Log: Complete

[taciturnshinobi.livejournal.com]

When; Yesterday night
Rating; PG?
Characters; Akesato [gaijin_kunoichi] and Susumu [taciturnshinobi]
Summary; Akesato and Susumu head down to the Underworld to do a little exploring.
Log; Leaving the Shinsengumi headquarters unnoticed was hardly a challenge for Susumu. The other members were used to his sudden disappearances and appearances, and even then, he took care when leaving to disturb as few people as possible. Nothing changed on the second floor of the building as he slipped out a window and crept upwards toward the roof.

Flipping onto the top, the shinobi cast a glance about him before straightening. Unless Akesato had taken extra care to hide herself for reasons unknown, Susumu had arrived before she had. Then again, it was to be expected, considering that she actually had to think up excuses to disappear.

Arms crossed over his chest, Susumu turned around to look over the city. He had already explored most of it, but he had yet to visit the Underworld, his planned destination for the night. The place was still filled with mystery, and if the rumors were correct, far more danger than the surface world offered. His eyes narrowed slightly, as his fingers tightened around his arm.

He was going to become a great shinobi. Susumu wasn’t going to let a few monsters let his sister die in vain.

"Oh, good... you're here already." Akesato stepped lightly onto the roof, brushing her blonde hair out of her face, and smirked at the younger shinobi. "Didn't make you wait, did I? I had to get away from Nagakura. Good to see that you're not babbling incoherently, by the way."

Surveying the city, she turned back to Susumu, raising an eyebrow. "So? What's our destination for tonight? I assume you've done some looking around already."

“Not especially,” Susumu answered in reply, glancing over his shoulder at the woman. A faint smirk tugged at his lips, but it disappeared quickly as he fully turned around to face Akesato. “And did you actually think I’d be left gibbering like an idiot?”

Susumu quirked an eyebrow in return and padded over to the opposite side of the roof, raising a hand to point in that direction. “I’ve already explored most of the city, so the only part that I haven’t explored yet is the Underworld.

“I’ve heard that monsters reside there, and while there are other things below the surface, that’s my primary concern.” The shinobi looked at Akesato. “There’s a chance that an exit will exist in the place that’s the hardest to reach.”

"I'd hoped you wouldn't, at least," Akesato replied, laughing. "I never know with you, do I, Yamazaki?"

"Monsters, huh?" Akesato glanced in the direction Susumu was pointing, narrowing her eyes at the mass of neon lights in the distance. "Well, any place called the Underworld is bound to be fun. Let's keep tonight purely scouting, okay? I'm sure there're more tricks in that place than we can count."

“I hadn’t intended on doing anything else either,” he murmured in response. Susumu made a small gesture with his hand for them to move out, and with that, he took off, dark form leaping from rooftop to rooftop. It felt a little odd running alongside someone he had so long considered an enemy, but then again, the times did change.

Again, the shinobi made a sign with his hand before making a sharp left and diving downwards. Susumu grabbed hold of a ledge a short distance later before continuing across the rooftops, stopping every now and then to take in his surroundings. It wasn’t particularly necessary here and now, but it was an old habit that was probably best left unbroken.

“That’s the main way down.” Susumu pointed at what appeared to be a long tunnel descending into the ground. A train carried the average human down to the Underworld, but it would probably be a bit too obvious for the two ninja. “Our first objective would be to find a less obvious way in… unless you want to take the train down.” He paused. “I’m sure there’s a more pedestrian way to get down there…”

"The train, huh..." Akesato leaned over the rooftop, studying the train as it barreled down the seemingly endless stretch of track and dipped into the tunnel.

"Though I'm sure everyone here's used to strange sights, we don't know who'd be watching us on that train." A grin flitted across her face. "We could try walking through the tunnel, if you're feeling lucky."

Susumu couldn’t help but be a little surprised at the other’s statement. Go through the tunnel on foot? What was she thinking?! He quickly squashed the emotion, however, settling his face into its usual expressionless position. “Lucky?” he muttered. “A shinobi shouldn’t have to rely on luck to get things done.”

