Disclaimer: If I was as talented as Urushibara-sensei I wouldn't be writing fanfiction, now would I?
To be a traveling mushishi you really had to love nature. If you didn't you were pretty much screwed. Sure, when you were curing someone of an ailment you were often allowed to sleep inside, but more often than not you'd have to sleep with rocks sticking into your back and spiders crawling over your skin as you used your beat-up old coat as a pillow.
Even if you were used to all of this it was still a pain to try to fall asleep as the high mountain winds gusted over you and pebbles kept on sliding down the slope to hit you on the side of the head.
Then again, sleeping beneath a mountain had always been something Ginko could never make himself do. While sleeping beneath a ridge made pebbles hitting you on the side of the head less probable, it also left the chance of a collapse. Ginko often took irrational risks, but this less probable one was one he always found himself avoiding. It gave him an uneasy feeling, as if he was forgetting something.
So he lay on a plateau instead, next to a slope, and absolutely not under the ridge.
He only gotten around three hours of sleep when the first droplets of rain hit his head. He sat up, pulling his worn out coat over his head and glumly watched as the droplets turned the ground around him dark.
Damn.
He sighed and got to his feet, picking up the trunk that he really did not want to be carrying right now. Slowly he made his way further up the mountain.
He blinked, surprised, as he heard rumbling and lifted his eyes off the road in front of him to look at the ridge, which was collapsing from the point and letting mud and rocks slide down the side to the point where he would, but for an uneasy feeling, have slept.
His paranoia had served him well.
He made his way futher up the mountain and looked down over the abyss that had once been the ridge.
The land was completely decimated. The trees that had once been rooted down were now horizontal in the mud. Upon inspecting the wreckage more thoroughly, he noticed something else.
An arm was sticking out of the mud.
He quickly slipped his trunk off and began the slippery descent down the newly created slope, half sliding half running down it in order to keep his balance.
When he finally reached the bottom he immediately began digging at the space around the arm with his hands. It took him a good five minutes to dig out the person half way.
It was a little girl.
He suddenly felt cold to the bone.
AN: Well. I hoped you enjoyed. Question though: Should this be a oneshot or should I continue? I thought about both. So I'll take your opinion into account.
Please Review!!