Nishira woke with a cough, spewing out all the water from her burning lungs. She turned to face the stone ground under her, expelling it there. the light was dimmer on this side, but so was the cavern. Nishira flopped onto her back, her chest heaving, greedily sucking in air. When her breathing subsided, she realized the cavern was empty except for her. The disturbed water surface sent flickering shadows on all the surfaces around her, the roof much lower, making the space seem tight and confining. A splashing echoed through her ears, as two shapes appeared, sputtering and coughing, Sekawa and Toma burst through, arms flailing as they made their way to the shore.
"Where… where are we?"
Sekawa wiped water from her brow.
"I don't know, somewhere at the bottom of the lake."
"Did you see that thing?"
"What thing?" Toma inspected the slashed remaining bindings carefully, rubbing a slimy leaf between his fingers. Nishira frowned, noticed by her other teammate.
"What did you see?"
Nishira thought about the figure that had grabbed her. It wasn't anyone she recognized but it felt warm, and somehow familiar. The hand that had grabbed her when her consciousness fled, had held tightly, fighting against the captor, guiding her. It had saved her.
"Never mind, Toma do you sense anything?"
Toma closed his eyes and held his hands together, slightly hunched in the short space. Just as he opened his mouth, a rope like arm coiled around his neck and yanked him into the shadows. Nishira was about to leap to his aid with something hard clunked on the back of her head. The world wobbled in her vision as she looked around to see the shinobi from before they entered. While her head already ached from the assault, based on the club he was wielding, it would have been easy for him to smash her skull in.
"You!"
"I told you to watch your back!"
She kicked out her legs, but it was like kicking a stone pillar, earning her an amused chuckle. He easily caught her foot, pulling her closer, her hands unable to find purchase in the slick stony surface. His foot raised to kick her and Nishira attempted to roll out of the way, but a slick hand grabbed her and pulled her into the darkness and in a blink, they were on the opposite side of the cavern.
"Toma! I didn't know you could do that."
He looked at his hands with confusion.
"I didn't either, I'm just glad that didn't fail."
"Watch out!" A blade came with lethal aim from above, Nishira tried to pull Toma out of the way, but it sunk heavily in his shoulder. He let out a guttural cry. Nishira unsheathed her ninjato and blocked the subsequent attack. Behind her she could hear the clanging of metal on metal of Sekawa engaged in a duel. Thundering footsteps came their way, distracting her from the opponent as Jori rushed in their direction. Nishira split into the air as he moved into her space, as she reappeared, an arrow nicked her leg, but otherwise clattered to the ground. Nishira looked in the direction it came, behind her in her blind spot.
As Jori came thundering back her way, Nishira didn't slip into the air before he arrived. She waited before crossing her arms to brace herself and as he contacted with her, slipped away and reappearing behind the figure perched halfway up the cavern, masked in all black. Her ninjato cleanly sliced through, earning her a pained cry as the body fell to the stone floor.
"Jori, if you want your teammate to live, you'll stop and get the hell out of here!"
Jori froze, staring with a menacing snarl. In a quick flash, the back end of Sekawa's naginata whipped in a calculating spot on his spine, and the man dropped like tumbling stone. They snagged Toma and disappeared down into the cave mouth and away from their unconscious attackers.
When they'd found a spot hidden from view, Sekawa turned to their injured partner.
"Toma, are you alright?"
Toma clutched his shoulder, gritting his teeth.
"Yeah I'll be fine, just bandage me up, we have to keep moving."
Blood dripped from the wound.
"Sekawa wait, we need to stop the bleeding first, it looks serious."
Sekawa huffed. "We're far enough away. Sit down, Toma."
He meekly obeyed, his long legs awkwardly bent as Sekawa opened her pack and wrapped the wound.
"Kawa…"
"Shut it Toma, stop apologizing. Sit still."
Towa winced as she rubbed an antiseptic over the surface and packed it with gauze.
"It's the best we're going to do for now. Just don't flap your damn arm every where and you won't lose it."
Toma sheepishly smiled at Sekawa, who frowned and stood, looking away from him.
"May I?"
Nishira moved forward, summoning chakra to her hands as she had in the Land of Waves, and mentally stitched his wound back together. She let out a huff at the effort being much deeper than her wounds before. When she pulled away, Nishira frowned, the cut was still open, but the flesh and tendons underneath were mostly stitched. She reapplied the bandage carefully.
"Thanks for having my back there."
Toma smiled sheepishly. Sekawa cussed.
"They're coming at us right out of the gate, hey? Alright, no more ambushes, keep aware of your surroundings. Let's go before they catch up."
After packing up, the three of them were up and edging carefully down the pathway being guided by the symbol etched in the stone. Every time Nishira trailed a finger through the character it glowed, leading them deeper and deeper into the cave. Sekawa looked around at the twists and turns and slowly started to inch her arms tighter around herself, her eyes flicking in every direction. The anxiety was not unnoticed by the others, who tactfully didn't mention it. Nishira reached back and took her hand, gently leading her forward. Sekawa squeezed back.