Not wanting to be outdone, he took off first, making a beeline toward the tunnel. As he got closer, he hid in the shadows, tightly pressing his form against the walls. Once sure that no one would spot them, Susumu knelt and pressed a hand to the ground. The reverberations caused by the train were slowly fading, and it didn’t seem like anything was coming their way at the moment. “Shall we be off?”

Akesato laughed, taking off down the tunnel. "Better hurry. I don't know how fast those trains come."

As Susumu matched her pace next to her, she sighed heavily, dropping the arrogant smirk. Though she'd casually laughed off Susumu's remark about monsters earlier, but the idea was slowly working its way through her stomach. 'Monsters' was such a subjective term... anyone would brush it off as a child's fear. What exactly were they going to find at the end of the tunnel?

She stopped briefly as the tremors under her feet grew a bit stronger. "Better hurry."

“Che. You just make sure you don’t fall behind,” Susumu replied, smirk appearing for just a second before disappearing once more. He could feel the ground shake under his feet now, and the pebbles on the ground were bouncing up and down like little rubber balls. “It’s catching up.”

His shadow was starting to change with the approach of the train, and the shinobi chanced a glance over his shoulder. That turned out to be a bad idea. It was right there, right behind them. Susumu froze for a second, breath hitching, as his eyes grew wide at the approaching train.

It was all over. The light from the train was blinding him, and then…

Something inside him seemed to click into place, and Susumu felt himself leap into the air, back arcing as he slid to a sloppily stop on top of the train.

"See? We /are/ lucky!" Akesato sat beside him, crosslegged, looking disheveled but grinning like a madwoman. "You awake now, Yamazaki?"

Still, she knew it had been close for both of them, not just the younger shinobi. She wouldn't admit it, but she'd grown a little rusty, too. She wouldn't let it hinder her, though, and she certainly wouldn't show Susumu any signs of doubt.

The younger man pressed a hand to his chest, not saying a word until his breath evened out. Susumu glanced over at Akesato; did the other really… enjoy that experience? Her smile told one story, but her appearance seemed to say something else. True, she hadn’t landed in a near tangle of limbs, but she didn’t look much better for the wear than he did.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, arms moving to cross protectively over his chest. Susumu glanced over his shoulder, watching as the stars and sky disappeared from view. “Since we’re already here, I guess we’ll just ride down to the Underworld.”

"Works," Akesato sang, attempting to make herself slightly comfortable without flying off the train. "We'll get there faster this way, and no one will see us."

She sat in silence for a moment, drumming her fingers against the surface of the train and frowning. "Hey... do you think they're all here? The dead people, I mean."

Susumu settled his gaze back on the other shinobi, brow creasing slightly. So she was interested in the dead as well? He shrugged his shoulders lightly before looking away. “I’m not sure. I have been looking for someone who died, but I haven’t been able to find…”

He fell silent, not finishing his sentence. The other was no idiot, and he had little doubt that she knew exactly what he was talking about. Susumu was uncomfortable enough with it that he didn’t even like discussing it with his comrades, so it was no surprise he had even less desire to bring it up with someone he barely knew.

"I see." She drew her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her kneecaps, debating on whether to respond or not. She did, indeed, know who he was talking about - she'd mocked his uselessness over the woman's body, after all. She'd only realized later that kids like that weren't dissuaded by simple insults; it usually fueled them.

"I think she'll find you, first," she said, without thinking. "She doesn't seem like the kind of woman that lets herself be found."

Susumu turned his head sharply to look back at Akesato. He blinked once, twice. “Find me first,” he murmured, forgetting to hide the surprised expression on his face. “…and not to be found.”

Again, he looked away, eyes absentmindedly following the lines of pipes running down the tunnel. Ayumu was a better ninja than he was, and she could probably hide from him without his notice with ease. His hand slowly closed into a fist, as he found himself angry at what a pitiful shinobi he had been and still was once more. “If she’s here,” he muttered, voice taking on a defiant edge. “I’ll find her.”

"There, now." Akesato's lips twitched into a smile. "That's a good a way to think of it as any, I guess." Well, if Susumu could commit himself so strongly to that... surely she could, too.

