Starring:
Katama, Yuuto
Date: January 28, 2014
Summary:
Captured and the fight for freedom
"Ghosts of the Past"
Canyon caverns
Katama carries Yuuto out of the cavern and quickly takes a side route, too small for the scorpion to follow. She tucks him up against the wall so the poison has a farther way to go to reach his heart. Lucky for both of them the poison was mostly a paralytic, designed to stop the prey from moving much like a spider's venom. The gash itself bled freely and Katama shook her head, swearing as she dug in her bag for that blanket she'd brought and her extra shirt. She presses the shirt tight against the wound to help stop the bleeding before covering Yuuto with the blanket. "Hauntit.." She knew she should go for help but she hated leaving him here unconscious.. Working up enough intelligent thought to shove her panic and guilt down long enough to think straight she presses a soft kiss to Yuuto's forehead and turns, heading back toward the main passageway aiming to get help but she hears footfalls and words as she approaches the entrance. At first she is elated, the voices meant people and she needed help. But /what/ they were saying comes to her ears and she frowns. There were three of them.
"Did you see them come this way?"
"Yes. that monster's in here too so be careful."
"We just need Yuuto, kill the girl if you have to."
Katama freezes and narrows her eyes, backing into the darkness a bit and holding still as the three walk past her…
"Search the side passages too if you have to."
That got a reaction from katama… She backed up entirely back to Yuuto's side. She stripped off the main pieces of her armor, leaving her in just leather and silk before she carefully, in a very focused way, runs through the hand signs for Henge. There was now 2 Yuutos int he passage. Katama rests her hand on Yuuto's head for a moment and walks straight out of the passageway, making sure to attract the attention of the men in the caves with them. To which she turns on her heel and bolts for the exit, leading them away from the wounded Yuuto…
About a half hour after falling unconscious, Yuuto would finally stir, blinking a few times as he pushes himself up into a sitting position. He glances down at the blanket, somewhat surprised he's alive, much less actually laying here with a blanket and with his wound wrapped. Looking around quickly for Katama, his eyes go wide for a moment before turning crimson as he scans the area around him, finally spotting a man's chakra nearby the scorpion they were fighting earlier. Clenching a fist, he pushes himself up and walks out of the narrow crevase, using his hand to hold him up as he moves toward the man trying to get control over the creature. Once out of the narrow spot, he grabs a scroll from his back with the free hand, opening it up to have a wing black lion pop out of it and kneel down for him to sit down on it. He then grabs a brush and draws a quick message that pops off the page and forms into a black bird to fly out of the cavern toward Sunagakure to let someone know what's going on. "… Where is she?" he asks himself in a low voice as he glances around, currently spotting no trace of Katama. With a sigh, he turns toward the direction of where the man and the scorpion are. Looks like he has to go back that way to find out…
It had taken some time for the man to yank out the broken blade of Katama's sword from the monster's armor plating, nearly getting snapped in half for his troubles. Finally the plume of smoke erupts as the creature is sent back to its own realm and the man turns around to exit the cavern. When he sees Yuuto on the back of an ink lion he stops and blinks. "I thought we'd captured you?" Still it made little difference to the man, he would try to take Yuuto alone if he had to and he looked wounded too so it shouldn't be hard. "where's your little friend when you need her?" The man laughs harshly as he stalks toward Yuuto…
Yuuto waits until the creature has been unsummoned before making a sound, almost smirking when he's noticed until he hears the man's words. Captured?… Considering there was only one other shinobi in the caves with him, it had to have been Katama they captured. Suddenly, a rage would come over his face through the haziness, no fear on his face as the man approaches, despite his wounds. "… Fear," his voice commands harshly as a Genjutsu attempts to take over the man's mind and force him into submission, despite whatever upper hand he may have. "Tell me where they took the other me if you want your death to be anything near quick."
The man's laugh is cut short when Yuuto casts the genjutsu and though the man is sent to his knees, shaking in fear, he has the fortitude to scowl at Yuuto. He acted like this wasn't the first time he'd been subjected to a genjutsu of that kind. Yuuto's question is fought but ultimately answered in a way. The man tells Yuuto of a small cave nearby that was used for short term shelter, thier orders had been to bring Yuuto there and hand him over to more… experienced.. men. The reason for this is not devulged. But the man makes a final play for his life. "Let me go and I'll tel them they got the wrong person!"
