Snakes! Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?!

Mission Info:

Kannagi entered the area with caution in her mind, but a sudden fearless yearning to explore in her heart. She hadn't fathomed a place like this to be so interesting, but once she arrived, every stone, every plant, everything was calling out to her. She left her partner's side and dashed towards the crumbling stairs before them, splotches of moss marring the ancient stone like patches of acne. She avoided the vines and small blossoms dotting the walls of the great building before them. "There is no way that's safe," Kannagi said looking at the dark stone archway leading into the building. It was two stories tall with incredibly simple architecture, narrow stone windows across the front and sides suggesting the people in the building used the natural light for some sort of purpose. That being said these windows faced all sides of the building, perhaps the people used this building often and for long hours, needing access to light at all possible times. If the tomb was in this building however, it would have been discovered long ago. It was just too obvious.

Kannagi stepped away and looked around before climbing on top of the building, using chakra in her hands and feet to get a step up. "I just want to get a brief view to begin. Was there a direction you wanted to start seeking in?" Kannagi's blue eyes scanned the area from above, her hands on her waist and her head slowly rotating to observe details. "I see a dense overgrowth and a small stream. I see an area with what appears to be statues, faces and broken limbs sticking out of the ground. And I can see a bit farther on, a pyramid, short and half buried in an overgrown hill yet." Kannagi sat down on the edge of the roof and addressed her partner specifically, "There's a couple other buildings like this too, but I'd like to hear what your ideas are. Where do you think is the best place to start looking for this tomb?" She doubted they would find a tomb, but perhaps a relic of some sort of a stone writing that directed or explained a real possible location of the tomb wasn't as big of a stretch to hope for.

WC: 380/1000
Post: 1/2

Quick steps carried him through the area, following some distance behind his mission partner, Kannagi, was it? As he followed the female, those silver eyes looked about the area, taking in the sight of the ruins.

There wasn't much to look at, honestly.

Perhaps at some point in time, this place was a good place to live. Kuroi remembered passing through a dry riverbed as they had made thier approach to the ruins; perhaps that was the primary water source for the area at one point in time? To settle a village right on a riverbank would be an ideal location, but that was not why Kannagi and Kuroi were here. No, they were here to investigate the rumors that had been circulating for some time about a tomb belonging to an ancient swordsman, a man once rumored to be a demon clothed in flesh whom wielded a massive sword.

As his partner, Kannagi, began to scale the wall of a nearby ruin, Kuroi would move after her, treating the wall like a flat surface and walking straight up. As the male came to the top he would squat down, allowing Kannagi an unobstructed view of the landscape around them.

"I see a dense overgrowth and a small stream. I see an area with what appears to be statues, faces and broken limbs sticking out of the ground. And I can see a bit farther on, a pyramid, short and half buried in an overgrown hill yet. There's a couple other buildings like this too, but I'd like to hear what your ideas are. Where do you think is the best place to start looking for this tomb?"

Kuroi thought for a moment. They were looking for the tomb of an infamous murderer. If he was buried by a village, then they would want him in a place where they never go, someplace where he could be out of sight and forgotten, possibly. A place where everyone knew where it was, but no one could stumble across it by accident.

"Someplace remote. This man was a killer; the people or person who killed him would want the world to forget he existed, but they would want to be able to keep an eye on the tomb to make sure it was never disturbed, lest his spirit return. So, lets look in a place that is out of the way, somewhere off the beaten path." To Kuroi, it was a logical train of thought.

Standing up, the male would cast his silver eyes in the direction of the Pyramid, then focus on the statues that were a bit closer. The pyramid seemed appealing, but weren't those reserved for people of royalty or great social status? A murderer wouldn't be buried in a place that took a lot of effort to build, would they? The more Kuroi thought about it, the more the answer seemed clear.

"Lets start with the overgrowth. A simple grave is easy to build in a forest, and I doubt the people who killed him would put much effort into a proper burial. If we find nothing there, we can always move on to other places in the area."

