The Shogun's Dungeon
The Capital Region
…1000 Hours, The early hours of the morning on the day after yesterday...
Falling, falling, falling into the darkness, Jae-Wol and Umashi spiraled downwards into a seemingly never-ending abyss of infinite proportions. Falling for some time, after a certain point, streaks of color began to rush past them following the colors most usually associated with the visible spectrum of light. Like guiding rails, they whizzed by at untraceable speeds but they provided enough of a hued guidance that Umashi was able to discern that it wasn't that they were falling downwards but that Jae-Wol while protectively holding his hand, was running at an impossible angle. The thought alone was an experimental theory in and of itself as Umashi quickly realized that he couldn't tell if they were running down, across or up. Even if he had thought to ask how or why, Jae-Wol turned back to him and in the passing light he saw that her lips were moving but that he couldn't hear any sound coming from them.
Noticing the same, the woman shook her head at the realization and instead pointed towards some goal before them, one that Umashi didn't at first see but soon became apparent to him. Appearing at first like a small white dot, the light source stood in stark contrast to the black and ever fleeting rainbow road that they seemed to be traveling on. As the gate appeared larger, Umashi realized that the closer that they got that the slower they seemed to be traveling until the view was just beyond their grasp but the picture was as clear as day. Looking on at the world that they were approaching, Umashi saw himself and Jae-Wol standing in the Shoguns dungeon in front of a bomb that was radiating a glowing energy that they fought to keep back. Around the other them were the bodies of samurai that he could only assume were loyal to Tenouza and while the two of them would equally fight to keep the bomb from releasing its yield. Engrossed as they were with keeping the bomb from exploding, Umashi saw that they two were trapped inside strange walls of semi-translucent light, only these walls were in their deep violet stage of color.
Stretching out just a little further, the Jae-Wol that he was traveling with broke the plane keeping them separate from their doppelgangers and like a crystal clear lake, the view rippled and as the woman's scepter first broke through the plane, their doppelgangers looked up at them and far more quickly than his eyes could track, Umashi was pulled from where he was into the body of his other self. Despite not being aware that he had been holding his breath, he felt the uncontrollable urge to take a deep breath as if he had and he had to resist the urge to double over and take in air. Remembering the bomb just as quickly, he instinctively reached up to attempt to shut it off just has he remembered being done before but Jae-Wol put a hand on his shoulder from behind and at once cast a protective bubble around them.
"What are you doing? We can stop it, we already know what to do!"
Umashi more screamed at Jae-Wol than asked her the question but even as he attempted to turn to work on defusing the bomb, he stopped as he saw the confidence in her gaze as she stared at the bomb.
"Sometimes you have to lose to win. Just wait!" Shaking his head in confusion, despite having known the woman to be honest in her dealings, Umashi faltered for a moment in his recollection as his face twisted in confusion.
"What? No! I get it, timey wimey and what not but if we don't stop this bomb, hundreds, no, thousands of innocent people die." Quickly retorting her affirmation, Jae-Wol's answer negated any reply that Umashi might have given to the contrary.
"This bomb is connected to Kumogakure as well. Somebody is on the other end of that bomb doing just what we're doing, trying to save the people in the room and them some. If you...if we stop the bomb here, then everyone in Kumogakure dies in an unceremonious fashion. The Pope presented Kumo with a no-win situation and you...we all fell into its trap."
"But...but we have to try! There's got to be something that we can do, we just can't allow Kumo or the Capital to die." "Only, that's exactly the choice that we're making." "That's inhumane!" "That's real life and something that I thought that you'd know better than anyone. Saving everyone was never a real choice, only an illusionary one and we almost played right into their hands." Their conversation was momentarily interrupted by the bomb getting louder and starting to spark and pulsate with an uncontrollable power. Looking at it, Umashi shook his head.