"Oh, sure. Tell them to get out of the area with her while they've got leverage over me while you're at it," Yuuto says with a shake of his head. "Don't worry. You'll see them and my father soon… When they meet you in Hell." With that, the lion's wings would shoot four feathers out at the man, which turn into snakes to bind him down, followed by the lion leaping forward to knock the man down and snap its jaws down on his head to remove it. That done, he would turn to dart out of the cavern and over to the cave described, eyes narrowing as he rides. More experienced men… That means Katama is in the hands of thugs who could be Jounin level at least… A suicide ride… He grabs his scroll again, quickly making another message that flies out as a bird toward Sunagakure before he begins to approach the mouth of the cave…
The man's death is quick, he offers little resistance as the snakes bind him down and the lion takes off his head. The cave isn't far, though he was right in believing the more experienced men would be trouble. Lucky for Yuuto (physically anyway) there's no one left at the cave. There's footprints in the sand and in one spot there's marks like slender legs had been kneeling there for a while. Close to the leg prints is a ripped strip of black silk like Katama wears under her leather armor, the only sign that it had been her and not someone else. By the tine Yuuto finds this, however, the guards are already on thier way, arriving shortly after Yuuto himself and they're far more concerned with Yuuto's wounds. One actually tries to order him to come back to the village for aid. "We'll continue searching, you need a healer!"
As he finds only scraps of Katama's clothing, Yuuto's mind starts to whirl around about what could be going on. The shinobi that arrive find Yuuto in a rage, despite his wounds, Sharingan scanning for any clues of where they may have taken her. The guy trying to order him to go back receives a heated crimson glare. "You better get one on the way to meet up because I'm not leaving her out there! If they figure out that it's not me they've got, they'll kill her and leave her corpse in the desert!" With that, the lion would shift its form into that of a massive bird that lifts off into the air to make a circle and try to spot any trace of Katama or the men that took her.
The guard jumps and takes a step backwards as Yuuto turns that crimson glare on him. He'd only been trying to help the crazy poltergeist but it seemed he was intent on searching until he found the missing girl or he killed himself. So be it, the guard thinks, watching the ink bird fly Yuuto into the sky, though he does send word back for a medic to come quickly and keeps a scout watching Yuuto's bird fromt eh ground so they would know where to send the poor med-nin.
From the air, Yuuto would see very little, not suprisingly he wasn't the only shinobi who could move through the ground. There's a break in the sand where a good amount of deeper rock has come up through the sand, though, in the direction of the canyons. Perhaps they had already found that Katama wasn't Yuuto…. By the edge of the hold in the ground is Katama's satchel, still marked with Yuuto's blood…
As he spots the hole, Yuuto would swoop down to inspect the hole. His eyes narrow a bit as he brings his hands into a seal, the bird shedding about a dozen feathers that take on the form of rats as they fall down into the hole and begin moving along it toward the way canyons. He grabs the satchel on the ground before the bird takes back into the air to follow their path.
Meanwhile, the false Yuuto is surrounded by a group of Scarecrow's thugs, one burrowing through the ground toward the canyons and their hideout to lead the way and clear the path for the others to walk. They don't really speak to her much, once in a while talking smack to each other about how they're completing their mission and how it'll be time to move ahead once they get where they're going.
The satchel is snatched up and inside is a few items that Katama had brought for the picnic such as the double bento she had bought in the market place. Inside the bag is also a note. Written in blood by the looks of it, but it was not from Scarecrow or the abductors. It was from Katama. In it she asked whoever found the satchel and the note to be sure Yuuto was found and his wounds healed. She also gave details about the men that ultimately took her to begin with, though that was old news to Yuuto. She ended the note with her name and the symbol 'Ai' beside 'oni-hime'. It was the only part of the letter diected at Yuuto should he find it, a declaration of feelings alongside the nickname he'd given her.
In the tunnel, Katama was being pulled along with little resistance. She knew that her Henge was rough at best, she had barely mastered the molding of chakra for the jutsu before she'd been given the rank of Chuunin. At the cave she had torn a small piece of her under robe and left it behind, like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, but in order to keep the Henge and the illusion going, she had to cooperate with the men. At first she'd thought that after a certain amount of time she could just fight back, escape. She had judged the timing wrongly and the stronger men had shown up. Honestly, she was wondering how long they would believe that Yuuto wouldn't fight them… The second something happened to break the Hegne she felt sure they were going to kill her. So she did not fight them. The Henge had held so far.. if she was lucky they would be lax in thier awareness of her…. She waited patiently for the opportunity that never seemed to come..
Yuuto reads the note quickly as he follows along the trail led by the ink rats. His eyes show that rage still, but some sign of relief that, at least up to this point, she hasn't been discovered. She'll likely be cursed at him for not getting his wound tended to, but that is all in the future. What is right now is that he has to save her before they figure out what's going on. A blot of ink hits the ground behind him once in a while as he flies, a trail left for the guards and whoever else from the village will be following. A half-hour headstart is something fierce, but making it up shouldn't be too hard airborne. "… They want Scarecrow's monster back, huh?" he asks as he clenches the bag in his fist. "Alright…. Here comes your chance." With fury in his eyes, he looks down on the ground, searching for their chakra ahead of him in the ground.
Meanwhile, they continue to tunnel ahead, racing toward their destination while keeping an eye on the false Yuuto.
