He'd seen this place on his way in, and it fascinated him. A mountain so high you could see if from the desert floor dozens upon dozens of miles away? Sounded like a good time. He'd spent a few hours wandering the main village and was already bored, so he'd asked for directions to "The big giant mountain place!" off in the distance, and gotten an earful of 'Be careful!' from a bunch of people. That just made him wanna go more. The challenge excited him, highly. Mountain climbing in general had been a hobby of necessity for him, so he was good at free climbing and all that wonderful shit.

Plus, this place was so damn wild it felt almost homely to him, which was nice. Not that he cared, but it was.... soothing, sorta. It made the voices and the blood-lust calm for a bit, anyway. He was forgoing the roads and marked paths at the base of the beast; those where for tourists and armatures. He wanted the real experience. There was nothing quite like barreling headfirst into unknown territory with no supplies or gear to make a man feel alive, eh?

Who knows, maybe he'd find some poor saps climbing up the face and have some nice candy for dinner.

It wasn't exactly rare that people made their way onto the mountain that Tei had claimed as her place of residence since defecting from Iwagakure. There were always individuals who sought to tackle Tsuchi no Kuni’s most daunting mountain.  Usually those individuals of higher rank, but there were always the headstrong youngsters who always thought that they could go to the dangerous surroundings without any negative effects, only to find out that they were sorely mistaken. Sometimes they would simply be frightened away from the mountain, other times simply injured, or in more unfortunate cases, certain individuals would completely lose their lives to the horrors of the mountain. Whether those horrors were simply rockslides, or creatures, or even Tei herself was left to the circumstances of which they were venturing onto the mountain, and well, the mood that Tei herself was in.

If one happened to be one of the unfortunate individuals that lost their lives on the mountain, one could be sure that your body would be whisked away by the ex-medical ninja and into her dark network of caves for her experiments. It was something that one attached to their body would cringe at, considering what she did to the corpses that she added to her collection. Grotesque experiments in which she developed ways to use them within battle. Still, with her mentality, once one was dead, an individual no longer had ownership of their body. Yes, she was all for giving respect to the dead and dying, but once the brain and heart stopped working without her prompting… well, everything was fair game.

However, while people around Itami mountain were not uncommon what was uncommon was that people made it quite so far up and into her territory and near to the entrances of her network of caves. Of course, the network was  maze like, to the point that one would easily get lost in them before discovering anything of importance, but even so, it wasn’t usual for her to see individuals this far up unless they were searching for something – usually being her. So, seeing a man approaching her current position, perched on a rock a few meters away from an entrance of one of her caves, Tei tilted her head, studying him attention pulled away from the bones that she had been working with in her hands.

At first glance, what drew her attention to the man was the silver hair that he sported atop his head. This in itself reminded her of her beloved, though of course she knew that this man was not him. Nanashi’s build and the way that he carried himself was completely different – not to mention the scars that would obviously not be on this stranger’s body. No, this man was a couple years younger than the man that she carried fondly in her heart, even if the hair gave her a reason to recall him because of their hair being a similarity. She hummed to herself and stood from her rock, pulling up her mask around her face, and finding herself content that she was wearing her blank headband that kept her allegiances secret to the passers-by.

Climbing to a better vantage point, Tei perched and crossed her arms as she waited and watched the man, searching her knowledge of the Iwagakure records that she knew of. Of course, they were mostly outdated, but someone this man’s age was more likely to be there. Still, she was unsure if she had ever seen him before. Especially considering she couldn’t see a headband with a specific village’s symbol on it. She continued musing about him as he approached, pursing her lips when each time she hoped he would turn back, he did not. Still, she was in a good mood. Perhaps…

“Stranger, you’re a long way off the beaten path, aren’t you…” Her voice, soft as it was, broke through the peace and serenity of the nature around them. It was in a neutrally curious tone, neither sweet nor particularly villainous. She would find out about this stranger before deciding what to do with him. Though… with the delicate situations considering what she and Nanashi were currently planning, perhaps killing another individual and adding it to her crimes would be a bad thing. Still… She would sate her curiosity before deciding. It was much too early for someone to reveal her position to all of Iwagakure just yet.

WC: 750
Reaction Time E->D: 750/750 [complete]

[ Ignore my wc, Kenta ;3; you know I'm just trying to fluff for it so I can get Tei to par and stuff. I apologize if it's a bit long for you <3 ]

HOLYMONKEYBALLSWHATWASTHAT!? If not for the lack of static in the air, you'd think the male had been struck by some sort of fairly powerful electric shock; seeming to leap into the air and spasm oddly. The lack of grace in the reaction would be painful to watch; however it wasn't without it's uses. Sure, he was plenty surprised, as he'd been so lost in his own mind (, not to mention checking out the trail of a rather large herbivore type creature he kept coming across; dinner!) that he'd totally missed the other person so nearby. After what was a rather exaggerated fall, he smacked a few larger rocks with his face by way of landing, rolling to his feet in what would be a normal pained reaction to anyone not versed on body language. To someone with a trained eye, it was a show, a decent one at that, passable to civilians and most greenhorn ninja; one he'd used before to throw off suspicion of danger from him. Play the fool, yes; play the fool until you're snacking on their bones while their dying screams light the day and night with a symphony of music. And what a symphony it was, agony laid bare to the world, seasoning made perfect.... yummy.

"What's a path? There's a path? I dun need no paths, maaaaah. Paths 're fer the lazy, eh. Rather be lost 'n use a path, not when there's plenty 'a forest 'n mountain ta climb. More fun, yeah."

The more he stared at the other, the more he didn't like this. There was something... different, here. Old blood, gore on the wind that hadn't been before. Like he'd stumbled across a freshly stripped carcass of some large beast when there where none to be found. Smooth silvery metal, no allegiance given? Strange, unless this was some ANBU or something. Not that he worried about that, his record in the region was non-existent, he had no reason to worry about pissing those psychopaths off. Yet, anyway. A few spines in his mouth tended to anger the locals pretty hard. Instincts half ignored by his (mostly) sane mind where flaring; there was danger here, but he didn't know what. This person? A beast in the shadows that he couldn't quiet sense? Or something else, dread and death and pain soaking in the earth itself. That might have been why he wandered up that way; he could sense it subconsciously and it was like a flame to his moth. Where there was death, there was fun, and he could use some fun.

But all this happened deep below his conscious thoughts; at least, the few he had. He spent most of his time with an animal's mentality after all; find food, find a place to sleep, then have fun. The fun was his higher mind. Or broken, whichever you preferred. It was the 'human' in him that enjoyed the rewards of his little 'hunts'; the sounds of eyeballs popping from sockets, bones cracking and crunching in his mouth, the last wheezes of blood filled lungs as his prey choked to death. Ah, good time, good times.

[No worries <3 Fluff away. I get wordy myself once I warm up.]