Akane felt the harsh thud as her body impacted with the earth. She had fallen several stories down a mine shaft and was now trying to get back to her feet.  It hurt like a mother-XXXXer and she was wondering if the gold was really worth going through a tumble into the centre of the freaking earth.  Well she had been warned , surprising really as it was not a usual thing to be given actual words of caution handed in good faith.  That she had simply laughed at their advice considering them to be weak and ‘civilised’ to the point that they were a bunch of wusses and cowards.  Who cared if the mine was treacherous as hell and who gave a shit that it was possibly filled with gasses that were both flammable and explosive in nature. Not to mention the fact that several of the more drunk patrons had warned of the fact that the mine was a haunt to unquiet spirits.

Akane was not wetting herself over the matter. As a shaman priestess she could already see spectral entities just fine and not just in places like graveyards and haunted temples either. In fact some of the most haunted places were in fact in the middle of crowded areas. Spirits (at least the ones that were not bound by any particular fetter or tether) tended to congregate with each other just as they did in life. In fact this was even more joyful and necessary to the departed for news and information were gold to the unquiet dead.  They also fed off the feelings of the living sucking small amounts of chakra in minute enough amounts that the ones being fed on would hardly even notice if they did not first have an idea of what was going on.

Something was moving down in the mine however and it was far too… corporeal for a spectre or wraith. In fact as Akane leaned against the wall she smelled the tinge of necrosis sickly and repulsive. The last time she had sensed something like this was at the Namahage festival – a time for monsters and ghouls to walk the earth with men. Well it wasn’t that time of year but Akane figured that while maybe ghosts were not so typical in their habits of haunts the undead that actually resided in physical space did have to hide out of the way to not get lyched by angry mobs or hunted down by thousands of ninja bearing Katon Jutsu aplenty.

Checking her ribs for any sign of cracking or fractures Akane was finally certain that nothing had been damaged to the extent that she could not fight.  The first undead that stepped around the corner took a fist to the face right in the teeth. A cracking sound came to accompany this and two exceedingly long chunks of dirty enamel  fell from its mouth.  Not a Jiang- Shi then. It would appear that whatever kind of walking corpse this was it did not fall into the stiff backed hopping variety.

That was both good and bad. Jiang Shi could suck chakra with their hands instead of their mouths and thus had an easier time to hit their victims but the amount of nature chakra that flowed though the Jugo clan’s body turned out to be lethal to their poor circulatory system. This could even become fatal if they drank too much sort of like when you pinched a mosquito’s proboscis into your skin and they exploded due to drinking too much blood(well at least Akane thought they would do that she had never actually tried to destroy a mosquito this way but she had in fact done this with a Jiang Shi who had latched onto her and tried to suck her dry) . These bastards appeared to actually suck blood as well as chakra.


The one on the floor reached out and with long black nails grabbed onto her leg and tried to drag Akane to the ground. Akane dealt with this the same way she did with drunks that tried to fondle her when she herself wasn’t hammered to the point of not caring.   That was by driving her foot hard into its skull several times.  Hearing the resounding snap as the skull crunched and the brain that was encased within began to swiftly turn into little more than a grey paste that was spilling out onto the ground. However this was only just the beginning as the second undead’s blow caught her right in the gut moving almost to fast for Akane to keep up with. She doubled over in pain and exertion ad the beast grabbed her neck ready to hoist her from the ground in ourer to hold her helplessly in the air while it sucked her life fluids from her body.

Akane was having none of that however. The nails on her foot lengthened into true talons larger than that of even the most majestic and terrifying  bird of prey. Hooking these wicked impliments into the living corpses stomach Akane tore down removing the only thing stopping the creatures guts from spilling out to the ground. This did not put the undead monstrosity down as with most all of the returned it possessed a stamina and endurance quite unlike anything found in the natural world. However it did loosen the Shiki’s grasp enough to wiggle free from the choke hold and allow Akane to open up on it’s chest with a flurry of blows each pounding down with the force of a jackhammer. Ribs shattered skewering  the organs that lay beneath and taking small nicks into Akane’s fists – she did not care however as the pain was only feeding the rage which was about to come over her like a tide of flaming acid and black powder. Finishing the wretched creature with a kick to its spine which ripped the monstrosity clear in half Akane spun to take note of what was happening around her.
Several more figures were running down the corridor with mad ferocity that could only be spawned from the terrible hunger of the grave. Akane did not relish the thought of having to fight multiple shiki at one time and thus she thought she might as well even the odds. Seeing a small boulder lyng next to her on the cave trail she ripped the stone from the ground hefting it above her head  and with all her might threw it towards the direction of her coming foes. If the vision itself was too dark to see the amount damage she had caused the audio cues were certainly enough to register that she had scored a hit. Several of the Shiki fell to the ground writing in agony. It seemed that the boulder had impacted with the leg bones of those she had aimed for. Again it would not kill them – but when ones movement facilities are little more than shattered stumps tipped by painful forests of splinters   that still hurt even after you have no tissues connecting to them it is most certainly hard to launch an efficient attack upon a foe.

Not all the Shiki were caught in the attack though and three leaped towards her. Akane grabbed one by the arm as he flew through the air smashing him headfirst into one of the cavers very solid walls. Another missed the jump and simply landed on all fours ready to pounce again given a moments notice. However the third and final attacker managed to latch onto her shoulder and drove his fangs into the area causing Akane to cry out in pain. Well two could play those kind of games and Akane planned to win. Activating the talents that were inherent to her people Akane shifted the makeup of her body so that the area near the undead monstrosities maw would begin to sprout a forest of foot long spines perfect for going through the soft tissues seen around the mouth and facial area.  Akane could not even imagine how much pain the shiki was in as it tried to disentangle itself from the spined that were now clearly lodged in places that they certainly should not be. Letting them retract Akane fused one of her limbs into an axe like blade and severed the creatures  now ruined head from its neck easing it’s suffering as its spirit was dragged back to whence it belonged. The second vampiric foe took this chance to rush her head on as would any drunk in a tavern brawl. Akane knew just how to deal with this however and stepped lithely out of the way hacking at its feet with her now axe like limb. More legs were separated and thus Akane began the not so pleasant task of making sure that the Shiki remained dead.  

The business took the better part of forty minutes and by the time Akane was done she smelt like something that had been left in the sun for too long. Ayabozu would probably force to her to take a bath.  Bah – she hated those things.

It wasn’t all bad however looking to the mine cart in front of her Akane grinned at the bright gleam that shone even in the darkness.

Mission complete

1548/1500