The attacking teams weren't working alone and weren't stupid. Yuuto was valuable enough for them to have lookouts in the rocks. So Yuuto's sharingan picks out the individual chakras of the sparsely spaced men in the shadows of the rock. Unfortunately, for there to already be a chase was something they had not exptected and they sent word ahead to the teach with Katama to step it up as there seemed to be something following the trail. Thus the first collection of chakra Yuuto sees — and the first people his rats encounter — are two rough looking men in the ground. Several of the rats die an inky death as they slash them with Kunai.
Ahead int he tunnel Katama hears the report of pursuers and gets nudged from behind with a FASTER order barked at her. Luckily it wasn't enough to break the henge but it was close. She closes her eyes and focuses on retaining the spell before simply obeying and speeding up….
With the bolt coming his way, it's pretty much confirmed that Yuuto has been spotted. Of course, that also means Katama may likely also be discovered… The bird zips out of the way of most of the bolts, descending until it seems it has been struck, the ink creature splattering and sending its wounded rider plummeting to the earth!… where he sinks down into it on the tunnel. With the rats having revealed the location of Katama and the others before their demise, he darts ahead, grabbing his scroll and opening it to send a wave of wolves ahead of him in the tunnels after any of Scarecrow's men who might stand between them.
With Katama's true form revealed, the men around her come to a stop now. They let themselves be fooled far longer than they should have… Their eyes lock on her, one of the men behind her trying to grab her and hold her still. "Do you really think it wise to make us look like fools and both of you die in the process?" the leader asks as he grabs a gas mask from his coat, the crew doing the same as he reaches into his coat yet again, this time grabbing a vial and holding it up in front of her. "We didn't get that much information about you last time… Let's see how you do with a second whiff of this stuff, hmm?"
The lookout is satisfied that he'd taken out the bird since Yuuto appeared to 'die' and there the lookout shows his own stupidity. In the tunnels two men left behind come up against the ink wolves. The first man dies quickly, having his throat ripped out. The second lets out a yell and slams his hands down against the ground, raising a stone barrier behind him, closing off the tunnel from the wolves and Yuuto. He fares better than the first man against the wolves. He takes a dangerous bite to his side but manages to destroy the ink creatures. He's on one knee, bleeding as Yuuto catches up to him int he tunnel.
Katama knows the second her henge wore off she was in trouble. The men come to a stop around her and she offers them a smug smirk, silently waiting for them to decide she wasn't worth the trouble. The threat that she'd get both her and Yuuto killed stabs her in the heart but she shows none of it on her face. Lifting her chin with pride she sneered at the man. "Did you honestly think Yuuto would not fight you to the death rather than be bound? You're a fool and so is your master." The introduction of the gas masks stiffens her spine and she starts twisting her hands against the ropes they're bound with behind her. She easily made the connection between the vial and the drugged drink. Calmly she speaks to the man. "And you think it wise to incapacitate me when you're being followed? Perhaps you're bigger fools than I thought."
As Yuuto comes upon the scene with one man dead and one on a knee with splattered ink all around, that look of fury still in his eyes. "Nice effort. Cute that you think it'll actually save you or them," he says as he reaches back to draw his blade, an extreme malevolent presence ringing out from him as he would go to strike the blade directly at the man's throat, wind roaring around him and pushing his blade even harder, going to step through the wall of rock as he does so and leave the man's corpse laying halfway through it if successful while he darts ahead.
"That may be a good point," the leader says, chuckling a bit and pulling a kunai from his belt as well. He holds it up to her throat then peers back and forth between the kunai and the vial. "Which to do, which to do," he says, as if merely deciding what he's going to have for dinner in deciding whether she dies or experiences a waking nightmare from the vial's contents.
The wounded man wasn't prepared for the anger in Yuuto or the presence that comes from him and his throat is cut even as he enters the wall, stuck half in and half out. Yuuto's ability to press forward through the tunnels is making the thugs nervous, though, and they send word ahead both to warn the party ahead of his arrival and allow them to set up an ambush. The shinobi then fades into the wall of the tunnel as he waits for Yuuto to pass him.
The word that the real Yuuto was comming up the tunnel would reach Katama's group shortly after. One of the men, possibly a jounin level heads to face Yuuto, hopefully capture the wounded man, but first he turns to the one taunting Katama and says, "Get her through the labrynth and in a cell /then/ drug her. I'll see if I can get our real target…" As an afterthought. "Just don't kill her yet." As a way of saying they could be rough if they felt the need, but not to kill her just yet. She might prove useful. And with that the jounin ranked criminal heads back down the tunnel in the direction of Yuuto's presence.
A few men dead, and Yuuto is just getting started on these jerks. Reaching to his back, he grabs his scroll and brush, quickly stroking the brush across the page to create a few disturbing creatures. First, a black grim reaper leaps off the page, followed by a skeleton with bone wings adorned in a tattered suit with intact eyes and claw-like finger bones then an imp, all charging ahead after the men in the tunnels.
