Huntin Wabbits [Cap]

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Several months ago Mana had the honor of recovering a long lost archive in the Forest of Death. While the mission was not without it’s small hiccups here and there like the young trickster getting trapped in the main hall for the night it was a great experience and one of the defining moments in Mana’s life. It was also the mission that made Mana to be considered for promotion to chuunin. Ever since that day spent reading scrolls by the moonlight under the torches Mana had become fascinated with mythology and legends. During her free time Mana started to get some reading about all kinds of things: history, folk tales, legends of mystical artifacts and so on. Most of the legends she read were from the very same archive that she recovered so her deed only looked that much more useful. It looked appealing to her parents as well seeing their daughter learn instead wandering around or meditating which looked increasingly more scary to them because of the increasing amount of time Mana spent in trance. Mana was really intrigued to know that one of her teammates shared her passion for legendary items and while Meiko’s interest seemed a lot like it was more material as contrasted by Mana's more ideal approach it was still something.

Recently however Mana was very interested in one particular scroll which didn’t speak of some sort of a story or an artifact but instead the story of the very archive whose content Mana helped to recover. Well at least such was Mana’s deduction as it didn’t really name the archive in question but it did bring up details about it that made the girl suspect that it indeed was the archive in question to be described. The more the magician read about the archive the more interested she grew to the scroll. She only had the permission to have it borrowed for a couple of weeks but by that time Mana would have ate it up several times over. It spoke in great detail about the spectacular and fantastic library of unmatched knowledge but what Mana saw was just a hall with a hundred scrolls at best. That was the fact that bothered Mana, the more she read the more something told her that there may be something more beneath what Mana saw collapse after the giant centipede of the forest rammed the place. What if Mana only recovered the tip of the iceberg of the citadel of knowledge laying below, what if she only discovered the main hall and not the whole place. Thoughts like this made Mana plan another trip for the forest.

It was one of the seven days she had left until Mana had to leave for Shukuba town with her team. Knowing that there was a slight chance of things going sour it seemed a little silly to leave things for after the mission Mana wanted to venture to the forest now. Still the Forest of Death was a cruel place as she had the opportunity to find out and Mana really wanted to have some company with her. Mana didn’t want to trouble her teammates, something told her that they already had enough to worry about with their own training, Meiko already seemed to be racing with time to repair her gear. Mana needed someone she could trust and someone who would care enough to enter the Forest with only a hunch to back the journey up and the young magician knew only one ninja like that. Still that ninja was not someone she could just visit and see, Yoroi seemed to just drop by when he was needed and disappear after the need for him was gone.

Going by what Mana knew about the sannin he hung out around the hall she performed in quite often as two out of three times they met he just happened to be passing by. It really killed Mana not knowing his address or anything that could’ve helped her to just send him a letter or something. The girl decided to try this one thing and if she won’t reach Yoroi then she would have to leave on her own again. It wasn’t that Mana didn’t think she could handle the quest as she did it quite well last time it was that she wanted to have more options than swimming in the insides of a giant centipede when it came down to that. Mana scribbled a note and slapped it on a WANTED hall near the hall she performed one day after a show.

“Yoroi-san, I’m leaving for the Forest of Death tomorrow because I think that it has a pretty neat library hidden under it’s floor. It could be useful for the village but I don’t have enough evidence to back it up to make it an official mission. Giant centipedes may be involved again… If you’re interested I’m leaving tomorrow at 9 so let’s meet near the forest gate. Mana

P.S. Sorry I’m not training at the moment…

P.P.S. We really need to exchange addresses…”

As the fateful day came Mana got her backpack with all of her ninja gear ready. This time the girl knew better than to wear her prized and fancy magician’s uniform in a journey where she may be exposed to a centipede’s brain so she wore a much simpler attire composed of a black sleeveless top, rugged pants and a jacket. She also took a more brain material-proof backpack if she ever needed to protect scrolls from being exposed to swamp water or insides of an insect. With a certain excitement and explorer’s enthusiasm Mana rushed for the Training grounds and wandered further through a seemingly endless forest massive before the signature fence showing the forest of death came into sight. “Who goes there?!” a young woman shouted out as Mana came closer to the fence, “Oh I know you, you’re that magician my son likes… Sorry, you're harder to recognise without the get-up... What’s your business here?” she asked with a slightly softer tone. Mana forgot that she needed something to enter the forest, last time she was on a mission so it wasn’t too much of a problem but now it would be harder. While something told Mana that she could convince the woman to let her through it would be quite troublesome to do so…

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

It would not be a whole lot longer before the time of the mission would be upon Yoroi and Kimiko's three students, Kiyomi, Meiko and Mana. Where Yoroi was as ready as ever, he had told the genin to prepare themselves for the mission. He hated it when a mission turned out to be a failure, which was why this had never happened to him before and would not happen now, he would not allow it. For anything to reflect badly upon the village meant Yoroi was either asleep or incapacitated at the time, one of those two being highly unlikely for the elite. In all of his years, he had only nearly been beaten once by a man that seemed like he was even more inhuman than Yoroi himself was in the eyes of many others. Today was bound to be an interesting one, at least that was what he hoped. What was going to be another daily routine of training and research had changed because of one of Kimiko's students, Mana. When he had gone to check up on another of Mana's performances, he accidentily ran into the note pinned in place at the hall in which she usually performed. Had he not seen it, he would not have gotten to the forest in the first place, nor would he have learned about the hidden library described

Not knowing anything about a library being hidden beneath the forest of death, he thought that it might contain some sort of information that had been hidden by the village a long time ago during the reign of a past Hokage. Not knowing what could be hidden in this place, he figured that it would be worth the attention of a high ranking shinobi such as himself that could in turn bring it to the Hokage if it turned out to be important enough. That said, he had a lot of shelves in his new estate that could use some filling. Once he arrived, he would see for himself if this place would be worth exploring further, and if it was, whether the books and files inside would be worth taking to the Hokage personally. If they were not important enough to show, he would keep them for himself, something he would also do with the reading material that would be better of not seeing the light of day, just in case it had any of that. Walking closer to the forest of death, the tall fences could already be seen from a distance. Many had lost their lives in the forest during the times of cold war between the villages. The northern lands had always believed it to be a smart move to infiltrate through the forest, and truth be told, many had succeeded in doing so. In his time as a shinobi, Yoroi had only once found a group of shinobi on their way through the forest, none of them surviving the encounter with the shinobi from Konoha.

Had they survived, yet another batch of unfriendly shinobi would have been allowed to roam freely in the fire country. Those that had been around since that time had been through a lot of pain and encountered heavy losses every month, though it seemed like the bad seeds were never truly eradicated. Despite that, Yoroi still tried to hunt them down alone or as a group effort, something Mana herself was quite aware of. For the sake of the village, Yoroi had even been using his skills in order to train some of the large animals living in the forest to learn which people were bad and which were good, though this often left a lot to be desired. In the end, an animal was an animal, so they could not see through someone wearing a disguise and sometimes took a friendly for a hostile, resulting in a very nasty situation. The creatures inside were not like the snakes of Ryuchi, lacking intellect and the ability to adapt to new things. The giant centipedes had always been the kind of creature that stuck to a hive mind, attacking anything that could serve as food and thus becoming a threat to all that he had been trying to set up in the forest. If he ran into them, they would receive no mercy from the shinobi. Now that he had gotten close enough for Mana and the guard to see him, he kept walking in a straight line, making no attempt at stopping while nodding at Mana to follow him.

"Move aside, i've got business in the forest, the kid is with me."

Keeping the interaction between him and the guard as brief as possible, he did not want to attract too much attention to himself, just in case this lead he was following turned out to be useless. If this was the case, he did not want to be questioned about his motives behind heading into a restricted area with a genin, only to tell people he was chasing a lead that turned out to be nothing in the end. Aside from the short interaction with the guard, very little words were used by the shinobi as he passed through the gate and into the forest, figuring Mana would follow him inside soon enough. It seemed best to start talking about all of this once they were away from other people so they could speak freely.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Mana had already started to think of words to make the lady let her through. It definitely wasn’t as easy as the girl imagined in her head. She actually thought that the guard would simply let her through seeing how she had no problem accessing the forest before. Though something in the woman’s tone just suggested that she was just a kunoichi who pissed someone influential off and was placed on watch duty. It didn’t really look like she would view it as something really important and her tone was far from strict. It sounded much more like the guard was simply confused and wondering what Mana was doing there and she just wanted confirmation of Mana’s reason to be there. It certainly sounded like she would buy any half-baked story Mana could muster up but the problem was that the girl couldn’t really pick one up. Turns out Konoha’s Trickiest Kunoichi was actually a pretty crappy liar… “She said her son was a fan… Maybe I can play off of that” Mana wondered before sensing a figure approaching behind her. It wasn’t like Mana heard or saw someone behind her but it was just like that new sense she picked up recently.

It was the greatest by far chakra Mana had ever gotten a sense of. It paled even the one of a jounin in the training grounds in comparison. Mana almost jumped and turned her head towards the approaching figure. If it wasn’t of the somewhat relaxing nature of the chakra calming Mana down she may have seriously freaked out which in turn may have freaked the guard out. It felt a little calming but also great, Mana wondered if it could have been Kimiko’s chakra but then realized that Kimiko had no way of knowing that Mana was here. “It has to be Yoroi-san!” Mana thought to herself trying to remember the feeling of the chakra. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be able to recognize it, it’s almost impossible to lose track of something like this to an untrained sensor like Mana it felt like a roaring engine was right next to her ear it felt like if sensing chakra had a responsible organ it would’ve been torn to pieces by the sheer size of the chakra. “How on earth did I not pick this up earlier?” Mana wondered. Without really digging deep into reasons why she didn’t sniff Yoroi out by tracking large chakra sources Mana just watched how things would transpire.

