The Hunt Begins (Closed/Ranmaru/Kaia)

It was truly a beautiful thing. There was still volcanic ash falling on the ground where Kumogakure no Sato had once stood. There was a constant pulse of heat from the black flames of Amaterasu that burned continuously at the core of the former village, which had been buried beneath ash and volcanic rock. There were fragments of buildings and there were bodies that had become instantly mummified scattered about the former streets, though it was nearly impossible to determined what was a street and a building and what was a field or training ground at this point. Mitsuo Uchiha walked along the ruins with his bastard sword, the Sword of the Immortal Blaze, drawn and behind him, tip dragging on the ground and causing a small trail of flame behind him as he went. His silver hair was tied back so he would be able to see everything, not that he would really have an issue with his eternal mangyeko sharingan which he had active, as well as the mastery over sensory that he had.

The three of them had come to Kumogakure no Sato for a reason, and there was something much more than sending a message on the mind of the Sword Saint as he and his two companions searched through the ruins of the village. Through his travels, Mitsuo had unearthed information about an ancient cloak that was buried in a temple beneath the mountains of Kumogakure. He had been told that it would lead him to weapons that would make him powerful beyond his wildest dreams. He knew that he had to obtain these weapons, for he was determined to stamp out all of the corruption that plagued this world, and in order to do that he would need to be more powerful than any shinobi before him had ever been. He had already obtained immense strength and power through his years of training, but it wasn’t nearly enough…

I don’t know why you don’t just destroy the world and get it over with…
Because nii-san, if you kill everyone nobody learns anything. I am not a bad man, I simply wish to set the world free from its oppression.

He looked around with a slight smile on his face. He had been truly impressed by Kaia’s fighting ability and ferocity and the immense strength of the wild card Ranmaru in their sacking of Kumo and he was very glad to have such powerful allies, as he would truly need them on their current path. He couldn’t help but be extremely proud of his beautiful daughter who had overcome so much and become so powerful in doing so. As he muddled his way through the rubble, looking back to make sure she was alright, he ended up walking right into the area that he had been looking for; the ruins of a temple that was buried beneath the mountains…

If Kaia had been asked as a little girl what her plans were for the future she likely would have said something along the lines of protecting her home, protecting her family, or maybe even something off the wall like learning how to fly or some such – hey, she would have been a little kid, kids dreamed big. But, hunting for relics in a village she had had a hand in destroying while now being considered a wanted criminal? Nope, that likely wouldn’t have been on the list of things she would have chosen.

Of course, that’s exactly what she was doing at this very moment: helping her father along with Ranmaru find something that her father wanted, and she had absolutely no issue with doing so.

She had come a long way from that little girl she had once been, and perhaps that was a good thing, as she now had her Chakra Radar that allowed her to begin to search in detail throughout the entire land, the country itself, for any sort of temple-looking location, or something that would appear out of the ordinary, or hidden. Of course, there was a small obstacle she was now seeing – she couldn’t see through the earth, at all. Everywhere else was free for her gaze to reach, but anything beneath the ground was like smacking against a blind spot – and it was… un-nerving.

Yet, as she continued to follow behind her father, avoiding the flames his sword was causing, she suddenly paused and tilted her head a bit; hair and the trails of her blindfold that kept her empty eyes hidden falling to the side. “Stop, daddy… I can’t see exactly what it is… but there’s something beneath your feet. It’s awkward. It doesn’t follow the lay of the rest of the land. It’s as if it was built around or hidden away. I can’t see inside of it though. My Chakra Radar won’t allow me… it’s like hitting a… a blind spot.”, a frown followed her words while she tried her hardest to hid her discomfort. She had been so used to seeing everything and anything for the past five years that suddenly finding her Chakra Radar limited was something she didn’t appreciate at all – but, she also didn’t want to worry her father.

“Stop, daddy… I can’t see exactly what it is… but there’s something beneath your feet. It’s awkward. It doesn’t follow the lay of the rest of the land. It’s as if it was built around or hidden away. I can’t see inside of it though. My Chakra Radar won’t allow me… it’s like hitting a… a blind spot.”