Meanwhile, the men give a nod to the Jounin. "Taking all the fun," one says with a smirk before they'd go to bind the girl with rope and start moving down the tunnel again toward the canyons.
The jounin is waiting for Yuuto confidently in the tunnel so he is far from suprised by the shinigami and skeleton creatures that come at him. He seems able to keep up to the two creatures quite easily, nailing the skeleton with a kunai to the head in a powerful punch. He turns to the shinigami and forms several hand signs before bringing his hand to his mouth and spitting out fire bullets at the thing, alwys keeping an eye out for Yuuto's arrival. He was hell bent on bringing the boy in.
Meanwhile, Katama is bound tighter and ushered even faster into a vast labyrinth of tunnels. At first she tries to keep the turns and choices straight but thenher head starts to spin from all the confusing twists and turns. She tries to leave little clues along the way, by scoring the wall with her gauntlets, but she knew it wouldn't be allowed for long. She growls deep in her throat and stops dead, turning and bringing up her leg to kick the feet from beneathe one of the men following behind her before she tries to bolt back into the labrynth.
With the destruction of his creations, Yuuto narrows his eyes and comes upon the stronger of Scarecrow's thugs in the area. "Oh, look, they actually sent a big dog out for once," he says as he stops and steps into instance. "But you're still just a mutt. How about this? You give her back to me, and I'll let you die quick. Try to stop me, and I'll make sure it's slow." With that, he darts toward the man, drawing his sword and trying to drive it directly into his chest, wind surging around him to strengthen his strikes as he grabs a kunai from his belt while spinning to try to deliver it to the side of his face.
The jounin did not appear to be bothered by Yuuto's taunts, though he does chuckle at Yuuto's 'offer' to trade for Katama. "So she really does mean soemthing to you. Good. By the time one of us is down she'll be safely in a cell and /properly medicated/. We should learn a lot from her, too. She seems like quite a fighter, well I /would/ say that but the only resistance she has shown us so far is a glare. Maybe she wanted to run away already…." He spins and laughs as Yuuto launches his first attack, agilely avoiding both strikes then launching a powerful punch aimed for Yuuto's wound. "Just come along quietly like she did and you'll see her soon enough!" He follows up by trying to kick Yuuto in the stomach, really abusing Yuuto's main visible weakness at the moment.
Katama, however has officially pisssed off the three men she's with and when she trips one of them the other two practically jump on her before nailing her in the gut before shoving her down the tunnel ahead of them. She coughs from the blow but manages to keep her feet. It's only a few more minutes before what the Jounin had said is true and she's indeed pushed into a cell carved from the wall of the cavern.
With a pair of strikes hitting his wound, Yuuto is sent staggering back a bit, the fury showing in his eyes as he steadies himself with a grunt. "So you're one of those jackasses that actually likes working for dear old dad, huh?" he asks, eyes narrowing as he brings his hands up forming a seal then placing one at his mouth. He then breathes out a massive fireball, intending to blast him back inside the tunnel. "For every hair I find misplaced on her, I'll rip a vertebrae for your spine and shove it down your throat."
The jounin chuckles as the strikes land hard on Yuuto's wounds. And when the boy goes through his hand signs the puts his hand by his mouth, the man assumes it's a fire jutsu so he flashes through his own handsigns before disappearing. Four water clones pop into existence and meet the fireball headon, filling the tunnel with steam as the two attacks cancel eachother out. The man doesn't wait, though and he's already preparing an attack of his own, he slashes the air with his Kunai twice, sending two Wind Cutters at Yuuto in quick succession. "Yield! Or don't, I'll be entertained for a while that way!" he laughs.
Katama squirms, trying to slip the ropes binding her arms btu can't quite do it.. And then a man comes to the cell door. "Well, well. So you're the new friend… It's interesting that our little monster is so attached to you. I hear he's fighting in the tunnels as we speak.. If he just does as you did, he'll be allowed to survive." Katama glares darkly at him, her own red eyes flashing dangerously. "Ah, it's too bad your eyes are not like his… We'd spend more time on you.. but for now.. enjoy." And he tosses an open vial into the cell before walking off quickly, having no intention of breathing the stuff in himself. He would watch from the control room where they had cameras set up….
With his attack countered, Yuuto lets out a growl and brings his hands into a seal. While sinking into the ground, he is blasted back by one blade, barely missing the other. As he is struck, a trio of stone columns come up at the Jounin, one aimed directly for a vicious low-blow with intent to make him kneel over while another trio comes down from the ceiling at his head. "Yield? You must not remember me very well if you think I'm actually going to yield. Didn't you have to stop a few of my rebellions in the dungeon?"
