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Sorain's eye browns arched inwards at their words. Both of them adding a sense of arrogance and disrespect that trickled through Sorains spine like sour vinager being slid across ones tongue. Sorain was never one to harm the innocent, but he feared that his less than hostile reaction to their presence was giving off the wrong impression of who they were dealing with, especially if they both had the gaul to speak to him with such sarcasm and vain. Sorains fist began to tighten as he gazed back and forth between Saru and Musica, finding it hard to determine which of them deserved to be made an example out of more. Saru seemed as though she was a bit more absent minded than Musica, allowing him to chalk a bit of her disrespect up to simple lack of home training. But either way, Sorain was not one to be trifled with, nor one to be spoken to in such a way. Although it was true that he had no intention on harming them, the fact still remained that he was in every way their superior and they would soon realize it.

Pausing for a moment to let Musica pass him into a safer distance, Sorain took a quick turn, reaching over his shoulder and pulling forth the double handled blade that was resting there. In one swift motion, Sorain brought the sword over his head, allowing it to tear through the wind, gaining strength and power as it did so. As the blade came crashing down, the wind around it formulated into a gigantic hammer shaped aura that Sorain then used to crash a man sized crater in the ground that only missed Musica and Saru by inches. Sorain rested the blade on the ground while he watched the rubble crack and break into dust, leaving behind nothing but an empty patch in the road. "Do not be fooled by my calm. Do not let your tongue barter you death" Taking a moment to lift the heavy sword back up and slide it over his back again. Sorain casually leaped over the pit he had created and marched off down the path without even looking back. He gave no shits about the safe passage. If things got out of control, if danger found it's way to them. Then so be it, they would be on their own to face the level of difficulty that would no doubt be standard for any attempt to Sorains life.

Musica felt a rush of wind down his back, rustling his pony-tail, followed by a smashing impact in the ground. He froze in his tracks, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide. He even swore that his heart stopped beating for a minute or three. Musica's head slowly turned just enough to see behind him in his peripheral. He silently gulped when he noticed that the hole Sorain's sword created was big enough for the young man. Then, just as slowly, he faced his head forward, recomposing his expression, removing most of the fear from his expression. 'I told you not to take him there!' Rodah yelled, suddenly rushing to the front of Musica's mind. 'He'll destroy everything!' 'Oh, you're still here.' The red head responded dryly, listening as Sorain warned the two. 'No, he won't. If he wanted to kill anyone, he wouldn't have missed. Simple, rather obvious fact.' Musica turned to the group at the same moment Sorain hefted his sword from the hole, an apologetic look in the young man's eye. “Point taken,” he replied. “My bad.”

He turned his attention to Saru as Sorain started to walk away, watching the girl's obvious discomfort. But, whether that was because she had almost been killed, or if she was just bad with people was anyone's guess. Looking back at how he met her, however, Musica was certain that it was the latter. The ninja smiled and held out his hand, ready to introduce himself, before he was cut off by Saru doing it for him. He gave the monkey girl a comical glare, his eye brow twitching as Sorain walked past them. “Like I /wanted/ to do that,” Musica shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. The young man childishly stuck his tongue out at Saru when he was sure Sorain wasn't looking, then adjusted his bag, and quickly followed after the man.

After five minutes of walking in a total awkward silence, Musica stopped walking in the middle of the path and motioned for the others to do the same. “You see, my friends,” The young man spun around, a big grin on his face. “My father started a secret village for people much like ourselves. Nothing as outstanding as the Hidden Villages.” The young man made an effort of will, sending a steady stream of chakra from his body and into the ground below. Dirt and small rocks shifted as the ground began to tremble lightly. Musica continued speaking as if the earth wasn't shaking at his feet. Slowly, a section of the road behind him rose up like a ramp. “It has been taking in refugees and the like for the last seventeen years, and the amount of travelers has steadily been increasing. So much so that traveling by main roads became even more dangerous.” The ramp of earth stopped rising when it was at a height of ten feet. The square face of the ramp slid back down into the ground, revealing a stairwell on the inside that led deep into the ground, lit by torches on either side of the wall. “So passages were created underneath the main roads, to ensure undetected travel for people of this secret village. Complete with outposts for bread and breakfast. This one just so happens to lead to Fire Country, if I remember right.” Musica gave Sorain and Saru a broad grin and stepped to the side, making a gesture for them go on in. Ever since his abduction after the Chunin Exams last year, Musica had quickly become accustomed to the under-roads, running missions for the head of the village: his father, Cea Knote. “Shall we be on out way?”

