Starring:
Date: January 13, 2011
Summary:
Kazuo enlists Yoko's help in traveling to a mysterious cave to search for an ancient weapon called a Daggertail. When they arrive, they find a labyrinth with traps and a mysterious man named Phama.
"Mountain of Tears - Level 1"
Library in Suna and the Mountain of Tears
Kazuo is in one of the libraries within the village doing a little light reading which isn't really all that light. It's early in the day, still clearly morning, but not so early that it's dark out. Still, the library is mostly empty as people are either still asleep, at work, or practicing. There are some there that are still interested in doing a bit of light reading or researching something or other. Not that it really matters to Kazuo or anything.
He's got a series of rather old looking scrolls lain out before him, looking over the contents of one of them in particular. There's mention of a mountain fortress called the Mountain of Tears, but it doesn't seem that he finds the name all that important. In fact, he's rather focused on a particular series of drawings of a peculiar weapon with the word Daggertail written beneath it.
"If it's still there… It could be rather useful," Kazuo says to himself as he reaches for another series of scrolls and starts to look them over, one containing a rather large map of the Land of Wind with a series of pathways marked upon it. There's another with a partial map of the mountain that seems to be missing a rather large, possibly important chunk. "That's a bit discouraging."
'Hibiki Yoko', academy instructor for Sunagakure, is in the first sub-floor of the Sunagakure Administration Dome. The sub-floor is better known as the Library. It's where things OTHER than records and restricted information are kept. The hooded, goggled, cloaked, purple-haired woman known to most people of Sunagakure as Yoko, has walked into the library taken one look around and then… Walked back out. She has no reason to be in the library. She was looking for one of her students, actually, who had said he would be studying late. He was not studying late anywhere that she could find. Meaning he was skipping out! Lame kids.
Yoko wanders around everywhere. She still can't find the boy. So she returns to the Library, and sees some dude with all kinds of papers around him. Is that the kid? She can't tell from behind. So she approaches and drops a hand onto the guy's shoulder firmly, but not roughly, and leans around to peer at his face!
"…Oh, it's you. I guess it was too much to hope that the student I'm looking for might actually be studying."
If Kazuo is surprised that a hand has found its way onto his shoulder, he doesn't show it. Rather, he turns his gaze to the side to look up at the woman who has placed her hand on his shoulder and then leaned around to look at him, which puts her face awkwardly close to his which could raise some serious tension and cause something to happen and… he just blinks at her and shrugs his shoulders. "Students and studying. Not likely to happen."
He looks back to the scrolls for a moment and then looks back to Yoko. "Have you ever heard of the Mountain of Tears?" he asks her, eyes speaking of curiosity. "I think I'm going to go there. Right now, today." He turns back to the scrolls and reaches out to point at the Daggertail drawn on one. "For this, in particular." Looking back to Yoko yet again, he tilts his head. "Care to come along?"
Yoko removes her hand quickly when she realizes it's that guy from the other day. She also moves back and to the side so she can face him without being right up close. "'Mountain of Tears'? Is that the place where the native desert dwellers were sent when all the various white people came to the Land of Wind? Cause I have noticed an awful lot of light-skinned people in this country, and not very many dark-skinned ones. This is the opposite of what one might expect based on the environment and geography--Err… I mean… Well, I guess I could. Class is over for the day, and Mister No-Study is a no-show. How far away is it?"
"No. It's the place where a tribe was completely destroyed by an outsider," Kazuo says to Yoko as he looks across at her. One last glance is offered to the scroll with the partial map on it, then he rises and begins to roll the sheets up once again. "No one lives there now, according to the scroll. But rumor is that the place is haunted. Not that I believe in ghosts. Just superstitious old people."
After rolling the scrolls up, he returns them to the container from which he got them and then looks back to Yoko. "It's a ways from here, but not terribly far. If we move quickly enough we can make it in a day," he tells her as he lifts a hand to rub at his chin for a moment. "I'm ready to go now. Have the map memorized. If you're ready, we can be off."
Yoko sighs. "Not like I'm getting anything done around here anyway. Just let me drop off a note that class will need a substitute or something tommorow." Once this is accomplished, she is ready to depart. "Wait, do I need survival gear or something? Do I have time to take a bath? Should we eat before we go? Why are you after this thing anyway? If you don't believe in ghosts, then why do you want someone to come with you!?" Err… Almost ready. At any rate, they should eventually be on their way!
