[C Rank Mission] Villains for Breakfast

[HotelBravo]

This is a story when Nikkou and her team were accompanied by Xi Feng, a jounin and investigated a suspicious group of persons that were ousted as a result of the missions that the genin squads had been performing in Iwagakure. Timeline wise, this takes place immediately shortly after their Mission labeled “Peace talks”. The orders were to find out what these people knew and be ready for a fight should things go south. That meant that the probability of combat did exist. Iwagakure had been dealing with rampant spirits terrorizing the village. This catastrophe had put the tenkutsu sealing teams on constant duty. The Genin teams would investigate and summon the Tenkutsu teams to handle the spirit, but according to the Tenkutsu teams, once they had sealed the spirit suspicious individuals would flee from the area each time. It was a consistent matter. Tracking an individual was also part of a shinobi’s responsibilities.

When Team KouKoZou had reported their success in regards to finding the spirit of a little girl and laying her to rest, the spirit had made brief mention that someone had ‘Woken’ her up. Under this information the team had been redeployed to the scene to identify any actionable tracks and to perform surveillance on the group behind the spirit attacks. Why were they assaulting the village with spirits? What was their end goal for all of this? The Team had already been briefed on the mission and was advised that they would have a temporary Jounin advisor in teh form of Xi Feng, who was their back up in case the situation escalated. As a Jounin he would also be the commander of the mission, being the senior most officer. That was earlier in the day. The team had briefly dismissed to gather their gear with orders to meet back at the spot where their last mission had occurred so as to start tracking the man behind raising the spirit of the girl from her rest.

Nikkou was early for once. It wasn’t hard to find the place that she had already been. She scaled to the top of the building at the alley way and looked down the meager street. It was day so people were busy running up and down the street to the various shops on the road. The Alleyway was still about as gloomy as it had been, and she could see the cemetery from the top of the roof - the place where the spirit of the ghost girl had been laid to rest. ”Wish I had a chance to rest.” She muttered to herself. The reason behind her complaint was simple - these spirit missions had been handed out back to back, and so far each one had occurred late in the evening and didn’t come to a conclusion until sometime in the early hours of dawn. So a mission yesterday technically meant that the previous mission had only ended in the early hours of the morning, and she had barely had three hours of sleep.

Nikkou was sitting on the edge of the building so that her feet were dangling in the air. She was kicking them back and forth carefree - a sensation she rarely got to experience while sitting in a chair as she was typically as tall as a man was, so she usually had no trouble touching the ground with her feet while sitting in conventional chairs. Beside her she had a box that had fresh baked Cheese and Sausage Kolaches - there were six of Kolaches which were resembled oval shaped dinners that were stuffed with sausages and cheese. They were fresh so the smell of the baked bread was absolutely intoxicating. Nikkou popped open a cold can of coffee and took a sip and pulled a Kolache from the box and munched on it while she waited for the rest of the team - all the while she was suppressing the urge for another yawn.


OOC:

Mission OutlineShow

So that we are all on the same page, follow this outline to complete the mission.

• Following the Trail - the team tracks a member of the unknown group which leads to a sewer hide out
• Survelience - The team gathers information on their activities - they are Suna Resistance fighters using Vengeful spirits against Iwagakure.
• Confrontation - If the team gets noticed the group becomes defensive and attempts to eliminate any witnesses
• Report Back – After obtaining all information that they can, the team returns to base to report their findings.

[Zao]

'This may be a bit troublesome...' A young jounin in his late teens sat at a small desk with his one bed room apartment, the left hand pressed lightly against the same side of his face as his eyes ran over the letter in the other hand. It was true that there had been many rumors as to the underlying cause of this so called spirit invasion but still no hard evidence to support any of the claims made by others who were also investigating and fight back these strange spirits. From the spirits of those who had passed and animal spirits from other realms, things were quite busy these days. "A team, huh."