Yoroi seemed to just throw a small sentence at the guard and show Mana that he wished her to follow her without any official permission. It looked like the guard had no intention of really stopping neither of them, it just looked like she felt like she didn’t deserve all of the trouble, maybe she just recognized Yoroi and was afraid to try. Mana quickly went on after Yoroi just as he instructed with his subtle nod. The girl didn’t really understand why would Yoroi behave that way, wasn’t he one of the most respected ninja around? Can’t he just go wherever he wants? Why would he act as if he tried to avoid the guard as much as possible? Either way Mana knew better than to ask questions. Whatever reason Yoroi had to be acting secret like that it must’ve been pretty good one. Mana trusted the man’s judgment better than to try and annoy him over something like his thoughts about guards, restrictions and rules. “Maybe he himself has no clearance to access the place? Maybe he’s just faking out as if he does so that the guard just doesn’t annoy him…” Mana looked at Yoroi and just accepted this reason she just made up.

As the fence with the guard disappeared behind the two Mana asked with a quiet tone as if someone could still hear them “So I guess you want an explanation about what’s going on, huh?” the girl knew that she wasn’t really supposed to be here unless a mission asked her to and from the way Yoroi acted it didn’t look like he didn’t have risks of his own to help her out. A small explanation was the least Mana could offer so without really waiting for an answer she continued “One really famous archeologist found some lost archive in the center of the forest, he said that it had scrolls of great importance for the village: ones about it’s history, mythology, ones about mystical and legendary items and so on. He was really not prepared for a recovery of the scrolls and was actually lost himself so he didn’t risk it. A couple of months ago I was chosen for the mission to recover those scrolls, I got attacked by a giant centipede and the whole building collapsed, I had to dig through the corpse of that thing to get out but I did recover the scrolls. The scrolls are now in the museum and when I was reading one of them I found that the library actually had an underground room so I hoped that I could recover scrolls inside that room for the village too.”

Mana stopped speaking to catch her breath, she was moving slightly faster than Yoroi since she remembered where the place was and had to show him. “It isn’t too far from here. Maybe a couple of kilos at best and I think a small explosive would be enough to break into the room below. But I don’t really have anything solid to base the mission on except what the scroll said…” Mana really wanted to find that room. Not because she wanted to be known as someone who found it or to claim some scroll inside it, she just had a fascination for that kind of thing. To see a legend, a story captured in two lines of a long forgotten scroll with her own eyes was all the reward she could have expected. Still Mana didn’t really know why Yoroi decided to come, “I really didn’t think you’d come. Thought maybe I should’ve found a better place to put the message on, I’m glad you did though, Yoroi-san.” Mana really didn’t know why she felt better at giving this wild idea a shot with a sannin by her side, it would only make it more painful if she was to blow up just a hole of dirt with nothing underneath but she did consider Yoroi a friend and it’s always more fun to travel with a friend, even if it was a silly trip to begin with…

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

It was a good thing that Mana knew him as well as she did, keeping her mouth closed until they were far enough away from the gate and the person that was standing guard. Shortly after passing the point where a conversation became possible without anyone eavesdropping on them, the Kunoichi asked him if he wanted an explanation as to what was going on, a question he answered with an approving nod. As soon as he did so, a flood of information came out of the young woman, though Yoroi had no trouble processing it and saving every word of it. To hear that an archaeologist had been responsible for unearthing such a place meant that there was a vast amount of wealth in terms of both knowledge and actual money to be found in the place. History books had taught him the worth of the things that came from the old days while his time in the fire temple had taught him the value of what the people of the past left behind for the people of the present. Hoping that this place would be able to teach Yoroi the kind of thing the people of the present time had either forgotten or never learned in the first place, knowing that this was often the kind of thing that could help a lot of people.

What came next was not as welcome as the information given to him about the library. When Mana had continued her story, she told him that the place had collapsed due to the attack of a giant centipede, that all the information she had been able to take with her had been taken to the museum for all to see. To Yoroi, news of the knowledge being passed on to the museum was not a good thing, especially since it had been months since Mana had completed that specific mission. Because the young kunoichi had been able to figure out that there was another room to the library, that meant that others of a similar or possibly even greater mind than Mana could have figured it out and acted on it as well. That said, if these people would have actually done such a thing, they too would have been forced to handle the centipedes, which was not a bad thing in itself. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen that the centipedes would go about causing trouble for the village. Visibly angered by what Mana told him, he made a silent vow to make a mission for the shinobi of the Leaf to eradicate the centipedes once and for all.

When he put everything together in his mind, the only good news of the day had been the discovery of the library he had not been notified of earlier. The bad news was obviously it's destruction by centipedes and the fact that anyone could have broken into the other library in the past month. To say that his mood had become increasingly less happy with every new bit of information would be the most accurate way of describing the way he felt right now. Letting a deep sigh escape his lips, he figured that if there would have been people going after the library, he would already be far too late to make a difference, he did not want to give Mana the feeling that she had done wrong by only coming with this at a time where it had all become somewhat pointless. While he formulated the right words into a sentence, he hoped that he could in some way or shape motivate himself to feel a little better about this search mission that would most likely just end up in disappointment.

"While I wish you had told me about this kind of thing when you found it, there is really nothing we can do about that right now. The best thing we can do right now is to get there as soon as possible and hope the place has not been looted yet. This just became an unofficial mission, so please take me there as fast as possible.".

Going by the tone at which he spoke, some frustration could be felt, though none of this was to be blamed upon Mana. No, if nothing else, it was everyone else's fault for not letting him know about this kind of thing being found this close to the village. For now, he would follow the Kunoichi and hope against his better judgement that the library was still intact for the most part. If it was not, he might be able to find out some clues as to who might have taken the stuff he was after, though that was all stuff for later. Having given her the go ahead to rush on to the place this library was supposedly hidden, the Kaguya would try his best to give both Mana and himself the feeling that there was still something worth trying for.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Konoha’s one and only stage magician remembered the last time she walked this forest path to the ruined archives. She didn’t remember it being such a long and awkward walk, mostly because it was interrupted by the giant centipede that chased her half the way. As comical as it may sound but the distance always feels a lot shorter when you’re being chased to death. Something made Mana feel like she needed to get to the archive faster, it felt strange since in theory she had all the time in the world. There should have been no rush to reach the spot faster – there was only a slim chance that there was something under the ruins at all, it wasn’t like it was a chase against time. It was just an interesting play of words that the scrolls used that made Mana believe that there was this hidden chamber at all. If she was travelling alone Mana would have probably moved more quietly and listened for any signs of something large just like she did last time. Mana now knew all around the local creatures that lurked around. The plus side was that if a centipede or a being of a similar size was to try and attack the two Mana would sense the shaking ground and rustling leaves. Also Mana knew that with her being stronger currently than she was before and with Yoroi to help her out she stood more chances in standing against anything the forest dishes out.

Yoroi looked strangely affected by something, it looked as if something annoyed him somehow. Mana really did not understand the young man, this job was just something for fun and there was no reason to take it too seriously. It was just a team of people following a questionable lead which came from a play of words. It really looked like Yoroi was taking it seriously even if Mana didn’t really think that his annoyance was caused by her directly. Mana had already seen Yoroi when he was angered by someone, it looked more like he was annoyed by the situation in general rather than it was something she had done. His words also sounded a little strange, almost as if he was angered by the world around him for reasons only known to himself. But that was one of the reasons Mana liked having Yoroi as a teammate – he always took his job seriously which sometimes contrasted the more carefree approach that Mana had.

The road to what was once a large ancient building definitely felt longer than Mana remembered, a small part of her started to get a little worried that she may have forgotten where the rubble was seeing how she ran for her life the entire time when she first got there. She was also deeply shaken by having to dig through the corpse of a dead giant insect to get out of the wreckage when she came back as well. Also it was a month or two since the last time she walked this path so she knew that a lot of things stacked against her memory to the point where if she had to bet she’d bet against a person remembering the way. However Mana knew inside that it was just her somewhat slow and careful pace, trying to feel the ground and the surrounding as well as possible and not get ambushed by some giant creature on their way there.

Suddenly Mana stopped in her tracks as she saw a large crater in front. While her brain did not remember this landmark on her way to the archive and back her sense of direction told her that they were heading the right direction. Still Mana kneeled and examined the dirt, she wasn’t a very good analyst of environment but she could probably tell what made this crater. “Judging by the diameter and rough edges of the crater and by how smitten the ground is I say it was an explosion, maybe an explosive tag, not too powerful…” It was then when it hit Mana why was Yoroi so annoyed by something earlier, he thought that someone else may have found the archive and looted it and judging by this crater someone was definitely looking for something around here. “If the explosive used wasn’t so powerful, they likely wished not to be too rough in their approach – someone was also looking for the hidden room.” Mana then laughed out “They were looking in the wrong place though, while they know that the room is below the archive no one except me and the archeologist know where the original room was because it collapsed on itself.” Still the search was conducted only half a kilometer away from the location where Mana remembered the archive being, they were awfully well informed about the location, “I think that the archeologist spilled the beans to someone except apparently he wasn’t as sharp with the instructions…” It made sense, the archeologist only stumbled on the location once by accident and it was his first expedition to the forest, his mind wasn’t as sharp as an average ninja’s he did not try to memorize landmarks to help with the directions.