"So we take the cowards way out...not everyone in the Capital deserves to die." "And not everyone in Kumogakure deserves to live but that's life and the choice has been taken out of our hands if ever we actually held it to begin with." "So this is what you saw when you said that eleven times you watched everyone die." "Something like that, only we hadn't encountered Gin and Kin." "Is that their names or simply what we're calling them." "I don't know, it seemed appropriate. They could be aliens for all I know." "Now you're the one trying to diffuse a situation with humor. Aliens don't exist." "Ever heard of the Dark Forest Theory?" "...You know, I..." Their conversation was again cut short when the bomb could no longer be ignored and it momentarily grew silent before expelling an unfathomable amount of energy and exploded in violent fashion.
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The Academy
Kumogakure
…Today...
As far seeing as Hon was, there was no way that he could have known that everything that he was attempting to do could have all been for naught had it not been for the efforts of people far away simply trying to do what he was, save people. With every effort that he made to calm the beast that was the bomb down, there was an equally surging force trying to unleash the power that it had inside. His strikes tried and tested, he was a master at his craft as he pierced through chakra and barrier of light alike to attempt to protect the village that he loved with ever fiber of his being. In another lifetime he might have been one of more prestige or appreciated but this morning, today, he was the unsung hero that all needed, the hardened shinobi just doing his job the best way that he knew how. As if willing the destructive creation to stop, when it did, the shock of it simply powering down might have surprised Hon under any other circumstance but in this instance he was so intent on its cancellation that his strike caused his hand to go right through the bomb, to its core. Touching the core, the bomb gave off one deeply low hum and sent a less severe but still equally felt shockwave throughout the Academy as something within the bomb fizzled and burned away into nothingness.
Floors above Hon, Rei's insistence on protecting the students lacked any holding back. Attacking the foreign barrier, the Sennin's strikes at first didn't seem to accomplish much, until they did. Being to turn colors and shifting from one hue to the next, the barrier began to whine and crack like glass and then the force of the shockwave from the basement below reverberated through the entire Academy, providing her plowing prowess with just the extra bit of umph to shatter through the colorful barrier, sending it into an infinite number of tiny shattered pieces. Like water down the drain, Rei would have noticed that instead of just affecting the barrier that she was attacking, that all of the colorful walls began to meltaway with a sound like that of when they had all been pulled away to that far off place against their will. While protecting the children had been her main cause, her testimony to the events that she saw would later be used to compile a large and unfortunately lacking report on how the walls of color seemed to act against reality itself as they seemingly rolled in on themselves away from view and without a trace.
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Entrance to Saint Isamu’s Square
Holy See of Tenouza, Boundary of the Lateran Treaty
…Today...
Somewhere in the primal brain of the large destructive lizard that was the Pope, he rationed that what he was doing was all for a greater cause. To give glory, to enhance, to enrich. Much like those that had come before him, he had vices, true, but unlike the rest, he had channeled his vices into something more powerful than mere repeated failings. He had channeled his vice into that which would live on eternal. Striking a deal with those who's only matching morality with Iano was that which he refused to show the world. Udo had been correct, Iano had given himself over to that of science instead of religion and like any faithless usurper, he saw Tenouza as a kingdom, his Kingdom, instead of the trust that it was. Looking up to the heavens, he saw the stars falling down among him, stars that he soon recognized as shinobi from Kumogakure, shinobi that more proved to be angels of death than foes to be conquered. Had they managed to surmise his tricks? Had he managed to take out both the Shogun and the Raikage?
Questions passed through his mind like stray thoughts that he couldn't quite catch. So drunk off the new power that he could hardly control it, he wondered if his partner had actually drugged him but just as soon as he thought of his partner, their name, their face, the memory of the individual was gone. For now, that mystery would remain even such to himself. The beast within him was taking over and despite seeing the large gated structures falling from heaven, his mind was slowly losing the ability to rationalize what it was that he saw. Instead, like most, he saw the reflections of worlds and realities that he'd never see. one in which he was a red eyed black dragon and sickly lithe. In another large reflection he saw himself as that same old man that he had been before, only his features were slightly more draconic and he sported wings and a tail despite having a more human appearance.