Placing down the mission details he stood up and grabbed a cross body satchel of a dark cloth and tossed it over his head and shoulder. With his normal mission gear contained in it, at least for short term missions, Xi walked over and placed a foot on the sill of the open third floor window. A pair of bright green eyes seemed to study the outside area before henstepped forward and with a gentle leap jump up and out of the window. A small orb a about the size of a baseball detached itself from a belt like series of similar sized orbs and descended down under him as it quickly expanded in size to about a meter in diameter.

It's new size made it easy enough for the new jounin to stand firmly atop the rounded orb as a horizontal slit in the upper half of this specialized tool opened to reveal a large golden eye. Almost casually, Xi used his chakra to control the orbs flight path and in only a short while he arrived, hovering high over the building that Nikkou was seated upon its upper ledge eating some breakfast. Despite the height above the shinobi, Xi couldn't help but close his eyes and inhale slowly as the smell of her food entered his nostrils. The man had casually eaten some Ramen noodles earlier and now was wishing he had went out for breakfast instead.

'The others should be coming shortly, I probably don't have time to go grab something from the food cart down the street.' Xi could only sigh a bit to himself, maybe he'd treat himself to something nice this evening if they could finish this mission quickly.

[Drak]

Hanzou had been unceremoniously awoken by the crackling of the radio in his apartment. His squad had only just returned from a mission late the previous night – technically earlier this morning – and yet here they were being called up again. Youji was otherwise indisposed, so their squad would be led by an interim jounin. Hanzou pulled on his usual black bomber, tight black t-shirt, tailored black pants, and heavy boots.

On his way over to the mission site, Hanzou picked up a breakfast sandwich and a large coffee. He made his way over, rotating between taking a sip of coffee, a bite of his sandwich, and a puff of a cigarette. By the time he arrived, the cigarette and sandwich were both gone. Hanzou looked around the square.

No obvious aberrations so far. Not that they would show themselves in the light.

In the corner of his vision, Hanzou noticed something: what appeared to be a brass orb floating up through the air, a man atop it. It went high above a building where Hanzou could just make out a young woman sitting.

Nikkou.

Hanzou hurried over to the building, moving straight up the side and onto the roof.

“Hey Nikkou,” he shouted as he came over the edge. “Looks like we’ve got some company; look up.”

Taking a seat next to Nikkou, Hanzou peeked into the box and reached for a kolach.

[King of Cats]

It was early in the morning and Kohaku had just arrived home from his mission with Nikkou and Hanzou. They had been tasked with quelling the spirit of a ghost, and it had gone well. The spirit went to rest with it's mother and Kohaku was left with filing a mostly boring report. By the time he had finished the paperwork at the Tsuchikage's office he was more than ready for some sleep. Before he could fall onto his futon though, Kohaku would have to eat. He heated up some shrimp fried rice that was left over from the night before. It tasted good, but he was kind of sick of it. Once his belly was full, Kohaku crawled into his futon and began drifting off. He didn't have a hard time falling asleep, and was quickly in a dream.

"Kohaku, where does the daimyo of Rock Country hail from? You know what village right?" Kohaku was back in the academy, just a wee lad again. He looked around, trying to think of an answer to what the teacher had just asked him, but there was no indication of a response from him. Try as he could, Kohaku couldn't get himself to make a noise. His throat had gone silent, and the fear was quickly rising. Kohaku gripped his desk firmly, struggling to express his panic.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!!! The radio went off. Across from Kohaku's futon, in his dark apartment, was a red light glowing 24/7. This red light belonged to Kohaku's Shinobi communications radio. BEEP BEEP!!! The radio was going off. Kohaku had a message from headquarters. It seemed that he would not be sleeping on this night.

Once he got up and checked the radio, Kohaku prepared himself for a mission. He put a pair of black denim jeans on, and a white v-neck t shirt. Sliding on his leather jacket, Kohaku looked around his dimly lit apartment. He had all his vital belongings in his pocket, he was able to leave the house in confidence now.

---

Dashing to where the rendezvous point was, Kohaku wondered what this interim jounin captain would be like. Kohaku had yet to form an opinion on Youji, and with moments like these it would seem it would take even longer for Kohaku to get a bead on his sensei. "Is he that important to the village?" Kohaku wondered.