Oh? That might be interesting to check out, then. Ranmaru had been lagging behind a bit; climbing around on the ruins that jutted above the water and mud and black flames left from their previous romp through the village. Ah, such a fun night. Now was the time to be serious, and that bored him highly. Scampering up and over the ruins, finding bodies and survivors he could fuck around with... that was fun. It was keeping him compliant, at least. There was enough to distract him from attacking the others, or just covering the entire area in water and watching the bubbles settle. Always fun, too.

"I got it!~" His tone was sing-song, almost happy really, as he jumped from a the top of a 20 foot tall jagged wall that had once been the alley side of a major trading post type business. He was aiming for a spot that was actually decently hard packed and like normal dirt; but that meant little given he was focusing his doton natured chakra around him and outward; turning the earth instantly into liquid at the moment of impact; allowing him to basically go swimming through the earth. This was the same way he'd basically destroyed the village; his movements left behind tunnels half filled with mud and water.

Around and around he swam, clearing a path and checking out the structure; eventually finding what could be an entrance before surfacing. "Oi, door. Dive 'n, way's cleared." He went back to moving through the earth; enhancing the tunnel so they could slide through easily. He stopped back at the possible door; using a weak cast of Water trumpet to clear the dirt and such from it. Writing, strange and beyond his understanding covered the stone structure. Huh.

Wait... wasn't that a Fuuinjutsu? Or at least part of a seal he'd seen before. Weird.

"Heeeeeeeey. Place's covered 'n seals. Migh' wanna help meh clear tha' area 'fore ya try ta crack 't open, neh.~"

Jutsu/Chakra:

“Stop, daddy… I can’t see exactly what it is… but there’s something beneath your feet. It’s awkward. It doesn’t follow the lay of the rest of the land. It’s as if it was built around or hidden away. I can’t see inside of it though. My Chakra Radar won’t allow me… it’s like hitting a… a blind spot.”

Mitsuo had never come across anything that his daughter couldn't see before and that in itself was cause for concern. As he looked towards Ranmaru behind him he noticed that their ally was no longer there, wondering where he had gotten off to and then hearing him yell towards he and his daughter; "Heeeeeeeey. Place's covered 'n seals. Migh' wanna help meh clear tha' area 'fore ya try ta crack 't open, neh.~"

"I know nothing of Fuuinjutsu..." He said with an irritated voice as he made his way into the temple, noticing some of the places where the seals were on the walls. Now that was interesting, and quite inconvenient. He had no interest in setting off one of these seals but he also had no interest in being completely useless. Instead of sitting back and doing nothing, Mitsuo created 5 shadow clones, each one moving towards where they would find a seal on the wall and using shape control to mold chakra into a ball in their right hands. They would each press the balls of chakra to the wall at the same time, attacking whatever seals these were and destroying the stone that they were carved into. Unfortunately for Mitsuo, or at least for his clones, the seals were set to explode, much like an exploding tag, and once the clones attacked them each of the five detonated, destroying each of his shadow clones in one fell explosion.

“Huh, well I suppose I should leave all of this fancy seal stuff up to you two then…”

Shadow Clones:

Rasengan:

Chakra:

Kaia's head tilted slightly to the left as she heard Ranmaru speak: his words made her believe that they had indeed stumbled across the hidden temple - what other reason would some buried place have seals that would need cracked? She was interested to see such a place, especially knowing that it had likely been a very long time since anyone had ever stepped foot into it: it was like a gift long forgotten on a shelf suddenly being found and opened up - at least to someone like her with the heart of an adventurer as well as a warrior. Of course, as she followed closely behind her father, all of this was very, very quickly forgotten.

It was like suddenly stepping back in time five whole years, back into the grave. As she entered the temple, entered the earth itself, she found herself able to see no further than what was directly around her: the rest of the world seemed to just disappear into non-existance, as if it were simply snuffed out like a candle being put out after a long burn. This caused her breath to catch, a gasp of a sound escaping her as her mind flew back to all of those years ago...

