[closed] Welcome to Misery

[TyDie]

The Kazuki twins, with their newfound ally the slave Kouta, descended into the dank pit that was the Muramasa iron mine. As soon as they were done with their descent, Kouta would pull out a flint and strike it a few times, waiting for the sparks to catch the torch on fire. A moment later, their vision would return to them as the flames caught, and Kouta held the torch up high above the twins so they could see ahead. Before them was a small tunnel, hardly 6 feet tall, that lead deeper into the darkness in a straight path. The minecart rail extended out ahead of them too, making it somewhat easier to understand which way they were supposed to go, as the rails only went through mining areas.

"I'll take a wild guess and assume we go straight, yeah?" Kouta would grunt with affirmation, and the three would be on their way, with Ryu ahead of Amaya ahead of Kouta. "I never liked this place, even before the disappearances. Call me crazy but man wasn't meant to be this deep underground." Ryu scoffed, shaking his head at the man... clearly he'd never met a Doton user. But then again he really probably hadn't, given that he was a slave. It was a new perspective for Ryu, having always grown up around shinobi these things were somewhat normal to him. He wondered, if this was what a Water Country slave thought, what would a simple civilian from the minor countries think? Did they really think shinobi were mysterious sorcerers? The thought brought a chuckle to the boy...

"Relax. We're not even thirty seconds in Kouta, it's not too late to turn back." The boy gave the man one last chance to tuck tail, but Kouta wasn't having it. "You're a swordsman. You need both hands for your weapon. And ninja make those weird hand signals right? Yeah, you need your hands. I've got this." Ryu shot a glare back at Amaya, as if Kouta's decision to stay only affirmed what they had argued about above ground. The tunnel felt like it was going on into infinity... no matter how far they walked, more darkness lay in front of them.

[Willoria]

Amaya didn't say a word as they made their way down, ignoring the glare from her brother as he attempted to direct it at her. In all honesty she didn't care, she was too busy trying to keep an eye on everything at once, even glancing towards and behind Kouta at times, as she tried to keep her mind on the task at hand. Not wanting to be caught unaware, the girl drew her two knives from under her forearms and spun them in her hands, holding them ready as they walked along. "Kouta, if we encounter danger in here I want you to keep that torch up as best as you can." she told him. "We'll need it to see what we're fighting... but if it becomes a danger to you I want you to get out if you can." she added, frowning slightly as her mind went over several possibilities.

She turned and looked at him a moment, unsure if he was really prepared for whatever they were going to face down here and she realized he wasn't armed at all. She frowned a moment before offering him one of the twin daggers. "Take it, fire may scare off whatever this is, but just in case it doesn't this could be the difference between you living or dying down here." she cautioned him, waiting for him to take it before rethinking things and putting her other dagger away, reaching to her lowerback and resting her hand on the hilt of her khyber blade.

[TyDie]

Kouta nodded to Amaya and chuckled a little, realizing that in all the things that he had gathered he hadn't considered getting himself a weapon... mostly because slaves weren't allowed real weapons. "Best thing I could've grabbed was a pickaxe, ha. This'll do a bit better down here I imagine, too cramped for a proper swing with a pick." Kouta accepted the dagger and held it in his right hand, while his left held the torch high. Ryu on the other hand kept his eyes forward as much as possible, navigating the paths ahead while watching and waiting for anything to come at them from the darkness. His left hand rested on his sheath, prepared to flick out his sword for a draw at a moment's notice.

Eventually the trio would come to a fork, both of which had mine rails heading down them. "The veins to the left are tapped... We've been mining down the right path, so that's where most of the disappearances were taking place." Ryu gave a nod and made his way down that path, and the further they walked the more suffocating the darkness around them would feel. The torch was a safety net, but it honestly didn't feel bright enough. "I'm beginning to wonder if I can even swing a blade down here..." Ryu would stop for a moment and try a test draw, reaching his right hand to his hilt and yanking the blade out quickly. He was able to draw a blade, but at the end of his swing his sword made a horrible clang against the rocks, echoing through the mines... a draw down here would be problematic.

"Well shit... Do these tunnels get any bigger Kouta?" "Yeah a little, further down." Ryu gave a nod to the man behind him and kept on his way, going further and further into the black abyss.