Kazuo tilts his a bit at Yoko when she goes on about things. "You don't need a bath. You're likely to get dirty anyways." He hefts up a bag that he's got with him, like he was already prepared to get a move on. "I've got survival gear and food, for that matter. As for more than one person, because you were here and I felt like it. Nothing more." He shrugs and turns to head towards the exit. "Come along, then."
So they leave Suna, traveling at a decent pace through the sands and past the fields and everything else. It does take about a day to get where they're going. Kazuo was correct in his estimate of the time. Eventually they arrive at a series of mountains, which they move along the base of until they come to a rather pronounced cave entrance where Kazuo stops and then looks over to Yoko.
"This is the place." He reaches into the bag and pulls out a flashlight which he switches on once to make sure it works. Can't be too careful, right? No use getting in the dark and then it doesn't work, right? Eiher way, it works fine and he looks over to her before he starts to walk into the cave. "Do be wary, though. Could be traps."
Yoko follows after Kazuo. She wishes she could just take off her goggles and use her normal sight, but Kazuo is not someone she necessarily trusts enough to risk revealing her abilities. "Traps? What? Why would the cave be trapped? Why are we here again? You never explained that to me. Are we expecting company?" She frowns. "You really need to communicate better with your allies."
"Sorry," Kazuo says to Yoko as he walks down the dark tunnel, paying close attention to where he's walking. "The tribe that once inhabited this mountain had a leader which used a particular weapon called a Daggertail. I want that weapon. Also, no one's been here in close to fifty years." He shrugs and then pauses when the tunnel that they're walking through widens into a small, clearly carved cavern. The walls are wrote with glyphs which he can't possibly decipher. In the center of the room is a small dais that's empty.
"I see three exits. I also don't see the weapon," he says before he motions to a room on the left, another on the right, and one straight in front of them. Three exits and an empty room which they're now in. "Pick the way we go, woman who's name I still don't know." He glances to her. "My name is Ekiguchi Kazuo."
Yoko listens and follows in silence until they reach the main room. Then she says, "Hibiki Yoko." as an introduction. She considers using her new ability to determine in advance what is about to happen, but… Something internally warns her that might be dangerous -- just an instinct or hunch of some kind, not anything solid. Even so… "You said no one has been here in nearly fifty years. Let's make sure of that. Look at the floor. See if there's any sign of dust or dirt being disturbed at all. You look over to the right, I'll look to the left?" If Kazuo agrees, then she turns away and pulls up her goggles, focusing Chakra to her eyes and causing the pupils to switch from bright-violet to a silvery liquid-metal appearance. And then she would try to back-track light wavicles from the local environment and the recent past, to see if anyone else has been here recently. If she gets nothing, then she de-activates the Eye of Future-Past and puts her goggles back down. If Kazuo refuses or turns down the idea… Then she just decides to go check out each exit individually and see if there is anything notable that can be determined without actually entering them. Discarded skulls and dried blood, for instance.
The actions of Yoko are genius, and although perfect for the situation, find absolutely nothing. None of these rooms appear to be inhabited whatsoever. The dust is undisturbed, the soil unmoved. There are bodies, to be sure, but they are nothing more than skeletons with clothing now and they certainly aren't moving. They seem quite comfortable occupying the floor in their deadness.
Kazuo moves over to the entry that Yoko has mentioned on the right side. He looks at the ground, looks all about, but sees nothing. "Nothing here, Yoko-san," he says before he walks over towards the middle path and takes a look there. Still, he finds nothing and that doesn't seem to be about to change. He shrugs and turns to look back towards where the woman is, his flashlight finding her in the darkness of the mountain.
"I suggest we pick a path, at least. Not possible to determine which path will lead the right way, so far as I know," he says as he watches her from across the way. "Doesn't seem to be anything at either of these two exits to say anyone's been here. Anything at yours? Shall we go that way?"
Yoko sees no one in the recent past of this place. She can only go back about a day and a half at this point. Her skills and her brain can't handle more than that. So once she has her eyes covered again, she goes about investigating the far left passage. She stands there and stares into it until Kazuo speaks to her. Then she turns her head and says deadpan, "I see dead people."
Pause.
"See? Skeletons." She points at them. "If you don't see any dead people at either of the other two… I think we should go that way first. Unless you smell anything weird down the passages. After all, these skeletons don't look… Crushed or anything. Just like they died and fell over. Or vice versa. Could be toxic gas… Could be something else. Spikes or something that wouldn't damage the skeletons much but could damage vital organs. Who knows what!"