Like a dog seeing its own reflection in a lake, he roared at the reflections, the beastly side of him seeing them as threats to be defeated. Taking a swipe at the reflection, he began to fight against himself just as much as he was fighting against the shinobi. Whipping his tail around, he destroyed one ancient structure after another and even as the shinobi attempted to take him down, he managed to fight against them just as easily as he fought against the threat that only he could see. A storm brewed above him as lightening began to strike all around him. As the tallest thing in the vicinity, the lightning struck him indiscriminately, piercing through his tough scales with astonishing precision. Raising a claw in defiance, the once proud man, now untamed beast, took a swipe at the shinobi that had created the storm but instead all that he caught in his wake were what appeared to be streams of...paper?
If a dragon could have shown confusion, then this would have been that time, but the creature had no moment of rest as a large ethereal fist blindsided its ivory maw and drawing blue blood. Turning its head in apparent fury, the creature opened its mouth and roared at the large chakra encased being that was the Raikage in full Uchiha regalia. Eyes pinpointing on that familiar red hair, the beast roared in defiance and as it did, the cries turned from those ready for a challenge unto those emitting indifference as blue flames erupted along a stead path towards the large Susanoo. Igniting everything in its path, the flames licked up and around the large Susanoo warrior but hardly even singed the most intricate parts of the large spectral being. The creature flapped its wings to go skyward as it rushed the Raikage who was the biggest threat before it. No sooner had the creature taken to the skies however than the sound of a heavy impact was heard and without any known force acting on it, it was more thrown than forced to the ground.
Had anyone been watching the skies despite the mayhem that was happening between the shinobi and the dragon, they would have noticed that in a most literal way, that the sky had begun to fall. Momentarily dazed, the creature attempt to climb back into an attack position but suddenly, the ever colorful walls that had been sectioning off the city began to change colors and cycling through apparently every color, one would have been forgiven if they were entranced by the light show that was being seen. Beginning to move, the walls of light began to shift and fold as if they held no weight at all. Crisscrossing and continuing to fold, the former Pope was soon squeezed between multiple walls that didn't allow it any room to move. Attempting to cry out but lacking the ability to expand its lungs any further, the creature instead let off a whimper as it quite literally was folded up into the colorful walls.
Indeed, all around the city, buildings and structures that were touched by the moving walls were simply folded up like pieces of artwork on paper. Even birds that had been flying overhead attempting to escape the city were trapped and no sooner had the walls folded over them then they were equally trapped physically and seemingly in time. Turning into an inescapable darkness, the ground was transformed into a bleak black void and the sky above changed into a white light that stretched on into infinity. Though the white was bright, what was strange was the fact that the light that it emitted held no heat and yet it was bright enough to illuminate everything below it. In every which direction of the Kumogakurian shinobi trapped in the Tenouzan capital, the world was quite literally turning upside down and inside out of itself and the space in which they had left to stand was slowly shrinking. All that was, except for where the Susanoo stood.
Despite occupying as large a space as the the dragon had, when the sky fell it alone stood tall and even as the sky continued to fall, Kitsune remained inside of it, unscathed. Not recognizing the danger that they were in, one lone Kumogakurian shinobi was touched by the folding space walls of light and much like the dragon and the birds, he was folded away. Without having to be told, each of the other shinobi began to back up towards the Susanoo, all not wanting to end up like their former comrade but all recognizing the fact that even without having to be told, that the Raikage by virtue of the ever legendary eyes of the Uchiha was able to defy even the collapsing of reality itself. At some point forced to back up to be literally inside of the Susanoo much like the Raikage, those left from the mayhem watched as the many colored walls folded more and more and more and the sky and ground continued to inch closer and closer together until at last they all looked on in wonder as reality continued to fold and fold and fold until at last there was only a single geometrically envelope shaped floating object at about waist level of the Susanoo.
