She took a glance over her shoulder. Nothing. She kept moving up the mountainside, her drawn katana slashing and slicing away the briars that blocked her path. Not very stealthy, but she needed to get to a resting place.
Her hair was tied back in a pony-tail to prevent it from getting caught, and her sleeves were bound with tape. The bandits had come so fast, she hadn't even had time to change into her outdoor clothes. Miaka chuckled to herself. Worrying about her clothes when there were blood thirsty ruffians hunting her in the wilderness. Typical.
She came to a stop at the foot of a great pine tree, it's long, shading branches giving her a greatly needed rest spot. She slumped down against it's thick trunk and laid her katana on the ground beside her. It had been a long day. Actually, it had been a long week.
She had left the Cloud Village several days ago, travelling with a caravan heading back to her home in the Village Hidden the Grass. Two days passed, and all was normal. The ride wasn't the best, but Miaka didn't complain. She had made some friends, and even got to meet a real shinobi from a far off village. His name was Kagoro...something. She forgot his last name. Now, she kinda wished she had remebered it. He was handsome too, in a devil-may-care kind of way. Miaka glanced at the katana resting on the ground beside her and sighed deeply. She wasn't one to dwell on the past. Death didn't faze her that much. She had grown up under the philosophy that life was just the beginning of an entirely new journey, one that must be taken through trials of pain of suffering. In the end however, treasures beyond imagination awaited those who succumbed to Yominokumi. However...seeing those people, those innocent people getting murdered, was almost too much to bear. For anyone.
It had been the third day of their travels when the bandits came. No one saw who they were, where they came from, or what they wanted. They just showed up on the caravan, weapons drawn, demanding for all shinobi to step foward. Miaka was in the rear of the caravan at the time, moping around, poking through the other passengers' baggage. It had been a good thing too. If she hadn't had been back there, peeking through the thin white sheets that seperate the baggage and the passenger holds, she would probably be dead now.
They had killed everyone. Not a single person was spared. The shinobi, being the righteous and just person that all shinobi are, valiantly gave up his life for the word of the bandits not to harm the other passengers. Miaka wasn't so valiant. As soon as the shinboi was dead, she had fled the caravan, stopping only to grab a weapon. She wasn't stupid. She knew what going to happen to those people. She had seen the look in the bandit's eyes. There was something about them. Something wrong...Hunger. That was it. They had a hunger in their eyes, and Miaka didn't think they were hungry for ramen.
She had wasted enough time here. They would be back onto her soon. Miaka groaned as she lifted herself from the base of the tree, picking up the sword, and began her trek through the woods.
She walked slowly, her feet growing heavier with every step. She still couldn't figure out why they were after her. She thought bandits were all about the money. These guys really didn't seem interested in all that though. It was weird. As soon as they found out she fled, they immediately started after her. Other people would have probably been scared, but one of Miaka's talents was her perceptiveness. She was ready for any situation. Sometimes it was good thing. Other times, it wasn't.
"Hey, I think I found something!" a slurred vocie came from a ways down the mountainside. . Miaka sped behind a nearby tree and blocked the sun from her eyes with her free hand. They were down there...somewhere.
"Hey, Damashi! Look at dis!" came the same, drolling voice. There seemed to be some scuffling, and a much thinner, raspier voice replied.
"Looks like someone cut through the bushes..." it said. . Idiot. Idiot! Miaka turned around and launched into a full on sprint. They were much closer than she thought. "Wait! Ya hear that?Listen...Up there! She's up there! Get her!"
Miaka slid her katana into it's sheeth and began pumping her arms to get more speed. She dodged through the trees, the pine needles crunching loudly under her sandals. She cursed to herself as she ran. Idiot! She had to find some sort of shelter. A hiding place. "Hurry up! She's heading towards that cave!" echoes came from below her.
A cave? Miaka turned her head as she ran. As the bandit had said, about ten meters away from her, embedded into the side of the mountain, was a small, almost unseeable cave entrance. Thanks moron. She changed direction and made a mad dash towards the cave entrance. She knew that if she got inside, she could probably find an alternate exit, and as she approached, it began to look more and more like an old war tunnel. The barricades in front seemed to have rusted and fallen over, crumbling into dust. There were chains around the entrance too, it looked like someone had wanted people to stay outta this place. Or to make something stay in. In her current situation however, Miaka didn't take that much time to look at the little details of the cavern entrance.
She took two large, quick steps over the barriers and practically fell over the chains. She didn't stop. She kept running. Into the black. She didn't know what awaited her in there. She didn't care. She just had to get away...
Deep within the confines of the cave, buried ten feet in the ground and locked within a steel case encased with a golden padlock...something was stirring.
Mogi Ikuzoma had trouble climbing. Not that he couldn't, he was just a little...big boned. His tongue drooped out of his mouth as he inched his way up the mountainside. Sweat poured down his face as if he were standing in the middle of a desert, and his cheeks were as rosey as tulips. "Damishi, can we, rest possibly? For a moment?" he sputtered.
Beside him stood a taller, lean faced man with a hooked nose and short, shining black beard. His cheeks were shallow, and his eyes seemed to be sunken. In actuallity, Mogi thought he looked a bit like some kind of re-animated corpse. He didn't talk much, but he was their leader. "No. We keep moving. The faster we corner that rat, the faster we can get back to the Sanctum" came the voice of a third. He was much taller than Mogi or Damashi. He was completely bald, with a golden moon shaped earing on each ear. He wore an open vest, showing a muscled chest, and more importantly, a belt filled with almost any kind of poison imaginable. His name was Katsogo. Mogi pushed his glasses up on his forehead.