“I think whoever else was looking for the room, they didn’t find it, at least this party didn’t, I don’t think they kept on looking seeing how vague the lead was. The fact that someone else was looking for it, however, strengthens the chance of such a room actually existing.” Mana kept mumbling to herself as she kept rubbing the dirt between her fingers, while she was speaking to herself if anyone was close enough they would have heard her mumbles. The girl stood up and looked over the forest ahead, this spot was prepared for excavation: several trees were cut down there were evidence of a campfire being here but it looked like it was a long time ago, maybe even a week or two has passed. If they would have had to go through a similar amount of preparation every time they thought it was the right spot it definitely wasn’t likely that they would’ve liked going through the trouble. If Mana wouldn’t have found anything in the spot she considered the right one she’d have given up after the first try just because of how lousy of a lead the scroll was.

“I think we should keep moving, we're really close now, Yoroi-san.” Mana smiled to the young man as if she was entertained by the lack of success from a previous party. If these people were working with the archeologist and they reported the lead as a fluke, any other parties who would’ve consulted with the man would’ve been disappointed by him and end their search before it even began. Mana was really getting excited now with her hopes being slightly assured by this failed search and not a sign of any giant centipedes so far. The odds were good, better than she thought they were when she left and Mana knew it…

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

Walking on without saying much, he kept thinking about the people who might have been looking for the information Mana and Yoroi had come for, wondering whether these were the kind of people that just wanted to find that which was hidden or if they were actually planning on doing something with it. It had always been a part of him to always keep in mind that there was often a darker side to things than one might be able to see on a first glance. Whether it had been because of his upbringing or the things he had encountered in his time as a shinobi, Yoroi never went into anything unprepared, always keeping his mind sharp when out of the village to defend himself. Criminals and Nukenin could be found anywhere these days, some being stronger than the other, though it was not these people that Yoroi feared to encounter in the forest. No, it was the man that always seemed to know exactly where to find him, the one that was so incredibly cunning and skilled as a shinobi that Yoroi did not want to encounter in the flesh when with Mana.

When the two of them had been attacked by the man before, they had encountered one of his creations, as well as a hired blade that had been tasked with retrieving certain files and a briefcase he had not opened in fear of it being rigged and destroying whatever was inside if Yoroi tried to break it open. Having personally examined the corpse of the man he had once killed in Yugakure, the one that had been turned into an undead doll, his somewhat limited medical knowledge had not been fruitful. Together with the silence coming from the Scorpion, the hired blade that had been sent to kill them, no information had come from that encounter up until now. For his silence, he had been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the Bachi prison, a place he would never break out of without external help. That said, he doubted anyone would try. After all, he was nothing more than a hired blade that held no real connection to the world or to the person that had hired him in the first place. No, he was just another loose end that was to remain locked away or taken care of.

In a way, Yoroi would have felt better if he had killed the man when he had the chance. Whenever Yoroi did a half assed job, things always came back to bite him in the ass. It went without saying that he had gotten rather tired of leaving loose ends of his own, though he always welcomed the challenge, to see the kind of stuff his enemies would come up with in order to take him down. Just like that, the two had come up to a spot in the forest that seemed to have been beaten by an explosive force. Before he made any personal assumptions, Mana jumped at the chance to figure out what had happened here, taking a brief moment to check things out and stating what it was she managed to figure out in the short amount of time spent on it. Despite the momentary check-up, Yoroi could agree with her on the cause of the damage, this being an explosive tag. Listening to her reasoning, the people that had done this had most likely been trying to get in by blowing a hole in the roof with an explosive that would not take the entire place down with it.

"Whether one group was unsuccessful or not does not mean everyone would have just given up. The failure of one man often makes others want to try harder as a means of succeeding where the other failed. Mankind has done great things to try and outdo the people that failed to do what they did, calling it impossible. Some people say that Ninjutsu itself was made by people who wanted to become better than someone else, doing what they believed was impossible at the time.".

Humanity was a strange type of creature, though if there was something that was not to be underestimated it was their ability to push themselves past the limits set by others. Yoroi himself had done things others had deemed impossible several times already, even doing things that amazed himself at first. It was a testament to the abilities of mankind and it's ability to keep going against incredible odds. Where Mana believed that the failure that had taken place here would set them back enough to quit, Yoroi himself believed that they would only try harder. If he had been given viable information on something that could benefit him as a shinobi, there would be no walls high enough to keep him out. Not knowing how long ago it had been since the explosion had taken place here, he figured that there were bound to be more not far from here. After all, these people had probably been at it for weeks or even months, probably also spending a good bit of time salvaging whatever they could from the collapsed main building. It was time for them to start moving again.

"With the chance that these guys still being around paired with the increasing odds of this place actually existing means that we should not stick around for much longer. From this point on, we have other things to worry about than Centipedes. The people that caused this, no matter how long ago it has been are most likely still around here, digging in new spots or trailing people who know of the location such as you. Keep your eyes and ears open at all times.".

Even though the centipedes had already been a threat to them, the possibility of these treasure hunters or whatever they were still being around here made the situation a whole lot more dangerous for the Kunoichi. It was not like he doubted his own ability to keep someone safe, not at all. The problem he was facing was that he had no idea of where they were going, how long these people had been around, how many of them were around and the kind of fortifications they had made since they arrived. Getting somewhat excited over the possibility of getting his first good fight in months, a small grin appeared on his face. Ready to keep following the Kunoichi, he hoped that she would still be able to find the place, having seen tell-tale signs of a person who was not entirely certain of where they were going along the way. All he could do now was follow her and hope that she still remembered.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

It seemed that Yoroi had his own interpretation of what may have happened there. Not that Mana had any problems with this little exchange of thoughts, the two often had different opinions about pretty much everything. It was one of the reasons why Mana enjoyed working with Yoroi, he was everything that Mana was not. Yoroi only used ninjutsu and fought for real, with a goal to defeat someone while Mana used it mostly for her magic shows or intimidation, she wasn’t too sharp of a fighter, usually being too careless to take it too seriously. Yoroi always saw and prepared for the worst scenario while Mana didn’t prepare for either of them until it actually happened. It may have been part of the reason why she took deaths and failure so hard – Yoroi prepared himself for seemingly any possible scenario and Mana just let things slide as they did. From the way Mana thought of her Kaguya friend one had to earn his trust, he trusted no one and when it came to Mana one had to earn her distrust instead. The girl had this nasty habit of seeing best in all people and her hatred could’ve only been drawn out by a process of similar length and difficulty as trust was earned from Yoroi.

Then again, it was part of the reason things worked when they worked together, at least Mana thought that they did… The two complimented each other in some things that the other one lacked. Whatever the case was with the people that came here looking for the hidden room before the two had no other choice but to keep going until they come to the spot where the original tunnel to the underground archive was. As far as Mana recalled the resulting rubble it was nothing too out of the ordinary, if someone was to find that pile of ancient looking rocks they would most likely just think it was some sort of camp built by one of the genin that were roaming the place like many more around the forest. After all not all ninja are careful enough to hide their tracks after resting, some leave their camps just like they built them perhaps with hopes to return on their way back and use them again or they just don’t care anymore.

Mana kept walking on, wondering how much longer was there left to walk. It shouldn’t have been too far away. Then as Mana carefully pushed a tree branch away she jumped back as fear and shock filled her heart. A bunch of limbs looking like ones on the giant centipedes all over the bushes around. Mana could count at least five tails and several heads of the nasty big insects. Mana’s first instinct was to walk away slowly and try to find a way around them, she raised her palm signaling Yoroi not to rush his instinct to fight. If something too destructive happens so close to where the hidden archive was supposed to be it could conceal the exact spot where the explosives needed to be planted which Mana knew and could recognize if nothing caused enough destruction to conceal it. If Mana asked Yoroi to hold back while fighting them he could accidentally hurt himself or cause too much pain for the insects than absolutely necessary. These creatures act by instinct, they do not deserve to be slowly killed by a man who is trying not to cause too much noise. Also there was something very fishy about this group of insects that usually fought each other and were even known to resort to eating each other out of their shells.

“There’s something incredibly fishy about this.” Mana whispered to Yoroi “There’s no way we didn’t catch a feeling of shaking ground or noises of breaking trees or any noise of these things fighting, they’re usually aggressive towards each other…” The more Mana tried to figure things out the less sense it made for these creatures to be just ganged up this way and standing absolutely still. The centipedes were a very active, agressive and fast species, Mana had first-hand experience with that, she even saw them not stop and ramming a wall and killing themselves just to get to their prey. “Wait here for a second…” Mana whispered, she then hoped out of the cover that the bush provided, if the centipedes attacked then the fight would’ve been inevitable but Mana had a hunch that they would not. The girl ran up to one of the bushes where multiple parts of the centipede shells were seen. With great effort she lifted and showed Yoroi an empty shell piece, most likely removed from an already dead insect, would be too much trouble to remove it from a living one. It appeared someone was playing games here, trying to lure people away from this area.

Mana looked around the area. She was as stumped as stumped goes. She was sure that this place was where the rubble was supposed to be yet there was no bulge in the ground where where the archive’s underground hall crumbled or a giant “S” shaped ravage on the ground where the centipede dug when it hit the entrance to the underground corridors head on. There was nothing, not even a sign that there was ever an archive at all, to spill more salt on Mana’s shattered pride was the fact that rich grass and trees flourished in the exact spot Mana knew the archive was supposed to be, there was a centuries old oak in the exact point Mana planned to place explosives! “I… I don’t understand… This is the place, I know it, there’s no way I could’ve been lost.” Mana grunted as anger and annoyance filled her heart. She knew that she’s come to the right place, when she looked around it looked like that exact place from back then… Except prettier, everything looked like an idolized version of itself, there were even patches of sage growing on the ground… “I’m sorry, Yoroi-san, I guess there we’ve came here for nothing after all…” Mana apologized with a confused face.

