[col]
"Bomb might kill the worms. Sure. You might also just crush them yourself and ensure they are actually dead and gone. Really all a bomb is going to do is alert people to this location even more than we did. Guess that doesn't matter much. That hole is already a massive landmark for people to investigate. But hey, you do you, boo." There was some slang Matsu rarely used, but he wasn't exactly that old. He would wave his hand dismissively of himself and chuckle to himself. It didn't matter. He made his way, in pain, past everyone over towards the wall that would lead him up and out of the cave. He surveyed it for a while and stroked his chin as he contemplated how to navigate it based on his exceptionally exhausted reserves. The climb would be exceptionally dangerous especially given how they had come down. Matsu had spent most of his life deep down in the dark. He didn't particularly care to be in the sunlight, but that is where his deity resided. His faith was tested by the punishment that was the sun and desert. He couldn't truly call himself tempered or strong without having endured all parts of the world. He would continue to stand and contemplate what was going on with the wall and how he might make his traverse without any chakra. He would have to rely entirely on his own physical strength which was somewhat exhausted. It was always tiring to be a reason for success when surrounded by lies. He just shook his head and continued to stare while mapping a route. After some time, he would remove some chalk from a bag in his pack and began to remove his gloves. He always hated exposing his skin to the world given how he looked. Scarred and covered in runic terran, he applied the chalk as he prepared to make his ascent. He curled his lips as he finished the contemplation then put his gloves back on. He made sure that all of his gear was secured before he made his way back past the group to ignore whatever it was they might be saying. The truth of the matter was seen in the exhaustion. Matsu had to give far more to the fight than others. He didn't care whatever it was that they had to say. Neophyte was there to see it. He doubted that Neophyte cared. If they stepped in line with the rest then it was pointless. If they were to say anything, he would ignore that too. For now, his plan was to go deeper into the cave network where he could rest for a while and recover some of his reserves. Then he might be able to leave through some other route or even find connected chambers for travel. Despite his belief that they held ignorance, he would continue to make himself useful despite those factors. He would stride on and into the darkness that was deeper into the caves. It would be in there that he would begin to reforge himself and his perspectives. Perhaps he would give his cousin a chance. Perhaps he would just kill himself in some sense so that he never had to deal with such things again. Whatever the case may be, he would travel deep down into the squirming blackness. There were worse things down below than sandworms and people like Taro. Taro was just once annoyance in a series of many. Maybe the Cabal would eventually be defeated. Perhaps Matsu wouldn't care. His fingers lifted up over his head as he brushed sweat off his scalp and flung it aside onto the stone. He wouldn't be hard to track just yet. He was also the only one who actually brought any kind of real equipment, or so he thought, from looking at everyone else. Maybe his cousin hid things inside his mechanical butt. He couldn't be sure.
What came next would be on Matsu's own time and deep below the earth. This said it was not as if he had not been followed potentially. If any of the team had decided to follow Matsu deeper within, then they would have been able to observe what was to come next for the man they called mad. Matsu would spend a number of weeks in the darkness hunting. Killing whatever he could get his hands on to vent his frustrations and calm the voices in his blade. They truly hated going without violence for too long and this transferred to Matsu. It was a terrible cycle. Mindfully, it never happened higher above. There was a threat that he was winding his mind over. Obviously, he didn't agree and needed to work through things on his own. How could he remove the threat? How could he even be listened to? It didn't matter. He wouldn't be listened to if he wasn't going to be listened to. So he let his actions speak for him often enough. Violence and aggression. Stubbornness. Where he went and where he may have been would be without tracks. Simply a man to have been followed, taking his anger out on dangerous to the village that lurked beneath and around. They were always at war. With themselves, someone else, or monsters beyond their true comprehension. It just never ended. Was that tension what made people such as himself necessary? Or, perhaps, it was people like him that made people like him necessary. Chickens and eggs. Lizards and monsters. It didn't really matter.