"Ah... we're slowing down." Uncurling herself, she tensed, ready to jump off the train as soon as they stopped. But as the train rolled to a halt and they exited the tunnel, she felt her jaw drop, and she squinted at the neon lights that assaulted her eyes. "This... is it?"

The Underworld certainly didn’t live up to its name.

He had been expecting something more akin to a graveyard, but this? Susumu raised a hand to shield his eyes before grabbing Akesato and pulling her into a shadowed alleyway. “…this isn’t what I was expecting.”

Peering around the corner once more, he glanced over at the brightly lit streets and shook his head. This place deserved to be called a center of sin more than the underworld, what with the different types of attractions it offered. As he continued to observe, however, Susumu spotted something oddly shaped squirming on the ground toward the buildings.

“Well, they were right about the monsters,” he murmured, settling back against the wall. The shinobi looked over at the woman, a single eyebrow raised. “What’s next?”

"Well, first of all..." Akesato jerked her head at the fire escape next to them. "Let's get someplace where we can get more perspective."

Bounding up the staircase, she swung herself onto the roof, the younger shinobi following close behind her. She surveyed their surroundings, her eyes lingering on the two busiest-looking attractions: a macabre circus and a pulsating nightclub. "You'd think if there was anything of interest there, someone would've realized it by now," she mused out loud. "Unless they're too drunk to care."

“Unless it’s so well hidden that you have to search every square inch of this place to find it.” He stepped toward the edge of the roof, looking over the edge at the street down below. His eyes then swept down the road before rising up to meet the black mess that hung above the Underworld.

Susumu hopped over to the next rooftop and looked around once more. The light was blinding, the noise near unbearable, and the fact that this wasn’t what he was expected were grating on his nerves. What would an exit from this city look like? A portal? A door? Nothing at all? There were too many possibilities to explore!

"You think those things are meant to guard the exit, maybe?" Akesato gestured to the monsters on the street below, frowning. "I can't see what purpose they'd serve otherwise... and why are those people so willing to risk getting close to them just to go out dancing?" She ran a hand through her hair roughly, groaning. "Is it just me, or is everything here completely pointless?"

“I heard that they weren’t always here. Kaen unleashed them one day and kept a few down here for personal amusement,” he replied with a light shrug. Susumu knelt down and watched as a monster crawled across the ground below. Pulling out a kunai, he threw it down, the blade going through the thing cleanly and planting itself into the ground. “I agree. Few things here seem to make sense.

“It’s as if the city is here simply to drive its citizens mad either quickly or very slowly.”

"I'd rather it be sooner than later," Akesato grumbled, pacing. "Some shinobi we are, huh..." With an irritated tug of her hair, she seemed to square her shoulders, taking a deep breath. "Want to pick a place to start? Your guess is as good as mine."

The woman’s words rang in his ears, as once again, stabs of self-loathing struck him. Susumu shook his head and stood back up, turning to face Akesato. “I doubt anything of interest is located where all the people are,” he said, eyes shifting over to the blinding lights. “I say we take a look at the darkest corner we can find.

“We may not find anything, but I would assume there’s a higher chance of an unseen exit there than anywhere else.”

"One dark corner, coming right up," Akesato sang, twirling a kunai around her finger. "Maybe we'll even run into one of those monsters... it'll liven things up a little, at least." Grinning, she leapt off the rooftop, bouncing to the next without breaking a sweat.

After a few minutes, Akesato and Susumu had left the neon lights behind them, flying above rows decrepit buildings until it was too dark to see the ground anymore. "Good a place as any to start," she said, shrugging.

Susumu glanced around them, eyes straining to make out something in their pitch-black surroundings. It was a rather pointless exercise, so he switched gears and made an attempt to listen to every little sound that drifted by them. Dropping down to the ground next to the other, he brushed past her, arm gently knocking into hers as he walked past.

“What should we be looking for? A door? Some magical portal?” he murmured, hands running up and down the wall of the building he couldn’t see in front of him. They ran into something slimy, and Susumu pulled it away and sniffed at his fingers; it was blood and fresh at that. He frowned and went back to walking along the wall. “There may be a monster in the vicinity. Watch your back.”