The girl just couldn’t understand what was going on, she would’ve accepted it if they’d found nothing but dirt after blowing the hole but this… This was on the line of being ridiculous.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

Now walking through the forest in a far more defensive state of mind, Yoroi made sure that he was close to Mana in case of any attacks aimed towards the Kunoichi. Yoroi knew what could happen if he let his guard down in a place like this, especially since his encounter with the Prajñã group, an order of assassins hailing from the land of woods, a place not far from the Fire country. Also known as the Hannya Black Ops, they were a group that was much like Konohagakure's ANBU, following orders from the Daimyo of the land of woods. If these people had anything to do with it, the place would most likely be rigged with traps while the members of the group would not be far away themselves, watching and waiting for the right time to strike. While Mana was pushing aside a branch, his eyes instantly saw what looked like a limb of a centipede. Placing his hand tightly around the sword he had on his back, he let his eyes work for him before he stepped in to end the miserable wretches. While trying to step in to take a closer look, he had hoped to find a good spot to strike, though Mana instructed him to wait. Even if he was higher in rank, he was not the kind of person that disregarded the things that were said by those beneath him. When she explained her reasons to him, he too agreed that it was quite peculiar that all of these creatures had been moving past them without either one of them noticing anything.

Things as large as them would either make themselves visible when they were on the move or at least create enough noise that a skilled shinobi would be able to pick up from a fair distance. Releasing his grip on the handle of his Katana, he watched as Mana went about doing her thing. Showing up again with the shell of one of the centipedes, it became quite clear that all of this had been set up as a means of scaring away those that did not know any better. Frowning at the centipede part, he shook his head at the thought of someone taking the time to set up such a lowly trap. It was like setting up a scarecrow, no smart bird would fall for it, just like Mana and Yoroi did not fall for this one. After all, had they been real, Yoroi would have wasted no time in massacring them all anyway. Moving on again, Yoroi could feel that they were getting closer to their location. Unsure about who it was they were up against, he could not help but feel like they would soon find themselves caught in a fight or struck by some kind of trap made by the Prajñã. Marching on despite his gut telling him there would be trouble, his stroll ended when Mana came to a halt. Thinking they had arrived, all Yoroi could see was a single tree standing in a decent clearing, a rather strange thing to see that was not a natural phenomenon.

When Mana stated that this was supposed to be the place, he could tell that she had lost the will to move on. Though it seemed that Mana was rather willing to give up on all of this because she had made some kind of mistake, Yoroi himself wondered as to what had gone wrong. From Mana's expression and her Even if Mana was wrong, the placement of the tree was rather strange, seeing as no tree would suddenly grow in the middle of a clearing while all trees stood so far from it. Together with the decoys set down earlier as a means of scaring people away, it seemed like the person that had found the entrance by now had been rather set on hiding it from others. The tree in the center and the ground around it looking much like it's surroundings meant that the person responsible for it was either a member of the Senju clan that could manipulate wood release and use earth style to alter the surroundings or a fairly skilled Genjutsu user. If it was the latter, it would not be very hard to get rid of it. If it was actually all real, finding the exact location through which they could go down would become a whole lot harder when one considered Yoroi's lack of earth release. Turning his attention towards Mana, he figured he would try some bluffing while hoping he was right.

"You know, for someone specializing in Genjutsu, you sure are easy to give up without trying to figure out if this thing you're seeing might be an illusion. Kai.".

Shortly after using the Genjutsu release, it was as he had anticipated. To think that a Senju would have been the one that covered it all up with a wood style jutsu was a byproduct of his mind taking things too far in order to try and rationalize the things that happened around him. At times like these, the fact that Yoroi had been around forests for most of his life served him very well, just like his understanding of Genjutsu and even being capable of casting a couple of lesser illusions himself. Allowing him to become quite perceptive of his surroundings, Genjutsu of this level truly did not hold a lot of power over him anymore. He did wonder why Mana had not been able to figure out something like this, being the kind of person that has already shown to be skilled in the art of illusions several times. Hopefully his dispelling of the Genjutsu on him released the one on Mana too, something that would usually be the case when struck by a field of influence illusion. If she was not, that meant someone put them both into individual genjutsu, meaning the crook that cast them was close, very close.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Mana laughed out after Yoroi pointed out the illusion and dispelled it. It really was sloppy of Mana not to notice that right away, she’s spent a lot of time exploring her own illusions, she knew how genjutsu worked. The girl really should’ve told the difference of the illusion both logically and practically. There was no way that trees could’ve grown so large at that time, even more, a tree couldn’t have grown on top of a ground level concrete rubble. If Mana had taken more time to explore the surrounding she probably may have noticed inconsistencies such as wrong kind of flora and so on, “I guess I just lack focus for those things…” Mana thought to herself. The self burning thoughts of leading Yoroi to a wrong place were now changed by even stronger self scolding of failing to notice such a simple illusion and a simple illusion it was. It lacked forethought and effort: it included some plants that weren’t really native and didn’t really fit the centipede theme, also it wasn’t all that impressive of an illusion to begin with just some slight details of an environment being altered like a pile of stones being changed into a tree and several exotic herbs added to add some charm and color.

“I guess I just got too sad that I may have wasted your time to look deep enough, Yoroi-san” Mana smiled. To be honest the girl probably felt for the same trap she thought may have happened to any people that may have wondered this way – the chances of the hidden library actually being there were pretty slim as they were with just a slight mention and a couple of words to justify the search so no one really took it seriously enough. Mana probably felt the same, she didn’t think that the chances were all that with the library actually existing so she really didn’t think someone would go through all the trouble to disguise it not only with a cheap centipede shell trick but also with a pretty sloppy illusion. With the genjutsu being so lazy and cheap Mana almost felt too embarrassed after failing to notice it. Still it was probably the first time that Mana actually encountered this kind of attempt to hide something head on. She’s been exploring genjutsu for some time yet she’s never seen something like this to be done about it. “Although I wonder how far is the caster, the illusion seems really sloppy, I don’t think that it can be sustained out of itself, the guy must be somewhere in range, it’s pretty primitive I’d say.” Mana voiced her thoughts.

Now that the illusion was dispelled there was nothing in the way for Mana to notice the small pile of large rocks that were perfectly filling a deep crater after the archive collapsed on itself. “Well since you found the genjutsu, I guess I owe you to place the explosives” Mana said with a rather bored tone to it. Placing explosives so that it would reveal any hidden archives and not make them collapse as well required some thought to it, it was a tedious and boring process to calculate the explosive force and the placement, even more so since Mana didn’t know how big or deep the archive was supposed to be just from a line “source of truth under it’s home”. Mana took her explosive kit off and started checking her supplies and carefully calculating the power behind it and the placement. She hated calculations, it didn’t go with Mana’s artistic and somewhat goofy personality but she had to do it. Not only did she now wish to let Yoroi to experience the pain of calculating the explosive force but also she was the one who knew the planning of the first archive, she could’ve predicted how much would’ve been enough to break through it.

“Hey, whacha doin out there!!!” a loud voice echoed waking Mana up from her mathematic mode and making her look around her frantically trying to determine where the voice came from. “Honestly, I say, some folks just don’t get da clue, I tell ya…” the strange accent echoed again. Mana kept turning around but the place where the sound came from had nothing there. It was like the voice was coming from thin air or… “Below.” Mana said informing Yoroi of her hypothesis. Sure enough just a moment later a small peculiar creature hopped out of the cover of the grass revealing the being behind the strange thin voice. It was nothing more intricate than a rabbit standing on two feet but it didn’t look like any local rabbits, it was completely white which meant that it wasn’t from around here.

It was a rather small thing but bigger than any rabbits Mana had seen, couldn't have been much taller than her knees even on his behind feet. Even ignoring the larger than usual size and different colored fur, it also carried a sword on it’s back held by a sheathe and a belt and also had an eye patch. The creature looked so very odd, a mixture of threatening and cute, making an impression of someone who wanted to be taken seriously but never was because of it’s outside. “I’m sorry… We’re trying to access the archive below the rubble, we need it for the joy of discovery… I guess... I’m Mana” the girl introduced herself and bent on her knees to descend to the creature’s size so that they could look each other in the eyes as equals. Something made Mana think that the cute bunny wanted to be taken as a warrior and if she wanted to peacefully acquire his permission to blow the place up she had to play it as he wanted. “Why ye bandits, ya ain’t foolin me, ya want the scroll, don’cha!!!” the rabbit pulled out his larger than his own body sword, something made Mana think that seeing him swing it must’ve looked hilarious and cute, she couldn’t help but smile at his aggression. “Not very nice to swing your sword at a girl who introduced herself without even answering is it? Rabbit-san…” Mana replied without replying to the rabbit's aggression.