The jounin smirks happily as one of the attacks hits. "You're slowing down, Yuuto." The entire speech about how Yuuto wouldn't just submit and be taken makes the man laugh. "Even if it would save her life in the end?" His voice is smooth, too much so. As the columns come up it seems that he's struck by one or the other since he drops into a kneeling position, but the truth is he's waiting and when Yuuto shows his face again, the man yanks up his mask just as he throws a miniature gas ball at the ground. It explodes and fills the area with toxin quickly. It's both a light hallucinagen and the trigger for the matching poison from that giant scorpion in the cave.
"Heh, guess so," Yuuto says, spitting some blood on the wall beside him. Just as he's about to strike again, the gas ball hits, and he is thrown off balance again. His mind begins to fill with nightmarish creatures, legs finally giving out. He falls down to one knee, cutting those crimson eyes up at the Jounin with a smirk, apparently quite aware Scarecrow's not going to allow them to kill him before he gets out of prison. "Remind me to kick your spirit once I recover," he says before falling over on his face. With the smoke still up, he makes a handseal under its mask, not doing anything to the man before him, but making a single pillar raise up on the ground above enough for the guards and such who're following behind to spot with a rather simple symbol upon it, an arrow pointing down into the ground where the tunnel is.
The jounin's smirking face is the last thing Yuuto sees before he blacks out. A few hours later when he wakes, he finds that he's in a cell that is next to Katama's, though it's at the end of the row so it's kind of diagonal and as such Yuuto can see most of Katama's cell, including the now unbound seemingly unconscious girl laying ont he floor. Her cheek has that cut still and she looks a bit rough for wear but she's breathing. A guard comes by wearing a mask and tosses a ration bar at Yuuto. "Eat. the healers could only do so much for you. Oh and I'm supposed to tell you try anything and she'll be the one that pays. We've got cameras here all over." The man leaves then, ignoring Katama entirely.
Upon waking up, Yuuto would look around and sigh… So here he is again in one of Scarecrow's complexes, but now with a much different perspective on what they are. As he spots Katama, his heart sinks at her state, eyes narrowing then look down. When the guard comes by, he catches the bar and glances up. "Yeah, I figured that… The old man really doesn't pay you enough for what's going to happen," he says, shaking his head before looking back to Katama then opening the ration bar and inspecting it to be sure none of the poison is in it. These guys can be pretty low…
The ration bar is poison free, they just wanted to feed him.. this time anyway. Across the way, Katama's hand twitches and she lets out s short groan before her crimson eyes open a crack. She lifts her head enough to look around then drops it to her arm again. She lets out a deep sigh, one hand reaching up to scratch at her neck. At least they'd removed the ropes before it caused serious damage to her hands. She hadn't noticed Yuuto int he cell near hers, just that she was in a cell herself. She had a determination not to open her eyes again unless she had to.
As he sees Katama beginning to stir, Yuuto ponders a bit and glances around. If he had his equipment, he could make clones of them and get out of here… Of course, if Scarecrow has someone in Sunagakure, they may already know he gained the ability to move through earth and stone since his escape, so it's likely the foundation of this place could be encased in metal by a Murasame under his command or something. Busting out through the front door may just be the best option. "I'm here, Katama," he calls out to here in a low voice, breaking the ration bar in half then tossing one half of it over onto her lap. "Stay calm and try to get your strength up as much as you can. You're going to need it." Nice thing is, whoever's coming from Sunagakure already has a nice little trail to follow since Yuuto left a marker. All he needs now is to figure out about how long it'll be until they get here so he can make a distraction big enough inside so Scarecrow's men are focused on him to let the calvary waltz right in for the massacre. "I'm sorry you got involved in this, but they won't get away with it…. neither will he."
Katama didn't react much at first to his voice, assuming it was the drug then she seems to think about it and she raises her head, eyes open to look at him. The ration bar is caught midair and she sits up slowly shaking her head. "I gave you plenty of time to escape…." She almost looks like she's pouting for a moment before she sniffs the ration bar then takes a bite, rubbing her temples. "Stop appologizing, Yuuto." She moves so she's in the far corner closest to Yuuto's cell, resting against the wall and the bars while still being able to see him. She seems to space out then quickly closes her eyes again, shoving the ration bar into her mouth and sitting up in a stiff meditative position. She looks concentrated, jaw set as she uses the only weapon she has against the illusions: her mind. Several tense moments later she lets out a breath and leans back aginst the wall again she speaks once more. "Can you get out of there?"
"If you thought I'd run away and let you rot in here before anyone could catch up, you don't know me that well yet," Yuuto says with a smirk as he looks at Katama through the bars. "I just found you, after all. There's no way I'm letting you go that easily." He glances down the hall at her next question, smirking slightly and giving a simple nod as he stands up and stretches out a bit, preparing for what's coming.