To say his mind felt hazy would be calling a hurricane a mild drizzle. Everything felt unfamiliar as he slowly opened his eyes to find himself rocking about on a haybale in a creaky wooden cart. Everything felt stiff, as if he'd not moved his muscles in years, and it was a struggle to sit up, only to flop back down on the haybale barely able to move. A gush of red, a flashback of the memory and Cruxis's hand moved on reflex to his throat, feeling a thick black chain at his neck which acted as a support for a set of boiled hard-leather shoulder guards. Slipping his hand under the chain he felt no wound. Had it been a nightmare? But why was he in a cart, and how had his clothes changed? Was this another dream, as when he'd thought he was a pirate? No, even in his confused state he knew reality from a dream. The injury had to have been real, the question was what had found him - and where were they going?
He opened his mouth to speak and felt as if sandpaper caked his mouth, small wonder given the likelyhood of when his last drink of water had been. Reaching to his side he fumbled through the hay and found a canteen, opening the bottle clumsily, (had his fingers always had this much trouble maneuvering things?), and poured water down his throat to relieve his thirst.
"Excuse me? Where are we going?! Cruxis spoke up towards the man in the front of the cart, and did not recognize his own voice, which caused him to curl up on reflex in fear. What in the hell was happening? The old grizzled cart driver opened his own mouth to reveal a missing tongue, but tossed Cruxis a yellowed and tattered map, little help as Cruxis could not make out the man's handwriting, nor the faded lettering or landmarks.
'He says to refer to me, mind you. Hiring a mute is useful at times, they don't ask questions...' the voice spoke faintly in his head. Beilborg.
'Beilborg! What in hell is going on? Where are you? Why am I in this cart? What did you do to me?!
'One question at a time... it seems your memory is not as intact as I'd hoped, so we're going to take this very slowly and calmly. And please, don't panic - I have a very limited timer, and would rather not waste it on pointless arguments'.
'Fine then, I'll keep this simple. What the hall happened to me?'
'That is a question I meant to ask you... After you sliced up those training zombies I spent the rest of the day repairing them, found out the next morning you'd gone missing - and two days after that located you washed up downriver with your throat slashed open.
'...That happened then...' Cruxis's hand brushed over his throat again, not a nightmare but a memory, 'A mission we were about to undertake was interfering with the Gryu'jiong Underground... Apparently the shop that had hired us to protect them from thugs; well those thugs were sent by the underground to get him to pay them protection... I've had a previous run-in with them, and wasn't so lucky this time around'
'So you abandoned your teammates and took the fall alone. Foolish, but noble I suppose. Your next question was where am I, but unfortunately that question is difficult to explain. I don't know where 'I' am.'
'You're a message planted with residual chakra, hence the time limit.'
'Good, your mind's not been rotting long enough to dull your critical thinking... Now then onto the question of why you are in this cart, and what 'I' did to you. Your body, as you can imagine, had been floating down a river for three days, had become nastily bloated, and was beyond medical repair, not to mention a slashed throat would not be a pleasant way to come back into life, even if we could reverse the bloating. Your eyes, I might add, had been removed from your sockets - so I did little favor for you and tracked down a man with golden eyes... Fun fact about stolen Doujutsu, they stay active, and cannot be turned off unless one actually treats the thing properly, which your....friend?... did not do. Either way, he found himself with a lovely case of corpus rotting his arms and legs before I did him the favor he did you....'
'...You used the cloak of sinking to get behind and slash his throat?'
'You forgot the corpse clone to divert his attention, and I don't slash throats - even if I don't want to preserve the body - there's always the chance they'll surprise you and live through it. No, I took his head clean off, then recovered your eyes...'
'So you're saying I have my eyes? They're not active though - is this my body?'
'As I said, when properly treated, one can ignore the annoying always-active side effects of such things. If you'll let me continue... I have several 'special corpses' I've worked on. You might call them the pinnacle of preservation - killed by not a single marring of the body. I don't zombify them, I have them carefully preserved nearly to the moment of their death, in case I should need....shall we call it an escape plan.'
'I thought you were done playing with Kinjutsu. Didn't nearly blighting yourself teach you anything?'
'I'm not here to discuss morals. I'm here to help accommodate you to the body you've wound up in, which I might add was the closest to your age, and I might add, one of the more difficult ones - I nearly marred the body because he fought back..'
'Pleasant... I'm in the body of a dead guy.'
'Very much alive now, with your soul inside of it actually, not to mention transferred eyes - which is not an easy surgery to perform. Spending half one's life in a mortuary pays off sometimes.'
'So how was I put into one of your.... 'escape plans', and why am I on this cart going to god only knows where?!'
'You see this is where things get complicated. Are you familiar with Fuinjutsu?'
'I know a few basic runes, well - a few signs of power anyay.'
'Then let me go about this simply. There are odd numbered seals, and even numbered seals. Seals can layer to perform stronger and combined effects, but imbalances can occur if one layers odds and evens together. Intentionally doing this though, is called a Reversal... I used a reversal of the Dead Demon Consuming Seal; instead of taking a soul from a body and giving it to Death - I chose to take a soul from death and place it into a body... That body.'
'Your soul is in Death's stomach then!?'
'Myths and rumors, no one really knows where the souls go, though many say someone who chooses to take an enemy in this manner will spend eternity fighting them in Death's stomach. Has scholarship ever been used on the opposite? No one has ever returned from that void with memories of it, even those brought back via Impure World Reincarnation so we must continue to ask questions...'
'And who is the cart driver?'
'A simple mute - according to what I told him,I saved a young man from a bandit attack, but that the battle had injured me beyond healing and that I would die soon, to take you to where-ever he was headed next, and to burn my body.'
'So how long do you have? Can you train with me? This body was dead, how long do I have?!'
'The body was sixteen, so long as you take care of yourself you should be able to live out a normal life... As far as how long I have? I don't know, I don't remember past the Reversal Dead Demon Consuming Seal; or perhaps if this IS the result of using death to draw a soul into a body instead of out of one. I will give what advice I can for as long as you have me... no strings attached.'
'.....Why did you do this? To see if you could? Was this some grand experiment that you thought you could outlast?'
'If I could have archived it, I wouldn't. There are reasons that some things are labeled Kinjutsu even when they do no harm to others... I did it because I know my future was nothing, and yours was only just beginning. I didn't want to live out life a middle aged hermit whose past would never allow him to advance beyond being watched... What little power I had left was a fraction of what I was, and could be... You're going to become greater than I was, in far better ways, as soon as we figure out a way past your new handicap...'
'Wait? Handicap? What handicap?'
'Besides being the result of a forbidden jutsu which may or may not condemn you to being tested if discovered? Hence why we're leaving the country by the way, I'd rather see you settle in a new village than risk that discovery.... But I digress... There is an interesting thing about chakra, an essence of life itself one might call it... That body was dead, and a disconnect happened when the soul was severed... Revival rituals traditionally aim to reconnect that severed link to body and soul... I used an experimental and dangerous kinjutsu to bring your soul into a different body because yours was beyond repair... In short, your knowledge may be intact, but you do not have, nor can you grasp hold of, Chakra....


