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Raine smiled as the others bickered, they were too hilarious together. Xenon's quip about Dash-Sensei flew Raine into a full on laugh but he stopped with a cringe of pain, luckily smiling up afterward.

Dr. Grey just shook her head. Was it really possible that these little kids did what they had said? She didn't know either way, Raine was good enough to keep moving and it had finally come their turn to get out of the tunnels.

Lavi poked his head in, his whole body falling in relief seeing Raine. The older boy quickly came to him ready to pick him up and carry him far away from this terrible place, but he stopped standing just in front of the boy looking down with horror.

Raine cocked his head at the look. "What?"

Lavi burst into hysteria! Raine's massive inflamed chest exposed to the air, the thick scars running down and across his torso. "What the hell happened!" He fell to his knees sticking his hands out towards Raine's wounds, but not daring to touch him fearing he would hurt the small boy.

Raine just blushed red. "Sorry, Lavi. There was this man.... and he offered to train me... and... and I went on a mission. Just a simple one and all, but there ah.... We got ambushed and all, by... Taki bandits." he said the name with loathing. Either way, he stood slowly still aching and bleeding in small places. Standing over his dear friend, and placing his hand out on the boys head. "It's Okay. I'm fine though. We should get out though."

Lavi stared up at Raine in disbelief. Who the ******** was this man? And what the ******** was he do sending little kids on missions. Dangerous missions. His anger flared and he stood slowly, looking to the other children and Doctor gray. "He's right, this place isn't safe. The Kage's are on a rescue mission. Thanks to you guys. You did good." With that he grabbed Raine and pushed him forward towards the small hatch where they both climbed out.

(Exit to rice fields)

Kimiko frowned, crossing her arms as they followed Raine and Lavi. "These Taki guys are really starting to make me angry...what's their problem with our village anyway."

"Did you pay attention in the academy at all Momoe-san? Or only when you got the chance to punch something?"

Kimiko looked slightly embarrassed "Wha? No...no I mean...i listened...kind of..."

Xenon sighed "There's a long and rather violent history between our two villages and such a thing is not something to be brushed aside so easily. The sins of the past go unforgotten and breed new sins in the present." The entered out into the sunlight, the rolling fields of Rice spreading out before them. "Thus is the cycle of revenge and suffering."

Kimiko smiled "OH! Oh! I know how this goes!" she seemed suddenly excited. She coughed and made her voice sound cheesily heroic "But three beats, not two, make up the waltz of history, and it peace, the third of the beats, for which we strive! Even if it is not forever." She looked at him returning from her drama. "That's from some book right? My dad says that sometimes."

"Hm..."Xenon seemed slightly considering "Really? He didn't seem the philosophical type...hm." he shrugged "Well regardless. Yes that's correct."

Kimiko seemed to be thinking "I guess when you say it like that i can't get made at Taki...or it'll just make it worse huh?" she frowned "But I can still mad at individual people right?" Thinking of that "Taki Woman".

"Well I suppose so."

"Good." She then smiled contentedly.

Xenon looked ahead and reached into his coat and retrieved his small black book. Removing his pen from another of his many pockets, he began to scribble without pause, writing down the days events and his thoughts. Just for purposes of reflection.

(Exit to the Rice Fields)

Kasuke stepped back breathing deeply as the chakra behind the door grew. He wasn't about to leave these two alone, he still didn't trust them but he had his villagers to protect. Not to mention his method of fighting would be most useful in the wind open wind. "Oka-" the door smashed in front of him, the prices collided with the wall, dancing sparks across the stone. Kasuke flung back his hands whipping out cutting through the dust and exposing the horror of a man behind it. What the hell had they done to this man! His shout broke Kasuke's ears and he winced with pain, of coarse he would blame his state on oto. Now it was apparent that he had to get back to his villagers. The Kage seethed harshly, stepped back over the edge of the stairs and plummeting before the dust could clear long enough for this Taki ninja to see him.

He clipped quietly below and turned running quickly, the halls flashing by him in seconds, he was soon to the far exit where he had felt the villagers. Running back behind the children once more. Finally exiting themselves. The man slid to a stop before them. "Hurry!" he bellowed in front of him, he had to get all these people to safety quickly and if that meant frightening them it was for the best.