The rabbit put his sword back and spat sideways, “You don look like muchuva bandit, girly, I tell ya, don’t even defend yerself… Your pal looks like he could rough one up though… My name’s Usuzoku, that library contains a scroll that my kind wants back, it was stolen from us and placed there long time ago so I was sent here to pick it up. I used all my explosions fighting those nasty centipedes so I’m now trying to figure out how to extract it, I’m not much of a digger, ironically. I’ve placed some defenses to keep the usual kind away from here, nasty guys they all are just in it for da money.” Mana smiled “Well maybe we could help each other out, tell you what, you let us blow into the archive and we will let you have the one scroll you need, after I’ve read it, seems fair, what do you think, Yoroi-san?” Mana didn’t know what Yoroi’s opinion was on the matter, knowing he decided to involve himself in the search meant he suspected something important being there, the scroll may have been something the young man seeked and it may even have been the same scroll that the little white rabbit wanted, still the cuteness of the little fellow made Mana wish to resolve this peacefully.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

The day had been fairly strange up to this point, having it's fair share of illusionary techniques and other means of deception that had apparently been set up by a sword wielding rabbit. For a moment, Yoroi believed that it planned to attack Mana, instinctively reaching for his sword. While halfway there, it seemed the Rabbit had seen him preparing to strike him down if he was to try and hurt Mana, putting his sword back and spitting unto the ground. Raising an eyebrow at the sight of the critter and Mana's interaction with it, he figured he would just fade into the background and listen in on the conversation. The Rabbit spoke with a relatively funny tone, even it's manner of speech was a bit silly. That said, it seemed to know quite well what it was talking about, bringing up a scroll his people had lost because it had been stolen and placed in this forgotten library. It made him think about the people that might have taken it from them, wondering if they were people that belonged to Konohagakure at the time or if it had just been found and taken in the old days. When the rabbit spoke of Yoroi and how he seemed like he would be able to rough someone up, Yoroi could not help but smile at the notion.

Beating someone up was well within his range of skills, though that was not particularly important right now, at least not at this point. Hearing that the rabbit had actually been using explosives to fight and kill the giant centipedes, a small glimmer of respect towards the furry critter was formed. More or less zoning out of the discussion between the girl and the rabbit, Yoroi walked over to the place that was supposed to be their entry point. Looking around for a possible weak spot, there was nothing that really stood out to him in particular, meaning he had to think of another way or be forced to get creative. Normally, the weakest point was somewhere in the center, at least that was what made the most sense to the young man. After all, he was not much of an architect, nor was he a construction worker or a demolitions expert, meaning he was only capable of doing what seemed best in his mind. Seeing as it reminded him of a door he had broken down a few months ago, he got an idea as to how he could break the ceiling without causing devastating amounts of damage.

"We don't need explosives, I've got something much more effective right here in the palm of my hand. Just give me a moment to find the right location to.... there it is.".

Bringing his fist down to the ground at his own specified location, a large amount of steam-like chakra shot out of his entire fist, granting it a deadly amount of blunt force. It was one of Konohagakure's secret Taijutsu techniques, one Yoroi rarely ever used, though in this case, the situation asked for it. The moment his fist hit the ground, a deafening roar was sent through the air along with pieces of shattered rock and loose earth, creating a thick screen of dust that hid him out of sight. Punching hard enough to loosen the hard ceiling of the library, Yoroi sank through the ground along with the ground around him, widening the whole to a two meter diameter. Even though the hole had become bigger than he had thought it would turn out, it was still relatively small and could easily be covered up. That however might not even be needed, for if everything was to turn out right, he would see to it that everything got transported to a safer location. Right now, there was no safer place than Yoroi's new estate building, seeing as no one other than himself ever got into the place, in turn meaning that no one would be able to take anything from his home without him knowing about it.

Looking around to see if the area was secure, he could not find any traces of life at all, finding that the entire library was free of the centipede infestation, at least this part was. Releasing three of his specially developed reconnaissance clones, each headed into a different direction to get a clear picture on everything that was down there. Starting to roam through the library, he figured Mana would be making her way down from the forest through the ceiling soon enough, no doubt being followed by her new rabbit friend. When they did, they would no doubt start looking for this scroll, giving Yoroi and his clone the time to scan a small section of the library and prepare that which they deemed important enough to Yoroi's fault. Strange as it might sound, Yoroi did not really trust the village enough to handle this kind of thing, finding that it was safer to rely on the people closest to him, as well as on himself when this kind of thing was involved. For now, things should be progressing at a much more steady pace than before.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Mana was quite impressed by Yoroi’s’ array of skills, she could’ve never thought that he could’ve known a technique so subtle yet so efficient, after all subtlety and entertainment was supposed to be Mana’s thing, she always took Yoroi for more of a destructive and annihilating type on the battlefield. Any time she saw Yoroi fight she figured that the environment wasn’t utterly blown away just because he held back, to find out that he also invested into being subtle was quite interesting to know. As was the fact that he knew how to adapt his skills into more ranges than it was intended for. The technique Yoroi used on the ground to open the tunnel to the secret wing of the archive was most likely something to smite bones into dust for an opponent without making the huge impact and blowing him away, similar to how some Mana’s lightning techniques worked damaging opponent on the inside while not looking too impressive on the outside. “This is a page from Hokage-sensei’s book, no doubt…” Mana thought as she remembered how often Kimiko grinded the ability to adapt on the battlefield and be creative if they wanted to survive. This was indeed a feat of adapting one’s techniques to the occasion.

As the smoke and clouds of dust that Yoroi’s technique raised settled down it was revealed that the sannin was no longer standing around, it looked like the man decided to go first inside the archive. “That fella… What’s he thinkin he’s doin?” the rabbit asked, for some reason it looked odd that Yoroi simply disappeared within the library. Maybe he thought that Yoroi didn’t trust them or decided to betray them and leave, what exactly ran through that cute creature’s mind was a mystery, Mana just smiled. “Don’t worry, let’s just make sure we don’t make him wait too long.” The girl replied, she knew that Yoroi operated at his own pace, if he wanted to get inside the archives first there must’ve been a reason for it. Maybe he wanted to check for some specific scroll he was looking for, maybe he wanted to check for any traps or unexpected guests lurking inside, what he really wanted was a mystery and it only mattered that Yoroi thought it was necessary. If there were any traps inside the archive, somehow, perhaps it was for the best that Yoroi went in first as he’s by far the fastest of the three and the most perceptive.

“So, Usuzoku-san, what kind of scroll is it, really?" Mana asked the rabbit as they jumped into the hole several moments later than the smoke cleared out. She wanted to know that there would be no conflict between the rabbit and Yoroi, so far she thought that Yoroi’s reason for helping her was moving these possibly useful scrolls to the village, if the scroll that the rabbit wanted was something Yoroi could’ve wanted as well, there may have been a conflict of interests which was the last thing Mana wanted. “It was the Rabbit summon contract scroll, cuz it was stolen was why there were no ninja contractin the rabbits. Ours is a proud and ancient ninja animal kind, we take ourselves very seriously, ya know.” The rabbit replied, his story intrigued Mana, it just so happened that it may not have been Yoroi but her who may have had a conflict of interest with the rabbit. “And if someone would happen to help you recover that scroll… Would you, I don’t know, let them… Sign the contract maybe?” Mana asked hopefully, she had her own reasons for wishing the contract.

Failing to pull a rabbit out of objects was one of the running gags of her magic show, just as the little cute rabbit introduced himself as a ninja animal, Mana’s entertainer self instantly saw an opportunity to make a trick out of summoning rabbits, they could’ve also assisted her in her magic tricks. Who knew how would an ancient and honorable species like the ninja rabbits respond to the girl’s silly and goofy use for their skills but if they feel like they’re in debt to the magician it could still work out. Usuzoku laughed out in a manner that reminded Mana of somewhat degrading manner, “C’mon, girly, we’re proud and powerful kind, we fer sure won’t sell our services to just any hatchling…” It was just as Mana thought, the rabbits may have needed more convincing to agree letting her sign the contract. “Even if the hatchling helps you guys recover your contract? The most holy and important document for your entire… Whatever you have there for a home…” Mana asked in reply. “[elor=#ff6699]Hmmm…[/color]” the little rabbit appeared to be deep in thought, just as he did start thinking Mana thought she could see Yoroi up ahead.

“Alright, Yoroi-san, let’s gather any scrolls that look useful, I really don’t have any use for any of them except my curiosity so I’ll probably just skim through most of them or admire their art before giving them to you, do you know where your precious scroll is, Usuzoku-san?” Mana contacted the mass of chakra that felt like Yoroi’s. As Mana addressed the rabbit, it nodded. Mana looked around. It was rather dark inside the archive, of course the small ray of light from outside enlightened the area Yoroi broke in but the deeper it went the less light there was. There may have been a possibility that Mana may have needed to illuminate one of the torches on the wall that were out due to air shortage. From the sight of it the archive was about twice the size of the original hall, it may have had several hundred scrolls if not reaching a thousand. Mana could only imagine what the scrolls contained, it may have been just legends and stories like the one above or scrolls stolen from the other people just like the contract scroll that was stolen from Usuzoku.

“Alright then, let’s find that sacred scroll of yours.” Mana smiled for the little rabbit, something made her speak to it like it was a little child, probably because of how small and cute and absolutely non-threatening it looked. Still, the magician had no doubt that the rabbit had quite some fighting skill, as a young genin Mana had trouble against a single giant centipede and this rabbit fought every insect that came his way and managed to survive in this forest for who knows how long.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

Scouting the place to the best of his abilities, Yoroi and his clones went through the building, finding that there were no threats to be found and no points of entry that might have been used in the past by centipedes. It was vital to find such things early, seeing as anything that might lead the creatures to stumble upon them by intention or accident could make the entire place come down. Though Yoroi would never let anyone die during a collapse, even he would not be able to preserve the entire library, meaning a lot of information would go to waste. Wondering what Kimiko would think if she knew what kind of thing he was doing for the sake of the village right now, he wondered whether or not it would change the way she thought about him, whether or not it would make her take back the bad things she said about him. When she called him selfish and only capable of doing what he himself wanted, he wondered if she even knew half of the things he had done to benefit the village from the shadows, things she would most likely never know about. What he did here today was something Mana only partially knew about, for he had some other motives in place that were best handled if he kept them to himself, meaning Kimiko, who knew nothing about his little trip to the forest of death would not hear a word about any of this, at least not from him.