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An Office Room
Somewhere, anywhere, everywhere
…????...
[Beep!] Looking up from a console, a being looked on at the extremely low-tech looking monitor before it. Dressed in what could be described as a futuristic red kimono.
[Beeep!] Equally red eyes looked on from a far too perfect pale face as the being began to blanch even further. Looking intently at a monitor that held a map of the Lightning Country peninsula, the being began to type on a keyboard and move a mouse as the screen zoomed in some more and three red dots present on the map suddenly became two.
[Beeeeeeeep!] Scratching at a hairless chin, a gruff voice spoke from behind Red 4 as it turned around to face a standing, more official looking being that looked exactly like the red clad individual only they were dressed and accented with the color blue.
"Red Four, what's with the alarm?" Somehow growing more pale than they had been, the being known as Red 4 spoke up.
"Apologies Blue Two, I could have sworn that [The Fold] was ordered on the three rogue locations bearing [Kosmosinium] affecting elements." Visibly annoyed, Blue Two sighed.
"And?" "And now there are two locations folding instead of three. It's as if [The Fold] was undone!"
Growing alarmed, Blue Two leaned forward towards the computer console and peered closely at the streams of data racing across an adjacent screen.
"Impossible. There is no way that these primitive beings figured out such a technique." "I agree and yet, the data does not lie." Leaning back, and stroking their equally hairless chin, Blue Two shook their head defiantly and looked around nervously to see if their conversation was being overhead. Seeing nothing but many identical rows of computer console terminals occupied by many different Red's, Blue Two was relieved to see that they were all keenly interested in their own task. Most even had large headphones over their ears.
"Perhaps it was just a data error..." "But my calculations are always-" "A problem with your calculations. I'll pretend like I didn't hear of this lacking report." Beginning to protest once more, Red Four started to speak up and then recognized the clear hierarchy move at play. A Blue always outranked a Red.
"I understand." Nodding at the understanding tone of Red Four, Blue Two smiled.
"Great! Keep this up and you just might get that promotion after all!"
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The Shogun's Dungeon
The Capital Region
…1000 Hours, The early hours of the morning on the day after yesterday...
The bomb exploded and it released all the pent up chakra that had been sent to it via the connection from Kumogakure. How the Tenouza had manage to tie two bombs together despite the large distance between the Capital and Kumogakure was anybody's guess but it was just as likely that somehow there was a signal of chakra waves being beamed from hidden locations near the bombs. Either way, while the protective bubble that Jae-Wol had created, protected them from the shrapnel of the bomb, what happened next defied everything that Umashi understood about the physical world around them. From the vantage point of the bubble, Umashi looked on as everyone, and everything around them began to fold and fold and fold into infinity. The only way that Umashi could describe what he was watching was that he was watching the greatest optical illusion that had ever been created.
Though he held no special doujutsu gifts, what he witnessed hardly could be described by words alone. Living in a three dimensional world, reality as he knew it had length, width and height. A one dimensional reality was simply a line and two dimensions were drawings on paper. The fact that he could think and dream proved that there were other dimensions but in no uncertain terms, Umashi watched as the world began to fold away as if it was being packed into a children's manga. The words that he wanted to say failed him and all that he could muster in the moment was a simple question.
"What's happening?" Shaking her head, Jae-Wol kept her hand firmly around the base of her scepter.
"I don't know." When she answered, Umashi for the first time noticed that the gold ball end at the edge of the scepter glowed ever so faintly.
"I don't think that I noticed that before." "Noticed wh-." As she turned to look at Umashi, her eyes opened wide as she also noticed her scepter glowing for the first time.
"That's never happened before, literally, never..."
