thesurvivors01: lost but not lost [inv]

[Taki no NPC]

Onka sighed wearily and rubbed the bandages wrapped around her chest. They were red and hard with dried blood, and the wounds hurt to touch. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been seriously wounded, but that hardly mattered now. It had been a four days since the bastard Youei began his slaughter, and a week since the invasion of Iwagakure had begun. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what life had been like before all the fighting, but she honestly couldn’t now. The chaos had grown to envelop the country.

Word had spread like wildfire that both Seiichi and the Tsuchikage were dead. Many people were confused that Seiichi was being branded a traitor; the tales of his exploits in stopping the civil wars of Taki no Kuni were still legendary, and many people still remembered what had happened. Still, Youei was every bit as famous as Seiichi was, if not more so, and it was true that he had massacred countless Iwa-nin. To the people, Youei had stopped the invasion. To the people, Youei was the real hero.

Onka cursed loudly and slammed her fist into the nearest tree. It’s trunk exploded, and the birds in the canopy escaped while they could as their home came tumbling down.

“You’re making too much noise,” Zhou spoke.

“Shut up, Yun.” Onka replied bitterly. Zhou and his little sister, who was lying in a coma, had been found fleeing the capital. Even now she remembered the way those masked bastards, the Botsu, were killed by the child, and they had formed an unlikely alliance to escape the Nijiro.

But they had no direction and no leader; both were stranded behind enemy lines.

“We need to find Sun Jian. He’ll know where the Tsuchikage is, and he is strong enough to-”

“I said shut the fuck up!.” In a flash Onka was ontop of Zhou, a kunai held at his throat. There was a long pause, and only the rhythmic sounds of Mei Xiang’s breathing filled the copse they had made camp in. “You forget, little Yun, that I helped you so that I could escape. I’ve escaped. I could kill you and your sister at any time.”

“But you won’t because you’d be killed too.”

It took an unbelievable amount of restraint of Onka not to slit his throat there, but she stood up and backed away from the child. He was right. If he died, then her chances of surviving were cut extremely slim. But still, “Your Tsuchikage is dead.”

“No she isn’t.” Zhou’s reply was decisive and left no room for debate.

Onka wanted to believe that she was alive. She wanted to believe that if the Tsuchikage was alive then so was Seiichi, and so was the rest of waterfall. But every night she dreamed of the Nijiro; the bodies being thrown off of its sheer cliffs; the Iwa prisoners decapitated; the Taki-nin put to the sword if they didn’t swear loyalty to the new lord. Onka tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked away, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. “How are we supposed to find this Sun Jian?” Arguing about the Tsuchikage and Seiichi would just make her even more angry.

“We had several planned meeting spots on our path to the capital incase something unexpected happened. It would take four days to get from the Nijiro to the closest one, and we’re almost at the closest one.”

“Planned, huh? You arrogant bastards actually expected something outside your scope, didn’t you?”

Zhou cocked his head in confusion. “There was nothing unexpected. We knew there would be strong resistance and planned accordingly.”

Onka frowned. Zhou was like the rest of his kinsmen, oblivious to the world and unable to comprehend the ideas of randomness or failure. She hated it with a passion, but hating things other than Youei were exhausting to her now. “Lead the way,” she finally demanded. There was only one way to go, she knew, and it was the way she had been going her entire life.

Forward.

[Taki no NPC]

There was a mist that hung over the Daitake Temple. It hid the animals in the forests that lined the mountain stair, obscured the nothingness behind its lone traveler, and hid the path ahead.

Botsu Touboku was a man that accepted the mist. He welcomed it, even. Every step he took was a step on the path to divinity. No matter what stood before him, and no matter what surrounded him, Touboku would face and consume it all with nary a care.

It was this confidence that alerted the Iwagakure-nin to his true motives. They moved through the darkness of the forest, alerting those at the top to set their traps. This meeting spot was a place that only the approved could approach, and for four days no such souls had appeared. Thus, when Touboku ascended the last stair, the Iwa-nin surely thought that they had him when they let loose their kunai traps.

Touboku walked right through them, however. One of the Iwa-nin felt his jaw drop as he saw the invader’s body flutter like a mist as the kunai passed through him. Then his body was frozen, as if struck by rigor mortis, and he collapsed to the ground dead.

“Nozu-kun,” his friend whispered.

“He is no longer in this world,” Touboku said. The Iwa-nin looked up, just as Touboku grabbed his face and sucked his life out.

Suddenly an alarm bell was hit, and the mist stirred as Iwa-nin moved to assassinate the invader. Touboku threw his hood back, revealing the white, pharaoh-shaped mask that he wore, and spread his arms to his side.

“Come, Heretics of Stone,” he said, his voice partially drowned out by the sounds of drawn steel. “Come and be enlightened.”

---

Onka cracked her neck, sighed, and looked up the great stair that led to the Daitake Temple. “You bastards even took over this place, eh?”

She sighed, doing her best to repress the anger she felt deep down. The Daitake Temple was one of the Four Falls, the holy temples that were considered pivotal points in Take no Kuni’s spiritual landscape.

These bastards are nothing if not thorogh, Onka thought. Aiming for their holy temples was a smart move, one that would have tamed the public if things hadn’t went to hell in a hand basket.

“Oi, Yun,” Onka said, turning. “You awake?”

Zhou stood there, mouth agape, looking up the path. Mei was still quiet on his back.

Onka’s eyes narrowed. She knee that wide-eyed look, even if it was strange to see on a Yun’s face.

“This chakra,” he whispered. “This chakra is…”

“Holy,” a voice finished.

Onka whirled, only to see the source of Zhou’s fear walking down towards them.

“Botsu,” she said. Her teeth ground against each other and she reached to draw her nodachi. “Botsu!”