Walking straight up the building where his team was slated to meet, Kohaku had a look of fierce determination on his face. He was looking forward to getting some action today, this mission seemed promising to say the least.

"Let's make this a good show, team." Kohaku said to Hanzou and Nikkou, his hair blowing in the wind.

[HotelBravo]

“Hey Nikkou,” Hanzou shouted and caught her attention. She looked down and watched him scale the side of the building. He was looking kind of tired, just like how she felt. “Looks like we’ve got some company; look up.” She looked up and saw the man on an orb in the air.

”Whoa - what the fuck!?” She jumped in place as Hanzou snagged a kolache from the box. She wasn’t complaining about that because that was exactly the reason she had brought the box in the first place. Who is this guy floating in the air though? Was this the guy that was assigned to their team for this mission? ”He’s showing off just a bit isn’t he?” If he was here then he had to be the other guy. Nikkou handed the box to Hanzou. It looked like Kohaku was right behind him in terms of scaling the building.

"Let's make this a good show, team." Kohaku stood so that his hair was blowing dramatically in the wind. Nikkou wondered for a moment where all this wind was coming from and looked down further the street to see a bunch of genin practicing wind jutsu. Who the hell practices this early in the morning? Whatever. It made Kohaku look a little cool at least. Nikkou took two Kolaches and handed one to Kohaku and threw the other one at the man on the floating ball.

”HEY! Are you the guy who’s joining our team for this mission? Get down here already!” Nikkou gestured for the man on the floating ball to lower himself to the team. Nikkou began to stretch out her legs and arms and started jogging in place while she waited for everyone to get in place. The three of them had been here last night and knew the basics of where the events had occurred. That would probably be the place to start. ”ALRIGHT!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. ”I’m taking charge of this mission, so every body listen up! Since we’re all here we gotta find those tracks before the trail goes bad. Just to catch you up Flying-Orb-Guy: Last night we ran into a little ghost girl in this alley, right down there.” Nikkou gestured down to the ground at the alley that was formed by one of the sides of the building that the three genin were currently standing on.

”The cemetery that the ghost came from is actually nearby.” Nikkou pointed to the cemetery which was visible even from her height, but Xi would have an even better view being in the air above the genin who were gathered on top of a building. The cemetery was an older and smaller one. It had been built long ago when Iwagakure had been a much smaller place. As the city grew, it had just grown around the graveyard as it expanded its limits. The small cemetery had basically become forgotten about and lost in the ever growing expanse of urban sprawl.

It was a place that actually needed a little bit of work. A rudimentary fence surrounded the cemetery, and the gate to the area was locked - but that meant there would be clues to how the perpetrators made their entrance into the area. Did they cut a hole into the fence, climb over, or perhaps they had broken or just picked the lock on the gate? The team needed to investigate to figure out which one was the case.

The Cemetery was overgrown. It had been some time since anyone had shown any love or care to the brush here. Some of the graves were hidden by bushes that had grown to obscure the stones. Some of the stones had been knocked over by a tree whose roots did not go that deep into the ground and were searching for water. It was a sad sight and a rather pathetic showing for Iwagakure to let those who had come before rest in such an uncared for place. It must be simply that this place didn’t have any clan members in it, because if it had, there was no way that the clans would allow their ancestors to lie in this place.

The truth of this place was that long ago, Iwagakure had once suffered from a plague. This Cemetery was the place that had been used to lie the bodies in state. That meant that there were many graves which had multiple names upon them. There were also mausoleums here which were full of urns that contained the ashes of the dead. The walls of the Mausoleums were inscribed with the names of all the dead.

It was here however, that there would be some kind of clue as to the group that had been behind the spirit invasion. When the three genin had summoned the tenketsu team last night to deal with the ghost girl and her mother - the Tenketsu team had spotted suspicious figures moving about the cemetery - not ghosts - someone was here, and they suspected that they had been using some kind of tenketsu jutsu of their own to bring the spirits of the dead back to this world for whatever reason. It wasn’t clear who was behind all of this or why they were doing it, but it would be up to this team to investigate.