Not long after making his decision, Mana and the rabbit also made it down the hole and into the library. They could go look for the scroll as long as they wanted, it would just serve to give Yoroi all the time he and his clones needed in order to scan through the building and learn what kind of secrets it was hiding. The scroll they were after was probably not what Mana thought it would be in terms of being some kind of relic that was holy to the rabbits and whatever place they came from. Yoroi had signed one of these scrolls too, finding it to be no more than a contract that binds one to their summoned species and vice versa. Still, he was not going to spoil the surprise by telling her what kind of scroll it was, thinking it to be best if she figured it out on her own. Not knowing what it was that the two had been talking about before they came down, chances were that the rabbit had already told her, though this was not something he had been able to hear for himself. In a way, Yoroi believed that it was often the first creature encountered with sentience to the point where they controlled a form of ninjutsu was the one that person would become contracted to.

When Yoroi had gone out to seek one of his own, he had encountered Shakreido, a very violent snake with bronze scales. During their meeting, they had come to exchange blows and got to the point where Shakreido had Yoroi's shoulder locked between his fangs. At that point, Shakreido could have severed Yoroi's arm, though he would risk death if he didn't do it soon enough, for Yoroi could make his own bone structure pierce the creatures skull in a split second. Finding themselves tied, they made a contract to tie them together for the purpose of doing battle together. Though they had started out as enemies and later became combat partners, he could honestly say that the two of them had become a lot closer and could now be considered friends to one another. Noticing that the two were not headed towards him, there was no real reason to be concerned about their safety after his clones checked the place. On it's way back from a back room, one of his clones ran into Mana and the rabbit. Most likely mistaking him for the real deal, the clone heard what she had to say to him before he would explain that he was in fact but a clone. From the sound of it, her goal was to look for the scroll with the rabbit.

"Alright, feel free to look at your own pace. I will be in the other room, gathering and transporting everything of use and whatever might harm the village in case of it falling into the wrong hands. If you hear any loud noises, don't worry about it's source, i'm calling in some heavy support.".

Granting her whatever freedom she might need, the clone made it relatively clear that he would not be looking with her and the rabbit, even though he would let her know in case of it being in the room Yoroi himself was working in. Shortly after instructing Mana, the clone poofed away in a small cloud of thin haze. Sending all that it had gathered back to Yoroi, the real shinobi knew what Mana was up to now, as well as knowing of the secure situation of the room she was headed towards. Forming a string of hand seals at a decent pace, three shadow clones were formed behind him. Biting his finger, he slammed his palm to the floor, followed by a thick smoke rising up and clouding the entire room for a few seconds. Causing a loud trembling to resonate through the walls and the floor, everything remained intact. Despite the size of the room, the snake was still too large to just move around, coiling itself against the walls and in fact acting as a walkway for Yoroi and his clones. Instantly making use of the walkway that curled upward, the clones started rounding up dusty old crates and barrels from the building, wasting very little time in getting this job done, all the while being eyed by the snake that was fairly confused at this point.

"Watch your head, it's not as big as I had hoped in here. When I helped you get back one of the scrolls your younger brother lost, you said you owed me one, so I am calling in that favor now. I'm going to need you to act as a transport for a large amount of important books and files, so please refrain from swallowing any of it before we get the chance to unload it.".

After informing the snake of what was going to happen, he could tell that Shakreido was already sick of this kind of shit. Despite that, it did not say or do anything that actually showed it's discontent towards his rather bothersome task. That said, it became clear that the serpent felt like a weight had been lifted off of his non-existent shoulders when the favor had been called in, making him relatively free again. Opening it's mouth, Shakreido placed his head on the floor, allowing the clones that carried the boxes and crates to place them inside of it's massive maw. Creating a functional system, Yoroi used the recon clones and shadow clones to read through books and files to see what kind of information they held and whether or not it would be worth taking or if it could be left in it's resting place. Anything worth taking would than be placed into a crate or barrel. By the time one of these was filled, one of the shadow clones would transport it to Shakreido so they could eventually bring the whole thing to Yoroi's estate for a full reading, after which it would be archived for safe keeping. At times like these, Yoroi truly felt like Kimiko was not giving him enough credit for the things he did for the village.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

After being given “permission” to take as long as she needed, Mana decided to do just that. The girl was slowly going through every scroll, unsealing and letting her eyes to run over some that looked interesting. The only reason she was here was the desire for knowledge, her interest in potentially interesting legends and stories that may be contained within the scrolls. After that time she spent reading legends and ancient history trapped inside the archive Mana had a certain fascination with studying history and ancient scrolls. The girl didn’t know what exactly attracted her to the ancient knowledge, was it the record of strange and powerful abilities of the ancient people that were within those stories or just the peculiar writing and pretty stories. As a stage magician Mana was always interested in seemingly supernatural feats that fascinated people enough to keep them in record. Then again most of the stories proved to be a good read helping her grow as a person and spend her time. Mana did feel a little bad about not being able to just set a camp and read every single scroll right there. Of course she’d have to move them all to the hole in the ceiling – the nearest source of light.

Mana noticed how desperately her rabbit friend was looking at her. He almost looked betrayed, something made him think that Mana never intended to help him. Maybe it was her slow pace of advancing throughout the archive or just her eyes that were hungry for knowledge, something easily mistaken for greed. Mana kneeled up to Usuzoku’s eyes, “Don’t worry little fellow, I just got a little overwhelmed by all these scrolls, by all this knowledge. Don’t you dare think that I’ve forgotten my promise of helping you.” Mana assured the little creature with a smile. It may have been a little stupid of her to just get side tracked like that, she promised this little cute thing to help its kind and she would do so. “Don’t you know where we can find this scroll of yours, Usuzoku-san? The faster we find it the more time I will have to read some more scrolls…” Mana inquired, it was a stupid question, she knew the answer already. Had the little rabbit known just where the scroll was exactly, he would’ve lead her to it immediately. “Not an idea, I’ll know it when I see it though… It’s big and purple with golden ornaments.” the rabbit replied, his voice had a little more enthusiasm than before, this scroll may have meant more to him than Mana had thought.

The way that Usuzoku was acting taught Mana a little about the character of the rabbits. One of them, at least. Usuzoku had this strange Napoleon complex, he just wanted to be taken seriously by other ninja as he deserved but he was constantly shut down because of how small and cute he was. Even if he acted tough and strong Usuzoku displayed pain and betrayal in his eyes as if it wasn’t the first time that people betrayed him. The amount of pain in the poor thing’s eyes also told Mana just how important the scroll was for the white rabbit. “So, Usuzoku-san, you said that other people were greedy and were only in it for the money… Sounds like you have things in your mind, as a human I’d like to hear it and try to redeem us in your eyes.” Mana asked with a slightly raised voice as the two split up to cover more ground. The two could hear some strange noised inside the archive but they remembered what Yoroi told them. “I mean it’s not like we have anything better to do but talk, this might take some time.” Mana followed up her last request after she heard Usuzoku curse to himself, possibly directing his curses to Mana.

“Awight, awight, I’ll tell ya. It was several years ago when I first left on this journey… I met some people, they looked nice and trustworthy, just like you and that scary fella… But when we thought we found the archive they just snagged what we thought was the scroll and scrammed on me. I met em in a small town later, they said they’d sold the scroll already… Let’s just say it was a long and tiring journey from that point, filled with similar experiences’n disappointments.” Usuzoku kept talking as Mana tried to multitask listening to his story and browse through the scrolls, looking for one they needed. “Well… I hope this would redeem us in your eyes, rabbit-san.” Mana laughed out as she pulled a large purple scroll and wiped the dust off of it. For a second total silence covered the room, then Mana heard slight thudding sounds of small rabbit legs hopping on the old stone floor. “I sure hope it’s this scroll, Usuzoku-san is so excited he started hopping…” Mana thought. The little rabbit seemed to walk just like ordinary people, something that he did through slight trouble which slowed his pace. The fact that he didn’t care about his rabbit heritage for just that moment made Mana wish that he wouldn’t get disappointed again.

“Well I’ll be damned, girly, ya found it!!!” Usuzoku shouted out. Mana wanted to hand it to the little fellow but the scroll was twice his size, realizing this the little rabbit just kept hopping around Mana in excitement. The girl placed the scroll on the floor and opened it, just as the deal was that she would first get the chance to read it. The scroll was covered with names of people and their long clotted and currently black blood. “This ain’t as interesting as dem fancy stories ya read is it? It has every ninja who ever signed the contract, seeing how it was stolen so long ago there actually were no ninja contracting rabbits for over three hundred years…” Usuzoku said with his voice full of pride and uncontained happiness. “I cannot ask you to let me sign it, Usuzoku-san. Just your happiness and excitement is enough of a reward for me. I hope your kind can once again become prosperous and work together with ninja as they once did…” Mana mumbled as her eyes ran through the scroll. Usuzoku just sat there in silence for several moments, it was apparent that he was considering something quite hard. “Normally we wouldn’t let a puny hatchling like you sign this but you’re one of the heroes who helped me recover the scroll, my kind is thankful for both of you and I’m sure that no one would dare deny such a right from you… You and that scary fellow earned the respect of our people, if you wish you can sign this contract.” Usuzoku replied.

