Some stories make for perfect material to tell your children when you want to strike fear into them, and keep them curled up in their beds at night. Urban legends— tales of the things that go bump in the night, which often sound horrifying and exaggerated, but have just enough believability to make you wonder… could it be true?
That’s exactly what was becoming of the story which quickly became the talk of the town down here in the Cronopolis, the underbelly of the sky-reaching metropolis so humbly referred to as the Village Hidden in the Cloud. This society comes in layers that reach into the heavens on a mountain-top already scraping the clouds, hence the city’s title. In the early evening hours there is a pale blue shade sweeping through the slums of the Cronopolis; a hazy cloud has washed over the village to create an ominous fog. The city was still lively until now, and still is but the off-white blindness can make even the busiest neighborhood feel abandoned.
Our story begins at dusk, somewhere behind an old apartment complex in a sparse yard setting surrounded by views of the city. This was not the bottom of the tall village, just a few storeys up. Few shinobi would think to patrol in this particular sector, but one on duty and passing by can’t ignore the blood-curdling scream echoing far and wide. The sound was uncanny, a death cry cut short, followed by the sound of brief raining: the splash of blood. Only days ago, rumors of a murder spree were bubbling up from all the sunken places within the village. Eventually, a general alert hit the Main Branch, ordering the shinobi to lookout out while the ANBU investigated further. But there were no other shinobi around now, just you. Pray tell, what does a shinobi do when they discover a stranger drawn and quartered? You arrive to find just that— some victim so disarranged in a horrifying act, skewered and hanging downside up in the branches of a tall oak tree. Sanguine fluid flees the body, racing down that grim tree and to the wet ground. The scene was silent but the murder was suspiciously fresh. There are no witnesses to be found, at least if anyone else was around they are long gone now. Beneath the awkwardly posed corpse lays a satchel on the ground with its contents strewn around it, so this clearly wasn’t some robbery gone wrong. Tall white lamps do their best to light the empty park, but the foggy haze countered them, resulting in a monotone grayness filtering the scene. There was only the victim, the bag, and the tree where they were so oddly perched.
Pray tell, what does a shinobi do when they discover a stranger drawn and quartered?
- Requesting Uchiha Arata.
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That’s exactly what was becoming of the story which quickly became the talk of the town down here in the Cronopolis, the underbelly of the sky-reaching metropolis so humbly referred to as the Village Hidden in the Cloud. This society comes in layers that reach into the heavens on a mountain-top already scraping the clouds, hence the city’s title. In the early evening hours there is a pale blue shade sweeping through the slums of the Cronopolis; a hazy cloud has washed over the village to create an ominous fog. The city was still lively until now, and still is but the off-white blindness can make even the busiest neighborhood feel abandoned.
Our story begins at dusk, somewhere behind an old apartment complex in a sparse yard setting surrounded by views of the city. This was not the bottom of the tall village, just a few storeys up. Few shinobi would think to patrol in this particular sector, but one on duty and passing by can’t ignore the blood-curdling scream echoing far and wide. The sound was uncanny, a death cry cut short, followed by the sound of brief raining: the splash of blood. Only days ago, rumors of a murder spree were bubbling up from all the sunken places within the village. Eventually, a general alert hit the Main Branch, ordering the shinobi to lookout out while the ANBU investigated further. But there were no other shinobi around now, just you. Pray tell, what does a shinobi do when they discover a stranger drawn and quartered? You arrive to find just that— some victim so disarranged in a horrifying act, skewered and hanging downside up in the branches of a tall oak tree. Sanguine fluid flees the body, racing down that grim tree and to the wet ground. The scene was silent but the murder was suspiciously fresh. There are no witnesses to be found, at least if anyone else was around they are long gone now. Beneath the awkwardly posed corpse lays a satchel on the ground with its contents strewn around it, so this clearly wasn’t some robbery gone wrong. Tall white lamps do their best to light the empty park, but the foggy haze countered them, resulting in a monotone grayness filtering the scene. There was only the victim, the bag, and the tree where they were so oddly perched.
Pray tell, what does a shinobi do when they discover a stranger drawn and quartered?
- Requesting Uchiha Arata.
wc468
The first bit of investigation revealed the satchel to be of a designer quality; leather dyed turquoise, with a broken zipper, which was how the contents fell across the grass. There was nothing special amongst the scattered odds and ends, nothing unique that signified a reason for this victim to be singled out by her attacker. The rain of blood saturated everything, making the investigation a messy affair until something else interrupted him entirely. Suddenly there was a shake in the branches up above, and gravity sent the victim falling to the ground with a hard thud.