Her voice trailed off as they continued to watch the folding of the world around them. Eerie in its peaceful nature, there was no sound as the world continued to fold and fold and fold. Underground as they were, the ground erupted with an inescapable darkness that rose up high above them thrusting them into darkness with only the glowing scepter to provide them light.
"If this is how we die then I can honestly say that I'm disappointed." "Hold on, look!" Holding up a finger to silence Umashi's quip, Jae-Wol pointed up and indeed, high up above them like a bright star on a dark night, a darting light rocked in one direction and then to the next as it began to fall down towards them. As it got closer and closer, Umashi could only describe the light as ghostly letter falling from the beyond. As it drifted ever so closely to them, it at last stopped flat on what Umashi could only surmise as the bottom. Being a few meters away from them, Umashi marveled at how it radiated an inner light that danced with all of the colors that seemed to be snatched from the world around them.
Despite there being a void just beyond their protective bubble, an eerily familiar sound rang in their ears like a low drone as suddenly, the sheet of light began to stir and kick up and then suddenly, it exploded outwards, bathing the world in a dazzling light that threatened to blind them both. Attempting to shield his eyes, Umashi heard Jae-Wol cry out in pain and he along with her as the world grew bright enough to blind them even through closed eyes and extended hands. Hearing a cracking sound like glass, a small part of Umashi's brain registered the fact that the barrier bubble around them broke and then he was swept away from Jae-Wol before he passed out.
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The Aftermath
…Today...
Coming too, the first thing that Umashi noticed was the fact that the sky was exceedingly blue. With just a few stray clouds in the sky, a slight breeze beckoned him to his feet. It was with the movement of getting up that he noticed the fact that there was a high dirt wall in every direction that he could see.
"Easy, old man. Don't hurt yourself!" Turning his head, he saw that Jae-Wol was approaching him from a few paces away but despite her somewhat joking manner, he could tell that something was wrong. Starting to approach her to close the distance, he took one step and then another before Jae-Wol shook her head frantically.
"Careful! You might step on something, or somebody that you knew." Raising an eyebrow, Umashi didn't understand what she meant as he looked down to check his feet and that was when he finally noticed the fact that it appeared as though he was standing on some sort of stained glass tapestry. As he stood there, staring at the eerily self illuminating picture that lay below him, he finally dared to look up at what lay all around him.
Though there was a thin layer of dirt on some parts, once Umashi saw what he saw, there was no unseeing it.
"How did they...this should be impossible." Shaking her head as she finally finished approaching Umashi, Jae-Wol shrugged.
"And yet, everything is there as if it was frozen in time. Feel free to check but every courtyard every building, every window and every blade of grass is there. Even the people, even the birds, the rats, you name it and it's there." Pointing to a spot just a step away from where Umashi was standing, both looked on a slow but still very much moving bird that was taking flight just beyond what had once been the small rose garden that had been cultivated by the Shogun's family for as long as anyone could remember.
"How is it that they're moving? Is it some illusion or are they actually..." "Alive? I think so. I can barely begin to explain it but it appears as though whoever did this managed to fold three dimensional space into two dimensions in just a localized vicinity. I've got a feeling that it was those aliens that did it." "Really, aliens and not the Tenouza?" "They were smart enough to get their hands on a chakra bomb, that's a far cry from being able to figure out how to break reality as we know it."
"And the crater that we're in?" Umashi asked while pointing at their current prison. Shrugging, Jae-Wol didn't seem to have an exact answer.
"That was probably the partly the fault of the Tenouzan bomb that went off." "And how did we some how manage to not be folded into two dimensional beings or blown up?" Fishing in her pocket, Jae-Wol pulled out the remnants of her scepter, a few stray bits of metal, a couple of gold chunks and a unfamiliar glowing nugget stone.
"I'm pretty sure that old faithful did her job to the bitter end. That said, it seems to be that only the palace was affected. I saw some what looked like kids peaking over the edge and pointing down at us." Pointing to the rock in her hand that didn't seem to match the rest of her scepters remains, Umashi nodded his head.