Mana pulled the small black stick that was attached to the scroll and scribbled her own name on a blank spot, then pulled a kunai and cut her finger putting a signature. “There can be no greater honor than be granted permission to sign this, Usuzoku-san, I am grateful!” Mana replied as she closed the scroll and handed it to Usuzoku, the rabbit put the scroll into the secondary sheathe near his sword. Seeing such a small and cute creature carry a sword and a scroll twice his own size with a little difficulty was so funny, Mana knew that she should treat her partner with respect but this was almost too funny not to enjoy. Plus Mana was sure that Usuzoku wanted to be treated as an equal, asking to carry the scroll for him wouldn’t give him the honor he deserved for searching for the scroll for so many years. “Now that we found your contract scroll, can we just look around…?” Mana asked for the rabbit, “Eeeeeh… I don’t really care, though for the sake of your safety I’ll hang out with ye two till ya head home.” “I feel safer already, Usuzoku-san.” Mana smiled sarcastically as she opened another scroll and Usuzoku tripped over his large sword and fell down. “I’ve got no time to read them, I’d better just take a couple that really look interesting and leave the rest… I’ll have no use for them after I’ll read them so I’ll give them to Yoroi-san, he seems to be doing quite a recollection mission…” Mana thought listening in on the loud thuds all over the library.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

Watching his clones work together perfectly, Shakreido was slowly having his mouth filled with crates and boxes. Reading through some of the books he took out with his own hands, he quickly found out that a lot of books that were in the library were in fact just old literature. It was to be expected, after all, it was a library. Aside from the fact that they were merely literature, they were really old pieces that he had never seen before, which said a lot. Yoroi had spent a lot of time in the library reading up on various sources that interested him at the time, not to mention the fact that he frequently helped out the library when new work had to be implemented and old, partially wrecked books had to be taken out. While they had been Genin ranked missions, they had served him greatly in terms of becoming a more knowledgeable person. It also made him understand that as long as new books were being written, as long as different people made new discoveries, no one person would ever be able to gather every bit of information in the world. This alone was often enough to push him out of bed in the morning, seeking whatever new knowledge had been brought into the world through books or making his own by trying his hardest to invent new Ninjutsu.

Yoroi had already invented many Ninjutsu of his own, though there were also a lot of fields left for him to discover, this being the medical field for the most part. Though he had a solid understanding about the field of healing and the human body, he had not been able to create any sufficiently potent jutsu that could help him save a life, or end one. It was one of many reasons why he had been looking into herbs and other sources of natural healing and poisoning, finding that there was a lot to find out there too. With his personal herb patch that contained herbs from both the fire country and the lightning country, they differed in terms of rarity and potential, though they were all valuable to him. Going through some of the books in the stored crates, he found one about how to operate on someone while using outdated techniques, the various uses of venomous plants native to the fire country and even books that were still in creation, proving that this was also a place used for storing that which showed promise, but was not finished. Whatever had happened to the place that left it forgotten was something he did not know, though it seemed like the people that had started working on these books had never found the time to finish them up, leaving their work forgotten along with the library itself.

Being quite happy with everything he could find about the medical field, the young Sennin could not care less whether they were outdated or unorthodox. He aimed for the stars, hoping to become one of the brightest Shinobi in the entire fire country, so every bit of information was more than welcome. This was also the reason why he had asked Uriko Nagase to teach him what she knew about ninjutsu and the medical field, believing that information was the most powerful thing in the world, something very few understood. A medical nukenin like her had a lot to offer to him, though the people closest to him would never understand why he never made an attempt at killing her as opposed to taking whatever knowledge she had to offer for himself. It was a natural thing for him to seek knowledge and information from people he did not know. After all, he had grown up with nothing and grew out to become what he was because he had spoken to people he did not know, people that were potentially dangerous but turned out to help him grow as a person. Modoroki, Kimiko, Hani, Tora, all of them had been strangers to him that ended up teaching him a lot of the things most people took for granted.

Looking around at the hard working clones and the large snake, he saw no further need for him to linger, figuring Mana could use his help more at this point. Wandering towards the section where Mana had gone to with her rabbit friend, he wondered what they had managed to find out in the time they had spent apart. Though the room Mana had been sent into was not as big as the place that was now being cleaned out by clones, it might still hold a sufficient amount of information that might become useful to him some day. As such, he figured it could not hurt to go and check up on her, checking up on the other space at the same time. Closing in on her location, it seemed that the two had already been taking steps towards him. Figuring that they had finished their task, he noticed the somewhat large scroll held by the rabbit. Yoroi could not help but think that Mana would have been better off carrying it, though it was not his place to tell her nor the rabbit how to do things, it was their quest after all. Making an attempt at inquiring on what the couple had found in the other room, the young Sennin wasted no time with pleasantries other than a somewhat kind opening.

"There you are. It seems the two of you managed to find what you were looking for. Was there anything else worth mentioning about this section of the library or anything I missed?".

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

“I don’t get whacha seein in all these useless sheets…” Usuzoku grunted, he may have been regretting the decision of hanging around Mana and Yoroi until they reach the village. “I don’t see anything, I don’t get any benefit from them except some old stories. I guess I’m just curious” Mana answered, it was true that the scrolls really didn’t prove to be anything useful, then again if they were those scrolls she collected previously for the village probably wouldn’t have been available to the public. Mana ran through another scroll with her eyes, it looked like it was about some mystical artifact, some sort of a mask that let the wearer control the flow of time. The girl knew better than to believe what the scrolls told about the world, most of the “legendary artifacts” they described were metaphors or plot devices to explain spectacular feats of ancient heroes, nothing more. Seeing how Mana found the scroll to be yet another fun read she stuffed it into one of the two large duffel bags she took. The bags were filling up quite fast, Mana wasn’t too picky about the scrolls she took. Then again, none of them were really of any practical use – just pretty stories.

“Ya’d better work on yer puny arms, kid. As a potential partner I’d be ashamed to fight along a wimp like you…” Usuzoku grunted, Mana could see that his annoyance was getting harder to hide by the second. “I appreciate the concern, Usuzoku-san, but are you going to do this the whole way back? If your partner is weak, it only gives you more of a challenge, don’t you love challenge? If you asked me, I’d say you’re just whining like a market spinster…” Usuzoku went silent for a second, Mana expected some angry response yet she could’ve sworn that the little cute rabbit laughed silently. “You may just end up being a proper partner… At least ye think like one…” the rabbit replied. Mana stuffed two more scrolls into her bags, she started to get behind how this little creature thought, it had this strange honor code as if he was a true warrior, still the girl found that hard to believe due to how small and cute the rabbit bandit was. Then again even the smallest and cutest can be deadly if looked down upon, Mana was sure that rabbits were a powerful and worthy ninja-animal, otherwise they wouldn’t have survived so long since the ancient times…

Mana heard Yoroi’s voice behind her, the Sennin asked if there was anything noteworthy in this section of the library. “Not unless you’re interested in folk tales… That’s all this section is: stories, tales, legends, myths and some ancient history. I’ve picked some scrolls up for reading on our way back, I’ll probably give those to you once we get back, not much use to stories once I’ve read them…” Mana replied. Mana really didn’t understood what was Yoroi’s benefit in all of this, as far as she known there weren’t supposed to be very valuable scrolls around, then again - the rabbit contract was here… “I’ve pretty much skimmed through all of those, just made-up stories and history pages. If they’re of any value to you then you can take them all, I’ve got limited bag space this time so I only took those I deemed interesting to read…” the girl tried to remember if there were any spots of the small room that she didn’t see but as far as she remembered she seen it all. “There were those few in that shelf that were written in some strange language I couldn’t understand… Maybe this room was like a loot room for librarians, everything those guys looted in battle or stole they just hoarded it here…” Mana tried to guess the meaning of the room. The magician then proceeded to the exit of the room into the hallway that lead to the hole Yoroi blew showing that she was ready to move, the little rabbit followed.

The girl decided to wait a little to see what Yoroi was going to do with the room, if he decided to take anything or check the scrolls she would’ve waited near the exit, if he decided to move, she’d have left the room and moved towards the exit to the forest. “So Usuzoku-san, am I going to be able to summon you at some point?” Mana asked, she’d imagined that this little rabbit and his attitude may have been found hilarious by the public, if she managed to get him owe her some favors she may have used him for stage tricks like she dreamed for a long time. “Not if yer gonna remain so wimpy! I only work with real warriors, someone I can feel dignified to fight alongside with… Someone who can ignite the warrior’s flame inside my heart, turn me from a rabbit bandit into a rabbit warrior… You’d likely get to fight alongside Usuyowa or Usumushi, those two are wimps like you…”

Despite the two constantly throwing filth at each other Mana enjoyed Usuzoku’s company quite a lot, she kind of wanted to have him as her friend not only for the shows and favors. People like this little rabbit were rather inspiring to have by one’s side, always helping out and kicking you in the butt to keep going when you’re on the down. Mana sometimes needed that proper kick in the butt when she’s feeling like nothing was working out, she needed it more and more these days when things were getting more and more complicated every day. “Well, tell me if the treasured contract scroll becomes too heavy for the almighty rabbit warrior… Maybe I’ll carry it around for a while before your whiny shoulders recover.” Mana replied with a gentle smile. She really enjoyed the interaction with the little thing even if it may have seemed hostile to anyone else. The girl knew fairly well that the scroll was sacred for the rabbit bandit and he wouldn't let anyone else carry his sacred burden, that was just the way a warrior thinks... “So are we good to head for the village, Yoroi-san?” Mana turned at Yoroi whatever he was doing for confirmation that their work here was complete. It was quite likely that someone else could find this place now that Usuzoku’s traps were removed and Yoroi left the entrance hole. It would’ve been wise to take anything they didn’t want any passers-by to find.