~ 90 lines

Disembarking on the cart, Cruxis looked towards the cartdriver to see him lay back and shut his eyes, drifting off to sleep. Carefully unfolding his map, Cruxis glanced over the area, recalling the simplicity of his former genjutsu skill, the ability to summon forth an illusory map so long as he could recall the details. Despite his intelligence, Cruxis was very much a visual learner, and could plan easier with an image in front of him.
From what he could remember from his history books, the Snow country was a small and peaceful country constantly experiencing winter. It went through a period of hard times until a weather control generator was activated, allowing the country to finally experience Spring. The country had been on economic hard times for several years. Daimyou Kazahana Sousetsu was said to have nearly bankrupted the country putting money into the heating generator machinery. Later when his brother Dotou came to power, the country expended even more funds in weaponry development. After the removal of Daimyo Kazahana Dotou, his niece Kazahana Koyuki rose to power and the country began to flourish once again.
Due to the usage of the generator, the valleys of the country retained much of the heat geothermically, allowing them to experience warmer climates; though the mountains surrounding the village certainly held snow still. Once their heavy weaponry development had been halted, the village flourished with trade of supportive technology to Hidden Leaf. Their most famous invention was a Chakra Control Device, which could suppress a prisoner's ability to channel chakra, in fact using their chakra to restrain them down.
Venturing carefully towards the village inn, Cruxis checked his pockets for money, and realized quite quickly that Beilborg had left nothing to him apart from the clothes on his back, which were not well equipped for the cooler climate to begin with. Odd that the warmer valleys felt no warmer than the mountains despite what he recalled from history.
He felt a touch of cold upon his neck. Snow... Damn his dulled senses, he should have been able to know the storm was coming hours ago. Glancing upwards, he could see them from the east, dark angry clouds had begun to roll in over the village; a blizzard. It had come a little late to stop interfering travellers, but those huge stone grey clouds rolled in obscuring the remaining sunlight.
'Wind doesn't blow east to west you idiot!' the faint voice reminded him. An unnatural storm? Where would one have brought it from? Not from, where would they bring it to. Center of the village, where the most people would see the event...
Cruxis was in a dead run, something he had not noticed until he was on the move. This body was stronger and faster at least, he might be able to make do without flying after all, presuming he could locate what he needed to find!