”Lets start by checking this place out! Everybody look for clues. I’m talking traps, fuuinjutsu - maybe residue for Tenketsu jutsu! Those guys must have left something behind. Since the sun is coming up we should be able to catch their trail and follow them back to their base. Alright! Who’s with me?! LETS FUCKING GOOO!!!” Nikkou hopped and pumped her fists in the air as she rallied herself. Of course, the truth was, she would rather be asleep, so all the energy was a lie, but if she kept it up she could at least keep herself from falling asleep. She hopped back and forth on her feet. If she stopped, she would probably just fall asleep.



1027/1000 + 1 speed

[Zao]

“Seems they are all about here…” Xi mumbled to himself, the man was rather average looking in most respects, the kind of guy who could blend into a crowd and you wouldn’t even take note of him if he didn’t speak directly to you. His hands were currently in the pockets of the loose legged cloth pants that came down to his mid shin level, nodding to himself as he saw the remaining third approaching directly at the building with haste he could only assume that it was time for him to join this merry crew. Though he wasn’t their normal jounin sensei, that was for sure, as he controlled the meter sized orb below his feet to rapidly descent now, with another thought it began to shrink from its larger size to that of around a golf ball sized mala bead as it joined the sash like strand of similar shape and colored orbs. “Hey.”

Xi wasn’t really one for speaking overly to much and stepped off the orb after it became small enough allowing him to ‘free fall’, but his left hand was forced to react as food was tossed his way, reaching out in a flash snatching the entrée before a few seconds later his feet softly tapped down on the rooftop. “Many thanks.” The appreciation was easily to see In the gentle smile he wore on his face, this definitely made up for his rather terrible breakfast choice as his body remained in a relaxed posture “I’m Xi.” His words and greeting remained the same, short and to the point, but there weren’t any signals of superiority or looking down upon the group, in fact he wasn’t that much older than some of them at the age of seventeen. Just a cursory glance seemed to reveal that none of the team was wily, instead that all seemed in tune with one another, a well oiled team you might say with upright attitudes.

At the moment, the young black haired man who appeared just like the rest, to have recently rolled out of bed in order to undertake this sudden mission, nodded and understood that this team had just finished a mission related to this one based on the girl’s words and cues. “I see.” Xi just nodded and allowed Nikkou to continue with her speech and helped to catch him up to speed with the rest of them. Though the spirits had indeed become rather restless, he wasn’t so much worried about these spirits and ghosts that had been plaguing the village as of late. More so his interest laid within the theory that these spirits were being stimulated by the living. As an interim jounin for them, his only true role was to keep an eye on them in case they got in over their head, but other wise it was also a real life learning experience for the group to undertake and solve for themselves.

Though at the words of being called the flying orb guy, Xi almost snickered, perhaps his youth prevented him from having the true bearing of a seasoned jonin and he simply shook his head and didn’t but in as he was directed towards a cemetery in the distance, only visible from their vantage point due to its current height over the other buildings around it. Allowing the one known as Nikkou to take lead of her companions and peers, Xi would simply follow behind quietly as he observed the area. Normally such a place as a graveyard was well taken care of but he wondered why this one had been left to almost rot away. Instead it was filled with plenitude of grass that even hid the stone grave markers inside the area. He didn’t deploy any of his orbs and only used his normal senses to keep track of the trio as he didn’t allow for himself to wander to far away from the group, trying to keep himself centered on their actions for the time being.

[Drak]

Hanzou let out a loud yawn and took a bite of kolach. Far from being infectious, Nikkou’s apparent energy only made Hanzou more tired. This girl is gonna wear me out, he thought to himself for no particular reason. He waved a greeting to Kohaku as he came up to them, and another to Xi as he fell to the ground beside them.

“Hey Xi,” he greeted their interim sensei casually. “I’m Fukusha Hanzou.”

The party quickly made their way down to the cemetery that Nikkou had pointed out. Between the worn, overgrown graves was a smattering of garbage: cigarette butts, beer cans, and at least one prophylactic wrapper. Nothing out of the ordinary. If any of the overgrowth had been trampled by any suspicious activity last night, their squad and then the exorcist squad coming through afterwards had hidden all of it again.