Age : 32 Posts : 1912

Yoroi Kaguya

"Hmm, well, I think some folk stories just might have something to offer in these times, even if it is just a good laugh. It is quite possible that this was some sort of loot storage, which just makes the preservation of the work stored here all the more important. I'll have some of my clones go through that room once we've left.".

Turning his attention away from the girl and the rabbit for the time being, he went to overlook his operations one last time. Now that he knew what was in the other room, there was not a whole lot of work left to be done that actually needed his personal supervision. After all, his clones were more than qualified for this kind of work. Loading the remainder of the books and scrolls into the barrels and crates his clones had managed to round up, Yoroi was quite pleased with what Mana had brought him. It was because of her that he had come here in the first place. While she herself was no doubt quite happy to have found the rabbit that was walking beside her, Yoroi was just as happy as she was with all of this, if not more so. If this was some kind of loot storage, there was no way of knowing just how valuable these books were, both in terms of information and in sale. His intentions were not to be misunderstood though, he had no intention of selling anything he found here, he just took pleasure in knowing that these books might make him the richest man in the entire fire country. With the operations he had taken over with the help of his students, an entire illegal corporation had been turned around and made into a business that brought back profit to the village, rather than bringing funding to the criminal underbelly of society. With that, his finances had already grown to the point where he could purchase a very cheap property that belonged to a massacred clan.

Had he not been one of the people that originally found the corpses, chances were that he would not have been able to purchase the property before someone else swooped in. Where there was once a filthy estate, a larger estate surrounded by a beautiful landscape had now taken it's place. With Kimiko no longer wanting him around as a result of what had happened during his encounter with Toshiro and the fact that he had been taught some new techniques by Uriko, he had started living in the estate he had build with dirty money, making sure that the criminal money he had confiscated was well spent. Some would call what he had done dirty, though he did not care for what others thought of him, not anymore. The majority of his life had been spent in anguish as a result of everyone looking down on him, treating him like an outcast and making up wild rumors about it. Now that some of the people he cared about most had also discarded him, there was no longer any reason to be concerned about what other people thought anymore. Ordering his clones to load the last of the crates into Shakreido's gaping maw, he turned his attention to Mana completely, figuring that the clones who supposedly had the same level of intellect as the original would be able to handle what little remained to be finished so they could all leave the library behind them.

"There's no need to rush through those books, though I hope you won't forget to stop by and let me know what kind of stories are inside of them. Shakreido, would you be so kind as to lend us a hand?".

Having overheard his conversation with Mana, a handful of clones wandered into the smaller of the two rooms, carrying the last boxes that had not already been filled up to the brink. Even though the most valuable books and scrolls had been taken into the maw of the large serpent already, Yoroi did not want any of the interesting pieces of folklore to go to waste. He did not care about the time his clones had to spend down in the storage library as long as it was time well spent. Being the kind of person that wanted everything he did done perfectly, Yoroi did not care if it took an hour or a day. Scratching himself behind his ear, he went on ahead to the place where they had originally entered the underground library. Having called for his serpentine friend to lend them a hand, he placed the tip of his tail right beneath the point of entry, allowing Mana, Usuzoku and Yoroi to stand on top of it and act like a lift, taking them to the point where they could all crawl their way out, back into the forest of death. Once they got on, the three would be able to get topside without any trouble. Reaching his arms through the hole, he made sure he had a solid grip and lifted himself through the dirt ahead of the rest. Sending a quick glance to the treeline that surrounded them, he saw nothing that seemed like a threat. Looking down into the hole, he made sure to let the couple know that it was safe to come on up.

"When you're ready, feel free to come on up. It's time for us to head back home.".

Without closing the hole back up or doing anything to hide the place from others, there was no doubt in his mind that whatever might come down would get taken care of by the small task-force of clones that had been left behind. Without a care in the world, he waited for Mana and Usuzoku to get ready before he started walking back to the village.

[Exit]

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Mana could’ve never guessed that Yoroi thought of something like folk tales as something of value. As far as she remembered the sennin he was always very down to earth and realistic with his approach to life. He didn’t even look that pleased with Mana using ninjutsu for her magic shows when the two first met, it was that unvoiced opinion of Yoroi’s that helped the magician make up her mind to stop using genjutsu and ninjutsu for her magic shows altogether. Still the girl held on to her opinion that getting his hands on some fancy stories was not Yoroi’s reason for coming here. Whatever his reasons were the kunoichi knew that they must’ve been for the better, Yoroi was one of those people that Mana took a lot from in shaping herself as a ninja. He wasn’t the kind of person to use whatever he gains from this for foul purposes.

“I’ll do more than that. I’ll give you the scrolls, I’ll have no use for them after they’re read and my room isn’t the safest place to store something, you’d be surprised the amount of leaks and fire related accidents that place sees when I’m practicing my tricks…” the girl replied letting her superior know that his worries of letting something valuable slip were in vain. It was true that the magician may have taken the most valuable scrolls from the hall she was in as far as artistic sense is concerned but Mana didn’t know or care how much were the scrolls actually worth. She wouldn’t care about selling them or making money from retrieving them, if by any chance that was Yoroi’s intention, which the magician deemed unlikely, he may do whatever he wants with them. The village museum will probably not fall apart over losing several artistically interesting pieces of writing and Mana really considered owing Yoroi a lot for helping her with this.

Both the young kunoichi and her rabbit companion were rather happy that Yoroi was pretty much finished there, Mana would’ve hated waiting until everything would’ve been taken and the rabbit already looked like the weight of the scroll was crushing him. The girl didn’t really intend to take the weight off his back initially but she may end up doing it out of sheer pity. “Usuzoku-san please give me the honor of carrying the scroll at least until we go separate ways.” She asked the rabbit. “Ye right… I’ve been lookin for dis thing for lotta years, as if I’m letting go of it now.” The cute little thing replied angrily.

“You did tell me to train my puny arms and shoulders… That’d be a fine start, I’d also do a favor for your kind by having the honor of helping to carry it at least for a short while. What kind of warrior would deny his minion the opportunity to become more like him and train?” the girl started telling the rabbit things he wanted to hear. She enjoyed speaking this way to him greatly and really thought that she’d miss it after she and the rabbit would go off separate ways. The rabbit coughed several times, had he not been covered in most adorable fur Mana could’ve been able to tell if he was blushing or not. “Very well… But please be careful, trainee.” He said after slightly lowering his shoulder and showing to the girl that she can take the weight off his shoulder.

This was the first time that Mana has seen Yoroi’s summon. The great snake was definitely an intimidating and impressive one, having only seen simple summons to compare the magician would’ve only been able to define such a creature as legendary. Just how did Yoroi manage to convince that thing to help him was unknown to her, then again Yoroi was one of the most amazing ninja she’s ever seen and if anyone could’ve made such a gigantic and amazing animal obey him, it would’ve been Yoroi. “So that’s the kind of summon one of the Sennins get…” Mana thought to herself. The girl has only heard of the famous Lion summons that the Hokage could call upon, if they were anywhere on near the level of this creature it would’ve seriously damaged Mana’s hopes of ever coming closer to the level of these two.

The snake made an improvised elevator out of itself, it was definitely a feat of control that Yoroi had over the creature as not any ordinary creature would allow other people, even their summoners, to use it as an elevator. As the snake positioned itself to pick the group up Usuzoku grunted “Ye, as if I’m getting on dat thing! Forget it!” “Well then feel free to climb out of the hole by yourself, I’m sure those adorable furry paws are wonderful for climbing… Then again any vibrations in the walls could alert the centipedes that live on the below ground level…” the magician smiled at the rabbit, while being greatly offended by Mana’s description of him as adorable the little thing appeared to be much more submissive after she mentioned the centipedes. “I wonder if all of the rabbits are so troublesome to work with… This could be loads of fun.” The girl thought to herself as the group was lifted to exit the hole.

The way back to the village wasn’t nearly as eventful as the way to the archive. It was mostly the awkward silence between the three and it was normal since there was nothing to get into too much talk about. After the group walked up to a large tree with cut marks on it Usuzoku hopped on Mana’s head, his weight was far greater than he thought and so it was really uncomfortable for the girl – it felt like an eight year old kid just landed on her head. The rabbit took the scroll off her shoulder and hopped down. “Awight, fare ya two well, train to summon animals gal, ya already got the contract, maybe after ya get good one of us will agree to help ya.” The rabbit said to Mana and turned to Yoroi “If snakes don’t work out, give us a call out, we could use someone strong and talented like you.” After saying that, the rabbit just hopped off disappearing in the cover of the trees and bushes.

“He’s never going to respect me, is he?" Mana wondered letting her head weigh down in disappointment. Still the journey proved rather fun and useful and she’d love to talk to the rabbit again just for the sheer enjoyment of their exchange. After closing in to the village the magician waved farewells to Yoroi, “Thank you for your help, Yoroi-san, I appreciate it and owe you. If you’ll ever by any chance need anything I can help with, I’d feel honored to help.” She said trying to be nicer in her farewells than her rabbit friend.

[EXIT'n Thangs]