[Willoria]

Amaya couldn't help a frown as she watched her brother try to draw his sword down here, though it did make her more grateful for her Khyber blade. Not only was the draw significantly shorter, but it had a Fuuton blade portion as well that would come in handy against any enemy they came across. She followed her brother down further and further, feeling like the darkness was almost suffocating her. She couldn't help a deep breath and a harsh swallow as she tried to keep her own head in the dark. "I'm not sure I could work down here for as long as ya'll do. This is..." she shook her head, her words trailing off as she honestly couldn't find an adequate way to describe the situation she found herself in.

"How much further in before we start getting to the areas where the disappearances were happening, Kouta?" she asked, sparing a glance at the man.

[TyDie]

Kouta chuckled at the girl's words, but gave a somewhat sad answer. "It's easy when you don't have a choice." He stated it so matter of factly, as if it was just a part of life for him at this point, mostly because it was. The man was born a slave, raised a slave, and in his eyes he would die a slave. Being told what to do was all he knew, the moment the disappearances started taking place was the first time he refused an order. "Down here is where the first set of bones was found... Look, right there." As Kouta spoke, he held the torch forward over Amaya's shoulders, and the orange glow of the torch illuminated a pile of white dust.

"That was a skeleton last I saw... it's crumbled to nothing now." The tunnel where the dust lay was a touch wider, about 5 meters wide; just wide enough for a decent swing, but little else. Ryu would kneel down to check the dust, taking a bit in his finger and letting it fall do the ground as if it would tell him something. For all he knew it was just rock dust, but what reason did Kouta have to lie? The whole time, Ryu had no idea that behind them, a sudden shifting in the rock formations showed that not all of the rocks were rocks... a jiggling glob of something began to slowly unravel itself, creating a sort of slick sloshing sound that only Amaya would hear.

[Willoria]

Amaya frowned at Kouta's remarks. It wasn't really a state of mind she was familiar with, and one that she had wished she could have learned more about. There was so much she could have learned from her mother and yet she never had the chance to, one of the many reasons so was so angry about the way things happened with her mother and the choices the woman had made. She was almost glad for the distraction as they came up on what should have been bones, and she watched her brother put his hand through it. It trickled between his fingers like a fine powder and the girl sighed, turning away to glance around just as she heard the sounds. "Behind us!"

She lunged forward and grabbed Kouta with one hand by the waist of his pants, her other hand on the hilt of her khyber blade. She knew she couldn't knock him over and out of the way at his sheer size, but she used her grip to pull herself towards him, and passed him. Once past his frame she slashed upwards with her khyber blade, attempting to bisect whatever the squirming mass was with the fuuton extension of the knife.

[TyDie]

Ryu was still inspecting the dusty remains of what Kouta claimed was a skeleton when Amaya cried out, her yell echoed throughout the caverns. The sudden movement she performed was enough for Ryu to stand with a swift swivel, putting his back to the path that was formerly ahead of him to face the threat. Kouta was now between Ryu and Amaya, while his sister was right in front of some horrific slime or something? It was hard to tell in this dark. "I can't get to you, the space is too tight!" He called out to his sister, whilst trying to pull Kouta behind him so that he could be closer to the threat, though it was hard to maneuver.

Kouta would move forward as Amaya said it was behind them, clearly not wanting to be that close to the unknown creature. Therefore it wouldn't be hard at all for Amaya to move him and put herself between him and the creature. The creature, on the other hand, let out some sort of strange hiss despite having no discernible mouth, while it unfolded to reveal it was a blob about one meter in all directions. It then lunged forward with all of it's mass towards Amaya, attempting to engulf her. However, her khyber blade would land true and slide cleanly through the creature's 'body', if it truly had such a thing. Regardless, instead of engulfing her, the creature split in two and flew past her to either side, flying past them to the sides of the trio, where the separate chunks appeared to lay still.

...Was it really that easy?

Ryu, being the closest to the split body of the creature, was the first to inspect them, and with a quick poke of his sword it seemed apparent that it wasn't moving. "Wow... that's depressing. All of this build up for that?" Kouta, more than a little freaked out, was holding the torch close to one of the split fragments of the beast to inspect it. It was, apparently, a blob of red and black fleshy matter. It had no eyes, no mouth, no ears... nothing that lead anyone to believe it was alive, and yet it had lived. "Wow... what the hell is that?" Ryu shrugged and put his sword away, turning his back to the creature. "Who cares, it's dead now. Lets get a move on."

Of course, with Ryu's back turned, he didn't see that the two were becoming one; tendrils of matter extended out from both separate hunks and pulled themselves back into one solid mass that now rose up behind Ryu.

