Ruins of Victorious Souls

[serbii]

"Hey, Ushio-san, any particular reason for the glum face?" Ichigo asks quietly next to his teammate.

"Mmm, Hibikietsu-kun and I were at the academy together *obviously thinking of how to word it* he didn't really like working with people"

[Random_fan]

*Kenta begins walking alongside Kakuzi and begins looking like he's paying attention again.*

"So, what's the story with you and Ushio."

[Greybane]

"We shared our final year at the academy together, both specialize in fuinjutsu, and are both more cerebral than physical. To the best of my knowledge we do not have any specific negative history. However the common consensus among our classmates was my being "colder and more reserved than an Aburame with a stick shoved up their ass," in the immortal words of a certain unnamed party." The last is said with a flick of his eyes back towards Ushio and a slight elevation in volume, but the rest of the time Kazuki continues to hold his book as if he was reading it.

[serbii]

"Hey, Kyou's words not mine. I just agreed"

[Random_fan]

"Well good to hear there's no bad feelings, don't want any potential problems during the mission."

*Kenta goes back to looking distant.*

[MrRigger2]

Overhearing the conversation, I mutter to myself, "Guess I'll have to keep an eye on that." Turning back to Kiren, I speak up. "So, what other kinds of things have you uncovered? I take it this won't be your first archeological exploration, what else have you come across? Anything interesting?"

[Thozmp]

Kiren thinks for a moment, "Well, I guess it depends on what you consider interesting. I found a collection of seven towers built near each other that dates as far back as 11000 years ago. Each tower was the home of a great general during an ancient war, and I'm not entirely certain as the texts I've found were either incomplete or unintelligble, but each of the generals could either control dragons, or were dragons--or something similar--themselves. Mind you I could only explore so much as the towers were preserved and haunted by four of the seven generals and considering there power in life as well as they power that spirits as ancient as they can consolidate, it quickly put my exploration to an end. I wasn't hurt mind you, but it does make exploring difficult when one finds oneself suddenly standing outside and over a mile away from the site."

[OoC: Would anyone mind If I flash forward to where we get to the ruins? Because I don't plan on anything interesting happening between locations.]

[MrRigger2]

[Yeah, I don't see any problem with that. Maybe cut to just outside the ruins, and we'll go from there.]

[Greybane]

[Yeah, I don't see any problem with that. Maybe cut to just outside the ruins, and we'll go from there.]

Concur.

[Random_fan]

Ditto.

[serbii]

Go for it.

[Thozmp]

Beginning of the fourth day, the group manages to find the river that Kiren had mentioned at the beginning of the trip, unfortunatly there doesn't seem to be any sort of structures nearby, ruins or otherwise. Undetered Kiren begins searching the surrounding trees and rocks for something, which he seemingly finds with a resounding "HAH!" in a clearing the encompasses the river.

The Ninja of the group can see a stylized skull carved into the underside of a branch, hidden well enough that if you weren't looking for it, it would go without notice. Facing the river, Kiren pulls out four blank scrolls, a brush and some ink. "Okay, so the ruins are under some sort of protection, not a genjutsu, but more along the lines of a temporal shift barrier, yeah yeah?" Unrolling each scroll, Kiren places one in front, behind and to either side of him before beginning to cover them in strange glyphs, "So if I do this right, the barrier will open, and we can go through..." Checking the glyphs over, Kiren nods, rolls up each scroll but leaves them in place.

With a deep breath, Kiren begins chanting in a low voice, as each of the scrolls begins to glow. Continuing the chant, Kiren begins tracing more symbols in the air which remain behind as green lines floating in front of him. After a minute of activity, Kiren stops tracing, but continues chanting as the symbols begin to pulse in time with the chanting, and each of the scrolls bursts into blue flames. The flames and symbols surge forward towards the river, and when the reach the edge brighten to a blinding white light, when the light fades, spanning the river is something like a bridge has appeared. It looks like a bridge covered with white graffiti, without the bridge.

Kiren, who has stopped chanting by this point, smiles, and murmurs, "Bridge of the Rubicon..." Snapping out of his awed stupor, he continues to smile as he turns to the hired ninja, "So, who wants to go first?"