'Please... someone let me out...' She could feel herself clawing at the world around her: trapped underneath of the ground and buried. Buried alive. The pain of her regeneration still lingered, but the suffocation surround her was more of a real threat: it caused her to claw at her surroundings until her fingers cracked and bled. 'Let me out, LET ME OUT'. No answer, nothing but silence. Silence and darkness. Death had claimed her and released her just to take her back in its grasp once more: like a sadistic evil yoyo, she was being toyed with. She was the toy... 'Daddy.. please...', her thoughts drowning out even the explosions that went off as her father attempted to Rasengan the seals.

Kaia forced herself out of her own thoughts, suddenly aware of the sweat that had broken out along her forehead and which was running down and causing the cloth that protected her eyes to become wet. Even her hands, which on any day in any battle could wield a weapon steadily just as they had done not that long ago, were shaking violently. She clasped them together as if hoping that that would somehow stop their shaking, but it was a lost cause. "I can't see... In here. I can't see... more than a few feet.", she whispered softly, unsure at this point if her voice was even loud enough to be heard. It was all she could do to hold back the suffocating feeling and the memories that wished to slam into her psyche and devour her once more like some sort of sick and twisted Genjutsu: only this nightmare was entirely real. The only reason she didn't flee in terror was simply because her father needed something here and her loyalty to him was stronger than the fear that was strangling her at that very moment.

Oh, that was delightful. No really; he loved the feel of a good explosion in the morning. Or whatever time it was. Given all the smoke and the flames and the clouds and blargle in the air, the sky was blocked and the light was dim; so it could be high noon and he'd never know. Anyway, removing himself from the wall, right. That was a thing. That blast from the seals breaking was enough to send him several feet back and into the solid earth he hadn't been tunneling into; very much resembling those old cartoons of the dog-thing getting smacked into a wall and leaving behind an indentation/cave of his form cause the force of the impact shattered rock. Heeeeee.~~~

"Let's go again! Let's go again!"

Weeeeee!~

Okay, so time to get some level of shit done. Pulling himself out of his, rather comfortable actually, cave was easy enough; and he merely lifted himself up to the surface for a second and grabbed for anything that was solid and longer than a hand; finding fairly quickly a bit of re-bar still encrusted with concrete and bricks and brought it down with him. "INCOMING!"

With a mighty swing of the re-bar, he began pounding on the exposed wall for the shits and giggles. He didn't much care if he could get through the stone, he just felt like beating shit silly.

Until the wall was moving.

Wat.

What Ranmaru had missed was that he'd hit a small trigger in the wall; hidden as another stone covered in writing that made zero sense to any of them. With the trigger hit, the 'door' was sliding open, pulling to the side to expose an open chamber full of dark and dank. Yaaaaay.

"Oh. I accidentally'd a door. Woops. So, yeah. An'one got a torch?"

Mitsuo watched as the clones the wall crumbled away after his clones had exploded them, smiling softly and not regretting the large hit to his chakra pool. He could feel himself getting excited that he was approaching the goal that he had set out to accomplish.He looked behind him as his daughter was clearly afraid being in an element that she wasn't at all used to and he picked her up and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on to her with one of his arms as the other one continued to clutch the Sword of the Immortal Blaze. When Ranmaru asked for a torch, Mitsuo lifted his sword and dragged the tip across the wall, lighting the major overgrow of roots on fire to help to create makeshift torches.

"Is that sufficient for you?" He said as he continued walking down the hallway, hoping that he wouldn't run into anymore seals as he had no idea how to deal with them. He would have to have Kaia deal with them if they approached one and he could instead work out the maze of tunnels that they were crawling through. Mitsuo didn't like being underground for the most part, and he wasn't enjoying their trek down here. He couldn't wait for it to be over and for them to come across what they needed. "The cloak can't be too far, it's supposed to be in the center of the temple. Ranmaru are you able to scout ahead at all and try to find it?"