[Willoria]

Amaya also frowned at the sudden stop of the fight. She turned around, confused, and walked over to one of the pieces, kicking it with a foot as her brother declared it dead. "This must be something else... maybe a baby of whatever we're hunting?" she offered quizzically, not entirely sure she believed it herself. She turned to Kouta however and sighed with relief, seeing that the man was obviously fine. "You alright?" she asked, nodding as he was sure to confirm he was fine, and she turned back towards her brother.

She saw the creature pulling itself together and sucked in hard on her breath. "Ryu!" she lunged, but clearly the creature wasn't going to be so easily caught off guard again. It twisted almost as if physically slamming into her and she was sent into a wall with a cry of shock and pain. With the incline of the path, Amaya rolled a bit, leaving a trail of blood before she came to a stop on her right side. Her left side was the one that was bleeding, a piece of scrap metal shoved into her flesh and glistening in the dark.

[TyDie]

Ryu had no idea what was happening before Amaya shoved him out of the way, herself being bashed by the thing that had come back together and being sent into a wall. He didn't even notice the blood at first, so concerned was he with the reformed thing that threatened them all. "Is she alright Kouta!?" Ryu called out as he readied himself against the creature, taking a stance against it as it 'faced' him, or at least he thought it did. Kouta ran over to Amaya, trying his best to hold the torch up so that Ryu could still see while he looked at Amaya. He was quick to notice the scrap metal. "She's got a hunk of metal in her, it's bad!"

Ryu cursed but maintained his stance, he wouldn't be able to help her if he was dead. With a cry the boy lunged out towards the creature, delivering a series of swift slashes towards it that cut through it like it was water. As it lunged out at him he managed a swift dodge to the left, shoving himself into the wall as it flowed forward like a liquid. Truly he had no idea what kind of beast this was, and no idea how to fight it... And with Amaya hurt, retreat sounded the best option. He turned to look back at the creature, only to find that he had been caught on his leg by a tendril. Before he could try and slash himself free, a hard yank would pull the boy off of his feet, and a moment later he was dragged deep into the darkness with a scream.

"Ryu!!" Kouta cried out, but no other sounds rang out through the darkness. No sloshing, and no more screams...

[Willoria]

Amaya groaned, shifting to try and push herself up to a seated position which of course just sent a fresh wave of pain through her body. Amaya whimpered through her teeth, still forcing herself to sit up and lean against the wall on he right side, as she looked down at the wound in her left side. Of course, she looked up just in time to see her brother disappear into the darkness. "Ryu!" She lurched forward, but the piece of metal was causing her too much pain. Swearing under her breath she turned to Kouta. "I saw you bring a medical kit, right?" she asked him. "We have to get me mobile before that thing comes back, so dig through it and get a good size wad of gauze." She glanced the direction her twin had been dragged off in and could feel silent tears streaming down her face already, but she had to shove that thought aside.

The priority now was getting out alive, even as her mind argued with her that it should be about finding Ryu. 'I have to trust him to save himself, just as he's trusting me to get Kouta out of here and get some kind of back up.'

She turned to Kouta. "You got that?" When she was sure he had a good size wad of gauze she took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm going to pull the metal out, and you're going to stuff that into my wound, okay? It's not a permanent fix, honestly not even a smart one, but it'll get me moving." She waited a moment before grasping the metal with one hand and yanking hard with a scream.

[TyDie]

Kouta's attention fell back to Amaya as the young girl called out for her brother and she tried to rush off, the man catching her as she fell from the wound. Before he could even get the words out of his mouth, Amaya was quick to state the next course of action, and Kouta spared no time gathering a large wad of gauze from his backpack. As soon as she was ready, Kouta took a deep breath and watched her yank the jagged hunk of metal out of her stomach, blood following quickly after. Kouta spared no time taking the gauze and jamming it into the wound, staunching the bleeding to only a small trickle. No doubt the act would hurt like a bitch, but she wouldn't have to worry about the metal digging deeper.

"Alright, it's in! Let me help you up." Kouta would do his best to help Amaya to her feet so that they could get moving again, not once did he even consider running away. If children could put up this fight, so could he. He kept his torch in hand as they rushed through the darkness, searching desperately for any sign of Ryu. It wasn't long before they arrived to another fork, but it was quickly apparent which way Ryu had been taken; a small pool of blood was seen down one path, very fresh too. "That way!" Kouta exclaimed, rushing down the path behind Amaya. It would feel like forever as they went down that fork, but eventually they would come to a dead end... and in the middle of it lay Ryu, flat on his face, with no sign of the creature.