"Hmmm" he muttered. With a great grunt and a heave, he hefted himself off the ground, and began to once again plod towards the cave.
Miaka couldn't see a thing. It was completely pitch black. She walked foward slowly, her hands spread by her sides. Her brows were slanted, and her eyes squinted, trying to make out the silhoutte of any familiar object. She continued on, the darkness seeming to go on forever. It was actually a bit scary. Walking through the dark, not touching anything except the ground beneath her feet, and not being to see what lies ahead. Who knew what kinds of traps could be waiting for her just around the corner? Suddenly, she felt something. Her outstretched palms rubbed against something slimy. Slimy and wet. She made a face in the dark, but continued moving. This must be some kind of small tunnel. And tunnels always lead somehwere! She quickened her pace, moving from a brisk walk, to a jog. Then out of nowhere, the tunnel ended. With nothing to brace her, she pitched headfirst into the shadows, stumbling, landing on stone cold ground, and rolling several feet before crashing into...something.
Miaka groaned and held her head. Ow. That hurt. She looked over to where she had fallen. It seemed the walls drastically curved off to both sides, and that they were lined with some sort of red moss. That must have been the slime she had felt earlier. Wait...how could she see? Light source, there had to be a light source. She stood and looked to the cieling. Nothing there. To the tunnel. Nothing there either. She turned to look behind her, and was almost blinded by the intense light that bombarded her eyes.
She cried out and stumbled back. What the? She shook her head, then put a hand in front of her eyes. What was that? After she adjusted to the new light, she discovered that she was staring at what looked like...a tomb, a intense beam of light coming froma crack in it's top.
It was very large and square. Not very decorative, but had a five, humongous chains wrapped around it's top, with a padlock similar to that on the door holding the chains in place. They were rusty though, Miaka thought as she edged closer. This tomb has been here a long time. She laid her fingers around the chains and tugged slightly. Almost instantly, they crumbled to dust. Whoa!
Suddenly, something was compelling her to open the tomb. She was no longer worried about the bandits. They were in the back of her mind now. She took her katana out of it's sheeth and slid in between the lid of the tomb and the tomb itself. Miaka raised her hands, blew on them, then wrapped them around the hilt of her sword...and lifted.
The lid moved slightly, but nothing amazing happened. She tugged again. Again a small move, but nothing happened. She tugged again, four, five times. Finally, becoming frustrated, she withdrew the katana from the tomb, raised it high into the air, and brought it crashing on the lid. Then, something amazing happened. A long, golden crack seemed to spread outward from her blow, creeping towards all corners of the tomb's lid like a spiderweb.
"Gee...I didn't think I was that strong" she mumbled to herself. Suddenly, voices came from the entrance to the tunnel.
"You see that light? She's down there! Come on! Move it!"
What the hell had she been thinking? Why waste time with that stupid coffin? She flipped her sword into her right hand, then sped away from the light...right into a wall. She turned to her left, then ran in that direction...there was nothing there. She began to search frantically for a way out. Some way, any way. She desperately felt the sides of the walls for any secret passage. She removed her sword, then angrily struck the wall in front of her.
"Open dammit!" she yelled. Stupid, yes. But she didn't care at the moment. The bandits would find her. They'd kill her and go on about their business. Why did she even come into this cave anyway? Why did she waste so much time trying open that stupid tomb. Dammit, dammit, dammit!
"So...finally got stuck didn't ya? We were beginning to think you would never slow down..." came a gurgling voice from behind her. Miaka whipped around, staring dead into the face of the bandit's. She felt tears come to her eyes. So this was it huh? With a quick movement, she raised her katana and thrust it at her pursuers with a blood curdling scream. A large hand smashed into the side of her head sending her sailing across the room and into the wall. The bandits chuckled.
"What a little pipsqueak. Can you believe we wasted so much time on this kid?" said the lean, mean looking, hook nosed guy. The other two laughed and shook their heads. Suddenly, the fat one began hopping up and down.
"Can I kill her sir? please, please? Can I kill her?" he asked like a small child.
The hook nosed man pretended to think about it for a moment before nodding. "Why not..." a sadistic grin came to his face. "You've caused me enought trouble already" he said with a sneer.
The fat man bounded foward, a kunai drawn from his belt. "Good bye little girlie! This is the end" he said with a maniacal laugh. He raised the blade into the air,and Miaka's eyes widened in fear. She didn't believe death was the end, but she would rather not have experience it so soon. She closed her eyes and waited for the blow...and nothing came.
After several, hell like moments of waiting, she cracked open an eye. "What the...?" came the voice of the big bandit.
The bandit who meant to kill her, the fat man, his eyes rolled back in his had, arms dangling at his sides, was being held aloft by his neck. There was a stranger with them. He had flaming orange hair, but that was about all Miaka could make out in the darkness. His voice was like steel, his prescence seemed to make the very air shiver in anxiety...or maybe fear.
"It seems you've made a very ghastly mistake coming here..." he whispered to the bandits. "...and now, you're going to have to pay the consequences"
End of Chapter One! Who is the Flame Haired Man! Why was he in the Cave! Does Miaka have anythiing to fear? Find out, in Chapter 2, of "Road of the Dead"