[Greybane]

Kazuki completely ignores the questions and the mysterious new bridge and focuses his attenetion on Kiren. "What style of Fuinjutsu do you practice? I did not recognize a decent portion of the ritual."

[MrRigger2]

"Hmm. I think I've heard of something like this. Of course, that story ends in blood and violence for all parties involved, so that's probably not the best thing to think about right now." I summon a sack of dried food, and toss it out on the bridge. "Seems safe enough." I look around and grab Kenta by the scruff of the neck and toss him out on the bridge. "Yup. Let's go."

[Thozmp]

"Of course it's safe." Kiren exclaimed, mildly offended, as he went to poke a spot on the bridge that wasn't part of the 'graffiti'. His finger was stopped by a seemingly solid barrier, despite the lack of matter to stop it. "I have absolutely no idea how it works, of course, but that another matter."

Turning his attention to Kazuki, Kiren settles him with a long look, his expression somewhat maniacal, "Are you sure you wish to know? There are things in this world that the very knowledge of can break a person's mind so thoroughly that their physical matter will decay." Kiren's expression shifts back to his usual one of oblivious happiness, "Course the truth of the matter is I don't know, or at least I'm not telling." With that Kiren turns back around and practically skips after Kenta and Ayumu.

[Greybane]

"You mean to tell me that you use a technique that manages to create solid structures out of nothing, using symbols that are mostly unrecognizable to someone who focuses on fuinjutsu, and you have now clue how it works!? If you do not want to explain how it works just say that, but if you are that reckless with with seals how in the hell have you not blown yourself up yet?" Kazuki stalks after the skipping Kiren scowling.

[Thozmp]

Kiren smirks at Kazuki, "If you want to get technical, the Bridge of the Rubicon as already there, the technique was just to make it so that one end of the bridge is outside of the temporal phase barrier in such a way as we could pass through." Kiren delibirately says nothing about whether or not he has blown himself up.

[Greybane]

"Bringing about such a temporal shift is a bit higher level than I am currently experienced in. I myself have only begun to study the effects of various uses in space-time fuinjutsu in conjunction with other seals. You have yet to explain what style of sealing you prefer.

[Random_fan]

"Hmm. I think I've heard of something like this. Of course, that story ends in blood and violence for all parties involved, so that's probably not the best thing to think about right now." I summon a sack of dried food, and toss it out on the bridge. "Seems safe enough." I look around and grab Kenta by the scruff of the neck and toss him out on the bridge. "Yup. Let's go."

Kenta twists himself in midair so he lands on his feet and then starts walking.

[serbii]

*trots across the bridge after the group*

[MrRigger2]

"Bringing about such a temporal shift is a bit higher level than I am currently experienced in. I myself have only begun to study the effects of various uses in space-time fuinjutsu in conjunction with other seals. You have yet to explain what style of sealing you prefer.

I flick a pebble at Kazuki, hitting him in the forehead. "Don't pester the client. If he doesn't explain what kind of sealing he uses, deal with it, and leave him alone. There's probably a reason. Understand?"

[Thozmp]

Across the bridge, where once was just open space now rests what seems to be a small stone building, big enough to to be considered a large shed, but inside was a set of stairs leading downward. Surrounding the building were four stone pillars, each covered with ancient writings, far older then any of the modern scripts currently in use. The area is also sporadically covered in white 'graffiti' similar to what makes up the bridge, however these markings cover various trees, the ground, and some are simply hanging in the air, making for a rather odd sight.

Following behind the special jonin, Kiren immediately rushes to one of the pillars, completely ignoring Kazuki, and starts to run his fingers over the writings as if he were reading them.

[MrRigger2]

"Don't touch the script. At all. Especially the floating script." Order given, I begin inspecting a set of closely drawn runes.

[Thozmp]

Kiren looks away from the pillar, "Hmm? Oh. Right, yes, right. Don't touch any of the glyphs, it may result in a colapse of the barrier resulting in an uncertain death for us all." This pronouncement is followed by Kiren returning his attention to the pillar, a frown and him rushing off to another pillar.

[Greybane]

"Don't touch the script. At all. Especially the floating script." Order given, I begin inspecting a set of closely drawn runes.

"Of course, I do remember some of the basic rules regarding unknown scripts." That being said I start searching for some symbols that I recognize to decipher them.