“I’m sorry, daddy…”, she whispered softly on his ear as she picked her up and put her on his back. She felt bad, ashamed in a way that he had to carry her as such: she should be strong enough for a situation like this, but alas, she wasn’t. The earth wasn’t easy to penetrate like the air was above. Even buildings she could look through when on the surface. But down here… even with the light her father just created she still felt blind: trapped. However, as she kept her head now resting on his back, focusing on what she could at least, she found herself relaxing.

The tension in her body eased away and it became easier to see the world around her – or at least as easy as it could be. She could see what anyone else could see and yet it wasn’t enough for her, not when she was used to seeing so far. It was… suffocating to say the least.

“These seals look old… “, she commented, frowning slightly as she thought about what she had seen. “Like no one has been in here for a very long time. Like this place was forgotten. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were other things like traps in our way, or at least more seals… I can help, so long as I can see them.” Yes, because she was calmer now, not freaking out, not feeling like she was suffocating. The nearness of her father had cleared her head, and got her thinking rationally.

"...Ranmaru are you able to scout ahead at all and try to find it?"

Scout? Like... track? He could do that. He was a good tracker! He had to be, after all; he tracked beasts that shouldn't exist for the shits and giggles. That didn't mean his methods where normal, sane, or even worked; there was an element of luck that seemed to highly favor the psychopath when he did things like this. Even with the fairly low ceiling, roughly nine feet or so, he leaped up until the crown of his skull brushed the stone ceiling while bringing his feet up toward his trunk and shifted his weight so that he was falling forward and into a somersault; only he didn't stop after one rotation, or two; hitting the floor and continuing to spin like a video game blue hedgehog; racing down the center of the hallway at a respectable speed. Oh, he could have run faster, but that was no fun.

And given how low to the ground he was moving; he missed getting pinged by a fair number of the classical arrow and wall collapse traps; tendrils of cloth shooting from the spinning ball of his body to keep him from falling into pit traps and allowing him to swing across like a wrecking ball. He kept going until he hit the far wall, smacking it so hard that he broke the rusted hinges that would have locked it from swinging forward and just knocking it over entirely. Yep, that worked.

"Soooooo.~ Tha's clear. Ish. Maybe. Dunno 'bout tha' ceilin' though." He was just spinning on the knocked over door like physics didn't matter. Which, given who it was, the laws of such probably didn't. He was far enough ahead of the flames from that... holyfuckhewantedthatsword; that he couldn't see clearly. Not that he could anyway, what with the spinning and all; but it was too dark to make out much of the chamber ahead either way. "Brin' tha' fire blade up 'ere, yo. Also, ken I gnaw on it? I wanna taste fire..."

Mitsuo watched as the scene unfolded in front of him, still not knowing much about Ranmaru’s methods, but also being quite impressed by the fact that his rather unorthodox style and methods had managed to avoid him getting hit by any of the traps he had activated on his way down the hall. The Uchiha chuckled to himself as he watched trap after trap fly right over top of the ball of shinobi that was wandering down the hallway. Eventually he slammed into what Mitsuo assumed, and hoped, was a door as they heard a loud crash and the wall had a hole in it that hadn’t been there previously. He heard the psychotic shinobi speak, requesting to gnaw on his Sword of the Immortal Blaze, and he had a puzzled look on his face.

You should let him do it, let him kill himself out of curiosity. Then you won’t have to worry about a knife in your back…
Shut up Nii-san, Ranmaru hasn’t given me any reason to distrust him. He’s like a harmless puppy…who eats children…

He checked to make sure that Kaia was firmly on his back before making his way down the hallway once more, dragging his sword along the vines on the walls to create more makeshift torches and approaching the psychotic shinobi. As he got towards him he could see the inside of the doorway, first looking towards Ranmaru and placing the sword back near the ground. “I’m sorry my friend, but if you were to chew on this you’d probably end up dead, and you mean too much to me to allow that to happen.” He smiled softly before entering the doorway to the room, which appeared to be a large sanctuary. This was clearly where the relic should be, though he didn’t see anything obvious. As he scanned the massive circular room, he looked for anything that may be like a trap door or a lever that would open such a thing, not having too much luck, but knowing there had to be something around.

