- Abilities:
00. Combat Medic
01. Acrobatics
02. Healing Factor
03. Jutsu Creator
04. Jutsu Mastery
05. Quick Reaction
06. Stalker
07. Illusionist
08. Shattered Reality
09. Kinjutsu
10. Kinjutsu
11. Kinjutsu
Word Count: 1163
They were to hunt that traitor down; not on orders but on their own volition. This would be the perfect chance to prove their skills and worth to the elders of the clan. The guy thought he’d be able to swindle family money, turn against them and get away with it. Well he thought wrong and he’d pay for going against the Shoukyou. They wouldn’t be holding back, even if he was a cousin. It was easy enough to figure out when he was planning to escape with Tomiko’s information network and the caverns made the perfect setting for their brand of justice. They weren’t allowed to execute the man but that didn’t mean they couldn’t fuck up his sanity.
Blending into the darkness was second nature to them; the shadows hugging them like a reassuring blanket. If they so chose, they would be able to attack and they won’t even be detected. And they easily looked down from the cavern ceiling when they saw him walking below them. With ease and agility, they detached their feet from the cavern roof, somersaulted and landed lightly on their feet in front of him like experienced acrobats. “Akane! Akihiko!” the elder Shoukyou backpedalled seeing them but relaxed seeing it was just the Main Branch children and they weren’t even the heir!
They weren’t anything to worry about, fresh out of the Academy and all that, mere Genin. He heard they even failed the Chuunin exams so, surely, he had nothing to worry about. The two smiled and greeted him in unison in the creepy way they tend to do; “Hello cousin; where ya’ going? Want to play with us?”
The man scratched his cheek; “Look kiddies, I’m busy; just got a mission from the Embassy out of the village. So if you don’t mind,” he spoke plainly, easily, as if lying to his own family was his second nature much like hiding were theirs. Because they knew he had no mission, Tomiko triple checked. He probably had so much yen hidden in the seals lining his jacket; they could sense them without even trying.
“You got a few minutes at least, right? Come on, we’ll have a short game; look, me and sis can even play with you while we get you out of here,” Akihiko piped up with a curious tone. His twin sister quickly continued with a cheery tone; “We can just play I Spy! Yeah?”
He looked at the two as if they had a few screws loose. They probably did… who in their right mind would think I Spy was a good game to play in the darkness of the caverns where there weren’t much of anything to even spy. But he saw little other way to get them out of his hair so he put up his hand in defeat and sighed. “Fine; but you two are going right home once I get outside. We don’t want your big brother to worry about you,” he said with earning identical grins from the two.
“I’ll start! Me! I spy…” Akane hummed in sing song, hands behind her back as she looked around. Her gaze looked this way and that but she suddenly tripped, scraping her hands and cheek when she fell forward. “I’m alright, just a ro-ro…. A-ah, it’s a…” she started to reassure them but stopped wide eyed and expression horror filled. She croaked out a strangled cry, lifting a hand to point something in the darkness, whatever she had tripped on. That earned a curious look and the elder Shoukyou summoned a flame in his hand to illuminate the darkness. It wasn’t enough though and Akihiko quickly pitched in with a synchronized wind technique to spread and feed the flames masterfully, the light spreading until they saw what she had seen.
In a corner, hastily left there, was a decaying corpse and the man hurried to check what or who it was. With a hesitant hand, he flipped the body over to see its face and found something that made him pale. For looking at him was his own dead image, blank eyed and expression contorted into pure adulterated pain. He recoiled; hand retreating as if he was burned and wondered if this was some sick joke. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he lashed out at its owner, only for his fist to be caught by a small hand, one of the twins quickly catching his attack. “Is this some sort of prank? Cause this isn’t funny!” he spat, angrily hands clenched. But the two blinked at him innocently, two pair of red eyes boring into him. “I heard you two were troublemakers but this is a bit much,” he calmed down a notch but the annoyance was clear.
“You look… scared, cousin,” Akihiko’s voice broke the silence and the man turned to the two to see Akane’s features schooled into calmness with the scrapes on her face completely healed. “Don’t be ashamed… it’s only understandable, that you are scared, being scared is natural… especially when you’re about to die,” he continued, in tandem with his sister this time.
The man was naturally confused at their words when the ground shook beneath them and the rock started collapse in on them. “Wha-what’s going on?!” he hissed, trying to maintain his balance but found he was talking to no one as a large portion of the place caved in. Only rock and boulder could be found where the twins once stood. Beneath the rocks were their small bodies, unmoving and lifeless. Just one look told him he couldn’t do anything for them and he would have to make a break for it if he wanted to make it out alive.
He dashed away, towards the exit, heading for freedom but was stopped when something gripped his ankles. A pair of small hands stopped him from leaving and they moaned; “Don’t leave usssss,” they hissed, mouths agape and spewing black inky like substance that slowly and surely started to take form, becoming the stuff of nightmares. And it was endless, endless pain and agony and…
And then he woke up, staring at nothing but the docks. He was already outside the village, on his way to ride a boat that would take him to another country… Had it all been a daydream, nightmare while awake? W-what was it? He was shaken and his eyes went this way and that as he swallowed spit. “What?” he couldn’t help but ask out loud this time when children’s voice piped up from either side of him, bursting in giggles.
That was the straw that broke, nay shattered the camel’s back as he recoiled away from them, those little monsters, screaming as such and lost consciousness. Akane looked at Akihiko with a grin as they each grabbed a shoulder and started to drag him back to the village. “Well, that was fun,” in which her brother replied with a cheery “Sure was!”