Katama sees his nod, but just frowns at him when he suggests she didn't know him well enough yet. In fact she had hoped the medics would get to him before he'd woken up….Drag his sorry ass to the hospital. Best laid plans of Samurai and men… "I shouldn't have left a trail." She grumbles, hating herself for taking any kind of comfort in the fact that he's here with her. She should be distressed that he's in danger and yet all she can think is how much easier this should be with him there.
Unfortunately they were being watched. The moment Yuuto stood, a vent in thier cells started spraying the gas into the air supply. Katama lets out a low growl, closing her eyes again. "These people need some lessons in manners." She winces as the gas comes in contact with the broken skin on her cheek and sighs. A voice comes out over the speaker. "Get comfortable you two, you're not going anywhere."
"You'd rather die here than be with someone who knows his way?" Yuuto asks, smirking a bit and shaking his head. As the gas begins to come out of the vent, he glances up and lets out a sigh. Joy… He can handle this, but it's not going to be fun for Katama. "Oh, they're going to get their lessons," he says with a nod, giving a rather menacing wink up at the camera. Collapsing again, he actually laughs a little at what he's seeing before being incapacitated.
As time rolls on, though he would react oddly to some of the visions, he doesn't scream out or act nearly as frightened as one who's just starting to experience this drug, though he does seem rather pissed at some of it.
Katama frowns at him for the comment but her expression softens for just a moment, conveying her real feelings on the matter before she pulls up her mask again, not wanting to give these people anything else to use against them. The last thing she says before she passes out is "I trust you."
Her reaction to the gas is a bit more extreme as she's not nearly as experienced as Yuuto. Her dreams are filled with spectors that no one could wipe away from her memory and she could not deny, they were real. She does, however have a different reaction to the emotion of Fear. Though she does let out whimpers or cries that sound like cries of pain at times she clenches her fists in her sleep and growls angrily in her sleep, even unto taking a weak swing at something she 'saw'.
In his state, Yuuto somehow seems right at home, though it is a rather disturbing thing. He also has a much higher resistance to this drug, which may not have been calculated entirely, though it may become obvious now as he weave a quick handsign. Suddenly, a piece of the stone floor would shoot up as a column, firing up to piece through the vent that releases the gas into the room and completely clog it as he rolls over to the edge of the cell to wait. A guard quickly runs down to see what's going on, distracted enough with the sight of the pillar and the cloud of dust around it that he doesn't see Yuuto's arm coming at his throat quick enough to stop him. A strangled sound round out from his mouth as Yuuto holds him there, another column shooting up from the floor, this one impaling the man from behind and literally carving straight through him.
When the cloud of dust finally settles, the man's body is left pinned against the bars of the cell, Yuuto out of sight, and there is a message written on the wall near the door of the cell in the guard's blood rather eccentricly that simply says 'Let's play.' Over in Katama's cell, the girl is out of view, but not for the same reason. There appear to be a cocoon of stone surrounding her to prevent further gassing or harm.
Alarms sound and guards run around in a kind of searching panic. Katama remains unconscious in the cell, though she's breathing easier and seems to take a calming sense from Yuuto's chakra as the stone surrounds her, of course leaving a space for her to breathe. Meanwhile, two guards are set up by Katama's cell, just to observe and watch for Yuuto.
Keys are apparently not the only thing stolen from the fallen guard if one actually takes the time to inspect him. It may be a little too lower for that, however, as a kunai would fly up from at the throat of each guard in frot of Katama's cell. His hands quickly disappear into the ground again, however, vanishing from sight. A moment later, he would start to rise up in the middle of the increasingly blood room, a feeling of fear emanating out of him through Genjutsu as he attempts to force every guard in the room to his knees in submission.
The two guards outside Katama's cell let out strangled, gurgled cries and slump to the ground, throats cut and bleeding out quickly. They should have checked the corpse of thier fellow. The last two guards are caught by the genjutsu, one hitting the ground hard and letting out a scream.. he couldn't handle fear very well evidently. The second one fights the aura, succeeding in breaking it using the Kai command. He runs through several hand seals and drops down to the floor, stabbing a kunai into the ground before sending lightning through the kunai into the ground straight at both Katama and Yuuto's locations. "BACK IN THE CELL SPECTER!"
As the guy actually makes it through his aura, Yuuto woud leap over the incoming bolts of lightning in a corkscrew spin with a pair of kunai in hand. "How about you make a trip down to Hell instead? The lunatic is running this asylum now!" he taunts as wind surges around him, driving the wielded blade directly at the man's heart while continuing to spin and drive the other around at the back of his neck.