The multiple mausoleums around the area caught Hanzou’s eye. If he were a nefarious evildoer trying to disturb the rest of the dead here, he would do it in the mausoleums where it was easier to hide. He went around trying the doors of the buildings. All locked.

Hanzou walked around the perimeter of one of the mausoleums, crafting hand seals. When he finished, his eyes flared up with the maroon chakra of tenkujutsu. Looking around, he could see a thick haze of spirit chakra in the center of the cemetery, where they had set the two ghosts to rest the previous night. Around that grave, on the ground and almost totally obscured by the aforementioned haze, was the faint maroon outline of a circle. Other, more diffuse markings surrounded it.

“Hey,” he shouted. “I found what looks like the remains of some summoning jutsu here, around that little girl’s grave.”

He looked over his whole squad, eyes still glowing maroon.

“Think one of you can get us into these mausoleums? I bet we find some evidence in one of them.”

[King of Cats]

As Nikkou explained the specifics of the mission, Kohaku munched on the kolache she had given him. It was quite delicious. Kohaku had never had a snack like this and he was quite surprised by the high quality of food Nikkou presented. "She's got good taste." Kohaku thought to himself. Once everyone was ready to begin the mission, Kohaku had finished his kolache. He made a satisfactory moaning noise and licked his chops. The mission was already off to a good start.

As he climbed down the wall, Kohaku used his eagle eyes to scout out the surrounding area. It seemed that the gravyard had been untouched for years. Kohaku wondered just what had occurred on this side of town. "Looks like a cemetery, that's for sure." Kohaku jumped down the rest of the way and dashed off towards the cemetery.

Inspecting the sight, Kohaku looked around on his own. The team had split up and gone their separate ways, hoping to cover more ground individually and find out what was going on quickly.

The Akari genin decided to check the grave sites for any clues and began walking through the rows of overgrown gravesites. Most of graveyard was untouched so it was easy to go through it and determine if any humans had been there. Kohaku inspected each gravestone he came across, checking for clues. Most of the names were faded and illegible so Kohaku didn't get much information from that. He was hoping to get some clues on the people who were buried here, but it was a bust.

After some time, Kohaku had searched his area high and low. He couldn't come up with anything, so he walked over to where Hanzou was searching. To Kohaku's delight, there was a trace of summoning jutsu left over. Hanzou had found it with his Tenkujutsu skills. "Great job, bro." Kohaku said to him and crouched down where Hanzou had found the clue. He was inspecting the dirt for any more clues.

[HotelBravo]

As per usual, no one was really matching Nikkou’s level of enthusiasm. It would be easier to keep this level of energy up if someone else were actually getting hyped by it, instead everyone just seemed to grew even more exhausted. Nikkou didn’t believe that submitting to the exhaustion was the right way to do things. If she just kept the energy level up, someone would catch on. It was just a matter of time. She scoured the cemetery looking for clues checking behind shrubs and inside them as well for anything that might have gotten left behind. It didn’t seem like there was any luck for her. She glanced over to Xi who seemed content with letting the genin do everything. He was part of the team right? He should say something or do something. "Xi, what do you thi-"

“Hey,” Hanzou’s shout pulled her attention. “I found what looks like the remains of some summoning jutsu here, around that little girl’s grave.”

Nikkou ran over to where Hanzou and Kohaku had gathered, both over the grave of the deceased girl whose spirit they had helped lay to rest the night before. Kohaku was already examining the dirt where the signs of the summoning jutsu were found. Nikkou looked up and noticed that Hanzou’s eyes were glowing. What the heck was that? Did his eyes used to glow? Maybe he got possessed? Kohaku didn’t seem to notice or maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe this was just a normal thing for Kohaku? Hm.

“Think one of you can get us into these mausoleums? I bet we find some evidence in one of them.”