[Willoria]

Amaya couldn't help thinking that even the time that Ryu had disemboweled her by accident didn't even hurt this bad. But with the metal shard pulled out of the wound she noticed a difference immediately She let Kouta help her to her feet with the arm on her good side, and immediately the two started making their way down. "We gotta find him, no matter how bad, you'd be surprised what kind of wounds they can heal back at the village." she was explaining to Kouta as they went, her Khyber blade back in her right hand as they made their way down. Though whether she was trying to reassure herself or him, she wasn't entirely sure. "Ryu and I were sparring once, you wouldn't know it by how hard we were going at one another. I thought he was doing a different move and tried to dodge, but it put me right in the path of his blade instead. Pretty much disemboweled me... but our grandmother is an expert shinobi medic. Healed me on the spot." she continued as they ran down, and the sight of blood on the pathway didn't ease her fears.

The girl was running almost her full speed by time they got to the bottom, and she skidded to a stop next to her brother's body. She didn't see the creature anywhere and so quickly sheathed her blade, but she quickly set to trying to roll her brother over. "Help me!" she yelled to Kouta as she found she couldn't roll him over with her one side injured. Once she had her brother on his back she realized he wasn't breathing. To be certain she leaned down and rest her ear against his chest. "Oh you son of a bitch." she muttered, quickly shifting so that she was seated practically on her brother's belly, her hands in the middle of his chest as she began cpr. "Awkward fucker." she muttered as she suddenly bent down and tilted her brother's head back, opening his airway and leaning forward to breath into his mouth as she tried to resuscitate him.

[TyDie]

Kouta froze as he saw Ryu face down, not moving, and immediately he held the torch up to look for the creature that had dragged him away. However no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find it, and so his attention fell back to Ryu as he rushed over to help Amaya roll him over. The boy wasn't breathing, but strangely enough he didn't have any open wounds on his body that he could see... so where did that blood come from? Kouta was going to offer to help himself, but he had no idea how to perform CPR... And so it fell to Amaya, the boy's twin sister, to try and restart his breathing function.

The thing is, the very second Amaya's lips touched his, his eyes darted open and he scrambled away from her. "AHH! WHAT THE HELL!" Immediately his hands darted to his mouth as he tried to wipe his sister's mouth from his, making grossed out noises the whole time. It hadn't even dawned on him what had happened to him, as if his memory of the past few minutes was just gone. "What the hell happened? Where am I? I remember... the creature went past me. And now i'm here... Is it dead?"

[Willoria]

Amaya couldn't even get mad at him, or laugh for that matter. Her brother scampered out from under her and away from her faster than a scared trapdoor spider and it did make her snort for a moment, causing pain to rip through her and making her swear. "It took you, Ryu." she told him, taking several deep breaths to try and recover. She felt the warmth on her side and shifted her left hand to rest over her wound a moment. She could feel that blood had soaked through the gauze already, but that was the least of her concerns right now. "It dragged you down here, and we haven't seen it since. We only just found you." she told him, taking a deep breath and glancing up.

"We need to get out of here, get topside and get patched up. We'll figure out a plan later, but this is too much for us." told him, smirking at him for a brief moment. "You're welcome by the way." she told him, grinning almost evilly. "Gross or not I just saved your ass and you owe me now."

[TyDie]

As his sister mentioned what had happened, the memory began to come back to him... but the question remained; why wasn't he dead like the others? Where did that thing go? Kouta saw the girl struggle with her wound, blood still coming out of her wound despite the gauze, and moved to help both of the twins up to their feet. "Who knows where that thing is, but it's gonna take more than us to deal with it. Your sister is right, we need to get out of here now." Ryu, after getting to his feet, simply gave a nod; hardheaded as he was, he wasn't dumb enough to think he could still fight with both him and his sister injured.

As they began to leave, Kouta ended up scooping up Amaya in his arms, her wounds were too great to make an expedient retreat. However as they hurried along, he couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle. "She's right you know... Sister kissing brother to save his life? You definitely owe her." Ryu scowled at the both of them in response. "I owe her for forcing a kiss on me? Fuck that!" He spit again, as the memory of the taste came back to him... he wasn't sure he'd ever get that memory out of his head. With their rushed pace it wasn't long before they made it back to where they had first encountered the creature, and still they found no sign of it.

A bit longer down the path and they'd once more make their way to the elevator, and Kouta would set Amaya down on her back while he pulled on the rope to raise them back up to the surface... It wasn't a failure of a mission if they lived to report back, right?