With those words spoken, Kuroi would leap down from the building, and begin making his way to the trees.

---

550/1000
1/2 Post

The blue haired shinobi followed Kuroi's action, leaping down of the building and landing easily on her feet in a low crouch. "That sounds like a good idea to me," she agreed moving in a fast paced walk towards the overgrowth she had seen. It could have been just a clump of plants, vines, bushes beside the stream, after all nature grew in mysterious and strange ways to feed on the minerals of the soil or the rays of light from above. She had once seen a tree that appeared to be split in half, when in truth it had just grown around another tree in the area to form a Y shaped trunk. The closer they got, the more dense foliage they saw. It wasn't just the patch she had seen from above, it was multiple patches all around the flowing water. The one she had seen had frankly been the largest and most eye catching.

"We should remove the plants but carefully. You never know what insects or thorns could be inside of them. Let's see what we can find out here," Kannagi dictated as she pulled out a pair of kunai from her pouch and headed down the stream. She assumed starting from the farthest patch and working her way up was the most organized way to unearth the secrets here, if there were any. She crouched about ten meters away from Kuroi and began removing precise pieces of the herbage, working like a couture hedge clipper. She eventually removed the clinging roots of a large epiphytic vine and got the the underbrush. She could see that something was underneath all of the plants but not exactly what it was yet. She clipped and trimmed around until she could open the bush like a cracked egg. Inside were two nests of about equal size filled with eggs the size of her fist.

Her blue eyes squinted at them, noting they were brown speckled with blue spots. She made a face and gently tried to close up the bush and replace the thick vines she had removed from before. Kannagi hadn't much of a choice when seeking the tomb, every rock ought to have been overturned, but she felt bad for disturbing some strange bird's nesting ground. Kannagi had mistakenly unearthed another overgrowth patch and discovered another grouping of eggs there within. Again she had tried to repair her damage and return it to normal. There was another overgrowth across the stream that would take just a few wary steps to get to, and with her luck would be something useful. It looked a little larger than the others she had been going through and she felt obligated to examine it. "Not much down here yet, how is going for you?"

The blue haired kunoichi gracefully hopped over the stream, using just one well placed rock to assist. She hoped Kuroi was having better luck at finding artifacts, graves, bones, or even a secret entrance to the tomb itself as improbably as that was. She narrowed her azure eyes on the overgrowth and inspected it all the way around, looking for key differences. She gently placed her hands atop the messy growth of plants and gave it a shake, then another. There was a looseness in the plants that did make her suspect something was beneath it and Kannagi got to work with cutting it apart with her blades. She stopped when she heard a strange sound, a rattling like a band made exclusively of gourd designed shekere players. Kannagi stopped in time to see movement in the plants still leftover. The woman backed up a couple of inches to tilt her head and see at the precise moment the creatures within had attacked.

Lunging out of the growth came a small nest of thin snakes with rattling tails and extended fangs. They were brown with blue speckles and with an agitated groan, Kannagi realized all of the eggs she had been examining were reptilian not avian. She got to her feet quickly and backed up some more, but some of the snakes were spitting a clear fluid at her. One glob of fluid hit her knee and she felt it tingle and lose sensation. Kannagi leapt backwards, landing in the stream with a splash, and then leapt backwards again to the other side. "Snakes!" She shouted then, to get Kuroi's attention. A natural enemy, easily removed or avoided, Kannagi wasn't afraid of them. But if they struck an unwary person in such numbers, she could see a shinobi getting taken down.

WC: 380+764= 1144 /1000
Post: 2/2

"That sounds like a good idea to me."

A small smile formed on Kuroi's face as the female spoke. It would seem that he had a solid idea of what to do if his partner was agreeing with him. He would make his way to the trees fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the what appeared to be a small grove from a distance actually turned out to be much more than what met the eyes. As the pair stepped into the foliage, Kuroi could not help but look around in wonder at the flora and fauna around them. The world surrounding this forest was dead, holding as much life as the ruins that lay within, yet this place teemed with life unbound. Kuroi could not help but wonder how this was possible until he heard the sounds of a stream flowing nearby.