Kazuo looks at Yoko from across the way for a moment as if she had said something funny. Eventually he just shrugs his shoulders and motions towards the passage that she's standing beside. "They all have skeletons as far as I can see. Let's just go down the left one there where you are." He walks towards her, crossing the room to stand beside her for a moment and looking into the room near her. As far as his flashlight shows, there doesn't seem to be anything bad inside. He starts to step inside the room.
Yoko suddenly says, "Wait a sec." Then she peers into the hallway. "Let me try something." She puts her hands together in a single unique handseal, and then focuses her Chakra. "Hikari Bunshin no Jutsu! <Light Clone Technique!>" she lets out. Then a duplicate of the short woman appears nearby. The duplicate stands out from the original because it… Glows. The Light Clone noticeably glows in the dark!
Yoko explains as her Light Clone heads down the passage. "She's going to check ahead and let us know what's down there. She relays everything she sees and experiences to me in real time. But it distracts me a bit to experience two sets of sensory input at the same time, so I try not to use this often."
A bit caught off guard, Kazuo stares at the clone of light as it begins to head down the passage to the room beyond. His steps have paused and he merely stands there, watching before his gaze drifts briefly to Yoko, offering a nod before he looks back to the passageway. "That is a handy jutsu," he says to her before he reaches over to briefly touch a wall before he lays his shoulder against it when nothing happens. "I'm impressed."
Meanwhile, as the clone walks down the passageway, nothing happens. Nothing happens, that is, until the clone steps into the next room. There's the distinct sound of metal shifting against metal, the sound of air jettisoning from nearby, and something, a senbon, flies across the room towards the clone.
The Light Clone proceeds down the passage and into the room at the end of it. As the sound of machinery starts up, the Yoko duplicate looks around cautiously… But not cautiously enough! A senbon strikes her as the real Yoko moves to dodge at the same time as her Clone. The original is not in danger, but it's hard not to respond to a threat one is experiencing… Even if it's a dozen or more feet away.
A flash of light goes off from the 'injury', but other than that the Light Clone seems unharmed. Though a bit… 'Dimmed'. "Tch!" Yoko offers as she realizes she doesn't need to dodge anything on her end. "Looks like that room was trapped. Not sure if anything else is down there. Should I recall her and have her check the other passages too or check that room out some more?"
"One trap, one empty room," Kazuo says as he watches down the hall. The reaction of Yoko to the senbon flying at the clone does nothing to him, but he looks down the passageway as if inspecting from a distance. It doesn't last long, though, before he turns and looks about the room they are in. "Recall her," he says as he walks away and towards the passage on the opposite side of the room.
"Let's try this passage next, then. At the very least, we can find the safest passage to take further into the mountain," he says as his eyes settle on Yoko from the opposite side of the room. He's lifted a hand to point down the passageway he stands beside. "At least the active trap means it's likely not many have made it far within."
Light Clones are not cheap to make in terms of Chakra. So not having to disperse the current one and make a new one is good news. The Yoko duplicate jogs back up the passage and then turns to head down the far-right passage next once she arrives back in the main room. The Light Clone starts talking as she walks. "I hope the ceiling doesn't fall on her or something. That wound cancel--" then Yoko finishes with her own mouth, "--the jutsu. Uhh… Oops! I meant to say that myself, not via her." Then she just focuses with a grim sort of expression, waiting to see what comes up next… If anything.
Upon walking down the passage, the clone will step forth into the room. Almost as soon as it enters… nothing immediately happens. Further steps, only a few feet, inward and the floor suddenly gives way beneath the clone! But she's fast enough to make it back to the passageway which is good for her, given the chakra it takes to make the clone, right? Well, anyways, the clone is alive, but that room is a complete dud.
"Quite glad I didn't have to walk into that room to test it out," Kazuo notes as he lets his hand fall limply back to his side, noting that the clone has made it safe out of the room. "Your clone is impressive. Keep it up and you'll have impressed me with your skills." He glances briefly to Yoko and then walks towards the last passageway, the center one, which he looks down once again. "That leaves us with one more possible passage. Let's hope this one doesn't have a trap."
The Light Clone comes back out, and she looks towards Kazuo at the same time as Yoko. In a weird stereo-voice, the two start to say at the same time, "If it does have a trap then what--" but then they both break off and look at each other for a second. Then the original Yoko looks to Kazuo and says by herself, "…Then what will we do? It might be nothing valuable is here anymore. If we have to hunt this thing down, we'll need to know where to look outside of this cave, right?"