”I’ll check it out.” Nikkou’s answer was to run over to the mausoleum and check the lock. This wasn’t necessarily one of the shinobi skills she had been taught, but she did recall from her youth learning how to pick locks and the like for their various schemes. This lock was an older lock, but that meant that it was probably more vulnerable to standard technique. Nikkou pulled out some wire and folded it in on itself several times. With just a handful of seals she brought a katon jutsu to life and heated the wire so that it began to melt together. She had learned a thing or two about how to forge things by virtue of her family being infamous for it, so it didn’t take much to turn some wire into a pick. With the pick in hand, she pulled out a kunair that she used as a lever and inserted the pick into the lock. One by one she scraped the pins and applied leverage to keep them in place until they were all loose.

The lock turned.

Nikkou pushed the door to the mausoleum open and looked over at the group. ”ALRIGHT! I got the door open.” Nikkou gave a magical girl pose, her hand up in the air and a knee raised, she tilted her head and winked. Victory was sweet.

[Zao]

Xi couldn't agree more with the drifting words from those other, younger members of the team he'd been temporarily placed in charge of. It did indeed seem like just a normal cemetery, though the various pieces of garbage and the likes made the young man himself frown slightly. One would think that others would have more respect for the departed than to do some of the rather outrageous things that he could pick up on from the tale-tale signs left behind from these acts. But it only left him shaking his head as one hand came up to scratch his head, his gentle gaze and positioning helping to keep his field of vision so that he could keep up with the random searching efforts of the others.

It wasn't as if the man wasn't working as hard as the others in their search efforts, but more so he was laying back a bit in order to allow the team dynamics of Nikkou, Hanzou, and Kohaku to show itself. Because he hadn't worked with any of these junior shinobi it was best to get an understanding of their movements and personalities so that he could hopefully assist in this mission of theirs more efficiently without jumbling up their normal team tactics. Just as the whom he was assuming was the leader of the trio, Nikkou, was asking him something the man turning to see her words cut off by the shouts of the other two as her words were almost mercurial as she rapidly advanced towards the other duo.

With a simple nod he was quick on his feet and arrived just after the young woman, it was a grave site and from what he could disconcert it belonged to a young girl the group had encountered on their previous mission. But this strange tenku style summoning technique was rather troublesome as he pressed his thin lips together and allowed his grey eyes to scan right to left in the immediate vicinity. Though he was unsure of the true details he understood that this left over remnants of this forbidden style of fuuin caused a glint of anger to cross his normally dull looking eyes. The actions the others and himself would take after finding out who these culprits were would surely be vindicated no matter the actions.

To disturb those who had already passed was truly heinous crime, 'By the Tsuchikage, damn these blasphemers' Xi could only curse quietly to himself in the moment as the group had already directed their attention to one of the nearby mausoleums and the young woman was already hard at work to attempt and unlock the locked door. The culprits hadn't been seen in any other part of the village and checking these more out of the way places was actually a good idea, pushing down his anger a bit it still lingered but not on his face at the moment as he formed a single hand seal and chakra flowed into five of the orbs causing them to detach from the sash he wore and float up around him without as much as a sound. Simply watching and observing for the moment as the door opened fully and with a wave of his hand a singular golden eye opened on each of the floating sphere.

"Allow me." His voice was gentle as with a wave of his other hand the five orbs flew with no sounds into the recently opened door. After entering the orba spread out and the young jounin closed his left eye as images from his orbs were transferred to him. The old building was filled with dust and numerous spider webs, as they observed further one was able to just barely make out a pair of old foot prints in the thin layer of dust that concealed the true appearance of the marble stone floor. Following them the astute members of the group would notice and be able to see that tracks disappeared next to one of the above ground burial vaults tucked away in one of the corner vaults. "How strange, it seems someone has been here not to long ago..."

[Drak]

Hanzou reached out a hand for a fist bump as Kohaku crouched down to inspect the circle. He would let Kohaku handle the physical investigation side of things. The others couldn’t sense the spirits. He paced and looked idly around as Nikkou and Xi handled the mausoleum door. When Xi announced his findings, Hanzou walked in, moving quickly but carefully as to minimally disturb any evidence left behind.