The guard is suprised by Yuuto's attack and he takes the first kunai to his chest even as the other comes around, stabbing him the back of the neck in a kind of overkill. He's dead before he hits the ground. Meanwhile, Katama was somewhat protected from the lightning by the caccoon that Yuuto had constructed around her but electricity jumps circuits too and she gets part of the attack straight on. A short cry of suprised pain comes from her but it works in her favor as well, drawing her out from unconsciousness. Through the small breathing space int he caccoon she can see Yuuto.. and all the blood. She groans, trying to get up only to come up against the barrier he'd erected. She looks up and around herself before trying to punch the wall. Her strength has been drained by the drug that still runs iin her system, however, and she jsut makes little tumping noises. Finding that uselesss he turns to look out the little hole againa nd the drug kicks in makeing her see Yuuto covered in his own blood. And /that/ gives her more energy. "NO! KAMI SPOOKITALL!" She spins and starts slamming her bare fist into Yuuto's barrier, only managing to dislodge small bits of sand but still trying to escape.
Yuuto sort of ponders for a moment whether or not he should let Katama out of her stone coccoon right now. If he leaves her in there, she won't be in harm's way so long as he clears the building out. Of course, if there's another earth manipulator around, she could get squashed to bits while he's gone. Coming to a resolution finally after a moment, he forms a hand seal to let her go. "Relax, Oni-Hime. This isn't my blood. I told you we're getting out of here," he says as he grabs the keys off from the guard out of his coat and unlocks her cell to walk in and wrap his arms around her for a quick embrace. "More of them will be here shortly. Take some weapons off the guards and let's get moving."
Katama blinks as the earth shield unfurls around her and she's left laying on her back, free but confused. She's just sitting up when Yuuto enters her cell and wraps his arms around her. For the Kuroyari, the world stopped and she just kneels there in his embrace. Could it be? Or was this an illusion as well? She reached up and tried to arap her own arms around Yuuto's back, expecting her arms to go through the spector. So when she latches onto human flesh she shudders. She allowed herself to believe Yuuto's words and believe that this was real. The other things had felt real but she could not face the world where she would lose him just yet so she allowed herself to believe. The girl pressed her cheek against Yuuto's tightly before nodding to his order to grab weapons from the guards. Getting to her feet was a struggle, her legs not wanting to remain under her, but she did her best and on the second try managed to compensate for her imbalance. Disarming the guards was quick. She looks to Yuuto then to lead, even as a sweat broke out on her forehead from the drug's still lingering effects.
Yuuto watches Katama's movements for a moment, pondering a bit before he moves to kneel in front of her. He would go to grab her hands, pulling her over on him. "Secure yourself to my back," he instructs, though not giving much time before he'd reach back to pick her up by her knees and onto him. We need to move quickly, and we can intercept attacks for each other pretty easily this way."
Katama stares at him for a moment and when he grabs her arms and pulls her over his back she flushes crimson. /He's gotta be …kidding… great./ Her legs are caught up in Yuuto's grip and she sighs but wraps her legs around his waist, locking her ankles together so she's secured and still able to use her arms, but as there were no guards around them just yet she rests her head against Yuuto's shoulder. "Crazy idiot." Her tone is warm, though and she presses a kiss to his temple. She doubted she'd be of much use on the way out. The illusions were still lingering as well so she wasn't sure just what she should be aiming at but she took her cues from Yuuto. Since he wasnt reacting to something she assumed it wasnt really there.
When Katama finally settles against him, Yuuto smiles back at her. "Maybe so, but I'm the crazy idiot who's not going to let you die here," he says with a grin before looking back ahead. More than likely, their normal tools are locked up in the most secure area. He'll have to make do with what's available for now. Deciding to go with what's most subtle first, he takes off toward the next hallway, moving through the door the guards opened when they came in so frantically as he begins to emit the Submission Aura Genjutsu ahead of him, intending to put anyone who may be trying to jump them or simply waiting to strike into a fear-stricken state before they are able to attack.
Katama held on, a small smile touching her lips as he swore to keep her alive. It was a silly feeling but she couldn't ignore it. Yuuto's thinking was correct, the items he was after were int he control room. Fortunately, there weren't many in the halls. So the few who were there dropped quickly and in the control room itself when they came upon it, only three men were inside. All three hit the ground and Katama throws a Kunai into two of thier throats. She over compensates for aim with power but nails them both. Drawing another couple of kunai from the stolen belt she would blink as she spots Yuuto's satchel and her one remaining sword. "Over there."
Yuuto seems rather amused at how easily these men fall thus far, glad to get their things back so easily. Still, he's sure that Jounin that took him down earlier is still around… and he's not planning on getting taken by that drug again. After walking over to where their things are, he would kneel down to let Katama down to gather her things. "Take one of their gas masks and put it on," he instructs as he does the same after gathering his normal weapons and tools and strapping them back in their rightful place.