While she talks, the Light Clone turns and starts heading down the middle passage. She proceeds cautiously, but quickly. It is better to trigger the trap sooner than later. Of course, since the Light Clone is beyond Kazuo's sight down the dark passage, she removes her replica goggles in order to make use of her light-sensitive eyes. Will this reveal anything hidden?
The room that the clone walks into is nearly empty. There are a few bodies here, but juding by their clothing they are old, not new. Still, for some strange reason these bodies have managed to retain a great deal of their flesh. Not all of it, just a large portion of it. It's like they're slowly falling apart, but the flesh is clinging on for dear life, afraid to let go. There are four of them, merely lying on the floor. If the clone looks around, it will notice that there's only one exit from this room and it leads further into the mountain.
Kazuo merely shrugs his shoulders in response to Yoko. "Personally, I'd opt for the senbon room. I'd feel more comfortable dodging those. Well, depending on what this one has to over," he says as he turns his gaze away from Yoko and down the hall towards where the clone went. His flashlight lights up the nearest portions, but it's pretty dark inside of a mountain. "Tell me what the clone sees and whether it's safe to move in. I've not heard any trap yet."
Yoko reports, "There's dead bodies in the room. They look like they've been dead for awhile, but they're decomposing reaaaally slowly. I think it might be some kind of gas trap that preserves the bodies to a degree, or potentially something that will animate the bodies and send them against us when they're triggered. There's other possibilities, of course. Might be nothing. But let's just say this isn't my first ancient ruin."
The Light Clone stands ready throughout this explanation. Then she tries to cross the room to the exit that heads deeper into the mountain. Unless something is set off, she just keeps walking and exploring. Presumably the real Yoko as well as Kazuo will make their way into the room with the bodies after the Clone has safely cleared it.
…IF she safely clears it.
Safely she does clear it to head down the other passage. The room that the clone will find beyond is dark and devoid of any noticeable traps. Nothing happens when she walks in. In the center of the room there's a dais and upon it is what appears to be a sword that looks to be in pristine condition. Other than this, there's nothing truly noticeable in the room… Except for the man sitting on what appears to be stairs, staring at the clone, not uttering a word.
Kazuo, meanwhile, waits for what Yoko says and nods his head at her. Turning, he walks down the passageway towards the room beyond, his flashlight lighting the way for his steps. When he walks into the hall, he stops and shines his light on the corpses that litter the floor. "Quite well preserved, I would say," he says before he glances back to Yoko. "Anything in the next room?"
Yoko frowns a bit at the bodies and then reports what her Light Clone sees. "There's a sword on a daias. And some guy sitting on some stairs looking at me.--Her, that is." The Light Clone, for her part just looks on back at the guy. She probably appears to be something akin to an angel in the darkness. Glowing, lighting up the spot where she stands with her mere presence, even her clothing seeming to radiate a soft but visible aura… The question is whether this man is a man or something else. A statue? A flesh-and-blood person? Something else? The Light Clone can see just fine in the dark, but she tries anyway at Yoko's silent directions/thoughts, "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past… Answer me these questions three, ere the great outdoors you see!" Yoko sucks at ad-libbing. Deal with it. "What… Is your name?" the Light Clone asks.
But it isn't enough that the clone has found the man, the bodies on the floor begin to move. They are slow, at first, rising from the floor in such a way that they seem broken, pieces of what they once were. They move, slowly, to stand in front of the passageway and face towards Yoko and Kazuo. If they have eyes, they don't seem to be using them, they're just in the way in the darkness. "You shall not pass by this place…."
The man on the stairs is unmoved by the words of the light being. "You are a trespasser in my home. This mountain belongs to me. Leave or be destroyed," he says as he holds his hands in his lap, unmoving aside from the half of his face which is visible to show his speech. "My friends will dispatch you, but if they don't, I will."
Kazuo is temporarily caught off guard by what Yoko says. "It's here, but there's someone else here?" he questions of her. "I wonder…" But he's cut off by the movement of the bodies on the floor. Instantly he jumps backwards and kunai appear in his hands. He stands with his feet shoulder width apart, proper positioning for a ranged attack if that's what he's positioning himself for. "So… the trap is in the bodies themselves, then. What does your clone say about the stranger?"
Yoko shakes her head. "He says we're trespassing. This is his home. He wants us out or he and his friends will 'destroy' us. Personally, I am all for just leaving. It's not like we can't find another of these things somewhere else right? Beating up some guy and taking his stuff is something I'm trying not to do anymore. He is giving us fair warning, he is being more polite than most would be with trespassers, and he has not attacked us yet. If we refuse to leave, that is likely going to change."