Following Xi and the footsteps, Hanzou came to the same vault that Xi had. His vision enhanced by Tenkujutsu, Hanzou could make out what appeared to be a seal right in the center of the crypt’s faceplate.

“There’s a seal on the crypt,” Hanzou announced, slowly taking two cigarettes from his pocket. One he placed in his mouth, the other went behind his ear. “I’m a little worried about activating it willy nilly. I’m bringing in some help.” With a flurry of seals, Hanzou bent down and smacked the floor with a palm. Lines of what looked like ink shot out from his hand and with a poof of smoke, a giant, orange salamander wearing a haori-like garment appeared. As he straightened himself up, the spirit crawled up Hanzou and roosted on his back. It grabbed the cigarette from behind his ear and both its and Hanzou’s cigarettes flamed into life.

The spirit looked around the room.

“Creepy ass place,” it croaked in a low voice. It set its beady eyes on Xi. “Who’s that one?”

Hanzou pointed to the seal.

“If you can activate that for me, I’ll give you two more cigarettes right afterwards.”

The salamander grumbled, then leapt off of Hanzou’s shoulders and waddled over to the seal. Hanzou took a few steps back and ducked behind the corner. If there was a trap here, Ankou could just be resummoned.

A wet slap echoed through the mausoleum, followed by a grinding sound.

“Hanzou take a look at this,” Ankou croaked.

Peering around the corner, Hanzou saw the crypt vault swinging open like a door, revealing a dark stairway leading down into the unknown.

“Nikkou, Kohaku, get in here!” Hanzou shouted, tossing two more cigarettes to the salamander. It caught both in its mouth, and just like the first, they immediately lit.

[King of Cats]

Kohaku ran to Hanzou's call. As it were, he had discovered a secret passage in mausoleum. This was a huge finding for the group and Kohaku rushed over to see Hanzou and Ankou standing before a long, winding staircase down into the ground. Whatever was beyond here was sure to be dangerous. Kohaku stared down the dark hallway, it was lit up by several torches on the wall, parsed a good few meters away from each other. It was rather ominous to stare into it with no idea of what could be inside. Kohaku felt an instinctual inclination to draw his Fish-Bone, but refrained.

Confidently, Kohaku walked into the darkness and said to the group, "Let's go."

[HotelBravo]

Nikkou

---

“How Strange, it seems someone has been here not too long ago…” Xi observed after opening the door to the mausoleum. Nikkou followed Hanzou and Kohaku as they entered this place. “There’s a seal on the crypt,” Hanzou put a cigarette in his mouth and the other behind his ear. Was this what she thought this was? He did the same thing last time he summoned Ankou. “I’m a little worried about activating it willy nilly. I’m bringing in some help.” Thats exactly what she thought he was about to do. As though forming from the morning dew that salamander appeared on his back and took the cigarette on Hanzou’s ear and all at once all the cigarette’s lit up with a light glow.

“Who’s that one?” the Salamander asked.

”That’s Xi. He’s with us.” Nikkou answered. ”He’s here to baby sit us genins.” She explained. Hanzou was already getting to work. It seemed his plan was to get the Salamander to activate the seals. Shit. Nikkou followed him around the corner and made sure that everyone else was safe as well before the Salamander made it to the seal.

“Hanzou take a look at this,” The sound of the crypt opening up and the stone sliding across itself echoed in the mausoleum. Nikkou stepped back out and looked down the dark stairway that was lit only by the small light of Hanzou’s cigarette. It wasn’t much. Nikkou wrinkled her nose at the foul damp smell that was rolling up the stairs.

”Smells like Rotten Eggs. Yuck!” Nikkou complained. Kohaku didn’t seem to care about the lack of light and headed straight down. It was dark and she couldn’t see in the pitch darkness. She had often heard that open flames were a bad idea underground, but she figured there was little choice in this instance. Nikkou formed some handseals, Bird, Monkey, Tiger. *Katon • Torch She inhaled and then breathed out lightly in a controlled manner into the palm of her hand. The ball was hot she winced as she adjusted her chakra to cause it to hover further away from her hand than she had done initially. It was a simple and weak jutsu, but it would create light that they could use to see in the dark.

