and ruining the books, the snow would gradually stop, leaving behind the puddles of water that would lead to this young boy's doom. Taking refuge behind one of the various bookshelves, he leaned around the corner as he began to form handseals, the water beneath his feet, and his clones, beginning to move upward and wrap around him in a sphere-like fashion. Even if he attempted to run, the sphere would gradually move faster, making the movement of his legs almost impossible in the watery prison.

With this particular kind of a water prison, unlike ones he may have seen used before, would not require the use of his hand to hold the sphere in place around him. Should he manage to find a way out of it, the man would be forced to use the water that was around him for other things. There were plenty of techniques at the man's disposal to douse the flame that was the young Bit.

From the information she had given him, he was under the belief that the disguise he had taken on was his father. Too bad the boy did not know that his father was dead. It would prove a shame if he had to be the one to tell him, but that was just part of the deal when you stole identities. Right?

The warmth of the embrace was more than she ever needed from him. The words that they spoke did nothing more than label how they felt. That was how she imagined it all, at least. Moments would pass and she would refuse to let herself loose from him. Little times did she find such clear answers in her life. There was always a mental debate, something to hold her back from truly devoting herself to a definite answer. Science vs. morality, right vs. wrong, duty vs. loyalty. It all came down to a very confusing set of circumstances that left her feeling that she had made the wrong choice. This, though, made her feel certain. She felt that there was nothing she wanted more than to be close to Atlas, no matter the circumstance.

With the inevitable end to the embrace, Hirihi would smile up at him and reach up to stroke his cheek, her eyes showing the same happiness she felt in that moment of admittance. "As I am yours." She said. He would guide them off to take a seat inside of Elysium Park, Hirihi feeling the natural urge to sit close to him, enjoying the closeness that she had never shared with a man other than her father. Even that, though, had never been more than the small affectionate statements that always seemed lined with poison. Each word dripped with the hatred for what she was called to do, poisoned from the death of her mother.

At least, with Atlas, she knew that he would understand that she could take care of herself. He would speak honestly, without that nagging ability to make her doubt her own survival in the most severe of conditions. With her thoughts gradually returning to Atlas, she would be unable to hold back her smile. Looking up at him as he began to speak, Hirihi had to control herself as she realized that he was asking her on a date. Not a training date, not a mission. A date.

This left her wondering what she should wear, what she should expect of him, whether to actually put on make-up. She had some stashed away, mostly to use when she was either going to disguise herself or fancy herself up for a mission that could be proven easier if she approached from a different angle than a male could. Making sure to sound as collected as possible, she looked to him and nodded. "I am definitely free tonight. I... I think a movie would be nice." She said, replaying the sentence and focusing only on the slight stutter. She always had a knack for analysis, the curse being when it was pointed at her.

The clones were becoming a bigger nuisance to the mercenaries as the seconds passed. Within less than thirty seconds, they had managed to cut the group in half, leaving only the Doton and Fuuton user to defend the staircase that was separating Bit to his goal. The Fuuton user would quickly begin to form handseals, feeling the room begin to intensely heat up, his body refusing to move at the speed he wanted it to as he finished the last handseal. With the handseal completed, he swung his sword at the clones, two tornadoes spiraling forward and picking up dust as they would move towards the clones, attempting to grab them and pull them off of the ground.

Whilst this happened above ground, the man beneath the ground was forced to come up from the ground, having been baked beneath the ground. Rising from the ground, first degree burns covering his body, he came up five meters behind the group of clones. Grabbing two kunai, each holding an explosive tag, he threw them on the ground between the cluster of clones, moving away from them as he formed a single handseal, activating the tags to trigger the explosion.

During ALL of this, the commotion definitely being too great to concentrate on the finer details, the stream of fire that was moving rapidly towards the Fuuton user would go completely unnoticed.

The clones appearing through the smoke would mostly go unnoticed, until the man to the left of the descending staircase would notice the extra shadows being cast upon the ground in front of him. As the clones would only hold one seal, he would be doing some of his own. With the fireballs all being fired in separate directions, minus the two going in the same direction as the staircase, he would let out a large gust of wind, blowing up dirt and knocking over the table in his defensive attack. Because the attacks are equally powerful, the gust of wind manages to push the fireballs to touch the ground 3 meters ahead of where they had been fired, causing the explosion to not reach the staircase. The two guards circling the room would not have had the chance to do an outright dodge and would be thrown to the side, the two laying on the ground with bloody and burning wounds on them from the explosiveness of the fireballs that had been launched.

With the first onslaught prevented, only for the two at the stairs, the second man would immediately descend underground and begin to form handseals, making his move towards the clones, attempting to flank them from underneath while also looking for the source of the attacks. He would easily be underneath the clones, readying an attack from beneath the ground as his partner remained by the stairs, curious to see what would come next, the explosions from the Endans leaving markings along the inside of the cavern as reminders of young Bit's presence there.