Katama slips off Yuuto's back and uses her hand to keep her balance as she gathers what few things were there of hers, her one sword, her belt. Luckily she had a Kunai holster on that belt so she wasn't too under-armed… but she also wasn't armored. To her suprise she finds her armor among Yuuto's things and she smiles, strapping it on happily. The order to get gas masks gets a verbal response from her and she brings over one for each of them. As she starts to put one on, however, a great wind comes up in the corridor. Katama looks up, curious, why would there be sind here? A jusu possibly but they weren't it's targets? What was going on? She looks to Yuuto for orders, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she still struggles with the drugs.
After they've secured masks, Yuuto looks in the direction of the coming wind, figuring it's the Jounin from earlier come for Round 2. "Back so soon? I thought you'd chickened out," he says with a smirk beneath the gas mask as he reaches to his back, grabbing a scroll and brush and quickly drawing out several ink creatures in preparation of the coming fight. "Katama, get behind me. This guy may actually be a bit stronger than me. It's hard to tell since I was poisoned the last time we fought."
But Yuuto is mistaken. it's not the Jounin from before. Two shinobi wearing headbands from Sunagakure enter the control room, weapons drawn, eyes focused. "Drop your weapons. Surrender and tell us where the prisoners are. Do so and you won't be harmed." Katama blinks, her hands on the mask she'd jsut put on. She looks between the two men that just came in and Yuuto, looking for a response.. Were they real?
Yuuto stares hard at the men for a moment before shaking his head and pulling the gas mask down around his neck. "Took you long enough," he says with a sigh. "She's been drugged pretty heavily with his concoction. It's going to take some time to wear off. I'm in good enough shape to carry her out. Should help to have someone she knows well to latch onto reality with." With that, he steps over to Katama, inspecting to see if he can actually walk now or if she needs another ride.
The two Suna shinobi look a little sheepish. "We.. got lost in the labyrinth…." Katama pulls her mask off and blinks a few times at them with a 'really?' expression on her face. When Yuuto tells them she's been drugged she flushes. She stands up and moves to his side somewhat shakily, grabbing for his hand tightly.
"Ah, guess that's understandable," Yuuto says, smirking a bit and shaking his head. He grasps Katama's hand as she reaches for his, smiling over at her. "Come on. Let's go home," he says, squeezing her hand a bit to add some more feeling of reality for her. Looking back at the shinobi, he asks, "So you know how to get out of here, right? Or do I just need to start knocking down walls?"
It didn't take them too long to leave the place, though by the time they reached the surface Katama was already showing signs of tiring. Luckily they had Yuuto to provide ink animals for the two of them to ride on. Katama nearly fell off at least once so she was shifted to ride in front of Yuuto. She fell asleep against him about half way home, shivering at points in her sleep. As they approached the village, night had fallen and she jolts awake, sweating from the dream she'd had. "Yuuto!"
Yuuto easily lets Katama ride in front of him, wrapping his arms around her and allowing the ink creation to guide itself toward the village. When she suddenly wakes up, he smiles and pulls her close, kissing her cheek and saying, "Don't worry. We're home," he whispers into her ear. "We're safe," he reassures her as he looks ahead into the village, glad to be home after that ordeal that was originally supposed to be their first date rather than a fight for their lives.
Katama feels his arms around her and ears Yuuto's voice in her ear and manages to force her own panic down again. Since the beginning of this she'd shown some impressive mental fortitude, meditating when she felt the drugs start thier work, but she was still shaken by the images she'd seen. It showed in her eyes and on her face, making her look exhausted. But with Yuuto close she seems to be able to focus less on what she saw and more on what she knew to be real. She curls her head against his chest. "You saved me again…I'm starting to be a liability." She's mostly joking.
Yuuto knows just how hard that drug hits from experience. It is what drove him literally insane, after all. However, he seems more focused on helping her focus on the positive, holding her in his arms as they ride into the village. "A liability or a necessity?" he asks teasingly, squeezing her in his arms as they ride back toward the apartment complex.
Katama chuckles a bit. "I think aliability but it would be nice to be the other." She stays quiet the rest of the way back home and with little assistance she manages to get up the stairs on her own feet. As soon as she's inside she drops the armor, irritating the neighbor below her again, which she simply ignores. And goes to the kitchen. After a cursory examination of the fridge she turns to Yuuto and walks over to the door, opening it and calling across the hall. Shortly a youngish boy of around 12 comes out and smiles at her. The two speak briefly befoe Katama hands him some cash and returns to the livingroom. "Dinner's on it's way…" She then proceeds to practicly collapse onto the couch.
Walking up the stairs along with Katama, Yuuto would keep a hand ready to assist her up. After going inside, he would drop his equipment as well before going to dig in his bag for something to change into. The clothes from the battle have enough blood and such that it's really time to change them and freshen up some. He blinks a bit as she calls for the boy, giving a nod when she explains that she ordered food. After picking out a change of clothes, he would walk over to the couch, leaning over to plant a kiss on her cheek then one on her lips. "I'm gonna go wash this blood off and put some clean clothes on."