The pathway eventually opened into a giant echoing chamber; every step bounced around the vaulted ceilings like a deafening cry. The walls were jagged at every level with a steepness reaching far into the darkness that the light from below them couldn't reach. The light of their glowsticks couldn't touch the walls, lighting only the circle around them that reminded them of how far underground they'd gone. The opening they came from led to a bridge that hovered halfway up hundreds of feet from the bottom, the safety of the walls falling away to what would be certain death. Below them was lit with a sickly copper colour with drippings of red, a bad omen. Across the way on the other side, a carved gate with the character they were following at the peak above them. Toma saw it and let out a joyful sound.
"There it is, we're almost done!"
Sekawa looked at her watch. "Well, I would hope so, we've been at this for almost eighteen hours. I'm beat. Let's finish this and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps!"
Sekawa was about to bolt in front when Toma held out his hand.
"Wait! Take a closer look at the symbol. There's something odd with it. This whole place feels weird."
Sekawa and Nishira stopped to see what he was talking about. An extra mark is added at the bottom. Just the tiniest flick making the character mean "evade" instead of the one they'd been following.
Nishira looked around for another marking. when she turned back the way they came, there was a small alcove, carved to look like the inconsistent rock face, but it was worth looking. Nishira hopped there and pressed her chakra into the alcove, and beneath it, a glowing blue character appeared, the corrected form meaning the flat-footed creature they were following. And with it a hidden set of stairs descending was revealed, completely out of sight from the others. Toma turned sharply behind them.
"Someone's coming, quick, let's go!"
Nishira gestured them to come to her, and wordlessly they did and tucked away in the stairs, hidden from view of the bridge. The footsteps of the newcomers echoed throughout the cavern, bouncing around like a ping pong ball.
"Look there's more blood, it leads over there, they went that way."
Nishira looked back to see Toma looking bashfully at them, but Nishira looked down at her blood-soaked form from the headwound and replied with a sheepish look to Sekawa who glared at each of them equally. She was mouthing off without sound at both of her squad mates until the sounds of pursuing footsteps was interrupted with a deafening roar. The ground shook around them, rattling some loose fragments to leap from their walls clinking on the way down. The air chilled as if suffocated them with the arrival of something that made the colour in Toma's face drain. The terrified screams rang in their heads and finally, she couldn't contain herself. Nishira poked her head out to see what had arrived.
Nishira blinked at the sight before her, desperate for it to be a figment of her imagination or a very bad dream. Before her the face was that of death, and Nishira wondered if the proctor that had welcomed them to hell all those hours ago hadn't been exaggerating. A creature the size of giants, a skeletal face that focused on the team of three shinobi that quaked in its gaze was gruesome. Peelings of rotting flesh dripped from its features with stringy ropes of hair stuck in the pustulant temples, the disease continued down its humanoid body that stood towering over them, appearing as big as the mountain they had stared at before bidding the open sky farewell.
Its open maw screeched in a furious cry that shook the ground beneath them. The teeth bare of any stains, a frightening bright contrast to the vile gangrenous tones that plagued the rest of it. A hand ten times the size of any member on the team before it reached to grab at them. Drippings from the festering skin covered them in a putrid mess. A ragged scream escaped one of the monstrosities' victims as they scrubbed at their face. One in a straw hat in a cone released a chakra of fire that wrapped the colossus in a vivid case of raging reds. The creature barely noticed, hand still intent on a single member, one that was still blinded by the ooze. The third member jumped into action in defense of his teammate, stabbing the mammoth arm with a slew of ninja tools. Most bounced off the surface harmlessly. The hand snatched up the defenseless shinobi to his teammates' horror. The jutsu caster sent a flaming arrow pointed for the creatures one visible eye, the other an empty oozing socket. Upon impact, the behemoth dropped his captured prey, but only for the other hand to grab it with such force that the sound of cracking bones, like brittle candy, echoed in the cavern.
"What do we do?" Toma clutched Sekawa's arm, his face stretched in terror. Sekawa glared.
"The sign says evade, so we stay put."
Nishira looked back, they were from a different village. But as the creature's opened, ready to devour one of their team thereby paralyzing the others in horror, Nishira booked out of the safety of their alcove straight towards the fight. Her name being shouted chased her, and with a couple of hops through the air, she reappeared above the creature's head. Pulling out her ninjato as she fell onto it's back, she plunged it into the spine of the creature who roared, distracted from the two remaining Iwa shinobi, it tried to claw at her, but she held onto the ninjato as the creature jerked, trying to swat her like a fly.
