Welcome to Gaia! ::

The man fell silent, the grin faded from his face as he watched the woman and thought deeply to himself. It was only for a few moments that he did so though, the certainty of his decision showing fully in his eyes. "Do you know of the man known as Sai Orasakai?" He questioned softly as he raised himself to a full stance, his brown hair draining of color as it lengthened into waist length and spiked out at odds and ends. His features shifted and sharpened, the clothes were redefined as powerful muscles rippled under them.

With a spike of ice toyed between his index and thumb, Sai stood before the whore with his bright blue eyes glaring easily at her. "Now... can we get down to business?"

Notwen spent the last few hours resting on the rooftop to avoid having to pay for any lodging in the town. His awareness dome picked up several people moving around in the premises, but it was not until later that he picked up an odd chakra lurking around.

Without warning, a presence swiftly appeared behind him. It felt so sinister and demonic, yet so human. In a velvety voice that Notwen swore he had heard before the man asked if there was something he could be helped with or if he was just annoyingly hanging around the alleyway. The dark-skinned blonde's hazel eyes opened wide as he swiftly turned around and put distance between himself and the newcomer. Putting a fake smile on his face Notwen addressed the man.
"No, thank you. I was just catching a quick nap before i moved on with my journey." No matter how hard Notwen tried to play it off, the menacing air the man gave off caused a small tremble to course through his body. "I'm sure you're no ordinary person to have gotten up here. Who are you, exactly?"

Kyu soared from electric post to electric post, towards the step-down plant ahead. However, he was tempted to run off course. Up ahead, in the direction of their destination was a dense smoke cloud that reached up to the sky. Kyu stopped in his tracks and stared at the billowing black smog. He motioned towards it with his azure hand, and said, "Check it out, bro... It looks like that place has seen some huge action. Let's check it out." Without a second thought, Kyu was flying through the air, and landing in the thick forest towards the commotion.

In the midst of the commotion were two hooded figures. They stood before an annihilated gate to Earth Country. Ninja were dead everywhere around them, some blooded and ripped apart, some cut in two. Others were grey-faced with vein-lined skin. These sickly individuals struggled for just another breath, or were letting out their last one. Over the head of the gateway was a massive snake, pinned to the wood by massive kunai and shuriken. The grips of katana and tanto covered the serpent's body like a bed of spikes. bleeding gallons of blood like it was someone's twisted idea of a fountain. Covering the entire entranceway into the country was an aura of licking flames.

One of the hooded figures spat on the ground, and said in a sharp, venomous female voice, "Pathetic, I expected a bit more of a challenge from this shithole." She stepped a few feet ahead of the second figure, and slammed her heel into the hand of a ninja who was bleeding all over from gouges all over his body. He shouted at the sudden sting, and looked up at the antagonistic witch above him. She spoke to the dying man with a voice that was thickly lathered in the most potent of poisons. Bitter and cruel, each word was as painful to the man as the heel that was breaking his hand, "Dirtbag, listen up! If you intend to live, you're going to live as a messenger."

The ninja at her feet was a man of pride. He attempted ot push himself up, but failed to do so. However, he refused to make eye contact with this woman as he said, "I'll be no such tool to your kind." He felt the heel remove itself from his hand, but suddenly his entire body was in motion. His torso was gripped roughly by the scaly coils of a summoned anaconda that extended out from the kunoichi's arm. Her eyes glinted yellow and orange from the erupting flames that engulfed the gateway. The ninja stared into these eyes for just a second, and lost himself in their wicked gaze.

"Got the b*****d," the snake woman said to herself. She looked back at the silent, hooded man, "Hey, Baby-face, you've been pretty quiet back there..." She grinned playfully at her own joke; she knew full well that he couldn't speak. She continued on a more malicious note, "What kind of message should we leave fish-face and the mutt?"

Her mind hummed with the silent ninja's telepathy. His mental voice melodically crooned in her head "Give the pair another taste of what has yet to come on this path. Edge them into our plan with promise of adventure, and enthrall them with a hint of danger. The notion of fame and heroism will be the trigger to our trap. Once the human desire for glory and power so much as touches their hungry lips, they'll be helpless but to follow our stratagem to frution. Deliver this message to our dear friends..."

"You're probobly right, bro. Let's just keep moving, before more Earth ninja arrive and accuse us of this." Kyu bounded over the bodies, feeling a little queasy at their condition. Even for a massacre, this carnage was a bit much. Kyu slipped through the blood-fall unstained, and continued into Earth Country. He landed on the path, and looked back for Hibiki. Within that second of hesitation, Kyu felt a strange presence, like someone or something had just gotten in between him and the road.

The hairs on the back of Kyu's neck stood on end, and he looked back slowly. Before him stood a being that seemed to be half-man, half-cadaver, blocking his way to the road. It was hunched over, and dripping with blood. His eyes stared into Kyu's own, with the same blank intensity of the man from the bar. The edges of Kyuzaku's mouth turned down into a tight frown, and he said aloud, "I think I'm starting to see a connection... What the hell do you want?"