Ah, so that was how it was. Perhaps at some point in time, the original stream was diverted at some point, leaving the dry riverbed that the duo initially crossed on their way here. This one allowed this grove to flourish and grow rampantly.

Nature sure was a wonder, was it not?

As Kuroi began to search the area, so did his partner. While Kannagi took great care to lessen her disturbance on the local flora and fauna, Kuroi took no such care; plants were uprooted with his glove covered hands, and small animals were sent fleeing into the underbrush, chittering and squawking in fear. A frown would form on Kuroi's face; this was much more tasking than the male initially thought, but he was determined to see it through.

"Not much down here yet, how is going for you?"

"Negative." A one word response. Not the most information filled response, but it got the point across. He wanted to actually have something in hand before he spoke again -- or maybe, this spot was a bust? Perhaps it would soon be time to move on to the pyramid or the statues --

"Snakes!"

The male's head snapped up, turning in the direction of his partner's voice. Those silver eyes narrowed at the situation; how in the hell did she manage to stir up a nest of snake with how careful she was being with her search? If anyone would have stirred up some trouble, it would have been Kuroi himself. But that was a though for later; this chick needed his help. Normally, Kuroi would have left a teammate to fend for themselves, but they were the only ones in this particular area; last thing he needed was for the village shinobi to think he had killed her and left her rot out here in the barrens. It would more than likely end up with him being sent back to prison for whatever sentence the judge decided to hand out. And given that he was already known as a repeat felon...

"Hang on!" A plan formed in his head as the male began to move in Kannagi's direction, his fingers weaving and twisting themselves into a series of hand seals, his chakra surging and roiling within his body as it was primed and brought to bear. Black tore his way through the vegetation, drawing out a set of three shuriken as he came up behind Kannagi. With a malicious glint in his eye, Kuroi drew back his arm and unleashed the chakra within his body upon and into the shuriken that he held. The energy seared the metal, carving out a series of kanji upon the surface just as the bits of metal were released from the male's fingers to soar through the air.

Provided that Black's aim was correct, and he was damn sure it was, the path of the shuriken would bend around the body of Kannagi, missing her entirely. However, it would prove to be exactly what Black needed. As the shuriken flew past Kannagi, if her vision was sharp enough, she would possibly notice the kanji that was now engraved into the metal, that of 'Explosion'. The shuriken would embed themselves into the ground between Kannagi and the slithering snakes before detonating. The resulting explosion would send the reptiles scattering, their focus forced off Kannagi for a moment, more concerned with preserving their own lives. Kuroi would take the opportunity to reach Kannagi and scoop her up into his arms, intending to put as much distance as he between them and that particular area. While he was sure that the snakes were not going to follow them, the duo did not need to remain there just in case they regrouped and attacked again.

"Just hold on, alright? You are gonna be fine."

---

775 + 550 = 1350/1000

Post 2/2

"I could have handled that just fine. I was only attempting to warn you." Kannagi began and then released tension from her shoulders, "But thank you. Your jutsu was notably impressive." The blue haired shinobi got to her feet, moving out of Kuroi's arms on her own. She looked around at the explosion and smoke. The swirling of the smoke was going to be slow to thin out here she supposed, observing its density. It likely had been loud and disorienting enough to cause the serpents to retreat.

"I suppose they only attacked out of fear. They seemed reclusive to me," Kannagi said thoughtfully. She turned to look at Kuroi, "You didn't find anything useful either did you?" By the tone of her voice it was far more of a statement than a question. She bit her lip and then straightened her back with a stubborn expression. "Perhaps we return to try another time. We have been at this for hours and have discovered nothing. I think we should return to the village." Kannagi tossed her blue hair out of her eyes and then started to head back towards the path out of this place. She turned, and remarked, "I think I owe you though. That was some smart thinking on your part. I don't usually get caught off guard like so." With an appreciative and respectful half bow, the kunoichi turned her back and departed.