She soon followed after Kohaku with the ball of flame delicately floating above her palm in the air like a torch. Much like she had thought the staircase was leading down to the sewers. The path way down here looked like it had been carved out via a jutsu. Once could tell from the lack of tool marks whether man or machine upon the stone. It was all one solid piece without any seams. That was only possible through Doton jutsu. ”See the walls? The doo-doo water was splashed up here recently - that means that Xi is right, someone was just here!” Nikkou was eager to follow, but as she took a step forward a strange hissing noise began to echo in the sewers. ”Whats that noise?”




500/500
Learned

*Katon • Torch

[Zao]

The young jounin couldn't help but raise an eyebrow slightly at the lizard, thinking to himself just who this little lizard is, but he kept them just to his thoughts after he had entered into the shadow interior of the stone structure joining up with the handful of his floating orbs. He appeared to simply be casually controlling them as he didn't use hand seals or motions of his body at the moment, they simply responded to the fluctuations in his chakra and reacted accordingly. Shaking his head a little, the 'genin babysitter' shoved his hands back into his pockets and watched quietly as the group reconvened with each other inside the crypt and the inquisitive genin went to work.

'So they have a tenku user to.' This time seemed to have built a bit of synergy with one another, something that Xi gave a silent nod of approval towards as he stood behind them just observing for the time being. Though he was standing idly by the floating orbs seemed to remain only a few meters away from the one in the front, almost as though they were hovering in a protective manner. While he didn't hide away like the others, it didn't mean the nonchalant man wasn't actually on guard as his dull eyes pierced through the shadowy interior and observed closely before the stairway was revealed. 'This is almost like some of the mystery books I've been reading lately.' Of course, the man's interest was piqued by this new discovery, just what or perhaps better said whom lay at the end of the dark stairway.

As he ventured closely behind the group a couple more of his orbs silently detached and floated up into the air as there was at least two orbs in the front, two in the middle on either side, and two in the rear next to Xi himself. Entering through the secret door the rather unpleasant, almost noxious smell assaulted his nose causing for him to remove one hand and wave it back and forth in front of his face attempting to fan away the rotten egg smell. Nikkou aided their descent with a Katon technique to help light the dark abyss they were traveling down towards as the stairs soon gave way to what looked like the sewers.

Soon his vision was drawn onto the walls as the genin spoke, "You appear to be right..." Xi was attempting to respond in tow with Nikkou addressing the evidence of recent activity here when he also heard what sounded like a hiss, but it was more like an echo from the distance that was distorted because of the environment and running water. Those at the head of the group might just catch the glimpse right outside the edge of the genin's torch light, about fifteen to twenty meters ahead the tunnel they were traveling through was a four-way intersection and on the left tunnel those who had sharp eyes would catch a long portion of a thigh thick tail seemingly slithering around the turn. One could guess that whatever the tail belonged to was large, but as for how large and what it was attached to was anyone's guess at this point.

Xi didn't know the strengths and weaknesses of the genin team, so he could only speak a word of caution with them at the point. "Shh, whatever it was turned left up ahead." His voice lowered to just above a whisper, if they didn't have to engage whatever the creature was it was for the better, no need to go out of their way, hopefully the trail didn't also lead them down that tunnel and they could simply bypass and keep following the sights of human activity down in the sewers. But who knew, sometimes kids were bold and unafraid...

[Drak]

Noxious, stale air, thick with the scents of rot and sewage billowed out of the open passage. Hanzou made a gagging sound as the odor assaulted his nose.

“Doo doo water?” Hanzou repeated incredulously. Are you a child? Why are you like this?

His attention quickly moved from Nikkou to Xi, then to the intersection ahead of them. He had missed the creature itself, but his glowing, maroon eyes picked up something else.

“Whatever that was,” Hanzou stage whispered to the group. “It’s leaving behind spirit chakra. Could be whatever was summoning ghosts in the graveyard dredged that thing up from some other realm to guard their tracks.”

Hanzou turned to face Kohaku.

“If you can cover me, I can try to pin that thing down. Or we can sneak through like Xi said.”