What she supposed was blood seeped from around the wound the sword made, and a suffocating feeling welled within her, powerful and heated. She closed her eyes against the drowning tide of something bitter and razor sharp, trying to hold it at bay. She struggled, her hands clenching painfully around the leather grip on the sword hilt as it assaulted every sense, pulsing against her defences. But with one last push, it broke the dam. Instead of being consumed by it, a hollow wretchedness took its place. An anger, deep and ancient swelled to meet the intruder and clashed painfully. Nishira screamed as the power from within burst, destroying whatever had threatened to conquer her, and poured out from her body, wrapping it in a deep inky blackness. Nishira drew in a deep breath and the molten scarlet liquid seeped up to meet her mouth as she drank it, willing it to her.
As she consumed more, feeding on the energy her chakra wrapped around it like an ornament or a beloved coat, it beat against the flesh prison only to be limited by what felt like iron chains pinning it down. Keeping her from freely soaring in the awesomeness of it, Nishira breathed in more. Her hands released the ninjato and gripped directly onto the rancid flesh. It melted beneath her touch, and a bright blinding heat started behind her eyes, blinding her to everything outside of herself. Nishira could see nothing, do nothing but follow the power trail to the source. More and more she lapped and bathed in the power, feeling as though it would never be enough.
As her hands tore through the flesh, coating her in hot liquid that oozed and squelched to her will, she neared the end, feeling the beast's life force flee from this plane, and still she drank more and more, until the corpse slumped forward and Nishira stumbled forward, eyes narrowed, almost feral. Any trace of the human in her disappeared and in its place, the eyes soulless and black, piercing through the stinking sludge. Sekawa and Toma stood with the able Iwa shinobi, weapons drawn. The world was coming down on Nishira, swaying a little uneasily, she eyed both the Iwa shinobi and grinned, a sharpness behind her eye made her sway. A voice, half guttural and half her own, cried out.
"Take your comrade and go, or you're next!"
Without waiting another beat, they collected the mangled body of their likely dead comrade and scrambled out of there. As soon as they left the cavern, Nishira wobbled before landing on her hands and knees, vomiting up blood in waves that flowed outwards, dripping over the unguarded sides of the bridge, some pooling into the carcass of whatever she'd eaten. She purged until all that rich power Nishira had wielded seeped out with it, painting the grounds with splashes of crimson and chunks of tainted flesh. As soon as she wretched out the last bit, Nishira fell into the pool she made with a sickening squelch, the world blacking out from the depleting exhaustion that consumed her.
Nishira came to in the same inky darkness. She looked around and saw they were in a small, enclosed space, she couldn't see the entrance. Sekawa and Toma leaned against the wall wrapped in blankets as the stone provided no soft or warm place. Sekawa was asleep, the faintest snore came from her slightly parted lips, uneasy and jolted. Toma gazed over her, his eyes trailing over her peaceful face, marred only by some dirt on the tip of her cute nose. Nishira looked down at herself and saw that she was still covered in the gangrenous fluid, dried in revolting patches with bits of sinew and flesh stuck to her. She ached everywhere and winced as she sat up.
"You're awake." Toma's voice was carefully neutral. He was uneasy.
"Where are we?"
"Not far from the bridge. We figured when you passed out, it was a good time for us to get some rest. The other team went a different way, so we don't need to worry about them."
Nishira didn't reply but leaned against the uneven wall and closed her eyes. Her head was pounding, and her stomach growled obnoxiously, echoing in the small dome they had stuffed themselves. Toma struggled to keep a straight face and couldn't help but let one hyena like bark before covering his mouth and shaking. Nishira chortled quietly, his laughter contagious in her near delirious state. She glanced to see if their commotion woke Sekawa who would reign furry if woken from what little slumber she'd been able to get. Nishira made the mistake of making eye contact with his twinkling sea foam eyes and burst out in giddy chortling behind a stifling hand.
"So, you want to talk about what happened back there?"
The laughter died on Nishira's tongue at the question.
"I don't really know to be honest. I just remembering feeling angry, and then angrier but different."
Toma huffed in amusement.
"Well, if I had to guess what that thing you faced was, I think it was a Gashadokuro. My mother used to tell me stories about the angered spirits that took revenge on anyone who entered their resting place. I guess I wasn't expecting it to be so visceral or so huge. But that would make sense about you feeling anger. But it's interesting, I know what you mean by angrier, because I could feel it too. It was different. Maybe you have an angry spirit in you?"
Nishira pressed her lips together. The short answer was yes, but that was oversimplifying it. It might have been more accurate to say she knew of it. Nishira shook her head.
"I'm sorry Toma, I don't even know how to describe it, even though its not the first time I've done something like this. It's just," she shrugged dumbly. "Something I've always been able to do, like my air hopping."
He didn't seem satisfied with that answer but didn't press. Nishira was grateful for his calming spirit in their group. With a hothead like Sekawa, and Nishira's tendency to act without thinking, Toma was like a string that kept them together. It was a thankless job, but Nishira hoped there was a day where she could make it up to him.