"And what's that?"
Shaking her head and thumbing at the rock in her palm she grabbed it with her free hand and held it up in front of her and Umashi aimed towards the sky above.
"I don't know but it certainly has opened up another mystery that needs solving. For now though, we need to get out of here and to make contact with your people to make sure that everyone is alright." Nodding in agreement, Umashi and Jae-Wol set about finding their way out. As they began to climb, more heads peaked out over the edge of the crater and began to yell down to them before a rope was lowered to help them up. Fortunately the rest of the Capital Region had been spared but the Shogun's palace was no more.
Meanwhile, though not reduced to a crater like the Shogun's palace, the place once home to the Tenouzan devout was now a large flat plane of nothingness. As the dust would settle and the darkness gave way to the light, much like Umashi and Jae-Wol, the Raikage and those that had taken shelter within her Susanoo found themselves in just as strange a predicament. Beneath them in a strangely two dimensional tapestry world was a large picture of a dragon law just beyond them.
As they would begin to explore and to collect their wits, it would be the discerning eye that might at first catch the fact that while the 2D world below them seemed to show not only that which they remembered but also worlds and events that had happened far in the past and some that hadn't happened at all. When viewed at different angles, different takes on the same image seemed to appear. Though they wouldn't figure it out just yet, the truth of the matter was that in that space and that of what used to be the Shogun's abode, that as Jae-Wol had almost seemed to understand, that indeed time, space and reality itself had been locally folded unto itself to forever imprison those that had been trapped and unable to escape when the walls of light fell.
Stretching on for quite some distance, they could walk and walk and walk but of everything that was Tenouzan, there was nothing left. Not a rat, not a minister, not even a stray hair had escaped this overpowered force of light and yet, the Raikage and a select few had managed to escape. It hardly made sense and yet that was what it was. Or was it? As they began to make their way back to Kumo, it would be out of the Raikage's own person that a stray kunai would slip out and fall to the ground, making an eerily loud sound on the not glass but close enough approximation that was the 2D plane that they walked on. Looking rusted, one shinobi, a Hyuuga would reach down to grab it and present it back to the Raikage. No sooner had the shinobi made contact with the kunai though, then the rust was suddenly no longer present. Confused, the shinobi would his his head and instead keep the kunai and later on present it to the Sennin.
While the welcome would be grand, the political chaos of not only losing the Shogun but all vestiges of the seat of power in the Lightning Country would take center stage. The destruction of the Tenouzan was only just the end of the beginning. In Kumogakure, despite the walls of light seeming to cause all sorts of mayhem at first, try as they might, no major damage was found to the Academy or the village itself that couldn't be attributed to the bomb itself and whatever sort of antics that the Tenouzan spies had managed to pull off. Until The Raikage and other Sennin returned from their journey with their own tales, the village was on high alert as the reports pouring in all overwhelmingly told a tale of how the two rival capitals were no longer. Indeed, the amount of intel that was being dispensed through all of the many informative channels was almost hard to collect and process due not only to the volume but the sheer unbelievability of it all. Despite being former rival powers within the region, the power vacuum left a simple fact that somebody would have to calm and unite the nation. The question was who.
OOC: The Shogun's Palace and Tenouzan have been reduced to a crater with a flat bottom and a flat plain respectfully. Folded onto themselves, they now exist as 2D representations of all of the space that they occupied in the 3D world. Think, cobblestone or stained glass, only on the ground.
Unknown to all, both Jae-Wol's scepter and the mysterious kunai were/are imbedded with [Kosmosinium]. This can be further explained and explored at another time. For now, they merely explain how the Kumo forces weren't "folded" as well. Hon destroyed the bomb that held a small portion of [Kosmosinium] and thus, Kumogakure was saved
!
This ends the mod portion of this portion of the event. Everything else will be player/council driven for concluding parts and the aftermath events due to the power vacuum left in the country.