"I probably couldn't find my back in a place like this," she mumbled, running her hands up and down the wall. "We should have brought a lighter or--"

Akesato's foot caught under something heavy, and she tumbled face-first into the dusty ground. Cursing, she untangled herself from the obstruction, groping blindly for solid ground, and her heart skipped a beat as her hand touched cold flesh. "Yamazaki. Someone wasn't quite so lucky."

Turning to the sound of her voice, his body tensed at her words. Walking slowly in the direction that he had come, Susumu shuffled forward, waiting for his feet to catch against the body Akesato was talking about. Several steps later, he ran into it, and slowly, he lowered himself down the ground, hand still running along the bloody wall.

“I wonder how long it’s been since this person was killed,” he murmured, fingers running up and down the dead woman’s – was it a woman? Ah, yes it was – body. There seemed to be some rather large gash on her person, but without any lighting, Susumu couldn’t figure anything out beyond that.

That fire jutsu sounded really nice right about now.

“Should we go back to get some light?” he asked, rising once more. Susumu was just about to wipe the blood off his hands when there was a clang from behind him. “…what was that?”

"I don't know..." Akesato stood, brushing herself off. "But we're not going to find a thing if we can't see. Let's get a lantern or something, and..." She stopped, frowning, as she felt something cold close another her ankle. "... tell me that's you."

“I’m not touching anything other than the wall,” he answered. Susumu shifted, switching hands on the wall as his right went to close around the hilt of his sword. He drew it out slowly, wanting to create as little noise as possible.

He could just start slicing at anything and everything around him, but as Akesato was somewhere nearby, he had little choice but to stand still. “I can’t attack without putting you at risk. You’ll have to take care of it yourself.”

"N-No problem..." Pulling out her kunai, Akesato raised it high as she felt a cold, wet sensation traveling up her leg, and stabbed blindly, cringing when she heard a dull squelch. Panicking for a moment, she kicked at it, gritting her teeth as her foot sank into it. "Ugh... it's squishy.

A look of disgust passed briefly over Susumu’s features at the squishy sound. He had seen some monsters in other parts of the city before, but he had to wonder if the ones here were any different. Disgusting images of half-rotten, soggy monsters came to mind, and he closed his eyes, as if by doing so the images would disappear. If only they had light, things would be so much easier…

“Let’s go get some light before anything else comes to attack us,” he muttered. Susumu sheathed his sword, exchanging it for a kunai instead, and leapt into the air. He silently hoped that he wouldn’t run into a wall or overhang, and thankfully, when he landed, he could just barely make out a tiny light speck in the distance. “You doing alright, wherever you are?”

"I'm fine..." Akesato shuddered, wiping at the remnants of slime on her leg. "At least all they are is disgusting. Where are you?" As she moved forward, she heard a dull growl from the alleyway below them and froze. "... let's go. In case that thing has a mother or something."

Cocking his head in the direction of her voice, Susumu made his way over with his arms outstretched. He clumsily bumped into her but managed to grab her wrist in the process. “There you are,” he mumbled. “Let’s go then.”

It was odd, holding onto her like that, but until they got to an area where it was light enough to see each other, he kept his hand wrapped around her wrist. He stopped on an empty roof, eyes gratefully welcoming the gaudy lighting from a short distance away, and looked over at Akesato. “See any lanterns we could snatch?”

"Let's see..." Reaching below them, Akesato snagged one of the chintzy Chinese lanterns off of the overhang, smiling slightly as she saw that the candles inside them were battery-operated. "These should work," she said, waving it.

Susumu grabbed one for himself and stared at the batteries. So this is what technology was to become, hm? He quirked a brow but said nothing further on the matter. Turning his back on the lighted scene, the shinobi stared out into the black abyss that awaited them.

“And it’s back to work we go,” he muttered as he took off again, the lantern in one hand and a kunai in the other. “Let’s just hope these things don’t run out of power.”

"Well, if it's this place, they probably stay on forever, or something equally bizarre..." Akesato shrugged, smiling slightly. "Probably, anyway."

"Oh, and Yamazaki?" Akesato winked, clinking her lantern against his. "Do me a favor and try not to get eaten, ne?" And with that, the two shinobi shot off the rooftops and back into the shadows.