The cadaver replied with a volume that barely grazed the loudness of the crackling fires, "I deliver to you... a message."

((Sorry, would have done more, but was pressed for time))

Kyu grunted, "A genjutsu puppet delivering threats. How mundane." Kyu glared at the crumpled body on the ground. It was incredibly bloody and shredded, which lead Kyu to wonder about the nature of the user's jutsu. He couldn't help but wonder if the jutsu was more corpse manipulative than mind manipulative. To take control of a body that torn up must take some serious skill. Kyu raised his hand to command Hibiki and Kuro to move out, but just as he did, Hibiki-Kuro dashed off towards the woods and puked. He was obviously disturbed by the images he'd seen that night.

Kyu watched the pair over his shoulder, and centered his gaze on the vomiting clone. The true Hibiki supported his pet-clone. Kyu grinned, and spoke beneath his breath, "Sometimes... I forget just how desensitized to this kind of thing I really am." Kyu did an about-face and marched towards the identical fox-boys. As he approached his grin faded to a frown. Hibiki questioned the quest, and argued that it might be over their heads.

The fish-man scowled at the pair, and barked, "Heated, my a**. We've come a long way already, and we're not quitting here. It's going to take a lot more than some two-bit attempt at a scare tactic to send me packing. Look at these guys. I can tell they put up a good fight, but I bet most of these guys were incredibly rough around the edges. I'd bet they were just honorary chuunin; not the real deal. You gettin' me, bro? That fight with the Orasakai brothers; that was a just a bad setup. We were ambushed, and they were Jinchuriki. It was more of an ANBU mission anyways. This... This is completely different."

Kyu turned away from the pair, and looked at the gory snake archway, with a toothy smile spread across his face, "Why else would they bother trying to scare us away so much if they weren't a challenge, eh bro?"

The edge of Kyu's mouth curled into an arrogant grin. With a hint of that same pride, he replied, "Heh, your tunes sure have changed, haven't they?" Kyu crossed his arms and continued, "Hold on to that passion, we're going to need it." He turned away and put his arms to his sides, and his hands in the air, level with his shoulders, "I'm not trying to start arguments here, bro. Let's just get a move-on." Kyu lowered his arms and clenched his fists, then sprinted towards the gate. He leaped through the threshold, dodging the dwindling red rainfall that came from the snake arch above. Upon touching the red earth on the other side, Kyu did a one-eighty to check on his partners, then another spin to face forward around.

The shark man busted into a full sprint up the road, and shouted at the pair of Hibikis over his shoulder, "Now listen up! This Hideki guy is a town named Kuchiaki. The guy from the bar told me so. We should be able to get some directions if we find a town or a traveler's inn along the way. If we're lucky, we'll just find a sign directing us on the right path. That'd mean minimal stopping."

As they ran, the scenery around the group began to change. Instead of woods and trees like before, the land was more barren. Small patches of trees and massive boulders dotted the rolling dry-grass hills. Dark mountains, made into silhouettes by the red rising sun, could be seen in the distance in all directions. They slowly came closer as the trio ran.

Kyu flew through the countryside on the wings of his quick ninja feet, but felt a bit weighed down by something in particular. Kyu looked back at his two comrades, then to the front again. His blue hand gripped the back of his neck regretfully. In the time it took them to traverse the rocky lands of Earth Country, he couldn't help but feel just a tinge of guilt over what he'd said to them back at the border. He pulled back from his position at point, and fell back to Hibiki's side, "Hey, bro. About what I said back there. I didn't mean to be callous. I wasn't trying to make excuses for the Frost Mission. I was just saying... A lot of things went bad with that mission. You know as well as I that if it weren't for those setbacks that things wouldn't' have ended so poorly. I'm not going to allow anything like that to ever happen again, not while I'm in charge. This mission included. Understand what I'm saying, bro?"

After some travel, the group came to a stop at a branch in the road. At the fork was a tall post, littered with at least thirty signs pointing in one of 4 different directions, including the way they had came. Two of the roads were trampled heavily, and two others were traveled only slightly less.

Kyu stared up at the sign tree, not sure what to make of it. He read sign after sign, then caught sight of the name he was looking for. On a plank pointing to the East, Kyu read aloud, "Kuchiaki Town, 3km." Kyu looked in the direction of the arrow, and smiled. Not far away, between the crests of a few rocky hills was the steeple of a building, and the bell gable of another. From this distance, he was even able to spot what looked like a grape vineyard spread across one of the far hills. "Let's move."

Kyu chased after the pair of vulpine lads, and outstripped Kuro along the way. As they neared the town, the shark-man got fairly close to the leading Hibiki. Kyu cut down his speed significantly, until he was at a normal running pace, then down to a walking one. By time they reached the city limits, Kyu was ready to integrate with the people on the streets. He motioned for the other two to stick close, then walked into town.

It didn't take long for him to find Hideki. The giant Neon sign that proclaimed 'Hideki's Bar and Grill' was a pretty good clue. Kyu let out a low chuckle, and said, "Looks like we found our man."

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