In the midst of Akanes dream’s the Jugo girl twisted and writhed. It was happening again not the simple lust and longing one her age felt for the opposite sex but something far more difficult for her to dismiss or satisfy. She was being shown something by one of the spirits of her ancestors and it was not pleasant.
The old man stood before her draped in a cloak of furs that smelt of musk and age. His hair was mostly grey though the occasional fleck of orange could be seen through his beard like shells scattered across a sandy beach. He gestured to something in the vicinity of where Akane was standing. Well she guessed it was not exactly a where after all applying any kind of regular logic to dreams was a completely pointless exercise. The laws were mutable and could very well shape themselves. What was being gestured to was striking enough to draw Akane’s attention however. Several figures were hacking away at the ground with various implements that spoke of ordered demolition – pickaxes , shovels and the like. However the ground itself seemed to be bleeding in thick red gouts whenever one of the men struck it. There was also an accompanying noise that only Akane herself seemed to be able to hear. A deep moan that seemed to emanate from the earth itself – a sound that rumbled through Akane’s very bones leaving her feeling shaken and sick to her stomach every time she heard it.
The old man gestured again and Akane squinted to catch whatever detail was being shown to her. It took her a few seconds but she caught it in its horrific glory. Spirits were bound to the land and they floated above the site of the mutilation their spectral forms now beginning to open up into terrible wounds that seeped ectoplasm across the earth. Finally the earth could no longer bare it and there was a great disgorging like it was about to vomit it’s guts out under the sheer strain of having to bear the mutilation it was going through. What it spat up was no ordinary vomit however but rather bleached bones of all shapes and sizes strewn amongst the men who were working the site. The men seemed oblivious of the remains until they started to move and rattle piecing themselves back together in shapes that would seem monstrous to the average onlooker. Then the bones fell upon the workers and began to hack and slash away at them till not a single one stood amongst the living. The earth gave a great gurgle and turning to the consistency of quicksand swallowed up all in the area leaving nothing to suggest that there had been any occurrence there whatsoever. The Old man now pointed to Akane and there was a flash in her mind. An image that burned itself into the backs of her retina’s made of fire and righteous indignation. It was an area somewhere in Iwa – a familiar place and she knew that she was meant to travel to it in the waking world.
The old man made a final gesture and she sprang up from her bed of dried grass covered in sweat and stinking of pheromones and the heady odour of spent nature chakra. Akane was normally not a big fan of bathing but this time she made an exception and headed down to a nearby river to have a dip under the cold clear water – if just to clear her head.

A few hours later she had arrived at the scene and not for the first time in her life was engaged in a bitter exchange of insults with a prostitute. At first she had attempted to simply walk up and tell the construction workers that it was really not a good idea to go and desecrate holy sites – especially not those which were the burial places of her ancestors. They had made a show of listening to her for a bit but when their boss a local madam and proprietor of ‘working girls’ had arrived things took a turn for the nastier. It turned out that there was to be a bordello built upon the site as it was a convenient location near enough to Iwa’s capital without being close enough that jealous wives and girlfriends would find out and make trouble. The area was also a natural hot spring and thus an obvious choice for a place of luxury. One of the lesser hookers with a big mouth got in Akane’s face and told her she was a stupid peasant bitch for believing in mumbo jumbo like curses and the undead. Akane told her she was a saggy old hag who smelled like a dead horses arse. The night walker ended up slapping Akane across the face and Akane ended up breaking her jaw with a right hook to the mouth. Some of the construction workers found this funny and others whistled until the madam started to yell and scream at them saying that none of them would get paid a further ryo until Akane was removed from the site of the construction. The men were a bit leery about doing so but in the end wanting to earn their pay check they complied. At this time it was extremely difficult to hold the amount of composure needed to not slip into a war form and simply tear everyone limb from limb but Akane managed to hold her primal urges in check far better than she had in the past.
She opened her mouth instead an gave everyone at the site a warning
“Now don’t say I didn’t give all you gods damned motherXXXXers a fair warning about what’s going to happen. I am in no way responsible for what is going to occur and it’s your own freaking fault if the curse activates and just so happens to screw you all up beyond recognition. I tried my good deed and you stupid XXXXs chose to ignore me and then drive me off by force. Well I hope you enjoy what happens next.”
Akane could feel the energies pumping under the earth. Someone had placed a seal down there a long-long time ago one of immense power that was simply waiting for the right kind of event to trigger it. Akane knew sweet sod all about Fuinjutsu but that was not really a problem in this case the seal itself seemed to be almost alive. And it was hungry for just a little bit of nature chakra which Akane had in abundance. She let the power flow out of her skin and into the ground around her nothing so complex as a jutsu simply a mere exertion of her presence – from what she could guess it would be well enough to set off the fireworks so to speak.
It did not happen in the exact same manner as her dream did but few thing did really. First there came a rumbling beneath the ground - tremors that shook and rattled the crew and their tools. One of the foremen yelled for everyone to clear room lest the larger structures were to fall upon them. Some of the crew (later to be thought of by Akane as the lucky ones) were too late and the beams and supports that were being installed gave them a horrific but quick death. The soil had begun to liquefy and something was bubbling up from under the ground. Its head that of an eagle with eyes that burned with an eerie fire. The figure rose till it was standing a full nine feet off the ground in it’s hands an immense sword grown of living wood still pulsing with sap. The edges were not sharp like those blades made of metal but they were ridged with barbed thorns that would make short work of venerable flesh. The sword was raised in a slow and purposeful motion and then brought down upon one of the piteous labourers cruising the man before he even had the chance to cry out. The soil underneath him began gurgle as if thirsty for more blood and it seemed that his life fluid drained into the earth faster that what would normally be possible. The barrow guardian continued its advance and more began to drop like flied before its might weapon.

Akane was herself somewhat shocked. She knew that something distinctively unpleasant was to befall the construction crew but she had not believed that something of this magnitude was hidden so near to the surface of the earth. More shapes were now bubbling up - skeletal forms of warriors draped in fetishes and symbols of their clans. Each bearing swords and axes made of carved stone. This was going to be a massacre , the construction crew were not fighters.
However one figure stepped forward from the throng. Still skeletal and covered in an ancient cloak of hides however something vast and green flared up past it’s shoulders. It spoke and Akane and the rest of the onlookers heard it in their minds.
“We ask little of you. That you leave us in peace and desecrate not our sacred sites is no great task. And thus we have taken blood price for your actions – however I do not take joy in such actions thus should you leave now I shall offer no further harm to thee.”
At this men turned and begun to run. The madam however was not swayed.
“You rotting carcass – I’ll have you know that I have several Anbu at my beck can call they will crush you all into power and piss on your so called ‘sacred’ ground. “
She hurled her fan in the direction of the covered form.
“So be it then”
The shamans bones clattered to the ground and his spirit surged forth floating above the nightwalker. All it took was several seconds for the phantom to devour the madams soul and her body fell to the dust lifeless.
Akane could not bring herself to feel sorry for the women.

1685/1500 words