In the village's center square, Cruxis caught sight of them, two women, one woman draped in shadow, a small black imp seated at her shoulder, the other draped in what he could only describe as molten silver, a pale blue aura held in an open palm. As he approached closer he could hear the woman in silver speaking to the gathered crowd.
"- a peaceful shift in power... it seems that I can't become the leader of this area, but the old High Council can resign and we can take their place. All completely legal of course..."

Cruxis could tell from the feel of the air that her sarcastic tone was unappreciated, the other woman seemed to have less of a sense of humor than this one, and she was a hard woman to read. Only in action would they likely get a true taste of her character, or at least that’s what Cruxis thought at this point. The looks and whispers they were getting certainly was irritating the woman in black. Looking at a group of men standing not to far away from them, the shadowed lady put her hand on her hip and rolled her eyes, “It’s rude to stare idiots. Haven’t you ever seen a woman before?” She made a sexual hand motion up her body, she had looks going for her that was for sure. Cruxis's hand reached instinctively for a weapon which was not there, and didn’t know what to do. He could sense it, he knew that they needed to wreck havoc here, this village had seen warlords rise and fall, and the women needed to assert control. “Well what are you waiting for? Come get some people.”
Stepping forward she called the entire town on, “We are here to take this cute little town for our own. We might let you all live, we might burn it to the ground, tough to say. All I know is that if you don’t defend this place now, you might not have a home tomorrow!”
Cracking her knuckles she looked ahead once again, “Hey Inari, I'm taking the lead on this one,” the shadowed woman spoke cooly, and grinning she weaved together some hand signs, “Lightning Style: Black Panther Jutsu!” creating a large black panther around her that shot straight foward and ripped a nearby tavern apart.

“HEY! You can’t just come in here and wreck the joint!” A burly looking man stepped forward to challenge Inari, “Get out of here before someone gets hurt here ladies.” He punched his fist and approached her closer, “Don’t come any closer …” Inari warned in a sarcastic tone. The man continued to advance, “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” Inari shrugged and took a step forward, driving her hand upward into the mans jaw, sending him barreling into the crowd, an icicle protruding from his neck.

Cruxis was entirely unsure where it had come from at the moment he found it in his hand, hindsight would tell him he had lifted it from the woodpile, but the axe in his hand lunged forward at the imp who had begun to make its way above the crowd, whispering taunts to the people. It did not even bleed as the heavy iron axe struck its mark, instead making a screeching splat before dematerializing. Summoned creatures could not easily be killed, only banished, and Cruxis had little desire to see the extent of a summoning pact more than he had to.
"It looks like we have a fighter here after all Lilith, why don't you show him some manners?" Inari spoke to her partner, and Cruxis shivered as the black clad woman approached him. The black panther technique launched towards him, but his body's reactions were faster than his mind's ability to command it, reacting on old reflexes. This body was a fighter, and Cruxis was unsure just how to treat that, having spent his entire life attacking from afar and using illusion to avoid a fight entirely. He could hear the shattering of boards behind him as another house was destroyed by the black panther technique this woman used, and knew that the longer this fight went on, the more collateral damage this was going to cause... Cruxis let the axe go, with a great heave of his muscles, as he dodged the third attack, and the heavy iron axe landed in the woman's head with a squealch, forcing Cruxis to hold back vomiting at the sound. He looked away, holding his breath to focus himself, killing was not something he enjoyed, it was against his style. He did not pick up the axe again, it had served a vile purpose, and he had used the tradesman's tool to end a life instead of better one. He turned to Inari and prepared to speak, to tell her that if she did not wish the same fate to retreat. But as he turned, the raging blizzard came down upon them...

The cart and driver were gone, Cruxis had spent two days in the village debating just what to do while the finishing fine-tuning of his wing was completed. The longest leg of the journey was completed, and with the mountain paths finally clearing, it was viable to make the journey without the cart.
Purchasing transportation was an option, but with his tight wallet (he had earned enough pay to keep him housed and fed once on the road, but Cruxis wanted to keep his expenses down to a minimum)
Standing at the edge of the village gate, he flexed the ebon black wing and gave a feral grin, his eyes lighting up as he ran, and soon 'flew', preparing himself for the next journey.



- moving to Fire Country -