Outside Help... (Group Plot)

Ryojin had made it back into the sun as requested of Sojiro. Since the last time they met, he had managed to reach the next milestone in power just as his friend had. There was still no doubt quite a bit of space between them, but he was at least slowly chipping away the difference. It had been quite some time since he had been in the sun last, to instead be here for investigating murder made him a bit sad. He felt like there was something going on and it was more than either kage was letting go.

Ryojin made his way up to the address he had been given. He gave a soft knock on the door with his bo. What had been going on in this area? Were these slums dangerous to start with? What could've possibly happened to these children who were missing? Hopefully they would find evidence that they were at least alive.

Ryojin followed the man into his room and took his lean against the entry wall. He peered over the wall of children missing. His eyes shifted swiftly from face to face. He committed these with no issue to memory. This was a skill his father had taught him for the sake of remembering who in the village would be more difficult for him to fight than others. The next thing he did was make notes of similarities in the various children's appearances providing that there were any. He noted various skin tones. Hair color. Eye color. He estimated height based on the images though he knew the method he used was only accurate to a sixty percent. This was just as his father had taught as well.

Why only children? That made things complicated. Children were easy to manipulate. Far easier than adults. It would be unclear case by case the motivation to get a child to go anywhere because these motivations could simply be purely whimsical. Ryojin himself was not a sensory type nin. Sojiro could use his sense of smell, but did he have any others means of sensory.

Ryojin shut his eyes thinking of his few times in the sun. He made a mental map of the various routes into and out of the village. The hardest least likely method used would be the one he had helped chase a tiger through previously. He rubbed his chin. On top of that, how far out had search routes already gone? Was there the capability for holding these children under ground? Where were nearby water sources outside the village but still within the country? When was the last kidnapping? How long was it since the first kidnapping? He didn't have all the details.

Ryojin. It is often simpler than you think. I have taught you critical thinking my way. You did well the last time, you will do well this time. His father's parting words rang in his ears and this caused him to take in a slow breath. "Where do we start?"

Ryojin gently rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think that seeing some of the sights where the kids have been could be very beneficial to give me more of an idea of the grand scope of things." Ryojin nodded a few times. "Well.. At least this isn't Kai's usual... There'd be snow, ice, blood, and evidence everywhere. I have a feeling I'm not going to see him here." Ryojin let out a bit of a sigh of relief. The last couple times he had run into his older brother, he was definitely outclassed. Since then, he had become stronger, but he wasn't sure he was strong enough yet. The time would come for them to meet face to face, it just wasn't time yet.

Ryojin got up and headed toward the door. "Are they particularly far from the village? Are they close to water? Is there any real pattern to the choice of sight in relative relation to where the children were pulled from?" He asked these questions out loud, though didn't necessarily expect an answer from Sojiro. It was mostly him organizing and categorizing his own thoughts.

"Kaijin is.. an undoable part of my life. My older brother." At that, Ryojin gave a long sigh and squeezed his hands tightly for a moment into fists. It would be painfully clear that the memories associated with Kaijin were not ones of love and affection. He tilted his head a bit as Sojiro mentioned that they were inside of the village. "They're... Inside the village? What the hell? Are sensory types far and few between here? Are there people who are putting forth the effort to hide them? What's going on with that? Sensory types under normal circumstances would have no issue finding that. My brother doesn't have the means to intercept sensory type jutsu. He's strong, but not that strong."

Ryojin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. That meant it was possible this was even an inside job. Who would be kidnapping children and why on earth were they doing it? Could it possibly have something to do with what was going on in the moon too? He tilted his head as he thought about it. Kind to think about it, was it possible that in the moon it could've also been an inside job?

"Yeah.. Something is off for sure. Even my father seems to be distracted from what's going on. I don't know if it's more cause for concern.. or if it's just dad being.. weird. He's weird a lot. He did make it a point that I was doing a good job looking into this alone." Ryojin knew something weird had to be going on. It just didn't make sense. Was it his father's prerogative to keep him in the dark or was this a set up for something bigger? He was playing too many guessing games to get any closer to the truth. He observed around the shed, but nothing in particular seemed to be completely out of place. There was a nagging feeling he just couldn't shake that there was something more to the building itself. He himself was not a sensory type shinobi. He didn't have any real talent in discovering anything outside what he could see, hear and smell.

"This is definitely too weird to all be coincidence... Are the villages possibly having internal issues we aren't aware of?" He trailed his middle finger on his left hand about the walls of the shed. He knocked on the walls. He felt about the ground. Nothing. It didn't make any sense for this to be an outside job. They would have to go through so much effort to hide in plain sight like this.

"I mean that has to be the case. What else could it be? Ryojin had extended his bo and was carefully dragging it across the ground as if still expecting some sort of trigger for a hidden passage way or something of that nature, but nothing. "I think for the time being I'm going to spend some time in the sun and see if I can catch wind of any other odd happenings. I was told I may get some mission orders anyway if I stay awhile."

With that, Ryojin exited the shed. Something still wasn't sitting quite right. Why would both villages be so concerned with hiding something as big as this? Or maybe that should be a dead give away. They didn't want people to panic. They must be concerned that people would absolutely lose it if they found out even remotely that this could all be an inside job.