Tied to the Darkness, Soon to Be eclipsed [Private]

[Midori Futotta]

Maru's House​

On the outskirts of Konoha,there was a town dubbed “City of Thieves” namely because of its high crime population. Crater City is situated in a depression just off the Fire Country coast. What was once a slumlord controlled backwater village saw great economic growth when they managed to change the Red Line from a barrier for people into a barrier against the tides that always threatened the below sea-level port. If it’s illegal, then it’s perfectly acceptable here, hardly any ANBU patrolled around this crime infested town. Well for the exception of one which was Maru.

Maru stood next to a dark house old looking house which had been his home/workshop. The windows of the gloomy house was pitch black, paint had chipped exposing various degrees of old wood some strange black substance leaking from the cracks on the walls as if the house itself was bleeding. A black bush sat at the left side of the home, with a wide range of grassy area that had been scorched black from private training sessions. A few dummies and targets were placed in mostly random areas. The dark puppeteer waiting for one of his teammates to arrive that seemed to have wanted to have a chat with him in a one on one meeting. Yasu Yoshi.

Maru had sent the girl the directions to his workshop, looking over at the barbed wire fence that was left open for the girl to come through and the dark puppeteer would most likely see the girl skipping along the streets as if coming to a crime heavy city had been completely normal. Much less coming to his creepy workshop that housed all of his dolls…

“Welp, let's see what the little bastard wanted.”

 

[Hase Aki]

Cartwheels, she was doing cartwheels down the walk way and through the open, and rather scary, barbed wire fence. They lived in a world of ninjas, who did he think that would keep out exactly? Unless it was a super special NINJA FENCE! She would jest on that later to his face, as she was one to do. She finally finished pinwheeling when she got close to his house, getting quite dizzy and falling over, landing on one of the broken practice dummies. She shook her head to right herself, and popped up. She was much less scared of puppets and things of that nature than when she had seen him don the mask at their anbu training. She adjusted the book bag on her back and walked up to the door, knocking on it rhythmically.

He had gotten high in the ranks so fast, and she was going to make sure she was soon to follow, all she needed was this favor. From what she knew about this man, it would be at a deep cost, accepting the darkness or something. She would play along, her growth and safety where more important than whatever he had in mind for her at the moment. She whistled a jaunty tune as she waited for him to open the door. Her eyes shifted around while she waited, noticing a figure next to the house. Oops, she didn't notice he had been standing there, or rather he blended in, probably due to being a human puppet, not that she knew or noticed such a thing.

"Oh hey, thank you for meeting with me, can we take this inside? Prying eyes and what not..." she said, removing a arm from one of the straps on her backpack. Whatever she was going to say, was tied to what was in the bag. This was going to be a big ask, but she thought that he would appreciate the sentiment if anything, to what she was trying to do.

 

[Midori Futotta]

Maru watched as his teammate began doing cartwheels down his walkway, he narrowed his eyes. Doesn't anything frighten this little brat? Maru thought to himself seeing her do a final pinwheel then falling into one of the broken training dummies that had been scattered around. Maru twisted his neck as he watched the girl head over to the door, knocking on it but she received no answer because he was standing outside. Probably thought he was one of the training dummies form how still he stood there, of course he didn't make his presence known. Not until she actually fingered out that he was standing right there.

“Inside? Hmm.” Maru thought, then finally he began to move towards the door. “Fine, I'll let you inside. “ with that he opened the door they were greeted with countless females dolls all sitting together like a quite nursery. All of them looked strikingly real, like if you'd touch one of them they'll be warm and not cold as death… Some were happy, some dolls were crying, some had a lack of expression at all, and some didn't even have faces to begin with.

He had shelves with arms of different sizes, a rack of legs from big to small, a rack of plastic and wooden female torsos that had been hollowed out to place the endoskeleton weapons inside.

“Here let's go to the back, there's are some seats up there for you.” Maru said, moving down a dark hallway that looked as dark as night. Heading down to a open doorway that looked pitch black, stepping into a room that had very little lighting he sat on his workbench, turning to look as his teammate would probably want to talk better in his workspace. Gesturing his hand to one of the many coffins in this room. "Well take a seat an start talking.”