Meanwhile, the Light Clone of Yoko says, "…Alright. We can skip the three questions this time. If I had known this mountain belonged to someone, I would not have intruded. I am very sorry for trespassing and will be leaving immediately. Could you answer a single question first, while my other self proceeds to get out of here? I'll just discorporate when she gets far enough away, so don't worry about me staying. I am just wondering… Do you know of a different place where a companion of mine could get one of those?" She points to the sword up on the daias. "That's what we came here for, but clearly that one belongs to you, so we won't try to take it. I'll also spread the word that this mountain is inhabited and owned by… Whatever your name is? I can just make something up, if you want. Basically, I'll do my best to make sure no one else comes up here to bother you."
"The blade does not belong to me, nor does it hold any special significance to me," the masked man says as he rises slowly, then disappears and reappears right beside the blade. "It belonged to the former master of this mountain, a man I killed many years ago, just as I killed all who resided within this mountain." He touches the blade briefly and then looks back to the clone. "Tell your other self that her companion may take the blade. But then you must depart and not return." He flickers back to the stairs. "My friends do not listen to my commands. They may still stop you." With that, he begins to climb the stairs to disappear from sight.
Meanwhile, back in the room that Kazuo and Yoko inhabit with the corpse things, they've begun to move. Several hand signs are made by the front two as the back two remain in place. The wind begins to pick up within the room and whips about Kazuo and Yoko, suddenly, blades of air rush at them! And behind the blades of air is a wall of fire! Can they survive!!!
Kazuo is surprised by the sudden attacks, given what Yoko has said. He quickly darts out of the way of the wind blades, but the wall of fire is too fast on its heals and rushes into him, sending him flying back against the wall, and scorching his skin in several places. He straightens himself back up, and when he does, it seems rather clear that a change has overtaken the stoic shinobi. He looks enraged; his teeth grinding together, eyes narrowed, flashlight falling to the floor. "You'll pay for that…." His chakra begins to grow…
As the wind blades come tearing forth, Yoko is somewhat distracted by the conversation going on with her Light Clone. But she is not so distracted that she can't make some hand seals quickly and seem to glow before fading out of existence… The flames pass through the spot where Yoko just was a moment ago. It's time to kick things up a notch. …Once she has some more Chakra that is. She basically just retreats to a corner of the room and focuses her Chakra, pulling off her goggles to her forehead and allowing her energy to surge to her eyes. 'Shoumei: Shuujuku Yorugan! <Illumination: Mastered Eye of Night!>' she thinks to herself as everything suddenly becomes intensely clear to her vision. She can even tolerate Kazuo's flashlight when she normally could not.
Soon enough, the vision of the man is gone from sight, but a single word drifts down from the stairwell, whispering on the wind as if uttered through some strange ghostly presence. "Phama," it says, reaching the clone before immediatelly disappearing and going no further.
The two attacking creatures turn once again towards the shinobi. One focuses more on Kazuo, the other focuses on Yoko. The wind rises again and the blades of air slice forwards towards Yoko, moving to take her apart if she doesn't defend herself! The one that turns on Kazuo unleashes a wave of white hot energy towards him!
"I told you… that you would regret this," Kazuo says as the heat energy comes towards him. He slips out of the way of the blast and stares down his opponent. Only a slight glance is offered towards Yoko before he lifts the two kunai in his hands. "Never.. piss me off!" He draws his hand back and then whips it forward at the creature, just before the kunai leave his hand, a sudden burst of lightning surrounds them.
Yoko tries to form hand seals again, but the blades of wind are… Just distortions in the air. Very hard to notice. The purple-haired woman can see >light< just fine. >Chakra< is something else entirely. She gets slashed, misjudging the distance between herself and the projectiles. "*BLEEP*!" she calls out in pain. Then her Light Clone comes dashing in from out of nowhere and tries to suckerpunch one of the corpses in back and then sweep kick the other's feet out from under it.
Yoko is coordinating this assault from the rear by seeing through her Clone's eyes. When the Clone finishes her attack, successful or not, Yoko dashes in swiftly and tries to run right inbetween the two zombie-things in the front to distract them and possibly make them turn towards her -- and thus each other, because she's inbetween them. That would expose their back and/or sides to Kazuo!
Of course maybe they aren't smart enough for that. Which would just mean their backs would be exposed to Yoko and her Clone instead!