“Kaia, sweetie? Are you able to search for a hidden door for daddy?” He was hoping that her chakra radar would allow her to see in the room, as he imagined that there would be a hidden door on the floor that would bring them into a room below, the treasure room that most temples seemed to be outfitted with, as if the monks and priests really needed all of the things they stashed there.

You could make a killing here, eh? It would be enough to make you set for life and fund your mission a thousand times over.
You know Nii-san, for once I don’t disagree with you…We need to find it first though, and for that we need Kaia.

Her head tilted a bit to the right at Ranmaru's odd but effective behavior: a small slip of a giggle escaping her. She heard him go barreling into something that after a moment she realized had been a door - though seeing it all had been a different matter. And then they were moving again and she found herself wondering, as she got a piggy back ride on her father, what lay ahead for them to find. This place obviously hadn't been touched in years and she was curious as to how big it would be and what sort of secrets it held. And then Ranmaru was asking if he could gnaw on her father's sword and her head cocked to the other side: the man truly had to be insane - if not eating children and going on about spinal candy hadn't been evidence enough.

Kaia, as they entered into the sanctuary area, could feel her chakra radar expanding once more and let out a soft sigh of relief as it felt more comfortable in this room than to be able to see only a few feet in any given direction like she had been before. However, she didn't let this feeling distract her, as she kept herself focused.

At her father's question she nodded and then took a deep calming and focusing breath, expanding her chakra and taking in the entire area around her. There was a great deal of detail on the walls and on the ceiling, and the place was covered in cobwebs and dust. She focused herself past the furniture and statues within the room while looking for anything that could be seen as out of place. On her first scan she missed it and a frown formed on her face: it had to be there, she just hadn't seen it. And so on her second scan, something that took only another few seconds she finally spotted it: an odd space underneath of an alter looking area that was made out of heavy stone: obviously not meant to be thought movable. As she focused harder, really pulling her attention onto it, she noticed that there were metal hooks that were attached to the floor and which hooked into the stone itself to further lock it to the spot: however, these hooks looked like they could be retracted if a proper button was pushed.

And so she pulled her senses out even further, searching for something that could possibly look like a switch to perhaps move this giant chunk of beautiful stone. At first she didn't spot anything out of the ordinary and then she saw it, four torches up on the left side, all of which looked metal: the fourth's designs were different than the rest but in such subtle ways that unless someone was truly looking for a difference they wouldn't have spotted it easily.

"There is an area underneath of that alter up there. However, it seems to require a switch tripped to move as it's locked with metal hooks. There's a torch, fourth one up on the left, whose designs are different than the rest. I believe if you pull that it'll activate the locks and force them to unlock and the stone to be moved.", she said finally, confidently.

Hn? Lever you say? Well then, that was boring. He wanted to destroy more shit, have more fun. Baw. Oh well,  he'd just have to nuke the place later, or something. No point leaving the structure standing when they were done, right? Right?

Okay!

Out shot tendrils of cloth from his still spinning form; he rather liked how the world looked from this perspective, all fuzzy and random and dizzy and weeeeeeeeeee!

FOCUS!

Right. Focus. On what? Where am I?

SNAP!

TURTLES!

"HAHAHAHA! Turtles..."

SNAP

Was that a flying crocodile?

"PULL THE LEVER KRONK!"

Insert lever yank.

"WRONG LEVEEEEEEER!"

And now with the falling. Roughly 30ft to be exact, right into what could have been a river or stream meandering through the room at one time.

"Let's go again! Let's go again!"

Much dark. No light. Fail.

"Toss a brotha a fireball, yo. Darker'n all fuck down here."