He would make his way around, searching and searching to satiate his anger. Would it ever leave him? He simply wanted to be without this rage. It would make his life better. He could be an artist or a smith or something more. He could be more than just what others considered a pawn. He didn't care if he was being followed. He made his way down deeper and deeper led by a small lizard. It chirped at him and he seemed to nod and follow without a word. The air grew thick with heat and the caves seemed to breathe as if alive. He continued to follow the strange little beast. If one looked closely then they would notice it was some kind of carnosaur or something similar. In time Matsu would arrive in a cave filled with flowing magma and sweltering heat. A potential vein of the world as far as he was concerned. Life blood that allowed for the surface to truly function. A deep seated belief that Matsu had well before he fell to the whispers that were from the surface above. He sat there, quietly, contemplating what he was seeing. It was in those moments that the whispers began to finally stop. Everything seemed to be calming as he would sweat profusely. He had been led to this sacred place by the lizards. They were master smiths. Well, some of them were. He had met them, he believed, given his connection to them now. Sitting there, the voices began to cry and whimper out before a very direct voice felt the need to speak.
"Enjoy this solace. My protection of you is now done. You failed me in combat. You fell more than once. You should not have fallen once. I do not need pawns such as you. Let this be a lesson to you." As the voice finished speaking, Matsu's body convulsed for a moment before spitting up blood and beginning to bleed from his pores. The blood itself would begin to cook and burn his flesh. It would coagulate and burn away with time, but in the moment it was excruciating. For the first time in a long time, Matsu would scream as the blood dripped out of him in thick, black tar like quantities. He was blessed by no sun. He was blessed by something darker and more sinister that took his beliefs and turned them into means to further its own agenda. Well, he had been blessed. Now he was being cursed by the very thing that had given him a boon. All of the pain of the last night filled him. All the pain and blood loss that had been slaked off by his gifts. He truly didn't do those things himself. Taro had been right about that, but Matsu didn't believe it to be that way. He choked up all of the vile liquid filling his body as it pooled and spilled into the flowing material, hissing and screaming up and through the stone upwards to the surface. In time, he would collapse as this sickness would leave him. The tattoos that covered his body began to follow the same process that had occurred with his very blood. They spilled from his flesh. The words danced across the landscape and fell into the passing magma to be burnt away. There, Matsu would lay without anything protecting him. Well, so he thought. He was without his superstition to protect him. In time his body would give out and he would be lost to his mind. The voices within were quiet. They too had left him. Was he forsaken now? Likely this was the case. He didn't really care as he swam in his own mind waiting for death. Thankfully, as with most being the heroes of their own story no matter how terrible they were, Matsu would not die in these moments. Not yet. That was a tale for another time.
The lizards had skittered over his body and taken Matsu to refuge. Now was not the time for him to die because he was overconfident in himself and protected by something far darker and more evil than he could have imagined. Now that was gone. His desire to hunt was gone. His dreams of bloodshed had left his mind. He was still angry, but it was a different kind of rage. A fire that consumed him within. The kind of fire that mythical salamanders possess or some other such nonsense. They removed him from those caves and if he was being watched, those lizards would have had something to say to whatever watchers felt it necessary to creep and crawl. Matsu would awake in a dark cave full of crystal structures similar to when he had first found himself with the lizardfolk. He grumbled a bit at his completely smooth, unscarred skin. Everything about his childhood had been ripped away from him in those moments. It had all been one big lie that drove a wedge between him and those around him. He had no words for how mad he was. Simply the overwhelming feeling of rage and there being something deep down within that chamber that he had passed out in. Divine retribution, as it was, might have other plans for him. Matsu was not so sure he had been left completely unscathed by the experience. Something was definitely lurking out there waiting for him now. It had to. He lifted himself up through the cave and out into the world to make his way back home. He had no idea how long he had been out for, but it definitely was not a good thing. Doctors had mentioned something about being knocked unconcious for too long being bad or something. He would have to get his brain checked out at some point to make sure he wasn't worse off than he thought. With that he would begin his trek into the blistering sun, no longer protected from its hateful gaze. Now he was to be punished for his apparent 'hubris' just to make his way home. First stop would be his lodgings before making his way to the hall of hammers to begin a new stage in his life. Perhaps it would be redemption. Likely it would just end with another fight and him losing his temper over stupid things. It was something that really needed to stop in some way. It was quite possible he was the problem.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
OOC: Topic Left. Marked for Training. Also going to be using Kinjutsu Loss purchase when training. WC: 2017|
[legend="[glow=#73e29a][b][size=5]Plague Bearer[/size][/b][/glow]"]
[/legend]
[/col]