The creature attacking Kazuo gets nailed by the two kunai and bursts in flames! It flails around and then falls to the ground when it can no longer move itself, the flames eating at the creature, possibly providing some light to the dark room! The one that gets sucker punched by the clone basically explodes into thousands of pieces, never to return again. That leaves Mr. Wind Blade, who turns to attack the woman, and the other one in the back, which turns on the clone and forms earth around it's fist before firing it at the clone!
Kazuo watches with a smirk as the creature goes down in flames. Literally. Yoko moving in with her clone eliminates another one and provides Kazuo with a rather nice opening on the one that turned to attack the clone. He rushes forward and pulls back his fist, aiming at the creatures back at the base of the spine, and then launches his fist forward. When it comes around, lightning chakra begins to flow around it as he moves to strike the creature.
Yoko tries to form hand seals again, but the blades of wind are… Just distortions in the air. Very hard to notice. The purple-haired woman can see >light< just fine. >Chakra< is something else entirely. She gets slashed, misjudging the distance between herself and the projectiles. "*BLEEP*!" she calls out in pain. Then her Light Clone comes dashing in from out of nowhere and tries to suckerpunch one of the corpses in back and then sweep kick the other's feet out from under it.
Yoko is coordinating this assault from the rear by seeing through her Clone's eyes. When the Clone finishes her attack, successful or not, Yoko dashes in swiftly and tries to run right inbetween the two zombie-things in the front to distract them and possibly make them turn towards her -- and thus each other, because she's inbetween them. That would expose their back and/or sides to Kazuo!
Of course maybe they aren't smart enough for that. Which would just mean their backs would be exposed to Yoko and her Clone instead!
The wind blades lash out at her, and Yoko… Ducks! She leaves a glowing after-image of herself where she was just standing, and ducks under the blades, hopefully causing them to slash apart its fellow corpse-thing that was standing on the other side of Yoko! She then goes leaping backwards while slashing repeatedly with a shuriken held in hand. Amazingly, the shuriken flings replicas of itself made of light at the zombie.
The Light Clone leaps into the air and somersaults over the shell, landing a good distance away as the explosive blast goes off, possibly damaging the walls. Explosives inside of a cave? Not a good idea. That thing needs to be taken down FAST.
The duplicate of Yoko shapes a sword of light in her right hand and slashes at the corpse-things's neck, trying to seperate its head from its body. The head may or may not go flipping through the air all 'Conan the Barbarian'-style.
The one Kazuo attacks gets quite wounded, and then gets basically dismantled by the subsequent attacks from the light clone. Yoko absolutely dismantled the creature that she attacked, leaving them with no further opponents, but just a nice little mess of dead zombie creatures on the ground around them. Nothing else jumps out to get them and there's still no sign of the man that was in the furthest room.
Kazuo takes a deep breath once the creatures are down and looks around to ensure nothing else is trying to sneak up and attack them from the rear, but there's nothing there to see, so he looks back to Yoko and the light clone. "Good work," he says, back to his visage of calm and the like. It's like there was never any change to see in him at all. He nods and then looks to the clone. "What happened to the man in the other room?"
Yoko turns to her Light Clone briefly, as though expecting her to answer, but then remembers that she saw it all as it was happening too. "Ah, right. He said you can have the sword thing but then we have to leave and never come back. I think I heard him say his name as well, but I can't be sure. Sounded like… 'Salmon' maybe. 'Famine'? Something like that. Might have just been a noise too."
Yoko looks at the cuts she has on her body from those wind blades. They don't appear to be TOO serious, but they definitely hurt. She turns quickly and pulls her goggles down over her eyes again as she deactivates Shoumei. Hopefully it was too dark for Kazuo to see what her eyes looked like exactly. "Let's get your treasure and get out of here. He said it didn't belong to him and he didn't want it. That doesn't mean he has no problem with us hanging around forever."
A frown emenated from Kazuo at the words from Yoko. So the guy left and went somewhere, hmm? Not to come back? Well, he'd have to see about that at a future time. He didn't particularly like being told to leave and not to come back. He'd go where he liked. He didn't like being attacked, either, so if these minions had been the other mans to control, he was going to make sure the guy learned a lesson. "Right," he says as he grabs up his flashlight again and shines it into the next room. "Be right back."
He moves to walk down the passage, which is clear thanks to the knowledge from the clone, and steps into the further room. Inside, he takes a glance about him, noting the stairs, and then heads towards the dais in the center of the room. Sure enough, the 'sword' is in fact there and in seemingly good condition. He reaches to pick it up and nothing happens so he slips it onto his back and walks back to where Yoko is. "Got it."