(Exit to ot rice fields)

"Kusari!? There is noone to know that name! Seven hundred and thirty days in the darkness, has proven that!" The monster spat bitterly. "No, only the Momochi remains, anger, hate, and abomination!" He swung one of the massive stoens forth intentionally missing as if to puncutate his speech. "Who are you to know the name of the forgotten? Speak your name so it may be written who was first to die by the hands of the beast on the night Ototgakure was purged from this earth!" It was true, in this form, after two years of time, to his hate clouded eyes where only a sliver of sanity remained clinging desperately to life in the bowls of rage, she was unrecognizable to him. Hints of memory tugged at the back of his thoughts; but she did not look exactly the same as the one memory that survived without abuse. His blind wrath was unable to conceive that others may have changed while he had. Instead it fed off the darker sides of thought. The pain and isolation of two years in this prison. All this monster wanted, was a head for every day he had been in this hole.

The words meant little to the beast, at first. However, when she spoke her name, those two words were the only two that could slip through the armor of hate and wrath, and stir the dormant sanity within him. There was a faltering in the cold and unforgiving hate that shone in his eyes, for a moment the old him shone through as his strangely reverberating voice murmured the name in disbelief. "N-Nakamura?" but the anger tried to fight, it did not wish to be suppressed it had gone on for so long unappeased. The spectral burning mist of chakra visible to all eyes, wrapped itself around him like it were some force traying to be pulled within him and contianted, despite it's desire to consume all around it. "N-Nakamura..." the memory flashed before his eyes and he staggered a step back as if it had been some tangible blow. His eyes still looked at her in disbelief. "It's been two years!" One eye burned with anger while the other seemed to remain within sanity, as if his body itself were fracturing between two sides. It was clear that half of him meant this as a statement of disbelief, while the other was screaming an accusation.

"No! I wont fight you again! Too many times do we reunite like this! Not again!" He audibly denied his own anger the blood it was screaming for. Kusari the monster doubled over as if this hindrance was causing him pain, and sure enough when he looked up at her again the pain was visible in his icy eyes. "I can't hold it back. It must lash out somehow or it will tear me apart from within..." he winced again and pounded a fist against the ground causing the walls to shudder and his fist to bury itself in the stone. "I've been trying to get to you... They've done thigns to me... for two years, I've been trying to get back to you... I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough..." he spoke in a quieter tone this time, as his mind made a decision as to how he would proceed. "Get everyone out of here, if you want to spare lives...Have everyone leave, get out of this place.... I have to let it lash out, and I know of only target that will satisfy it without risking others lives... I'll come to you when it is over...Hurry!" urgency was apparent in his warped and echoing voice with its odd metallic ring thanks to the device concealing his neck and half his face. He rose to his feet and pulled on the chain s at his wrists, drawing the stones closer to him and watching her, hoping she would trust him enough to do as he asked....Hoping she still trusted him. This time, he had nto been gone of his own volition.

She knew.
He was fairly certain the moment she shook her head, and more so when he saw the cold anger in her eyes. She knew the reckless thing he had so quickly planned to sate his rage, and would have none of it.

He felt the stab in his chest at the sight of her tears of anger, and her words. He had rather swiftly made this reunion only about his own goals and objectives... till the rage was thundering in his veins, what else was he supposed to do? It was then he felt, that it was dieing down. His own guilt at having hurt the one person who the mere thought of had gotten him through all this time in darkness, was a change enough in emotion, that when mingled with his own exhaustion, it was capable of quieting his rage, forcing it back. He was now painfully aware that his plan tro bring this whole structure down upon his own head, had been a truly foolish and insane plan, there was no way he could have survived it in this state, no matter how angry he was. And now his foolishness had injured one of the few bonds he cared about in this world.

The chakra fires faded around him and the fires of anger in his eyes faded to the lethargic gray of a man barely alive and nearly numb within himself. "I'm....sorry" was all his oddly reverberating, voice could muster in his flat; yet saddened tone. He walked forward, knowing nothing else to say. It had been two years and the thought of her had been the only thing for him to cling to. Things had felt like they were only just becoming right between them when with one strike all hell broke loose and he was trapped within it for two years. He had no idea how the world had changed or what had happened, and did not recognize the sight in the portal before him as he looked into her eyes for a long moment, with so much unsaid. He then walked past her going into the portal, dragging with him his chains and the stones of his prison.